Hello and welcome to Weekly Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Bre of Clan Stoutarm!

Bre is a four mana 4/4 that for one and a white and tap you can give another target creature you control flying and lifelink until end of turn and at the beginning of your end step, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card, and you may cast that card without paying its mana cost if the spell’s mana value is less than or equal to the amount of life you gained this turn, otherwise you put it into your hand.

Lorwyn Eclipsed has been fully revealed and as per my fairly recent trend, we are going to be taking a look at some of the Commanders from the set. We are going to be starting things off with Bre because she provides an interesting play in how to make the most out of life gain strategies in a new way.

I have been very happy with this trend at playing around with life gain in a way that isn’t just reciprocal life drain or have X amount of life to win the game, and rather we can do some interesting things with it.

In the case of Bre, this utilizes life gain as a way to cast spells for free, and since she can cast any spell, so long as we have gained life equal to the mana value of the spell, which leads to some interesting options.

Excess of Life

Since our deck uses life gain as a way to cast a bunch of spells, getting cards that gain us life seems like a solid starting point for us.

in terms of of getting some burst life gain for cheap, Chaplain’s Blessing is perfect because for only one mana we gain 5 life, which should be able to help us cast most of the cards in our deck and is cheap enough that it can be cast with not so much downside from Bre if we hit it from her ability.

Ideally we should also supplement raw life gain with some form of utility, so something like Union of the Third Path is a great example of this because it draws us a card and then gains us life equal to the number of cards in our hand.

Revitalize gains us 3 life and draws us a card, Sanctify and Invoke the Divine destroy an artifact or enchantment and gains us 3 life and 4 life respectively, and Riot Control gains us 1 life for each creatire our opponents control and prevents all damage that would be dealt to us this turn.

There are also plenty of modal spells for us to use that include some form of life gain for flexibility like Light of Hope which can either gain us 4 life, destroy and enchantment, or put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.

Deafening Clarion is the best of both worlds in that it is a modal spell that let’s us choose one or both options in dealing 3 damage to each creature and/or giving creatures we control lifelink until the end of the turn, which we can use for a decent swing of life gain to cast basically any spell in our deck.

To help our life gain even more, we can also use cards that gain us extra life like Cleric Class, which at base gains us 1 additional life if we gain life, the second level being that whenever we gain life we put a +1/+1 counter on target creature we control, and when it hits the third level then we can return target creature card from our graveyard to the battlefield, gaining life equal to its toughness.

The Wind Crystal is also a great spell for us because it makes white spells we cast cost one mana less to cast, doubles the amount of life gain, and for six mana we can give all creatures we control flying and lifelink until the end of the turn.

Leyline of Hope is also amazing for us because it is a Leyline, meaning that if it is in our starting hand then we can put it onto the battlefield for free, it gives us 1 additional life whenever we gain life, and if we have 7 or more life than our starting total, which is not hard to do in this deck, then creatures we control get +2/+2.

Building Blocks

The next things that we need are the cards that we can use to help benefit us in the long run, ideally cheap permanents that help us generate some value.

One of the better options are cheap cost reducers like Pearl Medallion and Ruby Medallion, both reduce the cost of our spells by one mana, white spells for the case of Pearl and red spells for the case of Ruby. While we will ideally be casting spells for free from Bre’s ability, having a couple of contingencies for the cards that end up in our hand are always solid to have.

We can also use some form of ramp spells like Archeomancer’s Map, which let’s us search for up to two basic Plains from our library and puts them into our hand, and whenever an opponent that has more lands than we do plays a land, we can put a land from our hand onto the battlefield, untapped by the way.

As far as other ramp options go, we can also use Descent into Avernus, which gets two descent counters at the beginning of our upkeeps and then has each player make X Treasure tokens and take X damage where X is the number of counters on Descent into Avernus. It keeps us out of the fire for a bit since it generates everyone some Treasures, but since we should have a ton of life gain, then we can also mitigate the damage we take from it as the game goes on.

There is also a way we can play around our opponents getting those Treasures so they can’t get immediate value from them by using Blind Obedience, which has it so that artifacts and creatures our opponents control enter tapped, and it also has Extort, which let’s us pay a mana to drain each opponent for 1 life and we gain 1 life from it, thus starting our life gain for the turn.

Talking about control pieces there is also Ghostly Prison to make it so our opponents need to pay two mana for each creature they want to attack us with, Generous Gift to destroy target permanent and have it’s controller make a 3/3 Elephant token in its place, and even Lightning Helix to deal 3 damage to something and gain 3 life can be really helpful in helping us maintain some control of the board.

We should also be working to gain value from cards we exile from the cards we do exile, which we will be losing some amount of lands, but the cards we can potentially cast go into exile first, and we can make use of that with something like Laelia, the Blade Reforged, which when it attacks we exile the top card of our library and can play it this turn, but more importantly whenever we do exile one or more cards from our library, we put a +1/+1 counter on Laelia.

The War Doctor can also play well with us exiling cards because whenever one or more other permanents phase out and whenever one or more cards are put into exile from anywhere, we put a time counter on The War Doctor. Then whenever The War Doctor attacks, it deals damage equal to the number of time counters on it to any target, and if a creature would die from this, we exile it instead.

Wild-Magic Sorcerer can even help keep the chain going because it gives the first spell we cast from exile each turn Cascade, which can help us get a little more value from our spells being cast from exile.

