There are a lot of tribes in EDH. In fact, there’s far more than we’d like to count. The thing is though, it can be hard to find a new one to mess around with, because a lot of the more popular ones can cost a lot of money to acquire.
That’s why it’s good to look outside of the most played ones and take a chance on a lesser-known tribe instead. So, maybe now’s a good time to consider the noble Unicorn tribe? After all, it has two very entertaining options for your Commander.
Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn
First up, we have Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn. Lathiel is a four-mana green and white 2/2 with lifelink. It reads, “At the beginning of each end step, if you gained life this turn, distribute up to that many +1/+1 counters among any number of other target creatures.”
Unsurprisingly then, the logical way to take a deck with Lathiel at the helm is into life gain mechanics. You don’t just have to use Unicorns, of course, but it’s a fun one to mess around with. Green and white both have plenty of ways to gain life, so there should never be any issues when trying to do so.
Lathiel is very much the option you want to go for if you like playing around with having a lot of life, and if you also like cards that mess around with +1/+1 counters too. This is nearly always an easy thing to do in green and white, so it makes perfect sense to have it Though, on that last one, the other option for this tribe also likes to dabble in +1/+1 counters as well.
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Emiel the Blessed
Emiel the Blessed is a little bit more complex than Latheil. Maybe that’s why they’re a Mythic Rare instead of just a Rare. For four-mana, you get a white 4/4 with two paragraphs of text. The second one, which means you are still green and white, allows you to pay one mana to put a+1/+1 counter on a creature when they enter the battlefield, and it becomes two +1/+1 counters if that creature happens to be a Unicorn.
The first ability is the really fun one though, as it allows you to pay three mana to “Exile another target creature you control, then return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control.” The key thing here is that the creature doesn’t come in tapped, so you can use this to untap creatures as surprise blockers, among other things.
It means that you can still enjoy the benefits of +1/+1 counters, but it also means you can go hard on ETB triggers. This is always a fun thing to do in Commander. Of course, because both of these legendary creatures happen to be in the same colors, you can always just put them both in the same deck and do a little bit of everything. Actually, you should just do that, that sounds great.
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