<p style="text-align: right;"><em><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Avacyn, Angel of Hope" href="#" target="_blank">Avacyn, Angel of Hope</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="https://www.jasonchanart.com/mtg/">Jason Chan</a></em></p>
<p>Angels are the face of white <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-w" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>. In fact, they're the iconic creature type of the color!</p>
<p>They have a range of abilities, strategies, and functions, but always will be a force to reckon with when fielded. And they really can do it all! Few Angels can't hold their own in a fight, and fewer still don't have some major synergy with other Angels, Humans, or Clerics. And oftentimes, all three of these creature types feed into one another in multiple ways.</p>
<p>But how do you get started with Angels? And what are their best practices?</p>
<p>Everyone needs to start somewhere. With Angels, it's always best to grab yourself some wings, put on a halo, and get ready to smite the unworthy.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Avacyn, Angel of Hope"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Giada, Font of Hope"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Gisela, the Broken Blade"></div></div>
<h2>At A Glance</h2>
<p>Angels are predominantly white-aligned, with a few significant deviations to other colors. The most notable and consistent are "fallen" Angels that include black, though there are a fair few corrupted Angels that are red-aligned.</p>
<p>As a fairly common creature type, there are Angels that splash into every color, including purely colorless Angels.</p>
<p>Their most common keywords are flying, lifelink, and vigilance<strong>,</strong> making them fantastic defenders who nevertheless can be fairly aggressive. Their stats tend to be either mid-range or higher; weak Angels often have ways of increasing their stats, such as <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Angelic Protector" href="#" target="_blank">Angelic Protector</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p>Their highest synergies tend to be with other Angels, often due to their shared lifelink and various abilities requiring gaining life or having a life count higher than your starting life total. Others rely upon providing +1/+1 to creatures and/or spawning tokens; see <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Resplendent Angel" href="#" target="_blank">Resplendent Angel</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> for an example.</p>
<p>Their biggest weaknesses tend to be their cost and their focus on "conventional" strategies of attacking a single opponent directly. The former is mitigated by built-in and synergistic cost reduction targeting Angels, a la <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Starnheim Aspirant" href="#" target="_blank">Starnheim Aspirant</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. The latter can be offset by the sheer number of Angels you can field as well as white's built-in removal.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Angelic Protector"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Resplendent Angel"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Starnheim Aspirant"></div></div>
<h2>What Are Angels?</h2>
<p>Angels in <em>Magic</em> are quite similar to modern-day conceptions of angelic figures. They represent divine emissaries and servants of deities, particularly good deities. In some planes, Angels are mortals who ascended with the grace of a higher power.</p>
<p>A step below proper Gods, Angels are more active forces in the planes they're active on than their masters. They are responsible for responding to prayers and shepherding the faithful. Though not always worshiped, Angels are nearly universally lauded and respected as protectors of their home planes.</p>
<p>They simultaneously act as the shield of the weak and the sword of justice, primarily against higher-orders of threats, such as Demons. Most notably, they were a pivotal force to protect the multiverse from the Phyrexian Invasion. This was due to the unique substance they can produce called Halo, which allowed defenders of the planes to stave off phyresis.</p>
<p>For a set focused on Angels, <em>Streets of New Capenna</em> is a fantastic place to start.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Firja, Judge of Valor"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Aurelia, the Warleader"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Rodolf Duskbringer"></div></div>
<h2>What Do Angels Do?</h2>
<p>The core competency is making a flying shieldwall of lifegaining mid-ranges.</p>
<p>Almost every Angel has flying, meaning they not only can ignore most chaff but they can defend against most threats as well. On top of this, vigilance primes them to defend you even after attacking, which pairs to be an aggressive combination of keywords if an opponent doesn't have flying blockers.</p>
<p>Lifelink gives them the ability to gain life when dealing damage, and many Angels have abilities that scale off of how much life you have or activate upon gaining life. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Righteous Valkyrie" href="#" target="_blank">Righteous Valkyrie</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> has an ability that only activates when you have at least 7 life more than your starting life total, for instance. Some don't even require you to gain life, merely retain your life and not drop below a threshold, such as <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Angel of Vitality" href="#" target="_blank">Angel of Vitality</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, which, for an inexpensive Angel, is quite handy to have!</p>
<p>Further, Angels love +1/+1 counters. In fairness, white <span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-w" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span> as a whole loves +1/+1 counters when they come wrapped in a lifegain bow. Creatures such as <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Archangel of Thune" href="#" target="_blank">Archangel of Thune</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> are just extending this to the already lifegain-heavy Angel creature type. In addition to the conditional bonuses mentioned above, Angels will absolutely benefit from being kept on the field and allowed to grow.</p>
