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Orzhov's Hatebears (Tiny Leader Athreos)

Tiny Leaders Humans Reanimator WB (Orzhov)

Coucho_Marx


Sideboard


Maybeboard


So they aren't all bears, strictly speaking, work with me here!

The problem with giving your opponents a choice over an effect is that they will always attempt to pick the 'worse' option for you. Remember the Tribute ability, from Born of the Gods, and how none of those cards saw any competitive play at all? Or the endless arguments about whether Vexing Devil was any good? If a card isn't reliable - if it can't do what you need it to - then it's hard to make a strong case for it. Athreos, God of Passage does offer our opponent a choice, and they'll often choose to be rid of our creatures. But we're in Orzhov colours, and bringing things back from the dead is our specialty!

The key is to make either option the wrong choice, and we do that with our reanimators - Immortal Servitude, Return to the Ranks , and Wake the Dead . Early on, opponents are usually happy to pay 3 life to keep our creatures in the graveyard, especially if they're big threats like Archetype of Courage, or provide a powerful effect like Imposing Sovereign or Blood Artist. This life will add up - don't be surprised if your opponent pays well into their low teens while taking hits.

After you've lost a bunch of creatures and your opponent's life total is fairly low, cast Immortal Servitude or Return to the Ranks to bring all your dead creatures back and run your opponent over. Wake the Dead works a little differently but still triggers Athreos, so you'll get most of your creatures back to hand if your opponent can't (or doesn't want to) pay for them. And if the board state gets out of hand at any stage (looking at you, Ezuri!), we can confidently play a boardwipe like Toxic Deluge or one of our sideboard options knowing we can quickly recover.

The reason the deck's creatures are almost entirely 2-cost is due to these reanimators. Return to the Ranks is very efficient but can only hit creatures of CMC 2 or less, so it makes sense to give it the largest targets it can manage. Immortal Servitude can only reanimate a given CMC, and costs more as you go higher, so you have to stack a 'CMC slot' with as many creatures as you can but not make them too expensive (we will be hardcasting most of the creatures that eventually end up in the graveyard, so filling the deck with three-drops blanks Return to the Ranks while also slowing the deck down).

The remainder of the deck is committed to disruption, removal, and anthem effects. While we have several ways to deal with permanents, ripping them out of somebody's hand is the best way to protect yourself. Glorious Anthem is great in a format where P/T levels do not have much variance, and Zealous Persecution may as well be a boardwipe for how much it swings combat your way. Profane Command rounds out the deck as a powerful utility spell - each mode is superb in a deck like this.

The sideboard is a work in progress, but it should do the job. Aegis of the Gods and True Believer are there for mill and burn decks, Circle of Protection: Red , Perish and Virtue's Ruin are specific colour hosers, Kataki, War's Wage is very strong against artifact-heavy decks, Nihil Spellbomb for graveyard-based decks like ours or Alesha, Spirit of the Labyrinth for control decks that love to draw, Phyrexian Revoker to disable activated abilities on cards like Ezuri, Renegade Leader, and Black Sun's Zenith as an extra boardwipe against aggro decks.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Swapped out Hymn to Tourach and Gerrard's Verdict for Mesmeric Fiend and Thoughtseize. This is effectively an aggro build, and getting threats on the table quickly is critical. The deck still has four maindeck cards (two of which are bodies) that can deny a selected spell, which is really important for a deck that has good recovery but can be hosed down by a few specific strategies (namely heavy graveyard hate like Rest in Peace, exiling/tucking, or anything that can deny us use of Athreos). I'll consider placing Hymn and Verdict into the sideboard for control matchups if I find the room.

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Revision 6 See all

(8 years ago)

Date added 8 years
Last updated 8 years
Legality

This deck is Tiny Leaders legal.

Rarity (main - side)

2 - 0 Mythic Rares

24 - 6 Rares

15 - 3 Uncommons

3 - 1 Commons

Cards 50
Avg. CMC 2.09
Tokens Demon 5/5 B, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders New ideas, other's decks, Tiny, Tiny Leader Decks, Tiny leaders
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