The Voyage of Life: Childhood by Thomas Cole (1842).

Mudrotha, the Gravetide by Jason Rainville

When I saw Muldrotha, the Gravetide I had a feeling that it would wind up being the Atraxa, Praetors' Voice of 2018, or maybe more accurately the Meren of Clan Nel Toth of 2018. Muldrotha provides an amazing amount of value and seems so easy and obvious to build around that my guess was that we would be swimming in Muldrotha decks before summer was in full swing.

I was wrong, but probably only because Atraxa and Meren were both in preconstructed Commander decks and Muldrotha was in a regular set, Dominaria. That doesn't mean that Muldrotha isn't an amazing card, and despite my desire to make fresh, interesting decks, today's article is about how I am approaching building my own Muldrotha deck.

Muldrotha costs a hefty . That might not seem like much but in the world of competitive Commander, six mana is on the edge of being unplayable. That means we're not building a high tier deck but if you're a regular reader you wouldn't expect a "cEDH" deck from me in the first place. Muldrotha, who is a 6/6, allows you to play up to one permanent of each type from your graveyard during each of your turns. My goal is to find an interesting way to build this that you may not have seen before.

At this point abusing Muldrotha is well-trodden territory. Every writer and deck-builder worth their salt, and a great many (possibly including myself) not worth their salt have already contributed to the exploration of how to best break Muldrotha wide open.

As I understand it, the approach isn't that different from Meren and involves loops of sacrificing creatures to force your opponents to sacrifice their board. If you're really trying to build a fast Muldrotha deck you're probably going to combo off, draw your deck and win with Laboratory Maniac or maybe kill the table with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion, perhaps Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, or any of a number of other insta-win combos. They are effective, they are nasty, and that's not where I'm going to go with this build.

Our Wincon

I could tell you all about Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Executioner, Dictate of Erebos, Grave Pact and other ways to win games and lose friends, but chances are pretty good you already know about these very strong and effective ways to make your buddies hate you.

This isn't that kind of deck.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with building mean, nasty decks that make people wonder why they ever bothered to play a game of Commander with you. If that's your style, go for it. I've built effective, overpowering decks that win more than their fair share of games. That's may not be where I'm going with Muldrotha today, but this isn't a hug deck either.

My goals with this build are two-fold.

I want to explore using Muldrotha as a way to squeeze value out of this deck by running lots of permanents that can be sacrificed and then recurred from the graveyard and sacrificed again. I appreciate the ability to squeeze value out of a deck and I'm interested in exploring that in this build.

I also want to take a hilariously bad card and find a way to win a game with it.

That card is the highly suspect Flamecast Wheel.

This artifact costs a paltry one mana to cast, but to use its ability you have to pay five mana, tap it AND SACRIFICE IT.

For all that, what do you get?

You get to do 3 damage to target creature or player.

No wait, that's not right. That would be TOO GOOD for an artifact like Flamecast Wheel.

You get to do 3 damage to target CREATURE.

For six mana.

Once.

This is where any rational deck-builder would toss this card into the nearest paper shredder and never think about it again, but not me.

When you build enough decks, play enough games, and win enough of those games, you start looking for ways to make winning games more interesting.

Flamecast Wheel has long been on my radar as a deeply flawed card that only a deeply stupid person would actually put into a Commander deck. That is why one of the goals for this deck is at some point to win a game with this terrible, terrible card.

I find this card so hilariously bad that I even went out of my way to pick up a FOIL Flamecast Wheel that I had seen at my local game store. If it's going to be my wincon, I might as well make it look as impressive as possible.

No Really, It's A Wincon

With Muldrotha on the field, we can pay one mana, pay five mana, and tap and sacrifice Flamecast Wheel to do 3 damage to a creature. Then we can play it out of graveyard and do it all again for a grand total of 12 mana and 6 total damage. With value like that you might wonder why I need to write an article about how to make this amazing piece of technology even better, but bear with me.

