Ravnica Allegiance brought a card that becomes more and more interesting to me in its uses, and I’m inclined to include it in more and more decks. That card is Smothering Tithe. I like tokens, I like mana and I like colour fixing. But Smothering Tithe is that much more.

The basic idea is that each turn, each opponent has the choice to either give me a treasure or pay . Either outcome is ok, because I gain some mana, or they spend a significant percentage of their mana, and slow down. Often, players include their own card draw, and that’ll give me even more mana to work with. But ultimately it allows my decks to really go off, when I force all opponents to draw multiple cards, often enough so they can’t actually pay the tithe. And then, I go either large or infinite.

Think how it’ll work in a 4 player game, and I gained some treasure, then use it to cast a big Prosperity. I draw cards, everyone draws cards, and I get a huge amount of treasure. Then I can chain it into another draw spell, like Skyscribing, get even more cards and more treasure.

There are some decks where I’m particularly interterestin in using Tithe in:

• Shu Yun runs some combos, especially Eye of the Storm, which can use wheel effects to keep generating mana and keep the storm combo flowing. I also like the interaction with Molten Psyche, because the treasures also help trigger metalcraft.
• Breya, Etherium Shaper can use any source of extra artificats to her advantage.
• Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis forces extra card draw already, and is a perfect fit for Prosperity / Skyscribing / Fascination / Minds Aglow chains.

I really dig all the applications, from just creating “materials” for artifact decks, a little more ramp for some decks, and a combo piece for others, creating huge turns. It’s powerful enough to ‘warp’ some decks around it, like my Shu Yun deck which will have a few more wheel effects to enable Tithe.