It's a good interaction but you obviously can't rely on getting both of those cards every game, so you'd need some redundancy there which brings you back to other options which you don't like as much. I think it'd be great in a Sun Titan build, since rallier is a tiny Sun Titan and Tribe-Elder is great with both.
Rallier probably won't be in the current version of Abzan CoCo but might be good in a different version of the deck. I could see it more in either an Eldritch Evolution shell (curving Voice of Resurgence into Eldritch Evo getting a token and finding Rallier returning Voice seems good) or that landfall deck.
Planar Bridge shouldn't be played in Tron imo; it's too win-more. Tron would rather drop a t3 actual threat like Karn or Wurmcoil than drop bridge and wait until t4 minimum to be able to do anything. Tron's weakness is already that it doesn't interact fast enough and making it a turn slower just to get extra payoff in a game it's already winning doesn't seem good.
Whir of Invention might see fringe play in the Krark-Clan Ironworks Eggs deck as redundancy with, or even a replacement for Reshape. UUU tapping some of the eggs you have to find KCI is better than 4UU sacrifice an egg because it can happen t3 and you don't care if your Ichor Wellsprings are tapped (and not your Chromstic Stars either once you have KCI as a sac outlet).
Sram excites me as someone who enjoys rogue decks but while he brings ever-needed redundancy to modern Cheeri0s, he doesn't solve the problem of them losing to one removal spell. Nevertheless I'd love to see that deck become a real thing.
What do you want to do with these decks? Are we talking Friday Night Magic, or are do you want to win at a much larger tournament? There are also some different aspects to come into play here in how to approach builds and sideboard strategies as well as deck overlap. There are also what is called "flex decks" where you can flex say Grixis to Nahiri Jeskai easily or Abzan into Jund and back.
I would look at the top tier one cards right now and reflect what you have in your collection and budge first. Then look at the larger historic decks. Jund, Affinity, and Burn are typically tier 1. I'd try out some of the tier 1 decks first, then decide on what fits your play style. Just because Burn is Tier 1, doesn't mean you will like the deck.
What are you goals? Is this FNM or larger events?
What is your budget?
It's to cover FNM level events. I travel a lot so I will take decks with me to stores near where I work. So there's the random metagame aspect of this as well.
let me as a different question. I have:
Coco Elves
Temur delver
Grixis Delver
BW Tokens
Martyr-Proc Control
Which 3 would allow me to cover the most metagames?
The idea of flex decks is what I have going between Temur Delver and Grixis. As well as BW Tokens and Martyr-Proc.
I know, a lot of them are Tier 2 and 3, but I don't care. I have the cards and I can build them. The Tier 1 decks uses cards that are very niche (cards don't port to other decks) and are not very flexible.
I may be wrong here, but I feel like Grixis Delver, Martyr-Proc, and CoCo elves would be the best combination.
Grixis Delver is good vs combo decks with its heavy disruption from counterspells and discard, Martyr-Proc is good vs aggro decks (especially Burn, which Grixis Delver probably isn't that good against), and both get wrecked by Tron, which CoCo elves should be best against out of the options you listed. Not sure what you'd choose vs control out of all your options though, so that's something to consider.
B (and B Phyrexian)
Target player reveals their hand, you choose a nonland card, player discards that card
Basically a Phyrexian Thoughtseize, it would obviously be strong enough to see play, and maybe more flexible, but I don't think it would be broken, very few WANT more discard of that level than we have. Most decks don't play 4 Thoughtseize and 4 IoK as it is
It would be insanely good and it would make 8rack a thing. I have to pass on this.
sure, 8-rack would suddenly be a thing....if it were fast enough with the hyper-aggro. if it could compete, it would slow the format way down. I have no issue with the deck being strong, it would never be better than TS, usually 4 more copies of the same card. there are a couple decks looking for more of that effect, but none of them would break format rules. honestly, in responding to you, I want it even more now. I don't play 8-rack, I have a tempo/control brew that already runs the full 8 TS and IoK. I would love another card of that caliber. I get that it would bestrong, but no more than so many other cards in the format
Well this card is almost strictly better than Thoughtseize which is probably the most powerful discard spell ever printed. The only way it isn't better is if someone counters it since this one's life pay is a cost, and with it coming out on turn 1 it being countered isn't likely. The argument that thoughtseize isn't a 4 of makes sense but that doesn't justify the printing of a strictly better card. Spellskite is only a 1-2 of card, but they wouldn't make a strictly better Spellskite; it's still the most played card in modern period. Thoughtseize was bad for standard coming through Theros (and probably wasn't great for Lorwyn either) and modern cards aren't printed any other way. As a fan and player of Death's Shadow I would want nothing more than to see something like this printed, but I don't personally think it would happen.
Mox Opal could easily make you go off a turn faster but it's not very budget friendly. Serum Visions could smooth out draws and set up your combo. Greater Gargadon is a sac outlet for your artifacts that's hard to stop and can even be a backup kill condition if it comes off suspend. One or two Day's Undoing could let you refuel your hand after dumping a bunch of artifacts and probably go off the next turn, though that is riskier because they get a new hand too. (Sorry that I can't link cards; I'm on the mobile site.)
