MTG: Awesome Mono-Colored Planeswalkers for “Oathbreaker”
The Strike Force may have failed, but don’t count the planeswalkers out just yet; check out these generals for “Oathbreaker”!
One of my favorite things about Magic: the Gathering is how many ways you can play the game. Want to play D&D with your cards? Try Archenemy or Planechase. Are you a walker on a budget? Maybe Pauper’s for you. However, one old favorite is making a comeback, thanks in no small part to the great success of Commander. Oathbreaker, an EDH-style game led by planeswalkers and their favored spells, has officially been recognized by WotC, and that’s bringing it back into the public eye.
It’s a super easy multiplayer variant with simple rules, which you can find for yourself here. The only really hard part is deciding who to helm your library, and what signature to assign them. While picking one for every color combination would take enough time to make Teferi blush, the OG ‘walkers do just fine as monocolored options.
Ajani Goldmane and Beacon of Immortality
Ajani wants you to have big creatures and lots of life. His primary ability gives you a small tune-up and his secondary makes your creatures a little stronger and able to stand and defend your massive life total while still dishing out the pain. Once you’ve stored up enough to become dangerous, you can pop Ajani’s ultimate to get a massive creature your opponents will need to deal with immediately.
That’s where the signature comes in; with a single cast, the Avatar’s power and toughness skyrocket. Then, instead of going back to your command zone and increasing in price, you can shuffle it into your deck, and potentially to cast it again on a later turn. Not only does this keep the price the same, but it allows you to play a stall game if you have to since you’ll never run out of cards to draw.
Chandra Nalaar and Insult/Injury
Fair warning, this combo will get you hated off the table immediately. Chandra is the queen of burn spells, and her original card was an inferno all by itself. Her primary was a fun basic ping, and her secondary was variable target removal; useful for getting pesky creatures out of the way or putting a little extra damage on a big potential blocker.
However, her ultimate is an immediate bomb, dealing a cataclysmic amount of damage to an opponent’s face AND their entire board. Thanks to recent errata, she can also nuke a planeswalker, useful for clearing the path for a red creature storm. Combined with Insult, she’s a one-hit kill on anyone that isn’t gaining life. Even if she doesn’t end the game there, the creatures she commands certainly will.
Garruk Wildspeaker and Worldly Tutor
Garruk is a simple man, and he likes simple things; big creatures. His primary lets him untap lands to spend on creatures, his secondary makes creatures, and his ultimate pumps creatures to an obscene degree. There really aren’t bells and whistles here; just point the stampede and watch the fur fly. To that end, a cheap spell that lets you dig out your best creatures over and over is the perfect signature for the world’s angriest druid. If you want to really put the hurt in the dirt, wait until you’ve assembled an army and then tutor up a Craterhoof, THEN drop Garruk’s ultimate.
Jace Beleren and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter
This is a particularly nasty combo, and it definitely won’t win you any friends. Jace draws cards, both for you and your opponent, then hits their deck hard with a nasty twenty-card mill. While that might not be a huge burden in commander, where decks are ninety-nine cards strong, the fifty-eight cards in an Oathbreaker deck will feel the sting. That’s made all the worse by Tasha’s, which doesn’t specify a CARD count, but a MANA count. If you hit mostly lands or a lot of smaller spells, you could destroy your opponent’s entire deck in a single turn. Combined, you’ll usually get 30 cards at least.
Liliana Vess and Living Death
Now here’s a way to make a board wipe really sting. Have Liliana filter your deck and keep your opponents on the backfoot with her discard and search abilities. Then, once the board is nice and full, nuke it with Living Death, then bring back all your juicy kills with Liliana’s ultimate. Your opponent might get a few creatures, sure, but you’ll have the lion’s share; more than enough to overwhelm your opponents with their own toys.
Which Oathbreaker are you going to try?
