Commander Deck Tech: Ayara, Widow of the Realm

This month, we're starting to gear up for Wilds of Eldraine, the newest Magic: The Gathering set, and also the first set released to T2 after we got the news that the format's rotation cycle would be extended for an extra year. Besides that, this is also the set in which we return to Eldraine, a plane that was shown in Throne of Eldraine, the strongest and most disruptive set recently, and one of the most powerful sets in all of Magic, with countless cards banned in several different formats.

As we don't have the main details of the cards in this set, we'll briefly discuss some of the old cards in Eldraine's history and go through how to build powerful decks with them. Today, our pick is Ayara, Widow of the Realm from the Phyrexia: All Will Be One set, which is a version of Ayara, First of Locthwain on steroids.

Just like many other cards in this set, Ayara, Widow of the Realm is a version of an old character in the game with an effect which allows it to transform into a Phyrexian version of itself which still interacts well with the effects on the card's front side.

The front part is nothing more than Ayara's own Widow of the Realm version, which has two abilities; the first one turns it over and allows you to sacrifice a creature or artifact to drain, that is, deal damage to a target as you get the same amount of life back. This amount is determined by the sacrificed card's mana value, which allows you to sacrifice bigger cards to get a better life drain effect. Regarding valid targets, they can be enemy players and Battle type cards, which still haven't returned since Phyrexia, but maybe there's a possibility they come back later on.

The second ability consists of paying mana to transform your creature into its Phyrexian version. The fact that this effect has a red Phyrexian mana cost opens up this color more for the commander's possibilities, allowing for a much more versatile deck.

When this card is turned over to its back side, we get access to Ayara, Furnace Queen, a card with a beautiful illustration, which works as a Reanimator for creatures or artifacts at the start of each combat. However, it has the additional text that states the returned card gets Haste, but will be exiled at the end of the turn.

The fact it exiles the card is an obvious weakness, as we won't always be able to reuse the strongest card; however, we have ways of going around that in the deck, with gimmicks such as sacrificing the reanimated card. And, now that we've mentioned the deck...

An extremely fun way to have cards to sacrifice and deal damage to our opponent with Ayara's front side is through cards such as Captivating Crew, which are capable of stealing opponent's creatures and allow us damage at the same time. As I'll show later on, there are many easy ways to make these effects progressively bigger and more threatening.

In this deck, there are many ways of forcing an opponent creature to switch sides until the end of your turn and use it to your favor, be it by attacking or sacrificing it later on. That type of spell is usually a sorcery or an instant spell, but they also come in creature form with Captivating Crew and Planeswalker form with Angrath, the Flame-Chained.

Being able to subtract creatures from your opponent is what will bring a great advantage to your game, helping you add attack power and remove unfavorable blocks from your creatures' way.

Besides that, some spells of that sort bring interesting additional effects, such as, for instance, Furnace Reins, which allows you to create Treasures with the creature you took hold of when you deal damage to an opponent, which gets even better with Double Strike creatures. Shackles of Treachery has the extra effect of also serving as removal for equipment attached to stolen units and Besmirch comes with the bonus of Goading the creature taken until the following turn, in case you don't sacrifice it and instead return it to its controller.

Finally, we have Helm of Possession, an artifact which doesn't untap unless you allow it to, which allows you to control an enemy unit for as long as you want to. It is perfect to take hold of a powerful creature, such as your opponent's commanders.

Now that we have control of one of the opponent's fun and beautiful units, we have already attacked and dealt as much damage as we want to, it would be time, in theory, to end our turn and return the card's control to the opponent - but we can still do something else instead of that.

With cards such as Stormclaw Rager, Altar of Dementia, Eradicator Valkyrie and the commander, Ayara, Widow of the Realm herself, we can sacrifice these creatures in a way that not only grants us benefits but also removes them from your opponent, transforming the spell that took control of these creatures in a type of removal which is much more powerful than usual.

Ashnod’s Altar, for instance, helps us create mana to pay for costs, while Altar of Dementia mills your opponent's cards from their decks. These two cards are the best to use in case we have many opponent creatures under our control, once their activations don't tap these artifacts.

However, in moments when we can choose the way with which we'll sacrifice the opponent creatures, our commander, Ayara, Widow of the Realm, is the best choice.

As we have many creatures dying on our side of the board every turn, we'll use cards which have synergy with that. The most basic interaction would be with Midnight Reaper or Grim Haruspex, creatures which allow you to draw cards when non-token creatures you control die.

This synergy works both with the sacrifice of creatures you took hold of, and those destroyed through combat, punctual removals or global removals, always allowing you to make up for the creatures you lose.

Thanks to sacrifice engines, such as Stormclaw Rager, we can guarantee the draw in Midnight Reaper's triggered ability and in Rager's ability, getting many advantages with a simple sacrifice.

However, if you think this is the only value we can get out of this type of interaction, I'll have you know that the deck can have aggressive results as well. Prowling Geistcatcher, for instance, allows you to separate sacrificed exiled cards, and when it leaves the battlefield, you can return them all, even those who originally had belonged to an opponent, to your game.

Body Launderer is another card which can generate a lot of value with sacrifices made on your board. Its ability to use Conniving is useful to get card advantage and grow the ogre, which will be capable of putting a replacement of itself on board. When Conniving, it is possible to send creatures to the graveyard which will later on be used by Ayara, Furnace Queen.

Another option that really helps is when we use cards such as Dictate of Erebos, and cards with similar abilities, such as those of Butcher of Malakir and Grave Pact. These cards are capable of forcing your opponents to sacrifice creatures every time a creature you control dies, helping you disrupt your opponent's defenses as it creates the extra bonus of getting value in exchange for the creatures which were taken from you.

In this deck, there are many ways of creating situations which easily create value and grow like a snowball. With the right cards, it is possible to create a battlefield capable of triggering many complicated situations for your opponents.

Better than taking one opponent creature is taking more than one. Unfortunately, not all of our cards which take hold of creatures are like Captivating Crew, capable of activating this ability many times. Because cards such as Besmirch and Goatnap can only be used once, you need to find a way to reuse them in a satisfactory way.

Cards such as Arcane Bombardment are great for that, allowing instants and other spells to be cast even if they're exiled, always guaranteeing one or more opponent creature for attacks and sacrifices. Dual Casting and Double Vision also work hard for us to have a way of copying spells every turn. Besides that, we can use cards such as Invoke Calamity to use instants and spells straight from the graveyard as well.

What we have in mind for most situations in this deck is the idea of using spells such as Reverberate to create copies of spells already in the pile. Or even use Radiate to copy the spell on all available targets, creating a great flow of cards on your board or transforming a Hero’s Downfall into a global removal.

In a format created based on using a single copy of each card, redundancy and recursion have an essential role.

As usual, we provide a cheaper version of this deck, capable of suiting the tastes of other players, and also being able to be used both as an intermediate version until the deck is fully built or as a ready-to-go version to use this deck in full:

Overall, we have with Ayara, Widow of the Realm a very fun deck to use, which can be very annoying to your opponents.

Thanks to the tools given by the elf's deck, we can deal with many opponent threats and evolve our game plan constantly. Besides that, its other side can help us in many situations, bringing on board creatures which had already been sent to the graveyard.

This deck is quite versatile and aggressive, transforming your board into a menacing army and guaranteeing you great Commander games.

See you next time!