Ultimate Elspeth

Posted on December 31, 2019

In Magic we most often think of wrath as coming from a god like Heliod. But no one has more righteous fury than Elspeth Tirel, a woman wronged by fate. She destroys not only your opponents' creatures but also all their nonland permanents, including their Planeswalkers. In Oathbreaker, a multiplayer format dedicated to Planeswalker pandemonium, she positively slays.

Two Magic The Gathering cards side by side. Wrath of God, featuring the art with Heliod, on the left and Elspeth Tirel on the right.

Everyone starts with a Planeswalker in their command zone in Oathbreaker, along with a signature spell that you can play as long as your 'Walker is alive on the battlefield. Each spell is commander-taxed individually. Keeping Elspeth Tirel alive is the key to this week's first deck. Then we will discuss alternative lifegain and superfriend strategies.

We could use a spell like Teferi's Protection to make certain Elspeth survives a turn cycle, but that would mean having eight mana to cast both her and her signature spell in one turn. That's too slow for a format where players start at twenty life. Instead we'll defend Elspeth with Faith's Shield and an army of tokens.

Ultimate Elspeth | Oathbreaker | AE Marling

A simple and strong way to defend Elspeth Tirel is with blockers, specifically ones that you cast early. We have many great token producers available, but I chose the cheaper ones. Though we have a few ways to pump them, such Cathars' Crusade and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, our primary route to victory is ultimating Elspeth and leaving our token army gloriously unopposed. If your foes foolishly try to play around her ultimate by not committing too many permanents, kill them with tokens.

Be prepared for everyone at the table uniting against you. Their permanents depend on it. If creature like Questing Beast evades your tokens, or an opponent tries to Vindicate Elspeth, she can still live with Faith's Shield. Likely you should wait until you have six mana available to cast her. Unless of course you can play her and ultimate on the same turn.

Giving Elspeth Tirel a single extra loyalty is enough to bring out her wrath. Her friend Ajani can help her do this, or Grateful Apparition. Most triumphant of all is when you surprise everyone by playing Forge of Heroes as your sixth land after your heroine has made her grand entrance.

You can search up this critical land with Expedition Map or Weathered Wayfarer. The latter you can in turn find with Ranger-Captain of Eos, who can also protect your combo from instant interaction, along with Tithe Taker. Those are two non-land permanents the deck is happy to play, even though if all goes well they will ultimately be destroyed.

Intangible Virtue will also be lost, but vigilance is critical in multiplayer. It allows our tokens to pressure enemy Planeswalkers while protecting ours. We're playing Heliod, God of the Sun solely for the indestructible vigilance. In the lore, Elspeth was his champion, up until the moment he killed her for the greater good, the bastard.

If you're angry that Ranger-Captain of Eos doesn't have other creatures to recruit, fear not! Our next deck enlists him to find Martyr of Sands or Serra Ascendant.

Elspeth Life | Oathbreaker | AE Marling

For a deck dedicated to lifegain such as this one, I would recommend choosing an Oathbreaker of Ajani, Strength of the Pride. But I also understand if your heart is set on Elspeth. Here, the ultimate is a threatening distraction; while the opponents spend their time attacking her, we gain life up to thirty, forty, maybe even fifty for our game-winning payoffs.

If we are able to ultimate Elspeth, first cast Unbreakable Formation. More likely that won't be possible, and we can content ourselves with downticking, getting three soldiers, and gaining three life off our soul sisters.

I didn't think Congregate and Rhox Faithmender were necessary, but if you hope to reach 100 life they will be. The issue is, what would you cut? Ajani Goldmane? Those two cards aren't as proactive and will only be great if you're trying to win with Test of Endurance. Speaking of, if you're less of an optimist you could always replace that enchantment with another, Angelic Accord. I didn't include Chalice of Life because Chalice of Death doesn't work how you want it to against Planeswalkers.

Elspeth Tirel is one intimidating lady. The table will likely ally against you, unless they don't see her coming. It's not easy to deceive with White, but tacticians can employ such a strategy. In this superfriends deck we're hoping to summon her with Deploy the Gatewatch and immediately plus her to five for an ultimate.

Deploy the Elspeth | Oathbreaker | AE Marling

Enchantments (1)
1 Oath of Gideon

This deck goes bigger, with a few token cards you're familiar with from Commander, along with honorary Gatewatch member Ugin. In my opinion, the raw power of this deck is lower, but if you want to play Mono-Superfriends, multiplayer is the place for it. People will prioritize killing you less than if you had Elspeth Tirel face up. Here, we can hide her away, such as in a Windbrisk Heights.

We aren't going to get our lady every game. Yes, we could search for her with Call the Gatewatch, but then we've lost the element of surprise. We might as well play a more brazen deck. What this deck does have going for it is synergy between Elspeth Tirel's ultimate, Gideon's indestructibility, and Ajani's token generation. Most importantly, we play four Eslpeth's. And we have cheeky ways of protecting her.