[THB] Theros Mechanics previews

[Marquis]

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2019-12-12

[Mookie]

Mostly returning mechanics, but all of them are good ones. Devotion returning was expected and appreciated - it was easily the most successful of the first set of Theros mechanics, and heavily foreshadowed by the CCC and HHHH cards printed in Eldraine. Constellation makes its return again, this time on non-enchantment permanents. And Sagas provide interesting gameplay and a bit of long-term investment. I wonder if there will be some dedicated Saga support - Dominaria had some support for historic cards in general, but nothing dedicated, which meant you couldn't really make a 'saga deck'.

Escape is significantly harder to evaluate. I have flashbacks to Innistrad's Skaab mechanic, which was a bit of a bust. On the other hand, I guess that it's pure gravy here - you can play the cards for their front half with no graveyard, then get a bit of free card advantage later. You do need to have some way to consistently fill your graveyard though, so we'll see how much support there is for that...

As for individual cards:
Underworld Rage-Hound is limited fodder, but seems reasonable for an aggressive deck.
Daxos, Blessed by the Sun is a demigod. Interesting to compare with Soul Warden and friends - only triggers off your own creatures, but also triggers off their deaths and has better stats.
Klothys's Design is a sweet Overrun variant. No trample though.
Setessan Champion is Argothian Enchantress N+1.
The Akroan War is probably the most interesting - a longer-term Threaten effect that eventually turns into a board wipe, ish. Looks fun, if hard to evaluate.

[SecretInfiltrator]

Let's see what they do with the Demigod type. I feel Daxos didn't really need it - on Theros in particular being an enchantment creature already marks a character as "Nyxian" i. e. connected to the gods. Good to see him getting better though.

Klothys, God of Destiny seems to be a major player. I recall them being mentioned before. It is weird, since they could be filling that vacant red-green spot based on the colors associated with them on the cards IIRC. But destiny sounds very green, but kinda weird for red. Not entirely unjustifiable... but certainly "off".

[Serenade]

Klothys, God of Destiny seems to be a major player. I recall them being mentioned before. It is weird, since they could be filling that vacant red-green spot based on the colors associated with them on the cards IIRC. But destiny sounds very green, but kinda weird for red. Not entirely unjustifiable... but certainly "off".

In flavor text, Keranos is called "god of epiphany." Purphoros is "god of creation and destruction" on another card. I think gods are called/rule over/symbolize many things to humans, even if it's not always their title.

EDIT: "Fate" and "fortune" are synonyms for "destiny"...and have some fun, red wheels tied to them. =P

[RxPhantom]

Man, that was a quick return for Sagas! I'm also interested in the demigod creature type and if they have any support for that. And one of my EDH decks is always happy to have another enchantress.

[The Fluff]

Setessan Champion feels like another card for an enchantress deck in pioneer.

[Dusk]

Given this, plus the image featuring the 5 gods and 5 on color 'others' I speculate that we will be getting the gods as mono-color mythics and an uncommon demigod blessed by them. Since Atheros is the BaB promo, I think we can assume that of the multi color gods we may only get 5 (if any)

Edit: The collector's booster contents article confirms 5 uncommon Demigods

[SyntheticDreamer]

Escape seems like it was designed with Limited in mind. It seems like a pretty good way to get some extra value and might prove to be as strong a mechanic in Limited as embalm was in Amonkhet Limited.

[Arkmer]

Saga and Constellation seem like a pretty natural pair for this set.

Setessan Champion can see itself entering, right?

[WizardMN]

Setessan Champion can see itself entering, right?

It sure can! But, seeing as it is not an Enchantment, seeing itself enter won't typically mean much. Unless you have Enchanted Evening out.

[Arkmer]

Setessan Champion can see itself entering, right?

It sure can! But, seeing as it is not an Enchantment, seeing itself enter won't typically mean much. Unless you have Enchanted Evening out.

That's a major miss by me, lol. I could have sworn... Maybe it's because all the other cards with Constellation from Theros were enchantments themselves. Assumptions were made and details ignored.

[Marquis]

The image gallery was updated with cards from the videos and arena.

[Marquis]

We also get our first look at the Showcase and Extended art.

[SecretInfiltrator]

Callaphe the mariner apparently is the Theran Odysseus.

A vanilla enchantment creature makes me hope for french vanilla enchantment creatures and maybe Lucent Liminid. We didn't get it last time because all enchantment creatures needed some mechanical hook to justify being enchantments.

[Dusk]

The image gallery was updated with cards from the videos and arena.

Hero of the Winds is shown twice, while Indomitable Will is not shown at all

Edit: the new god is shown in the escape video. Looks red/white, but red/green is the open color pair unless they shift Iroas to that slot.

[hyalopterouslemur]

I like how they've introduced more of the "constant devotion" cards. (In the original Theros block, only gods had this.) One thing about devotion, your devotion is always there, so you should have P/T connected to devotion.

[Mookie]

A few new cards since the initial batch.

Nyxborn Courser and Nyxborn Colossus point to a common vanilla cycle for enabling enchantment synergies and devotion (due to the high color weight). Not very enchantment-y though. Also interesting to see the Courser in white - Centaurs are usually green. There do appear to be a few monowhite centaurs in the original Theros block though. I'm always a fan of the 2/4 for 3 mana statline, which Colossus being a 6/7 for 6 is also decent. May also suggest monocolor limited decks being a thing.

Eidolon of Philosophy intrigues me - there aren't many ways at common to draw three cards, or ways to do so on a one mana creature. Probably too expensive to activate, but there are certainly decks that care about cheap creatures with upsides.

Staggering Insight looks like a very powerful aura for any sort of heroic deck (even if the mechanic isn't returning). I want to throw it on Invisible Stalker and give people Curiosity + Butcher's Cleaver flashbacks. Auras are usually bad, but if you can throw it on something evasive and draw a card immediately, this looks very capable of running away with a game. Commanding Presence also looks alright, but it doesn't really excite me in the same way.