Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon: The Relentless March of the Gnome Legion

When thinking of Boros, you’ll be thinking in aggressiveness and buffing your creatures with auras and pump up spells. However, Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon presents herself as a shift in the traditional “attack with everyone” strategy. The Thousandth Moon would avoid direct combat. Instead, she’ll remain in the shadows to construct an army that fights in her stead.

This strategy secures the Commander behind a growing wall of Gnomes, allowing her to exert constant pressure on opponents’ life totals from a protected position.

Anim Pakal’s Premise

The deck’s strategy centers on Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon’s ability to generate Gnomes whenever non-Gnome creatures attack.

Her triggered ability states, that whenever a non-Gnome creature attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on her, then, create a number of 1/1 colorless Gnome artifact creature tokens equal to the amount of +1/+1 counters Anim Pakal has on herself, tapped and attacking.

Because her ability triggers without requiring her to attack, Anim Pakal avoids combat-based removal and unfavorable blocks. The army scales exponentially as she gains counters, she will produce a large volume of Gnomes each turn.

This strategy functions as a Tokens and +1/+1 Counters hybrid, utilizing the tokens’ artifact status to trigger additional damage and utility effects.

Core Gameplay

This deck demands that you put into the battlefield your commander ASAP, while having some hasty creatures in the field as well to jumpstart the Gnome production.

Casting low-cost creatures and mana acceleration is your priority during the initial stages of the game. Cards such as Sol Ring and Arcane Signet are utilised to ensure that Anim Pakal can be cast ahead of the traditional mana curve. Establish “pinger” effects and protective pieces during this window to prepare the board for the Anim Pakal.

Once, Anim Pakal is on the battlefield. Any creature attacking, such as a Gingerbrute or Monastery Swiftspear, will be enough to begin accumulating counters on your Commander.

Let’s keep in mind that the gnomes created by Anim Pakal are artifacts, so, cards like Reckless Fireweaver are crucial to thin your opponents life total while also attacking them with your small guys.

The endgame will be more often than not controlled by you, with a massive army of tokens, by overwhelming your opponents with combat damage amplified by anthems like Flowering of the White Tree, pinging your opponents any time a creature enters the field, or through the execution of infinite combat loops by one of the two combos present in this deck.

Decklist

We’re looking at a middle of the road budget deck of around $300.

Thanks to the couple of infinite 2-cards combos we run, we’re looking at a Bracket 4 deck; if you want to lower your bracket, you could easily remove the three cards that enable these combos.

Notable Creatures and Synergies

The selection of creatures for this list is meticulously curated to support the token generation engine and to provide auxiliary benefits upon the entrance of new permanents.

Token Generators

While we could rely exclusively on The Thousandth Moon as our army constructor, commander is a format that benefits the most from similar effects.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is a more controlled army generator, because every time you attack, she will create one 1/1 white Human creature tokens attacking for each opponent you have.

She, like Anim Pakal, doesn’t need to be the one attacking. Not only does this provide more bodies on your battlefield, but Adeline herself grows in power based on the number of creatures you control. 

Similarly, Myrel, Shield of Argive main use is to prevent opponents from casting spells or activating abilities during your turn, while also populating the battlefield of 1/1 Colorless Soldier Artifact Tokens for every soldier you control when she attacks. Basically functioning as a more aggressive Anim Pakal on the field.

Card Advantage on Boros

This deck features several efficient ways to address the card advantage struggles so common on Boros. 

Mentor of the Meek, Welcoming Vampire, Losheel, Clockwork Scholar and Rumor Gatherer are all triggered by your tokens entering the battlefield, ensuring that your hand remains full with threats and protection. 

For a more aggressive draw option, Skullclamp comes to shine as the staple for token decks that it is, as it can be attached to a newly created Gnome to immediately convert it into two cards.

Poking your opponents with a little stick a Thousandth Times

The deck also features a “ping” sub-theme that punishes opponents for the sheer volume of creatures entering the battlefield. 

We already mentioned Reckless Fireweaver, but him alone is not enough to bring down your opponents by a thousandth poking.

Here’s where enters Witty Roastmaster, Impact Tremors and Warleader's Call as essential pieces, as each Gnome produced by Anim Pakal will translate into 1 damage to every opponent. This damage is further augmented by Mechanized Warfare, which increases the damage dealt by red or artifact sources by an additional point.

Protect your commander from anything

Protection of your commander is something pretty important for this deck.

