oh look, born of the gods stuffs :D

Hey look, cards that stand out from Born of the Gods

Hero of Iroas

I love love love this card! I haven’t fallen in love with a card this much since Kor Spiritdancer and they are kind of similar in a few ways and are both powerful engines once you get them going. Right now we have some awesome Auras including Flinching Courage, Ethereal Armor, Gift of Orzhov and Madcap Skills just to name a few. Those auras definitely give a power boost to the Hero which immediately make him a threat and with his first ability of lowering the cost of auras, you are able to protect him with cards like Gods willing which also trigger Heroic AND lets you scry for 1, awesome right?

I have been coming up with a bunch of lists revolving around auras, Hero and Fabled Hero and so far the best color combination is UW in semi-control shell and along with the hard hitting Heros. There is counter magic, protection spells and strong auras like Gift of Orzhova, Ethereal armor, Ordeal of Thassa and Aqueous Form. While Aqueous form may be the weakest aura in the deck, The Heroic Triggers on the Heros really give them the strength they need to hit hard. Fabled hero is actually...a hero in this deck as he can become a flying or unblockable , lifelink, doublestriker with Gods Willing mana up to protect it. I am really going to be putting some time into seeing if this deck could possibly become something competitive and of course it really depends on how the Standard meta game shifts, if at all.

Can I just say how much I fucking love Gild? Seriously, I think this card is so fucking great. Exiling the creature is what really sells this card for me. I play Elvish Mystic and having a Gild available on turn 3 is fantastic AND you get a Lotus Petal in the process! Yeah you do, not your opponent, you do! All the value from this card! Got a pesky god in your way? Gild that sucka! Opponent getting you down with a fatty Desecration Demon or Strombreath Dragon, Smelt those bad boys down to a gold token for yourself. I love this card and I will be watching and waiting with my sets sitting in my binder.

Nullify

I for one, welcome our new counterspell overlord. I practically shat myself when I first saw that this was a real card, OK maybe not actually shat myself but i got pretty fucking close to it. Right now, its pretty much Counterspell and if you were like me when Counterspell was legal, I fucking hated it and wanted to not play against blue decks fucking ever. And with the way Standard is shaping up, its pretty much Counterspell as there are a great amount of decks that are creature based and have tons of targets. For me, I feel like it should be an auto 4 of in most blue based deck,looking at you UW control and Esper and I guess Grixis if people are still willing to try that.

While there are a shit ton of Creatures out there that you can target, lets not forget about the powerful auras out there too. Detention Sphere, Underworld Connections,Boon Satyr, Chained to the Rocks, Domestication, the ENTIRE Hex-proof deck, Contaminated Ground, and pacifism...yeah pacifism... well maybe not the last two but considering Nullify counters an entire deck that is powerful due to your opponent not being able to interact with you, its a pretty big deal.

So welcome to standard Nullify, I am sure you will be just as annoying as Counterspell was and just as good.

Courser of Kruphix and Kiora, the Crashing Wave

I am seeing a lot of people make a big deal out of Courser of Kruphix and I guess I am not sure why? I see the interaction with Domri Rade and thats pretty cute right? And I also keep hearing the comparison with Oracle of Mul Daya and I just kind of chuckle at how ridiculous that statement is. I actually played with the Oracle and Courser is not that card. Yes, they both reveal the top card of your library. And Yes, they both allow you to play a land from the top but that’s it. Courser does not allow you to play extra lands and yeah she does trigger green devotion, but who really care about that? But let us not forget about the great CC and her awesome badonkadunk shes got going on with 4 toughness.... awww yeah badonkadunk. Yes I expect this card to see some kind of standard play as its easy to cast, the dadonkadunk and its life gain ability and the fact that you can play with the top card revealed...kinds sounds like I like this card doesn’t it? Its a good card don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think its as great as people are claiming it to be.

