In most Magic sets, there’s a new legendary creature so weird, so wild, that it simply grabs me by my imaginary lapels and demands attention. For Murders at Karlov Manor, that legendary creature is a Simic Combine creation, an improbable creature mash-up of Crocodile, Elk, and Turtle called The Pride of Hull Clade.
I’m guessing the driving force of this design started with the idea of checking off the oddball power and toughness combination of 2/15, never put on a creature card before, though it’s possible the stats derived from the concept of a legendary high-toughness creature with defender. Regardless, this design is a really cool card to build a Commander deck around because it sends you on in-game mini-quests in order to unleash the potential for mass card draw.
The Card Draw Quest
First, you want to deploy high-toughness creatures to reduce the high mana cost of The Pride of Hull Clade, which is the mirror image of Ghalta, Primal Hunger. It should be relatively easy to reduce the cost of Pride to just one green mana, which in turn should leave mana available to use the special ability. And that special ability is where things get interesting! You want a high toughness creature that can somehow get past blockers and deal combat damage to a player in order to get that card draw based on its toughness. Since creatures with defender typically have high toughness, Pride’s activated ability crucially lets target creature you control attack as though it didn’t have defender. Which means Pride can let itself attack and potentially draw an eye-popping fifteen cards if it connects.
There’s a bit of a problem here, though. High-toughness, low-power creatures with defender are typically easy to block, even with that little extra power that Pride bestows with its activated ability. So you have a few options: you can make the creature unblockable through spells like Distortion Strike, or you can make it unattractive for an opponent to block. The most natural way to do that is to use effects that let your creatures deal damage equal to its toughness, such as Assault Formation.
The Arcades Factor
Which begs the question – don’t we already have a “defenders matter” commander in Arcades, the Strategist?
We do, but if you’ve ever played this deck – or played against it – it’s pretty straightforward. You load your deck up with creatures with defender, draw a bunch of cards, and start attacking with them. The Bant color combination covers a ton of defender synergy cards all under one umbrella. To me, the Arcades deck just isn’t all that interesting. The Pride of Hull Clade, on the other hand? You’ve got to work for the payoff, and I just find that much more intriguing.
Let’s dig in!
Defender Matters
If we’re going to play a lot of creatures with defender – and I think that’s likely the best approach – we can make use of cards that care about that. I really like the mana potential of Overgrown Battlement and Axebane Guardian to make it more likely you can pay for Pride’s activated ability, especially Axebane Guardian, since it can generate blue mana.
Towering Titan is a weird card that doesn’t have defender and doesn’t have that high toughness-to-power ratio that you’d be expecting out of creatures in this deck, but it definitely likes having a number of high-toughness creatures around when it enters the battlefield, and it can sacrifice a creature with defender to give all creatures trample until end of turn. Note this is all creatures, so you can even use it on an opponent’s turn to help them push past blockers if they’re attacking someone else. Plus, I just can’t wait to cast this when you’ve got Pride on the battlefield along with a couple of other Walls and see just how big this Giant can get!
Doorkeeper and Coral Colony offer up some mill potential, either for yourself or your opponent, if that’s something you want to groove on. Maybe you’re playing delve cards? Or maybe you want to use milling as an alternative win condition—blue has a lot of milling cards.
Creatures with Defender
We can very easily fill out a lot of the decklist with creatures that have defender, and many of them are quite good. I’m especially excited about Tree of Redemption, which can tap to swap its toughness for your life total; for much of the game, that will be much higher than thirteen. If you can then untap, cast Pride, and attack with Tree of Redemption, you could draw a ton of cards!
I like the idea of holding Shield Sphere until the turn you want to cast Pride, since it represents shaving six mana from its mana value and costs zero mana to cast, which could catch your opponents by surprise.
