5 years since Theros Gods- Which held up the best in other formats?

[WWolfe]

So it's been five years since Theros introduced us to the Gods, a little less than five years for the multi-colored Gods.

Which one do you feel has been the most impactful in other formats since they rotated out of Standard?

[darksepho]

Purphoros is a beast in EDH

[WWolfe]

In EDH to me it depends on the deck. Purphoros is better in a wider range of decks but I have a Shadowborn Apostle deck that loves Athreos.

[Soren841]

but Kruphix is more played than both of them

[burn your face]

The only one that has really seen play in modern is Keranos. Those days are probably over though do to new ral.

[Cackling Jester]

I personally use mogis as my commander, but I know perpheros is an extremely powerful edh commander

[ladof]

I run Erebos in mono black as a draw engine and a hard to remove permanent, although I'm considering changing it to an arugel's blood fast.

[WWolfe]

but Kruphix is more played than both of them

Not so sure about that as far as EDH goes.

According to EDHRec, Purphoros is in over 15,500 decks while Kruphix is in just over 6,700.

[Soren841]

Seriously. I've never seen a Purphoros deck in my entire time playing Magic, including online..

[Morganator 2.0]

You know what my favorite part about Deckstats EDHREC is? The stats.

Nope, doesn't have the same ring. But let's look at the numbers.

Name	Number of commander      decks (as commander)	Number of commander      decks (as 99)
Athreos	1,314	4,791
Ephara	634	3,602
Erebos	633	13,038
Heliod	272	8,834
Iroas	717	10,002
Karametra	1,385	4,798
Keranos	697	4,292
Kruphix	1,417	6,786
Mogis	840	4,190
Nylea	155	9,988
Pharika	212	1,748
Phenax	1,475	3,125
Purphoros	929	15,595
Thassa	502	12,781
Xenagos	1,411	9,183

So our top 5 as commanders (in order) are Phenax, Kruphix, Xenagos, Karametra, and Xenagos.
Our top 5 as part of the 99 are Purphoros, Erebos, Thassa, Iroas, and Nylea.

Now I've seen each of these as a commander deck, and even piloted a few of them. I think I'm giving an accurate description, but maybe some of you have seen different builds.

Athreos: Shadowborn Apostle deck, that works fairly well.
Ephara: The deck functions by flashing in creatures or creature tokens on their opponent's turn. This deck is hot garbage.
Erebos: Massive card draw to get into a combo. The problem is that Sidisi, Undead Vizier is just better.
Heliod: The drunken-love child of a token deck and enchantress deck. It suffers from the regular problems with mono-white.
Iroas: Typical boros aggro deck.
Karametra: I've seen a couple builds for Karametra. There is enchantress (which has since been replaced by Estrid and Tuvasa), and a landfall deck that used stuff like Titania, Protector of Argoth as a win condition.
Keranos: Mass everything destruction. Jokulhaups, Decree of Annihilation, Obliterate. Stuff that misses enchantments and planeswalkers, but hits everything else. I've been told it's not fun to go against.
Kruphix: Several builds. Competitive builds tend to be heavy combo oriented, with lots of mana ramp and card draw. Casual builds use eldrazi.
Mogis: Boardwipes everywhere. Make sure no one ever has creatures, and win with incremental damage. The deck runs out of resources very quickly.
Nylea: Exactly what you think it is. Big creatures. The person who was playing this deck eventually switched it to Stonebrow, Krosan Hero.
Pharika: Garbage. Think reanimator, but you only ever get snakes.
Phenax: Incremental mill deck, with lots of creatures with defender.
Puphoros: He makes a good commander, usually using token strategies with a goblin sub-theme (most good token generators in red make goblins). He works better as part of the 99 in either Krenko, Mob Boss, or Prossh, Skyraider of Kher.
Thassa: Unblockable Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents. Go Whelming Wave! But in all seriousness it's not a good deck.
Xenagos: Like Nylea but more effective. Big creatures, Pathbreaker Ibex, and extra combat steps.

[Soren841]

None of them are exactly playable outside of commander, which makes this data collection pretty simple thankfully

[ladof]

Morg, if you're running a Phenax mill deck, you're basically running ways to find and protect Eater of the Dead. Combine the two and you can mill an entire pod in one turn.

[WWolfe]

So let's take the convo here...

Which Gods are better? Theros? Amonkhet?

[Morganator 2.0]

Stat wise:

Name	Number of commander decks (as commander)	Number of commander decks (as 99)
Bontu	110	1,687
Hazoret	113	737
Kefnet	203	1,901
Locust	1,205	2,717
Oketra	113	1,940
Rhonas	212	2022
Scarab	1,246	2,078
Scorpion	467	678

This also matches my experience; I've only ever seen The Locust God and The Scarab God as effective commanders. The irony is that Hazoret the Fervent saw a lot of action in standard, but is the least played in commander.

[ladof]

I'd say the Theros gods are better than the Amonkhet gods as a whole, but the Scarab God is the best overall in EDH. He fits so perfectly into a UB zombie tribal that it's disgusting