With the doors about to open on a new set and a new Standard, a number of cards coming in from Hour of Devastation look set to make an impact on the format.

One such card is Hour of Revelation.

Hour of Revelation functions as a complete reset button for control decks and can be expected to trade up on mana at high percentage of the time whilst being an excellent way of accruing card advantage, taking care of multiple threats in one card.

The baseline of this card is enough not to be scoffed at. Planar Cleansing saw some play in each of its core set printings and Hour of Revelation is simply a strictly better version. Now granted, this will rarely cost 3 mana if the current state of Standard is anything to go by. However, should Standard end up with metagame full of decks of as effective at flooding the battlefield with permanents as the Green Devotion decks of Theros standard, then costing 3 starts to look a lot more common place.

The catch-all nature of the card pushes its playability significantly more than the wrath effects we are used to. Let’s take Mardu Vehicles for example, a deck that has notoriously preyed on control decks through a strategy of presenting multiple varying threats that require a wide array of answers to deal with. Fumigate was so ineffective at dealing with Mardu’s gameplan that they would frequently turn to it as a sideboard option themselves when the G/B menace reared its head.

But this is not so with Hour of Revelation. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Heart of Kiran, Aethersphere Harvesters, Cultivator’s Caravan and creatures alike are all caught by Hour of Revelation along with any clues unfortunate enough to not have been as yet sacrificed. Whilst an Avacyn cast in response will result in all creatures and likely all vehicles remaining in play, planeswalkers (and clues) will still be destroyed.

Against Zombies, clearing board of any copies of Liliana’s Mastery in play significantly reduces the punch of any returning Dread Wanderers. Against Mono-White Monument and Abzan Tokens, it completely undoes all their work, destroying artifacts and enchantments alike which could normally be expected to remain in play once resolved.

The strategy of many decks of boarding in planeswalkers against control decks is effectively countered by Hour of Revelation. In order to give themselves sticky threats that call for different answers many decks turn to cards such Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Nahiri, the Harbinger, Ob Nixilis Reignited, Nissa, Vital Force and Sorin, Grim Nemesis amongst others. In this way, Hour of Revelation allows you to be pre-boarded against this strategy changing the dynamic moving forward.

Further normally hard to deal with permanents destroyed include:

• Always Watching
• Bounty of the Luxa
• Cast Out
• Dynavolt Tower
• Fevered Visions
• Hedron Archive
• Key to the City
• Lifecrafter’s Bestiary
• Oaths
• Oketra’s Monument
• Quarantine Field
• Stasis Snare

Randomly hosing fringe nonsense like Aetherflux Reservoir, Anointed Procession, Hidden Stockpile, Panharmonicon and Paradox Engine is just icing on the cake, with the total shutdown of any Metalwork Colossus strategy being the cherry on top.

But it ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. Whilst wraths have always leant themselves to imposing certain deckbuilding constraints, these are even more pronounced with Hour of Revelation. Decks playing it will be highly incentivised to not include copies of cards such as Cast Out, Quarantine Field and Stasis Snare as, even when clearing the board, returning creatures to your opponent’s control to attack next turn and possibly retriggering beneficial enter-the-battlefield effects is not desirable.

Nonland forms of card advantage will also generally be off-limits as well. The reliance on instants and sorceries to do the heavy lifting becomes more pronounced. So, working off that and the information we have at present about Standard, let’s go through some lists together.

UW Control still looks like it is going to suffer from a number of key problems.

Firstly, it lacks 1 mana removal; Black and Red offer us Fatal Push and Magma Spray respectively and answering 1 mana plays for 1 mana is crucial for these decks not falling behind. The creature removal that we do have available (as we can’t turn to Oblivion Ring effects) can be easily played around and can result in wasted mana. Additionally, the lack of a creature land prevents UW Control from running a list lighter on threats and so constricts our lines of play, making topdecked wraths after we have resolved a Torrential Gearhulk or Nimble Obstructionist a bit of a liability.

Kefnet the Mindful being indestructible works in our favour here as the Amonkhet gods are one of the few kinds of permanents unaffected by Hour of Revelation and so will be effective foils to a strategy centred around it. Much the same can be said about the gods from Hour of Devastation although they require recasting, presenting you with an opportunity to counter them on the way back down.

Nimble Obstructionist I expect to be a roleplayer in the format. It has a number of narrow applications and as an uncounterable way to win the battle when playing a Torrential Gearhulk mirror, it will be a strong tool to have access to.

Can we solve the problems of UW Control by adding Red?

UWR Control, whilst adding Magma Spray and Harnessed Lightning as well as creature lands, now presents us with the issue of too many of our lands coming into play tapped. This hamstrings us in a similar way to UW Control but instead of all the removal costing 2 mana, we often have to wait till turn 2/3 to play it.

Additionally, outside of potential sideboard cards and the “combo” of making our Hour of Revelation cost less following a large Pull from Tomorrow with The Locust God in play, it’s hard to justify a WWW spell here. It’s also pretty infrequent that a boardstate will arise that makes casting Hour of Revelation reach its full potential. Hour of Devastation does a lot of the same work; picking between the 2 will be largely determined by the metagame at the time.

So both UW and UWR have their respective issues, can these be remedied in WB Control?

There’s some hedging on the wrath numbers at present. We get to lean more in tap out direction with a higher number of sorceries in the list. Gideon gaining indestructible when his ability is used allows us to keep him around when we cast Hour. Succumb to Temptation provides card advantage working well in tandem with Yahenni’s Expertise. On the rare occasion at 8 or 11 mana, Avacyn can be used alongside Hour of Revelation to keep what creatures we may have alive whilst destroying our opponent’s.

How about a list taking further advantage of the Plague Wind nature of Hour when combined with indestructible?

Mono-White Indestructible

This deck aims to cast Hour of Revelation having already sacrificed a Selfless Spirit. It is likely that having 10 nonland permanents in total (after a Spirit has been sacrificed) is a complete pipedream even with the low curve of this deck and so the Hour is just a liability but it’s interesting to think about. Flipped Captain spews out tokens but you’re likely winning anyway if that’s the case. Equally, Selfless Spirit’s very nature causes it to be a lightning rod for removal meaning that setting up the “combo” proves  difficult.

All in all, I expect Hour of Revelation to be a useful role player in certain spots and perhaps sometimes an unexpected tool which you can turn to. If you have found any interesting applications for Hour of Revelation or have any suggestions for how best to use in in the new standard format let me know in the comments below.