Skrelv, Defector Mite, this little Phyrexian mite, which can grant a creature hexproof from a chosen colour and prevent it from being blocked is owerful piece of protection by itself.

If you feel that there’s not enough creatures who can protect Anim Pakal, you could add the likes of Mother of Runes, Giver of Runes and Selfless Spirit, the last one protecting everyone in your side of the battlefield

Fight as One and Loran's Escape are great protection spells for Anim Pakal. Both of them make the target creature indestructible until the end of turn. Fight as One could potentially protect Anim Pakal and other Non-Human creature, while also giving them a +1/+1 counter, empowering your commander to make more Gnomes.

Last line of Support

Various creatures provide support by benefiting from or providing advantages to Anim Pakal. Creatures like Aurelia, the Law Above, which turn your overwhelming Gnome army into card draw and lighting helixes straight to your opponents face.

Siege Veteran and Luminarch Aspirant are also included to manually place +1/+1 counters on Anim Pakal, stacking more counters on your commander to exponentially grow your Gnome production.

Artifacts and Equipment

Artifacts are the backbone of the deck’s infrastructure, providing both utility and the final pieces for victory. 

Wayfarer's Bauble is a pretty decent land tutor for decks that doesn’t have access to conventional ramp spells. 

Swiftfoot Boots serves as a mandatory inclusion, providing Anim Pakal with hexproof and haste. This allows her to generate Gnomes immediately upon casting if no other attackers are available.

Thousand Moons Smithy provides a thematic power boost, creating a Gnome Soldier with power and toughness equal to your total artifacts and creatures. Tapping five artifacts or creatures transforms the Smithy into Barracks of the Thousand, a land that generates additional large Gnomes.

Helm of the Host acts as the deck’s most potent artifact, creating non-legendary copies of key creatures to enable the infinite combos discussed later.

Clay-Fired Bricks provides a way to tutoring a plains and can eventually be crafted into the Cosmium Kiln which will net you 2 more 1/1 Gnome Tokens when it enters, and also serves the function of another anthem further growing your creatures.

Skullclamp, as previously mentioned, is the primary method of converting tokens into raw resources.

Enchantments: Let Your Army March at The Song of the Anthem

The chosen enchantments accelerate token production or increase the lethality of existing tokens.

Intangible Virtue provides tokens with +1/+1 and vigilance. This allows them to attack while remaining untapped to maintain a defensive line.

Flowering of the White Tree serves a similar role but also provides ward to legendary creatures, offering a layer of protection to Anim Pakal and any other legendary creature you control, in the form of Ward 1.

Warleader's Call as discussed before, combines an anthem effect with a damage trigger, effectively acting as both a buff and a secondary Impact Tremors. 

Virtue of Loyalty adventure creates a 2/2 Knight in the early game. Its enchantment side adds a +1/+1 counter to each creature at the beginning of every end step. This ensures that the Gnomes, and Anim Pakal, continue to grow even outside of the combat phase.

Wedding Announcement functions as a versatile value piece, drawing cards or creating tokens before transforming into an anthem effect.

On Wings of Gold and Authority of the Consuls provide tactical advantages. The latter slows aggressive opponents by forcing their creatures to enter the battlefield tapped, while generating a steady stream of life gain as creatures enter the battlefield.

For persistent pressure, Urabrask's Forge is included, as it creates a token with haste and trample every turn that grows larger as the game progresses and helps trigger Anim Pakal every turn in a consistent way.

Instants and Sorceries

This deck runs a series of Instants and Sorceries that whole job is to protect or reanimate your commander, or deal with any threat an opponent could have on the battlefield. 

Instants

Abrade, Lightning Helix, and Stroke of Midnight are your primary tools for interacting with your opponents’ boards, capable of dealing with creatures, artifacts, or any non-land permanent.

Reprieve acts as a unique white counterspell, delaying a critical play while replacing itself in the hand. You could also add Lapse of Certainty if you think you’ll be needing another counterspell for your pod.

For resource management, Big Score is cast to discard an unneeded card in exchange for two new ones and two treasure tokens. 

Sorceries

Brotherhood's End is a controversial card to add to this deck, because both of its effects will essentially clean your board of your Gnomes, luckily for you, your gnomes will be big enough to tank 3 points of damage, thanks to your multiple anthems, basically turning it into a non-symmetrical wrath.

