Born of the Gods Eternal Review

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I can hear you all yawning, already. Look, I’m not going to try to kid anyone, Born of the Gods doesn’t look like the most exciting set from a constructed perspective. At least that’s what the Standard players are telling me. Imagine how low impact this is going to be on Modern. And Legacy? Sure, there’s one card that every Legacy pundit, myself included, has written an article about, but there isn’t really a whole lot beyond that. I’m not going to try to lie and act like this set could be a treasure trove for Eternal players, but there is something I CAN do to make things more interesting! I’m going to do a little giveaway! Read on if you’re interested; skip to where the card pictures start, if you don’t give a Pack Rat‘s ass about a contest. I’m going to make a prediction on each of the cards below, as far as whether or not they will see play in Legacy and Modern before Journey to Nyx is released. If you disagree, sound off in the comments. For each one on which I was wrong, excluding the “maybes” (I have to give myself some margin for error!), I will select someone at random who disagreed to win a prize. You can also “nominate” cards that you believe will see play that I overlooked. Everyone gets ONE entry; you can’t just go and disagree with everything to give yourself a better chance to win. (If you try to enter multiple times, I will only count the earliest one, based on timestamp). “Seeing play” will be defined as follows:

For Legacy- Five appearances in the top 16 of a Star City Games Legacy Open or a Legacy Grand Prix. If one actually ever fires, we’ll also count MTGO Legacy Premiere events. Each copy of the card in a top 16 decklist will count as one appearance.

For Modern- Ten appearances in the top 8 of a Modern PTQ or a top 16 of a Modern Grand Prix or the top 16 of a Modern Premiere Event on MTGO or top 16 of the Modern Pro Tour. We’re looking at a larger number of events for Modern, so I upped it to ten appearances.

I’m going to leave entries open until Friday, February 14th, but because there is actually a Legacy Open where Born of the Gods cards will be legal before that I am disallowing any entries in favor of a card “seeing play” after it has made at least one appearance. Prizes are TBD. I’m going to set aside a pool of cards with one mini-grabbag for each winner. It’ll be some bulk rares, but some nicer stuff, as well.

Modern: I think Mufasa is very aggressively costed and fits perfectly into tokens strategies, as well as other white-based aggro. Prediction: Will see play.

Legacy: This might fit into the slot that Death & Taxes currently uses for Mirran Crusader, Flickerwisp, Mangara, or Serra Avenger. The fact that this kitty is legendary is a nice bonus when you’re running three to four copies of Karakas. Prediction: Maybe, leaning yes.

Modern: I initially thought that this was as sure to slot into Modern Hatebears as it was to slot into Legacy D&T. That may very well be the case, but does that deck even put up top 16s? I kid, I kid, but the other thing is that card draw, particularly Brainstorm, isn’t as big a thing in Modern as it is in Legacy, so this might be more of a sideboard card. Verdict: Maybe, leaning yes.

Legacy: This one’s a gimme. It’s a slam dunk for Death and Taxes, and could also help Maverick rise from the ashes of this Brainstorm-filled world. Verdict: Will see play.

Modern: I was kind of into the idea of UW Aggro, with Ephara as the headliner.. in Standard. Could it be a thing in Modern? She plays nicely with Resto and Snappy, but I’m not sure if there’s room for that many four-drops in the deck. Verdict: Maybe, leaning no.

Modern: My bold prediction is that this guy will fuel some crazy combo deck. I could see it being played in Pod decks, in the wake of the Deathrite banning. Yeah, going from one mana to two mana is a big deal, but this is a dork with utility AND he doesn’t get you blown out by Electrolyze, which was a big part of what made Deathrite so great. Verdict: Will see play

Modern: I think all of these have some chance to see some play. I feel most strongly that the Azorius temple will see play. I’d normally consider the other two temples to be in the “Maybe, leaning yes,” category, but because we’re so thin on potential picks, I’ll just say they’ll all see play.

Yeah.. that’s it. Sorry, guys, they didn’t put too many Eternal goodies into this set. Hopefully, I’m proven wrong, though (and you correctly guessed it, and profited), because I always enjoy seeing crazy new strategies emerge. It is kind of lame that my big giveaway idea had to debut on a set that seems so sparse for Eternal, but if people seem into this, I’ll keep it going for the next set. And really, who isn’t into free stuff, right??