I am thinking of choosing a God as my General, but want to pick one that can fly below the radar bit. How would you rank the following 15 Gods as a General from most threatening to least threatening, if you were sitting down to a multiplayer table without any other knowledge about the deck? My rankings:
1. Purphoros - This guy is nuts
2. Kruphix - GU Goodstuff all day erryday
3. Thassa - Unblockable + indestructible makes her very hard to stop from killing you
4. Xenagos - You're going to get hit by big fat. Hard.
5. Ephara - Card advantage all day
6. Karametra - Ramp ramp ramp ramp ramp
7. Iroas - 7 power + difficult to block means he's going to ruin your face
8. Heliod - With tons of ways to search up Serra's Sanctum, he's going to grab it and some ways to untap it and churn out a billion tokens
---End of generals I'd find remotely threatening---
9. Athreos - Sac and durdle, only he doesn't work well with already-recursive guys or tokens
10. Erebos - If I was planning on gaining life I guess I'm disappointed
11. Pharika - Either mode of his ability is underwhelming, but he can mess up some graveyard shenanigans I guess
12. Nylea - Everything having trample forever is pretty cool I guess?
13. Keranos - Draws less cards and does less damage than either Niv realistically will
14. Mogis - Punisher effects are way worse when everyone has twice as much life to throw around
15. Phenax - Oh boy, mill :eyeroll:
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As commanders I would throw them out in this order:
1) Purphoros, God of the Forge he isn't to be underestimated. You should tuck him immediately and be totally justified when you do it.
2) Ephara, God of the Polis card draw engine. It works well with token tactics and etb good stuff guys. A draw engine in UW that seems easy to build around and it seems solid.
3) Erebos, God of the Dead card draw engine and MBC commander. Strong color and a good utility ability. He is a bit of an open ended build for mono black control but having a commander who is a mana dump -> draw cards is very relevant.
4) Xenagos, God of Revels strong ability but a little slow out of the gates just due to his cost to drop. Still, his ability is worrisome in a lot of ways.
5) Kruphix, God of Horizons mostly just due to colors and expectations of big x spell crap. Its really likely not to be any worse than any other GU commander though and in fact its probably less of an issue than most others that I would worry about in the colors.
6) Karametra, God of Harvests assuming your meta isn't playing MLD this deck will probably take all its lands and put them in play and do something unfun with them.
7) Thassa, God of the Sea blue and evasive and good size for the mana.
8) Iroas, God of Victory meh whatever. Its a relevant combat ability I guess but I just cant get excited for it.
9) Phenax, God of Deception mill is a bit weaker in multiplayer Commander but I think its a strong ability when considering mill in general.
10) Keranos, God of Storms it seems a little slow and weak to be honest. Its a value generator but when you compare it to like Ephara, God of the Polis I really dont feel like the two are anywhere near the same level. He costs too much and does too little in my mind.
11 Athreos, God of Passage underwhelming. You do get to pick the opponent who chooses to pay the life but aggro doesn't do well in multiplayer EDH and I dont see him being relevant enough to make this ability work here. Its more likely that you would have to push him as a beater commander but I dont see that working either.
12) Pharika, God of Affliction I am not impressed I guess is all I will say here. I know a few people have been using her but I stick to my guns and say meh.
13) Mogis, God of Slaughter his ability doesn't scale well for the format. He is still two colors with a relevantly high power / mana though and he can hit play early and play the stax game decently though. Still, his ability doesn't pack enough punch here.
14) Heliod, God of the Sun mono white is always very weak so I put him fairly low. His ability to generate tokens though does have some nice synergy with some enchantress tactics though and he makes for a good mana dump.
15) Nylea, God of the Hunt I just get very underwhelmed by her all in all.
Thats how I would weight them at least. I wouldn't really only consider making a commander out of like possibly 2-3 of them really. I think many of them make for better support cards than cards to use as a commander in part due to how they can often be tutored and tend to be robust due to being indestructible.
I see Heliod more as an adjutant than as a general. Pharika is too weak to consider a card. Aktheros is just an aid-de-camp, an over glorified secretary. While Iroas, Purphoros,Xengagod, and Thassa can carry the day as a general. Kruphix and Kama Sutra make good generals and support.
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Honestly Purphoros is the ONLY one that is scary enough to draw aggro from me w/o even seeing the rest of your deck. I guess if I had to go beyond that Kruphix would be next, just because the color combination is silly and Kruphix invites shenanigans.
