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Rot and Ruin (Muldrotha EDH)

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) Control Lands Primer Ramp Value Engine

Jack32226

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Lands (36)

Tutor (7)

Recursion (5)

Draw (22)

Ramp (18)

Commander (1)

Commander: Muldrotha, the Gravetide

Control (21)

Win Con (7)

Survivability (3)

Note: This is not an optimal list. I’m still working to improve and tweak the deck for my specific meta, so if you have suggestions I’d be glad to hear them. This deck may not work in other metas, so I encourage you to make swaps as necessary for your own needs. In terms of power level, I would say this deck is around a 7 or 8 on a scale of 10, just below what you would consider to be cEDH.

It's also important to note that my current list is also not completely optimized due to personal budget restrictions. I can't afford to buy an Intuition or Lion's Eye Diamond. If you own these cards or have the budget to afford them, they are an obvious inclusion. I, however, do not. So if there's a card you think should be in the deck but isn't, it may be for this reason.

Keep in mind that I thoroughly enjoy agonizing over every card I put in and take out. If a card is in the deck, there may be several reasons that I have for doing so. Therefore I encourage you to make suggestions, even if it might feel that your suggestion is inconsequential. And don't feel bad if I decide not to use your suggestion! I may not use cards due to meta differences; what works for you might not work for someone else. And if I feel that there's a different reason I shouldn't include a card, I'm not trying to talk down on your ideas; I want to help other people learn and grow as players, so I'll give constructive criticism on any ideas given to me.

If you want to ask my opinion on budget alternatives or want suggestions for cards to help with your own meta, feel free to ask me about it! I'll try to help you with your own deck to the best of my ability.

-Simic Signet -Shriekmaw -Finale of Revelation +Mana Crypt +Foundation Breaker +Grim Tutor

I finally got my own Mana Crypt! Decided to take out Simic Signet over the other mana rocks, especially since I've taken out some of my simic cards like the Kiora planeswalkers and Tatyova, Benthic Druid. Decided to put in more artifact/enchantment removal in the form of Foundation Breaker, replacing Shriekmaw since my meta doesn't rely as heavily on creatures, and of those creatures, black creatures are common. For your own meta, use your own discretion to decide which card to use. Finally, I'm taking out Finale of Revelation. The card really only shines when I have a ton of mana, and if I have that much mana, I would much rather just have a tutor for something more impactful like Genesis Wave. Hence, Grim Tutor is added to the deck. I considered Unmarked Grave as another tutor, but decided that there's simply too many important legendary cards in my deck to make it worth running.

This is ultimately a heavy control deck that, if played properly, can keep at least two to three opponents from establishing any threats for longer than a turn cycle. The goal is to abuse Muldrotha's ability to stop other people's plans and then eventually ramp enough over the course of the game (especially with Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth ) to cast game-ending X spells like Genesis Wave and Villainous Wealth.

The deck operates with a bit of a lands matter sub-theme. There’s lots of land synergies that can quickly go beyond your opponents’ control, especially with Life from the Loam.

With this particular build, I have opted for many permanents with the ability to draw as well as mill, since, while Muldrotha can replay cards that are milled, I don't like having to always rely on other recursion effects like Eternal Witness in order to retrieve my X spell win conditions. It also makes graveyard exiling effects less effective against you. Draw effects also allow you to continue playing cards even without Muldrotha on the field, whereas mill effects do not. That being said, I do still include some incidental mill and the powerful Hermit Druid because let's be honest, that card is too good to pass up. (Also, if you run no basics, you can mill your library and win with Jace that turn. This can backfire if someone counters Jace though.)

All else fails and you're having trouble getting to your win conditions? Turns out Muldrotha is a 6/6 and can kill a player with 4 swings. It's not pretty, but it gets the job done.

One of the things that sets Muldrotha apart from other BUG commanders is the ability to always reliably get back any piece of interaction you need and at a very low cost. Some of our removal pieces can be recast for just 1 mana and will cause headaches for our opponents for the rest of the game.

Because of this ability, Muldrotha can also generate ludicrous amounts of extra value from replaying card draw spells and ramp pieces again and again.

If you enjoy ramping, drawing cards, and annoying the hell out of your opponents, Muldrotha will serve you well.

Plus, who doesn’t like casting giant X spells that set you years ahead of your opponents?

