It feels great to be back after some time. I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. Each new year begins with new Magic card preview season. As we all sit back and take in the flow of new cards from Theros Beyond Death, many of them look strong. There is one card that grabbed my attention and will have it for the beginning of Theros Beyond Death legality: Heliod, Sun Crowned.
The new Heliod gave Pioneer a Splinter Twin vibe. What I mean by that is the fact you have a two-card combo with Walking Ballista and Heliod, Sun Crowned using his lifelink activated ability. Check out Urchin Colley’s article, which explores Heliod variants in depth. She does touch on a Company list and I want to use that as a shell to start with before I dive deeper into the archetype and other variants.
Selesnya Heliod Company, by Urchin Colley
| Creatures (32) 4 Ranger-Captain of Eos 4 Walking Ballista 4 Heliod, Sun-Crowned 4 Noble Hierarch 4 Essence Warden 2 Soul Warden 2 Auriok Champion 4 Spike Feeder 4 Ajani's Pridemate Spells (8) 4 Collected Company 4 Once Upon a Time | Lands (20) 4 Windswept Heath 1 Flooded Strand 1 Marsh Flats 1 Arid Mesa 4 Horizon Canopy 2 Temple Garden 3 Razorverge Thicket 1 Forest 3 Plains Sideboard (15) 2 Veil of Summer 3 Path to Exile 3 Damping Sphere 1 Knight of Autumn 1 Eidolon of Rhetoric 2 Selfless Spirit 2 Scavenging Ooze 1 Kataki, War’s Wage |
This list is very cool and full of interesting choices. Leaning into the Soul Sisters strategy can grow the board very fast. It also builds on the shell from Devoted Druid combo. Like Urchin’s many versions suggest, there is plenty to brew with and experiment to find the build you like the best.
This archetype will be wide open to explore once Theros Beyond Death releases. For now we can imagine our own customizations and talk about the various card choices and potential changes.
Spells
As a creature combo deck, we don’t have much room for non-creature spells. We start with eight dedicated slots for full playsets of Collected Company and Once Upon a Time. Both cards are very powerful, and CoCo fits well with some many creatures costing three or less. Once Upon a Time has many hits for turn one between lands and one-mana creatures, and it helps find a combo piece once you have infinite mana thanks to Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies.
By playing only two colors and streamlining your manabase alongside Once Upon a Time, we can afford to go up to twelve spell slots by shaving a land and a few creatures. Eladamri’s Call would be my choice to have a tutor to find whatever piece we need.
Creatures
We are locked into playing 29 creatures with eight devoted to the infinite-mana combo: Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies. These are stock and can’t really be shaved for now.
When it comes to one drops, we want full playsets of Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise. This will help you progress your board and play a bunch of your cheap spells as soon as possible to set up combo as well as get to four mana for Collected Company. I add a ninth one drop: a single copy of Giver of Runes. This will be good to try and protect a combo piece from any interaction.
We have a package of four creatures to win the game. Thanks to our tutors, we can play a single copy of Heliod, Sun Crowned. You don’t want so many copies because on its own Heliod doesn’t do enough, plus as legendary indestructible enchantment it will tend to stay on board. Two copies of Walking Ballista enable you to find one to win the game but the flexibility to play one out for X=2 or X=3 for value and removal. You also don’t want to hit Ballista off CoCo. The last combo piece is Spike Feeder. This and Heliod alone can give you infinite life and plays very similar to the Kitchen Finks combo back in the day.
To round out the last eight slots we have some value creatures to help keep our engine going. I always like one copy of Scavenging Ooze in these Collected Company decks. With a lot of mana you can contain an opponent’s graveyard, and mess with Emry or Snapcaster shenanigans. Plus it has the added bonus of getting double counters with Heliod. Ranger-Captain of Eos saw some play in Mardu Shadow and I love the role it plays here. Three copies can help find Giver of Runes to protect the combo or Walking Ballista to win. It also gives you added protection with the sac ability to keep your board safe.
Eternal Witness provides another value staple for recursion, rebuying Collected Company or pieces that died or got stripped from your hand. The last spot I like to have a flex creature that can deal with enchantments. A lot of times it is Qasali Pridemage but when we play Heliod I would want to try Knight of Autumn. Having so many modes it is never dead, and gaining life plays with the god.
Here’s where my list stands for now:
Selesnya Company Combo, by Zack Kanner
Next week I will expand into the Abzan version of Collected Company—three-color decks have a few options for Heliod too! We have plenty to explore with CoCo in the new Modern metagame.
Zack is a SCG grinder with one ultimate goal: getting to the Players Championship. Based out of NYC, you can find him in other cities every weekend trying to hit that goal. When he isn’t traveling he streams. Follow his journey on Twitter!