Shadowborn Apostle in EDH?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on July 11, 2014, 10:42 a.m. by capriom85
Can multi copies of Shadowborn Apostle be included in an EDH deck or does the singleton rule of EDH negate the card's wording?
themindbullet says... #3
Yes you can use multiple copies of Shadowborn Apostle in EDH, same goes for Relentless Rats .
July 11, 2014 10:44 a.m.
So, in theory, I can use Athreos, God of Passage as my general and constantly refill my hand with sacrificed Apostles unless my opponent wants to pay the life?
July 11, 2014 10:46 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
Card rules always trump other rules, and the RC has supported this perspective. They haven't released a statement specifically overturning card limits.
Also, rules questions should be asked in the Q&A.
July 11, 2014 11:08 a.m.
42 Shadowborn apostles, I see. I suppose the answer to life, the universe, and everything will work here.
July 11, 2014 11:53 a.m.
Athreos is ok, but he's mediocre compared to this guy: Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker .
Shirei is your go to general for an apostle deck.
Combo with Grave Pact , Blood Artist , Rings of Brighthearth , Thrumming Stone , and other nasty death effects.
July 11, 2014 11:54 a.m.
You can have any number of Shadowborn Apostle in the deck, but the deck size is still limited to 99 + 1 Commander.
July 11, 2014 12:05 p.m.
I like Shirei, but I kind of wanted to go white black and like the Indestructible of Athreos. Plus I have him and don't want to put a lot of effort here. This is a fun one time deck I want to whip out tonight for laughs. It is an inside joke with a friend of mine at my LGS. Also, my bad, Epoch
July 11, 2014 12:13 p.m.
Gienah They are two totally different cards mang.
Athreos dodges way more removal than Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker could ever dream of.
He's also much better late game just as a beefy body.
July 11, 2014 12:34 p.m.
Athreos, God of Passage
would work great in a Shadowborn Apostle
deck...so long as you keep him from becoming a creature. It'd be pretty cool to cast Worst Fears
or Mindslaver
the next person in turn order, then sac all your Apostles on their turn and force them to pay 3 life for each.
Black and White are also the main resurrection colors, and being able to play Immortal Servitude
would be pretty cool.
Unfortunately, demons are either Black or Red, so you'll be really limited in what the Apostles can grab. I guess you could play Conspiracy to turn everything into a demon?
July 11, 2014 1:19 p.m.
I like athreos better for removal dodging and he let's me possibly recast my dudes with high cmc late game. I love that Conspiracy idea! I would do that ALL day long....Black and white tutor for enchants a lot.
July 11, 2014 1:44 p.m.
Caligula, protecting commanders isn't a really hard thing to do (Darksteel Plate , Lightning Greaves ). You also run black for reanimation. And black Mana isn't hard to come by (Cabal Coffers , Crypt Ghast ). You can Reanimate him back to the field, top of library, or into your hand to avoid his commander tax.
The bonus of Shirei over Athreos is that there is no option for an opponent to pay life, they go straight to the battlefield for you to sac again. They also don't go to your hand if you're unlucky enough to not have your Reliquary Tower out to end up discarding them anyways.
I don't think anyone would really pay 3 life to prevent them from going to your hand, but they could since life is a resource in EDH. Pay 3-9 life to prevent you from comboing. Then your opponent has the advantage as you try to scramble for 1-3 more Apostles.
July 12, 2014 12:25 a.m.
Also (sorry for double posting), Shirei triggers at EACH end step. So you can tutor demons to your field every turn. Which makes a lot of ink for Blood Artist to paint with.
July 12, 2014 12:27 a.m.
I'm surprised no one has talked about Dictate of Erebos yet.
July 12, 2014 9:20 a.m.
SevenSeasAgo says... #18
The problem is those decks aren't that good. It takes so much to get a demon, and black already has Demonic Tutor , Diabolic Tutor , Diabolic Revelations and other tutors. So if you need a demon, you can spend one card to go get it instead of trying to do a small combo that can easily be stopped.
