The Gods are Angry - A Review of 'Born of the Gods'

[DubDub]

Wow, the whole set is spoiled, and it's going to make waves in every constructed format, for sure, without leading to something unfun/dominant taking over anywhere.  Spoiler for this review?  10/10!  Good job Wizards!

White
Most of these cards are terrible, as we've come to expect the past few years, but we understand that they have to focus on the limited environment right?  We'll take it in stride because they throw in cards like...

Spirit of the Labyrinth - 
Enchantment Creature - Spirit
Each player can't draw more than one card each turn.
3/1

This isn't your usual hatebear... it has three power!  Wow!  This will really help aggressive decks that lose to Brainstorm/Jace/Gush/life not lose as often to those cards.  Unlike all those bestow creatures, that feel pretty forced, and of which the complexity is developing really slowly ("guys, we had to wait until the second set in the block to make +X/+Y templated ones otherwise you wouldn't get it"), this is an enchantment creature with an enchantment-like static ability.  Cool!

OK, that's it for white.  On to the next color.

Blue
Intellect Helix - 
Instant
Scry 2.
Whenever you cast a blue spell, if Intellect Helix is in your graveyard, you may return it to your hand.

Boom!  The future of cantrips?  I think so.  Holy crap is this good.  Is the the card that Frantic Search was waiting for?  This is kind of similar to Sensei's Divining Top, but weaker in a world where Deathrite Shaman is so dang plentiful.  This is the blue Squee.

The rest of blue is pretty much instants and enchantments that grant tap abilities to creatures, so they're pretty unplayable in Vintage, and also Legacy and Modern and Standard.  They're probably pretty bad in limited too, but, y'know, we'll take what we can get from a set with Intellect Helix.  They can't all be winners WotC, we understand!

Black
Dark Confidant - 
Creature
At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost.
2/1

Yes, it's a reprint, but Wizards clearly saw that the reprinting Modern Masters didn't budge the price of Bob, so they put it in Theros block too.  And with new art to evoke the Ancient Greek flavor?  I really like this version, sorry Bob Maher!  It's still a Mythic, but in a set with larger print run than Modern Masters, and anyway I'm just glad they didn't try to make this card work with the Inspired mechanic instead.  That probably would have led to a hyped up card that would just make those who can't afford Bob feel like second-class citizens in a couple of years.  No one wants that, right WotC?  Thanks for giving us a third shot at cracking Dark Confidants in our packs, seeing one of the best designed cards again so soon?  It's pretty clear you guys are pushing Modern as a format for everyone to enjoy!

Red
The Madis King - R
Legendary Creature - Goblin
R: Target noncreature artifact's controller may exile it, if he or she does, put a colorless artifact token named Gold onto the battlefield. It has "Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool, or add a loyalty counter to target planeswalker you control."  If he or she does not, you gain control of the targeted artifact.
Don't go working yourself into a frenzy, destroying all your nice things!
1/1

Gorilla Shaman, you had a good run.  With how drastically WotC has pushed creatures the past five+ years, it's surprising you weren't replaced long before now.  But dang, now that you have?  This play on the King Midas of myth is probably going to stick around for a while.  And really, it plays very differently from Gorilla Shaman.  Obviously with a lot of use against Shops, this guy is good against Time Vault too.  Sadly the 'noncreature' restriction is there, so Blightsteel is safe from king Midas, oh well, no card is perfect.

Shops doesn't mind giving you their Spheres, but what about their Tangle Wires and Smokestacks?  Huh....  Will we see a heavier reliance on Artifact Creatures in shops to combat Midas?  Revoker and Steel Hellkite, working side by side?  It's been unusual before now.

Also, with the new Legend rule, Midas might be mostly battling himself back and forth... I can't imagine any player wouldn't want more gold!

