I thought the original god devotion mechanic was meant to reflect that the gods of theros only exist because of the collective belief of the mortal population. Without that belief (devotion), the gods cannot exist.
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Yeah i miss sets like theros, the lore was so good. So well designed, greek myth is also one of favourite thing
IIRC I'm pretty sure lore supports! The gods came into their very existence and power through the belief of mortals on the plane of Theros. And, Gods are fickle beings so I could also see them being like "I ain't intervening for you, you aren't devoted enough." I love Theros so much!
Amalia plus Wildgrowth Walker doesn't usually gain you as much life as you want. Unless you have a way to interrupt the combo, she keeps triggering the Walker until her power reaches 20 and she destroys him. And if the destroy trigger doesn't work for some reason, the combo becomes truly infinite, causing the game to end in a draw.
Given that here in the US it's President's Day, I was trying to figure out an appropriate creature type for a Presidential top 10. My initial thought was either "Citizen" or "Advisor". The more cynical option would be something like "Lord" or "Noble."
Seeing these pantheon made me wonder, which sets of themed support artifacts or enchantments have seen the most play? Theroes God's weapons? The Pyrimids from Ahmenket? The relics and weapons from Kaldheim? The multicolored weapons and obelisks from Alara? All sets that have major themes and characters in them, have objects or trappings SIGNIFICANT TOO THEM as cards and features in the game. So, COLLECTIVELY, who's got the most SWAG!?
The Kaldheim gods because they are literally their own weapons on the other side. Plus, they are analogous to the Asgardians and we might be seeing more of them when the MCU set comes out.
11:37 Wasn’t the most important card in Black Devotion, Pack Rat? Yes, Gray Merchant and Erabos were great payoffs, but the Rat is what made the deck work.
So you made a mistake and said all but one of the kaldheim gods are artifacts on the back and based on how you explained valki you maut of thought he was the exception but you forgot that esika also doesn't have an artifact on her back side as the rainbow Bridge is an enchantment
14:45 - You have that the wrong way around. The other gods are based on the gods of Egypt and Greece, which Amonkhet and Theros are based on, respectively (not "which Theros and Amonkhet are based on, respectively").
This list was a lot of fun, and covered a number of my own favorite Gods of Magic. It is also nice to see that Tibalt, once hailed as basically the WORST Planeswalker, can also score so highly on this list, even if it is kind of cheating. It's Tibalt, though, and that's how he'd do it.😊 I do sometimes forget the impact of EDH, though, ad I totally expected to see Tergrid on this list. Of the Kaldheim Gods, I DEFINITELY didn't expect Redaine to be the other one on here, though numbers support, so I guess Tergrid, the Prismatic Bridge, and some of the others weren't as powerful outside the Commander category.
Back in 2013 she had to be like that for balance. Imagine if Path to Exile got rid of the opponents creature and gave you a land. Lol. In 2024 both Pharika and Path to Exile may be underpowered but they certainly weren't back then. If you look at Magic's 30 year history you'll see a long timeline of cards gaining better and better abilities compared to 1993 while still having to have drawbacks. Remember she is already a 3 to cast Indestructible card, and becomes 5/5 with enough permanents, and is green and black the colors of fastest mana. Elves of Deep Shadow and Llanowar Elves are enough to quickly get to 7. Then she's 5/5 that you didn't spend much on and can pick out graveyard targets quickly. A 1/1 with deathtouch is assumed to be way smaller than the opposing reanimation threat.
heliod isn't really played in amalia because of how it plays with the combo, actually quite the opposite - it lets you sideboard into a much more respectable beatdown plan than the maindeck has when you run into a grindy matchup
So you have to understand that magic's rules are written like coding language and nothing is intuited. Cascade was "check through library until you find a card with lower mana cost, then cast it" and Modal DFCs were "this card has two sides, when you cast it, pick which side you want to cast." So you'd cascade, cascade would see Valki and go "you can cast that!" and Modal DFC would then chime in "youre casting that? pick which side!" after cascade had finished it's business.
