Born of the Gods - New Mechanics

The plane of Theros has been thrown into chaos by the ascension to godhood of the satyr Planeswalker Xenagos. Gods and mortals are pitted against each other, and terrifying monsters stalk the land. Will you stand with the heroes, or draw inspiration from the gods?

Inspired

Creatures with inspired abilities represent the divine inspiration that comes from the world of dreams.

A creature's inspired ability triggers every time the creature becomes untapped. That's normally at the start of your turn, but an inspired ability triggers no matter how or when the creature untaps. The simplest way to get these creatures tapped is to attack with them, but this set also contains many cards that let you tap your creatures in other ways.

If multiple inspired abilities you control go on the stack at the same time, you get to decide in what order to put them on the stack. (The last one you add to the stack will resolve first, as usual.) Inspired abilities that trigger during the untap step are all put onto the stack as the upkeep step begins, at the same time as "at the beginning of your upkeep" triggers. You put your inspired triggers and upkeep triggers on the stack all at once, in any order you wish.

Tribute

A creature with a tribute ability offers your opponent a grim choice: either it becomes even larger, or it does something nasty to your opponent when it enters the battlefield. These effects include destroying permanents, dealing damage to your opponent, and fighting opposing creatures.

As Pharagax Giant enters the battlefield, you choose an opponent. That opponent then decides whether to "pay tribute" by having Pharagax Giant enter the battlefield with two +1/+1 counters on it. If he or she does, then that's it—you've got a bigger Giant. If he or she decides not to pay tribute, then Pharagax Giant's enters-the-battlefield ability will trigger instead. Either way, it's good for you—and in the meantime, you get to watch your opponent sweat.

Nyx and Bestow

The gods of Theros dwell in Nyx, a starry realm visible as the night sky of Theros. The gods and their servants are infused with the power and majesty of Nyx. Enchantment creatures in theTheros block all have a unique card frame that shows the starfield of Nyx.

The Nyx frame doesn't have any rules associated with it. It's just a reminder that these creatures are also enchantments. Other enchantments in Born of the Gods use the regular card frame.

Many enchantment creatures in Born of the Gods have the bestow keyword.

A creature with bestow gives you the option to cast it as an Aura that enchants a creature, granting that creature its power, toughness, and abilities.

When a card with bestow is in your hand, you have two options: cast it normally for its mana cost, or cast it for its bestow cost. If you cast a bestow card normally, it's an enchantment creature spell that resolves and becomes an enchantment creature on the battlefield. Its bestow ability and its "Enchanted creature gets..." text are ignored.

If you cast a card for its bestow cost, it's not a creature spell. Spells like Essence Scatter that can target only a creature spell can't target it. Instead, it's an Aura spell with enchant creature, so you have to target a creature to cast it. It can be countered by spells like Negate that target only noncreature spells. If the target creature has a heroic ability, the Aura spell with bestow will trigger it, just as any other Aura spell would. Cards with bestow are always enchantments, whether they're Auras or creatures.

If the target creature leaves the battlefield after you cast a card with bestow as an Aura but before the spell resolves, the Aura spell will resolve as an enchantment creature rather than being countered like a normal Aura spell. If the target creature is still on the battlefield when the Aura spell resolves, it resolves as an Aura enchanting that creature.

While it's enchanting a creature, an Aura with bestow grants the creature the bonuses listed in its text box. If the creature it's enchanting leaves the battlefield for any reason, the Aura immediately becomes an enchantment creature again rather than being put in the graveyard like other Auras.

Some bestow cards have abilities that do different things depending on whether the permanent with bestow is currently an Aura.

Everflame Eidolon's ability checks when it resolves to see what should get +1/+0—either Everflame Eidolon or the creature it's enchanting, whichever one is a creature at the time. This means that if you activate the ability while Everflame Eidolon is an Aura, but Everflame Eidolon is a creature by the time the ability resolves (say, because the enchanted creature has left the battlefield), Everflame Eidolon will get the bonus.

Devotion

The gods of Theros grant their favors to those whose devotion is great enough.

Your devotion to a color is the number of mana symbols of that color in the mana costs of permanents you control. There are cards that count devotion to each of the five colors, and they have many different effects based on that devotion. Some examples:
A permanent that costs adds one to your devotion to black.
A permanent that costs adds three to your devotion to red.
A permanent that costs adds one to your devotion to green and one to your devotion to white.

