For a few weeks I'm going to be taking a dive into the new Ravnica Remastered expansion set. Reprint sets are fantastic for newer players looking to expand their card collections and that is particularly true for new Commander players. Not everyone has been playing long enough to have collected cards from these older sets, and these reprints also give more established players access to new retro frame and borderless versions of old favorites.

Commander players always have an eye out for Legendary creatures that would be fun to build around, so I'll be looking at ways to build around some of the commander reprints coming out of Ravnica Remastered. None of these are new cards, but if you've never built around or played against a specific legendary creature, it might as well be new.

A bright side of having an insane number of options (I'm looking at you, Universes Beyond) in our commander card pool is that it's relatively easy to find a card that is new to you, even if it isn't really new. With that in mind, today I'm going to take a look at how I might brew a deck for a slightly overcosted Elf Warrior originally printed in Ravnica: City of Guilds.

It's possible Tolsimir Wolfblood wasn't overcosted back in 2005, but the game has come a long way since then. This six-mana Selesnya Elf Warrior has a meager 3 power, 4 toughness body and some interesting abilities. Tolsimir provides an anthem effect of +1/+1 to other green creatures under your control, and +1/+1 to other white creatures you control. He can also tap to summon a legendary 2/2 green and white Wolf creature token named Voja.

Back in 2019 I covered Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves. You can read that column here. That column leaned heavily on playing lots and lots of wolves, but for Tolsimir Wolfblood I think it makes more sense to build around his ability to create that 2/2 legendary Wolf token, which will really be a 4/4 thanks to Tolsimir's anthem effect.

The Legend Rule

One of my favorite things to do when brewing a new deck is to find a way to abuse the very framework of the game. I once built a deck designed to attempt to win off the knowledge of what card(s) you mulliganed to the bottom of your deck. For today's deck I think it makes the most sense to try to abuse the "legend rule".

The rule in question is 704.5j: If two or more legendary permanents with the same name are controlled by the same player, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners' graveyards.

What that means is that Tolsimir's ability to create a legendary token is the pivot point around which I'm going to plan this deck's primary wincon. That might not seem like a great starting point, but when you pair this ability with the right card, you'll open up all kinds of possibilities.

Thornbite Staff is an odd little artifact that can automatically equip to any Shaman creature that comes into play. For two mana, it will let the equipped creature tap and deal 1 damage to target creature or player. That's nice for dealing with problem creatures that happen to have 1 toughness, but it's not great. Fortunately, that's not why this equipment is incredibly powerful. It also gives the equipped creature the ability that "whenever a creature is put into a graveyard from play, untap this creature."

That last bit makes Thornbite Staff an incredible combo piece. Tolsimir Wolfblood can tap to make that green and white Wolf creature token named Voja. If you've already got a Voja and you use the ability again, you'll have to sacrifice one of them to the legend rule. With Tolsimir equipped with Thornbite Staff, you'll untap Tolsimir when your Voja stunt double goes to the graveyard.

That interaction alone can give us infinite enter-the-battlefield, leave-the-battlefield and death triggers. If you add another combo piece things really get fun.

If you have a sacrifice outlet you can combo off with your Voja engine without leaning on the legend rule at all. With an Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar on the field, you would tap Tolsimir to create that Voja token. You hold priority with the ability on the stack and sacrifice the current Voja token to the Altar to generate mana. Tolsimir would untap thanks to Thornbite Staff, and you would let your trigger to create the new Voja token resolve. You could then tap Tolsimir again, and repeat this loop as many times as you like. Not every deck can win with infinite mana, but it's always nice to have extra mana to play with.

With an enchantment like Greater Good or Fecundity, you can draw as far into your deck as you like. Greater Good is a sacrifice outlet that will have you sacrifice Voja to draw four cards because Voja will be a 4/4 thanks to Tolsimir's anthem effect. You then have to discard three cards, but you're netting one card each time you do this. Fecundity simply has you draw a card whenever a creature dies. You can use it with just Thornbite Staff, but it will affect everyone so be careful you don't hand someone else the key to their combo win.

Altar of Dementia is a sacrifice outlet that will have target player mill themselves equal to the sacrificed creature's power. With Tolsimir and Thornbite Staff, you can mill out anyone who doesn't have a way to shuffle their graveyard back into their library. There are a few Titans and Colossus in Magic that have that shuffle ability, but more often than not you'll be able to mill the table out and pass turn to have everyone lose on their draw step by drawing from an empty library.

There are other combos in green and white that I could have shoehorned into this deck, and if you're keen to run every combo under the sun you can go ahead and do that. You've even got access to some great creature tutors in Green and some great enchantment and artifact tutors in White. I don't mind combo decks but I generally like to tie everything together a little more neatly.

Blockers For Days

For today's deck I'm going to be looking at creatures that are fantastic blockers when you've got an anthem effect on the battlefield.

There are seven of these "Phantom" creatures but I left out the 7 mana Phantom Nishoba. They are fun and synergize with my commander, but they're not exactly great cards. Phantom Flock and Phantom Nomad are in White. Phantom Centaur, Phantom Nantuko, Phantom Tiger and Phantom Wurm are in Green. Some of them have an additional keyword, but they all have one thing in common.

All of these creatures enter the battlefield with +1/+1 counters and if they would be damaged, the damage is prevented and you remove a +1/+1 counter from the creature. I love these guys because they can block for days. With an anthem effect in play, you'll still get the damage prevention, but once they no longer have +1/+1 counters they won't die. A Phantom blocker won't help much against evasion, trample or protection from their color, but a lot of the time you'll be able to line them up against the biggest incoming threat every turn until your Phantom blocker is removed.

