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Need inspiration for your Murders at Karlov Manor deck building?
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.
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.
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.