Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Anafenza, the Foremost!

Anafenza is a three mana 4/4 that when she attacks you put a +1/+1 counter on another target tapped creature you control and if a creature card would be put into an opponent’s graveyard, exile it instead.

Anafenza is a +1/+1 Commander that works with tapped creature strategies, but also has a bit of graveyard hate attached which is very helpful since a lot of decks tend to have some graveyard synergies in them in some regard. This bit of control is the aspect I want to explore as a deck because in my opinion the +1/+1 counter strategy is nice, but can be pretty linear.

Focusing on the control aspect of the deck provides an alternate dimension to Anafenza while giving us access to three colors that each provide a different axis of control to explore, which we can leverage to our benefit as the game goes on.

The first thing we need are our early game control pieces that help gain small advantages for us.

Deathrite Shaman is great form this because we can tap it to exile a land from a graveyard to add mana of any color, pay a black and tap to exile an instant or sorcery and have each opponent lose 2 life, or pay a green and tap to exile a creature card from a graveyard and gain 2 life.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben makes it so noncreature spells cost one more mana to cast, Thalia, Heretic Cathar has it so creatures and nonbasic lands our opponents control enter tapped, and Kambal, Consul of Allocation has it so whenever an opponent casts a noncreature spell that player loses 2 life and we gain 2 life.

Each color we have access to adds an interesting dimension for how we can control the game. Green can help us get our creatures in play at a much more accelerated rate with ramp and card draw and cards like Chord of Calling which lets us get a creature of mana value X or less into play and can use our creatures to help pay the mana cost because of Convoke.

Black, especially when combined with either white or green, can provide some of the most flexible forms of removal with cards like Vindicate which can destroy target permanent, Fracture to destroy an artifact, enchantment, or Planeswalker, and even something like Baleful Mastery can exile a creature or Planeswalker for either four mana or two mana if we have an opponent draw a card.

White can control the board via tax and delay effects like Blind Obedience which has artifacts and creature our opponents control enter the battlefield tapped while also having Extort to drain our opponents whenever we cast a spell, Rule of Law to have each player only play one spell each turn, and Stony Silence which prevents activated abilities of artifacts from working.

The next thing we need are ways to gain advantages while our opponents are dealing with our disadvantages.

Felidar Retreat is a good option because it has a modal Landfall ability in either making a 2/2 Cat Beast token or puts a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control while also giving them vigilance, which would normally be counter intuitive with Anafenza giving a +1/+1 counter to a tapped creature we control, but since we are more in the control aspect this won’t be as bad since we are slowly developing our board.

Speaking of gaining advantages slowly, Basri Ket can be very helpful in us surviving one of our board wipes because the +1 ability puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature and makes it indestructible for the turn, the -2 ability has it so we make two 1/1 Soldier tokens that are tapped and attacking when we attack that turn, and the ultimate to get an emblem to make a 1/1 Soldier token and putting a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control.

Another Planeswalker we can use to help us accrue some value is Lolth, Spider Queen which gains a loyalty counter whenever a creature we control dies, can draw us a card at the cost of 1 life, make two 2/1 Spider tokens with menace and reach, and can ultimate with an emblem that has it so that if a creature we control deals combat damage to an opponent, if it was less than 8 then they lose life equal to the difference, meaning that at minimum our opponents are losing 8 life each turn.

There are also the Sieges from Tarkir: Dragonstorm that we have access to, with Hollowmurk Siege either drawing us a card whenever a counter is put on a creature we control or puts a +1/+1 counter on an attacking creature we control while also giving it menace and Barrensteppe Siege either putting a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control or having each opponent sacrifice a creature if a creature died under our control at the beginning of our end step.

The last thing we need are ways to clear the board in order for the creatures we have access to and have accrued over time to swing in.

Plague Wind is a very expensive to cast spell, but it does destroy all creatures we don’t control and prevents them from being regenerated, which doesn’t come up too often but there may still be a time when it does come in handy.

If we managed to get our creatures to be of a decent size, then we can use Toxic Deluge as a way to have all creatures get -X/-X until end of turn, paying X life as an additional cost but also getting rid of creatures our opponents control that happen to be indestructible or be a way to deal with hard to interact with creatures.

We also have access to Damn, which would normally be a two mana way to destroy a creature and preventing it from regenerating, but has an Overload cost that destroys each creature and prevents them from being regenerated, at the same cost as a Wrath of God.

Now if our things do get destroyed, whether through our own spells or through our opponents spells, ideally we have saved enough mana to cast an Eerie Ultimatum to return any number of permanents with different names from our graveyard to the battlefield, which is also helpful if our Planeswalkers get into the graveyard and help us accrue a lot of resources before our opponents can destroy them.

Since we also happen to have some +1/+1 counters floating around on a lot of creatures, then we can also make use of Sigarda’s Summons which has creatures we control with +1/+1 counters on them have base power and toughness 4/4 as well as flying and making them Angels in the process as well to help us swing our with high power evasive creatures.

Anafenza is a Commander that more so directs the playstyle rather than helps facilitate the playstyle, which while not as flashy as an engine Commander or a value Commander, still plays a role in being able to get a way to exile our opponents things and not our things as they go to the graveyard.

As such, since the deck isn’t necessarily built around Anafenza, it can feel a bit disconnecting to play and can get dull as Anafenza plays more of a passive role than an active role as some Commanders play.

Barring that, another potential weakness of the deck is the issue that other control decks tend to face, and that is if a deck is much more aggressive than our attacks us we can be put on the backfoot. Aggro decks that don’t rely on the graveyard and go wide can be troublesome if we can’t draw our board wipes or removal.

Some faster combo decks can also outpace us, especially if they don’t rely too much on permanents on the board and play a more spell slinger type of deck, which we can tax and delay for a bit, but that can only last so long.

Still, a control based Anafenza deck is a much more interesting prospect in my opinion than a pure +1/+1 counter deck and is much more interactive than +1/+1 counter decks tend to be, which I find to be more fun to play.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual