Ever since I started playing commander two themes have always been my favorite: reanimator and landfall/lands matter decks. I have tried many different commanders for the landfall themes such as The Gitrog Monster, Titania, Protector of Argoth, and even Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis. While each of these generals have been a ton of fun, I knew that when I saw Muldrotha, the Gravetide I had to build her as a lands commander with a reanimator subtheme (who doesn't want a 1 land per turn Crucible of Worlds as their commander?!?).
How to win
I play in a more casual group that ranges anywhere from just starting commander to 75% decks. So winning usually means smashing face with large beaters, casting large X spells like Torment of Hailfire, or occasionally using an infinite combo. I have included several ways to win with Muldrotha in these ways (with the exception of infinite combos):
2) Dark Depths+Thespian's Stage: With both of these in play you use thespian stage to become a copy of Dark Depths, you then sac the original depths to the legendary rule and then thespian dark depths triggers because it doesn't have the ice counters on it and you sac it to create a Marit Lage.
4) Titania, Protector of Argoth + any fetchland: Do you want to generate a free 5/3 beater every turn after playing your fetchland from your graveyard? Well Muldrotha has got you covered.
5) Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar beats: Your goal is to put many lands into play, making this guy a huge recurrable threat. You can also use his activated ability to gain additional landfall triggers late game.
How to gain additional card advantage
So we want to be playing lots of lands in order to hit our win conditions, which means we will want to be drawing lots of cards. As a lands deck we have some really great card advantage engines:
The Gitrog Monster: This guy's middle name is value, especially when you can playback the land you sac'd using Muldrotha
Tatyova, Benthic Druid: Another amazing lands engine with the release of dominaria. Play lands, draw cards, gain life and hopefully play more lands with our additional land drops a turn
Hedron Crab: This card pulls double duty in this deck as both a mill win-con late game or we can mill ourselves for 3 cards, which is just like Ancestral Recall in Muldrotha
River Kelpie: Thanks to Muldrotha, we will hopefully drawing a card anytime we use her ability. We also use Secrets of the Dead as another copy of the kelpie
Green Sun's Zenith: Can fetch any of our Green creature engines such as Gitrog, Tatyova, and Ramunap Excavator. If you have this in your hand early, you can also use it to ramp a Dryad Arbor on turn 1.
Birthing Pod: We have creatures with CMC 0 - 7 which means this can grab any missing engine piece we need. The cherry on top is that muldrotha lets us play back what we sacrificed
Sidisi, Undead Vizier: Exploit any of our creatures in order to fetch any card in our deck only to replay what we sac'd using Muldrotha? Sign me up!
Additional Synergies
I also want to take some time to point out some interactions that may not be immediately obvious:
Song of the dryads + Vesuva/Mirage Mirror: This allows you to neutralize any permanent threat on the battlefield and then create a copy of it! This works because vesuva or mirror becomes a copy of the 'Forest', however, it doesn't copy the dryad and so the 'forest' becomes whatever song is on. Oh yeah...and if you ever need to neutralize something else just use Strip Mine to destroy that permanent and then replay strip mine and/or song of the dryads from your graveyard with muldrotha
Trade Routes + Burgeoning: Gain additional landfall triggers every time your opponents play a land
Animate Dead/Necromancy + any Persist creature: You thought Persist creatures were annoying to get rid of before? Muldrotha is about to take that to a whole new level. Play any enchantment reanimation on a persist creature, get ETB/activated abilities then sac to return the enchantment to your graveyard to replay and then the persist creature comes back with a -1/-1 counter to generate even more value
Decklist
I am still refining this decklist, but here the current form:
Final Parting, this new spell could be helpful because you get to search for a non-permanent to add to your hand and dump a permanent to cast from the graveyard.
Josu Vess, Lich Knight, 8 2/2 tokens with Menace is too good to not run in this kind of deck if you can produce the mana.
Love the deck! Have you given any thought to Mana Vortex or Land Equilibrium? I know the latter is pretty expensive now, but depending on the board state you could pull off some shenanigans with it and Squandered Resources, and even more so if you have any of your multiple land drop permanents like Azusa or Gitrog. I think free land sac outlets will go the furthest here and I see you have Zuran Orb in your consideration board; I like that addition a lot. Gain two life, draw a card, and make a 5/3 for free would close out the game pretty quickly!