Toughness Matters
I’ve been a big fan of Bedrock Tortoise ever since it was previewed for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Giving your creatures hexproof on your turn gives you the freedom to set up shenanigans, yet doesn’t completely lock your opponents from interaction. In this deck, it makes it much more likely you can use Pride’s activated ability without being blown out at instant speed, and it gives all your high-toughness creatures the ability to assign combat damage based on that value instead of power.
The activated ability of Geralf, Visionary Stitcher can potentially create a lot of flying 2/2 Zombie tokens, which doesn’t exactly align with our themes, but sometimes you might just need a bunch of token creatures to attack or defend with. I mean, if you sacrifice Pride, that’s a whopping fifteen 2/2 Zombies! Geralf has a higher toughness, too, so he might benefit from some of your synergies. Feed the Pack is an enchantment that can do a similar thing, but with 2/2 Wolf tokens.
Other Creatures with High Toughness
I really want to have both The Pride of Hull Clade and Charix, the Raging Isle on the battlefield at the same time, two creatures that can shrug off a Blasphemous Act. Ohran Frostfang and Gorm the Great are high-toughness creatures that make blocking problematic, so that works well for our gameplan. Gretchen Titchwillow is a high-toughness creature that is a fantastic mana sink if you’re not yet set up for activating your Pride. Kraken Hatchling and Aegis Turtle offer gigantic toughness presence for just one blue mana, and might be worth holding in your hand much like Shield Sphere until you’re ready to cast Pride faster than your opponents might think.
Toughness Boosting
If you’ve got multiple high-toughness creatures attacking that will be dealing combat damage equal to their toughness, such as Bedrock Tortoise, Tower Defense can absolutely kill someone out of nowhere. Or, draw five extra cards from Pride’s activated ability! Dive Down is a narrower card, yet provides a nice toughness boost and gives your creature hexproof until end of turn.
Unnatural Growth and Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus double power, but they also double toughness, which we like in this deck. Zopandrel even has higher toughness than power!
There are few flying creatures amongst the cards we’ve talked about so far, so I’d likely put a Spidersilk Armor in the deck, which gives each creature you control reach and an additional toughness.
Low Power Matters
Tetsuko Umezawa can be a vital piece of this deck’s puzzle; Pride’s activated ability can give a zero-power Wall +1/+0, which will then qualify as unblockable from Tetsuko’s static ability. The skulk ability from Skeleton Key can make your low-power creatures unblockable except for the smallest of creatures. Meekstone and Aligned Hedron Network can prove to be quite disruptive to your opponents’ battlefield states while hardly touching yours at all.
Can’t Be Blocked
A few more ways to truly make one of your creatures unblockable can ensure a huge influx of card draw, so I’d pepper in a few of these at least. Key to the City is reusable, and its cost of discarding a card will be made up from Pride’s activated ability.
Drawing Cards Matters
While drawing a bunch of cards with Pride’s activation is payoff enough, we might consider other ways to take advantage of the rush of cards. Psychosis Crawler can drain a bunch of life from our opponents, while Triskaidekaphile could just win you the game. Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix has the potential to create a ton of colorless mana in your postcombat main phase after a Pride activation.
High Mana Value Matters
Another ability of The Pride of Hull Clade is its huge mana value, which makes Majestic Genesis insane! Traverse Eternity and Rush of Knowledge can give you a blast of card draw even without activating Pride, assuming Pride is on the battlefield. Tangleweave Armor will give equipped creature +11/+11, which seems like a bargain for four mana.
Ride the Avalanche seems particularly fun, since you can cast it and then your commander at instant speed to give up to one target creature eleven +1/+1 counters, and you can even target an opponent’s creature that might be attacking another opponent, and just perhaps grow it big enough to kill them!
Discounting Activated Abilities
Training Grounds is an awesome inclusion here, discounting Pride’s activation to just two blue mana. I might even consider Biomancer’s Familiar as a backup Training Grounds.
What sort of cards did I miss that seem awesome in a deck with The Pride of Hull Clade? What other legends from Murders at Karlov Manor are you most excited to build Commander decks around?
Talk to Me
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And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
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