Linden, the Very Healthy Queen (EDH / Commander) [Revision 42]

A deck featuring Linden, the Steadfast Queen made to spite a friend of mine.

The primary goal of this deck is to either win by gaining a ton of life and maintaining it with certain cards out, like Felidar Sovereign - or, to win via combat damage by pumping the creatures
you control and making them powerful. The latter is heavily influenced by Linden, who combos very well with certain creatures.

Out-right win conditions include: Felidar Sovereign, Test of Endurance and Aetherflux Reservoir.

Next, we'll go over different cards in varying categories and why I included them.

The Commander

-Linden, the Steadfast Queen cares about the combat step and your creatures attacking. For each white creature you control that is attacking, you get an individual trigger off of Linden to gain 1 life.
This synergizes excellently with cards like Ajani's Pridemate, Twinblade Paladin, and best of all, Archangel of Thune. The first two see each individual Linden trigger and gain a +1/+1 counter per trigger.
So if I was attacking with 10 white creatures, Linden would trigger 10 times gaining 10 life and then Ajani's Pridemate and/or Twinblade Paladin would trigger 10 times and gain 10 +1/+1 counters.
Archangel of Thune reacts the same way but pumps your entire board instead of just herself.

-The deck has many cards to help keep your attacking creatures safe, and to help some stay untapped so that you may have blockers up.

-Protection cards include: Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Frontline Medic, Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant // Rune-Tail's Essence, Reconnaissance and then depending on the situation, Teferi's Protection
and Flawless Maneuver.

-Cards to help keep your creatures untapped include: Loyal Unicorn, Ajani Goldmane, Brave the Sands and Reconnaissance.

-There are also additional support cards that help do these things, although do not provide outright protection or vigilance. Usually these cards are to add flying, lifelink or doublestrike to a creature,
to make your opponent think twice about attacking into them or blocking them.

-In general, Linden cares a great deal about the combat step and being able to protect the creatures on your board. So, it's important to have cards that can protect your board as well as buff it
(Which is why the deck has a minor +1/+1 counter subtheme).

Planeswalkers

-It might be odd that there are so many planeswalkers at first glance, but the three included have powerful effects.

-Ajani Goldmane gives access to granting my creatures Vigilance for the turn, while also buffing them. His +1 ability is not incredible, but if allowed to use his -6, he can have a devastating impact on
the game. As this is a lifegain deck, having a creature with power/toughness = to your life total is quite scary.

-Ajani, Strength of the Pride is an incredible Planeswalker that should honestly go in any deck with heavy amount of lifegain. His +1 gives a good amount of life to the user, but isn't his most important
ability. The -2 can be great to get another Ajani's Pridemate out, which synergizes very well with Linden. But the ability you will likely be using the most is his 0 ability. If not countered, as long as you
have 15 more life than your starting total (something not difficult to do in a lifegain deck), you can immediately exile Ajani, Strength of the Pride and exile every other artifact and creature your opponents
control. This effect is a win-condition all on its own - if you have a boardstate that's ready to attack.

Card Draw

-Being in monowhite, there isn't really much for card draw in general, but especially good card draw.

-To start, we have Mangara, the Diplomat, an excellent card from M21. He can draw you a couple cards per rotation, and is honestly one of the better sources of card draw in the deck. If you're lucky,
he'll be able to draw almost a full hand!

-Next is Alms Collector. This card can come out at flash speed, and is most ideal when an opponent is about to draw many cards. Alms Collector essentially turns off opponents from drawing multiple
cards at a time, as if they do, they will only draw one while also letting you draw one. This card is especially good against decks that have something like Alhammarret's Archive out or a Teferi's Ageless Insight.

-Cosmos Elixir is a recent addition to the deck. It replaced Dawn of Hope, which is a good card draw spell in white, but unfortunately too expensive to warrant use in a color that struggles to ramp.
So, I replaced it with Cosmos Elixir, which should trigger at each of your endsteps, more-or-less. If not, hey, you'll get 2 points of life out of it.

-Alhammarret's Archive does not grant card draw, but it does double it, so long as another source of card draw is out. Plus it double life, as well. A two-in-one!

-Mind's Eye is a fantastic piece of card draw in colorless. For one colorless mana, if an opponent draws a card, you too can draw with them. Very nice and not taxing on your mana.

-For artifacts, the last card draw is Well of Lost Dreams. This card should be able to trigger frequently with Linden out, and just lets you pay X to draw X, which will most likely be "1" (but with many instances).
This card will be a good friend of yours.

-Now, this next one isn't exactly card draw, but Land Tax lets you get 3 plains cards on your upkeep into your hand if an opponent controls more lands than you (A likely occurrence). While great
if you want to stay on track with your land drops, this card is great for filtering out your deck, removing plains to make you more likely to draw into something else.

-Then we have Martyr's Cry. This card is basically in here for emergency card draw, as it is a self-boardwipe that exiles. That being said, however, it can have good utility and draw you a lot of cards.
For two mana, you exile every white creature, and for each creature exiled this way, its controller draws a card. If you have a useless boardstate or one with several tokens that aren't doing anything,
that is a good time to use Martyr's Cry. It can even be used to remove some scary threats from an opponent's board, like an Avacyn or Elesh Norn, or perhaps one of the many Selesnya cards that give
hexproof to permanents. Regardless, it is a difficult card to time, but has potential for huge payoff (Or an emergency panic button).

-Lastly we have War Room, which for three mana we can tap to lose 1 life and draw one card. Not amazing, but it's in as an emergency way to draw a card.

NOTES CURRENTLY INCOMPLETE (Will finish eventually)