Hello and welcome to Weekly Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Sally Pride, Lioness Leader!

Sally Pride is a five mana 2/4 that when they enter you create X 2/2 red Mutant creature tokens, where X is the number of nontoken creatures you control and whenever Sally Pride attacks, you put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.

As is now tradition, we are going to taking a look at a couple of Commander from the upcoming set, in this case we are going to be looking at some of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Commanders. While there are a lot of potential Commanders to look at, I wanted to look at some of the ones that people are probably not looking at, and in this case Sally Pride seems to have gone under the radar.

Creature token decks are nothing new, especially in white, but what’s interesting to me is that Sally Pride cares about having a good number of nontoken creatures in play first before getting the decently sized tokens into play.

It’s also interesting to me that she also wants to play into go tall strategy, making all of your creatures bigger when she attacks. This presents an all out aggro strategy that wants an army of creatures that get bigger whenever you attack.

This is going to present an interesting deck building choice in having a ton of small utility creatures that will get bigger and bigger as well as ways to get even more creature tokens from Sally Pride.

Creature Utility

The first thing that we need are cheap creatures that not only fill up the board for Sally Pride, but also provide a utility either when they enter or when something we control enters.

Knight of the White Orchid is a perfectly fine way for us to get a little extra ramping in if we aren’t first or have fallen behind because when it enters and an opponent controls more lands than we do, then we get to search our library for a Plains card and put it into play, while also being a two mana 2/2 with first strike.

While three mana, Claim Jumper also follows a similar line of logic because when it enters and an opponent controls more lands than we do we can find a Plains and put it on the battlefield tapped, but if an opponent still has more lands than we do then we can repeat this process one more time.

Selfless Spirit can protect our board by being able to sacrifice itself to give creatures we control indestructible, while Helpful Hunter, Wall of Omens, and Spirited Companion draw us a card when they enter, and Archivist of Oghma also has it that if an opponent searches their library we gain 1 life and draw a card.

Since a good chunk of the creatures we are playing and making have power 2 or less, we can make use of cards like Welcoming Vampire which draws us a card when one or more creatures with power 2 or less enter the battlefield under our control, but only once per turn.

Enduring Innocence is also great for this because it does the same thing that Welcoming Vampire does, but while it does lose flying it does get the great ability to come back as an enchantment when it dies the first time, meaning we can have it be a lingering effect after a board wipe.

Rumor Gatherer is also a card that becomes surprisingly helpful for us because it has an Alliance ability, aka Creaturefall, where whenever another creature we control enters then we scry 1, and if this is the second time this ability resolves this turn then we draw a card instead, meaning that we can sculpt our hand in some aspects to help us get what we want and need while also getting some draws for making tokens.

Since our deck will be making a good chunk of tokens, ways we can benefit our tokens will also be helpful like Toby, Beastie Befriender which makes a 4/4 Beast when they enter that can’t attack or block alone, but more importantly makes it that so long as we control four or more creature tokens, creature tokens we control have flying.

Ainok Strike Leader is also great for a tokens strategy because whenever we attack with it and/or our Commander, for each opponent we create a 1/1 Goblin creature token that is tapped and attacking that player while also being able to sacrifice it to give creature tokens we control indestructible until end of turn.

While not creatures there are some helpful enchantments like Intangible Virtue which gives creature tokens we control +1/+1 and vigilance, Leyline of the Meek which gives creature tokens we control +1/+1 and has the Leyline ability of being able to come into play for free if it is one opening hand, and Inspiring Leader which gives Commander creatures we control the ability to give creature tokens we control +2/+2.

Power to the Crowd

The next thing we need are a plethora of ways to get a ton of +1/+1 counters, of which we have plenty of permutations of that effect.

First we have creatures that can gain +1/+1 counters themselves, with Skyknight Squire being a solid example of this because whenever another creature we control enters then we put a +1/+1 counter on it, with the bonus effect of gaining flying and becoming a Knight when it has three or more +1/+1 counters.

From the new set we also get Big Mother Mouser, which enters with two +1/+1 counters and when it attacks we double the number of +1/+1 counters on it, with the bonus of when it dies it makes a number of 1/1 Robot tokens equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on it.

