The Best Cards For An Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer Commander Deck In MTG

Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer is one of the many named characters found in Magic: The Gathering’s Marvel’s Spider-Man set. As with all legendary creatures, Anti-Venom can be run as your commander for a Mono-White Commander deck. Although it’s a bit costly mana-wise, the price of admission is more than worth it.

Despite being locked into only white and colorless cards, Anti-Venom, Horrifying Healer is a very powerful commander. The first effect to reanimate a creature is nice, but you’ll more likely be taking advantage of its damage negation effect. This makes Anti-Venom a phenomenal Voltron commander (decks built around pumping up their commander with Equipment and Auras).

Nemesis Mask

Attack Everything

Unlike most cards, you actively want creatures to damage Anti-Venom, as said damage is turned into +1/+1 counters instead. Following this idea, if you include Nemesis Mask in your deck, it forces all of your opponents’ creatures to block Anti-Venom.

This not only can lead to you killing your opponents’ best creatures in combat, but it will also give Anti-Venom a significant number of counters to make it even more of a threat that can only be answered by removal spells. It can even act as a one-sided board wipe if it has enough counters on it.

Guilty Conscience

Painful Attacks

There may be cases where your opponents don’t have creatures, so you won’t have a way to get counters on Anti-Venom. Enter Guilty Conscience, which makes it so the enchanted creature deals damage to itself when it deals damage.

In most cases, Guilty Conscience is used as a removal spell, locking a creature out of attacking unless it wants to be destroyed. However, in Anti-Venom, it’s only an upside, as by enchanting Anti-Venom, you guarantee it takes damage, growing it even quicker than normal.

With Great Power…

Damage Lock

Even though Anti-Venom isn’t a Spider-Man, it can take great advantage of Spidey’s mantra in the way of With Great Power… It’s a generically good Voltron piece since Anti-Venom is going to have a ton of Aura and Equipment on it, making With Great Power… provide a massive stat boost already.

When enchanted to Anti-Venom, this card creates a lock that prevents you from taking combat damage. Instead, all damage dealt to you is dealt to Anti-Venom, which then turns it into +1/+1 counters. With the right combination of cards, you can make it near-impossible to remove Anti-Venom, and thus, near-impossible to deal damage to you.

Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought

One Attack, Many Counters

Have you ever wanted to put 100 +1/+1 counters on a creature with just one attack? Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought has you covered. It does require a bit of setup, as you need it to have ten charge counters to turn on its effect to deal 100 damage to a creature. Fortunately, this can be done quickly.

Once you do, any time you attack, you can deal 100 damage to any creature. You can use this as removal, or you can deal that damage to Anti-Venom, giving it 100 +1/+1 counters. If Anti-Venom is made unblockable, that’s more than enough to take someone out through commander damage (and most life totals).

Inquisitor’s Flail

Double Damage, Double Counters

Inquisitor’s Flail is meant to be a double-edged sword, doubling damage at the cost of the equipped creature taking double damage. However, with Anti-Venom, the more damage you take, the better, making Inquisitor’s Flail only have upsides.

It’s both easy to cast and easy to equip, letting it get on Anti-Venom quicker. With Inquisitor’s Flail on a counterless Anti-Venom, that’s still ten damage it’s doing once it can start attacking. With just a few other stat boosts, you can take people out in just one attack.

Basilisk Collar

Life And Death

As with all Voltron commanders, lifelink is often your best friend, especially with commanders that are cast outside the early stages of the game, such as the case with Anti-Venom. Since Anti-Venom grows in stats so fast, giving it lifelink gives you giant boosts of life to make it much harder to take you out through traditional means.

As an added bonus, Basilisk Collar also gives the equipped creature deathtouch. When combined with cards that force your opponents’ creatures to block, you can use this to take them all out, since you only have to deal one damage to each of them.

Commander’s Plate

Mono Commander Classic

If you’re playing a mono-colored deck, you always want to have Commander’s Plate handy. In Anti-Venom’s case, it’ll give you protection from everything except white and colorless. The +3/+3 stat boost is great, and helps to get in for damage easier.

There are a few downsides to Commander’s Plate to be aware of, though. It will cause white Auras to fall off when equipped. It also prevents anything but white and colorless damage sources from dealing damage, so Anti-Venom’s effect is weaker.

Super State

Super Anti-Venom

Super State is a great game-ender in any Voltron deck, and especially in Anti-Venom, thanks to how much it can boost its own stats. By giving it flying and trample, it makes it much harder to block and much easier for Anti-Venom to take anyone out of the game.

Super State also causes the creature to deal damage to all opponents, not just one. This lets you take everyone out of the game in one swoop, rather than having to take opponents out one at a time and risk losing your board state.

Entangler

No Creatures Get In

Entangler makes it much harder for your opponents to deal damage to you because it allows Anti-Venom to block however many creatures you want. If you can give Anti-Venom flying, unless a creature is unblockable, no one will be getting through your defenses.

Entangler makes it so your opponents won’t want to attack you, as that just means they’re giving counters to Anti-Venom. Short of a creature having deathtouch, they won’t be able to destroy Anti-Venom, so attacking you only strengthens your commander.

Pariah

No Damage To You

Pariah is the go-to enchantment for Anti-Venom. It doesn’t cost much, and turns all damage coming at you into damage to the enchanted creature instead. This helps to boost up Anti-Venom with counters while keeping your life total safe.

Pariah has more versatility than a card like With Great Power… as in a pinch, you can use it as a removal spell. However, most of the time, you’ll want to be enchanting Anti-Venom with it so you can get a ton of counters on it.