Intro
Welcome Rulers,
The new Set just dropped and as you might know, I have been a big fan of singleton rulers since Ayu, Lunar Swordswoman (ADK-060) // Ayu, Shaman Swordswoman (ADK-060J) back then in 2018. With “Game of Gods: Revolution” we get the third singleton ruler after Ayu and Ragnarok, Invading Dragon Lord (EDL-096), which is Zeus, the First Olympian (GRV-087) // Order of the Olympians (GRV-087J). I have been playing with Zeus during the spoiler season quite a bit, so in this Article I will tell you about the experience I made with this new deck so far, as well as diving into some deeper strategies for him and also explaining the new mechanics he brings to the table. Since Wanderer will be the official Tournament Format in the future, this deck-feature will also be for the Wanderer Format. Enough for the introduction part, lets start climbing the stairs to the olymp.
I will start with the decklist, and in the following section, where I talk about the new mechanics and support cards and why I hesitate to play his full package of support cards.
Decklist
New mechanics
With the new set Game of Gods Revolution, we also got the new [Union Seven \] mechanic, which I will refer to just as [Union Seven] for the rest of this article. Uff… another new mechanic you might think… No Problem, lets take a quick look into the new CR and see how it works:
1155.2. “[Union Seven ] (Text)” means “This card gains the following text in all zones as long as you control in public zones and own revealed outside the game a combined number of seven or more New Twelve Olympian Gods with different names.”
As a short reminder, here is a short list for all public zones, where Twelve Olympian Gods count towards [Union Seven]:
- cards on the field
- cards in the graveyard
- cards in the “removed from game” zone
- cards revealed from sideboard (for example with The Origin of the Seven Lands (PofA-112))
- cards in the ruler area
- cards in the chase area
To set up [Union Seven] it takes quite a bit. But with the right cards, its possible on turn 2 or 3 already.
Zeus, his Olympians and more support
Zeus is the first Singleton Ruler that got so much support cards, that we will not have problems filling his remaining deck slots with good cards. All of the Twelve Olympian God Resonators have a similar design, they have an Enter Ability and some more extra abilities if [Union Seven] is active. Also notice, that we are able to trigger most of the Non-[Union Seven] abilities of the Twelve Olympian Gods, when we reveal them with Zeus, the First Olympian (GRV-087) // Order of the Olympians (GRV-087J)‘s Enter ability, that triggers if we order a resonator or Zeus Enters the Game of Gods (GRV-010). In the following Table I will shortly display the Twelve Olympian God cards and their abilities. (only the reveal-trigger abilities and the union 7 ones, cause they are the most relevant):
| Number | Name of God | Enter / Reveal Ability | Union Ability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zeus | Search + Reveal a Twelve Olympian God from Deck | NONE |
| 2 | Poseidon | You may bounce target non-J-Ruler/non-magicstone entity back to hand | Enter: Draw 3 cards put a Twelve Olympian God from your hand into the field |
| 3 | Apollon | Remove target non-magic stone/non-J/resonator entity from the game from the game | Flying,Eternal,Barrier your J/resonators gain +1000/+1000 |
| 4 | Hades | Target J/resonator loses all abilities until end of turn, then destroy it | Enter: Destroy all magic stones The opponents ruler loses all abilities |
| 5 | Artemis | Recover up to two target stones Up to two target J/resonators gain flying until end of turn | You pay 1 void less to play this card Enter: Destroy all J/resonators with flying your opponent controls |
| 6 | Hestia | Deal 500 Damage to target player or J/resonator | J/resonators you control gain swiftness Enter: Deal 1000 damage to your opponent and each J/resonator |
| 7 | Athena | Deal 600 Damage to target player or J/resonator. You gain 600 life. Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you until end of turn | Swiftness, Flying If this card would deal damage, it deals that much + 1000. If damage would be dealt to you, prevent 1000 of it |
| 8 | Ares | Cancel target spell or activate or automatic ability unless its controller pays X, where X is the number of different names among New Twelve Olympian Gods you control in public zones and New Twelve Olympian Gods you own revealed outside the game | Whenever a spell or ability your opponent controls is canceled by a spell or ability you control >>> Recover up to two target magic stones. If the source of the canceled ability is a J/resonator, destroy that J/resonator |
| 9 | Hera | Look at your opponents hand and choose a card, they discard that card | Drain,Bane Rest: This card deals 200 damage to target player or J/resonator Your opponent may only play one card per turn |
