Murders at Karlov Manor deck building guide for MTG

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The cards releasing in the set will be legal in all formats (with the exception of non-commons being unplayable in Pauper), enabling a ton of unique deckbuilding options. For this guide, we will be looking at the Standard and Commander formats.

With Standard’s longer rotation, more archetypes are available and with Commander, its large card pool enables many strategies. These decks will also be of different playstyles, with the Standard decks including one Aggro and one Combo deck, and the Commander decks being a Spellslinger deck and the other a Reanimator.

All of them will be making use of cards from Murders At Karlov Manor (though Standard more than Commander due to the nature of the formats). This is the Murders At Karlov Manor deck building guide for Magic: The Gathering. 

Murders at Karlov Manor Standard Decks

Boros Convoke

2 Sunshot Militia	3 Imodane’s Recruiter	4 Knight-Errant Of Eos	4 Noice Inspector	4 Regal Bunnicorn
4 Resolute Reinforcements	4 Voldaren Epicure	4 Warden Of The Inner Sky	4 Gleeful Demolition	4 Demand Answers
2 Warleader’s Call	4 Battlefield Forge	1 Eiganjo, Seat Of The Empire	2 Mirrex	5 Mountain
6 Plains	1 Sokenzan, Crucible Of Defiance	2 Sundown Pass

Boros Convoke makes use of Gleeful Demotion, which turns any artifact into three 1/1 tokens. These are often sacrificing tokens created by Voldaren Epicure and Novice Inspector. 

All of these tokens can be used to grow Warden Of The Inner Sky and to convoke Knight-Errant Of Eos, which also lets you put more creatures into your hand. Regal Bunnicorn benefits from all of your nonland permanents, including other creatures as well as all your artifact tokens. 

Imodane’s Recruiter is a way to give all your creatures haste. Although it can create a 2/2 token, you seldom want to cast it for its adventure side since you want to win as fast as possible. 

A way to draw cards is with Demand Answers, letting you sacrifice your excess Blood and Clue tokens for draw power. Alternatively, you can discard a dead card in your hand for more draw power. In addition, the artifact tokens can be used to burn with Sunshot Militia or to use Warden Of The Inner Sky’s ability. 

Warleader’s Call also assists in dealing burn damage, dealing one damage to your opponent whenever a creature enters the battlefield. Since you create so many creatures so fast, this can help close out games once your opponent stabilizes enough to have blockers. 

Since you have such a low mana curve, you can get away with running a lower-than-average amount of lands since you can get by with just a few for an entire game if need be, and you don’t want to over-draw lands either. 

Deeproot Combo

2 Deepfathom Echo	4 Forensic Researcher	3 Sentinel Of The Nameless City	4 Spyglass Siren	3 Vodalian Hexcatcher
2 Intrude On The Mind	4 Make Disappear	2 Reasonable Doubt	3 Agatha’s Soul Cauldron	3 Subterranean Schooner
4 Deeproote Pilgrimage	2 Lost In The Maze	1 Boseiju, Who Endures	4 Cavern Of Souls	4 Dreamroot Cascade
2 Forest	5 Island	1 Otawara, Soaring City	3 Restless Vinestalk	4 Yavimaya Coast

With Murders At Karlov Manor, a brand new infinite combo is available in Standard. This utilizes two copies of Forensic Researcher and Deeproot Pilgrimage. Deeproot Pilgrimage creatures a 1/1 Merfolk token with hexproof whenever a nontoken Merfolk becomes tapped. With this on the battlefield, you can use Forensic Researcher’s ability on another copy of itself to keep tapping and untapping Merfolk to generate an infinite number of Merfolk. 

To make getting two copies easier, Agatha’s Soul Cauldron can use a Forensic Researcher in the graveyard to give its ability to another Merfolk with a +1/+1 counter on it. Deepfathom Echo is another way to make one copy of Forensic Researcher into two as it can become a copy of any creature you control until the end of turn. 

Deeproot Combo’s other creatures all explore or make Map tokens (which also explore) to dig through your deck quickly to get to your combo pieces. Intrude On The Mind helps you put your combo pieces into your hands, and even if they go into the graveyard, you have Agatha’s Soul Cauldron to use their abilities still. 