Muldrotha lets you cast an artifact out of the graveyard, but if we have a new instance of Muldrotha we get a new set of castings of permanents out of our graveyard. All we need now is a way to flicker Muldrotha. Fortunately, that's not a hard problem to solve.

Deadeye Navigator will soulbond to a creature and let us exile it and return it to the battlefield for the low, low cost of . In theory that will allow us to flicker Muldrotha to get more castings out of our graveyard, but all these shenanigans cost mana.

Any of these creatures can be flickered to create infinite mana, as they untap more lands than it costs to flicker them with Deadeye. Cloud of Faeries will also work if you run a land that taps for more than 1 mana. Fortunately, that's in the plan.

I'll also be running Temple of the False God, Soldevi Excavations, Coral Atoll, Jungle Basin, and anything else I can get my hands on that will tap for more than one mana. I'll also run Amulet of Vigor so all those lands that enter tapped can untap and be ready for immediate use.

What all this means is that our Muldrotha deck should be able to flicker a creature to create infinite mana, flicker Muldrotha to get infinite castings out of our graveyard, and get infinite activations of our shiny foil Flamecast Wheel to do infinite damage to creatures. That will just annoy our opponents, and I don't want to just annoy them. I just want to kill them. That's why I'm not running Fleshbag Marauder and Merciless Executioner, and it is why I'm running this little guy.

The last piece of this puzzle is Stuffy Doll. If we can get this 0/1 indestructible artifact creature onto the field we can use it to focus our damage onto players. We can even flicker Stuffy Doll so that when one player is dead we can have it re-enter the battlefield and name the next player we want to target. As long as nobody has hexproof we should be able to kill the entire table.

The beauty of this plan is that if key pieces get destroyed we can just recast them out of the graveyard if we've managed to make infinite mana. If any of them get exiled we may be in trouble. That's why we've got other ways to try to win the game.

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

Our backup wincon isn't as good as our Flamecast Wheel / Stuffy Doll wincon, but that's why I'm loving this deck. It is still largely dependent upon leveraging Deadeye Navigator to be able to make infinite mana and get infinite castings out of our graveyard. That's not a feature, it's a bug, but once you see what I've got stewing away in my cauldron, you'll see why I can't resist it.

Bogbrew Witch is just a tutor for both Festering Newt and Bubbling Cauldron, but that's not a bad thing. Festering Newt, when sacrificed, will let us give target creature an opponent controls -1/-1 and if Bogbrew Witch is on the field we give it -4/-4 instead. The real magic happens when Bubbling Cauldron is out. You can use it to sacrifice a creature to gain 4 life and if you sacrificed Festering Newt your opponents each lose 4 life and you gain life equal to the life lost that way.

Being able to recur this on each of your turns is pretty good. At a five player table you'll be gaining 16 life each turn. If you can flicker Muldrotha a few times you still have the drawback of having to tap Bubbling Cauldron, but with enough mana and a recurrable way to destroy an artifact you should still be able to kill the table in one turn. Seal of Primordium will do that for us, but if we're in the position to pull this off we can probably win in any number of ways.

Recurrable Value

Since Muldrotha allows us to cast permanents from our graveyard we want lots of things we would normally want to do with an instant or sorcery to be done with an artifact, creature, or enchantment instead. I'm one of those deck-builders who likes to run cycles of cards,

I'm currently planning on running four of these cycles, two of enchantments and two of artifacts. My hope is that while none of them provide overwhelming value on their own, they can be recurred and one of the things I'm hoping to explore with this deck is how much value I can squeeze out of a Muldrotha recursion strategy.

The three Fonts that I can play are the Font of Fertility, the Font of Fortunes and the Font of Return. When looked at in terms of how expensive each one is to cast and crack on the same turn, these enchantments represent pretty decent value. For a total of Font of Fertility puts a basic land onto the battlefield tapped. For , Font of Fortunes will draw you two cards. For a hefty Font of Return will bring three creature cards from your graveyard back to your hand.

