Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Legendary Enchantment Creature — God

Indestructible

As long as your devotion to white is less than five, this isn't a creature.

Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature or enchantment you control.

{1}{W}: Another target creature gains lifelink until end of turn.

Combos

• Deathbringer Thoctar + Heliod, Sun-Crowned
• Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Herald of the Pantheon
• Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Karlov of the Ghost Council
• Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Kitchen Finks

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (47)

capwner on One-card wins

1 month ago

So here's an idea you may be familiar with...a one-card win: That is, a card that wins the game or initiates a winning line by itself without needing any other pieces. Just cast that one card and boom, you're in a position to win. This seems very OP because a 1 card combo is of course easier to assemble than 2-or-more card combos, and besides being easy to assemble I think it improves your resilience because it's easy to recur or topdeck a single card, and initial card investment is lower so you have more potential space in hand for interaction or a backup plan. The downside would be a lot of these either cost a lot of mana or require a lot of build around, or both. So some obvious examples of this would be cards like Tooth and Nail that tutor up multiple parts of a 2-part combo. Shared Summons is another card that, given enough mana, can win by itself say by assembling Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista. These double tutor cards are especially sweet because they can also find protection if you already have part of the combo or other tutors. I think Hoarding Broodlord is similar because it tutors for Saw in Half to find more combo pieces, so this wins by itself too. By extension, in the decks that have these, regular Demonic TutorGC or Solve the Equation become a 1-card wins as well! Next there are some weirder ones...there's straight up Enter the Infinite which if resolved should certainly give you the ability to win on the spot with a million counterspell backups. On the opposite end of the curve, Doomsday initiates a combo line by itself but is slower; you either need to pass the turn or have a means of drawing a card to continue comboing. Similarly, Selective Memory in an all-spells deck can exile your whole deck besides Thoracle, then draw her and win next turn. Of course in the all-spells camp there's also Balustrade Spy, Undercity Informer and Goblin Charbelcher which can win on the spot, these are probably the best and actually competitively played archetypes, and Hermit Druid combos similarly. Hmm.... what else, I guess there are tons of 1-card combos with commanders, like Etali + Food Chain, Niv Mizzet + Curiosity, and so on. Those are pretty close to 1-card wins but I would say a different genre of combo than the ones I am discussing. Another card I think fits is Timesifter, with the right build this card can very likely result in a win by itself, though it is totally non-deterministic! I think as a 5 drop artifact, compared with the mana demands of some of the other cards mentioned, this is a very competitive option for a potentially game-ending effect on a single card. I love Timesifter lol. What else? Other tutors like IntuitionGC and Gifts UngivenGC can assemble breach combo by themselves in Jeskai decks with Sevinne's Reclamation. Ad NauseamGC and other mass-draw effects scoop up huge portions of the deck and win from there. Anything that can tutor multiple times like Increasing Ambition or Razaketh, the Foulblooded can win by itself. Goblin Recruiter I'm pretty sure sets up Conspicuous Snoop combo by itself, maybe that's a win next turn one. Approach of the Second Sun but that's REALLY slow by itself. This far down the line I'm tempted to even say Stoneforge Mystic and/or Stonehewer Giant because you can play a line where you get Sword of Hearth and Home to flicker her, get Kaldra Compleat then get Worldslayer and that's baaasically a win 2 turns later from just a Stoneforge. On that topic, MLD spells in general come pretty close to being 1-card wins IMO by relying more on overall deck construction to out-recover opponents, so similar to a Timesifter resolving a Jokulhaups should usually win it for the MLD player if they built their deck right, and if nobody has Tef Pro <- another 1 card win here lol.

I feel like I've blabbed enough, I'd like to know which cards I've missed and what your favorite 1-card wins are? Or even cool Commander + 1 wins if you know of some lesser-known ones. Hey I guess Magda, Brazen Outlaw and Godo, Bandit Wardlord both win by themselves too, right? But kind of slowly, Godo needs haste and Magda needs dwarves/treasures. Also for commanders, I think both Captain Sisay and Sisay, Weatherlight Captain can assemble wins by themselves, slowly. Also Yisan, Wanderer Bard.