This is a topic that I am constantly looking into. I have my notepad doc with ~20 combo decks that are just rotting there, waiting for better cards to be printed and enable them into a competitive light. I have been meaning to port it into the forums at some point because the decktags and cardtags will make it really nice but I just haven't found the time lately.
-Zuberas: I'd have no idea where to go with this, but the deck would hella want Cavern of Souls and, to a lesser degree, Ancient Ziggurat.
-Modern Four Horsemen: (With Kiora's Follower instead of Monolith I assume) it's hard to have a free graveyard combo without Dread Return, if that got unbanned though (not happening)...
-Locket of Yesterdays: Artificer's Intuition with this could be a pretty crazy engine. If Sensei's Divining Top was unbanned though (will never happen, even less likely than Dread Return imo), you could have that Greg Hatch style deck with Top, Locket, and Altar of the Brood kill, all of the parts fetchable with Artificer's Intuition (and I guess Trinket Mage too, which is cool).
-Blood Funnel: Monastery Mentor negates the downside for literally anything that would get reduced (just stack the triggers correctly), and that does curve out... Hmm... It does just seem like really bad Eggs though. Regardless, we might be on to something there. Young Pyro is redundancy for instants and sorceries, which can't hurt the chances of something working out with Funnel. Oh, and there's always Mishra, Artificer Prodigy if you want to go real deep into stacking triggers, but that's more of an EDH combo.
That I hadn't considered only because my meta doesn't have many decks that that card hoses enough for the tapped source to be worth it. The deck is pretty mana hungry though, and it runs WB tapped sources only because it needs to have all its mana tap for black but still be able to have a W or two available, so tapped sources that only give B are usually Crypt of Agadeem-level insane or are not included. However, in a meta with a bunch of graveyard-based decks I could see Bojuka Bog totally being worth inclusion. I think next I'll work on writing a new section that's kind of like Notable Exclusions but includes cards that are either meta-dependant or are cards I simply don't own/use for other reasons but would still be good in the deck. So far, Bog and Contamination would make that list. I'll try to think of others before I write it up though so it's comprehensive enough. Another new section I think I'll work on is an explanation of other commanders that are conducive to Shadowborn Apostle-based strategies and what they could provide over Athreos, and also what Athreos provides over them.
This is an excellent write up. It obvious you put a lot of time into creating this deck and writing this thread.
I have seen variants on this deck before, but I have never seen a Shadowborn Apostle thread that is so polished and a list that is this solid. I especially enjoyed reading your Notable Exclusions section. I agreed with you entire reasoning and analysis there except for omitting Dictate of Erebos. Yes, it is a powerful card, but you are playing a deck that doesn't include the two strongest colors in the format, U or G. You are playing a gimmicky combo deck that isn't particularly common or powerful so I don't think playing Dictate of Erebos is too good. Yes it costs 5, but it's not impossible to get to 5 with only 34 lands. Personally I think Thrumming Stone is a lot less fun to play against than Dictate of Erebos.
I understand why you are playing Reliquary Tower but is Spellbook really necessary? It seems like a pretty mediocre card. Can you talk more about why maximum hand size effects are important, and how often you have Spellbook/Reliquary Tower on the battlefield with more than 7 cards in your hand. Perhaps you may want to run Thought Vessel over Spellbook?
When you get a chance, can you please update description and analysis of the deck to include card tags and mana symbols?
I appreciate the compliment! I think I will be having Dictate finding its way back into the deck. It's a great card and is excellent payoff to the strategy. I just have to find the slot to open up for it.
Spellbook is actually (surprisingly) really good in the deck. The main reason it's in there (besides the fact that this deck tries to draw a lot of cards by tutoring for payoff slots such as Dark Prophecy, Grim Haruspex, Harvester of Souls, Skullclamp, and other draw effects like Necropotence etc.) is because Athreos sends the Shadowborn Apostles back to hand when they die. Normally, this would be fine, except (most often) when they hit my hand they hit six at a time. If I have 5 or 6 cards in hand and want to cast one or two of them the turn I cracked the Shadowborns, the additional 6 coming into my hand end up mostly hitting the bin at EOT, effectively nullifying the card advantage I built this deck to achieve. Spellbook can seem like a really bad card because it looks like a -1 in card advantage that does nothing most of the time, but actually in practice it often ends up being the thing I spend one "card" on playing that lets me not lose 5-10 cards at my cleanup phase. As weird as it sounds, most of the time when I drop it it's a card that can count plus 5 or much more in card advantage, even including the fact that it uses up a card in my hand itself. And the oddest part is, I actually prefer drawing it to Reliquary Tower. If I draw Tower and want to use it to keep all the extra cards I'm drawing/all the extra Apostles that come back to my hand, I sacrifice a land drop that can provide B, meaning I'm able to cast one fewer Apostle each and every turn, which can actually matter/add up a lot more than you'd think. Plus, if I'm trying to win the game in the next couple turns and I'm spending all my mana drawing cards/cracking Shadowborns that go back to hand to try and hit that critical density to kill everyone, in 99% of those situations I've already made my land drop to maximize my mana (so if I draw Reliquary Tower in that large pile of cards it doesn't help me keep any of them) and I don't have the 2 to cast Thought Vessel.
