Unicorns and Pegasi for Liza

NEED TO ADD
Sungrace Pegasus FOIL (better condition one)
Concordia Pegasus FOIL (New art from Ravnica Allegiance)
Unbreakable Formation (New Ravnica Allegiance indestructible spell to replace gift of immortality)

Unicorn Pegasus Tribal for Liza
Sleeves: Ivory or Lilac Dragon Shields + Perfect Fits

Theme
Originally the deck was intended to be unicorn tribal, but with only 15 printed unicorns, and a few changelings, the lack of enough creatures to support and justify that limited tribe saw it expand to encompass pegasi as well, which are regrettably the better creature tribe in this instance if only because by definition, they all have flying, whereas unicorns don’t have a set or shared ability and some of them lack an ability altogether.

Important
Before playing the deck, something has to be made clear, because both tribes lack enough creatures on their own, it’s intended to play as if they are all one tribe. Because really, I’m sure an argument can be made that they are very closely related, there aren’t enough of either to properly do a tribal deck of each, and most of them are rather underwhelming in their size and/or abilities if they even have one. Extending that courtesy to horses as well does allow for things like Crested Sunmare and possibly even Diamond Mare, which would be great for the deck, but I feel would be taking advantage of the assumed tribal overlap as Sunmare can be a very powerful card and I would understand why people wouldn’t like that inclusion. Obviously taking the deck into a Horse tribal theme would make more sense for their inclusion and could allow for the inclusion of unicorns and pegasi as well, but again, that isn’t my intention.

The joke is to call out “Pegacorns” (or wrongly “Alicorns” from MLP) for cards that care about picking a creature type, although none of the unicorns have wings, nor do the pegasi have horns. If people don’t allow them to be considered one tribe for this deck, then pick accordingly, though from playtesting, pegasi were more abundant on the battlefield and also had flying, so by default, blindly picking pegasus is usually the better option.

Currently, there are two cards that care about specific creature types, Kindred Boon and Coat of Arms. Both of them are fairly impactful, but being used on a bunch of “French Vanilla”/”Evergreen” 2/2s should be inoffensive. Other anthem effects that only pumped a specified creature type were marginal at best, even when applied to both tribes, and were cut.

Special Notes:
Adarkar Unicorn is the only unicorn/pegasus missing from the deck, and that’s because of the blue color identity in its ability that is arguably useless anyway. There is actually one cumulative upkeep card in the deck, so as much as I would say play the Adarkar Unicorn regardless of color identity, it can do one single thing in this deck, although still not great. I personally don’t care, but somebody might, so I haven’t included it.


Foiling:
I have foiled out as many of the unicorn and pegasus themed cards as possible, the remaining cards therefore don’t have foil printings, either due to preceding the foiling process or they appear in supplemental product and haven’t seen print in a set that allows for foiling.



      Commander
Selvala, Explorer Returned

F = Foil
NFE = No Foil Exists

Creatures By Types
      Unicorns
Benevolent Unicorn NFE
Capashen Unicorn F
Inspiring Unicorn F
Loyal Unicorn NFE
Mesa Unicorn F
Noble Quarry F
Opaline Unicorn F
Pearled Unicorn NFE
Prized Unicorn F
Regal Unicorn NFE
Revered Unicorn NFE
Ronom Unicorn F
Wishmonger F
Zebra Unicorn NFE

      Pegasus
Armored Pegasus NFE
Boreas Charger NFE
Cavalry Pegasus F
Concordia Pegasus F
Loyal Pegasus F
Mesa Pegasus NFE
Mistral Charger F
Pegasus Charger F
Pegasus Courser F
Plated Pegasus F
Stormfront Pegasus F
Sungrace Pegasus - Still Needs Foil
Vryn Wingmare F

      Other Creature Subtype
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Mirror Entity F - technically a unicorn/pegasus

Other Cards for Theme
Pegasus Stampede NFE
Storm Herd F
Life’s Legacy F
Pegasus Refuge NFE
Sacred Mesa F (Timeshifted)

Alternate Card Art
Concordia Pegasus (RTR) F
Ronom Unicorn (Coldsnap) F
Great foil, but the UMA version foiled the horn too.
Sacred Mesa  (Commander) NFE
I really like this art but it’s not available in foil.
Promo Plains and Forest
Standard Showdown Promos. Some of my favorite lands and this is the only foiling of them so I picked them up to see how they look. If foiling out the landbase is desired, it would probably be with these. Rebecca Guay art obviously.

      Land
Vivid Meadow and Grove
I don’t care for these cards here, they’re only included because of the art. If they prove to be too slow, they can be removed.
Blighted Steppe
Surprisingly good before or after casting Storm Herd.
Basics
Plains and Forests are from Commander 17, art by Rebecca Guay.