Funny as I have a Titania deck, and just today thought of changing that up as my Muldrotha deck. I watched the Game Knights video of Dominaria Brawl yesterday and Josh played a Muldrotha deck that really just showed how powerfull Muldrotha is. What kept him going despite everyone trying to kill Muldrotha was simply put a sh!tload of mana. So I immediately thought of Boundless Realms. So I immediately thought of a list running a a lot of basics as it's strenght. If you can resolve Boundless Realms twice (Traverse the Outlands for redundancy) you will be at 25+ lands. No matter how often people try to kill Muldrotha, commander tax just won't be a thing for you, not to mention actually being able to play 3 or 4 spells from your graveyard per turn, even after landing Mulrotha. I see you've not taken this route right now but I think it's worth to consider it, as it does allow you to Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire for X >15 as well without relying on the specific Urborg + Coffers combination. Also, you could run a little nonbasic hate in the form of Wave of Vitriol and Primal Order. If you run enough black tutor power you can basically ensure you will have Boundless Realms by the time you have 7 mana, then go to town.
Another thing that episode taught me is that having your Muldrotha stolen really sucks. So I would definitly add Homeward Path as well. You could also run Phantasmal Image and/or Clever Impersonator (and maybe Progenitor Mimic to be able to at least get a copy of Muldrotha if it is stolen and you don't have it yet.
All in all, it's really hard to build a deck that is strong but not degenerate. The sheer amount of control she can give you over a game is ridiculous. Cyclonic Rift every turn is ridiculous. Time Warp is just infinite turns made easy (though not fun)
EDIT: Alternating Natural Balance with Splendid Reclamation is also a really effective way to keep your opponent's potential in check while maintaining yours. (You could easily end up with more lands then the rest of the table combined)
Final Parting, this new spell could be helpful because you get to search for a non-permanent to add to your hand and dump a permanent to cast from the graveyard.
Josu Vess, Lich Knight, 8 2/2 tokens with Menace is too good to not run in this kind of deck if you can produce the mana.
Yes, more transmute would be a great help with tutoring! After transmuting we could replay that card that we discarded (which makes Tolaria West really great in this deck). I am not sure any of those creatures offer anything other than their ability to transmute, however, you might be on to something if we look at Muddle the mixture which grabs many of our great 2 CMC cards (life from the loam/squandered resources)
Final Parting is definitely something on my radar for testing, but I am thinking a permanent based tutor may be better for it's reusability
For the Josu Vess, Lich Knight I am not sure I see him belonging in the deck. He definitely adds many small blockers to the board, but for that much mana I think something like Zendikar's Roil may be better at flooding the board considering the number of lands we play a turn.
Love the deck! Have you given any thought to Mana Vortex or Land Equilibrium? I know the latter is pretty expensive now, but depending on the board state you could pull off some shenanigans with it and Squandered Resources, and even more so if you have any of your multiple land drop permanents like Azusa or Gitrog. I think free land sac outlets will go the furthest here and I see you have Zuran Orb in your consideration board; I like that addition a lot. Gain two life, draw a card, and make a 5/3 for free would close out the game pretty quickly!
Ahh! Mana Vortex is a card I totally glossed over. A few stax pieces would for sure have a place in Muldrotha, but I think this commander is already going to get a lot of hate due to her ability and I think too much stax might just make you a target way to early. My thinking is that you try to fly under the radar with your lands drops and get to lots of mana on board: by which time it doesn't matter if they keep killing your commander due to how much mana you have available.
Zuran Orb is awesome in lands decks, and this spot is currently held by claws of gix. Sure, it costs 1 more to activate, but I think the ability to sac any permanent and then replay it thanks to muldrotha may be worth the extra cost. We also have squandered resources as an additional sac outlet for our lands.
Funny as I have a Titania deck, and just today thought of changing that up as my Muldrotha deck. I watched the Game Knights video of Dominaria Brawl yesterday and Josh played a Muldrotha deck that really just showed how powerfull Muldrotha is. What kept him going despite everyone trying to kill Muldrotha was simply put a sh!tload of mana. So I immediately thought of Boundless Realms. So I immediately thought of a list running a a lot of basics as it's strenght. If you can resolve Boundless Realms twice (Traverse the Outlands for redundancy) you will be at 25+ lands. No matter how often people try to kill Muldrotha, commander tax just won't be a thing for you, not to mention actually being able to play 3 or 4 spells from your graveyard per turn, even after landing Mulrotha. I see you've not taken this route right now but I think it's worth to consider it, as it does allow you to Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire for X >15 as well without relying on the specific Urborg + Coffers combination. Also, you could run a little nonbasic hate in the form of Wave of Vitriol and Primal Order. If you run enough black tutor power you can basically ensure you will have Boundless Realms by the time you have 7 mana, then go to town.
