Commander Focus: Lorwyn Eclipsed, Characteristic Types, & Miara, Thorn of the Glade//Nadier, Agent of the Duskenel

In 2016, Mark Rosewater outlined a number of terms from the vocabulary of Magic's designers, and one set of codified terms has rung in my mind since: The Characteristic (and Iconic) Creature Types. You know what these are, even if you don't know the term itself—Humans for White, Merfolk for Blue, so on and so forth. Without really thinking about it, these types are intrinsically associated with a specific color, even if they on occasion branch into additional options to illustrate a plane's qualities; the Vampires of Ixalan err White, while those of Innistrad err Red, but all the same they're Black in each. For the designers, if a Creature's type doesn't matter, it's become safe to rely on these Characteristic types as a default, ensuring they feel sensible in-color. The thing is, though, these types are arguably...overprinted, so dense in scope that their ancillary colors begin to take on a life of their own. Elves are the quintessential Green Creature type, but they've taken on a darker shade in enough sets, across enough planes, that I now have the pleasure of bringing you a bit of a gameplay glitch: Monoblack Elves. I couldn't have done it without Lorwyn Eclipsed, but the roots of this strategy run deeper than you might think, as we'll see below.

"Legendary Creature — Elf"

So what do Elves do without any mana dorks, any well-known lords? The answer is at the same time surprising, but fairly expected: They die. Whether you're drawing cards with Skemfar Avenger or forcing discards with Elvish Doomsayer, these knife-eared fanatics are happy in their state of moribundity. That's a good thing, as well, because the first of our Commanders, Miara, Thorn of the Glade helps turn their sacrifice into advantage, at a fairly competitive going rate. This is a deck that, like my previous Focus, is a bipartite unit of a cheap curve-smoother—here, Miara—and an expensive top end that actually intends to close out the game—here, Nadier. The neat part is that these cards have been in the game since Commander Legends, where the kernel of Monoblack Elves was truly planted, but have only been a reasonable choice as recently as this year. Due to this, unlike a lot of typal decks, we've got a rag-tag group of misfits largely making up the core of our Creature base, and while they are tied together with the death & tokens themes of our Partner Commanders, the deck feels far more like a toolbox than most linear typal strategies.

Case in point, Maralen of the Mornsong; the fact she's an Elf is a bit ancillary, but given that she benefits from a number of our payoffs, and provides soft-locks for the strategy once you hit the late-game. Any time an Elf dies, Prowess of the Fair provides a token body, which Miara can turn into card draw, or Nadier, additional power. Need removal? Try Lys Alana Scarblade, from the original Lorwyn, which not only puts Elves in the graveyard, but gets rid of pesky opposing Creatures. I'd be remiss to mention Elves in the graveyard without Middle Earth's very own Haunt of the Dead Marches, which can repeatably recur with any of our Legendary Elves around. While these cards are from a wild variety of eras, there's just enough synergy between them (in part because their effects are all in Black's color pie) to make things work. With a broad understanding of what the Elves here want to do, let's take a detour to the list's pace of play.

Elf, Starring Svante Arrhenius

From re-runs to reanimation.

One of the huge benefits of a cheap Partner is that you can be far more lax in terms of kept cards for the early game in your opening hand; more often than not, your turn 2 play is already spoken-for the moment you sit down, and Miara is a great start while not being too threatening. You might play a 1 drop like Infestation Sage, Miara, then some midrange piece like Nadier's Nightblade, and everyone thinks you're just a typal deck. You might get someone saying 'Oh, that is an Elf' when you cast Ayara, First of Locthwain, but you appear a normal midrange pile at a glance. The thing is, though, this list shifts gears the moment Nadier resolves, especially if you've got a few tokens on the board. Nadier, Agent of the Duskenel is a fairly expensive card, at 6 mana, and encourages you to turn a wide board of tokens into a tall threat. You get rewarded, of course, with a ton of bodies should he perish but how good is that, really?

By the time you're casting Nadier, you'll likely have dug through your deck a great deal, either by way of Miara herself, or things like Skullclamp. In those draws, you'll likely have found either one of our five Not Dead After All effects, or even Nim Deathmantle, if you're lucky. Whether you're bounded by mana, or pushing for an infinite combo, coupling these cards with a sacrifice outlet, Nadier, and potentially even Miara results in an absolute ton of death triggers (and bodies). The goal of the deck is to play safe, typal midrange until we've hit the necessary 'reaction energy' to actually begin the cascade of tokens and counters that results in a win. Once Nadier can die, and produce tokens in excess of the cost to return him to the board (either via casting from the Command Zone+tax, or Nim's {4} cost trigger), the game's over. The midgame though, is the most interesting part of a deck like this, and for a Monoblack deck we're using an unusual type of Artifact to serve those purposes in the color: Equipment.

