Born of the Gods Draft Review: The Rest

Time to look at the remaining cards from Born of the Gods.

Designed to push players into the White-Blue Heroic builds, Ephara’s Enlightenment definitely seems like it will live up to the task. The boosts are permanent, and stack with each additional casting. The flying is a very nice bonus, and it gives the heroic deck something to do with it’s mana when topdecking creatures in the late game. I expect we’ll see good things from this card in the future.

While I’m not quite sure he makes the cut for Standard, I certainly believe Fanatic of Xenagos is one of the more powerful uncommons in the draft environment. Not many things have the ability to deal with a 4/4 that early in the game, and his innate trample ability means he combines well with bestow creatures (Nyxborn Wolf, anyone?). I expect the Fanatic will be crashing into the red zone very often, and taking large chunks of an opponents life total with him.

One of my favourite cards in the set, this guy certainly has the tools to perform well in draft. His ability says “target permanent”, so he can affect anything on the battlefield, including your lands. On top of that, his two power means he can be either an beater or mana accelerator in the early game as required. In the late game, you can untap attackers to block, but he also has all sort of unique synergies with other cards, allowing him to be even tricker. For example, he can untap a creature targeted with Retraction Helix to get double the value. One of my favourite tricks I’ve seen is to untap an opponents inspired token maker in your turn, before they have the mana available (credit to Caleb Durward for noting that in his draft video). I’m very keen tosee what else the Follower has in store for us.

The premier Heroic enabler of the format, this card is going to be absurdly powerful. I probably don’t need to explain how good it is. Dream curve is probably Favored Hoplite -> Phalanx Leader -> Wingsteed Rider -> Reap with God’s Willing backup. This card with do some dumb things within combat.

While I haven’t gotten around to writing about it yet, Blue-Black was my favourite archetype in triple Theros draft, and I can’t wait until I open one of these guys and just windmill slam it. I’ve played plenty of Blood-Toll Harpys, and this is just a strict upgrade. It denies them resources while applying a clock, and you can find other ways to tap him, as well. As I am a terrible human being, one combo I want to set up at some point is Kiora’s Follower + this guy, which causes the opponent to discard a card in their draw step, and lock them out of playing anything but instants. One of my favourite cards for draft.

I’m not really sure how good the Gorgon’s Head will be, but I expect it’s better then my initial impressions. The casting cost is cheap, and not a lot of Theros decks have turn one plays. After that, guaranteeing each of your creatures will trade one-for-one for only twio mana is very good. I expect it’ll take a while for people to warm up to this card, but once they do, we might finally see a use for artifact removal in this block.

The Lyre is another example of a card that is more powerful because of the format it exists in. While this effect can normally be gotten for much cheaper, in an environment where people are making giant monsters by means of bestow, tapping a creature every turn is very, very good. While the Lyre is a bit slow and clunky, I expect it’ll eventually be a adapted as a solid role player in the format. As a bonus, if it is equipped to an inspired creature, you’ll get free triggers!

The most powerful inspired enabler in the set. While creatures that have just been summoned cannot tap themselves straight away, other effects can cause them to tap immeadiately (think Glimpse the Sun God). Springleaf Drum is one of those effects, so it allows you to get your inspired effect a whole turn earlier, on top of being a mana accelerator. I expect this card to be very powerful in the draft environment.

And with that, we’ve finally completed our journey through Born of the Gods! Any cards I should have commented on? Are my opinions plain wrong? What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time, Random.