Sub Themes

## **What are Sub-Themes**

While Archetypes generally describe a deck's methodology, a Theme may effect deck construction without occupying the entire deck, or without informing a specific Archetype.

Therefore in many ways, Sub-Themes and Archetypes are not mutually exclusive. Sub-Themes can often be found alongside one, or even many archetypes within a single deck.

### **Difference between subthemes and minor themes**

**A Sub-Theme is a small theme** but not a major part, **that can pivot your whole game plan**. Relying on one or two specific pieces (*and often some deck considerations*) when drawn, these cards can fundamentally change what a deck is doing, or significantly extend it's capabilities. Some examples include Sunforger (*An equipment that gives you the card advantage and flexibility of casting Boros-colored instants directly from your library, making them a deck-building consideration*) and Ad Nauseam(*a Black spell that lets you draw as many cards as you can pay life for, especially if those cards are low mana-value, encouraging you to build in that direction*) or even Companions which let you use them almost like a second commander provided you meet their deck building restriction.

**A Minor Theme is a mechanic**, or other logical through-line that **can** be built around, but **without enough support** for an entire cohesive deck (*An example of this the Mutate mechanic or Energy, working best when supported by other related mechanics*) or which doesn't necessarily incline a deck towards a specific archetype, like the Madness mechanic which lets you cast cards you discard, which can be paired with Wheels for card advantage, with symmetrical Discard to break parity, or even with cards that care about casting from Exile.

## **List of Sub-Themes**

**See the top Sunforger cards in EDH!**
Sunforger is an equipment card that can tutor and cast instant spells directly out of your deck. This gives it incredible flexibility with the only requirements being:
* **Being in Boros** or any color combination that includes White and Red.
* Reliably having **at least one creature** to equip (*rarely a concern since almost all Commanders are creatures*)
* Including **low-mid cost instants** in your deck (*something most decks want to do to be able to respond at instant speed without holding up lots of unused mana*)

There are **Over 1,137 cards** that can be cast by using Sunforger including **Protection** (*Boros Charm*), **Removal** (*Chaos Warp, Anguished Unmaking*) **Counterspells** (*Dovin's Veto, Lapse of Certainty, Pyroblast & Deflecting Swat*) and **Tutors** (*Eladamri's Call, Enlightened Tutor*) amongst countless others.
In addition, the colors required for Sunforger (*Red and White*) have Equipment synergies, especially tutoring, which can encourage decks that include Sunforger to lean more heavily on it and become more reliable in their access to instant answers.
**Additional Considerations**:
* **Enlightened Tutor**: As a means to tutor up Sunforger, Enlightened Tutor is comparable to Open the Armory but has one unique benefit... being itself an instant, IT is castable through Sunforger, letting you search for cards other than instants... If you happen to draw Sunforger directly or can employ Recursion (*see below*)
* **Mistveil Plains + Tithe**: Mistveil Plains has the capability to put cards tutored with Sunforger back into your library to repeatably tutor... What makes this reliable is the Plains type lets this card be tutored by Fetchlands... or even more reliably, by Tithe which is a card that Sunforger can tutor for, letting Sunforger tutor up it's own recursion.
* **MDFC Lands**: Modal-Double-Faced-Card that are Red or White Instants give a deck with Sunforger easy additional options with very low opportunity cost (*meaning it is easier to find slots for them in the deck because they replace a land instead of a spell, and only cost you a small chance of playing a land that enters the battlefield tapped*)

**See the top Birthing Pod cards in EDH!**
Birthing Pod is a card that lets you sacrifice a creature to tutor other creatures directly onto the battlefield, with the only requirement being that you have Green in your deck, and have at least one creature to sacrifice. Despite the apparent limitations, this has several applications and is more flexible than it seems:
* **Chains/Lines**: Birthing Pod is limited in what it can tutor by CMC, but from 2 mana onward there are creatures that can enter the battlefield and untap the Birthing Pod, letting you repeat the process while increasing the CMC of the most recent creature, up-cycling towards the card you actually need
* **Toolbox**: The ability to reliably and repeatably tutor encourages conditionally powerful cards that *'shut down'* certain archetypes... Examples include Eidolon of Rhetoric (*stops Storm decks*), Dauthi Voidwalker (*stops Reanimator and many Aristocrats decks*) and Hushbringer (*shuts down Blink decks*)
* **Combo**: The ability to repeatably tutor lends itself to winning through combo(*since you can fetch ALL of the pieces of any creature based combo using Birthing Pod*)... additionally the value of each other tutor in your deck increases, since they can now fetch Birthing Pod which can fetch Multiple things
* **Tokens**: Birthing Pod lets you change one creature for another, but you may have trouble if you need more creatures than you have... Creatures that create tokens can solve this problem since Birthing Pod can tutor them out of your deck, then they provide fodder for it.

