Muldrotha, the „Fun“ in „Funeral“ *Primer*

Commander / EDH Battlecruiser BUG (Sultai) Combo Control Primer Reanimator

Pikobyte

Creature (33)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Aura Thief
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Gravebreaker Lamia
• 1x Greenwarden of Murasa
• 1x Havengul Lich
• 1x Hedron Crab
• 1x Hostage Taker
• 1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1x Meren of Clan Nel Toth
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Mindslicer
• 1x Night Incarnate
• 1x Noxious Gearhulk
• 1x Opposition Agent
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Protean Hulk
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x River Kelpie
• 1x Sakashima the Impostor
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Siren Stormtamer
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Spore Frog
• 1x Trinket Mage
• 1x World Breaker
• 1x World Shaper

Planeswalker (4)

• 1x Ashiok, Dream Render
• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
• 1x Liliana, Death's Majesty
• 1x Vraska, Relic Seeker

Land (36)

• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 2x Forest
• 2x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x High Market
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 1x Homeward Path
• 2x Island
• 1x Island
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x Swamp
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Instant (2)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Intuition

Commander (1)

Enchantment (12)

• 1x Bear Umbra
• 1x Curator's Ward
• 1x Defense of the Heart
• 1x Diplomatic Immunity
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Kaya's Ghostform
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Pernicious Deed
• 1x Seal of Doom
• 1x Seal of Primordium
• 1x Treachery

Artifact (10)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Rise of the Dark Realms

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Wow, currently #1 Muldrotha list by score here on tappedout. I hope it can hold that rank. Thanks to all of you! Nice to see some love for my favorite deck.

„That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.“

Latest changes (Commander Legends)

• Out: Survival of the Fittest, In: Opposition Agent: Survival is sometimes hard to use if you discard your hand often with LED or Mindslicer so it had to go for Opposition agent

So here is my beloved Muldrotha deck. Hopefully it will be some inspiration for other decks with this awesome Commander.

It’s my actual paper deck, editions and foils exactly as in paper.

I hope you like the deck. Feedback, Card suggestions and Upvotes are highly welcome.

Introduction

I´ve been playing this deck for some months now and having a blast with it. It´s not the fastest deck but pretty solid and steady. This deck is more of a control-type Muldrotha, taking the slow but almost unstoppable path. It is not as explosive as other lists that run cards like Hermit Druid and Lord of Extinction but it is much harder to interrupt. The deck works surprisingly well without Muldrotha, thanks to the built-in redundancy. It focuses on controlling board and hand to lock your opponents down so you can easily outvalue your opponents. It can lock down the board as soon as turn 3 if you are lucky but also has the ability to combo out and win via infinite combo.

I wanted to share this deck with you guys because i had so much fun with it so far and maybe it‘s some help for other Muldrotha players or people who wants to build a new deck.

Also i may have missed some cool cards and you may have some suggestions.

It´s not the cheapest deck around but i listed the cards i play in my paperdeck to keep track of the value. I‘m trying to foil the deck as far as possible. Will take some time because there are a lot of expensive foils missing.

Reasons to play Muldrotha

You will enjoy this deck if:

• You like a battlecruiser type of control-deck

• You like to use your graveyard as a second hand

• You love to have an answer to almost every situation

• You think Sultai is one of the strongest color combinations

• You like to bring back your permanents again and again every turn and even multiple times per turn

Reasons to play another deck

You may enjoy other decks more if:

• You love to play a lot of instants and sorcerys

• You think the graveyard should rest in peace

• You don't want to be the archenemy on the table sometimes

• You like faster and more agressive decks more

Saving Money

You can make the deck much cheaper by making some replacements:

• Gaea's Cradle is nice to have but not needed to make the deck work. Played the deck without it before i dismembered my Animar deck and it worked well. A Forest is completely fine in this slot.

• Lion's Eye Diamond is hard to replace, this card is a powerhouse in this deck. The discard is often in your favor. You could try a Lotus Petal or a mana rock like Worn Powerstone in this slot.

