Hello awesome MTG fans! I hope your day is going super mega well! Today we are counting down the top cards from the latest Standard legal set Murders at Karlov Manor, which began last week. My set reviews look at cards like Commander and other Highlander and multiplayer formats, Peasant/Pauper, Type Four, Five Color and loads more.

Ready for my set? Let's do it to it!!!

Honorable Mention #1. (#26. Overall) - Insidious Roots

This 2-drop uncommon enchantment in Golgari colors is great and uncommon for your 5 slots in Peasant. Your critter tokens can tap for any mana. That's ramp for you. Then when one of precious creature cards leave your graveyard you make a 0/1 Plant then pump it with counters equal to your Plant count, so it'll always be a 1/2, and that taps for mana since it's a Plant Token. This plays well with self-exiling like gathering evidence in this set or Night Soil, or Regrowth/Raise Dead to your hand, or shuffle in like Feldon's Cane or reanimation like Zombify. All of those are here in these two colors! And then the token making ones like Night Soil that can tap for mana are great here. This also gets pumped by Avenger of Zendikar that makes Plants en masse and wants that deck.

Honorable Mention #2. (#25. Overall) - Audience with Trostani

Hitting our even 25 mark is another Green card that cares about tokens and makes you an 0/1 Plant! This three cost sorcery will draw you cards equal to your creature token count with different names. So, copies of dorks like Kiki Jiki, Mirror-Breakers won't give you more than one per copy. With this you will get the most benefit from having a lot of different types of tokens, and the previous one will make them tap for mana if you add Black to your Commander's identity or splash it in other colors. Then you can always replace itself since it counts the one you made and also works well with Night Soil too! You can make, in Mono-Green alone, 1/1 Squirrels, Insects, Saprolings, 2/2 Wolves, Bears, 3/3 Centaurs, Elephants, Beasts, from Squirrel Nest to Grizzly Fate to draw tons of cards. And then you add in this Plant too, and with other colors you can add Goblins, Warriors, Soldiers, Zombies, Merfolk, loads more! And tokens matter is a highly value archetype this'll play right into!

Honorable Mention #3. (#24. Overall) - Melek, Reforged Researcher

Hello Spellslinger and Izzet fans! I got your next brew here! This 5-drop Weird legendary for Commander purposes has power and toughness equal to twice your graveyard count of instants and sorceries to kill fast. Then Melek also reduces your costs for instant/sorceries you cast, but unlike most that reduce them all by one mana each, this dork will reduce by three instead, but just the first one! Outside of Storm, I'd much rather drop by three once since you are guaranteed to get that rather than the mana needed for other things. For example, I'd rather cast Tidings for or Fact or Fiction for than Tidings for and then what I draw of it with the cuts too but less mana overall. Make sense? You can also run a bunch of X Spells here that will always be three more powerful like Comet Storm or Braingeyser. See why this fun powerhouse is here in my list today? I hope so too!!!

10. (#23. Overall) - Conspiracy Unraveler

Our latest flying big bodied Sphinx has arrived! This time it's a seven mana 6/6 so on curve. This fun thing can block and beat with the best of them! You can collect evidence 10 to cast something for free! So, obviously that's a bit awkward to do much of, but free spells are free spells are free spells and everyone will abuse that. Just swapping 10 mana of Concentrate and Tidings and Brainstorm to cast a free Omniscience is amazingly stupid good! This won't work with X spells like Melek, but big spells they like such as Blasphemous Act to get a cheap costed dork for exiling makes a lot of sense. This this is stupid good and my favorite card in the set for Type Four where you have infinite mana but just one spell each turn unless it's free like cascade or Force of Will so you can exile Searing Wind and Decree of Pain to drop much of you hand when you have the stuff to exile. It's a Type Four essential!

9. (#22 Overall) - Agrus Kos, Spirit of Justice

Welcome to Boros! This 4-drop 2/4 double strike to deal four combat damage and vigilance to hold back (and who would attack into double strike?) is our next card on the countdown! This Spirit has an ETB and attack trigger, like Sun Titan. Here you can make a dork suspected so it has menace for evasion but cannot block. The idea here is to attack and give a defender suspected so it cannot block and get your swing in and if you had haste you could do that twice and stop two blockers. Note that you can suspect your stuff if you need to kill someone. Or if they were suspected you can exile and end their existence instead! That's where you might combine ETB and haste in one to answer something permanently. Note that this is a may effect, so if you kill everything or don't want to exile a Commander that cannot block so they'll just recast it, then you don't have to do it at all! Love this power loads!

8. (#21. Overall) - Delney, Streetwise Lookout

Welcome to our first (and not last...) mono-colored legendary dork in this set! Delney costs three for a 2/2 Scout. Then your dorks with power 2 or fewer cannot be blocked by 3 or bigger powered dorks. So that's evasion for your small stuff, so Delney is amazing in my Bear Beats deck with a bunch of ETB Commandering in Abzan like Gravedigger, Karmic Guide, and Eternal Witness (Real Life Commander: Abzan Bear Beats | Article by Abe Sargent (coolstuffinc.com)). Then you can get hard to block in Aggro, tokens, or Hate Bears too. Then your triggers of power 2 stuff or smaller also triggers again. Delney is just awesome-tastic in Bear Bests with double ETB triggers of Mulldrifter and other stuff all up and down, and make that choo choo sound! That's why Delney is here, I want to build a fun deck around this new Mono-White dork! Although Delney is already pretty pricey, so grab them now.

