In my 28 (!) years of playing Magic, I have taken a few breaks, some of them substantial. My last break ended with the release party for Shards of Alara, so that set has a particular place in my heart. It was a fun Limited environment, it introduced artifacts with colored mana costs, and Planeswalkers were still new enough to be exciting.

My first Standard deck using Shards was a Bant deck, leveraging Shorecrasher Mimic and Bant Charm to swing for early and massive chunks of damage. I topped out on a couple of Stoic Angels, and supported the deck with creatures with Exalted to further increase the damage, while hindering my opponent's ability to go wide. A few counterspells gave me a touch of permission, and I had a deck which actually ran pretty well. (Shards also introduced Ultimatums, and specifically my favorite one, Titanic Ultimatum, but that's a different subject.)

While perusing the new Commanders, Galea, Kinder of Hope jumped out to me as a potentially fun commander. Voltron commander decks are fun, and running cool Auras and Equipment can make for a pretty wild game. We also don't have to go Voltron; we could suit up someone else, because her last ability lets us target whatever creature we want. It even works great with Stoic Angel, because Vigilance means we can attack with her, tap something else, and not have to choose later!

Moving on, though, I came across Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl. This is interesting, too. Storvald protects all our creatures with Ward. Then, he lets us rebalance combat by making our 4/4 or whatever a 7/7 and their 23/23 a 1/1. He would be super fun to flicker, either once or a bunch. If we did it once, we could make a 7/7 Blighted Agent. If we went infinite, we could make all of our opponents' creatures 1/1s and all of ours 7/7, which (combined with giving all our creatures Trample) should end a game in short order.

There are good decks in both of these creatures, for sure. But one of the fun parts of Commander is the challenge it provides. So, I thought, is there a single deck which could be helmed by either of these two creatures?

Bant Double Feature | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (2)
• 1 Galea, Kindler of Hope
• 1 Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl

• Creatures (6)
• 1 Battlegrace Angel
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Giltspire Avenger
• 1 Sovereigns of Lost Alara
• 1 Kestia, the Cultivator
• 1 Sram, Senior Edificer

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Estrid, the Masked
• 1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher

• Instants (5)
• 1 Bant Charm
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Hunter's Insight
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Hunter's Prowess
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Migration Path
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Time Wipe

• Enchantments (24)
• 1 Aether Tunnel
• 1 All That Glitters
• 1 Angelic Destiny
• 1 Aqueous Form
• 1 Armadillo Cloak
• 1 Bear Umbra
• 1 Colossification
• 1 Detention Sphere
• 1 Eldrazi Conscription
• 1 Favor of the Overbeing
• 1 Finest Hour
• 1 Hyena Umbra
• 1 Mantle of the Ancients
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Sage's Reverie
• 1 Shield of the Oversoul
• 1 Sigarda's Aid
• 1 Snake Umbra
• 1 Spirit Mantle
• 1 Staggering Insight
• 1 Steel of the Godhead
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Timely Ward
• 1 Unquestioned Authority

• Artifacts (14)
• 1 Argentum Armor
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Commander's Plate
• 1 Conqueror's Flail
• 1 Crystal Ball
• 1 Haunted Cloak
• 1 Robe of Stars
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Shadowspear
• 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1 Sword of Hours
• 1 Sword of the Realms
• 1 Trailblazer's Boots
• 1 Winged Boots

• Lands (39)
• 12 Plains
• 6 Forest
• 6 Island
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Bountiful Promenade
• 1 Cathedral of War
• 1 Celestial Colonnade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Lumbering Falls
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sea of Clouds
• 1 Seaside Citadel
• 1 Stirring Wildwood
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Temple of Plenty

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The idea here is not one of cheating Partners, though if your playgroup will let you run them as Partner commanders, that would be bonkers, since always having access to both of them would be amazing. Nope, you choose one to lead your deck, and the other one hangs out as part of the 99.

Because of this, the deck doesn't focus as much as a deck built around one or the other might. We have several Auras and pieces of Equipment, but we're not absolutely overflowing with them in order to fully maximize Galea's ability; rather, her cast-from-the-top-and-Equip-for-free thing is more of a bonus, and hopefully we can use Sylvan Library or Crystal Ball or Sensei's Divining Top to stack our library and take full advantage. We're also not going to flicker Storvald, choosing instead to lean on him as our primary attacker if he's our commander, and letting him wear all the stuff if Galea is around.

We have plenty of ways to draw cards, make our Commanders evasive, and pump up their power and toughness. However, rather than going with a Toolbox approach (where we can choose what pieces we want through tutors), this deck instead just runs quality, so no matter what we draw we should be able to put together a fairly fearsome attacker.

A couple of things in particular are worth mentioning. Eldrazi Conscription and Argentum Armor both are game enders; they've been around for a while and make it very difficult for an opponent to win. Colossification, also, is a way to simple end a player's game, since it (easily) turns our commander into a one-shot killer. Combined with something like Aqueous Form and it's nighty-night.

Also worth noting is that Ward stacks, so if you have Winged Boots on something with Storvald out, an opponent must pay to target!

For the rest of the deck, we have some all-around good stuff. We have a touch of ramp, a bit of card draw, a few combat tricks, some removal, and a couple of Wrath effects. Much of this should be considered variable; right now, there's not a lot of anything. If you find you need more of something, feel free to adjust. We also have a small amount of Exalted support, since often times we'll just be attacking with our Commander and the extra boost doesn't hurt.

The deck will work differently depending on which Commander we choose. One potential pitfall to Storvald is he's expensive; it's possible we want some more ramp so we're sure to get him out earlier than turn seven. If we had more creatures it would be less of an issue, but we really want access to our commander in this deck. We could have a hand of a bunch of Equipment and Auras and have very little relevant to play out.

Of course, the advantage to Storvald is he's so frickin' powerful. A 7/7 that nerfs our opponent's best creature is incredibly powerful, and one we should be able to leverage to great effect, not to mention he protects himself really well with Ward 3. Galea can hang on her own, and with the right Voltron pieces she'll be fine, but she simply doesn't pack the wallop Storvald does.

Whichever commander you choose, it should create a fun and fair experience. We'll make a decently powerful and protected attacker, but not one which is unbeatable. We'll attack and push life totals along, but not combo off and win out of nowhere. (I mean, unless we rip a Colossification off the top.) And while we can adjust the top of our library a little bit, we can't reliably choose which Auras and Equipments we have, so we'll have to play carefully and politic well to pull off a win.

How would you build either of these commanders? What would you do differently to put them together? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for reading.