As most of you already know by now, Magic the Gathering now has a special edition pony set with three characters rockin' that legendary creature tag. These cards have apparently already started arriving at people's houses. As a big fan of casual MTG, I thought it would be fun to play around with a bit of deckbuilding in my favorite format - Commander!
I will most likely be doing all the ponies, but Twilight seemed like the most challenging so I'm starting there. I've always wanted to try a building an AOE white buff deck, and since we are using a... less than powerful aggro creature type (for EDH at least), now seems like the perfect time to go all in and try to make it work.
Head on down below for your deck list, card ideas, and other fun stuff!
Lets get the basics out of the way before I get orbital nuked.
Silver border cards can't be used in EDH!
If you brought this pone to a competitive tournament you'd get completely obliterated anyway. This is just for fun casual group EDH. If your house rules ban you playing a weird, underpowered commander, make new house rules!
So why didn't you just go tribal and include ALL the horses/pegasus/unicorns then since Twilight's color identity is everything?
That was the original idea technically, but it was too painful. I couldn't handle it. The deck just wasn't fun to play and way too clunky with a bunch of creatures that really didn't do anything. I kept a good amount of terrible ones in there for the flying theme, but cutting black, green, and red just feels smoother since a bulk of the equines in MTG are white.
It's still really expensive for being casual!
Welcome to EDH. Fortunately unlike digital card games, you can proxy (use a paper card) when you are just screwing around with friends. I wanted the deck to not be completely terrible, so it has some power cards to make up for the army of subpar pegasus commons. Said cards just happen to be 70 bucks each. Luckily this isn't Hearthstone, so you don't have to own a card to try it.
Is this viable for 1 on 1?
Probably not. I've always played EDH in groups of 3-8, so the deck is built around that idea.
X card should replace Y card and Z card would work way better!
This is actually really cool and more than welcome. EDH has tens of thousands of cards at it's disposal, so feel free to recommend changes and things you'd do differently in the comments. I sure as hell don't know all of them. I wanted to keep to the theme of Twilight's card, so buffing (mainly flying) equines is the goal. I'm sure there are a million better ways to do that.
Go forth!
Bask in the power of the greatest Commander deck in existence!
Bask in the power of the greatest Commander deck in existence!
Creature (24)
1x Twilight Sparkle
1x Rarity
1x Angel of Jubilation
1x Boreas Charger
1x Capashen Unicorn
1x Celestial Crusader
1x Concordia Pegasus
1x Crested Sunmare
1x Diamond Mare
1x Gilded Drake
1x Harmonious Archon
1x Inspiring Unicorn
1x Loyal Pegasus
1x Loyal Unicorn
1x Metallic Mimic
1x Mistral Charger
1x Pegasus Charger
1x Phantasmal Image
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Ronom Unicorn
1x Trusted Pegasus
1x Stormfront Pegasus
1x Sungrace Pegasus
1x Surge Mare
1x Unsettled Mariner
1x Whirlpool Rider
Sorcery (9)
1x Austere Command
1x Dusk / Dawn
1x Finale of Revelation
1x Plea for Power
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Recurring Insight
1x Storm Herd
1x Supreme Verdict
Enchantment (7)
1x Commander's Insignia
1x Crusade
1x Force of Virtue
1x Honor of the Pure
1x Pegasus Refuge
1x Rhystic Study
1x Sacred Mesa
Land (36)
1x Adarkar Wastes
1x Azorius Chancery
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
1x Glacial Fortress
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Homeward Path
1x Irrigated Farmland
8x Island
1x Nimbus Maze
12x Plains
1x Prairie Stream
1x Reflecting Pool
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Strip Mine
1x Temple of Enlightenment
1x Tundra
1x Vesuva
Instant (13)
1x Anticipate
1x Counterspell
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Generous Gift
1x Impulse
1x Mana Drain
1x Nature's Chant
1x Path to Exile
1x Pull from Tomorrow
1x Return to Dust
1x Sundering Growth
1x Swords to Plowshares
Artifact (8)
1x Bident of Thassa
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Sculpting Steel
1x Sol Ring
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Thran Dynamo
Planeswalker (1)
1x Ajani Goldmane
The Breakdown
Commander Twilight Sparkle reportin for duty~
And broken. She's literally half finished.
While we wait for Hasbro to release Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash some time in the next decade, at least we can use some of her strengths! Or 2/4th of her strengths in this case.
Technically her ultimate ability makes her overall commander color identity anything, so you could run any card you want. In this case though, we are using her as a more traditional 2 color commander and focusing on her other bonuses.
First off, she only costs 2 mana. She'll fall over if even a stiff breeze heads her way, but at least you can reliably drop her whenever for that AOE buff. Early on she's the most adorable little mosquito in the game with that flying and super heavy hitting 2/2.
Don't completely knock her combat ability though. A 2 mana flying commander can actually be pretty nasty. So feel free to lay on the pinprick commander damage a bit while people don't see her as much of a threat. I've had a few games now where she popped in with Lightning Greaves, Sword of Feast and Famine, a bunch of buffs, and finished people off. Also friendship. It's good for friendship.
You can't have your pony princess go into battle naked. Even if she's usually naked. Get her some hoofboots, and throw her the best sword.
The Dream Team
"I've always wanted to make a pony deck" I thought as I gazed over the list of horses, pegasus, and unicorns over on Gatherer while researching this one. Little did I know that the majority of them are pretty uhh... underwhelming? In the end, my final list of potentials had about 58 equines of all sizes, shapes, and colors. The majority of them were not that great.
After playing around with different sets, a pegasus focus seemed to be the most smooth for this deck. When you buff your creatures, you want them to be able to get through the wall of fatties your opponents are putting up, and Flying is pretty good at that.
Sacred Mesa gives you an extra engine for more, and Pegasus Refuge works well with the heavy drawpower this deck runs to make up for it's weak creature base, even if chucking a white card for a 1/1 flyer feels bad. Doing it 3 times at the end of the last players turn then swinging with your buffed 5/5 army feels good.
The best part about this deck is the complete and utter shock when you play that 2/1 flyer on turn 2 and another on turn 3. You will literally be completely ignored from then on as everyone assumes your deck is terrible. The ultimate evasion technique.
Even Dreamier
I mean, just look at that art.
Rarity is probably the best unicorn out there, so she's joining Twilight. Finally a use for that Shadowbolt Rainbow Dash that has been collecting dust!
These guys destroy all those nasty mana reflections and protection cards people love running in EDH. They also don't fly, so we might as well find some kind of use for them.
I wanted to add more lifegain for Crested Sunmare to roll off of that still stuck to the deck's theme and didn't gobble up too many slots, but investing too many cards into something that isn't your commander without black tutors never works out well. It's a solid horse anyway on it's own with all the horsey buffs, and if you get lucky and pull these two with one of the clone/changeling creatures in this deck, you can get a pretty rockin' army of indestructable 5/5/ horses going. With the cycling and drawpower of this deck, it happens a lot.
Loyal Unicorn keeps you on the offensive, and since Twilight Sparkle only costs 2 mana initially, she's easy to resummon when she inevitably dies to literally anything. Luckily we have a card to take advantage of that later!
Unleash the CLONES
What happens when your equine pickings are kinda limited? You use fake ones instead. Metallic Mimic keeps to the theme of buffing your pones, and Unsettled Mariner gives them a bit of protection against that one guy that thinks it's a good idea to putrefy your 4/3 flyer instead of the Eldrazi that just laid waste to the guy next to him. "He probably has a counter spell anyway, it's pointless!". Dude... he was tapped out.
