Bloody Silverquills | Breena EDH (Primer!)

Commander / EDH Aggro Hatebears Multiplayer Primer WB (Orzhov)

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Keep Up The Pressure (36)

• 1x Adanto Vanguard
• 1x Alseid of Life's Bounty
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Changeling Outcast
• 1x Containment Priest
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1x Drana and Linvala
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Dusk Legion Duelist
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Giver of Runes
• 1x Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor
• 1x Grateful Apparition
• 1x Healer's Hawk
• 1x Hopeful Initiate
• 1x Hushbringer
• 1x Hushwing Gryff
• 1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
• 1x Kunoros, Hound of Athreos
• 1x Legion's Landing  ^Flip
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Lone Rider  ^Flip
• 1x Lurrus of the Dream-Den
• 1x Mikaeus, the Lunarch
• 1x Mother of Runes
• 1x Phyrexian Revoker
• 1x Selfless Savior
• 1x Serra Ascendant
• 1x Shaile, Dean of Radiance  ^Flip
• 1x Silverblade Paladin
• 1x Speaker of the Heavens
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Sungold Sentinel
• 1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 1x Tocatli Honor Guard

Lands (31)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Blinkmoth Nexus
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Brightclimb Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Castle Ardenvale
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Flagstones of Trokair
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Inkmoth Nexus
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 5x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Shambling Vent
• 1x Shattered Sanctum
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Vault of Champions
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath

Weaponized Arrogance (7)

• 1x Agadeem's Awakening  ^Flip
• 1x Athreos, God of Passage
• 1x Flawless Maneuver
• 1x Invasion of Gobakhan  ^Flip
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Selfless Spirit
• 1x Teferi's Protection

Commander (1)

Words Like Knives (12)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Armageddon
• 1x Cruel Sadist
• 1x Despark
• 1x Loran of the Third Path
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Ravages of War
• 1x Retribution of the Ancients
• 1x Skyclave Apparition
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Tainted Strike
• 1x Walking Ballista

Pens and Swords (7)

• 1x Duelist's Heritage
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Sword of Forge and Frontier
• 1x Umezawa's Jitte

Setting The Stage (6)

• 1x Cartographer's Hawk
• 1x Knight of the White Orchid
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Weathered Wayfarer

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Breena is a very strange commander. On first blush, she is most easily comparable to Tymna the Weaver -- both are cheap, aggressive commanders that give you card advantage as long as you keep attacking. Is Tymna better? Possibly. But Breena is definitely worth consideration. Her ability is tricky to grasp at first glance -- only on the third or fourth readthrough did I understand it, and only upon actually playtesting her did I appreciate what exactly her presence does to a game. Once I did, I came to the simple and humble conclusion that Breena is hands-down the best face Commander for the format that Wizards has ever released in terms of adding to and enriching the format while not invalidating other deck builds.

Let's break her text down:

• Stats: Flying 1/3 for 3 MV. She'll come down on Turn 3, and can swing on Turn 4. While not offensively powerful, she can attack over a lot of boards thanks to evasion to get a little chip damage, but more important than that, she can get chip attacks in. Why is this relevant? We'll get to that. She's also pretty tanky, and with a little buffing, she can swing into most relevant fliers with no issue -- just one activation puts her at a 3/5, which can tangle with anything with up to four power without a care.

• "Whenever a player attacks one of your opponents..." The trigger. Both you and your opponents can leverage this. Symmetric, but we all know how symmetric effects work in MtG. This ability will also trigger multiple times, if you line up your attacks right. This is also an attack trigger, so you don't need to worry about getting through, just attacking will slap it onto the stack.

• "...if that opponent has more life than another of your opponents..." The condition. Breena wants you to not attack the opponent with the lowest life total. This means that, unlike Dethrone, you can have multiple players be possible targets. However, if all players have equal life totals, there is no person you can attack to trigger it. You have many opponents to select from to make your attacks, and you'll generally have two candidates in a four-player game. Your opponents will generally have one, unless they have the lowest life total, in which case they have two.

• "...that attacking player draws a card..." The first payoff. The person who attacked? They get one card per trigger. You'll be making the most of it, and you should be able to get one card per turn cycle at least, especially with a few evasive critters or Breena herself. Opponents who can trigger this ability will get a card, but it's much harder for them, as they're not designed to leverage this ability, and they have fewer options to choose from in their attacks.