Possible Cuts
Pegasus Stampede
Sacrificing lands is bad. Pearl Medallion makes this cheaper and with Faith’s Reward, it does create a powerful interaction, if only the Stampede was an instant.
Pegasus Refuge
Discarding a card seemed like too high of a cost to activate, but after the draw synergies were added to the deck, I have frequently had extra cards in hand, so from my experience, it’s not as bad as it looks.
Life’s Legacy
Two potential strikes against this card. Strikes aside, it does show a unicorn, albeit dead but not killed I guess, and the foil is beautiful. The first downside is that I don’t want to sacrifice my own unicorns....so that feels bad. The second is that this can be an amazing card in most situations but when the average creature’s power is 1 or 2, it’s not very impactful and could be replaced with another more effective card.
Wishmonger
My least favorite unicorn creature. Protection on my side is less relevant than it is for my opponents’ and their big creatures. Very situational and difficult to play card. If it was cut, I would totally understand.
Revered Unicorn
My second least favorite unicorn. It does have marginal synergy with a few cards that draw cards off lifegain, but other than that, it’s more expensive of a cost than it needs to be.
Vryn Wingmare
Good ability, but the deck doesn’t gain much benefit from it. In fact, a lot of the key pieces of the deck are noncreature based (pegasus token creating cards, lifegain and card drawing cards, and pumping effects) are hurt by this card.
Approach of the Second Sun
Added as a possible win condition for the deck. The card draw offered by the deck and Selvala speeds up the second casting of it. It’s a little weird and uninteractive. I don’t really care for it, but it’s there as an option. If it was cut from the deck, I wouldn’t care, as it doesn’t lend itself to the overall theme.

      Possible includes
    *Cards more likely to go in
(Cycling Lands)
Secluded Steppe
Drifting Meadows
Tranquil Thicket
Slippery Karst
I included the cycling dual land, if only because it could be counted by Emeria, the Sky Ruin as a plains. While being dual typed is good, the deck doesn’t really search for land types, it could though. Replacing a land that already came into play tapped with a slight upgrade made sense. It’s harder to justify the other cycling lands because then a lot of the manabase is either tapping for one color at a time, coming into play tapped, or both. Cycling lands seemed like an interesting idea to consider though, because the more cards drawn by Selvala, the more lands will be stuck in hand and this was at least a way to dig a little deeper.

*Words of Worship
Strong synergy with Well of Lost Dreams and a few other cards. Underwhelming otherwise.

Venser’s Journal
Maybe good? It’s a lot of mana to pay and do nothing for a turn.

Path of Bravery
Probably worse than True Conviction. There aren’t a lot of opportunities for the deck to attack with a lot of creatures so it would only be a +5 lifegain here or there. Obviously good with Storm Herd or lifegain+draw but feel the +1 pump might hurt more creatures for the types of specific wraths the deck has.

*Cradle of Vitality and/or *Cathars’ Crusade
Powerful effects, I’m not convinced the deck wants these in this version but keep in mind.

Aetherflux Reservoir
I tried this card, not enough lifegain. Maybe with True Conviction or something this might get better. Considered in the first version of the deck. Bad for multiplayer without a dedicated life total resetting or swapping theme.

*Vanquisher’s Banner
Costs a lot of mana, only technically pumps one tribe by +1 and draws a card off them. Extended to both tribes, it seems like it could be good, mana doesn’t need to be paid in to get the effect like Lifecrafter's’ Bestiary

Harsh Mercy
Comeuppance
Considered but more awkward in practice.

Seedborn muse
Mirari’s Wake
Surprisingly, the deck always wants more mana, these are possible includes to consider. Muse allows multiple activations of Selvala, though it must be weighed against the cons of giving too many cards to the opponents and Wake marginally pumps team in addition to obviously doubling mana.
   
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
For perma-indestructibility, creates a reason for more creature based tutors and possibly Tooth and Nail or Chord of Calling for maximum effect.

Worldly Tutor
Eladamri’s Call
The creatures aren’t super amazing, but being able to get Mirror Entity or Elesh Norn on demand is really good.
Enlightened Tutor
Idyllic Tutor
The more versatile tutors. Enlightened probably being the best, but Idyllic has a lot of powerful targets too.


Commanders Options Explained
Selvala, Explorer Returned
Karametra, God of Harvests
Shalai, Voice of Plenty
Lena, Selfless Champion (Mono white but flavor)
Others
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
Rubinia Soulsinger

Selvala offers the most out of the 4 potential commanders for the deck. Flavor wise, she went exploring and found unicorns and pegasi and has returned to share their beauty….or something. Guaranteed card draw in gw is good. She has the potential to set you up a few extra mana in a turn, albeit at random. A few cards were added to benefit even more from her ability once she became the main commander, like Mind’s Eye for opponents drawing cards off her ability as well as Well of Lost Dreams to generate more card advantage from her incremental lifegain, which for each life you would gain from her, you also gain mana so you can immediately pay that into the Well.

