Hello and welcome to Weekly Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Maralen, Fae Ascendant!

Maralen is five mana 4/5 with flying and whenever Maralen or another Elf or Faerie you control enters, exile the top two cards of target opponent’s library and once each turn you may cast a spell with mana value less than or equal to the number of Elves and Faeries you control from among cards exiled with Maralen this turn without paying its mana cost.

We continue our look at Lorwyn Eclipsed by taking a look at Maralen, who is does an interesting combination of being a theft deck while also playing into a go wide double typal deck that helps fuel the theft strategy.

Now the way that Maralen is worded is that we can only play the spells once each turn whenever an Elf or a Faerie enter, and only spells that were exiled that turn, which means that if we want to play spells on our opponents turn we need to have tricky ways to cast them is they can’t normally be cast at instant speed.

There are a lot of moving parts for this deck, but that usually means that the decks are pretty interesting, so let’s get started!

Enter the Fae Wilds

So the first thing we need are reliable ways to get Faeries and Elves into play, ideally consistently or at instant speed because that will become important later.

In terms of reliable ways to always get a Faerie into play, of course we can look towards the original way to do so with Bitterblossom, which at the beginning of our upkeep we lose 1 life and create a 1/1 Faerie Rogue token with flying. Now there is also the newest addition to that field with Bitterbloom Bearer, which is a creature that does the same thing, but also has flash.

Now those can be pretty pricey for a lot of people in terms of cost, but fortunately there are cheaper ways to get Faerie and Elf tokens into play, like Gilt-Leaf Ambush, which puts two 1/1 Elf Warrior tokens into play and we clash with an opponent, which if we win then those Elves gain deathtouch which can be a helpful bonus for us.

Mischievous Mystic makes a 1/1 Faerie with flying whenever we draw our second card each turn, Galadhrim Ambush makes X 1/1 Elf Warrior tokens where X is the number of attacking creatures while also becoming a Fog for non-Elf creatures, Faebloom Trick makes two 1/1 Faerie tokens with flying and then taps target creature an opponent controls, and Elven Ambush makes a 1/1 Elf Warrior creature token for each Elf we control.

We can also work on playing creatures at flash speed, like Obyra, Dreaming Duelist which not only has flash and flying at two mana but also has it so that whenever another Faerie we control enters each opponent loses 1 life, and since we are working to get more Faeries in play as well, this helps us edge more into winning the game.

Another Faerie that is amazing to use is of course Spellstutter Sprite, which counters target spell of mana value X or less, where X is the number of Faeries we control, which again since we are working to have a good number of Faeries in play, can be really good.

There aren’t as many Elves that can be cast at flash speed, but the ones that can are pretty solid like Frilled Mystic which counters target spell when it enters, Selfless Safewright which when it enters we choose a creature type and other permanents we control of that type gain hexproof and indestructible, and Caller of the Claw which when it enters the battlefield we put a 2/2 Bear token onto the battlefield for each nontoken creature put into our graveyard from the battlefield this turn.

Some Tricksy Casting

One of the other big hang ups of Maralen is that even though we are able to get Elves and Faeries into play to cast our opponents spells, we may not be able to cast them so we need ways to work around that.

Leyline of Anticipation is one of the first cards to come to mind because it is a Leyline that can be put onto the battlefield if it is in our opening hand and let’s us cast spells as though they had flash, which can be really helpful to have set up in the early game to be ready once we have access to Maralen.

Vedalken Orrery is another solid way for us to be able to cast spells as though they had flash on a generic four mana artifact, because one of the more difficult things about being a multicolored deck is that color specific ways to give things we control flash can be difficult if we don’t have the right fixing or didn’t open with Leyline of Anticipation to worry about these sort of things.

Even lands we control can let us cast spells as though they had flash like Alchemist’s Refuge, which normally taps for colorless but for a green and a blue for the rest of the turn we can cast spells as though they had flash, which can become a liability since we are in a three color deck and may need as many options to cast our spells so this one is more if you have the open land space to utilize it.

One card that actually works really well with our strategy and can also give us the ability to cast things as though they had flash is High Fae Trickster, which also happens to have flash itself and while it is a bit pricey, to purchase and to cast, it does help the strategy overall because they are themselves a Faerie.

Yeva, Nature’s Herald is also a creature that happens to synergize well with Maralen due to them being an Elf, having flash, and giving the ability to cast our green creature spells as though they had flash, which is a much more narrow ability but many of our utility Elves don’t have flash and this helps them in that regard.

Breath of the Sleepless is an interesting card to consider because while it only gives Spirit spells we control the ability to cast as though they had flash, if we happen to cast a creature spell on an opponent’s turn then we can tap up to one target creature.

Tidal Barracuda is also a card that while not synergistic in being able to trigger Maralen, does something interesting in that it gives any player the ability to cast spells as though they had flash, but gives the caveat that our opponents can’t cast spells during our turn, which can help potentially delay our opponents from casting removal spells when we have a big turn, but also brings the risk of them dropping that board wipe on another opponent’s turn.

