MTG Salvation

This Athreos list is a midrange deck that tries to limit my opponents' ability to pull ahead while also sacrificing and recurring creatures to generate value.


I have been running this list for a few months now, and I feel the deck is fairly consistent and able to compete with the decks at my LGS. The meta at said LGS goes from fun gimmik/theme decks to fairly tuned lists, but nothing most would classify as cEDH.
I am always looking to improve my list and welcome any feedback or questions, and thank you for taking a look!

Your list as it is now seems pretty solid. The only cards I can see that could be considered for a cut are:

Bishop of Rebirth - Seems weak since it is only on attack and can only get (small) creatures
Tragic Poet - What enchantments are you expecting to use this with? I only see 5 and they are not worth running this
Thraben Inspector - It helps you draw *a* card but I am not sure that is enough. Read the Bones can be a decent card draw spell though I do think creature based draw is probably better to stick with. I am not sure what creature would be best for this though. Maybe Inspector is the best due to cost.
Aven Mindcensor - I don't see much for taxing in this deck so this stands out. I would either add more taxing effects like Leonin Arbiter and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or just get rid of this for something that works better in your deck.
Auramancer - The same reason as Tragic Poet.

I think Remorseful Cleric would be a great addition to this deck since you deal with opposing graveyards as well as potentially getting it back with Athreos around. Other additions could be:

Path to Exile - Another solid removal spell (though not budget)
Grave Pact - With all your creatures dying, this seems pretty good to get even more benefit from your stuff dying
Sol Ring - Its just more ramp in a non-green deck.

After playing many games with Athreos I decided to do some updating and try out some new cards.
First, I replaced Greed and Phyrexian Arena with Skeletal Scrying and Read the Bones.
This was done because I was finding myself behind in cards sometimes, even with the enchantments out, and not able to keep up as I was only getting an extra card or two a turn. While in a deck that maybe was trying to go longer and control more those are better options, however I've felt my list is trying to quickly out value and start dealing damage more often then not. So I believe drawing the cards now and not having to wait might be better. I will see how these work out though and may switch back if it doesn't pan out.
The second change was taking out Cloudgoat Ranger for Knight-Captain of Eos, as the Knight-Captain can use his tokens to fog combat damage and give me more sustainability.
Lastly, I wanted to find room for and test Magus of the Will, so I took out Auramancer since as WizardMN has stated I don't have many enchantments and now have even less, so Tragic Poet is more then enough recursion for them.
I will hopefully be able to update soon on how the new card draw and Magus of the Will work out.

It's been a little over a week since I made the upgrades listed above. As of now I'm going to keep Skeletal Scrying and Read the Bones in, as when I find them they have worked out in drawing me more cards on a shorter time frame.
The Knight-Captain of Eos was a great upgrade and I've been able to use his fog effect once or twice now.
I have not drawn Magus of the will and been able to use him as of yet, hopefully this week will give me more information on his inclusion. But I've been in scenarios were having him out would have been very helpful.
The only change I'm planning to make is adding Leonin Warleader as another creature that makes tokens. Once it arrives in the mail I'll decided what to take out for it, most likely Tragic Poet as of now.

Had a few rough games tonight. Not able to find a color of mana or not enough lands in general during the 2 games I got in with Athreos. For sure a player issue as I kept very questionable hands and got punished for it.
I did end up taking out Magus of the Will as the impact it gives can be very good, however it's a fairly slow compared to the rest of the deck. I decided to sleeve up an Apprentice Necromancer. He is still as slow as Magus, however without needing to compete with Athreos or some other high impact three drop using him may be easier and less intensive of my mana.

I think Apprentice Necromancer works better with Athreos for a couple reasons: it dies so it triggers Athreos while Magus does not. And, the creature it brings back dies to trigger Athreos again. Magus has a leg up in the latter case since things don't have to be sacrificed when they are cast from the graveyard, but they do have to be cast which means without a lot of mana, Magus doesn't do much. Necromancer lets you get a creature back for fairly cheap.

In the same vein as Necromancer, I would recommend trying to slot in Chainer, Dementia Master somewhere. You are using your graveyard enough that having an Instant timing way of getting these back is helpful. And you have a fair number of sac outlets to ensure your stuff doesn't necessarily get exiled.

