I don’t care how you feel about puns, about my use of them, or the fact that I wrote about Ayli on MTGPrice earlier this week. You are going to just sit there and receive my enthusiasm because you’re a captive audience, and that’s what a captive audience does. I’m sure you comprehend what a momentous occasion this is. After my years—literally years—of waiting, after my years of slotting in cheap substitutes that never really got the job done, and after me abandoning all hope, Wizards of the Coast has given the people what they want. And what they want is a creature that can be the commander for a moderately effective tribal deck. I didn’t know I wanted that until I got it. Can I pretend I was Languishing (good card) all along with the rest of the people who wanted a W/B Cleric even though I hadn’t built an Orzhov deck until Daxos the Returned was printed? Yes, I can absolutely do that, and that’s just the magic of never getting all of your thoughts down for posterity all at once. Have I gone full Orzhov? I won’t tell, but I won’t pretend I’m not excited by one of the spoiled cards from Oath of the Gatewatch.

Look at this card. Look at it! What we have here is a legendary Kor creature, which doesn’t matter to me today, but it could matter someday. What we also have is a 2/3 deathtouch for W/B, which is a good rate for a 2-drop. What we also have is a sac outlet that gains us life, life we may desperately need for some reason. What we also have is a creature that, when fully powered up, can let us start to exile permanents with abandon. Let’s drop the act—what we have here is a legendary Cleric in both white and black, and a lot of players are excited. They have waited for years. They have built weird decks with Teysa, Orzhov Scion or Ghost Council of Orzhova or even Lady Evangela (go ahead and look that; I’ll wait) at the helm. Now the wait is over.

So how do we build a 75% deck around Ayli? Some of you aren’t going to want to hear this, but I feel that the truth is that we need to juice the deck a bit to make it 75%. Clerics are fun as a tribe, but can Clerics tribal alone as a concept really get there? From what I’ve seen, no, it can’t. An Athreos, God of Passage deck with thirty copies of Shadowborn Apostle doesn’t count, either, because you’re a Demon deck, and you know it. Deep down in your black, twisted heart, you know that. I’m talking about a straight Clericy Clerics deck that is going to gain life, prevent damage, and put an end to all of the anti-Samites. How do we make that good enough to compete? I think the answer is simple: We give it win conditions.

My love for cards that say “End the game” on them is well documented. Without tutors to get them every game, you’re at the Universe’s whim and have to rely on staying alive long enough or playing enough games or winning another way. I think we can jam not one, but two of these suckers into this pile—Test of Endurance and Felidar Sovereign to be exact. Is either of those cards a Cleric? Well, no. But even with us expanding beyond a pretty narrow card base, we’re still going to struggle to be super-competitive unless we juice the deck a bit and look for ways to win that aren’t attacking opponents twenty times with a Withered Wretch. We’re not trying to weaken this deck at all—we’re going to make it as powerful as we can within our rules set and let the fact that our creatures are mostly defensive be what attenuates the deck a bit. Make no mistake: Clerics are powerful and do a lot of work, but we’re also making a deck largely of don’t-lose conditions, and what we really need are win conditions. So win conditions we will add. The rest of the deck will take care of itself—we’ll gain a ton of life, prevent a ton of damage, and start nuking opponents’ pants off with Ayli’s last ability.

So what does a Clerics deck with Ayli at the helm look like if we’re trying hard to murder opponents with peaceful, damage-preventing creatures?

