Ajani's Pridemate

Creature — Cat Soldier

Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on Ajani's Pridemate. (For example, if an effect causes you to gain 3 life, put one +1/+1 counter on this creature.)

Discussion (48)

CasualCucumber on Blue/White

3 days ago

I really like the deck and it feels original! The one thing that sprang to mind was why you were running these lifegain cards: Nyx-Fleece Ram, Kor Celebrant, Soul's Attendant, Student of Ojutai, Staff of the Mind Magus, Staff of the Sun Magus. There don't seem to be too much payoff running these cards (perhaps I am missing some cards that greatly benefit from it) other than just basic lifegain over the game. Perhaps you should add Aetherflux Reservoir and Ajani's Pridemate if this is the route you want to take.

youareatrex on Blood Priestess of Kor

1 month ago

It's your boy Jason.

Here's a bunch of cards that should be less than $1 that I think could be possible additions. Feel free to ignore me. Also this is Zach: Zjadler and this is Stephen: icefrigi if you want to check out their decks.

Lifegain Daxos, Blessed by the Sun, Sanguine Sacrament

Lifegain Pay Off Ajani's Pridemate, Griffin Aerie

Card Advantage Read the Bones, Sign in Blood

Removal Death Grasp, Despark

Ramp: Commander's Sphere

Win the Game Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Debt to the Deathless

vossavant on Intense Aura Beatdown (with Infinite Defense!)

1 month ago

Apollo_Paladin it was a combination of Ajani's Pridemate and Wall of Reverence with some small white creatures like Soul Warden that constantly triggered life gain events. Ajani's Pridemate gets absurdly huge in short order. It was the only way to keep up with your deck.

I'm still playtesting but pretty happy with the deck I've put together and will share it when it's "ready".

TheVectornaut on ornithology

2 months ago

At the moment, it looks like you basically have two different decks mashed into one. If you cut your 120 cards into two decks of 60, you'll essentially have double the options to play while improving the power level of both. The two main strategies I'm seeing here are Naya ramp/midrange and some sort of bird/flying tribal. I'll give some of my budget suggestions for both archetypes.

For Naya ramp, you definitely want to focus on the mana dorks like Birds of Paradise, Ilysian Caryatid, and Knotvine Mystic before using the extra mana to play your threats like Godsire, Titanic Ultimatum, and Atarka, World Render. Midrange will forego some of the lower and upper ends of the curve to play efficient midgame creatures like Retaliator Griffin, Managorger Hydra, and Llanowar Visionary. Some other ramp options include Voyaging Satyr, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Rampant Growth, Arbor Elf, and Utopia Sprawl. Some other bombs include Hornet Queen, Vigor, Archetype of Endurance, Terastodon, Armada Wurm, Gruul Ragebeast, Rakeclaw Gargantuan, Spearbreaker Behemoth, Woodfall Primus, and Warstorm Surge. Some midrange threats are Wild Nacatl, Woolly Thoctar, Spellbreaker Behemoth, Burning-Tree Emissary, and Bloodbraid Elf.

For birds, I'd definitely recommend swapping red out for blue. This lets you play flying buffs like Empyrean Eagle, Watcher of the Spheres, Skycat Sovereign, Jubilant Skybonder, Favorable Winds, Flurry of Wings, and Stolen by the Fae. Some options that stay in white are Sephara, Sky's Blade, Emeria Angel, Midnight Haunting, and Battle Screech. Some additional bird stuff could be Aven Mimeomancer, Pride of the Clouds, Wingmate Roc, Kangee, Aerie Keeper, Call, and Murmuring Mystic. These types of decks generally go as wide as possible, buff the team with anthem effects, and swing in the air for the win.

Cards I see in this deck that don't fit in either archetype are Ajani's Pridemate, Pyroceratops, End Hostilities, Planar Outburst, Star of Extinction, Giant Growth, Moonhold, Double Vision, Furor of the Bitten, and Darksteel Pendant. At least, those are the first that spring to mind as targets to replace first. Anyway, let me know if you have any questions about my suggestions and I wish you good luck with your build!

TheVectornaut on When The Wall Is Up Against You

2 months ago

I have a lot of experience with mono-green Assault Formation in modern and legacy casual, so I'll toss in some of my thoughts.