I think Reflecting Pool is absolutely worth putting in the deck; I just have to acquire one or take one out of another deck. Shizo is also sweet and I'll probably put it in if I can find one.
I will be updating everything with tags and symbols right now. When I made the thread yesterday I wrote it out on a Word document before pasting it into this and using the formatting/HTML stuff so I missed some of that when I was updating it to be MTGS-friendly. I appreciate the comment and the thought you've put into this! It's all very helpful and will make this deck and thread better, so it's much appreciated.
Maybe you could get her some kind of accessory for one of her current commander decks. If you're artsy you could maybe make a deckbox for her that's themed like the theme of the deck. If you can't make one you could get a white one and paint it or something.
Athreos, God of Passage has always been my favorite Theros block god, but I never really knew how to go about making an EDH deck around him. He came out in Journey Into Nyx and I thought he was sweet, but put him on the back burner until I could figure out how to do him justice. Shadowborn Apostle turned out to be quite the answer to my quandary.
Athreos at a Glance
As the other multicolored gods, Athreos, God of Passage is an indestructible enchantment that can become a creature if your devotion to his colors is seven or greater. As an indestructible enchantment, he’s pretty annoying to remove, and often gets cast once/twice per game and sticks unless someone really wants him gone.
Now, for the real meat and bones of the card, his triggered ability “Whenever another creature you own dies, return it to your hand unless target opponent pays 3 life.” So if any creatures I have happen to die, I choose a person and that person can pay the life or I get that creature back to my hand. This is (surprisingly) a lot to dissect, and will be elaborated upon in subsequent sections.
Shadowborn Apostle at a Glance
Shadowborn Apostle is a 1/1 Human Cleric for B that I can have any number of in my deck (this card text supercedes the natural “1-of” rule of EDH). I can pay B and sac six creatures named Shadowborn Apostle and tutor up any demon in my deck and put it directly onto the field. A couple things to note:
1)Relying on having six of them out means I have to run 30+ of them in my deck, so it takes a lot of room away for other card slots, making each card really have to be worth it to make it in the deck.
2)Relying on casting six of them means black sources are at a premium, because it’s as if I’m casting a spell that costs BBBBBB in chunks, or many times, even all at once. Thus, if a land does not tap for black, I probably don’t want it in my deck unless it does something amazing, such as give me no maximum hand size (a la Reliquary Tower), which is extremely important in a deck that can get 6 extra cards into my hand at the snap of a finger.
3)Since they all cost 1 mana I dump my hand quickly and am always in need of ways to refill. Cards that let me draw at will like Necropotence and Skullclamp or anything that says “when your Shadowborns die, draw cards” are pretty great tutor targets.
4)You can sacrifice them at instant speed, so many demons can provide quick “tricks,” i.e. responding to: fetchland/tutor with Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, responding to a big creature attacking me with Overseer of the Damned, responding to a team of creatures attacking me with Kagemaro, First to Suffer, or responding to a wrath with Harvester of Souls.
Each Demon and When to Fetch Them
Kagemaro, First to Suffer: He’s the wrath demon. The cool thing about Athreos and Shadowborns for him is that you’ll likely get them all (or at least most) back in your hand before you even find Kagemaro so the X will be six more than your hand size was before you sacrificed the Apostles. He is usually more than enough to kill the entire board. Ob Nixilis, Unshackled: Did an opponent at low life cast a tutor or crack a fetchland? Oops, 10 life loss and sac a creature. Or if you just want to have a guy out that gets six +1/+1 counters every time you sacrifice a team of Apostles. Harvester of Souls: If you have more Apostles out, or if you’re going to get them back with Athreos, or if someone is about to kill a lot of various creatures, you can fetch this guy. Unfortunately the six Shadowborns you sacrifice to find him won’t count, but anything after that will! Rune-Scarred Demon: He’s demonic tutor. What more could you want? Sometimes if I greedily keep a hand of five Apostles and a couple land, sometimes I might just play them out sac them to find this guy and tutor Necropotence so I don’t have card advantage problems again. Lord of the Void: He’s just a fun, big beater. Sac Apostles at the end of turn of the opponent before you, untap and swing to 7 someone in the air and see if you hit a creature. Overseer of the Damned: He’s basically Murder on a stick, with the added bonus of giving me Zombie tokens sometimes. Demon of Dark Schemes: This guy I’m trying out and I haven’t played a game with him in my deck yet since I just got one. He seems pretty good though. Only downside is if I have 6 Shadowborns out and go fetch him, the rest are going to die. But he provides a way for me to reuse dead demons that are no longer searchable since they’re not in my deck. And he reanimates opponents’ creatures too!
Notes on the Rules
Shadowborns sacrifice themselves as a cost for the ability, and therefore hit the graveyard before you get the demon. That means with Athreos out, you will know exactly how many of the 6 you’re getting back before you figure out which demon you’re getting, and with cards like Grim Haruspex out, you draw 6 cards before you search.
Athreos’ devotion is a static effect and you can generally make him not a creature by paying B and sacrificing some Apostles. This means if someone targets him with Swords to Plowshares or something like it, you can respond by sacrificing Apostles and then the spell fizzles because he’s not a valid target anymore. Silly them, they tried to Swords an enchantment.
