I have been toying with the idea of a 75% Heliod, God of the Sun deck for a while. I don’t see many Heliod decks posted online, which is fine with me. I also don’t see Heliod going for much money—in fact, Heliod established the absolute price floor for dealer buy list prices at $0.75. Luckily, it rebounded. Players were demanding to be paid a whopping dollar for a mythic, indestructible, 5/6 creature that grants vigilance and generates tokens, and for a while, dealers were saying, “Best I can do is $.75,” presumably after calling up their friends who are experts in mythic, indestructible, 5/6 creatures that grant vigilance and generate tokens. They stopped, and now they’re back to paying an entire dollar again. Players are shelling out nearly twice that much on TCGplayer, which somehow fails to warm my heart. I realize Heliod is durdly. I realize he puts us in mono-white, which is the color of the card shackles, which is handy because being stuck in mono-white feels severely limiting. Is it worth it? It is in my estimation.

We won’t feel bad about wiping the board with Wraths if we have expendable token creatures, and we can even run fun Wraths like Martial Coup, a very, very 75% card. The pillow fort will help if we draw early agro, and we’ll be able to swarm the board with enough dorks that we’ll overwhelm even the most stalwart defenses.

It’s going to sting a little bit to not be able to run creatures because of an underrated gem from Theros block with a constellation trigger: Skybind. “What’s Skybind do?” I can hear literally everyone asking in unison. Skybind flickers permanents whenever you trigger constellation by putting an enchantment into play. This includes the Clerics generated by Heliod. If it weren’t for the at-the-beginning-of-the-next-end-step clause, we could generate quite a few Flicker triggers on creatures like Captain of the Watch. Even with the card written the way it is, Stonehorn Dignitary would be up to some shenanigans in a deck like this that can trigger constellation at will. We’ll have to settle for flickering a Faith's Fetters or something. I don’t think Skybinding creatures is too good or anything, but we said we’d avoid creatures, and avoid creatures we shall.

What would a creatureless-creature-swarm, Heliod-based build look like?

Heliod, God of the Sun ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

• Spells (60)
• 1 Condemn
• 1 Return to Dust
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Unexpectedly Absent
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Entreat the Angels
• 1 Hour of Reckoning
• 1 Martial Coup
• 1 Mass Calcify
• 1 Nomads' Assembly
• 1 Wrath of God
• 1 Angelic Voices
• 1 Aura of Silence
• 1 Blind Obedience
• 1 Cathars' Crusade
• 1 Crusade
• 1 Darksteel Mutation
• 1 Dictate of Heliod
• 1 Divine Sacrament
• 1 Faith's Fetters
• 1 Ghostly Prison
• 1 Gift of Immortality
• 1 Glorious Anthem
• 1 Greater Auramancy
• 1 Honor of the Pure
• 1 Luminarch Ascension
• 1 Marshal's Anthem
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Path of Bravery
• 1 Sacred Mesa
• 1 Seal of Cleansing
• 1 Sigil of the Empty Throne
• 1 Skybind
• 1 Sphere of Safety
• 1 True Conviction
• 1 Astral Cornucopia
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Coalition Relic
• 1 Coat of Arms
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Doubling Cube
• 1 Dreamstone Hedron
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Illusionist's Bracers
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Norn's Annex
• 1 Obelisk of Urd
• 1 Rings of Brighthearth
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Slate of Ancestry
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Staff of Nin
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Worn Powerstone
• 1 Akroma's Memorial
• 1 Spear of Heliod

• Lands (38)
• 30 Plains
• 1 High Market
• 1 Mistveil Plains
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Windbrisk Heights
• 1 Kor Haven
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Serra's Sanctum

Buy This Deck

Is this deck good? I sure hope so. If nothing else, it looks like a blast to play. I have always been a big fan of Luminarch Ascension, and in a game of Commnader, you can have it full of counters and ready to go in a turn cycle, which is very exciting. Tack on Entreat the Angels and Sigil of the Empty Throne, and we’re ready to summon a swarm of seraphim and cherubim enough to blot out the sun. Angel tokens are sweet for administering beatings with, but the fun doesn’t stop there.

Going creatureless gives us room to jam a ton of sweet artifacts, too. Illusionist's Bracers were designed for a deck like this, and Skullclamp feels unfair but balances. We still have to pay 4 mana to pump out a Cleric and another mana to sac said Cleric on the altar of value. Skullclamp rarely feels so fair. Still, we’re not going to draw so many cards that we’ll risk always winning the same way, and Slate of Ancestry feels similarly balanced.

One thing I managed to avoid was putting in cards like Enlightened Tutor, Academy Rector, and Idyllic Tutor. If we can’t win without them, we can jam them, but as a rule, I want to try to introduce an element of chance into a 75% deck and add tutors if the deck is too inconsistent. It’s difficult to remove tutors once they’re in and we see how well the deck performs when we draw them, so it’s better to add them as a last resort. Those free slots let us run pet cards like Luminarch Ascension and Path of Bravery.

We don’t really miss creatures here because we’re going to generate more than enough threats, pump them up with our Anthem effects, and stave off our opponents’ attempts to hit us on the swing back. Cards I’d like to try in the deck include Crawlspace, Plea for Guidance, and Rule of Law. I should really include notes about cards I wanted to fit but couldn’t in the future. Don’t let me forget to do that.

So how did I do? Is mono-white too restrictive, not allowing us access to other parts of the color pie and therefore limiting us to too great an extent? Should we jam Enlightened Tutor or are we going to be okay without having to resort to that sort of chicanery? Do you have your own Heliod list you want to bounce off me? Did a long-lost uncle die and leave me a vast fortune that has gone uncollected because you haven’t been able to track me down until now? As always, leave me something in the comments section, on reddit, or on Twitter (@JasonEAlt)—or keep finding new and unique ways to track me down. Your constant feedback and questions have really fueled this series, and the entire 75% movement has grown way beyond where I originally imagined it would go.