These challenge decks are not supposed to follow the main storyline. Also they are more complex to allow the challenge to account for more different plays.
Each God is represented as an automated player and a permanent. As to make the Gods not play all the same they have different play algorithms in addition to different decks.
I might use existing card names for the challenge decks and in fact the cards will have mana costs and libraries will usually have lands.
Keranos
Goal:
- Weather the Storm: Keranos has conjured a Storm in form of its storm deck. The god cannot be defeated for good before this deck is empty.
- Silence the Believers: The visionaries and oracles of Theros are devoted to the god and their faith keeps Keranos in Nyx. To win you must make sure no devoted creature remains.
- Slay a God: Proving your resilience against the storm and your ruthlessness in dispatching the believers, it will take all your might to defeat the god himself by both
When the first card Keranos draws each turn is a land, Keranos draws another card. Otherwise this creature deals 3 damage to a random target player.
- Keranos and his creatures can be attacked and will deal damage equal to their power to each creature attacking them; the deck is also a player that can be attacked.
- Attacking the player directly causes loss of life. And reducing it to 0 or less life is a requirement to defeat Keranos.
The Storm Deck
Keranos offensive specialty is the Storm deck of instants and sorceries that grow increasingly violent and destructive. Only one who journeys to the eye of the storm will meet the god and be able to challenge its master.
At the end of each turn of the challengers, reveal the top card of the Storm deck. Instant cards are cast immediately, sorcery cards at the beginning of the next main phase of Keranos. (This rule is not a triggered ability and cannot be countered or copied, but the spells can.)
Choices are made at random. This means especially: Targets are chosen at random. Cards are worded appropriately.
If Keranos has enough lands to pay the mana cost of a card cast from the storm deck, Keranos will tap the appropriate amount of lands and cast a copy of the card.
Cards from the Storm deck are put into the graveyard upon resolving. Once the Storm deck is empty, it usually stays that way.
| Storm | ||
|---|---|---|
| Earthshaking Thunder x2 Lightning Strike x2 Lightning Storm x2 |
Brainfreeze Breeze x2 Capsizing Winds x2 Confusing Crosswinds x2 |
Devastation of Keranos x2 Aweful Gale x2 |
| ?/20 |
Commons will likely be twice in the deck, uncommons might be as well. I aim for approximately ten to twelve cards in the storm deck - forcing this challenge to go that many rounds at least.
The Insight Deck
Keranos defensive specialty is the Insight deck of instants (and enchantments with flash) that allow Keranos to react to the actions of his challengers. The more the players struggle, the harder Keranos strikes.
Whenever a player casts a spell, reveal the top card of the Insight deck. The spell is immediately cast if able. If one of these spells resolves, would be moved to another zone or the card cannot be cast, put it on the bottom of the Insight deck instead.
| Insight | ||
|---|---|---|
| Flusterstorm x2 Dissolve x2 Sudden Storm x2 Redesign Plans x2 |
Reverberate x2 Paralectric Feedback x2 Storming Off x2 Discharge x2 |
Stormfront x1 Search for Inspiration x1 |
| ?/20 |
The deck should be about 20 cards for variation, one of them Search for Inspiration.
The Devoted
Each god has a congregation of creatures. As long as they remain on the battlefield the god cannot be defeated.
The devoted creatures are part of the god's library along with several lands and other cards. Keranos will automatically draw and play one card from the library each turn (s. b.). If the library is empty as Keranos attempts to draw a card, Keranos loses.
If Keranos has enough lands to pay the cards mana cost, Keranos taps the lands for mana and draws another card.
| Devoted | ||
|---|---|---|
| Omenspeaker x4 Blind Seer x2 Prescient Chimera x2 Stormbound Siren x2 |
Thunderhead Oracle x4 Lightning Visionary x2 Stormcaller of Keranos x2 Lightning Elemental x2 |
Stormchaser Chimera x1 Cymede of Akros x1 |
| ?/20 |
Further Cards of Keranos's Library
| Additional | ||
|---|---|---|
| Bolt of Keranos x2 Divination of Keranos x2 Steam Augury x2 |
Altar of Keranos x2 Vault of Inspiration x2 Visionary's Serum x2 |
Storm Cauldron x2 Keranos's Congregation x2 |
| ?/20 |
The Storm Scale:
Whenever a land enters the battlefield a marker on the cyclone (found with the rules on the accompanying play mat) is moved ahead a bit. Whenever it completes a full circle a counter is added to the storm scale and all spells with storm are copied an additional time for each counter (this is cumulative with copies from spells cast before the spell and additional spells from permanents that increase the storm scale).
Also whenever a counter is added to the storm scale Keranos returns from Nyx to the battlefield if he has been removed before.
Design Notes:
I tried to reproduce some effects from existing cards associated with Keranos as faithful as possible. Since scry would involve some awful decision making I replaced it universally with an ability that allows Keranos to filter lands directly onto the battlefield which in turn increases the threat level of the deck over time.
The idea is that you can put in the original cards and simply translate scry to the new wording and get the desired effect. Activated abilities are translated into attack-triggers though. I hope I was consistent enough.
The challenge is structured in a way that allows it to play some typical benefits of blue-red decks: Counterspells and burn had to be represented in the deck of Keranos, God of Storms and that calls for an additional mechanic that allows to play spells "in response". With instants realized like that I also saw the door opened for actually implementing the namesake mechanic "storm".
I had a lot of ideas for this deck and put more into this write-up than might end up in the final deck(s) which will probably play better with a little more redundancy and possibly without some of the more devastating effects, but I want to delay cutting until I had a chance to see most of the effects in action. And obviously there were quite a few things left out that I did not include since the lists started to look crammed.
Nyx is basically the Command zone and may be renamed on the card as such. I imagine e. g. Nylea will have some enchantment creatures up there with her.
Why start with Keranos? At first I wanted a God that does represent as many colors as possible that do not overlap with Xenagos, but Athreos and Ephara seemed like bad flavor choices to introduce as "further enemies of mortals" while Phenax seemd like it would be very similar to the Jace challenge I already am preparing. So I settled for one color different than Xenagos.
Starting Setup
The starting setup for Keranos should be one Omenspeaker per opponent and 20 life per opponent.
Playtesting begins on the next game day unless I turn out to lazy to proxy up the cards and design the play mat.