Leonin Warleader

Creature — Cat Soldier

Whenever Leonin Warleader attacks, create two 1/1 white Cat creature tokens with lifelink that are tapped and attacking.

Discussion (51)

wolfsack on Thundercat Song Reference

2 weeks ago

We talked about it a bit earlier, but Leonin Warleader is a good include here. I think it's more threatening than Brimaz. I see Impact Tremors, so It would be intersting to kinda steer the deck in a token build. Docent of Perfection  ^Flip can help get the party started. There are also gobo spells you can cast daddy Vadrok, like Hordeling Outburst to help fuel your army.

One thing I noticed is that there aren't a whole lot of pump effects for a voltron subtheme commander outside of double strike type cards. Might be cool to add Brute Force, Infuriate, and low cost buff spells. If that style sounds cool you can add in Feather, the Redeemed for more ways to get your spells back and if you lean towards token theme adding Zada, Hedron Grinder will really scare the table!

As for potential cuts, I think Archipelagore can probably take a seat. High mana cost with a bit of a low effect. How often will you mutate ove 2 creatures. Fling seems a bit out of place. I can't imagine wanting to sacrifice a mutate pile.

Focusing on your commander's ability and bouncing to recast it will be much cheaper and have a greater impact in game. Blistercoil Weird, Kiln Fiend and Spellgorger Weird could also be some cool potential targets to mutate onto. Flood of Tears can clear the board and let you put down a mutate target.

Sky_Blue_Skies on Essence of the Wild Hunt

2 weeks ago

Many thanks for your comment! I've honestly struggled quite a bit with deciding what the deck should use as its plan A. As I'm trying to make this more of a dedicated, janky vehicle for exploiting Essence of the Wild, I've given up some of the more conventional means of making it efficient or consistent. So far my approach has sought to strike a balance between including "generically good" cards that work reasonably well on their own as efficient token engines alongside cards that work specifically with Essence to enable absurd late-game boards. Results have been mixed, but by all indications early-game ramp should be an essential part of the deck, and for that reason I have doubled-up on mana dorks and stacked the three-drop slots with cards that work fine on turns 2-3 as a straight-up token strategy, but are also insane top-decks once Essence or Tendershoot Dryad is in play. My hope is that the deck can still be fun to play on casual tables even if I don't draw Essence and have to make due with crowding the board with spirits and saprolings, or by getting value out of Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Leonin Warleader, or Master of the Wild Hunt. While I fully appreciate the ubiquitous value of high-power removal spells like Path to Exile, I tend to hold off on playing these cards until someone in my playgroup annoys me enough to do so. On the other hand, I'd love to know if anyone has any thoughts on how to improve card selection in the early turns without messing too much with the balance of ramp-enablers and payoffs.

BRG24 on BW Token Lifegain deck

1 month ago

Nice deck. It might be an idea to introduce some more one drops here, preferably with lifelink so you can get the lifegain going early. Healer's Hawk, Vampire of the Dire Moon and Banehound each fit this nicely, and each bring something a little different. Hawk might be useful since you don’t really have many ways of dealing with fliers, the Vampire having deathtouch can scare off a lot of aggression (although might not be necessary, depends how much life you’re gaining), and Banehound offers very strong aggression.

If you’re going for a token deck, Anointed Procession feels like it should be worth considering. However, I feel that at the moment the token elements of this deck are quite slow and expensive. Something like a Leonin Warleader might be a better option, since it makes the tokens without requiring more mana to be put in, plus the tokens have lifelink. Cubwarden does a similar job, with more immediate effect, but you might need to run more non-humans to make it work. Ajani, Strength of the Pride also seems pretty good, since it has a direct lifegain ability that will scale with the size of your board, the ability to make tokens of possibly the best card in a lifegain deck, and an emergency reset button should you ever need it. As a final token card, Crested Sunmare can be great for closing out a game with big, indestructible beaters. Plus, it can make extra tokens if you gain life on your opponents turn as well.

Hope this is helpful to you, and good luck with the deck.

9-lives on Felidae Cult

1 month ago

And Druid's Deliverance seems far more useful than Invigorating Surge for my tokens to attack altogether and not die from collectively attacking a single creature that will kill them all in the process of me killing it with my collective attack, effectively giving me life-points as well through the life-link cats. This is why I'm replacing 1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos with 1 more Leonin Warleader, as I already get vigilance from my Companion, and I need lifelink.

9-lives on Felidae Cult

1 month ago

I also think that I should run 4x Anointed Procession since that gives me drawing power for that card. And I'm not too fond of having 4x Ajani's Pridemate since I already have 1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos. To me, I could do with more Pride Sovereign or Leonin Warleader or Regal Caracal or Brimaz, King of Oreskos since this is mainly a tokens deck; can't forget that. I just need more cards besides Angelic Gift that give drawing power. Not creatures drawing, but overall deck. If anything I could get rid of Invigorating Surge since it's only useful for Ajani's Pridemate which would make it who knows what P/T, but I imagine it would be GIGANTIC, and I could use it on Fleecemane Lion as well which would end up giving it +4/+4 instead of +1/+1. As long as my opponent doesn't counter or remove my cards, I will be a happy camper. This is why I think I need to draw Prowling Serpopard, but only if I'm against control decks, and its 4/3 is not a bad thing either for 3 mana.