As for the mana issue, I think that is more bad luck than anything. You have 38 lands and 2 mana rocks so you have mana sources. I am not sure it is worth it to add any more beyond maybe a Sol Ring.

The op list lacks dual mana makers. Here's a list of lands that do so.

• Caves of Koilos
  
• Concealed Courtyard
  
• Fetid Heath
  
• Forsaken Sanctuary
  
• Godless Shrine
  
• Isolated Chapel
  
• Orzhov Basilica
  
• Orzhov Guildgate
  
• Salt Flats
  
• Scoured Barrens
  
• Scrubland
  
• Shambling Vent
  
• Tainted Field
  
• Temple of Silence
  

Quote from Legend »

The op list lacks dual mana makers. Here's a list of lands that do so.

• Caves of Koilos
  
• Concealed Courtyard
  
• Fetid Heath
  
• Forsaken Sanctuary
  
• Godless Shrine
  
• Isolated Chapel
  
• Orzhov Basilica
  
• Orzhov Guildgate
  
• Salt Flats
  
• Scoured Barrens
  
• Scrubland
  
• Shambling Vent
  
• Tainted Field
  
• Temple of Silence
  

The OP lists Courtyard, Chapel, and Caves of Koilos. Of the rest that were listed:

Godless Shrine, Fetid Heath, Scrubland - I agree with all 3 of these that they should be included. However, they are definitely not budget friendly so they may be omitted due to cost.

Taplands - I would not run all of them, but Temple of Silence and Scoured Barrens should probably make the list to help smooth out mana. Too many and the deck slows down.

In my opinion, the rest are worse than basics, especially early game. However, they can be useful to smooth out mana so they are worth looking into. The only ones I would absolutely not run are Tainted Field and Orzhov Basilica.

I do feel my mana issues were a mixture of bad luck and bad keeps. Also thanks for the reminder to add Sol Ring, I always forget to buy and add one.

In an effort to lower my curve and take out some higher costed effects which were not always reliable due to their cost I've made a few changes:
Harvester of Souls has been replaced with Mentor of the Meek since I have a fairly decent amount of < 2 power creatures, and the draw occurring on the ETB may possibly be better since it gets me the cards sooner.
Demon of Dark Schemes is being replaced with Retribution of the Meek, since again I have a decent amount of low power creatures. Also, the Demon really wasn't able to reanimate often if at all ever.
Emeria Shepherd got switched out with Regal Caracal. This one was a difficult choice since the Shepherd has a really good effect but it's cost was often prohibitive. It's also such high priority target in my meta that it gets killed to often to be paying 7 mana.
Hopefully I'll be able to test out these changes on Monday and report back on how it goes.

I haven't been able to use Mentor of the Meek yet, but my other two latest swaps (Retribution of the meek and Regal Caracal) worked out very well earlier this week. Having the lifelink cat tokens turned out to be a huge plus as my meta is very aggressive with creatures and the life mattered frequently.
Since the lifelink cats worked so well I've decided to finally take out Tragic Poet and include Leonin Warleader instead, as well as upgrade Day of Judgment to Fumigate.
I plan on going to GP Minneapolis tomorrow and getting in some EDH games so hopefully these turn out to be good changes. I also plan on getting many of the lands suggested by user Legend.

The games at GP Minneapolis went well and I was able Leonin Warleader and Fumigate to great effect. I've also been able to get Mentor of the Meek out a few times and while he doesn't do as much as I'd hope as mana is tight when playing this deck, however he does enable me to draw some cards and this deck is always running my hand out fairly quickly so for now I think it's worth the slot.
I also was able to purchase a Marsh Flats and Godless Shrine, and slotted them in by taking out a Plains and a Swamp. Obviously having these lands makes the deck a little more consistent and being able to get Godless Shrine when looking for "a Plains card".

Quote from EmperorsHand »

I also was able to purchase a Marsh Flats and Godless Shrine, and slotted them in by taking out a Plains and a Swamp. Obviously having these lands makes the deck a little more consistent and being able to get Godless Shrine when looking for "a Plains card".

Nice pick up. These are great lands to have.

Have you thought about Dusk // Dawn as a wrath effect? It also provides double duty with it's Aftermath side. I've really enjoyed being able to wrath the board and keep my critter (very similar to Retribution of the Meek). Toxic Deluge could also be a card worth considering. It hits Athreos but being able to take out indestructible creatures has been great. Feel free to check out my Athreos thread in my sig.

