Thassa’s Oracle – Theros Beyond Death
Date Reviewed: December 28, 2020
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.38
Casual: 3.75
Limited: 2.88
Multiplayer: 4.00
Commander [EDH]: 4.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
This card was 3rd on my top 10 list.
Thassa’s Oracle has, oddly enough, been a Standard-legal card whose impact was mostly outside of its “home” format. Its most notorious use has been as a sort of supplement to, or replacement for, the notorious Laboratory Maniac in combo decks whose goal is to interact with their opponents as little as possible by emptying their library and trying to use the Oracle to power their way to victory. There are a lot of shells where Thassa’s Oracle has found a home…Ad Nauseam, Doomsday, the amusingly named “Cephalid Breakfast”, Inverter of Truth combo, and Balustrade Spy/Oops All Spells shells are all nice places for the Oracle to do its thing. It’s even passable as a “fair” card, thanks to being a cheap Merfolk that helps to set up future plays (which is exactly what Merfolk likes at times). But its main attraction is as “degenerate combo piece”, and it’s always better to have a role as one of those than to be a bulk rare doomed to obscurity.
Constructed: 4.75 (nothing else does quite what it does in the decks it’s used in)
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 2.75
Multiplayer: 4
Commander: 4
David
Fanany
Player
since
1995
This card was not on my Top Ten list.
Thassa’s Oracle is very much good enough as a fair card. Compare with Omenspeaker or Augur of Bolas for its minimal-impact scenario, and consider getting to look at five or six cards for two mana in ideal circumstances. It also has not one but two relevant tribes, and they’re both tribes which tend to benefit from its comes-into-play ability. But of course, that’s probably not why you’ve heard of the card. While milling is perennially popular among players, many are tempted to aim it all at the opponent and some don’t quite discover how good milling yourself can actually be. And that was before the strategy got a two-mana card that basically says “When this creature comes into play, you win the game.”
Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 4/5
Commander: 4/5
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