The alternate commander, The Lord of Pain, pings enemies for damage whenever a player casts their first spell, which is not only an excellent tool to make your opponents kill each other, but a decent deterrent to not remove them quickly
You can't play it multiple times
They provide the mana to cast all of the other cards in your deck
Card types such as artifact, and supertypes such as legendary or snow, aren't creature types
Fierce Guardianship Counter's a non-creature spell, so occasionally won't allow you to block a piece you might need to, but almost always either ends a combo or protects yours
Then you can tap him and ten Elves to drain 10 life from each foe so he's a win con, a token maker, and an Elf lover in the right color combination to make that work