If you enjoy spell-slinging and instant speed gameplay, Muldrotha is not the right commander for you, for pretty obvious reasons.

Also, later on I will lay out some combos that you could implement into your Muldrotha deck if you so choose. However, if you are looking for a fast or competitive-viable deck, there are much better BUG alternatives. Muldrotha costs SIX mana; that’s a difficult feat to achieve in a competitive meta. If you want to play a competitive sultai control deck, I have a fairly competitive Tasigur deck here.

If you don’t like relying on your commander, I also don’t recommend Muldrotha for you. While you can certainly build a deck that doesn’t entirely rely on Muldrotha, I feel that there are better options for that style of play.

Here are some noteworthy cards that are important to know about if tutoring:

  • Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth / Cabal Coffers : These two lands, while not entirely necessary to make big X spells, are very important for this strategy. In most games, these lands are what will carry you to victory.

  • Cyclonic Rift / Pernicious Deed : These are the deck's board clears. Pernicious Deed can be replayed with Muldrotha and can be activated to remove most threats while still leaving Muldrotha on the board. Cyclonic Rift is not a permanent, but is a staple blue card that can occasionally win the game on its own.

  • Spore Frog : Spore Frog is almost a staple for any non-competitive Muldrotha list in my opinion.

  • Genesis Wave / Villainous Wealth / Exsanguinate : These are the deck's X spells that are your primary win condition. Genesis Wave can be used with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries to win by decking yourself. Otherwise, Villainous Wealth can be used to disrupt combo decks by exiling their combo, creating a large army from a creature-based deck, or to just kill an opponent by exiling their whole library.

  • Mindslaver : Mindslaver is a great offense AND defense that can win games on its own. By replaying this every turn with Muldrotha, you essentially start a two-headed giant game against the other two opponents. But it's better than that since you can take control of the player who's already ahead of everyone else! The ability to make the table's biggest threat your pawn out of nowhere is a very powerful effect and is a great inclusion in this list.

  • Sidisi, Undead Vizier : In case Demonic Tutor can't grab every card you need, just tutor for Sidisi and with Muldrotha you can tutor as many times as you want.

  • Strip Mine : In slow matches, you can replay Strip Mine with Muldrotha to slowly whittle away at your opponents' lands. Personally, I don't recommend relying on this as a consistent way to stop your opponents because this is very slow, but Strip Mine is a staple card anyway and this is a noteworthy way to abuse it.

Here are some potential combos you could throw in case you’re into that sort of thing:

  • Demonic Consultation + Jace, Wielder of Mysteries /Tainted Pact: With tainted pact, you’ll have to replace some basics, but since we’re already running Jace, this compact combo is easy to implement and is very effective. Tainted Pact and Consultation are already decent cards, so you don’t have to sacrifice many deck slots for them.

  • Animate Dead + Lion's Eye Diamond + Phantasmal Image : This combo generates infinite mana with Muldrotha on the field. This does not really help the X-spell strategy however since Lion’s Eye Diamond causes you to discard your hand. This combo is notably good since all of the cards in the combo are already good cards that could be included in the deck anyway.

  • Palinchron + Phantasmal Image : Another infinite mana combo, but it will work with the current deck strategy. Simply make infinite mana, and start casting X-spells or playing a permanent of each type from your graveyard each turn till you find one. (Note: exiling an opponent’s entire library with Villainous Wealth won’t let you keep those permanents if your opponent dies the next time they draw a card)

  • Cabal Coffers + Palinchron + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth : This one’s a bit situational but will occasionally come up if you’re already running Palinchron. If you have at least 8 lands, of which 4 must be able to produce blue without paying life, including Urborg and Coffers, you can go infinite. Not something you should rely on, but it is something you should at least be aware of. (Similarly, you can do this Crypt Ghast and Urborg if you have at least 6 lands.)