July 13, 2014 12:41 a.m.
Ijustliketolift says... #19
Along with Dictate of Erebos there is Grave Pact and Butcher of Malakir
July 13, 2014 9:24 p.m.
FancyTuesday says... #20
I'm not sure if this will really work in practice.
Say you dedicate half of your deck to Apostles. Half of your draws and half of your opening hand will be Apostles. That's 4, optimistically, in your opening hand, and 4 draws until you get your 6 Apostles.
So on turn 4 you can cheat out 1 Demon assuming nobody has any removal and you have no problems dropping a land a turn, at which point 3 players with a combined 120 life have to spend 3 life to slow you down. It takes two turns to get out a critical mass of Apostles to do it again anyway, at which point you could just be casting those demons from your hand.
In reality, after adding in synergy cards like all those mentioned in this thread, ramp, draw engines, removal/card advantage, and utility cards, you don't have enough slots to make the Apostles pay off. Even with 25 Apostles you might get 2 in your opening hand and that's still 16 draws before you see 6. Keep in mind that Apostles can't put demons into play from your hand, so anything you draw you're hard casting.
And how many good targets are there in Demons? I count 3 that play well with Apostles: Harvester of Souls , Ob Nixilis, Unshackled , and Reaper from the Abyss .
You might get a few more that are just nice to have out early like Lord of the Void , but most demons aren't going to give you much. Big EDH staples like Dread Cacodemon and Reiver Demon don't work here. Rune-Scarred Demon is ok assuming your table is gracious enough to let Athreos return him to your hand, otherwise that's an 8 card combo for a 6/6 and a Demonic Tutor .
July 13, 2014 11:31 p.m.
Thanks for punching all those holes in this deck logic. That said, I never intended it to be a strong deck, I mentioned previously that it is an I side joke among some guys at my LGS and would be a 1 time thing to play with. If I were to build an athreos EDH it would be more of a BW good stuff build. He s a good general target bc he is indestructible and 3 cmc. Big body for smashing too
July 14, 2014 7:54 a.m.
livewired500 says... #22
This was my Apostle Deck: Dark Possession
I played with it about half a dozen times. It was fun at first. Won mostly, but it got boring quickly. It seemed to play out the exact same each time. First few turns are set up. Then turn 5 is Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker . Turn 6 and on, a bunch of Shadowborn Apostle into Rune-Scarred Demon to Thrumming Stone . Then into Harvester of Souls to refill the hand.
This is where your opponents really need to stop you because it snowballs from here and most are wasting their removal dealing with monster Demons and not Shirei and if they do, by then with Cabal Coffers , or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx there is no recast problem.
Early Extractor Demon fills the graveyards for Crypt Incursion and Suffer the Past .
If I rebuild this deck, I would put in Oversold Cemetery for Demonic Rising . Take out Worst Fears and sub in Deathrender . I would also probably sub Dread Cacodemon for the new Ob Nix.
July 16, 2014 3:34 p.m.
I built it with Athreos, God of Passage . Played it once...won...and I will never play it again. It was fun, but can get old very quickly.
July 16, 2014 3:38 p.m.
So it was a relative success?
Shadowborn Apostle runs like $.50-1.00 a piece... Was it worth the money? Or did you proxy them all?
July 16, 2014 3:46 p.m.
livewired500 says... #25
I like Athreos as a General. Just not with the Apostles.
Here's my Athreos deck: Imminent Pressure. I've made changes to it but haven't updated it yet. It makes Athreos' ability increasingly hard to pay for.
July 16, 2014 3:55 p.m.
greyninja, I had a lot of them laying around, and I did proxy the rest. No way I was going to drop actually currency on that fodder. The challenge was I couldn't make a viable Apostle deck using anything but Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker . It was a foot in mouth situation...either I shut up or they shut up. I won, so yes it was worth it. It also got old by the end of the night, so I retired it, too.
capriom85 says... #2
Shadowborn Apostle
July 11, 2014 10:43 a.m.