When a good friend gifted me the Cloud Strife Magic: The Gathering card, I used to be fairly intimidated. It’s a reprint of the wickedly highly effective Najeela, the Blade-Blossom — the sort of commander that opposing gamers goal instantly. A 3/2 human warrior that prices two colorless and one purple mana, Najeela generates a warrior creature token each time a warrior assaults, however the important thing element is its second skill. For 5 mana (certainly one of every colour) you possibly can untap all attacking creatures and provides them trample, lifelink, and haste and provides you a further fight section after that one. Due to the flexibility, meaning a commander deck with Cloud Strife/Najeela at its head has entry to all 5 colours and a really clear path to victory. All informed, the overall technique is fairly easy: ramp up quite a lot of mana, fill your board with warriors, maintain attacking to generate extra warriors, and finally set off the flexibility mid-combat. Operating a five-color deck, nonetheless, means you must fastidiously calculate the mana prices throughout all your playing cards and stability your lands and different mana-generators accordingly. There are additionally lots of instructions you possibly can doubtlessly veer. Warrior seems as a creature subtype throughout all types of units. Whereas it’s attainable to construct this out utilizing simply Remaining Fantasy playing cards, I had probably the most enjoyable mining the latest units and by embracing the weirdness of Universes Past — particularly once I added Raphael and Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the combination.
Raph & Leo, Sibling Rivals is among the many team-up playing cards from the TMNT set, combining two characters into one legendary creature. Although the cardboard is a mutant ninja turtle and never a warrior, its skill works very well right here. Each time Raph & Leo assault, they untap one or two attackers and set off a further fight section if that is the primary fight section of the flip. In follow, you possibly can assault with this duo and one other massive creature to hopefully draw out and get rid of some blockers. And in case your different attacker is a warrior, with Cloud Strife on the board, he’ll generate a warrior token. Raph & Leo then set off a further fight section. That’s while you go all out: assault with all the things and pay for Cloud’s skill to untap your attackers, buff them, and set off one more assault section. There are much better further fight playing cards on the market that I don’t personal but (like Moraug, Fury of Akoum), however the picture of Cloud teaming up a pair of Ninja Turtles is just too good to cross up. Within the TMNT packs I ripped, I additionally occurred to drag a Sword of Fireside and House reprint that includes a superb pizza cutter stuffed with cheese. It’s an tools that allows you to blink a creature and search your library for a fundamental land each time the geared up creature offers fight harm to a participant. I’d additionally beforehand harvested a Sword of the Animist from the Remaining Fantasy 7-themed Restrict Break preconstructed deck which additionally seeks out fundamental lands. Each of those assist repair your mana. So as to add to the FF7-TMNT crossover vibes, I additionally included All the things Pizza for the flavour. It additionally seeks out a land and comes with a seven-cost five-color skill that’s tremendous highly effective. Since we’ll have that mana base anyway, it synergizes very well.
I additionally pulled just a few helpful playing cards out of the Turtle Energy! TMNT precon which is five-color, specifically Exploding Barrel, Chromatic Lantern, and varied non-basic lands. Skimming by way of my Avatar: The Final Airbender playing cards, I spotted that most of the ally creatures double as warriors. So combating alongside Cloud, Raph, and Leo we now have two variations of Sokka and Katara every, together with Suki, Kyoshi Warrior. Suki might be my favourite right here since her energy is the same as the variety of creatures you management (and we’ll wind up with lots of warrior creature tokens). She additionally creates an ally creature token each time she assaults. Katara, Heroic Healer places a +1/+1 counter on one another creature you management when she enters, making her an ideal candidate for the Sword of Fireside and House blink impact to set off it once more. The actual spine for this deck, nonetheless, comes from Lorwyn Eclipsed. The set places an enormous emphasis on typal methods, nevertheless it’s principally restricted to creatures that reside in Lorwyn and Shadowmoor like elves, goblins, and kithkin. However there are many changeling playing cards that depend as all creature varieties — together with warrior. Extra importantly, the set has Gathering Stone and Chronicle of Victory. In truth, regardless of sitting on the Cloud Strife card for some time, it was pulling Chronicle of Victory that lastly satisfied me to begin constructing this deck. As soon as performed for six mana, it buffs all creatures of a selected kind with +2/+2, first strike, and trample. And everytime you play a card of the chosen kind, you draw a card. All of these 1/1 warrior tokens immediately change into 3/3s with first strike and trample.
Behold top-of-the-line Magic: The Gathering playing cards in my assortment.Picture: Wizards of the Coast
Lorwyn Eclipsed additionally delivered with Mirrormind Crown, an tools that attaches to a creature. Everytime you would create a number of tokens, you might as an alternative create tokens which are copies of the geared up creature. This one’s a bit dangerous since this deck is heavy on legendary creatures, however I do have Curious Colossus, a non-legendary big warrior that transforms all of an opponent’s creatures into 1/1 cowards. One other typal spotlight is Bloodline Bidding, an eight-cost black sorcery with convoke (creatures can faucet that can assist you pay the fee), it returns all creature playing cards of the chosen kind in your graveyard to the battlefield.
I’ve nonetheless acquired some work to do earlier than issues really feel good for this deck, which I’ve named Warriors of Strife, and I nonetheless must tweak the mana base so it’s extra balanced. I really feel like this can be a commander deck I’ll consistently be tinkering with, prefer it’s a revolving door of warrior heroes from every new set that comes out. For now, it’s in an incredible spot. Right here’s a have a look at the deck on Moxfield, the place it’s a continuing work in progress. You probably have any suggestions for cuts, changes, or singles I should purchase, be at liberty to let me know within the feedback.
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