Guess Who's Back [Kenrith cEDH]

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Control Counterspell Infinite Combo Multiplayer Value Engine

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Land (29)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Smuggler's Share
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Telepathy
• 1x Training Grounds
• 1x Witness Protection

Instant (23)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Trickbind
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Artifact (14)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Curiosity
• 1x Talisman of Progress

Commander (1)

Creature (21)

• 1x Archivist of Oghma
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Boromir, Warden of the Tower
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Delighted Halfling
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Faerie Mastermind
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Ledger Shredder
• 1x Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff
• 1x Malevolent Hermit  ^Flip
• 1x Opposition Agent
• 1x Orcish Bowmasters
• 1x Ornithopter of Paradise
• 1x Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Skrelv, Defector Mite
• 1x Willbreaker

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Approach of the Second Sun
• 1x Demonic Tutor

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns

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Guess Who's Back!

This deck is heavily based off of rodanlewarx's own cEDH Kenrith deck Kenrith Consultation Scepter Competitive cEDH with a few changes to keep up with the times and budget (for example, the original list runs a Timetwister which I don't feel like paying a few thousand dollars for, and the list wasn't updated with new cEDH must-haves like C20's Fierce Guardianship or Commander Legends's Opposition Agent for board control).

If you like this deck, giving it a +1 would be greatly appreciated!

Building the Kingdom

I originally put this list together because I wanted something unique within my local playgroup, and I had seen nobody play or even mention having played a five-color Kenrith competitive deck. Due to the nature of Kenrith, the deck can go in one of many different directions, so I decided to take the middle road: not super Stax-focused but also not a high-speed all-or-nothing combo deck.

Feel free to build this deck yourself or make a spinoff/variation based off of this list if you want to! Kenrith is truly one of the best EDH commanders, both casual and competitive (in my opinion), due to his sheer versatility. There aren't very many commanders that can do anything from Tokens, Big Stompy, and Voltron to Reanimator, Stax, and Lifegain based on how you build the deck around them, and while there are specialized commanders available many times having access to all 5 colors is fantastic in any deck.

The Royal Plan

The original list created by rodanlewarx was very obviously a high-speed Oracle-Consultation/Pact and/or Dramatic Scepter combo deck, but I've decided to slow the deck down a little bit for my variation. I still have faster-pace lines in the deck but the focus has shifted onto Dockside-Altar and overall value at more consistent win conditions; the deck has become more geared toward setting up a board presence and establishing a value engine with Kenrith and other draw/ramp effects in a similar fashion to a typical [Anybody]-Thrasios Control deck taking advantage of all five colors.

With multiple value-generating effects to do things from making treasures to drawing cards, this deck is built to play a long game and generate unmatchable value. Loaded with a plethora of counterspells and board interaction as well as self-synergy pieces, I think this list strikes a good middle ground between offering good board control, good value generation, and simply being fun to play against (as opposed to Stax decks which favor value and control, and casual/gimmick decks which focus on fun factor). It's meant to be consistently powerful when piloted properly but at the same time more unique and interesting than some combo decks which focus on the same exact game plan every single time.

King Kenrith's Court

As powerful as Kenrith is, every kingdom needs more than just a ruler - there needs to be a court to help Kenrith maintain order and keep him safe. The following are the members of his royal court and help to keep his rule in place.

• Chief Advisors: Dark Confidant and Archivist of Oghma are Kenrith's right-hand and left-hand men, respectively, helping keep him informed and prepared for any threats to his rule.
• Royal Pets: Birds of Paradise and Ornithopter of Paradise and Kenrith's personal pets. While not being directly useful to the kingdom, they serve to keep morale up and motivate Kenrith to take care of his kingdom. Seeing either one of these in the sky is a sure sign that things will get better. As a more controversial companion, Skrelv, Defector Mite is Kenrith's dirty little secret - granting Kenrith supernatural protection and safety, he also would never be seen in public with Skrelv lest his allegiance come into question.
• Court Jester: Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is Kenrith's court jester, serving as entertainment and a way to pickpocket individuals distracted by this funky little monkey.
• Royal Guards: Esper Sentinel and Grand Abolisher are Kenrith's personal security, standing watch to make sure no threats befall him, while Boromir, Warden of the Tower is his kingdom's head of security.
• Court Mages: Not being well-versed in the arcane arts himself, Kenrith employs quite the team of mages in service of his kingdom. Deathrite Shaman, Drannith Magistrate, Malevolent Hermit  , Seedborn Muse, and Willbreaker all serve under his command.
• Field Team: Kenrith can't do everything from atop his throne, he needs a group of shady individuals willing to go out and get their hands dirty to keep his clean. Dockside Extortionist, Faerie Mastermind, Ledger Shredder, Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff, Oko, Thief of Crowns, Opposition Agent, and Orcish Bowmasters are the members of this covert black ops team that handles the behind-the-scenes of Kenrith's rule.
• Loyal Subjects: What ruler is fit without the support of his countrymen? Delighted Halfling is but a glimpse into the cheerful, prosperous society Kenrith's rule has created, and an example of how his skilled leadership leads to support both for and from his subjects.

