(Marneus Calgar | Art by Slawomir Maniak)

The Spirit of the Army

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Recross the Paths, the series that gives commanders a typal twist. Today, we're travelling beyond MTG's universe, so that Marneus Calgar can lead us to victory. Of course, this commander is all about creating tokens to keep our hand full of cards and our gameplan going. For this reason, Spirits associate very well with this idea, as there are several ways to create creature tokens that will function as elusive attackers as well.

Stage One: The Deck

Part One: The Token Army

There's a huge amount of cards that produce Spirit tokens, so we have quite a few options to chose from. On one hand there are one-time effects such as Shadow Summoning, Lingering Souls and Promise of Bunrei. These cards give us a quick boost in creature bodies, easily drawing us cards and keeping the pressure on our opponents. Also, I just really want to play Lingering Souls again, it's such a cool card.

We can also count on several triggered effects, which will net us multiple Spirits over time. Haunted Library and Muster the Departed both care about creatures dying; the first one allows us to get something out of other players' actions as well, while the other trades this aspect with not requiring mana to activate. On another note, Whispering Wizard is another reliable source of tokens, as we're very likely to play noncreature spells during our turns. Last but not least, The Restoration of Eiganjo is a very solid Saga overall and, when it flips, it is a reliable source of additional creatures.

Talking about some heavy hitters, Invasion of Tolvada stars as a reanimation spell but then, once it's defeated, it starts both pumping and producing tokens. Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim is a sneaky one, as it doesn't create your usual 1/1 Spirits, but bigger ones that will grow even stronger over time. Lastly, Thalisse, Reverent Medium functions as a sort of secret commander. This card will straight up double the number of tokens we create during each of our turns, so we must make sure to play it at the correct time and to take maximum advantage of it.

Part Two: They've Got the Spirit

Obviously, we also run several actual creatures that are Spirits. Among them, Rattlechains, Supreme Phantom and Drogskol Captain are some all-stars from other formats that actually work very well in this list. The first one is an extremely powerful defensive tool that comes with some exceptional utility attached; the other two work as normal lord effects, with Drogskol Captain granting additional protection.

Looking at some more recent technology, Twilight Drover is completely intertwined with the sub-theme of our deck: it can pack a punch, growing every time a token leaves the battlefield, but also contribute to our army producing creatures itself. Drogskol Reinforcements is another unit of a card, making our Spirits bigger in battle and protecting them from damage-based removals. Millicent, Restless Revenant is also a new-ish tool in our arsenal, making sure that every creatures can support our cause with additional bodies.

Looking at the top-end of our curve, Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens is an additional token creator that produces even bigger, and thus more resilient, creatures. Then, in the same mana value range, we also have our two finishers. On one hand, Moonshaker Cavalry is, as many call it, "the white Craterhoof Behemoth", as it can make basically any kind of board state lethal for our opponents. On the other hand, Myojin of Blooming Dawn also works as a strong political tool, as the threat of activating it just before your turn starts can be used to our advantage. Also, it is worth noting how well these two cards play together, resulting in a 1-2 punch that can end the game on the spot.

Part Three: Spiritual Alliance

As additional support, we can count on the usual suspects, AKA, anthem effects on enchantments. In particular, this time I chose to include some cheaper ones mana-wise, as we want to deploy them as soon as possible to buff our multiple creatures. For this reason, cards such as Rally the Ranks and Shared Triumph fit perfectly in our deck. Additionally, we can get our hands on some typal-specific effects:Breath of the Sleepless is an incredible card that grants us some sweet utility.

We also have cards that synergize with our tokens specifically. Skullclamp, Idol of Oblivion and Intangible Virtue are some oldies that still work perfectly to this day, granting us cards and additional stats.

Some more recent tools include Caretaker's Talent, the card that is taking Standard by a storm and that simply is the ultimate token card, but also Kambal, Profiteering Mayor, which slowly grinds value throughout the game. Lastly, Kaya, Geist Hunter is another repeatable doubling effect for our tokens, granting us absurd value for just 3 mana.

Part Four: The Complete Decklist

Stage Two: The Data Room

We're onto the last part of this deck tech: the data room. Was this deck idea actually unique? Let's compare this list against both the average Marneus Calgar and the average Spirit deck to see what we gained (and lost) in the process.

Part One: The Average Marneus Calgar Deck

Marneus Calgar is a pretty popular commander, ranking 65^th overall with 10630 decks registered on EDHREC. Let's see how popular some of the most token-dedicated cards we included are with this general.

