Posted in: Card Games, Games, Magic: The Gathering, Tabletop, Wizards of the Coast | Tagged: Brawl, card game, commander, deck tech, EDH, magic, Magic: The Gathering, MTG, MTGELD, Tabletop, wizards of the coast, WotC

"Kenrith, the Returned King" Dech Tech – "Magic: The Gathering"

Magic: The Gathering is well into its 26th year of play, and with its 82nd expansion set, Throne of Eldraine, Wizards of the Coast has outdone itself yet again. Between Collector's Packs, normal booster packs, the Brawl decks slated for release alongside the set, and the Buy-A-Box Promo, Throne of Eldraine is worthwhile for any player.

This worth is valid for Commander players as well. While a lot of Throne of Eldraine's marketing is geared to get people enthusiastic about Brawl, Commander players (like myself!) are ready to take advantage of the influx of legendary creatures and big, splashy spells, and even to turn the Brawl decks into Commander decks in their own right.

With that, I wanted to make a deck based on Kenrith, The Returned King, the Buy-A-Box promo for the set. Basically, if you get a booster box of Throne of Eldraine, while supplies last the local gaming store you bought it from will hand you a copy of this card, which is pretty great.

Kenrith's abilities are highly political. At first glance, they seem lacklustre at best for your own devices, but when coupled with the fact that you can affect your opponents' board states, you have a fantastic political commander. Therefore, I've devised a decklist that makes use of five major political themes: group hug, voting, the monarchy, pillow fort, and goad.

The full decklist is located here.

Notable Inclusions

This deck runs political cards to garner favor with your opponents. Whether or not you side with one player on-board or aim to get everyone on your side, this deck will look to win with the combination of Composite Golem and Nim Deathmantle, along with any number of infinite mana outlets (of which King Kenrith is one himself).

Additionally, voting is a good way to make sure you have friends on the table. cards like Expropriate aren't things I like to face off against, but if it's for a favor to a group hug player who's done good by me, I'll vote for time.

That means you need to hug. Hug a lot of people, and you'll be rewarded. There are cards like Phelddagrif (the famed flying purple hippo!) and Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis to this end.

For those who you cannot force to love you through bribery, goading them does the trick just fine. Marisi, Breaker of the Coil (a legendary creature who I've covered before) and Disrupt Decorum are fantastic goading opportunities.

Finally, if you can't convince opponents to fight for you by persuasion or by force, you can stay out of the attacking range with pillow fort cards like Pramikon, Sky Rampart (who I have covered as well), Crawlspace, and Propaganda.

The payout for not being attacked comes in the form of monarchy and its applications. being able to draw an additional card at the end of the turn does great things for you if you can get the crown to stay on you. To that end, Queen Marchesa (no relation to our King, funnily enough) and Skyline Despot are great options.

Notes on Alternatives

Note that this deck pulls absolutely no punches as far as budget is concerned. This deck has original dual lands and even a Gaea's Cradle, which is a card that costs over $300 USD at the moment! As it were, if you wanted to make this deck more friendly towards a budget, you could replace duals with shocks (or, if the respective shocks are in there, pain lands) and replace the Cradle with something like Growing Rites of Itlimoc.

Additionally, while TappedOut does not have this card on file as of the publishing of this article, I want to note that Happily Ever After makes a hilarious endgame card for this deck (I'll remove Windborn Muse if I feel so inclined to edit the decklist).

What do you think about this Magic: The Gathering deck tech? Will it hold up to decks like Volrath or Chainer? Let me know in the comments!

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