{"ops":[{"insert":"This deck was created for the September 2026 Deckbuilding Contest, and is my first attempt at a contest!\n\nThe challenge for this month's contest is to build a Typal deck where the commander supports the creature type without directly mentioning or being that type. I wanted to make sure the deck fit that idea in more than just the technical sense, so I deliberately avoided strategies where the 99 made the commander better.\n\n"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Delney, Streetwise Lookout"}},{"insert":"has one of my favorite text boxes in the game, and his ability immediately stood out as a natural fit. Delney doesn't care about any creature type specifically; instead, he doubles the triggered abilities of creatures with power 2 or less. Clerics happen to have a surprisingly large number of small creatures whose abilities revolve around gaining life and generating value when other creatures enter the battlefield. Rather than giving the tribe an entirely new strategy, Delney takes an existing part of the Cleric identity and makes it substantially more effective. That is the interaction I wanted the deck to be built around.\n\nThe 99 is therefore built almost entirely around Clerics that meet Delney's power restriction. A large portion of them gain life when they enter the battlefield or whenever another creature enters after them, allowing Delney to turn each of those triggers into two. Clerics also give us plenty of recursion and enters-the-battlefield effects, which makes the graveyard an important extension of the deck's engine. Cards like"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle"}},{"insert":","},{"insert":{"card-link":"Pillardrop Rescuer"}},{"insert":", and"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Redemption Choir"}},{"insert":"let us bring Clerics back and reuse their abilities, while"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ephemerate"}},{"insert":"and"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Teleportation Circle"}},{"insert":"give us additional ways to repeatedly blink them."},{"insert":{"card-link":"Panharmonicon"}},{"insert":"adds another layer of trigger doubling alongside Delney. Together, these cards allow the same relatively small Clerics to generate value repeatedly, steadily building our life total while keeping the engine running.\n\nThe payoff is turning that life total into an increasingly threatening board."},{"insert":{"card-link":"Essence Channeler"}},{"insert":","},{"insert":{"card-link":"Voice of the Blessed"}},{"insert":", and"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Elenda's Hierophant"}},{"insert":"accumulate +1/+1 counters as we gain life, eventually becoming major threats in their own right. Once we reach 47 life,"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Righteous Valkyrie"}},{"insert":"and"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Leyline of Hope"}},{"insert":"can turn that growing life total into a much larger board, allowing the Clerics we've assembled to close out the game through combat."},{"insert":{"card-link":"Angel of Destiny"}},{"insert":"provides a more direct route to victory, threatening to eliminate an opponent during our end step once we've gained enough life. If all else fails,"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Doubtless One"}},{"insert":"is sure to become a threat with how wide our board of exclusively Clerics is bound to be. \n\nUltimately, the deck is built around something Clerics already do exceptionally well: gaining life and generating value from it. Delney doesn't need to be a Cleric, and he doesn't need to mention Clerics in his text box, because his ability directly amplifies the small, triggered abilities that make the tribe's existing engine work. The result is a deck where the commander doesn't simply accompany the typal strategy; he changes the scale at which that strategy operates, allowing a collection of otherwise modest Clerics to compound their abilities into a life total, board state, and collection of threats that can eventually overwhelm the table.\n"}]}