Kindred decks are great. The very concept of building around a certain type was really brilliant when Magic was first created; new players could choose the Creature type they wanted (or, in my case, opened) and jam some Lands and other Creatures with that type. And it worked! Maybe it wasn't the strongest deck, but it gave you direction, intention, and some help along the way.

Kindred decks have come a long way since the days of Zombie Master. Kindred decks are often competitive-level; broken cards like Rooftop Storm have been printed; and we even had a set which put a Creature type on other things. I'm looking at you, Diviner's Wand.

We've even moved away from just Creature types. I have a buddy who has a Swords kindred deck. It's every sword he could get his hands on and some Knights to carry them. Today, as we continue our journey through Gruul, I thought we'd take a look at Kicker kindred.

A 3/3 with Trample for is a decent deal to begin with, but we expect that kind of power in these colors. Hallar is also an Elf and an Archer, both of which are likely candidates for kindred decks. (Okay, we all know Elves have been around forever. But I had to go check on Archers. As far as I can tell, your best bet for Archer kindred would be with Ohabi Caleria. That means no Hallar, but it's worth it to have the Seedborne Muse effect and the card draw in your Command Zone. Could make a decent deck.)

But it's the Kicker clause which is interesting. We cast Kicked spells, Hallar gets bigger and hits all our opponents with some damage. That means, barring any lifegain shenanigans, if we can cast a Kicked spell nine times with Hallar out and unmolested, we win the game because we've dealt 45 damage to everyone. Granted, a lot can happen in nine turns, but let's be optimistic, shall we?

One decision I made early on was I wanted every spell in the deck to have Kicker (or at least directly reference Kicker as an ability). That limits our ramp options quite a lot. We get Grow from the Ashes, Hunting Wilds, and Primal Growth. We also get Skyclave Relic and Everflowing Chalice. Elfhame Druid is great. But this deck is mana hungry and really wants to hit its Land drops, and it doesn't have a ton of options for getting those Lands. So, in addition to the ramp we can run, we've got a whopping 43 Lands.

I know what you're thinking. It's too many. But the truth is I regularly run decks with 49-50 mana sources (either Lands or ramp) and my decks work. In order to reliably increase your mana, you have to run Lands at these amounts. By my count, this deck has 51 mana sources (the ones listed above plus Reclaim the Wastes and Vastwood Surge), and every single time I've tested this deck I have not regretted one bit of the mana.

We have a lot of dual-color Lands, of course, plus a few extras. Because they're not spells, we can mess around with things like Opal Palace (which is reliably not fantastic but here pretty great), Karn's Bastion, and Kessig Wolf Run, one of my favorites. We also have War Room, which I tend to not like in two-or-more-color decks, but we need the draw pretty badly, and Bonders' Enclave, which we should be able to use reliably.

And we really do need that draw badly. Both Red and Greem draw cards well - Green straight to hand with bit spells like Soul's Majesty and Red with its impulse draw, hardly a problem for a mana-intensive deck like this one. We have War Room and Citanul Woodreaders. Ghitu Chronicler will get us a card back from the Graveyard. Thicket Elemental will flip us to an extra Creature, and we have a couple of cards which generate Tokens. But there is almost nothing out there with Kicker that draws us cards. I even dug for ways to abuse the Woodreaders, but there aren't any ways to do that with Kicker either. So, our one exception to the kicker only rule is Shamanic Revelation, which hopefully will draw us deep enough to secure a win should it come up.

The goal is to win with Hallar's triggered ability. It's fairly straightforward, but it will happen differently every time. We play Hallar on turn three and starting on turn four, play a Kicked spell. Kind of doesn't matter which one, play the one which makes the most sense for whatever it is you're doing right then. Remove a mana rock. Burst Lightning an early utility Creature. Play out a Creature. Doesn't really matter. Then keep casting a spell every turn, by turn six or seven you may even be able to cast more than one. Do that! Watch which spells you're casting so you can double up later, use as much of your mana as possible each turn. With a little luck we'll push Hallar's damage over the finish line.

