Hello, and welcome back to another week of Commander Corner! Today, I’d like to welcome you to something that’s honestly genuinely surprising to me: my first review of a deck in my favorite color combination! Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’re ready for a zombie apocalypse. It’s Muldrotha!

This card was printed only last year, and quickly rose to be the most beloved Commander in the world. It has over 4,000 decks on the leading Commander website, and is more widely used than any Commander I’ve shown you all so far. And this is, of course, because of her effect. At a glance, this rather expensive 6/6 for 6 simply lets you cast one enchantment, creature, artifact, land, or Planeswalker (we’ll cover these in another post, it’s a little complicated) from your graveyard per turn. What this means is that your graveyard, no matter how big it gets, is basically a secondary hand for you to cast spells from. And this is an incredibly powerful tool. Let me show you why.

This is a rather nasty creature to drop, but he’s a touch expensive. That’s why he comes prepackaged with an Evoke cost. This means you can cast him for two mana instead of five, but he’s sacrificed as soon as he enters. Therefore you get to destroy a nonblack creature for two mana, but you don’t get a creature.

But, when you add Muldrotha into the mix, you get to pay that Evoke cost and destroy an opponent’s creature…every single turn. There’s also nothing they can do: countering the spell just puts it back into your graveyard, and you can get it right back from there at the start of your next turn!

This little guy is just as devious as Shriekmaw, but he moves much faster. The beauty of Siren Stormtamer is that you can sacrifice him to counter an opponent’s spell or ability, sending him to the graveyard, and then you can cast him again immediately afterwards thanks to Muldrotha! All you need to worry about is having two blue mana (or three, if you’re feeling particularly devious and want to trigger him a second time).

I’ve talked a lot about destruction already, so how about a brief look at some creation? But first, some historical background about the game. Trust me, it’s important.

Some of the most valuable and expensive cards in Magic’s history are known as the Tutors. These include Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Mystic Tutor, et cetera. They’re beloved and expensive because they do what every player wishes they could do at any point in the game: search your entire, 99-card deck for that one perfect card to play, and either put it into your hand or on top of your deck to draw next turn.

The magic of Muldrotha is that she turns cheap cards like Buried Alive into Tutors. You can take three cards instead of the normal one and put them directly into your graveyard, thereby letting you cast them right away thanks to your Commander’s ability. And Buried Alive is far from the only card that works like this: it’s part of Muldrotha’s newfound popularity.

Here we have one of the heaviest hitters in Muldrotha’s expansive arsenal (and please, I invite you to figure out where the hell this thing’s eyes are. I still can’t find them). Protean Hulk is a bit expensive, so it’s better to wait until you’ve got quite a lineup of mana ready. But once he hits the battlefield, focus on killing him quickly. Because when he dies, you get to look through your deck for any number of creatures that have a combined cost of 6 mana and put them on the battlefield without paying. Now I’ve been talking about Muldrotha’s powers a lot lately, and I’m sure you can figure out where I’m going with this. As soon as Protean Hulk hits the graveyard, you know he’s coming right back for another round. This gives you the chance to cast almost every single creature in your deck without paying anything more than the 7 needed to cast him.

And last but not least, we have a Commander classic. Nevinyrral’s Disk is one of the most popular board wipes (which is a kind of spell or ability that destroys almost everything on the battlefield in one fell swoop). This one is a bit more tricky to trigger: you can’t get it back until Muldrotha is in play, and you risk killing her if you trigger the Disk. But there’s a play for that, too.

When you equip this to Muldrotha, you don’t lose her when you trigger the Disk! And of course, there are a bunch of different spells that do the same thing (Swiftfoot Boots, Whispersilk Cloak, et cetera). Sure, the Lightning Greaves will be destroyed when Nevinyrral’s Disk triggers, but Muldrotha will still be there, so you can get them both back and do it all over again, as many times as you want!

Well, that about wraps up Muldrotha. Can you see now why she’s the most beloved Commander in the game? She actually changed the entire Commander format a good amount when she was printed, and she rose to fame in only a few months. She’s been a mainstay in my collection ever since.

Next week, though, we’ll be focusing on a less popular Commander, but one with a similar quirk. With next week’s card, any creature that dies comes right back to the battlefield again (with a catch…)! Stay tuned for Marchesa, the Black Rose!

Until next time!