Heliod, Sun-Crowned MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 8 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost3
RarityMythic
TypeLegendary Enchantment Creature — God
Abilities Indestructible
Power 5
Toughness 5

Key Takeaways

  1. Heliod excels in life-gain decks, converting healing into sizeable advantages, fortifying creatures.
  2. Leveraging Heliod’s abilities can provide a cost-efficient way to bolster your creatures without mana.
  3. Playing against Heliod requires specific strategies like exile or ability-preventing spells to handle its impact.

Text of card

Indestructible As long as your devotion to white is less than five, Heliod isn't a creature. Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature or enchantment you control. : Another target creature gains lifelink until end of turn.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Heliod Sun-Crowned has a unique ability to gain life whenever you or another creature enters the battlefield under your control, transforming each instance into potential card advantage. Pairing Heliod with creatures that have lifelink or other life-gain strategies can quickly populate your board and keep your hand full, ensuring you’re always ahead in resources.

Resource Acceleration: With Heliod’s second ability, you can put a +1/+1 counter on target creature or enchantment you control whenever you gain life. This not only strengthens your creatures but does so in a way that bypasses the need for mana expenditure, effectively accelerating your resource allocation and board presence without dipping into your mana pool.

Instant Speed: While Heliod Sun-Crowned himself isn’t an instant, his ability to interact at instant speed is a significant pro. You can respond to opponent’s actions by gaining life in a myriad of ways, thus placing +1/+1 counters at critical moments during combat or in response to spells and abilities, disrupting your opponent’s strategy and providing surprise advantages on the board.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Heliod Sun-Crowned doesn’t command you to discard cards to utilize his abilities, there’s an underlying need to consistently play creatures or enchantments to leverage his lifegain synergy. In rounds where your hand is empty or your resources are tight, this can feel like an indirect discard requirement, as you’re pressured to play cards to get any value from him.

Specific Mana Cost: Heliod Sun-Crowned comes with a devotion mechanic that relies on a specific mana cost, namely white mana symbols. This makes him more suited to mono-white or heavily white-focused decks where achieving the threshold of five white mana symbols to turn him into a creature is viable. In multicolored decks, meeting this requirement can be challenging and sometimes inefficient.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Despite being a powerful deity, his three mana cost can be high for an effect bound by a particular gameplay style (lifegain). With the current pace of the game, many players might find a three-cost legendary enchantment creature without an immediate board impact to be a disadvantage when tempo is critical.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Heliod Sun-Crowned thrives in various deck builds, particularly those centered around life gain. His ability to give +1/+1 counters to creatures not only fortifies your board presence but also seamlessly integrates into counter-centric strategies.

Combo Potential: With Heliod, infinite combos become attainable. Pairing him with cards like Walking Ballista allows for endless damage loops, providing a direct path to victory in many game scenarios.

Meta-Relevance: In a meta laden with aggressive strategies, Heliod Sun-Crowned’s indestructible nature ensures longevity on the battlefield. Moreover, his life-link attribute can be a game-changer, swinging the tide in matches that hinge on life total as a resource.


How to beat

Heliod Sun-Crowned is a defining card in MTG, with the ability to make creatures more threatening through its +1/+1 counter distribution and potentially grant a significant amount of life. Navigating a game against this card necessitates a strategic approach. One method to offset Heliod’s impact is to employ removal spells that can exile it, like Path to Exile, which directly addresses its indestructibility. Another tactic is to use board wipes such as Wrath of God to clear all creatures, ignoring the counters provided by Heliod. Utilizing spells that reduce life gain, or even better, turning life gain into damage with cards like Tainted Remedy, can disrupt the synergy Heliod tends to create. Finally, cards that prevent abilities from activating, such as Phyrexian Revoker, can shut down Heliod’s ability to distribute counters, thus negating a major part of its strength. Assessing the decks that house Heliod and anticipating when and how your opponent might use it will be key in developing a successful strategy against this formidable card.


BurnMana Recommendations

Dive deeper into the inspiring abilities of Heliod Sun-Crowned. With its synergy for life-gain strategies and potential to create card advantage, it transforms every match into a tactical play. Understanding its strengths and weaknesses is crucial for any MTG player looking to optimize their gameplay. Navigate through its pros and cons to exploit its indestructibility, discover its combo potentials, and consider its place in the current meta. For those intrigued by Heliod’s unique offerings and interested in mastering decks that celebrate life as a resource, we encourage you to enhance your collection and gameplay strategies with us.


Cards like Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Heliod Sun-Crowned secures its place in MTG as a unique enchantment creature, offering not just solidity on the battlefield but also a strategic life-gain ability. When weighing it against other cards, Heliod stands out with its ability to place a +1/+1 counter on another target creature or enchantment you control whenever you gain life. This is particularly powerful as it turns even the smallest life gain triggers into potential board advantages.

We observe a similarity with Ajani’s Pridemate, which also benefits from life gain by allowing it to bulk up quickly, but it lacks the deity’s durability as it’s not indestructible and doesn’t enable other creatures to grow en masse. Another comparable card is Archangel of Thune, which boasts a similar mechanic of placing +1/+1 counters on each creature you control upon life gain. However, the angel’s higher casting cost and reliance on being present on the battlefield for its effect make Heliod’s static ability a more versatile and consistent option in decks that focus on accruing incremental value over time.

