Into the Vault: Kenrith, The Returned King
It’s been awhile since Throne of Eldraine has landed and we’ve only been able to talk about Chulane and the plethora of creatures and spells he brings to the table. It looks like card advantage is the name of the game with Eldraine.
Card advantage can take on many forms and one legendary creature comes with so many abilities that it may even replace the top tier duo of Thrasios and Tymna in the Competitive Commander meta.
The Commander
In the plane where Grimm’s Fairy Tales meet Arthurian Legends, lives a young and talented man chosen as one of the two candidates to quest for the high rulership. Finally finishing his quest after so long, he is now crowned as the undisputed high ruler of Eldraine. He is none other than Kenrith, the Returned King.
Kenrith is a 5cmc (converted mana cost) 5/5 legendary commander. Alone, he can dish out a lot of commander damage. This is especially helpful in Competitive Commander since there won’t be a lot of creatures that can really contest his majesty. The quest he undertook to become the high ruler has also garnered him 5 different abilities from the five courts. Embereth has given him the ability to make any creature gain haste. Garenbrig has bestowed him the ability to give +1/+1 counters to a creature. Ardenvale, the ability to heal 5 life to a player. Vantress, to draw a card and Locthwain to bring fallen creatures back to life.
These abilities are not limited to the owner of Kenrith but can be used as a political tool in any commander game. This makes Kenrith one of the most political commanders out there. This is what I like about this commander. There is so many ways to build him from a group hug strategy, to a knight tribal strategy and even a combo strategy. The limit is your own imagination.
Mana is Power
We have all heard the saying, Knowledge is Power. In Kenrith’s case, mana is power. Firstly, Kenrith costs 4 generic and 1 white mana. If you need to recast him again, that means he will now cost 7 and so forth. You will also want to have extra mana available to activate any of his abilities the moment you cast him. There is nothing worse than casting Kenrith and losing him the same turn without him doing a thing.
So let’s start off with how we can get Kenrith out as soon as possible. Green can help us out with this by adding mana dorks such as Arbor Elf, Llanowar Elf, Avacyn’s Pilgrim, Fyndhorn Elf, Elves of Deep Shadow, Incubation Druid, Elvish Mystic, Deathrite Shaman, Noble Hierarch and Priest of Titania to name a few. Incubation Druid is especially helpful to generate infinite mana which we will discuss in our combo section.
Since we are playing a 5-color Commander, we can also add one of the best mana producing enchantment in commander, Smothering Tithe. Other enchantments you might want to add is Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth. If your meta is Blue heavy, you can add Carpet of Flowers. Training Grounds and Biomancer’s Familiar, although does not produce mana, can lessen the cost of activated abilities.
We end our mana needs with mana rocks. The type of mana rocks you want really depends on your budget. Sol Ring is an auto include, while talismans and signets are a solid choice. If you are going for a more budget approach, you can also add Kodama’s Reach, Farseek, Nature’s Lore and the like.
Game Plan
To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict.
Star-Lord : How many did you see?
Doctor Strange : Fourteen million, six hundred and five.
This is where many people will diverge. As I stated above, you can go with different routes depending on your gameplay choices.
The Politics Game
An allure of commander is its political aspect. If this is your playstyle, you might want to add cards with the “Will of the counsel” mechanics such as Split Decision, Plea for power and Magister of Worth. The Tempt series is also another good way to build your board presence that can catapult you ahead of everyone else. Xantcha, Sleeper Agent is also right up your alley. She can deal a lot of damage to opponents and lets you and other players draw cards as well. The last mechanic I would add is Monarch.
The Generous King – Group Hug
This is for those of you who likes to play the role of the generous and merciful king. The King that will do anything to help his citizens, you might want to go for a Group Hug strategy. Folio of Fancy let’s everyone draw cards and lets them keep their hand at the same time. Ever tried to wish upon a star? Well Wishclaw Talisman can help you with that. This can also be a political tool if used in the right setting. As king of the realm, you have the authority to give land to people who are worthy. You can do this by dropping Ghirapur Orrery and help everyone out not just with lands but also with card draws.
The Fortress
The best offense is a good defense. Building a strong and enormous wall to protect your realm might be more to your fancy. Pramikon, Sky Rampart is one of those walls that can literally dictate where armies should be attacking. Once he enters the battlefield, you choose right or left and everyone is forced to attack that direction. Now imagine if you can clone Pramikon, and name the opposite direction. That means no one will be able to attack. Another way to make sure opponents are obliged to attack but not towards you is to play cards with the goad ability like Disrupt Decorum. If your opponents still wants you off the throne, dissuade them by playing cards like Propaganda, Ghostly Prison and Windborn Muse.
The Midas Touch
Just like King Midas, Kenrith is a very mana hungry commander. With enough mana, you can one-shot any opponent the moment he arrives. Hulk Smash!! Letting people draw cards is normally a bad thing, unless you let them draw their entire deck plus more. How do we go about this you might ask? Well, let’s talk about generating infinite mana. Please note that there are so many ways to generate infinite mana in Commander. I will just mention a few in this article.
