Tag: stormcaller-of-keranos

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Bruce Gray - July 10, 2014

Crack a pack MTG Born of the Gods with Bruce

Crack a pack MTG -BNG Boosters

 

Crack a pack MTG Born of the Gods with Bruce

by Bruce Gray -Casual Encounters

 

This week I will be opening a pack of Born of the Gods  and go through the top five cards and the first pick from the pack if you were drafting.  This is a follow up to last week’s Theros pack and acts as a bit of bridge towards the full block Theros draft.  Let’s have a look and see what we’ve got.

 

 

Rare:

 

 

Uncommons:

 

 

 

Commons:

 

 

 

Foil

 

 

 

Once again we have a fairly mediocre pack just like last week. A good starting point is always the rare but in this pack we have an awful card to draft first.  Plea for Guidance is a lovely way to tutor up enchantments, but it is terrible as a first pick.  You have no idea what direction your deck will be headed, it costs 6 mana for a sorcery that simply tutors up enchantments, and has no impact on the board.  No, this is a terrible choice for first pick, so we need to go deeper into this pack for some other things.

 

Once I’ve discounted the rare  (because it’s AWFUL) there are a few things that grab my attention. The first one is Siren of the Fanged Coast.  I always like playing blue and this gives you a very solid creature to start with.  It can either be a 4/4 flier (aka Air Elemental) or if your opponent is feeling particularly dense lets you take control of their creature.  In either case, this card is good and something that will a good long look to be first pick.

 

Everflame Eidolon is another good card because of the ridiculously aggressive cost of its Bestow ability.  Sure, it is 2 mana for a 1/1 with Firebreathing, but it Bestows for a very reasonable 3 mana.  If nothing else, using it as an aura is its intended purpose.  Don’t believe me?  Remember the Bestow costs in Theros?  Spearpoint Oread is a 2/2 for 3 mana and Bestows for 6. 6 mana! That’s huge! By comparison the Everflame Eidolon is HALF of that, gives your creature +1/+1 AND firebreathing. In draft, aggressive red decks love this guy and abuse him all day long.

 

Swordwise Centaur is another reasonable choice for first pick.  A 3/2 for 2 mana is solid and this just does work.  He’s gets down early, applies early pressure, and if you end up playing the devotion game is a solid devotion engine too.  The lack of other relevant abilities probably means that this guy isn’t picked first, but if you have your heart set on green you’ll give him a long hard look.

 

Pheres Band Tromper is another solid green card giving this pack two very good green cards.  3/3 for 4 mana is a good sized body and isn’t over priced, but the Inspired trigger to make it bigger is super relevant and makes this a very strong card.  Let’s be real…if you’re the type of player who likes to play green you love to turn creatures sideways and smash.  The Tromper rewards you handsomely for doing that and in the process makes you and even BIGGER beat stick.

 

The last card of real interest in this pack is Loyal Pegasus.  A 2/1 for 1 and has flying is always of interest, even with the drawback.  I would be less likely to get super excited for the Pegasus, but there are always people who want to force the aggro train and will jump on this as the entry point to an aggressive White based deck.

 

The other cards in this pack are very lacklustre. Stormcaller of Keranos is interesting for the repeatable scry effect, but a 2/2 for 3 with haste doesn’t really excite me.  Griffin dreamfinder is another reasonable card, but a 5 drop that is a 1/4 hardly scares anyone.  I’ve said as much before but Felhide brawler is a pretty poor “Grizzly Bear”.  A 2/2 for with a drawback makes this quite undesirable unless you are the B/R Minotaur deck. Crypsis, I suppose, could be a fun little combat trick, I would hardly take this early in the draft because I’m sure I’ll see several copies in the later rounds. Eye Gouge could be a perfectly reasonable choice because it kills a number of important creatures from Vaporkin, to Soldier of the Pantheon, to Sigiled Skink and Sedge Scorpion.  If you can nab a Cyclops with it, all the better. Grisly Transformation and Evanescent Intellect are both lacklustre auras that should be avoided in most cases.  Finally, Culling Mark is just a bad card and not worth wasting a selection…it will be the card forced at the end of the round.

 

So, top five cards we have in this pack:

 

  1. Everflame Eidolon
  2. Siren of the Fanged Coast
  3. Pheres Band Tromper
  4. Swordwise Centaur
  5. Loyal Pegasus

 

First pick:

 

Really, there are only 2 cards worth considering as a FIRST pick.  The others on this list are nice cards and can play big roles in a number of decks, but really only Siren of the Fanged Coast and Everflame Eidolon would be serious contenders to be first picked.  The Siren is unfortunately a Tribute card, meaning you could find yourself taking control of your opponent’s Nyxborn Rollicker or other innocuous creature instead of getting a 4/4 flier, but in most cases you’ll be getting a 4/4 flier which is pretty strong.  The Eidolon isn’t as powerful by itself, but the pretty inexpensive Bestow makes something else pretty frightening…particularly because if you can slap it on a Heroic creature, well, you’re off to the races.  At the end, the fact that the Siren is most consistently a 4/4 flier, and you aren’t looking to attach it to something like the Eidolon, makes the Siren a better choice and my pick for 1st pick in this pack.

 

Well, there we have it…our Crack a Pack for Born of the Gods all primed up for you.  I hope you enjoyed reading.  Next week we’ll crack a Journey into Nyx pack just before we start looking at M15 pack.  Until next week, take care and may you open many Mythic Bombs.

 

Bruce Gray -Casual Encounters
@bgray8791