Theros Spoiler: Abhorrent Overlord, Thassa, God of the Sea

More spoilery goodness at MTGSalvation.

There are lots of new stuff to look at in the Theros Spoiler so far, including some new mechanics like heroic. But, a couple of gems caught my eye. Presenting!

There shined a shiny demon... in the middle... of the sky: Abhorrent Overlord.



Not only is the artwork absolutely badass, but we're looking at a huge flying demon with good demon flavor. When you summon the demon, he shows up all wings a flappin' and harpies come with him! I can't wait to see the Harpy token artwork. Lots of possibilities there.

6/6 and flying for 7 mana. That's castable. Plus, it triggers a creature sacrifice, which is a very demon thing to do. Not a great thing to do, but a demon thing to do. The sacrifice is on every one of your upkeeps, though. At least he brings creatures with him. I'm not sure this demon makes the cut in my demon deck, but with such cool artwork I'll probably make it work or have one painted up as a token.

Remember that Bident we were talking about? No, not a trident! A bi-dent!

Well, now we get to see the god that wields it. And it's a doozy: Thassa, God of the Sea.

Thassa, God of the Sea
Legendary Enchantment Creature — God
Indestructible As long as your devotion to blue is less than five, Thassa isn’t a creature. (Each in the mana costs of permanents you control adds to your devotion to blue.) At the beginning of your upkeep, scry 1. : Target creature you control can't be blocked this turn.
	5/5

To be fair, this is the God of the Sea we're talking about here: he (she?) should be pretty awesome. There's a lot going on with this card and it's all kinds of good. Let's break it down.

It's Legendary, and Enchantment, a Creature, and a God. As I mentioned with the Trident, er Bident, that's a neat design choice that makes these guys feel unique. Something old and new.

Indestructible. Excellent.

Devotion is new for Theros and in-flavor with the god-theme. Commit to blue and be rewarded by the Sea God. It provides one of the blue mana symbols by itself, so we're looking for four more blue mana symbols to unleash the kraken.

But, even when it's not all creature-ified, you still get to scry 1 on your upkeep. Awesome. And, you can dish out unblockable to any creature for a measly 2 mana.

I'm a little disappointed that Thassa and the Bident don't obviously combo, other than supplying a couple of blue mana symbols to the devotion count and getting to draw a card off a now unblockable creature. Seems like they would have gone further in this direction. That said, I'd run the Sea God in my blue decks all day long.

Theros Spoiler: Bident of Thassa, Polukranos, World Eater

Spoiled cards are starting to trickle out for Theros. Check it out over at MTGSalvation.

I like the way things are shaping up with the "Greek" theme for this set. I'm not a "collector" per se. I mostly grab the cards that look cool to me to build a deck around. But, the Theros block might be the first set in a long time where I actually want at least one copy of every card. Block constructed is going to be neat, the art is cool, and the cards have a lot of flavor!

But, onto the new cards.

Up first, we've got a Legendary Enchantment Artifact. Yep. You read that right. The Bident of Thassa is a not only an Enchantment it's also an Artifact, plus it's blue! The picture is a little blurry, but it's clearly a bident and opposed to a trident. Take that spell-checker.

Bident of Thassa Legendary Enchantment Artifact Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you may draw a card. , : Creatures your opponents control attack this turn if able.

They already used up a cool concept with the Eldrazi by making them colorless without being artifacts. It works for the Eldrazi gods. But, the colors are important to give flavor to the Greek gods. They also already used up colored artifacts, first here and there in Future Sight, Shadowmoor, and Dissension, and then a bunch in the Alara block. So, how do we make the gods feel "godly?" Put a bunch of card types together!

It sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but this is a pretty good idea. It makes these cards feel like they are "from the gods" by giving us something new and old. Repetition on a theme is a wonderful thing.

Okay, but how about something new(ish) altogether? Polukranos, World Eater - here, have a sandwich.



I've been playing Magic for a long time, and for a while there I was worried about power creep. It's darn near miraculous that the designers have not been fully tempted to push each new set into power levels that make earlier sets irrelevant. Heroic even. It's happened in other games and it's not fun. With that said, I think they made an effort to push the power levels of creatures in particular so that the things about the game that are supposed to be fun are actually still fun. Creature combat anyone? For me, there's nothing quite like cartwheeling down a piece of cardboard and going into the red zone for the win.

Polukranos, in addition to having a large appetite, has a very flavorful and powerful ability without taking the focus off of the creature itself. This is a very cool card for green. Back in the day, a 5/5 for 4 would have been studly. Now, you get all that plus the ability to super size this bad boy and stomp other creatures in the process.

Epic Co-Op Magic Adventure in Theros?

So, Wizards announced the new Block a while back: Theros! In all its Greek-themed goodness.

We even have a couple of spoiled cards, including one pretty cool Hydra with a mouthful of a name, Polukranos. My fifth-grade root word lessons in Latin and Greek are making my spider-senses tingle in anticipation of this new set. Get ready to look stuff up!