In conclusion, despite the presence of other life gain synergy cards in MTG, Heliod Sun-Crowned’s resilience and the potential for widespread buffs make it an incomparable addition to any deck looking to flourish through life gain. It’s the kind of card that not only stands its ground independently but also elevates the performance of the team.

Ajani's Pridemate - MTG Card versions
Archangel of Thune - MTG Card versions
Ajani's Pridemate - Magic 2011 (M11)
Archangel of Thune - Magic 2014 (M14)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Heliod, Sun-Crowned MTG card by a specific set like Magic Online Promos and Secret Lair Drop, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Heliod, Sun-Crowned and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Heliod, Sun-Crowned Magic the Gathering card was released in 5 different sets between 2019-12-02 and 2023-08-04. Illustrated by 3 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-06-24Magic Online PromosPRM 798492015normalblackJason A. Engle
22019-12-02Secret Lair DropSLD 2142015normalborderlessBrandi Milne
32020-01-24Theros Beyond DeathTHB 2592015normalblackJason A. Engle
42020-01-24Theros Beyond Death PromosPTHB 18p2015normalblackLius Lasahido
52020-01-24Theros Beyond Death PromosPTHB 18s2015normalblackLius Lasahido
62020-01-24Theros Beyond DeathTHB 182015normalblackLius Lasahido
72023-08-04Commander MastersCMM 4622015normalblackLius Lasahido
82023-08-04Commander MastersCMM 292015normalblackLius Lasahido

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Heliod, Sun-Crowned has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
CommanderLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
GladiatorLegal
PioneerLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Heliod, Sun-Crowned card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

DateText
2020-01-24 A noncreature enchantment with a +1/+1 counter on it will be unaffected by that counter until it becomes a creature, at which time it will get +1/+1 for that counter.
2020-01-24 As a God enters the battlefield, your devotion to its color will determine whether any replacement effects that affect creatures entering the battlefield apply to that God. Because replacement effects are considered before the God is on the battlefield, the mana symbols in its mana cost won’t be counted when determining this.
2020-01-24 Colorless and generic mana symbols (, , , , , and so on) in mana costs of permanents you control don’t count toward your devotion to any color.
2020-01-24 Counters put on a God remain on it while it’s not a creature, even if they have no effect.
2020-01-24 Each creature with lifelink dealing combat damage causes a separate life-gaining event. For example, if two creatures you control with lifelink deal combat damage at the same time, Heliod’s ability will trigger twice. However, if a single creature you control with lifelink deals combat damage to multiple creatures, players, and/or planeswalkers at the same time (perhaps because it has trample or was blocked by more than one creature), the ability will trigger only once.
2020-01-24 Heliod can be the target of its own triggered ability.
2020-01-24 Heliod’s triggered ability triggers just once for each life-gaining event, whether it’s 1 life from Daxos, Blessed by the Sun or 3 life from Cling to Dust. If you gain an amount of life “for each” of something or “equal to the number” of something, that life is gained as one event and Heliod’s ability triggers only once.
2020-01-24 Hybrid mana symbols, monocolored hybrid mana symbols, and Phyrexian mana symbols do count toward your devotion to their color(s).
2020-01-24 If a God is attacking or blocking and it stops being a creature, it will be removed from combat. It won’t rejoin combat if it resumes being a creature later during that combat.
2020-01-24 If a God stops being a creature, it loses the type creature and the creature type God. It continues to be a legendary enchantment.
2020-01-24 If a creature is dealt lethal damage at the same time that you gain life, it can’t receive a counter from Heliod’s ability in time to save it.
2020-01-24 If an activated ability or triggered ability has an effect that depends on your devotion to a color, you count the number of mana symbols of that color among the mana costs of permanents you control as the ability resolves. The permanent with that ability will be counted if it’s still on the battlefield at that time.
2020-01-24 If an effect causes a God to lose all abilities, its ability that causes it to stop being a creature still applies if appropriate.
2020-01-24 If you put an Aura on an opponent’s permanent, you still control the Aura, and mana symbols in its mana cost count towards your devotion.
2020-01-24 In a Two-Headed Giant game, life gained by your teammate won’t cause the ability to trigger, even though it caused your team’s life total to increase.
2020-01-24 Mana symbols in the text boxes of permanents you control don’t count toward your devotion to any color.
2020-01-24 Multiple instances of lifelink on the same creature are redundant.
2020-01-24 The abilities of Gods function as long as they’re on the battlefield, regardless of whether they’re creatures.
2020-01-24 The type-changing ability that can make a God not be a creature functions only on the battlefield. It’s always a creature card in other zones, regardless of your devotion to its color. It’s always a creature spell while it’s on the stack.
2020-01-24 When a God enters the battlefield, your devotion to its color (including the mana symbols in the mana cost of the God itself) will determine if a creature entered the battlefield or not for abilities that trigger whenever a creature enters the battlefield.

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