**See the top Primal Surge cards in EDH!**
Primal Surge is self-perpetuating spell that can put a variable number of permanents from your library directly into the battlefield. If every card in your deck is a permanent (*Achievable since lands are also permanents*) then Primal Surge will put every card in your library directly onto the battlefield, almost certainly winning you the game. Some additional things to consider when building around this card:
* **Replace Spells with Permanents**: While fairly self evident that cards like Rampant Growth and Nature's Lore need to be replaced with permanents like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Moss Diamond or Wild Growth, what is less obvious is whether you should leave some non-permanent cards in your deck... this will prevent you ending up with an empty library, but decreases your odds of getting a particular Combo onto the battlefield from your deck.
* **Haste Enablers**: In order to capitalise on suddenly gaining control of an army of creatures, you should considering having one or more permanents in your deck that grant Haste, such as Concordant Crossroads or Cavalier of Flame
* **Combo**: The ability to put all permanents in your deck into play may lend itself to winning through combo(*since ALL of the pieces of any permanent based combo will enter at the same time*)... additionally the value of each other tutor in your deck increases, since they can now fetch Primal Surge to get ALL the things.
* **Empty Library**: Primal Surge can put you into a uniquely vulnerable position, where a single targetted draw spell can actually eliminate you if it has put EVERY card from your deck onto the battlefield and even a Fog can have the same effect of stopping a game winning attack and letting you lose on your next draw step. We can plan around this by including 1 or more non-permanent cards, or cards that skip/replace your draw (*Mangara's Tome, Words of Wilding or Uba Mask for instance)*, or permanents that restock your library (*Witch's Cottage, Loaming Shaman etc*)

**See the top Companions in EDH!**
Companions are a type of creature that can start in the command-zone like your commander, but only if your deck (*and commander*) are chosen to match that Companion's requirement, and also if that Companion falls entirely within your Commander's Color Identity.
Reliable access to a Companion card's effect, as well as meeting it's deck-building condition can significantly warp your deck, but another thing to take into account is Recursion... because even though your Companion starts in the command-zone, it does not return there if it is destroyed or exiled

**See the top Polymorph Cards in EDH!**
Polymorph Cards are cards, such as Polymorph and Reality Scramble, normally in Red or Blue, that exchange a creature (*or occasionally an artifact*) you control for a random permanent of the same card type from your deck. While this seems random, and could be used for general value, in practice it is often only technically random, rigged in such a way as to always provide a specific type of creature, potentially a game-winning one. The considerations to address when considering whether to use Polymorph are:
* **Fewer Creature Cards**: In short, the fewer cards in your deck have the card type 'Creature', the more likely it is for you to get one of them, so many Polymorph decks will have only 5, (*sometimes as few as 1 or 2*) creature cards in their deck so that the second they can cast a Polymorph spell they know what they are getting
* **Creatures that are *non-creature cards***: In order to Polymorph, one must have a creature to transform into it's new form, but (*see above*) the more creature cards in a deck the less reliable it is to cast a Polymorph effect. The answer of course, is non-creature cards that can become creatures (*Guardian Idol for instance*) or create tokens that are creatures (*like Awakening Zone*).
* **Reliable Access to Polymorph Effects**: For most decks, the Opportunity CostThe cost (*incurred during deck building*) of potential opportunities lost due to less optimal deck choices. This can be caused by: **Lands that enter tapped** cost you one potential mana which can delay you casting a card in your hand, or even leave you unable to cast anything for a turn. **Less efficient Ramp** must be cast later, giving you fewer turns with that extra mana, and costing you a later (*generally more valuable*) turn to cast it. **Fewer/Less Efficient Creatures** can cost you potential opportunities to safely attack and damage your opponents of building to maximise a Polymorph effect is too high unless it has reliable access to such an effect, normally either by including 10+ (*or at least 6*), or by having it available on their commander, such as Jalira, Master Polymorphist or Vaevictus Asmadi, the Dire

* Removal in the form of Bound in Silence
* Untapping capability in Reveille Squad
* Limited Recursion in Ramosian Revivalist
* And a scalable anthem in Mirror Entity

* Repeatable Removal in the form of Big Game Hunter, recurable with Rebel Informer
* Recursion in Graveshifter (*Requires White to tutor*)
* An Evasive Creature in Changeling Outcast
* Blockers like Skeletal Changeling, Venomous Changeling, Moonglove Changeling & Rathi Trapper

* Rebels can tutor for Skyshroud Poacher who can tutor for Moon-Blessed Cleric which can tutor for any enchantment.
* Rebels can tutor for Masked Vandal which can exile an Enchantment or Artifact as long as you have a creature card in your graveyard.
* Rebels can tutor for Changeling Colossus which can spend mana to double it's power repeatably and Littjara Glade-Warden which can repeatably add +1/+1 counters to creatures.

