Commanding Respect: Uril, the Miststalker

Hello and welcome back to Commanding Respect, where we search through the mists of obsucrity to find new commanders for your next EDH game. Today in our search we’ve been found by Uril, the Miststalker, the terrifying enchantment covered beast well renowned for his ability to shatter players. While perhaps not as obscure as a commander we typically feature, it has been a while since Uril has been printed, and with the tremendous amount of multicolored generals printed since Uril’s debut, it’s worth assessing him again to show why he still holds up as a great commander. Additionally, after covering the basics of the deck we’re going to discuss a slightly different way to build Uril, one that will fill the board with creatures to make him a little less lonely than the typical Voltron commander would be.

Uril is straightforward and effective, he’s an already big body that gets bigger every time you stick an enchantment on him, and your investment is protected thanks to his boggles like hexproof-but-not ability. It does not take long for you to build up into an unstoppable steamroller with several relevant keywords and a frighteningly high power and toughness. In this deck we’ll be throwing several already good enchantments, anything that was playable before Uril is simply more so now. Ethereal Armor and Ancestral Mask make his ability even more redundant, Madcap Skills, Runes of the Deus (along with the other on color cards in its cycle), and Asha’s Favor give Uril evasion and ways to push in damage even faster, and efficient cards like Rancor and Blessing of the Nephilim become unseemly when paired with his ability. Once you’ve gotten Uril tagged with a few enchantments, all that’s left is to keep him on the board and swing.

Uril can’t be the target of spells or abilities that your opponents control, but that doesn’t’ mean he’s going to be on the battlefield forever. Uril can leave the battlefield in a few different ways: if he’s killed in combat, if he’s destroyed, exiled, or returned to your hand/library by a non-targeted board wipe, or if one of your opponents forces you to sacrifice him. A key card that protect Uril from any sort of threat is Flickerform, which lets us blink Uril away from danger without worrying about losing his enchantments. Other than that however, we won’t waste too much effort worrying about bounce or exile spells, as there aren’t too many efficient answers to them, and those spells are relatively uncommon anyways. Instead we’ll look at how to keep Uril from being destroyed and sacrificed. Being an enchantment deck, it is easy for us to give Uril indestructible. Using spells like Shield of the Oversoul, Shielded by Faith, and Indestructibility we can give Uril indestructible, meaning that he can swing with impunity and not fear the treat of damaging or destroying board wipes. On the subject of board wipes, Uril is one of the lucky commanders to have a board wipe that does not hit him in the form of Winds of Rath, a well-timed Winds can ensure that any threatening creatures are off the battlefield before Uril swings. With these spells protecting Uril from being destroyed, we can move on to ways to keep him from being involuntarily sacrificed.   

One of the most common ways EDH players protect their solitary creatures in Voltron decks is with support creatures like Tajuru Preserver and Sigarda, Host of Herons, both of whom have abilities that protect creatures form sacrifice effects. Here is where we will begin to differentiate our deck from the typical Uril build. Instead of running these two, we will instead run several enchantments that give us creatures, allowing us to build a wide board in addition to a tall Uril. Spells like Fists of Iron Wood give us creatures when they enter the battlefield, and Commander’s Authority and Verdant Embrace give us additional creatures every turn (with the latter giving us one on each opponent’s upkeep as well. Pollenbright Wings helps us spit out tokens even faster by giving us multiple Saprolings every time we hit with Uril. All of these help of to have plenty of disposable creatures should sacrifice effects start hitting us. Additionally, we will run Murder Investigation so that should Uril somehow die we can collect a significant crop of soldiers to hold off until we can recast.

