Zur, Eternal Schemer - MTG Arena Brawl Play Guide

Intro

While trying to make various decks with a combination of the Theros gods, I found it hard to constantly have high enough devotion to keep the gods as creatures. Zur, Eternal Schemer gets around this by turning them into creatures with his activated ability, and also giving them lifelink and deathtouch. These gods, in combination with the impending overlords and some other useful enchantments, can swing a game from a near-loss to a big advantage quickly.

Here's a video showing how this deck plays on Arena.

The decklist I use on MTG Arena can be found on Moxfield.

Starting hand

While playing on Arena, I find that my opening hand really needs removal or counterspells to not fall behind too quickly. You also really need to get all 3 colors, with an emphasis on white mana production to make sure you can activate Zur's ability. If your starting hand has a leyline in it, that can be a great keep since you avoid the 4-mana cost of those enchantments.

Early game

Early game is all about setup and controllingt he board. Losing a bit of life during the early game isn't too bad as we'll often gain a lot of life later, but removal or counterspells for the first couple of turns is often what helps. During this time you'll also want to get some of the Theros gods onto the battlefield, even if they don't do anything right away.

Late game

Once you have some setup with enchantments on the board and enough mana, you can spend a turn casting Zur and also activating his ability once or twice to get a big swing in life total. By casting and immediately activating, you get damage to your opponent, while also gaining life from the lifelink. This can sometimees catch your opponent off guard. The other tactic is to save an activation to use when the opponent attacks you, as you can often get a 3/3 or 4/4 blocker at instant speed.

Win-cons

Winning is almost always through combat damage, since your enchantments with deathtouch and lifelink put the opponent in bad situations. Even if they can block, you gain so much life that the game swings in your favor. Any of the gods you have are indestructible so they are hard to remove, and the other enchantments are difficult to remove as well if Zur is on the battlefield.

Bad matchups

Decks that go wide can sometimes handle the smaller number of creatures you have, so it can be a tough matchup. Any decks that run mass enchantment removal or repeated enchantment removal can cause you to run out of steam quickly.