This reminds me of when Gods were the number 1 strongest creature type on average. That was a while ago, I wonder what that list would look like revisited.
The Theros Gods remain stronger than Desecrator Demon, and Desecrator Demon and Phyrexian Obliterator are two data points hinting that Black is just not allowed to have any creature that is actually better than Juzam Djinn in an Aggro Deck. (Which is WHY Black was forced to make its whole creature identity about Reanimator combo since Odyssey.) 5/5, 4 mana. That's a big waterline for all creatures in Magic in part because one color is banned from crossing it without a downside. If Black is 20% of all creatures, All of White gets to be much better at midrangey rates Blue they choose to not give strong stats to for game balance reasons but the Reserved List isn't one of the reasons (Serendib Efreet isn't on the List); Sphinxes and Djinn have slowly gotten better as well as midrange Crabs and other cards, but not by a lot, let's say Half of Blue cards tend to fall noticeably short of competing with 1/1 for 1 or 4/4 for 4. (With the other half getting better over time) That's 10% more of All Creatures that generally don't pass the Juzam Test. That's 30% of All creatures that cannot be better than Juzam Djinn. +5 years to Masticore, which was a colorless version of Superman (Morphling) and considered the best creature in its day. Maybe easily besting Serra Angel. If you don't count reanimation targets and think only of the Hardcast, it wouldn't be until Onslaught block provided easy fast tribal zerg rushing that Masticore would diminish in notoriety, that is almost 5 more years over 4 more Blocks (Masques, Invasion, Odyssey, Onslaught) From Juzam to Masticore to Elves/Goblins; what is better than Onslaught? M10 without a doubt. Suddenly lands were a lot better and Lords were quickly getting better and Lorwyn, Zendikar, Scars, and Innistrad were all feeding support for some of the tribal decks. Noticeably Elfball decks were just one of a line of Elves as a tribe picking up where Channel left off; Elvish Piper could get Progenitus and it wasn't really possible to ban all the Elf cards that could drop a fatty, since Llanowar Elves basically counts. Wrath of God was the old control stick, and it was a lot more mana than Tormods Crypt for any thought of graveyard shenanigans. Basically the answer before the Gods hit the scene was "Akroma Angel of Wrath/Baneslayer Angel/Sphinx of the Steel Wind" in Combo And Elves + Eldrazi in aggro. The Eldrazi were basically just 3 cards so there was always a real lingering fear they might just banhammer them, and they don't count the same way as a type with so many powerful examples that banning could never cover them all. 1 Gods 2 Eldrazi/Angels/Sphinxes/Dragons 3 Praetors 4. Elves/Goblins/Merfolk/Zombies 5. Demons and anything like Deaths Shadow with a Drawback 6. Darksteel Colossus and any Very Outdated Combo targets 7. Spiritmonger/Masticore/Morphling 8. Psychatog, Rats, Scavenging Ooze and other things with a gameplan for winning with synergy but might be chumpblocked today. 9. M11 Titans sad to say. 10. Probably Hydras because like Giants they are fair for the mana. You have time to do something if your deck is doing anything. The bottomline is whether someone thinks Gods or Praetors are better. They don't need a reanimation or other cheat spell and they come down fast for what they do. And before the Praetor 2.0 and 3.0 cycles, it probably would have been the Gods without stopping to blink because all of the New Phyrexia ones were Reanimator targets so there's more steps the plan can go wrong on.
We can only accept, fewer and fewer Brazilian players and now everything is in English and with rules that are difficult to understand in our native language, it is easier to 'reset quit' - RIP MTG WORLDWIDE -, there will be no more new players.
Not true about "all but 1" having legendary equipment on the back. Alrund's back is another legendary, his raven. Valki has Tibalt on the back (planeswalker). Esika swaps to the rainbow road enchantment.
