Clerics are the healers and caregivers of most fantasy worlds.Magic: The Gatheringreflects this with Clerics that prevent damage, gain life, or shut down the opposition’s ability to cause you harm. They’re centered inblack and white, but Clerics practice their healing magic in other colors too, just in lesser numbers.
Due to the nature of most Cleric creatures, decks built around them tend to play a slow, methodical game, locking down the opponents' ability to make plays and keeping your own life total healthy. Clerics aren’t the most popular typal strategy in Commander, but there are plenty of legendaries and support cards to put a focused Cleric deck together.
10Containment Priest
Keeping Things Fair And Steady
Containment Priest demonstrates Clerics' tenacity to lock players out of certain game actions, in this case cheating creatures into play. Referred to players as ‘Stax pieces,’ cards like Containment Priest can range from minor nuisances to complete silver-bullet hosers against certain strategies.
It’s the mortal enemy of reanimator decks, which look tosneak imposing creatures into play from the graveyardwithout paying their usually high mana costs. A well-timed Containment Priest can flash in and devastate a reanimation strategy, preventing a huge creature from hitting the battlefieldandeatingthe reanimation spellthat was targeting it.
9Shadow-Rite Priest
Taking Volunteers
Every typal strategy could use a good lord effect, or something that gives a bonus to your creature type of choice, usually +1/+1. Shadow-Rite Priest is just that for Clerics, though Clerics aren’t really known for their combat prowess, so it’s debatable how useful theanthem effectis.
The sacrifice is the real draw to this lord. Clericsloveto offer their followers as victims; doing so with Shadow-Rite Priest will turn your most expendable Cleric into the best black creature in your deck. Likely apowerful Demon, if you want to stay on-theme.
8Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim
An Artist With Cruel Intentions
Elas il-Kor hails from a long line of ‘Blood Artist’ creatures, small bodies that drain your opponents as creatures die. These effects sometimes target single players, while others affect each opponent, and some count only your own creatures dying, with others triggering off any creature death.
The Sadistic Pilgrim has the distinction of being cheap and legendary, meaning it can lead a deck full of Blood Artists for maximum redundancy. Elas il-Kor havingdeathtouchalso means it’s perfectly capable of trading off in combat, despite most Blood Artists being frail and useless as attackers or blockers.
7Grand Abolisher
Not So Grand For The Control Player
Some decks will immediately crumble under Grand Abolisher’s stax effect. Anyone relying oncounterspellssuddenly needs to rethink their strategy altogether. Or kill a 2/2. That shouldn’t be too hard for a blue deck, right?
Casting Abolisher on turn two is likely to anger the entire table, even players who aren’t necessarily trying to operate at instant speed. That means it’s usually best to wait until your big turn to run it out. you may double up on this effect for twice the mana with Myrel, Shield of Argive.
6Mikaeus, The Unhallowed
A Boogieman Of Commander’s Past
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed was a feared name in the early days of Commander. Its name echoed alongside that of Triskelion, which together formed the dreaded ‘Mike & Ike’ combo. These two creatures in tandem allowed the controller to dealinfinite damageto creatures and players.
Commander has accelerated enough that a two-card combo involving two six-mana creatures isn’t the most threatening thing in the world, but Mikaeus is still potent as a standalone card. Combos aside, Mikaeus gives most of your creatures a second wind when they die, and detersHumansfrom attacking into you.
5Sanctifier en-Vec
Specific And Spiteful
A particularly hateful color-hoser, Sanctifier en-Vec was designed as a modernized version of Auriok Champion, a similar Cleric with the same set ofprotection abilities. Unlike Champion, Sanctifier completely shuts off red and black decks' access to their graveyards as long as it sits in play.
In addition tonerfing graveyards, Sanctifier also makes combat miserable for the red-black players. A 2/2 isn’t the most imposing threat in the world, but it can just sit back on defense and soak up an entire hit from an attacker of the corresponding colors, without ever batting an eyelash.
4Soul Sisters
Hey Soul Sisters, Please Don’t Miss Your Triggers
‘Soul Sisters’ is a nickname given to a collection of creatures that gain life as creatures enter the battlefield. The main tenants are the functionally identical Soul Warden and Soul’s Attendant, though Essence Warden, Impassioned Orator, and similar card certainly fit the category.
Asone-drops, these are some of the most reliable sources of lifegain in Commander. It’s fairly common to gain upwards of ten life per turn cycle with a Soul Sister sitting in play, and their individual triggers are perfect for other cards that key off separate instances of lifegain.
3Vito, Thorn Of The Dusk Rose
Also A Thorn In Your Opponents' Sides
Vito’s claim to fame is stapling the effect of Sanguine Bond onto a legendary creature. Sanguine Bond plus Exquisite Blood is one of the best-known combos in all of Commander, and being able to put one of those key effects in the command zone makes it that much more consistent.
Of course, Vito’s still pretty painful for your opponents even without the combo. A lifegain deck can use this to throw around damage effectively, andthe activated abilitygranting your entire team lifelink means someone’s taking damage whether they block or not.
2Tynma The Weaver
The Greatest Partner You Could Ask For
Both of the black-whitepartner creaturesare Clerics, but Tymna the Weaver far outclasses Ravos, the Soultender. Tymna’s a top-tier competitive commander due to its generically useful card draw ability, its relatively low mana value, and the fact that partnering it gives you access to more colors for your deck.
Assuming you’re not battling in the competitive crowds, Tymna can run in casual pods as a generic source of lifegain and card advantage.Your partner of choicewill dictate the overall strategy of your deck, but two-color partners give you so much flexibility over your deck’s color identity.
1Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Everything, Everywhere, All On One Card
Very few charactershave as far-reaching of an impact on Magic lore as Yawgmoth. Fitting, then, that the first appearance of this character on his own Magic card is such an astonishingly powerful card. It’s very much a Jack-of-all-trades toolbox of different effects for various scenarios.
The laundry list of abilities includes a manaless sacrifice outlet, -1/-1 counter distribution, card draw, a discard outlet, andproliferation. Top it off with protection from Humans, which is always more relevant than you’d guess, and you’ve got a card design fitting of this deranged and powerfulMagic villain.