The Political Aspect
You can always play politics with this deck because of who your commander is. Since you get to target whomever you want, you can tell a person “Hey, if you give me back my Shadowborns, I’ll do ___________” (i.e. political favors like: removing something that’s hurting that person’s strategy, not removing that person’s threatening permanent, not attacking them, attacking someone specific, etc.).
The Psychological Aspect
Even when you’re not being political with an opponent at a multiplayer table, you can still find certain ways to make sure the person you target will not pay the life. I’ve noticed that certain players, (generally) regardless of what they’re playing or how much life they have, like to protect their life total and/or don’t fully understand/highly value the repercussions of card advantage. Therefore, just like there are certain players who will never pay the Rhystic Study tax, there are certain players who will never pay the Athreos tax. If you find those players and target them every time, you can get a lot higher of a rate of your Shadowborns returning. Most people though, will almost always pay the 3 for utility creatures that aren’t Shadowborns, because they’re obviously more useful and they only need to pay for the one.
Also, 18 is a lot more threatening than 3. So when you sacrifice 6 Shadowborns, target the same person with every trigger; do not split. If you spread it around, it makes it way easier for people to take the hit because you’re only reducing the person’s life total by 3 or 6.
Again, slots are precious in this deck since I have 32 Shadowborns and 34 land. I only have 34 other nonland slots, which is a heck of a lot less than the normal 60-65 in EDH. Thus, any card that isn’t a Shadowborn or a land needs to earn its place.
Cabal Coffers: This seems, at least ostensibly, like a great mana producer for my deck since it’s base black and has Urborg. Well, the only scenario where I want this card is topdecking it lategame if I have a lot of stuff to cast if I and Urborg out (since I only have 13 Swamps in the deck) and that’s a lot of ifs. But the bad scenario is having it in my opening hand and it’s a non-mana producing land for at least the first 6 or so turns minimum (realistically), since I run only 34 lands. I consider cutting the one basic Plains because of how bad it is in openers (bottlenecks my ability to cast all the Apostles that I keep recurring to my hand), and Coffers is even worse than that. At its best, it’s decent, and at its worst, it’s a completely dead card. It would seem like a good include but in practice it has not worked out.
Rally the Ancestors: double white can be difficult, and it only returns the Shadowborns for a turn which means you have to sacrifice them immediately. Plus, any you don’t sacrifice get exiled, which is antisynergistic with Athreos and all of our cards that mass-resurrect our Apostles.
Smothering Abomination: This card I have to do more testing with, but it was just happening too often where the upkeep cost was too difficult to maintain, especially in a stalled boardstate. Plus, 4 mana is a lot in this deck. This is the only one here that I’m strongly considering putting back in though.
Xathrid Necromancer: I just found after many games that I didn’t need two Rotlung Reanimator effects that bad. Since Rotlung gives me a zombie for any Cleric dying, not just mine, I include it over Xathrid. I find that I get way more extra zombies from other people’s Clerics than my Humans that are not already Clerics.
Archfiend of Depravity, Reaper from the Abyss: People just killed these before anyone moved to their end step way to often, and I never found myself wanting to tutor for them when I have Kagemaro to wrath immediately and Overseer to kill a target creature immediately.
Carnival of Souls: This I haven’t actually tried because I know it’d just kill me in so many games. Yes, it makes Shadowborns free which is amazing, but this deck doesn’t have room for much lifegain, and in multiplayer losing a life when any player drops any creature seems like too big of a risk.
Mentor of the Meek: generally when I’m playing Shadowborns from my hand I’m playing several at a time. If I don’t have a Spellbook effect, not playing half my Shadowborns to increase my hand (which is already, in an optimal situation, full of Shadowborns) isn’t where I want to be.
Dictate of Erebos: This card is good, and I already run Grave Pact, but 34 land makes Dictate tough to cast and the decks of many people I play with casually can’t function or interact when I have “B: each oppoenent sacrifices six creatures” effect out so I abstain from this card partially because of the higher mana cost but mostly to try to keep the deck fun by not having too many ways to say “you can’t play justify casting creatures anymore.”
Harsh Sustenance: This card is cool but it’s too contingent on me already doing well (by which I mean having a ton of Apostles out) and doesn’t help me if I’m not. Definition of win-more.
Contamination: This card would be INSANE in this deck. I just don’t play it because I play in casual circles sometimes and it’s a miserable card to play against when half my deck is creatures to sac to it. If you want to build the deck, and don’t care about opponents not being able to cast stuff, put it in by all means!
Early, Mid, and Late Game
Early Game: You want to be dropping Apostles the first two or three turns and then, as soon as you can, play Athreos or some other way of punishing people for killing Apostles (Grim Haruspex, Dark Prophecy, and Remembrance are best for this). That way, you don’t get wrecked as hard if someone wraths early, or quickly ramps into an Inferno Titan or something.
