Magic: The Gathering - Felothar The Steadfast Commander Deck Guide

Felothar the Steadfast acts as the face commander to Magic: The Gathering's Abzan Armor preconstructed Commander deck. While the precon is a rather strong one out of the box, shifting cards around for a dedicated Felothar the Steadfast deck is much better.

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The deck heavily focuses on creatures with defender and high toughness stats. These creatures make for powerful walls to make it hard for your opponents to attack you while not costing much mana. If you enjoy building up a large battlefield of creatures capable of fending off most threats, or the gimmick of attacking with defender, a Felothar the Steadfast Commander deck is perfect for you.

Decklist

Commander: Felothar the Steadfast

Huatli, the Sun's Heart

Arbor Adherent

Axebane Guardian

Baldin, Century Herdmaster

Bedrock Tortoise

Betor, Kin to All

Blight Pile

Canopy Gargantuan

Carven Caryatid

Crashing Drawbridge

Crystal Barricade

Doran, the Siege Tower

Fortified Rampart

Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper

Indomitable Ancients

Jaddi Offshoot

MacCready, Lamplight Mayor

Nethroi, Apex of Death

Overgrown Battlement

Perimeter Captain

Rampart Architect

Shield-Wall Sentinel

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa

Stalwart Shield-Bearers

Syvlan Caraytid

Towering Titan

Tree of Perdition

Tree of Redemption

Unhallowed Phalanx

Vine Trellis

Wall of Blossoms

Wall of Junk

Wall of Omens

Wall of Reverence

Wall of Roots

Weathered Sentinels

Welcoming Vampire

Wingmantle Captain

Dusk // Dawn

Expel the Interlopers

Farseek

Nature's Lore

Rampant Growth

Reunion of the House

Slaughter the Strong

The Battle of Bywater

Tip the Scales

Toxic Deluge

Beast Within

Generous Gift

Path to Exile

Swords to Plowshares

Arcane Signet

Fellwar Stone

Meekstone

Sol Ring

Talisman of Resilience

Talisman of Unity

Angelic Chrous

Assault Formation

Behind the Scenes

Brave the Sands

Jaws of Defeat

Access Tunnel

Brushland

Canopy Vista

Caves of Koilos

Command Tower

Deathcap Glade

Exotic Orchard

Fetid Heath

x5 Forest

Isolated Chapel

Llanowar Wastes

Nurturing Peatland

Overgrown Farmland

x4 Plains

Rogue's Passage

Sandsteppe Citadel

Shattered Sanctum

Silent Clearing

Sunpetal Grove

x3 Swamp

Tainted Field

Tainted Wood

Twilight Mire

Vault of the Archangel

Woodland Cemetery

The decklist contains one planeswalker, 38 creatures, 11 sorceries, four instants, six artifacts, five enchantments, and 34 lands. The creature lineup primarily consists of creatures with defenders, or ones that enable creatures to deal damage with their toughness instead of power.

Key Cards

Felothar The Steadfast

Felothar the Steadfast is what makes the deck properly function. It enables creatures with defender to attack, something the deck desperately needs since so many creatures in it have defender. Felothar also essentially makes your creatures' power the same as their toughness.

A creature with defender means they can only block (and often have no power). All Wall creatures are defenders by default. There are cards such as Felothar that allow you to attack with them, however.

Felothar the Steadfast also acts as the deck's main draw engine. You can opt to sacrifice a creature to draw cards. You do have to discard cards equal to its power, but since most of your creatures have little to no power, this cost won't come up often.

Betor, Kin To All

In a way, Betor, Kin to All acts as a secondary commander. Betor wants you to have as high a combined toughness as possible, with 40 being the threshold you want to hit. There's an effect for ten, 20, and 40, and all of them will trigger one after the other to draw cards, gain life, or deal a ton of burn damage.

Betor, Kin to All has a solid statline to make it a massive threat in combat. You do not need to do anything for Betor's effect to trigger, so if attacking would put it in harm's way, you can opt to hold it back to make sure its utility effects can trigger.

Assault Formation

One of the best enchantments in the deck, you want Assault Formation on the battlefield as soon as possible. While your defenders can act as walls, they're not really a threat. With Assault Formation, you can start actually dealing damage to the creatures they're blocking.

In the late game, if your commander is nowhere to be found, Assault Formation can be used as a mana sink to let your defenders attack. Alternatively, if you don't have another use for mana, you can boost up your creatures' toughness stat to make sure they survive combat, or deal more damage.

Tree Of Perdition

Tree of Perdition is the strongest defender available for a Felothar deck. It has a massive 13 toughness, which turns into a 13/13 with the right permanents on the battlefield. So long as anything that lets creatures deal damage with their toughness is around, Tree of Perdition is the most threatening creature you can play.

Not only does Tree of Perdition have fantastic stats, but a great activated ability as well. By tapping it, you can make any opponent's life total just 13. This makes it much easier to close out games quickly by lowering the amount of damage needed to be dealt significantly.

The exchange of toughness and life is permanent. So if your opponent is at 40 life and you use Tree of Perdition, your opponent's life will shift to 13 while Tree of Perdition's toughness will permanentlybe 40.

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How To Play The Deck

A Felothar the Steadfast Commander deck wants to load the battlefield up with defenders to be defensive until Felothar hits the battlefield, then you can turn around and go full offense. Cards that let creatures deal damage equal to their toughness are also vital to the strategy. Often, cards that let creatures with defenders attack have this effect attached to them too.

There are multiple board wipes that will be one-sided. Cards like Dusk, Slaughter the Strong, and The Battle of Bywater all destroy creatures with higher power stats, something your cards won't have since many of them have zero power.

The deck plays very passively, building up a board state that discourages your opponents from attacking you since most won't be able to get in for any damage. It turns the tide late in the game to make big plays, especially with cards like MacCready, Lamplight Mayor and Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa that make your creatures significantly harder for your opponents to block.

Something important to remember is that you need to be patient. Felothar the Steadfast is not an explosive Commander deck, so you'll have to be prepared to go into a grind game. There are no flashy game-ending combos, just a slow build to an explosive end with unblockable creatures.

The primary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. Once either Felothar the Steadfast or Assault Formation are out, you can start swinging with your defenders for massive damage. The attackers are very evasive with the right permanents. You can also win through burn damage.

Both Betor, Kin to All and Jaws of Defeat can deal a ton of damage directly, making the path to combat victory even easier (or can just do enough burn damage to take someone out of the game on its own).

The biggest weakness of the deck is the reliance on permanents staying on the battlefield. Without ways for your defenders to attack or even deal damage, the deck does nothing but act as a wall. Once those permanents hit the battlefield, you'll be snowballing, but it does require some moving parts to stick around in order for your deck to fully function.

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