Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Legendary Creature — Human Soldier

First strike

Noncreature spells cost {1} more to cast.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	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
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (45)

Idoneity on Oh Jackdaw Sing Arrogance

4 weeks ago

Austin_Smith_of_Cards — Oooh! Thank you kindly for the suggestions. I'll pore through them one-by-one.

That Thalia is a lovely card and I do enjoy some taxes in competitive formats, but I do consider it a little too pesky for commander gameplay.

Thalia, Heretic Cathar, however, is one of my favourite cards. I am frankly surprised she did not find a home already. What to cut, I wonder...

Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire is certainly a strong card, and I will probably include it over a Swamp if I can ever find my spare. I am currently at the minimum number possible Plains.

To rack a few out of the way quickly Swords to Plowshares isn't my thing, as I don't like liminal kill spells all too much. Same goes for Path to Exile. I didn't want this to be a sac deck, so I avoided effects like Elas il-Kor and Nasty End. Primevals' Glorious Rebirth is a little grandiose for the "little guys" game plan I wanted to hone. And Teysa Karlov is only so good in this list, as only so many cards are dedicated to tokens.

As for the gleaming diamonds in this bunch, Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle might be simply too good to pass up. It synergies far too efficiently for me to exclude, so it will be the next card in. Secondarily, you are correct that this list struggles against noncreature strategies, so Kambal, Consul of Allocation slots in nicely.

Thank you for your feedback and have an excellent day!

Austin_Smith_of_Cards on Oh Jackdaw Sing Arrogance

1 month ago

Looking like a pretty solid list with lots of card advantage and ramp, and a fantastic mana curve to boot. Where this list could use some improvement is in the interaction category; 4 spot removals and 2 wraths is a bit too low, and makes you vulnerable to solitaire-style decks like combo or spellslinger.

Some cards that immediately come to mind are Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire. The first two are cheap legendary creatures that impede ramp decks, haste decks, and spellslinger. Eiganjo, much like Witch Enchanter, is a sort of modal card that can serve as a land or removal if need be. Kambal, Consul of Allocation punishes spells-heavy lists hard. Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle recurs fodder on cast, which means that even with an otherwise empty board, you can get something from your yard for your legendary creature to sacrifice.

Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares are the best bang for your buck removals white has access to; I'd make room for them as well.

Other random suggestions:

Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim adds incidental life loss and gain as you're generating and sacrificing stuff. Bonus points for being legendary and a cheap rattlesnake effect.

Teysa Karlov unfortunately doesn't double up exploit triggers, but it does buffer your tokens defensively and double up any non-exploit death triggers.

Nasty End is a cheap synergistic one-shot card advantage effect.

Primevals' Glorious Rebirth is a solid way to bounce back from a boardwipe, or just outright recur everything you've lost over the course of the game.

DreadKhan on What makes a card or …

6 months ago

I like to build some fairly toxic Commander decks, though I try to warn people if a deck dips too deeply into any of the elements I've noticed that cause toxicity. In Commander most people consider decks that take away player agency to be toxic, so that includes; -excessive permanent removal (clearing each opponent's board repeatedly, or Obliterate/Jokulhaups) -things that limit what you can do (like Rule of Law or Collector Ouphe) -excessively pushed Commanders in Casual (stuff where they throw Ward on for no reason, most of these are also the payoff and enabler in one card) -Chaos effects that turn the game on it's head (Thieves' Auction and Grip of Chaos for example) -stuff that prevents untapping (Static Orb and Winter Orb) -stealing everything strategies (flickering Agent of Treachery infinitely, Insurrection late game) -excessive discard (multiple Necrogen Mists and Bottomless Pit effects) -'win on the spot' effects that don't have an upkeep trigger (there is a few of these on the banlist, like Biorhythm and Coalition Victory) -counter everything strategies (Dovescape) -overly efficient tutoring (Zur the Enchanter *f-etch* fetching out Necropotence, and people are weirdly salty about Vampiric Tutor) -faster elimination strategies that encourage you to target a specific opponent (think anything Infect, and lower to the ground Voltron decks) -I think the last one I can think of is optional tax effects that encourage people to screw their pod and play into the Rhystic Study, if the tax is just a tax, like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben people tend not to mind as much, it's the ability to king make if you're dumb.

In 1v1 I don't think it really matters, unless you only have 1 deck to play kitchen table with just changing decks should generate enough novelty to avoid the build up of bad feelings, and if you're playing competitively it's your call if you want to play nightmarish stuff like Nadu, or something traditionally 'fun' like Aggro... only if everyone plays decks that aren't fun, more people will quit, so it's a 'tragedy of the commons' scenario too if you have a fairly small meta each player needs 'fun to play against' decks, even for 1v1.

