MTG Salvation

I have heard that Athreos is a God that is very good "in theory" but practical application is a different story. I wanted to challenge myself and construct a multiplayer casual deck build around Athreos, God of Passage and Sidisi, Undead Vizier. I saw they could work well together, so I compiled this. Tell me what you think! Thanks for reading.

I think that you need to focus on a specific theme that's global in nature. The targeted hand disruption and the small-ball effects (such as Nip Gwyllion) just plain aren't going to cut it in a "serious" multiplayer match.

For example, you may want to consider B/w Devotion. Gray Merchant of Asphodel is a very good card, especially in decks with cards like Crypt Ghast and Tithe Drinker. Sidisi, Undead Vizier is also a house in those lists because she represents additional copies of Gray Merchant and chaining those together gets extremely out of hand. Kokusho can finish the job if need be but in general you just want to load the deck up with cards that drain and/or gain life, 4 Gray Merchants and plenty of ways to find them.

Alternatively you could play an even more aggressive version of the deck that has less emphasis on Extort and more focus on direct damage. Pulse Tracker and Mardu Shadowspear can combo with oh, say, Bloodchief Ascension to completely wreck people early on at which point you can burn them out with the aforementioned Gray Merchant, Blood Artist, Kokusho, etc.

Additionally you could play a Xathrid Necromancer deck that abuses things like Ophiomancer and Hallowed Spiritkeeper to make cards like Attrition, Grave Pact and/or Dictate of Erebos absurd. Even Skirsdag High Priest can do scary things in a "death matter" deck filled with humans.

Beyond that you could also consider turning this into a dedicated lifegain deck that plays things like Ajani's Pridemate and Well of Lost Dreams to consistently generate card advantage and sizable threats. Those decks want additional copies of Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant and they can do scary things with Serra Ascendant, Vizkopa Guildmage, Archangel of Thune, etc. Heck, even things like Blood Baron of Vizkopa and Divinity of Pride are monsters! Oh, and did I forget to mention that Divinity of Pride + Athreos, God of Passage is enough to activate the latter? It's a good thing.

As you can see there are plenty of directions with which you can take the deck, it's basically just on you to decide exactly what it is that you want to be doing. The main thing is that you need to move away from spot discard and marginal threats (such as Nip Gwyllion) and more towards cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel. If you need to run small drops, that's fine, just make them things like Tithe Drinker and Vizkopa Guildmage which can legitimately do damage to a multiplayer table as the game progresses. A 1 mana 1/1 isn't even good on turn 1 but a 2 mana 2/2 that can convert excess mana into global drain is a fairly big game.

With respect to generic comments, Dictate of Erebos (Grave Pact is even better) is usually better than Damnation in these kinds of decks. Also, how big are your game? Syphon Mind is almost too powerful to omit in 5+ player games and even in 4 player games it's still a powerful Magic card. Your deck has 0 draw and Black decks should almost always run 4-6 copies of draw and/or recursion because they have access to so many powerful options. The aforementioned Well of Lost Dreams works well in dedicated lifegain decks but there are plenty of things to consider. Even Dark Prophecy and/or Underworld Dreams are normally solid, especially in Gray Merchant of Asphodel decks. Athreos as a 2-3 of counts for 2-3 of those draw spells but you really should make room for another 3-4 in my mind. I also think that 3x Athreos is kinda excessive, I'd rather run 2 myself, but I guess this is a dedicated Athreos deck so it does make sense to load up on them. Besides, if anything that just provides you with more incentive to roll with cards like Dark Prophecy and Divinity of Pride :).

Here is a revised deck list. Thanks Prid3

I don't like the 1 drops in that deck other than Soul Warden. I would personally cut all 10 others (that's waaaaaaaaaaaay too many 1 drops for MP) in favor of more Soul Wardens, possibly some Soul's Attendants and then some Ajani's Pridemates (you really want 4). Thrull Parasite can also work as a 1 drop since you really want all of your cards to gain life and/or abuse lifegain if possible. Something that "just burns" people like Pulse Tracker is only useful if you're playing some all-in burn deck that uses things like Bloodchief Ascension, Shepherd of Rot, Howling Banshee, etc. Still, no matter how you slice it twelve 1 drop 1/1s is just not where you want to be in a MP setting. You need meaty threats such as Ajani's Pridemate that can legitimately threaten opposing creatures.

20 lands also isn't going to cut it. 24 is the minimum that I would personally play in a deck like this. As long as you cast your spells you should be fine but mana screw is usually a death-sentence in MP. There's just no reason to play with a ton of powerful 4+ drops and not play enough mana to support them.

Yeah 10 is excessive. This should round out a little better.

You know, looking again twelve 5 drops is probably a bit much. They're all extremely powerful cards, none of them are actively bad or anything, it's probably just excessive to play so many of them. You're not a lock to run 5-for-5 in a 24 land deck and getting stuck on 3-4 with a grip full of 5 drops would be problematic. The deck probably either needs to cut a threat for another land or ~2 expensive threats for something cheaper that can help fill out the curve. Vampire Nighthawk, for example, is a nice meaty blocker that can help to fill out the curve. It's obviously not better than a Gray Merchant on turn 5 but if you die before you hit 5 lands then it doesn't really matter now does it :P?

Damn. didn't realize it was 12. I was thinking about adding some Dark Rituals and Vampire Nighthawk is a fantastic card. I think we are really trimming the fat on this. Here is what i revised.

I don't like Dark Ritual in fair decks. There's no real need to 2-for-1 yourself. I don't mind the card if your deck has like 4x Phyrexian Arena and 2x Underworld Connections or something similar to that, turn 1 draw engines are sweet, but if you're just ritualling out a random critter I don't think that it's worthwhile. MP games tend to be long and grindy and so it rarely makes sense to toss cards away for a temporary boost of speed. A turn 3 Blood Baron isn't going to magically beat a table down and I'd rather have a card than ~4-8 damage and ~4-8 life (bear in mind that some % of the time it'll just die or sit back on D).

Some cards that seem good with Athreos include:

• Fleshbag Marauder
  
• Pit Keeper
  
• High Priest of Penance
  
• Vampire Nighthawk
  
• Phyrexian Rager
  
• Phyrexian Reclamation
  

I have taken all of your suggestions and I have compiled this. I think it looks like a well oiled machine. Thanks everyone.