<p>Some Angels impart protections onto other creatures, like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Avacyn, Angel of Hope" href="#" target="_blank">Avacyn, Angel of Hope</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. Others allow for additional value from playing more creatures or reclaiming creatures that die, such as <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Liesa, Forgotten Archangel" href="#" target="_blank">Liesa, Forgotten Archangel</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. And of course, Angels that lean into other colors will naturally have affinities for those others colors' mechanics.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Righteous Valkyrie"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Angel of Vitality"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Archangel of Thune"></div></div>
<h2>What Works With Angels?</h2>
<p>Angels love Angels and are a common enough creature type that a deck can reasonably be filled with them exclusively. Some Angels explicitly power up other Angels, like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lyra Dawnbringer" href="#" target="_blank">Lyra Dawnbringer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. But more commonly, Angels either provide lifegain or benefit from lifegain, thereby feeding into a positive cycle of growth.</p>
<p>However, there is a fair amount of support from other cards, particularly Humans and Clerics. Even lands can help buoy them up, like in the case of <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Seraph Sanctuary" href="#" target="_blank">Seraph Sanctuary</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bishop of Wings" href="#" target="_blank">Bishop of Wings</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> furthers your lifegain upon Angels entering the field and allows you to comfortably trade weaker Angels in blocking. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sigarda, Font of Blessings" href="#" target="_blank">Sigarda, Font of Blessings</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is an Angel that allows you to play both Angels and Humans more easily. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kaalia of the Vast" href="#" target="_blank">Kaalia of the Vast</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> got tired of paying mana and simply decided you can play Angels for free.</p>
<p>At their core, Angels are the posterchildren of white and have a synergy with just about anything that is typical to the color. Lifegain, +1/+1 counters, indestructibility, and taxing your opponents all have either direct mechanical interactions with Angels or simply synergize well with them.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Bishop of Wings"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lyra Dawnbringer"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Seraph Sanctuary"></div></div>
<h2>What Are Angels Weak To?</h2>
<h3>Their Own Cost</h3>
<p>Given that they average in mid-range stats, Angels tend to be more expensive. Further, they often fail the "vanilla test," which is to ask if the converted mana cost of a card is equal to or less than its power and toughness. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Serra Angel" href="#" target="_blank">Serra Angel</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is an example of a card that fails this, costing five mana but having a 4/4 statline. Like with most Angels, it has flying and vigilance to mitigate this.</p>
<p>However, Angels love making themselves less expensive. Sometimes they do this for themself, like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sephara, Sky&#039;s Blade" href="#" target="_blank">Sephara, Sky&#039;s Blade</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. Other times they rely on external support, such as <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Starnheim Aspirant" href="#" target="_blank">Starnheim Aspirant</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and sometimes it's just <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Giada, Font of Hope" href="#" target="_blank">Giada, Font of Hope</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, who not only makes your Angels cheaper but also stronger.</p>
<p>It's not generally an issue to field your Angels and, once the game gets going, you'll have no problem at all, but in those first few rounds, your board will likely be more open than you'd like. You can always add some cheap, life-gaining creature, such as <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Soul Warden" href="#" target="_blank">Soul Warden</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, to act as chump blockers in the early game and Angel support in the endgame.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sephara, Sky&#039;s Blade"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Starnheim Aspirant"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Giada, Font of Hope"></div></div>
<h3>Playing Nontraditionally</h3>
<p>Broadly speaking, Angels don't support a strategy other than "attack the opponent until their life is reduced to 0." Sometimes they swarm with dozens of tokens, sometimes it's a few heavy hitters. Angel decks are primed to win via commander damage, given their synergies and flying commanders. They have options!</p>
<p>But rare is the Angel that deviates from this.</p>
<p>There are always exceptions, as seen with something like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Platinum Angel" href="#" target="_blank">Platinum Angel</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, but even then, it's not winning via an alternative method or forcing your opponent to respond to a schema shift, it's just good ol'fashioned creature pressure, which is a completely valid strategy, and one often ignored outside of aggro decks.</p>
