Princess Twilight Primer

Commander / EDH* GWUB

pTpWaterkit

Creature (26)

• 1x Benevolent Unicorn
• 1x _____
• 1x Boreas Charger
• 1x Capashen Unicorn
• 1x Crested Sunmare
• 1x Diamond Mare
• 1x Good-Fortune Unicorn
• 1x Inspiring Unicorn
• 1x Lonesome Unicorn
• 1x Loyal Pegasus
• 1x Loyal Unicorn
• 1x Mesa Unicorn
• 1x Mirror Entity
• 1x Nightmare Moon  ^Flip
• 1x Opaline Unicorn
• 1x Ordinary Pony
• 1x Plated Pegasus
• 1x Prized Unicorn
• 1x Progenitor Mimic
• 1x Rarity
• 1x Ronom Unicorn
• 1x Shield Mare
• 1x Stormfront Pegasus
• 1x Sungrace Pegasus
• 1x Vryn Wingmare
• 1x Wandermare

Instant (5)

• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fated Infatuation
• 1x Pledge of Unity
• 1x Teferi's Protection

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Ajani, the Greathearted
• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion

Land (36)

• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 4x Forest
• 1x Gavony Township
• 1x Gemstone Mine
• 1x Grove of the Burnwillows
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 3x Island
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 8x Plains
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Arcane Adaptation
• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Collective Blessing
• 1x Cryptolith Rite
• 1x Imprisoned in the Moon
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Rites of Flourishing
• 1x Sacred Mesa
• 1x Sylvan Library

Commander (1)

Sorcery (11)

• 1x Camaraderie
• 1x Collective Effort
• 1x Collective Voyage
• 1x Compulsive Research
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Nature's Resurgence
• 1x New Frontiers
• 1x Patriarch's Bidding
• 1x Prosperity
• 1x Regna's Sanction
• 1x Storm Herd

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Coat of Arms
• 1x Feldon's Cane
• 1x Ghirapur Orrery
• 1x Helm of the Host
• 1x Howling Mine
• 1x Pendant of Prosperity
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Unity
• 1x The Great Henge

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Be ready to have read an underwhelming primer, lads and lasses. It's Equestrian tribal.

Prelude: All right, lampshading aside, I have been asking and begging for YEARS, ever since the show came out, to have just /one/ legendary horse, pegasus, or unicorn. And with the release of the this year's Magic tie-in with Extra Life for 2019, we finally got there. Now, there is a LOT to unpack with this. We have a general who is an aggressively costed lord, who also has a very unique ability: Pay WUBRG, If you control Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity, everypony wins the game. The thought that there will be official rulings on who counts as everypony definitely gives me a chuckle, but it also brings out the downside-- there aren't cards that are named Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, or Rainbow Dash. We got Rarity, who we will discuss later, along with a certain mare in the moon. So, we have a useless general ability, right? We have a way to solve this issue, and it's somewhat flavorful, with changelings (who use shapeshifting in FiM) to solve this issue! But, that does mean we will be cloning him some number of times-- 4 or 5, depending on if we have Rarity out or not. Before we continue on, we will need to establish two things: Spy Kit doesn't work, as it only give creatures non-legendary names, and the rest of the Mane 6 have been confirmed legendary. As per giving him actual names, MARO has confirmed that if it is a name that is referenced on a card, it can be chosen as the name of the card. Love his twitter, btw So, before we go into the rest of the deck, we should discuss the ways we win! Because while ponies aren't violent in nature, they can be competitive, they like winning, and like winning together. So, to go along with _, we also have Twilight's crown, in Helm of the Host, and Progenitor Mimic, another of our "changelings", along with an actual flavor win I don't feel sorry about, the Mirror Pool-- I mean, Fated Infatuation. While our poor __ is probably going to die, that just means we can then go on the aggro plan. Putting Helm of the Host on Twilight is certainly a fun way of going from 0-threat real quick. So, onto the rest of deck, with the rest of our game plan.

Creatures: In terms of creatures, there is only one way for me; Tribal Equestrians. That means the best Horses, Pegasi, and Unicorns (and one other Alicorn, for flavor) that we can get. All 65 we ca... oh no. OH lawdy we have some issues. These creatures are... well lets just say they are about as powerful as you'd expect from the general. Seriously, when one of the most synergistic cards on EDHREC for the tribe is Armored Warhorse, you know you are in some serious trouble. I won't lie, if you are going for a competitive version of the deck, this primer isn't for you. I wanted this deck to be flavorful, with plenty of equestrians and grouphugs to go around.

So let's actually discuss the creatures themselves. We can start with the other two creatures in the Extra Life Bundle, Rarity and Nightmare Moon//Princess Luna. Rarity helps protect our "wincon" pieces when she is out, and otherwise lets us block whenever necessary. Nightmare Moon can be a beefy attacker, especially if you play at FNM's, and she has a flip to let us have access to some wishboard. Assuming that your group is fine with silver bordered cards, I doubt that they'd begrudge you a wishboard that can only feature cards with moons in the art. That is, until they see how many basics you're playing. But outside of those two, we get to Crested Sunmare, aaaaaand it all goes downhill. Generally the more beneficial text the equestrian has, the better. Shocking, I know. We have to be really particular because every equestrian we include brings up the flavor, for sure, but also makes the deck harder to function. So many are in the 3-4cmc range with bodies that just don't stack up against modern creatures. The all-stars of this deck are actually all unicorns and pegasi, Loyal Unicorn lets us attack without worrying about losing our creatures, and they get to wheel back around for defense. Boreal Charger lets us ramp when we almost inevitably use it for chump block duty. Good-fortune and Inspiring Unicorns both allow our creatures to be beefier. Vryn Wing Mare and Diamond Mare allow us to drag out the game later, or let us live longer so that everypony might win. Ronom Unicorn and Capashen Unicorn both let us interact with other players enchantments or artifacts, which for both flavor and lack of space, we kept to a minimum. Ponies don't want to break things or kill people! Mirror Entity is another of those changelings that help us out. Like Thorax! With Prized Unicorn (I cannot reccomend the M20 version enough, it is beautiful) we can swing in no matter how many creatures they have, and at worst we lose one creature. The other creatures are either evasive enough to get in, or beefy enough that they might actually be able to block and live. And of course, we have to have Loyal Pegasus, the card that just begs to be altered as Rainbow Dash. So, now that we have the flavorful creatures out of the way, what about support? Surely we need to have some way of getting this tribe from meh to... well still meh, but we want to win! We're going to go from 0 to hero with these little ponies, so let's start with how we get them beefier!

