Commander Review: Aryel, Knight of Windgrace

There are a plethora of new commanders available to us once Dominaria hits shelves, but the one I'm most excited about is Aryel, Knight of Windgrace. Let's take a look at Aryel and come up with a game plan.

Quite a while ago, I asked for a Black/White legendary knight that I could use to lead my white knights and black knights into battle.

   

Wizards has been listening and has recently given us Vona, Butcher of Magen and given us Elenda, the dusk rose. While neither of them care about knights, I had a commander that could lead the team, yet I wasn't quite satisfied. Now I have exactly what I want a truely tribal knight commander.

Let's take a closer look:

First she is a solid 4/4 for 4 mana. Vigilance means that she can attack, stick around to block, and still use her abilities. Her abilities are simple, yet produce the card advantage needed to make her shine in commander. 3 mana and tap and she makes another token with vigilance. 1 mana tap her and x knights to destroy a creature power x or less. Again, these are instant abilities so they can be saved for after blockers are declared.

What can we do to build around her?

Vigilance

Vigilance is a strong keyword, but only a few ways to utilize it outside of building a voltron deck, which I wouldn't suggest.  Odric, Lunarch Marshal or his inspiration Concerted Effort will allow us to share the keyword with other members of the party.

  

As I'm building a knight tribal I will use effort, but Odric will have to sit on the sidelines. This will also be strong as alot of knights have random protections and first strike, which are all great to share.

3 mana tap to make a 2/2 knight token

White is really good about making tokens better. We can use populate cards where they are appropriate. Anthem spells will be good with a creature theme, but extra good with tokens.Using things that produce extra token such as Anointed Procession

  

1 mana tap and tap x knights to kill a creature with power x or less

To take advantage of this we just need to fill our battlefield with knights. Luckily, there are some strong knights out there. Kinsbaile Cavalier will give all our knights doublestrike. Knight Exemplar is another anthem that makes our knights more resilient. Knights of the Black Rose will give us some card advantage and a reason for hostilities as we fight over the monarchy. Mirran Crusader is an old favorite and bane to green decks anywhere, and Phyrexian Crusader is not someone opponents like attacking into.


  

Dominaria is adding some nice knights for us to play with too. Knights of Malice and Grace give us another yin/yang pair. Kwende, pride of Femeref gives us another form of doublestrike. Benalish Marshal gives us another anthem.

 

Brawl

Once Dominaria is out, Aryel could lead a strong brawl deck as well. Anointed Process is still available and there are enough knights to be a solid tribe. Many of the black white vampires, from Ixalan, are knights as well, such as Paladin of Attonement and Sanctum Seeker. We will not have trouble finding enough Brawl worthy knights to fill our deck.

  

What are you looking forward to in dominaria?