Mid Game: The deck is pretty good at giving you six Apostles by turn 5-6 or so. After you have six of them, you’ll always want to leave a land or two open so you can do your demon trickery in response to stuff. It feels bad when someone wraths and you don’t have a black open to get value off of the Apostles. For the most part, in Mid and Late Game, you’re playing stuff to get value off of Apostles and maintaining your six on your field so you can fetch the right demon at any time. In Mid Game, when I do sac my Shadowborns, it’s generally because something on the stack is either going to kill enough of them to give me fewer than six remaining, or because someone is attacking me with something big and I have to kill it, or because I’m tutoring Rune-Scarred Demon to find a way to draw more cards .
Late Game: In my meta, attacking with big demons is almost never enough to beat 3-5 other players. I usually rely on a comboesque kill that isn’t really infinite but is generally enough. It relies on Zulaport Cutthroat and/or Blood Artist and sacrificing enough Shadowborns in one big swoop to drain all my opponents. This is easiest to achieve if I have Thrumming Stone + a Shadowborn to effectively cast every Shadowborn left in my deck for free. Then I’ll generate a bunch of mana with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Crypt of Agadeem to sac Shadowborns and re-cast them and sac them again (made easier with Athreos bringing many back) and continue to drain my opponents. If I don’t have a way to generate much mana an Edgewalker will do. Plus, if I have cast 25ish Apostles that turn off of a Thrumming Stone, I can usually sacrifice six to find Rune-Scarred Demon and tutor up Tendrils of Agony to kill at least one person by itself. A non-infinite storm kill in an Athreos deck is generally something nobody can really be mad at; most people laugh really hard at the absurdity of it all.
Are snakes not a viable tribe? They seem better than merfolk...
... what?
The only way snakes make a stronger tribe than merfolk is if the person building the deck is blind, deaf, and dumb.
I think he's referring to Commander specifically. Merfolk have sufficient support for 60 card formats (where you can run 4 ofs of lords) but only 5ish lords for them exist, with no legendary Merfolk lord that you could always have access to. Thus, if you make a Merfolk tribal commander deck, it probably would have more trouble profiting off of the fact that it's tribal than snake decks which have multiple legendary lords/"snakes matter" cards from Kamigawa that you can actually build around easily.
I feel like for Shadowborns it's best to have 25+ or 0. I've been playing my Athreos Shadowborn Apostle deck for a good while and I run 32. The thing you have to realize is in any game, Apostle is a really bad card until you have 6. So if you ran 14 and didn't have easy ways to draw/tutor them, you'll draw 2 or 3 in an average game and you'll play them as 1/1 vanilla Cleric for B. If your cleric synergies are plentiful enough that you can make that worth a card in your hand, then running 14 would be fine. But I'd advise if you want to do a shadowborn deck, you have to commit to the theme and run a lot of them or it won't work out too well. But honestly making a Teysa tribal Clerics deck without Shadowborns should still have more than enough cards for it to work. I just think running fewer than 20 or so Shadowborns in any deck will generally turn into wasted slots.
Another good commander for a steal and sac type deck is Marchesa, the Black Rose. If you steal something and use her ability to give it a counter when it attacks, if the creature does die that turn (i.e. by you sacrificing it) it comes back into play under your control at the end of the turn and you keep it.
I think Eternity Vessel might be a little counterproductive, since this deck will optimally be showing increase in life every turn, and it competes in mana slot with Felidar Sovereign who is a very likely win con. I'd suggest removing it, and maybe two other things, for 4 Rest for the Weary. It's a truly amazing card, especially for early-game lifegain, while Wall of Omens is still keeping the opponent at bay. I was about to suggest Survival Cache too, and now I've just noticed your "Considering" part, I'm glad we're on the same page. Does Wall of Reverence really help much? I haven't used it but it seems like Transcendent Master could better use one of its slots, and then maybe the other two could go to making Rest for the Weary a playset. I like how in a few months when the rotation is complete, despite losing Cradle of Vitality and Knight of the White Orchid, you get Ajani's Pridemate and Goldenglow Moth, which is a pretty damn good tradeoff.
Echoing Truth becomes quite nuts
Planar Bridge shouldn't be played in Tron imo; it's too win-more. Tron would rather drop a t3 actual threat like Karn or Wurmcoil than drop bridge and wait until t4 minimum to be able to do anything. Tron's weakness is already that it doesn't interact fast enough and making it a turn slower just to get extra payoff in a game it's already winning doesn't seem good.
Whir of Invention might see fringe play in the Krark-Clan Ironworks Eggs deck as redundancy with, or even a replacement for Reshape. UUU tapping some of the eggs you have to find KCI is better than 4UU sacrifice an egg because it can happen t3 and you don't care if your Ichor Wellsprings are tapped (and not your Chromstic Stars either once you have KCI as a sac outlet).
Sram excites me as someone who enjoys rogue decks but while he brings ever-needed redundancy to modern Cheeri0s, he doesn't solve the problem of them losing to one removal spell. Nevertheless I'd love to see that deck become a real thing.
This deck just got an incredible upgrade. Puresteel 5-8 ahoy.
I may be wrong here, but I feel like Grixis Delver, Martyr-Proc, and CoCo elves would be the best combination.
Grixis Delver is good vs combo decks with its heavy disruption from counterspells and discard, Martyr-Proc is good vs aggro decks (especially Burn, which Grixis Delver probably isn't that good against), and both get wrecked by Tron, which CoCo elves should be best against out of the options you listed. Not sure what you'd choose vs control out of all your options though, so that's something to consider.
