Setessan Champion – Theros Beyond Death MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

And then, there came an Amazon. And she’s one of the cards I’m most excited to try out, because I try to make Enchantress decks in basically every format I play. I really like that the Champion contains a way to win the game alongside her card-drawing ability – it lets you adjust your deckbuilding choices to get a little extra space for abilities you want. She’s still a little fragile as a permanent, so you may still need a plan B unless you are a control-style deck that is sure it can deal with opponents’ responses (and if said deck is enchantment-based, it may have issues with certain kinds of those responses). 

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

This card, and many others in Theros Beyond Death, absolutely should have been in Theros or at least Journey Into Nyx, because certain Wizards people’s insistence that you can’t make a set or block that’s about enchantments in the same way that Mirrodin is about artifacts was always nonsense. I mean, that’s . . . literally what Theros Beyond Death is.

A return to Theros means a return to the enchantment-heavy theme of the original block, and a souped-up Enchantress is what we have in our return. Constellation was one of the mechanics that was generally underutilized as a result of only appearing in Journey into Nyx, but it’s back for the large set, which bodes well.

Setessan Champion, as I insinuated, is a generally stronger version of Verduran Enchantress. The older card has rarely been played outside of fun “Enchantress” decks, since an additional cantrip on any spell is good to help consistency and reliability of a deck; adding a better body and a threatening win condition in one body makes Setessan Champion a promising presence in any given deck. It’s also added redundancy for Enchantress decks that already run the effect, but with a growing body to close out the game. It’s both grease for the Enchantress engine and a win condition on its own, which is pretty legit.

Setessan Champion is going to be as good as the Enchantment deck of the format is, as it’s not quite strong enough to drive the deck on its own, but it can snowball a game really hard once it gets going (and will likely have a surfeit of enchantment creatures to help out). It’s definitely an intriguing card, and I look forward to see what it does.

Constructed: 4
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 4.25
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander: 4.5