Theros Block is remembered by many for being somewhat mediocre. Despite the plane becoming a highly popular setting and the block as a whole featuring some cards that are almost evergreen in popularity, the overall power level of this block was fairly low. While the original Theros set had a lot of great cards, any excitement that came from that release was instantly drained away with the follow-up set in Born of the Gods.

While players will often point to the third set being the worst in a block, Born of the Gods is a rare example where the second set was far and away the worst of the bunch. Tribute was the set mechanic this time around and it was just terrible. Punisher cards have always been considered weak since your opponents just picks whichever side hurts them the least, and here that got turned into a whole mechanic. Couple that with no shortage of weak or otherwise unplayable designs and you end up with a set few people cared about.

Despite all this, the set did end up featuring some cool mythic rare cards, and as I tend to do, I'm here to rank them! Ready to jump in? Let's get ranking!

Number Ten

While Chandra's Phoenix had been making some small waves in Mono-Red decks a few years prior, this era was full of notoriously unplayable phoenix cards. Flame-Wreathed Phoenix was a prime example of this, as the tribute mechanic would often see players choosing whatever benefitted them most. Does it get the counters? Cool, here's a Doom Blade. Since the tribute was paid it doesn't come back. Despite being cheap and having solid stats for the era, it was way too easy to deal with to ever make an impact and caused groans of indifference from players if they ever opened one in a pack.

Number Nine

I've always had a soft spot for Champion of Stray Souls. It's obviously designed for Commander players, as it's too expensive to reliably use anywhere else, and that was clear at the time of its release. Unfortunately, even despite the clear Commander appeal, it just couldn't hack against all the other things Black could do at the time. If you're playing on a budget, you should definitely check it out as a great affordable option, but you can almost certainly do better.

Number Eight

Ephara isn't exactly what you'd call a bad card. Unfortunately, it has a number of issues on a more practical level. The first is the card draw effect has some weird memory baggage to it that makes it difficult to keep track of, and the trigger ends up being easy to miss. The second - and arguably more important - element is that in this particular era of play, Azorius-based decks were mostly control lists, making it near impossible to get any value off of Ephara in Standard. Even in Commander where she can be more useful, there are typically far better draw engines, leaving Ephara squarely in the unplayable camp.

Number Seven

Karametra, on the other hand, has a little bit more play to her. In Commander, the card offers you the ability to consistently ramp yourself while you play more creatures. Despite that, she was always perceived as "just okay" by most of the community and wasn't quite as widely adapted as she might be now. When it comes to Standard, she saw play exactly nowhere - especially in a format with way better ramp options including (and especially) Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. A good card to be sure, but in its era, it was met with a pretty strong "meh."

Number Six

While never being a truly powerful card in Constructed, Chromanticore has stood the test of time as a fan favorite. It was an instant must-play in many five-color Commander decks and is regularly a card that players ask to be errata'd to make it legendary. The card did surprisingly see some very minor play in Standard once Fate Reforged came around thanks to Soulflayer, but the deck was always more of a meme than a serious contender. The card wasn't great, but as far as famously bad sets go, this was one of the more memorable aspects of it.

Number Five

Mogis definitely felt a little overhyped. Players were expecting it to constantly wipe out opponents' boards and enable easy kills - especially if you could turn it on as a creature. In practice, Mogis barely showed up in Standard, and when it came to Commander, it was just fine. What's two life in a world where you start with forty, or a creature when you can make ten tokens in one fell swoop? Still, the card had a very tangible appeal to it with a truly badass design that made it a fan favorite of the era.

Number Four

"It does what?!"

That was the thing almost every Magic player said when they first saw Phenax. Surely this was a joke. You're just able to mill people out to that sort of degree? That's unbelievable! Phenax could never hack it in Standard when Ashiok did the milling thing way better, but he was an instant hit and the god everyone wanted early on. If you played Commander, this was a must get, and it deserves major points if only for the way it blew players' minds when it was first previewed back in 2014.

Number Three

You might not know this, but the art for Kiora, the Crashing Wave showed up long before Born of the Gods came around. Kiora made her original appearance as an opponent you could battle against in the video game Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 (if you remember that one, how's your back feeling?). Wizards received overwhelmingly positive feedback on the character and, surprised by her popularity, worked her into the story of Theros and included her first card here in Born of the Gods, featuring the gorgeous art used in Duels 2012. The card was lauded for being an awesome way to ramp yourself, slow down your opponents' gameplan, and spit massive krakens onto your board.

Number Two

Sometimes all you need to stand out in a set filled with underwhelming designs it to just be good and have an efficient rate. At the end of the day, that's all Brimaz really does: attacks with vigilance and makes some tokens to back it up. Really easy, really clean, and being a 3/4 for 3 mana was pretty great in that era. The card saw tremendous Standard play and while not as potent nowadays, it still holds a special place in many players' hearts.

Number One

On the whole, Born of the Gods is a mess. Most of the mechanics are glaringly weak and too many of the cards end up feeling unplayable. Thankfully, the face of the set couldn't be farther from that. Xenagos himself is back - in god form - and he absolutely brings the beats. The card saw lots of play in Standard Gruul and Mono-Green Devotion decks (playable off duals and Sylvan Caryatids) and remains massively popular in Commander. It even saw a recent resurgence in usefulness over the last couple years thanks to the popularity of Indomitable Creativity decks in Pioneer that use it as a finisher when combined with Worldspine Wurm. An easy pick for the top of the heap here.

Paige Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

Twitch: twitch.tv/themaverickgirl

YouTube: TheMaverickGal