Legends Legends - Torsten Von Ursus

Torsten Von Ursus

by Mark Poole

Welcome back to Legends Legends! Your one and only source for Commander content focused specifically on 1994's Legends expansion and the original 55 legendary creatures released within it. These 55 legendary creatures have aged like a cheap cheddar cheese over the years, and I think after 54 of these bad boys we can assuredly say they were never meant to be shelf-stable.

This week, we're building around Torsten Von Ursus

General Thoughts

Torsten Von Ursus

This Torsten Von Ursus

The Armies of Unsavoriness

The core of any Soldier kindred deck is, well, the Soldiers of course. Our Soldiers are split into two broad categories: actual Soldier permanents, and cards that create Soldier tokens.

Soldiers are a creature type that's been done to death, so I'll try not to bore you with the details of our military organization here. All of the important Soldier lords are present in this decklist, namely Captain of the Watch

While those lords' anthems are a great place to start for buffing our army, power alone doesn't win wars; mechanics do. A handful of our lords grant either first strike or vigilance to our legions, and Archetype of Courage

Now that we've got the arms and armor, we just need an army to go along with them. Besides our army of actual Soldiers, we've got quite a few ways to mobilize our forces onto the battlefield.

Preeminent Captain

Many of our Soldiers, like Knight-Captain of Eos

The Good That Shall Follow

Bringing this deck together are the token-doublers, +1/+1 counter-generators, and +1/+1 counter-doublers. Many of these work off of enters-the-battlefield triggers, which we'll be seeing a lot of with the high number of 1/1 Soldier tokens we plan to create.

Obviously, Doubling Season

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Felidar Retreat

Accusations of Evil

Creature-based decks are incredibly susceptible to removal and board wipes, so we're running an outsized amount of disruption to deal with these problem spells.

An easy choice for protecting Torsten, our strongest Soldier, is Bastion Protector

We're running not one, not two, but three anti-board wipe spells in the forms of And They Shall Know No Fear

In place of some traditional removal, we've got Catapult Master for crushing our opponents' commanders with boulders launched from our trebuchets, and Esper Sentinel is an effective replacement for traditional card draw, especially once we start putting +1/+1 counters on it. This, combined with Beast Whisperer, Vanquisher's Banner, and our smattering of Soldier-based card draw should keep our reinforcements on the move towards the front lines constantly.

Finally, we've got a little bit of disruption for those spellslinger decks. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben just makes sense in a deck that's 37% creatures, while Baird, Steward of Argive lets us run Ghostly Prison without having to sacrifice a Soldier slot. Aegis of the Gods keeps those Fireballs and Chainer's Edicts off our backs, and Dryad Militant ensures nobody pulls any loopy ridiculousness with the spells in their graveyards.

Mana Base

We love running green here at Legends Legends. Having easy access to ramp is one of the only ways we can justify running a six-mana 5/5 with no abilities as our commander. As such, this deck is running a solid 36 lands, four ramp spells (our only sorceries), and five mana rocks for accelerating our mana base early and keeping it chugging along in the late game.

Bracket

Moxfield has automatically ranked this deck as Bracket 3, and that's solely due to one card: Enlightened Tutor. This cheap Game Changer tutor is the best way for us to rush out our Anointed Procession, Doubling Season, or Cathars' Crusade. It's understandable that consistent access to those three enchantments could be punishing to play against, but I'm confident that with Enlightened Tutor as our only game changer, and only one other tutor besides (Shared Summons), we'll have no problems playing at a lower power level like Bracket 2.

Budget

The estimated cost for the singles in this deck comes out to about $275 for the cheapest printings. There are a couple of cards that specifically drive that price point up.

The first is Anointed Procession. At $60, it's twice as expensive as the next most expensive card in this deck (Esper Sentinel), but it could technically be replaced with Primal Vigor for a cheaper but slower effect.

Next is that Esper Sentinel itself. At $30, we can probably find some similar draw power for a cheaper price. Even an Icon of Ancestry works well enough, letting us dig through the top of our library to find specifically Soldier tokens.

Torsten Von Ursus Decklist

Wrap Up

Torsten Von Ursus founded the city of Benalia in what used to be the "blighted city of Benfosa." He chose the name "Benalia" because it means "aspiration" (the MTGwiki doesn't specify which language they're referencing), and I find that inspirational. Torsten spent his entire seventy-two years of life forging a nation out of his iron will and charisma, and his legacy has lasted throughout thousands of years of made-up fantasy history. We should all be so prolific!

Thanks, once again, for reading! Check back next time for the very last Legends Legends, where I cover the Cat Warrior I've been putting off for so long, Jedit Ojanen!