Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger

Legendary Creature — Cat Warrior // Legendary Planeswalker — Ajani · {1}{W} · Red/White commander

When Ajani enters, create a 2/1 white Cat Warrior creature token. Whenever one or more other Cats you control die, you may exile Ajani, then return him to the battlefield transformed under his owner's control. +2: Put a +1/+1 counter on each Cat you control. 0: Create a 2/1 white Cat Warrior creature token. When you do, if you control a red permanent other than Ajani, he deals damage equal to the number of creatures you control to any target. −4: Each opponent chooses an artifact, a creature, an enchantment, and a planeswalker from among the nonland permanents they control, then sacrifices the rest.

Build an Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger deck →

What Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger actually does

Read off the card by the same engine the Forge and Analyzer use — this is the mechanical classification, not a summary.

• Triggered ability · etbWhen Ajani enters, create a 2/1 white Cat Warrior creature token.
• Triggered ability · otherWhenever one or more other Cats you control die, you may exile Ajani, then return him to the battlefield transformed under his owner's control.
• Activated ability+2: Put a +1/+1 counter on each Cat you control.
• Activated ability0: Create a 2/1 white Cat Warrior creature token. When you do, if you control a red permanent other than Ajani, he deals damage equal to the number of creatures you control to any target.
• Activated ability−4: Each opponent chooses an artifact, a creature, an enchantment, and a planeswalker from among the nonland permanents they control, then sacrifices the rest.

What an Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger deck needs

Plays as cat typal. What the commander asks of the other 99 — read from the card and checked by hand.

• expendable creatures and free sacrifice outlets (its payoff is creatures dying)
• ways to keep the commander planeswalker alive (blockers, fogs, pillowfort), loyalty growth (proliferate, loyalty boosters) and planeswalker synergies — it must survive a turn cycle to work
• blink and recursion aimed at the commander itself (its value is its own enter trigger)
• +1/+1 counter producers and payoffs (its text places or reads +1/+1 counters)
• cat creatures (its text counts them)

The Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger deck plan

The roles the Forge fills for this commander, and how many cards of each.

• 6× Exile a permanent you control and return it — the button a value-ETB deck presses
• 26× A body of the exact type the commander's trigger requires — the wrong type is worthless here regardless of quality
• 8× A permanent whose value is in its enter-the-battlefield trigger — the payload a blink deck reuses
• 6× Proliferate — every counter already placed is placed again
• 6× Repeat, double, protect or find planeswalkers — the engine around a planeswalker commander
• 14× Put +1/+1 counters on creatures you control, or multiply the ones already there
• 4× A team pump that actually pumps tokens
• 4× Sacrifice a creature for no mana, repeatably
• 5× Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it

Best cards for Ajani, Nacatl Pariah // Ajani, Nacatl Avenger

Ranked by an engine that reads what each card does — its real cost, its delay and how reliably it works — rather than counting how often other people play it.

Build this deck in the Arcane Forge →

Arcane Foundry is free to join and every tool is included: the Arcane Forge deck builder, the ARCANE Analyzer that scores a deck by simulating games rather than counting staples, a card scanner, a collection vault, and live webcam Commander tables. Read the guide · Browse all commanders · Pricing