Aryel, Knight of Windgrace is one of Dominaria's many sweet legendary creatures, and she plays into two strong Commander themes with her tribal synergies and activated abilities. This budget build looks to cash in on both for a combat centered gameplan with a flavorful tribe.
It's worth noting at the very start that Aryel's first activated ability is overcosted, but her second is very reasonably costed. Alert Shu Infantry is not a card worth putting in a Commander deck, but Fatal Push with a higher ceiling and potentially easier conditions to meet is great. This deck makes up for the overcosted first ability by 1) making sure that the token does not remain a mere 2/2, 2) running plenty of other knights and tribal synergies to make the token's creature type matter, and 3) playing cards that maximize ways to use Aryel's second, more efficient ability. All that said, the first ability gives you a way to hold up mana, but not waste that mana if other interaction is not necessary.
Knight Time With Aryel
Approximate Total Cost:
Knighty Knight
After taking a good look at Aryel, Knight of Windgrace, it's easy to conclude she wants to command a knight tribal deck. Not only does she spit out tokens in her tribe, she also cares about having lots of knights in play for her second ability, which will help you deal with small or moderately sized threats.
Consider carefully how best to utilize Aryel. Kudos to the designers for including a big hint on a cool card! The key is her and her tokens' vigilance. An often overlooked and underappreciated keyword, vigilance offers a lot of flexibility both offensively and defensively. It allows you to attack, block, and tap Aryel and her knights in shining armor in a single turn cycle.
More of a good thing is rarely bad, so the deck has more vigilance to keep lances pointed forward and shields up:
Gallant Cavalry and Basri's Lieutenant each give two vigilant bodies, and the latter's protection can prove useful.
Danitha Capashen, Paragon and Dawnstrike Paladin are great equipment carriers with both vigilance and lifelink, and Danitha's mana discount is helpful too.
Knight of Obligation is a solid vigilant body with a great ability for multiplayer. extra upon casting a spell to ping each opponent and gain 3 is a favorable rate and helps you ensure you spend all your mana except for what you'll need for Aryel activations and/or instants.
Brave the Sands gives the whole team vigilance and some great defensive utility. Radiant Destiny and Always Watching give both a stat boost and vigilance to your knights. The latter only helps non-tokens, but most tokens in the deck are vigilant anyhow, so that's not a problem.
Lords and Anthems are classic tribal payoffs and, while Orzhov has a lot of anthems to choose from, you want the ones with knight as a creature type on the card.
Syr Alin, the Lion's Claw gives a modest boost when attacking (you'll be doing plenty of it) and first strike makes combat tough for your opponents.
Accorder Paladin and Belle of the Brawl give an even more modest attack boost, but you'll want as high a density of knights as you can reasonably get, and the effect is welcome in a combat centric deck.
Valiant Knight gives a static pump and a fantastic activated ability that's critical for a swarm strategy, commander damage gameplan, or both at the same time.
Etchings of the Chosen gives a static buff and uses tokens to protect Aryel and other critical creatures. Make a Stand fills a similar role, but with a one time buff.
Icon of Ancestry is a fantastic card for the deck since it both buffs and gets more cards into your hand.
Heraldic Banner buffs most of your knights (you'll usually choose white for your tokens' sake) while ramping you.
Sword of the Paruns is a top contender for best card in the deck, allowing you to pump the team's power or toughness at will when combined with Aryel's second activated ability, then get multiple activations by untapping her when desired, all at instant speed.
Finally there's The Circle of Loyalty: a cost reduced, knight buffing token producer. Seems good.
Value All Day And Knight
Low CMC knights like Knight of the Ebon Legion, Blacklance Paragon, Wintermoor Commander, and Corpse Knight curve out wonderfully the turn after Aryel allowing you to hold up mana for an activation while giving you some kind of value.
Knight of the White Orchid can be awkward if you are player one, but generally a green deck is ramping up and you can get your plains out of it. The first strike becomes a bigger deal as it gets buffed up.
Acclaimed Contender, Midnight Reaper, Liliana's Standard Bearer, Champion of Dusk, and Knights of the Black Rose keep the cards flowing.
Mentor of the Meek, one of a few creatures in the deck that isn't a knight, is a stellar draw engine in conjunction with Aryel's token production.
Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is a powerful and difficult to remove recursion piece for the deck, and Gravebreaker Lamia is another non-knight worth including to "Entomb" Haakon. If he gets stuck in your hand, Call the Bloodline is a way to send him to the bin.
Forerunner of the Legion can search up a Champion of Dusk or Knight of the Ebon Legion, and Thalia's Lancers can search up several different tools, such as Danitha Capashen, Paragon, one of the monuments, or The Circle of Loyalty,depending on the situation.
Wrapping up the knights are combat specialists Silverblade Paladin and Mirran Crusader, and a sweet tribal payoff in Smitten Swordmaster // Curry Favor, which can win the game for a in some circumstances.
The Armory
What is a knight without a sword, shield, lance, and suit of armor? Well, uhhhh, this deck doesn't have all of those things, but it is packing utility cards to enhance Aryel and her compatriots.
