Athreos, God of Passage - 1BW
Legendary Enchantment Creature - God
Indestructible
As long as your devotion to white and black is less than 7, Athreos isn't a creature.
Whenever another creature you own dies, return it to your hand unless target opponent pays 3 life.
5/4
Three mana is pretty cheap, but I'm skeptical of punisher mechanics. The biggest thing going for this card is that BW is a relatively weak guild, with 3 solid cards (Lingering Souls, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Vindicate), but no clear 4th. I could see this card as an interesting 4th for some people.
I actually find WB to be quite strong. Each of the top 3 is pretty solidly entrenched for me, though it drops off a bit after that.
I think Athreos is powerful, but the fact that he doesn't work well with tokens hurts his chances. You'd need to be pretty devoted to an Orzhov weenie section before this gets consideration.
I'm cultivating a nice human tribal thing, and those colors have one drops for days, I was excited about the inevitability with this, but someone dropping the dreaded punisher word gets me nervous.
Finally, another 3 mana god! Seems good in more aggressively inclined cube decks, where both outcomes of the triggered ability hurt the opponent. Plus, white and black have a lot of double-colored permanents, so turning him into a 5/4 shouldn't be too hard.
I'm cultivating a nice human tribal thing, and those colors have one drops for days, I was excited about the inevitability with this, but someone dropping the dreaded punisher word gets me nervous.
Sure, but a 3 life death trigger is some very serious punishment. Remember how annoying Blood Artist was against control? That was just 1 life, and getting a creature back is going to go towards the same end anyways. BW human tribal seems like one of the best places to try this out, if your cube supports it. Most regular cubes won't be able to, I imagine.
I just started toying around with champion of the parish and xathrid necromancer after I saw how many good humans we have gotten lately. Had a positive response so I've just added pain seer, and Mayor of Avabruk and Avacyn's Pilgrim to bring green in on the plan. It has also inspired people to play more black aggro, and not just leave the amazing white stuff for a Boris player to run the table with.
Doesn't interest me. 3 mana is nice, but the ability isn't always relevant, and when it is, you still have no control over it. Plus, Orzhov has a bunch of better cards anyways. 3 amazing staples, and a bunch of other playable stuff that I think is better than this card.
What about when you don't have a Braids? The card is bad without some sort of creature sacrifice/recursion engine. At face value, it's really, really poor.
I will just have to rely on cards like Carrionfeeder, Stronghold assassin, Small Pox, Pox, Toxic Deluge, Damnation, Death Cloud, Recurring Nightmare, Skullclamp, and Smokestacks in the mono black deck.
edit* Oh and Shriekmaw. Shriekmaw is really good with this.
What seperates this effect from many other punisher effects is that in an aggressive deck, it creates two very similar options for the opponent. Sure, he will still choose the least bad, making the effect a bit unreliable, but if both effects are similarly bad for him, you don't care that much. Get a dead creature back? Play it again and attack! Don't get it back? Nice, that is like an unblockable attack for 3.
I don't think a sacrifice outlet is that important. If you sacrifice your creatures without pressuring the opponent's life total, he just pays 3 life a few times to disrupt your engine. Just attack with your aggro critters. Creatures die naturally, either through removal or in combat. That will trigger the god's ability easily enough.
Just imagine the opponent casting a Wrath after you spent the first few turns casting creatures and bringing his life total down.
The more I think about it, the more I think this card is complete garbage. Not only is the trigger itself unreliable, but the effect you get when it does trigger is unreliable. I'm not going to invest a card and 3 mana for a really poor insurance policy.
I find orzhov pretty stacked also, but being so cheap to cast makes this worth at least considering.
If you/opponent wraths with the above stack of creatures, you're opponent can either face 3 guys or lose 9 life (or some combo thereof). 9 life is a lot! but it does say return to hand, meaning you'd have to curve out again...
It definitely needs a deck with lots of creatures (not tokens).