Devotion counts only mana symbols in your permanents' mana costs—the cost in the upper right corner of the card. Mana symbols in text boxes, such as activation costs or the big mana symbols on basic lands, do not count toward your devotion. Only colored mana symbols count; it doesn't matter how much a permanent costs to cast, just how much colored mana. A permanent that looks at your devotion to a color counts the mana symbols in its own cost.

Because Skyreaping isn't a permanent, its own mana cost doesn't count toward your devotion. If you don't control any permanents with green mana symbols in their mana costs as Skyreaping resolves, it won't deal any damage.

Gods

Five gods appear on cards in Born of the Gods as legendary enchantment creatures with the creature type God. Where the Theros Gods were monocolored, each God in Born of the Gods is two colors. A two-color God manifests as a creature on the battlefield once your devotion to its colors is high enough.

Your devotion to white and blue is the total number of mana symbols that are white or blue among the mana costs of permanents you control. So, if you control permanents with mana costs of , , and , your devotion to white and blue is five.

Hybrid mana symbols such as count toward both their colors but aren't counted twice.

Like the Theros Gods, each of the Born of the Gods Gods has indestructible, and each one is a creature only if you have enough devotion to its colors. If a God enters the battlefield while your devotion to its colors is less than the required number (counting its own mana symbols, as usual), abilities that trigger when a creature enters the battlefield won't trigger. If a God on the battlefield is a creature and your devotion to its colors drops below the required number, it immediately stops being a creature. A God can't attack the turn it enters the battlefield unless it has haste, even if it wasn't a creature as it entered the battlefield.

Gods are always legendary enchantments, and their abilities work whether they're creatures or not. Ephara triggers at the beginning of each upkeep, regardless of your current devotion to white and blue.

Heroic

A creature with a heroic ability gives you powerful benefits every time you cast a spell that targets it.

A heroic ability triggers whenever you cast any spell that targets the heroic creature, including a spell that also targets another creature. If a spell targets multiple creatures with heroic abilities, all of them trigger. Activated abilities, such as equip, do not cause heroic abilities to trigger, nor do triggered abilities such as the enters-the-battlefield ability of Breaching Hippocamp.

An instant or sorcery spell has a target if it includes the word "target" in its rules text. Each Aura spell also has a target, indicated by its enchant ability. Creature spells and other permanent spells (except for Auras) never have targets.

A heroic ability triggers only when the creature's controller casts a spell that targets it, not when any other player does.

Scry 

The scry mechanic lets you manipulate your destiny.

Scry is a keyword action that always has a number associated with it. To scry, look at that many cards from the top of your library, put as many of them as you want on the bottom of your library, and leave the rest on top in any order you choose. When you scry 1, that translates to looking at the top card of your library and deciding whether you want it on the top of your library or the bottom. When you scry 2 or more, you have more options.

"Archetypes"

Born of the Gods contains a cycle of five enchantment creatures, one of each color, called Archetypes.

Each Archetype has two abilities: one that grants a keyword ability to all of your creatures, including itself, and one that makes your opponents' creatures lose that same keyword.

That first ability is straightforward—all your creatures have flying. The second ability is worded so that it doesn't matter how or when your opponent's creatures would have or gain flying. Whether they have flying printed on them, gained flying before your Archetype of Imagination entered the battlefield, try to gain it after your Archetype of Imagination entered the battlefield, or are being granted flying continuously (say, by another Archetype of Imagination), they can't have flying for any reason while you control Archetype of Imagination.

This means that if two players each control Archetype of Imagination, none of their creatures have flying.

Theros

Theros Mechanics

This weekend its the new Theros Prerelease, so just incase you have missed them or are a little bit unsure here are the new mechanics ...

Bestow

A creature with bestow kinda works like an Equipment, in that if you cast one as an Aura it sticks around on the battlefield even if the creature it was attached to goes away. You can also just cast it as a creature and skip the whole piggybacking as an Aura thing. So! You cast an enchantment creature with bestow as an Aura and attach it to another creature you control, which gets some spiffy bennie from that. But then oh waily waily your attached-to creature dies and... well, then your bestowed enchantment creature stops being an Aura and becomes its own person. Or Crab. Or whatever. (And visual protip: enchantment creatures in Theros have a sparkly starfield border most prominent above their type lines—and some of these have bestow!)

Heroic

Whenever you cast a (presumably beneficial but not always!) spell that targets your heroic creature, your heroic creature gets better in some way. "Heroic" itself is an ability word (and as the FAQ points out, "an ability word has no meaning") so think of it there as a heads-up: "Oh hai, this duder gets buff if I target it with a spell."