Towering Defenses

Now, since our goal is to cast spells that gain us life so we can cast spells for free, we should make sure that we maintain a solid amount of defenses.

Feudkiller’s Verdict is an amazing card because it fulfills a double purpose. One is that it gains us 10 life, which means we can cast pretty much any spell from our library that we want, but the second thing it does for the deck is make sure that we have a 5/5 Giant Warrior body from it if we have more life than an opponent, which should not be an issue with this deck.

Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury is also a great way for us to keep ourselves safe because when it enters or attacks it deals 3 damage to any target and we gain 3 life, and since it is three mana we can cast it off of Bre’s ability pretty reliably, and while it does sacrifice itself if it didn’t Escape, we can also use something like Sun Titan to bring it back when it enters or attacks each turn to get more damage and more life gain through without having to Escape it.

There are also the cards that give us some extra bodies whenever we gain life, Resplendent Angel being one of my favorites because at the beginning of each end step, if we gained 5 or more life this turn we make a 4/4 Angel with flying and vigilance, and for six mana we can give it lifelink and +2/+2 until end of turn to help facilitate some of that token making.

Griffin Aerie also works really well for us because at the beginning of our end step if we gained 3 or more life we make a 2/2 Griffin token with flying, Elenda’s Hierophant puts a +1/+1 counter on itself whenever we gain life and when it dies we make X 1/1 Vampire tokens with lifelink where X is it’s power, and while an expensive card Archangel of Thune puts a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control whenever we gain life.

Board wipes do also come in handy because with Bre’s ability we can choose whether or not we want to cast them, and there are some ways we can protect our board as well. Avatar’s Wrath let’s us choose a creature and then airbend the rest, while making it so that our opponents can’t cast spells from anywhere other than their hands.

Clever Concealment is also a solid card for us because any number of nonland permanents we control phase out, which means that until our next turn they do not exist, which can pre-emptively help us avoid any potential future board wipes that our opponents may play.

Game Changers are a little tough for this deck, mostly because some of them are more useful if we use them reactively, but there are still some that we can use to our advantage. Gamble is great one mana tutor that let’s us get anything we want from our library, and then randomly discard a card from our hand. Sure there is a chance that we discard the card we tutored for, but having a universal tutor is a strong enough card to consider.

I would also be remiss to not mention The One Ring, another card that keeps us safe from any potential attacks coming our way since it gives us protection from everything until our next turn and becomes a powerful draw engine that we barely feel the consequences for because of how much life we gain to compensate.

Victory Toss

The way we win can vary, and while we can definitely use cards that allow us to win by having a ton of life, I think that there are more interesting ways to win.

First we can use cards that interact with us casting spells form exile like Passionate Archeologist, which gives Commander creatures we control the ability to whenever we cast a spell from exile, it deals damage equal to that spell’s mana value to target opponent.

If we want to get even more out of those damage based spells, then we can also use Gisela, Blade of Goldknight, which if a source we control would deal damage to an opponent or a permanent an opponent controls, it deals double the damage instead, and we can also protect our things by halving that much damage if a source would deal damage to us or permanents we control.

Quintorius Kand also works well with our strategy because as a static ability he deals 2 damage to each opponent and we gain 2 life whenever we cast a spell from exile, a +1 to make a 3/2 Spirit token, a -3 to Discover 4, and a -6 to exile any number of target cards from our graveyard, add that much red mana, and then we can play those exiled cards this turn to get a bit more damage through.

We can also use our life as a resource, like with one of my favorite life gain cards in Storm Herd, which makes X 1/1 Pegasus tokens with flying where X is equal to our life total, which should be a massive amount of tokens with all of the life gain that we will have.

Serra Ascendant gets +5/+5 and flying as long as we have 30 or more life at one mana to cast, Serra Avatar to have power and toughness equal to our life total and shuffle itself back into our library if it is put into a graveyard from anywhere, and Celestine, the Living Saint who at the beginning of our end step let’s us return a creature card with mana value X or less to the battlefield where X is the amount of life we gained this turn to bring back nearly any creature that we sent to the graveyard.

Then of course there are the cards that let us get more value from Bre’s ability by letting us copy that ability, like with Kirol, Attentive First-Year, which let’s us tap two untapped creatures we control in order to copy target triggered ability once each turn, but once can be all we need to get some more value.

Lithoform Engine and Strionic Resonator are some classic artifact ways to copy activated or triggered abilities, Return the Favor is a modal spell that can copy an instant, sorcery, activated ability, or triggered ability or change the target of a spell with a single target, and even Peter Parker’s Camera to copy Bre’s ability so long as we have a film counter we can remove from it.

In Conclusion

Bre is an interesting way to play around with a life gain Commander in letting them cast more spells based on the amount of life gained that turn, and it is a fun trend to see life gain being tinkered with in much more interesting ways to play with the archetype.

Now this is dependent on making sure we can balance the life gain with the cards we want to cast, ideally lower mana value ones, but at the very least we can put the card in our hand if we don’t want to cast it or are unable to cast it.

Of course any way that shuts off our life gain is a massive downgrade to the deck, but we should still have enough tools in our arsenal to make sure that we can deal with what’s stopping us from gaining life or we make sure that we can manage without the life gain. Our deck is a bit of a toolbox, which makes it so that we can deal with a lot of problems as we need to.

Thank you for reading, see you all next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

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