I love Kiora, the Crashing Wave. The art, the abilities and the casting cost, hell I am even glad that its green and blue and not just blue. I am also glad we all got the Two Explore joke out of our systems quickly, hurr hurr. While the Master Mike Flores didn’t really like the ultimate on her, I think its fantastic as you get a fatty forever. If you were able to watch the first Born of the Gods Standard event on SCGLive, you were able to see BBD place the emblem in play during the coverage and it was pretty much GG after that. You were also able to watch him lock down two creatures with two different Kioras, one after the other, which was really fucking sick. I originally didn’t think much of her other than Explore but after watching her in action I can see that she is going to be quite the handful in the future.

Randoms

While Karametra is my favorite god in the set, its pretty obvious that Xenagos is the most powerful god we have in Born of the Gods and potentially out of all of them competing with Thassa. While Mogis, God of Slaughter, has a powerful ability, pumping a Dragon or a fatty creature with trample can potentially end the game. The best part of the ability is that it happens the turn it comes into play and you don’t have to wait or pay for the trigger like you would with Ephara or Nylea.

Pain Seer is shit. OK maybe its not in a Black aggressive deck but come on everyone, its time we all stop comparing this card to Dark Confidant. Its not that card, and shouldn’t be treated as such.

Hands down Fanatic of Xenagos is the best Tribute creature in the set. And while I am think Oracle of Bones has some potential to drops some super sick bombs if allowed to, Fanatic is so powerful in both modes. I can see many players in future matches making the wrong choice with whether to give tribute or not.

I also read Satyr Firedancer wrong the first time and thought it was creature OR player and not just creature after you aim something to their face...meh lost complete interest in the card as a 1/1 for 2 with immediate effect doesn’t really do much until later in the game and if you hit your opponent in the face and they have no creatures what does this actually do...besides, doesn’t this card die to that one spell that kills a creature if its a cyclops?

Ummm Brimaz is fucking great Obv

Bile Blight and Drown in Sorrow change everything...like actually changes everything. The removal cards in black are already very powerful and with the addition of these two cards it only makes black based decks stronger, thanks for joining the party Thoughtseize.

Did I mention I love Auras? I am expecting big things from Herald of Torment. The body and casting cost on Herald of Torment is ridiculous. Sure you lose one life a turn but its not enough to not play this card. I think the best part about this card is that its flying and has a reasonable Bestow cost that really makes this creature something else. I know I read an article not too long ago but Owen Turtenwald about how much he liked this card and I share the same respect for the card. Should be fantastic in standard.

Welcome back to Standard, Rout.... or Fated Retribution. Instant speed board wipes are the shit and this one takes Walkers with it.

Good News everyone, we can go back to trying to make Biovisionary work with Fated Infatuation. Lets make some copies brah.

And I cant put my finger on Eidolon of the Countless Battles... I don’t know if hes good or not. Sure he could be put into a WW shell but at the same time he could also be put into the Naya Auras deck or any kind of deck with Hero of Iroas. I want this to be good but its like 70/30 to me.

And last but not least Unravel the Aether and Revoke Existence are...how can I put this lightly...well they are going to fuck shit up. I think it was Josh Silvestri that mentioned those two cards in his top ten cards from Born of the Gods list and I agree with him 100%. Green now has a way to remove pesky Gods and while white has a few options with dealing with them, those resources can now be aimed at creatures and removing game changing auras in play.

My actual sleepers for the set are Hero of Iroas, Herald of Torment, Hero of Lenia Tower, Whelming Wave and Oracle of Bones. As you can tell, I love auras and that explains the first 2 cards as my sleepers. I really enjoy Hero of Lenia Tower and her +X/+X from her heroic trigger, late game you are able to just attach something small and dump mana into her trigger which I think is pretty sick. Whelming wave is a poor mans Global removal card and hopefully we get some reasonably costing Octopuses to have in play and Oracle just maybe one day will let us cast Cruel Ultimatum for free. Its kind of like Browbeat more than anything else and thats not really a bad thing. But anyways, I bought sets and more of them and I am hoping some of these cards will jump up in value.

Well that’s pretty much all that’s going through my head about the noticeable cards in Born of the God's. There is a high chance that you have read something similar on other websites for some of the cards, but it doesn’t hurt to get someone else's opinions does it? Lets hope that Minotaur tribal gains some steam because that would be fucking awesome, eh? We have the cards people! We have the cards to do it!