Theros: Beyond Death - Analysis of the new Magic expansion

After the arrival of Magic: The Gathering Arena new possibilities have been given to card game players. In addition to the opportunity to live the experience comfortably from home, with almost any PC configuration, the title allows you to enjoy the new content completely free of charge. It is a free-to play that guarantees many rewards by playing, a feature that undoubtedly has pushed the progress of the work a lot. Furthermore, the possibility for W having a reference game in a virtual version is certainly useful, as was the case for the expansion Theros: Beyond Death.

In fact, with a special launcher, available only to a narrow circle of users, the expansion was launched on trial yesterday, and except for a few small bugs it showed itself as it will actually be at the scheduled debut day: the January 24 2020. We then had the chance to get our hands on the 83rd expansion of Magic: The Gathering, and we're here to tell you about it.

Spells and cemeteries

The interesting premises of Theros: Beyond Death can be found mainly in the new mechanics added to the experience. In addition to the now classic Sagas and the inevitable PlainsWalker, spells and cemeteries have become the protagonists of the work. In fact, we had to deal with the new and extremely interesting mechanic that takes the name of Escape, and with some Spell Creatures which have certainly given a hard time, along with many new ones Spells.

In the first case we find some spells that can be played again once they end up in the graveyard. Regardless of whether it is Creatures, Spells or Instant, by paying the cost of Escape the effects of the cards will return to show themselves on the battlefield. Obviously the cost turns out to be higher than the one paid initially, and also requires an extra fee. In fact, a number of cards must be exiled from the graveyard in order to replay a certain spell with its Escape effect, but it doesn't matter which ones you decide to choose for the purpose. Additionally, some effects are strengthened once replayed, although these generally require a lot of resources to activate again. We are faced with a mechanics rather similar to what we have already been able to deepen in the past expansions with the classic Flashback, which in some cases did not require any sacrifices other than the mana cost.

Instead, Spells return in full regalia, for good or bad in all their forms. We find the brand new ones Omens, cards divided into one per color that all have a rather low entry cost, but have rather weak effects. However, these allow, with a cost of 3 mana and the sacrifice of the same, of Scry 2. We also find many new combos and effects that are activated whenever any Spell is played. We are again dealing with the Enchantment Creatures, which allow you to create interesting synergies with their peculiarity, but they are obviously more vulnerable as feature a second type of creature - a bit like what happened for the now very old tribal cards - and consequently offer the side to a greater number of removals.

A new goal

In the games we took part in there were well-defined rules, given that the mode Constructed it had not yet been implemented. In fact, we dedicated ourselves to a Sealed and to a Draft Traditional. The rules are always the same, 6 packs of cards and a deck to compose independently in the first case, while 15 cards to choose from in rotation and 3 packs to draw from in the second.

In these modes we were able to test the functioning of the cards that are presented, with these specific rules, in a not exactly dazzling form. In both cases we are talking about two situations in which the choice of cards and the various synergies is limited to extreme randomness, consequently it is possible to notice the frequency of application of the various combos. What can I say ... surprising! For each class we found excellent spells to pair with other spells that provided additional effects, as well as various optimizations of the Escape mechanic, which turned out to be much more interesting than expected, especially in its form for the black color.

The situation we found with regards to the provisional meta, since there were only cards from Theros: Beyond Death, proved to be well optimized. There has been a very neat overall background balance, good or bad for each archetype, and we could finally see combinations applied to the best. In addition, there have been no problems related to cards that are too powerful, although it is obviously not guaranteed that these do not show themselves as such when the new expansion is mixed with the previous ones.

Summing up we can say that we have found Theros: Beyond Death a good product, at least in appearance. We are not talking about completely reinvented mechanics or who knows what distortion of the game, but about a series of rather balanced cards, which manage to do theirs without exaggerating. It is now necessary to see if the work of the developers will have to be unpleasantly re-evaluated on the day of the debut, which we remind you to be on January 24, 2020. Will spells that almost all have a medium-low power level succeed in forcefully entering the meta distorting it? We will know more in the coming weeks!