In Commander, one of the most popular strategies that players love crafting around is Life Gain. There are a variety of different legends to choose from that can pay you off for gaining life and tie your whole deck together.
Of all the options out there, one of the most unique is undoubtedly Will, Scion of Peace. This Wizard Commander perfectly combines life gain and ramp themes together into one cohesive archetype. His activated ability even opens the door for some sweet infinite combos.
MTG Will, Scion of Peace
On the surface, Will, Scion of Peace is a rather simple card. After all, almost all of his value is placed on his activated ability, which has the potential to pull you super far ahead over the course of a few turns. That being said, there are a variety of different ways to maximize what Will has to offer. You just need the right support elements to get you started.
In order to get the most out of Will’s activated ability, you want to incorporate cards that can gain you chunks of life at once. Classic Soul Warden-style effects aren’t as useful here as they are in other Life Gain shells unless you can trigger them a ton of times in one turn. Instead, your best bet is to utilize cards like Martyr of Sands and Beacon of Immortality to get a huge boost from your Commander. Alternatively, setting up an attack with some big Lifelink threats, such as Sphinx of the Revelation, can help you maximize Will without needing to invest a bunch of extra mana on the same turn. Venser’s Journal and Ajani, Strength of the Pride serve a similar purpose by repeatedly gaining you life turn after turn.
From there, you’ll need some beefy blue or white spells to cast on a discount. X spells from Finale of Glory to the new Mathemagics are your best friends, since they have no upper limit in their casting costs. Of course, big bombs like Time Stretch or Storm Herd are worthy inclusions as well.
It’s important to note that because Will’s ability affects every spell you play post-activation, you’ll often be able to jam a bunch of huge spells in one turn. This also opens the door for you to cast pricy Buyback spells like Whispers of the Muse over and over and reap the rewards.
Infinite Combos
In addition to helping you cast a flurry of expensive spells, Will’s discount also enables a multitude of infinite combos. Whispers of the Muse is already a natural fit in Will decks, and when combined with Chakram Retriever and any mana dork that taps for blue, you can draw your entire deck. Interestingly, you can execute other combos with different Buyback cards, too. Replacing Whispers of the Muse with Recruit the Worthy and a white mana dork, for example, can make infinite tokens instead.
Notably, Buyback spells aren’t the only way to generate infinite tokens with Will, Scion of Peace. So long as you’ve gained two life, Appa, Steadfast Guardian and Felidar Guardian can create an infinite flicker combo, allowing Appa to generate tokens each time you cast your Airbent Felidar Guardian for free.
For players who want to go above and beyond, one of the coolest combos to execute is making infinite Islands with Orvar, the All-Form, and View from Above. To start, you need to animate one of your Islands into a creature. Then, after gaining at least one life and tapping Will, tap the animated Island and target it with View from Above. This will trigger Orvar, netting you an Island token that you can use to recast View from Above and keep the chain going. Unfortunately, because most blue “Manlands” enter tapped, it does take some work to get this combo going in a Will Commander shell. Nonetheless, any Earthbending effect or creatures like Avalanche Caller will do the trick.
Powerful, Cheap, and Fun
Despite the fact that Will’s ability can lead to some extremely explosive sequences, the legend hasn’t quite been given the respect he deserves. With under 5,000 decks utilizing Will in the command zone according to EDHREC, there’s plenty of room for this Commander to grow.
Beyond its uses as a build-around, Will also makes for a strong addition to the 99 of other Life Gain strategies. Oloro, Ageless Ascetic decks make for perfect homes for this Wizard since you’ll always get a discount of at least two on your spells via Oloro’s trigger. Even without any other synergies, simply using Will as an accelerant to cast Oloro ahead of schedule makes his inclusion worthwhile.
If Will’s efficiency and upside weren’t enough of a reason to give him a shot, his price tag makes him an easy asset to acquire. Sitting at under $1, Will is a strong, affordable, and exciting card to craft around.
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