WB is sometimes a reanimator color. This card plays poorly with Recurring Nightmare and other reanimation spells (assuming a creature went to yard & you want to reanimate it).
I don't see how this doesn't play well with Recurring Nightmare - when you sac the creature your opponent must pay 3 life or you can recast it, plus you're still reanimating your target. I guess it's not good with midrange "value" reanimation when reanimating creatures who die from play, but most reanimator strategies I see in Cube involve the reanimated creature either being Entombed, milled, or discarded, and this God doesn't have any problem with that. Is there something I'm not seeing?
Personally, I think this card is interesting enough that if I can pick one up easily enough, I'll give it a go.
Do I need to play a spell to make my Recurring Nightmare better? I'd rather run an effect that mitigates other problems rather than one that improves an already game-winning situation.
Do I need to play a spell to make my Recurring Nightmare better? I'd rather run an effect that mitigates other problems rather than one that improves an already game-winning situation.
Well, that's not even the issue. mook1e stated that it specifically doesn't play well with Recurring Nightmare. And while I don't necessarily think this card is what a straight reanimator "combo" style deck is looking for, not every B/x card is, (white in particular is probably the least combo-reanimator color combination with black) I do think that this would be good in a BW or BWX midrange deck, and Recurring Nightmare would also be a card I'd want in that deck. If it doesn't play well means every time a creature dies I get to play it again, then I'm not going to be upset to replay Skinrenders, Shriekmaws, and Cloudgoat Rangers.
But if your goal is to replay creatures that have died, there are cards that are much better at making that happen. Same with threatening their life total, or getting value from your creatures dying. I don't see a situation where I'd want to run this card over one that does a specific job well.
How many triggers are you expecting to see in the average game? If it's less than three (which I definitely think it would be) this card is much worse than something like Blightning. And decks that play effects that being lots of creatures to the 'yard (Braids, 'Stax, Pox, etc) don't want this card. It doesn't interact with recursive creature engines or token generators, which are the main reasons to go into those archetypes to begin with. So if I'm playing it at face-value as an insurance policy against my creatures dying, it's a terrible spell. If I want to bring my creatures back to my hand from the 'yard, there are much better tools to accomplish that than this card.
Well, I just guess we'll have to agree to disagree for now, I think this looks like something that'll ramp up the pressure for aggro and midrange creature-based decks, and that's something I'm always looking for. Then again, my cube (at 630) is significantly larger than yours as well, and that'll probably play into it. I don't necessarily think it's an auto-include, but if I pick one up I'm definitely going to test it out and see how it plays.
What seperates this effect from many other punisher effects is that in an aggressive deck, it creates two very similar options for the opponent. Sure, he will still choose the least bad, making the effect a bit unreliable, but if both effects are similarly bad for him, you don't care that much. Get a dead creature back? Play it again and attack! Don't get it back? Nice, that is like an unblockable attack for 3.
I don't think a sacrifice outlet is that important. If you sacrifice your creatures without pressuring the opponent's life total, he just pays 3 life a few times to disrupt your engine. Just attack with your aggro critters. Creatures die naturally, either through removal or in combat. That will trigger the god's ability easily enough.
Just imagine the opponent casting a Wrath after you spent the first few turns casting creatures and bringing his life total down.
This is what I am thinking. Its's basically pay 3 life for each nontoken that died.
If your opponent does not pay then you get the creature back and by the time it dies, your opponent is faced with the same problem. All the while there is that devotion that you could reach with all the recursion.
The issue I have here is that it does not help BW tokens. If cheap enough I could test replacing Unburial Rites.
