Sets The Best Cards of Theros Block

[FlowerSunRain]

I’ve been slacking on my “articles” on the best cards in each set, which is a shame because I am officially declare the Theros block in the top three in Magic history. I love the mechanics, I love the design, I hate that so many cool cards are underpushed (but not dismayed!) and my current cube intimately reflects this love. I declared Gray Merchant of Asphodel the best card in Theros and some of the things that made me love that card can be seen reflected in my choices for its sister sets.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Born of the Gods





Chris Taylor eloquently declared that “BNG is essentially a set built to troll magic players”, which is somewhat true. Even someone as optimistic and open to trying stuff as myself has to admit there were slim pickings. I still have Hero of Leina Tower in my cube and regularly try to convince myself that its “great support” and “not complete garbage”. The mainstream favorite (slamdunk 360) Brimaz, King of Oreskos is just a pointlessly pushed, decisionless pile of stats which can’t interest me in the least. The new planeswalker, while providing reasonable gameplay and being of pleasant power level just doesn’t excite. This isn’t to say the set was all bad, as there were a handful great cards like Herald of Torment and the runner up for best card Courser of Kruphix, but cubers from the most stringent powermaxer to the loosest brewer were left wanting more.

With that less than glowing introduction, Ephara, God of the Polis, is an absolutely amazing card.
Engine cards in cube are funny things. If they are extremely general and pushed, they tend to be game dominating (see recurring nightmare). Most, however, require a lot of build around making cube a less then desirable home. Ephara falls precisely into the sweet spot, for two main reasons: 1) The engine requires you to build around a resource that is ubiquitous and 2) The devotion mechanic mutes the power level by allowing the opponent a means to interact with it.

Point one is fairly simple. Ephara draws you a card when you play a creature. Cubes usually contain plenty of creatures. Ephara isn’t picky about technicalities either, she counts any creature entering play, be it a creature card, a sorcery that returns one from your graveyard to play, a planeswalker's token making ability or even a land activation (like Kjeldoran Outpost and Moorland Haunt). Because of this very loose requirement for the engine, Ephara doesn’t constrain your design space or require you to support her any more than you support need to support Dictate of Heliod: just play creatures.

Point two may seem counter intuitive. When people think interactive, they probably don’t think of enchantments and certainly not indestructible enchantments. Cards like Moat are often looked down upon because many decks can’t really do anything about it. And honestly, is it reasonable to expect people to have cards that specifically interact with the 5 different permanent types in Magic? We don’t expect every deck to be able to interact with sorceries and instants, why should being able to interact with enchantments be a requisite? Cards like Moat are looked down upon with good reason: they force the game to come down to binary questions and answers rather than a more fluidly adapting gamestate.

Ephara completely embraces this better dynamic. By itself, the card does nothing. You need to cast creatures. Futhermore, even if you are able to cast one creature a turn without obstructing your gameplan, after three additional turns, you’ve gotten the value of a Concentrate, which isn’t exactly a powerful cube contender. Granted, Ephara can generate more value in the long term, but only if you draw creatures and only if the game lasts more than four turns after you play her. Being unable to interact with this part of the card is entirely irrelevant: by itself it’s not powerful enough to justify being able to interact with it anymore then one needs to interact with Concentrate. Also, the effect doesn’t do anything to hinder the opponent’s progress and it’s likely that the opponent is generating more value faster from their own four drop or just ending the game in some manner.

Again, this really isn’t making it sound like Ephara is an amazing card. The amazingness comes from combining this with the devotion half. Ephara becomes a powerful threat if you reach U/W devotion 7. In cube and particularly blue in cube, this if difficult to achieve, but the design of Ephara takes this into account. As you build towards devotion, namely by playing creatures, Ephara gives you cards, some of which will be more creatures! However, the opponent can actively hinder your ability to achieve devotion by killing your creatures or by attacking you for lethal amounts, forcing you to block. As creatures are the primary way in which interaction is achieved, having Ephara’s power level be tempered by the ability to remove them rather than the ability to remove Ephara herself is an amazing design decision. It is somewhat reminiscent of how creatures can attack planeswalkers rather then requiring players to have cards that specifically interact with them, though not as elegant for most of the gods. In Ephara’s case, though, the fact that her triggered ability depends on creatures makes the entire thing work fluidly without having to resort to the overused dynamic of “can I kill that specific card?” Few other cards have the depth of play experience where there is both an underlying baseline value of a card which is guaranteed along with a higher best case scenario that must be worked for and the opponent can spend resources to hinder.

All this is well and good, but with that said if the card doesn’t actually have a deck it goes in its all for naught. Fortunately, relying on creatures make it pretty simple to find a home. Add in white’s enchantment based removal and the abundance of flash creatures in these colors (which Ephara gets additional value out of) and its clear she can easily find a place. The fact that she, along with Geist of Saint Traft, encourages aggressive blue decks is icing on the cake.

Born of the Gods wasn’t a great set, but Ephara, God of the Polis is a triumph of great design.

