Happy Holidays! If you're reading this column on the day it went online, it's Christmas Eve Eve and you probably have bigger things on your mind than building Commander decks, so I decided to share a more whimsical list with you. Building today's list and playing it gave me a reminder of some important lessons in EDH deckbuilding and it got a laugh out of my online playgroup when I played it. The build in today's column can win games, but you could just as easily pull a few key cards out and have a much friendlier list to play with your buddies.

Earlier this year we were treated to dozens of new furry friends in the Bloomburrow expansion set. It was one of my favorite sets ever, but the creature type I was most impressed with in Bloomburrow wasn't even slightly furry. My 2024 started with a dedication to building and playing a bunch of Dragon decks, as it was the Chinese year of the dragon. As 2024 winds down, I'm finding myself building not around Dragons or furry creatures, but around Frogs.

Today's deck is a whimsical experiment in what a deck would look like if I gathered together every Frog I could get my hands on, and reasonably shoehorn into an EDH deck. There will be a few notable exceptions, but I think I've got a list even Michigan J. Frog would be comfortable playing in. I've even got a commander who will give me access to any Frog I want to include.

Kenrith is a very powerful 5 color Legendary creature from Throne of Eldraine who sees play in cEDH because of his 5/c color identity and his ability to serve as an infinite mana outlet. I could have gone with Morophon, the Boundless or even a 3/c legendary frog, but Kenrith provides very specific synergy with some of the creatures in my deck.

Kenrith also lets me name my deck "Kenrith Kindred Princes" and pretend that all of my frogs are just wayward princes who have all been turned into frogs. It's a cute little twist that gives the deck more personality than just running the list under a shapeshifter and saving some mana when casting creatures with the frog subtype.

New Frogs

Bloomburrow was an incredible gift for lovers of certain creature types. We got exciting new legendary Squirrels, Rabbits, Raccoons, and even Lizards, but the ones I was most impressed by were Frogs. There were four surprisingly strong legendary Frogs in the set and countless nonlegendary Frogs that could help round out the list.

The question is whether there will be enough synergy in the list to make for a playable deck.

Starting with Clement, the Worrywort, partially answers that question. This Frog Druid turns all of my Frogs into mana dorks. They'll only create Blue or Green, and that mana can only be used to cast creature spells, but that's still very strong. This list will have a huge number of Frogs and Clement's ability to bounce a creature to my hand may also prove useful. Only being able to tap a Frog for Blue or Green isn't much of a drawback, as this brew will be skewed quite heavily towards those two colors.

Helga, Skittish Seer is a mana dork that can produce mana equal to its power. I can only use Helga mana to cast creatures spells with mana value 4 or greater, or with X in their casting costs. Kenrith's ability to put +1+1 counters on target creature plays really nicely with Helga's ability to tap to make mana equal to her power.

Glarb is the one legendary Frog that I haven't built a deck around, but this Frog Wizard Noble should be a solid addition to this list. Deathtouch is a very helpful keyword to have on a creature in the early game, and the ability to look at the top of your library and play lands and spells (with mana value 4 or greater) from the top of your library is pretty sweet. Helga and Glarb can't be in each other's lists, as they are different 3/c spaces, but they can both fit into a 5/c deck and have obvious synergy with each other.

Flubs, the Fool is the most recent Frog deck I've put together in paper, and it's both very fun and very weird. There aren't a lot of decks you build that purposely want you to be hellbrent (without cards in hand). Flubs wants this, and the deck works best when you're playing a spell or dropping a land, and then drawing so you can hopefully do it again. Kenrith works nicely with Flubs because he lets you bring a creature card back from a graveyard to the battlefield under its owner's control. It's Kenrith's most expensive activated ability, but it works with Flubs really well and you can do it at instant speed.

It's impossible to consider building a Frogs deck post-Bloomburrow without including Pollywog Prodigy, and Kenrith is again a great match for it. Pollywog Prodigy has evolve, so it will get +1/+1 counters when other creatures enter play under my control if they have a greater power or toughness. Whenever an opponent casts a noncreature spell with mana value less than Prodigy's power, I'll draw a card. That again plays really nicely with Kenrith's ability to put +1/+1 counters on target creature.

The last Frog I'm going to put a spotlight on may have hopped under the radar for many of you, but Lilysplash Mentor is that rare card that can effectively replace a well-known combo piece that has been winning EDH games for over a decade. Deadeye Navigator can be paired with cards like Peregrine Drake, Palinchron and Great Whale to produce as much mana as you like. Deadeye's ability costs 2 mana and requires it to be soul-bonded to the creature it flickers. Lilysplash Mentor's ability costs three mana, and can only be done at sorcery speed. That makes it somewhat easy to interrupt an attempted combo with creature removal.

If an opponent attempts to remove one of my combo pieces by destroying one of the two creatures, Kenrith gives me a way to bring that creature back into play so I can try again. It will take exile removal to permanently keep me away from using Lilysplash Mentor with one of Deadeye's best buddies to make infinite mana.

