Hello folks!

I hope that you are keeping yourself safe in our modern COVID-19 world today! Today I was inspired by my favorite art from Core Set 2021. You can check out my picks for the best art from the set here.

What card clocked in as my favorite? Great question!

It was Mangara!

Building Around Mangara in EDH

Look at Mangara, the Diplomat! How amazing is that art? It's lush with color, paper, cloth, and so much more! Look how dense this scene and art are! I just love it!

So, let's build a Commander deck around Mangara!

What suggests itself? Let's take the second ability first.

How can I encourage people to cast more than one spell per turn so I can net cards?

Great question!

What if everyone is drawing a card? Consider multiplayer classics like Howling Mine and Temple Bell. With those on the battlefield everyone is drawing another card, which leads them to want to cast those extra spells. Card advantage means nothing if you sit on it. When they cast their second spell each turn you net another card. Given that you just gave them a card they are much more likely to return the favor and get you a trigger with Mangara! Let's draw all the cards!

Now let's take the first ability. For this to work we need our foe to attack us with two creatures. Just one won't get through? How do I encourage that?

Great question!

Consider the classic Commander card Maze of Ith. If you control it, then someone cannot attack you with a single creature, if they want to hit you. Nope! They must bring two bodies (or more) to ensure that one slips through.

If you control a Maze of Ith, your foes cannot attack you (or your planeswalker) with just one body if they want to deal damage. And that means... Mangara triggers for a nasty card.

My deck is going to have cards that play into one of three themes:

1. Mass card drawing for everyone. Let's all draw cards!
2. Combat damage prevention. I want this to be on the board rather than Holy Day effects so folks play around with it by swinging with more dorks.
3. Normal Commander Goods. Cards like Sol Ring and Solemn Simulacrum should make the cut.

And that's it!

Let's look at some cards I'll be adding in before the decklist proper.

Mangara, the Diplomat isn't the only White creature from Core Set 2021 that is making an appearance here! Hello Rambunctious Mutt! It was in my top ten cards for the set and this is one of the first places that I am giving it a looksee. Enjoy the destroying of your foe's stuff! Net that value!

Mangara's Tome is amazing. It was so good that action was taken on it during the early years for the Five Color format. On arrival you grab a quintet of cards and then shuffle them. You can spend 2 mana and skip drawing a card to take the top card from the Tome. That gives any color other than Black access to tutoring, and in a deck like this that maximizes your card drawing with Mangara proper or the Howling Mine effects, this is going to do some serious damage! Enjoy its flavor and value for our build. You may notice one other Mangara card as well.

I added in cards like Safeguard and Songstitcher that can prevent damage from one card. The benefit here is that they are repeatable for as long as you have mana and they can shut down multiple avenues of attack into you. These will require even more attackers to break through, although Mangara only draws you one card for each attack. They slide very nicely in here!

One of my favorite cards in the game is Commander Eesha. She's strong and powerful. She'll swing through any creature-based defense, which most defenses rely on. She can fly and block and prevent all damage that would come her way making her an excellent wall. She also can keep back creature-based removal such as Nekrataal or Shriekmaw. She's not the only great wall in here and I have several others here, such as Seraph of the Sword who can jump in front of any sized flyer or ground pounder and emerge unscathed. There will be others in here that play into a similar role as this duo!

I also wanted to add in a "fetch any land" ability - Weathered Wayfarer and Expedition Map were here for Maze of Ith and similar friends. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked these for other stuff. The first place I dipped into was every legal cycling land. Activate Weathered Wayfarer, search for a cycling land, cycle it, and you drew a card with the effect and you didn't play a land so you can keep going. I added in cards like Reliquary Tower and Kor Haven that I adore here in this brew.

Ready?

Let's Mangara up!

Mangara's Pillow Fort | Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Mangara, the Diplomat

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
• 1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
• 1 Archangel of Tithes
• 1 Archon of Absolution
• 1 Baird, Steward of Argive
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Commander Eesha
• 1 Cavalier of Dawn
• 1 Dawn Elemental
• 1 Deftblade Elite
• 1 Everdawn Champion
• 1 Giver of Runes
• 1 Heliod, God of the Sun
• 1 Heliod, Sun-Crowned
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Knight of the White Orchid
• 1 Kor Cartographer
• 1 Kor Sanctifiers
• 1 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
• 1 Loyal Unicorn
• 1 Mangara of Corondor
• 1 Mother of Runes
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Rambunctious Mutt
• 1 Seraph of the Sword
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Songstitcher
• 1 Wall of Omens
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Windborn Muse

• Planeswalkers (7)
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1 Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis
• 1 Gideon Jura
• 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
• 1 Karn Liberated
• 1 The Wanderer
• 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

• Instants (4)
• 1 Crush Contraband
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Teferi's Protection

• Sorceries (4)
• 1 Decree of Justice
• 1 Dismantling Wave
• 1 Mass Calcify
• 1 Winds of Abandon

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Ghostly Prison
• 1 Safeguard
• 1 Smothering Tithe

• Artifacts (16)
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Font of Mythos
• 1 Helm of Awakening
• 1 Horn of Greed
• 1 Howling Mine
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mangara's Tome
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Norn's Annex
• 1 Nyx Lotus
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of the Animist
• 1 Temple Bell
• 1 Thran Dynamo

• Lands (35)
• 18 Plains
• 1 Arch of Orazca
• 1 Blasted Landscape
• 1 Castle Ardenvale
• 1 Desert of the True
• 1 Drifting Meadow
• 1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1 Flagstones of Trokair
• 1 Kor Haven
• 1 Labyrinth of Skothos
• 1 Maze of Ith
• 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1 Mistveil Plains
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Mystifying Maze
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Secluded Steppe

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And there we have it! 100 cards of fun for consideration. I hope you enjoyed my take on this guy. Anything I missed or that I used that inspired you? Just let me know and have an awesome day!