It is a bit pricy, but there is also Nesting Dovehawk, which gets a +1/+1 counter whenever a creature token we control enters, which if we play correctly then we should be doing quite often, and at the beginning of combat on our turn then we Populate.

Then we have creatures that can put +1/+1 counters on other creatures we control like Mighty Mutanimals, which make a 2/2 Mutant when it enters and an Alliance ability of putting a +1/+1 counter on target creature we control whenever a creature we control enters.

Securitron Squadron is also a solid include because whenever a creature token we control enters we put a +1/+1 counter on it, which is also compounded because it has Squad for three mana, which means that we can pay an additional three mana any number of times to get token copies of the Squadron to make our tokens even bigger.

Mikaeus, the Lunarch can also be an excellent way to turn all the counters we have into even more counters because they enter with X +1/+1 counters and we can either tap him to put a +1/+1 counter on Mikaeus or we can tap and remove a +1/+1 counter from them in order to put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control.

This leads nicely to cards like Generous Pup, which have an effect when they get +1/+1 counters which in the case of the Pup is that once each turn whenever one or more +1/+1 counters are put on it, then we put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control.

Exemplar of Light also has a once per turn ability whenever it gets a +1/+1 counter that draws us a card, Dusk Legion Duelist also draws us a card once per turn when they get a +1/+1 counter put on them, and while Cenn’s Tactician doesn’t get much use of their ability to put a +1/+1 counter on a Soldier creature we control, we can get far more mileage from its ability to have each creature we control with a +1/+1 counter on it able to block an additional creature.

There are also a plethora of noncreature cards that give our creatures +1/+1 counters, with Cathar’s Crusade being the card that can be near exponential because whenever a creature we control enters then we put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control, which triggers separately for each new creature that enters and since our goal is to get a ton of creature tokens in play, it’s going to be a lot.

Protect With Purpose

Now we need to make sure that Sally Pride can stay in play as long as possible since they are the focus of the deck and our primary way to generate a large army of creatures, so our protection suite is primarily going to be flicker based.

Otherworldly Journey is solid because at instant speed and for two mana we can exile a creature and bring it back at the beginning of the next end step we return it to play and put a +1/+1 counter on it as an extra bonus, which is great for any targeted removal and board wipes since it immediately doesn’t bring Sally Pride back.

Long Road Home does the same thing that Otherworldly Journey does, Liberate exiles a creature we control and brings it back at the beginning of the end step with no additional counters, and Airbender’s Reversal is a bit of quirky way to protect Sally Pride since it airbends a creature we control but also has the ability to destroy target attacking creature and I do enjoy modality on spells.

There are also ways we can benefit from mass blink or flicker spells like Lae’zel’s Acrobatics which has us exile all nontoken creatures we control then we roll a d20 and on a 1-9 then we return all creatures we control at the beginning of the next end step, and on a 10-20 then we return those creatures back to the battlefield and then exile them again to bring them back at the beginning of the next end step.

This is a bit of a nonbo with Sally Pride for the higher rolls since she only counts nontoken creature we control when she enters to make Mutant tokens so we don’t get a ton of tokens, but we can also make use of other enters effects twice and gain benefits from that.

Eerie Interlude can be great for us since we can exile any number of target creatures we control and return them back to our control at the beginning of the next end step, which is perfect against board wipes where we would lose our creature tokens but save our nontoken creatures to help us rebuild our board rapidly.

Ghostway can function as an additional way to exile creatures we control, at the downside that we exile each creature we control full stop and bring them back at the beginning of the next end step, which can be a bit annoying if only a couple of creatures we control were going to be removed and this was the only way to save our board, but a bit of redundancy can be necessary.

Game Changers wise our options we don’t really need too many depending on how strong we want it. I did want to mention at least the newest member of the Game Changers list, Farewell, which is a modal board wipe that can exile all creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and/or graveyards.

Board wipes in go wide decks are always a tricky thing to consider because you don’t want to clear your own board if you have a lot of creatures. However my defense for Farewell is that sometimes there are problematic permanents in play that we need to deal with and sometimes they are creatures.