Our answers are limited, again, to what we have with Kicker. Molten Disaster is a decent Wrath of God. Shivan Fire and Burst Lightning are reasonable spot removal. Overload blows up an Artifact. Oran-Rief Recluse can shoot down an opposing Angel. The options are kind of wild, but they're there.

Rumbling Aftershocks is one of our spells without Kicker, but it is worth it because it throws extra damage around. Vine Gecko, also, is great because it lowers our costs and gives us another Creature to block or attack with, both of which we may need to do.

Hallar Kicker Kindred | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Hallar, the Firefletcher

• Creature (28)
• 1 Citanul Woodreaders
• 1 Deathforge Shaman
• 1 Elfhame Druid
• 1 Flametongue Yearling
• 1 Ghitu Chronicler
• 1 Gnarlid Colony
• 1 Gnarlid Pack
• 1 Goblin Bushwhacker
• 1 Goblin Ruinblaster
• 1 Grunn, the Lonely King
• 1 Keldon Overseer
• 1 Mold Shambler
• 1 Murasa Sproutling
• 1 Myriad Construct
• 1 Oran-Rief Recluse
• 1 Shatterskull Charger
• 1 Skitter of Lizards
• 1 Skizzik
• 1 Sprouting Goblin
• 1 Territorial Allosaurus
• 1 Thicket Elemental
• 1 Untamed Kavu
• 1 Verduran Emissary
• 1 Verix Bladewing
• 1 Viashino Branchrider
• 1 Vine Gecko
• 1 Wolfbriar Elemental
• 1 Yavimaya Iconoclast

• Instants (13)
• 1 Burst Lightning
• 1 Cinderclasm
• 1 Colossal Growth
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Gift of Growth
• 1 Inscription of Abundance
• 1 Overload
• 1 Scorching Lava
• 1 Shivan Fire
• 1 Strength of the Tajuru
• 1 Unstable Footing
• 1 Vines of Vastwood
• 1 Wild Onslaught

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Breath of Darigaaz
• 1 Canopy Surge
• 1 Fight with Fire
• 1 Grow from the Ashes
• 1 Hunting Wilds
• 1 Molten Disaster
• 1 Primal Growth
• 1 Reclaim the Wastes
• 1 Saproling Migration
• 1 Savage Offensive
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Vastwood Surge

• Enchantments (1)
• 1 Rumbling Aftershocks

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Skyclave Relic

• Lands (43)
• 9 Mountain
• 11 Forest
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Drannith Ruins
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Forge of Heroes
• 1 Game Trail
• 1 Highland Forest
• 1 Karn's Bastion
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Llanowar Reborn
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Rockfall Vale
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Rugged Highlands
• 1 Sheltered Thicket
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Throne of Makindi
• 1 Tyrite Sanctum
• 1 War Room
• 1 Wooded Ridgeline

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The first thing I'll say about this deck is it looks like a great deal of fun. It'll always be relevant because so many of the spells are interactive and because the Commander is a ticking time bomb on the rest of the field; if they don't keep you in check, you'll be lowering life totals. It also won't be wildly difficult to pilot. As long as the player knows how Kicker works, they'll be fine and the deck will work great.

The second is this is the sort of deck which I highly recommend modifying for your purposes. If you want to be completely locked to the theme, go ahead and build it like this, but know you're intentionally building a sub-optimal version of the deck because of it. It needs card draw: Harmonize, Rishkar's Expertise, spells like that. It needs a lot of card draw. It also probably needs a proper ramp package, and probably Sol Ring for a turn-2 Hallar. And it could stand to have some better removal; Beast Within and Blasphemous Act (both classics and standards for a reason) would be useful here.

But when I build these kind of decks, I like to push the theme really far so we're starting from an edge and working in. You don't have to figure out which of the excellent traditional Commander cards to cut to stick in Untamed Kavu. You have to figure out which of the bad Kicker spells to cut for Cultivate and Skullclamp. That's easier. Only you can decide how much you want to stick to the exact theme. And how many kicker Kindred decks are you going to meet?

What's your idea on kindred decks? Do you like them? Build them? How committed to the theme do you stay? Let me know on social media.

Thanks for reading.