One of the decks that I have managed to finally get some chance to play properly is a deck I built around a total gimmick, and it is one that I am prepared to say i definitely haven't yet finished, and that is my Wrath of the Pantheon deck. Having bought into the Theros block quite heavily, I ended up with a good number of the mythic rare gods. I was giving some thought about what decks I would jam these into, when I was struck with the idea of what would a deck look like with all of them in? So I started thinking and brewing. Normally when I get a deck idea, I go straight to my card collection and put together a first approximation, then start to revise the list as I acquire more suitable (if not better) cards. This list below represents something of a refinement of the original list, as I have acquired some specific cards for this deck in this list, and have dropped some that sounded thematic, but really don't work in Commander.
General
Land (52)
- 1x Abandoned Outpost
- 1x Barren Moor
- 1x Bloodfell Caves
- 1x Blossoming Sands
- 1x City of Brass
- 1x Coastal Tower
- 1x Command Tower
- 1x Evolving Wilds
-
1x
Forest
- 5x Forest
- 1x Forgotten Cave
- 1x Frontier Bivouac
- 1x Gemstone Caverns
- 1x Homeward Path
- 2x Island
- 1x Jungle Hollow
-
1x
Mountain
- 2x Mountain
- 1x Mystic Monastery
- 1x Nomad Outpost
- 6x Plains
- 1x Rugged Highlands
- 1x Sandsteppe Citadel
- 1x Scoured Barrens
- 1x Sunpetal Grove
- 2x Swamp
- 1x Swiftwater Cliffs
- 1x Temple of Abandon
- 1x Temple of Deceit
- 1x Temple of Mystery
- 1x Temple of Plenty
- 1x Temple of the False God
- 1x Temple of Triumph
- 1x Thornwood Falls
- 1x Tranquil Cove
- 1x Tranquil Thicket
- 1x Vivid Creek
- 1x Vivid Marsh
- 1x Vivid Meadow
-
1x
Wind-Scarred Crag
Creature (28)
- 1x Athreos, God of Passage
- 1x Captain Sisay
- 1x Child of Alara
- 1x Chromanticore
- 1x Courser of Kruphix
- 1x Ephara, God of the Polis
- 1x Heliod, God of the Sun
- 1x Iroas, God of Victory
- 1x Karametra, God of Harvests
- 1x Karona, False God
- 1x Kruphix, God of Horizons
- 1x Maze Abomination
- 1x Maze Behemoth
- 1x Maze Glider
- 1x Maze Rusher
- 1x Maze Sentinel
- 1x Mogis, God of Slaughter
- 1x Myojin of Cleansing Fire
- 1x Myojin of Infinite Rage
- 1x Myojin of Life's Web
- 1x Myojin of Night's Reach
- 1x Myojin of Seeing Winds
- 1x Pharika, God of Affliction
- 1x Phenax, God of Deception
- 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
- 1x Reki, the History of Kamigawa
- 1x Thassa, God of the Sea
- 1x Xenagos, God of Revels
Sorcery (3)
Enchantment (7)
- 1x Banishing Light
- 1x Dictate of Erebos
- 1x Dictate of Heliod
- 1x Dictate of Karametra
- 1x Dictate of the Twin Gods
- 1x Ephara's Enlightenment
- 1x Ordeal of Nylea
Artifact (8)
- 1x Assault Suit
- 1x Bident of Thassa
- 1x Chromatic Lantern
-
1x
Darksteel Ingot
- 1x Hammer of Purphoros
- 1x Heroes' Podium
- 1x Spear of Heliod
- 1x Urza's Blueprints
Instant (2)
The first thing I would highlight about this deck list, is that it runs a very high number of lands for a deck I have built (51). The second thing of note is that, currently, it only contains 12 of the 15 gods of Theros. This is due to the difficulty in acquiring copies of the remainder and their prices. It is no coincidence that those 3 are some of the most expensive gods, and see play in Standard deck lists currently. There would be one more god to add to that list of "acquire later" gods, and that would be Thassa, God of the Sea; however, when I was cracking some boosters not too long after starting to build this deck when I opened a Thassa in the pack and was very pleased to add her to the deck list with nothing more than the face value of a booster paid for her!
