Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Aurelia, the Law Above!

Aurelia is a five mana 4/4 with flying, vigilance, haste, and whenever a player attacks with three or more creatures, you draw a card, and whenever a player attacks with five or more creatures Aurelia deals 3 damage to each opponents and you gain 3 life.

Aurelia, at the face of it, seems like a standard go wide combat Commander, however what is interesting about Aurelia is that she triggers when a player attacks with multiple creatures, which adds an interesting avenue for play.

The goal of this deck is to give everyone creatures and to have everyone attack, a classic Group Slug type of deck.

With this sort of game plan, the first thing that we need to do is give our opponents creatures to attack with.

Benevolent Offering is one of these options to instantly give us and an opponent three Spirit tokens with flying that can attack on their turn while also giving us three Spirit tokens to also trigger Aurelia, and then we can supplement our life with the second effect while also targeting a different opponent that has fewer to no creatures so they gain less to zero life while we gain, at minimum, 6 life.

Akroan Horse can be given to an opponent that then gives each one their opponents a Soldier token at the beginning of their upkeep, Acorn Catapult be used to ping any target and that permanent’s controller or player makes a Squirrel token, and Combat Calligrapher can incentivize our opponents to attack each since if they do they get an Inkling token that is attacking that opponent.

There is also Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor which has our opponents create a number of 1/1 Survivor tokens when they deal combat damage to that player while preventing them from attacking us or Planewalkers we control, while giving control of those Survivor tokens when she leaves the battlefield.

If we want a way to clear an opponents board while also replacing them, we can use Mogg Infestation, which destroys all creatures a player controls and for each creature destroyed this way they create two 1/1 Goblin tokens in their place.

We can also help our opponents with a little bit of Group Hug pieces, such as in the form of Master of Ceremonies, which can give our opponents (and us) either a Treasure token, a 1/1 Human Citizen creature token, or draw a card.

The next thing that we need is to have our opponents be forced to attack, ideally not us.

Goblin Spymaster serves the purpose in having our opponents attack in that at the beginning of each opponents end step they make a 1/1 Goblin creature token that forces all creatures they control must attack.

Fumiko the Lowblood can be used as a way to force our opponent’s creatures to attack and to potentially get a decent amount of damage or block a huge creature in because she has bushido X where X is the number of attacking creatures, and it is helpful that bushido triggers whenever we attack or block.

Geode Rager can be a reliable way to goad an opponent whenever we play a land, Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos can be a way to have at least one creature attack our opponents each turn and gets bigger and bigger as he goes around, and Disrupt Decorum can be used to goad each creature we don’t control.

Now we also need ways to make sure that we don’t get attacked, and while we do have a couple of ways to goad our opponents creatures, a bit of redundancy can be very useful.

Take the Bait is such an example because we can only cast it on our opponent’s turn during combat, since it prevents all combat damage dealt to us or Planeswalkers we control, untaps and goads all attacking creatures and gives that opponent an extra combat step.

Then there are also taxing effects on creatures attacking us, like Ghostly Prison or Windborn Muse which forces our opponents to pay an additional 2 mana for each creature that they want to attack us with.

If we want another way to tax our opponents in this regard while getting another use out of it is Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs which if an opponent attacks us we can make a 3/3 Ogre creature token unless that creature’s controller pays 3 mana.

There is also Charismatic Conqueror, which can be pricey cost wise, but whenever an artifact or creature enters the battlefield untapped and under an opponent’s control, they may tap it and if they don’t we make a 1/1 Vampire with lifelink, which can be useful in shoring up our defenses with blockers that can gain us a bit of life.

Now while we can enjoy our opponents attacking each other to passively get Aurelia’s benefits, we also get the benefits if we attack.

Iroas, God of Victory is a great combat card to have since it has the Theros God text in not being a creature unless our devotion to red and white is at least seven, it gives creatures we control menace and we prevent all damage that would be dealt to attacking creatures we control.

Since we are also developing a wide board, it would also make sense to include Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin which puts a +1/+1 counter on itself when he attacks and the we create a number of Goblin tokens equal to his power.

Eiganjo Uprising is also a sneaky solid way to get a ton of creatures on our battlefield that inherently have vigilance but gain menace and haste while also giving our opponents less creatures that can technically block us but can serve them better if they hold them to attack.

There us also Tempt with Vengeance in which we make X 1/1 Elemental creature tokens with haste and then we offer our opponents the option to do the same, and if they do we make even more Elemental tokens with haste that can attack to trigger Aurelia.

We can also make use of Windcrag Siege, which if we choose the Mardu ability then any attack triggers we get trigger again meaning that we get double Aurelia triggers, and if Jeskai is the chosen mode then we get to make a 1/1 Goblin with lifelink and haste.

Since we are making a ton of creatures, we can also make use of, thematically appropriately, Warleader’s Call which is an anthem for our creatures of +1/+1 and also whenever a creature we control enters we deal 1 damage to each opponent.

Aurelia can be played as a go wide Commander and be very effective at it, but she is much more interesting to play as a Group Slug Commander.

Now the deck does better when she is in play since she triggers whenever anyone attacks, which means that if she gets removed before a player attacks, then we can be in a bit of hot water.

However, if we play well then this deck can be an effective way for everyone to be more interactive rather than sitting around waiting for people to maybe combo off.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual