We've been wrestling with some language as a community over the last bit. Recently, Wizards of the Coast announced they were officially replacing the card type "Tribal" with "Kindred," with Typal being used to describe a deck built around a specific Creature type. I've been a Vampire: the Masquerade player since it came out in the early 90's, so for me, Kindred has a very specific other-jargon meaning, and it's hard for me to hear it as anything other than "vampire". It's okay. I can learn.

In that spirit, I thought it'd be fun to do a typal deck this week, and to do so, what better way than with my favorite color combination: Black and more Black! Well, with a touch of Red.

That's right, we're doing Warlock deck!

...wait, you weren't expecting Warlocks? What were you thinking about? Well, I'm doing Warlocks, because this set of decks is all about confounding expectations, and this will certainly do that!

Totentanz Warlock Typal | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Totentanz, Swarm Piper

• Creatures (40)
• 1 Adaptive Automaton
• 1 Archpriest of Shadows
• 1 Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm
• 1 Author of Shadows
• 1 Bloodline Pretender
• 1 Cabal Initiate
• 1 Callous Bloodmage
• 1 Chittering Witch
• 1 Conceited Witch // Price of Beauty
• 1 Daring Fiendbonder
• 1 Disciple of Perdition
• 1 Faerie Dreamthief
• 1 Fain, the Broker
• 1 Graveshifter
• 1 Grim Wanderer
• 1 Gumdrop Poisoner // Tempt with Treats
• 1 Herald of Hadar
• 1 High Fae Negotiator
• 1 Hired Hexblade
• 1 Leech Fanatic
• 1 Malevolent Witchkite
• 1 Marshland Bloodcaster
• 1 Metallic Mimic
• 1 Misfortune Teller
• 1 Novice Dissector
• 1 Piper of the Swarm
• 1 Prosper, Tome-Bound
• 1 Roaming Throne
• 1 Sedgemoor Witch
• 1 Sibylline Soothsayer
• 1 Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker
• 1 Species Specialist
• 1 Spiteful Hexmage
• 1 Sweettooth Witch
• 1 Tempting Witch
• 1 Tivash, Gloom Summoner
• 1 Twisted Sewer-Witch
• 1 Veinwitch Coven
• 1 Witch of the Moors
• 1 Zoyowa Lava-Tongue

• Instants (2)
• 1 Nameless Inversion
• 1 Pack's Disdain

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 Crippling Fear
• 1 Haunting Voyage
• 1 Kindred Charge
• 1 Kindred Dominance
• 1 Pact of the Serpent

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Black Market Connections
• 1 Cover of Darkness
• 1 Molten Echoes

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Door of Destinies
• 1 Herald's Horn
• 1 Icon of Ancestry
• 1 Instruments of War
• 1 Obelisk of Urd
• 1 Pillar of Origins
• 1 Progenitor's Icon
• 1 Urza's Incubator
• 1 Vanquisher's Banner

• Lands (40)
• 2 Mountain
• 11 Swamp
• 1 Bloodfell Caves
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Canyon Slough
• 1 Castle Embereth
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 Haunted Ridge
• 1 High Market
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Mortuary Mire
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Rakdos Carnarium
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Secluded Courtyard
• 1 Shadowblood Ridge
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Tainted Peak
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Unclaimed Territory
• 1 Westvale Abbey
• 1 Witch's Cottage

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Let's get a few things out of the way right now. First, I don't know what color(s) Warlocks are supposed to be in, but I'm pretty sure it's not Red and Black. Second, Warlocks have no leader of their own, which should change. Third, this deck is a rough draft in desperate need of some finesse.

One of the first thing a regular reader might notice is I didn't follow a number of my basic rules for deck construction. I've got 40 Lands, but other than that? I'm way out of normal. There are very few ramp spells, and the ones that are there are primarily because they're on-theme, like Pillar of Origins, Progenitor's Icon, and Herald's Horn. We have a few random ways of generating Treasure (an early Prosper, Tome-Bound is good for this) and a couple more ways of reducing costs, but honestly, this deck never gets terribly high mana costs and should function just fine as-is. However, if you want it to work better, one of the things it will need to be is faster, and that will probably mean caring more about early mana.

I also didn't put in a whole bunch of draw. There is some, but again, it's mostly because it's on-theme. Black Market Connections, that EDH-darling, is actually here because it makes Shapeshifter tokens which are Warlocks, even if most of the time it's Phyrexian Arena but more painful. Species Specialist isn't a Warlock, but it's on theme enough it's worth it and we get to draw cards off literally every other Creature in our deck. We are better at bringing our Creatures and stuff back from the 'yard than we are at drawing, so it's possible we need to add some more draw spells so we can get the stuff out and be able to recur it!

While Warlocks don't have their own official Warlock-Kindred leader, we do have the Changeling ones, like Adaptive Automaton and Metallic Mimic. We've actually got a bunch of these, several in the Artifact section like Instruments of War and Vanquisher's Banner. I'm rather fond of Roaming Throne, which doesn't give a power buff but does double up on triggered abilities, which is fun; if we happen to have Totentanz out, we get two Rats. Prosper exiles two cards we can play. Don't look too closely at Spiteful Hexmage, though, because two of those Cursed Role tokens isn't exactly a good thing, but it's worth the cost of admission.

All that said, we're going to play out a bunch of Warlocks, buff them up, and swing with them. They're not really good at evasion, so we're just going to have to hope for the best and play some politics. Look, no one plays Warlock Kindred because they're being super competitive, right? We play stuff like this because it's fun, and because we want to be surprising and see if we can squeeze a win out of an underpowered pile of cards.

Our answers are fairly on-theme as well. Nameless Inversion, one of my favorite cards from a Standard deck I used to play, makes an appearance. Gumdrop Poisoner is a weird one but kind of cool, and can be finagled into a fairly decent kill. We do get the marvelous Kindred Dominance and the less-good-but-super-cool Crippling Fear. Don't forget that will kill Indestructible Creatures.

One thing I couldn't get completely away from was Rats. I didn't put any in the deck, but if you play Totentanz out, you're going to end up making some Rats. That's fine. The point is we're not making a Rat deck, and everyone will think you are, especially if someone asks what you're playing and you say "Totentanz Typal". There are times when we want to sacrifice something, and the Rats will be great for that. They also carry Cursed Role tokens well. Just don't ever allow yourself to choose "Rats" when playing out a banner and you've achieved the goal.

Anyone have any ideas for unexpected Typal decks? Let me know on socials! In the meantime, go do something unexpected in your Commander games. It's worth the fun it brings.

Thanks for reading.