# Poseidon v2: the voyage ends in an overwhelming attack

Text-only proposal, `poseidon-design-v2-proposal`. [The complete 100](commander-deck.txt) uses the unchanged Poseidon plus 89 existing cards and ten customs. [Full custom specifications](custom-cards.yaml) preserve all ten names and IDs. Existing images depict v1 and are not updated.

Poseidon still controls the timing of landfall, but his deck now spends less time putting everyone back where they started. **Nisyros Falls turns an existing land into a new living island and displaces an obstacle; The Sea Makes Way remains the spectacular resource event.** Cheap bodies establish resources before the six-mana god arrives, and an expensive custom sea monster does something immediately.

## Exact changed card text

### P01 — Nisyros Falls · {3}{G}{U} · Sorcery · Mythic · Signature

> Create a token that's a copy of target land you control, except it's an 8/8 Elemental creature with trample in addition to its other types.
> Return up to one target nonland permanent to its owner's hand.
> Exile Nisyros Falls.

Poseidon tears away a new island from existing geography. Copying a land gives a lasting 8/8 trampler, a landfall event, and future mana or utility even when you have no army. The optional bounce can remove an opposing obstacle or return your own entry-effect creature for reuse. This is an adaptation of the island's impact; the myth does not describe a living Elemental. [Apollodorus and Strabo on Nisyros](https://www.theoi.com/Gigante/GigantePolybotes.html).

A basic Island is the clean default. A copied utility land retains its abilities, supertypes, and entry conditions. The new land creature has summoning sickness: no attacking or tap-symbol mana/fetch ability immediately without haste. Surrak and Goreclaw does not grant tokens haste. Copying a legendary land invokes the legend rule; it still enters and causes landfall before that choice.

The landfall examples assume an actual land in the copied characteristics. A nonland made into a land by The Ship Becomes a Stone instead copies its underlying nonland characteristics, with the 8/8 Elemental/trample exceptions; the resulting token usually is not a land.

The two target clauses are independent. If the optional bounce target becomes illegal, a legal land copy still happens. If the land target becomes illegal but the bounce target remains legal, only the bounce and self-exile happen. Choosing no bounce target makes the land your only target; losing it then stops the whole spell.

With Poseidon and an unused landfall menu, copying a basic can produce an 8/8 land creature plus a 6/6 Kraken, or the 8/8 plus two cards, while the spell bounces an obstacle. Without Poseidon it still develops and threatens. The spell self-exiles after successful resolution; no army-wide lethal multiplier or haste is supplied.

### P03 — Polyphemus's Prayer · {G}{U} · Instant · Rare

> Choose one —
> • Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
> • Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand.
>
> Draw a card.

A petition now reliably destroys an instrument of passage or delays progress. Green handles artifacts and enchantments; blue handles bounce and card draw. There is no lost-life gate. Both modes have one target, so making that target illegal also stops the cantrip. The spell may return your own permanent, at the cost of mana to replay it. [Odyssey 9.528–535](https://www.theoi.com/Text/HomerOdyssey9.html).

### P06 — Leucothea's Veil · {1}{U} · Enchantment · Rare

> Whenever one or more creatures deal combat damage to you, draw two cards.
>
> {U}, Sacrifice Leucothea's Veil: Target creature you control gains hexproof until end of turn.

Three becomes two. One simultaneous combat-damage event still gives one trigger, regardless of attacker count. First strike and regular damage can generate two separate triggers. The veil still represents rescue offered to a traveler who can suffer and survive, and spending that gift ends its engine. [Odyssey 5.333–353](https://www.theoi.com/Text/HomerOdyssey5.html).

### P08 — Poseidon's Hippocamps · {1}{G} · Creature — Horse Fish · 2/3 · Rare

> You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
>
> At the beginning of your end step, if two or more lands entered under your control this turn, draw two cards.

The horses reward successful passage, not an artificial combat-phase puzzle. This works with two ordinary land plays, a fetchland played and cracked, or a land play plus ramp. It counts land entries before Hippocamps entered, but the creature must survive until your end step to trigger. It does not pay cards during opponents' turns. [Iliad 13.17–38](https://www.theoi.com/Text/HomerIliad13.html).

### P09 — The Trojan Ketos · {4}{U}{U} · Legendary Creature — Kraken · 8/8 · Mythic

> Whenever The Trojan Ketos enters or attacks, return up to two target nonland permanents your opponents control to their owners' hands.
>
> Whenever a creature an opponent controls is returned to its owner's hand, The Trojan Ketos can't be blocked this turn.

