Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Legendary Enchantment Creature — God

Indestructible

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

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

[[symbol:1]: Another target creature gains lifelink until end of turn.

Discussion (50)

lagotripha on Modern Hulk Flash

1 day ago

Persist is a better goryo's in this list.

Personally I'd go to B/W Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Return to the Ranks with one of the dredge engines, just to up threat density & increase the number of 'draw card, win game' options.

SynergyBuild on Sythis, should've been a Demigod

1 week ago

So, the most popular two card competitive g/w enchantment combos are the following, all of which are powerful on their own, but win w/ combat on the following turn or with another effect, such as Altar of the Brood , or in another way.

They are: Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience , Squirrel Nest + Earthcraft , and Parallax Wave + Opalescence

Other options are Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista , Siona, Captain of the Pyleas + Shielded by Faith !

Oof_Magic on

1 week ago

Played a couple games and it seems like green was coming out. First match up against Modern Maverick with Knight of the Reliquary , Noble Hierarch , Voice of Resurgence , Stoneforge Mystic , and MAINDECK Qasali Pridemage . I managed to slow them down off of two Ghostly Prison s by turn 6 until I could draw into Sphere of Safety . Closed off the removal with double Sterling Grove and maybe four turns bought off Out of Time the opponent had to wave the flag before the fleet of angels. In the second game, they had removal creatures and tutors galore to keep me off enough early plays that I folded to Eternal Witness to get back Eladamri's Call on my end step and I folded not needing to see what they’d pull, I was behind enough on board and stuck on two lands. Tiebreaker started out looking like the second but with double Sterling Grove in my opener, I could at least absorb a removal if not close them off removal completely. I was mainly leaning on that while Sythis, Harvest's Hand fed me into more board control. We went back and forth with me removing or isolating singular threats along the way until they blew me out with Engineered Explosives for three to get rid of two Ghostly Prison s, Enchantress's Presence , Out of Time , and Solitary Confinement but not before I could deploy a second Grove. They didn’t have a very threatening board with On Thin Ice and Runed Halo still doing work. So I got back Confinement with Hall of Heliod's Generosity and sent in the final blows with Heliod, God of the Sun .

That was a close fought battle and much more back and forth than I anticipated. Those tutors provided for a rather consistent toolbox package. Alas, strats with one way to win are relatively easy to hate. It’s less about accumulating hate and rather about using enough hate to get to that one piece. That Engineered Explosives blowout scared me but we just needed that one piece. Ironically, I drew into Confinement off of Sythis’s trigger when I replayed my Halled back first Confinement. Guess I knew what I was discarding on that first upkeep.

Second match brought more green creatures with Heliod Company. First game went pretty smoothly as I got out a quick Sythis backed by Grove. Also started with Leyline of Sanctity . Always nice to get that incidental gotcha. They plopped out some creatures. I deployed Ghostly Prison and frankly, off the back of not being able to combo me, they folded to Sigil of the Empty Throne . Second game went very similarly too first match second game. Off the back of Grove and Halo, I got stuck on two lands and they widened their board beyond saving as I never got another land. Last game was very intriguing. They managed a decent board but I managed to get a draw engine behind Solitary Confinement early. They Walking Ballista + Heliod, Sun-Crowned to an arbitrary amount of life and asked how I was going to win. While I didn’t have a guaranteed win, I could theoretically moderate how many draw engines I had out and use Hall of Heliod's Generosity to keep me from milling out until the opponent eventually would. They decided to close up there. A theoretically infinite amount of life: defeated. That made for a very interesting finish. I’m sure my opponent was just thinking ‘How can they possible overcome all the life? They only have Heliod, God of the Sun and Sigil Angel beats.’ Well, we found out. Very slowly. Very miserably.

Exoflo on Zedruu

1 week ago

Hi Tedryg !

What a nice casual deck you've made. It seems to be the kind of deck you play with beginners or friends to enjoy the evening.

If you want to draw more cards an gain more life, you could run Alhammarret's Archive or Teferi's Ageless Insight . Combined with Teferi's Puzzle Box , you got a devastating draw engine.

If you want to go into something more competitive, you can run Walking Ballista to combo off with Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Best of luck to you, and don't forget to spread love with our MotherGoat

Mana_Mythic_Legendary on Pursuing Perfection, Part 1: Mono-White …

2 weeks ago

This is the start of a project inspired by a TED talk. The speaker was part of a commission to create the perfect Pepsi, but the data he’d gathered was less than helpful. Instead of forming a nice, easy bell curve, the gathered preferences formed seemingly random clusters. That’s when he had an epiphany: a perfect Pepsi was impossible, but perfect Pepsis were. Some people liked it sweeter, some with less carbonation, some with more citric acid. I don’t remember how Pepsi took that report, but it was an interesting insight and I never forgot it.

