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Zoraline, Caller of the Cosmos *Primer*

Commander / EDH Bat Flying Lifegain Midrange Multiplayer Primer Tokens WB (Orzhov)

Jack-Frost

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Creature (29)

Sorcery (3)

Land (34)

Enchantment (13)

Commander (1)

Commander: Zoraline, Cosmos Caller

Artifact (14)

Instant (6)

Maybeboard

Creature (12)

Instant (2)

Sorcery (1)

Artifact (1)

Hello! Welcome to my Zoraline, Cosmos Caller Primer. After dozens of games in different metas and many tweaks, I’m very happy with this deck’s current state. Zoraline is consistent, can play against almost any power level (other than CEDH) without feeling over/underpowered, and is a lot of fun to play.

The Key to this deck is taking advantage of Zoraline’s passive ability to gain one life whenever a bat you control attacks. This is key to this deck because each bat is its own separate instance of life gain. Which is insane. There are many ways to take advantage of this ability and we’re going to use a lot of those.

I will note however, that there are two things I don’t run in this deck. I don’t run many single mass lifegain spells/abilities, and I don’t run infinite combos. Mass lifegain one-offs generally take a lot of mana which prevents us from doing much else that turn, but more importantly attract a lot of attention. That’s something we’d like to avoid if possible, as to take full advantage of this deck we want as many moving parts as possible. The more individual triggers we can exploit the better. As for infinite combos, such as the traditional Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, I personally don’t like them. I find when people run them they end up focusing on completing the combo to the exclusion of everything else, with more and more ways to complete it slowly being added to their decks. In addition, they’re not fun to play against. Many people don’t like someone just getting two cards and ending the game. That also draws attention to us which makes the deck less fun to play and our games more difficult.

As I said, the most important part of this deck is those individual instances of lifegain, and boy are we going to have those. In addition to Zoraline, Cosmos Caller, we’re running cards like Haliya, Guided by Light, Lifecreed Duo, Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant, and even Crypt Ghast who brings extortion to our game.

Just as important is doing something with that lifegain. And that’s where the fun begins. We’ve got Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Cleric Class for +1/+1 counters, Marauding Blight-Priest who drains 1 on each instance, Regal Bloodlord who makes us tokens on each persons turn, Leyline of Hope to double our lifegain, and Well of Lost Dreams to draw more cards.

But let’s not forget that this is also a tribal deck, giving us access to both tribal lords and abilities, as well as flying. Zoraline, Cosmos Caller is obvious due to her lifegain, and cards like Patchwork Banner, Etchings of the Chosen, and Roaming Throne are excellent for raising our power level on board, but between cards like Moonstone Harbinger and our overall small size and the difficulty with blocking flying means that most people let the couple of damage we do slide.

Remember, we’re not trying to win all at once. We’re building an army, but we’re doing it as secretly and quietly as bats in the night. The more you can set up, the more value we get out of our triggers, the more dangerous we become. Many people don’t pay as much attention to us as they should, because our creatures aren’t as powerful and splashy as others, our abilities aren’t explosive, and our impact is subtle. But by the end of the game, you’ll commonly hear people exclaiming and beginning to realize how dangerous we are, how many triggers are going off, and that they should’ve paid more attention to us.

Overall, this deck is a lot of fun to play, each game going a bit differently as you find different combinations of life gain and effects, surviving the early game through slow buildup and a little lifegain while you prepare your board for later on.

A couple of points on some of the card choices:

Creature:

Enduring Tenacity/Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose: While I spoke earlier about not running the Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo, we do run one half of it. Of the two I felt it much easier and more consistent to gain life than to make our opponents lose life, plus given our average creature size the additional loss of life was very helpful. However, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you hold on playing this till you are better set up and IMMEDIATELY reassure your opponents that you do not run any infinite combos and bring to their attention how small your creatures are and how little damage you do. Otherwise, these type of cards will draw a lot of attention and hate to you.

Regal Bloodlord: If you can pair this with Soul Warden or Soul's Attendant, and your opponents’ play at least one creature on their turns (which is pretty common), you can play four additional bats each round which gives you a lot of attackers to trigger Zoraline, Cosmos Caller and blockers to hold off your opponents.

Instant/Sorcery:

Debt to the Deathless: This is our one mass lifegain spell, and it’s generally solely used as a finisher or a scramble to stay alive. This will attract all the attention, but if you can manage to pull it off you’re pulling twice X from each opponents which is usually enough to finish at least one opponent.

Enchantment:

Lunar Convocation: Bats tokens are very difficult to create, but this is one of our sources. While the passive is easy, by using cards like Bitterblossom, Skrelv's Hive, Phyrexian Arena, and Necropotence we can pretty consistently trigger the second effect and bring our bats online.

Artifact:

Aetherflux Reservoir: While an insanely powerful card and definitely worth playing, be careful as this will draw attention to you. If you can politick the attention away from it, fantastic, but just beware people will start looking more closely at your board once you play this.

Land:

Rogue's Passage/Access Tunnel/Secret Tunnel: I run cards like this because you will run into situations where your opponents have enough creatures with flying or reach, which our small bats can’t get past. Given our primary lifegain comes off of attacking with bats, that can pose a problem. Yes it costs a decent chunk of mana and only targets one creature, but that one lifegain trigger can trigger many parts of our engine and keep you growing through the game.

Thank you for taking a look at my Primer for Zoraline, Cosmos Caller.

Please feel free to post thoughts and suggestions in the comments as I love working with people on both my decks and their own, and every chance to improve it is appreciated. In addition, I’m happy to explain any other card choices and you’re welcome to use this decklist as Zoraline is always looking for fresh blood to fee… I mean loves to meet new friends!

Feedback and +1’s are always appreciated!

Enjoy!

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99% Casual

Competitive

Revision 10 See all

(2 weeks ago)

+1 Access Tunnel main
-2 Plains main
+1 Plaza of Heroes main
+1 Secret Tunnel main
-2 Swamp main