Thelon is simply amazing. Besides his awsome flavour he is usually a vastly undercosted and sometimes lasting Overrun (or much better) without trample for your fungus deck. Don't play him too early in the game unless you have more than one in hand because your opponents will throw their removal at him for sure. And who doesn't want to kill with Utopia Mycon and Spore Flower?
his ability requires black mana for a flavor perpose, the funguses are "eating" their fallen brothers. You don't get much blacker. Plus than you didn't feel so bad about splashing in black just for the death spores (the real killers of any fungus deck).
Donovan_Fabian
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
What's really cool about this card is if you use sporesower thallid you can attach spore counters to any fungus, not just thallids, including mycoloths and other creatures like tukatongues.
Tommy9898
★★★★☆ (4.0/5.0)(4 votes)
I like his history from the sarpadian empires. The order of the ebon hand took a peak at phyrexia and learned about a prototype of sliver. They used the magic to create thrulls to combat the white citizens. Thelon was an elf ruler who was trying to protect his people from the invading goblins and camarids. He made a deal with the ebon hand and used the sliver/thrull magic to make the thallids and thus saprolings.
Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII is a fascinating read. *spoiler* trulls rebeled against the order and eventually killed everyone on the island. Looks like thelon survived.
Champion_Kitsune
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
But can he be an EDH general, given that the B in his ability is absent from his mana cost?
brunsbr103
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I could see myself building an aggro deck with four of these guys and a ton of fungi (with no intent to remove the spore counters), but the black in his activated ability bothers me enough so that I don't want to build it
Arglypuff
★☆☆☆☆ (1.0/5.0)(3 votes)
No, Thelon cannot be an EDH General. The rules of EDH are such that no card may be in the deck which has a mana symbol not in the General's mana cost. Thelon's mana cost is GG; however, Thelon has a B on the card. B is not G, and therefore Thelon cannot be a General, given that he inherently violates the rules.
This is true for many other would-be generals, such as Memnarch, Daughter of Autum, and Bosh, the Iron Golem.
ddde
★★★★☆ (4.3/5.0)(3 votes)
While I agree that being able to exile a fungus from your graveyard to give all your other funguses +1, +1 is really nice, IMO, even without that ability giving all your funguses the pumpup for each spore counter on them is a really great card for 2 mana. Even if you don't have a way of generating black mana I would consider this a very worthwhile card in a fungus/saproling deck. Especially the way I play.
Since spore counters can be converted to saprolings at any time, but saprolings can never be converted back to spore counters (at least, not directly with any card I have seen yet, you could work some tricky combo with the fungus that allows you to sac saprolings for mana and use that to power fungal bloom, but...ehhh...) I avoid using the spore counters until the very moment I need them. If an effect is about to wipe out all the spore counters of course they become saprolings, but if an effect would wipe out all the saprolings, well, chances are I don't have any yet. If I am going to make a big attack I wait till end of turn before my turn to build my huge saproling army so they can all attack on my turn. Thelon will work great for me without any black mana, though I may add something that can generate any color mana just for him.
I honestly think the "official" rules of EDH should be amended to allow a deck to be any of the colors for which a mana symbol appears on the general's card, that way cards like Thelon, Rhys, and Bosh can become the cool generals they have so much potential to be.
Aen3ma
★★★★☆ (4.9/5.0)(4 votes)
new edh rules allow black to be used in this guy's edh deck... i think he could be a RIDICULOUS general
I play him the exact same way, ddde, and usually only make tokens to chump block or to get ready for the next turns overrun. Whether i win due to giant fungi or due to an army of pumped saprolings, my deck can be remarkably dangerous with this guy in play. He also helps speed up your deck by making your thallids an actual threat before you can get the token production in full swing. Good incentive to look elsewhere in multiplayer.
ProbablyThatGuy
★★★☆☆ (3.0/5.0)(1 vote)
@Wormfang Sorry, but +1/+1 != +1/+1 counters. Thelon's ability gives them a boost to their stats, which is not the same as putting a +1/+1 counter on them for each spore counter they have.
I like the guy, and it is certainly cool that you can use him as a green and black general now, but thallids and other cards that utilize a well built-up board are not terribly reliable strategies in EDH, with all of the board wiping that tends to go on (your own playgroups may vary though), and the fact that it is a very visible strategy that other players will likely recognize the obvious and team up against provided you are ever significantly in the lead. Still, he is definitely a cool and flavorful general for a thallid/saproling deck that doesn't want to include white, or just dislikes Ghave. His low cmc yet strong effect make him a strong inclusion in a 1v1 or regular multiplayer deck as well. He deserves his high rating no doubt.
doombladez
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Amazing card, makes your thallids all the more terrifying, even after just a few turns. Also surprised no one has mentioned a doubling season combo with thallids, they'd get double the spore counters and double the saprolings, to me it's an awesome combo.
steelpommel
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Having a tough time figuring this out.
