Cloud Strife teams up with Ninja Turtles in this epic Magic: The Gathering Commander deck

[ad_1] When a good friend gifted me the Cloud Strife Magic: The Gathering card, I used to be fairly intimidated. It’s a reprint of the wickedly highly effective Najeela, the Blade-Blossom — the form of commander that opposing gamers goal instantly. A 3/2 human warrior that prices two colorless and one pink mana, Najeela generates a warrior creature token each time a warrior assaults, however the important thing element is its second potential. For 5 mana (one among every colour) you may untap all attacking creatures and provides them trample, lifelink, and haste and offers you an extra fight section after that one. Due to the power, which means a commander deck with Cloud Strife/Najeela at its head has entry to all 5 colours and a really clear path to victory.

All instructed, the overall technique is fairly simple: ramp up quite a lot of mana, fill your board with warriors, hold attacking to generate extra warriors, and finally set off the power mid-combat. Operating a five-color deck, nonetheless, means it's a must to rigorously calculate the mana prices throughout your whole playing cards and stability your lands and different mana-generators accordingly. There are additionally plenty of instructions you may probably veer. Warrior seems as a creature subtype throughout all types of units. Whereas it’s potential to construct this out utilizing simply Closing Fantasy playing cards, I had probably the most enjoyable mining the latest units and by embracing the weirdness of Universes Past — particularly once I added Raphael and Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the combo.

Raph & Leo, Sibling Rivals is without doubt one of the many team-up playing cards from the TMNT set, combining two characters into one legendary creature. Although the cardboard is a mutant ninja turtle and never a warrior, its potential works very well right here. Each time Raph & Leo assault, they untap one or two attackers and set off an extra fight section if that is the primary fight section of the flip. In apply, you may assault with this duo and one other large creature to hopefully draw out and eradicate some blockers. And in case your different attacker is a warrior, with Cloud Strife on the board, he’ll generate a warrior token. Raph & Leo then set off an extra fight section. That’s if you go all out: assault with every thing and pay for Cloud’s potential to untap your attackers, buff them, and set off yet one more assault section.

There are much better further fight playing cards on the market that I don’t personal but (like Moraug, Fury of Akoum), however the picture of Cloud teaming up a pair of Ninja Turtles is simply too good to go up. Within the TMNT packs I ripped, I additionally occurred to drag a Sword of Fireside and Dwelling reprint that includes a wonderful pizza cutter stuffed with cheese. It’s an gear that permits you to blink a creature and search your library for a primary land each time the geared up creature offers fight harm to a participant. I’d additionally beforehand harvested a Sword of the Animist from the Closing Fantasy 7-themed Restrict Break preconstructed deck which additionally seeks out primary lands. Each of those assist repair your mana. So as to add to the FF7-TMNT crossover vibes, I additionally included Every thing Pizza for the flavour. It additionally seeks out a land and comes with a seven-cost five-color potential that’s tremendous highly effective. Since we’ll have that mana base anyway, it synergizes very well.

I additionally pulled a couple of helpful playing cards out of the Turtle Energy! TMNT precon which is five-color, specifically Exploding Barrel, Chromatic Lantern, and varied non-basic lands.

Skimming by means of my Avatar: The Final Airbender playing cards, I spotted that most of the ally creatures double as warriors. So combating alongside Cloud, Raph, and Leo we have now two variations of Sokka and Katara every, together with Suki, Kyoshi Warrior. Suki might be my favourite right here since her energy is the same as the variety of creatures you management (and we’ll wind up with plenty of warrior creature tokens). She additionally creates an ally creature token each time she assaults. Katara, Heroic Healer places a +1/+1 counter on one another creature you management when she enters, making her an ideal candidate for the Sword of Fireside and Dwelling blink impact to set off it once more.

The actual spine for this deck, nonetheless, comes from Lorwyn Eclipsed. The set places an enormous emphasis on typal methods, but it surely’s principally restricted to creatures that dwell in Lorwyn and Shadowmoor like elves, goblins, and kithkin. However there are many changeling playing cards that rely as all creature sorts — together with warrior. Extra importantly, the set has Gathering Stone and Chronicle of Victory. In reality, regardless of sitting on the Cloud Strife card for some time, it was pulling Chronicle of Victory that lastly satisfied me to begin constructing this deck. As soon as performed for six mana, it buffs all creatures of a selected sort with +2/+2, first strike, and trample. And everytime you play a card of the chosen sort, you draw a card. All of these 1/1 warrior tokens immediately change into 3/3s with first strike and trample.

<div class="responsive-img image-expandable img-article-item-portrait" style="padding-bottom:139.28571428571%" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/chronicle-of-victory-mtg-card.jpg" data-img-desc=""Behold one of the best Magic: The Gathering cards in my collection."" data-modal-id="single-image-modal" data-modal-container-id="single-image-modal-container" data-img-caption=""Image: Wizards of the Coast""> <img width="672" height="936" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="chronicle of victory mtg card" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/chronicle-of-victory-mtg-card.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=672&dpr=1" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/chronicle-of-victory-mtg-card.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=672&dpr=1" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Behold top-of-the-line Magic: The Gathering playing cards in my assortment. Picture: Wizards of the Coast Lorwyn Eclipsed additionally delivered with Mirrormind Crown, an gear that attaches to a creature. Everytime you would create a number of tokens, chances are you'll as an alternative create tokens which can be copies of the geared up creature. This one’s a bit dangerous since this deck is heavy on legendary creatures, however I do have Curious Colossus, a non-legendary large warrior that transforms all of an opponent’s creatures into 1/1 cowards. One other typal spotlight is Bloodline Bidding, an eight-cost black sorcery with convoke (creatures can faucet that will help you pay the price), it returns all creature playing cards of the chosen sort in your graveyard to the battlefield.

I’ve nonetheless acquired some work to do earlier than issues really feel good for this deck, which I’ve named Warriors of Strife, and I nonetheless must tweak the mana base so it’s extra balanced. I really feel like this can be a commander deck I’ll continually be tinkering with, prefer it’s a revolving door of warrior heroes from every new set that comes out. For now, it’s in an excellent spot. Right here’s a have a look at the deck on Moxfield, the place it’s a relentless work in progress. When you've got any suggestions for cuts, changes, or singles I should purchase, be happy to let me know within the feedback.