Ideas for an Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim EDH Deck
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on July 27, 2025, 8:47 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
At some point, I would like to build a black/white EDH deck with Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim as the general, so I certainly would like to ask the other members of this forum for any suggestions for such a deck.
The main theme of this deck would be sacrificing creatures for various benefits, so I naturally shall include plenty of sacrifice outlets, such as Ayli herself, Denethor, Ruling Steward, Commissar Severina Raine, Hidden Stockpile, and so forth; then, I would include cards that provide benefits from creatures dying, such as Life Insurance, Feast of the Victorious Dead, Proper Burial, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, or Butcher of Malakir; finally, the deck shall also contain methods to generate tokens for sacrificing or reanimating creatures that I have already sacrificed, such as Malevolent Awakening, Bitterblossom, Black Market Connections, Sister Hospitaller, Sun Titan, and Grave Titan.
It is likely that this deck shall have some overlap with my Meren of Clan Nel Toth EDH deck, but I would like to avoid those two decks being too similar to each other, so I certainly am eager to hear your suggestions for an Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim Deck!
I kind of see Ayli as more of a control oriented commander when compared to other potential WB aristocrats style commander options, although the need to gain life and have creatures to sac to her ability does cause a lot of overlap.
The first real hurdle is getting up to 50+ life. Running Ayli means that you opponents have even more reason to default to attacking you so that they can to keep you from using Ayli's removal ability. While being able to pick up life off of Blood Artist and extort type effects is useful, I think that it's worth finding ways to get big swings in life too. Tree of Perdition is one that comes to mind since it has 13 toughness for 4 mana right off the bat and you can increase its toughness even more if it stays on the board. Unhallowed Phalanx offers another high toughness for sac fodder. Serra Ascendant, Kokusho, the Evening Star, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, and Exsanguinate are also ways to gain a bunch of life. Angelic Chorus, Proper Burial, Rhox Faithmender, and Cleric Class have potential as well. Heliod's Intervention could be worth running as a removal option.
There are a bunch of options for token production but I thought that I would mention God-Eternal Oketra combined with Kor Skyfisher, Whitemane Lion, and possibly Stonecloaker as well. Oketra has reasonably high toughness and comes back quick if sacrificed for life. 4/4 tokens are good for sacrificing if you need to. The white bounce creatures can be used for repeatedly triggering your extort effects and other cards like Angelic Chorus, Oketra's Monument, and Cathars' Crusade.
Prava of the Steel Legion is another token producer that can pump all your little tokens into high-toughness sac fodder to gain life.
July 31, 2025 7:07 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
SaberTech, thank you, vert much, for those suggestions, and I am not certain when I shall build such a deck, but I shall definitely remember those cards, when I do eventually build it!
FormOverFunction says... #2
Castle jumped to mind as I read that card, though there’s probably something better out there nowadays…
July 29, 2025 10:10 a.m.