Karametra was a close second, in power and flavor, as a god watching over the majestic creatures. Most of the creatures are low CMC so it was reasonable to get Karametra out and then start casting about 2 creatures a turn, generating more mana. There were a few ways to take advantage of this and filter it into card advantage and such, and the abundance of mana would be more reliable than Selvala, but overall, more cards synergize with Selvala’s ability in multiple ways than just getting a lot of mana and hoping for something to do with it. Big creatures and big spells like Avacyn, Genesis Wave, and Tooth and Nail make more sense for this type of deck and I don’t think their payoff would be as meaningful in this low powered tribal deck.

Shalai seemed like a good idea, at least in mechanical flavor, in that opponents couldn’t touch the unicorns and pegasi. The problem was, outside of the mechanical flavor, she didn’t really offer much. Privileged Position was also in the deck for flavor but seemed lackluster as these creatures weren’t threatening enough to see a lot of targeted removal and would instead just die to mass removal. Noncreature permanents would also gain hexproof which was marginally good for this deck, although mass removal still remained the bigger threat. Her pump ability seems good, but because the deck doesn’t have a strong focus on going wide with lots of tokens consistently, it also seems underwhelming in practice. Pumping the 5 or so creatures on board by 1 or 2 power would also cause problems with the board wipes the deck wants to run, cards that care about destroying creatures with power 3 or 4 and greater like Retribution of the Meek, Dusk to Dawn, and Fell the Mighty. Great card, but everything about her was a downside for the deck while also not generating mana or card advantage like the others.

Lena was honestly the most flavorful lore-wise and mechanically. Being a “selfless champion” and willing to sacrifice herself for the good of the unicorns and pegasi seems like a quality they would be drawn to, vaguely reminiscent of the “drawn to virgins” lore and symbolism of unicorns. She has a few major downsides though. Mono-white is honestly my biggest problem with her, since a few unicorns, three, are in green, and would be left out of the deck, even though two of them have the powerful lure effect and are really pretty, and how could Prized Unicorn not be in the deck? Second, her mana cost, 6 for a 3/3 is just way too much to be reliable for how marginal of an effect she would give. 6 mana for an effect that grants indestructible one time is bad, especially when using her ability makes it so it costs more later. There are ways to circumvent that, and she is a cool card, but this deck isn’t looking to build in those directions. Her last drawback, which isn’t even really a drawback but I feel it contributes to her high mana cost, is creating the soldier tokens, in this application it’s unnecessary. It’s a good ability, a little weird for card design since the most effective way to take advantage of it would be to run a lot of low CMC creatures which this deck already does, but then it makes tokens, maybe for soldier tribal that’s okay, but normally, if you’re going wide with tokens, spells usually work better than most of the creature options, and efficient spells that create tokens are in opposition to her effect to create tokens. If she was a 3/3 for 2WW without the soldier token creation, that’d be great and make her a real consideration. Adding green would probably make her perfect. Legendary Dauntless Escort seems really good and worth one more generic mana.

Others
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Avacyn, Angel of Hope were other potential options for commanders. Mono-white and high CMC were the obvious downsides to them, and the power of those cards in the command zone might make the deck a target while not actually being powerful enough to warrant the attention nor able to stop such undeserved pressure.

Rubinia Soulsinger has little synergy with the deck but would allow access to blue and a few really good tribal support cards in Distant Melody and Kindred Discovery, and the typical draw X cards spells. She is a faerie and there is some flavor lore there with unicorns, and is probably the only legendary creature that really makes sense for GWU. The minor upside is that this gives access to the last unicorn creature GW can’t run, Adarkar Unicorn, which is pretty useless outside of being a 2/2 for 3 mana anyway.

The last option was to consider a GWU enchantment theme and a commander that could benefit from it but that seemed to be stretching the deck thin into another direction with the already limited card slots available and thus didn’t seem viable.


Cuts
Reveillark --> Praetor's counsel
Reveillark was underwhelming here, and with no graveyard recursion, it made sense to get as much back as possible.
Revenge of the Hunted --> Sensei's Divining Top
      The deck draws too many cards, an aggressive miracle card is messed up by that fact. Top has marginal synergy, rearranging the top cards for parlay or to tap and draw a card, guaranteeing a nonland card on top of the library with Top. It's a minor interaction but it might be worth it.