Home Alone with Thantis

Commander / EDH BRG (Jund) Casual Multiplayer Pillow Fort

itsmekidney

Other mana (34)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 3x Forest
• 1x Gateway Plaza
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x Gruul Turf
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 1x Mossfire Valley
• 3x Mountain
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Rakdos Carnarium
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Shadowblood Ridge
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Swarmyard
• 1x Temple of Abandon
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Ziatora's Proving Ground

Incentives (8)

• 1x Court of Bounty
• 1x Court of Ire
• 1x Coveted Jewel
• 1x Curse of Opulence
• 1x Rite of the Raging Storm
• 1x Rowan Kenrith
• 1x Trove of Temptation
• 1x Xantcha, Sleeper Agent

Thantis' Hazards (24)

• 1x Ancient Stone Idol
• 1x Arachnogenesis
• 1x Archetype of Finality
• 1x Black Market
• 1x Blazing Sunsteel
• 1x Brash Taunter
• 1x Caltrops
• 1x Cunning Rhetoric
• 1x Deathreap Ritual
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Druid's Call
• 1x Emberwilde Captain
• 1x Hissing Quagmire
• 1x Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General
• 1x Marchesa's Decree
• 1x Moldervine Reclamation
• 1x Poison-Tip Archer
• 1x Revel in Riches
• 1x Revenge of Ravens
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Spinerock Knoll
• 1x Stuffy Doll
• 1x Vicious Shadows

Card Destruction (8)

• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Casualties of War
• 1x Hull Breach
• 1x Lavalanche
• 1x Savage Twister
• 1x Star of Extinction

Reanimator (3)

• 1x Cauldron of Souls
• 1x Deadbridge Chant
• 1x Genesis

Commander (1)

A Series of Defenses (21)

• 1x AEther Membrane
• 1x Axebane Guardian
• 1x Brimstone Trebuchet
• 1x Gatecreeper Vine
• 1x Hornet Nest
• 1x Jungle Patrol
• 1x Labyrinth of Skophos
• 1x Lobber Crew
• 1x Nesting Dragon
• 1x Overgrown Battlement
• 1x Peregrine Mask
• 1x Portcullis Vine
• 1x Sprouting Phytohydra
• 1x Squirrel Nest
• 1x Sylvan Caryatid
• 1x Tree of Perdition
• 1x Vent Sentinel
• 1x Vine Trellis
• 1x Wall of Blossoms
• 1x Wall of Shadows
• 1x Weathered Sentinels

Misc. (1)

• 1x Witch's Oven

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A few months ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop when a friend asked me "who would win in a fight: The Predator or Kevin McCallister?" That got me thinking about the idea of an EDH deck that utilized Kevin's fighting style: building elaborate traps and punishing people who go into his house. And that's what this is, for the most part.

The idea of this deck is to force people to attack someone (Perhaps you, but not always you) and then create circumstances where that's a bad idea. This deck essentially relies on 3 steps:

1. Build up a series of defenses for yourself ("pillow fort"). These keep you safe and help you ramp mana.

2. Build up a series of what I call "Thantis' Hazards", that will hurt your enemies and/or benefit you when they attack you.

3. Give people incentive to attack; specifically, give them incentive to attack You.

A Series of Defenses

One of the biggest drawbacks to Thantis, the Warweaver is that your own creatures have to attack as well as your opponents; to mitigate this, most of the creatures in the deck either have defender or some sort of tap ability. (It's part of the deck's identity that you personally are not getting involved in the chaos).

I found green's typical land fetch to be a bit more investment than I wanted to make, so here we're using our walls to generate mana, covering both needs at once. Axebane Guardian and Overgrown Battlement both generate more mana depending on how many defenders you have: Keep in mind that the wood tokens made by Jungle Patrol and the egg tokens made by Nesting Dragon are defenders that work with any wall synergies. Likewise, Dragon Throne of Tarkir can make Thantis a defender for the same synergies, while Peregrine Mask gives flying and first strike as well as defender, adding a new defender out of Stuffy Doll as well as making your current defenders better against evasion.

Thantis' Hazards

The primary goal of Thantis the Warweaver is to bring the pain when your opponents attack. I want to emphasize that you are the intended target. Thantis and I agree that trying to force your opponents to attack others is cowardly and also in White's wheelhouse besides.

Most of the cards here speak for themselves. Play them, wait for people to attack. Some of them rely on having some walls out, but for the most part it's all plug and play.