Another thing that episode taught me is that having your Muldrotha stolen really sucks. So I would definitly add Homeward Path as well. You could also run Phantasmal Image and/or Clever Impersonator (and maybe Progenitor Mimic to be able to at least get a copy of Muldrotha if it is stolen and you don't have it yet.
All in all, it's really hard to build a deck that is strong but not degenerate. The sheer amount of control she can give you over a game is ridiculous. Cyclonic Rift every turn is ridiculous. Time Warp is just infinite turns made easy (though not fun)
EDIT: Alternating Natural Balance with Splendid Reclamation is also a really effective way to keep your opponent's potential in check while maintaining yours. (You could easily end up with more lands then the rest of the table combined)
Yeah, Titania is def a lot of fun. Its hard to select the right lands commander and the nice thing about Muldrotha is why not play most of the non-red ones? As for Boundless Realms, it is def a sweet card and a bomb in my Tasigur, the golden fang deck with basics and ramp. If you wanted to do a basic land build with a few nonbasics like glacial chasm using basic land ramp would def be the way to go. My tasigur deck already does this, so my goal with muldrotha is a more non-basic land toolbox deck
Man, how did I forget Homeward Path?! Yeah, I am going to find a spot for that now. As for the copy effects, a cool little synergy is Song of the dryads + Vesuva allow you to remove a problem permanent in play AND copy it with vesuva.
Yeah, Muldrotha's flexibility allows her to be built in many directions and my goal with this list is something that can grind value while not attracting as much hate.
sword of feast and famine and bear umbra could def have a home in this list! I would probably lean towards bear umbra due to the protection it provides. If I had Seedborn I would probably try to find a spot for it. Natural balance is interesting, not sure which spot it could replace
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I should have the deck finished in paper this week to begin testing more of the choices. A couple quick changes: Tireless Tracker -> Hedron Crab: We already have many good card draw options and this is probably the worse of the bunch. The crab allows us to mill ourselves for 3+ cards a turn or our opponents to win the game!
World Breaker -> Sidisi, undead Vizier: World Breaker's activated ability isn't necessarily needed here, as we would just cast him from the graveyard. Sidisi can exploit herself, a token, or a cheap creature that we can replay with muldrotha and then we get any card from our deck!
Maze of Ith -> Homeward Path: While I like maze of ith, most of the time we would rather just fetch glacial chasm. As pointed out by Ertai Planeswalker, Muldrotha is going to be a copy/steal target and Homeward will at least get her back if she is stolen
So I was able to get 3 games in last week with the deck and here is how the games ended up:
Game 1: Opponents: Animar + Marchesa
I was able to resolve an early gitrog an draw a ton of cards. Also turns out trade routes is pretty sweet with gitrog in play. A shriekmaw and lilianna were able to keep threats from my opponents down. Gitrog+Muldrotha beats did most of the work in combination with a late game Rampaging Baloths.
Game 2: Opponents: Animar + Karador
A bit of a slower start for me in comparison to the animar player who exploded out of the gate. Eventually 2 eldrazi titans resolved and neither me nor the karador player had an answer (1 song of the dryads was not enough).
Game 3: Opponents: Becket Brass, Ramos, Meren
This game was quite a grind. I had an early Sol Ring with oracle to hit extra land drops to eventually cast an early muldrotha alongside an expedition map. I proceed to fetch coffers, glacial chasm, bojuka bog, and homeward path from the same expedition map. At some point Brass steals muldrotha, but the homeward path made quick work of that problem. A Green sun's zenith for 6 found me gitrog which allowed me to use bojuka bog on the meren play 4 times that game. Eventually I tried resolving a world shaper and Ob Nix into play which would have gotten me several kills alongside squandered resources by saccing lands and getting them back with shaper alongside a high market. The brass player proceeded to counter the Ob Nix twice as i cast him from my hand and my graveyard thanks muldrotha. Several turns after I tried casting a torment of hailfire for X=23, but once again the brass player had a counterspell up (I am starting to wish I had a counter of my own to protect my threats). Thanks to some politics I was able to convince the meren player to eventually not kill me if I would protect him from the Ramos's 25 1/1 vampire tokens using my constant mists. Ramos ended up killing Meren with life loss instead and then I used cyclonic rift to remove his board and win the following turn.
