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Magic: The Gathering’s full of interesting deck types and strategies. ‘Pillow fort’ decks are quite popular inCommander, centered around effects that make it harder for your opponents to attack you or interact with your board. This archetype relies heavily on enchantments, and has a lot in common withthe much less friendly ‘stax’ strategies.
The big difference is that stax cards usually inhibit your opponents' ability to play the game in some way, whereas pillow fort strategies don’t normally interfere with the way opponents develop their own individual gameplans. Pillow fort’s simply meant to keep you alive longer, usually so you can set up some sort of big end-game strategy.
10Orzhov Advokist + Agitator Ant
The Pacifist Partners
Orzhov Advokist and Agitator Any have slightly different abilities, but the play patterns are near-identical. Both cards give your opponents the option to buff one of their creatures, the trade-off being that the creature can’t attack you next turn.
As long as you haven’t made any mortal enemies at the table, players will often pick up the extra counters, which translates to being safe from attacks for a turn. Be extra weary of anyone whodoesn’ttake the free +1/+1 counters; that’s usually a clear indication that they plan to attack you on their next turn.
9Sphere Of Safety
Safety In Numbers
On its own, Sphere of Safety is a more expensive and less effective version of Ghostly Prison. Add in a few extra enchantments and it becomes a reliable insurance plan against incoming attacks. It’s more of a specialized enchantress-style payoff than a universally playable white card.
Ghostly Prison usually affords opponents just enough wiggle room to crash in with one big attacker, but with enough enchantments on board, Sphere of Safety can prevent attacks altogether. Paying an entire turn’s worth of mana to unlock a single attack just isn’t a viable option for most decks.
8Platinum Angel
Not As Unbreakable As It Seems
No Magic player’s career is complete until they’ve encountered an unbeatable Platinum Angel. It’s not actually that hard to deal with, but in scenarios where youcan’tremove it, you’re going to have a very tough time winning the game. You literally can’t, after all.
This mecha-Angel’s Achilles heel is being an artifact, which makes it vulnerable to a much wider swathe or removal. That means most decks will have several ways to get it off board via creature orartifact removal. That also means Platinum Angel is best friends with protection, whether that’s Lightning Greaves or Darksteel Forge.
7Kazuul, Tyrant Of The Cliffs
Steer Clear Of Those Cliffs
Kazuul’s a pretty compelling deterrent from attacks, since it can generate 3/3s for each creature that dares swing in its direction. The costly mana payment means most opponents will avoid attacking into the Kazuul player in the first place.
That leaves Kazuul in an awkward spot where it doesn’t actually do what it says on the card very often. It’s usually enough to ward off attacks completely, which means you rarely ever get the tokens. But even if Kazuul’s notpumping out creature tokensevery combat, not being attacked is a reward in itself.
If you can force a player to attack you, they’ll either have to pay Kazuul’s tax effect, or let you make the 3/3 tokens.
6Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
Sometimes you’ll stumble across a card that was designed way before Commander was ever a consideration. Rune-Tail was created at a time when nearly all games of Magic started with 20-point life totals. Enter the Commander era and suddenly this card becomes trivially easy to flip.
Once you’ve got Rune-Tails’s Essence on board, it can be very difficult for some decks to deal with your creatures. This enchantment prevents all damage to your creatures, in combat or otherwise. That’s almost game over formono-red decks, and anything short onenchantment removal’s going to have a tough time beating it.
5Pramikon, Sky Rampart
Why Wallop, When You Can Wall Up?
Pramikon is the commander incarnation of a pillow fort strategy. The whole point of this card is to ward off attacks from other players. In a typical four-player game, that means you’ll be safe from two other opponents, with agency over which remaining playercancome your way.
Pramikon players have to get creative with their win conditions, though. The legendary Wall doesn’t contribute to combat itself, nor does it provide any inherent card advantage. It simply exists to prevent players from attacking you; the rest is up to you to figure out.
4Solitary Confinement
Lonely, But Safe
Solitary Confinement is a very tricky enchantment, so tricky in fact that you should probably avoid putting it in most decks. It’ll usually buy you a turn from attacks and interaction, but discarding a card and skipping your draw step each turn is a steep cost to keep it around.
Some cards might make it more appealing though. Recursion effects let you sacrifice Confinement, then just bring it back without ever discarding cards. Think Sun Titan or Tameshi, Reality Architect. Similarly, cards like Clattering Augur that return to your hand can be used to repeatedly pay the discard cost.
3Angel’s Grace
A Split Second Save
Split second is one of the safest-feeling mechanics in Magic. Very few things can interrupt a split second effect, which means you can usually guarantee getting the benefits that effect provides. In the case of Angel’s Grace, that’s game-loss immunity for a turn.
This instant prevents opponents from winning, and yourself from losing, until the end of the turn. It’s an excellent answer to an opposing combo, and circumventsmost counterspellssince your opponents can’t cast anything in response. It can also get you out of a particularly scrappy combat that would otherwise knock you out of the game.
Angel’s Grace is ineffective against Commander damage or poison counters. It’ll prevent those from killing you for a turn, after which you’ll die to them immediately as the next turn begins.
2Ghostly Prison + Propaganda
Violence Comes At A Cost
Two color-shifted versions of the same card, Ghostly Prison and Propaganda are the definition of pillow fort cards. They don’t usually progress your own gameplan, but they fend off attacks long enough to give you breathing room for other plays.
These are exceptional against go-widetoken decks, which can rarely afford to pay the cost for more than just a couple attackers. They also do a good job of minimizing early-game attacks, since opponents are more likely to use their mana on important set-up plays than spending that mana just to attack you.
1Serra’s Emissary
Savior & Finisher, All In One
Serra Emissary is potent for a seven-drop with so little text. The hard part is getting it into play, but it’s well worth actually spending seven mana on. From there, you and your creatures gain blanket protection from the card type of your choice. That’ll almost always be creatures.
Havingprotection from creaturesmeans much more than preventing damage from attackers. It also means your opponents basically can’t block you, and abilities from opposing creatures can’t target yours. Playing against a creatureless spellslinger deck? No worries, just name instant or sorcery instead.