Countrymen, Lend Me Your Various Body Parts

Stoneforge Masterwork is not an unusual card to see in a typal deck, letting you funnel the benefits of a wide board into the power of a single Creature. It's great here, letting us attack or block well in the early game, and protect our life total, but it's far from the only effect of this type we're playing. There's Crown of Gondor, an excellent bit of Monarch play that likewise buffs the board (and attaches for cheap), and the multi-purpose Ghost Lantern//Bind Spirit, a great bit of recursion and means to pump. These cards wouldn't be out of place in a go-wide token/typal deck, but here they're serving a more nefarious purpose, alongside any of our mana-producing sac outlets, and Nadier. Much like Food Chain, if Nadier produces 2 more bodies each death (or 1, if we have Ashnod's Altar), that makes up for his increasing Command Tax. Due to how he scales with these equipment, being able to sacrifice himself and/or the tokens produced, we can reach the necessary density to go positive on bodies each cycle of the combo...eventually drawing enough cards with something like Miara, or draining with Nadier's Nightblade, to win. Also in this category is the excellent Fallen Ideal, which scales similarly.

Although that's strong, and good across multiple points in the game, in an odd shock my favorite Equipment in the deck is actually Heirloom Blade. It's cheap to attach, and always finds another relevant body for Miara (or the typal gameplan in general). Then, there's Skullclamp, one of the classically broken Equipment which of course enjoys the numerous 1/1 tokens we have to feed it. Just be aware that any lord effect comes with the con of not causing a state-based death, but instead gives you the opportunity to sacrifice the clamped Creature for benefit. I do want to stress, while yes Nadier and many of these Equipment do break the game in half, ultimately you can just use it to make a wildly wide board of Elves, and swing out; my preference for combo wins is not one that this deck need be beholden to, and a Coat of Arms or similar not only does similar things with Nadier, but allows you to win via 'fair' combat. If you do want to avoid combos though, Nim Deathmantle is a card likely on your chopping block, given the ease with which it wins with either Nadier, or Eyeblight Cullers, and an Altar.

Lorwynning

As a fun tidbit, if you look at the Moxfield date for this list, I started the deck's design all the way back in 2021. That's quite some time to have a deck on the mind, but believe me, some bundle of my synapses were keeping track of every Monoblack Elf released for years. As you might surmise, it's not been competent until the most recent set, and I want to highlight a few of the specific adds brought to us in Lorwyn Eclipsed. First and likely most generically-applicable, Dawnhand Dissident; I stated in the set review that in the right shell this reminded me greatly of a Deathrite Shaman, and I meant it. People undervalue Instant-speed topdeck manipulation, and smoothing out draws helps an entire deck play better. Moreover, we can generate both a ton of bodies to kill with Blight (thus triggering Miara) and counters to remove with Nadier, to recast key Elves from the yard. The fact it's also gravehate is just a bonus. Then, there's Twilight Diviner, who similarly fixes the topdeck, but also adds a ton of value to our Not Dead After All effects. Coupling her, as well, with a sacrifice outlet and Activated Sleeper is juicy.

Tracking the effect is harder than explaining it.

As an example, why not target her with Not Dead After All, sacrifice her, and in response to the return trigger, flash in Sleeper as a copy? Get back two, and then you're really set up, not to mention her benefits with Deathmantle or Haunt of the Dead Marshes! Sidenote, more people should be playing Activated Sleeper in sacrifice decks, period; it can be a copy of whatever you want another trigger out of, it's fairly cheap, and after a boardwipe/removal you can Flash it in to retain a specific effect (often Opposition Agent, here). Gloom Ripper replaced the long-standing inclusion of Ruthless Winnower in the list, as not only a decent piece of removal, but a great way to pump Nadier before a sacrifice. Other inclusions from the set are Firdoch Core, Dawn-Blessed Pennant, and Mornsong Aria, each great redundancy for effects we already wanted. In total, while neither of the Commanders debuted in Lorwyn Eclipsed (although Miara lore-wise is from Lorwyn), I felt this was a fantastic time to cover how typal decks specifically might shift following the set's release.

Elf-Inflicted Pain

We've talked about one of the main win conditions of the deck, namely pairing Nadier with a mana-positive Altar and some form of repeatable pump effect, but that's far from the only way to close out games. Maralen, or the new Mornsong Aria, have a devilish interaction you might already know with Opposition Agent, essentially locking opposing hands and slowly Praetor's Grasp-ing them to death. While both Mornsong effects have anti-synergy with Miara, the good news is that we play enough sacrifice effects to ignore it anyway, and they're only meant to be cast once we have an Agent. Skemfar Shadowsage is either a means of doming our opponents with massive damage, or healing ourselves, and between Graveshifter & Elderfang Ritualist, we can often use it multiple times per game. For killing over time, Nightblade or Ayara each have drain effects, and the astounding Pyre of Heroes can chain us through every relevant effect we'd need. In short, there's many ways to skin this cat, and I've had games where the combo never needs to manifest and people just...die. "Fairly", might I add.