Thoughts time
Wow! If you get Muldrotha to stick she does some serious work. Replaying expedition map was pure value in this deck to fetch coffers+urborg and homeward path + glacial chasm in the same game. I did realize in my games that I found myself wanting more counterspells to protect my wincons. I am looking to add Siren stormtamer and Forbid. Once I find the cuts for these cards, I'll update again with the new decklist
Here's My take on the deck, I'm kind of an amateur deck builder so I'm sure it isn't optimized whatsoever. I am working on kind of a budget so most of the cards over $5.00 I already own, like Ramunap Excavator and Thrasios.
My deck is much more focused on the lands portion in a sort of value town, generate value to win, kind of way. My plan is to tutor up Tatyova and Gitr Done Frog to live the dream. The plan is generally the same, create a giant Torment of Hailfire or Villainous Wealth to win. I really liked the idea of some of your includes like Claws of Gix and Trade Routes so thanks.
I'm really looking for suggestions and replacements, however, I'm looking to keep the deck under $50, not including the afformentioned expensive cards. Thanks.
So I am finally building my Muldrotha deck and try as I might I have yet to see a mention of Safe Haven. This land seems like the most amazing add in it protects Muldrotha for 2 mana every turn!!! Plus jt costs less than $0.50.
So I am finally building my Muldrotha deck and try as I might I have yet to see a mention of Safe Haven. This land seems like the most amazing add in it protects Muldrotha for 2 mana every turn!!! Plus jt costs less than $0.50.
except when you use it to protect muldrotha, an opponent plays a strip mine, and destroys the land. you can't recover muldrotha from that, since it was already exiled and not put into the commander zone, unless you manage to play a riftsweeper. plus, the land doesn't even tap for mana.
close but too risky.
Here's My take on the deck, I'm kind of an amateur deck builder so I'm sure it isn't optimized whatsoever. I am working on kind of a budget so most of the cards over $5.00 I already own, like Ramunap Excavator and Thrasios.
My deck is much more focused on the lands portion in a sort of value town, generate value to win, kind of way. My plan is to tutor up Tatyova and Gitr Done Frog to live the dream. The plan is generally the same, create a giant Torment of Hailfire or Villainous Wealth to win. I really liked the idea of some of your includes like Claws of Gix and Trade Routes so thanks.
I'm really looking for suggestions and replacements, however, I'm looking to keep the deck under $50, not including the afformentioned expensive cards. Thanks.
Your list looks pretty good, depending on your goal with the deck I might suggest a few cuts:
Suggested Cuts
Venser's Journal - Since your graveyard is basically your hand, you don't really care about max hand size effects
Library of Leng - same as journal
Dread Cacodemon - you only get the trigger from hand
Suggested adds: Bojuka Bog - This card is backbreaking in this deck (and when it is used against it) Meloku the clouded mirror - Similar to trade routes, except you can generate tokens Retreat to Coralhelm - I never added this to my list, but after seeing it in tatyova decks it is straight value (also can be a real engine with the Walking Atlas style creatures) Retreat to Hagra - Amazing card in this deck (I would highly suggest finding a spot for it) Patron of the Moon - Gives infinite Landfall triggers with Retreat to Coralhelm and Walking Atlas Nissa, Vital Force - This card is so good, I would prob run it over the other nissa in your list Ob Nixilis, the fallen - This was another all-star in the deck. With a land sac outlet combined with Splendid Reclamation or World shaper was game ending
So I am finally building my Muldrotha deck and try as I might I have yet to see a mention of Safe Haven. This land seems like the most amazing add in it protects Muldrotha for 2 mana every turn!!! Plus jt costs less than $0.50.
I think the better land here might be Endless Sands since it can also tap for mana without urborg in play.
I am currently on the windgrace train, however, I had a blast playing (and winning) with this deck. I'll try to stay around here to give feedback on the list.
Why play Muldrotha as a lands commander?
Ever since I started playing commander two themes have always been my favorite: reanimator and landfall/lands matter decks. I have tried many different commanders for the landfall themes such as The Gitrog Monster, Titania, Protector of Argoth, and even Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis. While each of these generals have been a ton of fun, I knew that when I saw Muldrotha, the Gravetide I had to build her as a lands commander with a reanimator subtheme (who doesn't want a 1 land per turn Crucible of Worlds as their commander?!?).