ANTHEMS:

We are going to want ways of making them strong, and ponies always get stronger when they work together. Coat of Arms is a perfect example of this. Pledge of Unity gains us life for our Storm Herd later, and Ajani would certainly welcome these little ponies who are trying to get everyone to be friends! Elspeth has come in to work on behalf of Celestia, Collective Effort and Regna's Sanction can even help our other friends out too! Plus, Regna's sanction's art is amazing. Cathars' Crusade also a bit of a stretch, but it does fit into our theme of friends helping friends.

RAMP:

We get some flavorful ramp, and some of it also assists in our group hug strategy. We want our other friends to have fun too, with Collective Voyage and New Frontiers getting everypony's strategies up and going! Then we have Applejack Cultivate-ing our lands, our Talisman of Unity having a flavor-filled name, our friends can even help us too! We just give them Pendant of Prosperity! The Great Henge is a good stand-in for the Tree of Harmony. Ghirapur Orrery and Rite of Flourishing helps everyone ramp, and if we dump our hand (we will) it gives us more gas! Although we now have to touch on two of our flavor fails. Arcane Signet is absolute gas, and Cryptolith Rite helps turn our dorks into much needed ramp, so we had two flavor fails. Only two more to go on those.

Card Draw:

Howling mine is obviously one of the gem stone mines that Rarity goes in, and Twilight's studious and occasionally obsessive-compulsive nature really shine through with cards like Rhystic Study and Compulsive research. Camaraderie's flavor is so obvious, and also really helps our go-wide esque strategy. Prosperity helps us be group-hug, along with the card that really reminds me of the castle of the two sisters, 7th edition Nature's Resurgence. The Tree of Harmo-- The Great Henge, Rites of Flourishing, and Ghirapur Orrery all fit into this category as well, and we are certainly happy about it. Blue Sun's Zenith is a loose reference to the Summer Sun Solstace, and while I would have preferred the Green, Green Sun's only fetches green creatures.

Other:

We really don't have many cards that are flavor fails, and we are going to discuss all cards that are either flavor-wins or flavor-fails but don't really fall in the other categories. Without further ado...

Enlightened Tutor can be viewed as a win or lose, as tutors within My Little Pony are everywhere. Celestia was Twilight's tutor, her friends were her tutors, and eventually Twilight became Starlight Glimmer's tutor. Imprisoned in the Moon is certainly flavorful, with us learning of a pony being imprisoned in the moon within the first episode. Sacred Mesa is a mana outlet, and also lets us make plenty of chumpable blockers. Feldon's Cane is an easy reference to the Twilicane. Y'all remember Twilicane... Right? Anyway, thats enough mid-primer images. Back to the cards that are flavorful or not! Arcane Adaptation is a card that could arguably be called flavorful, with calling it a reference to the movie when they meet Queen Novo and become merponies. Patriarch's Bidding is a card that I really felt needed to give the deck the best crutch available, when we're already starting with: three tribes and not just one, and outside of our universal lord in the command zone, get one card that cares about our creature types, and it is the weakest of them. Teferi's Protection is also a crutch, I admit that, however it's power can't be ignored.

Notable exclusions: Nightmare-- there can only be one Nightmare, and she controls the moon. Ebony Horse-- Maze of Ith-ing our own creature sounds great with Prized Unicorn, but is otherwise just BAD. Jandor's Saddlebags-- It would be good with Rarity, but is otherwise also bad. Noble Steeds-- Paying 1{W} for first strike for a turn on one creature is too mana hungry, and we are wanting to either be dumping our hand or drawing a LOT of cards. Island Sanctuary-- I feel this card is good if we were going to be going straight azorious, especially with Ephara and Sacred Mesa, but in my current build it just cuts out our already handicapped card draw.

Conclusion:

Hoo boy, that was a lot to go through, but you read all the way to the end! Congratulations! All in all while I found this to be an exercise in deck building that drove me to some odd places, it was a fun experience, and one that I had been waiting for almost a decade to get the opportunity. This opportunity coming thanks to a tie-in with a charity is all the more exciting for me. Note, I'm not associated with Extra Life, but you should seriously check them out. All comments, criticisms, and feedback are appreciated! Though I do ask that everyone keep it civil, and have a great time playing this hobby we all love! And now its not too early for a group hug.

Top Ranked	Achieved #7 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #2 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH GWUB 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 0 Mythic Rares 39 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.28
Tokens	Copy Clone, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Horse 5/5 W, Knight 2/2 W w/ Vigilance, Pegasus 1/1 W, Soldier 1/1 W
Folders	modern, Commander 5-Color, Zee Other People, Random Stuff, Commander, Decks other people made that I might use for ideas and stuff like that., Cool idea, Commander Decks, Favorite, Deck Ideas