Bruna's Human Squad

[ISBPathfinder]

So, when Rick, Steadfast Leader got spoiled, I did tinker with a list with him at the helm but I had actually already been toying with the idea of if Bruna, the Fading Light could head up a mono white humans concept before that due to Angel of Glory's Rise. When we saw Rick I started to slowly kind of piece together some thoughts. This is far from finished and I don't know if I will ever build it IRL but it looks and feels very different than my current Bruna list which is more of a mix of the two than a specific tribe. My current list would be best defined by hatebears where as this list is more of a proactive swarm style of deck.

I don't even know how many cards I have offhand. I feel like I should probably dig a bit deeper and find at least one more equipment I like. I haven't looked that far into a lot of the non human tribe cards either so, like I said this is kind of rough and I just thought I would put it out there and see if anyone wants to see where I am at and or has any suggestions for it. It doesn't have much for control as I thought this would likely be a little more of a proactive gameplan style of deck. I could probably use more draw (as usual).

Well, let me know what you think.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

COMMANDER

1 Bruna, the Fading Light

CREATURES

1 Serra Ascendant

1 Thraben Inspector

1 Weathered Wayfarer

1 Drannith Magistrate

1 Stoneforge Mystic

1 Mentor of the Meek

1 Mirror Entity

1 Ranger-Captain of Eos

1 Recruiter of the Guard

1 Gisela, the Broken Blade

1 Hero of Bladehold

1 Mangara, the Diplomat

1 Odric, Lunarch Marshal

1 Odric, Master Tactician

1 Ranger of Eos

1 Rick, Steadfast Leader

1 Trynn, Champion of Freedom

1 Archangel of Thune

1 Reverent Hoplite

1 Thalia's Lancers

1 Victory's Envoy

1 Captain of the Watch

1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero

1 Evangel of Heliod

1 Lena, Selfless Champion

1 Silverwing Squadron

1 Angel of Glory's Rise

1 Emeria Shepherd

ARTIFACT

1 Skullclamp

1 Sol Ring

1 Altar of Dementia

1 Konda's Banner

1 Eldrazi Monument

ENCHANTMENT

1 Aura of Silence

1 Fanatical Devotion

1 Martyr's Cause

1 Marshal's Anthem

1 True Conviction

INSTANT

1 Tithe

1 Unexpectedly Absent

1 Call the Coppercoats

1 Generous Gift

1 Teferi's Protection

1 Return to Dust

SORCERY

1 Steelshaper's Gift

1 Open the Armory

1 Increasing Devotion

PLANESWALKER

1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

LAND (38)

1 Castle Ardenvale

1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin

1 Kjeldoran Outpost

1 Kor Haven

1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

1 Opal Palace

28 Plains

1 Strip Mine

1 Tectonic Edge

1 Windbrisk Heights

1 Winding Canyons

Approximate Total Cost:

[Couver]

I love this list! I have to admit I was indifferent to the TWD cards until they spoiled Rick. I love Mono W and humans so I was very tempted to brew a deck around him. But I'm holding off until they hopefully print him as an actual card. He seems like such an Odric template.

I toyed around with a Bruna tribal humans deck as a good friend was already using her at the head of an angel tribal deck and I still wanted to be able to play her as the head of a deck without copying them. I like your addition of Trynn, Champion of Freedom and Drannith Magistrate . I've never worked up the nerve to use him in a deck yet. But humans do really need to lean into hatebears.

Curious why you didn't try this list with Sigarda, Heron's Grace ? She was ultimately the commander I went with for human tribal. Bruna fits nicely in that deck. Is it just a preference for Mono W? I will admit Sigarda's ability is sometimes not relevant. But when it is relevant it's really useful to have.

[ISBPathfinder]

I love this list! I have to admit I was indifferent to the TWD cards until they spoiled Rick. I love Mono W and humans so I was very tempted to brew a deck around him. But I'm holding off until they hopefully print him as an actual card. He seems like such an Odric template.

I toyed around with a Bruna tribal humans deck as a good friend was already using her at the head of an angel tribal deck and I still wanted to be able to play her as the head of a deck without copying them. I like your addition of Trynn, Champion of Freedom and Drannith Magistrate . I've never worked up the nerve to use him in a deck yet. But humans do really need to lean into hatebears.

Curious why you didn't try this list with Sigarda, Heron's Grace ? She was ultimately the commander I went with for human tribal. Bruna fits nicely in that deck. Is it just a preference for Mono W? I will admit Sigarda's ability is sometimes not relevant. But when it is relevant it's really useful to have.

Hatebears - my current list has a lot more hatebear concepts to it but I also think it has superior draw as it is right now as I have things like Mask of Memory with flyers giving that a better delivery system and I think I can also defend myself a bit better with my current list which uses monarch due to being able to defend itself better. One of the hardest things about hatebears is that they aren't always relevant. If you hate on things like ETB, nonbasic land, or graveyards there will be times where those effects don't have as much effect because of what your opponent is playing and so they can be sort of bad in those situations so if you don't have sufficient draw to offset them you can find yourself running out of steam. Hatebears also tend to represent a terrible clock in commander and can be a bit prone to being swept by wraths in an unfavorable way. Its a strategy that I wouldn't really suggest in most cases to an extreme but I think there are individual cards that tend to perform better than others and when mixed in with some good card advantage they can be useful.

Sigarda, Heron's Grace - So, I avoided her because in my mind humans is a go wide strategy and while its true that she can make tokens the cost to make those tokens is kind of steep in that you need creatures to exile from your bin. I think the number of reasonable ways to fill a graveyard with creatures in GW is not great and I also don't like eating creatures out of my graveyard myself when in white as I would rather resurrect those creatures. I also think that humans is a go wide strategy and while it is true that Sigarda could protect an anthem like Rick or Odric, I think that as a whole when going wide I am more fearful of sweepers than I am of spot removal. Its not like Rick does much on his own, you need to go wide for those tactics to work and I just am not that big of a fan of hexproof as a source of protection to be honest. More importantly, I think Bruna does a good job of going wide in that you cast her and immediately have two threats in play. Its a great wrath recovery plan and it also makes killing without exiling our important humans a lot less relevant. I considered putting Rick at the helm but I felt like I had enough density of solid humans that I could instead play a sticky gameplan rather than just going with Rick at the helm which is likely a faster proactive gameplan but one worse against removal. I also have a bias towards Bruna and mono white as a whole so take that for whatever you will. Having played with Bruna for a few years now I enjoy her as a commander and I was actually looking into a bruna humans list before Rick got spoiled.

[Couver]

Hatebears are for sure something I have to get better at running. I have certainly found myself in situations like you described above where they don't do anything. But I like that the ones you have included are specific and it is not just a hatebear strategy across the board. Plus since they do tend to get killed quickly Bruna's ability to recur them is great.