The Archimandrite aka The weirdest official tribal batching ever (EDH / Commander)

Hello everyone! Here is the primer for my Archimandrite deck!

So we're playing this weirdly tribal-oriented general to play a creature-based deck that seeks to win in an agressive way. Every creature in our deck (except for some tokens) has one of the creature types the Archimandrite cares for, but we're not playing any real tribal payoff outside of our general. Our goal is mostly to win with big life-gain effects (preferably at instant speed) by attacking with our creature.

With our lands and our mana rocks, we have 50 mana sources (12 rocks and 36 lands, plus four MDFC lands), so we can play with regularity our most expensive cards (notably our general). There is a little risk of flooding out, but we have many ways to draw cards, notably our general, so we shouldn't run out of gas often. Most of our creatures can generate card advantage on their own, but with the Archimandrite on the board, since she's really likely to give vigilance to our attackers, we can continue to push the card draw. Having many cards in hand is important, so we can trigger with regularity our general's first triggered ability, and with the maximum stat boost we can, hence why we play Reliquary Tower, Thought Vessel and Venser's Journal, so the life gain can be the greatest possible. Don't hesitate to activate The Archimandrite's draw ability whenever you can at the end step of the last player's turn before you, so you can get a bigger life gain without having to discard.

Speaking of life gain, we have many ways of gaining life outside of our general. Even if she is our main source of life gain, we have other ways to boost our board. Most of our life gain spells are instant, notably Sphinx's Revelation that gan give us card advantage and/or a welcome boost, though I think it's better played at another player's end step rather than our combat phase. Swords to Plowshares is a really efficient creature removal, but it often lacks the flexibility I like on removal spells, like Generous Gift ; but in this deck, it can also be a strong finisher or a combat trick, if we exile one of our own creatures! True Conviction and Akroma's Will are some of our finishers, and they gain us a tremendous amount of life. Note that double strike and first strike are important in this deck when combined with lifelink : if you gain life before the normal damage step, your creatures will get an extra boost! Righteous Confluence is a bit of a weirdo, being sorcery speed, but its flexibility and its ceiling of gaining 15 life without much effort is really appreciated. Words of Worship allows us to trade a drawn card for 5 life, that The Archimandrite herself converts to a +5/+0 to our creatures. Combined with our commander's activated ability, we can give really high boosts to our board at instant speed!

In our creatures package, we play some cards that can feel a bit weird if we don't know the synergies they're here for, so I'll explain some of them here. Stoneforge Mystic is capable of seeking notably our Shadowspear or Runechanter's Pike to get the lifelink/first strike synergy going, or even Embercleave if we want to pull out some damage. Speaking of tutors, be careful with Urza's Saga ; although it is really strong and can get our Shadowspear, I didn't put Sol Ring in the list, which is a classic card players tutor with its last chapter in Commander (if you want to add it, I suggest you replace any of our mana rock with it) Rhox Faithmender is especially potent in this deck, doubling our lifegain and our boosts along the way. Ojutai Exemplars can easily gain lifelink and first strike without much effort, and Soulfire Grandmaster gives buyback to our spells, while sometimes being able to pull a Blasphemous Act/Indestructible synergy that most likely will win us the game on the spot. Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith creates tokens that makes the equipped creature deal damage, so we can boost our attackers with our lifelink creatures (since The Archimandrite gives vigilance to our creatures, we can attack with them and tap them). Glenn, the Voice of Calm is a powerhouse in the deck, being able to draw absurd amout of cards when boosted with our instant life gain : attack a player that can't block Glenn because of its skulk ability, then gain some life at instant speed to draw!

That's all for today, I hope you'll have fun with this deck as I do!