Guarding the Wilds

Now we also need to make sure our things are as protected as we can get them, and there are some pretty tricky ways we can make that work in our favor.

Aetherspouts is a great card because for each attacking creature, its owner puts it on the top of bottom of their library, which is helpful in a number of ways. The biggest way this helps us is that it gives the opponent a choice to potentially give us an amazing creature that we can cast with Maralen whenever we exile it by putting it on top or to prevent us from using that creature and preventing them from using it as well put it on the bottom of their library.

Bury in Books puts a creature second from the top of it’s owner’s library while being two mana cheaper to cast if it targets an attacking creature, Deem Inferior puts a nonland permanent second from the top or bottom of their owner’s library getting one mana cheaper for each card we’ve drawn this turn, and Memory Lapse which counters target spell and if the spell is countered this way it goes on top of its owner’s library instead of the graveyard.

Even though our deck is based on a go wide board, in the case we are facing an opponent that has a bigger board, our board still needs work, or we are unable to get through, it is still always good to keep a board wipe in your deck and the one I like is Culling Ritual, which destroys all nonland permanents of mana value two or less and we make a black or a green mana for each one, which we can use for a variety of spells while also protecting our more mana expensive board pieces.

There are also the creature typal specific board wipes like Kindred Dominance which has us choose a creature type and destroy all creatures that aren’t of the chosen type and Raise the Palisade which also has us choose a creature type and then return all creatures that aren’t the chosen type to their owner’s hands.

While these two do in fact clear the board, with Maralen being both a Faerie and Elf we should be fine, but Faerie and especially Elf are popular typal decks, so if we want to clear the board while also keeping a good chunk of our things safe, we can include these things pretty naturally and still maintain a solid board state afterwards.

In terms of Game Changers we are fairly open in our options being in three colors, though the one I would say works really well for us since we are opting for a go wide strategy for the most part would be Gaea’s Cradle, which adds a green mana for each creature we control.

It can be used to cast big expensive spells we want, along with helping make sure we can cast Maralen again if she happens to get destroyed a couple of times. Seedborn Muse is also a pretty solid card for us because we untap all permanents we control during each player’s end step and any of the cheap tutors to help us get the lynch pin we need will never really be a bad thing.

Grand Finale

The last thing we need of course is how we win with the deck, and there are several interesting ways we can go about doing so.

Brainstealer Dragon allows us to take advantage of taking our opponents things because at the beginning of our end step we exile a card from the top of each opponents library and can cast it as long as it is exiled using mana of any type to cast it, but whenever a nonland permanent an opponent owns enters the battlefield under our control, they lose life equal to it mana value.

There are other cards that benefit from us using our opponent’s cards like Gonti, Night Minister which creates a Treasure token whenever a player casts a spell they don’t own and whenever a creature deals combat damage to one of our opponents then they look at the top card of that opponents library and exiles it face down, able to play it as long as it remains exiled and able to use mana of any type to cast a spell this way.

Thieving Amalgam has it so that at the beginning of each opponent’s upkeep we manifest the top card of their library and whenever a creature we control but don’t own dies, its owner loses 2 life and we gain 2 life.

We can also play into the exiling of our opponents cards from Maralen, which are exiled for the rest of the game, with something like Umbris, Fear Manifest which gets +1/+1 for each card our opponents own in exile and whenever it or another Nightmare or Horror enters the battlefield they exile cards from the top of their library until they exile a land card.

Tasha’s Hideous Laughter can also be a way to clear our opponents library significantly by having each opponent exile cards from the top of their library until they have exiled cards with total mana value of twenty or more, which fuels Umbris significantly.

But if we manage to have access to a ton of mana and want to cast a bunch of an opponent’s things then there is of course Villainous Wealth, which let’s exile the top X cards of their library and we can cast any number of nonland cards with mana value X or less from among them.

In Conclusion

Maralen is a pretty straightforward Commander in what she wants to do and how she wants it to be done.

Despite it being pretty on rails and clear on how to play Maralen, there are still some interesting cards we can play to make playing this somewhat limited version of a theft deck much more interesting and engaging.

Failing being able to play a theft strategy, we have two typal strategies to fall back on which allow us to customize it to be more one way or the other depending on our own personal tastes and how we want to get Maralen working.

Having said that, our deck does become reliant on having a solid board presence, meaning that unless we are playing our own specific board wipes, we are very susceptible to our opponent’s board wipes and can lose a lot of momentum if they play them before we can become established.

Since Maralen is also a theft deck at heart, we are also at the whims of our opponents decks and strategies and just luck in general. Sometimes we hit spells we can’t cast, or lands, or cards that would set us behind even if we can cast it.

Theft decks always are interesting because while you give up some plans for your deck, you can also take away key elements of your opponents decks and make use of their utility spells before they can. It’s an interesting balance, and if we aren’t quite getting the spells we need to advance us far ahead of our opponents, at the very least we can play into a typal strategy or a midrange strategy to grind out certain match ups.

Thank you for reading, see you all next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

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