With new Kindred Commanders releasing, such as Clavileno, First of the Blessed in Lost Caverns of Ixalan, and Ezio, Blade of Vengeance coming soon with Universes Beyond: Assassin's Creed, now is a great time to build a Kindred deck. Whether you play Dragons, Zombies, Elves, or even something more niche like Fish or Crab Kindred, this article will give you a head start with all the staples found in Kindred Commander decks.

Mana Fixing

If you are playing a Dinosaur Kindred deck and want to play Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant on turn five, how are you going to accomplish that running in (besides being in Green)? This is where Kindred decks have an advantage with plenty of artifacts and lands to get discounts and mana pips.

Starting with the lands, we have Cavern of Souls, Secluded Courtyard, Unclaimed Territory, and Path of Ancestry. Three of these lands net you any mana color that you can only use on creatures of the declared type or on their abilities. Path of Ancestry gets you any color your commander has in its color identity and a free scry if the mana is used for a creature of the same type as your commander. Pillar of Origins also gives colored mana for your Kindred deck, making it a nice mana rock if you want extra flexibility.

The other half of mana fixing is discounting those big mana creatures with artifacts like Herald's Horn and Urza's Incubator. These two give a discount to the mana cost, reducing a creature down to without any other mana dorks or cost reductions! Herald's Horn in particular feels great to use as it also gives you card advantage by looking at your library for the creature type on every upkeep.

Hey, that's cheating!

What is better than cheaper creatures? Free creatures! Kindred decks with higher mana curves can suffer from not being able to play more than one card a turn. Cards like Belbe's Portal and Cryptic Gateway let you pay mana or tap your smaller creatures to bring out, or "cheat," the big fellas straight from your hand! Along with them, we have Call to the Kindred and Descendants' Path, which let you check the top of your library for your creatures and put them straight into play.

All four of these cards can fit neatly into any Kindred deck that can run those colors, but what about decks that might have more of an aristocrat's strategy? We can look to Descendants' Fury and Pyre of Heroes for sacrifice outlets that also net you another creature with every trigger! I particularly enjoy Pyre in my Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver deck since I can get out a bigger Zombie and then use other cards to get them back out of the graveyard.

Speed is Key: Card Advantage

The faster you can get your mana rocks and other support pieces on the board, the sooner you can just play your favorite creatures to close out the game. Realmwalker lets you look and cast creature spells from the top of your library, giving any Kindred deck with Green a way to peek at what cards they have coming or if they need to shuffle them away. As I hinted earlier, cards like Herald's Horn and Vanquisher's Banner provide a card advantage benefit on top of their other effects. The Horn lets you draw the top card of your library if it is the chosen type on your upkeep, and Banner lets you draw a card just for playing your creatures!

Need more card draw? Distant Melody and Pact of the Serpent draw you cards based on the number of Kindred creatures you have in play. Try to avoid ending the game for yourself with Pact; Kindred decks can easily have 20+ creatures on the board at any time. Also, take a look at Conjurer's Mantle and Heirloom Blade for some equipment-based card advantage if you have artifacts as a subtheme or just want to buff your commander or another big creature.

Honorable Mention: Kindred Cycle

There was a cycle of Kindred cards that released before Wizards of the Coast announced the change in language back in 2023. This cycle features one for each color in Magic and plays off their particular strengths. These five cards are worth considering in any deck as they can change the board state in one fell swoop. In particular, I run Kindred Summons as a win condition in my Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm deck as it can usually net me 5+ creatures at minimum.

Welcome to Combat

Now we have creatures on the board and a hand full of cards, what is next? We can go full aggro by buffing our creatures, stay strong with protective or unblockable keywords, or turn the board upside down by board wiping our opponents and keeping ourselves strong.

Can we make our creatures even bigger and badder? We sure can with artifacts like Door of Destinies, Icon of Ancestry, Instruments of War, and Obelisk of Urd, which give +X/+X bonuses to our creatures. Need some keywords? Cover of Darkness provides fear to all your creatures, and Radiant Destiny gives vigilance as long as you have the city's blessing (which should be easy running a creature-heavy deck like Kindred decks tend to lean).

Now, how do we protect those big creatures? We can give them indestructible with And They Shall Know No Fear to save our board from damage-based board wipes, or if we need to prevent any targeted removal, we can use Steely Resolve, giving our creatures shroud. Just be aware that shroud will keep you from targeting them as well! Another way to protect them is to remove the problems from your opponents' boards. Crippling Fear gives -3/-3 to any creature that isn't your chosen type, while Raise the Palisade can bounce non-Kindred creatures to their owners' hands. Both of these will leave opponents open for attack, but Raise the Palisade is fun in particular when you have a wheel or other discard effect to leave them without a way to play those creatures again.

Final Notes

I hope this article gave you an idea of what staples exist for this popular archetype. With mana sinks, combat tricks, and plenty of land options, I always enjoy getting to build a Kindred deck just to see those creature types shine. What are some of your favorite creature types? Were there any cards I missed that you include in your Kindred decks? Let me know here or on socials!