Hello and welcome to Weekly Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Abuelo, Ancestral Echo!

Abuelo is a three mana 2/2 with flying, ward 2, and for three mana you exile another target creature or artifact you control and you return it to the battlefield under it’s owner’s control at the beginning of the next end step.

While not the flashiest Commander we can play with, I wanted to pick a Commander that is reflective of an aspect of my life at the moment. If you know what the word abuelo means and the fact that Abuelo is a Spirit, then you can probably figure out what’s going on at the moment in my life.

I wanted to take a look at Abuelo and see how much we can utilize the toolbox nature of his abilities, all the while finding ways we can leverage that toolbox nature into a victory, even if it seems like nothing is going our way.

Enters with Grace

One of the first things that we need to do is to look for creatures and artifacts that have an enters ability, along with cards that synergize well with enters abilities.

Spirited Companion is one of the better ways for us to get a decent bit of advantage with making it so that we can consistently get to draw a card whenever it enters the battlefield, and more cards when we use Abuelo’s ability.

Wall of Omens also draws us a card when it enters, when Restoration Angel enters we can blink a non-Angel creature we control, Solemn Simulacrum let’s us get a basic land from our library onto the battlefield tapped, and Archeomancer can return an instant or sorcery from our graveyard to our hand when it enters.

Charming Prince is also a great target for us to target with Abuelo because of the three modes that they provide in letting us scry 2, gain 3 life, or let’s us blink another creature we control and have it come back at the beginning of the next end step to get a bit more value.

There are also cards that happen to work whenever they or another creature we control leaves the battlefield, and Circuit Mender does well for both because when it enters we gain 2 life and when it leaves the battlefield we draw a card.

Dour Port-Mage is a pretty solid card because whenever one or more creatures we control leave the battlefield without dying, then we can draw a card and we can pay two mana and tap it to bounce a creature we control to our hand, which help us make sure that Abuelo has a bit more protection from a board wipe.

While not an artifact or a creature, Gossip’s Talent is great for us to take advantage of creatures entering the battlefield for us because it let’s us surveil 1 when a creature enters, the Level Two ability being that whenever we attack a creature we control with power 3 or less can’t be blocked this turn, and with the Level Three ability, we can have it so that when a creature we control deals battle damage to a player we have an additional blink effect.

It may be a bit expensive, but Preston, the Vanisher is a way for us to get a bit of value from our things coming back because whenever another nontoken creature we control enters the battlefield and it wasn’t cast, we create a token copy of it as a 0/1 Illusion token while also being an additional source of blinking in the deck if we pay two mana and sacrifice five Illusions.

Controlling the Board

We can lean into the control aspect of the deck in order to let us maintain an advantage against our opponents.

Stonehorn Dignitary is a great card that I had no idea existed and works wonderfully because when it enters then target opponent skips their next battle phase, which when dealing against aggressive decks, especially if we have repeatable ways to blink it alongside Abuelo.

Riptide Gearhulk is also a solid creature for us because when it enters then for each opponent then we can put up to one target nonland permanent that they control into their library third from the top, all the while also being a 2/5 with double strike and prowess.

Witch Enchanter let’s us destroy an artifact or enchantment an opponent controls when it enters while also being a land on the backside, Skyclave Apparition to exile up to one target nonland nontoken permanent we don’t control with mana value four or less and instead of returning it to an opponent when it leaves the battlefield it makes a token instead, and Lavinia of the Tenth to detain each nonland permanent our opponents control with mana value four or less.

We can also be a bit cheeky with using our permanents to interact with spells on the stack like Venser, Shaper Savant, which when it enters we return target spell or permanent to it’s owner’s hand, which is very flexible, especially because it isn’t a direct counter spell so it gets around can’t be countered effects.

Smirking Spelljacker is pretty cool since it can also interact with a spell on the stack by exiling it when it enters and when it attacks while there is a card exiled with it, then we can cast the exiled card without paying it’s mana cost.

Subtlety is also another card that we can use for some interesting interactions because when it enters we can choose a creature or Planeswalker spell and then its owner puts it on top of their library. Now Subtlety also has an Evoke cost of exiling a blue card from our hand, and we can use that small window of it about to sacrifice itself and use Abuelo’s ability to prevent it from sacrificing itself.

With this knowledge we can make use of Mulldrifter to draw us two cards twice, Wispmare to destroy two enchantments, Aethersnipe to bounce a nonland permanent to its owner’s hand, Nevermaker to bounce a nonland permanent to the top of it’s owner’s library when it leaves the battlefield, and Nulldrifter to draw us two cards twice and come back as a creature with Annihilator 1.

I have focused a lot on creatures, but there are also plenty of artifacts that we can use to help us like Knight Paladin, which when it enters then it deals 4 damage to each opponent, while also being a 6/6 Vehicle with Crew 1 that we can use to help us push a bit of damage through if we need to.

