An EDH Deck Tech - Pridemates
Hello! This is another walkthrough of one of my EDH decks. I’m not really sure if it’s good or not; it has won 2 of the past 3 games I’ve played with it, but I haven’t played that many games with it (maybe a dozen lifetime?) and honestly I think it does well because EDH players are not usually very good at the combat phase, and pretty much all we’re looking to do here is attack. For a lot! And gain a bunch of life in the process.
Genesis
I’ve always enjoyed lifegain ever since the Judgment Prerelease and the Phantom Nishoba, followed closely by longtime favorite Exalted Angel in Onslaught a few months later.
For a long time, despite my affection for it, lifegain was seen by all competitive players and many casuals as a trap. Because it was! Other than simply having a bolstered life total, there often weren’t viable payoffs for lifegain that made it useful as a committed strategy.
This all changed with Magic 2011 when Magic R&D in their wisdom decided to finally provide the lifegain freaks with a reward for their our years of faith: Ajani’s Pridemate.
It might not look like much today, but back then it actually spawned a mid-tier Modern deck for a time that employed Pridemate here with both Soul Warden and its twin Soul’s Attendant to make the Pridemate so fearsome not even the mighty Tarmogoyf could look down on it.
The design was very popular with the casuals such that other Pridemates came up quickly. Especially from around 2014-2020, Pridemate fans were eating well. We had Other Pridemate, Black Pridemate, Other Black Pridemate, Other Other Black Pridemate, Omni-Pridemate, God-Pridemate, Pridemate-in-a-Can, and several others. There were other lifegain payoffs too, options like Resplendent Angel, Crested Sunmare, and Witch of the Moors to give you rewards beyond simple +1/+1 counters.
It was that last batch that pushed me over the edge to stop thinking about the deck and start building the deck. Originally, I didn’t even intend for it to be an EDH deck! Just a simple highlander. But then, while going through a bulk rare box, I found Karlov of the Ghost Council. I don’t even know how I got it! I wasn’t much of an avid consumer of the preconstructed decks. But there it was! And since I already had one and it’s an outstanding Pridemate (I’ve since simply called it the Super Pridemate) I chalked it up to Fate and threw it on in there.
The gameplan is pretty simple: we want to play things to the board that will generate lifegain triggers. The amount of life doesn’t have to be large, just consistent. Then we have things to get paid off for those triggers. Most often, that will be various Pridemates. Then we attack with them! It takes very little extra effort for the Pridemates to get large and in charge, so we’re able to be quite threatening and rapidly.
Karlov the Super Pridemate in particular is insane. In EDH getting someone for 21 total damage with our General is lethal, and Karlov can get that big expeditiously. And if Karlov’s feeling the heat around the corner, it can get rid of its counters for some simple board control in 30 seconds flat.
The deck usually does ok, but it’s somewhat surprisingly difficult to play. I’d recommend the Pridemates for someone who enjoys playing Limited. This deck doesn’t see a ton of extra cards like many EDH decks are designed to do, we’re not looking to play a lot of big epic spells, we attack and block a lot, we’re really looking to maximize the value out of every single one of our cards and take advantage of little synergies. Let’s break it down and see what The Pridemates have to offer.
Creatures
Soul Warden - The OG. Truly an Icon of Casual Magic. Soul Warden’s been a staple and a fan favorite for decades, and she hasn’t been actually good for nearly that long. These days, most Soul Warden variants only trigger for your creatures. The OG don’t play that shit; she gets triggers for anything and everything. This is very valuable for us and can help inflate our Pridemates to epic proportions without requiring us to further commit to the board. Great stuff.
Soul’s Attendant - Everything I said above about Soul Warden applies here except it’s simply not as cool or good looking. It pays to be first!
Guide of Souls - This is the only card in the deck that requires me to keep track of or do anything with Energy. I hate tracking little things like that when the uses are so narrow, so I would definitely cut this thing for simply being a pain in the ass. However, anyone who plays Modern, Vintage Cube, or squared off against me in the MH3 Prerelease can attest that Guide of Souls is simply cracked. Unlike the Soul Sisters this only triggers off our troops but the extra counters and flying can let us get in for massive damage. And the extra point of toughness lets it block random tokens with impunity. All for just 1 mana.
Serra Ascendant - Clearly a relic of the Before Times, by which I mean before WotC prioritized EDH as the main theater of war for their cards. Because of the older templating, Serra Ascendant has a great chance of being a 6/6 Flying Lifelinker because you start the game at over 30 life and our various Soul Wardens ensure that we can stay up there. A terrifying Turn 1 play. Funnily enough, I’d often recommend not playing this too early because your threat level will go through the roof, but sometimes it’s simply too beefy to resist.