• "...and you put two +1/+1 counters on a creature you control." The second payoff, one that is all yours. Two +1/+1 counters is a significant boost, turning a 1/1 into a 3/3, or a 2/2 into a 4/4 with one trigger. Note that this trigger happens whenever any such attack happens. This means that the boost happens mid-combat, before blockers are declared, which means you can swing with a 1/1 into a 2/2 and outsize the defender. It also can disincentivize people swinging at an opponent and at you, stopping people from putting pressure on you while they try to draw an extra card or two. If you can trigger this ability once every turn for a few turns, that'll add six, eight, ten, or more power to your board, without any additional mana investment required.

The interplay of these abilities make Breena a very complex commander to pilot, which is great if you're into that sort of thing (I am). By manipulating life totals with quick jabs from cheap creatures, you can put your opponents in positions where they either cannot take advantage of Breena's ability, or where them taking an extra card for the deal is actually more beneficial to you, as you both get the boost in tempo from the size boost on one of your creatures as well as the relative tempo advantage from having one opponent attack another.

Breena best leverages a compact gameplan with a little bit of disruption tossed in like a dash of salt. A few cheap, evasive creatures, alongside a bunch of warm-body utility creatures and hatebears that you can build up in a pinch, are key to leveraging this funky little bird lady to the greatest extent possible. The ability to turn any creature into a significant threat over one or two turns means that you can put pressure on very rapidly while both fueling the card advantage engine and manipulating which opponents have higher or lower life totals.

Whatever build you ultimately go for, your ideal curve will be 1-drop, 2-drop, jab someone, Breena, swing with both creatures and start getting triggers. From there on, the deck's composition and the way the game develops will factor into who and how and when you apply pressure and damage. Who do you want to be attacking? Who will you be able to attack, and with what? Who do you want dead? Threat evaluation is key, but if you stay on your toes, Breena enables delightfully subtle levels of control over your opponents, so that the correct play is, obviously, for them to play right into your hands.

As a few examples, you can:

• Swing in on the two healthiest opponents with evasive creatures, buff them up, and keep everyone on relatively equal footing while dumping pressure on everyone.

• Keep everyone at relatively equal life totals, but using evasive creatures, make sure that your opponents would be forced into bad attacks or suicides by virtue of who has how much life.

• Throw chip attacks at one or two players while focusing the brunt of your power on one opponent to push them out of the game.

• Swing chip damage in and build up your board for an alpha strike a few turns down the line.

• Put another aggressive deck at the lowest life total, feeding them cards while also setting your creatures up to outclass theirs when it's one-on-one...as they're incentivized to attack your opponents and not you.

• Suddenly turn the corner on one opponent with a two or three turn Commander Clock with Breena herself.

I won't claim I've found an optimal build for Breena, but I do think that that this little treatise on her will be essential to keep in mind, whatever build you go for. I've opted for a more small-ball route, focused on removal and snowballing a few creatures into powerful threats, with a dabbling of a lifegain subtheme and equipment. I also run Armageddon and Ravages of War, because I'm a monster.

To break down card choice:

Commander's Role

Breena is a heavily built-around commander in this deck. The deck capitalizes and relies on both her buffing ability, to make your cheap, evasive creatures into significant threats that require removal on their own, and the card-draw she generates to function. Almost always, you will want to play Breena if and only if you can immediately get at least one trigger out of her, if not two. Recasting her is a priority when she dies. There are a few ways to recur her from the graveyard, but not a ton, so be watchful and mindful of when and where you deploy her.

Lands

Breena runs a relatively low land-count for Commander. Once you hit the third land, you're good for a few turns, and once you get your little engine online, you'll draw more eventually. More lands can still be leveraged as time goes on, but you can get away with missing land drops a few times. Extreme emphasis is placed on untapped lands, the tempo-loss from a tapped land is very noticeable in this deck.

White mana is more important than black, but dual-producing lands are high priority as well. Fetching a Godless and/or Scrubland in the first few turns can easily fix all your mana troubles, but be careful -- you also play a lot of Armageddon effects, so keeping a few lands in hand is a reasonable line, especially given how much this deck can do with one or two mana.

Keep Up The Pressure

This is the block for the fodder, the (mostly) cheap creatures that will do the heavy lifting. Raw power of these creatures is not an issue, the priority is disruption, either through removal or through hatebear effects, evasion of any sort, and various utility creatures. Don't be afraid to throw any or all of these creatures into the red zone. Breena will see them through all right. One-drops should be able to stay relevant either through evasion or other late-game abilities. If you cannot curve at least one creature into Breena, you're gonna have a bad time. Never keep a hand without at least one 1- or 2-drop.

Setting the Stage

Unlike a lot of Commander decks, I've opted for almost no ramp. This is due to the extremely low-to-the-ground nature of Breena. Ramp that is here is either creature-based or extremely cheap and powerful. Powering out an early Breena is not as effective as other commanders, because she really needs one or two extra creatures to be swinging alongside her.