While Kenrith is fantastic for providing me with a convenient toolbox of activated abilities that can pair with a variety of my Frogs, it can also be a slippery slope when you fold a combo wincon into the mix. This deck can certainly win games in combat, but when you have an infinite mana outlet in the command zone and the ability to make infinite mana with Lilysplash Mentor and a combo piece, it's just really easy to fall into the same play pattern again and again.

Old Frogs

Kenrith already seems to be a pretty nice fit for my Frog army, but there are some older Frogs I've thrown into the list that will work nicely with his Royal Highness.

Tatsunari, Toad Rider is neither a frog nor a toad, but he is about as frog-adjacent as you can get. This Human Ninja is in Black, so he's a great reason to want to be in five colors, and he'll make a 3/3 Black legendary Frog token named Keimi. For one and a hybrid Simic mana, both Tatsunari and target Frog I control can't be blocked this turn except by creatures with flying or reach.

Making a Frog mostly unblockable might not help Kenrith, but if I've got Yargle and Multani, or just Yargle, Glutton of Urborg, in play, I will be well positioned to put some pressure on a tablemate's life total. Yargle and Multani is an 18/6 Frog Spirit Elemental with a text box full of flavor text and nothing else. Yargle, Glutton of Urborg is a modest 9/3 Frog Spirit that also has no keywords or abilities of any sort. Kenrith can give them trample and haste for one red mana, and if Tatsunari has made them difficult to block I should be able to put the fear of Frog into at least one tablemate.

This deck doesn't have The Gitrog Monster in the 99, as that Frog Horror has some very challenging abilities to build around. I am running both Thalia and the Gitrog Monster and The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride. The former is a first strike deathtouch Human Frog Horror teamup that will force my opponents' creatures and nonbasic lands to come in tapped. It will let me play an additional land on my turn, and when it attacks I'll sacrifice a land and draw a card. The latter can get saddled up by another creature and can let me sacrifice the creature that saddled it when it deals combat damage to a player. If I do this I'll draw X cards and then put X land cards from my hand onto the battlefield tapped where X is the sacrificed creature's power.

I don't love sacrificing my permanents (ask me how I feel about annihilator) but there may be games where one of these play patterns makes sense. Kenrith's ability to pull creatures back from the graveyard could help with this, though I don't know how often I'll really want to use Kenrith to saddle up The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride.

Grolnok, the Omnivore is another Frog that cares about having other Frogs in play, and has a very powerful ability. Whenever a Frog I control attacks I'll mill three cards. Whenever a permanent card is put into my graveyard from my library I'll exile it with a counter on it. Not just any counter... a croak counter! If Grolnok is in play I can play lands and cast spells from among cars I own in exile with croak counters on them.

Those croak counters aren't just flavorful - they synergize nicely with Kenrith. If I've got half my library exiled with croak counter but Grolnok has been killed, Kenrith will let me bring him back and regain access to all those exiled cards.

It might seem trivial, but Poison Dart Frog is a creature I was very happy to be able to include in this list. I went out of my way to not run many non-Frog creatures, so having a mana dork that can tap for any color and which can be left up as a potential deathtouch blocker is a great fit for a five color deck that wants to play Frogs. Also... look at that face. He might be one of the cutest cards to have been printed in years.

Haze Frog and his much more reasonably-costed Spore Frog are also key players in this deck. I hate Haze Frog's five mana cost, but I love that I can flash him into play in the face of an alpha strike. The much cheaper Spore Frog is more of a rattlesnake than a surprise, and can be sacrificed to Fog combat for the turn. Both can be brought back from the graveyard by Kenrith for five mana, which isn't any more mana than Haze Frog normally costs. That's still a lot of mana to leave up, but if it's going to keep me in the game, it might be worth it.

Someday My Prince Will Come

I just got through watching Ken Burns' 10-part documentary, "Jazz," and was reminded of the incredible brilliance and beauty of Miles Davis' rendition of Someday My Prince Will Come. This is a column about Magic, but I can't continue without urging you to give that a listen. You can find it on youtube and if you've never listened to Miles Davis, you will be in for a treat.

In today's deck, my "Kindred Princes" are Frogs and with a little luck, the Prince I need will hop onto my battlefield at just the right time. The Kindred part of this deck's name isn't just a reference to what used to be called "Tribal". This deck is running all five of the "Kindred" spells: Kindred Boon, Kindred Charge, Kindred Discovery, Kindred Dominance, and Kindred Summons. That five-card cycle came out in Commander 2017, a set of Commander decks built around creature subtypes. They'll all work with Frogs just as well as they worked with Cats, Dragons, Vampires, and Wizards. Shared Animosity is also in the list, but I leaned away from cards like Beastmaster Ascension simply because this is a Frogs deck, not a Beasts deck.