Green
Nyxborn Dryad - 
Enchantment Creature
Indestructible.
Whenever you declare one or more creatures as attackers, you may destroy target artifact or enchantment the defending player controls.
2/1

WHOA.  Everything is a Trygon.  This is how you compete with Tarmogoyf: indestructibility and utility.  You can leave this guy back to hold off Bob indefinitely while your Insectile Aberation is impersonating (im-beast-onating?  I'm gonna stay away from trying to get that right) Trygon Predator.  I like that you just get one trigger (unless you have multiple Dryad's out), so that it's not overwhelmingly oppressive.  This will definitely shake up Vintage, and give a boost to the BOM winning BUG deck style.

The rest of green is a bunch of 1/1's with trample and cards that give the opponent choices, so it's probably best not to dive too much deeper, we might get something on us.  Ick.

Multicolor
Kiora, the Crashing Wave - 
Planeswalker — Kiora
You may redirect combat damage dealt to Kiora to yourself.
  0: Draw a card. You may play an additional land this turn.
 -6: You get an emblem with "At the beginning of combat on your turn, put a 9/9 blue Kraken creature token with haste onto the battlefield."
4

Kiora is really interesting, though I admit that's mostly for EDH which I love, rather than Vintage.  The static ability is pretty cool, and is nice in EDH where you have more lifepoints to expend protecting her.  The 0 cost ability Explore is what she's going to be doing every turn, which is a touch repetitive, but certainly powerful.  We've all traded life for cards with Necropotence and Bob etc, will we do it in exchange for an Explore every turn?  And most interestingly, she needs help to achieve her ultimate.  Some sort of proliferate or counter transfer from old sets will interact well, along with the new 'Gold' token mechanic.  This probably won't crack into Vintage play, but it's an EDH all-star.

Phenax, God of Deception - 
Legendary Enchantment Creature - God
Indestructible.
As long as your devotion to blue and black is less than seven, Phenax isn't a creature.
If a card would be put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead.
3/6

Leyline of the Void, old friend, you look different... somehow... have you been working out?  OK, smallest of the gods, but with a tried and true ability borrowed from Leyline of the Void, Phenax will be playable in Vintage, Legacy and Modern.  The trifecta!  Imagine that dredge kills your Turn 0 Leyline with Wispmare, and you just untap into this?  Indestructible makes another great appearance here, forcing dredge to find Chain of Vapor in order to interact.  How often will Phenax actually become a creature I wonder?  Jace, Vendilion Clique, Confidant... that's enough to start laying the indestructible beats.

So there's a highly playable card in each color, along with a return to the way we all know Magic should be: the blue-black god is the best in Vintage.  Ever since Ashiok, Liliana and Jace teamed up to make a run at the Vintage World Championships late last year we've known that WotC is doing their best to push the  color combination in Vintage away from being a list of powerful restricted cards with no equal in the other colors.  I think we really have to credit WotC with making impactful cards that are well suited to Vintage without overpowering the other formats.  This set gets a 10/10 from me!

[vaughnbros]

Is this a wish list?  I ask because here is the spoiler http://www.mtgsalvation.com/born-of-the-gods-spoiler.html and I don't see most of those cards.

[boggyb]

haha, this was excellent. Thanks.

[The Atog Lord]

Alright, you tricked me. I was really getting excited about Intellect Helix. Darn.

[Soly]

All of those cards outside the White one would actually be GREAT.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Well played, sir.  Stole a page right out of my book.  Once I saw Dark Confidant, I was on to the ruse though.

[Wagner]

The planeswalker with only 2 ability and no way to get loyalty for the ultimate was a bit odd, otherwise well done

[Greg]

10/10. Would chuckle again!

[DubDub]

As you guys perceived, this set review (besides Spirit of the Labyrinth) was fake.  Intellect Helix would never be printed by WotC, although I think it would be an exceptionally interesting card to have in the format.  Dark Confidant is still a $70 card.  The 'Gold' token mechanic made a solitary appearance on one card in BNG, a card which sucked.  Nyxborn Dryad is staying up in the realm of dreams.  The real Phenax gives activated abilities to creatures that allows them to mill cards....  And the real Kiora is a pretty uninteresting and formulaic planeswalker.

