Magic: The Gathering - Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim Commander Deck Guide

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim is one of the commanders available in Magic: The Gathering's Foundations set. While the card isn't new, it had only seen a reprint on The List since its debut in 2016's Oath of the Gatewatch. With Foundations, many players are re-introduced to this card.

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Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim is a unique Orzhov (white/black) commander that is a mixture of a sacrifice and lifegain deck. Luckily, Orzhov is one of the best color combinations for both these strategies, making it easier to blend the two together to make a formidable Commander deck with Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim at the helm.

Decklist

Commander: Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim

Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord

Ajani's Pridemate

Archangel of Thune

Blood Artist

Corpse Knight

Crested Sunmare

Cruel Celebrant

Daxos, Blessed by the Sun

Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim

Elenda's Hierophant

Enduring Tenacity

Essence Channeler

Felidar Sovereign

Guide of Souls

Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Jacked Rabbit

Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Karlov of the Ghost Council

Liesa, Forgotten Archangel

Qala, Ajani's Pridemate

Rhox Faithmender

Skirsdag High Priest

Solemn Simulacrum

Soul Warden

Soul's Attendant

Speaker of the Heavens

Starscape Cleric

Sunscorch Regent

Suture Priest

Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose

Vizkopa Guildmage

Voice of the Blessed

Zulaport Cutthroat

Debt to the Deathless

Fumigate

Gift of Estates

Revival // Revenge

Generous Gift

Inkshield

Path to Exile

Swords to Plowshares

Aetherflux Reservoir

Arcane Signet

Orzhov Signet

Pristine Talisman

Sol Ring

Talisman of Hierarchy

Wayfarer's Bauble

Angelic Accord

Authority of the Consuls

Bastion of Remembrance

Bitterblossom

Black Market

Black Market Connections

Blind Obedience

Cleric Class

Dictate of Erebos

Exquisite Blood

Grave Pact

Hidden Stockpile

March of the Canonized

Meathook Massacre II

Sanguine Bond

Skrelv's Hive

Test of Endurance

Blighted Steppe

Castle Ardenvale

Castle Lochtwain

Caves of Koilos

Command Tower

Concealed Courtyard

Fetid Heath

High Market

Isolated Chapel

x13 Plains

Restless Fortress

x9 Swamp

Tainted Field

Vault of the Archangel

The decklist contains 32 creatures, four sorceries, four instants, seven artifacts, 17 enchantments, and 34 lands. Most of the creatures either gain you life, or benefit from gaining you life, while enchantments provide sacrifice outlets and board control.

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Key Cards

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim

The commander of the deck, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim is your primary value engine. You can always sacrifice a creature to get a lifegain trigger so long as you have one mana to pay. It can also be used as removal so long as you have ten more life than your starting total, something easy to accomplish in the deck.

The benefit of using Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim is you do not need it on the battlefield for your deck to function. The hybrid lifegain and sacrifice strategy works without it, Ayli just makes it easier to control the battlefield once you have enough life to start exiling any nonland permanents.

Dictate Of Erebos/Grave Pact

Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact have essentially the same effect, though Grave Pact costs slightly less to cast. They both turn all of your creatures being sacrificed into forced sacrifice for your opponents. It doesn't matter how strong or weak the creature you sacrifice is, so long as it dies both of the enchantments will trigger.

If both Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact are on the battlefield and a creature dies, they will both be triggered, forcing two sacrifices to happen for one creature dying.

Notably, Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact only care if a creature you control dies. This means that even if you don't sacrifice a creature, your opponents won't want to attack into since a chump blocker dying will force your opponents to need to sacrifice creatures.

Jacked Rabbit

Jacked Rabbit is one of the most useful creatures in the entire deck. Ravenous will let it enter with a ton of +1/+1 counters, which then leads to not just bigger stats, but more 1/1 Rabbit tokens onto the battlefield. These tokens will all trigger cards that gain life when a creature enters, which can give you a ton of life with one swing.

If need be, Jacked Rabbit can be sacrificed to Ayli's effect to gain life equal to its toughness. If you manage to get a ton of counters onto Jacked Rabbit, this can lead to a ton of lifegain with one Ayli activation to recover from low life totals or make sure you stay ten life over your starting total to use Ayli's removal effect.

Elenda's Hierophant

Eledna's Hierophant is a creature you want on the battlefield as quickly as possible once you can consistently start gaining life. It'll slowly grow in stats, and thanks to having flying, can become an evasive attacker if your opponents don't have a way to block it.

Elenda's Hierophant synergizes well with Ayli since the life you'll gain when you sacrifice Elenda's Hierophant to Ayli is very high since it'll likely have high toughness. This then turns into a ton of 1/1 Vampire tokens which then trigger all your lifegain abilities while giving you more sacrifice fodder.

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How To Play The Deck

An Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim deck is all about constantly gaining life while pushing your advantage through board control. Cards that gain life when a creature enters are very important such as Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, and Suture Priest. In addition, cards that burn when a creature dies are great too such as Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Curel Celebrant.

To add even more lifegain opportunities to the mix, enchantments that create creature tokens are especially useful. This triggers the lifegain abilities when creatures enter, and gives you sacrifice fodder for Ayli for more lifegain triggers and removal.

These permanents include cards like Bitterblossom, Skrelv's Hive, March of the Canonized, and Black Market Connections, the last of which can also provide you with ramp and card draw.

There are multiple cards that get +1/+1 counters when you gain life, which makes them both solid and combat and a good choice to sacrifice with Ayli to gain a ton of life. Ajani's Pridemate, Voice of the Blessed, and Elenda's Hierophant are some of these cards. Archangel of Thune is the best of them, since it'll put a +1/+1 counters on all your creatures when you gain life instead of just itself.

The cards that get counters when you gain life will get a counter for each lifegain trigger. So if multiple effects go off that gain a life, each one will trigger them separately. For example, if Soul Warden is on the battlefield and three creatures enter at the same time, Soul Warden will trigger three times and cause these creatures to trigger three times for three total counters.

The primary win condition of the deck is out-grinding your opponents. With lifegain decks, it's all about building up such a high life total that it becomes near-impossible to be taken out of the game through traditional means.

You can also win the game with Test of Endurance, which automatically wins the game at your upkeep if you have 50 or more life. Felidar Sovereign also has a similar win condition, but only requires you to have 40 or more life to win. There is also the combo of Exquisite Blood and any card that does damage when you gain life to deal infinite burn damage.

The biggest downside of the deck is you often don't have major threats. The deck can make a lot of weak creature tokens and a lot of them, but they aren't threatening. As such, your opponents likely won't fear attacking you unless you have cards like Dictate of Erebos or Grave Pact on the battlefield.

Stall cards like Authority of the Consuls and Blind Obedience help to slow your opponents down so you can get to your win conditions quicker.

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