Take a look at some more new cards from MTG's next expansion, Theros: Beyond Death. This set will release on January 16 for MTG Arena. Which cards are you most looking forward to playing with?
Card revealed by MTGNerdGirl
Card revealed by M. Wakatsuki
Card revealed by DailyMTG
Card revealed by IGN Spain
Card revealed by Kripparrian
Card revealed by Michele Posa
Card revealed by Spaziogames.it
Card revealed by Tokyo MTG
Card revealed by Heise.de
Cards revealed by LordsofLimited
Card revealed by Wizards Magic
Card revealed by Alexander Hayne
Card revealed by TSM Numot
Cards revealed by MTG (previously revealed, but missed)
Comments
Archon of Falling Stars will probably end up being too slow for constructed. At 6 mana you want to be doing more proactive things, this creature is easily removed and the effect is underwhelming. In limited though big flyers are super good.
Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is kind of hard to evaluate, honestly I don't know what to think for any of these gods. On one hand, they are overstated indestructible creatures with upsides, on the other hand we have ahd creatures like this before with any other god card and very few of them actually saw play. For this particular one though, I don't think it will be all that good for standard constructed. Being able to flicker a creature every turn is neat, but maybe too slow and too unimpactful.
Haktos, the Unscarred looks like a very threatening creature. For those who maybe aren't familiar with the 'Protection' keyword, it means that it cannot be Damaged, Enchanted or Equipped, Blocked, or Targeted by anything that it has protection from, you can remember with the acronym "DEBT". So this creature will have protection from everything except for cards that cost either 2, 3, or 4 at random. This will without a doubt be a very powerful creature that will be very hard to answer.
Ash Phoenix is a very powerful card, Skyknight Legionnaire already sees play and this is the exact same card plus more. Having the pump ability helps you to deliver a bunch of damage later in the game, and it can constantly come back. The escape cost only demands 3 cards, that isn't a lot. You could easily resurrect this card two or three times throughout the game. This card will always be relevant and it won't ever be useless.
The Triumph of Anax probably won't see too much play. 3 mana is kind of a lot when you aren't going to get any significant bonus until two turns after it is played. Red aggro decks right now want to be way faster and deal damage way sooner. Plus, not a lot of red aggro creatures have a lot of creatures that they would want to make fight. There are other means of buffing up your creatures and there are better ways to get rid of your opponent's creatures. Maybe this card isn't bad, but there are certainly better cards.
Saprophage Harpy isn't going to be a good constructed card, there are bigger flyers and more efficient ways to exile your opponent's graveyard (*cough* Ashiok *cough*). But in limited where flyers are way more valuable this will be a good pick.
callaphe, Beloved of the Sea is an interesting card. It will slow down your opponent but it doesn't really do much in terms of affecting the board. I don't think it will be played a lot because there are just too many matchups and too many situations where your opponent simply won't care about this ability. This is obviously an aggressive creature, but I just don't think it is doing what an aggro deck wants to do.
Dawn Evangel is kind of hard to evaluate, this whole Aura thing isn't a deck that we have right now, it is a brand new deck in this set, so I have a hard time saying if it will be bad or not. This card will certainly be powerful in the deck, it helps give you extra steam and it makes sure that you will have a target for your auras to hit. But I cannot really say whether or not this deck will be good. It is a powerful card, but it may not be a powerful deck.
The First Iroanian Games looks like a powerful saga. The turn it hits it doesn't do anything, but very soon after that it will make a 4/4, draw some cards, and create a gold (I am not 100% sure about this but I am pretty sure that the 'gold' token will have "sacrifice this, add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool"). All of the effects are powerful on their own and you can play this by itself on an empty board and everything will still trigger. Plus, the flavour of the card is great, there is a regular dude who wants to compete in the games, then he gets outfitted and gets stronger, then he wins some gold. The story on this saga is told very well.
Omen of the Sun isn't all too good by itself, two 1/1's for 3 mana is super underwhelming, but if the aura deck takes off then this card will provide extra targets for enchanting. It is important to have cards that summon extra creatures because you don't want to end up a hand full of buff spells but no creatures, anything that summons multiple creatures will help to make the deck more consistent. The question is, will this make the cut over other creature spells? I guess that all depends on whether or not the deck has enough card advantage for the scry ability to be necessary or not.