DreadKhan on Rushed to die

8 months ago

I find Bonecrusher Giant (and Stomp) play pretty well in a Burn deck, the body is just big enough to be worth casting, and Stomp can remove problematic utility creatures like a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben that are ruining your day; two meh effects add up to one surprisingly playable card in my experience! Another random card that might synergize well with what you've got going on is Tourach, Dread Cantor, this guy loves discard effects, offering you a potentially useful body that scales over time, as is you don't have any payoffs for making opponents discard, just that they have no cards in hand (and if that's what you're looking for you should switch Dash Hopes for the old Hymn to Tourach for a more reliable effect, an early Hymn can single handedly win games, 2 random cards for 2 mana on turn 2 is sadistic.

This is incredibly ironic coming from me, but I feel like you probably have too many 3 mana spells in here, when I was testing I had to mulligan more for your deck specifically because I kept running into hands with too many 3 drops. For example, my 80 card Azorius Legacy deck has only 17 3 drops, and I feel like that might be too many, 19 in a 60 card deck that only has 18 lands is asking for trouble IMHO.

YMMV but I wonder if your plan would work better if you leaned harder into discard or harder into burn instead of mixing them? If you cut your weenies you could throw in Racks/Afflictions, if you trimmed some burn spells you could throw in some Lilianas, and suddenly your mana base only needs Black for a discard list. Similarly you could trim the discard stuff and make it an all Red Burn list, it's doable to win on/before turn 3 with Burn in Legacy, and that can be mono-Red, but you'd need cards like Fireblast to make that happen. You could take a look at Got a One Way Ticket to the Blues, my discard list, or Diesel Driven Burn, my Burn list, for potential ideas if you want to lean into a specific lane. Feel free to ignore my advice if you're happy with your list, you're playing your deck after all!

Azoth2099 on Wheeliod - cEDH

1 year ago

This commander is so awesome, man, excellent choice. Consider Braingeyser for sure. This commander also breaks parity on strong stax pieces like Thorn of Amethyst & Thalia, Guardian of Thraben super easily! It's brutal. Cheers!

IHATENAMES on Angelic Spiritual Soul Sisters

1 year ago

A few things.

1st off. I think a soul sisters deck and angel deck are not compatible. Soul sisters make and want as many lifegain triggers as possible. Maximizing cards like Voice of the Blessed . Angels i believe want to maintain x life above your starting life and gain in chunks of 5 for probably the best angel Resplendent Angel. These seem simular but that creates tough choices in deck design.

Book of Exalted Deeds with creature lands is a combo with Mutavault some decks just can't beat this.

I think you want the card draw off of Shelter but I personally think that card sux. You would likely be better with a green splash for just Collected Company or run a cheaper protection spell like Brave the Elements or a better card draw engine Welcoming Vampire perhaps.

Speaker of the Heavens is a suprise op card i have a angel deck on mtga for historic and it is a great agro card angels needed.

You are light in 1 key piece of any deck. Interaction.

March of Otherworldly Light is a favorite of mine.

Path to Exile could be decent

Dawn Charm niche counterspell/ protect a creature

Surge of Salvation protection vs opposing aggro

I'd suggest looking at another decks sideboard to help build a better one Check out decks like modern d&t or soul sister or angels and see what you want. But be sure to cover a few things.

Graveyard hate like Soul-Guide Lantern Something to fight control many different approachesCavern of Souls Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Artifact/enchantment hate Disenchant

And something for decks that you think you need more help with and expect to face. Perhaps a boardwipe for decks that go wide Doomskar or any other archetype/problem that needs fixing.

Murrow on Ronin 64

1 year ago

Icbrgr Thalia, Guardian of Thraben just doesn’t know how to have a good time lmao. Thanks for bringing her to my attention cuz I didn’t even think of that. Good thing she’s got such a small booty lol. Ball Lightning is pretty solid too. Once I get some heavy playtesting in I’ll know better how my mid game feels. Then I may end up adding him.

I’m glad you like the deck :) thanks! Lemme know if you give it a try :)

Icbrgr on Ronin 64

1 year ago

love this deck... another thorn in the decks side is Thalia, Guardian of Thraben... i learned that lesson what i was obbsessed with brewing around Ball Lightning... love the Abrade in the Sideboard for both thalia and chalice! +1 great fun looking brew!