I wrote this because I was incredibly frustrated with Born of the Gods, which I think is a terrible set for me and how I like to play Magic, and furthermore because I am feeling increasingly like an outsider in the Magic community who doesn't play Magic the right way, because I don't play Standard and Limited and I like to cast spells more than I like to play creatures.  I'm frustrated that there aren't any cards for me and for the way I like to play in the formats I like to play.  The best card in the set for Vintage/Legacy is Spirit of the Labyrinth by several orders of magnitude, but I just am not interested in turning above-the-curve creatures sideways all the time and trying not to lose behind my creatures' restrictive abilities.  And nothing else in the set even comes close!  I can't tell if the Karametra's Favor + Puresight Merrow thread is a joke or not.

Although there are a non-zero number of cards from BNG I'd like to pick up for various EDH decks, including a foil Xenagos-God card for my all-foil Radha EDH deck, I'm simply in no rush to get to them.  Why pay $5-8 at the prerelease for a card that will be $2 in a few months?  There have been many articles from pros over the past week discussing the Modern banlist, because basically zero cards from BNG are going to impact that format, so they're grasping around for some change before the Pro Tour.

When I expressed my frustrations to one of my friends who plays Vintage/Legacy/EDH that there wasn't a card for me in the set, I was surprised by his response, he said, "I felt relief, because I can ignore this set of Magic and my decks won't get out of date and I'm not missing anything, and I don't have to spend money chasing a card."  I think that's a useful attitude to have, and I'm trying to feel that way in this case about this set, but I don't want it to be easy to ignore Magic in general because I really enjoy this game.  I don't appreciate feeling like an outsider because Aaron Forsythe and Mark Rosewater have decided that there's some way to play Magic that's 'right' and the way I do it is 'wrong.'

I don't appreciate that making an 'enchantment' block means that one of Artifact/Creature/Aura has to appear on every enchantment card.  I watched a Lands deck on the SCG Live stream this past weekend that used Exploration and Manabond.  Where are those types of cards in Theros the enchantment block?  Why is it that every God Weapon has a static ability that boosts your creatures, and an activated ability that deals with creatures in some way?  (Bow of Nylea's activated ability does have multiple modes, not all of which interact with creatures, so partial credit there I guess?)

Frankly, I think it's a shame that incremental mill is in the game and that WotC is proud of Phenax for being a god that ties right into that strategy, and furthermore I think that granting a milling tap ability to creatures is ridiculous, since playing creatures (mostly walls I guess?) in your mill deck is dumb.

I think stating that Modern is going to have cards leading to turn-4-or-earlier wins banned, and then banning Ancestral Visions is dumb.

I don't understand why when Wizards tries to make cards for Commander (True-Name Nemesis) and Legacy (Mental Misstep) they're miserable at it, yet the cards I came up with in five seconds get approving comments from a group of players that's pretty hard to impress.  Do they not care as much?  I'm guessing that's it.

[MaximumCDawg]

Don't be too hard on them.  Think of Vintage as a forest.  The topmost branches of the forest were established long ago, with one big ol' tree called Alpha having the Power Nine up in the top branches, a few smaller trees like Legends with some notable tall branches, and then another massive tree called Urza's Saga Block with many more. 

Now, those trees are so massive that they choke out the light of anything below them.  They have printed cards which are fine on their own merits, but eclipsed by the tallest branches, and so they never grow. 

Though they are not intentionally doing so, they functionally improve the Vintage forest not when they make obviously powerful cards, but when they find openings in the canopy to print new things.  For example, the Hatebear tree is nowhere near the Alpha tree and has lots of room for growing branches that are exposed to the sunlight without being taller than the oldest of the trees.  What we've seen recently is Vintage grow horizontally, not vertically.  The canopy is spreading into new areas, not growing taller in old ones.

