‘My Friends, You Bow to No One.’
Art:Aragorn, the Uniter
by Javier Charro
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
While we have featured Aragorn the Uniter on the site before, we never had it in a CEDH shell and if we are honest, we waited way too long! This deck is a ton of fun, while the absence of black does cut us off some of the best cards in CEDH we can take advantage of Aragorn’s ability and have a fast and efficient deck that takes care of business. We are primarily a food chain deck with a Birthing Pod strategy as a great way to assemble our various combo lines. Even without black this deck is an absolute blast and a ton of fun to play, while I haven’t tested this at any major tournaments this has done pretty well at my local game store. Without further adieu let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Aragorn, The Uniter Food Chain Pod!
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Why Aragorn, The Uniter?
Aragorn, the Uniter is especially strong when we want to combo off, if we are food-chaining with Squee, the Immortal
, Aragorn’s ability allows us to turn all of those red spell casts into damage. This is also true if we are going off with Dockside Extortionist
, we don’t get a ton of use out of Aragorn’s other abilities but they can be valuable and we will never say no to extra buffs and positive triggers.
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! The infinite combos and loops in the deck are listed below in the “Main Win Conditions” Section.
Creatures:
We do have a little bit of Stax in our creature package, Collector Ouphe
affects us much less since we do not have a ton of key artifacts. Depending on your table the Ouphe can be debilitating for an opponent. We also have Drannith Magistrate
and Aven Mindcensor
which really can hurt certain opponent’s strategies and honestly most decks in CEDH. We also have some strong creature tutors like Imperial Recruiter
, Recruiter of the Guard
and Ranger-Captain of Eos
which are all great ways to grab both key creatures and strong Birthing Pod
targets to grab combo creatures. Since we are an enchantment-focused deck Destiny Spinner
is a card that can come down early and make combo-ing off much smoother. Grand Abolisher
is also really strong and can shut down our opponents interacting with us on our turn.
Battles:
We only have one battle, but it is quite impactful! Invasion of Ikoria // Zilortha, Apex of Ikoria
is great for us since it is a strong creature tutor that we can cast quite early and get a key/combo creature out on the field. We rarely get the battle flipped and we are perfectly ok with that as we don’t need it. A quick and dirty creature tutor is a great way for us to go off / move forward with the game plan.
Instants:
Our instant package has a ton of sweet spells with one of my personal favorites being Force of Vigor
which is one of the best cards for an overall weak green color. Another strong green card is Noxious Revival
which can be a strong way to recover after a removal spell or counterspell. We also have an absolute ton of counterspells with my top 3 being Mental Misstep
Flusterstorm
, and Mana Drain
which are all easy to cast and cheap. Mindbreak Trap
is strong against a lot of the best decks in the format and is almost always free. Eladamri's Call
is a card that you don’t see too often in CEDH but is a strong tutor in our deck.
Sorceries:
We are not running black so we don’t have access to key cards like Praetor's Grasp
but we do have Extract
which provides a worse version of the Praetors Grasp effect but it is still a strong card. Eldritch Evolution
and Neoform
are two really strong cards that have a similar effect to Birthing Pod and let us speed out combo creatures. Idyllic Tutor
is a strong and pretty cheap way to grab Food Chain
or Underworld Breach
.
Artifacts:
We can go off with not a lot of mana, so we do not heavily rely on our artifacts for mana. While we do have sweet mana rocks like Mana Crypt
, Lotus Petal
, and Sol Ring
. While these certainly help us get ahead and have some extra mana these by no means are necessary for the function of our deck. The One Ring
is pretty much a CEDH auto-include at this point and for good reason, this card is busted! Being able to protect ourselves and get a card draw engine is an invaluable effect for only 4 mana. Birthing Pod is another key artifact that we can use to “curve” into a combo creature like Temur Sabertooth
or Squee, the Immortal.
Enchantments:
Our enchantment package has some absolute bombs in it! To start we have Food Chain and Underworld Breach which are both combo enchantments that we go for super early but provide no additional value to the deck. Mystic Remora
and Rhystic Study
are not included in every Aragorn list these days, but I find them to be extremely strong and game-warping on their own. Sylvan Library
is a really strong enchantment and one of the big advantages we have since we are playing green, life is a resource and we will take it down as low as we can go!
Land Base:
Our land base is pretty much what you would expect out of a CEDH land base. We have staples like Ancient Tomb
and every on-color dual, which is any dual land that doesn’t contain black. We of course have a bunch of on-color fetch lands which can help to speed out our colors and get our mana base going. We have some other strong untapped lands like City of Brass
and Exotic Orchard
which are great ways to supplement our colored mana. We only have basics in our most prevalent colors which is mostly in case we run into Assassin's Trophy
or Path to Exile
. I have been rocking this mana base for quite a while and find it to be strong and efficient.
Strengths of the Deck:
- Can combo off with Food Chain
pretty easily - Ton of counterspells
- Many different combos and lines to close out games
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Not as fast as some of the other decks
- Not playing black does remove access to key tutors and cards like Praetor's Grasp
- Weak to Stax decks especially Rule of Law effects
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
This is CEDH, so of course we have a ton of combos. Combos are the main way that we close out games, check out below for all of them fully explained.
Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond
+ Wheel of Fortune
Requires:
Wheel of Fortune in your graveyard. All permanents on the battlefield. You have at least six other cards in hand and/or graveyard.
Steps:
- Activate Lion’s Eye Diamond by discarding your hand and sacrificing it, adding RRR.
- Cast Wheel of Fortune from your graveyard for its escape cost by paying 2R and exiling 3 cards from your graveyard.
- Resolve Wheel of Fortune, causing each player to discard their hand and draw seven cards.
- Cast Lion’s Eye Diamond from your graveyard for its escape cost by exiling 3 cards from your graveyard.
- Repeat.
Results:
Infinite looting. Infinite draw triggers. Infinite looting for opponents. Near-infinite storm count.
Underworld Breach + Jeska's Will
+ Wheel of Fortune
Requires:
Underworld Breach on the battlefield. All other cards in your graveyard. You have at least six additional cards in your graveyard, plus an additional six cards between your hand and/or graveyard. An opponent has at least six cards in hand. 2R available.
Steps:
- Cast Jeska’s Will from your graveyard for its escape cost by paying 2R and exiling three other cards from your graveyard, adding at least six R.
- Cast Wheel of Fortune from your graveyard for its escape cost by paying 2R and exiling three other cards from your graveyard, causing each player to discard their hand and draw seven cards.
- Repeat.
Results:
Infinite looting for all players. Infinite draw triggers for all players. Near-infinite storm count. Near-infinite magecraft triggers.
Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Brain Freeze
Requires:
Brain Freeze in your graveyard. All permanents on the battlefield. You have at least six other cards in hand and/or graveyard.
Steps:
- Activate Lion’s Eye Diamond by discarding your hand and sacrificing it, adding UUU.
- Cast Lion’s Eye Diamond from your graveyard for its escape cost by exiling three cards besides Brain Freeze from your graveyard.
- Cast Brain Freeze from your graveyard for its escape cost by paying 1U and exiling three cards from your graveyard.
- Brain Freeze’s storm ability triggers, creating at least one copy of Brain Freeze targeting yourself, and any remaining copies targeting an opponent.
- Resolve each Brain Freeze, causing yourself to mill six cards and, if applicable, an opponent to mill three cards for each Brain Freeze remaining.
- Repeat.
Results:
Infinite self-mill. Near-infinite colored mana. Near-infinite storm count. Near-infinite magecraft triggers. Near-infinite mill.
Requires:
Both cards in hand. At least one creature on the battlefield. 2RRR available.
Steps:
- Cast Twinflame by paying 1R.
- Holding priority, cast Dualcaster Mage by paying 1RR.
- Dualcaster Mage enters the battlefield, copying Twinflame.
- Resolve the Twinflame copy, creating a token copy of Dualcaster Mage.
- Repeat from step 3.
Results:
Infinite creature tokens with haste. Infinite ETB. Infinite magecraft triggers.
Dockside Extortionist + Temur Sabertooth
Requires:
Dockside Extortionist in hand. Temur Sabertooth on the battlefield. Opponents control at least four artifacts and/or enchantments. 1R available.
Steps:
- Cast Dockside Extortionist by paying 1R.
- When Dockside Extortionist enters the battlefield, it triggers, creating at least four Treasure artifact tokens.
- Activate four Treasure tokens by tapping and sacrificing them, adding 2RG.
- Activate Temur Sabertooth by paying 1G, returning Dockside Extortionist from the battlefield to your hand.
- Repeat.
- If opponents control at least five artifacts and/or enchantments, this combo nets infinite Treasure tokens.
Results:
Infinite Treasure tokens. Infinite colored mana. Infinite ETB. Infinite LTB. Infinite storm count.
Squee, the Immortal + Food Chain
Requires:
All permanents on the battlefield.
Steps:
- Activate the Food Chain by exiling Squee, adding RRRR that can only be spent to cast creature spells.
- Cast Squee from exile by paying 1RR.
- Repeat.
Results:
Infinite colored mana that can only be spent to cast creature spells. Infinite storm count. Infinite ETB. Infinite LTB.
Misthollow Griffin
+ Food Chain
Requires:
All permanents on the battlefield.
Steps:
- Activate Food Chain by exiling Misthollow Griffin, adding UUUUU that can only be spent to cast creature spells.
- Cast Misthollow Griffin from exile by paying 2UU.
- Repeat.
Results:
Infinite colored mana that can only be spent to cast creature spells. Infinite ETB. Infinite LTB. Infinite storm count.
Conclusion:
Aragorn, The Uniter is a super sweet commander for CEDH and fits perfectly into a Food Chain / Pod Shell. We are at a bit of a disadvantage against most CEDH decks since we don’t have access to black meaning we are cut off from key tutors and key cards like Praetor's Grasp. While that is for sure a drawback we have enough counterspells that allow us to play through many of those key cards we don’t have access to. This deck is an absolute blast and I have found a lot of success within my playgroup and at my LGS. Thanks for reading to the end and thanks for all of your support!