Legends Legends - Ragnar

Regeneration is an ability that's gone the way of the Do-do in Magic: the Gathering. Originally one of the best mechanics to stick a creature to the field, regenerate effects have largely been abandoned in favor of the simpler indestructible mechanic.

But, back in 1995's Legends, regenerate was still kicking around, so much so they devoted an entire legendary creature to the mechanic with Ragnar, the bant-aligned regenerator.

What if we wanted to build a deck showcasing the awesome power of the regenerate effect? Are there enough new cards to synergize with the wonky way regenerate resolves? Today, Legends Legends explores Ragnar and his regenerating host!

General Thoughts

"Regenerate" does several things. First, when a creature is regenerated, it is tapped and removed from combat. Then, all damage is removed from it, and the next time it would die this turn, it doesn't. We want this regeneration themed Commander deck to make use of each of those effects.

We'll be attacking with our creatures each turn, safe in the knowledge that Ragnar will save them from death. We'll also find ways to force our opponents to block our weaker creatures, to best capitalize on our "when this creature becomes blocked" effects, and to guarantee our stronger creatures connect.

Finally, we have a handful of effects that trigger when our creature becomes tapped - even if we don't need them as attackers or blockers, simply targeting one of these creatures with Ragnar's effect will tap it and trigger the effect.

Rag-generation

We want to activate Ragnar's regeneration effect early and often, so we'll need some consistent ways to untap him and make enough white, blue, and green mana each turn.

Besides just generally ramping as hard as we can with Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, etc., we have Kiora's Follower to act as both a mana dork and an untapped for Ragnar. Seedborn Muse keeps our lands and our commander untapped during each player's turn. 

Freed from the Real and Second Wind are two key cards to getting the most out of Ragnar. In addition, Freed from the Real goes infinite with our Bloom Tender.

Regenerating Attackers...

The bulk of our deck revolves around creatures we want Ragnar to regenerate. Creatures that are normally ripe for the picking with removal spells and easy blocks for our opponents' creatures become a pain in the butt to actually pull off the table.

One chunk of these creatures are those with attack triggers. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and Brimaz, King of Oreskos can both create a staggering amount of tokens during combat, and Ragnar's regeneration will keep them alive, even when swinging into a Plague Rats.

Jedit Ojanen of Efrava's tokens are a little situational, but green is a popular enough color that I'm sure we'll see some value off of those Cat Warrior tokens.

Emmara, Soul of the Accord also fits in here, but can be simply tapped by our commander's regeneration effect to trigger her ability.

Nacatl War-Pride is a weird Future Sight card that can threaten an opponent's entire board at once, and we only have to regenerate the original to keep this weird go-wide threat on the field.

...And Blockers

Next, we have a selection of creatures with abilities that trigger when they become blocked. We'll attack, wait for our opponents to declare blockers to trigger our effects, then regenerate the creatures we don't want to lose.

Saprazzan Heir is a surprisingly effective way to draw cards in this deck. It's basically an Ancestral Recall, am I right? We'll use Infiltration Lens as a similar effect we can tack on to any other creature. 

Tolarian Entrancer is similar, but can start to cause some real havoc when combined with Lure and Provoke. 

Elven Warhounds acts as pseudo-removal in this deck. It forces a creature off the battlefield, and locks our opponents out of drawing a new card the following turn. A Nemesis Mask stapled onto this creature quickly becomes an insane headache for your foes.

Rust Scarab takes the place of traditional Naturalizes and Disenchants while also being a 4/5 body to throw around the board.

Engulfing Slagwurm and Thresher Beast are two large-sized threats with some fairly brutal blocked triggers.

Encouraging Destruction

We can't count on our opponents to destroy our creatures. In fact, once they learn Ragnar's tricks, they'll probably do everything they can to avoid it. Luckily, we have a few ways to encourage the destruction of our creatures.

We're our commander's regenerate effect to save creatures we'd normally lose to fight effects. Khalni Ambush works as targeted removal, and Apex Altisaur slots into this category as a pseudo-boardwipe. We can use its enters-the-battlefield effect to keep fighting creatures across the board, regenerating it when it comes too close to dying, but still triggering its enrage mechanic and fighting everything with less than 10 toughness.

If we have the mana and the Freed from the Real available on Ragnar, we can regenerate the Altisaur indefinitely until nothing stands in our way.

Similarly, we're using Novablast Wurm as another board wipe. Even though it costs a ton to cast, and usually wipes our own board when it attacks, we can use Ragnar's regeneration to save our key creatures (including our commander himself!) while still wiping our opponents' battlefields.

Finally, you may ask yourself, "why is Baton of Morale here?" Well, by banding our creatures together, we get to determine how damage is assigned in combat, letting us put all of the damage on a "band" onto one or two creatures, then regenerating them while the rest of the band still deals damage. This is a neat trick, and will surely draw the ire of your playgroup.

Closing It Out

We can turn our cardboard squares sideways all we want, but we still need to finish this game so we can go get another round of Rainiers. Ragnar does a lot of work to keep our creatures on the board, so it only seems right that we should use them to win. To that end, we're running a number of enchantments to beef up those attacking creatures.

I'm very excited, personally, for the new two-mana anthem Anthem of Champions. Coming down for one less mana than Glorious Anthem means we'll have one more available to regenerate a creature that turn should the need arise.

Cathars' Crusade and Brokers Ascendancy will put some more permanent buffs on the tokens created by our Brimaz, Hero of Bladehold, and Adeline, Resplendent Cathar. 

Finally, with all those creatures attacking into combat willy-nilly, Beastmaster Ascension just makes sense.

Ragnar Deck List

Wrap Up

Legends's Ragnar is your last hope to build a regenerate deck in a format that matters. With Magic's new emphasis on shield counters and "gains indestructible until end of turn" and "ward," old-timers like me like to remember the good ol' times when we had to talk about the "regenerate bubble" and used the stack to assign combat damage.

What are your favorite creatures with regenerate? Are you as heartbroken as I am that I can't run Drudge Skeletons in this deck? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for reading!