There are two elements worth noting in this graph. First of all, excluding a staple of the format like Skullclamp, none of these cards really result appealing for Marneus Calgar players. Not even another evergreen cards like Idol of Oblivion or Intangible Virtue seem to interest them

This may be justified by the nature of the preconstructed deck Marneus came with. In fact, being a Universes Beyond product, the most interested buyers were probably Warhammer 40,000 fans who also play Magic. For this reason, they might also be keen on keeping the deck as much on theme as possible, maybe even refusing to change the original list by any means. Hence, even though there's several good cards for tokens-matter strategies, since they are not Warhammer-themed, they don't result appealing for the players. I must say, this theses seemed reasonable to me after looking at Marneus Calgar EDHREC page, which is clearly dominated by precon-included cards.

Nonetheless, the second point I wanted to make referring to the graph is that there are still glimpses of innovation in other builds and, above all, it's clear how players are still actualizing their lists. This can be deduced mostly by looking at Kambal, Profiteering Mayor. This is a pretty new card when compared to the one that precedes it and the one that follows it, Thalisse, Reverent Medium and Intangible Virtue respectively. This means that, when changing the original decklist, players are looking at established cards but they're also keeping up with newer inclusions that may fit the theme of the deck.

Part Two: The Average Spirit Deck

The most popular Spirit commander is Millicent, Restless Revenant, which is 5^th most popular Azorius commander, 165^th overall, with 6308 decks registered on EDHREC. Let's see how popular the Spirits we play are in this environment.

I highlighted in orange the cards that were not originally present in the precon deck lead by Millicent and this makes for some interesting data to analyze.

First off, it’s crucial to notice how the 6 most popular spirits were present in the preconstructed deck, while the 6 less popular were not. This makes for some considerations: first off, there were some good creatures in that deck, as the vast majority of people didn't take them out of the list. On the other end of the spectrum, many didn't keep on actualizing their list, given that a powerful card such as Moonshaker Cavalry shows up in only about 1/5 of the Millicent lists. The middle of the pack is fun to look into too, showing us how people both add creatures based on recency (for example, Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr was printed in the Innistrad: Crimson Vow set, which was released just before the Millicent precon), but also some staples that are always good in this kind of deck (such as Empyrean Eagle).

All in all, we can say there is a core of really powerful Spirits, in which both old and newer creatures shine: the most popular Spirit deck still runs cards like Drogskol Captain or Supreme Phantom, but pairs them with fresher ones of the likes of Drogskol Reinforcements.

At the same time, there is still room for changes and innovation, with powerful top-end threats like Moonshaker Cavalry, Ao, the Dawn Sky and Myojin of Blooming Dawn really asking for a chance to shine in dedicated typal decks.

Takeaways From Today's Article

• Marneus Calgar is a super fun commander to build around! In particular, it's extremely functional how it supplements the aggro strategy it proposes with card draw. This ensures that we'll always be good on cards in hand, protecting us from the greatest weakness of token decks: board wipes. In fact, if we can always count on additional options in our hand, we can mitigate the devastating effect of a Wrath of the Gods blowing up our whole army;
• Adding on the previous note, Spirits are also an amazing creature type to play with. They can count on a very deep pool of creatures, in multiple different color combinations, making for a lot of space to tune and personalize your deck. This build in particular want to take advantage of the numerous Spirit token-creating cards, but they can also be part of a flying-matters list or be the side-theme of an enchantress deck;
• All in all, this commander was very fun to build, with many decisions to take in the deckbuilding process and also actively stimulating my interest for possible future lists. Spirits, as a creature type, keep on getting more and more support every year, differentiating and consolidating a lot of sub-archetypes within this kindred strategy. This also means that each and every of the builds that players create will be different from the others: obviously, there is a clear core of creatures that is present in almost every deck, but from there on, this creature type grants a ton of breathing room for ideas, personal taste and innovation.

Read more:

Recross the Paths - Building a Specter Deck With Tymna the Weaver and Kraum, Ludevic's Opus

The Over/Under - A Review of Warhammer 40k Commander Predictions

Jonathan Zucchetti

Jonathan is an Italy-based Magic enjoyer that has been playing, although with some pauses, ever since Mirrodin released. His passion for EDH bloomed in 2018 and, with it, the love for exotic and underrepresented builds. When he is not complaining about an “unfair” removal, you can find him fiercely defending his Delver of Secrets at a pauper table.