(Oath of Ajani | Art by Wesley Burt)

Clear Eyes and Great Hearts Can Still Lose: The Selesnya Story

The question of planeswalkers as commanders has been brought up in Magic discourse an infinite number of times. People say it would kill EDH as a format, and others say it will do nothing but give more options to a perpetually endless pool of commanders. I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle. My name is Nick, and the eleventh installment of Myth Realized will cover Selesnya (white, green) cards and how they would each ruin (or not ruin) your favorite 100-card Singleton format.

If you've stuck around with me until this article, you know what cards to look for in this color combination. If not, check out the articles I did in white and green to see the cards I've previously shouted out in these colors.

Ajani, Mentor of Heroes - 3GW

This is one of the physically most difficult-to-read cards of all time. It's a bit unique to that extent as well, and it might be on a small list of planeswalkers where you're more often only ever going up in loyalty. At five mana, many might think that it's too expensive, but you want to be established anyway before this card hits the board, and sometimes that's a benefit when the card is tucked away in your command zone.

Three +1/+1 counters across one, two, or three creatures aren't too shabby of an ability, and these are the best colors to benefit from counters of most kinds. Filtering through your top four cards for an Aura, creature, or planeswalker lets you diversify your deck to lean heavier into one of those types. The only thing about this card that's relatively lackluster is the ability to gain 100 life. When I first saw this card, I figured it was unbeatable. How do you kill someone at 100+ life? There are quite a few answers in the commander format that do this for you and hopefully, the other players still alive in the game. The other way is to win the game yourself. There are 29 cards, according to Scryfall, that allow their controller to win the game.

Now, some of these are much better than others, and you aren't guaranteed to win with any of these before the Ajani player uses that 100 life to kill you with something like Aetherflux Reservoir, but more often than not the -8 on this card is to be ignored. This will not demonize itself when it shows up across the table from you, and it's not oppressive, but similar to many cards in the last article, it's a solid Selesnya planeswalker.

Ajani, Sleeper Agent - 1G(G/2 life/W)

Two articles in a row featuring a Compleated planeswalker! This Ajani is either hitting the board on turn four with four loyalty or turn three with two loyalty, and you having two less life. To me, this version of everyone's favorite cat dad is "what if they made Ajani, Mentor of Heroes in 2023". We see a +1 filtering ability, but we only check the top card, and we get the counter distribution from its previous iteration and the addition of vigilance but on a -3. The craziest part of this card is an emblem that gives you an alternate way to win the game. This card lets you poison your opponents out of the game as another path to victory. This sleeper agent wants you to wake up to the rolling creature storm about to hit the table.

While five planeswalkers after this ultimate might be a struggle, five creatures in a color combination known for ramp and cheap mana value could kill one player immediately after activation. Cards that give players poison counters are sadly more concentrated in black, and they are few and far between, but there are many ways to turbo out a table if you manage to get this card's emblem. Reliance on a planeswalker's ultimate as your main win condition isn't the most reliant way to win, but it's an interesting one. There is a world where something could break this card if specific cards supporting planeswalkers get pushed in future sets, but at the moment, this would be fine as a commander sitting across the table.

Ajani, the Greathearted - 2GW

Possibly the most synergistic planeswalkers for any color combination. It puts counters on creatures, helps your mana dorks by giving vigilance, adds counters to planeswalkers, and has a fair mana cost. Selesnya colors are found in five of the top ten +1/+1-themed top commanders. It also synergizes with far too many commanders across the entire GW and GWx color combinations. Now, this card isn't going to beat tables by itself. It alone does nothing other than gain you three life with its +1 ability. But there are infinite pieces that can be put around it to piece a cohesive victory together.

The Greathearted Ajani is going to be a card that will do everything you want a card in your deck to do, but at the same time in the 99 could be a dead draw when you're in top deck mode. It's not broken, but it's not worth leaving unsleeved when building your deck. As a commander, this would open up more build-around opportunities when you always have access to this card when you need/want it.

Ajani Unyielding - 4GW

In my article discussing mono-red, I emphasized how many walkers were just slight variations of a previous version of the same character. Well, that wasn't unique to the red section of the color pie. This card is unyielding in its similarities to all previously discussed cards. We have card filtering on an uptick, counter distribution on a downtick, and a random third ability thrown in for a splash of uniqueness. At six mana, this card pumps up all the numbers around the abilities on the card. The +2 gets us the possibility of three cards as long as they're nonland permanents.

The unique ability of this Ajani is a -2 version of Swords to Plowshares. The counter distribution of this card is at win-the-game levels compared to other versions. Five +1/+1 counters to ALL your creatures and five loyalty counters to ALL your other planeswalkers is huge if you can get to it. This will let you ultimate multiple planeswalkers, and with some evasion added to those creatures, there aren't many tables that can withstand what you'll have in front of you. The biggest knock against this card is that it's slower. It has a high mana cost, a big loyalty number to get to this card's ultimate, and a second ability with a minus attached. Big and splashy but not big, splashy, and dangerous.