Well this card is almost strictly better than Thoughtseize which is probably the most powerful discard spell ever printed. The only way it isn't better is if someone counters it since this one's life pay is a cost, and with it coming out on turn 1 it being countered isn't likely. The argument that thoughtseize isn't a 4 of makes sense but that doesn't justify the printing of a strictly better card. Spellskite is only a 1-2 of card, but they wouldn't make a strictly better Spellskite; it's still the most played card in modern period. Thoughtseize was bad for standard coming through Theros (and probably wasn't great for Lorwyn either) and modern cards aren't printed any other way. As a fan and player of Death's Shadow I would want nothing more than to see something like this printed, but I don't personally think it would happen.
-Zuberas: I'd have no idea where to go with this, but the deck would hella want Cavern of Souls and, to a lesser degree, Ancient Ziggurat.
-Modern Four Horsemen: (With Kiora's Follower instead of Monolith I assume) it's hard to have a free graveyard combo without Dread Return, if that got unbanned though (not happening)...
-Locket of Yesterdays: Artificer's Intuition with this could be a pretty crazy engine. If Sensei's Divining Top was unbanned though (will never happen, even less likely than Dread Return imo), you could have that Greg Hatch style deck with Top, Locket, and Altar of the Brood kill, all of the parts fetchable with Artificer's Intuition (and I guess Trinket Mage too, which is cool).
-Blood Funnel: Monastery Mentor negates the downside for literally anything that would get reduced (just stack the triggers correctly), and that does curve out... Hmm... It does just seem like really bad Eggs though. Regardless, we might be on to something there. Young Pyro is redundancy for instants and sorceries, which can't hurt the chances of something working out with Funnel. Oh, and there's always Mishra, Artificer Prodigy if you want to go real deep into stacking triggers, but that's more of an EDH combo.
That I hadn't considered only because my meta doesn't have many decks that that card hoses enough for the tapped source to be worth it. The deck is pretty mana hungry though, and it runs WB tapped sources only because it needs to have all its mana tap for black but still be able to have a W or two available, so tapped sources that only give B are usually Crypt of Agadeem-level insane or are not included. However, in a meta with a bunch of graveyard-based decks I could see Bojuka Bog totally being worth inclusion. I think next I'll work on writing a new section that's kind of like Notable Exclusions but includes cards that are either meta-dependant or are cards I simply don't own/use for other reasons but would still be good in the deck. So far, Bog and Contamination would make that list. I'll try to think of others before I write it up though so it's comprehensive enough. Another new section I think I'll work on is an explanation of other commanders that are conducive to Shadowborn Apostle-based strategies and what they could provide over Athreos, and also what Athreos provides over them.
I appreciate the compliment! I think I will be having Dictate finding its way back into the deck. It's a great card and is excellent payoff to the strategy. I just have to find the slot to open up for it.
Spellbook is actually (surprisingly) really good in the deck. The main reason it's in there (besides the fact that this deck tries to draw a lot of cards by tutoring for payoff slots such as Dark Prophecy, Grim Haruspex, Harvester of Souls, Skullclamp, and other draw effects like Necropotence etc.) is because Athreos sends the Shadowborn Apostles back to hand when they die. Normally, this would be fine, except (most often) when they hit my hand they hit six at a time. If I have 5 or 6 cards in hand and want to cast one or two of them the turn I cracked the Shadowborns, the additional 6 coming into my hand end up mostly hitting the bin at EOT, effectively nullifying the card advantage I built this deck to achieve. Spellbook can seem like a really bad card because it looks like a -1 in card advantage that does nothing most of the time, but actually in practice it often ends up being the thing I spend one "card" on playing that lets me not lose 5-10 cards at my cleanup phase. As weird as it sounds, most of the time when I drop it it's a card that can count plus 5 or much more in card advantage, even including the fact that it uses up a card in my hand itself. And the oddest part is, I actually prefer drawing it to Reliquary Tower. If I draw Tower and want to use it to keep all the extra cards I'm drawing/all the extra Apostles that come back to my hand, I sacrifice a land drop that can provide B, meaning I'm able to cast one fewer Apostle each and every turn, which can actually matter/add up a lot more than you'd think. Plus, if I'm trying to win the game in the next couple turns and I'm spending all my mana drawing cards/cracking Shadowborns that go back to hand to try and hit that critical density to kill everyone, in 99% of those situations I've already made my land drop to maximize my mana (so if I draw Reliquary Tower in that large pile of cards it doesn't help me keep any of them) and I don't have the 2 to cast Thought Vessel.
I think Reflecting Pool is absolutely worth putting in the deck; I just have to acquire one or take one out of another deck. Shizo is also sweet and I'll probably put it in if I can find one.
I will be updating everything with tags and symbols right now. When I made the thread yesterday I wrote it out on a Word document before pasting it into this and using the formatting/HTML stuff so I missed some of that when I was updating it to be MTGS-friendly. I appreciate the comment and the thought you've put into this! It's all very helpful and will make this deck and thread better, so it's much appreciated.
