Hello and welcome to Weekly Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Mayael the Anima!

Mayael is a three mana 2/3 that for three, a red, a green, and a white and tap you look at the top five cards of your library and you may put a creature card with power 5 or greater from among them into play and then put the rest of those cards on the bottom of your library in any order.

Mayael as a Commander is pretty neat because we can cheat in big creatures decently cheaply, and while there are cheaper ways to cheat creatures in, Mayael provides the direction of going for big creatures, and that will be the majority of creatures in our deck to make sure that whenever we use Mayael we get a hit.

The deck is going to be creature dense, with a lot of them being creatures that have a power of 5 or greater so that we have a decent chance at getting them into play, and if they also happen to bring in some more creatures in the form of tokens or have ways to cheat creatures into play from our hand or library than that would be ideal.

Help from the Little Guys

While our deck will have a lot of creatures that follow the criteria for being cheated out, we need creatures to help get to that point.

Since we are running a multicolor deck, our mana dorks need to help facilitate that plan, which is why Birds of Paradise is a solid option because for a one mana creature with flying, we can add one mana of any color which is a massive boon in fixing our colors.

The amount of mana we add is also a major factor for us because Mayael’s ability needs six mana to activate consistently, so something like Knotvine Mystic is great because we can tap it to filter one mana into three mana, which is a net positive overall, especially if we have a way to enable haste so our creatures with a tap ability can work immediately.

Which we do have access to in several ways, with one of the better options being Rhythm of the Wild, which makes it so that our creature spells can’t be countered and nontoken creatures we control have Riot, which means they either enter with a +1/+1 counter or haste, and with us cheating in big creatures that often don’t have haste, having that option is nice.

Mirari’s Wake is also great for us and since we should be generating a decent bit of mana we can get some extra because it has it so that whenever we tap a land for mana we add one mana of any type that land produced, meaning we get double mana. The +2/+2 anthem is also pretty handy, but that will be for later.

While having Mayael being our primary way to cheat creatures into play, we should also have some backup ways to cheat some more creatures in if Mayael can’t get into play or we have some big things in our hand that Mayael can’t cheat in.

Elvish Piper is one of the easiest ways to do so since for one mana and tap we can put a creature from our hand onto the battlefield. In a similar vein Sneak Attack is also a good option for this because for a red mana we may put a creature from our hand onto the battlefield and it gains haste until end of turn, then it sacrifices itself at the beginning of the next end step.

Hunting Grounds is a very sneaky way to get a way to sneak creatures into play early because it’s ability only activates when it hits Threshold, but that ability is that whenever an opponent casts a spell, we may put a creature card from our hand onto the battlefield.

Stacking the Deck

The next thing that we want to do is to make sure that in order to make the most use of Mayael’s ability, we need to guarantee that the top number of cards have at least one or more potential hits.

Congregation at Dawn is one of the most effective ways of getting this done because it let’s us look through our library for up to three creature cards, has us shuffle our library and then let’s us put those cards on top of our library in any order, which means if we lean a bit more into the utility box aspect of the deck, then we can tutor for the creatures we need to guarantee a hit.

Another way we can get a solid chance at getting a hit would be with Cream of the Crop, which has whenever a creature we control enters, we may look at the top X cards of our library where X is the power of that creature and if we do then we put one card on top of our library and the rest on the bottom in any order. While not as targeted as Congregation at Dawn, if we consistently get hits with Mayael, then we can get a good amount of sculpting for later down the line.

Speaking of sculpting, MIrri’s Guile is also really good at this since at the beginning of our upkeep we may look at the top three cards of our library and then put them back in any order, which means not only can we guarantee our next draw to be something we need, but we can also make sure that we can sculpt the deck to have a hit with Mayael when we use their ability.

While not in everyone’s budget, there is also something to be said about considering Sylvan Library, which at the beginning of your draw step you may draw two additional cards, and if you do you can choose two cards you drew this turn and for each of those cards you can pay 4 life to put them in your hand or put it on top of your library. This can help you draw something that you need at the moment, paying a little extra life if you really need a card, or to shift the top of your library into a hit with Mayael.

We also happen to have access to a card that let’s us shift cards from our hand into our library with Scroll Rack, which for one mana and tap let’s us exile our hand face down, put that many cards from the top of our library into our hand, and then put the exiled cards on top of our library in any order, which means if we have some potential hits with Mayael in our hand, then we can move them into our library fairly efficiently.

Depending on the opponent we face, we may even be able to manipulate our deck even further with Lurking Predators because whenever an opponent casts a spell we reveal the top card of our library and if it is a creature card then we put it onto the battlefield, otherwise we may put it on the bottom of our library, which means we can potentially keep cheating creatures out if our opponents play a lot of spells, or filter our deck as our opponents cast spells.

Powered by Utility

The next thing we need are ways to make sure we gain as much utility as possible with our big powered creatures, and have ways to keep the board clear while doing so.

Elemental Bond is one of the easiest ways for us to get efficient card draw because whenever a creature with power 3 or greater enters the battlefield under our control we draw a card. Straightforward and to the point, and since a chunk of our creatures will have power greater than 3, we should get a good chunk of card draw from it.

