like about Theros: both the original set and this return are absolutely jam packed with lore and
references, great art and very powerful cards. All three of those points will be being touched on
throughout this article where I'm going to be taking a look at all of the Mythic Rares from Theros
Beyond Death and breaking them down to see if they really are as powerful as they may first look.
Ashiok, Nightmare Muse
We’ve come a long way from the original Ashiok - which was virtually unplayable back in the day by
the way. From the humble beginnings in original Theros, Ashiok has returned as a much more
versatile Planeswalker being able to...well, see play for a start. Sure they’ve found their way higher
up the mana curve but it’s all for good reason. Every part of Ashiok, Nightmare Muse is value, from
the creation of a 2/3 that can start to tear your opponent’s library up to bouncing a nonland permanent
and getting a card out of their hand for good measure. The ultimate isn’t nothing either and it’s one I
can see being used multiple times throughout a grindy matchup, as it doesn’t take long to get to seven
loyalty and the value you can get from using your opponent’s creatures, exiled with Ashiok’s various
abilities, to block can allow you to build the loyalty back up. Ashiok, Nightmare Muse is a brilliantly
designed Planeswalker: it can protect itself the turn it comes down and nets you value at your
opponent’s expense without being too overpowered or game-breaking. I expect Ashiok to see play in
both standard and pioneer in a slightly midrange control deck and, if angled correctly, could take over
games single-handedly. A good Mythic to get us off to a good start.
Ashiok, Sculptor of Fears
Ashiok, Sculptor of Fears is the Planeswalker deck version of the blue-black Planeswalker and,
while not being strictly in line with the majority of other Planeswalkers, still feels a bit pushed in
comparison to other Planeswalker deck Planeswalkers. First off, it doesn’t protect itself, which
means you’re going to be doing some work to keep it around. Secondly, you can’t use it’s minus
ability the turn you play it which does slide it farther down the good-card spectrum. Lastly, it costs
six. The reason I like this version of Ashiok is because it’s not as hand-holdy as other Planeswalkers
in the same capacity, at no point on this Planeswalker are you finding a card called “Ashiok’s Homie”
or whatever, instead it provides you with an actual ability in the form of Reanimate. I genuinely think
that Ashiok, Sculptor of Fears could see play as a one of in hyper control decks, ones that use it as
their top end alongside something like Liliana to really grind your opponent out and eventually steal
their creatures and the game. Planeswalker deck Planeswalkers are always a bit of a grey area when
it comes to evaluation, even though I do like this version of Ashiok, I don’t think it hits the Mythic status, especially now we live in a world with Planeswalkers at three of the four rarities.
Athreos, Shroud Veiled
The Buy-a-Box promos will always come under heavy scrutiny, thanks entirely to Nexus of Fate.
The thing about Buy-a-Box promos now is that they are only available when you by a box - hence the
name - and thus will never see limited play so balancing them isn’t as much of an issue, that comes
with a flipside however which is that the power level has no base-line and is therefore all over the
place. Sometimes you get top-of-the-curve powerful like Nexus of Fate and sometimes you get The
Haunt of Hightower. Athreos is expensive, slow and with the whole “enchantments matter” being a big theme again, there are multiple ways of dealing with the black-white god. I think the effect is pretty cool and flavourful, being able to steal your opponent’s creatures after they die thanks to the god of passage, I just don’t think it’s anywhere near fast enough to see constructed play. There’s an
argument for the Buy-a-Box promos being for a more casual/commander audience, to which I would
respond with “NEXUS OF FATE”. Be it a glitch in the design processor or much more worrying, that
card exists and has warped what it means to be a Buy-a-Box promo. For playability reasons I don’t
feel that Athreos has hit the Mythic mark.
Calix, Destiny’s Hand
This is about as narrow as a Planeswalker can get, it has the word Enchantment on it four times!
