Muldrotha Snow: The Frozen Forest
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 10 | 6 COMMENTS | 706 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS
Going up against Power 9 Decks! —Oct. 31, 2022
We won the first game! Sunstone was absolutely integral for the ability to such down two mono-green decks, which leveraging Muldrotha to keep bringing in Strategic Planning to keep searching for cards while locking down the board.
We lost the second game. A very strong Elf Tribal deck spawned a million tokens and ate everyone alive. Additionally a white artifact deck souped up to become very strong.
The biggest problem was that the odds are too low to get a hand that we can play within the first few turns. More snow creatures, even if they aren't the best, would be good as chumps to stop early damage.
multimedia Thank you for your comment! Really quality stuff and I appreciate the time it took to go through the deck and generate this feedback.
Weathered Runestone was included as insurance against decks that also want to play out of their graveyard, on the idea that being heavy on creatures that are buffed with tokens will be able to outpace the opponent. In this regard Muldrotha, the Gravetide was selected as a commander to fit my desired color requirements first, and playing Muldrotha was secondary.
I went with snow because the very first cards I got were snow cards (I got into the game after the release of Kaldheim). So I wanted to see what kind of interesting play could be generated from focusing the strategy around the snow supertype! One of the benefits I see to snow is that Boreal Outrider and Narfi, Betrayer King work together to provide +2/+2 to all the snow creatures, which really helps out the weaker creatures, and that in some regards it can function as a pseudo colorless mana which I find to be intriguing.
I am understanding your feedback as focusing the deck to achieve the following:
- Get snow lands into hand and onto the board faster in order to more quickly leverage effects regarding snow permanents.
- Get Muldrotha into play earlier and focus more on playing out of my commander in addition to the snow supertype.
- Get rid of the less efficient creatures because they ultimately don't factor into some of the stronger aspects of the deck.
I have more broadly understood most of the work to improve this deck is in the form of creature and land (and by extension mana) management. Are these the only areas of concern? I tried to ensure I had a variety of ways to control my opponent while still being able to have options around offensive output.
Overall I agree with your reasoning and suggestions on all fronts, and will be implementing quite a number of changes based on the suggestions made.
August 23, 2022 3:13 a.m.
multimedia says... #3
Hey, you're welcome. Good job with the update, thanks for the shoutout.
Thespian's Stage combos with Dark Depths to get Marit Lage. Stage copies Depths to become a copy with no ice counters that's then saced to create Marit Lage. When you copy Depths due to the legendary rule you will have to choose one of them. Choose the Stage copy and put the original Depths into your graveyard. Moritte of the Frost is a budget snow creature who can copy any permanent you control to be snow.
Expanding on self-mill can fuel Muldrotha and get snow lands into your graveyard to reanimate a lot of them at one time with World Shaper. Shaper has to die to trigger it's land effect. Plaguecrafter is great in multiplayer Commander since it makes all your opponents sac a creature, or a Planeswalker or discard a card. It can sac itself making it a nice repeatable effect with Muldrotha.
Self-mill is like draw plus selection with Muldrotha since you fill your graveyard up with permanents to play.
- Cemetery Tampering
- Sultai Ascendancy
- Vessel of Nascency
- Satyr Wayfinder
- Grisly Salvage
- Fact or Fiction
Cemetery Tampering is repeatable self-mill with hideaway 5. When it enters the battlefield you look at the top five cards of your library and choose one of them. This card is then exiled and you may play it for no mana at your upkeep if you have 20 or more cards in your graveyard. Hideaway can be repeatable with Muldrotha if you have a way to destroy Tampering getting it into your graveyard to cast it again.
Seal of Primordium can repeatedly destroy Cemetery Tampering after your upkeep, after you mill, after you play the hideaway card for free. Seal is excellent with Muldrotha having a repeatable effect from an enchantment to remove an artifact or enchantment.
Repeatable protection for Muldrotha, Marit Lage, etc. can be helpful. Muldrotha is going to have a target on it when it enters the battlefield and Kaya's Ghostform can protect from many types of removal. It's one mana to repeatable cast it from your graveyard on your turn to protect Muldrotha.
