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Eivor Varinsdottir hails from Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, the Norse-inspired entry in the series, and also appears as a legendaryMagic: The Gatheringcreature ready to crash into battle. Maybe a bit strange, given that Magic already has Kaldheim as its own take on a plane inspired by Norse mythology, but that’s just Universes Beyond products for you.
Eivor, Wolf-Kissed puts a unique spin on the red/white/green Naya colors, being one of the few commanders in this color trio to self-mill and also synergize directly with Sagas. You can certainly play Eivor as a typical beatdown commander with a lands-matter sub-theme, but the Saga interaction is the real driving force behind this Assassin Warrior.
Herald of the Pantheon
Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
Showdown of the Skalds
Wooded Foothills
The Commander
Eivor, Wolf-Kissed promotes two things: attacking,and sagas. The first part is pretty intuitive, made easier byyour commander being a 7/6 with trample and haste. The second part’s where your strategy gets interesting. When Eivor connects in combat, you get a shot at putting a free Saga from your library directly into play. If nothing else, you can grab a land from the top four instead.
An important note about Eivor’s ability is the timing on the trigger. Eivor has to deal combat damage, which means you can’t rely on a Saga changing the texture of combat until after you’ve already dealt damage. If the trigger puts a Saga into play that pumps Eivor or your other creatures,that extra damage won’t be accounted for during that combat step.
Give Eivor double strike with an effect like Embercleave to double-trigger Eivor’s ability each combat. The second hit might even deal more damage depending on what Saga you find first.
Besides costing six mana, Eivor has another glaring weakness:a lack of protection. No ward, no hexproof, just exposed and out in the open like a true Viking warrior. Running Eivor out into open mana is a death sentence, so eitherwait until your opponents are tapped outorhold off until you can hold up your own protection spellin case things go wrong.
The Strategy
This deck requires a three-pronged approach. You’ll spend your early turns how you would in just about any deck, developing your mana andramping as much as possible. In the mid-game you’ll transition to playing value Sagas, using them to either gain board presence or disrupt your opponents. Once you’ve hit six mana,your gameplan shifts towards your commander.
You could classify this asan ‘Enchantress’ Commander deck, with a heavy emphasis on enchantments, but the focus is on extracting as much value from your Sagas as possible, rather than trying to cast as many enchantments as you can. Still,there are plenty of constellation abilities and enchantment payoffslike Ondu Spiritdancer to get even more juice from your Sagas.
You have a handful of cost-reducing effects in this deck that work as pseudo-ramp. Some reduce the cost of enchantments, some reduce colored spells, and some work on both.
While there are avenues to victory that don’t involve your commander, Eivor’s going to be your main route to victory. It deals damage in chunks of seven, which is the perfect number to take out a player in three hitsvia commander damage.Do your best to keep Eivor alive with protectionlike Bolt Bend and Heroic Intervention.
The alternative path to winning involves the enchantress side of the deck, which looks to overwhelm opponents with token generators like Archon of Sun’s Grace and Ondu Spiritdancer. Not having access to your commander limits the effectiveness of your enchantment payoffs, but you can always just cast valuable Sagas from your hand too.
Important Interactions
Some Sagas have the read ahead ability, which lets you choose which chapter they start on when they enter the battlefield.These have a lot of modality, especially when they enter mid-combat with Eivor’s damage trigger. Unfortunately,most Sagasdon’thave this ability, so be sure not to miss out on the ones that do.
Barabara Wright gives all your Sagas the read ahead ability, which works regardless of whether you cast those Sagas or if they entered from Eivor’s ability.
Some inclusions are meant to set up Eivor’s trigger. Noxious Revival and Hall of Heliod’s Generosity can set a Saga from your graveyard back on top of your library for a guaranteed hit. Enlightened Tutor and Moon-Blessed Cleric can tutor for an enchantment and place it on top. Scroll Rack can similarly hide Sagas from your hand on top of your library.
This Eivor list features a few cutesy ways to manipulate the counters on Sagas. Nesting Grounds can move lore counters between Sagas, or just ditch a lore counter somewhere useless to ‘rewind’ a Saga to an earlier chapter,effectively letting you repeat the same chapters over and over. Power Conduit can achieve the same effect while also growing your creatures.
Budget Considerations
While this decklist doesn’t necessarily aim to be budget-friendly, most of the inclusions are either very inexpensive, or non-essentials that can be cut for cheaper alternatives. The deck accommodates just about any Saga in these colors, andmost Sagas tend to be cheap, so mix and match as you please within your budget constraints.
Budget Increases
Aside from all the generic staple inclusions,enchantment decks have a couple pricey optionsfor those looking to power-max their decks. Replenish isa Reserved List cardthat costs upwards of $100, but gives you mass enchantment reanimation at a cheap mana value. Serra’s Sanctum is basically the Gaea’s Cradle of enchantments, but it runs between $200-$300 for a copy.
The manabase as presented is also right in the middle as far as budget is concerned. It features a full set of shock lands and fetch lands, but it can be further upgraded with Ancient Tomb or even Alpha-Beta duals if you have them.Bias towards lands with the Forest subtypefor your Utopia Sprawl and Three Visits.
Budget Decreases
This deck has plenty of opportunities for budget cuts. Boseiju, Who Endures is an excellent staple, but you may save around $30 by subbing it out for a basic Forest. Hall of Heliod’s Generosity can similarly be cut for an additional basic land, andany remaining high-value dual lands can be traded aroundfor whateverbudget dual landsyou have on hand.
There’s plenty of wiggle room with individual nonlands as well. Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is pricey because of its Constructed prowess, but it’s significantly less powerful in Commander. Teferi’s Protection can be downgraded to a slightly less efficientbudget protection spell, and you could forego running Enlightened Tutor altogether if you don’t mind the small hit to consistency.
