OrzhovLegendary Creature — Vampire ScoutAmalia Benavides Aguirre
Mana value2Rank#3,946
The Commander
Ward—Pay 3 life.
Whenever you gain life, Amalia Benavides Aguirre explores. Then destroy all other creatures if its power is exactly 20. (To have this creature explore, reveal the top card of your library. Put that card into your hand if it's a land. Otherwise, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature, then put the card back or put it into your graveyard.)
Guide
Gameplan
Amalia is a lifegain value engine that doubles as a two-card combo deck. Build a BW lifegain shell that drips incremental value, then assemble Amalia + Wildgrowth Walker (plus any repeatable lifegain) to loop explores: Walker gains 3 life when a creature explores, that lifegain triggers Amalia to explore again, and the chain only stops when Amalia hits exactly power 20 and wipes every other creature on board. You're left with a 20/20 ward-protected commander on an empty battlefield ready to swing.
Strengths
- A compact, hard-to-disrupt two-card combo (Amalia + Wildgrowth Walker) that also acts as a one-sided board wipe
- Ward—Pay 3 life makes Amalia annoyingly resilient to spot removal and shrouds the combo piece
- Lifegain payoffs (Blood Artist, Vito) turn the loop and the mass destruction into incidental drain wins
- Strong fair fallback plan: a grindy BW lifegain midrange deck that grows Amalia with explore value
Weaknesses
- Combo relies on Wildgrowth Walker specifically; if it's exiled or you lack lifegain, the engine stalls
- Mass exile, counterspells, and graveyard hate sidestep the board-wipe finish
- Amalia alone is just a 2/2 that needs lifegain triggers to do anything
- Ward and self-life-loss expose you to burn and life-payment punishers
- Two colors limits access to the strongest tutors and interaction in cEDH metas
Key Cards
- Wildgrowth Walker — The other half of the combo—it gains 3 life whenever a creature explores, feeding Amalia's loop to 20 power.
- Soul Warden — Repeatable per-creature lifegain that can also kick off and sustain explore loops and chip value.
- Blood Artist — Turns Amalia's mass board wipe into a massive life-drain finisher across the table.
- Cathars' Crusade — Each explore counter and post-wipe creature pumps your board, converting the combo into overwhelming pressure.
- Heliod, Sun-Crowned — Cheap repeatable lifegain enabler that also turns counters and lifegain into reach and removal.
- Esper Sentinel — Card advantage that helps you dig to the combo and rebuild in grindy games.
Upgrade Path
Add tutors that find Wildgrowth Walker or backup lifegain—Diabolic Intent, Demonic Tutor, and Eladamri's Call—plus protection like Heroic Intervention and Teferi's Protection to insulate the combo. Lean harder on cheap repeatable lifegain (Soul Warden, Essence Warden, Heliod) and aristocrat drains (Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat) so the loop is guaranteed lethal rather than just a board wipe. Round out with fast mana and efficient interaction (Swords to Plowshares, Fellwar Stone, Arcane Signet) to combo off ahead of the table.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Loop to power 20, wipe the board, and beat down with a 20/20 ward-protected Amalia
- ▸Blood Artist / Zulaport Cutthroat draining the table off the mass creature destruction
- ▸Cathars' Crusade turning the loop into a lethal, oversized board
- ▸Grindy lifegain value plus Vito or Sanguine Bond converting accumulated lifegain into direct damage
Archetypes
- Combo — Amalia + Wildgrowth Walker + lifegain loops to power 20 for a one-sided wipe and a 20/20 finisher.
- Lifegain — Every life-gain trigger advances Amalia, rewarding a dense lifegain package.
- Aristocrats — Blood Artist–style payoffs convert the combo's mass destruction into lethal drain.
- Counters/+1+1 — Explore stacks counters on Amalia and synergizes with proliferate and counter-matters payoffs like Cathars' Crusade.
Combos
- Amalia Benavides Aguirre + Wildgrowth Walker
→ Infinite lifegain triggers, Infinite lifegain, Near-infinite surveil
- Amalia Benavides Aguirre + Animation Module + Ashnod's Altar + Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim
→ Infinite LTB, Infinite ETB, Infinite sacrifice triggers
- Amalia Benavides Aguirre + Animation Module + Ashnod's Altar + Soul Warden
→ Infinite LTB, Infinite ETB, Infinite sacrifice triggers
- Amalia Benavides Aguirre + Animation Module + Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim + Phyrexian Altar
→ Infinite ETB, Infinite sacrifice triggers, Infinite death triggers
- Amalia Benavides Aguirre + Animation Module + Ashnod's Altar + Soul's Attendant
→ Infinite LTB, Infinite ETB, Infinite sacrifice triggers
Combos via Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BW), by popularity.
