Hello everyone, I am PieGonti and today I will break down my favorite Duel Commander deck: Aragorn, King of Gondor. 

I decided to play this specific commander for some reasons: 

1) I love playing tempo decks, meaning I love both to do precise combat steps, drawing cards, and counter spells. 

2) I identify the best cards in the format to be Force of Will, Subtlety and Drannith Magistrate, and this Aragorn build is likely the best one in which you can play those.

3) I am playing Commander, so I want my commander to be a powerful tool that creates mayhem and possibly wins the game once I cast it.

With this being said, let’s dive into this amazing deck! 

Deckbuilding Philosophy | Aragorn in Duel Commander

I decided to build my deck in a tempo-way, meaning I prioritized cheap, flash creatures to big and powerful ones. I want my first three turns of the game to be really interactive, and I plan to have a board before slamming my commander. This is specifically important, since “The Monarch” emblem might be a double-edged sword when opponents steal it.

Creatures like Aboleth Spawn, Archivist of Oghma, Hullbreacher or Solitude are your best friends, as you can decide to slam them in your opponent's turn, while you keep mana up to counter their eventual best plays. 

Alongside creatures with Flash, I have some other “big dudes” that help me win the game when I am behind: this is the case for Seasoned Dungeoneer, Pyrogoyf and Fury. It felt odd to have many 4 or 5 drops, and I ended cutting most of them, leaving only the best ones. 

The third category of creatures help to “steal the monarch” in race situations: they aren’t many, as they don’t do much besides attacking, but it’s important to include a couple just in case your flash creatures can’t get the job done. I am talking about Mother of Runes; Pippin, Guard of the City, Mantis Rider and obviously True Name Nemesis, the best of them all. 

Speaking of Noncreature Spells, I run almost only interactions, with the only exception to be Brainstorm. I often disliked cantrips, as they’re awkward to cast before turn 5, and just filled those slots with more one mana removals and counters. A thing to note is, your fetchlands often turn into cantrips as you’ve access to all three jeskai surveil lands. Make sure to fetch them out if you’re looking for something specific. 

The interactions suite of this deck is the best one you will see in the format: Force of Will, Swords to Plowshares, Wash Away, Force of Negation and many other busted cards are even more broken when your commander is Aragorn.

After many tries, I settled for 40 lands, including Sink into Stupor. Flood and screw are inevitable with this deck, and I lost some games drawing three lands in a row after gaining the Monarch; on the other hand it’s really important to have four lands on turn four, since deploying Aragorn is often how you win games. 

My manabase is quite stock, with the only “weird change” is I hate to play with pain lands, so I cut them all to add more duals such as Floodfarm Verge. 

My only man-land is Restless Anchorage; playing taplands is a huge cost for this deck, and the other options aren’t great at helping your main plan. 

The worst lands I am playing are Reflecting Pool and Hengegate Pathway; they will likely be cut once new and better lands will be printed.

How does the deck fits the meta | Aragorn in Duel Commander

To my eyes, Duel Commander is a fast format, where every card you play should have a strong impact on the game. This is why I feel Aragorn is one of the best decks: on turn 4 you should always be able to play a 4/4 lifelinker that draws you an extra card every turn. 

Mulliganing in this format is quite impactful, since most of the decks already have their 1-2 drops as a commander; Aragorn doesn’t mulligan super well, but doing the Mengu keep of “lands and spells” often works. 

I do think Aragorn is a great choice, as the meta is still full of creature-based aggro-midrange decks, and the King of Gondor really slays them all. Winning a race vs Aragorn itself is almost impossible, as this commander not only has lifelink but also decides how the combat goes through. 

Aboleth Spawn, Solitude and Phlage are the best creatures vs opposing creature decks, as they can change the pace of the game and they create incremental advantage after 2x1ing.

Speaking of the mirror, it feels play/draw dependent (as always) but it’s also really dictated by Force and Subtlety: having them in your opener makes it really easy for you to execute your plan. Lands are more important than threats, as there are a ton of removals hanging around. Being able to double-spell each turn might be the key to solving the mirror. 

On a side note, my decklist should be ahead of any other deck list that doesn’t have Pyrogoyf, Fury or Mantis Rider since they’re all crushers.

The deck tends to struggle vs control decks/decks that try to make the game as long as possible, since at some point drawing cards like Force Spike or Mother of Runes is similar to skip a draw step, and usually control decks have a good way to counter/deal with Aragorn itself. 

The best way to approach those matchups is to get down on board attacking the life total as soon as possible, and then slamming threats until something sticks and wins you the game. 

The best cards in these matchups are White Plume Adventurer, Seasoned Dungeoneer, Archivist of Oghma and Hullbreacher. 

With that being said, I never felt behind to play against anything (except the mirror OTD) as I feel Aragorn has all the tools to win vs any matchup. The deck is broken!

Tips and Tricks | Aragorn in Duel Commander

When you have diverse counters, make sure to use first the most specific ones, and then the most generic, combining this rule of thumb with how you sequence your mana. Also, you should try to understand what you want to counter, generically speaking (their commander? Their creatures because they’re winning the race? Any value permanent?) This is specifically important to not lose to time / draw too many games. The format is really grindy. 

Speaking of counters, play Mana Thite, Force Spike and similar effects as early as possible, as they are usually terrible after your opponent has 5 lands in play. 

It’s not mandatory to use your surveil lands in the first turns of the game, if you have other ways to spend your mana. Being able to always draw strong cards is really important in long games. On a side note, keeping your fetches up makes Samwise an alive draw. Just look out for Stifle effects!

Hands with 4 lands are better than hands with 2 lands. You can consider to mulligan strange hands with few lands - this is because your commander is very powerful, but costs 4. Achieving the 4th mana will make your games really easy. 

Lightning Greaves / Arena of Glory are bonkers to have when you’re setting up an Aragorn. You can even skip a turn to play Greaves, to have the certainty that your commander will come hasty and protected. 

Phelia is my favorite creature in the deck: blinking Teferi, Fables and many other of your permanents is a key to win. If you can, don’t slam into removal, and wait for her to provide extra value

Parallax Wave + Tale’s End/Borrower/Tishana’s Tidebinder is a good way to boardwipe your opponent. Other cool plays are Spell Queller + Teferi lock and Remand/Reprieve your own Aragorn in response to a counter. I bet there are many others, it’s up to you to catch them all!

The future of the archetype | Aragorn in Duel Commander

I can predict Aragorn will be one of the best decks in the format, as it was good even during Tamiyo times, and even before. The worst cards I play in my main deck, I’d like to cut, are Oust, Cathar Commando, Samwise, the Stouthearted and Fire // Ice. We will see what MTG Foundations and the Avengers sets will bring to us.

If you come this far, thank you, and I hope this article inspired you to try this marvelous Commander deck! 

Good luck and may Gondor be with you.