But after that I really couldn't rank them, as none are "scary good".
1. Purphoros - Very explosive, puts out a lot of damage, and doesn't need much of a board state to do it.
2. Xenagos - Another explosive one. Lots of potential for big damage out of nowhere.
3. Ephara - She's in excellent control colors and can draw a lot of cards. Slower to get started, but hard to stop when she gets rolling.
4. Kruphix - Mostly for his colors. Stockpiling mana is dangerous, but not a huge red flag.
5. Thassa - Blue has some nasty tricks and she's great for smoothing things out.
6. Iroas - Aggro decks in this format are likely to have some form of evasion, but he does make it a little easier to find. I'm less worried about him than other Boros generals, because I assume it's a little more of a themed deck.
7. Karametra - Scary for the potential of abusing lands (quick MLD recovery, Aura Fracture, Dust Bowl, etc).
8. Heliod - White has a lot of ways to buff token swarms and there are a couple cards that play nicely with his tokens. Vigilance is not to be underrated against creature decks.
9. Phenax - Mostly for self-mill potential. Well built decks can leverage his ability into basically drawing a new hand every turn.
10. Pharika - GY hate out of the command zone. I dislike this a little more, but I play a lot of GY-centric decks.
11. Erebos - Not bad, but he doesn't do a whole lot on his own. Mono-B can have a lot of punch, but the general isn't raising any flags for me.
12. Keranos - Slow and inconsistent. He's not bad, but his ability is going to matter less to me than most of the other Izzet options would.
13. Athreos - Not big enough for the format. Durdley decks in those colors are already possible, and he doesn't add much to them. More suited for aggressive decks, and those strategies aren't really frightening.
14. Nylea - Good as a support card in other decks, but there are much scarier green choices. She's also going to be very creature focused most of the time, which is easier to handle.
15. Mogis - Just not big enough for the format. He seems very reliant on getting devotion and hitting people.
Purphoros is probably the only one that I'd try and grind down without seeing anything out of the deck. I've made a couple and considered a couple more, but I don't think most of them will draw a particularly high amount of attention.
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I feel like Athreos just has enough combo potential to make me worried, but otherwise appreciate the feedback. Leaning toward Keranos because he doesn't seem too threatening and doesn't require a build-around-me approach.
The most broken and threatening is definitelly Purphoros. The second he enters the table, he eats a removal, shuffle, exile, anything.
Every deck that has R has Purphoros.
People in my group tend to overlook Xenagos, but definitelly hate Iroas and I think their hate is just lame, because Iroas isn't as broken as Purphoros or Xenagos.
Erebos is also overlooked. Kruphix is so-so, depends on against I play, but most people overlok him because he isn't getting bigger just as Omnomnath is, until the moment you cast that insane 60/60 hydra or use Doubling Cube to make 100 mana to fill your Helix Pinnacle.
Some decks have Thassa, Karametra or Ephara in them, but nodoby cares.
And for the rest of the gods, nobody plays them in my group. They are not that interesting or game changing.
So if you want some god to use as general, I recommend you or Iroas, god of victory (great boros aggro, you can use all the boros legendaries as Gisela, Aurelia, Tajic and things like Dictate of the twin gods, Furnace of rath and similar to end the game in 6-8 turns). Or, go with Kruphix, god of horizons, for UG control, with all the X hydras and draws (blue + green sun's zenith, etc., good for using artifacts and colorless creatures thanks to all the colorless mana).
Honestly Purphoros is the ONLY one that is scary enough to draw aggro from me w/o even seeing the rest of your deck. I guess if I had to go beyond that Kruphix would be next, just because the color combination is silly and Kruphix invites shenanigans.
But after that I really couldn't rank them, as none are "scary good".
This. I'd add Thassa, the G/W and B/W generals to the second tier list, but its still Purphoros as the only one who will draw immediate hate.
While putting the cards back in your hand isn't crazy good, it's still added value. The big thing about him is that he says the magic words 'target opponent'. Athreos can enable collusion strategies and works best with ETB or death triggers. The card will quickly draw the ire of the players left out of the political loop. Even in a 40 health format, 3 per creature adds up fast and makes wraths really hurt.