The Vessel cycle of enchantments represent a similar kind of value. For a total of , Vessel of Nascency will let you look at the top four cards of your library, put a permanent from among them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard. For a deck that wants to dig and find key cards and is also able to cast cards out of the graveyard that's not bad. Vessel of Paramnesia will let you pay , force target player to put the top three cards of his or her library into their graveyard and then you get to draw a card. I'll probably want to target myself but we might want to use this after an opponent tutors a card to the top of their library. Vessel of Malignity is good old fashioned hand hate. For we can force an opponent to exile two cards from their hand. This is particularly good because it exiles, and is especially good if we can do this multiple times at a stage of the game where an opponent is likely to be sitting on good cards or wincons.

All of the implements have the magic words "draw a card" on them, so on one level you can look at each of these as yet another way to dig through your deck. The Implement of Ferocity has the best cost-to-cantrip ratio, with a payment of drawing you a card. You also get to put +1/+1 counter on target creature, which on its own isn't amazing but if recurred infinitely with our deadeye navigator trick can definitely win a game . The Implement of Examination is just a draw engine, but drawing two cards for the cost of every turn is good value. Implement of Malice will let you force an opponent to discard a card for the cost of and when it is put into the graveyard you draw a card.

The spellbombs don't automatically draw you cards when they get sent to the graveyard, but they do provide card draw as an option. Horizon Spellbomb will let you put a basic land onto the battlefield tapped for a total of three mana, and if you pay another you get to draw a card. Aether Spellbomb costs and for will let us bounce a creature to its owner's hand. If we pay colorless mana instead we can draw a card, but we can't do both. Nihil Spellbomb will let us exile all cards from target player's graveyard for a paltry mana, but if we pay an additional we can draw a card.

None of these are amazing.

All of them get much better if they are easily available to us multiple times.

Under normal circumstances we may find ourselves having to choose which of multiple enchantments we want to re-cast and which of multiple artifacts we want to re-cast. We likely won't be spending every game in "magical christmasland" where we're making infinite mana, flickering Muldrotha and casting any of these an infinite number of times, but when we do we should be able to draw into any of our goofy wincons.

Muldrotha Staples

While effects that force your opponents to sacrifice their creatures are definitely staples in Muldrotha decks, I'm trying to build a deck that won't make my friends hate me. I know, my priorities are obviously in need of adjustment but I'm still going to run some cards that are particularly good in Muldrotha.

Being able to recur Spore Frog on your turn won't guarantee you a win, but it will go a long way towards having opponents not even bother to attack you until they've found a solution to the cutest recurrable fog-on-a-stick that Wizards ever printed. Mystic Remora may not be cute, but being able to send it to your graveyard during your upkeep and then re-cast it for is a great way to draw lots of cards. They probably won't bother to remove it, as you should just be re-casting it again on your next turn. Mulldrifter can be cast for its evoke cost out of the graveyard so it represent 2 cards for every turn if you can recur it.

Sakura-Tribe Elder costs and can sacrifice itself to put a basic land onto the battlefield tapped. At that cost it's one of our more efficient ramp options. Fertilid costs and comes into the battlefield with two +1/+1 counters. For you can remove a counter and put a basic land from your library onto the battlefield tapped. That's not as efficient as my namesake, "Steve" (Sakura-Tribe Elder) but still represents good value. Elephant Grass, like Mystic Remora, has a cumulative upkeep cost that we can often just ignore if we're willing to re-cast it out of the graveyard on our turn. This propaganda effect will keep Black creatures from attacking us and will act as a Propaganda effect, forcing opponents to pay two mana for each creature they want to attack us with.

The Decklist

As is my way, this is a first draft and a whimsical one at that. My recent Rith, the Awakener draft pulled out a win in its very first game, but this deck feels more like a durdly build that will probably struggle if I can't pull into a combo.