| 10 | Aphrodite | You gain 2000 life. Draw a card | If you would gain life, you gain double that amount instead. If you would draw a card, you draw two cards instead |
| 11 | Persephone | You may destroy target J/resonator, if you do draw a card | 0: Destroy target J/resonator you control and target J/resonator your opponent controls. Play this ability only once per turn and only if this card is in your graveyard |
| 12 | Magna and Lenneth | Target J/resonator gains Swiftness and Eternal until end of turn. Put X [+100/+100] counters on it, where X is the number of different names among New Twelve Olympian Gods you control in public zones and New Twelve Olympian Gods you own revealed outside the game. If X is 5 or more, draw two cards | Enter: This card deals X damage to your opponent where X is the total ATK of New Twelve Olympian Gods you control |
| X | Arena Expansion: Mount Olympus | If this card would be put into your hand from your deck by the effect of an Enter ability gained from a card named “Order of the Olympians” you control, you may put it into the field instead | NONE |
I put Aphrodite, the Tenth Olympian (GRV-071) as well as Magna and Lenneth, the Twelfth Olympians (GRV-081) into the side deck, because their contribution to interrupt the opponent or support our gameplan is less, then for the other Twelve Olympic Gods. With The Origin of the Seven Lands (PofA-112) we can still reveal them, so they count towards [Union Seven]. But in general you do not want to draw too many of the Twelve Olympic Gods, cause that way you lose the option to trigger their effects at quickcast speed when you search them. The new magic stone for Zeus The One Magic Stone (GRV-089) generates two will, that you can only spend to play Twelve Olympian Gods, which is a huge advantage, since playing a 2-cost resonator with only one stone is always good.
His other support involves the Essence-Chants. Those chants consists of two parts. The first part is just a regular chant effect like deal 500 damage to target player or J/resonator. The second part of those chants put different kind of tokens into the field. Hmm… nothing special you might think. However, those chants can be ordered just like normal resonators. That means, if our ruler is recovered we can choose to order them, therefore the first part resolves, without the possibility to chase to it. Then the token enters the field as a J-Ruler and the enter ability of our first Olymp Zeus is triggered. In addition to that already very strong ability, the order card also returns back to the ruler area at the end of turn, so the Token becomes a resonator again, allowing us to order in the next turn, without the need to think about how we get rid of our J-Ruler.
As you might have seen in the deck list, only three of those Essence-Chants made it into the deck. The other chants did not, because either they are too expensive, or their effects are not useful enough in my opinion.
The third kind of support consists of 5 chants (one for each element), which are “The Wind/Water/Fire/Darness/Light of Zeus”. Those cards are not only quite powerful when playing Zeus (thanks to Force Resonance \<Olympians>), they can also be played without paying their cost, if you removed another of those in your graveyard from the game. So for example if your opponent has a huge board and you only have one will to interact with it, you can cast The Water of Zeus (GRV-036) to draw two cards, then remove it from the game in your graveyard to cast The Light of Zeus (GRV-006) for free from your hand to wipe your opponents board only, without him being able to chase to the card. Note that the effect to remove the chants from your graveyard to cast the next of them for free is an activate ability your opponent can react to, or even negate it with cards like Laurite, Seven Luminaries Astrologian (TSW-094) or Fiethsing, 100 Years of Wizardry (GOG-047). I did not add The Darkness of Zeus (GRV-061) into the list, because it felt underwhelming in my testing and the other chants provide more impact on the actual game situation.
How to win
The deck most likely will win with the [Union Seven] effect active and building a big board. Our board gains swiftness then from Hestia, the Sixth Olympian (GRV-016) or a The Witch of the Fallen Kingdom (ADW-072) train (needs Seal 5) into a final Pumpkin Witch (CMF-088). Poseidon, the Second Olympian (GRV-032) helps us starting our combo once we hit [Union Seven], since we can arrange his enter abilities, that way so we first bounce himself to hand, to then resolve the second ability to draw three cards and put Poseidon into the field again to repeat that loop until we drew our whole deck. With his last trigger we put Artemis, the Fifth Olympian (GRV-039) into the field then and recover two stones, so we can start playing more cards like Hestia or Typhonomachy, the Final Duel (GRV-086) to win the game from there.
