MTG Commander Deck Of The Week: Duke Ulder Ravengard

Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate is the Commander lover’s set that keeps on giving. I’ve made many decks with commanders from that set, and put many other cards in the 99 of my decks. Today, I wanted to share with you an incredibly fun Boros deck I have, with Duke Ulder Ravengard as the commander!

The Duke’s ability is quite simple: at the beginning of combat on your turn, another target creature you control gains haste and myriad until end of turn. For someone who loves value creatures and attacking in Commander as much as I do, myriad is the perfect multiplayer mechanic.

The Myriad Mechanic

Before I continue, let’s do a run-down of the rules for myriad:

The term “defending player” in the myriad rules (or any other ability of an attacking creature) refers to the player the creature with myriad was attacking or the controller of the planeswalker it was attacking at the time the ability resolves. If that creature is no longer attacking, it refers to the player it was last attacking or the controller of the planeswalker it was last attacking.

If the defending player is your only opponent, no tokens are put onto the battlefield.

You choose whether each token is attacking the player or a planeswalker they control as the token is created. If it’s attacking a planeswalker, you choose which one.

Although the tokens enter the battlefield attacking, they were never declared as attackers. Abilities that trigger whenever a creature attacks won’t trigger, including the myriad ability of the tokens. If there are any costs to have a creature attack, those costs won’t apply to the tokens.

The tokens all enter the battlefield at the same time.

Each token copies exactly what was printed on the original creature and nothing else. It doesn’t copy whether that creature is tapped or untapped, whether it has any counters on it or Auras and Equipment attached to it, or any non-copy effects that have changed its power, toughness, types, color, and so on.

Any enters-the-battlefield abilities of the copied creature will trigger when the tokens enter the battlefield. Any “as [this permanent] enters the battlefield” or “[this permanent] enters the battlefield with” abilities of the copied creature will also work.

If myriad creates more than one token for any given player (due to an effect such as the one Doubling Season creates), you may choose separately for each token whether it’s attacking the player or a planeswalker they control.

Back to the Duke

Personally, I like that myriad democratizes your attack step; you don’t have to choose a specific player to attack because you’re effectively attacking everyone. The choice for the creature that’s gaining the myriad ability is who it can attack and potentially survive; the copies that are attacking the other players it really doesn’t matter if they die or not because you’ll be exiling them at the end of combat anyway.

Obviously, creatures with enters the battlefield abilities make for awesome recipients for myriad, and if you find creatures that have leaves the battlefield abilities they work great as well. Also, if you’ve got creatures that can self-sacrifice for some sweet effect you can instead sacrifice one or more of the myriad copies to get the effect while keeping the original around, assuming it will survive combat.

Okay, let’s jump in!

Myriad

Since a lot of my deck takes advantage of myriad, I wanted to add some other ways to give creatures myriad, and Blade of Selves and Legion Loyalty do the trick. I’ve also got two creatures that naturally have myriad in Hammers of Moradin and Elturel Survivors.

Devilish Valet doesn’t have myriad, but it can get quite threatening alongside other creatures with myriad, doubling its power three times. Even without an initial power boost, that’s eight power of trampling damage rumbling in.

Dungeons

If you’re a regular reader – or follow me on The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter – you’ll know I love the dungeon mechanic, and since there are some awesome creatures with enters-the-battlefield triggers that enter a dungeon, I wanted to definitely include the best of them here. The initiative mechanic is the most powerful one, since Undercity provides the best loot, but I’m perfectly happy strolling through the Lost Mine of Phandelver with Nadaar, Selfless Paladin. And while Nadaar gaining myriad means you’ll need to immediately sacrifice all but one of the legendary creatures, you can still get use of the enters-the-battlefield triggers.

Removal

Boros has some great removal options, and I’m running a fair number of them here, including one of my all-time favorites in Contraband Livestock. Having removal attached to creatures is obviously good times with myriad, and one of my deep cuts here is Flametongue Kavu. Back when EDH was in its early days, Flametongue Kavu didn’t see much play because the best creatures were beefy and slow. These days, when so many people obsess over speed and optimization, the four damage from Flametongue Kavu has a ton of targets, and of course if you give Flametongue myriad and attack, that’s four damage three times and can slay even the largest creature.

Card Draw

Cantrip creatures like Spirited Companion and Inspiring Overseer are awesome when drawn early since they’ll keep your game flowing, and later on they make awesome recipients of myriad.

I just recently added Ox Drover to the deck, because wow! That’s some serious card draw there, especially if you give it myriad. What a gem from Wilds of Eldraine Commander.

Interaction – Creatures

Here’s the meat of the deck: creatures that do cool things and are awesome recipients of myriad. Selfless Spirit is one of those creatures I mentioned with a nice sacrifice ability, so you can sacrifice one of your copies to give all your creatures indestructible until the end of the turn. Follow up with a Wrath of God, and instead of a reset button, you’ve pulled way ahead towards winning the game.

Windshaper Planetar does some fun things with myriad; when it enters the battlefield, you can change the target of the myriad copies to attack whatever opponent you’d want to instead. Instead of a democratic attack, you might need to take out an opponent that’s fixing to win their next turn.

Firbolg Flutist is so much fun. When it first enters the battlefield, you get to steal the best creature on an opponent’s battlefield, untap it, and give it haste and myriad. Boom! Then later, you can give Firbolg Flutist myriad to effectively neutralize the best blockers on the battlefield when it attacks.

Then there’s Githzerai Monk, which taps down all potential blockers so you can attack free and clear!

Other Interaction

Sometimes there won’t be any good attacks with the creature you want to copy with myriad, so Reconnaissance is your answer! Simply remove the creature from combat after attacking but before blockers will kill it, and you still get to make use of the copies.

I also recently added Taunt from the Rampart from Tales of Middle-earth Commander, which is just a back-breaking spell all on its own, but since my goal is to attack and hopefully make it past blockers, this spell works really well with the gameplan.

Tax Rack

Now, six mana is pretty expensive for a nongreen commander, so I’ve leaned hard into using Land Tax and Scroll Rack to ensure I hit my land drops each turn while also leveraging the potential as a card draw engine. The idea is to make sure an opponent has more lands than I do at all times to unlock the power of Land Tax and Gift of Estates, and cards like Path to Exile, Settle the Wreckage, and Field of Ruin do just that. Another spicy card that helps with this is Lotus Field, which doesn’t put you behind on actual mana but definitely puts you down on actual lands.

Mana Ramp

Outside of Tax Rack stuff, I’m running a fair number of Boros ways to ramp mana. I really like Wand of the Worldsoul here since I’m playing a bunch of creatures and giving the Duke convoke can really help get him onto the battlefield ahead of time.

The Deck

Okay, here’s the full decklist!

Duke Ulder Ravengard

Bennie Smith

Test deck on 09-29-2023

Commander

Creatures (32)

Lands (39)

Here are the deck stats from our friends at Archidekt:

What must-have cards might I have missed including here? What creatures do you enjoy giving myriad to the most?

Talk to Me

Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter! I run polls and start conversations about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun! You can also find my LinkTree on my profile page there with links to all my content.

I’d also love it if you followed my Twitch channel TheCompleteCommander, where I do Commander, Brawl and sometimes other Magic-related streams when I can. If you can’t join me live, the videos are available on demand for a few weeks on Twitch, but I also upload them to my YouTube channel. You can also find the lists for my paper decks over on Archidekt if you want to dig into how I put together my own decks and brews.

And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.

Visit my Decklist Database to see my decklists and the articles where they appeared!

Decklist
Database