A Guide to Magic: The Gathering: Born of the Gods Expansion Set

What is Born of the Gods?

Born of the Gods is the latest expansion set to the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering. This marks the 53rd expansion set for the card game. It consists of a total of 165 cards, which can be purchased in 15 card booster packs, 90 card intro packs, or 9 booster pack fat packs. It released on February 7th of this year, and will come to Magic online on February 17th, for those who play the game digitally. This piece of lore was released by Wizards of the Coast to add background to the new expansion set:

“The pantheon of Theros is complete! Xenagos has become the god of revelry. Yet far from bringing peace to the god-realm of Nyx, the satyr’s ascension to godhood has only flung it into chaos, and the ripples are being felt across the mortal realm.”

The Intro Packs

Born of the Gods consists of five intro packs, or pre made decks. These are Gift of the Gods (Blue/White), Inspiration-Struck (Blue/Black), Death’s Beginning (Black/Green), Forged in Battle (Red/White), and Insatiable Hunger (Green/Red). These, of course, are not necessarily the greatest decks, but allow for a good entry point into this new set.

What game mechanics are included?

Like past sets, almost all of the pre-existing game mechanics return in this set. This means that mechanics like Scry, Lifelink, Deathtouch, Flying, Trample, and many more are still present with cards in this set. However, continuing the trend of adding new mechanics, Born of the Gods introduces two new mechanics: Inspired and Tribute.  Newly introduced mechanics from the Theros expansion (Monstrosity, Devotion, Heroic) will return as well. Both of the new mechanics are detailed, with examples, below.

Inspired

What it is: Inspired is the first of the new mechanics. Like many other mechanics, every card with Inspired uses it in a different way. However, Inspired abilities are always activated when a creature is untapped, so theoretically, this will happen at the beginning of every turn, during a player’s upkeep phase. This makes many creatures far more dangerous. For example, God-Favored General is a 1/1 creature, which seems insignificant. However, its Inspired ability allows its controller to create two new 1/1 creatures every turn, if that player has the mana to produce them. This adds a new twist to the game, making creatures that may have seemed insignificant far more useful. This mechanic will also undoubtedly redefine how enchantments that tap creatures permanently will be used. Instead of tapping a powerful creature, maybe it will become more beneficial to use a Claustrophobia on a smaller creature, to prevent its Inspired ability from being activated. Building decks around creatures with the Inspired mechanic will undoubtedly become common as well. Most cards with Inspired are either white or blue, for the time being.

My opinion: Inspired is definitely a cool addition. As I said above, it will change how certain cards are used, and that will change gameplay. This will especially the case for players with control decks that really on cards like Frost Breath that tap creatures. The variety of cards that have this ability is interesting as well, and they all do a variety of different things, varying gameplay. This makes seemingly weak cards a lot more useful, and can lea to more efficient deck building, and I like that. Unfortunately, it goes a little bit over the top at times. Some of the cards pictured below will provide massive issues, and could be used to potentially break the game, which is annoying.

Tribute

Tribute is possibly the most interesting of the new mechanics added to the game, as they force your opponent to make strategic decisions. Tribute is, in many ways, similar to the Monstrosity mechanic, which allowed a creature to tap lands to put a specific amount of +1/+1 counters on a creature with monstrosity, essentially making that creature far more dangerous. This mechanic is most often found on red and green creatures, and the same is true of Tribute. However, with Tribute, it will be your opponent putting +1/+1 counters on your creatures. Why? Because if they don’t, they’ll feel the consequences. In the case of the new Oracle of Bones card, this will mean that you will be able to play an instant or sorcery card for free. In combination with a high cost, high wield card like Chandra’s Fury, this could have devastating effects for your opponent. So, will you be paying up the tribute, or dealing with the consequences? It’s a double edged sword, and it will be interesting to see how this mechanic plays out in the setting of an actual game. If nothing else, it will make things interesting.

My opinion: Tribute is going to cause a lot of problems. It essentially makes it harder to play spell based decks. Burn and mil decks will become irrelevant when the player has to choose between creating a massive creature or feeling some over powered consequence. It will shake up gameplay which, to an extent, is cool. But this mechanic will get really old, really fast, and will probably lead to a lot of creature based stomp decks. For someone like me, who prefers control and/or mil decks, this mechanic works to my disadvantage, and seems kind of annoying to me.

