Only two more days of scheduled spoilers left for MTG's next expansion, Theros: Beyond Death (THB). It will launch for MTG Arena on January 16. On this plane of gods, enchantments, and indestructible creatures, which card is your favorite so far? Be sure and visit the MTG Arena website, download the client, and play for free.
Card revealed by DEATHSIE
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Card revealed by Lee Shi Tian
Cards revealed by Merchant
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Card revealed by Vandal
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Card revealed by Landfall EDH
Card revealed by Strictly Better MTG
Comments
Altar of Pantheon is not a very good card. This is just a 3 mana tap for 1 and those types of cards just don't see play. It can gain you life, but not enough to be worth it, and it does give you extra devotion, but so does any other card with a color.
Thessa's Oracle by itself is a 2 mana 1/3 scry 2. We already have a card exactly like that left standard last rotation, Omenspeaker. Though it is very easy to make this card scry 3, or 4, or more. It can also make you win the game (I was not expecting that part when I first read the card) but you would need to have either a lot of devotion, or a very small library, or a bit of both. This will very likely not be a very competitive deck (at least in standard, there is probably some combo in other formats), but I know that some johnny players will have fun with this.
Taranika, Akroan Veteran will at least be a good card in limited, though I am not sure about constructed. It does not really inspire a deck by itself, but it does help an already existing deck to be better. You can turn any other creature you control into a 4/4 indestructible until end of turn, but that only happens when Taranika attacks. I feel like in too many situations it would be too easy to kill a 3/3 that has to attack in order to trigger its ability. Maybe I am wrong and it will be very easy to make this minion survive for multiple attacks. I suppose it all depends on what your opponent is playing.
Eidolon of Obstruction will probably end up not getting very much attention. 95% of the time your opponent will either not have a planeswalker in their deck, or won't care about having to pay a little extra mana. I am not even sure if this card is worth sideboarding, I would much rather play a spell that can simply kill a planeswalker than give them a small tax. This card is useless most of the time, and even when it is useful it is still not very useful.
Dreamshaper Shaman is a nice little chaos card for people who enjoy that sort of thing. There might be some kind of convoluted combo deck that wants to cheat out a specific permanent for 3 mana but other than that I don't see this card being good. For one it is expensive and slow, but also you are trading random cards for more random cards and I don't see why that would ever be a good thing if you want your deck to win.
Sea God's Scorn is not a good card, at 6 mana your cards should be more impactful than this. You should be working on clearing the board instead of just delaying 3 cards, or you should be actively working towards your win condition. This card simply isn't good enough to make the cut in 99.7% of all decks.
Calix, Destiny's Hand is a pretty neat planeswalker. He draws you cards, he removes threats, and if you ever get the the ultimate he can resurrect enchantments. We will no doubt be played in any deck focusing on enchantments if such a deck is ever good. The only thing that makes me skeptical is that he doesn't really have much of a way of protecting himself. All of the best planeswalkers can use their plus abilities to protect themselves either by neutralizing an enemy, or generating tokens to block with. But Calix will have to rely on other sources to help him out. He does have the -3 ability that can kill creatures or enchantments, but that is a minus ability and it can only be used so many times. I don't think he will be necessary in an 'enchantment' deck, but he will help the deck to have extra steam and stability.
Skophos Maze Guardian is a little confusing, there is a land card yet to be revealed called "Labyrinth of Skophos" and I would assume it is able to target creatures, we don't know what the land does yet or how good it will be which makes it hard to evaluate how good this minion will be, but I am going to go out on a limb and say that this creature will not be very good. I don't think it will be consistent enough, and the payoff isn't big enough to compensate for the lack of consistency. I might have different thoughts when we see Labyrinth of Skophos, but for now I don't think this card will be useful.
Enigmatic Incarnation is a bit hard to evaluate because it all depends on the creatures and enchantments you are playing in your deck. I imagine that there will be some deck that wants this, but I am not sure what it would look like. I like that this triggers at your end step because then you get a creature the same turn you play it which makes it much more proactive then if it triggered at your upkeep. I honestly don't know exactly what to do with this card, but it is worth experimenting with.
Lagonna-Band Narrator is pretty interesting. I think we have enough tools in this set to make some kind of enchantment themed deck possible. This effect is almost never useless, though putting it on top of your library instead of in your hand might make it too slow in some circumstances. This card can for sure be used somewhere, and even if it is not used that much, having access to a card that can bring things back from the graveyard is always nice.
Furious Rise looks like it might be useful in the color where card draw is hard to find. But I am not so sure it will be played much. Mono-red decks don't usually want to make a lot of big creatures, and if you are playing another color such as blue, black, or maybe even green, there is almost always going to be a better way to draw cards. There might be a deck where this card is necessary, but most of the time I think there are better ways to draw cards where you don't need a specific board.