Commander Deck Tech - The Archimandrite

Kindred decks usually focus on just one creature type. But what if we could focus on three types, not just one? That's what The Archimandrite is all about, and she'll be the star of today's deck tech. We'll show you how to play her in a lifegain deck with Monks, Artificers, and Advisors!

A deck with The Archimandrite must focus on her, so most of our strategies and win conditions will interact with her or involve her in some way. So, besides the creature types we listed above (which we'll buff and end the game with), we also need control tools if we want to develop this strategy safe and sound.

Jeskai is a great color combination for these creature types. There are many incredible creatures in this color combination which are also Monks, Artificers, or Advisors, so we just picked the best of them for our build.

There are many ways to win with this deck, but the most common one is by dealing a massive amount of combat damage. For instance, you might gain 20 life with Illusions of Grandeur or double your life points with Beacon of Immortality. Of course, all lifegain decks need Aetherflux Reservoir, so we added this finisher too. Let's dive right in!

Accelerators

This build also needs to keep up with the opponents and put the commander in play as fast as possible, so we added multiple mana rocks: Sol Ring, the signets Arcane Signet, Izzet Signet, Azorius Signet and Boros Signet, and the talismans Talisman of Conviction, Talisman of Creativity, and Talisman of Progress.

As we'll also draw many cards often, we added Thought Vessel; it will help you keep all the cards you draw in your hand. Finally, we added Smothering Tithe. With it, you'll try to force your opponents to give you as many treasure tokens as possible, and, if they don't, they'll have to pay a tax and delay their own game plan for a while, which is great.

Creatures

These creatures will help us end the game, as they will all get the lifegain buff from The Archimandrite. Some of them create tokens, like Third Path Iconoclast and Monastery Mentor. Others are just powerful Monks, like Narset, Enlightened Exile and Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest, which buff your attacks by giving your creatures prowess and double strike, respectively.

Some of them are more simple and are just useful when attacking, like Monastery Swiftspear and Mantis Rider. Others are more aggressive or useful, like Serra Ascendant and Ojutai Exemplars, for instance. In particular, I really like Ojutai Exemplars because, if you give it lifelink and first strike, as it'll strike first (obviously), your commander will buff all your other creatures with her lifegain buff. This interaction with First strike or double strike is really interesting, and you'll find others like this in the rest of the deck.

Speaking of utility, there are many more useful creatures in this deck as well: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV discounts the cost of our spells and taxes our opponents, so it'll delay them considerably. Elsha of the Infinite turns our topdeck into an "extension" of our hand if the card in question isn't a creature. Soulfire Grand Master is more useful because of its ability, which returns spells to our hand. The fact it gives lifelink to our sorceries and instants won't be that relevant, as we only play a few of them that deal damage directly.

Student of Ojutai will indirectly buff our creatures any time we cast a noncreature spell. Imperial Recruiter lets us look for and get any creature we listed in this section. Loran of the Third Path is a removal and will potentially draw us cards. Rhox Faithmender doubles the amount of life we'll gain, which in turn will buff our board even more.

We then added some creatures that are not Monks, Advisors, or Artificers, but make a lot of sense in this build. Will, Scion of Peace, for instance, lets us cast our spells for only their colored cost, depending on how much life we gain that turn. Drumbellower interacts directly with our commander, with her card draw ability in particular (we'll have a full hand with it in play most often than not), and, finally, we added Roaming Throne.

However, which of their three creature types did we choose with Roaming Throne? The answer is simple: none of them. All of their three creature types have something in common: they're nearly all Human. So, your best bet is picking Human, as it triggers your most important abilities.

Gaining Life and Drawing Cards

Our commander does give us some life, but we need other sources to trigger her extra times.

Ivory Tower is a must, as it basically does the same as our commander. We mentioned Aetherflux Reservoir before: it will also be one of our win conditions, as it buffs all our creatures and lets us deal 50 damage to a player with its activated ability.

Beacon of Immortality is another possible win condition, as is Congregate in play with enough creatures on the battlefield and Union of the Third Path with enough cards in hand. Gaining 5 life is already quite impactful, as your creatures with get +5/+0 with your commander's ability.

As a result, Illusions of Grandeur can be a win condition depending on the game state. After all, it is almost a Craterhoof Behemoth, considering it gives you +20/+0 for just 4 mana.

For card draw, some recursion, and more life gain, we added Alhammarret's Archive, which fits this build like a glove.

Well of Lost Dreams may also draw you lots of cards.

Venser's Journal, besides removing our hand limit, gives us life according to how many cards we have in hand at the beginning of our upkeep, which might be massive.

Sphinx's Revelation works similarly to Alhammarret's Archive as it also draws us cards and gives us life, and Heliod's Intervention both gives us life and removes artifacts or enchantments. If you want more extravagant win conditions, don't fret: we added Flying Crane Technique, True Conviction, and Akroma's Will, mostly for double strike and lifelink. Double strike is practically an upgraded first strike, so, with first strike and lifelink, you'll get The Archimandrite's buff and make your next attack even more painful, as well as gain even more life.

These are incredibly powerful cards which can all end the game for you.

Witch's Clinic will give you some sustain throughout the game, as well as Path of Bravery, which will nearly always give your creatures +1/+1. It also gives you life according to how many creatures you attack with, so you'll probably be even more powerful with it in play. Finally, for more card draw, we added Whirlwind of Thought and Jeskai Ascendancy. We have 46 noncreature spells, so you'll most likely be able to keep your card draw engine running with these two enchantments.

Answers and Removals

We added several spot removals, global removals, and answers for any threats you might face. As a global removal, we added Blasphemous Act, then, for creatures, we added Supreme Verdict, and, finally, we added Austere Command, Farewell, and Cyclonic Rift, which all deal with a wider variety of cards.

To protect yourself from these types of cards, however, we added some protection:Clever Concealment, Flawless Maneuver, Teferi's Protection, and Boros Charm. Then, we added more control tools, like the counters Dovin's Veto, An Offer You Can't Refuse, Counterspell, and Arcane Denial, which are all great if you want to counter a threat both for your board or the game itself.

The best broad-spectrum spot removals for us are Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Generous Gift, Stroke of Midnight, and, particularly in this deck, Lightning Helix, because of its 3 life gain, so we play them all.

Here's our budget version. We kept some important cards, like Aetherflux Reservoir, True Conviction, but also added a few alternative cards, like Delusions of Mediocrity, Berserker's Onslaught, and Field-Tested Frying Pan.

We tried to keep the original strategy as much as we could, so we even kept creatures like Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, Narset, Enlightened Exile, and Rhox Faithmender.

With this deck, you need to be careful when making your decisions, as you don't want to attack wrong or counter the wrong spell, and yet it is still fun and quite cool! Lifegain lists are usually not aggressive, but this one plays both parts well: you'll gain more and more life as well as attack your opponents' life totals more and more with simple attacks.

Did you like this deck? Do you prefer the budget version? Would you prefer an Advisor Kindred deck with Persistent Petitioners? Tell us all your thoughts in our comment section below!

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!