Monstrosity
Sometimes, you have enough mana to cast a cool creature and you're content with that. But forget just being content—hunger for more! Well, if your cool creature has the keyword action, "monstrosity," you can pump some mana into it and get more! Monstrosity puts one or more +1/+1 counters on the creature and possibly has some other neat effect as well. You can only activate monstrosity once, but believe you me: once will almost certainly be enough.

Devotion
Okay, you know how you have some permanents (artifacts, creatures, enchantments, lands, and Planeswalkers) on the battlefield? And some of those have colored mana symbols? Well, devotion cares about those mana symbols. Your devotion to a color is the number of mana symbols of that color that appears among all your permanents. So lands don't help and colorless artifacts don't help, but colored artifacts, creatures, enchantments, and Planeswalkers all do!

Scry

Scry returns! When you scry 1, you look at the top card of your library and you have the option then of putting it on the bottom of your library as well. Scry, by itself, doesn't let you draw that card... just to look at it and decide whether or not to put it on the bottom. And some cards even let you scry for more than one! (In which case you put any number of them on the bottom of your library and arrange the rest on top of your library. But you still don't draw a card.)

   

Legendary and Planeswalkers Rules

Just a reminder (or maybe first-time information if you didn't know), there are new rules for legendary creatures and Planeswalkers now in effect. To wit: If you control two or more Planeswalkers with the same type (let's pick "Elspeth" as our example!) or two or more legendary permanents with the same name (like, say, Tymaret, the Murder King), you choose one and put the rest in their owners' graveyards. The new rules don't care anymore about what your opponents have on the battlefield, only you. What this means is that if I have an Elspeth, Sun's Champion I am quite happy—no wait, where was I? Oh right, if I have an Elspeth, Sun's Champion and you cast one of your own (fist bump!), they both stay on the battlefield! But if I then cast an Elspeth, Knight-Errant (what is this, Commander?), one goes to my graveyard and the other sticks around.

This Weekend

This weekend is the 2014 Core Set Prerelease. Have you booked your space? If not then there is still time as we currently have space on all of the events. If you have booked you space then are you ready?

For details on what events we are running see : http://kidsdreamstoys.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/m14-dates-for-you-dairy.html

If you want to book a space then visit : http://www.kids-dreams.co.uk/90270/info.php?p=4&cat=240045&search=m14&submit=Search

Last Month at Gambit

Here is a brief summary of what happened last month, its a bit later than normal especially since this weekend is our monthly Gameday at Vale Park.

The big event for us in April was Salute which saw eight of the Gambit Team head to London to participate in this years exhibition, our game Draigo and the Draigonauts was very well received and it was a great day out for everyone that attended. Watch out for some of the great scenery that we purchased for the club on one of the tables soon!

At Kids Dreams the Dragon's Maze prerelease and Vanguard Comic Style Sneak Peak were scheduled for the same weekend and both events were well attended. Dragon's Maze started the weekend with our third midnight event, this time seeing 24 players stay up all night to play with the new cards a week before release!

This was followed by another event during the day on Saturday, which saw a very mixed field in both experience and ages playing...

In the evening the final Dragons Maze event of the day was the two headed giant - a really great fun event in which eight teams played in three rounds, some players having played for over 24 hours without sleep!

The Vanguard Sneak Peak ran along side this with eight players trying to win a promotional play mat. Vanguard has grown at lot and become one of the main card systems played at the club since its release last year!

On the Sunday Game Day the Dragon's Maze continued with two more events making 5 in total an impressive 76 different players and introducing a 10 new faced to the Gambit Games experience! Congratulations to Michael, Alex and Simon for winning the main events!

The Hero Clix guys ran a small event to introduce new players to the game and refresh players that had been away from the game for a while and we were joined by Martin and his team from Black Box with some demo copies of the new Lords of War Elves and Lizardmen.

40K as usual was played throughout the day with a full on apocolypse style battle featuring on one of the centre tables - the demise of a super heavy tank cutting the game short and wiping out half the board in a massive explosion! (One of the shortest battles of this scale I have every witnessed - and to think I thought they would not finish!) Bolt Action picked up new players in what is becoming a regular on the Gambit tables, along with War Machine and a good appearance again from board games such as Pandemic.

On the blog we had a busier month, so here is a list of some of the highlights that you may have missed...

Ask Us a Question

Warmachine and Hordes League

Draigo and the Draigonauts

Gambit Games at Salute

The Resistence

Khador and the Beast

With our next gaming Sunday approaching rapidly, watch out for an article later today with what to expect this month on the gaming tables at Gambit Games UK!