Thousand Moons Smithy can be useful in making a Gnome Soldier artifact creature token that has power and toughness equal to the number of creatures and artifacts we control, and if we manage to tap five artifacts or creatures then we can make Barracks of the Thousand, which if we use the mana it makes to cast an artifact or creature spell then we make another one of those Gnome Soldier tokens.

Discounts and Protection

To make the most of Abuelo’s ability we’ll need ways to discount it or make a decent amount of mana to fuel it, and we also need ways to keep Abuelo safe for as long as possible.

Training Grounds immediately comes to mind as a way to help discount not only Abuelo’s ability by two mana, but also the activated abilities of any of our other creatures, and since Abuelo has a colored mana cost, we only need two mana to activate his ability.

Heartstone is also a card that let’s us discount the abilities of creatures we control by one mana, but it is also a symmetrical effect that our opponents can use. Luckily for us we can exile it with Abuelo to prevent our opponents from making use of it since it comes back at the beginning of the end step.

As far as mana is concerned, this is where things can be a bit tricky because of how limited we can be in mana generation because of our colors. There are cards like Coveted Jewel that we can use a good amount of times because when it enters we draw three cards and we can tap it to make three mana, and we can ignore the ability to pass it to an opponent when they deal damage to us because we can blink it with Abuelo to protect it.

Omen Hawker is a solid choice for us because it can tap to add a colorless mana and a blue mana that can only be used for activated abilities, Bender’s Waterskin to have a mana rock that can untap during each player’s untap step, or Kor Cartographer to get us a Plains from our library when it enters.

One of the more interesting creatures we can include to allow us to get a good chunk of extra mana would be Peregrine Drake, which when it enters we can untap up to five lands, which definitely helps us in the long run if we need a bit of extra mana.

There are a variety of Game Changers that you can add to increase the power of the deck, Teferi’s Protection being one that allows you to protect your things from removal and can also potentially protect yourself from losing the game due to an aggro deck.

The other way we can use a Game Changer to help us in this regard is to use The One Ring, which when it enters gives us protection from everything until our next turn that we can use continuously while also getting a ton of draws from it’s ability and to reset the number of burden counters to keep our life total in check.

We can also use Grand Arbiter Augustin IV if we want to lean into the control space a bit by making our white spells one mana cheaper, our blue spells one mana cheaper, and spells our opponents cast one mana more to cast.

Long Fought Victory

The last thing we need is to make sure that we win, which with a control based deck is a victory through a bit of attrition.

Starfield Vocalist doesn’t seem like a win condition on its own, because it really isn’t. What it does is that it let’s us get more out of effects that do help us win because it will copy enters triggers, so things like Knight Paladin essentially does 8 damage to our opponents instead of 4 whenever we blink it.

In a similar space there is Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, which also has it so that if a permanent entering the battlefield causes a triggered ability of a permanent we control to trigger then we gain an additional trigger, but we can also deny our opponents from benefiting from their enters the battlefield triggers.

This let’s us get a bunch of additional triggers of effects like Spine of Ish Sah, which when it it enters then we can destroy target permanent and if it happens to be put into a graveyard, then it comes right back to our hand so we can cast it again.

We can also get a lot more benefit from these sort of triggers by using other mass blinking effects like Brago, King Eternal, which when it deals combat damage then we can exile any number of nonland permanents we control and bring them back to the battlefield, getting a ton of enters triggers that are hopefully doubled because of the Panharmonicon type of effects.

Yorion, Sky Nomad also does a mass exile of nonland permanents we control with the caveat that they come back at the beginning of the next end step, Teleportation Circle does this for a target artifact or creature we control at the beginning of our end step, and Eerie Interlude can do it at instant speed and bring them back at the beginning of the end phase to protect our things from a board wipe.

There are also plenty of effects that benefit from when our creatures enter the battlefield, like Blessed Sanctuary which makes a 2/2 Unicorn whenever a nontoken creature we control enters, while also making it so that noncombat damage dealt to us and creatures we control is prevented.

We can also gain a similar effect if we play Genesis Chamber, although instead of making a 2/2 Unicorn we make a 1/1 Myr token, Angelic Sellsword makes a 1/1 Mercenary that can tap to give a creature +1/+0 until end of turn, and Radiant Solar let’s us take advantage of our nontoken creature entering to venture the dungeon a good number of times.

In Conclusion

Abuelo doesn’t do anything too revolutionary, but what he does is flexible enough that we can have a solid control toolbox that allows us to also have ways to get enough resources to win.

It is a slow accrual of those resources, but patience is a virtue in the grand scheme of things. What isn’t great is that if we play against some quick aggressive decks or decks that can spit our a ton of tokens very quickly, then we are in a bit of trouble.

Still, there is something nice about having a Commander that is reliable in what it can do, and one that can be helpful in dealing with a bit of life stuff that is going on.

Thank you for reading, see you all next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

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