Commander Deck Tech - Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon

Let's go back in time, to November 2023! The last time we visited Lost Caverns of Ixalan, its people and mysteries, we got to see a somewhat unusual Magic: The Gathering creature: Gnomes.

Gnomes in MTG have always been more mechanoid and small, which is very different from the high fantasy stories we're all used to. You can see that in Bottle Gnomes, which shows a few of these little creatures.

Just like Gnomes help the Ixalan people in their daily lives, we'll use them in this deck as supporting actors. They'll help us create numerous battalions, grow our creatures, and form a true army of Gnomes.

Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon is the type of Boros commander I truly enjoy: she doesn't focus on equipment. Equipment decks are fun, but we know Wizards of the Coast more often than not releases a giant portion of their white and red commanders with this strategy in mind. Still, even though an aggressive approach, with numerous small creatures, is a bit obvious, seeing this commander made me way more excited than seeing another Voltron/Equipment commander.

Piloting an Anim Pakal deck involves attacking constantly with non-Gnome creatures, as that's the only way to trigger her ability. Whenever we attack with one or more non-Gnomes, our commander gets a +1/+1 counter. She'll also create a 1/1 colorless Gnome artifact token for each counter she has.

This ability will increase the number of Gnomes we have on the board exponentially. It is even better if you manage to put several counters on your commanders, as this will give you even more Gnomes each turn.

This is the list we'll be working with:

This list was inspired by a few lists I found on the internet, particularly the one by TheProphetofFate, but I also added my touch, namely a few techs that made it quite fun, as well as some spicy, bold ideas. Of course, I also added an infinite combo that you can use if you find any trouble throughout the match.

Overall, this deck will put many counters on our commander, Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon, to create as many Gnomes as possible. These will also grow throughout the game, besides multiplying because of certain cards I added. That's how you'll build your robot army on your Commander table and gain more space in the game.

Let's address the elephant in the room as soon as possible: the infinite combo we'll use is quite simple, but, at the same time, it involves two cards that are interesting to this deck on their own. Furthermore, even if they are on the board together, the combo won't happen automatically. You'll need to push it forward to get it going.

So, you won't always use this combo - only if you need to or want to, which means you'll be able to use the cards in this combo for other various purposes, and that's what's really cool about it.

The combo we're referring to is Helm of the Host and Aurelia, the Warleader. Aurelia gives us, once a turn, one extra combat step, and also untaps our creatures and everything. As for the equipment above, it lets us create a copy of the equipped creature with haste at the beginning of your combat step. So, the combo is quite obvious, isn't it? We'll create infinite combat turns with infinite nonlegendary copies of Aurelia, the Warleader.

However, as I mentioned before, these two cards are interesting on their own. You can copy your commander with Helm of the Host to create even more Gnomes or copy Losheel, Clockwork Scholar to draw more cards every turn. The sky is the limit with this card.

Aurelia, the Warleader and her extra combats are also very versatile, besides perfect for an aggro deck. They also trigger Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon's abilities extra times.

Finally, not much a combo but rather an extra win condition, we have Halo Fountain, which you can use with fifteen tapped creatures to end the game and get a win. Of course, if you don't want to do this, it's still a great token/draw engine. If you do want these fifteen creatures, you'll need to pilot this deck really well and lean on the following cards:

Multiplying the number of tokens each card creates has become more and more common for white as a color. Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Anointed Procession double the overall number of tokens you create, while Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation triples that number, for instance.

Creating all of these tokens will be critical as the game goes on. Not only you'll use them to attack, but you can also indirectly make each Gnome that goes in play more valuable with Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon's ability, for instance.

Multiplying the tokens you create is just one way to get more of them. We'll mention the other way next.

Another way to indirectly get more tokens with our commander's ability is nothing more, nothing less, than just putting more +1/+1 counters on her. This deck is fully prepared to do that, for instance, with safer options, like Luminarch Aspirant, which gives you a counter at the beginning of your combat. You also have riskier options, like Orzhov Advokist and Noble Heritage, which also let your opponents put counters on their creatures if they agree not to attack you with them for one turn.

Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion deserved an honorable mention and is similar to cards like Mondrak, Glory Dominus. However, it doubles the number of counters we put on our cards, particularly the +1/+1s we'll put on Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon, which will translate into more tokens for us throughout the game.

Another card that encourages us to spread our counters wisely is Abzan Falconer, which not only lets us give counters to a creature every turn but also gives flying to all creatures that have counters.

There's even a synergy between Tarrian's Soulcleaver and Goblin Bombardment; you'll sacrifice tokens and turn them into counters for your commander or any other creature, and thus somewhat create a cycle with your Gnomes. Rosie Cotton of South Lane lets you put a counter on a target creature for each token that enters the board under your control, so it doubles the counters on Anim Pakal whenever you create Gnomes with it.

Furthermore, +1/+1 counters are extremely versatile. You can use them to solidify your game plan, no matter the game state. And, of course, some cards like Take Up the Shield are great to protect our creatures and give them a counter.

Before anything, I'd like to stress, naming this section of the article "dangerous Gnomes' made me very happy. Nonetheless, each token our commander creates for us is incredibly powerful.

The simplest idea is to use the iconic Goblin Bombardment, a card that lets us sacrifice creatures to deal damage bit by bit. Another is to use cards like Impact Tremors, Reckless Fireweaver, and Ingenious Artillerist, which will deal one damage to each opponent whenever one of our Gnomes enters play.

You can also use cards to buff your tokens, like Illustrious Wanderglyph, Tempered Steel, Cathar's Crusade, and Inspiring Leader. These cards make our creatures significantly stronger, just like Steel Overseer.

Neyali, Sun's Vanguard will give double strike to our tokens, and Losheel, Clockwork Scholar protects them from combat damage.

Alibou, Ancient Witness and Throne of the God-Pharaoh both turn your tapped creatures into damage, and thus encourage you even more to attack with every mechanoid friend you have available.

As usual, we also brought you a cheaper version of our list. This version is perfect if you don't want to invest too much money, as you can use it as a base before you get the more expensive cards in our original list.

I decided to keep Cathar's Crusade and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation in this list because, even though they're a bit expensive, they significantly improve the deck overall. Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation, by the way, is cheaper and more efficient than Mondrak, Glory Dominus.

I've always wanted to build a Gnome deck, and now I finally did! Playing with these small creatures is simply a delight, and, in fact, this is one of the decks I was most excited about throughout this year.

What do you think? Would you build this differently? Do you like Anim Pakal? Tell us all your thoughts in our comment section below!

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!