Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Haliya, Ascendant Cadet

Haliya, Ascendant Cadet

Legendary Creature — Human Soldier · {2}{G}{W}{W} · Green/White commander

Whenever Haliya enters or attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. Whenever one or more creatures you control with +1/+1 counters on them deal combat damage to a player, draw a card.

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What Haliya, Ascendant Cadet 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 · attackWhenever Haliya enters or attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control.
• Triggered ability · deals_damageWhenever one or more creatures you control with +1/+1 counters on them deal combat damage to a player, draw a card.

What a Haliya, Ascendant Cadet deck needs

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

• blink and recursion aimed at the commander itself (its value is its own enter trigger)
• creatures that grow with +1/+1 counters and counter payoffs (it spreads counters across your team)
• many cheap evasive attackers and team evasion (every creature that connects triggers it)
• haste, evasion and protection for the commander, and extra combats (its own attack is the engine)

The Haliya, Ascendant Cadet deck plan

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

• 11× A 0-1 mana creature that reliably attacks UNBLOCKED — the cost the commander's ability consumes, and the only way it gets onto the battlefield
• 7× Exile a permanent you control and return it — the button a value-ETB deck presses
• 8× A permanent whose value is in its enter-the-battlefield trigger — the payload a blink deck reuses
• 15× Put +1/+1 counters on creatures you control, or multiply the ones already there
• 5× Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it
• 9× Find the exact card the plan needs
• 1× Answer a whole board at once
• 7× Refill your hand
• 2× Keep a permanent you control alive through removal

Best cards for Haliya, Ascendant Cadet

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