Drawing land for your turn is... kind of nice if
you still have drops to make, but by the time
you get to five mana (which is what Keranos
costs) you'd rather be drawing spells. With
Keranos on the board, if your first draw for the
turn is a land, you get an extra shot at drawing
something relevant, which is very nice. But
you'd still rather be drawing spells, because if
you do, you get a free Lightning Bolt! What else
would you expect from the God of Storms?
Keranos barely even cares about your devotion--
he's equally good at just about any stage of the
game regardless of your board presence. And
those extra cards will help you build up board
presence, while Keranos's lightning whittles
away your opponent's. A solid card all around.
Don't be too confused by the extensive text
in Keranos' box. He's not, like some red and/or
blue enchantments, a way for you to draw extra
cards en masse, and if you do have one of those
enchantments he still only triggers once a turn.
But when he's giving you an extra effect and
various card advantage for doing something you
are required to do anyway, I suspect you'll find
that that doesn't really matter.
Today's card of the day is Keranos, God of
Storms which is a five mana Blue and Red god
with Indestructible that with Devotion seven is
a 6/5 and you reveal the first card you draw on
each of your turns and if it is a land you draw
a card or if it isn't you deal three damage to
target creature or player. A built in
Lightning Bolt or extra draw every turn is very
efficient and reason enough to include this card
when running Izzet or builds in Casual,
Commander, or Multiplayer. The five mana
cost is a bit high to get the two or three
triggers needed to justify the play
competitively and it is unlikely to see slots
both for the later game arrival and reliance on
Scry to control which effect is triggered.
In Limited this doesn't have to reach Devotion
to control a game as the potential for
repeatable Lightning Bolt or card draw is enough
to make this a first pick in Booster.
Splashing Red or Blue should not be difficult
for either removal or evasion respectively and
this is likely to be the top card in most Sealed
pools.
Of all the Gods in the block, this is probably
the least likely to become a creature. Red/blue
is the most spell based color combination you
could play. Thankfully, his ability plays right
into that. When he hits the field, the only time
you'll have a dead draw is if you happen to have
2 lands on top of your library. Over half of the
time, his ability gives you a free lightning
bolt! When it doesn't, you get a pretty good
consolation of drawing another card - which
might be the burn spell you needed anyway.
At 5 mana, and without green to help
accelleration, Keranos takes a little longer to
get on board, and that's probably his biggest
knock. The fact that he's not a creature very
often is his second problem. Also, letting your
opponent see what card you are drawing can cut
down on your element of surprise. But
considering the value he gives you every turn,
these are relatively small problems.
The best part of Keranos is that he fits in so
many types of decks. No matter what your theme,
you either deal 3 damage or draw an extra card
every turn. What deck couldn't use that? You
don't have to do any special set up or
build-around - just play him and let him do his
thing!
Here we have another one of the "minor" gods
who punches above his weight class.
Keranos, God of Storms may be a little bit more
expensive and slower than yesterday's card,
clocking in at 5 mana. Which is a lot if you're
not also getting his awesome 6/5 indestructible
form along with it. But even without a body,
Keranos still serves an extremely useful purpose
in a red/blue deck.
Keranos prevents topdecking lands.
Which is EXACTLY what red wants to hear after
it's already built up to 5 mana. Red wants to
play through its hand and go on the offensive as
quickly as possible, especially with something
like Nivmagus Elemental out. Blue adds card
draw options, as well as flashback and whatnot,
but still the classic problem any red deck will
inevitably face is the danger of throwing so
much stuff at your enemy in terms of burn spells
and removal and attacking creatures with
haste that you end up running out of gas. And
from then on you enter topdeck wars.
When Keranos comes into play on turn 5, he
offers two things that players in these colours
will really appreciate. 1) Repeatable,
TARGETABLE damage, and 2) Card draw. One of
those two things will always happen every turn,
which is fantastic. Because think about it:
either you draw something useful from your deck,
and Keranos rewards you with a free 3 damage at
anything you want, be it a creature you want
gone or a player you're close to bringing down,
OR you draw a land and Keranos basically says,
"Ouch, sorry man. Tough topdeck. Tell you what,
here, have another card." Which he then follows
up with, "No no, keep that land you just drew
too, I insist."
Coming in at 5 mana definitely makes him a mid-
or even late-game card, but that's exactly when
you'll really need his abilities to start
kicking in for you anyway. Keranos gives any
deck that has a weak late game the ability to
keep on powering out damage and cards, which can
be an invaluable boost.
Now he's not absolutely perfect or without
any flaws, keep in mind your opponent will start
seeing all your first card draws every turn. It
usually won't make a huge difference, they've
already seen 5 turns of your deck in action
anyway so it won't be game breaking. But they
will know what you've got up your sleeve, and
might be able to prepare or adjust their moves
to play around it. However, knowing you have a
Lightning Bolt in your hand and being able to do
anything about you having a Lightning Bolt in
your hand are two very different things, so I
don't see it detracting too much from the
usefulness of this card. 5 mana is also a lot to
ask for when you could be playing Hypersonic
Dragon or Stormbreath Dragon or Thundermaw
Hellkite, or any other powerful 5 mana cards
that could potentially win you the game right
then and there.
But Keranos is more for the player that knows
that sometimes their all-out blitz strategy will
fail, and they need a backup. Keranos is for the
player who wants to be prepared for their enemy
no matter what stage the game is in. Keranos
doesn't just bring a bolt of lightning to the
table, he brings a storm. And this storm is
going to be a long one.