Ocelot Pride - Another absurd MH3 behemoth. Comically powerful. It is small, but First Strike + Lifelink combine very helpfully with Pridemates in combat. And it doesn’t ever need to hit to generate its tokens, not with our wealth of other lifegain triggers. Still, being the setup and the payoff all in one very cheap card is insane. Keep in mind that we’ve got plenty of other ways to generate tokens in the deck, so once we’ve got the City’s Blessing we can really go off.
Auriok Champion - The Champ is here! Protection from Black and Red is so strong they don’t make it anymore. Like the Soul Sisters, she sees the entire board not just our guys. The 2nd White in the casting cost blows, but she’s simply too powerful to ignore. The last game this deck won, she stayed on the board for like 10 turns despite board resets (up yours, Blasphemous Act!).
Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim - For whatever reason I keep calling this card Elias. I think I just misread it off the jump and it imprinted on me like a small kitten. Anyway Elias here is nice. Black / White is a little easier on the mana, Deathtouch makes it a scary blocker, and its extra ability can throw around some chip shot damage. Tough to ask for more from a 2-drop.
Sorin of House Markov - Another gift from MH3. Extort adds up fast and provides us with a great way to get more Pridemate triggers. The flipside is money for us; Food tokens give us a Pridemate trigger that can work at instant speed and on someone else’s turn, and the Minus ability can take out creatures or entire players with relative ease. The last ability is strong but we’re much more likely to just toggle between the Plus and Minus options.
Ajani’s Pridemate - Another OG! There are lots of great Pridemates these days but since this was the inspiration for the deck it’s a tough one to cut. The casting cost of 1W is much easier on us than some of the other options too.
Voice of the Blessed - This casting cost is much more prohibitive, but we’re compensated with a real monster on our hands. 4 counters on it and we’ve got Flying and Vigilance. 10 counters and it’s Indestructible. The way this deck is constructed, the opponents are on a ticking clock when Voice comes calling.
Essence Channeler - Another Pridemate easy on the mana. We don’t have a ton of ways to trigger the Flying and Vigilance, but we do have some so keep an eye out for when they can help; maybe don’t get that Marsh Flats out of the way immediately if our mana is ok. A Phyrexian Arena’s BFF.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned - God Pridemate! Indestructible + Not Always a Creature + Distributes counters however I want = Yes Please. Very powerful set of abilities here. Some people will play this with Walking Ballista to go infinite and I understand that’s powerful, but those people are weak and cowardly. We win with the Combat Phase here (mostly) and attacking is simply much more fun and satisfying. Infinite damage is for doofuses who want to flex. Real Magic Players attack and block.
Cat Collector - Will not be tripping anyone’s Threat-O-Meter, but anything that’ll give us an increased board presence for free is valuable. Remember what I mentioned earlier about Food tokens being instant speed.
Angel of Vitality - Another sample of the Before Times templating. Much weaker than the Ascendant, a 4/4 Flyer for 2W is still fine and giving us more life per trigger is helpful. This deck can struggle to get past blockers so the evasion is valuable.
Resplendent Angel - 5 life can be a lot for us at the beginning, but once this gets going we can generate a whole choir. Keep in mind that this can trigger on each turn not just ours, so if we can make 5 life happen consistently flocks of Angels will sing our opponents to thy rest.
Linden, the Steadfast Queen - WWW is a real kick in the nuts for a casting cost. But many of our creatures are either White or White / Black, so we can generate a whole ton of triggers. Another option that’s good on Turn 3 or Turn 33. All Hail the Queen!
Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose - When I play this card I try to say the name with a Jersey accent like they might on The Sopranos. Anyway when I mentioned earlier that we mostly win by attacking this is one of the exceptions. Well, we will still be attacking but this could let us attack one player and kill another in the same combat phase. The 2nd ability is really strong.
Haliya, Guided by Light - We have a very hard time seeing extra cards in this deck; with all the redundant Pridemates and Soul Wardens and other lifegain payoffs it can be tough to fit in other stuff. Haliya is a Soul Warden that gives us more cards, and it’s important to keep in mind that Haliya triggers off itself - a new innovation for Soul Wardens - and triggers off Artifacts. While we don’t have a ton of those, we can still make some artifact tokens and we’ve got a small handful to play naturally. We are not interested in playing Haliya unless we can start drawing cards off it.
