TMNT cards made my Cloud Strife Commander decklist even better

When a buddy 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 pink mana, Najeela generates a warrior creature token every time a warrior assaults, however the important thing element is its second potential. For 5 mana (considered one of every coloration) you’ll be able to untap all attacking creatures and provides them trample, lifelink, and haste and offers you an extra fight section after that one. Due to the power, which means 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 a wide range of mana, fill your board with warriors, maintain attacking to generate extra warriors, and ultimately set off the power mid-combat. Working a five-color deck, nonetheless, means it’s a must to fastidiously calculate the mana prices throughout your entire playing cards and stability your lands and different mana-generators accordingly. There are additionally quite a lot of instructions you’ll be able to doubtlessly veer. Warrior seems as a creature subtype throughout all kinds of units. Whereas it’s potential to construct this out utilizing simply Final Fantasy cards, I had probably the most enjoyable mining the newest units and by embracing the weirdness of Universes Beyond — particularly after 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. Regardless that the cardboard is a mutant ninja turtle and never a warrior, its potential works very well right here. Each time Raph & Leo assault, they untap one or two attackers and set off an extra fight section if that is the primary fight section of the flip. In apply, you’ll be able to assault with this duo and one other massive creature to hopefully draw out and eradicate 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 an extra fight section. That’s if you go all out: assault with the whole lot and pay for Cloud’s potential to untap your attackers, buff them, and set off yet one more assault section.

There are much better additional 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 move up. Within the TMNT packs I ripped, I additionally occurred to tug a Sword of Hearth and Home reprint that includes a wonderful pizza cutter stuffed with cheese. It’s an tools that permits you to blink a creature and search your library for a fundamental land each time the outfitted creature offers fight harm to a participant. I’d additionally beforehand harvested a Sword of the Animist from the Last 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 Everything Pizza for the flavour. It additionally seeks out a land and comes with a seven-cost five-color potential that’s tremendous highly effective. Since we’ll have that mana base anyway, it synergizes very well.

I additionally pulled a couple of helpful playing cards out of the Turtle Power! TMNT precon which is five-color, specifically Exploding Barrel, Chromatic Lantern, and varied non-basic lands.

Skimming via my Avatar: The Last Airbender cards, I spotted that lots of the ally creatures double as warriors. So combating alongside Cloud, Raph, and Leo now we 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 a lot 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 Fireplace and Residence blink impact to set off it once more.

The true spine for this deck, nonetheless, comes from Lorwyn Eclipsed. The set places an enormous emphasis on typal strategies, but it surely’s principally restricted to creatures that reside in Lorwyn and Shadowmoor like elves, goblins, and kithkin. However there are many changeling playing cards that rely as all creature varieties — together with warrior. Extra importantly, the set has Gathering Stone and Chronicle of Victory. In actual fact, regardless of sitting on the Cloud Strife card for some time, it was pulling Chronicle of Victory that lastly satisfied me to start out 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 turn out to be 3/3s with first strike and trample.

Lorwyn Eclipsed additionally delivered with Mirrormind Crown, an tools that attaches to a creature. Everytime you would create a number of tokens, it’s possible you’ll as a substitute create tokens which might be copies of the outfitted 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 associated fee), it returns all creature playing cards of the chosen kind in your graveyard to the battlefield.

I’ve nonetheless bought some work to do earlier than issues really feel good for this deck, which I’ve named Warriors of Strife, and I nonetheless should tweak the mana base so it’s extra balanced. I really feel like this can be a commander deck I’ll always 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 take a look at the deck on Moxfield, the place it’s a relentless work in progress. When you have any suggestions for cuts, changes, or singles I should purchase, be happy to let me know within the feedback.