We can pack single target removal like Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile for exile based removal, but if there is a massive board we need to deal with and can sacrifice our board to do so with minimal loss, then Farewell at least gives us the option to exile what we need rather than a blanket board wipe.

Besides, there is also Teferi’s Protection to make sure that our board is safe from Farewell and we only lose our graveyard, but since our deck isn’t much of a graveyard deck then it isn’t too bad of a loss and we stay safe for a turn along with our other mass exile spells that can save our own things in case of an emergency or opposing Farewell.

Crowd Goes Wild

As far as our win condition, it’s very much an all aggro based strategy, so any ways we can get that aggro going will work wonders for us.

Since we are in white, haste is not one of our best options to get all the tokens that Sally Pride make into damage, but with a generic haste enabler like Crashing Drawbridge which can tap to give creatures we control haste until the end of turn can be really good, especially if we get a couple of blink spells off to get even more Mutant tokens into play.

Our only other option for a haste enabler is also a way for us to win the game and that’s with Akroma’s Memorial, which gives creatures we control flying, first strike, vigilance, trample, haste, and protection from black and red. This is also a decently pricey card to buy, which is always a consideration.

While we may not have a lot of options to give haste, we have a few ways to get even more value from Sally Pride with cards like Helm of the Host, which at the beginning of combat on our turn we create a token copy of the equipped creature and that token is nonlegendary if the equipped creature is legendary and it also gets haste.

This gives us more and more Sally Pride’s which means not only do we get even more Mutant tokens, but since the token copies gain haste then that means that we get even more +1/+1 counters when they attack, which can definitely help us win faster.

While not sticking around to give us more +1/+1 counters, Blade of Selves is worth considering because it gives the equipped creature Myriad, which means that when it attacks then for each opponent other than the defender we create a token copy of the creature that enter tapped and attacking the other opponents or Planeswalker they control.

We lose out on the +1/+1 counters since not only do they enter tapped and attacking which prevents the attack trigger from activating Sally Pride, but we do get more Mutant tokens since they do enter the battlefield which does at least trigger that.

Mirrormind Crown is also a trip to consider since as long as it is attached to a creature then the first time we would create one or more tokens each turn, then we may instead create that many tokens that are copies of the equipped creature. If we manage to have at least one Helm of the Host token Sally Pride copy to stick, then we can potentially get a massive army of Mutant tokens if we blink Sally Pride.

Speaking of massive amount of tokens, it would be remiss of me to not talk about token multipliers like Exalted Sunborn, which makes it so that if one or more tokens would be made under our control then twice that many tokens are created instead. What’s more is that it has a Warp cost of two mana, which means that we can Warp it in and cast Sally Pride to get a bunch of Mutant tokens and cast something like Ephemerate to get even more tokens.

Now token multipliers are expensive because of making a bunch of creature tokens is a very popular strategy, and Exalted Sunborn is one of the cheapest ways to get this effect.

There is also Renewed Solidarity which is a slower token doubler because we choose a creature type and those creatures get +1/+0 and at the beginning of our end step for each token we control of the chosen type that entered this turn, we make a token copy of it. It isn’t as efficient as other token multiplying cards since it does it only on our end step and is restricted to a single creature type, but it is cheaper to buy and for slower and more casual games is probably better overall.

In Conclusion

Sally Pride is a token Commander that can excel in getting a ton of tokens on board while also providing a good amount of power in play to have us win via aggro with our massive number of creature tokens.

It is pretty linear to play and a lot of the game play may turn out very similar and one note, but token strategies are very popular for a reason and Sally Pride is a way that can turn all those bodies into power to win.

Board wipes of course a massive down side, but at the very least our high creature count in the deck can still let us get a decent number of tokens for Sally Pride to make should they be removed from the board and we have no way to protect them.

Not too many people are building decks with Sally Pride (as far as I can tell) and I want to see people experiment to see what sort of weird nonsense they can do, especially with something like the previously mentioned MIrrormind Crown, that one intrigues me.

Thank you for reading, see you all next time!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

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