Kambal, Profiteering Mayor - For whatever reason I pronounce this guy’s name like Campbell, which makes me think of the soup and especially the old commercials for the Chunky brand with Donovan McNabb when I was a kid. Anyway, this card has an awkward wall of text that ends up being insanely powerful. Many Commander players - myself often included - love making tokens. Kambal hopes our opponents do, because then we do too. And we get a lot of drain-and-gain triggers. Plus we get a 2/4 body for only 3 mana. Obviously nuts with Ocelot Pride.
Exemplar of Light - Much like Haliya, this will let us see extra cards. Fantastic with a Soul Warden because it triggers on each turn, not each of our turns. This can pull us way ahead and it’ll get buff in the meantime. An exemplary Pridemate.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet - Cletus here is a fantastic graveyard hate option. This effect is very disruptive but sometimes not overtly so; usually other players need to experience having their plans foiled by the Banjo Master himself before they realize how busted it is. Plus, it can increase our board presence for free and it’s got Lifelink. A lot for a little.
Elenda, Saint of Dusk - Not much more than a hitter, but man can she hit hard! Expect this to be bigger than advertised. The protection might not be worth too much, but given how little targeted removal many players pack these days she might end up having accidental Shroud.
Attended Healer - Cat Collector’s big sister. Costs 1 more, but triggers on every turn not just ours so there’s a chance we could get a whole batch of cats hanging out.
Fiendish Panda - We don’t have any other Bears on deck so this will get most anything else back; not the best thing in the world but it’s nice to have a Pridemate that provides a little more value than just beefy (Bear-y?) stats.
Rhox Faithmender - Blocks forever and can bolster our life total to incredible heights. And with things like Serra Ascendant, Elenda, Angel of Vitality, Ajani, and Reservoir in the deck we might want to make use of the ability to recover our life total quickly if we do end up getting walloped by opponents.
Syndicate Heavy - This is not very mana efficient, but the Extort triggers and the possibility of extra Clues and therefore cards is valuable. Keep in mind that the clue tokens go well with Ocelot Pride and that the Heavy will trigger on every turn.
Archangel of Thune - The Omni-Pridemate! Goddamn this is so powerful. We have several ways to generate a lot of lifegain triggers in this deck; if we can make that happen on the turn Archangel comes down somebody is getting the lights shut off. Again we could pair this with various other things to go infinite but we are simply not cowards.
Crested Sunmare - High Ho, Silver. Away! This deck can get us a whole ranch. I might start calling him Yellowstone. Soul Warden’s BFF; remember this can trigger on every turn. One of the primary inspirations for the deck.
Witch of the Moors - The other primary inspiration for the deck. I saw this on the Jumpstart spoilers and just thought it was the coolest thing. Playing with it has confirmed that suspicion. Ideally we play this right after a board sweeper to get us right back in the saddle. If we can keep this alive for even a few turns after a reset, our opponents will be hurting badly.
Solitude - Why not? I had one sitting around and it’s cracked. Being able to evoke it or even just play it at instant speed can cause all kinds of nightmares with various lifegain triggers.
Patron of the Kitsune - I don’t think I’ve ever cast this and all other players know what it does. We don’t happen to have any Foxes in the deck, so we won’t be flashing it out, but that’s ok. The fact that it triggers for any players attacking anybody with any creatures is so valuable for us. Especially if players aren’t attacking us, in which case our life total and our Pridemate stats will really start swelling. Keep in mind that the Patron is a Legend, so Eiganjo Castle and Shizo can both work on it.
Nykthos Paragon - A poor man’s Archangel of Thune. Or a really rich man’s second Archangel of Thune! Some of our lifegain options can really pop off with this, but it’s also a way to help us go wide. Pairs very well with Ocelot Pride / Cat Collector / Attended Healer, anything that grows out our board.
Rodolf Duskbringer - Similar to the Witch of the Moors, this is an exciting Jumpstart offering we’re hoping to deploy after a board wipe. Downside: the ability costs mana, unlike the Witch, which is kinda balls. Upside: we basically get a Baneslayer here instead of a random ground thug, which is amaze-balls. A little clunky, but if we’re rebuilding it’ll be just what the doctor ordered.
Spells
Authority of the Consuls - Helpful disruption / very minor board control that also gives us Pridemate triggers on other turns. Valuable package for a single mana.