Development
When I first considered building this deck, I realised that it would need to be a chromatic, 5-colour deck to be able to include all of the gods. This gave me a choice of 12 generals to chose from, which was more than I expected. However I wanted to cleave very much to the theme of the deck, and that narrowed it down to 3 choices for me:Straight away there is one stand out choice, thematically, and that is Karona. What better general for a bunch of gods than a false god? Child of Alara was a decent choice too, being the avatar of a whole world and having a very useful effect when it died. Progenitus would be grand, but very expensive to summon, costly to purchase and was not really on theme for the general, at least not as much as the other two. Eventually I plumped for buying both Child of Alara, and Karona, False God, and having the ability to switch between the two. Karona is a dangerous choice, as on every other player's go, she switches allegiance and becomes available to them, thus boosting her new team. This is bad, but with a bank of indestructible blockers, I am hoping she is manageable.
With the Commander chosen, it was time to move on to how on earth I was going to build a manabase that would be usable with a 5 colour deck that required big summoning cost creatures? My hope came in the form of a mixture of mana rocks, mana fixers and a suite of differing dual and tri-lands. For a nice big theme hit I scraped together as many of the Theros temples as I could scrounge, but this left me with several missing ones, and didn't give me enough fixing to rely upon. The Khans of Tarkir lifelands were another obvious choice from my collection, as was a complete Return to Ravnica Gate cycle. To complement these rather slow choices, I added a Sunpetal Grove, which had chance of being quicker, as long as I had a Plains or a Forest. With these being the two most numerous lands in the deck (due to the effect that Karametra, God of Harvest has) this was a risk worth taking. Rounding out the fixing lands I added some of the Vivid lands, a City of Brass, and a Command Tower to ensure some 5 colour fixing.
The mana rocks would be important in this deck, but I didn't want to take up too many slots with them, so decided against the Return to Ravnica block Cluestones and Keyrunes. I did make sure that I added a Chromatic Lantern though: in short, if that comes out and stays, I never need to worry about mana colours again, which is brilliant in a 5 colour deck. The fact that it also ramps for one is a bonus. To complement this, I added in a Darksteel Ingot. To further help with mana, Dictate of Kruphix was added; yes it adds to my opponents too, but I can flash it in politically, and I have ways to remove it if needed: I also added Ordeal of Nylea to help out, if I get an early creature (unlikely, but it was thematic).
So with the mana sorted, the next thing to move on to was the creatures. In essence this was a big dumb creature deck at it's heart, just that the creatures all had nifty abilities, would sometimes not be creatures, were huge and were indestructible! Of the 15 major and minor gods of Theros, I had 12 of them in my collection after opening Thassa. With Keranos, Erebos, and Nylea missing, I needed to figure out what other on theme creatures I could add. My next port of call after the gods were the Myojin of Kamigawa: these indestructible Legendary Spirits all had big effects on the board, and all had triple mana symbols in their summoning costs. Since this would already be a slow deck, this didn't hurt the deck much, and they had great synergy with the rest of the deck. I already had two of them, and got hold of the missing three pretty quickly so in they went. However I still felt that the deck was rather creature light. This led to the addition of the Dragon's Maze cycle of Maze Elementals. Sure they weren't gods, but they were quite cool, they were serviceable and they had an effect on the gods. In the absence of other creatures, they serve a role, but are probably one of the first things on the list to be upgraded should I acquire better or more thematic cards.
