Linden, The Steadfast Queen Commander Deck Guide

You can never have too much life. That’s just as true in the real world as it is in the world of Magic: The Gathering. But rarely is having a bunch of extra life points a path to victory. Sure, you can’t lose, but having more life than your opponents doesn’t necessarily mean you’re winning either.

Unless, of course, you’re playing with Linden, the Steadfast Queen. With Linden at the helm, every attack brings your life total higher while reducing your opponents, and there are many ways for white mages to gain power while simultaneously gaining life. Read on to discover how Linden could be your next commander.

The Commander: Linden, the Steadfast Queen

Linden is a pretty simple commander. For three white mana you get a 3/3 body that doesn’t need to tap to attack and gives you one life whenever a white creature you control attacks.

Obviously, the more creatures you have, the more creatures can attack, and the more life you can gain. Thus, any deck that revolves around Linden will want lots of creatures and also lots of ways to further enhance your aggressive life gain.

Besides already making any Linden deck feature mostly creatures, you can get even more creatures onto the table with token generators. The best ones will generate tokens whenever you gain life, producing a feedback loop where the more life you gain, the more creatures you can attack with, resulting in more life.

There are also a bunch of white cards that can trigger more life gain or token generation whenever you gain a creature, resulting in geometrically more life gained and creatures created. Eventually, you have so much life that the traditional path to Commander victory of dealing 40 damage becomes functionally impossible. Meanwhile, you’ve got so many creatures that you can overwhelm most defenses.

Remember, just because you have a ton of life doesn’t mean you’re invincible. Commander damage is still lethal, and you can always run out of cards to draw in your library.

Building Your Linden, the Steadfast Queen Commander Deck

As previously discussed, a Linden life gain deck is going to need three things: lots of creatures, lots of ways to turn those creatures into life gain, and lots of ways to turn life into offensive power. There are also going to be a few great cards that turn life gain into more life gain, as well as cards that provide alternate win conditions based on the amount of life you have.

Besides that, you’ll want the usual white staple spells to deal with threats, provide a few combat tricks, and clear the board.

Life Gain

Linden already provides some life gain whenever you attack, but white has many ways of making you gain even more life. Soul Warden is perhaps the best of the bunch, but there are other one-drops with either a life gain trigger or lifelink, such as Ocelot Pride, Lunarch Veteran, Soul’s Attendant, Speaker of the Heavens, or Guide of Souls.

A lot of these trigger whenever a creature enters the battlefield, which makes them even better when combined with the token generators later on.

At two mana, you’ve got cards like Daxos, Blessed by the Sun, Suture Priest, Lifecreed Duo, and Impassioned Orator. There are also cards like Angel of Vitality, Rhox Faithmender, Leyline of Hope, and Cleric Class that provide more life whenever you gain life.

Life To Power

Life gain alone isn’t enough to keep you safe. You need power, and that means having cards like Serra Ascendant, Essence Channeler, Ajani’s Pridemate, Elenda’s Hierophant, Heliod, Sun-Crowned, and Nykthos Paragon to turn every point of life gained into power on a creature (usually in the form of +1/+1 tokens).

Archangel of Thune is particularly powerful as it provides those +1/+1 tokens to every creature you control rather than just a single one.

Other creatures and enchantments can turn life gained into cards drawn. Rumor Gatherer, Dawn of Hope, Sigarda’s Splendor, and Well of Lost Dreams all make gaining life and high life totals a potent source of spells.

Token Generators

Much of your life gain revolves around having or creating lots of creatures, and nothing helps that strategy more than token generators like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, Mentor of the Meek, Defiler of Faith, Keeper of the Accord, Crested Sunmare, and Book of Exalted Deeds. More creatures means more life means more power.

Alternate Win Conditions

Life on its own doesn’t mean victory, but there are a few cards that offer a path to victory by achieving truly stupendous quantities of life points.

For creatures, Angel of Destiny and Felidar Sovereign provide different paths to success. Felidar Sovereign is perhaps the simplest ‘you win’ card as it states you need merely have 40 or more life, but gaining 15 more life than you started with is still relatively simple for Linden.

Aetherflux Reservoir provides a method of turning your life points into (usually) lethal damage for an opponent, and Halo Fountain can turn all your creatures into a victory that doesn’t even look to life points or damage dealt.

White Staples

There’s no reason to avoid playing staple white spells in a mono-white deck. Esper Sentinel, Welcoming Vampire, Mentor of the Meek, and Sun Titan all do good things for the deck. Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Generous Gift, and Stroke of Midnight make a solid suite of removal spells.

Fumigate, Austere Command, and Martial Coup all clear the board, as does Ajani, Strength of the Pride (some even produce tokens while they’re at it). Storm Herd will often produce so many tokens that your opponents’ only hope is to clear the board themselves.

Finally, Akroma’s Will and Unbreakable Formation both break stalemates, and Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Pearl Medallion, Knight of White Orchid, and Oketra’s Monument boost your mana production or make things cheaper to cast.

Linden, the Steadfast Queen Commander Deck List

Here’s a sample deck list for Linden, the Steadfast Queen.

Budget Substitutions

Some of the cards above are out of the price range for more casual Magic players, so we’ve got some budget substitutions listed below.

Tips For Playing Linden, the Steadfast Queen In Commander

• Although Linden provides a life-gain incentive to attack, don’t ever feel compelled to do so. You’ve got plenty of other ways to gain life and alternate win conditions that don’t involve attacking your opponent.
• That said, don’t be afraid to attack either. Often, your opponents’ retaliatory strike won’t mean anything to your massive life point total.
• Always keep track of commander damage. This is one of the few things that can still end your game even if you have 200 life points.
• Don’t get complacent. There are other cards, such as Phage the Untouchable or Etrata, the Silencer, that can still kill you even if you have a ton of life. If you can block a creature without losing too much of your board position, do it.
• Some cards can completely halt life gain, so have a plan to deal with life gain hate.