Simic Newcomer Puts Artifact Spin on Popular EDH Color Combo

Last updated on October 30, 2025

Rashmi, Eternities Crafter | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

Oh boy, a new Simic commander, wonder what it could be. Let me guess, it ramps and draws cards, and makes the rest of the table mad at me when I win with it? Oh wait, it's doing something unique and interesting in the Simic space, and feels like a balanced but rewarding card for a novel archetype? Hmm… there might be something to this Aloy card after all.

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Aloy, Savior of Meridian was released as part of the PlayStation Secret Lair Superdrop from earlier this week. Sony and MTG had a lot of faith in this Horizon protagonist, choosing them as one of the PlayStation representatives alongside Kratos, Nathan Drake, and a bunch of characters from The Last of Us. And they really delivered on the designs in this Universes Beyond crossover, with Aloy feeling like a fresh new take on a Simic commander.

Despite the wall of reminder text for discover taking up the entire text box, this is actually a very straightforward card. Attack with big artifact creatures and get some free spells. It has that natural “Simic value” feel while still feeling like it pulls you in a new direction for the color pair. Think Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty, but you attack with big things instead of casting big things. And you don't even have to go big here. How about an Aloy deck that focuses on tiny artifact creatures to discover into small trinkets instead?

The overall design's a bit clunky though. It's a 5-mana creature with middling stats, just-fine combat keywords (classic bow = reach paradigm), and no ETB trigger. However, it can give you an immediate impact since you simply have to attack with an artifact creature to trigger the ability; Aloy herself does not have to be the one attacking.

And from there you're just spinning the roulette to see what you discover into. Sometimes you'll discover into another artifact creature to keep the chain going next turn, and sometimes you'll spike an Overwhelming Stampede mid-combat and end the game on the spot. And remember that discover's a bit more forgiving than cascade, since you can put the card you exile into your hand if you can't or don't want to cast it right away. So Aloy at minimum draws you a card each combat, but you can still pack in some counterspells and protection spells without hitting blanks off discover.

Climbing the Charts

Lonis, Cryptozoologist | Illustration by Andrew Mar

According to EDHREC, Aloy, Savior of Meridian is the second most popular of the 10 new PlayStation commanders, though Jin Sakai, Ghost of Tsushima has it beat by almost twice as many decks so far (3,160 to 1,500 for Aloy).

If you get a bit more granular, Aloy is currently the third most popular “Simic Artifact” commander, beat by Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy and Lonis, Cryptozoologist. This is a pretty sparse category to begin with, but Aloy at least has the potential to be the top player in its own intended macro-archetype.

If you broaden that up to all Simic commanders, well, Aloy's nowhere near first place. Compare her 1,500 decklists to the whopping 22.5k decklists that top contender Hakbal of the Surging Soul has, or even the tenth place Simic commander, Koma, Cosmos Serpent with 6,561 decks. Aloy doesn't have the overarching appeal that most top-tier Simic commanders has, and that's probably a good thing, given this is a mechanically exclusive card unique to a Secret Lair drop that many people (myself included) weren't even able to purchase due to the faults of the Secret Lair website.

That said, 1,500 decklists in under a month is nothing to sneeze at, and Aloy should see some steady growth for a bit. It's probably best suited to Bracket 3 gameplay given its high mana cost and niche archetype, but you can always build a mean blue-green deck using all the best Simic staples and push an expensive commander up into Bracket 4.