I have picked up a few copies of Dusk // Dawn for EDH since it seems like a good wrath effect in a few different strategies. I haven't put it Athreos yet though. With the amount of utility/value creatures that are present in decks in my meta I think it might not be as effective as I need it to be. However, there are cases were the opposite it true and it hoses big creatures while leaving most of mine around.
I guess the question is, do you feel your smaller creatures are worth it enough to let opponents have their smaller utility/value creatures?

Today I took out Victory's Herald and replaced it with Chainer, Dementia Master. We'll see how it plays out tonight, but I have a good feeling Chainer will just provide good value. I decided to take out the Victory's Herald because on en empty board it's not a great draw and doesn't really help me get back into the game. While Chainer not only helps me rebuild but can also help me push towards the win.

With Commander 2018 and going over Core Set 19 again, I found a few cards I decided to try out in Athreos.
I swapped Falkenrath Noble for Magus of the Balance ,
Thraben Inspector for Militia Bugler ,
and Expedition Map for Boreas Charger.
The reason for Thraben Inspector getting cut is he is fairly mana-intensive for the purpose of drawing cards. And I think the Bugler will provide better filtering for the same cost. Ever since Boreas Charger was spoiled I have been excited about sleeving it up and decided being able to reanimate him was a better effect for the same overall mana cost of the Map. Lastly, Balance style effects are one of my favorite playstyles so I want to try out the Magus and see how he plays, I decided to cut the Falkenrath Noble because I have two other similar effects in the deck in the cards of Zulaport Cutthroat and Blood Artist and I'm not sure having a 3rd was all that helpful.

Back again with a few changes. Since moving from part-time to full-time and college starting again, I've had less time to play EDH and almost every game I've played since then has been in a commander league with the new precon decks. I have picked up some new cards to slot in and plan to play a few games with Athreos on Wednesday and will have a follow up with some gameplay highlights. Now for the changes:
- Swamp
- Plains
- Mangara of Corondor
+ Winding Canyons
+ Strip Mine
+ Eerie Interlude
I decided to take out Mangara since his ability was largely being overblown by other players in many games and leading to him/my board being blown out in fear. So I decided to give him a break and try out Eerie Interlude, which is a card function that isn't largely used in my meta. Being able to protect myself from board wipes or trigger multiple ETBs seems like a really valuable line of play.
Strip Mine was added due to the increase in problematic lands in the meta as well.
And Winding Canyons was added because with a creature count of 36, it seems like a really good inclusion.

Since my last update I've played a few games, and have found I'm short on cards fairly consistently. So I've decided to add
Greed
Arguel's Blood Fast
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
The cards being taken out are
Skeletal Scrying : Exiling my cards usually doesn't work out well
Sadistic Hypnotist : His ability has been a little too mean for my meta recently, so even though I love this card it's going to come out for now
Boreas Charger : Wasn't as good as I thought it would be. This deck makes land drops pretty well so I was only behind and able to use him a few times.
I'll hopefully be able to get some more games in this week and will update with some info.

I got to play a game yesterday with Athreos, it was against a Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer artifact deck and a Baird, Steward of Argive. The early turns were me making land drops and playing out a few smaller creatures, Brudiclad building up a decent boardstate with Feldon of the Third Path and Precursor Golem and Saheeli, the Gifted, and the Baird player putting down some early attacking deterrents such as Ghostly Prison and his commander. The Brudiclad player was spreading out his attacks fairly evenly, which was not the best move in my opinion but so it goes. After getting me down to about 20 life I find the third white pip i needed to cast Akroma's Vengeance and wiped both boards clean except for my Athreos and Erebos. Using Erebos's draw, I was able to rebuild quickly with Sun Titan and Kokusho, the Evening Star and get them both down below 10 life. When I had the win on my next turn the Baird player top decks an Austere Command and chooses to use modes that destroy below 3cmc and above 4cmc, I cast the newly added Eerie Interlude to save my creatures and killed them on the following turn.
I have two new inclusions for this round of updates:
Adding Fetid Heath in place of a Swamp for more fixing
Adding Teferi's Protection in place of Magus of the Balance, as whenever I draw him I'm always ahead and he seems to slow to be able to save me from behind.
Let me know if anyone is interested in reading short game recounting, as I wanted to try it and if others want to hear about them I'd be happy to write more even!