Top 5 Clerics for a Cleric deck in Magic: The Gathering

Whether it's your favorite class in Dungeons & Dragons, the fact it's "something different" in the typal deck space, or just personal self-expression; this creature type has some of the most interesting cards to build around in the entirety of Magic: The Gathering

So, you want to play Clerics in Magic: The Gathering? Great choice! This often-overlooked creature type boasts a very deep card pool focused around life gain, sacrifice, and graveyard recursion. If you love high synergy decks with lots of triggers, grind potential and moving parts (who doesn't?) This is the typal deck for you.

Let's get into what I think are the best cleric Magic cards for you to consider for your deck, starting with:

Well, what a weird card this uncommon from Scourge is. MTG doesn't tend to do cost reduction for the colored parts of mana costs, and when you play with Edgewalker you'll quickly see why. There are so many powerful Clerics that cost just , , or , and with Edgewalker we can play them for free! This allows us to have some truly explosive draws and combo potential that our table won't see coming.

For many Magic players, Elas is the card that got them thinking about Clerics to begin with. She's a perfect synergy piece that can even sit in the Command Zone. Clerics tend to like gaining life and sacrificing creatures, and Elas gives us benefits for both of these on a body that is completely free with edgewalker.

Another key legend for our MTG Cleric typal strategy! Ayli is both a sacrifice outlet and life gain payoff. Her first activated ability ties into our overall synergies and her second ability is a key pay off for doing so; giving us an extreme amount of board control. Like Elas, her mana cost is perfect for playing with Edgewalker and she can also live in the Command Zone so we can access her whenever we need to.

So, you have your Cleric board: you have some sacrifice outlets, some value accrual from doing the sacrificing, and now with Orah you are also recurring things from the graveyard as you sacrifice?

Yeah, Orah can get silly quickly. He's one of the most popular commanders for this deck theme and it's easy to see why. Your graveyard becomes a toolbox of clerics for you to choose from, and with the other powerful options mentioned in this article it should hopefully be obvious why that is to be feared.

Powerful and flavourful; this classic Magic lore big bad is just as terrifying on the battlefield as he is in the story. Yawgmoth turns your various creatures into board control and card draw without the need for mana. The Father of Machines is one of the most powerful sacrifice outlets in our arsenal, and he has created an archetype around himself in the Modern format.

Story enthusiasts, casuals, and competitive gamers alike should be excited to play this incredible creature.

Honorable Mentions and Synergy pieces

Let's do a quick breakdown of some honorable mentions and some key synergy pieces for the Cleric enthusiast.

Vito has the same ability as classic card Sanguine Bond. Combined with Exquisite Blood this is an infinite damage combo that ends the game on the spot! Not bad.

Whisper, Blood Liturgist and Shadow-Rite Priest are key toolbox pieces to find exactly what we need from our graveyard and library respectively, and all for the cost of sacrificing some creatures, which we wanted to do anyway.

A super anthem and life gain on a strong defensive body? Yes please! This is a well known Angel Kindred powerhouse and it's just as strong in our Cleric strategy as well.

Okay, so for this one I think some context is necessary. We've mostly been talking about Clerics as a casual strategy for either casual Magic or Commander. Commander isn't always casual however; Competitive EDH as it's known has a tournament circuit all its own. In cEDH, Tymna is one of the highest winrate commanders in the entire format. She is a consistent value engine, and Partner is one of the most powerful Commander mechanics we have ever seen. It's Tymna's world, we're just living in it.

Closing Thoughts

These days, a lot of Commander and casual Magic: The Gathering decks are becoming homogenized. The power level of the game has increased dramatically and a lot of people now feel that it is quite difficult to express themselves. I think taking a shot on underexplored creature types and their unique strategies is one of the best ways to keep a balance of power and self-expression.

I hope you agree, and I hope to see you on the other side of the table.

Happy spellslinging!