Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Arcades, the Strategist

Arcades, the Strategist

Legendary Creature — Elder Dragon · {1}{G}{W}{U} · Green/Blue/White commander

Flying, vigilance Whenever a creature you control with defender enters, draw a card. Each creature you control with defender assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power and can attack as though it didn't have defender.

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What Arcades, the Strategist 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 · etbWhenever a creature you control with defender enters, draw a card.
• Static ability · restrictionEach creature you control with defender assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power and can attack as though it didn't have defender.
• Keyword · flyingflying
• Keyword · vigilancevigilance

What an Arcades, the Strategist deck needs

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

• creatures and permanents entering every turn — cheap bodies, blink and recursion (its trigger fires on each one)
• cards with defender (its trigger only counts them)
• high-toughness creatures — walls, defenders and +0/+X effects (its text reads the team's toughness)

The Arcades, the Strategist deck plan

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

• 18× A permanent that does something every turn it is on the battlefield — the deck's body, for a commander whose text asks for nothing specific
• 16× A creature that HAS the keyword the commander's trigger counts — a card that merely says the word is not one
• 16× A permanent whose value is in its enter-the-battlefield trigger — the payload a blink deck reuses
• 6× Exile a permanent you control and return it — the button a value-ETB deck presses
• 5× Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it
• 9× Find the exact card the plan needs
• 2× Answer a spell or ability before it resolves
• 1× Answer a whole board at once
• 7× Refill your hand

Best cards for Arcades, the Strategist

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.

Combos with Arcades, the Strategist

Known combos from Commander Spellbook that Arcades, the Strategist is a piece of, and how many decks list them.

• Arcades, the Strategist + Shield Sphere + Tangleroot + Words Of Wind19 decks

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