Magic: The Gathering — Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh Commander Deck Guide

Magic: The Gathering's Universes Beyond crossovers have led to an interesting dynamic where players get their hands on characters from their favorite IPs and game series in Magic form, but by proxy now have Magic cards representing real-world figures like Leonardo da Vinci, and the modern-day da Vinci: Post Malone. It's strange times indeed to be a Magic player.

Cleopatra—yes, the Egyptian queen, that Cleopatra—makes her Magic: The Gathering debut in the Assassin's Creed set. Total uncanny weirdness aside, Cleopatra promotes an interesting strategy that combines legends-matters with +1/+1 counter synergies, something that hasn't been done in the black/green color combination before.

The Decklist

The Commander

Cleopatra weaves together two distinct strategies: legends and +1/+1 counters. Those two buckets don't have any inherent synergy with one another, but they're also generic enough to make Cleopatra a very flexible commander to build around.

Cleopatra dishes out the +1/+1 counters herself, so you could just focus on the legends part with a layer of extra counter support, too.

On her surface, Cleopatra advertises a pretty straightforward strategy of playing legendary creatures and pumping them up over time, replacing any legends that die with some card draw.

There's more going on beneath the surface, though, since Cleopatra's legendary servants benefit from all types of counters, not just +1/+1 counters.

When a legendary creature with counters on it dies, you draw a card for each counter on it, but you only ever lose two life, regardless of how many cards you drew.

Naturally, you'll want to lean into +1/+1 counter support since Cleopatra distributes those counters herself. However, the deck comes equipped with a smattering of unique counters that work just as well.

You'll find cards that grant indestructible counters, deathtouch counters, and even shadow counters. They're all counted equally for the purposes of Cleo's death trigger.

Even better, the Egyptian queen counts legendary creatures that die under your opponents' control if they had counters on them. Many commanders will just naturally have +1/+1 counters on them, as will other legends, but you could lean into this with -1/-1 counters.

You could also take a political stance and award +1/+1 counters to opponents who are willing to negotiate with you.

The Strategy

This decklist takes an attrition-based approach to the game. You could certainly warp the deck to focus on making huge threats with +1/+1 counters, but this version looks to play a long game, accruing value with Cleopatra's triggers. The goal is to spread out counters more than going very tall with just a few creatures.

There's a downside when aiming for a longer game with Cleo. Since her draw ability also takes a chunk of life per trigger, you need to maintain a healthy life total to ensure you don't die to your own commander.

Incidental lifegain from cards like Chevill, Bane of Monsters, and potential lifelink from creatures like Vadmir, New Blood, goes a long way to keeping a high life total.

Even though you're not all in on the +1/+1 counter theme, you will be stacking up counters incidentally, so there's support here that ties into that part of the deck.

Silkguard and Inspiring Call are counter-based protection spells, and both Ozolith cards play perfectly in this space. Rishkar, Bristly Bill, and Reyhan combine the legends and +1/+1 counter synergies together.

Legendary creatures that produce their own counters are a huge boon to this deck; prioritize playing these creatures before your others.

Even though you're trying to play an attrition game, you're still going to have to win through combat damage. Your creatures will naturally get bigger with the likes of Cleopatra and Court of Garenbrig in play, and you have large beaters like Agent Frank Horrigan and Polukranos, Unchained to chew through opposing life totals.

There may come a point in the game where you need to engage with the political side of Cleopatra. Try offering your opponents +1/+1 counters on their legendary creatures in exchange for immunity from attacks and removal or as encouragement to band together against a problem player at the table.

Important Interactions

Sacrifice outlets are pretty important to this deck. They give you the means to cash in a creature for cards on a whim and also circumvent exiling effects from board wipes like Farewell and Sunfall. The deck features High Market, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, and Yahenni, Undying Partisan as some of its main sacrifice outlets.

You have access to a couple of -1/-1 counter cards between Yawgmoth, Black Sun's Zenith, and others, so be aware that +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters nullify each other.

If you put a -1/-1 counter on a creature that already has some number of +1/+1 counters on it, they'll basically cancel each other out in a 1:1 ratio. This goes for your creatures and your opponents'.

The Ozolith is a funny card in this deck. It basically stores up the +1/+1 counters from creatures that die to then redistribute onto different creatures. However, it also preserves other types of counters, including the indestructible counter from Daring Fiendbonder, or the deathtouch counters from Vraska Joins Up.

The Ozolith will also store up -1/-1 counters, so be careful running it alongside cards like Black Sun's Zenith!

Budget Considerations

Budget was not a priority when constructing this Cleopatra list, so there's obvious room to adjust the deck in either direction. The changes you make will largely depend on whether you want to push further in the +1/+1 counter direction, the legends-matter direction or make changes to both at the same time.

Budget Increases

Doubling Season remains expensive at present, but it's a staple of +1/+1 counter decks for a reason. You can also raise the power level of the deck significantly with fast mana options like Ancient Tomb and Mana Crypt, though that removes some of the casual basis of the deck.

Free spells aren't too abundant in black/green, but Deadly Rollick and Snuff Out are always considerations if you don't mind a few expensive removal spells.

There's nothing stopping you from running a few high-cost tutors like Demonic Tutor or Vampiric Tutor. There's nothing dire you need to draw in this deck, but the versatility's always welcome .

Budget Decreases

The Great Henge and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, are at the forefront of the chopping block, considering they're both $50 cards on average. Try replacing them with more generic +1/+1 counter support like Hardened Scales and Branching Evolution.

Agatha's Soul Cauldron is another pricey option that can be subbed out for the much less synergistic but always effective Bojuka Bog. Similarly, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician can be replaced with a different sacrifice outlet, perhaps Carrion Feeder, since it's a free sacrifice outlet that picks up +1/+1 counters.