To keep the combo safe, it plays a few copies of Lost In The Maze. This makes any tapped creature hexproof, meaning if there are two Forensic Researchers on the battlefield who aren’t summoning sick, you can guarantee the combo goes off since you can tap it at instant speed to counteract any removal spell. 

Murders at Karlov Manor Commander Decks

Kylox, Visionary Inventor

Saheeli, Sublime Artificer	Krenko, Mob Boss	Murmuring Mystic	Talrand, Sky Summoner	Third Path Iconclast
Young Pyromancer	Beacon Of Tomorrows	Blasphemous Act	Brass’s Bounty	Call Fourth The Tempest
Circus Act	Clone Legion	Dragon Fodder	Dwarven Reinforcements	Empty The Warrens
Forbidden Friendship	Geosurge	Goblin Rally	Goblin War Party	Grapeshot
Hordeling Outburst	Jeska’s Will	Krenko’s Command	Mana Geyser	Mind’s Desire
Mogg Alarm	Molten Birth	Ral’s Reinforcement	Rally At The Hornburg	Satyr’s Cunning
Serum Visions	Sorcerous Squall	Tempt With Vengeance	Time Stretch	Time Warp
Treasure Cruise	Big Score	Chaos Warp	Desperate Ritual	Dig Through Time
Frantic Search	Izzet Charm	Meeting Of The Minds	Nexus Of Fate	Pyretic Ritual
Reality Shift	Seething Song	Snap	Unexpected Windfall	Temporal Trespass
Temporal Mastery	Fellwar Stone	Helm Of Awakening	Izzet Signet	Mind Stone
Mindsplice Apparatus	Arcane Signet	Commander’s Sphere	Sol Ring	Talisman Of Creativity
Court Of Embereth	Curse Of Opulence	Metallurgic Summonings	Passionate Archaeologist	Command Beacon
Command Tower	Exotic Orchard	12 Island	15 Mountain	Mystic Sanctuary
Shivan Reef	Stormcarved Coast	Sulfur Falls	Temple Of The False Gods

Kylox, Visionary Inventor is an explosive deck that wants to win on the turn Kylox hits the battlefield. When Kylox attacks, you sacrifice other creatures and can exile cards from the top of your library equal to their total power and cast any amount of instants and sorceries from there for free. As such, almost half the deck are instants and sorceries. 

Since we need a lot of creatures, but don’t want to whiff on Kylox’s effect, we are playing cards that generate creature tokens. There are only five creatures in the deck (excluding Kylox itself), all of which create a creature token whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell as well as Krenko, Mob Boss which can create a rapidly growing amount of Goblin tokens. 

The other way to create creature tokens is with spells that create creature tokens such as Dragon Fodder, Krenko’s Command, and Ral’s Reinforcements to name a few. 

Kylox costs seven mana to cast, so to get to the commander quicker, the deck plays a lot of rituals – cards that make mana greater than the amount paid such as Geosurge, Mana Geyser, and Jeska’s Will. These also help us cast spells from our hand if we exile them. 

For win conditions, the deck is playing Passionate Archaeologist which deals burn damage for each spell we cast with Kylox, and since we have such big spells this can deal devastating damage. There are also cards with storm since Kylox casts so many cards like Mind’s Desire to get more free spells to cast and Grapeshot to close out games with burn damage. In case Kylox whiffs on finding win conditions, there is a handful of extra turn spells like Time Warp and Time Stretch to give us another chance. If you manage to resolve multiple extra turn spells, odds are you are going to be winning the game.

✓ Johnny’s Tip:

Upgrading Kylox: 

This list was kept moderately budget, but if you want to push your Kylox deck to higher power levels, including more fast mana rocks like Mox Amber and Mana Crypt can help you cast your spells and commander much quicker. Unfortunately, you will need to bust out your wallet and go deep into it if you want a cEDH-level Kylox build. 