Example Decklist: Miara//Nadier, Goth Elves

He truly does end up in every list, I'm so sorry. At least Tezz is cheap-ish now?

One facet of the list I've hemmed and hawed about is the number of mostly-vanilla 1 drops. Now yes, there's your Haunts and Infestation Sages which have secondary benefits, but how did I arrive at playing Duskwielder? I'm not one to add a card because it says the funny word a deck is built on, and that remains true here: You can imagine these as our 'Llanowar Elves' equivalents, cheap bodies we use to accelerate. If you squint, these all are basically two mana, and draw a card on death courtesy of Miara. Moreover, once we build on those triggers with Prowess of the Fair, or even Haunted One, they begin to have benefits outstripping a lot of the slightly-more-useful Elves at higher mana values. Ultimately, it's a matter of pseudo-cantripping, and with cards like Victory Chimes or Bender's Waterskin Miara looks more like an Esper Sentinel with her one "free" draw per turn. The annoying thing is primarily that Black got basically 0 of the Changeling token producers in Lorwyn, which would have been abundantly appreciated.

There is an inescapable element in the list though, which so often arises in Monoblack: The Lands. Black, more than any other color, has access to a suite of accelerants lodged squarely in the mana base, being Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth & Cabal Coffers. When combined, these skyrocket your available mana and can lead to explosive midgames, but in being a typal deck there's a similarly-potent card...if you have a board. Yes, Three Tree City was outrageously overhyped during its debut in Bloomburrow, but here it's essentially another Coffers, with all the fantastic token production going on. To find all these, we're on the classic duo of cards that search for Lands outside of Green, the maps: Expedition Map & World Map. Those being 1-mana Artifacts, as well as Skullclamp & Ghost Lantern, lead to an inclusion that somehow appears in every list I make. I'm talking about Tezzeret, Cruel Captain, who has appeared in 12 of the ~16 or so decks I've covered since he became legal...and far more I've built besides. It's become a gag among friends of mine that my listbuilding starts with Tezz and Lazotep Quarry, and if you look at anything I've written in the past few months they'd hardly be wrong for saying so. Powerful, flexible, Colorless tools that perform finicky game actions (or find things which do) just appeal to my sensibilities, and I apologize for his future dozens of appearances.

Decklists are kept updated, and may change with set releases.

Unlike my previous typal deck, where I brought Eldrazi to Monowhite, there's a good chance you don't even need to combo off in Bracket 3 here. You can play a pretty genuine aristocrats gameplan, and feel good about yourself without upsetting those opponents who are combo-shy; that said, because every individual component the deck wants that's part of a combo is independently good, that aspect of the deck is inextricable. You can't readily remove the combo from Miara//Nadier without biting off huge chunks of its power, and at that point you'd feel better with it resting around Bracket 2. Luckily, there's ample Monoblack Elf cards that we aren't playing, if you need to fill space. Exquisite Huntmaster, Briarblade Adept, & Bloodline Bidding are all reasonable inclusions.

The Un-Characteristics

Johannes Voss captures the tranquil menace of Lorwyn, while Yongjae Choi sees Nadier prepare for an ambush.

The same niggling feeling that's kept this list in the back of my mind for 5 years now can only continue; there's something satisfying about building a deck that shouldn't traditionally work, and having it feel remotely fluid. Could Selesnya Merfolk work? How about Boros Vampires? Bending expectations says something about us, as Commander players, that we yearn to rattle the bars of our cage. That's not to say typal isn't the most popular way to build a Magic deck—it is—but there's defiance in taking one of the most oft-printed types, and dodging the vast majority of your options. "I'm playing Elf typal" results in understanding nods from your pod, maybe even an understanding of what your list might do, but the moment they see you lack Green, there's interest. It's the kind of thing you could only really do with a Characteristic type, having had so much support printed that even its off-color gutters receive enough playables to be exciting!

If you couldn't tell from the tone of this Focus, I'm not a huge fan of traditional typal strategies, in terms of my personal play; there's absolutely nothing wrong about those strategies, as they're direct enough in design for new players to easily understand the gameplan, and add cards that share specific words. Those lists have an inherent purpose, in guiding players towards an understanding of synergy, but once you've been playing for a few years it really is to your benefit to branch out—whether building around an esoteric mechanical design, or bucking trends like with this list, you learn far more by traveling the gnarled, off-beaten path than the paved bystreet. Take that plunge, build something weird! Rattle those bars, and see how your favorite type might fare outside the colors you're used to. You can be the first.

Until next time, it's not a phase, MaRo!

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