AbzanLegendary Creature — Treefolk DruidDoran, Besieged by Time
Mana value4Rank#6,827
The Commander
Each creature spell you cast with toughness greater than its power costs 
less to cast.
Whenever a creature you control attacks or blocks, it gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the difference between its power and toughness.
Guide
Gameplan
Doran turns toughness into a payoff: load the board with high-toughness, low-power defenders, then swing for huge damage as each attacker gains +X/+X equal to its toughness-minus-power gap. You ramp out cheap big-butt creatures (which Doran discounts), build a wide or tall board, then alpha-strike or grind with walls that suddenly hit like trucks. The cost reduction also lets you deploy your threats ahead of curve and out-value the table.
Strengths
- Cost reduction makes high-toughness creatures cheap, accelerating your board out
- Defensive creatures double as huge attackers, blurring the line between offense and defense
- Walls and defenders block all day, then connect for massive damage in combat
- Abzan colors give access to the best ramp, removal, recursion, and anthem effects
- Synergizes with toughness-doubling and +0/+X buffs that translate directly into damage
Weaknesses
- Doran is a high-toughness magnet for removal and his combat trigger is conditional on the math
- Boardwipes hit a creature-dense strategy hard, and you have no inherent recursion engine
- Damage relies on combat, so fog effects, fliers, and pillowfort stax slow you down
- Many high-toughness creatures have defender or low power, so without Doran you can stall out
- Trample is essential to push through chump blockers, otherwise wide boards get gummed up
Key Cards
- Doran, the Siege Tower — A redundant toughness payoff that lets your wall-bodies deal damage equal to toughness even outside combat math.
- Assault Formation — Lets all your creatures assign combat damage by toughness and gives defenders the ability to attack.
- High Alert — Vigilant attacks using toughness for damage plus an untap ability, perfect for Doran's defensive shell.
- Wall of Blossoms — A cheap 0/4 that cantrips and becomes a 4/8 attacker under Doran's trigger.
- Indestructibility — Protects your high-toughness commander or key wall from removal and chump-trades.
- Overwhelming Stampede — Grants trample and a power buff to push your massively pumped attackers through blockers.
- Felidar Sovereign — A natural life-gain payoff alt-win in a deck stacked with high-toughness lifelink bodies.
Upgrade Path
Add trample and evasion enablers (Overwhelming Stampede, Rancor) so your pumped walls actually connect, and lean on toughness-doublers or +0/+X effects that scale Doran's trigger. Improve mana with Abzan staples (Arcane Signet, fetch/dual lands, Smothering Tithe) and add protection like Heroic Intervention plus recursion via Sun Titan or Eternal Witness to survive wraths. For higher power, incorporate a fast lifegain win (Aetherflux Reservoir, Felidar Sovereign) and efficient removal to clear blockers before your decisive swing.
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
- ▸Alpha strike with a wide board of high-toughness creatures pumped by Doran and trample
- ▸Commander damage or single-creature voltron beats using Doran's toughness buff
- ▸Lifegain payoffs like Felidar Sovereign or Aetherflux Reservoir
- ▸Anthem-fueled token swarm assigning combat damage by toughness via Assault Formation
Archetypes
- Toughness Matters — Doran's discount and combat buff reward stacking creatures whose toughness exceeds their power.
- Go-Wide Tokens/Defenders — Anthems and Assault Formation turn a wall of blockers into a lethal attacking force.
- Lifegain Midrange — Big lifelink butts gain enormous life while attacking, enabling Felidar Sovereign and grind.
- Voltron — A single high-toughness creature with trample and protection can carry the game under Doran's +X/+X.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BGW), by popularity.