BRG24 on Felidae Cult

1 month ago

Unfortunately, Ajani's Pridemate will not retain its counters if it is brought back from the graveyard, as far as I’m aware the only creature in the game to be able to keep counters in the graveyard is Skullbriar, the Walking Grave. However, it will often grow pretty quickly again anyway, so I don’t think this is much of a problem.

Now that you’re running, Return to Nature, I’d be tempted to maybe cut the Watchers of the Dead from the mainboard, since you now have a far more effective form of graveyard hate. This would allow you to add the final copy of Ajani's Pridemate that I think would be better in almost every situation, but still keep the Watchers in the sideboard for when their effect is needed.

I get where you’re coming from regarding Blessed Alliance, I just feel that for a creature based tribal deck you might be running just a few too many non-creature cards, so it might be a good idea to trim back on a few of them. The deck will win with creatures, and with so many spells in the deck it could be possible to have points where you are just drawing spells, which will never be good for you. You might replace Invigorating Surge with a second Brimaz, King of Oreskos, you might decide to only run 3 Anointed Procession, since it is a (relatively) expensive card that has no immediate effect, and this might give you the space to have an extra Leonin Warleader or even a Cubwarden. These are just a few possible ideas, I have no idea if any of these seem like good ideas to you, but I think since the deck is now 70 cards, increasing the creature count might be a good idea.

BRG24 on Felidae Cult

1 month ago

Hello again. When it comes to your “toolbox” idea, I think you’ve probably got everything covered, just as long as you keep extra copies of these cards in the sideboard for once you know you’ll need specific ones. About the only card I think might be worth considering for this is Selesnya Charm, which to be honest I can’t believe that I’d forgotten about. In terms of what it counters, it gives you the ability to deal with huge creatures and even get around indestructible, which makes it particularly good against big Eldrazi, Dinosaurs or Dragons. But where this really shines is in its flexibility, since it can also be an instant speed blocker if needed, or a pump spell that gets a creature through to end a game. For two mana I don’t think you can get much better. I might also consider Return to Nature over Sundering Growth, since it also has the potential for very effective graveyard hate, particularly against decks using the Theros titans, or any big reanimation targets. With Adorned Pouncer being the only source of a good populate target (a 1/1 is never really a good hit), the value of Growth seems inconsistent, and most of the time it will be a more limited version of Return.

Unfortunately, G/W doesn’t have access to all that many tutors, especially not in pioneer, and even then the green ones only really find creatures, while white finds enchantments. Idyllic Tutor can help grab Anointed Procession, but that’s probably not enough hits. The green tutors I could find were more expensive, both in terms of mana and money, but are both very strong since they also get the creature onto the battlefield. Chord of Calling can be good since you can ramp it out with your wide board, as well as use it to tutor up a win con on your opponents end step, effectively giving it haste. Finale of Devastation is the other alternative, but I feel it’s strictly worse since you’ll never cast it for 12 mana to get the extra effect. However, I wouldn’t really recommend running any of these, they just seem too inefficient to me.

As you have pointed out regarding Huatli, Radiant Champion, unfortunately most card draw in these colours is reliant on you playing out creatures, since most of the time these colours produce creature based strategies. It is important to remember though that tokens would also trigger her ability, so a Leonin Warleader could attack and draw you two cards if you have the emblem, or even more if you have Anointed Procession. I find that tokens are he best way to exploit these effects for maximum value, and since your deck makes so many I think it would be a good effect to have access to.

I would not call Initiate's Companion a ramp card, especially not in this deck. If I used the card, I would mainly do so to untap my Pride Sovereign in order to get around the exert, rather than untapping a land, especially since it ramps you into two spells rather than into a single bigger threat. Even then, the effect is very disruptable, since it needs to hit the opponent first to activate the ability and has no eveasion built into it. As a 3/1, it is also very easy to trade into, so I think it will very rarely give you good value. In actuality, you do already have a form of ramp in the deck form Oketra's Monument, and I don’t think you anything more than that.

Lurrus of the Dream-Den is another very good card, provided that you have enough things that you can bring back. Since both Fleecemane Lion and Ajani's Pridemate, and even Adorned Pouncer can all be big threats, being able to just bring them back is really powerful, but it can also feel pretty bad if your graveyard is just filled with bigger creatures.

On a final note regarding how companion works, while your companion card starts the game in a zone where your opponent can’t touch it, you do still have to cast it and have it on board to gain the effects, and in fact you also have to pay three to move it from it’s starting zone to your hand. I wasn’t sure whether I’d fully explained how the mechanic worked, so I just thought I’d clarify.

Phostration on Woof Meow These are my Friends

2 months ago

EdCartman I actually had two copies of him in my deck on the first draft haha. I guess he's better than Leonin Warleader.