Mayael's Army; Theros edition

I've spoken of the very special lady in my life before, Mayael the Anima, and I thought of a new segment; with each passing set I hope to talk about all the new fatties and what role they may play in future builds.

Theros came out back in September, and lending itself to the source material, was crammed full of big beasties rearing to eat someone's face off. Let's look at a few of them.

Stoneshock Giant

I  like this guy. He's got a sweet beard. But there's more to Magic than dudes with sweet beards. He's got a reasonable body for his cost, and the monstrous ability isn't too shabby either. When you resolve the ability, it's akin to resolving Overrun or a variant thereof. And that's usually enough to win the game. 6RR: Win the Game. Seems reasonable to me. The biggest strike against this guy is until that actually happens, he's just a vanilla beater. Surely worth trying at any rate.

Titan of Eternal Fire

No. Just no. There aren't anywhere near enough human fatties to make this guy relevant.

Wild Celebrants

Oh golly. I want to like these guys, I really do, but there is one thing that really kills it for me. 3 toughness. That's just really terrible at 5 mana in this format. I will say that if your meta is plagued by artifact centric decks, this might be viable, but otherwise, this will destroy a random thing and almost immediately die in combat with anything. Might be worth a shot, but very meta dependent.

Arbor Colossus

Look at that fat butt. Most every color has good fliers, and many of them are scary strong in this format. Being able to shoot them out of the sky and still dedicating space to a body is pretty sweet. The only real downside is that the triple green can be a pain in the butt if your fixing isn't so great.

Nemesis of Mortals

I like some fatty boom booms, but this critter has two big problems for it. One, it's just a fatty; no additional utility. Two, Mayael isn't a graveyard deck. Decks that want something like this are those that will routinely be able to get a 10/10 for 4. Mayael is no such deck.

Polukranos, World Eater

I'm more than a little excited that hydras are finally getting their day in the sun. I haven't actually ever gotten the chance to resolve the ability in EDH unfortunately, he keeps getting killed before I get the chance. But any time I had, I would have gotten to kill at least one creature out of it. That he so inspires fear in my opponents that they would waste removal on him rather than something far scarier (in my eyes, anyway) bodes well though. Especially good in conjunction with any sort of big mana spell that I like to run in Mayael like Boundless Realms, Mirari's Wake or Vorinclex.

Colossus of Akros

Love me some jank. That being said, this might be a little too jank. Until you get to 10 mana, this is just a "I'm going to kill the hell out of a thing you used to attack me", and if your meta is full of nonlethal ways o killing things like bounce or exile, this isn't so hot. On the other hand, killing your opponent with a 50 cent jank rare that's also an indestructible 20/20 is pretty sweet.

Vulpine Goliath

Limited chaffe. You have better things to do at 6 mana. Adorable fox or not.

Heliod, God of the Sun

Vigilance is sweet in any multiplayer format. Mana sinks are likewise sweet. And better yet, you don't have to turn him into a creature if you don't want to. It's easy to include devotion heavy beater likes Akroma, to turn him on. Likewise it's easy to avoid them. Whichever suits you better.

Nylea, God of the Hunt

You've got a deck full of strong independant creatures that don't need no man. Doesn't it suck when your opponent chump blocks you forever? Or not. Again, Nylea can easily be made more or less prone towards being a creature depending on if you think she's an asset or a liability as a creature.

Purphoros, God of the Forge

Unlike the other two on-color Gods (so far...), Purphoros really wants a certain sort of build to take the most of his abilities. Both his trigger and his activation favor a deck that swarms the opponent with loads of creatures. Well nuts, Mayael wants to go tall, not wide. Right?... Actually, there are quite a few fatties that let you do both. If you have Purphoros in your Mayael shell, you'd probably benefit from including creatures like Rith, Living Hive, Rapacious One, Avenger of Zendikar, Symbiotic Wurm, etc. That was easier than you thought, right?

Those are some of my thoughts and observations about what Theros had to offer Mayael players. I'd love to hear how you did with this release.