While putting the cards back in your hand isn't crazy good, it's still added value. The big thing about him is that he says the magic words 'target opponent'. Athreos can enable collusion strategies and works best with ETB or death triggers. The card will quickly draw the ire of the players left out of the political loop. Even in a 40 health format, 3 per creature adds up fast and makes wraths really hurt.
The hard part here is still:
1) You are dealing with non token creatures so there are limited death triggers we are talking about.
2) Aggro has always been bad at multiplayer EDH.
3) The life per card is somewhat small still. I can still deny you large bombs and let you loop the junk ones and not be out that much.
4) Tuck and Exile wrath have always been good.
Am I throwing him under the bus with my opinions of him, absolutely. But I think there are a lot of difficulties he has to overcome to be utilized well in this format.
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1. Kruphix, God of Horizons
2. Purphoros, God of the Forge
3. Athreos, God of Passage
4. Karametra, God of Harvests
5. Ephara, God of the Polis
6. Keranos, God of Storms
7. Thassa, God of the Sea
8. Iroas, God of Victory
9. Erebos, God of the Dead
10. Mogis, God of Slaughter
11. Pharika, God of Affliction
12. Xenagos, God of Revels
13. Nylea, God of the Hunt
14. Phenax, God of Deception
15. Heliod, God of the Sun
1. Purphoros - This guy is nuts
2. Kruphix - GU Goodstuff all day erryday
3. Thassa - Unblockable + indestructible makes her very hard to stop from killing you
4. Xenagos - You're going to get hit by big fat. Hard.
5. Ephara - Card advantage all day
6. Karametra - Ramp ramp ramp ramp ramp
7. Iroas - 7 power + difficult to block means he's going to ruin your face
8. Heliod - With tons of ways to search up Serra's Sanctum, he's going to grab it and some ways to untap it and churn out a billion tokens
---End of generals I'd find remotely threatening---
9. Athreos - Sac and durdle, only he doesn't work well with already-recursive guys or tokens
10. Erebos - If I was planning on gaining life I guess I'm disappointed
11. Pharika - Either mode of his ability is underwhelming, but he can mess up some graveyard shenanigans I guess
12. Nylea - Everything having trample forever is pretty cool I guess?
13. Keranos - Draws less cards and does less damage than either Niv realistically will
14. Mogis - Punisher effects are way worse when everyone has twice as much life to throw around
15. Phenax - Oh boy, mill :eyeroll:
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1) Purphoros, God of the Forge he isn't to be underestimated. You should tuck him immediately and be totally justified when you do it.
2) Ephara, God of the Polis card draw engine. It works well with token tactics and etb good stuff guys. A draw engine in UW that seems easy to build around and it seems solid.
3) Erebos, God of the Dead card draw engine and MBC commander. Strong color and a good utility ability. He is a bit of an open ended build for mono black control but having a commander who is a mana dump -> draw cards is very relevant.
4) Xenagos, God of Revels strong ability but a little slow out of the gates just due to his cost to drop. Still, his ability is worrisome in a lot of ways.
5) Kruphix, God of Horizons mostly just due to colors and expectations of big x spell crap. Its really likely not to be any worse than any other GU commander though and in fact its probably less of an issue than most others that I would worry about in the colors.
6) Karametra, God of Harvests assuming your meta isn't playing MLD this deck will probably take all its lands and put them in play and do something unfun with them.
7) Thassa, God of the Sea blue and evasive and good size for the mana.
8) Iroas, God of Victory meh whatever. Its a relevant combat ability I guess but I just cant get excited for it.
9) Phenax, God of Deception mill is a bit weaker in multiplayer Commander but I think its a strong ability when considering mill in general.
10) Keranos, God of Storms it seems a little slow and weak to be honest. Its a value generator but when you compare it to like Ephara, God of the Polis I really dont feel like the two are anywhere near the same level. He costs too much and does too little in my mind.
11 Athreos, God of Passage underwhelming. You do get to pick the opponent who chooses to pay the life but aggro doesn't do well in multiplayer EDH and I dont see him being relevant enough to make this ability work here. Its more likely that you would have to push him as a beater commander but I dont see that working either.
12) Pharika, God of Affliction I am not impressed I guess is all I will say here. I know a few people have been using her but I stick to my guns and say meh.
13) Mogis, God of Slaughter his ability doesn't scale well for the format. He is still two colors with a relevantly high power / mana though and he can hit play early and play the stax game decently though. Still, his ability doesn't pack enough punch here.
