I'm sure you've seen the title and have some feelings about this. We all love a little theme. That's what attracts so many people to Magic: The Gathering Commander. We like a little mechanic and building around it, and the easiest way to do that is with Kindred. However, I'm not sure this should be our go to. Let's get into it.

What is a Kindred Commander Deck?

First of all, what is Kindred? Most Creature cards in Magic have creature types. For example: Dragon, Goblin, Elf, Zombie, Angel, or Vampire. Kindred spells are spells that have a specific creature type, formerly known as Tribal. The term Tribal term was discontinued by Wizards of the Coast due to its harmful connotations in favor of Kindred. Most Kindred spells are creatures, but there are some notable exceptions like Echoes of Eternity and Bitterblossom and Aquitect's Will. These spells are from a kindred type and usually benefit that type.

So what is a Kindred Commander Deck? It is a commander deck that usually benefits from playing a lot of creatures of their kindred type. For example, The Ur-Dragon, has eminence. As long as The Ur-Dragon is in the command zone or on the battlefield, other Dragon spells you cast cost 1 less to cast. The deck rewards you for playing Dragon spells. Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver is the same with Zombies, giving them decayed and making them recurrable. Giada, Font of Hope is the same with Angels, buffing them for each one out, and she herself being a mana-dork for Angel spells.

The Problem With Kindred

So, we've all been building a Kindred deck, going on scryfall and moxfield, trying to find every Frog creature card to build a Clement, the Worrywort deck. At some point we all hit a point where we basically run out of truly worthy Frogs. What I mean here, is there are a ton of really good cards that happen to be Frogs right? Pond Prophet is great in Clement, the Worrywort. It is a frog that would tap for mana, has an enters ability, and costs only 2 mana; so when Clement bounces it back to hand, it is beneficial to casting it again. This is a good frog. It synergizes with the commander, but has other uses.

Bloated Toad, on the other hand, synergizes with the commander only. Without your commander on the battlefield, this card is basically unplayable. We struggle in Kindred decks to stick to a Kindred type without throwing in a bunch of Bloated Toad-type cards to flesh out our decks. In a deck, a rule of thumb a lot of commander deck builders follow is to have at least 30 pieces of synergy in your deck. So that means maybe 30 meaningful and synergistic Frogs, which are bound to have an un-synergistic card or two.

The consequence of this is that your deck will become less efficient. You're running a bunch of cards that require your commander to be good. All anyone has to do is remove your commander and your deck becomes much more ineffective. Commander decks should have the flexibility to win without it's commander. Giada, Font of Hope and The Ur-Dragon are decks that are resilient enough to be valuable without the commander. These Kindred types are blessed to have been a long established and well-fed type. The archetype has generically good cards in droves so you could feasibly not play your commander and still be intimidating. So these decks should be worth playing still, by my own logic, right?

My Problem With Kindred

Factoring everything we've said, my real problem with Kindred decks are really the play patterns. Kindred decks usually focus on putting out creatures of a certain type and buffing them: Lord effects, giving them plus one plus one, or lands like Three Tree City and Path of Ancestry, giving benefits from playing creatures of the type.

This creates a type of play pattern that I find boring in Magic: The Gathering. Play creature, get benefit, play creature, get benefit, swing with massive boards. It is reliant on combat and is very easy to disrupt. The play pattern is just so rote to me. It blends a lot of Kindred type decks together. Why play an Angel deck over a Zombie deck, if the play patterns are so similar?

I would prefer to play a Kindred adjacent deck; like Clement, the Worrywort. I'm not going to only put Frogs in my deck, but a few good ones are worth playing. I'd play a blink and bounce strategy, allowing for playing low-cost creatures with enter effects to gain value. It makes me feel like I picked Clement because he's a fun card, not just because it shares a creature type with them. I've noticed this with Galadriel, Light of Valinor as well. She has the makings of being a very fun Blink Commander, but she is mainly played as Elf Kindred. She is so much more than just an Elf.

What Am I Building Instead?

I'm talking a lot of smack about a very viable, and consistent, and common type of deck here. It's only fair I give you all ammunition to talk smack back. I prefer to build a deck around a mechanic. I recently built a Manifest Dread Commander: Zimone, Mystery Unraveler. We've all seen a landfall commander deck. My favorite deck is Legendaries Matter and Reanimation: Dihada, Binder of Wills. I like an exploitable ability each card might have. It gives me more flexibility on the viability of a deck, by going by mechanic. Either way, let me know your thoughts @Strixhavendropout at Bluesky.