Commander Deck Tech: Muldrotha the Gravetide
Right around the corner from now, we have Dominaria United's official release, which seems to be developing into an amazing set. We have to wait and see for now, but by the time this article is published, spoilers will have already started 24 hours prior. Because of this I thought it was only right to go back in time to Dominaria. This week's commander is Muldrotha, the Gravetide was first introduced during Dominaria on April 27th, 2018.
Muldrotha costs six converted mana and is a 6/6 Legendary Elemental Avatar with the ability to play one of each type of any permanent in your graveyard during your turn. This means you could play: one land, one enchantment, one artifact, one planeswalker, and one creature from your graveyard during each of your turns. The goal is to use this as card advantage to overwhelm your opponents.
We want a variety of different types of permanents in the deck and ways to get them into the graveyard. From all the builds of Muldrotha I looked at there were a few different ways to go. You can go with a self mill build, a sacrifice outlet build, or a mixture of the two. I chose to build mine with overall quality and more focus toward card drawing abilities. There is however one card with Dredge in Life from the Loam. We also have a ton of different cards which give us the ability to sacrifice permanents and get them into the graveyard. After we get these cards in the graveyard we can replay them once we have Muldrotha in play.
In total we run 11 lands which you can either sacrifice or discard/cycle to get into your graveyard. We are running all 3 of the lands we can from Kamigawa Neon Dynasty in: Boseiju, Who Endures, Takenuma, Abandoned Mire, and Otawara, Soaring City. The other 8 lands are fetches or cycling lands in: Polluted Delta, Misty Rainforest, Verdant Catacombs, Lonely Sandbar, Tranquil Thicket, Barren Moor, Waterlogged Grove, and Zagoth Triome.
There are also two artifacts which you can sacrifice to draw cards in Mind Stone, and Commander's Sphere. We also decided to add another technology package in Birthing Pod. Birthing Pod can get pretty much any of your creatures into your graveyard when you use its activated ability. I also was sure to make a good midrange curve where we are running:
3x - 1 Drop Creatures
7x - 2 Drop Creatures
6x - 3 Drop Creatures
4x - 4 Drop Creatures
6x - 5 Drop Creatures
2x - 6, 7 and 8 Drop Creatures.
This diversification of different converted mana cost creatures should make it a lot easier to reach out and grab a Consecrated Sphinx or an Archon of Cruelty.
Plus who doesn't like playing Archon of Cruelty's? I heard it's gotten pretty popular in Modern.
The 5 enchantments in the build that we can get into the graveyard consist of: Mystic Remora, Animate Dead, Seal of Primordium, Pernicious Deed, and The Eldest Reborn.
We can Animate Dead something, then once the creature dies the Animate Dead will go back into the graveyard. Once Muldrotha is in play we can recast this and Animate Dead again. We can have a lifetime's supply of Seal of Primordium on hand as long as Muldrotha is in play. If we get behind in a game we can always drop a Pernicious Deed, and blow up the whole board. Next turn you can replay Muldrotha then start playing all the permanents you just blew up.
The deck also runs 3 planeswalkers. With Ashiok, Dream Render we can keep milling the opponent, then once it dies from removing the last loyalty counter we can just replay it again when Muldrotha is in play. Wrenn and Seven is multi-useful in that it can make a creature to protect itself. It can also get lands into your hand, and other spells into your graveyard. Our 3rd option is to just play lands from your graveyard. Lastly I chose to run a Liliana, Dreadhorde General mainly for the ability to make everyone sacrifice 2 creatures. We also get some card advantage if we sacrifice our own creatures. We then gain the ability to replay them once Muldrotha hits the board.
Our last permanent type is Creatures. I am running 32 creatures, most of the Muldrotha Decks I've seen run between 30 and 34. Our lower end creatures are either mana producers or some sort of quality creature that helps gain card advantage. Ledger Shredder helps get permanents into the graveyard while also seeing more cards, most likely getting +1/+1 counters along the way. We have 13 sacrifice effects in: Sakura-Tribe Elder, Fiend Artisan, Dauthi Voidwalker, Sylvan Safekeeper, Fleshbag Marauder, Plaguecrafter, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Foundation Breaker, Mulldrifter, Shriekmaw, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, The Gitrog Monster, and Lord of the Forsaken. Some of the creatures put themselves into the graveyard, others let you sacrifice lands like Gitrog and Safekeeper. We also have the top end creatures with Archon of Cruelty and Craterhoof Behemoth. I decided to put Craterhoof in as the other 8 casting cost creatures which hopefully will just end the game with its overrun effect.
For our spells I am running some counterspells in: Counterspell, Mana Drain, and Force of Will. Another protection spell for Muldrotha in Heroic Intervention. High quality and potentially game ending spells in: Villainous Wealth, Windfall, Damnation, and Demonic Tutor.
Overall tons of versatility with this build as the deck itself is a toolbox of spells. We use Birthing Pod to unlock more toolbox and digging value effects. There are several game ending spells for the late game. It's like 2 decks in one since we can usually play our permanents an pseudo-infinite amount of times. At one point during the build I had Wasteland and Strip Mine in the list. They are very powerful when you can use them each turn or twice each turn. I didn't want to just lock out opponents and then the games would not be fun. If you're going for a more competitive list, definitely play those two lands.
The Sultai Tribe is different and this deck is different. It's mill and card advantage with great removal and tons of weird creatures. I suspect that Dominaria United will add more cards that will go into this build. I hope this list gives you some great ideas on how to put together your own Muldrotha, the Gravetide build!
Until Next Time,
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