• Mox Diamond is another strong card. The discarded land can be played from grave. A Chrome Mox could fit here or another Mana rock.

• Intuition can be replaced with the slightly worse Buried Alive.

• Swapping out the Kaladesh inventions for the normal cards saves a lot of money too.

• And finally replacing foils with nonfoils saves 350$ alone for the promo of Survival of the Fittest. Or cut the survival completely for a Fauna Shaman.

With all the changes the deck will still work really well but will cost only like 1/4 of the listed price here. Still not really a budget deck but almost the same bang for much less bucks.

I made this changes for you on another list and ended up much cheaper. You can find the „budget“ version of this deck here: Cheaper fun with Muldrotha

ZeroSen has made an awesome version of my cheaper deck and even managed to save around 200$ more. Check his decklist if you want to save as much money as possible without sacrificing to much power. You can find his Decklist here

General Gameplan

This deck can be pretty fast if you are lucky with your draws, but most of the time it is a bit slower.

In the early game you have lots of cards with low CMC to play. Get some value going, try to control the board a bit and start some milling or dredging.

Once you got some nice cards in your graveyard its time for your commander. Muldrotha tends to draw some attention. She is a powerful Commander but that power comes with a hefty pricetag. Try to protect her as good as possible or commander-tax can become a problem here. Cards like Diplomatic Immunity, Curator's Ward, Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots safe you from targeted removals. Bear Umbra provides some protection to wrath-effects but your safety-option here if protecting her fails is Command Beacon. This card is simply amazing here. Once Muldrotha dies you can sacrifice the land to bring her to your hand. You can now cast her without any commander-tax and if you are holding priority you can play Command Beacon from your graveyard before someone gets the chance to remove her again.

If you have your commander on the field you can start to control the board. Night Incarnate can be devastating for token-decks, Elves, Goblins or other weenie-decks. Plaguecrafter is a really nice card against Voltron-style decks or decks with just a few creatures. If you play against control or combo, Mindslicer may be your best friend. The deck has a lot of tools to control the board, chose which you need depending on the situation.

Once you have board control it is very hard to stop you. Even a boardwipe from an opponent is often in your favor because you can recover much faster from it than most other decks. From here you can start building up a good boardstate, working towards combos or just kill your opponents with combat-damage.

Some general advices:

There is no need for your Commander with no cards or just a few cards in your grave, so dont rush it out as soon as possible and risk a wrath-effect. Just wait until you have some form of protection or enough cards in your graveyard to start some fun shenanigans.

Using your opponents best cards against them is always a fun thing to do. One of the cards i love the most for that is Aura Thief. It steals Mana-doublers like Mirari's Wake or Mana Reflection, Theros gods or any other pesky enchantments from your opponents again and again. Treachery stealing commanders can be devastating for a lot of decks. Cards like Havengul Lich or the primordials can empty your opponents graveyard in your favor.

Don´t be greedy, for example: If you tutor up a land with Tolaria West or Expedition Map, its almost always better to go for a safe Command Beacon first and not for a Gaea's Cradle. Don´t play too risky! Safety first, just tutor Cradle next turn.

The Dream (Turn 1 Win)

It’s highly unlikely that this happens but it is possible. It showcases the potential of a 3 card combo that is not hard to pull off early or midgame, all you really need is your commander on the field and Intuition to pull this off. To make it work turn 1 however, you need the perfect hand of 8 cards (so perfect draw too) to get Muldrotha out turn 1 too.

Needed cards are: 2 lands (1 has to come untapped and tap for color), Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Lion's Eye Diamond, Mox Diamond, Kaya's Ghostform and Altar of Dementia.

• play land untapped
• play mana crypt and tap for 2
• use 1 to play sol ring and tap for 2
• play Altar of dementia and float 1 colorless
• play mox diamond discard the 2nd land
• play LED and sac it for any color, discard ghostform
• tap land and mox for the 2 remaining colors and use the floating colorless to cast Muldrotha
• recast LED from your grave and sac it for 3 black to cast ghostform from your grave on Muldrotha
• sac Muldrotha to altar of dementia to mill yourself for 6, ghostform triggers and brings Muldrotha back
• cast LED and ghostform again from your grave and repeat to generate infinite mana and mill yourself out.