Honestly, I'm not sure where Calix is supposed to fit into any metagame. Sure, Theros Beyond Death
brings with it a tonne of enchantments, some even in the form of creatures, but that doesn’t bring
Calix close to being playable in constructed. You see, his defensive ability is a good one to start with
because it’s the bad one, why is it bad I hear you ask? Because it’s conditional on you having an
enchantment of your own to keep the exiled card exiled. Presumably you would already have some
creatures out before you drop Calix on turn four and presumably in this deck some of those creatures
would be enchantment creatures to keep the theme going. Presumably you would have to target one
of those enchantment creatures to exile something. So what happens when your opponent has a
removal spell for said enchantment creature? Not only are you down a creature but you’ve put you
Calix down to one loyalty, and even worse the card you exiled may have had an “enter the battlefield"
ability just to rub it in. My point is you’re going to have to put in some extra work to keep not only Calix but also your own enchantment that you’ve targeted with the green-white Planeswalker around, and let me tell you that’s not easy. The first ability is perfectly fine, helping you find gas by digging deeper into your deck, it’s value 101 if a bit restricted to enchantments but whatever. The ultimate sucks big time and I think more often than not will result in your losing Calix and replacing him with three or four mediocre creatures and maybe a Banishing Light or something. Calix plays reasonably well in limited but does play the “build around me” role alot: if you see him early in a draft then you can draft accordingly and pickup all the enchantment creatures to maximise value, if you see him at the start of pack three then your draft up until that point may not have enough enchantments to really utilise Calix. As far as constructed goes, maybe Abzan Enchantments could be a good home for Calix as he digs you to your Doom Foretold and utility enchantments, but honestly I don’t think the deck neither needs another four drop that just ends up slowing your game down nor is even playable. Calix misses the Mythic status for me, not powerful enough.
Elspeth, Sun’s Nemesis
See Calix, this is how you Planeswalker.
Elspeth is back! I mean we all knew that the minute Theros Beyond Death was announced but still,
she’s back! Elspeth has trundled around in the underworld for a while but has finally clawed her way
out and is ready to rumble. I love every part of this card: the mana cost, all three abilities being minus
abilities, the new Escape keyword and definitely the starting loyalty. Every ability on this white
Planeswalker screams value, starting with the -2 ability that protects herself really efficiently by making two 1/1’s and allowing you to chump multiple creatures and maybe over multiple turns. She can also give you a more aggressive stance with her -1, maybe even allowing those soldiers she made a turn earlier get into the red zone, and lastly her -3, an ability that can really help draw you back into the game late on. The most value thing on Elspeth however is the Escape keyword, a keyword that allows you to get recursive value from a card type that already gave you recursive value. It’s a no brainer that Elspeth, Sun’s Nemesis makes it to Mythic Rare, I don’t think she will see much play in the constructed meta-game right now but I’m sure she will make her way in eventually with the amount of power being offered here.
Elspeth, Undaunted Hero
Now onto the other Planeswalker deck Planeswalker: Elspeth, Undaunted Hero. I quite like this
Planeswalker deck Elspeth, mainly for its devotion potential thanks to the three white pips in the mana cost but also because she’s an aggressive white Planeswalker and those are always fun.
The downside is her second ability being restricted to finding a single creature, granted that one
creature is fairly aggressive but having one loyalty ability that has such a narrow effect traditionally
hasn’t played particularly well in the past, as most of the other Planeswalker deck Planeswalker can
attest to. Having her plus and ultimate ability give you an aggressive board position and a way of
closing out a game could be utilised in constructed for the smaller white decks that need a top end
powerhouse. Ultimately, I think Elspeth, Undaunted Hero will miss out on constructed play but as I
alluded to before, the devotion theme is a strong theme if you can power it up and if there’s one thing
Elspeth, Undaunted Hero does well is power up devotion. Just misses on the Mythic Rare stance but
still a powerful option.
