Sift Through Sands - Gnostro and Lathiel

Evra, Halcyon Witness

| Art by Johannes Voss

Slice of Life

Hello, all! If you're like me, you're thrilled about the release of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate. You're even so thrilled that you preordered a box and couldn't help but gush about the flavor of the set.

Shameless self-plug aside, if you haven't checked out the set reviews posted here and on EDHREC, definitely do that. There are some great insights!

That being said, it's back to the usual grind here on Sift Through Sands, and this week we'll be talking about two commanders from the last Commander Legends: Gnostro, Voice of the Crags

Our Picks

Gnostro and Lathiel are fun to build around because they provide utility payoffs. Lifegain in Commander is very popular, but you need a way to turn lots of life into winning the game. Gnostro and Lathiel both lend themselves to different archetypes, with Gnostro usually having a Storm build while Lathiel often being a straightforward +1/+1 counters deck. However, they both give us a lot of room to work with. Gnostro is our payoff, providing three different utility options as we sling our spells, and similarly, Lathiel allows us to turn passive lifegain into aggressive damage. They're fair, balanced, and still easily powerful. Let's check Gnostro out!

Playing Gnostro

We're going with Storm in this deck, as you can see, but in a different way than usual. Gnostro is probably better in the 99 of a different Storm deck, but having access to the utility options at any time make it shine. As we begin the game, ramp is always important, but more importantly, it's important to time our draw spells well to filter through the deck. Cards like Faithless Looting

Once we have some mana, getting Gnostro out is a priority, along with some of our other Storm payoffs. Jori En, Ruin Diver

The real stars of the deck come in building around pieces that Gnostro helps us take advantage of. Gnostro's lifegain ability is the least exciting of the three options (sorry, horse head), but leaning into lifegain can help surprise opponents who are going to be expecting the late-game Mind's Desire

In a more focused way than Gnostro, our Lathiel deck is based around using Lathiel as a payoff for passive lifegain. Let's take a look at the list.

Playing Lathiel

I run this Lathiel list in paper, and it's an all-star. Lifegain is inherently unimpressive to many players, and Lathiel being able to take advantage of massive gain combos is a sight to behold. As we move into the game, the potential to get massive creatures suddenly is a common occurrence, and it can happen at surprising speed. Starting from turn one, we want to get our low-to-the-ground threats on the table. Soldier of the Pantheon

Once we get Lathiel in play, we start setting up our big plays. Interactive creatures, like Shattered Angel

As we assemble our threats, utility and removal are important. Any lifegain we can tack on to generally useful spells helps the deck keep rolling. Board wiping with Righteous Fury

Gain Package

This incidental lifegain binds our Gnostro and Lathiel decks together. In both decks, we have cards that gain us incidental life for payoffs, allowing us to take advantage of what may seem unimpressive or too defensive to some opponents. Although there are many of these in both decks, the following cards are in both lists:

These cards work well in tandem. The creatures boost our life totals to enable our big threats, while Sigarda's Splendor

That's all for now! Hope everyone enjoys brewing with Battle for Baldur's Gate! And I want to hear about your lifegain decks! Do you run off-color ones, like Philomène's Izzet list, or you a madman who runs Heroes' Reunion