* Rebels can tutor for Unsettled Mariner which makes all your creatures more expensive to target.
* **Instakill**: Technically a 6 card combo, it basically doesn't count as such since every piece is tutorable with a single rebel such as Defiant Vanguard. With the ability to produce 8 mana, and the following creatures: Turtleshell Changeling, Task Force, Outrider en-Kor, Shapesharer, Amoeboid Changeling (*or Mirror Entity*) & Zealot il-Vec (*or Mothdust Changeling*) you can spend 2 mana to activate Turtleshell Changeling's ability to switch power and toughness (*which affects future increases to power and toughness*), then spend 3 mana to make it a copy of Task Force (*5 mana spent*) then repeatedly target it with Outrider en-Kor to boost it's toughness to larger than your opponent's life total (*which is switched to be it's power*), use Amoeboid Changeling or Mirror Entity to make it a shapeshifter again so you can spend another 3 mana (*8 mana spent*) to make it a copy of Zealot il-Vec or Mothdust Changeling to make it unblockable, then attack to eliminate a single opponent.

This can be particularly useful with any of the Elf Allies (*which care about Allies entering the battlefield, which changelings are*) that can be tutored with Skyshroud Poacher

* Ad Nauseam
* Party
* Partner
* Hidden Commander
* Monarch

## **List of Minor-Themes**

Mutate is a mechanic where a creature can be cast for an alternate cost to modify an existing (*non-human*) creature you control, often providing a useful trigger in the process. These triggers stack, making building a deck around it an attractive proposition, but is spread across 5 colors in a single set, making it difficult to produce such a deck.
Mechanics that can prove synergistic with it are:
* **Bounce Spells + Clones**: Clones can become a copy of a creature, gaining all triggered and other abilities of the stack, which is particularly useful with Bounce spells which can return all cards in a mutate stack to your hand, letting you reproduce all their triggers but losing your current stack. Combining the two lets you keep the current state of your mutate stack, then return all components of it to your hands to further improve and re-trigger the cloned stack.
* **Infect** creatures have weaker stats, and can greatly benefit from the improved stats and combat/evasion keywords of other creatures in a mutate stack, and as of 2022 only 2 infect creatures are humans.
* Mutate creatures are still cast as spells ( *and creature spells at that*) meaning that they work with Green's triggered card draw like Beast Whisperer and other spell triggers such as Extort (*See Tithe Drinker*).

Madness is a mechanic where a discarded card can be cast at the moment it is discarded. This can break parity on certain effects that require discarding, or allow some spells to be cast as if they had Flash.
Mechanics that can prove synergistic with it are:
* **Wheels / Looting**: Wheels can entirely replace a players hand but often leave it the same size and Looting (*discarding and drawing*) has much the same effect, but madness cards can be cast while still counting as cards discarded, allowing you to gain additional benefit.
* **Discard**: Symmetrical discard can often be more mana efficient than targeted discard, but adversely effects yourself too, but madness cards can be cast while still counting as cards discarded, allowing you suffer less adversely than your opponents.
* **Cast from Exile**: Madness cards are technically discarded, exiled, then cast from exile. With Foretell, Adventure, Red's Impulse-draw and Black's Library Theft there are a signifcant number of effects that let you cast spells from exile, and a slowly increasing number of cards that card about it.
* **Flash Matters**: Madness cards that are not instants can still be discarded any time your discard-outlet allows you (normally any time) and then cast the moment they were discarded as if they had Flash... cards that care about casting spells during opponents' turns, or only trigger once per turn can gain additional benefit by casting Madness spells during your opponent's turn.

Cycling is a mechanic that grants certain cards the ability to be discarded to draw a card. This can be used to include situational spells that replace themselves, or more reliably generate discard or draw triggers.
Mechanics that can prove synergistic with it are:
* **Wheels / Looting**: Decks that are looking to generate 'When you draw a card' triggers may find cycling spells a more reliable way to produce triggers, can fill a role in the deck where producing a draw-trigger is a useful fallback if the card is not wanted, or can be one of the category of cards that have a useful effect when cycled, granting both.
* **Discard**: Decks that are looking to generate 'When a card is discarded' triggers may find cycling spells a more reliable way to produce triggers, can fill a role in the deck where producing a discard-trigger is a useful fallback if the card is not wanted, or can be one of the category of cards that have a useful effect when cycled, granting both.

Sagas are an enchantment subtype that produce a series of effects before either destroying themselves or transforming. These effects are triggered whenever a counter is added onto the permanent, and each turn at the beginning of the first main-phase one counter is added to each saga you control.
Mechanics that can prove synergistic with it are:
* **Proliferate Cards / Extra Turn Cards**: Effects that add counters onto your sagas, or grant you extra turns will net you the abilities from your Sagas sooner
* **Copying Triggered abilities**: While few in number, cards that copy triggered abilities such as Weaver of Harmony, Radiant Performer, Strionic Resonator and Lithoform Engine can increase the value you get from your sagas.
* **Enchantress**: Cards that reward you for playing enchantments, will also reward you for playing sagas
* **Blink / Counter removal / Recursion**: Cards that remove counters, Blink your enchantments (*to reset their counters*) or return them from the graveyard (*without their counters*) will let you trigger abilities from your sagas all over again.

* Treasures
* Ninjutsu
* Snow
* Historic
* Foretell
* Curses
* Morph
* Cascade
* Fight
* Populate
* Devotion
* Keywords Matter
* Flash
* Pingers
* Topdeck Manipulation
* Clues
* Dredge
* Enrage
* Prowess
* Convoke
* Energy (*all cards*)