Gary of Team Gambit

Tonight's FNM

Tonight is the last FNM of the month and the last one before the new Dragon's Maze set becomes legal to play! It will be you last chance to try and win a 'Call of the Conclave'

The event tonight will be Modern which will cost £2 to play and will start at about 6:15pm! There will be no side event tonight! As this event immediately proceeds the first of our Dragon's Maze Prerelease's we will be doing 5 rounds with a top 4 play off!

If you have not already booked a place at one of our prerelease events then time is running out as the first one starts in just ....

The Sunday event at Gambit Games is all but sold out with only a handful of spaces left, there is space left on Saturday both Midnight and 10am. If you want more details then have a look at : http://kidsdreamstoys.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/dates-for-dragons-maze.html

Look forward to seeing you all this evening!

Gary of Team Gambit and Kids Dreams

The Prerelease

Dragon's Maze is a multicolor set with tons of powerful cards and lots of mana fixing, especially in Sealed, where you'll be guaranteed a few Guildgates thanks to the pack layout. Don't be afraid to play three or even four colors when you open up your sealed pool. I'll be picking up a Selesnya deck this weekend, but you better believe I'll be playing Ral Zarek if I'm lucky enough to open him.

Playing with lots of colors makes deck building interesting, but it also makes it difficult. Like all Limited formats, having a reasonable curve for your deck is going to be important. You don't want to sit around and do nothing for the first three turns of the game. However, managing your curve in a multicolor format offers some unique challenges. For example, let's say we're playing our Selesnya deck and we've decided to splash blue and red thanks to some lucky Guildgates and a good rare and/or mythic rare or two. Zhur-Taa Druid will almost certainly make its way into our deck, but it may be unreasonable to assume we'll be playing it on the second turn. Our red splash is likely made possible with Cluestones and other fixing. Depending on the number of red-mana-producing lands we have, it's probably more correct to categorize our Zhur-Taa Druid as a three- or four-mana creature for the sake of deck building, because that's the turn we're probably going to be able to cast it.

Play your bombs! Oftentimes, players will get caught up in staying on color and miss out on some epic bomb opportunities. Gigantic rare monsters are notoriously powerful in Sealed; don't be afraid to splash a third or even fourth color if it means you'll be able to cast a scary rare card. The Prerelease is probably the best time to test the limits of the format and experiment with multicolor monstrosities. Have you and your friends been debating the power level of a specific card? Throw it in your sealed deck and take it for a test drive.

This Sunday's Gameday

The Sunday its Gambit Gameday, as usual we will be a the Scout Hut in Vale Park for a full day of gaming starting at 10am and running all day until 10pm.

Here are a few of the things planned ....

Firstly its the MTG Dragon's Maze Prerelease weekend so starting at 10am will be an event that is open to 36 players, for more details on this have a look at : http://gambitgamesuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/dragons-maze_22.html. This event is very popular and is likely to sell out so if your interested contact us soon.

This will finish at about 4:30pm and will be followed by a Intro Deck battle which will be open to upto 10 players and will allow you to purchase and play with one of the new Intro Decks a week before they are release!

In the evening there will be a draft to finish the prerelease weekend which will start at about 7pm and should be all finished for about 9:30pm. This event will cost £10 and can be booked in advance.

The guys from Brighton Heroclix will be spending the day demonstrating this exciting system. They have got some prepared team ready to use, so if you have ever thought of giving this game  go then now could be the time, see : http://gambitgamesuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/hero-clix-demos.html

Black Box will be there as well with some samples of the new Elves vs Lizardmen for players to have a look at as well as offering the chance for anyone that has not played the game before the chance to learn the rules. They will hopefully be there for the day and get the chance to join in some of the other games on offer!

There will of course be other tables for you to use set up for 40K, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, War Machine to name just a few. In fact if you want a game of almost anything then I am sure there will be someone willing to give it a go!

Food will be on sale as normal, but with such a big attendance expected for the prerelease then it would be a good idea to book your food when you get there, here is the menu in case you don't know what we offer...

If anyone want to arrange a particular game then our facebook page it probably the best place, if we know before hand then we will try and layout the table ready for you.

Barry and Michael and Swifty and Aaron will hopefully get some time to play their games for the blood bowl league. There is still time for players to join in with this league if they get teams sorted for the weekend!

Hopefully see you all for what should be another great weekend!

Gary of Team Gambit