<p>Some Angels take this a different direction, such as Atraxa. Being able to proliferate with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice" href="#" target="_blank">Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> opens up poison counters or even something wacky, like <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Azor&#039;s Elocutors" href="#" target="_blank">Azor&#039;s Elocutors</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, as alternate strategies. Then <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Atraxa, Grand Unifier" href="#" target="_blank">Atraxa, Grand Unifier</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> simply has the utility to get you the cards you need in your hand. Never a bad thing, particularly given that commander involves other colors than white.</p>
<p>In either case, a deck full of Angels to support them will ensure you can continue in your plans without much issue from direct confrontation, and even pinging spellslings may not be able to keep up with your lifegain.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Platinum Angel"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Atraxa, Grand Unifier"></div></div>
<h3>Green, To An Extent</h3>
<p>Angels are uniquely at odds with green's built-in protections.</p>
<p>There are green spells that destroy fliers, and reach is almost exclusively a green keyword. Green's ability to create tokens and build massive creatures will slow or stop most early-game Angel fields. Green's love of trample means they can maintain pressure to combat lifegain. Hexproof can stop white's removal.</p>
<p>However, Angels aren't "weak" to Green, they're just a prime target for some of its unique features. Trample won't always outpace Angel's lifegain, and most of green's flying removal is single-target, which can even be protected against a number of ways; <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Shalai, Voice of Plenty" href="#" target="_blank">Shalai, Voice of Plenty</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is one such means of protection.</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Plummet"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Skyreaping"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Shoot Down"></div></div>
<h2>Angels Are a Solid Choice</h2>
<p>There are very few things that Angels are legitimately bad at, which makes sense, given they're an iconic creature for white!</p>
<p>They can attack opponents while easily defending you, strengthening themselves every combat while gaining you life. Though they struggle to go outside of this traditional approach to play, they're quite good at that approach, and their methods to step around it aren't too bad, either!</p>
<p>A mono-white Angel deck is a fantastic place to start in <em>Magic</em> as a game, and with some brewing can even be a threat at higher brackets. Some good introductory commanders are:</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Giada, Font of Hope" href="#" target="_blank">Giada, Font of Hope</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, allowing you to summon cheaper Angels that scale the more you have on the field.</li>
<li><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lyra Dawnbringer" href="#" target="_blank">Lyra Dawnbringer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, to focus on life-threshold abilities and make your mid-range Angels legitimate threats.</li>
<li><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Avacyn, Angel of Hope" href="#" target="_blank">Avacyn, Angel of Hope</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, to have a powerhouse, sweeping endgame rush.</li>
</ul>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Giada, Font of Hope"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lyra Dawnbringer"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Avacyn, Angel of Hope"></div></div>


How To Play Angels In Commander

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Worldslayer" href="#" target="_blank">Worldslayer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="https://www.artstation.com/gregstaples">Greg Staples</a>)</h6>
<h1>The Problems (and Opportunities) of History</h1>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">During his tenure as an advisor at the Kennedy White House, historian Arthur Schlesinger was frequently interrupted by people wanting to pick his brain. They would pull him aside and ask him to divine, say, China’s trade policy in the coming decade. He soon came up with a handy deflection in his essay </span><span class="s2">"The Problem of Hope":</span></p>
<p class="p1" style="padding-left: 40px;"><span class="s1"><em>"History cannot answer questions with confidence or certainty at short range. Alas, policy-makers are rarely interested in the long run—‘In the long run,’ Keynes used to say, ‘we are all dead’—and the questions they put to history are thus most often the questions which history is least qualified to answer."</em></span></p>
<p>In this case, we're going to use the practice of historiography - examining how we know what we think we know about the historical record using primary sources and reactions to same - in regards to <em>Magic: the Gathering. </em>We'll look at the <em>Mirrodin</em> block, and how it changed everything.</p>
<p><a href="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/mirrodin.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-38216 aligncenter" src="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/mirrodin.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="177" /></a></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> Documents written about history reveal as much about the time at which they were written as they do about the time they propose to examine. I believe this applies to <em>Magic: the Gathering</em> cards as much as it does to wills, journals, and other historical primary sources.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Since 1993, <em>Magic: The Gathering</em> has been weaving its own history in its development into the game we know and love today. The purpose of today’s essay is to conduct a thought experiment by revisiting a period in <em>Magic: the Gathering’s</em> past through the lens of a particular card, and what a deck based around that card might look like in the Commander format, both when first published and in the present day.</span></p>