Erebos, Bleak-Hearted
This is the first of the gods in the main set that we’re going to look at today and the black god has a
fair bit to offer. First of all, Erebos is costed quite nicely at four mana which means that it can play on
the swing turn and really help you turn the corner. He turns all of your creatures into card draw which
is very powerful, though it is at the cost of two life each time, and he can help keep the board in check and make combat a breeze. You need to keep up a consistent flow of creatures coming for Erebos to be able to flex a bit but if you can then he makes the game so much easier. I think Erebos has enough utility and a high enough power level to make Mythic but I do think that the current meta isn’t in need of a reusable removal/card advantage/threat like this four mana god gives you. The creatures are rather large right now and when you’re trying to fight against cards like Hydroid Krasis that not only draws cards but GAINS life, crazy I know, it’s hard to justify the hoops you have to jump through with Erebos.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned
This card alone has already bred new types of mono white decks. White is known for its military-like
stance throughout the Magic Multiverse, it stands for law and order, peace and nobility, all for one and one for all. The unit as a whole is stronger than a single member of that unit is the point and along with that comes the ability to reinforce one another, here in the form of +1/+1 counters. Take the natural state of the majority of mono white decks through Magic’s history: they tend to be low to the ground, creature based strategies with a bit of catch all disruption that hinges on your opponent getting off to a slow start. They don’t have much long game and if faced with a reasonable sized roadblock, can’t always reliably answer it and progress. Well, that all changs thanks to Heliod. The creatures used in mono white decks are often quite fragile and therefore have a terrible habit of dying in combat fairly inefficiently against the other creature based decks in the format and you’re usually not fast enough to force control decks to step out of their one-for-one trade setup. Heliod answers both of those problems with alarming efficiency by being an early threat and giving you an abundance of long game plans to work with. You’re no longer forced to do battle with a flurry of low-powered creatures, instead you can get a nice engine going with something like Healer’s Hawk or Ajani’s Pridemate as early as turn 3.
Oh and when I say threat I’m talking about the worst type of threat, the type of threat that sits there and you can do nothing about it but you know that at some point you’re going to get got and it’ll be
completely out of the blue. The worst part: you knew it was coming the whole time. Heliod’s
Indestructible nature means your opponent is going to be jumping through hoops just to keep this
three mana god off the table.
You don’t even have to meet the devotion for Heliod to make your opponent rethink every combat step for fear of being blown out of the water by a life gain spell that results in your creatures becoming gigantic threats.
I would expect by now that you’ve realised where I stand on Heliod’s power level. This is a Mythic
through and through and you should expect to see the white god a lot over the upcoming standard
metagame.
Kiora Bests the Sea God
Big, splashy, possibly game ending, I think this is an easy one for the Mythic Rare list. I will say that
the playability of this card is definitely questionable but that’s not all what being a Mythic Rare is about.
Mythic Rares are supposed to be flavourful, slightly higher powered cards that give players enjoyment when they see them for the first time, they’re not all supposed to be the best cards in the format. Kiora Bests the Sea God gives you a glimpse of the battle Kiora had with Thassa when we were last on Theros. The first chapter depicts the many sea monsters both the Planeswalker and the God summoned by giving you an 8/8 Kraken, where the third chapter shows Kiora escaping with not only her life but also with Thassa’s Bident, Dekella. The flavour’s on point, the power level is up there and the art isn’t half bad. Sure it’s costly but it will end games in limited and you’ll have a fun, flavourful time doing it.
Klothys, God of Destiny
Klothys is up there for one of the most powerful cards in the set. The effects that she gives you may
look a bit innocuous at first - a mana here, 2 life and a Shock there - but if you think that then you’re
missing the whole point: this is virtually incremental value, an advantage that adds up turn after turn
until your opponent has succumbed to the inevitable. At three mana Klothys allows you to get off to
some very silly starts and, coupled with a mana dork on turn one, they can happen as early as turn
three. The extra mana keeps you a turn ahead of your opponent, or if you’re on the play it can keep
you on par which can be just as important, but realistically the effect at play here is tied to you exiling
nonland cards. Going back to what I was saying earlier, Klothys provides what is functionally
incremental value, giving you a little bit each turn that mounts up and what better things to do that with than damage and life. Imagine Klothys in an aggressive deck that wants to hit its curve and have
everything be a threat, you’ve probably already done a decent amount of damage before Klothys is
even in play and from that point onwards your damage output is probably representing a two-three
turn clock. The other side to that effect isn’t nothing, 2 life is a good chunk and it can help nullify any
attacks from smaller creatures in the early game, it can also be the thing that keeps you in the game
late on. As was with Heliod, Klothys isn’t one of those gods you strive to meet the devotion
requirements with. Instead she sits there and keeps your opponent on their toes and constantly
keeping an eye on their life total, her power level is way up there and I think she deserves a lot more
attention than she’s currently being given. Slam dunk Mythic.
Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger
I really like the flavour of this set. Between the mystical, ethereal nature of the Nyx plane and many,
many fables involving mythical beasts, gods and the merging of the land of the living and the dead,
Theros does a fantastic job of world building and entwining that with lore. One of the more flavourful
parts of Theros: Beyond Death is the Escape mechanic. Throughout the set it’s used to show
something going to the underworld and making its return, but in the case of the Titans - Kroxa and Uro which we will touch on later - to me it symbolises their binding to the underworld initially before being let loose to ravage the plane of Theros. Flavour aside, these titans are incredibly powerful and have an immediate effect which helps playability but the main thing to focus on is how reusable Kroxa is.
If you can keep your graveyard fueled then you have a relentless four mana 6/6 monster that tears
your opponent’s hand apart and takes decent chunks off their life too. This is another card that I don’t
think will get much love until we have a meta shift, it is certainly powerful but in a world where
everybody is Teferi-ing and Hydroid Krasis-ing, Kroxa appears a tad too slow. Powerful enough to hit the Mythic mark but I think there’s much more to come from the red black titan.
Nylea, Keen-Eyed
Green decks have had a turbulent time of late: with the addition of pioneer, mono green decks were all the rage until Leyline of Abundance got hit with a ban. Then the deck was tried in modern and
standard, to little avail, but you can still find some of them out there. With all the power that the peak
pioneer version had at its disposal however, I don’t think it would’ve wanted Nylea, Keen-Eyed in the deck. That deck was packed with tonnes of creatures so you’d think she would be a good fit but the problem is the volume of her ability is narrow, as in it only nets you one card and that’s only if it’s a creature. She’s a little slow, being one of the four mana gods in the cycle but also due to her ability
either making you spend three mana in your turn or leaving three mana up constantly. Unless you can
stack your deck Nylea’s ability is a bit meh and the reduction to costs isn’t really relevant when you
have mana dorks around. All in all, I don’t really see this as a Mythic Rare. She’s too inconsistent and
honestly arbitrary for me.
Nyxbloom Ancient
Big dumb creature that triples your mana output. It’s splashy and if you have something to do with all
that mana then you’re golden. This is the type of Mythic Rare that players are excited to see when the
open a booster because it does something so unnecessarily powerful that it instantly gets them
thinking about how they can use it in the most broken ways possible.
Ox of Agonas
I really wanted this one to work, I really did. Ox of Agonas has a lot of potential but I fear it’s going to be narrow potential at best. Let me elaborate: at the time of writing standard has some graveyard
strategies going on, not as much as modern or even pioneer now but it still has some. Chief amongst
those are Arclight Phoenix which Ox plays very well in as you want to discard any drawn Phoenixes and refuel your hand with spells to get them back. Now let’s look at other graveyard strategies in other formats: the big one, Dredge. There have been some builds of Dredge that employ Ox of Agonas but very few of them can maximise the discard and draw effect. Dredge is a deck that thrives on functional free card draw effects to dredge things up from the yard but Ox provides some more set up in this case, you don’t want to be Ox’ing when you have no dredgers or graveyard based effects going on for example. Pioneer’s Dredgeless Dredge deck has neither the mana base or need for a card like Ox of Agonas as it plays from both the hand and the graveyard, limiting your resources in this case is a no go.
Finally there’s Underworld Breach decks, decks that have one goal in mind and that’s to combo off.
The mana base can support Ox but it definitely doesn’t want it. So that leaves us with a big dumb ox
that can sometimes balance out on cards and will probably trade down in combat. Unfortunately,
despite how much I like the look of Ox of Agonas, I don’t feel like this is a Mythic Rare.
