Commander: Lathril, Blade of the Elves
December 18, 2020
Commander
0
Lathril, Blade of the Elves is an awesome new Legendary creature to build around from the Kaldheim Commander decks.
One thing we like to look for when building Commander decks is additional Legendary creatures we can run in our deck that fit our themes well, so that we can switch them out for the odd game here and there. There are plenty of Legendary Elves in Golgari for us to choose from:
We can even have a couple options with some Partner creatures:
Lathril seems like the most powerful of the bunch, but they all can perform well depending on how heavily we decide to support certain themes in our deck. Lathril wants us to focus on token/Elf swarm themes, but also benefits from pump effects and focusing on combat.
Let's start by taking a look at some of the good ways to increase Lathril's power. Equipment seems like an obvious place to start, with priority being placed on those that give vigilance so that we can generate tokens and immediately activate Lathril's tap ability.
1 Fireshrieker
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Sword of Truth and Justice
1 Sword of Vengeance
1 Umbral Mantle
1 Whispersilk Cloak
1 Stoneforge Masterwork
1 Vorrac Battlehorns
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Haunted Cloak
1 Champion's Helm
1 Batterskull
1 Forebear's Blade
That's a pretty solid list of equipment, but there are plenty of more ways to buff Lathril that we can consider. The tribal focused ones are especially awesome.
1 Ivy Lane Denizen
1 Wirewood Pride
1 Forgotten Ancient
1 Invigorating Surge
1 Hydra's Growth
1 Increasing Savagery
1 Ring of Kalonia
1 Ring of Xathrid
1 Ordeal of Nylea
1 Verdurous Gearhulk
1 Brawn
1 Loyal Guardian
1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1 Strength of the Tajuru
1 Vines of Vastwood
1 Blossoming Defense
1 Scale the Heights
1 Evolutionary Escalation
1 Snake Umbra
1 Predatory Hunger
1 Unspeakable Symbol
1 The First Iroan Games
1 Immaculate Magistrate
1 Timberwatch Elf
While the ability to generate additional combat steps seems to lie outside of the color identity of Lathril, we can definitely find some untap effects that will let us use Lathril's activated ability multiple times in a turn. These have the added bonus of acting like ritual effects if we have some of our more powerful mana creatures in play.
1 Copperhorn Scout
1 Benefactor's Draught
1 Awakening
1 Curse of Bounty
1 Mobilize
1 Patron of the Orochi
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Vitalize
So we have an abundance of ways to make Lathril churn out a ton of tokens for us. She already has a mild form of evasion, so we probably only need to supplement that a little. Next let's take a look at some of the good cards that we can play to focus on the Elf token theme. Shoutout to Hunting Triad for being pretty cool on both sides of this equation.
1 Nadier's Nightblade
1 Dwynen's Elite
1 Exquisite Huntmaster
1 Briarblade Adept
1 Lys Alana Huntmaster
1 Elvish Promenade
1 Sylvan Offering
1 Presence of Gond
1 Doubling Season
1 Gilt-Leaf Ambush
1 Hunting Triad
1 Primal Vigor
1 Parallel Lives
1 Second Harvest
1 Parallel Evolution
Since we're going hard on the Elf creatures, we have access to a ton of good tribal cards.
1 Pride of the Perfect
1 Coat of Arms
1 Patriarch's Bidding
1 Prowess of the Fair
1 Kindred Summons
1 Return from Extinction
1 Collective Unconscious
1 Vanquisher's Banner
1 Door of Destinies
1 Herald's Horn
1 Elvish Guidance
1 Eyeblight Massacre
1 Kindred Dominance
1 Obelisk of Urd
Now that we've covered the support packages, let's list off all of the good elf creatures we might want to play. There are plenty of options, so you can tune the deck to your style and to your own metagame. For example, if your play group likes to run with lots of Wrath of God effects, you'll want to skew more towards the card advantage/resiliency cards, but for some groups you will just want to focus on being a streamlined aggressive deck. We'll start with our biggest grouping, the utility/generally good elves.
1 Elvish Dreadlord
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Priest of Titania
1 Marwyn, the Nurturer
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Wood Elves
1 Eyeblight Cullers
1 Wellwisher
1 Elvish Harbinger
1 Llanowar Visionary
1 Gilt-Leaf Winnower
1 Golgari Findbroker
1 Underrealm Lich
1 Essence Warden
1 Wirewood Herald
1 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
1 Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Lys Alana Bowmaster
1 Gaea's Herald
1 Allosaurus Shepherd
1 Nullmage Shepherd
1 Jagged-Scar Archers
1 Fierce Empath
Our next Elf package includes those with a more aggressive slant, which may pair well with the ability of Lathril to drain your opponent's life total.
1 Shaman of the Pack
1 Poison-Tip Archer
1 Nightshade Harvester
1 Elvish Vanguard
1 Belbe, Corrupted Observer
1 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
Of course, no tribe listing would be complete without its Lords:
1 Imperious Perfect
1 Elvish Archdruid
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Elvish Champion
1 Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Elvish Clancaller
And lastly, we'll list off the mana dorks. Some of these are auto-includes on power level, such as Heritage Druid as it works so well with the fresh tokens. However, the total quantity of these ramp creatures that you'll want to include depends on how your play group builds their decks.
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Arbor Elf
1 Heritage Druid
1 Llanowar Tribe
1 Joraga Treespeaker
1 Wirewood Channeler
1 Gnarlroot Trapper
1 Paradise Druid
1 Incubation Druid
1 Birchlore Rangers
1 Llanowar Dead
1 Druid of the Cowl
1 Boreal Druid
1 Devoted Druid
1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
1 Leyline of Abundance
Finally, we'll just toss in a list of generic Green/Black stuff that seems like it would fit well in most version of this strategy. It does seem like we have a lot of options though, so you probably won't be able to fit too many of these!
1 Heroic Intervention
1 Golgari Charm
1 Wrap in Vigor
1 Chord of Calling
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Overwhelming Stampede
1 Triumph of the Hordes
1 Finale of Devastation
1 Overrun
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Harmonize
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Eldritch Evolution
1 Natural Order
1 Skullclamp
1 The Great Henge
1 Lifecrafter's Bestiary
1 Bow of Nylea
1 Guardian Project
1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc/Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun
1 Moldervine Reclamation
1 Bastmaster Ascension
1 Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Soul of the Harvest
1 Summoner's Pact
1 Shared Summons
1 Bolas's Citadel
1 Attrition
1 Cryptolith Rite
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Idol of Oblivion
1 Earthcraft
1 Song of Freyalise
1 Collected Company
Lastly, we're not going to tell you how to build a Golgari manabase again, but we have put together a list of the notable lands that work well with Lathril's strategy.
1 Wirewood Lodge
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Castle Garenbrig
1 Command Beacon
1 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Unclaimed Territory
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Karn's Bastion
1 Forge of Heroes
1 Llanowar Reborn
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Yavimaya Hollow
Thanks for reading! We hope that you have fun figuring out how to tune and optimize this list, since fans of Green/Black Elves have so many tools to choose from!
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