Theros Set Review: Answers

Welcome back! I am Grandpa Growth and this is part two of the General Zone's set review of Theros. If you missed the first part, make sure you scroll all the way down and check it out. Today we are going to be discussing the answer cards in the set.

Answers cards are things you use to stop threats and thus stop your opponent from winning the game. They can also be answer to answers. Sometimes they can be preemptive disruption. Things like counterspells, creature removal, land destruction, discard effects, and hate cards all fall into the this category. Let's just jump right in and you can see for yourself.

We will kick things off with a flavorful top down design that is drawn directly from the myth of the titan Prometheus who, in punishment for stealing the secret of fire from the gods, was chained to a mountain for eternity and was constantly eaten by vultures, but never died.

As far as this removal spell goes, I am not a big fan. It is limited to being played only in the various combinations of Red and White, none of which are very appealing and there is NO competitive level deck that contains both colors. Depending on who you ask it is a legal maneuver to place any type of basic land card in your deck even if it doesn't match the color identity of your commander.

If this is an axiom that you support then you could just include a fetchable mountain in any brew containing White so that you would be able to then play this, but...well let's just say that might be going too deep. One drop removal is good, but it is good because it is cheap, convenient, and efficient. This card gets countered by Strip Mine. You don't have to make it this easy on your opponent.

I have a problem with the templating updates they had made in recent sets. Previously, removal like this or Oblivion Ring had two separate abilities that told you exactly what to do and when to do it. Maybe it was a bit wordy, maybe it had the unintended consequence of working a bit strange if the triggers got clogged up on the stack and the creature was gone forever, but it worked just fine. Now we have the current wording of "until blah blah leaves the battlefield." How is this in anyway better if we now need additional reminder text anyway?

Watch the video, that's all I can think about when I see this card. I just imagine it is Achilles and he is pointing at the beaches of Troy and the Myrmidon are just out of view to the left.

This card is really kind of a joke, it looks alright on the surface, but it's really pretty horrible. Bouncing the creature kills the aura. You have a big window to kill the creature a second time before the aura becomes reattached and it doesn't do anything if the creature is exiled from the battlefield or at instant speed while it is in the graveyard. It is probably just worse than making your creature Indestructible or giving it some sort of Shroud effect.

Huge flavor fail: The Gods are immortal. Which is modeled within the mechanics as having the Indestructible keyword. This, for some reason, works differently. Also, it literally says dies on the card. Immortal things don't die; that is was im-mortal means. This should be called gift of resurrection or revival or reconstitution or something. Just saying.

BAAAAAAACCCCCOOOOOONNNN!!!!!! This card is everything you wanted an a ham sandwich. It is a Sorcery, which sucks, but it is a Pongify that you can point at multiple creatures and the exile effect is always significant upgrade to every removal spell. The next time your opponent starts to breathe down your neck with a squad of giant brutes, tell them to stick a pork in it. I think you guys know I could do this all day, so we better just move on before things slip out of hand....because they are lubed up with bacon grease.

This is a potentially very powerful effect. Anyone who has ever played Condescend can attest to how sick it is to stop a threat and then top a great card on the Scry. If you aren't playing Condescend I really don't know that is wrong with you. Maybe this just isn't your game. Try Go Fish instead.

Only getting to Scry 1 is pretty lame; it gets exponentially more powerful the higher that number gets, but having a hard counter is a nice consolation. I will be giving this a try, but there are already plenty of better counterspells in print. It will have to take something better than this to make me trade in my Cryptic Commands for something new.

Remember everything I just said? Good, think about it while looking at this card, but now we will compare to Daze. This card is not as good as Daze. Free is way better than cheap...and for what you are getting, this card isn't exactly a bargain.

The only reason I bother mentioning it is to make a point about soft counters in Commander. People tend to think that they are bad because games always go long and you will have a bunch of extra lands, thus allowing you to pay huge sums of extra mana to defeat Mana Leaks, and Power Sinks, and so on.

Want to hear a secret? People never stop tapping out in Commander. Mana utilization is at its absolute peak in this format. Spells are ridiculously expensive and even Force Spike type effects will easily find targets. They tend to hit at the best possible times as well: People will leave up exactly enough mana for their counter spell or will wait to play a threat with counter backup, but will rarely consider the need to pay extra mana for said counter spell. Seasoned Legacy veterans will play around Daze LITERALLY every chance they get. Lucky for us, most people in a game of Commander are casual players and have zero discipline when it comes to this type of thing.

Usually counter spells say, "No." This one says a different word...and it is bird. Bird is the word. One mana counters are fantastic. Pretty much universally playable in every format. This one has much more flexibility than most, but it has a potentially serious drawback.

This will most likely stop it from seeing play in Legacy or Modern, which should keep the price down. In Commander a 2/2 isn't as relevant, but Flying is a huge bonus and the prevalence of equipment means you could just be trading one threat for another. I don't believe this is as strong as Spell Pierce, particularly because it can't stop Planeswalkers, but it shouldn't be too far behind.

YES!!! We got there! Instant speed planeswalker destruction with no drawbacks! I feel so fulfilled. This is flexible, powerful, efficient, and sure to cost a million dollars because it is going to be seeing a ton of play in virtually every format except Legacy where better options, albeit very few, are available. Not much else to say here. Get copies, play them. You won't be disappointed.



I don't always play Red, but when I do I play control. I play Volcanic Fallout. I play Pyroclasm. I play Slagstorm. I will play this as well.

Exiling is a nice bit of added value, but isn't really necessary since this will mostly be killing tokens and low-value utility creatures. It just doesn't do enough damage to kill the types of things that you would want to reanimate anyway. The format doesn't really need another Red token hoser, but options are always nice and this has much better flavor than the alternatives which does appeal to some (silly) people.


Well this is it. Short list from this set, but there were definitely some good cards and don't forget that there were plenty of reprints that would normally be discussed if they just had different names.

I am a huge fan of Hull Breach. This card is pretty far behind in terms of power, but there is always going to be a need for Artifact and Enchantment removal. Damage to the face isn't all that relevant, but this gives you a way to power up any Bloodthirst creatures you have or get a Rakdos, Lord of Riots into play.

I will be back soon with the final installment of the review: Utility and mana cards. I hope you are enjoying your week long celebration of all things Grandpa, see you soon!