Born of the Gods...Magic the Gathering set review.

I pre-ordered my first ever booster box of Magic The Gathering cards in January, on the first day that they allowed me to at the Tangled Web in Spartanburg.  I was solidly excited...I love Greek styled things like the God of War video games, and I have a Fat-Pack box full of Theros cards from the previous set.

All through January, I kept up with the web chatter about the upcoming set, as was a little disappointed that more awesome stuff wasn't revealed.  This is billed as a small set...165 cards as opposed to 249 cards in a big set.

In the Pre-Release, it seemed no one hardly got any gods or planeswalkers.  I have yet to see an Ephara card.

I told myself, "Well, I am getting a box in a week.  I will get some good stuff."

What I really wanted was outlined in this post.  I didn't hardly get any of this stuff.  The one copy of Phenax was nice...How about three more, or at least an Ephara.  (Unreasonable, you say.  I got three copies of Tromokratis.  And Three copies of Eater of Hope!!  ARGGH)

No Brimaz.  In fact, I have only seen one, in the case at the store for $40!  (The only way I am going to get him for the fencing ace deck is trading or out of a booster pack.)  No Herald of Torment.

I only got one Phenax, and one Kiora.  I got a Mogis as well, but traded him to SpartanNerd #1  (He wanted it really bad).   I also got that Chromanticore for my hopeless Mazes End deck.  On the other hand I bet I have a playset of each common.   I got plenty of uncommons, but almost no complete playsets of them.   But I thought I would at least have four copies of Bile Blight or Searing Blood.  Nope.  One copy of Bile Blight.  That's it.  I am going to have to pay out or trade for more copies.  (That was a card I was really hoping to get four copies of.)

MY RATING

I am pleased with my investment...It was good savings and a way for me to jump into the new set.  But I didn't score anything major with a box of boosters.  I was left still wanting.  And I don't like that one bit.  I know, they are called Mythic Rare for a reason.  But a person who orders a booster box is a loyal customer, and should be rewarded better.

My booster box gets a 2\5.  I am a loyal customer.  I will pre-order another.  I know it is a gamble.  This time I feel I have a foundation,  but not the nice house on top.

The Born of the Gods set gets a 3\5.  What are we comparing it too?  I would give Theros a 5\5. I would give Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash both 5\5.  Core Set 2013 Also gets 5/5.  So there's your reference, readers.  BOG is OK.  It seems to continue to support the Black devotion strategy well, and adds options for beatdown decks.  Tribute is a wicked mechanic, while Inspired promises to create some combos.  I hate that they axed Monstrosity, however.  The new god cards are nice, but I wish they had weapons, and I also wish their devotion requirements weren't so high.  Some of the rares in this set seem to be as powerful as uncommons in some other sets.  Then there are a few useless cards...Eater of Hope (I now own 5 copies!) Heroe's Podium, Champion of Stray Souls, Nessian Wilds Ravager, etc.  BOG scores 3/5 because it does work well with Theros, but on its own, it is kind of weak.

Drafting with Born of the Gods

First of all, I should say I had a blast drafting with Theros.  I figured out it was best to make a Heroic flavored deck, and that worked out really well for me.  So I figured Born of the Gods should be as fun to draft.

Not exactly this time.  Not that it was un-fun.  But I wasn't very lucky with my card pool.  This time I have grown as a player quite a bit, and was able to manage.

At the Tangled Web, there were 40 entrants into the release day draft.  Our draft consisted of one Theros booster, and two Born of the Gods boosters.  We opened the Theros booster pack first.

The rare in my Theros pack was Prophet of Kruphix.

This is a card that I owned one of already, but never played, not being a Green-Blue "Simic" player.  But I new this card was killer, and so I said to myself, "I guess I am going to make a green-blue deck."  I played blue the week prior in the sealed deck pre-release tournament, so I was sort of familiar with the new blue cards...I felt this would work in my advantage.  (I was right about that.)

My other rares were Whelming Wave and Tromokratis.  Not bad.  Two blue cards.  I drafted two Floodtide Serpents.  And almost every card I got the rest of the night was blue or green.  I drafted some chumps, including a couple of copies of Kiora's Follower.  Too bad I couldn't have a Kiora, The Crashing Wave.  I only hate-drafted 5 cards.  (drafted cards I couldn't use because I had to or because of value...not so much this time.  I did hate-draft Heroe's Podium...A rare but bad card for limited.)

I basically tried the strategy of bombing the board with Whelming Wave at the right time.  That was my plan.  If Floodtide Serpent or Tromokratis were out, basically that ensured victory.  The new twist wast the Prophet of Kruphix.  She allowed me to flash in my creatures, and was over-all a game changer.  Too bad she is so weak as a fighter.  (2/3)

The people in my 8-person pod in general didn't draw any gods or planeswalkers.  There was a lot of moaning and groaning about how bad our packs were!

I built a solid, good deck.  It just wasn't quite good enough.  The red and black decks were crazy, and white wasn't bad either.  I also played against one fringe player who built five colors in order to play the two gods he got, and the Chromanticore he got also.  (Lucky dog.)  At the end of the tournament I was ranked right in the middle at 20.  Not bad for my fifth time ever drafting!

Check my next post for how I feel about Born of the God's in general!