Amzu, Swarm’s Hunger

Grist, The Hunger Tide	Ant Queen	Archon Of Cruelty	Artisan Of Kozilek	Carrion Grub
Crash Of The Rhino Beetles	Eternal Witness	Giant Adephage	Giant Ankheg	Golgari Grave-Troll
Grave-Shell Scarab	Hornet Queen	Llanowar Elves	Moldgraf Monstrosity	Necropolis Regent
Old Stickfingers	Phyrexian Swarmlord	Rune-Scarred Demon	Scute Mob	Scute Swarm
Sepulchral Primordial	Sheoldred, Whispering One	Skull Prophet	Spring-Leaf Avenger	Timeless Witness
Yargle And Multani	Titan Of Industry	Zask, Skittering Swarmlord	Cultivate	Diregraf Rebirth
Dread Return	Kodama’s Reach	Nightmare Void	Persist	Rampant Growth
Reanimate	Rise Of The Witch-King	Victimize	Vigor Mortis	Another Chance
Beast Within	Corpse Charm	Dig Up The Body	Grapple With The Past	Overwhelming Remorse
Putrefy	Reclaim	Return Of The Wildspeaker	Tear Asunder	Arcane Signet
Commander’s Sphere	Fellwar Stone	Golgari Signet	Sol Ring	Talisman Of Resilience
Animate Dead	Garruk’s Uprising	Oversold Cemetary	Phyrexian Reclamation	The Cruelty Of Gix
Tortured Existence	Tribute To The World Tree	Castle Lochtwain	Command Tower	Exotic Orchard
13 Forest	Geir Reach Sanitarium	Llanowar Wastes	Mortuary Mire	12 Swamp
Tainted Wood	Temple Of The False Gods	Witch’s Cottage	Woodland Cemetery

Amzu, Swarm’s Hunger gives all Insect creatures menace, but this deck isn’t built around that, rather, its second effect that creates a token with +1/+1 counters on it equal to the mana value of a card when it leaves the graveyard. To trigger this, the deck plays a ton of reanimator spells to bring out not just powerful creatures with great effects, but a big token alongside it that has menace thanks to Amzu’s passive. 

The reanimator spells are the usual suspects, such as Reanimate, Animate Dead, and Persist. Dread Return is also great since the deck can create a lot of tokens with Scute Swarm. There are also ways to get cards out of the graveyard during your opponents’ turns to keep taking advantage of Amzu’s effect. The best of this is Tortured Existence, which lets you pay one black mana to exchange a creature card in your hand for one in your graveyard. If you have two creatures with a high mana value, this can give you three huge tokens before you even start your turn again with little mana investment. Phyrexian Reclamation is another way to get a creature out from the graveyard during your opponents’ turns, but you will have to find a way to put it back there to reanimate with later. 

As for creatures to reanimate, Sheoldred, Whispering One is a great choice as it reanimates other creatures in your graveyard for free while forcing your opponents to sacrifice their own creatures. Similarly, Archon Of Cruelty can do a lot wherever it attacks, including forcing an opponent to sacrifice a creature, discard a card, and lose three life while you gain three life and get a card draw of your own. 

Another way to easily trigger Amzu without either a renaimate spell or an enchantment is with cards with dredge. When these are in the graveyard, you can mill cards equal to their dredge cost to put it into your hand from the graveyard, triggering Amzu. The best ones for this are Grave-Shell Scarab and Golgari Grave-Troll, the latter of which putting six cards into your graveyard for future use. 

The deck’s main win condition is bringing out powerful creatures to slow your opponent down and generate your own advantage. While this is happening, you create powerful creature tokens that can swing in for massive damage. Since Amzu gives these tokens menace, it makes them much harder to block for your opponent to get guaranteed damage in.

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That is the Magic: The Gathering Murders At Karlov Manor deck building guide. Although this guide only looked at Standard and Commander, all the cards released in it will be a major part of decklists across other formats like Demand Answers in Pauper and Archdruid’s Charm in Pioneer and even Legacy. The best part about every new set release is how many new decks are created from the cards made available. There are over 200 cards injected into all formats after all, allowing for many strategies of all types to be built from Aggro to Control and even Combo. 

If you’re interested in a Murders at Karlov Manor Draft guide, we’ve recently covered that too.