In addition to the token creatures we create, we will also run some support creatures that help us advance Uril’s goals while also serving as another body on the field. We’ll use cards like Heliod’s Pilgrim (an Open the Armory, even though it is a non-creature) to help us tutor out enchantments to make sure we have the right enchantment for the right task. Herald of the Pantheon and Hero of Iroas will make our enchantments cheaper; ensuring that we can cast multiple per turn and end games quicker with a powerful Uril swing. Once we’ve cast these enchantments, we’ll generate additional value from them with Ajani’s Chosen and Eidolon of Blossoms. And finally, Nomad Mythmaker helps us recast enchantments lost, and with additional support from Auramancer we can hope to see enchantments again should they become lost (Sun Titan can also serve in this role and could replace Auramancer if you are willing to shell out a little extra money for one).

Once we have our tokens and support creatures, we will have a sizable board led by a powerful Uril. In a typical Voltron deck, additional creatures that are not actively assisting your commander are effectively useless in most roles other than chump blockers. In today’s build however we’ll look at things a little differently. Uril and the other creatures in this deck will be a team, one where Uril supports the other creatures and they in turn support Uril. We’ll look at how Uril gets supported first. There are several creatures whose power and toughness are equal to the number of creatures you control, and there are enchantments which provide that effect as well.  Hope Against Hope, Sigil of the Nayan Gods, and Bravado are the most simple sources of this effect, giving Uril a minimum of +3/+3 that increases for every creature you control. Even better for Uril is Eidolon of Countless Battles, which gives +1/+1 for each creature you control in addition to also granting an Ethereal Armor like bonus. Finally, Mantle of Leadership, while only granting a temporary bonus, will make Uril bigger whenever any creature enters the battlefield, nullifying surprise blockers an making an untapped Uril harder to swing in to.

Our creatures won’t just be buffing Uril however, they will also benefit from having him around. We’ll run Emblem of the Warmind to ensure that our creatures all have the ability to attack as soon as they enter the battlefield, all while still giving Uril another enchantment. More importantly however, we will be running Odric, Luncarch Marshal. With Uril covered in keyword granting enchantments, all of our creatures will get several abilities each combat. Our deck runs ways to give every listed ability except for hexproof, skulk, and deathtouch, meaning that our tokens could all potentially have 10 keywords each. With this army of ability rich support creatures alongside Uril it will become possible for us to eliminate multiple opponents in the same turn, increasing our odds of victory and not just second place.

And with that we have a deck. After a few additional spells to fill standard roles, we’re left with the decklist below. (A note on lands. A mana base becomes more and more important as a deck’s colors increases. In Commanding Respect I strive to create playable decks available at a low budget; my starting target is $25-$30. The mana base presented here includes no lands of any value aside from Command Tower, if you have access to any rare dual lands that fit these colors (especially those that come into play untapped) I highly recommend adding them. While this deck is playable without them, the difference an untapped land or two could make is significant. The Battle for Zendikar Tango Lands, the Shadows over Innistrad show lands, and the check lands currently available in Ixalan and Dominaria are all relatively affordable lands which would make great additions to this deck’s mana base.)    

End of turn Brainstorm

The best part of EDH is that each deck is your own creation. With his dependence on enchantments Uril, the Miststalker is already naturally modular, it does not take much to change the way you play him. More traditional builds forgo additional creatures for additional auras, especially more expensive options like Daybreak Coronet. Or perhaps you’d like to go heavier on creatures, and additionally spread the love more equally among them. Heroic creatures like Akroan Crusader and Anax and Cymede can widen and buff your when board as you enchant them, and the Magemark cycle of enchantments from Guildpact enhances every enchanted creature you control. Finally, it may be fun to run heavier beast tribal elements so the Uril can benefit from his creature type as well as his enchantments, using spells like Weirwood Savage and Aether Charge to enhance the benefits you get from playing beasts.

And that’s it for today’s article, I hope you have fun demolishing your opponents with a gigantic rage yeti cheered on by his friends. If you’d like to share anything about today’s article, be they questions, disagreements, memories of old friends near forgotten revived by this article, or suggestions for future commanders to feature we’d love to hear about them below. Until next time!