Anyways thanks for reading if you did, hopefully you got something useful out of this wincon rant. One-card wins are a big principle I try to use in my deckbuilding especially at higher powers and I think trying to enable the wackier ones provides some fun deckbuilding challenge and is really rewarding when you can pull it off.

SaberTech on Nature's Bounty

4 months ago

Marath is a good commander for a deck like this because it looks like the strat is to push to the late game where you can start dropping your larger creatures. Marath is good for keeping opponents' early game creatures in check. There are a few cards that I think could help it do its job though:

• Hardened Scales and Conclave Mentor let Marath remove one +1/+1 and then put two more back onto itself.

• Basilisk Collar and Bow of Nylea give Marath Deathtouch so that it can ping even large creatures to death.

• Heliod, Sun-Crowned gives Marath lifelink and essentially turns Marath into a machine gun. Just make sure to only activate Marath's damage ability for 1 mana each time.

salzstange on Double Trouble - Prison Time !

6 months ago

Current problems - Open to suggestions

37 Land Mana base:

• Islands are needed but scarce. Shocklands are not considered due to power-level of my local store and friends group.

• If I remove some basic lands in exchange for some (slow) dual lands, I could also drop Scrying Sheets to make room for cards on the maybeboard.

Slow cards / lackluster mid to late game

These cards could be removed in favor of maybeboard

• Daxos of Meletis

• Krile Baldesion

• Urianger Augurelt

• Well of Lost Dreams

• Transcendent Master (less value than some cards on maybeboard)

• Cradle of Vitality (Tutor-able, but costly draw compared to alternatives)

Maybeboard to consider

Way better synergies:

• Azor, the Lawbringer for more control

• Drogskol Reaver for better draw

• Grand Abolisher for prison/control

• Heliod, Sun-Crowned for more buffs & lifegain

• Sphinx of the Revelation, which becomes a 3CMC flying/lifelink 3/5 with card draw

Deck currently lacks

• Board wipes other than Ajani, Strength of the Pride

• Single creature boosts like Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots or similar

DemonDragonJ on Life Springs Eternal

10 months ago

I contemplated putting both Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista into this deck, but that combo is too cliche, at this point, and I also would like to have put both Fight Rigging and Rabble Rousing into this deck, but I was not able to make room, for those cards, unfortunately.

Profet93, thank you, very much, and I certainly would be interested to hear any suggestions that you have to offer!

kamarupa on Mono White Devotion

10 months ago

I'd like to see a few more devotion spells or at least a stronger ability to cast the 2 devotion spells that are included. And to that end, I think you need at least 2 more lands.

I'm kind of surprised you included neither Daxos, Blessed by the Sun nor Heliod, Sun-Crowned, as both seem better white devotion spells in modern than Reverent Hoplite. I concede that both the aforementioned spells are Legendary, and therefore not the best spells to run full sets of, but you're only running 2x of the only devotion spell I see included, and that spell, at 5MV, seems unlikely to get cast in such a fast format, especially when you've only got 21 lands.

DemonDragonJ on Advice for a Green/White EDH …

11 months ago

DarkKiridon, that is a nice card, but it is somewhat conditional, so I am not certain if I would use it.

Poly_raptor, the combo of Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Spike Feeder is too cliche, so I would prefer to avoid it, but Attended Healer is amazing, so I thank you, for suggesting it!

What about Chord of Calling, Shared Summons, or Enduring Vitality? Would any of those cards be good for the type of deck that I am seeking to build?

Poly_raptor on Advice for a Green/White EDH …

11 months ago

I like this idea, depending on how you feel about infinite combos you could run Heliod, Sun-Crowned & Spike Feeder

I also like Attended Healer effects here, they would work really well with Cathars' Crusade

Cathedral Acolyte would also work really well for your counters theme.

Look forward to seeing the deck!

capwner on Is the only problem with …

1 year ago

Yup World_Peace summed it up, lifegain just doesn't matter if you have lost on the board.

Inf lifegain combos like Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Spike Feeder are good because many strategies will have no way to deal you enough damage or win before they deck themselves

Timely Reinforcements is a cool lifegain card, usually a sideboard card for if you need to 'buy time' like you said, but you need to have a gameplan that can win with the time you bought.