Claiming Victory

This deck has a couple ways to go about winning a game, most of which rely on Kenrith and his various abilities. The primary winning combo is an infinite mana loop, which allows you to draw into Approach of the Second Sun (or force your opponents to deck themselves, or make your entire board giant and trample through for lethal).

• Infinite Mana: Kenrith is an insanely powerful commander if you can get an infinite mana combo set up. With infinite mana, you can do a wide variety of things. You can draw all the cards you want and gain access to your entire deck, you can force your opponents to draw out their entire decks and defeat them that way, you can even just dump a billion +1/+1 counters onto each of your creatures and give them all trample and haste to kill with combat/commander damage. Infinite mana combos in the deck include: Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter to repeatedly untap all your mana rocks/dorks and Ashnod's Altar + Dockside Extortionist + Kenrith, the Returned King to repeatedly sacrifice and reanimate the Extortionist to generate more and more treasure tokens.
• Approach of the Second Sun: In a bind, if you've got the entire board relatively locked down and your value engine is chugging along, you might simply have to hard cast Approach and just value back into it within a turn or two. Obviously you want a lot of protection if you're casually casting it, but it is always an option.

Value Combos and Extras

With Kenrith's sheer versatility, there are a lot of combos which don't necessarily serve to win the game but still provide noteworthy value - the more important ones are listed here.

• Esper Sentinel + Kenrith, the Returned King is a fun tax combo. One mana in the early game is a lot, but in the later game some people may have more than enough mana to pay for the Sentinel tax without a second thought. However, with Kenrith, you can put your own additional mana into +1/+1 counters onto the Sentinel, allowing you to scale up the tax cost later in the game to ensure you continue getting value while also building up a stronger and stronger Sentinel.
• Kenrith, the Returned King + Willbreaker is a combo which I added in place of the Gilded Drake in the original list. With the Willbreaker in play you can activate Kenrith's ability to place a +1/+1 counter on an opponent's creature and gain control of it for as long as the Willbreaker sticks around.
• Kenrith, the Returned King + Utility Creatures - So long as your royal court is on the field, odds are somebody is going to want to remove them. With Kenrith's 5th ability (and the Ashnod's Altar included for the Dockside combo, if they attempt to exile instead) you can return any killed/sacrificed/destroyed creatures of yours to the battlefield if necessary.

The Maybeboard

The maybeboard is a list of cards I want to consider and test out for the deck, since I think they might have some potential value. This section will change depending on how my tests with the cards go, but I'll try to include updates whenever anything from the Maybeboard does get promoted to the Mainboard.

• Nothing here at the moment - the list will be added as new potentially viable cards are released (or discovered).

This is also where any input would be appreciated in the comments below, if any of you think any of these cards are worth considering or disregarding! Note that any cards cut from rodanlewarx's original list were cut for a specific reason, and while I am willing to reconsider them I am less likely to re-add them. For example, Lim-Dul's Vault is a fantastic card but was put on the chopping block for being painfully time-consuming and un-fun, and Necropotence was removed both because of how risky it is and because of how the deck is built now - Necropotence favors a much faster all-or-nothing combo deck, not so much a long-term value engine.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 months
Key combos	Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter Ashnod's Altar + Dockside Extortionist + Kenrith, the Returned King Kenrith, the Returned King + Willbreaker Esper Sentinel + Kenrith, the Returned King
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 66 - 0 Rares 12 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.80
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Elk 3/3 G, Food, Orc Army, Spirit 1/1 C, The Ring, The Ring Tempts You, Treasure
Folders	Commander decks for fun, cEDH
Based on	Kenrith Consultation Scepter Competitive cEDH rodanlewarx EDH