MTG Salvation

Commander: Athreos, God of Passage
Who likes taking a lightning bolt to the face? Not me, and hopefully not my opponents either. The point of this deck is having Athreos out as soon as possible, preferably turn 3, so he can be a nuisance for the rest of the game. Then you just play cheap creatures, and when they die you ask permission from a political ally to put the creature back into your hand. When lacking political allies, it's safe to assume you can find at least one person at the table who is willing to let you keep your creature. Most people aren't willing to take a hit personally in order to help the rest of the players.

After observing the deck, you will notice there are too many cards. (63 Non-land Cards, to be exact.) I am indecisive. Recommendations of cards to cut would be greatly appreciated, as well as anything you think would be good in the deck. I'm usually willing to acquire cards up to the $2 point, anything under $5 is possible if it is really beneficial over the next budget option, and anything over $5 is probably too much for my budget self handle. As much as I wish I could spend all my money on magic cards, I have to eat somehow.

Edit: Replaced a whole boat-load of stuff, added a boatload of other stuff. Still need to cut a boatload of cards. There's now more ways to actually win, although, to be honest, that's not really a priority. We don't take games too seriously in my playgroup.

Edit2: Dropped a lot of stuff, favoring the direction of ETBs or Death triggers that are a nuisance to my opponents. The goal being having fun for a while until I make my way to a win with Exsanguinate, Debt to the Deathless, or a combo like Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood or Bloodchief Ascension/Mindcrank (thank you Honest Conman). The deck seems to be functioning okay.

The one thing I noticed right off the bat is that you have a lot of cards that either don't do anything for you, do very little in EDH, or seem to go against the focus of what Athreos should be focusing on. Creatures like Memnite, Shield Sphere, and Isamaru, Hound of Konda flat out do nothing for you, while things like Soldier of the Pantheon and Graceful Antelope aren't very strong in EDH and don't help you. Athreos wants to be playing a lot of creatures with enter or exit the battlefield effects, things that punish your opponents for paying life to send your creatures to the yard, and things that take advantage of your creatures dying. Things like Solemn Simulacrum and Fleshbag Marauder are your best friends for the first aspect, Bloodchief Ascension and Exquisite Blood help with the second, and you definitely want Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos for the third. Also, sacrifice outlets: Athreos wants a fair amount of them. More outlets means more creatures dying and more Athreos triggers. You want to rely on more than just your opponents killing your creatures in this kind of deck. As it stands, your list is very poorly optimized.

Second, your removal suite isn't very good. You don't need nearly as many single target removal spells as you have, and the ones you do put in should be things like Mortify and Silence the Believers that have more flexibility than just killing a single creature. Things like Cannibalize and Unmake aren't very good in EDH in general, let alone in your deck, because of the number of high level threats you will invariably will have to face at a time.

Finally, I don't see a win condition on here at first glance. The way you have the deck set up, it's going to take you forever to try and deal with multiple opponents at a time, and by the time you can even get to that point, someone will probably have destroyed you. You need things like Exsanguinate, Debt to the Deathless, or a combo like Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood or Bloodchief Ascension/Mindcrank that win you the game on the spot. Full-on bleeder is another option, but it requires you to devote a lot more resources to it and has a higher chance of failing. Either way, you need a defined way of winning that's something more than just poking your opponents to death and hoping that they let you live long enough to do it.

Any suggestions I make would probably involve cutting most of the deck as is, so I would suggest looking at other Athreos lists, seeing how they work, and trying to tune your deck a little more in that direction.

A local guy runs an Athreos / Shadowborn Apostle deck. It is pretty sick, actually, since you have built in ways to sac 6 creatures at a time. And just a lot of all around fun. But, it is a very specific deck and definitely sends you in one direction (aka: Shadowborn Apostle + demons), but something to think about maybe?

So is it widely regarded that Shadowborn Apostle gets around the EDH card limit, too? That seems like a fun kind of joke deck. I'm not sure who would want to regularly play/play against that deck.

Yes. You can have as many Shadowborn in your EDH deck as you want.