A First Try with Athreos

Hey everyone, Marshall here again.


Today will I'll sharing my first take on a deck built around Athreos, God of Passage

This deck is a tricky one to really make work, but I think this list is quite fun to play:

x4 Athreos, God of Passage

x4 Birds of Paradise

x4 Elves of Deep Shadow

x4 Doomed Traveler

x4 Cartel Aristocrat

x4 Blood Artist

x4 Voice of Resurgence

x4 Tidehollow Sculler

x4 Geralf's Messenger

x2 Varolz, the Scar-Striped

22 Land

x4 Marsh Flats

x4 Verdant Catacombs

x4 Overgrown Tomb

x1 Swamp

x1 Twilight Mire

x1 Fetid Heath

x3 Godless Shrine

x4 Woodland Cemetery

Sideboard:

x2 Kataki, War's Wage

x2 Stony Silence,

x4 Kitchen Finks (for when Geralf's Messenger is bad)

x3 Abrupt Decay

x4 Thoughtseize

I would like to preface the rest of this article by saying that this is NOT a deck I would bring to a competitive tournament. If you are looking for a grindy midrange deck to bring to a PTQ or Grand Prix, play a Birthing Pod deck. If you are looking for a fun deck to play with your friends or at an FNM, this might be for you. (For more competitive lists, please check out the bottom of this article. I've got a couple updates to decklists I've discussed in my column previously). 

Let's start with the strengths and the synergy's of the deck. This brew is wonderful at clogging up the ground and giving creature decks headaches. It also does a pretty good job of making control decks sad. Plan A is to go turn one mana accelerant, turn two Geralf's Messenger or Athreos, turn three drop as many other creatures as you can. Once your board presence is of a reasonable size, Blood Artist + Cartel Aristocrat will do a great job of draining your opponent for a bunch of life.

Athreos brings it to a whole new level. This new god card gives you a grindy angle instead of needing lots of creatures in play in order to grind out your opponent's life total. Cartel Aristocrat + Doomed Traveler + Athreos means you either get lots of 1/1 fliers, or you get to deal three damage, plus upgrade your 1/1 into a flying creature while protecting your Cartel Aristocrat from a removal spell, or letting it go unblocked for a turn. If you have a Geralf's Messenger in play and your opponent has no way to exile it, they either have to kill it twice and take ten damage in the process to get rid of it (two enter the battlefield triggers, and two Athreos triggers) or let you re-cast it every time you sacrifice it to Cartel or Varolz, the Scar-Striped.

As for some specific card choices that might be a little unusual:

I think this shell is the best fit for this card that I've ever come across. Tidehollow Sculler counts as two devotion towards Athreos, and when Athreos is in play, your opponent has to pay three life to kill the Tidehollow Sculler in order to get their card back, or you get to take another card when you re-cast it. Pro-tip: When Tidehollow Sculler's ability goes on the stack, and you have a sacrifice outlet, you can sac the Sculler so that when it's ability resolves the card you take out of their hand is permanently exiled. The reason this works is that when it's ability resolves, the Sculler has already left the battlefield, so there's no way to trigger his second ability.

This card also feels quite at home in this shell. For a while now I've had my eye on this card, but in all my other creature based graveyard decks, he hasn't quite made the cut. Part of the reason for this is because the creatures I used in other shells were cards like Gravecrawler and Bloodghast. Those are creatures that I don't want to exile, I just want to put them back on the table after they've hit the graveyard. Athreos really likes this guy though. Most of the time your opponent will want to pay 3 life to prevent you from recurring things like Voice of Resurgence, which makes sense. Varolz allows you to get additional value from your opponent electing to take damage instead of giving you a card, acts as a sacrifice outlet to get the engine going with Blood Artist or Athreos, increases your clock by pumping himself or your other creatures and is a resilient threat. 

This one is not an odd choice. This card is the main reason we're playing green. In this deck, I'd rather draw Voice of Resurgence than a Tarmogoyf. This thing gives control players headaches, and turns into quite the beater after you've sacrificed the 2/2. If your opponent doesn't take 3 damage from Athreos when you sacrifice this, they had better have a lot of spot removal spells in hand, or they will take a lot of damage very quickly.

If you enjoy value creatures and super grindy games, this deck is for you. Take it for a spin and let me know what you think!

To wrap up my article for today, I've got a couple updated decklists. I have a couple of tweaks for my Turbo Tezz list:

x4 Dimir Signet (instead of Azorius Signet)
x4 Orzhov Signet

x4 Pentad Prisim

x4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

x4 Dispatch

x3 Thopter Foundry

x4 Solemn Simulacrum

x4 Wurmcoil Engine

x3 Spellskite

x3 Vedalken Shackles

x2 Watery Grave

x2 Hallowed Fountain

x11 Island

x4 Misty Rainforest

x4 Scalding Tarn

SB: 3 Defense Grid

SB: 4 Ethersworn Canonist

SB: 2 Engineered Explosives

SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage

SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus

SB: 1 Pithing Needle

SB: 1 Black Sun's Zenith

The only changes so far have been to replace the Azorius Signets with Dimir Signets, because we're a little more black intensive than white, and we need to make sure we can always cast Tezzeret on turn three. The other change was to add Defense Grid in the sideboard. This deck is pretty helpless against counter magic, so having a card like that is very useful.

And an update to my Counter Cat list:

x4 Wild Nacatl

x4 Goblin Guide

x4 Loam Lion

x2 Kird Ape

x4 Tarmogoyf

x4 Remand

x2 Snapcaster Mage

x4 Lightning Bolt

x2 Mana Leak

x1 Pillar of Flame

x3 Ghor-Clan Rampager

x4 Tribal Flames

x4 Arid Mesa

x4 Verdant Catacombs

x3 Scalding Tarn

x2 Marsh Flats

x1 Hallowed Fountain

x1 Sacred Foundry

x1 Stomping Ground

x1 Steam Vents

x1 Temple Garden

x1 Breeding Pool

x1 Godless Shrine

x1 Blood Crypt

x1 Island

SB: x4 Lightning Helix

SB: x4 Spell Pierce

SB: x4 Destructive Revelry (this card has been doing a ton of work)

SB: x3 Pillar of Flame

The only change here is to move the two maindeck copies of Spell Pierce to the sideboard in favor of Mana Leak. I realized that Spell Pierce is not where I want to be against the Birthing Pod decks, which is pretty much enemy number 1 in the format. At least as far as this deck is concerned, and Mana Leak has been doing a much better job. Gotta stop that Kitchen Finks!

Thanks for reading!