From this point you can simply mill yourself out, cast Jace, Wielder of Mysteries from your grave and win with his +ability to draw a card. You could also cast all permanents from your grave by using this combo or a combo from necromancy and phantasmal image and win with infinite kokusho triggers. You can get all your lands into play with world shaper and untap them all with Treachery. You could get all your opponents creatures into play by milling them out, discarding their hands with mindslicer and casting Rise of the Dark Realms after getting it to your hand with witness.

The 3 card combo of LED, ghostform and altar of dementia is extremely powerful. It has a total cost of 3 but pays for itself with LED. If you search it up with intuition however, you need 2 colorless and 1 black to start it since your opponents might give you ghostform to your hand and both artifacts into your grave.

Some Cardchoices

I don’t cover the obvious choices here, i try to explain some that may have overlooked synergies or simply are some of my favorites.

• Sakashima the Impostor: This card is totally bonkers in here. Copy Muldrotha and you can play 2 of each permanent type from your grave each turn. This can lead to some pretty crazy turns. Or imagine having 2 Meren of Clan Nel Toth or 2 Sheoldred, 2 The Gitrog Monster..... you get the idea.

• Tolaria West: So much value in this card. You will never play this from your hand unless you have to. Use it as a tutor that can be played from your grave as a land afterwards. Depending on the situation it tutors you Lion's Eye Diamond, Mox Diamond, Mana Crypt or some of your utility lands like Command Beacon, Phyrexian Tower, Gaea's Cradle etc. After you played it from your grave you can bounce it with a bounceland to tutor again. Or you can return it from your grave to your hand with Life from the Loam and tutor again.

• Mesmeric Orb: One of my favorite cards. Obviously fills your graveyard and pisses off your opponents. But it also synergizes really well with cards like The Gitrog Monster or Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. Since every card you mill is a separate trigger you will draw a lot of cards and get a lot of zombies here.

• Aura Thief: I often get asked why I play this card here. That card is simply amazing in here. You can steal enchantments instead of destroying them and there is always something nice to steal in a multiplayer round. Think of cards like Mirari's Wake, Mana Reflection, Zendikar Resurgent, Rhystic Study, Phyrexian Arena, Aura Shards, Propaganda-like cards, the theros-gods and many more.

• Mindslicer: The nightmare of every control or combo-deck. Not that big of a deal for you because of your commander. Sacrificing it after you played Cyclonic Rift is almost always an instant-win. It also often takes your opponents ability to answer or deal with your board as well as maybe discarding something like a Bojuka Bog waiting to remove your graveyard.

• Bear Umbra: Another card that makes people wonder sometimes. I chose this over Sword of Feast and Famine because it is an attack-trigger. You don’t even have to do damage to a player. It also gives you some protection to boardwipes thanks to totem armor. This card can lead to some stupid turns. Just imagine it after your World Shaper died or with a cradle in play.

If there are still some not that obvious cards let me know it. I will add that card to this list.

Some Winconditions

Muldrotha enables a lot of shenanigans like:

• Any persist creature + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Altar of Dementia can mill out your opponents or yourself and you can play Jace from your grave and win with that.

• Jace, Wielder of Mysteries can win you the game with all the mill you got and is a safety-net vs mill decks.

• If you are playing against nonblack players, Contamination is a good way to lock the board down. Sacrificing a creature every turn to keep it on the board is easy if you can play creatures from your graveyard. Just make sure to remove your opponents Mana-rocks that can produce colors to make it a hardlock. This wincon is removed with war of the spark and replaced by a Jace wincon.

• If you have a sac outlet you can make what I call a „Rift-lock“. With Cyclonic Rift and Eternal Witness or Greenwarden of Murasa you can play cyclonic rift every turn, making it really hard for your opponents to handle you. Sacrificing a Mindslicer after a Cyclonic Rift often makes your opponents scoop.

• With Eternal Witness in grave and Rise of the Dark Realms you can play Rise of the Dark Realms every turn and instantly getting it back with the witness.

