Earlier this week, the prerelease cards for Born of the Gods were spoiled, giving us a sneak peek into what we can expect from the second set of the Theros Block. There's plenty of the set we haven't seen yet, but it already looks very exciting. Let's take a look at the mechanics of Born of the Gods: scry, tribute, inspiration, devotion, and bestow.

We've already seen scry in this block, but that doesn't mean that Wizards is done doing cool things with the mechanic. So far, the scry lands (Temple of Deceit) are the most popular scry cards from Theros, but let's see what kind of new twists Born of the Gods may bring. Here's Dire Flames:

This could be big. We saw Careful Consideration and Sulfurous Blast both saw good play in during their tenure in Standard, and Might of Old Krosa sees play from time to time in Modern.

And seriously, who wants to play against burn decks that have both Magma Jet and Dire Flames as instant-speed burn spells that can help dig towards the last Boros Charm or Lightning Strike? Suddenly ten is not a very safe life total to stabilize at and Sphinx's Revelation for four seems a little less game-ending.

Is this going to be a full cycle? What else might we see attached to this kind of effect? I'm certainly excited to find out.

We've also got a new take on a mechanic for the monsters of Theros. This time, you'd better be willing to appease the Hydra, or you're in for some trouble. If you don't pay tribute, things might go pretty poorly for you. Let's take a look at Wild Nessian Devastator and the tribute mechanic:

This is super exciting for a number of reasons. First and foremost, just imagine what kind of effects you can pair with this! Any "Enters the Battlfield" could be possible if the tribute cost were  balanced appropriately. This is also going to lead to some really interesting decisions in creature-based games and gains an awesome dimension of politics in multiplayer. Which effect do you want? Which opponent do you choose? Will your opponents pay off the monsters? Or let them go on a roof-smashing, town-decimating rampage? I can't wait to find out.

The next mechanic we've gotten a peek at is inspiration. This one's a little more nebulous than the first two, but also has the potential to be really awesome. Let's take a look at the only card we've seen with this new mechanic, Mediator of the Ideal:

So this mechanic is the one that looks most easily abuseable. Sure, getting free value whenever something untaps is just fine. No one's going to argue with that. But what happens when we add Freed from the Real or Umbral Mantle to the equation? Things could easily get out of hand very, very quickly.

I just wonder what kind of effects you can attach to inspiration. Can we find cool things to do with Prophet o Kruphix and Seedborn Muse? Will it be worth building your deck with multiple ways to tap and untap your creatures? Only time will tell, but I certainly hope we see some Twiddle shenanigans in the near future.

Devotion is also making a return in Born of the Gods, but it looks like we'll be seeing new takes on it. We've been promised new gods using the devotion mechanic, so let's take a look at Ephara, God of the Polis:

This is where we could see the big mechanic of Theros interacting in a big way with the themes of Return to Ravnica. Seven devotion is quite a bit, but now that we have gods with overlapping colors, we could see some really interesting combinations. Ephara and Heliod, God of the Sun for example. Suddenly we can generate creatures every turn and draw all the cards, which seems awesome to me! Devotion is an incredibly interesting mechanic, and there's no telling what else we might get  to do with four more gods.

In addition to devotion and scry, we're also seeing the return of bestow. Unfortunately, this is a mechanic that hasn't seen a ton of play across formats. In fact, we've mostly just seen the occasional Boon Satyr, though Nighthowler has also seen fringe play in graveyard-based decks. Will Born of the Gods bring this mechanic back into the spotlight? Let's find out:

We have to keep an eye out for cards with reasonable stats or that cheap bestow costs. This mechanic is awesome when you can get the extra card of value out of your Aura, or when bestow is all upside. The issue is most of the bestow cards we've seen thus far are mostly useful in Limited due to their high costs. It's easy to forget that Ethereal Armor is a thing in this format, since Geist of Saint Traft rotated. The combination of Ethereal Armor, Gladecover Scout, and cheap bestow creatures could be enough to make Hexproof a deck again. Only time will tell!

It looked like Return to Ravnica block was going to be hard to top, but so far Theros Block is packed with awesome cards, incredible art, and flavor on par with Innistrad. What does the rest of the set have to offer? Keep your eye on our Born of the Gods text spoiler, or our visual spoilers on Facebook to find out what else Theros has in store!