Muldrotha, the Gravetide -- Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Bogbrew Witch
• 1 Cloud of Faeries
• 1 Deadeye Navigator
• 1 Dreamscape Artist
• 1 Fertilid
• 1 Festering Newt
• 1 Gifted Aetherborn
• 1 Great Whale
• 1 Malakir Familiar
• 1 Mold Shambler
• 1 Mulldrifter
• 1 Oashra Cultivator
• 1 Palinchron
• 1 Peregrine Drake
• 1 Reef Worm
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Satyr Wayfinder
• 1 Spore Frog
• 1 Stuffy Doll
• 1 Temur Sabertooth
• 1 Typhoid Rats
• 1 Vampire Nighthawk

• Instants (5)
• 1 Ad Nauseam
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Frantic Search
• 1 Thrilling Encore

• Sorceries (2)
• 1 Diabolic Tutor
• 1 Seasons Past

• Enchantments (15)
• 1 Compost
• 1 Containment Membrane
• 1 Elephant Grass
• 1 Font of Fertility
• 1 Font of Fortunes
• 1 Font of Return
• 1 Lifeforce
• 1 Mind's Dilation
• 1 Mystic Remora
• 1 Seal of Primordium
• 1 Second Chance
• 1 Unbridled Growth
• 1 Vessel of Malignity
• 1 Vessel of Nascency
• 1 Vessel of Paramnesia

• Artifacts (20)
• 1 Aether Spellbomb
• 1 Amulet of Vigor
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Bubbling Cauldron
• 1 Cranial Archive
• 1 Elixir of Immortality
• 1 Flamecast Wheel
• 1 Glaring Spotlight
• 1 Horizon Spellbomb
• 1 Implement of Examination
• 1 Implement of Ferocity
• 1 Implement of Malice
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
• 1 Orazca Relic
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Tapestry of the Ages
• 1 Traveler's Amulet
• 1 Wanderer's Twig
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble

• Lands (35)
• 4 Swamp
• 5 Island
• 6 Forest
• 1 Ash Barrens
• 1 Blighted Fen
• 1 Coral Atoll
• 1 Crystal Vein
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Field of Ruin
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 Haunted Fengraf
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Jungle Basin
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Opulent Palace
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Soldevi Excavations
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse

Buy This Deck Export text format

You can see from the mana base (if not from practically everything I've ever written) that this is definitely a casual deck. I build with what I have and I don't dump big money (or proxies) into my decks.

Early testing shows that a turn one Amulet of Vigor can really open up the floodgates, as our bounce lands enter tapped and will untap, and every way we have to bring tutor up a land will see it enter tapped and then promptly untap and be ready to use.

Other Directions

One thing I can't help but think about are other directions I could have taken this build.

I'm partial to trying to win with commander damage, so I have to wonder if a voltron style build would be fun to build and play. Muldrotha doesn't have any built-in evasion or protection but the ability to bring auras and equipment back from the graveyard would provide a resiliency that many voltron decks just don't have.

I know for certain that a stax build would probably be pretty easy to build around Muldrotha. The ability to recur stax pieces would make such a deck quite the headache and your ability to play cards out of your graveyard should give you plenty of ways to break parity.

I have a Flash Hulk deck built around The Mimeoplasm that I could also see being worth converting over to Muldrotha. My build is also a Hermit Druid combo deck, but for now I'm going to leave it intact. I expect Muldrotha might bring it a little more consistency, but I want to durdle with a casual Muldrotha build for a while until I tire of it and want to start messing around with it again.

Final Thoughts

I didn't go into quite the exhaustive detail today that I often go into when I write about my builds.

I think if you look through the list you'll find some interesting cards that fit in pretty well with Muldrotha. A lot of them help to facilitate drawing more cards like Unbridled Growth, and a few are simply permanent-oriented ramp options like Traveler's Amulet, Wanderer's Twig, and Wayfarer's Bauble.

There are lots of omissions from my list that one might describe as "glaring". Caustic Caterpillar is an example of a must-have but I simply didn't have a spare one around when I was building. I also had a pretty long list of cute cards that my inclusion of four full cycles of enchantments and artifacts didn't really leave room for.

Have you ever intentionally built a deck around a goofy wincon that you knew was suboptimal and inefficient, but that for some reason amused you?

I'd love to hear your stories if you have any to share, and I'll see you here again next week!

Thanks for reading!