Shimmerwing Chimera isn't a bad creature by itself, 3/2 with flying for 4 isn't the worst card in the world. And there are enough enchantments with good enter-the-battlefield abilities that this card can probably find a home somewhere in a deck. I am not sure if this card will be too slow or situational to be used in a top-tier deck, but if nothing else it will be fun to play around with. And it will also be good in limited whether or not you actually have good enchantments to hit.
Pious Wayfarer might be a good card if you are able to slam down an enchantment every turn, but I think that most of the time this card just won't be big enough to actually be of any value. The effect is rather small and it is only until the end of the turn, I think you would rather be playing creatures with bigger payoffs. If the deck doesn't have a powerful enough early game then this might be worth considering, but most of the time there are better cards to play instead.
Erebos's Intervention is a good tech card. The first ability isn't powerful enough to be played by itself, but if you are in a meta where the graveyard matters a lot then the second ability will make up for it. I like this card because it can tech against certain decks, but it can still be used even when the exiling ability cannot. This will probably be in a lot of sideboards, or if you care enough about gaining life then it might end up in your mainboard.
Tymaret, Chosen from Death is another card where it is a powerful tech options against graveyard decks, but it isn't useless against other decks as well. This probably isn't as good to add to your sideboard as Erebos's Intervention, but if you are playing an aggro or midrange deck than this is just a solid 2 drop with the possibility of ruining your opponent's strategy. This card won't be good unless the meta is just right, and even in the right meta it won't be the most powerful card, but at the same time it is not a bad card.
Omen of the forge will not be played unless you really care about enchantments, or you really need that scry. Dealing 2 damage for 2, even at instant speed, is really bad. You will have to get lots of value from the enchantment tag for this to be worth adding to your deck.
Warden of the Chained might see some play in some midrange decks. If you can drop him on 3 and then follow it up with a big creature on 4 such as Questing Beast then you have probably just won the game. Keep in mind that even if you don't control any other creatures it can still block, which makes this card a lot better. And you also only need to have another creature with power of 4 or greater under your control, it doesn't have to be attacking also. I am not sure if this card will be consistent enough to be used in midrange/aggro decks but if you are willing to take the risk the payoff can be big.
So the indestructible God enchantments make enough sense... but the collection of enchantment creatures is weird. Just like a creature with an ability. Only difference I see is that they also trigger things that react to enchantments, also able to be destroyed by them. Am I seeing that wrong or is that how they work?
Regarding these cards - that Archon artwork is fascinating, very unique, I kinda love it. Callaphe is a beauty too. I'm going to have to look up what Constellation means as a keyword again - I know I read about in one of the MtGA articles on DailyMTG, but I've forgotten - before my time :)
Well, I started playing the game with exactly zero MtG experience in real life, and while it is certainly more complicated than Hearthstone, I think you'll be surprised by how quickly aspects of the game start feeling natural. There will be bits that fly by you for awhile, and I'll never forget how baffled I was by Planeswalkers when I first came across them, but truly, becoming a solid casual or low ranks player goes pretty quickly, and then you just pick up new details from playing. It took me I don't know how many times to finally get thru my head that my 3 attack minion does 3 total damage across multiple blockers, for instance, and not 3 to EACH blocker. But you'll get the hang of it, and be complaining about mana-screw or those jackass Cavalcade of Calamity in Casual players in no time, haha.
Part of me wants to give this game a try, but this all looks so complicated compared to the simple Hearthstone keyword system. How easy do you think it would be to cross over from Hearthstone to MtG theoretically?
Well the sooner you jump into the game the sooner you will start to get the hang of it.
True enough, lol.
It's not too hard to get into but where I struggled personally is to recognise threats and watch out for untapped lands( often meaning a counter in hand) . Just like in HS some cards like Brann and stargazer luna with sub-par stats are true threats, in MTG a lot of cards snowballs real fast if left unchecked and it takes time to know what deserves a removal.
Also being land flooded or mana screwed is infuriating and never 100% avoidable.