Phyrexian Metamorph is a god, and Phantasmal Image is a stupidly cheap way to get another sunmane. Truth be told, you will most likely be using these two to clone other people's stuff, as your own pickings are kinda terrible in comparison to that Pathrazor of Ulamog the Golgari guy just dropped on turn 4 or the Akroma the angel deck just cheated out on turn 3. Oh, is she hasted with double strike too? Awesome. Good luck Twilight!
THE ENGINE
Your creatures are weak. Your army is paper. You'd never usually run a bunch of 2/1 flyers with no other stats in an EDH deck. To make up for your it, you will need some heavy card cycling to replenish those frontlines. Be that by chucking cards with Pegasus Refuge or spamming your horses two at a time.
Sometimes Bident of Thassa hands you a pile of freshly drawn hot garbage and Whirlpool Rider saves the day with a brand new set of weenies to send off to their inevitable demise. Other times you are completely out of gas and top-deck a Finale of Revelation to spend a turn replenishing your stocks.
You might even get lucky and open with a Rhystic Study... Even if it's going to be melted the second it hits the field because your friends don't want to deal with the constant "ARE YOU GONNA PAY 1??? :3:3:3" every time they cast a spell.
Recurring Insight really shines in EDH since 9 out of 10 times someone is going to have a Reliquary Tower out with a half his deck in hand laughing at the pathetic mortals while he plans his grand finale. Laugh right back and counter-grand finale with your complete lack of kill condition instead! At least you have friendship right?
THE BUFFS
These cards don't see a lot of play in EDH, at least from the groups I've been involved in. Group buff is time consuming when you can just dump a fatty and melt people. This is the fate I decided though... so here we go.
The goal is to keep them either cheap, or midde-cost with big effects. Disabling sacrifices and life-payments with Angel of Jubilation shuts down a lot of nonsense people like to pull. Celestial Crusader joins your flying army while also sharing similarities with Force of Virtue in popping an instant buff surprise, something that almost never happens in EDH where the usual one-turn buff cards aren't nearly as valuable as standard. That's right rat guy who thought my tapped out mana pool and weenie army was safe. Never expected that one did you?
Twilight dies a lot, so it's not unheard of for Commander's Insignia to get pretty fat. The rest are just cheap.
Then there's this guy, who unfortuantely isn't a horse. He does make your horses tanky while nerfing everyone else though, so I've had a lot of good luck trying him out. Nothing like laughing at a freshly dropped 3/3 void winnower after he completely disabled you for the entirety of the last game because your whole deck is even cost and why did I make this.
When All Else Fails, BE BLUE
You have the most annoying color at your disposal. Why not completely fail at taking advantage of it so you can fit more 2/1 flyers in? We saved 4 spots for the best of the best. The OG rage cards. A quadrafecta of combo stomping goodness. This deck won't win tournaments ever, but at least you can make it look like you care.
Or just watch the world burn with your white side. We've got the cheap-ass creatures, so we use the targeted explosions. Destroy it all then recover your army with Dusk // Dawn, or just ignore your army entirely with Austere Command.
Supreme Verdict just looks cool, so I slapped it in here. MTG Artists are the pinnacle.
Boring Stuff
Every deck needs em. They aren't fun, but neither is watching your army slowly crumble as that rat guy spams skull clamp with Grave Pact up.
To overwhelm them with your endless horsey determination, you need some mana rocks. Personally I'm fond of the bigger bangs per tap ones, so I use these 3 and clone another. Everyone likes different ones.
For when you want to run 2xRhystic Study but you are only allowed to have one.
I know I gave this deck a lot of crap for it's less than amazing creature base, but it's actually pretty fun to play and very easy for beginners if you want to introduce someone to the game. It's as straight on aggro as EDH can get. Once I get around to making the Rarity deck we can get a bit more complicated, and I'm absolutely dreading figuring out what cards have "moons" in them for Luna.
Most of this testing was done on Tabletop Simlutor. I might be around on there testing with pickup groups if you all are there after the weekend. It's always fun to play with more MTG people, especially ones that don't flip when you pop the pony deck out.