There are also cards like Colossal Majesty, which at the beginning of our upkeep if we control creature with power 4 or greater then we draw a card, Garruk’s Uprising where it draws a card when it enters if we control with power 4 or greater while also drawing us a card when a creature with power 4 or greater enters and gives our creatures trample, and Fanatic of Rhonas which normally taps for one green mana but taps for four green mana if we control a creature with power 4 or greater.

We can also turn that power into some damage with Where Ancients Tread, which makes it so that whenever a creature with power 5 or greater enters the battlefield under our control, we deal 5 damage to any target which is a good bit of damage that we can get a decent number of times per turn if we get a bit lucky.

The Skullspore Nexus is also an interesting card for us because it becomes cheaper by X where X is the greatest power among creatures we control, and whenever one or more nontoken creatures we control die, we make a Fungus Dinosaur token with base power and toughness each equal to the total power of those creatures with the additional ability to double target creature’s power until end of turn for two mana.

As far as power is concerned, there is also Xenagos, God of Revels, which at the beginning of combat on our turn, another creature we control gains haste and +X/+X where X is that creature’s power, which can be a really helpful way to get more damage through with a creature that just came in from Mayael’s ability.

To make sure our things are protected, other than the usual recommendations of things like Heroic Intervention and Flawless Maneuver, one card that I think would be pretty good is actually Chaos Warp, which has us shuffle target permanent in it’s owner’s library and reveal the top card of their library, where if it is a permanent then it get’s put onto the battlefield.

We can actually use it to our benefit in a manner of speaking where we can take a utility creature or creature that has been made unusable and potentially turn it into something valuable while also having a very flexible removal spell. Sure it may whiff and get a nonpermanent card or we can have an opponent cheat something big out, but it is still something we can consider fairly well.

There is even a creature that we can hit with Mayael’s ability to help us protect our creatures. Spearbreaker Behemoth is a creature that for one mana can give a creature we control with power 5 or greater indestructible until end of turn, which can help give a good chunk of our creatures a way to survive a board wipe, provided it isn’t an exile based board wipe.

In terms of Game Changers, we have a good amount of cards to work with, and Aura Shards is a card that can actually make use of us cheating creatures out at a decent clip because whenever a creature we control enters, we may destroy target artifact or enchantment.

There are also Worldy Tutor which let’s us search for a creature card, reveal it, shuffle our library and put that card on top in order to get the most efficient use of Mayael’s ability at instant speed, which means we can get a potential game winner at the end of an opponent’s turn.

As far as board wipes go we can also use the newest member of the Game Changers list in Farewell, which is a modal board wipe that has the option to exile all artifacts, creatures, enchantments, and/or graveyards and we can really sculpt that to how we want to use it.

Unleash the Beasts

Since we are cheating our big creatures, our victory condition is to get some very big creatures into play and win through them, and there is a massive variety of creatures to pick from.

Godsire is an 8/8 with vigilance, which is already very solid, but can also tap to make an 8/8 Beast into play, and since ideally we have ways to give Godsire haste, we can immediately attack with it and then tap to make a token that we can make use of on our next turn.

Terastodon let’s us destroy up to three target noncreature permanents and for each permanent put into a graveyard this way it’s controller makes a 3/3 Elephant creature token, Blazing Archon has it so that creatures can’t attack us, and Dragonlord Dromoka makes it so that our opponents can’t cast spells during our turn.

Aurora Awakener is an interesting new card because when it enters we reveal cards from the top of our library until we reveal X permanent cards where X is the number of colors among permanents we control and we put any number of those permanent cards onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of our library in a random order.

Curious Colossus is also pretty good because when it enters each creature target opponent controls becomes a 1/1 Coward a loses all abilities, which makes a nice way to break a potential board stall that an opponent may be presenting.

Another way to break that board stall would be through Terror of the Peaks, which makes it so that whenever a creature we control enters the battlefield under our control then it deals damage equal to that creature’s power to any target.

Stonehoof Chieftain helps us in combat by making it so that whenever a creature we control attacks it gains trample and indestructible until end of turn, Vigor prevents damage that would be dealt to a creature we control and puts +1/+1 counters on them for each 1 damage prevented this way, and Surrak and Goreclaw gives other creatures we control trample and whenever a nontoken creature we control enters it gets a +1/+1 counter and gains haste until end of turn.

Avacyn, Angel of Hope is also a great way for us to close out a game because it gives other creatures we control indestructible, which can make it much more difficult for our opponents to retaliate when we start building our board, especially if we manage to cheat her out pretty early on.

In Conclusion

Mayael is a solid Commander that can help us cheat out some pretty big creatures and let’s us really explore a fun archetype of Commander in cheating big creatures out.

Mayael’s ability is strong but costs six mana to activate, which can be a significant discount but still one that is pretty costly to activate early and often, and can also only be done when we have the ability to tap Mayael.

While there is plenty of redundancy in us being able to cheat creatures out in other ways, Mayael’s ability will foretell our game plan pretty heavily, which means that our other methods of cheating things into play will be much more targeted.

There is also the fact that if we don’t have creatures that give our other creatures some form of protection, then we are fragile to board wipes, especially exile based board wipes of which are some of the hardest to deal with without having a couple of specific cards.

I still think that Mayael is fun lower powered Commander that can provide a way to get a wide panoply of big creatures onto the battlefield at much discounted rate.

I do apologize for this coming out much later than intended, I will be better about posting these on time, thank you for your patience.

Thank you for reading, see you all next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

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