Athreos at a Glance
As the other multicolored gods, Athreos, God of Passage is an indestructible enchantment that can become a creature if your devotion to his colors is seven or greater. As an indestructible enchantment, he’s pretty annoying to remove, and often gets cast once/twice per game and sticks unless someone really wants him gone.
Now, for the real meat and bones of the card, his triggered ability “Whenever another creature you own dies, return it to your hand unless target opponent pays 3 life.” So if any creatures I have happen to die, I choose a person and that person can pay the life or I get that creature back to my hand. This is (surprisingly) a lot to dissect, and will be elaborated upon in subsequent sections.
Shadowborn Apostle at a Glance
1)Relying on having six of them out means I have to run 30+ of them in my deck, so it takes a lot of room away for other card slots, making each card really have to be worth it to make it in the deck.
2)Relying on casting six of them means black sources are at a premium, because it’s as if I’m casting a spell that costs BBBBBB in chunks, or many times, even all at once. Thus, if a land does not tap for black, I probably don’t want it in my deck unless it does something amazing, such as give me no maximum hand size (a la Reliquary Tower), which is extremely important in a deck that can get 6 extra cards into my hand at the snap of a finger.
3)Since they all cost 1 mana I dump my hand quickly and am always in need of ways to refill. Cards that let me draw at will like Necropotence and Skullclamp or anything that says “when your Shadowborns die, draw cards” are pretty great tutor targets.
4)You can sacrifice them at instant speed, so many demons can provide quick “tricks,” i.e. responding to: fetchland/tutor with Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, responding to a big creature attacking me with Overseer of the Damned, responding to a team of creatures attacking me with Kagemaro, First to Suffer, or responding to a wrath with Harvester of Souls.
Each Demon and When to Fetch Them
Kagemaro, First to Suffer: He’s the wrath demon. The cool thing about Athreos and Shadowborns for him is that you’ll likely get them all (or at least most) back in your hand before you even find Kagemaro so the X will be six more than your hand size was before you sacrificed the Apostles. He is usually more than enough to kill the entire board.
Ob Nixilis, Unshackled: Did an opponent at low life cast a tutor or crack a fetchland? Oops, 10 life loss and sac a creature. Or if you just want to have a guy out that gets six +1/+1 counters every time you sacrifice a team of Apostles.
Harvester of Souls: If you have more Apostles out, or if you’re going to get them back with Athreos, or if someone is about to kill a lot of various creatures, you can fetch this guy. Unfortunately the six Shadowborns you sacrifice to find him won’t count, but anything after that will!
Rune-Scarred Demon: He’s demonic tutor. What more could you want? Sometimes if I greedily keep a hand of five Apostles and a couple land, sometimes I might just play them out sac them to find this guy and tutor Necropotence so I don’t have card advantage problems again.
Lord of the Void: He’s just a fun, big beater. Sac Apostles at the end of turn of the opponent before you, untap and swing to 7 someone in the air and see if you hit a creature.
Overseer of the Damned: He’s basically Murder on a stick, with the added bonus of giving me Zombie tokens sometimes.
Demon of Dark Schemes: This guy I’m trying out and I haven’t played a game with him in my deck yet since I just got one. He seems pretty good though. Only downside is if I have 6 Shadowborns out and go fetch him, the rest are going to die. But he provides a way for me to reuse dead demons that are no longer searchable since they’re not in my deck. And he reanimates opponents’ creatures too!
Notes on the Rules
Athreos’ devotion is a static effect and you can generally make him not a creature by paying B and sacrificing some Apostles. This means if someone targets him with Swords to Plowshares or something like it, you can respond by sacrificing Apostles and then the spell fizzles because he’s not a valid target anymore. Silly them, they tried to Swords an enchantment.
The Political Aspect
The Psychological Aspect
Also, 18 is a lot more threatening than 3. So when you sacrifice 6 Shadowborns, target the same person with every trigger; do not split. If you spread it around, it makes it way easier for people to take the hit because you’re only reducing the person’s life total by 3 or 6.
The Decklist
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Caves of Koilos
1x Command Tower
1x Concealed Courtyard
1x Crypt of Agadeem
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Forsaken Sanctuary
1x Godless Shrine
1x Isolated Chapel
1x Mana Confluence
1x Marsh Flats
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Orzhov Guildgate
1x Plains
1x Polluted Delta
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Scoured Barrens
1x Scrubland
1x Shambling Vent
11x Swamp
1x Temple of Silence
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Blood Artist
1x Demon of Dark Schemes
1x Edgewalker
1x Grim Haruspex
1x Harvester of Souls
1x Kagemaro, First to Suffer
1x Lord of the Void
1x Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
1x Overseer of the Damned
1x Rotlung Reanimator
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
32x Shadowborn Apostle
1x Zulaport Cutthroat
Instant (4)
1x Anguished Unmaking
1x Path to Exile
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Vampiric Tutor
Artifact (4)
1x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Spellbook
1x Thrumming Stone
1x Diabolic Intent
1x Immortal Servitude
1x Patriarch's Bidding
1x Proclamation of Rebirth
1x Return to the Ranks
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Vindicate
1x Dark Prophecy
1x Grave Pact
1x Necropotence
1x Remembrance
Notable Exclusions
Cabal Coffers: This seems, at least ostensibly, like a great mana producer for my deck since it’s base black and has Urborg. Well, the only scenario where I want this card is topdecking it lategame if I have a lot of stuff to cast if I and Urborg out (since I only have 13 Swamps in the deck) and that’s a lot of ifs. But the bad scenario is having it in my opening hand and it’s a non-mana producing land for at least the first 6 or so turns minimum (realistically), since I run only 34 lands. I consider cutting the one basic Plains because of how bad it is in openers (bottlenecks my ability to cast all the Apostles that I keep recurring to my hand), and Coffers is even worse than that. At its best, it’s decent, and at its worst, it’s a completely dead card. It would seem like a good include but in practice it has not worked out.