14) Heliod, God of the Sun mono white is always very weak so I put him fairly low. His ability to generate tokens though does have some nice synergy with some enchantress tactics though and he makes for a good mana dump.
15) Nylea, God of the Hunt I just get very underwhelmed by her all in all.
Thats how I would weight them at least. I wouldn't really only consider making a commander out of like possibly 2-3 of them really. I think many of them make for better support cards than cards to use as a commander in part due to how they can often be tutored and tend to be robust due to being indestructible.
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But after that I really couldn't rank them, as none are "scary good".
2. Xenagos - Another explosive one. Lots of potential for big damage out of nowhere.
3. Ephara - She's in excellent control colors and can draw a lot of cards. Slower to get started, but hard to stop when she gets rolling.
4. Kruphix - Mostly for his colors. Stockpiling mana is dangerous, but not a huge red flag.
5. Thassa - Blue has some nasty tricks and she's great for smoothing things out.
6. Iroas - Aggro decks in this format are likely to have some form of evasion, but he does make it a little easier to find. I'm less worried about him than other Boros generals, because I assume it's a little more of a themed deck.
7. Karametra - Scary for the potential of abusing lands (quick MLD recovery, Aura Fracture, Dust Bowl, etc).
8. Heliod - White has a lot of ways to buff token swarms and there are a couple cards that play nicely with his tokens. Vigilance is not to be underrated against creature decks.
9. Phenax - Mostly for self-mill potential. Well built decks can leverage his ability into basically drawing a new hand every turn.
10. Pharika - GY hate out of the command zone. I dislike this a little more, but I play a lot of GY-centric decks.
11. Erebos - Not bad, but he doesn't do a whole lot on his own. Mono-B can have a lot of punch, but the general isn't raising any flags for me.
12. Keranos - Slow and inconsistent. He's not bad, but his ability is going to matter less to me than most of the other Izzet options would.
13. Athreos - Not big enough for the format. Durdley decks in those colors are already possible, and he doesn't add much to them. More suited for aggressive decks, and those strategies aren't really frightening.
14. Nylea - Good as a support card in other decks, but there are much scarier green choices. She's also going to be very creature focused most of the time, which is easier to handle.
15. Mogis - Just not big enough for the format. He seems very reliant on getting devotion and hitting people.
Purphoros is probably the only one that I'd try and grind down without seeing anything out of the deck. I've made a couple and considered a couple more, but I don't think most of them will draw a particularly high amount of attention.
Every deck that has R has Purphoros.
People in my group tend to overlook Xenagos, but definitelly hate Iroas and I think their hate is just lame, because Iroas isn't as broken as Purphoros or Xenagos.
Erebos is also overlooked. Kruphix is so-so, depends on against I play, but most people overlok him because he isn't getting bigger just as Omnomnath is, until the moment you cast that insane 60/60 hydra or use Doubling Cube to make 100 mana to fill your Helix Pinnacle.
Some decks have Thassa, Karametra or Ephara in them, but nodoby cares.
And for the rest of the gods, nobody plays them in my group. They are not that interesting or game changing.
So if you want some god to use as general, I recommend you or Iroas, god of victory (great boros aggro, you can use all the boros legendaries as Gisela, Aurelia, Tajic and things like Dictate of the twin gods, Furnace of rath and similar to end the game in 6-8 turns). Or, go with Kruphix, god of horizons, for UG control, with all the X hydras and draws (blue + green sun's zenith, etc., good for using artifacts and colorless creatures thanks to all the colorless mana).
This. I'd add Thassa, the G/W and B/W generals to the second tier list, but its still Purphoros as the only one who will draw immediate hate.
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While putting the cards back in your hand isn't crazy good, it's still added value. The big thing about him is that he says the magic words 'target opponent'. Athreos can enable collusion strategies and works best with ETB or death triggers. The card will quickly draw the ire of the players left out of the political loop. Even in a 40 health format, 3 per creature adds up fast and makes wraths really hurt.
The hard part here is still:
1) You are dealing with non token creatures so there are limited death triggers we are talking about.
2) Aggro has always been bad at multiplayer EDH.
3) The life per card is somewhat small still. I can still deny you large bombs and let you loop the junk ones and not be out that much.
4) Tuck and Exile wrath have always been good.
Am I throwing him under the bus with my opinions of him, absolutely. But I think there are a lot of difficulties he has to overcome to be utilized well in this format.
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