Aside from the gods, the Myojin cycle, and the Maze Elementals, there are four other creatures in the deck at the moment. One is a thematic inclusion that really adds to the power level of the deck, and that is Courser of Kruphix. This centaur allows me to ramp out lands pretty quickly, meaning I can get my expensive spells online sooner, which is important in this deck. The second stand alone creature is not one that is particularly thematic to the deck, but it certainly is one of the most important tools available to the deck: Captain Sisay. The Captain allows me to tutor out Legedary cards from my deck. This turns the whole deck into a tool box of answers, as 21 of the 28 creatures in the deck are Legendary as are a number of the artifacts. On the whole this card really brings up the consistency of the deck and sends it from goofy to a deck that can hold it's own. The third creature, is another Legendary creature in the form of Reki, the History of Kamigawa. This card adds a whole heap of card draw to the deck since we will be playing so many Legendary cards from our deck. It synergises well when you tutor them out with Captain Sisay, but it still adds to the decks consistency on it's own, meaning it isn't a one trick pony. The final creature in the deck is one that I struggled to find a home for, before putting it in this deck: Chromanticore. This enchantment creature is one I always thought could have done with being Legendary itself, but as it is it is a cool Bestow creature that adds devotion to all five colours and finds a home here due to the high casting cost of so many other cards and the 5 colour mana base... Plus I think it's a cool card, and that is surely reason enough?
With the manabase and the creatures sorted out, I was left with some slots left to round out the deck. Since I owned 3 of the 5 weapons of the gods, I added those in, giving me an anthem effect, haste for all my creatures and more card draw, along with some other cool activated abilities. These also work well to switch on Devotion, and can be tutored up as they are Legendary. Two other artifacts were added: Urza's Blueprints for expensive but repeatable card draw, and Assault Suit, so that I can neutralise Karona's draw back should I wish to play her as my Commander. A selection of removal and wrath card were then added to ensure I can stay in the game long enough to play out my gods, in the form of Wrath of God (thematic and the exact card I needed!), Deicide (thematic enchantment removal), Banishing Light, and Glimpse the Sun God (for enabling an Alpha strike).
To finish off the deck I added in some of the Dictate cycle from Theros block. These enchantments all come with Flash, so can be played at surprise points, and each plays a different role. Dictate of Erebos acts as an instant speed Grave Pact, Dictate of Heliod is best played as an instant speed combat trick that stays on the board, and Dictate of Karametra enables a huge amount of ramping. The last one can be a double edged sword as it applies to all players, but as long as I have something ready to remove troublesome enchantments, it is a handy to tool to get me to where I need to be before removing it. Plus it also acts as a little bit of a group hug, meaning in a multiplayer game, folk won't attack me as they enjoy the ramp effect too, giving me more time to get my gods online.
Areas for Improvement
So there are some areas where the deck could improve, not least of all in its suite of creatures. The Maze elemental cycle is very much a stop gap. They are expensive, don't do much for devotion and only apply to the multicoloured creatures in the deck. If I can acquire some of the Demigods from Shadowmoor block, then I will put these in as they have excellent summoning costs in a 5 colour deck, and really turn on Devotion. What is more, they are totally on theme for this deck! The downside is trying to get hold of them. So far I have one, Demigod of Revenge, but with Commander being a singleton format he is in effect a big dumb 5/4 flyer with haste. This might still be worthwhile but I want to get hold of the others in preference.Another stand out card for this deck would be That Which Was Taken. This Legendary Artifact allows me to distribute Divinity counters to creatures: perfect for reusing (and abusing) the Myojin cycle to their full effect.
The really obvious area for improvement and development for this deck lies in completing the cycle of gods, and to a lesser extent the weapons of the gods. The three that are not in the deck currently have been seeing Standard play over the past 6 months and as such are proving both expensive and difficult to come by. The same can be said for the weapons of the gods, in particular the Whip of Erebos, which has a whole archetype named after it (Sidisi Whip) and as of January 2015 is a tier 1 deck in Standard. Maybe I can pick these up post rotation, or perhaps after the release of Fate Reforged later this month, if the meta shifts sufficiently.
The long term way to improve this deck would be to improve the mana base. This deck is crying out for Dual Lands, and perhaps some Fetch Lands. At the moment I don't have the money to sink into those, but should I find it, then that will be the route I take to really make this deck work.
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