“When love cast me out, it was cruelty that took me in”
Art:Aragorn, Hornburg Hero
by Jason Rainville
Table of Contents
Today Featured Commander Is:
Aragorn is pretty fresh off the presses and while he does a lot of things you would expect a Naya commander to do, it doesn’t mean that this deck isn’t a ton of fun to play! This deck is very budget friendly and depending on your build style you could likely build this for half the cost, while I found that $200 was quite budget compared to the average EDH deck these days so that was the metric I used. This deck combines all of the best elements of one my personal favorite shards! If you are looking for a real-deal combat deck that won’t hurt your wallet than look no further! Without further adieu lets get it!
The Deck:
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Aragorn, Hornburg Hero $200 +1/+1 Counters !
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Why Aragorn, Hornburg Hero?
Aragorn is a key part of our deck and one of our best and most consistent buffs! Aragorn not only provides a buff to all of our creatures but giving them first strike and renown allows even some of our tokens to become out of hand attackers! We are able to swing out wide and far with Aragorn out and with ramp we can usually get him down 1-2 turns early! Aragorn is the lifeblood of this deck and a card we pretty much always want to have on the battlefield!
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! As well as highlighting some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Creatures:
Nearly all of our creatures are payoffs or great recipients for all of our buffs some of our best payoffs are Champion of Lambholt
and Incubation Druid
and Benevolent Hydra
! Since there are so many awesome cards there is no way we can talk about all of them so I am going to highlight some of my favorites! Arwen, Weaver of Hope
is a great card that makes all of our cards better once they get buffed up, this card will get the attention of your opponents! Blade Historian
is a great way to make our buffed up creatures even better! Elite Scaleguard
not only buffs up our creatures but allows us to tap down our opponents creatures on attack, which makes our combat step a bunch more deadly! Another really strong card we can win combats with is Kodama of the West Tree
which gives all of our buffed up creatures trample! Since we put a ton of counters on our creatures we can use Shalai and Hallar
to turn those buffs into damage!
Planeswalkers:
We only have one Planeswalker and they are Ajani, the Greathearted
which is a great way to get some life back which is absolutely perfect when we are going against aggressive strategies! The key ability on Ajani is his -2 which is a great way to buff up all of our creatures!
Instants:
We don’t have a ton of creature removal but we are pretty strong at removing artifacts and enchantments with cards like Aura Mutation
, Nature's Claim
! Unbreakable Formation
is a great way to protect our creatures and in some cases give them a big buff up! March of the Multitudes
and Grand Crescendo
are both great ways to make some blockers or have more targets for our buffs or Aragorn’s ability! Silkguard
is a buff and a protection from single-target removal in the same card!
Sorceries:
Since we are in Naya we of course have some ramp spells like Cultivate
, Kodama's Reach
and Farseek
which are all great ways to establish all of our colors and get ahead! Blasphemous Act
and Farewell
are great cards to use if we fall behind and need to reset our opponents! Rishkar's Expertise
and Shamanic Revelation
are the best draw spells we have in the deck!
Artifacts:
Ozolith, the Shattered Spire
can not only target a creature and buff them up but it is basically a second copy of Hardened Scales
! Andúril, Narsil Reforged
is a really card that we can easily get the citys blessing and have a second pretty consistent buff for our deck! Bow of Nylea
is just a great toolbox card since it can do so much, while we typically use the counter ability and passive of our attackers have deathtouch is a really powerful effect!
Enchantments:
Primal Vigor
and Hardened Scales are both really strong and budget friendly cards that only make our overall gameplan stronger! Garruk's Uprising
is a great piece of card draw and we will never say no to trample! Together Forever
is one of my favorite cards in the deck and we can recur some pretty high value permanents, perfect for commanders! Gimli's Reckless Might
is not only a pretty cool flavor win but a great way for us to be more aggressive and make combat a bit easier for us!
Land Base:
We have some card draw through our land base like The Fair Basilica
and The Autonomous Furnace
which are great once we already have a ton of mana or can be effective if we need a card in a pinch! Llanowar Reborn
is a pretty simple land but allows us to give out a counter! Speaking of counters we have Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
which can be a perfect card if we had a big turn or we created a decent amount of tokens! Another great piece of budget lands are the MDFC for the Naya colors like Branchloft Pathway // Boulderloft Pathway
,Needleverge Pathway // Pillarverge Pathway
and Cragcrown Pathway // Timbercrown Pathway
! Beyond that our land base is mostly basics and a few more on-color dual lands!
Strengths of the Deck:
- Easy to one-shot people in combat
- Very hard for our opponents to attack into us
- A couple bailout cards if we fall behind
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to creature hate
- Weak to control strategies
- Deck is noticeably weaker and slower if we cannot keep Aragorn out
5 Helpful Upgrades:
These are in no particular order but these are cards that I think would improve the deck greatly but were removed due to price!
- Branching Evolution
- Doubling Season
- Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
- Legolas's Quick Reflexes
- The Great Henge
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
There are no infinite combos or loops in the deck, we have many ways to buff up our creatures and take advantage of the combat step! Some of the best ways we take advantage of the combat step include Aurelia, the Warleader
and Isengard Unleashed
which are crazy cards for extra combats and extra damage! Aragorn, Hornburg Hero themselves are also a crazy way to get some damage since they are one of our most consistent buffs! Even though we end games the “old-fashioned” way that by no means makes this deck weak and it is really a ton of fun!
Conclusion:
Aragorn is a really sweet budget commander who in all honestly a lot of the time doesn’t even feel like a budget deck! Being able to get huge swings and often times ending games through a single combat is not something many would expect from a budget deck! This deck accomplishes an absolute ton for only $200 dollars and while it is more efficient and streamlined in a non-budget build this deck is still an absolute blast! Thanks for reading to the end and thanks for all of your support!