• There’s also a wonky infinite combo to win games. My playgroup banned instant win combos with 3 cards or less so it has to be more complicated. With Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Kokusho, the Evening Star, a sac outlet, a creature with persist and a clone u have infinite Kokusho-triggers. Here’s how it works: Play a clone (Phantasmal Image or metamorph) as a copy of Kokusho. The legend rule forces you to sacrifice the clone and you use the undying-trigger to bring it back with a +1/+1 counter. Chose to bring it back as a copy of one of your persist-creatures. Feed it to one of your sac outlets and use the persist-trigger to bring it back as Kokusho with a -1/-1 counter. Repeat from here for a loop.

• With Lion's Eye Diamond, Necromancy and Phantasmal Image you have infinite mana in colors of your choice and you can play all nonland-permanents from your grave in one turn. Those 3 cards are a nice package to search up with Intuition. It does not matter which one you get into your hand. Add an Eternal Witness and you can play all instants and sorcery’s too.

• Kaya's Ghostform is one of the new wincons. With a sac-outlet, LED and your commander you can generate infinite mana and cast all your non-enchantment permanents all in one turn from your grave. Just sacrifice Muldrotha, it re-enters the battlefield, cast ghostform and LED, sac LED for mana and repeat for infinite mana. Cast all your non enchantments with that mana for a massive turn. If you have a Kokusho in your grave it’s also an infinite damage loop and you win on the spot. Or you just draw/tutor/mill your entire library, play Jace and use his +1 to win the game with no cards in your library. So much power and value in this Card for a single mana.

• Not really a wincon but highly effective is another ghostform combo. With your commander and ghostform on the field you can blow up Pernicious Deed every turn to wipe the board. Muldrotha re-enters because of ghostform, you recast ghostform right away. Next turn you recast your deed and blow it up again if needed. Just keep one mana open to recast ghostform again.

• You can also use your opponents winconditions to win games. Cards like Havengul Lich, Treachery, Hostage Taker, Necromancy, Aura Thief or the primordials support this tactic perfectly. You have ways to steal every cardtype except for lands and planeswalkers.

• Defense of the Heart can win games on its own. Getting you the 2 creatures you need the most or searching for Razaketh, the Foulblooded and Protean Hulk, feeding the Hulk to Razaketh for even more tutoring and crazy things.

• You often win games with commander damage too. The deck is pretty good in controlling the board, so commander damage is a thing and combat damage in general does often win games.

Those are just a few ways to close the game out. Most of the games are won with control and outvalueing your opponents.

Notable Exclusions

Animate Dead: It‘s a good card and i tested it in the deck. But it can‘t keep up with Necromancy. The ability to play it at instant speed and triggering ltb effects end of turn without any sac-Outlet just outperforms Animate Dead.

Mindslaver: An un-fun way to win. If you want it more competitive, go for it.

Triskelion: instant win with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and brutal with Defense of the Heart. Boring way to win, go for it if you like cheesy combos.

Mystic Remora and Elephant Grass: both seem like perfect fits for this deck. Tested both cards and they just underperformed. The extra draw is rarely needed and the protection from the grass nothing but a nice to have. Those cards almost always stayed in my graveyard because there were better cards to play, so i finally removed them.

More fast mana: Tested that too. Its not that useful to rush out your commander with no cards in grave. The deck plays enough cheaper cards to have some action in early turns. And if Muldrotha hits the field there should be enough cards in your „second hand“.

My next bigger project will be a Xyris deck. I want to make it as much fun and consistent as my Muldrotha. After I finally get my precon and tested the deck I’ll refine it and write a primer for it. If you’re interested you can find the decklist here, would love to see it getting as much support as my Muldrotha did.

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	22 - 0 Mythic Rares 49 - 0 Rares 10 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.62
Tokens	Experience Token, Pirate 2/2 B, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Muldrotha, Muldrotha, EDH, Ancient Dinosaur Immortals!, EDH Decks NOT by Me, EDH, Friday Night Magic, Sick edh decks, Muldrotha, Decks