I’ve been having a lot of conversations about Commander recently. How strong is Brago, King Eternal? Do extra turns have a place in EDH? How much mill is too much mill? Ultimately, I think Commander is the essence of personalization in deck-building; we get to do whatever we want, without fear of judgment. Want to do bear tribal? Go for it! Goofy nine-card combo? Heck yeah! If the deck’s Green, I just love Giant Adephage. For me the answers are simple: Brago is extremely powerful, extra turns do have a place, and mill depends on you, your group, and what you’re trying to do.

So, Wizards comes along and prints an awesome card like this.

This lady can go a whole bunch of different directions. She’s a human, she’s a soldier, she’s priced aggressively, and she has a really powerful ability, capable of disrupting a bunch of strategies common to the format. A soldier token deck could be bonkers with Thalia (it slides right into a Darien, King of Kjeldor deck), and there’s probably a pretty good Voltron strategy as well. A turn three general is no joke, and one that slams the brakes on everyone else’s deck gets a double jump ahead.

Here’s the thing, though. I saw Thalia and my jaw dropped. All thoughts of building Brisela dropped out of my head, filled with a nasty combo I’ve wanted to put in a deck for a long time, but haven’t had the guts. If Thalia has the strength to stand up to the only system she’s ever known, we can build a deck designed to just, y’know, go all Emrakul on our enemies. And the first way we can do it is with one of the meanest combos in Magic:

With these three cards out, everyone’s lands but ours die – and ours are 3/3 creatures. That’s a good way to get everyone else to give up.

But that’s not all. This seems like a nasty way to make everyone else’s life difficult:

We keep everything, they lose, well, everything. This works with Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Myojin of Cleansing Fire, too, but then we don’t keep everything — just a giant creature that blows up everything else that shows up. Gideon, Champion of Justice is indestructible while carrying the ‘slayer, and then we’re left with a Planeswalker but we’ll have to equip each turn, which could be a problem. (Ulamog, of course, can be a win-con all by himself.)

One more.

This one’s less kablamo, but it can be surprisingly effective. Peeps gonna die.

Thalia, Heretic Cathar ? EDH | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar

• Creatures (12)
• 1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1 Heliod, God of the Sun
• 1 Knight of the White Orchid
• 1 Kor Cartographer
• 1 Myojin of Cleansing Fire
• 1 Relic Seeker
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Stoneforge Mystic
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Gideon, Champion of Justice

• Spells (46)
• 1 Fated Retribution
• 1 Tithe
• 1 Akroma's Vengeance
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Day of Judgment
• 1 Gift of Estates
• 1 Hour of Reckoning
• 1 Kirtar's Wrath
• 1 Martial Coup
• 1 Mass Calcify
• 1 Phyrexian Rebirth
• 1 Planar Cleansing
• 1 Rout
• 1 Solar Tide
• 1 Steelshaper's Gift
• 1 Tragic Arrogance
• 1 Winds of Rath
• 1 Wrath of God
• 1 All Is Dust
• 1 Blind Obedience
• 1 Crackdown
• 1 Kismet
• 1 Land Tax
• 1 Rest in Peace
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Batterskull
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Illuminated Folio
• 1 Juntu Stakes
• 1 Kormus Bell
• 1 Marble Diamond
• 1 Meekstone
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1 Scourglass
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Star Compass
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1 Sword of the Animist
• 1 Worldslayer

• Lands (40)
• 26 Plains
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1 Fountain of Cho
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Inkmoth Nexus
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Mystifying Maze
• 1 New Benalia
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Springjack Pasture
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Tectonic Edge
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Buy This Deck

This deck is pretty silly. First off, we’ve got an average converted mana cost of 3.83. That’s, um, really high. We’ve also got 19 wrath effects — 20, if we count the ultimate on Gideon, Champion of Justice. One in every five cards will wipe the board of creatures. Several of them wipe other things. We’re going to blow up the board several times throughout the course of the game.

40 lands and a bunch of mana rocks join with Mono-White classics like Knight of the White Orchid, Kor Cartographer, and Land Tax. The goal is to get to a bunch of mana really early so we can wrath the board early as well as often while we start setting up our endgame. We’ve also got a Weathered Wayfarer, which seems like a less good Land Tax until we realize it lets us get any land. Emeria, the Sky Ruin is a good choice, though Inkmoth Nexus is a combo piece and Rogue's Passage can make sure our equipped creature can get through. Lay those rocks as soon as possible and play Thalia to slow everyone else down until we wipe for the first time.

Mind's Eye and Illuminated Folio both just straight up draw cards, but Mono-White definitely struggles in this arena. We make up for it with some other forms of card advantage, including our land-searchers. We’ve also got a few ways to fetch specific equipment, like Steelshaper's Gift, Relic Seeker, and Stoneforge Mystic. Those cards can get some great targets. If we’ve got an indestructible creature that isn’t Heliod, we probably want to just get Worldslayer and go for the combo, but otherwise we can get a Sword of Fire and Ice, a Batterskull, or that Strata Scythe, which can be good on things other than the Nexus.

Games also play out differently each time; sure, we’ve got those combos, but we could also just roll the table several other ways. Heliod doesn’t die to anything other than exile, so if we make everyone else run out of gas, we can overwhelm them with clerics or just suit one up. Batterskull has won games on its own. Put it on a Sun Titan and watch people be sad. And while Avacyn can be part of one of our really mean combinations, she also can win all by herself. Rogue's Passage makes her extra silly. One cool thing about a deck with powerful cards like this is different situations will make for different play, so even though we can really just wreck the board, we can also win fairly with solid creatures and equipment.

Need to deal with a problem? Forget pinpoint, go for a nice wrath effect. Note the lack of exiling or tucking effects. Terminus and Perilous Vault both get rid of our indestructible creatures, which is sad, so we don’t do that. We do have Rest in Peace to deal with graveyard shenanigans.

We’ve also got a few cards which mimic Thalia to keep the board nice and slow if we’re waiting for a wrath, need to buy some time to set up whatever combo we’re assembling, or just whacking our opponents over their collective heads. Juntu Stakes and Meekstone, for example, both slow down players trying to go wide. Crackdown is a sweet Mono-White effect to keep everyone else’s stuff locked away.

I know, this deck isn’t for everyone. I’d put it together and play it once a year or so, and only when it appeared the other players were going to be similarly cutthroat. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t perfect for some people. How would you build the new Thalia? Any other thoughts of what you’d like to see during spoilers?

Ramp, wrath, do something truly broken. That’s a recipe for winning. Maybe apologize to your friends beforehand. Or maybe not.