Pariah's Shield will have you redirect all damage that would be dealt to you to equipped creature instead. With an anthem effect and a Phantom creature, you can still lose the game but it won't be through damage unless one of those key pieces is removed.

Sekki, Seasons' Guide is a special case that requires a bit of explanation. This eight-mana spirit comes into play with eight +1/+1 counters and has the same "prevent that damage" clause on it, but with a twist. You prevent the damage. You remove +1/+1 counters, if there are any. You also create that many 1/1 colorless Spirit creature tokens. Again, the clauses after the "prevent that damage" clause happen even if there aren't any +1/+1 counters to remove.

The thing about these Phantom creatures is that the synergy is cute and they're great blockers but if you were to pivot this deck to another build that fits your playstyle more, they would probably be the first to go - even with that delightful Pariah's Shield interaction in the mix.

You could leave Sekki, Seasons' Guide in the list, drop out the other ones and add in combo pieces that work with Sekki. One With the Kami, Blasting Station, and a bunch of others along with a creature tutor or two might fill in nicely. I didn't include them all because I'm primarily building around Tolsimir Wolfblood.

Another option would be to drop out the Phantom creatures and load up on Elves. I'm running a bunch of Elves along with Ezuri, Renegade Leader, and it would be easy enough to replace my squadron of Phantoms with Elves or even Elf combos. An Elf kindred deck would be stronger than focusing on Warriors or Wolves and I'm already running 10 of the fair folk so adding a few more might make sense. Tolsimir Wolfblood is an Elf Warrior so there's no reason he couldn't lead an odd Selesnya Elf deck.

Thornbite Tolsimir

My first thought when I started building this after I decided to run Thornbite Staff was to look at green/white creature token generators. I figured it would feel great to be pumping out tokens that would get +2/+2 from my commander. After a little research I gave up on that dream. Rhys the Redeemed is in the list, and can create a 1/1 green and white Elf Warrior token, but I left out Conclave Cavalier, Conclave Guildmage, Sprouting Renewal, Mercy Killing, and the split card Assure // Assemble.

If you wanted to build a lower powered deck you might drop out the Thornbite Staff combo package and load up on those token generators. Going wide will probably mean you'll want to run Moonshaker Cavalry, Craterhoof Behemoth, or both. Those are great finishers, but you'll be pushing back up in power again if you run them. As always, just try to build with your playgroup in mind. If it turns out your list is crushing the competition, either help them improve or consider tuning your list down so you're more in line with the decks everyone is playing.

Thornbite Tolsimir | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Tolsimir Wolfblood

• Creatures (33)
• 1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Dauntless Escort
• 1 Deep Gnome Terramancer
• 1 Esper Sentinel
• 1 Essence Warden
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
• 1 Fyndhorn Elves
• 1 Grand Abolisher
• 1 Karametra, God of Harvests
• 1 Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
• 1 Phantom Centaur
• 1 Phantom Flock
• 1 Phantom Nantuko
• 1 Phantom Nomad
• 1 Phantom Tiger
• 1 Phantom Wurm
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Rhys the Redeemed
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Sekki, Seasons' Guide
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Soul's Attendant
• 1 Stoneforge Mystic
• 1 Stonehewer Giant
• 1 Suture Priest
• 1 Timeless Witness
• 1 Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves
• 1 Wilt-Leaf Liege
• 1 Wood Elves

• Instants (5)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Teferi's Protection

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Camaraderie
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Fumigate
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Steelshaper's Gift
• 1 Three Visits
• 1 Vanquish the Horde

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Cathars' Crusade
• 1 Fecundity
• 1 Greater Good
• 1 Guardian Project

• Artifacts (11)
• 1 Altar of Dementia
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Conqueror's Flail
• 1 Hammer of Nazahn
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Pariah's Shield
• 1 Phyrexian Altar
• 1 Selesnya Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thornbite Staff

• Lands (36)
• 13 Forest
• 13 Plains
• 1 Bountiful Promenade
• 1 Branchloft Pathway
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fortified Village
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Overgrown Farmland
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Sunpetal Grove
• 1 Temple Garden

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With a six-mana commander, this list could probably benefit from having some fast mana thrown into the mix. In lieu of expensive mana rocks, I decided to load up on all kinds of ramp. I've got artifact ramp, ramp spells, creatures that get lands, mana dorks, and even with all of that, I'm sure there will be games where you can't get Tolsimir out until on or after turn six. If you're a stickler for running 40 lands, which some people are, you might drop a few non-lands and bump that land count up a bit.

The bottom line is that a lot of these older Ravnica commanders are going to show their age if you're up against any of the heavy hitters of today's game. EDH has seen a lot of power creep over the years, so you may well feel outgunned and out-valued playing Tolsimir Wolfblood. That doesn't mean it can't be a lot of fun, so long as you are playing against decks at roughly the same power level.

Final Thoughts

When I started on this build I didn't think it would result in quite as interesting a deck as I ended up with. Multiple equipment tutors mean I could go get Pariah's Shield if I drew into a Phantom creature, I could tutor up Thornbite Staff if I drew into a sacrifice outlet, and if I needed protection I could always grab Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves, Hammer of Nazahn or even Conqueror's Flail to protect me when I go for the win.

I'll be the first to admit I have a weakness for kindred (creature type focused) decks, and a part of me would like to have ended up with a squadron of Warriors, a brigade of Elves, or even a wolf pack to throw into battle, but that isn't this deck. This is a mishmash of creature types with some interesting tactics and a lot of directions you could take the deck in.

I would probably play this list a few times and then move it in whatever direction felt right. I could probably use more mana outlets for infinite mana, but I could also use more finishers for when I go wide and almost every deck could use more draw and interaction. These first drafts are meant to be more of a jumping off point for your own deckbuilding adventure, than a final, perfect, finished deck.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!