Cleric Class - Level 1 is dinky but useful. Level 2 is really where the meat of its effectiveness lives; a 2nd Heliod is really strong. Level 3 is sort of the weaker cousin of Witch / Rodolf, but I don’t mind redundancy when it comes to recovering from a sweeper. We’ve become experts at finding extremely valuable packages for this deck that don’t cost us much mana.
Swords to Plowshares - Don’t leave home without it.
Orzhov Signet - This deck doesn’t really get much value out of mana acceleration that isn’t colored. Sol Ring doesn’t really help much with the things we want to cast early; if we could get a Mox Pearl or Jet we’d really be cooking. But we can’t have those, so the Signet will have to do. We do have a few colorless lands, and they’ll really shine in conjunction with the Signet.
Talisman of Hierarchy - Mostly worse than the Signet, the colorless mana does go well with Abstruse Appropriation and the damage goes well with ol Sun Droplet.
Sun Droplet - Speak of the devil! An exceptionally powerful and sneaky weapon. We almost want to get tagged with something meaty while Droplet is out; even though it’s only 1 life it’s a free trigger on every turn (not just ours). Pairs well with any Pridemates and especially Crested Sunmare, as well as things like Cleric Class / Angel of Vitality / Rhox Faithmender that can actually get us profiting from being attacked. None of our opponents will take this card remotely seriously until right after it plays a significant role in beating them. Then they’ll remember.
Mazemind Tome - Seeing extra cards is valuable for us, and the little lifegain trigger we get at the end of this can be very strong with Resplendant Angel or Syndicate Heavy.
Umezawa’s Jitte - Most of the kids today don’t know the extent to which Jitte is busted. It’s been power-crept out of the eternal formats and mitigated in Cube, it was never legal in Modern, and it doesn’t club you over the head like other EDH options might. But back in the day, Jitte was broken. A Limited Hall of Famer, Jitte was great in Standard and Extended in its day too. And for us, it’s the weakest option that we’re most likely to use! Why would we waste a charge counter to give +2/+2 for the turn when we could gain 2 life and get a +1/+1 counter forever? And at instant speed, and not necessarily on our own turn to boot! Get this thing equipped and give the belt to some youngins. It’ll feel great.
Blessed Alliance - Very tricky but all modes are helpful to us. Our dream is to nuke an opponent in combat with this (maybe even multiple opponents if we’re really doing it) by escalating once or twice. No modes are terrible. I could see replacing this card, but like its much stronger but less flavorful cousin Wing Shards they’ll never ever play around it.
Despark - An increasingly narrow card as it becomes trendier to get cheaper and leaner with casting costs, but the ability to hit troublesome noncreature permanents (that Super Pridemate can’t handle himself) is valuable.
Aura of Silence - Back in the day I used this as a Seal of Cleansing with upside. Now it’s more of a Thalia with upside. Artifacts and Enchantments are very widespread in Commander, and taxing them a bit is significant, especially if you can land this early because many players use those kinds of permanents for their mana. The walking disenchant mode is a great deterrent too.
Phyrexian Arena - From everything I’ve seen, Arena has fallen out of favor with most of the casual crowd. It’s apparently too slow? But you know what they said about slow and steady. I adore the Arena; this deck doesn’t have any insane mana engines. We’re synergistic to be sure but ultimately honest. So we just want a nice steady flow of cards, and Arena delivers exactly that.
Read the Bones - A one-shot boost of card draw. Arena is great because but sometimes we do need a little jolt. 3 mana means we can fire this off early if we need to or a little later and almost certainly play 2 spells in a turn. We honestly aren’t likely to be terribly selective with the scrying, we just want raw resources. But it doesn’t hurt.
Kaya’s Guile - A fantastic trick. All 4 modes can work out for us. I’m especially fond of the graveyard hate and we’d love to entwine it, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Vindicate - One of my all-time favorite cards and an extremely clean removal spell. We’d prefer to use this on a noncreature spell because Super Pridemate can deal with most creatures, but like I said we’ll make due.
Mortify - See Vindicate, but we’re sacrificing some versatility for instant speed.
Midnight Snack - Somewhat low-powered, giving us a Food token every turn is helpful and we might be able to nuke a player out of nowhere if some of our larger lifegain comes through.
Ajani, Strength of the Pride - Pridemate in a Can! At a minimum, this can provide 2x Pridemates if unmolested and give us some good life boosts. In a pinch, the Ultimate ability can blow our opponents all the way out; just make sure to factor that into your plans. If you leave it on the table while at a high life total it will be a high priority for smart opponents and if we use it right away we obviously can’t get any Pridemates or life boosts. So tread carefully.