7. (#20. Overall) - Massacre Girl, Known Killer

This four mana 4/4 on curve Mono-Black dork with evasion in menace is next! She gives your dorks wither on a legendary dork for Command Zone purposes! Then when opposing stuff dies, if their toughness was less than 1, you draw that card. She is looking for ways to kill by -X/-X ways to draw cards. And you draw for each one even if they died at the same time. She gives stuff wither already, but look for things like -1/-1 counters, Infests that give -2/-2 (my favorite is Massacre which can often be free to cast). Since you are Mono-Black, Mutilate and Black Sun's Zenith can sweep the board. Or you can deal damage with wither or infect. And since this ability slips past indestructible, it's pretty good.

6. (#19 Overall) - Deduce

My highest scoring common for Pauper/Peasant and then other things is this fun two cost Blue instant! You draw a card, and then you make a Clue token to draw a card on a future turn when you have that mana. That makes an artifact for decks that care rife in Blue, or a token for decks that really care about that like Jaheira to tap for mana. There is a beloved two cost flashable for three that was pretty strongly played called Think Twice, this reduces a mana from it, but that's better in Spellslinger since you get two copies to trigger with Guttersnipe or self-mill since you can cast it later. Or you could run them both in Highlander decks although for flashback I'd prefer Deep Analysis to Think Twice, since it's just one more mana total for twice as many cards but a loss of life.

5. (#18. Overall) - Archdruid's Charm

How you do assess the value of a harder to cast 3-drop instant Charm with a deadly lethal #1 option that makes it worth it? But it's harder to cast in non-Mono-Green decks like Five Color format or Commander. You can tutor out a land of any type from your deck tapped, so you can grab Gaea's Cradle, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, and loads more! Then you can also tutor for a dork for your hand to grab the best answer for something like Ravenous Chupacabra or Acidic Slime or recursion like Eternal Witness. That's already worth the price of admission, but you can also use as a combat trick to toss +1/+1 counter and Pseudo-Fight something or exile an artifact or enchantment that permanently answers anything. That's a nasty slate of three options. Who wouldn't run it if you could reliably cast it?

4. (#17. Overall) - Sudden Setback

Now we've had a Blue instant of rare, uncommon and common all hit! This uncommon four cost instant will bounce a spell or ability back to their library. Unlike normal bounce like Boomerang and Unsummon, which are normally card disadvantage, this is equality since they have to draw it again. And then you can also bounce spells and make them recast it for more mana used. It's also an amazing answer for Type Four with infinite mana but just one spell per turn, so a bounce there is basically a Time Walk effect since it took their entire turn. This is thing is so good against stuff!

3. (#16. Overall) - Teysa, Opulent Oligarch

Hello happy Orzhov and Teysa fans! This 3-drop 2/3 is legendary for Commander purposes and has deathtouch to keep back attackers that don't want to trade down. For each foe that lost life on your EOT step, you'll make a free Clue to crack for cards. Note that's each one, not just one. Then when you crack Clues, you can make a free 1/1 flying Spirit token. But just once per turn, but if you have a few foes, you can do that on their turn while also making that many Clues, so she dials up in multiplayer. The more foes you add, the better she gets. I like her in a few shells, tokens, leading Clue matters, Orzhov Group Slug with effects like Subversion netting you wins and Clues in masse, or planeswalkers to make flyers to protect your friends. See why this thing hits so highly? I hope so too!

2. (#15. Overall) - Barbed Servitor

Here is our next dork in the genre of Stuffy Doll or Brash Taunter in Red. Here we have a 1/1 Black and artifact that costs four and rocks that indestructible, only it's suspected so it cannot block and has menace too. Then when it's dealt damage, some foe takes it to the face! Then if it connects with someone else, you'll draw and lose a life. That gives them a rough choice, block and take a ton of damage and you won't kill it, or let it through and take just one but give them a card. I also like this with stuff that removes suspects and will let you block with this fun thing all day long and all night too.

1. (#14. Overall) - Krenko's Buzzcrusher

Our top scorer is also an artifact with a color identity. The 4-drop 4/4 with two evasive abilities in trample and flying to smash face is a rough ask to stop. Then it has an amazing ETB ability to every player you too! You chose targets and players, but everyone chosen has a non-basic land destroyed and then gets a free basic ramped tapped onto the battlefield, so they don't get a loss of a land. You can use this to fix your mana colors when you didn't draw it, or destroy nasty lands like Maze of Ith, Volrath's Stronghold, Academy Ruins, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and many more and give them a land to keep them happy. Like Teysa, this scales up in multiplayer as more and more folks are playing. This suits any multiplayer deck with Red, but I also love it strongly in blink, midrange, reanimation, artifacts matter with Goblin Welder style stuff, and loads more. This is a great way to finish our 2nd list!

And there we are! I hope that you enjoyed my 2nd looksee at Murders at Karlov Manor! Next week we'll finish this deep dive into top cards!