Years later, I was reading the comments on an article about the ten best commanders. Most of them railed against the writer’s choices. Why wasn’t this one at the top, why wasn’t this guy on the list, why were all the picks garbage… That's when it occurred to me. Salt aside, the article was chasing the perfect Pepsi. Any article trying to rank options would be, because the commanders don’t exist in a vacuum. They exist in context, and what works in one place is a wretched pile in the next. There is no perfect commander. However, there are perfect commanders, and that’s what we’ll be thinking about here.

Over the course of this project I’ll be discussing the thematic strengths of various colors and color combinations. Each article will highlight nine commanders who showcase those themes in different ways, then close with a personal favorite. This isn’t meant to be a list of the optimal but rather the fun, a celebration of the format.

Today’s topic is White, held by some to be the weakest color to run solo in commander. Funny, since this “weakest” color has little miss indestructible-on-a-stick Avacyn, Angel of Hope , that black hole of aggro Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite , and the wombo combo beast Heliod, Sun-Crowned himself. We’re not here to discuss the powerhouses, though. We are here to talk about why you would play mono-white in the first place. White, friends, is where you come to drown your opponents in tokens, where Voltron stashes the best kitties, and where the friendless beast Stax makes its lonely home.

White Weenies

While Marrow-Gnawer and Krenko may live in the limelight of mono-colored horde decks, white is where said horde hangs its thematic hat. Here be the lion’s share of “creatures you control get” goodies, crowned by the mathematically grueling Cathars' Crusade . Here be the Hero of Bladehold and the Knight-Captain of Eos . Here! Be! Elspeth!

First in our trifecta of white weenie lords is Mikaeus the Lunarch. Stick him at the head of a horde and watch his minions git gud. There are quite a few shenanigans, like Elite Scaleguard , that will delight in having this guy at the head of a deck.

Going a different direction, Darien makes minions himself rather than relying on token generators from the deck. Opponents will be understandably leery of touching his pilot with anything less than lethal damage. Add in Soul Warden and a few of her friends and things get downright silly.

Lord of keyword soup. What more needs to be said? Go in fear of his motley crew, in all probability lead by Zetalpa, Primal Dawn .

Voltron

Anyone can sink money into a fistful of swords or powerhouse auras and turn their pet legend into an unholy terror. White, though, has the greatest affinity for soloing Voltron. Equipment or auras, or even both, there’s a deep pool of support to chose from. The keyword Protection is part of what makes the swords so lethal, and white hands out that keyword like candy.

Drawing is white’s weakest point, you say? Sram laughs at you and your lies as he beats you senseless. There is a pile of white cards that reward you for playing auras or for playing artifacts. Sram isn’t so picky. Be like Sram.

I really like this guy. Moving gear for free is great, but passing out double strike like free samples is downright brutal. Bloodforged Battle-Axe , anyone? Even as an equipment he does silly, silly things with friends like Kami of False Hope or Ranger-Captain of Eos .

Hulk or horde? Why not both? Stack some toys on Kemba and watch your board grow, then go full theme and drop Raksha Golden Cub to take the throne with your army of cranky Norwegian forest cats. Include Leonin Shikari and (cat)ckle with glee. I wasn't joking about white, Voltron, and kitties.

Stax

Here’s the mean side of white. Blue may counter you, red may burn you, black may drain you, but only white truly embodies the spirit of the Smallpox flavor text. Whether you share the pain with cards like Hushbringer or dish it out with Drannith Magistrate and friends, opponents will go in fear of those terrible words “can’t” and “don’t.”

If you’re building stax, we can assume making allies in the game isn’t a priority. Horoki has no friends. Horoki needs no friends. Only rocks. Rocks, and something to put victims out of their misery.

Somewhat kinder than Horoki, but only somewhat, since you don’t suffer with them. Their creatures can’t tap for mana. Their creatures can’t sacrifice each other. Their creatures can’t. So many can'ts, so little can.

Maybe you can’t outramp them, but you can slow them down. Thalia functionally robs opponents of turns, blockers, and, if you rob them enough, of the win. A 3/2 with first strike is already good for three mana, and at this point is just icing on this vicious cake.

And, for my personal favorite...

A rule of thumb of mine is that one mark of a good deck is that it can function without its commander.

This is a rule I gleefully break most of the time.

Rune-Tail will automatically flip on turn three in almost all games, and a commander with effects like this make Pariah and other, similar cards downright hilarious. I made and took apart a Rune-Tail deck over a decade ago. It was a terrible mess, but a fun one, and the tech available for it has grown since then. The deck was built around walling up, gaining life and otherwise stalling until a win-condition like Darksteel Reactor or Felidar Sovereign could be triggered. It was a fun idea, but these days I'd probably build Halvar for fun or Sram if I wanted to win.

