"The Harmonious Archon: Increasing and Diminishing"

"The Harmonious Archon: Increasing and Diminishing"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

When my daughter Aven opened a pack and this was my Mythic rare I just knew that I had to make a deck for it or at least make it work. 

I have been experiencing somewhat of a win drought in the EDH department lately and a change of deck might be what I need. That or improve the Scarab God Good stuff deck that seems to in a rut lately.

The Harmonious Archon is a 4/5 Archon that makes all  Non-Archon creatures into 3/3 creatures. It also gives you 2 1/1 human creature tokens once it enters the battlefield. Giving you 2 3/3 creatures immediately.  

The way I look at it this can be abused in two ways. 

The most straight forward is to make it a stat pumper. 3/3 creatures in enough numbers is lethal. Early game you could just create 1/1 tokens like Soldiers or Saprolings. 0/1 tokens like Pests.  Of course before casting the Archon you need to have cleared the board of creatures that may become a problem for you.(especially if your opponents have more than what you currently have).

Since I also have a thing for Infect , Harmonious Archon can make all of those 1/1 Non-Archon creatures into 3/3 Infect Creatures. I can see a Glistener Elf , Plague Myr and Ichorclaw Myr or even an Activated Inkmoth Nexus all becoming 3/3 and attacking for Lethal in a couple of turns. The Inkmoth Nexus is particularly deadly as it can just fly past normal ground based defenders.A Mono White or Selesnya EDH deck. Delicious.

And the second way that one can abuse this is by cutting down all those big creatures on your opponents side of the board. Making them instant 3/3 and then casting something like Deafening Clarion , Sweltering Sun , Slagstorm or Anger of the Gods(if you are playing a Boros deck) . Since the Harmonious Archon is a 4/5 is can survive that 3 damage to all other creatures. And you could even just go to town with it and attack.

Politically speaking you could use this as leverage to make an opponents Saproling Army bigger and exchange for them attacking another opponent. Just be ready with a Rout once they renege on that deal.

Oh well it doesn't so Harmonious after all.