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Myrkul, Lord of Midrange

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Hello Happy Readers! Welcome to my fifth deck built around a new dork that debuted in Battle for Baldur's Gate. The first five are in the Appendix below. Awesome possum!

Who am I building around? And what?

Myrkul, Lord of Bones

It's my favorite God. This is in the colors of recursion with Animate Dead, Regrowth and Resurrection all in the first set. This is an admittedly expensive 7-mana 7/5 that gets indestructible when you have 20 or less life, but we won't be building around that. When your non-token creatures bite it, you can exile it, and then make a enchantment copy of said creature. Because Myrkul exiles the dorks, this is a one trick pony, and doesn't work well with recursion. This is a popular Commander with 943 decks over at EDHREC.com. That's a big number this soon after release. Note that it is no longer a dork and cannot swing or have a power/toughness.

I envisioned this as a midrange leader bringing back a bunch of dorks with ETB abilities like Solemn Simulacrum as harder to answer enchantments that continue their trigger with the copy and then with some enchantment support, card flow and triggers. Ready? Note that Myrkul is a fat 7 mana, so I'll be leaning on two land ramp spells like Explosive Vegetation over Rampant Growth ones.

Enchantment Support

Destiny Spinner
Weaver of Harmony

Check out these two mono-Green enchantments dorks. The 2/3 Human will stop your enchantments and creatures from being countered! Nice! And then you can spend four mana to make a big fat land into an X/X with both trample and haste where X is your enchantment count, quite nice, almost a win con here. The 2/2 Snake and Druid pumps your enchantment dorks by +1/+1 each, so that's a nice Anthem on legs for this brew, and then we can also G tap and then copy and activated or triggered ability from an enchantment source, like your ETB dork coming back again as just an enchantment, that counts. Love its synergy here!

Underworld Coinsmith
Thoughtrender Lamia

Check out this pair of uncommon Black enchantment dorks with constellation. The 2-drop is a powerful 2/2 with constellation gain one life. Then you can spend two mana and pay a life to force your foes to each lose a life, which is pretty good here. The 6-drop is a 5/3 that will constellation trade into discards for your foes, which should push them around a bunch. Both are quite powerful and synergetic and board shifting in their power levels.

ETB Triggers

Archon of Cruelty
Overseer of the Damned

Most of my ETB stuff is pretty obvious and not worth talking about from Liliana's Specter to Farhaven Elf. But not this admittedly more expensive duo. The former mono-Black dork, when it ETBs or attacks, will do all of the massive list of cool stuff:

  1. Drain 3 life from a foe.
  2. Draw a card
  3. Your targeted foe discards.
  4. They sacrifice a dork or walker of the planes.

Nasty four set in just one card! The later mono-Black dork is a 7-drop 5/5 flyer that, on arrival to the battlefield, will kill a target creature, and then when they die you'll make a tapped 2/2 Zombie token. Nasty combo, by the by, and both rock strong flying bodies for the cost, and in a deck where we are reliably casting Myrkul, they aren't that bad, and are amazing as ETBs that can be done at least twice!

Sacrifice Engines and Interaction

Dockside Chef

Most of my creature sacrifice engines are lands like Phyrexian Tower and High Market, but this 1-drop uncommon 1/2 is an enchantment creature (trigger for constellation) that can trade two mana and one dork for a card. Nice here, right? I just used this in my Jan deck to sacrifice artifacts for shenanigans, and here to sacrifice creatures for turning into an enchantment and cards.

Fountain Watch
Sterling Grove

This deck is filled to the brim with answers like Shriekmaw and the previous ETB stuff, as well as few instant emergency valves like Generous Gift and Utter End. But we are not in Blue, so we cannot counter removal coming my way, so I tossed in Teferi's Protection and Heroic Intervention and this duo. We want to foe our folks to send their targeted Krosan Grips elsewhere, and away from my precious enchantments. The creature will give them shroud as well as artifacts, but that's just Virus Beetle, Solemn Simulacrum and a few friends here. The enchantment is a 2-drop that just gives the other stuff shroud for the turn but also can be sacrificed for tutoring for an enchantment.

We don't have any graveyard use and abuse here, so I tossed in Agent of Erebos to Tormod's Crypt a graveyard here and there on a constellation stick. It's very powerful here since you can trigger that constellation over and over again. Nasty stuff here, right? Right! I also have Bojuka Bog and Scavenger Grounds to add to my exiling options en masse.

