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Mayael the Anima

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Mayael the Anima

At a glance

  • Commander: Mayael the Anima
  • Colors: Naya
  • Archetype: Naya big-creature cheat / ramp
  • Power tier: mid

Cards

Commander

Mayael the Anima — , Legendary Creature — Elf Shaman (2/3)

, : Look at the top five cards of your library. You may put a creature card with power 5 or greater from among them onto the battlefield. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

Mayael’s activated ability digs five deep every turn and drops a power-5-or-greater creature onto the battlefield for free, cheating fatties past their mana cost. The whole 99 is bent around two numbers: enough power-5+ bodies that the dig almost never whiffs, and enough fixing/ramp that the activation comes online turn 4–5 and fires every turn after. (Confirmed against printed oracle text — the engine is repeated free fatties into a trample beatdown.)

Gameplan

  1. Turns 1–4 — fix and ramp. Land + a fixing rock or a Cultivate/Kodama’s Reach so all three colors are live. Resolve Mayael.
  2. Turn 5+ — activate every turn. Mayael’s pip-heavy activation wants exactly the colors the manabase produces. Each activation is a free 5/5-to-8/8, most with trample. The board snowballs above curve fast.
  3. Close. Wide team of huge tramplers + a mass-trample/haste enabler (Crash Through, Ondu Champion, Nylea’s Forerunner) turns a cheated board into lethal in one swing. Ulamog’s Crusher (Annihilator 2) provides reach if the game grinds.

Because ~29–30 of the creatures are power-5+ (i.e. valid Mayael targets by printed power), Mayael’s five-card look hits a target the large majority of the time — that consistency is the engine.

Key synergy lines

  • Mayael + any fatty with an ETB: Generous Ent (Food), Prophet of the Peak / Cavern Stomper (scry 2), Avenging Hunter (initiative), Crimson Fleet Commodore (monarch), Hill Giant Herdgorger / Ravenous Lindwurm (lifegain) — cheating these for free turns the tap into card/value advantage, not just a body.
  • Godtracker of Jund: every power-5+ creature that enters (including cheated ones) grows it with a +1/+1 counter — free snowball.
  • Bloodthorn Taunter / Ondu Champion: give the freshly-cheated fattie haste / team trample so Mayael’s drops attack the same turn.
  • Fight spells (Prizefight, Triumphant Surge as removal): our power-8 wurms win every fight one-sidedly, doubling as removal.
  • Gustrider Exuberant / Godtoucher: evasion and protection specifically keyed to power-5+, letting a single fattie carry the game.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands: 37 — high end for three colors. 17 nonbasic fixers + 20 basics (8 Forest / 6 Mountain / 6 Plains).
  • Ramp / mana fixing: 11 — Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Commander’s Sphere, Prophetic Prism, Chromatic Star, Wayfarer’s Bauble, Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach, Rampant Growth, Diligent Farmhand, Oashra Cultivator. Most double as color fixing. (Trimmed from 13: cut the two slowest rocks, Manalith and Mana Geode — 37 lands plus Cultivate/Kodama’s/Rampant already clears the fixing floor for the triple-pip activation.)
  • Card advantage: 9 — Track Down, Commune with the Gods, Benefaction of Rhonas, Charge Through, Silverback Shaman, Crimson Fleet Commodore, Generous Ent, Prophet of the Peak, Cavern Stomper. (The green “reveal top X” dig spells also help find lands/fatties.)
  • Spot removal / interaction: 10 — Lightning Bolt, Abrade, Prizefight, Bring to Trial, Journey to Nowhere, Pacifism, Triumphant Surge, Plummet, Makeshift Binding, Banishing Light. Plummet answers the flyers the deck otherwise stalls against; Makeshift Binding (exile a creature) and Banishing Light (exile any nonland permanent) are clean unconditional answers that hit go-wide threats and problem permanents Bring to Trial / Triumphant Surge can’t.
  • Mass wipes: 0 — Naya commons have no real symmetrical sweeper (red commons only deal 1 damage to the board, useless against a deck built to ignore small creatures). Compensated by spot removal + fight effects and an inevitability plan: a free power-5+ body every single turn out-grinds the table.
  • Payoffs / enablers: rest — ~29–30 power-5+ fatties (Duskdale Wurm, Vorstclaw, Primordial Wurm, Colossal Dreadmaw, Ulamog’s Crusher, Ravenous Lindwurm, etc.) plus trample/haste/evasion enablers (Crash Through, Ondu Champion, Nylea’s Forerunner, Bloodthorn Taunter, Gustrider Exuberant, Godtoucher, Godtracker of Jund).

Manabase / fixing note

37 lands: Command Tower / Path of Ancestry / Cryptic Spires (any-color in identity), Naya Panorama + Evolving Wilds + Terramorphic Expanse (basic fetch), Shimmering Grotto / Crystal Grotto (filter to any color), six guildgate/tapland duals covering all three color pairs (RW/GW/RG), and 20 basics. With 11 ramp pieces (most fixing) that’s ~24 fixing sources — comfortably above the ~17–19 floor for casting Mayael’s triple-pip activation on curve.

Pilot notes

  • Prioritize getting all three colors + the 6-mana activation cost, not just any five lands — Mayael does nothing until you can pay .
  • You can activate at instant speed on an opponent’s end step if you have summoning-sick worries; usually just go on your turn pre-combat so Godtracker/haste enablers see the new body.
  • Mayael is a 2/3 — she dies to everything. Hold a fight spell or Godtoucher to protect her, and don’t be afraid to rebuild; the deck has redundant fatties.
  • Against board wipes, slow-roll: keep fatties in the library and let Mayael re-stock for free rather than over-committing.

Weaknesses

  • Removal on Mayael shuts off the engine; the hard-cast fallback (6–8 MV fatties) is slow.
  • No true board wipe — a faster go-wide token deck can race before the fatties dominate, though Banishing Light/Makeshift Binding now answer the key threat.
  • Flyers / evasion can chump or fly over the ground stall; Plummet plus the few reach bodies are the main answers, so prioritize Plummet against an air-heavy table.
  • Tapland-heavy manabase means some clunky early turns; mulligan hands with zero untapped fixing.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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