Commander Deck Guide: Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit Card Draw

"White doesn't draw cards": this statement always shows up within the Magic: The Gathering community. The color wheel (or color pie) has changed a lot over the years and we can now say it's possible to create white decks with consistent card advantage.

In this Deck Tech, we will unleash a white deck full of card draw!

Some of the main characteristics of the white mana philosophy are cooperation, loyalty, honor and charity. With this, we can understand that the focus on the color's benefits are related to organization and structure.

Anafenza, a brave Khan who leads her army upfront in battle, had her destiny changed with the return of the Dragons in Tarkir. Upholding honor and beliefs in ancestors, she met an untimely death as she remained steadfast in her clan loyalty and refusal to worship Dromoka - returning as an ancestral spirit to inspire young warriors in the fight against tyranny.

Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit is a creature that discreetly enters the battlefield, its stats resembles the famous White Knight and its ability represents the ideal of white mana to strengthen and protect the weakest.

The Bolster mechanic is perfect for this purpose, adding +1/+1 counters to its controller's lowest toughness creature whenever a new (non-token) creature comes into play.

This deck features a linear strategy - cast creatures every turn and strike opponents within the first turns. The mana curve is quite low: more than half of the cards have or mana value.

We use mostly basic lands, so we can play with a low number of mana sources without damaging our games' development.

Our deck is combat-focused, so increasing our creatures' stats is a priority and we do this through counters, which also fuel different triggered abilities such as removals and card draw as we will see next.

Accelerators

White is one of the colors with the highest mana usage through lands, being able to fetch them as needed. The greatest difference is that the color identity is balanced by our opponents - the more they try to get ahead, the more we grow.

We chose creatures capable of fetching basic plains and also some cost reducers, in creature form, to increase synergies with the Commander - simultaneous growth in different aspects (counters, creatures, available mana, card draw, etc.).

Card Draw

White card draws have been increasingly efficient, although always with some restriction, trigger or limited number of uses. However, they are still considered efficient, since they aid in the greatest weakness of Aggro decks: to have little resources in a long game, or the difficulty in recovering resources after a board wipe.

Here are some excellent options if you're not on a budget. Esper Sentinel is an absolute Staple in all decks that have access to , while Archivist of Oghma is a close second in my opinion.

Bennie Bracks, Zoologist and Battle Angels of Tyr are powerful additions to decks capable of creating tokens.

Here we have some different options focused on having a good synergy with the commander. Dusk Legion Duelist, Towashi Guide-Bot and Sanctuary Warden interact with counters and guarantee many additional draws. Their advantage is very significant if they are not dealt with quickly.

The ETBs (Enters the battlefield) Welcoming Vampire, Rumor Gatherer, Folk Hero, Bygone Bishop and Mentor of the Meek work in similar fashion, gaining value with each new creature we add to the battlefield, replenishing our hand and ensuring future development, interactions and protections.

Zenith Chronicler should grant at least one extra draw per turn, similar to Esper Sentinel, even though that seems insane. Platoon Dispenser might as well have no restriction, since we're playing with a deck already looking to flood the battlefield with creatures.

Equipment were, for a long time, one of the ways to overcome the lack of card draw in the color identity, and now they offer good redundancy. So, we opted for Glimmer Lens, Mask of Memory and Rogue's Gloves.

Let's think this through: by using so many draw effects that depend on specific circumstances it may seem like we won't draw much, but when we have several different synergies that trigger each other, we'll have a lot of consistency and each play will fuel the next ones, creating an ever-increasing growth in our games.

Synergies and Amplifiers

A large part of this deck is dedicated to synergies with counters. But is this a counter deck?

The answer: well, not at first.

When this deck was designed, it was thought as a White Winnie that utilized the commander's ability to the fullest, without necessarily using the colors' best cards.

The concept of White Winnie comes from the beginning of Magic and is still a very popular archetype to this day. Its pinnacle was at the Worlds 1996 championship, in Seattle, breaking the hegemony established in the period known as Black Summer.

Creatures nowadays are much better than the old White Knight-Savannah Lions-Order of Leitbur; and counters are much more efficient than Anthems. We can have lots of fun and efficient synergies, with cards that cover sub-themes like soldiers, counters, coven, bolster, training, and others.

Interactions and removals

Since the beginning of Magic, the white color has had some of the best removal cards in the entire game, making it easy to adapt and choose within basically any budget.

Since we want to make the deck as financially friendly as possible, we used underrated cards such as Condemn, Declaration in Stone and Oblation, and also some unanimous ones, like Cathar Commando and Austere Command.

Cards like Mass Calcify are very welcome, and for this deck we also chose Ravnica at War, since multicolored decks are becoming more and more prevalent at Commander tables, it is gaining prominence as one of the best wraths of the format.

Constable of the Realm is a powerful creature in this deck, controlling the board quickly as we adjust the distribution of counters, and can be an interesting political tool as we trap valuable pieces from different players. Its ability to exile any nonland permanent allows for a lot of versatility and surprising combat tricks.

Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit - Upgraded Decklist

Here we have a list with some subtle changes, ideal for those who want to develop the deck little by little. I would start with Boromir, Warden of the Tower and Guardian Scalelord - this card always surprises me with its efficiency and versatility.

Redemption Choir is basically a Sun Titan on turn . Alternatively Luminous Broodmoth could be awesome.

On the five-mana curve we have powerful enchantments, Virtue of Loyalty and Cathars' Crusade can easily go in if you have the budget for them, and if we get there, Herald of War is a powerful mana cost reducer.

Since 2008, the color wheel has changed constantly and made the game more and more interesting, although the balances needed to make the game more exciting for new players have removed important features of various colors - I know it's frustrating to be caught unprepared by a Jokulhaups when your opponent traps a huge Shivan Dragon in a Tawnos's Coffin, even though cards like Balance, Equipoise among others are missed.

I'm attracted to the idea of ​​different types of card draw, be them conditional, direct, impulsive, looting, etc., increasing the competitiveness of all archetypes, without the need to add colors just to draw cards.

Thanks for reading and good gaming!

If you have any questions, I'm available in the comments!