Card Draw

Eidolon of Blossoms
Setessan Champion

I have some cantrip dorks here like Wall of Blossoms to draw cards, as well as these two card draw machines. The first is a 4-drop 2/2 enchantment dork that draws a card when any enchantment arrives to the party, which should be quite a bunch. The second is a 3-drop 1/3 that also draws a card when enchantment arrives to the party as well as giving this a +1/+1 counter for swinging with, nice pair, right?

Harvester of Souls
Soul of the Harvest

The "Soul Harvest" cycle has two cards here. The Black one draws cards as your nontoken creatures die, so that should be a lot here with your sacrificing of the normal creatures for death to turn into enchantment non-dork copies. Ditto the Green one since it draws cards when a dork arrives to the party and thus can make a bunch of triggers with my fat creature base. Both are very strong here! I also tossed in Beast Whisperer to team with the Soul of the Harvest. If you have one of these three, don't toss out the other two to save yourself from the removal that will inevitably come your way.

Synergies

Anointed Procession
Parallel Lives

Most of my synergies in this brew are constellation dorks, but not this rare Modern-legal duo. They each will double the amount of tokens that you make, so now instead of one extra trigger from your dying Solemn Simulacrum turning into an enchantment after dying, you'll net two. Also, again, don't cast the other if you draw it and control the first. Powerful in here, sure!

Grim Guardian
Starfield of Nyx

I do have a few win-cons that I looked at in the enchantment section with the Coinsmith and Spinner and we have three cards I added just as win cons. The common is a 1/4 enchantment black Zombie with a constellation trigger a bit pricey for its size. Note that this will force your foes to lose a life each time that an enchantment arrives, so that's a lot of life over time! The mythic is a 5-drop enchantment that turns your enchantments into dorks with a power and toughness equal to the mana cost if you control at least five enchantments. Out of nowhere that can win over time. Note that this won't work on Auras, but we don't have any here. Also note that this will also recur an enchantment from your graveyard to your battlefield in your upkeep, which is nice, but not really that heavy since most of my ETB stuff isn't an enchantment naturally. Don't be afraid to lean into sacrificing the Grounds that neuters the Starfield by not bringing anything back, but shuts down others, it's here for the latter ability, not the former.

Our final win-con is Archon of Sun's Grace. As you can see, this creates a 2/2 flying creature under your control each time that an enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, which is pretty sweet from where I am sitting. If you control this Archon your tokens will get lifelink so you can gain a lot of life to send to your Coinsmith to hurt your foes. Our card draw is not tethered to life loss, so you can use your life more aggressively for the Coinsmith. Nice right?

Grim Backwoods
Tyrite Sanctum

Five cards left! I mentioned earlier that my land base is where my sacrifices are. As you can see, I have added another sacrifice land in addition to the expected two of High Market and Phyrexian Tower, the Backwoods. This will tap for colorless mana, and then tap a quartet of mana and itself to sacrifice a dork and then draw a card, so it's another card flow card, and will jumpstart your creature death into enchantment birth. The Sanctum will tap for two mana to make something a God and then toss a +1/+1 counter on it. Or you can sacrifice it at instant speed to place an indestructible counter on a God. That's a nice combat trick or protection trick to keep your Commander alive in from removal like Wrath of God or Blasphemous Act.

Hall of Heliod's Generosity
Volrath's Stronghold

The Hall and Stronghold arrive untapped and ready to be used! You can tap the first to place your enchantment on top of your library to draw and keep on keeping on, and we have Sylvan Library and Anointed Procession and creature dorks to reload. You can also just reload everything of a creature (41 not in my Command Zone) nature with the Stronghold and tap tapped mana. Ignore them if you need to wipe your graveyard with a Scavenger Grounds.

Cards from Battle for Baldur's Gate

Druid of the Emerald Grove

Our last card is the only other card from this set, the common Druid. This 4-drop 2/2 will search your library for two basics, and then either ramp none, one, or two, based on your d20 roll. Nice here because you can get it once more with feeling when it dies and comes back as an enchantment. Nice right?

Want to see my decklist?

Myrkul Commander | Commander | Abe Sargent

Because our leader has a big mana cost, I am not running less than a full 40 spots for land, but we don't care about untapped lands, since we don't really curve out that fast. I pulled a bunch of land spots for the modal land cycle since we don't care about the tapped land tempo loss. Good stuff for the win, right? What did you think of my different take on Myrkul leaning into midrange? How are you going to build around the God? Let me know!

Appendix


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