Perfect curves certainly aren't necessary, but you should be able to accomplish something on each of the early turns of the game. More than just playing any old card, it should be something that fits in with your overarching gameplan. I agree with cutting Adventurous Impulse as a 1-drop for this reason. It can't get you Formation, Bow, or any other noncreature combo piece you happen to be running. I'd usually run a Llanowar Elves style dork instead in a ramp list. Still, in walls, I think there are even better options than that. My personal favorite is Traproot Kami since it adds an early defender to the pool and can become a serious threat with Formation if the game goes long. Plus, it works well with the lands-matter strategy that Oran-Rief Hydra is also part of. Other options I've had less success with are Jaddi Offshoot for life, Portcullis Vine for cards, and Saruli Caretaker for slow mana. On 2, Sylvan Caryatid, Gatecreeper Vine, and Wall of Roots are all ramp options, but you're probably fine with just Battlement and Vine Trellis. Wall of Blossoms, however, I view as a must-have if you want to maximize your mana without running out of gas. The ability to up the defender count while replacing itself is so good that I even run a playset of the slower Carven Caryatid too, but this could be excessive depending on the deck. The last defender I'll mention is Tree of Redemption. It's more expensive, both in CMC and in dollars, but it is an undeniable threat with Formation. Higher toughness also makes better use of tricks like Sheltering Word and Feed the Pack.

For the top end of the curve, you might actually be underestimating how much mana the ramp walls can net. With your current setup, you only need 2 of either Guardian or Battlement and 1 other wall to have 9-11 mana on T4. Removal is obviously the biggest obstacle to this being a reality but it seems like you're preparing for a counterspell-heavy meta in a big way. Either you use your protection on the walls and win with Formation when they stop your bombs, or they wait to remove the bombs and you have protection saved up to stop them. Honestly, it feels like you might have too much defense in the mainboard but I'll touch on that later. My point here is that you are likely to have more than enough mana to cast threats much more substantial than the Hydra, and that's without modifications to your suite of defenders. In the current version of my deck, it isn't strange to have a game like: T1-Forest+Traproot Kami, T2-Forest+Overgrown Battlement, T3-Forest+Wall of Blossoms+Axebane Guardian, T4-Forest+Genesis Wave for x=9. Oran-Rief Hydra is a totally fine card to top off at if you build around it, but right now I don't even see it being better than Terra Stomper in a lot of games (and Stomper even has built-in counter protection now that I think about it XD). To get more value out of the Hydra, I'd swap the cycling lands for cheap fetches like Evolving Wilds to double up on landfall triggers, and I might also consider some +1/+1 synergy cards in the vein of Hardened Scales or Hydra's Growth. On the subject of landfall, Vinelasher Kudzu is an interesting option that fits with the plant/wall cards, at least thematically. Mechanically, Undergrowth Champion, Rampaging Baloths, and Avenger of Zendikar are all probably better. I've already mentioned Genesis Wave, but some other options for finishers that I've seen are Archetype of Endurance, Hydra Broodmaster, Primordial Hydra, Vigor, End-Raze Forerunners, Colossus of Akros, pretty much any eldrazi, and any red x-spell that can target players. If you choose something with x in the cost, having Umbral Mantle or Freed from the Real to generate infinite mana is beneficial.

The last thing I'd like to talk about are your noncreatures. As I mentioned before, 4 countermagic blockers seems a little excessive in the main 60. I personally struggle much more with Path to Exiles, Fatal Pushes, and Searing Bloods than Counterspells on most days, so I'd usually prefer the Vines of Vastwood or the flexible Veil of Summer. However, I don't know what your meta looks like. If countermagic is a big problem, another way to get around it is to add in plenty of redundancy. Instead of running only 4 bombs, run 8 so 1 is more likely to slip through. Savage Summoning and Insist are fine answers, yet they run the serious risk of becoming dead cards if your opponent isn't playing blue. Of your instants though, Subdue seems to be the weakest to me. It looks like it will usually be a bad Awe Strike or an inverted Berserk that can't contribute to damaging the opponent. If you had cards to benefit from toughness outside of combat like Kin-Tree Invocation, it could at least serve a similar role to Glyph of Destruction in Wall of Blood/Rite of Consumption decks. The final card I might reexamine is Bow of Nylea. generally, mass deathtouch is at its best when you either have a way to force damage (like Lure or Thornbite Staff) or when you want to create a disincentive for your opponent to block (like when running a Curiosity deck. The thing about a high power is that it already allows you to kill multiple blockers and the thing about trample is that it already discourages single blocking. Deathtouch on such a creature is therefore a little redundant. Sure, it's better to have it than not have it, but it might not be worthwhile if it comes at the cost of 3 mana and a card. I'd want some concrete way to take advantage of the Bow's activated ability to justify running it. For example, my G/W enchantment lifegain deck from Theros standard used the gain 3 life ability to buff Ajani's Pridemate. In your case, the +1/+1 might be the best choice to build around since it can overlap with the Hydra's trigger.

