Death & Rebirth - Re-Approaching Order Athenia
Welcome back Rulers! In terms of under-explored deck types, Order decks centered around Athenia are a textbook definition. Her suite of cards, though powerful, has not been seen too often in the limelight. A lot of this may come from what looks like a rather tall deck building challenge from what can appear to be disjointed pockets of support that seem powerful but unassuming (looking at you Lich, Immortal Saint). The challenge of the deck meant that is was likely not going to see wide application or success out of the gate.
Upon release, despite powerful cards, Order Athenia was rarely utilized in the competitive scene, taking only one top 8 spot at the Madrid, Spain Wanderer GP soon after her release. Piloted by Olmo Fernandez, the deck centered around a notable infinite combo that the deck can utilize to banish your opponent's entire field of resonators and make them discard their entire hand, while you stand to lose one card at the end of the combo. The Death Loop, it seems, was the main win condition of Fernandez’ list and wasn’t set up to do much more outside of that.
Shortly after, I found myself piloting the deck and making use of the Death Loop fairly easily with access to a pre-errata Origin of the Seven Lands and main decking Harvesting Season (yes, main-decking) to mill the top 10 cards of the deck at the start of my turn. Spirit of Decay was also legal at this time, so having access to a reliable life-loss win condition late in the game if the loop was not properly established meant the deck felt deadly to pilot. At the time, that meant laying some of Fernandez’ tools to the way side to focus in on the main Death Loop combo - mainly, Attendant of Asmodeus, which although strong in the way that it made a free mill to the RFG before recovering your stones, lacked impact outside of its singular utility.
However, those days have long gone. Origin of the Seven Lands was banned before being errata-ed to the point where it could no longer reveal Dreiwing, Mechanized Wind of Destruction, produce a Will, and then filter that Will into a turn 1 Harvesting Season. Spirit of Decay was also banned thanks to the more proactive, mid-range combo engine that was Asuka in Hero Cluster. Ostensibly, whatever was meant to hurt Asuka in the competitive metagame also ended up curtailing Order Athenia decks as well.
However, with the release of Judgment of the Rogue Planet, I felt the call to revisit Order Athenia for several reasons. First, Child of the Light Moon was banned, alongside Angelic Battle Barrier several formats prior. The deck now had free reign to reliably combo with Deathscythe, Athenia Enters the Game of Gods, and Elixir’s Love in either Game 1 as a primary game plan or to side it for Games 2 and 3 to rip apart control decks. Second, erratas came down the pike from Eye Spy that reduced the number of Moon Children (and Sun Children) that rulers in Hero Cluster could utilize. This came alongside an errata for Homeland abilities that no longer game an extra Cocoon or Solaris addition from outside the game. A third errata came down that also altered the text of Eins, making it so that he could only reveal resonators from outside the game that contained Solari in their name. Suddenly, one of the best resource engines was removed from the meta. Third, Great Dimension Library and Brad, Amnesiac Immortal meant that even more decks had lost a powerful resource engine that was impervious to Athenia’s Death Loop. Fourth, and finally, we received the Solarisation keyword alongside a package of powerful Replicant resonators that gave added utility to decks that utilize the RFG pile.
A slower game state, predicated on resource management, and minor advantage over the course of the game - suddenly, Order Ahtenia felt much, much more comfortable to play in a starkly different play environment like this one.
From here, it was a matter of looking at the tools Athenia had as a means of facilitating her mill-for-advantge deck identity. In her particular deck archetype alone, Athenia had Mikage Shinjuro who can be discarded for 1 darkness Will to mill the top 3 cards of your deck to the Graveyard. Alongside a functional reprint in Deathspeaker Monk in the next set, Athenia has a competent engine that helps to mill cards quickly to the graveyard for her effects. Although not as high utility as the original engine of Origins + Dreiwing + Harvesting Season, the deck does have access to an alternative beater in Shinjuro, who boasts a solid 1500/1500 stat line alongside Flying and Drain symbol skills. Nevermind that he allows you to play a resonator from your RFG on your turn if under Revolution Order and reduces his own cost to be played cheaply. A more mid-range option, but one that benefits from a slower metagame environment overall.
