Kunoros, Hound of Athreos
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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
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

Kunoros, Hound of Athreos

Legendary Creature — Dog

Vigilance, menace, lifelink

Creature cards in graveyards can't enter the battlefield.

Players can't cast spells form graveyards.

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legendofa on My cognitive dissonance around multicolor …

1 year ago

I believe that (effect in color A) + (effect in color B) should equal (combination of effects in multicolor AB). For example, deathtouch is a green-primary ability. First strike is a red- and white-primary ability. Therefore, a red-green or green-white creature with deathtouch and first strike is reasonable. This position is somewhat supported by a Great Designer Search test question, whose answer stated in part that a black-green creature with flying and vigilance is reasonable. The answer proved controversial, but was repeatedly and vigorously defended as officially correct. This position is also supported by cards such as Needlethorn Drake, Adult Gold Dragon, Kunoros, Hound of Athreos, and many, many others.

However.

There are no red-green or green-white (and no other color) creatures with deathtouch and first strike. Nor is there a (legal) black-green creature with vigilance and flying. The empirical evidence is completely missing. Also, the more complete GDS answer specifically states that a green-black creature with flying and vigilance (and no other abilities) is a better creative choice than a white-blue creature with flying and vigilance (and no other abilities). Before that question had been asked, answered, criticized, and defended, Tempest Drake was a card. Afterward, Warrant / Warden became a card. So not only is the empirical evidence missing in these cases, it seems to point in exactly the opposite direction as official philosophy, and my opinion that A + B should equal AB.

Instead, in practice, it seems that A + B is actually less than AB. There are ability combinations that do not exist in certain color pairs, even if each individual part of the ability combination is fairly represented by separate colors.

I see two resolutions. The first is that my belief, and the official position, is incorrect, and that a red-green "deathstriker" or a black-green vigilant flyer shouldn't exist. The second is that these ability combinations are feasible, and they simply haven't been printed yet for some reason.

What's the best way out of this? Which resolution is better, or is there a third option I'm not seeing?

Reference:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/make-choice-part-1-2018-02-12

Question #28

SufferFromEDHD on

1 year ago

Soul Partition force an opponent to eat Kambal tax on an artifact, enchantment or planeswalker.

Feed the Swarm is awful when you have access to white. Maybe Vanishing Verse or Vindicate.

Kunoros, Hound of Athreos brutal hatebear. You are in Orzhov and not running reanimator. Take advantage of this. The lifelink feeds your strategy.

Archivist of Oghma and Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim are on theme.

Mirage Mirror Orzhov clone.

Angelic Accord is awesome. Griffin Aerie is not.

Epicurus on People's Thoughts on Mommy Norn?

1 year ago

"She's a great roadblock for decks that combo off to go infinite. You know the ones, where you chain together ETB effects to garner infinite tokens / draw / mana / burn. {...} we've all seen them either in person or online with YouTube."

I was looking through all of my decks, both decks that I own and prototypes, and found very few that Big Momma Norn actually shuts down. There are a few that she hinders, there are a couple interactions in each of them that she denies, but the only ones that I see her as a scoop-worthy opponent to are my Yarok decks and my GW Soul Sisters deck. Which brings me to why I quoted the paragraph above from a previous comment.

As other users have already stated on this thread, I also don't play infinite combos. I do have one such combo in one of my decks, but (a) it happened by accident, (b) it's a 3-card combo in a deck that doesn't run tutors, (c) it doesn't have anything to do with ETB triggers, and therefore isn't nerfed by Ma Norn, and (d) is absolutely not necessary for the deck to win. Is that deck effected by Norn being on the board? To some extent, absolutely. Can it win against a Norn deck? Again, absolutely.

(The deck I'm referring to is Mazirek's Nut Sac, in case anyone wants to look at it and argue otherwise).

I can see this card being a nuisance if all or most of your decks rely heavily on ETB triggers, or if you play infinite combos that require ETB triggers, but for no other reason. And honestly, I'm glad if the latter is the case.

Honestly, on a different note, I don't see her shutting down more decks than Kunoros, Hound of Athreos does. And did Kunoros flood the format? Absolutely not. Why not? Because there are too many decks that operate perfectly fine in it's presence. It only attacks one specific archetype, and only slightly hinders others. That's why you see Kuranos much more often as part of the 99 than as commander. If Ma Norn is different, it's only because there are way too many decks being played in the format that absolutely depend on ETB triggers. In that case, she'll really only serve to help diversify the format, which is exactly the opposite of what gets a card banned.

