Commander Deck Tech: Kratos, Stoic Father and Atreus, Impulsive Son

Recently, WotC released seven Secret Lair x Playstation bundles. These bundles have brought to Magic: The Gathering many reprints and also characters from some iconic Sony franchises.

In one of them, we met Kratos, Stoic Father and Atreus, Impulsive Son, the two main characters in God of War Ragnarök. This father and son work with the Partner mechanic in MTG.

As we really enjoy family reunions, in this article you'll find two lists centered around this father-son bond: the main one, which combines many experience counters and proliferate, and the second one, which only centers around gods.

Without further ado, let's meet our commanders!

Kratos is known as the protagonist of the God of War franchise and is perhaps one of the most iconic Sony characters. In turn, Atreus is Kratos and Faye's son. In his part of the story, he embarks on a journey through the nine realms with his father. Curiously, Atreus is also known as Loki, the trickster god in Norse mythology.

Together, Kratos and Atreus command this Jeskai list and make it quite flavorful and fun, as both interact with experience counters. After more than eight games, Kratos definitely has enough experience for all of us!

If you're not familiar with this mechanic, experience counters are placed on players (quite similar to toxic) and originally came out in Commander decks in 2015. The creatures in this list can interact with these counters in several ways, such as:

- Minthara, Merciless Soul has Ward X, in which X is the number of experience counters you have. She also buffs all your creatures by +1/+0 for each counter you have.

- Mizzix of the Izmagnus discounts the cost of your instants and sorceries by 1 for each experience counter you have.

- Kelsien, the Plague buffs itself by +1/+1 for each experience counter you have.

You can remove these counters with cards like Final Act or even proliferate them with cards like Thrummingbird.

In this deck, Kratos uses experience counters to buff the power of a creature you control with +1/+1 counters.

As for Atreus, he uses them to draw cards, but afterward you'll have to discard a card. He has a lot of potential in explosive card draw setups.

With card draw and buffs in your command zone, as well as support to proliferate counters, you'll be unstoppable. Let's check out our first list with this pair!

Gods

To get experience counters, a God has to die, or you have to attack with one or more Gods. Only then will Kratos work and Atreus draw. Maybe the idea was to represent the experience Kratos went through in the franchise when he became the God of War with this ability, as it triggers when a God dies. We'll never be sure, but what we do know is that these are the Gods that will help us in our matches:

Besides these creatures, we added Roaming Throne so that we can support their abilities and Kratos's abilities.

As this deck plays a few creatures that aren't Gods, we also added Maskwood Nexus, which gives your creatures all creature types.

Because of all these creatures, this list is quite straightforward: buff your creatures with your commander, get ready for combat, and remember math is for those blocking.

Experience Counters

Obviously, we had to add creatures that interact with experience counters.

Otharri, Suns' Glory is one of the coolest commanders I've ever played in a precon. In this list, she'll fill our board with many 2/2 Rebel tokens.

The masters from The Last Avatar set were also a must. In this list, you'll find Katara, Waterbending Master, for card draw, and Aang, Airbending Master, who creates 1/1 Ally tokens for each experience counter you have.

With these creatures, we'll be able to make the most of all the experience we'll get as we play.

Proliferate

Proliferate cards are welcome in this deck, either to get more experience counters, +1/+1 counters, or both.

Our Gith, Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion, doesn't proliferate. But its ability triggers when you put one or more counters in play. When you do this, it gives you another one.

Ripples of Potential also works as protection. It essentially phases out our permanents.

Patrolling Peacemaker can get value out of any enemy removal in your way. Whenever they commit a crime, this card will proliferate.

Recursion

This is a classic aggro list with different effects that trigger even outside combat. So, we gave up control tools, but we still needed recursion.

Another visitor from Universes Beyond is here! Layla Hassan is a legendary creature, and her ETB ability returns a historic card from the graveyard to your hand. This effect also triggers if one or more of your assassins deals combat damage to a player.

As our dear Layla returns a legendary creature to our hand, we can use her to return even Urza's Ruinous Blast.

Another recursive card is Guardian Scalelord. Thanks to Backup 1, this Dragon enters play and grants its effect to another creature until the end of the turn. So, when that creature attacks, you can return to the board a permanent from your graveyard with a mana value equal to or less than its power.

As Kratos trains Gods and buffs their power, this won't be an issue.

To return many creatures at once, we have Ascend from Avernus, a sorcery that costs X that returns all creatures and planeswalkers with a mana value of X or less from the graveyard to the board.

This list doesn't play planeswalkers, but returning several Gods at once to the board is still great.

This alternative list centers around Gods.

We also added some staples and counters to protect these Gods as we play.

If the idea was to bring these Sony characters to the MTG universe and make them feel like a part of it, Wizards of the Coast has definitely been successful.

While Kratos uses his experience in combat to give you more counters, Atreus uses them to give you more resources. He definitely takes advantage of everything he learned from his father in every match.

Furthermore, Gods are always fun in Commander and many, like some Heliod and Purphoros versions, have been great commanders in the hands of veteran players.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!