After seeing how much damage Blood Artist can do, I think this dude is at least worth a test. Now, I realize he's different than Blood Artist. He only triggers on my creatures and it's not an auto three damage for each creature death. So with that said, I wouldn't cube him over Vindicate, Lingering Souls, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, or Desolation Angel. If you have room beyond those four, though, I think he's at least worth testing out. Cube is full of interesting board states and creature face offs. In any instance where my creatures would die in combat, I'm ok with either option my opponent chooses here. There's also the times that I can abuse the ability with sacrifice effects like Braids and Smokestack. And he puts a huge damper on my opponent's spot removal. On top of that, black and white both have several color heavy permanents, so Devotion shouldn't be much of a challenge. An indestructible 5/4 for three mana is pretty decent on its own. I'm not saying he's the nuts and an auto include. I know there will be times where your opponent will be able to basically ignore him, kill your dude, take the three, and win anyway. But I think he's at least interesting and worthy of a testing slot in medium to larger cubes. He's certainly not "complete garbage".
Legendary Enchantment Creature - God
Indestructible
As long as your devotion to white and black is less than 7, Athreos isn't a creature.
Whenever another creature you own dies, return it to your hand unless target opponent pays 3 life.
5/4
Thoughts?
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
I think Athreos is powerful, but the fact that he doesn't work well with tokens hurts his chances. You'd need to be pretty devoted to an Orzhov weenie section before this gets consideration.
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Sure, but a 3 life death trigger is some very serious punishment. Remember how annoying Blood Artist was against control? That was just 1 life, and getting a creature back is going to go towards the same end anyways. BW human tribal seems like one of the best places to try this out, if your cube supports it. Most regular cubes won't be able to, I imagine.
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edit* Oh and Shriekmaw. Shriekmaw is really good with this.
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I don't think a sacrifice outlet is that important. If you sacrifice your creatures without pressuring the opponent's life total, he just pays 3 life a few times to disrupt your engine. Just attack with your aggro critters. Creatures die naturally, either through removal or in combat. That will trigger the god's ability easily enough.
Just imagine the opponent casting a Wrath after you spent the first few turns casting creatures and bringing his life total down.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
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W
WW
1BW
2WW
- you could attack with a 5/4 on turn 4!
I find orzhov pretty stacked also, but being so cheap to cast makes this worth at least considering.
If you/opponent wraths with the above stack of creatures, you're opponent can either face 3 guys or lose 9 life (or some combo thereof). 9 life is a lot! but it does say return to hand, meaning you'd have to curve out again...
It definitely needs a deck with lots of creatures (not tokens).
WB is sometimes a reanimator color. This card plays poorly with Recurring Nightmare and other reanimation spells (assuming a creature went to yard & you want to reanimate it).
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Personally, I think this card is interesting enough that if I can pick one up easily enough, I'll give it a go.
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Well, that's not even the issue. mook1e stated that it specifically doesn't play well with Recurring Nightmare. And while I don't necessarily think this card is what a straight reanimator "combo" style deck is looking for, not every B/x card is, (white in particular is probably the least combo-reanimator color combination with black) I do think that this would be good in a BW or BWX midrange deck, and Recurring Nightmare would also be a card I'd want in that deck. If it doesn't play well means every time a creature dies I get to play it again, then I'm not going to be upset to replay Skinrenders, Shriekmaws, and Cloudgoat Rangers.
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How many triggers are you expecting to see in the average game? If it's less than three (which I definitely think it would be) this card is much worse than something like Blightning. And decks that play effects that being lots of creatures to the 'yard (Braids, 'Stax, Pox, etc) don't want this card. It doesn't interact with recursive creature engines or token generators, which are the main reasons to go into those archetypes to begin with. So if I'm playing it at face-value as an insurance policy against my creatures dying, it's a terrible spell. If I want to bring my creatures back to my hand from the 'yard, there are much better tools to accomplish that than this card.
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This is what I am thinking. Its's basically pay 3 life for each nontoken that died.
If your opponent does not pay then you get the creature back and by the time it dies, your opponent is faced with the same problem. All the while there is that devotion that you could reach with all the recursion.
The issue I have here is that it does not help BW tokens. If cheap enough I could test replacing Unburial Rites.
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