Cards get banned because they flood and homogenize the format. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary was banned because, at the time, you couldn't keep up with that deck, so there was no reason to play anything else. Leovold, Emissary of Trest was banned because drawing is one of the most fundamental aspects of the format, and therefore wrecked every single deck archetype, and subsequently became a "play him or lose to him, your choice" kind of commander. I could go on, but basically the ban hammer comes down when a very large percentage of decks are built around that card, thereby rendering most other decks obsolete. It's really more of a business decision than anything, because flooding a format with one card means less sales of anything else. It's also just not any fun for people who want to build anything else to know that they're going to see that one deck over and over and can't beat it. Again, cards become banned when they enter the category of you have to play them, or you're going to lose to them.

On that subject, I personally wish that Thassa's Oracle would be banned. There are way too many of those decks out there, and they're not any fun to play against. I'd also like to recommend Cyclonic Rift for the hammer, because it is my number one hurt feels card (it's not just a board wipe, it's a one-sided middle finger for everyone). And no, neither of those can be in the command zone to start the game. However, both are infinitely less situational than Ma Norn. They're both devastating to every single deck archetype, not just the most popular ones.

And my final thought on the subject is that there are many other better and more versatile Stax commanders. Tegrid has been mentioned a lot on this thread, and for good reason. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir could be added to that discussion. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV might not shut down any decks, but puts you at a +2 or +3 mana advantage, which is much less situational than the advantage Ma Norn gives you. Shit, even Archelos, Lagoon Mystic, a very underrated commander, whom a lot of people overlook, has much more of a capability of shutting down a much wider category of deck archetypes than does Ma Norn, and has a much better color identity if you want to play Stax. I'm not saying that Archelos is a better card, not by a long shot. I'm just trying to illustrate how dumb it would be to cry for the hammer to come down on Ma Norn before she ever even sees the command zone. She's not going to flood the format, won't wreck the game, and really just makes mono-white a viable option and nothing else.

Anyway, that's my rant.

rdean14 on Card creation challenge

3 years ago

standard meta

Also, I'd like to see a MDFC that puts one multicolored legendary creature into two sides which add up to the original cost. So Kunoros, Hound of Athreos would become two separate cards name Kunoros, one + or + , or like Nicol Bolas becoming + on each side. The point is that casting both sides adds up to the original casting cost exactly. Each side also must have at least one color (Unless there's a really cool way to justify colorless).

Alternatively, you can separate any of the Two character - one creature card cards. Those are Adrix and Nev, Twincasters , Anax and Cymede , Firesong and Sunspeaker , Gisa and Geralf , Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis , Mina and Denn, Wildborn , and Tibor and Lumia . Also, I don't like Sen Triplets , Shattergang Brothers , or any Trostani for this, as three characters don't divide how I'd like, really.

Rin and Seri, Inseparable are INSEPARABLE!

rdean14 on Card creation challenge

3 years ago

Kunoros, Hound of Athreos is among my favorite cards. I'd like it in three colors, though. I think another of my faves: Lavinia, Azorius Renegade , offers inspiration on adding blue.

Kunoros, Eternal Watchdog

Legendary Creature - Dog

Defender, Lifelink, Deathtouch

Nontoken permanents can't enter the battlefield from anywhere but the stack.

Players can't play cards from anywhere but their own hand.

Cards in the graveyard or in exile cannot leave their respective zones.

3/3


I think it's weirdly OP, but unsure how to really balance it. Like, in many games, this could just be an excellent defender, but if built around, it can easily destroy games, especially in this meta.

multimedia on Queen's Decree

3 years ago

Hey, well done on a budget.

Athreos and Plaguecrafter are good, but I don't think the rest of the aristocrat strategy is doing enough. Consider cutting most of it for more pillowfort and hatebears?

An advantage of having more flying hatebears is they can more easily get you back the monarch if an opponent gains control of it.

There's some budget manabase upgrades to consider:

Good luck with your deck.

ImaginitiveRascal on

4 years ago

I don't know about this, but in situations where the card says "return to the battlefield (Athreos, Shroud-Veiled, Luminous Broodmoth, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad), would Kunoros, Hound of Athreos cancel that?

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