Welcome to my primer on the deck that has quickly become my favorite to play, Angus Mackenzie Pillowfort Combo, aka the more tender side of William Wallace.
Why Would I play this deck?
Excellent question. Angus won’t appeal to every highlander and will most likely incur audible groaning from the people playing with you, as he inherently functions as a stax commander channeled through an enchantress package. When playing him the games will slow down, and most of your wins will come through combos set up by grinding out your opponent’s will to continue playing magic the gathering.
That being said, Angus is the commander for you if you enjoy:
-Insensitive amounts of card advantage/creating a “machine” that will butter you up and keep your lines of play varied and interesting
-Stax in any capacity. Fun is a zero-sum game, and you intend to drill bureaucracy into the soul of the people around you. This deck has a few dedicated stax elements, like Stony Silence and Rule of Law, but generally your stax interaction will be through a prevention of combat and a general slowing of the game
-Winning without attacking. If you’re like me (a bitter planeswalker constantly reminiscing about the days when damage stacked {We remember you Mogg Fanatic}), you remember the days when spells maintained a decent power level relative to creatures. I miss non-linear strategies where synergistic interactions fueled power level, and the enchantress package is a blast when it gets going. Often this deck has to play the stax game turns 1-3, but when you start generating value with enchantments, magic feels pretty damn fun. We can have fun right up until the point we want to win, which is through specific combos I’ll mention below.
-Fighting for sovereignty your people have had a claim to for the better part of a millennia while under forced conscription into the commonwealth.
Why Angus and not (Insert other pillowfort commander here)?
-Novelty. I love playing with rarely-played commanders and I mean, look at this guy. He’s a pacifistic Scotsman in the 3 best colors of magic.
-He’s extremely good at dragging out the game. This deck needs time to develop it’s value engine and secure the pieces to stop your opponents from aggressing to heavily upon you. Angus creates a massive headache for any strategies reliant on combat. In addition, he doesn’t get enough credit for his political prowess. Often game results are dictated by you deciding who gets to attack who while you draw a ton of cards and move closer to your win conditions. In summation, We sacrifice some speed (a la Zur pillowfort, etc) for better control tools and fogs and more fun generally.
Let’s dive into specific card choices:
Creatures:
Ramp: This deck relies heavily on mana dorks to ramp us in the early turns of the game. This is a conscious nod to us needing to play Stony Silence against combo decks. In addition, by virtue of playing enchantress, we need to allocate many slots to enchantments, and that comes at the cost of mana rocks. We play Sol Ring because it’s busted but otherwise there’s no mana rocks.
Llanowar Elves, Noble Hierarch, Bloom Tender, Avacyn’s Pilgrim, Birds of Paradise, Herald of the Pantheon, Sakura-Tribe Elder
Enchantress: The lifeblood of the deck. These ladies find you more you more ammo than Sarah in Bioshock Infinite and enable you to do some amazing things. We’re always looking to have one of these online by turn 3 at the latest.
Argothian Enchantress, Verduran Enchantress, Mesa Enchantress, Eidolon of Blossoms
Stax/Fog/Hate Cards: Because you need time, and these guys buy it for you.
Kataki, War’s Wage, Peacekeeper, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Magus of the Moat, Windborn Muse, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Godhead of Awe, Dawnstrider
Other value generators/role pieces:
Courser of Kruphix- Draws you cards off the top of your deck and has inlaid value as an enchantment herself. Allows us card selection with fetch lands and the incidental life-gain can be relevant.
Oracle of Mul Daya– If Courser had actually lived up to her father’s expectations and did something with her life. This card is insane. It churns you through your deck and offers even better card selection with fetchlands.
Azor’s Elocutors– One of the staple win conditions in the deck. As soon as you play them you will be a lightning rod though, so often it’s correct to set up a board with multiple effects granting shroud/hexproof or indestructibility before getting them online.
Academy Rector– Anyone who knows what this card can do should be afraid of it. Often this card reads, “if you kill me you lose”. Can fetch any combo piece you need or can get you the specific effect you need to stabilize a board state.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope– This is the top-end payoff for the deck. When Avacyn hits, most of the time it’s game over. By the time she’s played most often you’ve established a pseudo-lock through
Ghostly Prison
effects and need a way to sure yourself up against all possibilities of defeat. This card is so dope.
Interactions you need to be aware of:
Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience– Another main win condition. You mill your opponent out and laugh. Because you’re a dick and that’s okay. Of note, sometimes you’ll have to blow up your own Stony Silence to be able to activate it, but that’s done easily enough with Aura of Silence, Song of the Dryads, or Detention Sphere.
Rest in Peace + Energy Field– You take no damage until one or both of these gets blown up.
Humility + Reverence/Godhead of Awe – No creatures can attack you.
Worship + Avacyn, Angel of Hope– “I’m just gonna F6 and get a burger. Let me know who decks themselves first”
Other than that, the card choices are pretty redundant between effects that give your permanents hexproof/shroud, effects that limit your opponents’ plays, and tutors to go find whatever you need to bolster the resistance movement against the wooden-toothed, habeus corpus writing blokes to the east.
And that’s about it. This is my first deck primer and I’m a bit drunk but that’s why I wrote this pain in the ass the first place. If there is legitimate inquiry into more of the card decisions I’d be happy to oblige. Plus, there are many cards that have come in and out of the decklist, such as the Enchanted Evening combos and more. You don’t really need them. It’s better for the deck to be streamlined and make more efficiency out of your mana. You won’t be able to compete at the highest level of cEDH, as Angus simply does not have the tools to operate on the same level as the most powerful decks in the format. However, after months of playing with him, think Angus is definitely a T2 commander and with a completely refined list could be ~T1.5 .
