Kethis, the Hidden Hand – Core Set 2020 MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

One of Dominaria‘s surprises was Arvad the Cursed, a traditional power and toughness-boosting “lord” for legendary creatures. Kethis is an interesting follow-up for legendary tribal: cost-reducing and graveyard interactions have the potential to be quite dangerous. His own stats are good, and efficient for his cost, but he might be constrained a little by being three separate colors and his abilities depending on other cards to be useful. I think there’s an interesting Commander deck to be built around him and basically half the cards in Dominaria.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 2/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 4/5

Kethis, the Hidden Hand feels like a card that could have been in Dominaria, at least with what it tries to do (support legendary spells). Making other legendary cards cheaper and enabling them to be cast or played anew from your graveyard is a really potent pair of effects. He can function both early (for the cost reduction) and late, and a 3/4 for 3 is an okay deal.

The downside is that Kethis is three-color with a particular mana requirement, and he has nothing beyond that 4 toughness in terms of protection. He also needs a particular density of legendary cards to make that second effect work, which can be awkward. This makes for an interesting card to build around in Commander and related formats…but underwhelming in Standard, where he would need to really be situated as part of a “super-friends” deck to get the most value. I think he might work, but he’s a bit slow and cumbersome.

Constructed: 2.75
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 2.25
Multiplayer: 3
Commander: 4.5