Abigale, Eloquent First-YearAbigale, Eloquent First-Year | Art by Mark Zug

Hey y'all, and welcome to a new series where I find five different ways to get the absolute most out of a given card. Today we're exploring all the possible uses of Abigale, Eloquent First-YearAbigale, Eloquent First-Year, from Lorwyn Eclipsed.

Abigale is a really cool card with a unique ability, turning a creature into a blank slate, then giving it a few keywords. This can be both an upside and a downside, and might be used on either our creatures or our opponent's.

I want to know the jankiest way to use this card, the most evil thing we can do with it, the best combo we can pull off, the most competitive deck, and, just for fun, the worst possible place to run it. There's so many options and possibilities, and I want to get right into it!

Different Ways to Use Abigale, Eloquent First-YearAbigale, Eloquent First-Year

The Jankiest Use

Abigale is already a pretty janky card on her own, so I think the best course of action for this category is to explain what most people are building her deck around: big cards with terrible downsides.

When it comes to removing abilities from creatures, the obvious thing to look for is creatures with abilities we don't want, like Phyrexian SoulgorgerPhyrexian Soulgorger or Rotting RegisaurRotting Regisaur. Once their humongous downsides are gone, these cards are just big bodies with flying, first strike, and lifelink. Then, we can blink Abigale with CloudshiftCloudshift and EphemerateEphemerate to get her enter the battlefield (ETB) trigger over and over again, making an army.

That's pretty strong, especially because we'll be gaining a lot of life and our creatures are tough to block. But of course, the jankiness of this deck becomes apparent as soon as our opponents have one CounterspellCounterspell, or even worse, a blink spell. With those, they can prevent Abigale from removing the downsides, or bring the downsides back, and we'll be left with an unfettered Desecration ElementalDesecration Elemental on the battlefield. Yikes!

It's certainly a risky game plan, but also one with big upsides. Exactly how I like my jank.

The Most Evil Use

If we use Abigale's ability on an opponent's creature, it can be pretty devastating. But hey, at least they get some powerful keywords out of it, right? Well what if they didn't?

There are a number of decks that make use of SolemnitySolemnity effects, like Isilu, Carrier of TwilightIsilu, Carrier of Twilight. Solemnity simply prevents counters from being put on creatures, which can be a great boon if we're playing with persist. If Putrid GoblinPutrid Goblin can't get a -1/-1 counter, it can never die!

But this is also pretty nasty with Abigale, because it lets us use her to completely strip an opponent's creature of all its abilities, including the consolation counters! Not too kind of us.

Abigale's Best Combo

I'll be straight with y'all, I spent an hour trying to make Abigale work in a combo and I couldn't find one. I really thought it'd be easy, because surely there's some scenario where removing a creature's restrictions enables a crazy interaction of some sort.

At first I thought I could use Abigale to remove flying from a creature and then revive it over and over with Luminous BroodmothLuminous Broodmoth. But even if Luminous BroodmothLuminous Broodmoth only gave flying and not a flying counter, Abigale adds a flying counter of her own! So that route was a dead end.

Then I started looking for creatures with restrictions that prevented infinite combos, and one creature immediately stood out. Medomai the AgelessMedomai the Ageless could go infinite with itself if it wasn't for the clause that it can't attack on extra turns. Soo... what if we removed that before declaring attackers, then gave its abilities back right before combat damage? Well unfortunately, the only way to give abilities back once they've been removed is by moving the creature to another zone and bringing it back, with something like CloudshiftCloudshift. The problem is, that also takes it out of combat, so no combat damage.

This thought process did actually lead me to one of the cooler combos I've seen, however. We can't remove Abigale's effect, but we can remove a Darksteel MutationDarksteel Mutation with CapsizeCapsize. If we cast Darksteel MutationDarksteel Mutation on Medomai the AgelessMedomai the Ageless, attack with the 0/1 Bug, and bounce the Darksteel MutationDarksteel Mutation right before combat while paying for buyback, we can have Medomai deal combat damage even on extra turns.

A combo that involves temporarily removing a creature's abilities is pretty awesome, and the closest I could get to something with Abigale. But if you know a way to actually combo with our Bird Bard, please let me know!

The Most Competitive Deck for Abigale

Keyword counters are a mechanic that have been around for quite a while, but they haven't been too common since their introduction, which really sucks for Tayam, Luminous EnigmaTayam, Luminous Enigma. First printed in Ikoria, the same set that introduced keyword counters, it was implied that Tayam should be used with keyword counters. But realistically, there just weren't enough keyword counters to be fill the deck, so Tayam became another +1/+1 counter deck.

That's a sad fate for a really interesting commander. Abigale, Eloquent First-YearAbigale, Eloquent First-Year doesn't change that, but she does help out quite a bit. Tayam is looking to get three counters on board to activate its ability, and Abigale provides those counters instantly, at the cost of removing abilities from a creature who's probably gonna get sacrificed anyways. Then, Abigale herself can be sacrificed and recurred with Tayam, to be used again.

Plus, Abigale doubles as removal, something any deck can make use of. All in all, Abigale fits snugly into this deck, making it a little bit better.

The Worst Deck for Abigale

Now this is a fun category. What even makes a deck "the worst" for a given card? Is it the worst because it's completely useless? If that were the case, then Abigale would only be as bad as Darksteel RelicDarksteel Relic. No, we need to find a deck where Abigale's ability is actually detrimental no matter how you use it, and I think I've got just the place.

Drana and LinvalaDrana and Linvala is quite the curious commander, all about stealing activated abilities from our opponents' creatures. It's usually just built as a hate bears deck, and it's not even the strongest deck in that archetype, but it can be fun, letting you play with your opponents' creatures without even stealing them.

Oh, your opponent played a Fauna ShamanFauna Shaman? Well now you're the one who gets to search your library.

So given that, I'd say the absolute worst thing you can do in this deck is remove abilities from creatures. Yes, maybe Abigale could target the creatures that don't have activated abilities, but we're already gonna be playing HushbringerHushbringer and friends in this deck, so triggered abilities aren't really an issue.

At best, Abigale might remove some scary keywords like infect, but usually she's just gonna be making our opponents' creatures better despite the best efforts of the other hate bears in this deck. And if she gives those keywords to a creature on our team, it's gonna cost us that creature's much more relevant abilities. Yup, Abigale is a 0/10 in this deck.

4/5 Achievements Earned

So that's four awesome places to play Abigale, Eloquent First-YearAbigale, Eloquent First-Year, and one terrible pick. Would you say my evaluations were good? Or is there an even worse deck for Abigale, and an even more evil interaction? Maybe there's a combo that actually works with Abigale.

If you think you can outdo my picks, please tell me in the comments! I know y'all have some great ideas.