God of War Commander Deck · 100 Proxy Cards · MTG EDH · The Ashes of Sparta

A fully custom God of War Magic proxy Commander deck, ready to play straight out of the envelope: 100 proxy cards with original artworks, built around a father and a son who need each other to win. This is a Mardu (red / white / black) deck led by two partner commanders: Kratos, the Ghost of Sparta and Atreus, Son of Faye.

Why three colours? Red is the rage — the Blades of Chaos, the part of him that never actually left. White is Sparta: the shield, the discipline, and the promise he made to be better in front of the boy. Black is the Ghost of Sparta: the dead, Helheim, and the gods he has already buried. A God of War deck in one colour would only ever be the rage. This one is the rage and what it costs.

Targeted power level: Bracket 4 — three infinite combos, fast mana, a full tutor package, and a combat step that kills a blocker before blockers even exist.

Deck Strategy

The whole deck is one sentence: the boy stays back and shoots, the father walks through the front door.

Ranged is the original mechanic. A creature with ranged deals damage equal to its power to a creature the defending player controls the moment attackers are declared — before blockers exist — and is then removed from combat. So it picks off a utility creature or clears a blocker out of the father's way, and it is never blocked, never damaged, never traded with. It also never touches a player, so a board of nothing but archers will not win a single game. Atreus hands ranged to every creature you control with power 2 or less: the small bodies stay back and shoot, the big ones go through the front door. That split is the entire deck.

Spartan rage is the second mechanic, and it does not live on the battlefield at all. Rage counters go on you, and you spend them like energy. You gain them for attacking with Kratos, for being dealt damage, for your own creatures dying — the deck fills the meter by being in the fight and by being hurt in it. Then it spends them: Spartan rage N as an additional cost turns a removal spell into an exile, turns Ragnarök into a one-sided sweeper, and turns a pump spell into an extra combat phase.

• Father and son — an ability word on fourteen cards that only switches on while you control both commanders. It is deliberate overkill: the deck is playable with one of them on the table and genuinely dangerous with two.
• The Norse cast — Mimir, Freya, Brok and Sindri, Týr, Sigrún and the Valkyries, Angrboda, Thrúd, the sled wolves, Jörmungandr, Fenrir, Sköll and Hati — against the Aesir who run the realms: Baldur, Odin, Thor, Magni and Modi, Heimdall, Garm, the trolls, the draugr and the dark elves.
• The Greek past he walked away from is in the box too: Ares, Zeus, Athena, Hades, his brother Deimos, and the ashes of Calliope and Lysandra he still wears on his skin.
• The weapons — the Leviathan Axe, the Blades of Chaos, the Guardian Shield, Draupnir, the Talon Bow and Mjölnir, all built as legendary Equipment that hand out ranged, rage or trample depending on who is holding them.
• Three infinite combos close it: Godo, Bandit Warlord + Helm of the Host for infinite combats, Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead for infinite mana into Fires of Muspelheim, and an all-custom loop — The Blades of Chaos + Spartan Rage: the Blades let you pay one rage counter to deal 1 damage anywhere, Spartan Rage hands a rage counter back on every damage, and the loop never stops.

Eleven legendary realm lands (Midgard, Asgard, Alfheim, Helheim, Jötunheim, Muspelheim, Niflheim, Vanaheim, Svartalfheim, the Lake of Nine and Yggdrasil) sit in a 35-land mana base, and four tokens — Spartan, Draugr, Valkyrie and Wolf — come in the box.

35 lands, built to close around turn five.