Thinking of adding a Corpsejack Menace To my thallid deck but don't know if I should
So let's say I have this out which gives +1/+1 for each of my spore counters on a creature. Does that make those spore counters, +1/+1 counters as well? Or is it a conditional added to the fungus counter
I also have that problem when a Mycoloth starts getting spore counters when Thelon is out. I know it gets pumped but does it get the saproling bonus?
Missile_Penguin
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(6 votes)
Each Time Spiral card was an homage to at least one previously printed card.
The card represents Thelon, the leader of the Sarpadian elves during the time of Fallen Empires. With the Ice Age coming, food became scarce; Thelon and his cadre of mycologists, the Thelonites, developed the first Thallids, self-cultivating, semi-sentient fungi, to serve as a sustainable food source. The Thallids instead bred faster than the elves could control them and overwhelmed the elvish empire. Thelon's flavor text implies that like all Legendary Creatures in Time Spiral, he has been yanked from his time line and is now bearing witness to the fallout of his actions.
StyrofoamKing
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
@ steelpommel - The +1/+1s and sporecounters are different, so the Corpsejack doesn't double it.
(Of course, if you have a Ghave EDH deck, then the Corpsejack will double HIS +1/+1 counters, getting you more anyway.) If you want to have your non-thallid fungus create saps, you need a Sporoloth Ancient. And both the Ancient and Thelon go amazing with Sporesower Thallid, as mentioned by everyone else.
Personally, I like stockpiling the spores on my thallids and if any of them are pinged for death, have them explode into a flurry of saps at the last second.
Comments (24)
Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII is a fascinating read. *spoiler* trulls rebeled against the order and eventually killed everyone on the island. Looks like thelon survived.
This is true for many other would-be generals, such as Memnarch, Daughter of Autum, and Bosh, the Iron Golem.
Since spore counters can be converted to saprolings at any time, but saprolings can never be converted back to spore counters (at least, not directly with any card I have seen yet, you could work some tricky combo with the fungus that allows you to sac saprolings for mana and use that to power fungal bloom, but...ehhh...) I avoid using the spore counters until the very moment I need them. If an effect is about to wipe out all the spore counters of course they become saprolings, but if an effect would wipe out all the saprolings, well, chances are I don't have any yet. If I am going to make a big attack I wait till end of turn before my turn to build my huge saproling army so they can all attack on my turn. Thelon will work great for me without any black mana, though I may add something that can generate any color mana just for him.
As always YMMV
Sorry, but +1/+1 != +1/+1 counters. Thelon's ability gives them a boost to their stats, which is not the same as putting a +1/+1 counter on them for each spore counter they have.
I like the guy, and it is certainly cool that you can use him as a green and black general now, but thallids and other cards that utilize a well built-up board are not terribly reliable strategies in EDH, with all of the board wiping that tends to go on (your own playgroups may vary though), and the fact that it is a very visible strategy that other players will likely recognize the obvious and team up against provided you are ever significantly in the lead. Still, he is definitely a cool and flavorful general for a thallid/saproling deck that doesn't want to include white, or just dislikes Ghave. His low cmc yet strong effect make him a strong inclusion in a 1v1 or regular multiplayer deck as well. He deserves his high rating no doubt.
Thinking of adding a Corpsejack Menace To my thallid deck but don't know if I should
So let's say I have this out which gives +1/+1 for each of my spore counters on a creature. Does that make those spore counters, +1/+1 counters as well? Or is it a conditional added to the fungus counter
I also have that problem when a Mycoloth starts getting spore counters when Thelon is out. I know it gets pumped but does it get the saproling bonus?
The card represents Thelon, the leader of the Sarpadian elves during the time of Fallen Empires. With the Ice Age coming, food became scarce; Thelon and his cadre of mycologists, the Thelonites, developed the first Thallids, self-cultivating, semi-sentient fungi, to serve as a sustainable food source. The Thallids instead bred faster than the elves could control them and overwhelmed the elvish empire. Thelon's flavor text implies that like all Legendary Creatures in Time Spiral, he has been yanked from his time line and is now bearing witness to the fallout of his actions.
(Of course, if you have a Ghave EDH deck, then the Corpsejack will double HIS +1/+1 counters, getting you more anyway.) If you want to have your non-thallid fungus create saps, you need a Sporoloth Ancient. And both the Ancient and Thelon go amazing with Sporesower Thallid, as mentioned by everyone else.
Personally, I like stockpiling the spores on my thallids and if any of them are pinged for death, have them explode into a flurry of saps at the last second.
-Swag_Crow