The first day of Magic: The Gathering Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths spoilers brings with it some monstrously powerful cards. We got our first look at some of the kaiju-sized creatures in the latest Magic set, along with a complete list of the Godzilla promotional tie-in monsters earlier today. Wizards of the Coast didn’t pull any punches with today’s spoilers. Showing off a brand new cycle of legendary three-color creatures and more exceptionally powerful mythic rarity cards, Ikoria is already off to a monstrous start. It involves a mutate mechanic.
Ikoria’s mythic monsters cycle
Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths has an extremely powerful set of creatures that stand above the rest. These legendary creatures are at the apex of their color wedges. Each of these creatures has the new mutate mechanic, granting immense strength and powerful abilities that trigger whenever they mutate.
The last of these creatures has not yet had an English release but is called Nethroi, the Death-Dweller. The version of the card that has been spoiled is the Godzilla Series Monster. Nethroi has both deathtouch and lifelink, and “Whenever this creature mutates, return any number of creature cards with total power 10 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.” This extremely powerful ability allows players to easily build back up after a board wipe or to build an overwhelming army quickly.
In general, the new mutate is exciting. If a player has an Illuna, Apex of Wishes on the battlefield and then mutates another Illuna on top of it, the legendary rule does not apply. As far as state-based actions are concerned, there is only one Illuna on the battlefield.
The best part of this is that Illuna’s mutate ability will now trigger twice, one for each instance of its ability on the mutated card. If Illuna’s controller would mutate it more, it would again trigger both mutate triggers.
The strongest of the cycle of behemoths appears to be Brokkos, Apex of Forever, though it is hard to say before the release of Ikoria. The fact that Brokkos can be cast repeatedly from the graveyard already makes it extremely powerful. If Brokkos’ target would be destroyed, it just enters the battlefield as a 6/6 trampler. Almost no matter what, Brokkos is resolving. Short of hard countering Brokkos or exiling it, there are not a lot of ways to stop this dinosaur from entering play.
The other mythic creature to be spoiled today (other than our boy Godzilla) is Luminous Broodmoth. Four mana for a 3/4 flier is a little underwhelming at first glance. Its ability to return a creature once it dies makes it a limited bomb. Luminous Broodmoth could find a place in the Standard meta depending on the rest of the set. If there are a lot cheap creatures, it could fit nicely into a midrange dinosaur list. While Magic has not yet spoiled any humans from Ikoria, Broodmoth could find a place as the top end of an aggro list.
These cards are just the beginning of Magic: The Gathering Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths spoiler season. Follow Daily Esports for all your spoilers as more of Ikoria releases.
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