9-lives on Felidae Cult

2 months ago

But don't you think that 27 cats is enough, TriusMalarky?? I'd rather cut some cats and get more lands. Remember that this is also a token deck, so Pride Sovereign would greatly benefit when there are a lot of tokens of 1/1 lifelink cats which also get buffs.

Pride Sovereign in numbers of 2 is really useful with Blessed Alliance, and can generate tokens on his own. I am using Regal Caracal for tokens as well. I have 4x Anointed Procession for a reason. I've usually had great success using tokens in my cat deck. I also have 1xSundering Growth for its populate ability not to mention it will be useful if I ever need a artifact or enchantment removed, which will most likely be hard to draw this card, but regardless I believe it will be used often in games.

The reason I don't have many Feline Sovereigns is because I traded one for Unbreakable Formation. This balances out my ability to have +1/+1 with a creature and instant. But does the Feline Sovereign only give +1/+1 when its on the battlefield, or not?

I_Want_To_PlayAllTheDecks Birthing Pod is really nice. But I don't think I could use that to eternalize adorned pouncer or anything like that; the only card it would work on is Regal Caracal when paying 4 or 3 mana and 2 life for making a 5 mana creature. And Karn, the Great Creator is only useful if I'm running lots of artifacts. And what is CoCo? With Ajani's Pridemate if I have a lot of 1/1 lifelink cat tokens, and attack with those using Encircling Fissure, I can buff him up so much it will be very useful to have Setessan Training and/or Angelic Gift.

Adorned Pouncer is very expensive mana-wise when you eternalize it, so it will be late in the game when I use it. Same goes for Fleecemane Lion. And Bronzehide Lion is expensive for making a single creature indestructible when I can use something like Unbreakable Formation for 1 more mana cost while buffing my entire army. Yes, they're good for 3/3 for 2 mana, but regardless I have other cards for that. For instance, Prowling Serpopard is very useful against blue counter heavy decks, covering my entire army with their ability, and is a 4/3 for 3 mana.

Angelic Gift is a must if I'm facing flying decks or if there are decks that don't have fliers or reach so I can deal direct damage, and on top of that it functions as a 2 mana cost draw 1. Just think if I used that on a Eternalized Adorned Pouncer!

What I need are tutors or something that allows me to pick out what I need for whatever occasion; that's how a good toolbox deck would work. Perhaps splashing black for Agonizing Remorse and Lay Bare the Heartand Grim Tutor??? Hand control is great when you know what cards are best in their hand, and Grim Tutor is currently the best tutor in Pioneer, I think.

Omniscience_is_life on Lifegain cards

2 months ago

Basically, echoing some prior opinions: lifegain for the sole purpose of extending the game via "protecting" yourself is a very tepid and diluted way of staying alive til you can win. If you run more removal, you can stop creatures bashing in (removal is also more toolboxy, in general), and if you run more card draw you can dig towards answers. Unless you're running up against burn or some direct-damage decks, lifegain is primarily to combat combat damage--which can be dealt with by just killing the creatures from which that damage stems.

That said, if you're set on this path, Feed the Clan works well with beefy cats like Ajani's Pridemate, etc.

TriusMalarky on Lifegain cards

2 months ago

On the note of lifegain, life is far and away one of the least important resources in the game. It's only relevant against aggro or if you are actively using it as a resource with, for example, Ad Nauseam or Sign in Blood.

There are two main reasons to include lifegain: either you get advantages with cards like Ajani's Pridemate, Griffin Aerie, Resplendent Angel, etc., in which case you mostly want creatures with lifegain or Fountain of Renewal. Otherwise, you're looking at effects like Lone Missionary, Arashin Cleric or Life Goes On/Chaplain's Blessing as sideboard cards against aggro.