Mana efficiency is at a premium in this deck, so things that cost one or no mana to really make work are the best options. Creatures can do whatever, because you want to be getting into the red zone anyway, so even if you can't ramp, you can start the value train going with Breena.

Words Like Knives

I like removal and disruption. Again, as always, creature-based removal is highly regarded, as you can use them to draw cards and threaten life totals. I've opted out of hand-attack creatures, but they could have a place in some metas, preferring instead to focus on flexible and cheap removal.

Especial notice goes to creatures that can turn +1/+1 counters into removal, as they both enable you to put on pressure and blow blockers out of the way if necessary.

Weaponized Arrogance

Breena is an extremely fragile commander. Board wipes are your foe. Thus, you need to run ways of countering them. This is the section that will change the most, depending on your meta, as what protection you choose heavily depends on what you are trying to dodge.

Running too many is a bad plan, because you always need creatures, so Selfless Spirit is probably one of the best cards for this role. While emphasis is always placed on low costs, the protection we need is generally pretty expensive.

It's possible that you're supposed to run more single-target protection spells, such as Loran's Escape or Gods Willing to protect from spot removal, but I've opted to rely almost exclusively on full-board protection, because Breena needs you to both have other creatures, and also have a high creature count, so each single card really has to pull a lot of weight.

Strategy

Breena, unlike other aggro commanders, doesn't want to kill opponents quickly. While you may be forced to as other players come online, your priority is making sure you can keep swinging, and that all the players remain on equal-ish footing for as long as possible.

Threat evaluation is incredibly important, and being self-reflective with it as well is essential to pilot Breena. You want to be powerful right out of the gate, but becoming the archenemy if you're not prepared to close out the game quickly is a problem, as the deck really can't take the heat. Instead, you want to chip in, keep up a steady amount of pressure, but let other players start to take the lead.

Of course, it's equally important to capitalize on weakness. After a boardwipe, a counterspell war, or someone dropping the shields for a turn, you can still gut a player and force them onto the back foot. Plus, if everyone is recovering or still developing, Breena can develop enough early aggression to set up a later win off of some resilient creatures and a quick second burst.

Granular Tactical Advice

Retribution of the Ancients fulfills an obvious role and a secret one. The obvious role: free removal! In a four player game you can reliably get four counters per turn...provided you can deal with blockers. And if you're using Retribution to snipe down blockers, well, there won't be too many to worry about, now will there? You can also use this ability in combat, to make sure that people end up at life totals you want them to end up at: making sure only one person has the lowest life total is usually where you want to be at, and you can snipe some creatures with this to blunt some blows to make sure people are suffering exactly the right amount. You can do this with Hopeful Initiate and Walking Ballista, too.

(Under construction)

Honorable Mentions

Knight of the Ebon Legion is just a superb little beater -- this deck uses its mana well enough that the mana sink is often a significant investment, but mid to late game this little guy can tangle with dragons and angles without a care, growing alongside the rest of the deck.

Oona's Blackguard is a nasty piece of work. Evasive, disruptive, and quite darling, actually. Usually, though, Breena's ability hands out a lot of cards, and this deck focuses on snowballing a few creatures than swarming with enough countered-critters to overwhelm the card draw. I may be wrong, though, if you test it, let me know!

Karlov of the Ghost Council is powerful, a bear that grows if you gain life and also can blast creatures with counters. If you include slightly more of a lifegain/lifelink vibe, I would say to slam this bad boy in and watch him vaporize people.

Ayara's Oathsworn would be the only tutor I would ever play with this deck. Usually, even the extra two mana for a Demonic Tutor is a significant sacrifice...but this one comes with a body attached! Unfortunately, due to the simple math of the counters ticking, getting her to the requisite number of counters could be tricky. It's possible she's worth it, though.

Archivist of Ogma draws you cards!!! Love that! A hatebear through and through, however, the Archivist doesn't stop or disrupt your opponents, and is a little unreliable, especially with no in-built evasion.

Black Market Connections just does so much for three mana, it's ludicrous. I don't run it mostly out of personal preference, but the card is definitely powerful, and gets only more so the more lifelink you build into the deck. Board presence, ramp, and cards -- Connections does it all.

Top Ranked	Achieved #5 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Aggro 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Hatebears 2 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 2 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	11 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 63 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.06
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Companion Zone, Human 1/1 W, Illusion */* U, Vampire 1/1 W
Folders	EDH, EDH, Commander, EDH Decks, Favorites EDH decks, Future Decks, decks, Saved EDH Decks, Political edh decks, EDH