Legendary Creature — Human Cleric Rebel

Banon, the Returners' Leader

Mana value2EDHREC#7,340

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The Commander

Pray — Once during each of your turns, you may cast a creature spell from among cards in your graveyard that were put there from anywhere other than the battlefield this turn.

Whenever you attack, you may pay {1} and discard a card. If you do, draw a card.

Guide

Gameplan

Banon turns your graveyard into a second hand: you loot away creatures with the attack trigger or with wheel/discard effects, then re-cast one creature per turn straight from the yard with Pray. The deck grinds incremental card advantage off discard, deploys threats faster than opponents can answer, and closes with a wide or tall RW board backed by repeated recursion of your best creatures.

Strengths

Built-in card filtering and selection every combat via the loot trigger.
Pray gives free recursion of bombs you discard, making removal and Wheel effects feel like card advantage instead of card loss.
Cheap two-mana commander that comes online immediately and rebuilds quickly after wraths.
Loves mass-discard 'Wheel' effects that wreck other hands while you recast your own creatures.

Weaknesses

No native ramp, ritual, or reanimation cheat — you still pay full mana to recast via Pray, so it's grindy rather than explosive.
Graveyard hate (Rest in Peace, Bojuka Bog) shuts off both Pray and your value engine.
Only one Pray cast per turn limits true combo potential.
RW lacks black's premium reanimation and card draw, capping ceiling against optimized tables.

Key Cards

Faithless Looting — Cheap repeatable discard that dumps creatures into the yard for Pray and digs to action.
Cathartic Reunion — Pitches multiple creatures at once, all instantly recastable from the graveyard this turn.
Wheel of Misfortune — Refills your hand while loading the yard with creatures Banon can replay, and disrupts opponents.
Containment Construct — Lets discarded nonland cards be cast from exile and synergizes with constant looting.
Bag of Holding — Recurs the noncreature cards you discard, turning the loot engine into pure advantage.
Anje Falkenrath — Free repeatable loot outlet that feeds Banon and triggers madness payoffs.

Upgrade Path

Add more free or repeatable discard outlets (Anje Falkenrath, Olivia, Mobilized for War effects) and impactful creatures worth recasting like Combat Celebrant or value bombs. Layer in symmetry-breaking Wheels (Magus of the Wheel, Reforge the Soul) plus Bag of Holding/Containment Construct to keep your noncreature cards too. Tighten the mana with fast rocks (Signets, Arcane Signet, Fellwar Stone) and protect the engine with graveyard insurance and a few protective pieces for Banon.

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

▸Recurring efficient beaters and grinding out the table with relentless card advantage in combat.
▸Deploying a high-impact creature, recasting it after removal, and going wide for lethal attacks.
▸Leveraging Wheel effects to outpace opponents on cards, then alpha-striking.
▸Repeatable damage payoffs (e.g. Terror of the Peaks-style effects) fueled by recasting creatures each turn.

Archetypes

Discard Value / Reanimator-lite — Pray lets you recast creatures you dump to the yard, rewarding heavy discard outlets.
Wheels / Aggro — Mass-discard effects empty hands while you instantly replay your creatures from the graveyard.
Madness / Spellslinger hybrid — The attack-trigger loot pairs with madness and instant/sorcery payoffs for cheap explosive turns.
Midrange Goodstuff — A cheap commander with built-in card advantage supports a fair, resilient RW creature deck.