Rally the Ancestors: double white can be difficult, and it only returns the Shadowborns for a turn which means you have to sacrifice them immediately. Plus, any you don’t sacrifice get exiled, which is antisynergistic with Athreos and all of our cards that mass-resurrect our Apostles.
Smothering Abomination: This card I have to do more testing with, but it was just happening too often where the upkeep cost was too difficult to maintain, especially in a stalled boardstate. Plus, 4 mana is a lot in this deck. This is the only one here that I’m strongly considering putting back in though.
Xathrid Necromancer: I just found after many games that I didn’t need two Rotlung Reanimator effects that bad. Since Rotlung gives me a zombie for any Cleric dying, not just mine, I include it over Xathrid. I find that I get way more extra zombies from other people’s Clerics than my Humans that are not already Clerics.
Archfiend of Depravity, Reaper from the Abyss: People just killed these before anyone moved to their end step way to often, and I never found myself wanting to tutor for them when I have Kagemaro to wrath immediately and Overseer to kill a target creature immediately.
Carnival of Souls: This I haven’t actually tried because I know it’d just kill me in so many games. Yes, it makes Shadowborns free which is amazing, but this deck doesn’t have room for much lifegain, and in multiplayer losing a life when any player drops any creature seems like too big of a risk.
Mentor of the Meek: generally when I’m playing Shadowborns from my hand I’m playing several at a time. If I don’t have a Spellbook effect, not playing half my Shadowborns to increase my hand (which is already, in an optimal situation, full of Shadowborns) isn’t where I want to be.
Dictate of Erebos: This card is good, and I already run Grave Pact, but 34 land makes Dictate tough to cast and the decks of many people I play with casually can’t function or interact when I have “B: each oppoenent sacrifices six creatures” effect out so I abstain from this card partially because of the higher mana cost but mostly to try to keep the deck fun by not having too many ways to say “you can’t play justify casting creatures anymore.”
Harsh Sustenance: This card is cool but it’s too contingent on me already doing well (by which I mean having a ton of Apostles out) and doesn’t help me if I’m not. Definition of win-more.
Contamination: This card would be INSANE in this deck. I just don’t play it because I play in casual circles sometimes and it’s a miserable card to play against when half my deck is creatures to sac to it. If you want to build the deck, and don’t care about opponents not being able to cast stuff, put it in by all means!
Early, Mid, and Late Game
Mid Game: The deck is pretty good at giving you six Apostles by turn 5-6 or so. After you have six of them, you’ll always want to leave a land or two open so you can do your demon trickery in response to stuff. It feels bad when someone wraths and you don’t have a black open to get value off of the Apostles. For the most part, in Mid and Late Game, you’re playing stuff to get value off of Apostles and maintaining your six on your field so you can fetch the right demon at any time. In Mid Game, when I do sac my Shadowborns, it’s generally because something on the stack is either going to kill enough of them to give me fewer than six remaining, or because someone is attacking me with something big and I have to kill it, or because I’m tutoring Rune-Scarred Demon to find a way to draw more cards .
Late Game: In my meta, attacking with big demons is almost never enough to beat 3-5 other players. I usually rely on a comboesque kill that isn’t really infinite but is generally enough. It relies on Zulaport Cutthroat and/or Blood Artist and sacrificing enough Shadowborns in one big swoop to drain all my opponents. This is easiest to achieve if I have Thrumming Stone + a Shadowborn to effectively cast every Shadowborn left in my deck for free. Then I’ll generate a bunch of mana with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Crypt of Agadeem to sac Shadowborns and re-cast them and sac them again (made easier with Athreos bringing many back) and continue to drain my opponents. If I don’t have a way to generate much mana an Edgewalker will do. Plus, if I have cast 25ish Apostles that turn off of a Thrumming Stone, I can usually sacrifice six to find Rune-Scarred Demon and tutor up Tendrils of Agony to kill at least one person by itself. A non-infinite storm kill in an Athreos deck is generally something nobody can really be mad at; most people laugh really hard at the absurdity of it all.
I think he's referring to Commander specifically. Merfolk have sufficient support for 60 card formats (where you can run 4 ofs of lords) but only 5ish lords for them exist, with no legendary Merfolk lord that you could always have access to. Thus, if you make a Merfolk tribal commander deck, it probably would have more trouble profiting off of the fact that it's tribal than snake decks which have multiple legendary lords/"snakes matter" cards from Kamigawa that you can actually build around easily.