How to win
I play in a more casual group that ranges anywhere from just starting commander to 75% decks. So winning usually means smashing face with large beaters, casting large X spells like Torment of Hailfire, or occasionally using an infinite combo. I have included several ways to win with Muldrotha in these ways (with the exception of infinite combos):
2) Dark Depths+Thespian's Stage: With both of these in play you use thespian stage to become a copy of Dark Depths, you then sac the original depths to the legendary rule and then thespian dark depths triggers because it doesn't have the ice counters on it and you sac it to create a Marit Lage.
3) Avenger of Zendikar/Rampaging Baloths/Ob Nixilis, the Fallen/Hedron Crab + Multiple land drops: By using cards like Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Splendid Reclamation we can get multiple triggers from our landfall cards to make many beaters, drain our opponents, or mill them out! (Scapeshift, Splendid reclamation, and world shaper are really fun here).
4) Titania, Protector of Argoth + any fetchland: Do you want to generate a free 5/3 beater every turn after playing your fetchland from your graveyard? Well Muldrotha has got you covered.
5) Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar beats: Your goal is to put many lands into play, making this guy a huge recurrable threat. You can also use his activated ability to gain additional landfall triggers late game.
How to gain additional card advantage
So we want to be playing lots of lands in order to hit our win conditions, which means we will want to be drawing lots of cards. As a lands deck we have some really great card advantage engines:
Tatyova, Benthic Druid: Another amazing lands engine with the release of dominaria. Play lands, draw cards, gain life and hopefully play more lands with our additional land drops a turn
Hedron Crab: This card pulls double duty in this deck as both a mill win-con late game or we can mill ourselves for 3 cards, which is just like Ancestral Recall in Muldrotha
River Kelpie: Thanks to Muldrotha, we will hopefully drawing a card anytime we use her ability. We also use Secrets of the Dead as another copy of the kelpie
Mystic Remora, Mulldrifter, and Cephalid Coliseum: Amazing cards in Muldrotha by repeatedly playing them from the graveyard every turn. In addition, Cephalid Coliseum is a budget alternative to Bazaar of Baghdad in this deck that can even produce mana in a pinch
Consistency
With these many different lines of play, it is important to add the flexibility to grab what we want when we need it.
Green Sun's Zenith: Can fetch any of our Green creature engines such as Gitrog, Tatyova, and Ramunap Excavator. If you have this in your hand early, you can also use it to ramp a Dryad Arbor on turn 1.
Realms Uncharted , Hour of Promise, Expedition Map: Used to fetch any nonbasic lands we need, which most often will be Cabal Coffers with Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth, but can be used for any land in a pinch.
Crop Rotation: Nothing beats an instant speed Glacial Chasm or Bojuka Bog. Also fetches any of our other utility lands: Alchemist's Refuge, Homeward Path, High Market, volrath's stronghold, Strip Mine, Command Beacon
Entomb, Intuition, Vampiric Tutor: General purpose tutors to grab anything, high on the fetch list is Life from the Loam
Birthing Pod: We have creatures with CMC 0 - 7 which means this can grab any missing engine piece we need. The cherry on top is that muldrotha lets us play back what we sacrificed
Sidisi, Undead Vizier: Exploit any of our creatures in order to fetch any card in our deck only to replay what we sac'd using Muldrotha? Sign me up!