You will want to maximize your Aryel, Knight of Windgrace activations, and Magewright's Stone and Puppet Strings are a good start.
Sudden Spoiling can be a huge combat blowout in your favor, but it also goes great with Aryel's second ability since you can now remove a threat for and tapping just Aryel since can = 0 (even better if you can untap Aryel and do it again). Sorceress Queen is a blast from Magic's past that let's you do this repeatedly!
Aryel is 3 power short of the magic number 7 for a 3-turn commander damage kill. Loxodon Warhammer gets you there, Rogue's Passage helps you connect, and the deck's several anthem and double strike cards pitch in too.
Heirloom Blade is basically made for Aryel since it pushes her to seven power and gets you knight value of she's removed. Swiftfoot Boots help protect her and get her attacking and tapping right away.
The deck wants to be attacking, and Sigiled Sword of Valeron keeps attackers flowing. You can get cute and use it to turn Gravebreaker Lamia into an honorary knight for some value.
Lastly, Knights' Charge can be a game changer with either the life gain/drain, mass recursion, or both.
Quest for the Holy Grail
Alright, so there aren't any Holy Relics of yesteryear in the deck, but you will be chasing after the Grail for all Commander decks: Mana Ramp, Card Draw, and Removal.
In Orzhov colors your ramp options will be limited, but there are the old standbys Sol Ring, Orzhov Signet, and Talisman of Hierarchy.
Mind Stone is thrown in to ramp early and provide some added late game card draw if you no longer need the extra mana.
Wayfarer's Bauble is fantastic in that it puts a land onto the battlefield, which is much harder to come by when you aren't playing green.
Bontu's Monument and Oketra's Monument are strong since the deck is creature heavy, cost reduction can sometimes account for more "extra" mana throughout a game than a rock or additional land, and the cast triggers are relevant. Unfortunately Oketra's Monument makes warrior tokens instead of knights, but they can still be pumped by many of our anthems, and vigilance is good even if they can't tap for Aryel activations.
Budget lists obviously have to make some concessions, and one way to save a few bucks is to run Pillar of Origins over something like Fellwar Stone and get away with it in your tribal, creature-heavy deck.
Getting ramp out of your manabase is a good idea, and Myriad Landscape belongs in just about any deck that runs more than a couple of basics. Mage-Ring Network is generally clunky, but here it's actually quite smooth: you can hold up the network and to activate either of Aryel's abilities on your opponent's end step, depending on what you need, and if it is Aryel's costed ability that you choose to use, you can still tap Network and your remaining mana for a storage counter to bank it for later.
The majority of the deck's card draw comes from a handful of the knights already covered and, most of all, Mentor of the Meek, but you want a healthy dose of options when it comes to filling your hand.
Sign in Blood, Night's Whisper, and Read the Bones are three great one shot card draw spells for the early to mid game to smooth out your draws and find your land drops, but also in the late game to make sure you don't run out of gas.
Tome of Legends is a solid budget option for a deck looking to attack early and often with its commander, and can fairly reliably generate an extra card per turn once it's out.
From the manabase you get some help from Castle Locthwain in a pinch, and Memorial to Folly or Buried Ruin can trade mana production for pseudo card advantage via recursion.
Aryel's second ability should give you a significant amount of targeted creature removal to deal with problems, so you can go a little lighter in that department.
For other removal that hits several different kinds of targets, there is Despark and Crush Contraband. Righteous Confluence only nabs enchantments, but the other two modes are perfectly acceptable when you don't have 3 enchantments to target and could be better in certain situations.
You're playing a creature heavy deck that wants to make more creatures and utilize the ones you already have, so board wipes that kill all your knights as well as opponent's creatures aren't a great idea. There are great options out there that would avoid that outcome, but here in budget land not so much. Sometimes you just have to wipe the board though, so Tragic Arrogance will at least let you do it without getting rid of Aryel and your best artifact while letting your opponents keep their weakest permanents.
Budget Aryel comes out to be just under $75 (Haakon, Stromgald Scourge shows on MTG Nexus as $13.55 currently, but it was recently reprinted and can be found as low as $.29 online, so I've factored that in), which ranges from extreme for a card game to perfectly reasonable depending on your history with Magic, collection size, available funds, etc. In Commander, generally speaking, any deck under $100 (or more according to some) would be considered budget.
I think it's a great choice for newer players since it's linear, proactive, creature/combat centered, and it teaches about instant speed interaction with Aryel's activations. Plus, knights are cool.
If you dig Aryel, Knight of Windgrace, but budget is not an issue, there are plenty of goodies out there for you: Elenda, the Dusk Rose, Hero of Bladehold, Kinsbaile Cavalier, Knight Exemplar, Phyrexian Crusader, Puresteel Paladin, Vona, Butcher of Magan, Herald's Horn, Konda's Banner, Vanquisher's Banner, Obelisk of Urd, Door of Destinies, Metallic Mimic and Urza's Incubator would be some of the ideas I'd start with.
Let me know what you think!