Part of how this comes to be is that Wizards looks for new design space in each set.  Sometimes the design space is relevant to Vintage, usually it's not.  You take the good with the bad.  Here, the mechanics were just poop for Vintage, so you end up with many short trees.  Even so, they are trying to find exposed canopy with cards using new mechanics like Inspired and so forth.

What I'm saying is you can hate the player but love the game, so to speak.

[zimagic]

Blue
Intellect Helix - 
Instant
Scry 2.
Whenever you cast a blue spell, if Intellect Helix is in your graveyard, you may return it to your hand.

Boom!  The future of cantrips?  I think so.  Holy crap is this good.  Is the the card that Frantic Search was waiting for?  This is kind of similar to Sensei's Divining Top, but weaker in a world where Deathrite Shaman is so dang plentiful.  This is the blue Squee.

Intellect Helix would never be printed by WotC, although I think it would be an exceptionally interesting card to have in the format.

Pity. I saw this and went running for the real BNG spoiler. I couldn't believe I had missed it!

Well done, great OP

[brianpk80]

I wrote this because I was incredibly frustrated with Born of the Gods, which I think is a terrible set for me and how I like to play Magic, and furthermore because I am feeling increasingly like an outsider in the Magic community who doesn't play Magic the right way, because I don't play Standard and Limited.  

Thank you for posting this.  Spoiler season has been a consistently exciting time from Time Spiral forward and the early descriptions of Theros had me thinking it would be among the best.  20th Anniversary, ambitious theme (Gods), Legend rule changes, promise of exciting dual lands.  I was very disappointed with Theros itself and didn't think Born of the Gods could possibly be any worse but then lo and behold... it was even worse.  I'm now expecting Journey into Nyx to be equally abysmal.  

Everything that made players hate Homelands is present in Theros block--scores of underpowered cards with extra weight padded to their casting costs for no good reason.  By any metric, this is the worst block of all time for Vintage and arguably even worse than Homelands itself since it lacks a staple like Merchant Scroll or longstanding utility sb card like Serrated Arrows.  I think it's good to speak out on what a failure this block is rather than coddling Wizards or enabling a repeat.  

[boxian]

I think that this was a hilarious set review, and a much better take on it than all the other underwhelmed reviews I've read.

The Dark Confidant bit was fantastic and the Intellect Helix card actually fooled me for a second. I wish that I didn't agree that it wouldn't get printed, as it seems to be a very exciting part.

I am excited about Spirit of the Labyrinth though, so at least they gave me one gift in this set.

[MaximumCDawg]

Everything that made players hate Homelands is present in Theros block--scores of underpowered cards with extra weight padded to their casting costs for no good reason.  By any metric, this is the worst block of all time for Vintage and arguably even worse than Homelands itself since it lacks a staple like Merchant Scroll or longstanding utility sb card like Serrated Arrows.  I think it's good to speak out on what a failure this block is rather than coddling Wizards or enabling a repeat.  

Let's not get carried away.  Set's bad for Vintage.  Set is nowhere NEAR the level of skunk that is Homelands.  Try running a sealed pool with an all-Homelands player versus an all-Born of the Gods player and see what happens.

[Greg]

Try running a sealed pool with an all-Homelands player versus an all-Born of the Gods player and see what happens.

Thankfully, Wizards prepared for this exact hypothetical match-up nearly twenty years in advance.



Now that's what I call "future sight!"

[brianpk80]

Let's not get carried away.  Set's bad for Vintage.  Set is nowhere NEAR the level of skunk that is Homelands. 

What is so bad about Homelands, really?  I can't think of a single criterion that wouldn't also apply to Born of the Gods. 

Thankfully, Wizards prepared for this exact hypothetical match-up nearly twenty years in advance.

That was masterful.