Thrasios 4 Color Combo Overview
Thrasios, Triton Hero is the best commander to be printed in a long time, perhaps ever. While some commanders are individually stronger (i.e. Zur the Enchanter & Leovold, Emissary of Trest), no other commander can match the Triton Hero's combination of color scheme, mana efficiency, and powerful abilities.
Thrasios' greatest strength lies in his color scheme. Before the rise of 4 color commanders, BUG was generally considered the strongest wedge in cEDH as it offered the best combination of ramp, card advantage, interaction, and tutor density. Being able to splash red with Vial Smasher the Fierce or white with Tymna the Weaver gives Thrasios unprecidented card quality to his 98.
Thrasios' draw ability may not seem like much at first glance, but having a colorless infinite mana sink in the command zone is a powerful advantage to any combo deck. Coincidentally, Thrasios' color scheme offers a bevy of easily assembled and mana efficient infinite combos. Outside of these situations, his pseudo scry 1 draw ability often comes in handy in slower and more interactive games. A Thrasios player never has to worry about having too much ramp or being stuck in topdeck mode for long. Sans red lists have the added benefit of falling back on Tymna's draw ability as well.
Being a two drop creature allows Thrasios to be played very early in games to facilitate many easy lines to victory. For instance, Thrasios can be used as fodder for Birthing Pod to get Trinket Mage for Lion's Eye Diamond. From there you can pod Trinket Mage into Auriok Salvagers for Bomberman combo. In a Paradox Engine build, which has the tools to consistently untap pod, this line to victory is often achieved on turn 3-4. Thrasios can also be used as fodder for Culling the Weak to cast an early game Ad Nauseam or Dread Return for Hermit Druid combo. In short, making an easily castable legendary two drop creature with access to the most powerful 4 color combinations this good is simply unfair.
Major Archetypes
Thrasios lends himself to numerous fast combo builds. The best of these can be categorized as either storm or graveyard centric.
Storm
1) Dandelion_PuffballSavant's Doomtide Thrasios: This style of Thrasios storm is very similar to Ad Naus Doomsday Zur, as it utilizes a High Tide package and has a strong interaction suite. Unlike Zur, Dan utilizes Doomsday as a plan c strategy behind an Aetherflux Reservoir storm kill and Bomberman (Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond
) infinite mana combo. Dan's list has higher card quality than Zur and can attack opponents from multiple angles. Unlike many UBx storm lists, Dan can also grind out slower games by leaning on cards like Leovold, Emissary of Trest. This brew's versatility gives it the ability to perform well in many different metas. The decks primary weakness is to early tax effects.
2) Lilbrudder's Paradox Scepter Thrasios: This storm deck is built around Paradox Engine and Isochron Scepter+Dramatic Reversal, so unlike traditional UBx storm lists it does not utilize High Tide or Doomsday. In its place this build leans heavily on artifact and creature based ramp. Thrasios plays an integral role in the Engine lines to victory. With 5 mana worth of rock/dorks Sensei's Divining Top and Engine, Thrasios can go infinite. This brew has numerous paths to victory and is one of the fastest decks in all of cEDH due to its ability to consistently win from a main phase Ad Nauseams. There are two versions of this deck. The sans white deck is faster on average and utilizes Waste Not as a seconday combo piece. The sans red version is more resilient and uses Birthing Pod to easily assemble bomberman. Both decks are weak to early disruption, artifact hate (i.e Null Rod) and hate bears (i.e Gaddock Teeg).
Graveyard Centric
1) infiniteimoc's 4c Nooze Brewsday: This sans white reanimator brew is capable of attacking opponents on two primary levels. The deck can cheat massive threats into play (i.e Jin gitaxis, core augur) early which can drown opponents in card advantage while also presenting them with must answer threats. Where this deck truly shines is the easily assembled infinite mana combos it has at its disposal. With Buried Alive+Reanimate this deck can put necrotic ooze into play with
Morselhoarder
and Devoted Druid in the graveyard for infinite colored mana at instant speed. The deck can also produce infinite mana with Worldgorger Dragon and one of Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, or Necromancy. Imoc utilizes this mana to kill the table with timetister loops by exiling opponents libraries with Beast Within and Reality Shift. While this win condition is incredibly compact it falls apart if timetwister is exiled. Fortunately, the deck can easily slot in an alternative win condition (i.e Comet Storm) with minimal downside. The deck is weak to graveyard hate, but Dramatic Reversal+Isochron Scepter can be slotted in with ease to address the decks reliance on the graveyard. The only unmitigatable downside of the deck is that being a reanimator brew makes Ad Nauseam a nobo.
2) tenrose and Chemtails's 4c Thrasios Buried Alive: This sans red brew harnesses the awesome power of Angel of Glory's Rise to easily assemble Bomberman with Buried Alive+Reanimate. Angel also provides an unprecidented level of mana efficiency and resiliency to Hermit Druid combo. Since angel can reanimate Laboratory Maniac,
Hapless Researcher
, and Grand Abolisher off Dread Return, the HD line can protect the combo with cards like
Mana Drain
on turn 3 with no mana acceleration whatsoever and once Angel's trigger resolves opponents cannot interact with the combo. With a high concentration of tutors, and mana efficient win conditions, this is one of the most consistent decks in cEDH. Its primary weakness is that like Imoc's brew Ad Nauseam is not an ideal fit. With that being said Chemtails List does utilize Ad Nauseam in place of
Phantasmagorian
, which provides greater card draw, but makes the HD combo less resilient. One weakness of both decks is that the HD line requires a full turn cycle to resolve and graveyard hate can be problematic.