In edh, it seems vetter to not have the devotion requirement met than having it online. Enchantments are the hardest permanents to deal with. But tacking Indestructible onto it means its not goint anywhere anytime soon. Unless the opponent has bounce effects. But even that only temporarily slows it down
If I recall correctly, of all creature types with at least 10 representative creatures, God has the second-highest percentage of creatures with at least one Top 8 appearance, behind only Praetor.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned? Edit: Didn't realize Hazoret was still seeing that much play, my frame of reference is fucked as shit since I really only play Arena and I rarely if ever see it, fair enough.
I'd like to remind everyone that Hazoret was a mistake and that whoever designed it is currently locked within a maximum security prison. Just like the guy who tried to assassinate me for asking for "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)"!
I mean, he might get back on the list eventually speaking he is seeing play in the Pioneer World Tree combo since he combo kills with the fire Ojer and God-Eternal Rhonas.
While I get where you're coming from, they aren't the same thing. Avatars are representations of aspects of a higher power, while gods are, well, gods.
I thought the original god devotion mechanic was meant to reflect that the gods of theros only exist because of the collective belief of the mortal population. Without that belief (devotion), the gods cannot exist.
Yeah i miss sets like theros, the lore was so good. So well designed, greek myth is also one of favourite thing
But the God card itself counts towards the devotion. Does the God believe in itself
@@assault410yes
I still think their indestructibility should also have been linked to devotion. A god with no followers can be erased.
@@assault410That's why the god alone doesn't make itself a creature
I always thought of devotion like “your belief makes it real” like your devotion materializes/embodies the god
IIRC I'm pretty sure lore supports! The gods came into their very existence and power through the belief of mortals on the plane of Theros. And, Gods are fickle beings so I could also see them being like "I ain't intervening for you, you aren't devoted enough." I love Theros so much!
(2:50) Whoops, you have Pharika's total score shown as 0, when it should be 9.
Amalia plus Wildgrowth Walker doesn't usually gain you as much life as you want. Unless you have a way to interrupt the combo, she keeps triggering the Walker until her power reaches 20 and she destroys him. And if the destroy trigger doesn't work for some reason, the combo becomes truly infinite, causing the game to end in a draw.
Given that here in the US it's President's Day, I was trying to figure out an appropriate creature type for a Presidential top 10. My initial thought was either "Citizen" or "Advisor". The more cynical option would be something like "Lord" or "Noble."
Assuming that most Presidents have past experience in government, Advisor makes the most sense to find a bunch of lawyers.
Seeing these pantheon made me wonder, which sets of themed support artifacts or enchantments have seen the most play?
Theroes God's weapons?
The Pyrimids from Ahmenket?
The relics and weapons from Kaldheim?
The multicolored weapons and obelisks from Alara?
All sets that have major themes and characters in them, have objects or trappings SIGNIFICANT TOO THEM as cards and features in the game. So, COLLECTIVELY, who's got the most SWAG!?
The Kaldheim gods because they are literally their own weapons on the other side. Plus, they are analogous to the Asgardians and we might be seeing more of them when the MCU set comes out.
11:37 Wasn’t the most important card in Black Devotion, Pack Rat? Yes, Gray Merchant and Erabos were great payoffs, but the Rat is what made the deck work.
So you made a mistake and said all but one of the kaldheim gods are artifacts on the back and based on how you explained valki you maut of thought he was the exception but you forgot that esika also doesn't have an artifact on her back side as the rainbow Bridge is an enchantment
Also isn’t alrund just a raven on the back?
@@jackvogel701 I always forget about him
@@shaden489 We now have multiple layers of people forgetting Kaldheim gods...
14:45 - You have that the wrong way around. The other gods are based on the gods of Egypt and Greece, which Amonkhet and Theros are based on, respectively (not "which Theros and Amonkhet are based on, respectively").
This list was a lot of fun, and covered a number of my own favorite Gods of Magic. It is also nice to see that Tibalt, once hailed as basically the WORST Planeswalker, can also score so highly on this list, even if it is kind of cheating. It's Tibalt, though, and that's how he'd do it.😊
I do sometimes forget the impact of EDH, though, ad I totally expected to see Tergrid on this list. Of the Kaldheim Gods, I DEFINITELY didn't expect Redaine to be the other one on here, though numbers support, so I guess Tergrid, the Prismatic Bridge, and some of the others weren't as powerful outside the Commander category.
