I mean, yeah, but an explanation isn't a justification. I think Jim's onto something re: why these gods are less interesting. not being an enchantment makes the cards feel less God-y 'cause it makes them just BDGs that don't work right sometimes. the Theros gods had a story to them: they'd grant you favors from afar, and if you were devoted enough, they'd come fight for you in person. the Amonkhet gods don't have that, and they don't replace it with anything better. they just feel like bad shadows of the Theros ones.

I kind of wish they would have brought back Divinity counters for these gods, especially considering how much counter manipulation Amonkhet and Kaladesh have.

So it turns out

How 'bout that?

Sounds par for the course for Bolas. After reading the story today, I have some questions about the world. Also apparently sphinxes on the plane either took a vow of silence until Bolas comes back, or he actually took their ability to communicate so that they couldn't warn the population of what really happened a few generations ago.

Given it's Bolas, I'm wagering the second.

True, but there was a problem with precedence by making the Theros gods enchantments.
After all, an entire subsection of people were convinced Amonkhet would have enchantment gods. It ranked way up there in speculation despite having no basis.

But people formed expectations, and those can be dangerous. The problem isn't with these gods. It's how attached some people got to the Theros gimmick.

That said, I am of the opinion that these are a little lackluster on their own merit.

Wasn't this the Set we were supposed to see a vanilla Mythic?

No, I think that's still in the pipeline.

EDIT: Maro's been cagey as to exactly which set it might be in. He's only promised to (a) tell us if it drops out of its set or (b) present us with the final printed card as a preview. (Source.)

I wouldn't call precedent "no basis".

see, that's the thing: I think they're lackluster because the "gimmick" was a large part of what made the Theros gods work. these lack the sense of otherworldliness that would've made them believable as Gods. could that have been achieved another way? sure, but the way Theros did it was a decent way, and the way Amonkhet appears to have done it isn't really a way at all. unless Okk feels like a God to you, I guess.

But it was never a God thing. It was a Theros thing, it always was. The devotion part was the only unique clause of the gods, otherwise the enchantment was part of the WORLD they existed in. It was never going to turn up in a setting that didn't care about enchantments and it was false expectations to think "if god, then enchantment".

The gimmick worked, but there was no question of what kind of gimmick it was. It never belonged to the gods. It shouldn't.

right. and like I said, another gimmick would've worked fine. what doesn't work is no gimmick at all and just being BDGs that don't work sometimes, which is what these are. they needed something special, and they didn't get anything special, and that's why they failed.

and don't pretend like these aren't related to the Theros gods. they're a direct rip of the Theros gods gimmick, just watered down to the point of uselessness. this isn't some new attempt at capturing the idea of Gods from another angle, it's just a bad shadow. I think it's worth asking why this approach didn't land the way Theros did, and I think Jim did a pretty good job answering: the enchantment thing, it turns out, mattered. (as did having a generic animation clause so they weren't as mechanically pulled toward activating themselves, I think.)

I disagree. Insofar as what the Theros god gimmick was. The god gimmick was devotion, and yes, I don't disagree with you there. But the god gimmick was NOT being an enchantment.

But, MaRo already went through what they weighed in what it meant to be a god. Dunno if you read that article.

I say Maro is wrong. A god is more than a creature; it's a quasi-ethereal force. Enchantment typing encapsulates that perfectly for me.

Gods don't even need the can't attack sometimes rule. I would accept their identity as "indestructible creatures with activated abilities". That worked for the myojin too.

the primary gimmick, I think, was not always being a creature. combine that with a varied, unfocused set of abilities, and you get a really strong feel of divine favors from afar that manifest as direct aid when you've earned it. if they wanted to change what earning it looked like, that'd be fine. if they wanted to change what shape it took when it wasn't helping you directly, that'd be fine. I think a god-like feel could've been accomplished with something similar to Forecast, for instance. again, my issue isn't that they don't have the Theros gimmick, 'cause this isn't Theros. my issue is they have no gimmick whatsoever, so they just feel like creatures.

I haven't, I rarely bother reading the mothership anymore. maybe I should check it out, but if he comes down on the side of "Amonkhet Gods were a good idea" then I'm going to be very suspect of his reasoning.

basically this. again, it doesn't need to be an enchantment, but it needs to not just be an undercosted creature with a drawback.

Maro doesn't usually judge an idea as good or bad until the public has had considerable time to digest it. The article simply lays out the analysis they followed in extrapolating from the Theros gods to these new gods.

alright, cool. let's go through this:

this is... wrong? first off it's a mythic cycle, you can just, like, do things. second of all, two of the three cycles most associated with the touch of the Gods (Trials and Cartouches) are enchantments anyway. it'd be a limited scope but still there.

I agree with this. apparently they didn't.

but these are a top-down flavor cycle, so being similar mechanically isn't the same thing. like, if lightning bolt gave -3/-3 instead, that'd be similar mechanically, but it doesn't feel like the same card. (could still be flavored as a lightning bolt, though, I guess.)

having both gave the Theros gods a feel of broad dominion. they were sort of in the same vein but functionally very different, so it felt like the God could actually do a lot of things, you know, like a God can. I don't think this part was strictly necessary, but I think Mark has misidentified the characteristic here. they didn't have "an activated ability" and "a static ability", they had "an activated ability and a static ability". if they were going to abandon that, I think they needed to replace it with something else and, again, they didn't. (well, they replaced it with a creature keyword, but that's a completely different thing, feel-wise.)

anyway, this seems to confirm that MaRo doesn't understand what the Theros Gods were, and that the whole design process was sloppy. I think, if this was the best they felt they could do by exploring this direction, they should've just pulled hard in some other direction and made something completely different that still felt God-like. at least that wouldn't have tied them down as much next time.

I've only skimmed what you guys have been saying but personally I would've preferred if they had just completely forgotten about the Theros Gods when designing the Amonkhet Gods. Though I do realize that a lot of people would've been like "wtf these are not the same???"

yeah, I agree.

I think this is my biggest problem with the Amonkhet gods. I want a God to do something a bit flashier than punch people as its top end. Now, the Theros gods rewarded your devotion by getting off their duffs and punching people, but their "enchantment" effects were worth running on their own. You had a Theros god and you were getting an ability worthy of godly glory.

The Amonkhet gods just feel like oldschool nongreen beatsticks, the kinds like Okk, Orgg, and Shauku, Endbringer that are hard to use but at least in theory reward you well for managing to 'get there'. And their other ability, aside from being combat-ready, is just help to get them there. In fact, Sahuku would fit right in! Couldn't you just see that as an alternate rules text for Bontu? I kind of wish they had gone the other way... the Gods of Amonkhet are just walking around for strolls every day so why not have them attack and block from the start, but possess some ability of incredible power that only turns on (or becomes able to be activated) for the "worthy" who jump through hoops for that blessing. Something like this.

Kefnet the Mindful

Legendary Creature - God
Indestructible, Flying
At the beginning of each end step, if you have seven or more cards in your hand, you may search your library for a card and exile it. You may play that card without paying its mana cost for as long as it remains exiled.
4/4

Wouldn't that be much more majestic? True, he costs a lot more and doesn't help you "get there", but the Theros gods didn't help you get to the Devotion threshold beyond their own symbol that was presumably accounted for. And the payoff for showing the god your devotion at least FEELS a lot greater than "Okay, I'll do the only proactive thing I could do in the first place"