Kayla's Command offers a variety of modes, including:

• Create a 2/2 colorless Construct token.
• Putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control and giving it double strike until end of turn.
• Tutoring you a basic Plains and putting into your hand.
• Give you 2 life and allowing you to scry 2 in the process.

Remember, you have to choose two of these modes, making it useful at almost any stage of the game.

Recommission and Patch Up handle recursion, returning low-mana creatures like Esper Sentinel or Anim Pakal from the graveyard directly to the battlefield.

Fury of the Horde is a high impact sorcery, that will untap all of your creatures that attacked this turn and give you another combat phase after the second main phase.

You’ll always cast it by its alternative casting cost of exiling two red cards from your hand. The additional combat phase triggers Anim Pakal again, frequently resulting in a game-ending state.

Combos and Infinite Loops

The deck contains two ways to achieve a state of infinite combat, which almost always results in an immediate victory through either combat damage or “enters the battlefield” triggers. As mentioned earlier Helm of the Host is the backbone of the combos here mentioned.

Aurelia, The Warleader – Helm Loop

This combo requires Aurelia, the Warleader and Helm of the Host. It works by following this steps:

• First you need both Aurelia, the Warleader and Helm of the Host on the Battlefield, with the Helm attached to Aurelia.
• At the beginning of the combat phase, the Helm of the Host will trigger, creating a non-Legendary token copy of Aurelia.
• Declare the token of Aurelia as an attacker.
• The token attack will trigger its ability, untapping all creatures and granting an additional combat phase.
• The helm will trigger again, and you restart the loop from that point.

This process generates infinite combat phases and infinite creature tokens with haste. If Anim Pakal is on the field, she will also generate an infinite number of Gnomes through these repeated attacks.

Combat Celebrant – Helm Loop

A similar result is achieved through the interaction between Combat Celebrant and Helm of the Host. It works as the previous combo but with some little changes:

• First you need both Combat Celebrant and Helm of the Host on the Battlefield, with the Helm attached to Combat Celebrant.
• At the beginning of your combat phase, the Helm will trigger, creating a token copy of Combat Celebrant with haste.
• Declare the copy of Combat Celebrant as an attacker and exert it.
• The exertion trigger will untap all other creatures and grant you with an additional combat phase.
• Helm of the Host will trigger again copying Combat Celebrant, and restarting the loop.

Repeat the process indefinitely. This loop results in infinite combat phases and again, an exponential number of 1/1 colorless Gnomes tokens attacking each time.

Mana Infrastructure

Being a Boros deck, access to mana ramp or acceleration comes in some sub-optimal spells.

In this case we’re going to ignore most of them and focus on lands to achieve our objective and having Red and White mana always available. 

The land selection includes several dual-source lands such as Battlefield Forge, Clifftop Retreat, Inspiring Vantage, and Sundown Pass.

While not the most powerful dual lands out there, this deck runs an astounding amount of 24 basic lands to make the most value from lands like Clifftop Retreat and Sundown Pass.

To assist with deck thinning and colour fixing, several “slow fetches” and utility lands are utilised, including Mountain Valley, Grasslands, Rocky Tar Pit, and Flood Plain. These allow for the retrieval of basic Plains and Mountain as the game develops.

Cabaretti Courtyard provides basic land tutoring while triggering any potential landfall-related effects you could add when upgrading the deck.

Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Vibrant Cityscape are included as basic land fetches, again, looking for thinning your deck and finding exactly the color you need. 

The total land count is supported by Wayfarer's Bauble and Clay-Fired Bricks, ensuring that you won’t fall behind in mana development.

For the mana curve of this deck, using more mana rocks is not as optimal as it might seem, so we’re only running the staples Arcane Signet and Sol Ring as mentioned above.

Closing Words

When it comes to overrunning your opponents with an army of tokens most people will think in building a mono-red Krenko, Mob Boss deck.

But Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon shows us that you don’t need to rely in Goblins to create an army of small guys while presenting herself as a highly resilient and explosive option.

Focusing on the exponential growth of a Gnome army, rather than risking the Commander in combat, creates a stable and difficult-to-interact-with engine.

The deck pivots between a “ping” strategy, a wide token aggro approach, or a decisive infinite combo finish, providing a versatile gameplay experience suitable for various power levels.

Prioritize protecting the Commander. As long as Anim Pakal remains on the battlefield, the Gnome army provides constant pressure. Whether overwhelming opponents through sheer numbers or exhausting them with entry triggers, the Thousandth Moon offers a consistent path to victory.