    • If you get infinite mana but don’t have something to dump the mana into, you may still be able to go off with Muldrotha, a piece of removal, and a cantrip. For instance, say you have infinite mana, a Seal of Removal, and Nihil Spellbomb. If Muldrotha leaves the battlefield and re-enters, the permanent types you can play that turn resets. So you can cast Muldrotha, play Seal and Spellbomb from your graveyard, use Seal to bounce Muldrotha and use Spellbomb to draw a card, then recast Muldrotha and do it all again. Then you can draw your deck and win from there. Another cool little trick I thought of recently in case you don't have removal: If you combo off with the Phantasmal Image + Palinchron combo, you don't need the removal. Bounce Phantasmal Image to your hand with Palinchron's ability, then replay it as a copy of Mulrotha and sac the original Mulrotha to the legend rule. With a new Muldrotha, you can play a new copy of every permanent type from your graveyard. Then just recast Muldrotha, sac Phantasmal Image to the legend rule, and loop this as many times as you need. Works very similar to the Phantasmal Image + Lion's Eye Diamond + Animate Dead combo.

    - Life from the Loam + Exploration + Trade Routes: This land package will help fuel your hand and graveyard while also providing you with easy land ramp. And the best part: it doesn’t even require Muldrotha! If your budget allows you to include Intuition, I would highly recommend a pile of these cards. You’ll never have nothing to do for the rest of the game.

    • Sidisi, Undead Vizier + Animate Dead: Using Sidisi to tutor for Animate Dead will allow you to essentially cast a Demonic Tutor each turn. And you could also cast Sidisi on top of that for another 5 mana each turn. With this much tutoring you should be able to win in no time.
    When considering whether you should mulligan or not, you generally want the following things:
  • 3-4 lands
  • 1-2 pieces of ramp
  • 1 way to draw cards
  • 1 or 2 pieces of removal

    • You're generally unlikely to get all of these in one hand, but it's a good enough outline for what you should be looking for. Keep in mind that this is a very rudimentary outline that is generally applicable to most EDH decks. With enough experience you will want to look at the specific effects for each card, the synergies between them, and how good the cards do against your opponents' game plans. Here are some sample hands and my deliberations for them:

    City of Brass, Bloodstained Mire, Cabal Coffers, Life from the Loam, Bloom Tender, Nihil Spellbomb, Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

    For this hand, Coffers and Jace are both unusable with what we currently have available. That's one downside. However, we have good mana fixing, ramp, Loam, and Spellbomb to cantrip into something else. This is overall a fairly slow hand, but with access to a fetchland and Loam, it has some great potential if we draw into the right cards. In general, when you have Life from the Loam in your opening hand, you're in pretty great shape as long as you aren't screwed on mana. I've kept hands with five lands and Loam before, it really is that good. For that reason I would keep this hand as well.

    Mana Confluence, Overgrown Tomb, Swamp, Birds of Paradise, Mystic Remora, Trade Routes, The Gitrog Monster

    This hand is pretty much a snap keep. You'll notice it doesn't have any kind of interaction or removal, which is something to be wary of, but the hand more than makes up for it with its draw potential. The gameplan is turn 1 Bird, turn 2 Remora, turn 3 pay for Remora and put down Trade Routes. By that time you should have drawn 1 or 2 lands for cycling with Trade Routes and probably some interaction as well. From then on out it should be pretty smooth sailing. With this hand, I don't expect you'll even need Muldrotha unless your opponents specifically target you.

    Wooded Foothills, Mana Confluence, Forest, Spore Frog, Kaya's Ghostform, Nihil Spellbomb, Teferi, Master of Time

    Whether you keep this hand is mostly dependent on what decks you're up against. As you can imagine, ramp in this deck is very important and this hand doesn't have any. Ghostform doesn't do anything right away, and without ramp you aren't playing Teferi until turn 4. If you can reasonably expect that Spore Frog will be useful in the early game, I would keep this hand. If so, that means an opponent will be attacking early and will make themselves a threat to the rest of the table, allowing you time to recover from the slow start. If not though, I would mulligan for something faster.

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    Casual

    96% Competitive

    Revision 18 See all

    (2 years ago)

    +1 Malevolent Hermit  Flip acquire
    +1 Outland Liberator  Flip acquire
    Top Ranked
    Date added 5 years
    Last updated 2 years
    Key combos
    Legality

    This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
    Rarity (main - side)

    15 - 0 Mythic Rares

    45 - 0 Rares

    16 - 0 Uncommons

    14 - 0 Commons
    Cards 100
    Avg. CMC 2.49
    Tokens Elk 3/3 G, Food
    Folders Decks, EDH, Cool decks, Muldrotha, Muldrota commander decks, I like this, Muldrotha, Control List, Favs, EDH
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