Commander Deck Tech - Amalia Benavides Aguirre

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan brought us dozens of cool, interesting commanders, and even cards that stood out in other formats, such as, for instance, Amalia Benavides Aguirre. This incredible Vampire became a star in Pioneer thanks to her "combo" of Exploring until she has 20 power.

But at a table with more people, we don't have access to this interaction, since it needs Green to work. So, what would a Commander deck with Amalia look like? We'll find the answer to that question in today's article, which brings a lifegain deck!

We don't have that many Explore interactions in the Orzhov color combination, but it's not like we would depend solely on that, considering Amalia Benavides Aguirre Explores any time we gain life. One of the things Orzhov best knows how to do is to gain life, so we'll be able to take advantage of her ability thoroughly without further issues.

We'll bring several lifegain sources and also other resources so we can return our creatures from the graveyard in case Amalia's 20-power ability resolves, or in case you decide to place the Explore card in the graveyard. We'll also have some evasion, so Amalia can attack freely without any blockers on the other side, if the opponents still manage to have some.

Not only do we have Amalia as our win condition through her commander damage, but we also have a few combos involving lifegain. We also have other resources, like Aetherflux Reservoir, to defeat at least one or more opponents, depending on the amount of life we'll eventually gain. So, let's Explore!

Accelerators and Evasion

Orzhov doesn't have many mana accelerators, so we have a few cards that will help us with that, besides mana rocks. The rocks we use are Sol Ring, Talisman of Hierarchy, Arcane Signet and Orzhov Signet. To create Treasures and access more mana, we use Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff and Smothering Tithe.

We have a few individual protection tools for Amalia, mainly the classic boots, Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves, which will also give her Haste. Speaking of equipment, Blade of the Bloodchief is also in this list, considering that, because our commander is a Vampire, she'll get 2 +1/+1 counters for each creature that dies, which will make her even stronger.

To give evasion to our commander or to another creature that is relevant for some reason, we use Rogue's Passage, The Black Gate and Shizo, Death's Storehouse, which guarantee damage, considering the creature will be Unblockable or have Fear, respectively.

Lifegain and Interaction

This deck's main engines and mechanics are the tools we included to trigger Amalia's ability and the Explore ability, ranging from creatures to lands. As lands, we use Radiant Fountain, which brings a simpler lifegain, High Market, to sacrifice creatures and avoid exile spells, and Witch's Clinic, which, with a big Amalia, will give us a significant amount of resilience as the game moves on.

As creatures, we couldn't forget all the Soul Sisters and their variations: Soul's Attendant, Soul Warden, Daxos, Blessed by the Sun, Auriok Champion, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, also useful as an Aristocrat, Lunarch Veteran and Suture Priest. These are the creatures that will set our lifegain in motion to grow Amalia almost automatically.

Speaking of Aristocrats, we also use some - after all, when Amalia gets 20 power, all other creatures will be destroyed. We also use some other creatures that trigger death effects so we aren't as negatively affected when Amalia resolves.

Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat and Cruel Celebrant were added alongside Elenda, the Dusk Rose and Elenda's Hierophant to guarantee we'll be able to rebuild our board. Charismatic Conqueror has a similar goal - to create enough tokens to drain opponents with Aristocrats later.

We also use Bartolomé del Presidio to prevent opponents from exiling our creatures, helping us trigger Aristocrats.

We have other creatures that trigger lifegain effects in other ways to maintain our engine and offer us more resilience.

Spectrum Sentinel, Ruin-Lurker Bat, Kambal, Consul of Allocation and Archivist of Oghma are some of them. Parallel to them, we have the cards that interact with lifegain in a way that is similar to Amalia's, such as Karlov of the Ghost Council (used as removal), Marauding Blight-Priest (which drains opponents when we gain life), our second Amalia, Voice of the Blessed, and Serra Ascendant, which is one of the most important creatures to have in our starting hand because it provides us with an excellent lifegain source early on, and, at the same time, it puts a lot of pressure on our opponents.

We use non-creature spells to gain life or to take advantage of having gained life, such as Well of Lost Dreams, which will be one of this deck's main engines to draw cards.

Shadowspear is a must, both to give evasion and Lifelink to Amalia and to possibly answer spells that make our opponent's creatures Indestructible. Cleric Class increases our lifegain, can grow alongside Amalia and makes it easier for her to get to 20 power, considering it gives out +1/+1 counters.

Ajani's Welcome works as a Soul Sister that doesn't die to our commander's effect, alongside Authority of the Consuls, to also delay our opponents. Blind Obedience also has this role, and has the Extort ability.

Win Conditions and Reanimates

As mentioned before, we have a few alternative win conditions which aren't based around Amalia's commander damage, as the aforementioned Aetherflux Reservoir.

We have an emergency combo involving this card, Bolas's Citadel and Sensei's Divining Top, which results in almost infinite lifegain and gives us enough life to kill our opponents with Aetherflux Reservoir. These cards work well independently - considering we gain a lot of life, Bolas's Citadel can give us a good amount of card advantage during the game. This combo is an escape valve, considering we don't have tutors in this deck.

Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond also work individually. We won't focus on protecting these permanents (nor depend on them to win), so losing one of these two pieces won't be that bad. After all, considering this deck's mechanic, both will still easily work on their own.

Exquisite Blood also combos with Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Aetherflux Reservoir and Marauding Blight-Priest in this deck.

To recover the creatures we'll possibly lose after resolving Amalia's 20 power effect, we use some spells to return creatures in general: Agadeem's Awakening, Sevinne's Reclamation, Ascend from Avernus and Return to the Ranks.

We don't have a specific target to return to our board, so our idea is to return as many creatures as we can all at once. Victimize would be the only card that doesn't work like this, but it is useful anyway. To return creatures bit by bit, we have Lurrus of the Dream-Den.

Answers and Removals

Answers and interactions to deal with the board and our opponent's spells are essential. We have ways to protect our living creatures when Amalia hits 20 power, so we can keep our board: Flawless Maneuver, Selfless Spirit and Teferi's Protection, which we can also use to defend ourselves from our opponent's global removals.

As our global removals, we use Austere Command, Damn and Toxic Deluge - I'll highlight Toxic Deluge, considering we gain a lot of life. We have a great variety of targeted removals as well: Despark, Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Anguished Unmaking, Generous Gift and Stroke of Midnight, which cover a broad array of the permanents we'll probably remove.

Retribution of the Ancients stands out when it's time to remove creatures, considering that, for 1 mana, we'll remove Amalia's counters and one of our opponent's problematic creatures.

Finally, we have cards like Read the Bones and Phyrexian Arena to draw cards and create value over time. Considering we gain a lot of life, losing some life with Phyrexian Arena won't bother us much.

This list has the same goal as the first list in this Deck Tech, but it doesn't have most of the combos we added. As said before, this deck doesn't need the combos to work and get going, and the original essence of growing Amalia more and more as time goes on still remains.

It was quite fun to build this deck, even though I, particularly, find Orzhov decks very similar to one another. Defeating someone with a single blow dealt by Amalia is an idea that is, at the minimum, very entertaining and funny, and this was probably the reason that made me want to write a guide solely on her.

Did you like this deck? Would you change anything? Would you change this commander? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below!