Polukranos, World Eater - Magic the Gathering

The Ancient Greek Galactus.

In the same way that Innistrad had humans and monsters, Theros has heroes and monsters. So what's the monster mechanic this time. Monstrosity. First off, this uses +1/+1 counters, meaning another year without -1/-1 counters. This reminds me of unleash in terms of the concept. You can give your monster +1/+1 counters at the cost of giving them some negative trait. Unleash made them unable to block, while monstrosity makes them monstrous. Odds are, there are gonna be a lot of cards that interact with and/or punish monstrous creatures. I bet you there is going to be a white spell that kills monstrous creatures, and a black spell that kills non-monstrous ones. There will probably also be a white knight who's a monster slayer. Then again, with all the Innistrad parallels, maybe they'll tone it down.

And our preview is a hydra. I love hydras! This was probably an inevitable inclusion, this being the Greek myth block. Hydras use a bunch of +1/+1 counters, ever since Rock Hydra, and this one allows it to pseudo-fight a creature, multiple if you wish, since this guy has multiple heads. And again with the aggressive costing. The only downside is that its monstrous ability is very mana intensive. 3 mana makes a 6/6 and deals 1 damage. 5 mana a 7/7 and 2 damage. 7 mana an 8/8 and 3 damage. It won't stop me from playing it, but it will make people wait awhile before they trigger the monstrous effect, since they want to get real value. Also, can you technically pay G just to make it monstrous and nothing else? I think you can. I'm not sure why you'd want to, but you can. Maybe, probably, they'll be a monster lord of some sort.

By the way, I like the name of this guy. It sounds like they are taking real Greek names and words and then twisting them to make them more Magicky. Polu is similar to poly, which means many. And Kranos is one off from Kronos, the father of the gods who swallowed his own children. And Polukranos has the title of world eater.