Two cards that people misunderstand a lot are Caltrops and Vicious Shadows. Caltrops is a universal effect; that means it hurts people who target anyone at all, and it also targets your own attacking creatures. It works against flying in a way that none of the other cards of its type do, which means it can kill most bird, insect, and soldier tokens basically immediately. Vicious Shadows is odd in that you get to deal that damage to any player, regardless of who controlled the creature that died. It's ridiculously good in such a volatile deck, and people will hate it almost immediately. It's important to punish people who try to draw a thousand cards.

Keep in mind that Thantis herself is the biggest benefactor of creatures attacking you, since she doesn't gain the counters unless you're the target. Pesky life gain decks can theoretically fall to a concentrated attack from a 20+ power spider.

Incentives

Thantis, the Warweaver can force people to attack, and this is good! But she can be very expensive, and doesn't necessarily make creatures want to attack you over your opponents. For that, we have some extra incentives.

Essentially, there are two types of incentives; bribes and demands.

Bribes make people want to attack you by giving them a treat for doing so. Examples of this include Coveted Jewel and Thorn of the Black Rose (or any other Monarch granting effect). These are fun incentives because they move around the table, giving you heat and taking the heat off at different times. Curse of Opulence can be placed on an opponent, but it also is so cheap to play that, early game, it might be a good idea to curse yourself. You can afford the lifeloss that turn two creatures are capable of causing, and you will end up with 3 or so treasures by turn two! It's almost grouphug like. Rite of the Raging Storm and Xantcha, Sleeper Agent incentivize people by giving them more creatures to attack with. More creatures to attack with also means more creatures to die, which work off all your death triggers.

Demands force people to attack. The obvious example is our commander Thantis, the Warweaver, but there is also Fumiko the Lowblood, Trove of Temptation and Rowan Kenrith. Trove of Temptation has good synergy with Revel in Riches (though keep in mind that gold and treasures aren't the same). Rowan Kenrith is an incentive and a punishment all in one, though her ult is rarely worth it. There are more cards than this that have this effect, but with Thantis always in the command zone this is probably all you'll need.

Noteworthy Synergies

Archetype of Finality + Goblin Sharpshooter : Did y'all know that death-touch includes all the damage the creature deals, not just combat damage? With these two cards out, goblin sharpshooter can, in a single turn, board wipe every single creature you don't control on the board. It can do it every single turn. It can do it on your opponents' turns.

Star of Extinction + Stuffy Doll : Deal 20 damage to a player as you board wipe them. It is very rude and you will no longer be their friend.

Star of Extinction + Vicious Shadows : If your opponents have a lot of tokens out, this adds up fast. If someone has 5 creatures out and 3 cards in their hand, that's 15 damage. If you're playing a 4 player game and each of them have 5 creatures out, that same player can take up to 60 damage.

Looking to the Future

Bramble Sovereign and Vigor are both sort of the odd ducks in this deck. While both are very good for making your creatures amazing, neither of them have any evasion. Vigor is funny here, since it often prevents death and messes up your death triggers. Bramble Sovereign I admit I just included because I own it and it's just a generally good card.

The lands in this deck are not carefully curated but are, with the exception of Rogue's Passage, all just lands that I already owned or got in pre-release drafts. If you were making this deck more competitive, you could probably find better dual lands. Luxury Suite is absolutely on my list.

I also can't afford an Arachnogenesis right now, but y'all should have that card. Everyone should, really.

I like this deck, but also it sucks and I'd like to make it into a better deck.

If you like this deck but would rather do it with the more traditional "I want people to attack each other and never me" strategy, I highly recommend Mathas, Fiend Seeker, a personal favorite of mine. Replace the green in this deck with white and you'll have tougher (though less mana-friendly) walls and better pillow fort style enchantments.

You can also go for a "blitz" style deck, abandoning the wall tribal strategy entirely. A lot of the cards in this deck work just fine with this; just replace the walls with strong creatures, ideally with haste.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	1 year
Key combos	Star of Extinction + Stuffy Doll Archetype of Finality + Goblin Sharpshooter Star of Extinction + Vicious Shadows
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 16 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.86
Tokens	0/1 G Creature Wall, Beast 3/3 G, Construct 6/12 C, Copy Clone, Dragon 2/2 R, Dragon Egg 0/2 R, Emblem Rowan Kenrith, Food, Gold, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Lightning Rager, Ogre 3/3 R, Spider 1/2 G, Squirrel 1/1 G, The Monarch, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Decks to Review, Cool Deck List, Decks I want to (and hopefully will) build, So Frickin' Cool, Awesome Decks I've Seen, Decks