In addition, Athenia decks were able to utilize Tree of Decay and Tree of Growth to facilitate a powerful cycle of board control and life drain in combination with Oborozuki. Though Spirit of Decay is currently banned, the ability for the deck to easily drain life from the opponent is still present. In doing so, the deck is able to main-deck several copies of The Essence of Athenia’s Power. Little did I realize how strong this card would be, but the advent of Solarization style decks, like that of Brandhardt burn decks that utilize his new Chronogear, Fairy decks that have shifted to using the new Light-based Solarisite stones to make use of the new Tina’s Wings spell, and even decks that are playing into Arc and Solaria all feel the pain of a properly time The Essence of Athenia’s Power placing their cards removed from the game into the Graveyard.
This version of the deck, offered in our weekly feature matches on YouTube, focuses on setting up a classic combo - Mikage Reiya, A Part of True Power, and Griphon, Racing Across Darkness - while also relying less on our own main timing to make plays for small increments of advantage that only accelerate our late-game win conditions. Successfully resolving Griphon and triggering its enter effect fundamentally swings the game tempo in your favor. Two additional stones means that playing your main combo pieces, buying resonators back with Castle of Beatrice, and makes your side board feel more consistent and reliable later on.
Your ideal turn 1 results in either an Oborozuki, Vampire Astrologer beginning to sculpt your hand for future turns, or simply calling a stone and passing so that you can discard Shinjuro or Deathspeaker Monk on your opponent’s turn. Another option is playing Mikage Reiya on your opponent's turn to begin setting up your mid-game combos to win the advantage war. From your second turn onwards, you pivot to whatever you need to do to make your turn 3 feel powerful. Do you have A Part of True Power in hand to revive Griphon? Is your opponent still gathering their own momentum so your Shinjuro feels comfortable to play on their turn? Do you need a Deathscythe in your graveyard? Do you need to see more cards in your hand? The decision trees are rewarding and vast in the early game.
As the game goes on, the opportunity to Order out your Oborozuki to control the board is often what wins you the game wholesale. Your Oborozuki does not die easily from anything short of target entity destruction. And even when it does hit the graveyard, Castle of Beatrice is able to buy it back for you to establish easily. In case you needed more, Replicant: Odin is a card that is easily milled to the graveyard by a stray Mikage Reiya and bought back with Castle of Beatrice to destroy your opponents stones after turn 3.
The side deck works to sure-up the deck's overall weaknesses, mainly any form of Red aggression or burn. This isn’t uncommon for a control deck and control players know the priorities when piloting control against any form of aggression - mulligan for your answers. In this deck, triggering Drain against your opponent early on can help mitigate aggro’s early pushes and help you survive until the mid-game. Mikage Reiya and Oborozuki being seen early can help with that, the latter helping you dig deeper for answers like the Witch of Quenched Fire which you can play off of your Moon Shade magic stones (which always seem to show up first in the aggro match up…). Tree of Growth can also be important in this match up, allowing you to make use of the cards you mill or lose and helping you maintain your life total. In a last ditch effort, Mikage Shunjuro can swing for a significant amount of life in the air. I’d recommend focusing on playing Reiya and Oborozuki as a higher priority, but the high stat line is a great tertiary form of Drain.
The deck takes practice to utilize well, but it is a good time either way. Whether you’re looking for something new, niche, or off the beaten trail, Order Athenia still has many avenues to uncover. Several of her support cards have applications as a part of a broader suite of support that may allow for new decks to develop. Now that we have entered the Wanderer environment and the accessibility of the metagame has widened significantly, it may be time to take a look at other modern decks that had missed the boat in the previous New Frontiers environment.
- Paul