Hi forum! Was hoping I could crowdsource some help here.
My sister has a birthday coming up later this month and while thinking of what to get her I remembered that she was head over heels for Crested Sunmare.
She has one copy of the card (maybe 2, I can't recall), but I know she'd love more. More than that though I'm also getting her some other horses or equine (horses, ponies, unicorns, hippogriffs, pegasi, etc...) cards too.
Obviously the end goal is to help her build a horse/equine deck, but I'm not going to go spoil the fun of what she's getting for her birthday or build the deck for her. The idea is to find that small intersection of "Horse" and "Good" that exists.
I'm also not strictly limiting myself to creature cards. For example I know I'm getting her an Island Sanctuary, because, hello, pegasus in your face.

Beyond that I'm also looking at branching into a life gain theme, because let's be honest, horse tribal doesn't have enough good cards let alone enough support to warrant playing things like Adarkar Unicorn...although I suppose there is Revered Unicorn if you really wanted to go that deep, but regardless. Bad cards are bad and until WotC gets around to printing more decent horses. That said I've also picked out some horse cards because I think they look pretty even if they're bad.

As for cards that let you choose a creature type, like Metallic Mimic, I'm not sure where she stands on those so I'll wait and see what she's looking for after her birthday.

Oh and I also threw in a few populate cards because horse tokens.
So mostly, I'm looking for help on non-horse synergy cards or any horses you think are good that I overlooked. Note that some horses that aren't listed are because I already have copies of them, but please don't let that stop you from suggesting ideas.


Cards I've already picked out:
Horses
1 x Benevolent Unicorn
1 x Clockwork Steed
3 x Crested Sunmare
1 x Island Sanctuary
1 x Nightmare
1 x Regal Unicorn
1 x Revered Unicorn
1 x Ronom Unicorn
1 x Storm Herd
1 x Sungrace Pegasus
1 x Timbermare
1 x Vryn Wingmare

Lifegain
1 x Celestial Force
1 x Essence Warden
1 x Horizon Chimera
1 x Pristine Talisman
1 x Soul Warden
1 x Soul's Attendant
1 x Sun Droplet
1 x Well of Lost Dreams

Tokens
1 x Growing Ranks
1 x Trostani, Selesnya's Voice
1 x Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage

Are cards that just have horses in the art also up for consideration? Then knights are something to look into. Spitemare should totally be a horse.

If you want to make full use of Storm Herd then you need ramp more than life gain. I suppose that could be cool alongside Nightmare? Of course, storm herd's just fun, so it's cool as a one-of.

THe other big possible focus is small horses. All that flying and lifelink will look pretty good when you get out the Sunmare.

Loyal Pegasus AKA Rainbow Dash.
Pegasus Stampede
Sacred Mesa

Purity is a stag thing, which is sort of horse-like, and it sometimes gives you life.

Lone Rider (/It That Rides As One) is both a flavor and mechanical home run. It is a knight riding a horse, it is lifegain, it becomes bigger in a deck with other lifegain.

Wispmare.

The usual 'lifegain becomes +1/+1 counters' things might be a package to add here: Ajani's Pridemate, Sunbond, Archangel of Thune. If you're running Archangel/Sunbond and your deck is running green, put in Spike Feeder for the lols (2 card infinite life combo).

Also, as a lifegain deck, cards that just payoff on having a high life total like Divinity of Pride or Serra Ascendant could work.


(Do not put Nightmare in that deck! The proposed deck will have so few swamps it'll be ridiculously overcosted for what it is).

Benevolent Unicorn could really make your 1 power creatures look really good.
Martyr of Sands probably beats out the attendants for explosive life gain.

All those white creatures could use Honor of the Pure*. Light from Within unfortunately doesn't help more than that. Hoofprints of the Stag is sort of on theme. Concerted effort ... doesn't include lifelink unfortunately. That would've been cool.
With Sacred Mesa being a thing, I thought that Opalescence would be a fun angle, but it's just not adding up.

Courageous Outrider and Riders of Gavony?

Spectral Rider, Wingsteed Rider, Mounted Archers**

Deer: Rune-Cervin Rider, Raven's Run Dragoon, Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers, Wilt-Leaf Liege. (These are great with Light from Within)


*A nonbo with Benevolent unicorn unfortunately. Goes withOutrider en-Kor though and Spitemare goes with that. ...but not really with her benevolence.

**Benevolent buddy.

Armored Warhorse seems like a no-brainer. It's got the creature type, the correct color, and is a 2/3 for 2.

Some others that might be harder depending on your colors but could be decent:
Breaching Hippocamp
Carnival Hellsteed
Ghoulsteed
Stallion of Ashmouth
Thundermare - both this and Timbermare were originally types as Elemental Horse?

Thank you all VERY MUCH for all your input!
I have placed the order and will definitely be referring back to this thread to discuss where she wants to take the deck after she gets her present.
Feel free to keep dropping ideas.

Ride Down
kirin and lammasu are both sort of horse like
How do you feel about centaurs? Some of those care about a tokens and life gain.