Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Qala, Ajani’s Pridemate!

Qala is a four mana 3/3 that whenever they attack, other attacking creatures you control get +X/+0 where X is the number of counters on Qala, whenever you gain life you put a +1/+1 counter on Qala and four four mana you gain a life.

Life gain as a deck theme I have found has been met with a variety of opinions, and it is an ideal reason to keep Commander Damage as a way to win the game, but it is a theme that is interesting to build around.

Qala is very much like an Ajani’s Pridemate in which that when you gain life, they gain a +1/+1 counter, but the helpful line of rules text says that any number of counters come into play when considering their attack ability.

So we have a combination of a life gain, aggro, and counters deck which gives us a lot of options to consider.

We need to start tackling the problems one at a time, and the easiest problem to solve is the life gain aspect.

White is the life gain color so there are literally hundreds of ways to gain life in white. Considering that we want to go in a more aggressive direction, Ajani’s Welcome or Soul Warden are some of the better ways to gain life.

The more creatures we have enter the battlefield, the more life we gain, the bigger Qala grows, the more of a wider and stronger swing we have and this is even more true if we have Soul Warden out because it counts our opponents creatures as well.

There is also something like Authority of the Consuls, which act as protection for us because our opponents creatures enters tapped and we gain a life for each one that does.

Light of Hope is modal in either gaining us life, destroying an enchantment, or puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature, Healing Salve is a straight gain three life, Archivist of Oghma whenever an opponent searches their library we gain a life and draw a card, there is a panoply of options to consider.

The next thing to look at is ways to get as many bodies onto the battlefield as possible, and also to consider ways to have creatures gain a benefit from the life gain.

Resplendent Angel is a personal favorite of mine because it triggers at each end step, and if we have ways to gain life on our opponent’s turn at instant speed, then we could potentially get an Angel every turn.

Speaking of Angels, we have Righteous Valkyrie, which can gain us life when an Angel or Cleric come into play and provides an anthem of +2/+2 if we have seven more life than our starting life total, which again shouldn’t be hard to do.

If we want more bodies, then there is also Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, which makes more attacking creatures every time we attack. They won’t gain the attack bonus from Qala, but they will on the next turn and that swing will be massive.

Now comes the counters part, because not only are we looking to put +1/+1 counters on Qala, but any other sort of ability counter will do nicely.

Wing It gives a small buff and a flying counter with a scry 1 attached and Spontaneous Flight does the same but with no scry, and these are the base line of these sort of effects to look for.

For more utility we have Fleeting Flight for a +1/+1 counter, flying until end of turn, and preventing combat damage being dealt to the creature, which can matter in the early game.

Requisition Raid is great because of it being modal for enchantment and/or artifact destruction and able to give all of our creatures +1/+1 counters.

One of our best bets for other kinds of counters is Elspeth Resplendent, which can give a +1/+1 counter and either a flying, first strike, lifelink, or vigilance counter on a creature, which we ideally want to put on Qala to potentially go for an alpha strike.

For more protection we have something like Take Up the Shield, which puts a +1/+1 counter and gives lifelink and indestructible until the end of the turn.

We can also include the cheeky life gain wins cards like Felidar Sovereign or Test of Endurance, but those should be only back up wins for the deck.

Qala provides a lot of options for this sort of deck, so the hard part of the deck is actually trying to find out what fits best. Qala makes a fun toolbox sort of Commander, and everyone’s toolbox looks a little bit different.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow on the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual