Attempting to create a standard deck based around Athreos and Erebos. Need help!
Deck Help forum
Posted on Jan. 14, 2021, 3:41 p.m. by HarleythePanther
Hello,
I'm attempting to create a deck that surrounds Erebos, Bleak-Hearted and Athreos, Shroud-Veiled. I posted the decklist of what I have so far below. The deck consists of cards from Athreos control decks and cards I believe work well with Erebos. Any help would be appreciated!! Note: This deck is a standard deck. I'm also a casual MTG player.
Decklist: Athreos & Erebos Standard deck
Thanks!!
HarleythePanther says... #3
Thanks for the advice! I’ll update the decklist
January 14, 2021 4:48 p.m.
wallisface says... #4
Cool. I'm not that up-to-speed with standard (i pretty much exclusively play modern), so hopefully someone here can give you better advice than my questionable thoughts - but here's what I've noticed:
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I don't think Gray Merchant of Asphodel is worth it in this deck. Normally he shines in decks where you're running mono-black, with a high devotion count to black... I don't see him doing more than around 3ish points of damage here, and I think you can fill this spot with a better card.
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I also don't think Omen of the Dead is entirely worth it. Most of your creatures are indestructible, and those that aren't don't really need recursion. About the only card you'd want to recur would be Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose - and in that case, you'd be better-off just running more copies of that card.
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How has Treacherous Blessing gone for you? It feels like it could be strong in situations where the game is about to end, but not so much if the game drags on. Maybe 2 copies works better than 3? But really, I have no idea.
The rest of the deck looks decent to me. I'd question the sideboard though - it seems to mostly have additional copies of what you already run maindeck. You'd be better off having sideboard cards that hate on the particular decks you play against.
January 14, 2021 5:46 p.m.
HarleythePanther says... #5
Thank you for your thoughts! I'll explain my reasoning behind the three cards you mentioned:
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I initially had planned to build a mono black deck around Erebos, and Gray Merchant of Asphodel was a must at the time. I left it in this deck because I had more black cards in the deck than white (which might've changed).
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I thought Omen of the Dead would be a good card as 1 black mana can return a creature card from the graveyard, but the deck is enchantment heavy, so I reduced it from 4 to 2 copies and added Omen of the Sun.
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As for Treacherous Blessing, I was going to use it for card draw, and then it would be sacrificed to Doom Foretold.
I'll remove the 2 Gray Merchants from the main deck, and in their place add a 2nd Vito and a 4th Birth of Meletis (Cheap enchantment to sac to Doom Foretold) I'll remove the Omen of the Dead and add 2 more copies of Omen of the Sun in their place. Reduce Treacherous Blessing from 3 to 2 and add a 3rd copy of Bastion of Remembrance. I will modify the sideboard accordingly.
Most of the decks I play against are precons, but one friend of mine (who I haven't played MTG with in a while) used to run a dinosaur deck. Let me know what you think of my changes!!
January 14, 2021 6:22 p.m.
wallisface says... #6
Yeah changes look good to me. But I'll leave it to see if someone who knows the format better has any further advise :)
January 14, 2021 7:55 p.m.
the_solitaire says... #8
I just recently built a black and white deck with a very different approach, so comparing that with your deck will not help much, but..
I compared a lot of black and white options while building the deck.
In doing so, I found that one of the main difficulties in configuring a black and white deck is maintaining focus.
The way I see your deck, you have 2 copies of Piper of the Swarm who interacts with rats, but other then the tokens generated by the piper, there are no rats. That way your piper fills in a 2 drop slot, but is in a vacuum.
Same goes for your Bastion of Remembrance and Omen of the Sun. At 6 copies in total, you have sources for white soldier tokens, but no further interaction for those tokens.
8 of 24 lands enter the field tapped.
With Elspeth you are well on your way to a deck that could either:
Go heavy on causing havoc by sacrificing those created human soldier tokens or...
Find cards that interact with your human soldier tokens and rebuild this into a white weenie deck alltogether. Given that you already have Shatter the Sky in there, going for a human soldier token generator with Shatter the Sky and Swords to Plowshares to keep your opponents boardstate miserable, then add some Disenchant and Blinding Light (not sure if that is legal in modern, but there ought to be a valid alternative) to eventually play Avacyn, Angel of Hope
January 17, 2021 1:26 p.m.
the_solitaire says... #10
Personally I would look into a way to deal damage by sacrificing those human soldier tokens, but that is just my way of doing things ;)
Skirsdag Flayer would be an option, as would Attrition
You might actually build a nice "white knights will be sacrificed to vampires" deck with cards like Bloodflow Connoisseur
Corpse Traders offers discard capabilities. You might actually run out of human creature tokens before you know it :)
wallisface says... #2
Just as a heads up - you should make this deck in tappedout and then link it here. Trying to read the list in the way that you've posted it here will be discouraging for most people
January 14, 2021 4:29 p.m.