Are there any new Planeswalkers?

Yes. The Born of the Gods expansion adds one new Planeswalker to the ever expanding roster of cards in play. This Planeswalker is Kiora, the Crashing Wave. She is a blue/green Planeswalker, with varying abilities. She can prevent damage, she can allow you to get cards onto the battlefield quicker, and can summon you a nice, big 9/9 Kraken token to devastate your opponents. As per usual with Planeswalkers, this card is a Mythic Rare.

My Opinion: In the context of this set, it’s odd that this Planeswalker isn’t better. It’s obviously a good card, but it is inferior to many other Planeswalkers. It has some good abilities that will be useful in a game, and provide a nice counter to tribute. Also, subtracting five loyalty counters gets you a 9/9 creature. In comparison to other Planeswalkers, it is mediocre, but that doesn’t make it a bad card overall.

Gods

New gods? And now, that wasn’t a DC reference. New god cards are being added in this expansion! Of course, there have been gods before, but these new ones are interesting, and are all pictured below. Each one is obviously intended for a specific deck, be it a stomp deck, a token deck, or a mil deck. There’s a god for every deck, it seems.

My opinion: They break the game. They’re cool cards, and I definitely would like a few, but man, do they unbalance everything. They aren’t even susceptible to cards like Murder or Death’s Caress, my fallbacks for dealing with creatures that are too large for my smaller vampires or goblins to take off the battlefield. Plus, they have devastating effects. Two damage unless you sacrifice a creature? Great for a burn deck, but it really does cause a lack of balance in games.

What Other Interesting Cards Are Being Added?

The Born of the Gods expansion adds some great new cards to the already massive library of available cards. Pictured below are some of the most interesting, but maybe even broken, cards in this new expansion.

An interesting new weapon in the arsenal of token decks.

Ok, this is a little ridiculous.

Quick! Before its Inspired ability becomes activated!

Getting desperate? Wipe that battlefield!

High mana cost, but really?

Mono colored blue deck, anyone?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Burn baby, burn!

The sooner this dies, the better. Oh wait. It has regenerate. Forgot about that.

Flying decks beware!

Pay up!

Whaaaaaat?

Have fun.

My Opinion on the Set as aWhole

So I’m really of two minds on this set. On the one hand, it looks like one of the best sets since Return to Ravnica. Gatecrash, Dragon’s Maze, and Theros have been cool, but this definitely outdoes all three of those. That being said, I can’t help but shake the feeling that this set perpetuates overpowered cards that completely tip the scales way too easily. For example, I’m currently running a blue/black control deck. Of course, I’m not going tow in every game, and I know that a well built, well played burn deck can easily counteract most of my weapons. That being said, I’ve been able to build in defenses against a burn deck, in the forms of some powerful creatures, as well as numerous counter spells. However, what am I going to do when I’m faced with a Tribute card? I have to do something about it. Of course, I could just use a card like Murder, or a counterspell like Cancel. The thing is, my deck isn’t exactly overflowing with those. The addition of Tribute means that this will be a creature heavy cycle, with a lot of green/red stomp decks, which is a problem. There just isn’t a lot of variety here. There are one or two mil cards, and the set is starved of pretty much anything that a player running a burn deck could use, save for Satyr Firedancer. In short: This deck will screw you over for not building a deck based around big creatures. Even the new blue creatures are huge! That said: Change is good. This will force people to adapt their decks, and experiment with new techniques and strategies to counter new cards.

Some of the cards may appear to be game breaking cards. But this is when people should be doing their best work. I know I am, I’m already figuring out what cards I need to counter the onslaught of creatures to come. And even though I’ve kind of railed on the new mechanics, they’re going to redefine how Magic is played, and that’s a good thing. It will be cool to have to respond to tribute card entering the battlefield. What do you do about it? Essentially, though this does contradict what I said earlier, it encourages the building of control, burn, and mil decks to prevent your opponent from getting to the creatures that they can use to steam roll you in a few turns. Born of the Gods shakes up the game, adding new mechanics, and tons of new possibilities. Some may not like it, but I honestly am looking forward to getting the chance to add some of these cards to my existing decks, and play against friends using them as well.