Arabella, Abandoned Doll Commander Deck Guide: Best Cards, How to Play

Those who fear dolls avoid your eyes, Arabella, the Abandoned Doll is one of the legendary creatures introduced in Magic: The Gathering's Duskmourn set. This Boros (red/white) commander is a very aggressive one and has a low curve to snowball away with the game quickly.

There are many advantages to playing an Arabella deck, and if it is not kept in check, you can run away with the game. Thanks to the primary use of tokens to get the most out of Arabella's effect, you can craft it relatively cheaply as well. If you're a fan of swinging wildly and holding up blockers, an Arabella Commander deck is perfect for you.

Deck list

The decklist includes one planeswalker, 20 creatures, ten sorceries, six instants, 17 artifacts, 11 enchantments, and 34 countries. While the total number of creatures is on the smaller side, many of the other card types create creature tokens to help build your board state.

Key card

Arabella, abandoned doll

The master of the deck, Arabella, abandoned doll is what makes the tire work. Almost your entire deck consists of creatures with power two or less, or ways to create creature tokens with that stat. This feeds in Arabella's effect to gain tons of life and do tons of burn.

The effect triggers
when Arabella attacks
. As such, unless you have a way to ensure that Arabella is unblockable, you should
just swing
it at
opponent without a creature that can kill it
in battle.

Arabella counts herself for her effect, so at least you will to gain one life and burn all others for one damage. It only costs two mana to cast, so even if it's removed you'll easily be able to recast it to continue using the effect.

Reconnaissance

Reconnaissance is one of the permanent products you will get the most use out of. There are a handful of creatures with effects that trigger when they attack with low stats, and recon helps keep these creatures safe in battle.

Scouting effect costs no mana and can be cast any number of times in a turn. This allows you to continue burning and gaining life with Arabella, as well as generating creature tokens with the rest of your creature suite without having to worry about them being defeated in battle.

Anim Pakal, the thousand moon

Anim Pakal, the thousand moon essentially acting as the deck's secondary commander. The more you attack, the more 1/1 Gnome creatures you create. This gives you power creatures for Arabella's effect and more to block and attack with later.

If both Anim Pakal and Arabella are on the battlefield, you can stack it so that Anim Pakal resolves first, creating more 1/1 tokens for Arabella when its effect resolves since the X burn/life gain isn't determined until Arabella's effect resolves.

In particular, Anim Pakal does not need to attack itself to trigger the effect. This allows you to hold Anim Pakal back from attacking so it never takes damage, and you can continue to benefit from a growing army of goblins.

Delney, Streetwise Lookout

The majority of your creatures are ones with two or less power, so Delney, Streetwise Lookout is the perfect support card for them. It makes them unblockable from threatening opposing creatures and doubles all your triggered abilities.

Once Delney is on the battlefield, it just needs to sit back and support your other cards. There is no shortage of cards in the deck with triggered abilities like Arabella, Anim Pakal, and Krenko, and Agate instigator.

How to play the deck

An Arabella, Abandoned Doll Commander deck is about swinging in with Arabella while amassing an army of 1/1 tokens. The deck is very explosive, can quickly run away with the game, thanks to its low mana curve.

There are many consistent ways to get tokens on the battlefield. Assemble the Legion slowly giving you more tokens each turn, Rabble Rousing gives you a 1/1 token for each creature you control that attacks, and Krenko, Mob Boss creates Goblin tokens for each Goblin you control when tapped.

An important factor is that while you want to attack often, you don't necessarily want to engage in combat. As such, short as Dolmen Gate, Iroas, the god of victory and scouting help prevent damage to your attacking creatures (and, in Reconnaissance's case, take it out of battle entirely).

The deck has one lots of ways to draw cards from creatures with power two or less that enter the battlefieldmake sure your hand is full so you always have cards to throw. Enduring virginity can even return as a normal enchantment if it ever dies.

Mentor of the meek requires mana payment for the draw, but you get to keep using it as opposed to just once. Welcome vampire even cats as a solid attacker thanks to their flying ability.

The the tire's biggest weakness is the lack of power. All of your creatures have very low stat lines, making it difficult for them to be threatening. The threat primarily comes from Arabella, abandoned dollso without it on the battlefield, your opponents probably don't have to worry about you.

You
can be exceeded with creature tokens
but it requires a lot of extra settings which may come too late.

The primary win conditions are winning through burns, primarily through Arabella, Abandoned Doll. Your commander is what will get you to close games quickly, especially since it burns all of your opponents at once as opposed to just one. This is backed up by giving burn an extra kick with cards like City on fire and Torture pit.

Cards that deal burn when creatures come in are also important to your win state. Agate Instigator and Impact Tremors both burn for a damage on incoming creatures, something that stacks up when you start creating lots of tokens. These tokens can lead to more burns with Raid bombing to get in some extra burn to close out the game.