<p>Without further ado, let's hop in our time machine.</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> The year is 2003, the set is <em>Mirrodin</em>, which takes place on a plane of the same name. It's a world rusty and rotten with artifacts, and the card under discussion is:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Worldslayer"></div></div></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> By examining the changes introduced and expanded upon in the <em>Mirrodin</em> set, we can reconstruct what Commander decks (a much more niche format then, seeing as the first preconstructed Commander decks wouldn’t be printed until eight years later in 2011) might have looked like.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> In short, we’ll be looking at an old card in a new way, as it would have been at first printing and what a Commander deck based around it might have looked like with the cards available from <em>Mirrodin</em> set backwards. In doing so, and by understanding the context of a particular card, we can draw upon cards that have otherwise gone overlooked in Commander and see their synergies with our subject, along the way highlighting the differences in how the cards are used together.</span></p>
<hr />
<h2><em>Mirrodin</em>: The Set That Changed <em>Magic</em></h2>
<p>It is not an overstatement to say that the <em>Mirrodin</em> block changed the face of <em>Magic: The Gathering</em> in very real and permanent ways. The role of artifacts was greatly expanded, even into the land slot (a mistake R&amp;D has wisely not repeated). There are two great legacies from the <em>Mirrodin</em> block, and I want you to take a moment and ponder what they are. One will be visible, and the other will be invisible.</p>
<p>Here are the top four cards on this site from <em>Mirrodin</em>:</p>
<p><a href="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Screen-Shot-2019-08-15-at-8.44.43-PM.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-37842" src="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Screen-Shot-2019-08-15-at-8.44.43-PM.png" alt="" width="607" height="223" /></a></p>
<p>All of them either are, or interact specifically with, artifacts. Most pertinent to our argument is the fact that the Equipment subtype was introduced and pushed heavily as a mechanic. Since then, there have been Equipment in every set. The reasons people generally enjoy Equipment are obvious: they're flavorful, fun, and they allow all the colors a greatly expanded toolkit for dealing with the problems of resource management and meddlesome opponents.</p>
<p>The second thing, the invisible change as of <em>Mirrodin's</em> release, was the printing of indestructible cards in <em>Darksteel</em>. This act would eventually lead to the phasing out of the <em>Regenerate</em> mechanic that existed since <em>Magic's</em> infancy (and at one point had actually been ruled to allow creatures to die, then be resurrected; thankfully this was changed, as it was insanely powerful).</p>
<p>Let me note here that there was nothing inevitable about this transition; one of the major problems with historical studies is the problem of inevitability. O<span class="s1">ur knowledge of the sequence of events taints our understanding of the end result. Viewed this way, history acquires a tinge of 'inevitability' to it for events that were far from inevitable. </span>There was nothing inevitable about the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War, or of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan in WWII. A complex series of factors precipitated these events. However, viewed with sufficient distance, they can seem as natural as the sun rising in the east. Don't fall into that trap!</p>
<p>With that caveat out of the way, let's take a look at how the meta currently uses <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Worldslayer" href="#" target="_blank">Worldslayer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p>
<hr />
<h1>How You Worldslay: 2019</h1>
<p>In the present day, the default move for a deck that uses <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Worldslayer" href="#" target="_blank">Worldslayer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is to bank on a commander that is indestructible. Worldslayer comes with a hefty price tag - ten mana total to play and equip - to wipe the entire board. The natural inclination of EDH players, is to thus lean into that cost and run commanders that are indestructible or somehow protect your most valuable assets while depriving your opponents of their own.</p>
<p>Here are the top four commanders for Worldslayer as of this writing:</p>
<p><a href="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Screen-Shot-2019-08-15-at-10.40.01-PM.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-37861" src="https://articles.edhrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Screen-Shot-2019-08-15-at-10.40.01-PM.png" alt="" width="664" height="281" /></a></p>
<p>Quick breakdown: none of these creatures are green, all of them have some sort of clause that allows you to protect your resources, and all have some form of evasion. This is a strategy tested by the current meta and years of slowly integrating the 'indestructible' keyword into the game; three-fourths of the top commanders that use <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Worldslayer" href="#" target="_blank">Worldslayer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> have indestructible, with only Taniwha as the odd eel out.</p>
<p>So the meta has more or less decided that Worldslayer, on average, belongs in a deck with high stickiness and an emphasis on indestructible to break Worldslayer's seemingly symmetrical damage effect.</p>
<p>Now let's hop back in time about 16 years.</p>
<hr />
<h2>How to Worldslay: 2003</h2>
<p>Remember that time machine we discussed earlier, and the questions we were planning to ask because of it? Questions like, "How would <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Worldslayer" href="#" target="_blank">Worldslayer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> look in 2003, before indestructible was a mechanic?" "What would be the most viable commander for this card back then, and what strategies would lend themselves to this new card type?"</p>