Additional Synergies
I also want to take some time to point out some interactions that may not be immediately obvious:
Trade Routes + Burgeoning: Gain additional landfall triggers every time your opponents play a land
Animate Dead/Necromancy + any Persist creature: You thought Persist creatures were annoying to get rid of before? Muldrotha is about to take that to a whole new level. Play any enchantment reanimation on a persist creature, get ETB/activated abilities then sac to return the enchantment to your graveyard to replay and then the persist creature comes back with a -1/-1 counter to generate even more value
Decklist
I am still refining this decklist, but here the current form:
1x Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Lands(40)
1x Alchemist's Refuge
1x Ash Barrens
1x Barren Moor
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Breeding Pool
1x Cabal Coffers
1x Cephalid Coliseum
1x Command Beacon
1x Command Tower
1x Dakmor salvage
1x Dark Depths
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Fetid Pools
1x Flooded Strand
5x Forest
1x Glacial Chasm
1x High Market
1x Homeward Path
2x Island
1x Lonely Sandbar
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Polluted Delta
1x Strip Mine
2x Swamp
1x Thespian's Stage
1x Tolaria West
1x Tranquil Thicket
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Vesuva
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Watery Grave
1x Windswept Heath
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1x Eternal Witness
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Hedron Crab
1x Lotus Cobra
1x Mulldrifter
1x Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
1x Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Rampaging Baloths
1x Ramunap Excavator
1x River Kelpie
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1x Shriekmaw
1x Spore Frog
1x Sylvan Safekeeper
1x Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1x The Gitrog Monster
1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
1x Ulvenwald Hydra
1x World Shaper
Instant(7)
1x Crop Rotation
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Entomb
1x Intuition
1x Pact of Negation
1x Realms Uncharted
1x Vampiric Tutor
Planeswalker(3)
1x Liliana of the Veil
1x Nissa, Vital Force
1x Vraska the Unseen
1x Animate Dead
1x Burgeoning
1x Exploration
1x Mystic Remora
1x Necromancy
1x Pernicious Deed
1x Secrets of the Dead
1x Seal of Primordium
1x Song of the Dryads
1x Squandered Resources
1x Trade Routes
Artifact(8)
1x Birthing Pod
1x Claws of Gix
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Expedition Map
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mirage Mirror
1x Oblivion Stone
1x Sol Ring
Sorcery(7)
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Hour of Promise
1x Life from the Loam
1x Scapeshift
1x Splendid Reclamation
1x Torment of Hailfire
1x Toxic Deluge
Thanks for reading!
Other Considerations
I wanted to also include a section on cards that I am giving thought to adding:
Caustic Caterpillar
Decree of Silence
Elephant Grass
Manabond
Ravenous Chupacabra
Woodfall Primus
Nihil Spellbomb
Zuran Orb
Siren Stormtamer
Beast Within
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: This may be needed to save our graveyard from the extreme hate it is going to recieve
Lion's Eye Diamond Currently this spot is held by lotus petal
Stax pieces:
Mana Vortex
Smokestack
Parallax Tide
Tangle Wire
Dimir Infiltrator
Dimir House Guard
Drift of Phantasms
Ethereal Usher
Netherborn Phalanx
Final Parting, this new spell could be helpful because you get to search for a non-permanent to add to your hand and dump a permanent to cast from the graveyard.
Josu Vess, Lich Knight, 8 2/2 tokens with Menace is too good to not run in this kind of deck if you can produce the mana.
Another thing that episode taught me is that having your Muldrotha stolen really sucks. So I would definitly add Homeward Path as well. You could also run Phantasmal Image and/or Clever Impersonator (and maybe Progenitor Mimic to be able to at least get a copy of Muldrotha if it is stolen and you don't have it yet.
All in all, it's really hard to build a deck that is strong but not degenerate. The sheer amount of control she can give you over a game is ridiculous. Cyclonic Rift every turn is ridiculous. Time Warp is just infinite turns made easy (though not fun)
I think running Sword of Feast and Famine, Nature's Will and/or Bear Umbra will really help you to get the most out of your turns, while Seedborn Muse and Awakening will still allow you yo have mana to interact with your opponents.
EDIT: Alternating Natural Balance with Splendid Reclamation is also a really effective way to keep your opponent's potential in check while maintaining yours. (You could easily end up with more lands then the rest of the table combined)
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
Yes, more transmute would be a great help with tutoring! After transmuting we could replay that card that we discarded (which makes Tolaria West really great in this deck). I am not sure any of those creatures offer anything other than their ability to transmute, however, you might be on to something if we look at Muddle the mixture which grabs many of our great 2 CMC cards (life from the loam/squandered resources)
Final Parting is definitely something on my radar for testing, but I am thinking a permanent based tutor may be better for it's reusability
For the Josu Vess, Lich Knight I am not sure I see him belonging in the deck. He definitely adds many small blockers to the board, but for that much mana I think something like Zendikar's Roil may be better at flooding the board considering the number of lands we play a turn.
Ahh! Mana Vortex is a card I totally glossed over. A few stax pieces would for sure have a place in Muldrotha, but I think this commander is already going to get a lot of hate due to her ability and I think too much stax might just make you a target way to early. My thinking is that you try to fly under the radar with your lands drops and get to lots of mana on board: by which time it doesn't matter if they keep killing your commander due to how much mana you have available.