This additional audit correction gives the six-drop an immediate arrival. The pilot now chooses up to two targets; it is no longer an opponent-choice attack-only effect. It breaks up two engines or blockers, then threatens eight damage on later turns. This remains bounded displacement, not a mass bounce effect. Its coming already harms Troy; it does not politely wait a round to begin the siege. [The Laomedon and Trojan monster tradition](https://www.theoi.com/Ther/KetosTroias.html).

### P10 — Triton, Poseidon's Herald · {2}{G}{U} · Legendary Creature — Merfolk · 4/5 · Mythic

> Creatures you control have trample.
>
> Whenever Triton, Poseidon's Herald attacks, you may pay {3}. If you do, create three tapped and attacking 4/4 blue Kraken creature tokens. Sacrifice those tokens at end of combat.

Pay three mana when the attack trigger resolves, using any legal source. No separate tapped-land count. With Triton and two old 6/6 Krakens, the paid attack presents 28 trampling power. Mana rocks and Provisioner Treasures can pay; the choice still competes with holding interaction. Triton's static trample works immediately even when he cannot attack. The temporary wave withdraws at combat's end, adapting the conch that commands the waters to recede. [Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.330–347](https://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidMetamorphoses1.html).

P02 The Raft Breaks, P04 The Ship Becomes a Stone, P05 The Sea Makes Way and P07 The River Receives the Suppliant retain their exact v1 printed text. The Sea Makes Way is still the second signature: six mana reveals twelve cards, puts up to four lands in tapped and puts the remainder in hand, then exiles itself. It works without Poseidon and cannot produce twelve Kraken modes from the god. Lands enter tapped, but Tireless Provisioner can still produce immediately spendable Treasures from their entries. Cards put directly into hand are not drawn, so The Sea Makes Way does not itself trigger Nadir Kraken; an ensuing Poseidon draw-two trigger does.

## Existing-card swaps

| Out | In | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Whelming Wave | Roiling Regrowth | Replace another reset with instant-speed land development, two off-turn land entries and a graveyard land for recovery. The sacrifice happens during resolution, not as an additional cost. |
| Scourge of Fleets | Reclamation Sage | Replace a seven-mana one-sided bounce sweep with three-mana targeted artifact/enchantment interaction and a body. |
| Tromokratis | Thragtusk | Five mana immediately restores life; removal leaves a body for the next attack. Avoid paying seven for a creature with no arrival value. |
| Deep-Sea Kraken | Topiary Stomper | Three mana finds a land immediately; the 4/4 becomes usable once the deck reaches seven lands. It cannot block early, so is counted as development first. |
| Inkwell Leviathan | Llanowar Visionary | Replace a nine-drop with early mana, immediate card replacement and an inexpensive body. |
| Stormsurge Kraken | Tireless Provisioner | Replace a five-drop that needs opponents to cooperate with landfall mana. Play it before a land to receive value immediately; bank Treasures for Triton or interaction. |

These six swaps are in addition to the custom text changes; no land is cut. The v2.1 Nisyros redesign changes no deck slots or mana values. Serpent of Yawning Depths stays because its evasion applies to the established Kraken army immediately. Spawning Kraken stays as a deliberate six-mana attack payoff with exceptional snowball potential, rather than cutting every sea monster indiscriminately. Trench Behemoth stays for land reuse and protection, and Surrak and Goreclaw stays for immediate trample and haste for later nontoken creatures. Nadir Kraken remains a cheap body/token mana sink; it competes with Triton's payment rather than being presumed free value.