<p>Well, before there was indestructible, there was <em>Regenerate</em>. As stated above, there was nothing inevitable about the implementation of indestructibility as a replacement to regeneration; the shift has taken a decade and change to unfold.<span class="s1"> It has been a long process, and not without pitfalls, and the best way to enjoy building a deck with historical accuracy (and accuracy’s twin, satisfaction) is to imagine that what you have is what is available to you in the ancient year of 2003. Other decks you confront are time-travelers, reality-benders, bearing cards custom-made for this kitchen-table format; they'll a good test for your deck, for your way of thinking and constructing decks, to play alongside and against them. You’re testing your deck, with the best resources available to you, against a deck filled with cards from, five, ten, fifteen years in the future.</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Isn’t that, at some level, kind of exciting? Limitations breed creativity, after all.</span></p>
<p>As of 2003, there were only 5 legendary creatures with regeneration clauses:<span class="s1"> </span><span class="s1"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ragnar" href="#" target="_blank">Ragnar</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, </span><span class="s1"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lord of Tresserhorn" href="#" target="_blank">Lord of Tresserhorn</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, </span><span class="s1"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Eron the Relentless" href="#" target="_blank">Eron the Relentless</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, </span><span class="s1"><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cromat" href="#" target="_blank">Cromat</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, and <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Silvos, Rogue Elemental" href="#" target="_blank">Silvos, Rogue Elemental</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (which was reprinted in <em>Eternal Masters</em>.</span></p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Silvos, Rogue Elemental"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lord of Tresserhorn"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Cromat"></div></div>
<p>Here, green and red are best-represented colors in the lineup, a stark contrast from 2019's top commanders that we saw above. <em>Regenerate</em> works as a replacement effect, and is expensive; this naturally directs me towards a commander with green in its cost to allow for ramp. Let us say, for the sake of the argument, that we decided for our hypothetical build-around-<span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Worldslayer" href="#" target="_blank">Worldslayer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> deck to settle on <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Silvos, Rogue Elemental" href="#" target="_blank">Silvos, Rogue Elemental</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> as our commander. This also makes sense when we consider that in 2003, this staple of the format was printed for the first time:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Tooth and Nail"></div></div>
<p>This card alone would allow us a lot of leeway in picking the exact board state we want for <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Worldslayer" href="#" target="_blank">Worldslayer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> to go off. For example, one strategy we could take as hypothetical past deckbuilders would be to pack our deck with mana-hungry regenerating beasties, which could all survive the Equipment's trigger and stick around to close out the game. In 2003, after all, that's the best insurance we have for keeping a dominant position on the board, right?</p>
<p>Or perhaps we could go another way: sure, regeneration is great, and we can include as much of it as we want, but what if we profited from <em>allowing</em> the death to happen? Enter the Symbiotic and Penumbra creatures, a pair of cycles from the <em>Otaria</em> and <em>Apocalypse</em> blocks. They're creatures that, when killed, make tokens to replace themselves! Observe:</p>
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="penumbra wurm"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="symbiotic wurm"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="mongrel pack"></div></div>
<p>In this way, through prodigious ramp and the use of beaters that replace themselves, we could make a deck that is formidable even without a metallic apocalypse attached to a giant creature.</p>
<hr />
<h1>A Challenge of History</h1>
<p class="p1" style="padding-left: 40px;"><span class="s1"><i>I remember President Kennedy once stated...that the United States had the nuclear missile capacity to wipe out the Soviet Union two times over, while the Soviet Union had enough atomic weapons to wipe out the United States only once... When journalists asked me to comment... I said jokingly, "Yes, I know what Kennedy claims, and he's quite right. But I'm not complaining... We're satisfied to be able to finish off the United States first time round. Once is quite enough. </i><b><i>What good does it do to annihilate a country twice? We're not a bloodthirsty people.</i></b><i>” </i></span></p>
<p class="p1" style="padding-left: 40px;"><span class="s1"><i>(Nikita Khrushchev, in his memoirs 1974)</i></span></p>
<p>Let us consider the differences between a Worldslayer-focused deck in 2019 and 2003. A 2019 deck is, on average, going to bank on a heavy-hitting general, indestructible, and a reliance on a single powerhouse to win the game, decked out with Equipment and Auras. A 2003 deck's strategy, like the one we briefly explored with Silvos above, will also depend on a heavy hitter, but will instead rely on regeneration and value added effects (tokens) from the apocalypse you cause.</p>
<p>I would challenge all you Commander players to occasionally allow yourselves to play around with history, and see what new playstyles (or rediscovered old ones) you can unearth when you impose chronological distinctions and limits on your deckbuilding.</p>
<p>Please leave any comments or questions below, and stick around, because next article we're going to see what happens when the Sultai fight the Mardu, and use historical analysis of the Mongol invasion of Southeast Asia to do it!</p>
<p>Thanks for reading!</p>


avacyn

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Historically Speaking - Worldslayer, Regeneration, and the Power of History