Zuran Orb is awesome in lands decks, and this spot is currently held by claws of gix. Sure, it costs 1 more to activate, but I think the ability to sac any permanent and then replay it thanks to muldrotha may be worth the extra cost. We also have squandered resources as an additional sac outlet for our lands.
Yeah, Titania is def a lot of fun. Its hard to select the right lands commander and the nice thing about Muldrotha is why not play most of the non-red ones? As for Boundless Realms, it is def a sweet card and a bomb in my Tasigur, the golden fang deck with basics and ramp. If you wanted to do a basic land build with a few nonbasics like glacial chasm using basic land ramp would def be the way to go. My tasigur deck already does this, so my goal with muldrotha is a more non-basic land toolbox deck
Man, how did I forget Homeward Path?! Yeah, I am going to find a spot for that now. As for the copy effects, a cool little synergy is Song of the dryads + Vesuva allow you to remove a problem permanent in play AND copy it with vesuva.
Yeah, Muldrotha's flexibility allows her to be built in many directions and my goal with this list is something that can grind value while not attracting as much hate.
sword of feast and famine and bear umbra could def have a home in this list! I would probably lean towards bear umbra due to the protection it provides. If I had Seedborn I would probably try to find a spot for it. Natural balance is interesting, not sure which spot it could replace
Thanks for the feedback everyone!
I should have the deck finished in paper this week to begin testing more of the choices. A couple quick changes:
Tireless Tracker -> Hedron Crab: We already have many good card draw options and this is probably the worse of the bunch. The crab allows us to mill ourselves for 3+ cards a turn or our opponents to win the game!
World Breaker -> Sidisi, undead Vizier: World Breaker's activated ability isn't necessarily needed here, as we would just cast him from the graveyard. Sidisi can exploit herself, a token, or a cheap creature that we can replay with muldrotha and then we get any card from our deck!
Maze of Ith -> Homeward Path: While I like maze of ith, most of the time we would rather just fetch glacial chasm. As pointed out by Ertai Planeswalker, Muldrotha is going to be a copy/steal target and Homeward will at least get her back if she is stolen
So I was able to get 3 games in last week with the deck and here is how the games ended up:
Game 1: Opponents: Animar + Marchesa
I was able to resolve an early gitrog an draw a ton of cards. Also turns out trade routes is pretty sweet with gitrog in play. A shriekmaw and lilianna were able to keep threats from my opponents down. Gitrog+Muldrotha beats did most of the work in combination with a late game Rampaging Baloths.
Game 2: Opponents: Animar + Karador
A bit of a slower start for me in comparison to the animar player who exploded out of the gate. Eventually 2 eldrazi titans resolved and neither me nor the karador player had an answer (1 song of the dryads was not enough).
Game 3: Opponents: Becket Brass, Ramos, Meren
This game was quite a grind. I had an early Sol Ring with oracle to hit extra land drops to eventually cast an early muldrotha alongside an expedition map. I proceed to fetch coffers, glacial chasm, bojuka bog, and homeward path from the same expedition map. At some point Brass steals muldrotha, but the homeward path made quick work of that problem. A Green sun's zenith for 6 found me gitrog which allowed me to use bojuka bog on the meren play 4 times that game. Eventually I tried resolving a world shaper and Ob Nix into play which would have gotten me several kills alongside squandered resources by saccing lands and getting them back with shaper alongside a high market. The brass player proceeded to counter the Ob Nix twice as i cast him from my hand and my graveyard thanks muldrotha. Several turns after I tried casting a torment of hailfire for X=23, but once again the brass player had a counterspell up (I am starting to wish I had a counter of my own to protect my threats). Thanks to some politics I was able to convince the meren player to eventually not kill me if I would protect him from the Ramos's 25 1/1 vampire tokens using my constant mists. Ramos ended up killing Meren with life loss instead and then I used cyclonic rift to remove his board and win the following turn.
Thoughts time
Wow! If you get Muldrotha to stick she does some serious work. Replaying expedition map was pure value in this deck to fetch coffers+urborg and homeward path + glacial chasm in the same game. I did realize in my games that I found myself wanting more counterspells to protect my wincons. I am looking to add Siren stormtamer and Forbid. Once I find the cuts for these cards, I'll update again with the new decklist
My deck is much more focused on the lands portion in a sort of value town, generate value to win, kind of way. My plan is to tutor up Tatyova and Gitr Done Frog to live the dream. The plan is generally the same, create a giant Torment of Hailfire or Villainous Wealth to win. I really liked the idea of some of your includes like Claws of Gix and Trade Routes so thanks.