Clerical Errors ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (48)
• 1 Akroma's Devoted
• 1 Ancestor's Prophet
• 1 Battlefield Medic
• 1 Battletide Alchemist
• 1 Beacon of Destiny
• 1 Cabal Archon
• 1 Celestial Gatekeeper
• 1 Devout Chaplain
• 1 Doubtless One
• 1 Edgewalker
• 1 False Prophet
• 1 Felidar Sovereign
• 1 Fiend Hunter
• 1 Frontline Medic
• 1 Glarecaster
• 1 Hedron-Field Purists
• 1 High Priest of Penance
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Master Apothecary
• 1 Mother of Runes
• 1 Order of Whiteclay
• 1 Orzhov Pontiff
• 1 Planar Guide
• 1 Pontiff of Blight
• 1 Preacher
• 1 Pulsemage Advocate
• 1 Rotlung Reanimator
• 1 Sin Collector
• 1 Skirsdag High Priest
• 1 Soltari Visionary
• 1 Soul Warden
• 1 Soul's Attendant
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Suture Priest
• 1 True Believer
• 1 Underworld Coinsmith
• 1 Vile Deacon
• 1 Vizkopa Confessor
• 1 Vizkopa Guildmage
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Whipgrass Entangler
• 1 Withered Wretch
• 1 Adaptive Automaton
• 1 Athreos, God of Passage
• 1 Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1 Heliod, God of the Sun
• 1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
• 1 Mikaeus, the Lunarch

• Spells (13)
• 1 Mortify
• 1 Unmake
• 1 Immortal Servitude
• 1 Profane Prayers
• 1 Unburial Rites
• 1 Wrath of God
• 1 Debtors' Knell
• 1 Martyr's Bond
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Sanguine Bond
• 1 Shared Triumph
• 1 Test of Endurance
• 1 Orzhov Signet

• Lands (38)
• 10 Swamp
• 12 Plains
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Emeria, The Sky Ruin
• 1 Fetid Heath
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Marsh Flats
• 1 Orzhov Basilica
• 1 Orzhova, the Church of Deals
• 1 Scoured Barrens
• 1 Shambling Vent
• 1 Starlit Sanctum
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Vault of the Archangel
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold

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What we ended up with, to my delight, is a deck that can seriously gain the lifes. I added Sanguine Bond to punish my opponents for . . . I guess being my opponents when I gained life. I could have included the other half of the combo, but I’m not a monster. Besides, that card is expensive. We’re looking to just hurt them when we gain life, so I used the slot I might have jammed Exquisite Blood to also jam Orzhov Guildmage, which gives us two ways to hurt our opponents when we gain life. If you can’t seem to win a game to save your life, Exquisite Blood is an option, but I wouldn’t run that out in an unknown meta. It’s a cheesy, but effective way to win. If you must, don’t tutor for it, and if you feel the need, why are you building 75%? Just build a deck with which you run the combo and try-hard everyone. There’s really nothing wrong with that—I won’t pretend I don’t run Food Chain in my Prossh, Skyraider of Kher and Maelstrom Wanderer decks, nor will I pretend I think those decks are 75% anymore. I think the Bond-Blood combo is probably fine with no tutors since you’ll probably only draw both pieces in 1 ÷ X games, where X is the number of players in the pod, and that’s how often we’re looking to win, but I’m erring on the side of not being that guy, and that’s my choice.

You scale off the number of Clerics you control, so in addition to adding a lot of useful Clerics, I added a card that makes Clerics: Heliod, God of the Sun. Is there anything this plucky little God can’t do for us? There’s a lot, actually, but giving us a ton of Clerics will make everything better. Giving us hella guys to tap for Ancestor's Prophet is useful, powering up our Vile Deacon is useful, making our Battletide Alchemist blank large amounts of damage is useful; we’re finding all kinds of synergy. The more Clerics the better, and being able to manufacture them is a big help.

A few cards I wanted to find room for include Worship, Cryptic Gateway, Lifeline, and Grave Pact/Dictate of Erebos. I decided Martyr's Bond is Grave Pact enough and also punishes opponents for going after other kinds of cards. Still, if you need a power-level boost, consider maybe a Dictate since you’ll probably be sacrificing all sorts of innocent Clerics, and we want that sacrifice to mean something.

What do we think? Is this powerful enough to take on the top tables with its bevy of oops-I-win! cards or does it still need some juice? Did I make a clerical error and omit your favorite Cleric? Did I make that joke already this week? (Yes.) Leave it in the comments section. Are you as excited about this deck as I am? Am I becoming an Orzhov guy? I don’t want that necessarily, but it sure is giving Simic a run for its money lately. Finally, I’d like to do a few more “Heat Index” articles, so if you have suggestions for cards to cover and their potential heat-index ratings, leave that below as well. Until next week, readers!