One of the better ways to protect 20/20 indestructible Marit Lage is giving it hexproof since then exile and bounce opponent removal that targets can't target Marit Lage. Swiftfoot Boots gives equipped creature hexproof as well as haste and that's also powerful with Marit Lage getting to attack the same turn it's created if it's created on your turn. Siren Stormtamer is one mana to cast and one mana to sac to protect a creature or even yourself. Muldrotha makes Stormtamer a repeatable counterspell for creature or yourself protection.
August 24, 2022 6:13 p.m. Edited.
multimedia Once again a bunch of great suggestions, ended up swapping in 10 of the cards from your most recent suggestion.
I am feeling pretty good about how this deck has turned out. Regarding the "meta" conversation would be correct to refer to this as a control deck? My reason for thinking this is there are a lot of cards around stopping untapping, applying counters, or otherwise blunting the edge of what the opponent has in play. This isn't an Aggro deck because we aren't trying to hurt stuff right away with direct damage. Arguably there are aspects that could be referred to as a Combo deck, but many of the combos are a one-two punch compared to say getting a recursion loop going.
Thank you for all you help with this deck, I think if nothing else it feels cool and thematic!
August 31, 2022 4:11 p.m.
amarthaler says... #5
Very solid build on a budget and I love the theme! I posted some comments on my Jorn deck page in response to yours. So for here, and focusing on simply card draw and protection, I recommend these cards because they're cheap and have never let me down:
- Joint Exploration - its like Growth Spiral and Opt rolled into one
- The Cruelty of Gix - because of the new "Read Ahead" mechanic, this thing lets you tutor for any card at the small price of 3 life (typical when you're in the color of Black), and also has graveyard recursion which is what your deck is trying to do.
- Diabolic Vision - probably THE best scry/draw card in Dimir colors and runs about $0.50
- Expedition Map - tutors for ANY land
- Tempt with Discovery - also tutors for ANY land, and usually within a game you'll get +1 or +2 additional lands off this cast
- Sunstone - $0.25 card from Ice Age that gives you a Fog effect when you need it
- Viridian Revel - great against folks playing treasure-heavy decks, allowing you to draw every time they sac a treasure
- Scrying Sheets - a bit out of your budget, being roughly $5-6, but its soooooooo good in Snow decks
multimedia says... #1
Hey, well done with such a low budget, The Undead Forest is a cool deck name. Interesting deck idea for your first Commander deck with Muldrotha, but why snow? Weathered Runestone completely shuts down Muldrotha.
Marit Lage's Slumber, Jorn, God of Winter Flip, Priest of the Haunted Edge, Blood on the Snow, Ice-Fang Coatl these are some reasons to play snow with Muldrotha. Iceberg Cancrix can repeatable self-mill and that's a good effect with Muldrotha. Pilfering Hawk can be repeatable loot which gets cards into your graveyard. Unfortunately, this isn't many cards.
Draugr Necromancer is a good card with snow, but it doesn't have much interaction with Muldrotha. Dead of Winter is another good card with snow, but Muldrotha is not a snow creature. Narfi, Betrayer King is fine, able to reanimate itself with snow, but he's support for snow not really a reason to play snow.
Some advice to consider is to play nonsnow cards that can put snow-covered permanents (lands) onto the battlefield to meet the snow requirement for snow cards without playing lots of unnecessary snow creatures. The best way to get snow permanents is with snow-covered lands. You really don't need lots of other subpar snow creatures here.
All these creatures could be cut to improve your deck.
Instead of playing lots of lesser snow creatures, play just the better snow creatures here?
Use other deck slots for cards that can search for and get snow-covered lands onto the battlefield?
Consider adding some spells that are not permanents that can search for and put snow-covered lands onto the battlefield?
Cards that can get snow-covered lands into your hand as well as get cards into your graveyard can be helpful with Muldrotha.
Could also add some snow mana rocks and mana dorks?
Land ramp for snow-covered lands and mana from mana rocks is more ramp which also helps to cast 6 mana Muldrotha as well as having more mana to cast permanents from your graveyard when you control Muldrotha.
Example of a budget more refined creature base with snow.
Good luck with your deck.
August 22, 2022 1:45 a.m.