What I'm really excited about is this article, "The Path of the Hero" over at Daily MTG. I'm excited because there's a chance we are going to see some kind of co-op / group encounter variation on Magic.

Cooperative games, where all of the players are fighting together instead of against one another, are cool in their own way. There's (almost) nothing worse than sitting down to a new game with an experienced player, having your ass handed to you, and then never playing again because who likes that? Ah, but if it's me and you working together, explaining the ins-and-outs, now were on to something.

At this point, the article makes it sound like more of a gimmick, that there will be these special Hero Cards you can earn through achievements at certain events. Okay, great. And at the end, there will be some kind of epic encounter called a Challenge Deck. The example they give is a Challenge Deck called, "Face the Hydra" where, "the Hydra follows a predetermined sequence of casting cards from its shuffled deck and blasting you for damage. The goal is to eliminate all of the Hydra heads before it eats you."

In and of itself, this doesn't sound all that exciting, especially if it really is predetermined. But, there is promise in this idea. Will there be other Challenge Decks? Maybe even multi-player Challenge Decks that a group of Heroes can face together? How cool would it be to shuffle up your Commander deck (now a Hero deck) and face some epic evil together?

Braids vs. Zur

I haven't been playing much Magic the past few weeks. Lots of other stuff keeps coming up. But, I did get a chance to play some 1vs1 against Chris with Zur the Enchanter.



We played three games. I ended up winning 2-1, but it was close. It all comes down to controlling Zur when he comes out. We did have a cool interaction involving Treachery and Captivating Glance as we fought over control of Zur. Chris played Zur, so I took him with Treachery. Then, Chris took him back with Captivating Glance. I had Future Sight out, so Chris knew that I was going to reveal Memnarch at the end of his turn and most likely take Zur back. But he had an answer for that! He cast an entwined Second Sight to set up our libraries in his favor.



Another cool play that Chris uses in his deck is Cytoplast Manipulator. With her out, I usually have to start paying around it or the next monster I drop may be my last.



I did change around the deck list for Gods, Robots, and Monsters and updated it over at tapped out. Check it out! (Copied below.) The jury is still out on a handful of cards while I try to make room for other cards that I think would be cool in include.

Creature (25)

• 1x Arcanis the Omnipotent
• 1x Artisan of Kozilek
• 1x Blightsteel Colossus
• 1x Braids, Conjurer Adept
• 1x Clone Shell
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Darksteel Colossus
• 1x Diluvian Primordial
• 1x Djinn of Wishes
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x It That Betrays
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Magus of the Future
• 1x Memnarch
• 1x Pathrazer of Ulamog
• 1x Phyrexian Ingester
• 1x Platinum Angel
• 1x Platinum Emperion
• 1x Sphinx of Magosi
• 1x Sphinx of Uthuun
• 1x Tidespout Tyrant
• 1x Treasure Mage
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 1x Ulamog's Crusher
• 1x Walking Atlas

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Confiscate
• 1x Control Magic
• 1x Eldrazi Conscription
• 1x Future Sight
• 1x Mind Control
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Treachery

Artifact (13)

• 1x Belbe's Portal
• 1x Darksteel Pendant
• 1x Gate to the AEther
• 1x Grafted Exoskeleton
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Omen Machine
• 1x Proteus Staff
• 1x Quicksilver Amulet
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Spine of Ish Sah
• 1x Temporal Aperture
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Sorcery (10)

• 1x All Is Dust
• 1x Blatant Thievery
• 1x Bribery
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Rite of Replication
• 1x Rush of Knowledge
• 1x Time Warp
• 1x Walk the Aeons

Land (39)

• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Halimar Depths
• 31x Island
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Remote Isle
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Soldevi Excavations

Instant (5)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Thirst for Knowledge

Shadowborn Apostle Demon Deck

Behold! Shadowborn Apostle from M14:



I haven't found anything official about this yet, but based on this post about Relentless Rats in EDH / Commander, I'm going to assume that playing a bunch of Shadowborn Apostle creatures in your Commander deck is totally cool.



For those of you who haven't seen this before, Relentless Rats has text that reads, "A deck can have any number of cards named Relentless Rats." So, even though there are normally limits to the number of cards that can have the same name in a constructed deck, Relentless Rats doesn't give a rip. Since Shadowborn Apostle is worded the same way, the same ruling is likely going to apply.

Bennie Smith posted a version of this deck in an article over at Star City Games. Check it out.

I like his deck, but I'm thinking that it might be fun to switch up my mono-black demons. It still follows the demon-theme, but the version with Shadowborn Apostle would have an entirely different spin to it. Plus, any excuse to play Thrumming Stone is a reason to give the deck a try.