Kenrith, Kindred Princes | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Kenrith, the Returned King

• Creatures (27)
• 1 Clement, the Worrywort
• 1 Dour Port-Mage
• 1 Dreamdew Entrancer
• 1 Flubs, the Fool
• 1 Glarb, Calamity's Augur
• 1 Great Whale
• 1 Grolnok, the Omnivore
• 1 Haze Frog
• 1 Helga, Skittish Seer
• 1 Jade Avenger
• 1 Lilysplash Mentor
• 1 Long River Lurker
• 1 Octomancer
• 1 Palinchron
• 1 Peregrine Drake
• 1 Poison Dart Frog
• 1 Pollywog Prodigy
• 1 Rampant Frogantua
• 1 Spore Frog
• 1 Tatsunari, Toad Rider
• 1 Thalia and The Gitrog Monster
• 1 The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride
• 1 Three Tree Scribe
• 1 Twenty-Toed Toad
• 1 Valley Mightcaller
• 1 Yargle and Multani
• 1 Yargle, Glutton of Urborg

• Instants (12)
• 1 AEtherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Fierce Guardianship
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Jaheira's Respite
• 1 Kindred Summons
• 1 Polliwallop
• 1 Polymorphist's Jest
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Turn to Frog

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Camaraderie
• 1 Croaking Counterpart
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Kindred Charge
• 1 Kindred Dominance
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Shamanic Revelation

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Amphibian Downpour
• 1 Frog Tongue
• 1 Frogify
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Kindred Boon
• 1 Kindred Discovery
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Shared Animosity

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Chromatic Orrery
• 1 Phyrexian Altar
• 1 The Great Henge

• Lands (38)
• 10 Forest
• 10 Island
• 2 Mountain
• 2 Plains
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Forbidden Orchard
• 1 Frontier Bivouac
• 1 Opulent Palace
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Seaside Citadel
• 1 Secluded Courtyard
• 1 Three Tree City
• 1 Unclaimed Territory

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I decided to lean way into my theme this week, playing Rapid Hybridization because it makes a Frog Lizard token, but eschewing cards like Pongify, Swords to Plowshares, and Path to Exile for not being froggy enough. Polymorphist's Jest, Turn to Frog, Croaking Counterpart, and Polliwallop all made it in, along with the enchantments Amphibian Downpour, Frogify, and Frog Tongue.

Michigan J. Frog would be proud, but if you wanted to take this theme a bit further and make the deck decidedly more casual, you could drop out the combo pieces and really embrace your inner amphibian. Not every playgroup likes combo, so if it's not fun for your tablemates or you just find it too easy to combo off with Kenrith as your mana outlet, it shouldn't be hard to find a few more frogs to add in place of Peregrine Drake, Palinchron and Great Whale.

Early Results

I did get the chance to play this list in a game, and the results weren't quite what I had hoped for. I won the game, and a buddy of mine got knocked off of a four game win streak, but I was reminded of my own warning about how easy it is to fall into a combo if you run one in your deck.

I didn't have a strong early game, but managed to avoid taking damage for quite a while thanks to a turn three Glarb, Calamity's Augur. Deathtouch blockers are wonderful things.

I started with Peregrine Drake in hand, and once we got into the mid game I had drawn into Ashnod's Altar. I included Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar as ways to sacrifice a key creature like Haze Frog so that I could use Kenrith to bring it back and fog multiple combats. Without a sacrifice outlet, Kenrith has no way to get me another Haze Frog enter-the-battlefield trigger. It made sense at the time, but I knew full well that it could also work with the cards I use to combo off with Lilysplash Mentor.

The table suffered through multiple boardwipes if I remember correctly. None of them were from my deck, though Kindred Dominance could have allowed me to choose Frog and then destroy all non-Frog creatures.

Eventually we got to a point where someone had a dominating board and I was faced with the option of probably losing, or using Kenrith, Peregrine Drake, and Ashnod's Altar to combo off to win. None of those cards are even vaguely Frog related, but I decided to just go for it.

Earlier in the game there was definitely a bit of fun as my buddies tried to guess what "Kenrith Kindred Princes" meant, but I slightly regret having fallen into an unfulfilling, albeit successful, wincon.

I don't mind combo and I don't feel like combo only belongs in cEDH or high powered EDH, but my goal had been to see what my Frogs could do. The deck mostly did that but sometimes when you're brewing and you add something a little too spicy, it will sometimes overwhelm the entire dish.

For this one game sample size I think that's what happened.

Final Thoughts

As we wait for sets to drop, or at least to get spoiled, I'm probably going to take a few weeks to brew around legendary creatures that I haven't yet written about. It's been an interesting year, with some fantastic sets, some weird sets, and new Universes Beyond sets that pushed their way into our game.

I may even have a 2024 retrospective in me for next week. It's always fun to look back at the previous year, though my own favorite cards probably won't match anyone else's.

If you'll be celebrating over the coming days, I hope you have a Happy Holidays! That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!