Faith’s Fetters - Lifegain is great - and in a quantity that can help us get to Syndicate Heavy or Resplendent Angel - and shutting down an annoying permanent even if it’s a land can be very strong. A useful way to hamstring some Commanders without returning them to their exile zone.
Abstruse Appropriation - Costs more than our other preferred removal, but Exiling is nice. And we’ve probably got half a dozen colorless sources that can let us cast what we removed.
Aetherflux Reservoir - This gets us a ton of lifegain triggers for various Pridemates and a nice payoff for having a ton of life. We’re not designed as a Storm deck to use this exclusively as a kill condition, but don’t be surprised if we’ve got enough juice to take one person out with it.
Righteous Cause - Functionally very similar to Patron of the Kitsune, except it can’t itself get into combat. But remember it’ll trigger on any combat, doesn’t have to involve us or our creatures. It looks like something we’d cut from our draft deck. In reality, it’s one of our strongest enablers.
Austere Command - We’re a creature deck that’s committing to the board and attacking a bunch, but it’s good to have a trump card in the back pocket. Plus, we’ve got plenty of weird casting costs and permanent types so we can break the symmetry.
Feudkiller’s Verdict - A pet card of mine since the day it came out. 10 life can be an awful lot, especially in conjunction with Nykthos Paragon, Sorin, or Midnight Snack. The 5/5 isn’t the reason we’re playing this, but it doesn’t hurt either. A nice package.
Kaya, Intangible Slayer - We’re most likely to use this for the card draw. Either of the other modes are solid in a pinch though.
Heliod’s Intervention - This gets an inclusion because it’s a gigantic disenchant, but it helps that we can gain a ton of life when we have to. Not the most powerful, but the flexibility gives it the juice we need.
Lands
Scrubland, Godless Shrine, Shadowy Backstreet - Can’t beat some good ol Dual Lands.
Marsh Flats - Our best land. This deck needs its early plays more than most of my other decks, so having appropriately colored mana immediately is paramount. Ideally we’ll fetch a Backstreet to give us some card selection. But Scrubland or even some basics will be available.
Fetid Heath - I’m a big fan of these filterlands in general, but WOW is this amazing here. We’ll need some uncomfortable combinations of colors and Heath delivers exactly that.
Shambling Vent / Restless Fortress - It’s unlikely that we’ll need to use these until much later in the game, but I hate having nothing to do with my mana just in case we get flooded. These lands play great with Pridemates.
Temple of Silence - Worse than Backstreet because we can’t fetch it but card selection we don’t have to pay for is useful.
Isolated Chapel / Concealed Courtyard / Shattered Sanctum / Vault of Champions - Great color fixing but think about how you sequence them to make sure they come in untapped.
Caves of Koilos / Silent Clearing - No pain, no gain! Caves goes great with Appropriation and Sun Droplet, Clearing is nice to get us extra cards.
Bleachbone Verge / Tainted Field - Occasionally excellent dual lands that require some help to be great.
Scoured Barrens / Kabira Crossroads - Lands that get us some incidental lifegain to get some Pridemate triggers are great! We’d normally be thoroughly disinterested in these but here, they’re valuable.
Orzhov Basilica - Between Shadowy Backstreet / Temple of Silence / Barrens / Crossroads / Bojuka Bog / Eiganjo / Takenuma, we’ve got a lot of lands that give us some extra value. Resetting them rips.
Desolate Mire - The very poor man’s Fetid Heath. But playing this on Turn 2 guarantees that we can play the Super Pridemate on time.
Vault of the Archangel / Demolition Field / Miren, the Moaning Well - These are our purely colorless lands. They produce a lot of value for us, but we don’t want to see them early because we need immediate colored mana so badly.
Bojuka Bog - Our opponent’s graveyards can go kick rocks!
Eiganjo Castle / Shizo, Death’s Storehouse - Great value lands. Many of our creatures are incidentally Legends, so helping to protect them or get in for extra damage can break a game open. There will be scenarios where using Shizo on Super Pridemate will end the game on the spot.
Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire / Takenuma, Abandoned Mire - Early on I said that we’ll be trying to get every ounce out of all our cards. These two are Exhibits A and B.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - Now all our white lands are Scrublands!
8x Plains / 3x Swamp - I chose to go with Mirage because Mirage is incredible. We’re going with the nighttime zebra Plains and the nighttime, moonlit Swamp.
And there we have it! Want to win on tight margins? Want to get busy in the red zone? Want to keep track of a bunch of tiny little triggers that add up to something awesome? Give the Pridemates a shot!