That's it for this round. Thoughts and questions are welcome. I hope you enjoyed it, and will come back next week for Blue!

Code goes here

Guerric on State of Mono-Colored Decks in …

2 weeks ago

Hi all! While there are great decks for most color combinations in commander today, mono-colored decks have often struggled to keep up in the format. Some might say that this is fine because multi-colored decks are more fun, but there is a simplicity to mono-colored decks that makes them more accessible to newer players and budget players, and many established players also enjoy this focus.

That being said, what does everyone think is the state of various mono-colored decks in commander today? I'll relate my impressions, and tell me if you think they are accurate or not.

In general, I think mono-green and mono-black are very strong. Both colors can ramp, draw cards, and tutor things in ways characteristic to their colors, and there are a variety of powerful commanders to pick from.

Blue it seems can definitely make some strong decks, and can do most of the things a commander deck needs to do. Some might question whether blue pushes people predominantly into degenerate strategies, and whether there is a good diversity of strategies in the color.

Red is a bit of a question mark for me, and something I am curious about. It seems like card draw has come along with impulsive draw, and there have always been some strong decks like Daretti, Scrap Savant . That being said, I am not sure what the diversity of strategies in the color is, and if people like playing mono-red today.

To me it is obvious that mono-white is abyssmal. I won't quibble about the ramp but the card draw has not been taken seriously by WoTC, and no one wants to play a deck that doesn't draw cards. The only commanders that a noticeable number of people play are Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Sram, Senior Edificer , the latter probably because it has card draw. They really need to address card draw, and they really need commanders that people will want to play.

At any rate, those are my thoughts. What are yours!

Guerric on Mono White Ramp/Draw

3 weeks ago

Personally I think mono white is by far the weakest color in edh, and the gap is only growing with the great new Boros commanders we've had out recently and some good mono-red options as well. I say this as a white player who has tried many times to make a mono white commander deck that I like, only to be always disappointed and to take it apart.

The problem is not really ramp imo. White actually has more ramp than most other non-green colors with cards like Kor Cartographer and Boreas Charger , and, as others have said, they can use the same mana rocks and Sword of the Animist style cards that other colors use.

I don't think the problem is really overall direction either. One thing they have done in recent sets with cards like Cosmic Intervention , Semester's End , Unbreakable Formation , and Teferi's Protection giving white more ways to protect a board state at instant speed, which it often needs in commander. Its always had the best removal, and it also has recursion and some great new lifegain synergies with one great new commander in Heliod, Sun-Crowned .

The problem is absolutely and overwhelmingly an abyssmal lack of card draw. The only helps to this in recent years have been Sram, Senior Edificer and Mangara, the Diplomat , but these are few and far between. Recenty Ari Nieh, the new guy representing white on the council of colors was on Tolarian Community College, and he expressed some of the prior thinking on card draw in white that has led to these problems. In short, an example of what they thought card draw was is God-Eternal Oketra . While a great card, Oketra clearly doesn't draw cards, but they reasoned that the fact that it produces big tokens was basically the same thing. The fact that developers whose job is to make this game actually thought that just shows how far away they are from understanding our format. Apparently Mark Rosewater has had a change of heart recently, and hence why we have Mangara, but there's a long way to go. Every other color can draw cards on its own without support of another color if need be, but its real tough in white.

TheVectornaut on Black and White - please help!

1 month ago

To stay more in black, I would consider some sort of vampire sacrifice, counters, and/or lifedrain strategy. Your black cards that could work well in such a deck would be Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim , Embodiment of Agonies , Kambal, Consul of Allocation , Knight of the Ebon Legion , Mortician Beetle , Souls of the Faultless , Castigate , Disentomb , Gerrard's Verdict , Revival / Revenge , Despark , and Grim Return . Most of the other black cards are at least playable as well. The only two I'd cut in most circumstances are Underworld Dreams and In Garruk's Wake . The former needs more build-around while the latter just costs too much to be a consistent boardwipe.

Cards I'd look at adding for such a build might be Gatekeeper of Malakir , Anowon, the Ruin Sage , Sangromancer , Dictate of Erebos , Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet , Victim of Night , Indulgent Aristocrat , Pawn of Ulamog , Grim Haruspex , Silversmote Ghoul , Yahenni, Undying Partisan , Vampire Nighthawk , Vampire of the Dire Moon , Malakir Cullblade , Blood Artist , Urge to Feed , Feast of Blood , Heliod, Sun-Crowned , Archangel of Thune , Cruel Celebrant , Drana's Emissary , Indulging Patrician , Malakir Bloodwitch , Marauding Blight-Priest , Sanctum Seeker , Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose , and Pious Evangel  ^Flip.

As a side note, to go infinite with Sanguine Bond , Vizkopa Guildmage , or Vito, the card you need is actually Exquisite Blood which is unfortunately quite expensive.