 

[Suicufnoc]

I <3 Boon Satyr. I H8 tribute.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Chris Taylor eloquently declared that “BNG is essentially a set built to troll magic players”, which is somewhat true

Me and many others for reference. Nice article! I'm actually slotting her in again after creating a host of flicker stuff in blue and white

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Journey into Nyx



Unlike the predecessor, Journey into Nyx was extremely well received. Gridfillers could rejoice as White/Green got a planeswalker. The singleton crew was given expressed written permission to run two Cities of Brass. Plenty of gems were scattered through this set, including an awesome black one drop, a hilariously green sweeper, a surprise army of sphinxes, one of the coolest agro creatures ever, the first card to get the punisher mechanic dead on (also an awesome engine card!) and even an badass sheep. And that’s less than half of the good ones! Seriously, you can’t spit without hitting a cubable card in this set, it’s amazing. There are at least 5 cards that I could see declaring “the best card” in an average set, but as this isn’t an average set, it was really tough to pick one.

With that in mind, Underworld Coinsmith is the best card from Journey into Nyx.

Ok, so the down sides are obvious. It’s got bear stats. It shares the same casting cost as my favorite card from Dragon’s Maze. It relies on playing enchantments. It wants to be a deck lynchpin, but it dies tons of stuff. But, it has something else very valuable.

It ties things together.

Initially when I was considering this card, I thought "is this card really that much better then Lone Missionary, a card I wouldn't even play?" At first, the comparison is tempting. They are both 2 power 2 drops. They both gain you life. In the average case, Lone Missionary gains you more life, giving a giant 4 up front, which the coinsmith requires 3 enchantments to match. Do the other benefits of the cards really make up for the lower initial lifegain and more restrictive casting cost?

Obviously if I'm declaring it the best card in a great set, the answer is going to be a resounding yes. First, it has two toughness. People underrate that second toughness so much, not realizing how often it comes up. Not dying to every pinger, small end of every dividable burn, being able to attack into a utility dude or 1/1 token and being able to block said creatures individually don't seem like much, but taken cumulatively, these things happen all the time. That second toughness means a lot, particularly since coinsmith continues to generate value the longer he lives, not due to, in no small part, the fact that he has a second ability.

Let's be honest here, the second ability is garbage. If it was on a card by itself, you never play it, but fortunately that's not the case. The mutual life loss ability lets you grind out wins in long games when you need reach. Its completely relevant to the types of decks that are going to run the coinsmith and another part of what puts him above lone missionary.

Orzhov Guildmage is a another very similar card. It gains life, has a mutual life loss ability, the important 2 toughness and even has a more generous casting cost, and yet this is also a card no one cares about. The reason here should be obvious: its much too mana intense. While the coinsmith requires a lot of mana to give you reach, you won't need to use that ability until the opponent is in reach or you are otherwise gassed. Orzhov Guildmage requires you to pump mana into it to do something other then be a bear and that something is just too marginal to pay mana for.

All of this is probably irrelevant though as most people are probably saying something along the lines of "being better then two cards I don't give a shit about isn't impressing me" and they would be right. The key to the coinsmith being an excellent card for tying things together is a combination of his colors and his contribution to an enchantments matter theme.

If anyone remembers me musing over lifegain in cube, they would know that the primary vehicle for the deck type was white/black using lifegain engines to fuel life payment engines and lifegain triggers. Those of us who tried it have found varying success: Jason Waddell has written articles on it and I've personally found the archetype to be fun. The coinsmith is an amazing addition because he helps with both halves of the equation: he both gains life and spends it. Granted, he's not the most efficient card at either end, but being both has its advantages.

However the most vital thing about the card is that it creates a crossover to a second archetype: enchantress. Black and red were pretty isolated from the enchantress decks, making them unattractive to support, but Journey into Nyx has given black some great constellation cards that bring it into the fold (red got, umm, Forgeborn Oreads?). Not only does the coinsmith fall into this collection, he also links enchantments to the lifegain! Suddenly, the seemingly incompatible can worth together. The coinsmith isn't fighting with Tithe Drinker for a slot, they both belong in the cube together, along with Ajani's Pridemate, Phyrexian Reclamation, Grim Guardian and Flickering Ward. Being an enchantment himself, he triggers enchantresses and constellations when he enters play and in return any enchantments after he is played gain you life and trigger any effects that doing so might in a symbiotic fashion. A card that both supports multiple themes and progresses the game while also creating competition, not by being wanted in more then one deck, but instead by making two existing decks want the same cards, is a work of true design beauty.

Maybe you don't want to support lifegain and enchantress, so you don't give a crap about Underworld Coinsmith. I can understand that. Most people don't and possibly shouldn't. However, a card that can do so much is a thing of beauty and hopefully will at least inspire you to wonder how card choice and design might be able to tie together two subthemes that you do enjoy, but seeming can't both fit in your cube. It inspired me to take the plunge and get deep into new design space, for which I couldn't be happier with a piece of cardboard.

 

[Jonas]

It's too early in the morning when I readit as underworld colonsmith.

But hey, nice articles.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Thanks for the kind words guys.