## Quantified audit

- **99 cards: 40 lands, 89 existing cards total, ten customs; unchanged commander makes 100.** Nonlands have mean mana value **3.22**, down from **3.59**. There are **24 creature cards**, **17 instants**, **11 sorceries**, **six enchantments**, and **four artifacts**; type counts overlap for artifact creatures. Nonland curve: six at one, 21 at two, 12 at three, five at four, six at five, seven at six, two at seven. No eight- or nine-drop remains.
- **Mass creature displacement falls from four cards to one:** old Nisyros, Whelming Wave and Scourge leave the sweep category; The Raft Breaks remains a reactive attacking-creature bounce. River remains one finite fog. Ketos hits at most two permanents; single-target answers and Poseidon's once-per-turn bounce mode remain.
- **Mutually exclusive working roles:** 40 lands; 15 mana/development; 13 card/land resources; 14 answers including graveyard interaction and Raft; 12 threats/finishers; five protection/recovery. These sum to 99. They deliberately understate overlap: Visionary draws, Sage attacks, River prevents damage and Ketos answers permanents. The role inventory is [audit.json](audit.json).
- **Four counterspells remain:** Counterspell, Swan Song, Arcane Denial and Negate. Poseidon has no Zeus-like copy conflict. These contest decisive haymakers after cutting broad resets. Three graveyard-interaction sources remain: Soul-Guide Lantern, Scavenging Ooze and Scavenger Grounds.
- **Old Hippocamps was triggerable, but its timing was needlessly restrictive.** Exactly **12 cards** in v1 could independently cause a land entry during combat: seven fetchlands (Misty Rainforest, Prismatic Vista, Fabled Passage, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Myriad Landscape, Flooded Strand), Sakura-Tribe Elder, Walking Atlas, Growth Spiral, The Raft Breaks and The River Receives the Suppliant. Atlas must be untapped and able to tap; Atlas, Spiral, Raft and River require a land in hand. The others need a fetchable library land. Myriad costs two mana and enters tapped. Ordinary ramp sorceries and extra-land permissions **were not combat enablers**. Roiling Regrowth raises the revised list's off-turn land-entry enablers to **13**, supporting Poseidon even though Hippocamps no longer requires that timing.
- **New Hippocamps supports normal play.** Besides its own extra land permission and the commander, **three cards** grant extra land plays (Explore, Oracle of Mul Daya, Aesi). **Seven fetchlands** can provide multiple entries on their play/activation turn. **Fifteen nonlands** can put lands directly onto the battlefield: Nature's Lore, Three Visits, Rampant Growth, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Farseek, Skyshroud Claim, Roiling Regrowth, Topiary Stomper, Walking Atlas, Growth Spiral, The Raft Breaks, The River Receives the Suppliant, The Sea Makes Way, Splendid Reclamation and Titania. Most need an ordinary land play alongside them; multi-land effects can satisfy the condition alone. Graveyard and hand prerequisites are real. The revised Nisyros separately creates an additional land as a token; with another land entry that turn, it also enables Hippocamps. These are enabling cards, not a claim that the deck automatically draws two every turn.
- **Land supply:** 40 lands, Courser/Oracle library access, Life from the Loam, and abundant draw support repeated land drops. Fetchlands and Roiling feed Titania/Loam/Splendid. Lands stay in play after creature wipes, so the deck can rebuild without dedicating every draw to another enormous creature.

## Hand-worked play checks

**Opening:** Forest, Island, Misty Rainforest, Nature's Lore, Hippocamps, Prayer, Rampaging Baloths. Turn two Lore can find Breeding Pool. Turn three Hippocamps plus the played-and-cracked Misty makes two land entries and draws two at end step without needing combat tricks. This does not assume a second land in hand; it uses the fetch's own two entries. There is no need to take damage to enable Prayer.

**God turn:** With six existing lands and a land plus fetch in hand, cast Poseidon, make both permitted land plays and crack the fetch if the third mode is needed. Each mode is still once per turn. Holding the fetch for an opponent's turn preserves access to a fresh Kraken/draw/bounce decision at the expense of development now. Hippocamps pays only on your end step, so it does not multiply every off-turn land trigger into another draw two.

**Recovery:** Ordinary lands survive creature wipes, but Nisyros's animated land token is also a creature and can be lost. Visionary or Stomper develops for three mana, Thragtusk restores life and leaves material after a later answer, and The Sea Makes Way reloads the hand if drawn. Poseidon is useful but not required for Rampaging Baloths, Avenger, Titania or the revised Nisyros to work.

**Development into pressure:** With Poseidon and five available mana, Nisyros copies an Island, bounces a blocker, and can use the new landfall for a 6/6 Kraken. The 8/8 land creature and Kraken threaten later attacks but have no haste. With no army or god, Nisyros still supplies its 8/8 land creature and optional bounce. Existing Kraken evasion, Triton's wave, Return of the Wildspeaker and the remaining army close games over combat steps.

## Verification and review risks

Current Oracle records and Commander legalities were checked for all six additions through the [Scryfall collection API](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/collection), then directly against official Gatherer Oracle text and its Legal Formats field. [Primary checks with exact official URLs](primary-oracle-checks.json) record all six matches after normalizing HTML italics and dash typography; [combined evidence](verified-cards.json) retains previous existing-card records. The [official Commander banned list](https://magic.wizards.com/en/banned-restricted-list) was also checked on 2026-09-25; none of the six additions is listed.

No new untap engine, spell-recursion creature, sacrifice outlet, extra turn/combat or mass land destruction was added. Regrowth can retrieve a fog once; it does not retrieve itself, and the signatures self-exile. Loam retrieves lands only. Walking Atlas cannot untap itself; Trench Behemoth only untaps itself. Ketos targets opponents' permanents and therefore cannot repeatedly return itself or one's own recursion engine. These are design checks, not played games.

Review should focus on the five-mana Nisyros threat/land-copy/bounce package, the reduced wipe count against Athena's large army, Hippocamps's highly efficient routine draw, and Ketos's new immediate two-permanent bounce. Powerful effects are intentional; an actual lock or unanswerable sequencing problem warrants revision. No images were made or changed.