Pharika not just giving YOU the snake has always irritated me lol
Back in 2013 she had to be like that for balance.
Imagine if Path to Exile got rid of the opponents creature and gave you a land. Lol.
In 2024 both Pharika and Path to Exile may be underpowered but they certainly weren't back then.
If you look at Magic's 30 year history you'll see a long timeline of cards gaining better and better abilities compared to 1993 while still having to have drawbacks.
Remember she is already a 3 to cast Indestructible card, and becomes 5/5 with enough permanents, and is green and black the colors of fastest mana.
Elves of Deep Shadow and Llanowar Elves are enough to quickly get to 7. Then she's 5/5 that you didn't spend much on and can pick out graveyard targets quickly.
A 1/1 with deathtouch is assumed to be way smaller than the opposing reanimation threat.
heliod isn't really played in amalia because of how it plays with the combo, actually quite the opposite - it lets you sideboard into a much more respectable beatdown plan than the maindeck has when you run into a grindy matchup
I have never understood the Tibalt thing. How would it ever make sense to cascade into a higher mana value? Why did anyone ever allow that to happen?
Because each side of the card had its own mana value.
@@NizzahonMagic Then you should be able to cast the sides with the allowed mana value, it would make sense
So you have to understand that magic's rules are written like coding language and nothing is intuited. Cascade was "check through library until you find a card with lower mana cost, then cast it" and Modal DFCs were "this card has two sides, when you cast it, pick which side you want to cast." So you'd cascade, cascade would see Valki and go "you can cast that!" and Modal DFC would then chime in "youre casting that? pick which side!" after cascade had finished it's business.
Surprised non of the newer Ixalan gods didnt make the list !
This reminds me of when Gods were the number 1 strongest creature type on average. That was a while ago, I wonder what that list would look like revisited.
The Theros Gods remain stronger than Desecrator Demon, and Desecrator Demon and Phyrexian Obliterator are two data points hinting that Black is just not allowed to have any creature that is actually better than Juzam Djinn in an Aggro Deck. (Which is WHY Black was forced to make its whole creature identity about Reanimator combo since Odyssey.)
5/5, 4 mana. That's a big waterline for all creatures in Magic in part because one color is banned from crossing it without a downside.
If Black is 20% of all creatures,
All of White gets to be much better at midrangey rates
Blue they choose to not give strong stats to for game balance reasons but the Reserved List isn't one of the reasons (Serendib Efreet isn't on the List);
Sphinxes and Djinn have slowly gotten better as well as midrange Crabs and other cards, but not by a lot, let's say Half of Blue cards tend to fall noticeably short of competing with 1/1 for 1 or 4/4 for 4. (With the other half getting better over time)
That's 10% more of All Creatures that generally don't pass the Juzam Test.
That's 30% of All creatures that cannot be better than Juzam Djinn.
+5 years to Masticore, which was a colorless version of Superman (Morphling) and considered the best creature in its day. Maybe easily besting Serra Angel.
If you don't count reanimation targets and think only of the Hardcast, it wouldn't be until Onslaught block provided easy fast tribal zerg rushing that Masticore would diminish in notoriety, that is almost 5 more years over 4 more Blocks (Masques, Invasion, Odyssey, Onslaught)
From Juzam to Masticore to Elves/Goblins; what is better than Onslaught? M10 without a doubt. Suddenly lands were a lot better and Lords were quickly getting better and Lorwyn, Zendikar, Scars, and Innistrad were all feeding support for some of the tribal decks.
Noticeably Elfball decks were just one of a line of Elves as a tribe picking up where Channel left off; Elvish Piper could get Progenitus and it wasn't really possible to ban all the Elf cards that could drop a fatty, since Llanowar Elves basically counts.
Wrath of God was the old control stick, and it was a lot more mana than Tormods Crypt for any thought of graveyard shenanigans.
