I finally got a spare time to check on the card previews of the upcoming Theros Beyond Death and there were a few that me interested in terms of gameplay in the Standard format. For this blog post, I have chosen one card that featured the return of Saga which started on the Dominaria set. The Saga is The Akroan War which depicts one of the major events in the history of Theros.

Let us check on each step of the card’s Saga ability.

I — Gain control of target creature for as long as The Akroan War remains on the battlefield.

While the 4 casting cost is quite high for a steal creature ability, a few turns of possession is quite vital and can provide an advantage in board position. You might want to wait until the opponent cast his/her best creature before taking control of it.

II — Until your next turn, creatures your opponents control attack each combat if able.

This will likely mess up their board position given that they have creatures with lesser power and toughness than yours. This may be very situational as you would need to cast your blockers during the turn before its effect.

III — Each tapped creature deals damage to itself equal to its power.

This is a very good follow up when those surviving creatures that attacked the previous turn is dealt itself damage equal to its power. Again, this is a very situational so proper timing is needed. Also, this is tricky as you might forget that this also can kill your tapped creatures if you carelessly attack the previous turn.

In terms of sideboard use, this can be viable against Green or Gruul stompy deck matchups. Stealing their biggest creature such as a Questing Beast for a few turns can be crucial in dealing a huge damage or even an alpha strike to the opponent.

As for the price value, it might be around 3 to 5 USD (150-200php) initially but I think once the Theros Beyond Death stocks would be sufficient to supply the single cards, it will stabilize to I think 2 USD only.

That is a wrap for this Theros Beyond Death card preview. Until the next blog post.