Double plus, with this kind of shell, it makes running some of those more demon-y demons playable. Lots of the demons in Magic require a sacrifice to do your bidding. With enough Shadowborn Apostles, there would be plenty of flesh to feed the beasts.



Quick update, just do I don't forget. If you need a quick refresher, check out Spotlight: Rings of Brighthearth. The Shadowborn Apostle ability is an activated ability. See the {cost}:{effect} format? So, you can copy it with the Rings. Two demons for the price of one! Blamo.

Second Best? More like Last Best.

Over at Star City Games, Sheldon Menery posted an article called The Philosophy of Being Second Best. Give it a read!

This is a timely post, because I was going to write something about the game I played last week with my demons deck where I was in a terrible position all game and nearly won. Now, "nearly won" is the kind of thing you hear all the time, but I know when the difference between winning and losing is one more attack, one more spell, one more point of damage, or some other minor thing. This was one of those times.

It was a four player pod at my friendly local gaming store. We were given our table assignments, so I sit down to shuffle up. The kid next to me is pointing at his Ghost Chieftain and starts talking about how he was cleaning house just a second ago at the pre-game. I smiled and gave the raised eyebrow look to the other guys across the table. Yeah, he was toast. Everyone targeted him. It wasn't even spectacular. Just turn after turn of old fashioned beats. One down.



The guy across from me was playing Karona, but with a twist. His 5-color deck was Allies. It was actually pretty neat, without being too crazy. But, his team of Allies was growing. And dropping Karona into play meant swinging for bunches. He was toying with this idea until the other guy dropped a Blood Moon and ruined his plans.



The other guy was the guy who won. He had a nifty Norin the Wary deck that used Genesis Engine to pump out tokens along with Pandemonium to deal some hefty damage. Yeah, it was like that. Three damage per turn, each and every player's turn, adds up.

I'm sitting there doing what my black deck does. That is to say, I'm sitting there playing Swamps and not much else. With Pandemonium out, I was holding onto a few big demons, biding time until life totals around the table started to dwindle. I also had sweepers, like Black Sun's Zenith, to calm down the token army. But, it rarely pays to be too aggressive, so I just hung back behind a Pilgrim's Eye.

At one point, I cast my Commander (Nefarox) and pointed the 5 damage from the Pandemonium at the Karona player and passed. The Norin player, now on my left, did some crazy Skull Clamp dance on his tokens to draw a fistful of cards, but didn't cast anything. Here's the thing. The Karona player was at 15 life. I needed him at 13 to kill him on my turn, 6 damage from my exalted Commander and 7 damage off Pandemonium from the Lord of the Void I was holding. He passed his turn. I basically had nothing, just my tapped demon overlord. The Karona player had a full boat of allies with only the Blood Moon holding him back from running me over with the False God naming "ally."

He did the math and attacked the Norin player.

Norin went into exile, came back, and with the help of Pandemonium did the two damage I needed, just where I needed it. On my turn, Lord of the Void did the 7 damage and Nefarox did the rest. Now, the Norin player had one turn to kill me before any number of hideous, demon-themed things would happen to him. He dropped a Warstorm Surge, attacked with some tokens, then ended his turn. When Norin wandered back into play at the end of his turn, Pandemonium+Warstorm Surge+Genesis Chamber was enough to blow me up.

Busting Dark Depths

Dark Depths.



I've been cramming this card into my Commander decks for a while, longing to swing for lethal damage with a sweet, sweet 20/20 flying, indestructible, spaghetti monster.

There is a combo with Vampire Hexmage to remove all of the counters at once. Which is great if you are running black. Of course, I'm playing up a demons theme in black, so vampire creatures are out. I moved Dark Depths over to my blue deck (no Hexmage there). In that deck, I was trying to power out the token the hard way: one quarter at a time. No, wait, that's something else. I was stacking cards like Caged Sun to pump mana into the Depths. It's still 30 mana to unleash the beast, but for those games where things stall out it does act a bit like a pressure cooker as I remove the counters one... by... one.



If you haven't read it yet, there are some "big" rule changes coming with M14. One of the implications of these changes is that there is a new combo to bust Dark Depths without paying all that pesky mana. The combo is with Thespian's Stage. You can read more about this combo at MTGSalvation, but the way it works is that you use your Thespian's Stage to copy the Dark Depths that is already in play. When you do this, under the new rules, you can choose which copy of the legendary land to keep and which to sacrifice. Keep the Stage as a copy, which conveniently has no counters on it. The counters are placed on the Dark Depths when it "enters the battlefield." The copy never does, so it gets no counters. Bingo-bango. Spaghetti monster.



Several cool things are happening here. Both lands are colorless, so you can cram this combo into your Commander deck no matter who is sitting in the Command Zone. The Thespian's Stage is a good land in many cases anyway, so the Dark Depths is the only dead card in the combo. Oh, and lands can't be countered. Throw in Expedition Map to help you get one of the pieces and you are off to the filthy, filthy races.