Shepherd of Heroes
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Brawl Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Pre-release Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Standard Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Shepherd of Heroes

Creature — Angel Cleric

Flying

When Shepherd of Heroes enters the battlefield, you gain 2 life for each creature in your party. (Your party consists of up to four creatures, one Cleric, Rogue, Warrior and Wizard.)

multimedia on

2 years ago

Hey, well done for a first deck on such a low budget. I haven't seen this Commander before.

When you're just starting out building decks in Commander it can be helpful to have some basic deck structure guildlines to follow.

This is just a basic structure to get things started. It doesn't cover everything and your final deck may have different numbers for each part of the structure such as you might have more creatures. Some cards can cover more than one area such as Palace Jailer who is creature removal and can be repeatable draw which is really helpful.

Ramp is something all Commander decks need since you don't want to only rely on lands/land drops to make mana. You have Sol Ring which is really good, but that's where the ramp ends here. Only Sol is not enough ramp.

I always explain to new Commander deck builders that you need to be able to sacrifice (cut) some of the fun cards to add ramp to your deck. Since doing this will help gameplay so that you can more easily cast your Commander and the other big fun cards you want to play. In the case here my advice is consider cutting at least 9 cards to add more budget ramp?

Some cards to consider cutting to add more ramp are creatures who don't do enough for their mana cost: Gods' Hall Guardian, Living Tempest, Dread Rider, Shepherd of Heroes, Kor Celebrant, Ronom Unicorn, Brinebarrow Intruder

Like ramp all decks also need draw that comes from single draw effects and more importantly repeatable draw sources. Currently your deck has three good single draw effects Baleful Strix, Champion of Wits, Cloudblazer and one repeatable draw source Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. There's a reanimation theme here that can get you more draw from these creatures which is good, but consider more draw?

Jailer and Rose can be repeatable draw sources with the Monarch Emblem. When you have the monarch then you draw a card at your end step. Only one player in the game at one time can be the monarch and it can change players. As long as you are monarch you get the repeatable draw at your end step which is a big advantage.

For an opponent to become the monarch they have to do combat damage with a creature to you or play a card/effect that makes them the monarch. When this happens you loose the monarch and that opponent becomes the monarch. You can get back the monarch though by doing combat damage with a creature to the opponent who is the monarch or playing a card/effect that makes you the monarch.

Some cards to consider cutting to add more draw: Withercrown, Grave Endeavor, Arcane Endeavor, Smite the Monstrous, Extract Brain, Wand of Orcus

The area of your deck that you have a lot of is removal. I count 23 single effects of removal here. You can afford to cut some removal to improve other areas of your deck: Withercrown, Befuddle, Iron Verdict, Smite the Monstrous.

If you're interested I offer more advice in another comment. Including explaining how blink from single effects or repeatable such as Soulherder and Brago, King Eternal can be powerful here. Would you like me to continue with more advice?

Good luck with your deck.

MadWollf on

3 years ago

Here's a few suggestions to get started with cutting.

Shepherd of Heroes

Winged Shepherd

Anointer Priest

Daybreak Chaplain

Emeria Captain

Legion Angel

Loxodon Restorer

Makeshift Battalion

Iona's Judgment

Angel's Mercy

Sandblast

True Love's Kiss

Candlelight Vigil (use Sentinel's Eyes instead)

Elspeth, Sun's Nemesis

A few others to consider: Serra Ascendant as well as Felidar Guardian

Leave No Trace

Murderous Rider

Light of Hope fits your themes as well

Aetherflux Reservoir can be a wincon as well as slow your casting life loss

Commander's Sphere

Endless Atlas and Well of Lost Dreams for card draw

Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves for commander protection

Disenchant

Serra Avatar

TheVectornaut on Blue/White Life and Defenders

3 years ago

I think a good place to start would be to evaluate what goals are the most important for your deck while making sure you don't have too many ideas that compete against each other. When I look at the deck now, I can see the general idea of a U/W control list that takes advantage of freeze and lifegain to prolong the fight until you can win. However, I see some major problems with the plan as it is now.

First, the deck lacks a clear win condition at the end of all the control. You'll either need to chip away over the course of a slow game with your smaller creatures or hope you have enough freeze effects to get your big guys in late-game. Control deck usually opt for some type of haymaker that can reliably close the game. Some like AEtherling and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are designed to protect themselves, some like Celestial Colonnade and Shark Typhoon place emphasis on evasion, some like Torrential Gearhulk and Snapcaster Mage give you as much value as possible, and some like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Teferi, Time Raveler deny your opponents of counterplay. There's a lot of overlap within those categories and not all of these cards will be played as a wincon, but having a clear plan to win is better than only playing to not lose. The closest cards you have are probably Serpent of Yawning Depths and Archipelagore. Sea monsters are certainly a fine casual deck but slotting them into something else can be awkward at best and ineffectual at worst.

The second problem I see is the missed potential of your chosen colors combined with your chosen tribe. Right now, you have very few ways to take advantage of the clerics in the deck. Clerics are intended to be W/B since you get access to powerful new tools like Orah, Skyclave Hierophant, Taborax, Hope's Demise, and Cleric of Life's Bond along with classics like Sin Collector, High Priest of Penance, and Skirsdag High Priest. The lifegain/drain synergy in clerics also benefits from orzhov colors to play threats like Angel of Destiny, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Marauding Blight-Priest, Speaker of the Heavens, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Twilight Prophet, Pious Evangel  Flip, Drana's Emissary, and Cruel Celebrant.

Incidentally, black also synergizes quite well with tapdown effects because of Assassinate cards like Royal Assassin, Deathbringer Liege, and Murderous Compulsion, although white does have its share of Vengeance with Sunblast Angel, Deadeye Harpooner, and Swift Response. Anyway, now that I'm on this tangent, it's worth mentioning that including strong freeze effects is important if you want to make such an underused mechanic work. I'm partial to Dungeon Geists and Icefall Regent as permanent taps, but there's also Guardian of Tazeem, Niblis of Frost, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Time of Ice, Lorthos, the Tidemaker, Frost Titan, and Hands of Binding. Alternatively you can use cheaper cards that can retap a creature each turn like Gideon's Lawkeeper, Blinding Souleater, Fatestitcher, Hidden Strings, and Minister of Impediments. The final category I'll mention are other cards that take advantage of tapping enemy creatures like Palliation Accord and Verity Circle, except I'd only ever recommend the latter.

In summary, I think you should decide whether you're more interested in clerics or in freeze since they don't synergize with each other that well. For clerics, switching to black and taking advantage of lifedrain and sacrifice is advisable. For freeze control, find ways to abuse tapping, implement a strong win condition, and generally include more card draw and countermagic. If you are dead set on combining these styles, I'd at least invest in some tribal support cards to give the clerics more impact than just weakly contributing to the party mechanic. Adaptive Automaton, Door of Destinies, Obelisk of Urd, and Coat of Arms are some popular options. Finally, if your budget doesn't allow you to purchase many new cards, prioritizing the acquisition of additional copies of your strongest but cheapest cards is a good way to upgrade. For this deck, I think those cards are Attended Healer, Cleric of Chill Depths, Hypnotic Sprite, Kor Celebrant, Luminarch Aspirant, Queen of Ice, Shepherd of Heroes, Skyclave Cleric  Flip, Concerted Defense, Dovin's Veto, Negate, Inscription of Insight, Staggering Insight, Trapped in the Tower, and maybe Silundi Vision  Flip. Good luck with your build and let me know if you have any questions!

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