Key cards
Since we are playing singleton, every card in the deck has a certain purpose and therefore is important. Though some cards are more vital to the engine than others. One of the most important cards is Zeus Enters the Game of Gods (GRV-010), since it gives us access to our toolbox of Twelve Olympian Gods reveal/enter-abilities. No less important is Arena Expansion: Mount Olympus (GRV-073), which helps as trading less important Twelve Olympian Gods from our hand for two new cards. Furthermore we can use it to “recycle” our Gods, by putting them from the graveyard back to the bottom of our deck. It also is put directly into the field when we search and reveal it with Zeus effect, which makes it very accessible and in ~90% is the first card we want to reveal with Zeus. Drawing the Arena Expansion hurts quite much, although the new stones help casting it from hand, especially with the help from Artemis, the Fifth Olympian (GRV-039), which recovers two stones that can pay for four of the five will for Mount Olympus. Another useful discard might be Fallen Angel of Fiery Vengeance (DBV-075) as a removal or any of the elemental Zeus chants to immediately remove it from grave to cast the next one for free.
Since we want to order as often as we can cards like Perceval, the Charmed Knight (SDAO2-005) and Fallen Angel of Fiery Vengeance (DBV-075) are quite important, since with their banish ability they allow us to be flexible when it comes to returning our order back to ruler area to order another resonator.
Another interaction, that is quite strong is with Hanzo, Ninja of the Moon (GOG-050). When we order him with two stones, one of those optimally being The One Magic Stone (GRV-089), we can than stack Zeus, the First Olympian (GRV-087) // Order of the Olympians (GRV-087J) and Hanzo’s enter ability in a way, that Hanzo’s ability resolves last. This way, we can search Artemis, the Fifth Olympian (GRV-039) with Zeus and recover our stones. If we had The One Magic Stone, we can float will to directly play Artemis from hand to trigger his enter ability again for a total of X=4 to pay into Hanzo’s Enter ability. This leaves us with 4 Moons + 2 recovered Stones, so 6 will in total and also Hanzo’s ability to make our opponent pay more for his chants. Without The One Magic Stone we will only be able to pay for X=3 after Artemis reveal trigger resolves. Remember that if our opponent has Dreiwing, Mechanized Wind of Destruction (GRV-040) revealed outside the game (from the sideboard), we will not be able to tap our moons for will, Hanzo can still banish them though to make the opponent pay more for his chants.
Playstyle
For singleton it is not really possible to give general advices how to play at certain stages of the game, since it really depends on the different cards in our hand and what our opponent is playing. I still try to give some general tips on early turns and which cards to keep in your opening hand.
When having the coin, we always have the option to order Rogue Spectator (GRL-021) from our sideboard. Then we can reveal Ares, the Eighth Olympian (GRV-075) from our deck, to have our opponent pay 1 more, to counter our opponents first turn play. Furthermore if our first stone is The One Magic Stone (GRV-089) we also have the option to play Ares from our hand in our opponents second turn. Resolving Poseidon, the Second Olympian (GRV-032)‘s trigger to bounce Ares back to Hand, to have Ares ready for your opponents third turn. An even better counter start with coin is to order Fiethsing, 100 Years of Wizardry (GOG-047), stack Zeus, the First Olympian (GRV-087) // Order of the Olympians (GRV-087J) enter trigger to resolve first to get the addition on field which then forces our opponent to pay 1 more for Fiethsing’s enter ability. In our first turn we then can use Fiethsing’s ability to unorder and have Zeus ready to order again in our turn or stay more reactive and order in our opponents.
Since Zeus Engine is pretty reliant on searching the deck, The Witch of the Fallen Kingdom (ADW-072) shuts our deck pretty much down. Therefore we have to make sure we have enough removal options, or already use the mulligan to dig for a potential one.
Ending words
Zeus, the First Olympian (GRV-087) // Order of the Olympians (GRV-087J) really is an awesome deck which is pretty versatile and also a lot of fun. Also with the new banlist announced now, the only thing he lost compared to other decks is a Laurite, Seven Luminaries Astrologian (TSW-094). Unfortunately I think there are other decks, that might still be better than Zeus, even though they were hit quite hard by the banlist. One of those might be Typhon, the Infinite Monster (GRV-085) // Order of Infinity (GRV-085J) which is still extremely powerful, even though the Turn 0 discard seven cards combo with Echidna, Mechanized Monster (GRV-051) and Typhon’s Wave of Terror (GRV-070) has been combination banned.
I hope this article could give you a first insight into Zeus toolbox and the possibilities with the new Twelve Olympian Gods. Let us see if in the future there will also be decks like Asmodeus (TST-044) // Asmodeus [J-Ruler] (TST-044J) or Yggdrasil, Malefic Verdant Tree (ENW-068) trying to rush into [Union Seven] with their fast deck removal ability.
Thanks for reading this article and have fun brewing with the new cards.
Cheerz Lars
