Amalia, Benavides Aguirre may have proved to be too powerful for Pioneer, but you may still run it as your commander inMagic: The Gathering’sCommander format. Amalia is a great lifegain commander, acting as a unique way to play the strategy as opposed to straight-up lifegain by adding in a small Voltron package.
This Orzhov (white/black) commander explores constantly, especially with how easy it is to gain life. An Amalia Commander deck (and lifegain in general) enables you to survive in the game for much longer, making it easier for you to win.
Lurrus of the Dream-Den
Voice of the Blessed
Authority of the Consuls
x13 Plains
x11 Swamp
War Room
Witch’s Clinic
The decklist consists ofone planeswalker, 33 creatures, two sorceries, four instants, 13 artifacts, 12 enchantments,and34 lands. Much of the creature-base cares about gaining life or creatures entering the battlefield, something the enchantment suite helps enable while the artifacts act as support.
Key Cards
Amalia Benavides Aguirre
The commander of the deck,Amalia Benavides Aguirreconstantly explores whenever you gain life. Ithas a built-in board wipe for all other creatureswhenever its power becomes exactly 20. This is easily done by exploring, which alsohelps you to fill your hand with landsto make sure you aren’t drawing dead.
Amalia’s effect destroys all other creatures, including your own. As such, you want to be careful with your board state and not over-commit to it or risk losing all your creatures sans Amalia itself.
Since Amalia naturally gains a lot of power through exploring, it becomes easy toraise its power to the point you’re able to take someone out with one attack thanks to commander damage. So long as it deals 21 or more damage, that opponent will automatically lose the game.
Soul Warden
Soul Warden(and cards with similar effects likeSoul’s Attendant) is one of your many enablers for lifegain. You get a blanket effect that gains you a life whenever a creature enters the battlefield. Notably, this effect applies toany creature entering the battlefield, not just your own.
While one life may seem small, thisquickly stacks up, especially when paired with cards that gain you extra life whenever you gain life. Since Soul Warden is only one mana and Amalia is only two, youcan start exploring with Amalia very early.
Sanguine Bond
Since you are constantly gaining life,Sanguine Bondturns that lifegain intoburn to your opponents. While itonly targets one opponent at a time, with how frequently you gain life, it’s easy to burn your opponents out evenly.
The deck has so many ways for incidental life gain, both by you doing something or your opponent. As such, Sanguine Bondtriggers constantly and becomes a threat as soon as it hits the battlefield.
Exquisite Blood
Exquisite Bloodis another way for the deck to gain life easily.Any opponent losing life turns into lifegain for yourself. This includes damage that wasn’t even done by you. So if an opponent attacks another opponent and deals combat damage, you will gain the life dealt.
With how much passive damage you can do to your opponents, Exquisite Blood turns into rather large life gain. When combined with the right cards, it isvery easy to go infinite with Exquisite Blood.
If you have Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood on the battlefield, the next time an opponent loses life, or you gain life,the two enchantments will triggeroff of each other, constantly gaining you life and burning your opponents for infinite damage.
Bolas’s Citadel
In an Amalia deck, you will be gaining a ton of life.Bolas’s Citadelis a way to turn that life into card advantage and casting spells for life rather than their mana cost. This works especially well with exploring, as youcan gain life with Amalia to make sure the top of your library isn’t a land as the explore trigger puts it into your handand leaves a nonland spell on top for you to cast.
Bolas’s Citadel is a great way to get your many useful permanents on the battlefield. There are almost no spells you wouldn’t want to cast, and since theaverage casting cost is low, the life you lose is rather minimal. There are only six spells in the deck with a casting cost over three, and gaining three life in one turn is very common.
How To Play The Deck
AnAmalia Benevides AguirreCommander deck is one that willgrind out your opponents with a ton of life gain, getting your life total to impossible-to-deal-with amounts. Even if you get targeted, you’ll have so many ways to gain life it becomes trivial to counteract this.
The ways to gain life are countless, with multiple giving you one life when a creature enters the battlefield under your control likeSuture Priest, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim,andLunarch Veteran. There is also lifegain for creatures dying withZulaport Cutthroat, Cruel Celebrant,andBlood Artist.
Since you constantly gain so much life, you canuse that excess life as a resource for card drawing. Cards likeDarkstar Augur, Dark Confidant,andPhyrexian Arenaall put extra cards into your hand at the cost of life (with the first two burning you equal to the mana value which will almost always be low).
You do wantways to deal traditional damage, something that Amalia Benavides Aguirre handles. Putting permanents likeSpirit Mantle, Whispersilk Cloak,andBrotherhood Regaliaall help to make it unblockable and give it protection to guarantee Amalia connects for damage.
Themain win condition is winning through burn or commander damage. TheExquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond combo is an easy way for infinite burn damageto go off (and can be replaced with any of the cards that share similar effects). Making Amalia unblockable with it has a high power is the secondary way. It’s harder to accomplish but also harder to interact with.
you’re able to still die to Commander damage, if an opponent’s commander manages to deal at least 21 damage to you.
Theweakness of the deck is that you will likely be targeted. With how much life you gain, you’re constantlygoing to be used as a punching bagto make sure you don’t run away with the game. Luckily, with the right combination of cards you can still gain more life than your opponents can deal, helping you stick around until you get to your win condition.