Ajani, Valiant Protector - 4GW

Right in the middle, we get this article's annual planeswalker-deck planeswalker. At face value, this card doesn't look as bad as it secretly is. Six mana and only four starting loyalty is not great, to begin with. We can add +1/+1 counters again, but we cannot split them on a wide board. We also get card filtering, which is guaranteed to hit a card that goes to our hand, but this time, it can only be a creature. A -11 ultimate is impossible to hit without any additional cards to help you. The worst part about this card is that even by taking off eleven loyalty counters, you still aren't going to win the game. All the counters have to go on one creature, and it gives counters based on your life total, which this card doesn't interact with in any way. This makes it a bit worse for wear. All of its abilities synergize with creatures to a degree, but the biggest pump this card gives is tied to your life total, coming from a card that is not hitting the board till mid-game at best and not doing anything after it hits till much later.

Calix, Destiny's Hand - 2GW

When we get a new character on this list, we also get a planeswalker that interacts with a card type we have not seen from Selesnya so far: enchantments. This card is strong; it does many things very well, and I've personally lost many games to it. That being said, this isn't a card that will ever be as good for enchantment strategies as any creature that's earned the short-hand "Enchantress creature" moniker. Outside of some specific outliers like Zur, Eternal Schemer, Daxos the Returned, and Tatsunari, Toad Rider, the top commanders for enchantment strategies usually do two things: Draw cards or get more mana. This card doesn't do either by itself, and depending on what enchantment you find off the +1, it might not do it at all.

What this card can do is protect itself and, more importantly, protect you from creatures and enchantments in your opponent's control, even if they get rid of Calix. The best thing this card does, without question, is a true blue "win the game" ultimate on the spot at best or "gain overwhelming value" at worst. It's -7 to get the same effect as Replenish, one of the best cards for enchantment decks. If you've ever been at a table where someone resolved this ultimate or a Replenish, the game is most likely over for all the other players. The four mana value and the disability to draw cards/make mana by itself makes this card unlikely to be put in the command zone over the likes of Sythis, Harvest's Hand, or even the creature version of this character Calix, Guided by Fate.

Huatli, Radiant Champion - 2GW

Another planeswalker that wants you to have both creatures and planeswalkers to get its full potential. Luckily, the Selesnya color combination is very good at making tokens, and the planeswalkers within this color are part of why they are so good. This is a planeswalker that can ultimately do so with frightening speed. A few mana dorks and small creatures can get you to the -8 needed for this card to have an emblem in as little as one turn, and this is without something like Doubling Season. And this is an ultimate you want to get to.

The -1 on this card is, for the most part as good as blank text, but even with low starting loyalty at three, you could very easily tick down when this first comes in and not be worried too much about losing it since your uptick could net you three to five loyalty in most decks the next turn. This could be run in the command zone similar to Ajani, Sleeper Agent, where you "win the game" with its ultimate. Still, this can also provide overwhelming value even if you can't close out the game immediately. A sneaky planeswalker that can catch people by surprise.

Huatli, the Sun's Heart - 2(G/W)

It's a bit of a lackluster way to end the article with this planeswalker. From a set everyone is all too familiar with, War of the Spark, we see a planeswalker with a static ability, a downtick and nothing more. This card will never be more than part of the 99 in the likes of Doran, the Siege Tower, or Arcades, the Strategist. The static on this card is something those decks often need to function at full capacity, and you'll gain a big chunk of like every time you get to -3 this card, but you only have two activations without help. This card will lead a deck if you want to do Selesnya walls, but other than that, I don't predict seeing it outside of the 99 of the other decks.

Wrap Up

So far, this has been the least colorful of all the color combinations. Selesnya is not a "flashy" color combination, but what it does, it does well. In the case of the planeswalkers spending four mana to put counters on your creatures, sometimes getting card selection, and maybe winning the game is what it does. I also don't think any planeswalker on here has any chance of being banned with a rule change making them all legal as a commander. Ajani and Huatli have strong ultimates on some of their planeswalkers, but they are not strong on their own, and sometimes, when you're looking for your commander or the card that wins the game, you need it to be able to go it alone without relying as much on other cards.

What this color combination does have going for it maybe above all else, is the single planeswalker that I would rate as bad, and it's one from a planeswalker deck product, so that's not necessarily a surprise. Selesnya seems to thrive on four-mana curves and creature synergies and not much else. If anything, this might provide proof that after going through all the single-color and half of the dual-color planeswalkers, stability might be achievable on the horizon. In my next article, we have the color combination synonymous with death and taxes, Orzhov. With ten planeswalkers split into only two characters, we should end up getting more variety than seen here.