Polukranos, Unchained
You remember Polukranos from original Theros block, it was all stupidly powerful and stuff. You
probably got crushed by it a few times, it’s ok if you’ve suppressed it. Well the hydra is back and in a
very deceptive form. By deceptive I don’t mean it’s turned into a shapeshifter or anything - though that would be pretty cool, in fact it's a zombie now for good measure. No I mean deceptive in the card’s power sense. At first glance Polukranos, Unchained looks great, four mana 6/6 with removal attached, but wait, what’s that little bit of text in the middle? Oh I’m sure it’s nothing. Well, that little bit of text is Polukranos’ entire downfall. “If damage would be dealt to Polukranos while it has +1/+1 counters on it, prevent that damage and remove that many +1/+1 counters.” Sure this was a balancing thing but it didn’t work. Permanent damage is no replacement for the normal temporary damage, and yes Polukranos wants to die so you can Escape it but you're faced with the same problem except this time you may actually be able to active it once or twice. I’m only kidding, it’ll definitely be once.
Multiple burn spells turn this thing into a joke and how bad do you think it feels to activate Polukranos to Fight another creature only to have it Slaying Fire’d in response? I can tell ya, it’s very bad. Missed the Mythic mark by a fair way in my opinion here Wizards.
Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded
Sneak Attack is a great and powerful card, I think everyone can agree with that. “So how about we put it on an Indestructible creature but we balance it out by tripling the cost?” someone at Wizards said one day and thus Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded was born. Unfortunately, the increase in both casting cost and activation cost has rendered this iteration of the infamous red enchantment a little null. You’re investing a lot of mana just to cast Purphoros and then spending three mana each time, in
your turn I might add, to put a creature into play and it’s not that you won’t be putting red or artifact
creatures into play that cost more than five mana, but in standard especially I don’t think you’ll be
going too much higher than that. Digging into older formats, Purphoros may have some play in
pioneer but probably misses modern, and when you get back as far as legacy it’s redundant thanks
to actual Sneak Attack. The power level is high, I’m just not sure there’s the right fuel to help abuse
Purphoros in the same vein that Seething Song makes Sneak Attack as good as it is. Mythic but
probably only playable in commander.
Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
This is probably the card I’ve wrestled with most on this list, and I feel I’ve come to a conclusion,
even if it is a bit controversial. Thassa to me is a catalyst for powerful strategies but in itself isn’t a
Mythic-level card. Thassa is the type of card that you spend all of your deck building time thinking
about things that pair well with it, creatures you want to blink and get extra value from. That’s all good and well but those creatures have to have some game on their own as well as playing well with
Thassa because on her own she does literally nothing, and I don’t know about you but I prefer to have
cards that do things in my deck. Thassa’s secondary tap effect is so tacked on that most of the time I
forget it’s there and it’s not a good sign when I’m ignoring text on cards because it’s so irrelevant. As I started by saying, I don’t feel Thassa is a Mythic level card at all, it’s that friend that always tags along and never pays for their drinks.
Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath
Some cards are hard to evaluate, Magic is a game filled with nuances and corner cases, meta calls
and situational purposes. Sometimes however, it’s really easy. As I said with Kroxa previously, both
Titans are incredibly powerful. The fact that they both give you immense effects upon casting and and attacking is enough to cement their Mythic rarity and again the flavour is phenomenal. Uro is definitely the more powerful Titan and is just an absolute nightmare to play against, on the flip side it’s a dream to play with so that balances out at least. I shouldn’t have to give you the rundown as to why Uro is stupidly powerful, just look at the card. It plays well in a value based deck or a ramp deck, both of which are fairly prominent in standard at the moment, so it’s no surprise that Uro is tearing up tables left right and center and will be for the coming months.
So that’s been my look at the Theros: Beyond Death Mythic Rares. I think on the whole, Theros had a
good lore behind it to really help the flavour stand out and overall I think the Mythics did well and
delivered what they needed to for the most part. Keep checking back to Game Changers for more
game reviews, articles and insights and be sure to follow us on Twitter @gcgamingtank. Until then
however, happy gaming guys!
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