Now this is a weird interaction since this combo does not actually produce any mana. What this combo provides is the ability to get the key pieces for you and win on the spot. There are so many different Hulk piles that you can use which merits its own article. Since we are focusing on producing mana we will discuss Hulk piles that can do just that. Here are the different combo lines:
1. Incubation Druid + Vigean Graftmage + Torch Courier
2. Cephalid Illusionist + Nomad en-Kor (a.k.a. Breakfast Combo) + Dread Return + Necrotic Ooze
3. Temur Sabertooth + Dockside Extortionist
1. Cast Flash and play Protean Hulk and sacrifice it to Flash.
2. When Protean Hulk reaches the graveyard, search for Incubation Druid, Vigean Graftmage and Torch Courier.
3. When Vigean Graftmage enters the battlefield, it gives a +1/+1 counter to Incubation Druid. Now Incubation Druid can tap for 3 mana of any type that a land you control could produce.
4. Sacrifice Torch Courier to give Incubation Druid haste.
5. Have Incubation Druid produce 3 blue mana and activate Vigean Graftmage’s untap ability to untap Incuation Druid. Repeat this until you can produce near infinite blue mana.
6. If you do not have Kenrith in play, you will need 1 white mana to cast him, otherwise you can sink all your blue mana and have all your opponents draw their entire deck.
This is the most efficient Flash Hulk variant since the only dead cards in your deck is Vigean Graftmage and Torch Courier. The benefit of having Vigean Graftmage in the deck is that it can also generate infinite mana with Bloom Tender or Faeburrow Elder.
Cephalid Illusionist and Nomad en-Kor both comprise Legacy’s Cephalid Breakfast combo, however we will use it with a twist. Generating infinite mana is the name of the game so Laboratory Maniac will be taking a backseat for now. This combo works by activating Nomad en-Kor’s ability which targets Cephalid Illusionist. When this happens, Cephalid Illusionist will make you mill the top 3 cards for your deck. Do this enough times until you mill Narcomaeba, Dread Return, Necrotic Ooze, Thornling, Devoted Druid and Channeler Initiate. Activate Dread Return and reanimate Necrotic Ooze. Pay 1 green mana to make Necrotic Ooze gain haste because of Thornling’s ability and now you can tap Necrotic Ooze to generate infinite mana. As you can see, there are so many dead cards in this combo and you open yourself up to graveyard hate cards such as Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace.
Are artifact decks causing pain in your meta or pod? Then use this combo against them. All you need for this combo to work is to make sure that your opponents have a total of 5 artifacts in play. This will generate treasure tokens and you can then use your treasure to win the game.
I’ve already talked about this combo in my other articles so I won’t go too in depth here. All you need are mana dorks and rocks that will net you one blue and white and you essentially have the same combo as the one above.
Playing a Kenrith as a reanimator deck is also not a bad plan. Cast Entomb or Buried Alive to place Worldgorger Dragon in the graveyard. Then cast Animate Dead / Necromancy / Dance of the Dead targeting Worldgorger Dragon to bring it back to the battlefield. Worldgorger Dragon will exile all your permanents including the enchantment which will then kill Worldgorger Dragon and return all your permanents to play. All your lands assuming that they do not come into play tapped will enter play untapped and you can tap them for mana. Animate Dead will also enter play and you can target Worldgorger Dragon again for infinite mana. If Kenrith is not in play, you will need to find a way to stop the loop so you can cast your commander and win the game.
A very risky combo to play and an expensive one to boot. Sacrifice Lion’s Eye Diamond and add 3 white mana to your mana pool. Use the white mana to activate Auriok Salvager’s ability to return Lion’s Eye Diamond to your hand. Rinse and repeat. The risky part of this combo is that you have to discard your hand which means you won’t have any way to interact with anything your opponents might have. For this combo to work without any interactions from your opponent, you can cast silence or have Grand Abolisher in play.
Summary
Kenrith is really going to make a storm in both the competitive and casual scenes. Build him the way you want. Political. Pillow Fort. Group Hug. Combo. Tribal. The sky is the limit. Below is the a decklist of how I would build my Kenrith deck. Now I want to know how you would build yours. Share your decklist with everyone by commenting below. Happy brewing everyone.
Decklist
Lands (30)
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Cavern of Souls
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Fiery Islet
1 Flooded Strand
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Mana Confluence
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Morphic Pool
1 Nurturing Peatland
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Underground River
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Waterlogged Grove
1 Watery Grave
1 Yavimaya Coast
Enchantment (6)
1 Smothering Tithe
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Training Grounds
1 Mirrormade
1 Wild Growth
1 Mystic Remora
Commander (1)
1 Kenrith, The Returned King
Creatures (21)
1 Arbor Elf
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Biomancer's Familiar
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Dark Confidant
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Dockside Extortionist
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Faeburrow Elder
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Incubation Druid
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Protean Hulk
1 Spellseeker
1 Torch Courier
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Vigean Graftmage
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Runic Armasaur
Sorcery (8)
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Finale of Devastation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Windfall
Instant (28)
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Counterspell
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Delay
1 Dispel
1 Dovin's Veto
1 Dramatic Reversal
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Fire Covenant
1 Flash
1 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
1 Krosan Reclamation
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Memory's Journey
1 Noxious Revival
1 Pact of Negation
1 Pyroblast
1 Silence
1 Summoner's Pact
1 Swan Song
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Veil of Summer
1 Middle the Mixture
1 Mystical Tutor
Artifact (6)
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Izzet Signet
1 Simis Signet
1 Sensei's Divining Top
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