Basically the answer before the Gods hit the scene was
"Akroma Angel of Wrath/Baneslayer Angel/Sphinx of the Steel Wind" in Combo
And Elves + Eldrazi in aggro.
The Eldrazi were basically just 3 cards so there was always a real lingering fear they might just banhammer them, and they don't count the same way as a type with so many powerful examples that banning could never cover them all.
1 Gods
2 Eldrazi/Angels/Sphinxes/Dragons
3 Praetors
4. Elves/Goblins/Merfolk/Zombies
5. Demons and anything like Deaths Shadow with a Drawback
6. Darksteel Colossus and any Very Outdated Combo targets
7. Spiritmonger/Masticore/Morphling
8. Psychatog, Rats, Scavenging Ooze and other things with a gameplan for winning with synergy but might be chumpblocked today.
9. M11 Titans sad to say.
10. Probably Hydras because like Giants they are fair for the mana. You have time to do something if your deck is doing anything.
The bottomline is whether someone thinks Gods or Praetors are better. They don't need a reanimation or other cheat spell and they come down fast for what they do.
And before the Praetor 2.0 and 3.0 cycles, it probably would have been the Gods without stopping to blink because all of the New Phyrexia ones were Reanimator targets so there's more steps the plan can go wrong on.
We can only accept, fewer and fewer Brazilian players and now everything is in English and with rules that are difficult to understand in our native language, it is easier to 'reset quit' - RIP MTG WORLDWIDE -, there will be no more new players.
Not true about "all but 1" having legendary equipment on the back. Alrund's back is another legendary, his raven. Valki has Tibalt on the back (planeswalker). Esika swaps to the rainbow road enchantment.
In edh, it seems vetter to not have the devotion requirement met than having it online. Enchantments are the hardest permanents to deal with. But tacking Indestructible onto it means its not goint anywhere anytime soon. Unless the opponent has bounce effects. But even that only temporarily slows it down
Pharika has 0 points?
Saw that to 😅
Kinda surprised about Purphuros, Considering his potency in Commander you'd think he'd be good in constructed too
Glad to see that Hazoret is still doing very well :)
Not yet gods from Ixalan. Maybe they are still too new.
I love these lists. Thanks for making these for us.
My love still rocking that number 1 spot lol
You made a bit of a mistake at 11:00
Nizzahon DESTROYS Orthodox Religious Fundamentalist (4k) (Not Clickbait) (Epic)
Yeaaaaah!
Going into this, i wonder if pyrite sancutm would make the list. I know it doesnt make a god token but it does make a god.
#1? He's got the Flow!...Oh no, the Hazoret can't attack!
#1 god is jehova
Dies to doomblade
Amonketh red was a different breed🔥
If I recall correctly, of all creature types with at least 10 representative creatures, God has the second-highest percentage of creatures with at least one Top 8 appearance, behind only Praetor.
All things, even the gods, must bow down to the Ebon Praetor.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned?
Edit:
Didn't realize Hazoret was still seeing that much play, my frame of reference is fucked as shit since I really only play Arena and I rarely if ever see it, fair enough.
Number 8?
@@Mississippi_Jack So it is.
Hazoret is bae.
Was Tergrid close?
She didn't much find success in constructed formats except for EDH where she's always on the verge of being banned.
I'd like to remind everyone that Hazoret was a mistake and that whoever designed it is currently locked within a maximum security prison. Just like the guy who tried to assassinate me for asking for "Top 10 Vintage Cards (Minus Power 9)"!
How I'd Purphorps NOT on the list amymore!? He's a win condition in so many decks and is a 15$ card!
He's a win con in commander, which is a casual format. Nizzahon only looks at competitive formats like Vintage and Modern.
I mean, he might get back on the list eventually speaking he is seeing play in the Pioneer World Tree combo since he combo kills with the fire Ojer and God-Eternal Rhonas.
Still would prefer the "Avatar" type as opposed to "God" being a thing.
While I get where you're coming from, they aren't the same thing. Avatars are representations of aspects of a higher power, while gods are, well, gods.
What you prefer and what is reality are not exactly the same
Why