I'm really looking for suggestions and replacements, however, I'm looking to keep the deck under $50, not including the afformentioned expensive cards. Thanks.
1x Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Land (40)
1x Ash Barrens
1x Bant Panorama
1x Barren Moor
1x Blighted Woodland
1x Command Tower
1x Crystal Vein
1x Dakmor Salvage
1x Dimir Aqueduct
1x Dismal Backwater
1x Esper Panorama
1x Evolving Wilds
5x Forest
1x Golgari Rot Farm
1x Hissing Quagmire
1x Homeward Path
4x Island
1x Jund Panorama
1x Jungle Hollow
1x Lumbering Falls
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Opulent Palace
1x Simic Growth Chamber
1x Slippery Karst
4x Swamp
1x Tainted Wood
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Thornwood Falls
1x Throne of the High City
1x Tranquil Expanse
1x Grisly Salvage
1x Harrow
Creature (22)
1x Acidic Slime
1x Corpse Connoisseur
1x Courser of Kruphix
1x Dread Cacodemon
1x Dreamscape Artist
1x Mulldrifter
1x Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
1x Rampaging Baloths
1x Ramunap Excavator
1x Regal Behemoth
1x River Kelpie
1x Roil Elemental
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Satyr Wayfinder
1x Shriekmaw
1x Stone-Seeder Hierophant
1x Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1x The Gitrog Monster
1x Thrasios, Triton Hero
1x Walking Atlas
1x World Shaper
Enchantment (9)
1x Abundance
1x Burgeoning
1x Diplomatic Immunity
1x Gaea's Touch
1x Khalni Heart Expedition
1x Seal of Primordium
1x The Mending of Dominaria
1x Trade Routes
1x Zendikar's Roil
1x Nissa, Steward of Elements
Sorcery (18)
1x Broken Bond
1x Collective Voyage
1x Crux of Fate
1x Cultivate
1x Explosive Vegetation
1x Farseek
1x Final Parting
1x Jarad's Orders
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Rampant Growth
1x Rude Awakening
1x Skyshroud Claim
1x Splendid Reclamation
1x Summer Bloom
1x Sylvan Scrying
1x Torment of Hailfire
1x Urban Evolution
1x Villainous Wealth
Artifact (7)
1x Claws of Gix
1x Ghirapur Orrery
1x Horn of Greed
1x Library of Leng
1x Sol Ring
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Venser's Journal
except when you use it to protect muldrotha, an opponent plays a strip mine, and destroys the land. you can't recover muldrotha from that, since it was already exiled and not put into the commander zone, unless you manage to play a riftsweeper. plus, the land doesn't even tap for mana.
close but too risky.
Your list looks pretty good, depending on your goal with the deck I might suggest a few cuts:
Suggested Cuts
Venser's Journal - Since your graveyard is basically your hand, you don't really care about max hand size effects
Library of Leng - same as journal
Dread Cacodemon - you only get the trigger from hand
Suggested adds:
Bojuka Bog - This card is backbreaking in this deck (and when it is used against it)
Meloku the clouded mirror - Similar to trade routes, except you can generate tokens
Retreat to Coralhelm - I never added this to my list, but after seeing it in tatyova decks it is straight value (also can be a real engine with the Walking Atlas style creatures)
Retreat to Hagra - Amazing card in this deck (I would highly suggest finding a spot for it)
Patron of the Moon - Gives infinite Landfall triggers with Retreat to Coralhelm and Walking Atlas
Nissa, Vital Force - This card is so good, I would prob run it over the other nissa in your list
Ob Nixilis, the fallen - This was another all-star in the deck. With a land sac outlet combined with Splendid Reclamation or World shaper was game ending
I think the better land here might be Endless Sands since it can also tap for mana without urborg in play.
A couple other swaps I ended up making were:
Claws of Gix -> Zuran Orb
Liliana of the Veil -> Manabond
Secrets of the Dead -> Siren Stormtamer
I am currently on the windgrace train, however, I had a blast playing (and winning) with this deck. I'll try to stay around here to give feedback on the list.