Our Top 10 Cards for Murders at Karlov Manor
A new set is just around the corner! It’s time we (Exxaxl and Chief, Greater Than the Sum of Our Rap Rheets) take a look at our top 10 cards — well, 12, since we also included one precon card each — for Murders at Karlov Manor. Excluding basic lands, this set only saw five reprints, so there were plenty of cool new cards to get excited for. Though we’re sure Lightning Helix and Assassin’s Trophy will be very welcome in Standard! Without any more fanfare, let’s jump right in!
No Witnesses
Exxaxl: A new four-mana board wipe in white! Day of Judgment with ‘some’ benefit to others is something we’ve seen before on cards like Depopulate or Shatter the Sky. I’m not sure this is going to receive staple status due to not wanting to make others at the table potentially draw cards, but I can easily see several white token decks adding this card for redundancy. The odds of you having the biggest board should be high enough to at least consider it since you’re more than likely always going to be the player that gets the Clue token.
Massacre Girl, Known Killer
Chief: The newest incarnation of everyone's favorite killer clown brings back wither as a way to gain card advantage, but the card design also allows you to reduce toughness in other ways and still get access to card draw. I much prefer this approach over being tied to just one mechanic.
Being able to turn already powerful cards like Dismember or Toxic Deluge into more cards feels great because you won't be exhausting all of your resources when you remove creatures. If you're interested in this commander, check out our recent Commander Spotlight.
Intrude on the Mind
Exxaxl: I’m an idiot for Fact or Fiction type cards so while this obviously isn’t ‘the best’ card from the new set, it did grab my attention. The addition of one extra generic mana does make me wonder if it’s worth running this in some of my decks though.
Granted, you get a creature token on top, but assuming an average top five reveal, that’ll be a 2/2 or a 3/3, and I’m not entirely sure that’s worth the extra mana cost. Maybe in a deck where you’re already proliferating or doubling tokens and/or +1/+1 counters? It’s a nice new toy for Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths or Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign too!
Delney, Streetwise Lookout
Chief: We've been seeing more and more cards that double triggered abilities lately. While you can find plenty of good options if you run Delney in the command zone, there are even more to choose from if you add other colors. There are a lot of small creatures out there with triggered abilities.
Tymna the Weaver is an obvious candidate for a commander that can benefit from the evasion and the doubled triggered ability. Even better if you're playing a partner with red so that you can double the Treasures from Dockside Extortionist, which is pretty novel for a white card.
Krenko’s Buzzcrusher
Exxaxl: A 4/4 flying trample for 4 mana is nothing too special, but getting rid of 3 of your opponents’ lands certainly is. I’m someone that regularly ties a lot of utility into my land slots, and I expect others to do the same. I feel Wizards of the Coast regularly highlights that having ways to remove lands can matter, but it seems a large portion of the player base doesn’t utilize this tool often enough.
A Glacial Chasm being played on your opponent’s board shouldn’t mean you’re now entirely out of the game, and your opponents definitely don’t need to untap with their Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx too often either. You get a recently beefy flying blocker to handle incoming retaliation-based attacks too.
Archdruid’s Charm
Chief: I’ve been waiting for another card in this cycle since Modern Horizons back in 2019 and I’m not disappointed. For three green mana, you have a ton of options at your disposal. This card can find two different card types or remove three different permanent types at instant speed! As someone who really enjoys playing mono-color decks in Commander, it’s always nice to see powerful spells that are harder for color-heavy decks to splash indiscriminately.
The first thing that came to mind when I saw this card is how easy it is to hold up mana and use this to grab a powerful land such as Gaea’s Cradle at instant speed before your turn. A play like this can be a massive swing in mana advantage if you have multiple creatures on board. I’ll also never turn down more removal options for The One Ring or Theros Gods in Commander, especially in a color that doesn’t always have access to exile effects.
Insidious Roots
Exxaxl: This seems stupidly strong in the right deck. Decks in black and green should have plenty of access to large token makers to find a slot for this and cards leaving the graveyard also shouldn’t really be an issue. I don’t think commanders like Chatterfang, Squirrel General and Beledros Witherbloom will struggle to find the utility this two-drop provides useful.
Let’s turn all Avenger of Zendikar tokens into manarocks and have them grow in size when creature cards leave the graveyard. I wonder what impact this card will have in other formats. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis being banned in Modern certainly doesn’t hurt with a card like Insidious Roots getting printed ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).
Crime Novelist
Chief: If you thought that Treasures weren’t doing enough, this Goblin Bard is for you! There are so many ways to generate all manner of artifact tokens these days, so a card design like this one was bound to come along eventually. While I don’t think that this card goes in every deck, it feels like free real estate if you’re already playing a deck that includes red that focuses on accumulating and sacrificing artifacts for value.
I can definitely see commanders like Prosper, Tome-Bound and Magda, Brazen Outlaw loving this card. It should also serve as another way to make a certain Goblin Pirate even more impactful in decks, although I probably wouldn’t run it without a bunch of artifact token generators.
Judith, Carnage Conaisseur
Exxaxl: The only legendary creature on my list, and it’s not even Dimir! I was heavily invested in Standard from Dominaria up until Eldraine and Pestilent Spirit is one of those cards that came out I wish was good but in the end really wasn’t. Having access to a similar effect in the command zone seems quite fun to me. Wipe the entire board with just a Blazing Volley or Tectonic Hazard? Yes please!
Add Imodane, the Pyrohammer and Tor Wauki the Younger to the 99 for some extra spice and start brewing the rest of your deck. I think 40 or upwards instants and sorceries Judith decks with Bolas’s Citadel and Aetherflux Reservoir are just inevitable. If you choose to focus on the token making part of Judith you should have plenty of aristocrat effects at your disposal if you’ve been in the format for a while as well. This feels like a commander you should be able to build with cards you already have laying around!
Anzrag, the Quake-Mole
Chief: There’s not much to say about this card other than that Wizards of the Coast printed an 8/4 for four mana with absolutely no downside! Adding green to the color identity of any card just seems like an excuse to make something that comes at an amazing rate in terms of stats and efficacy as a beater. Do you want to take eight damage or do you want me to get an extra combat? The choice is yours.
With this stat line, it seems pretty likely that you can use Anzrag politically by swinging at someone and “convincing” them to block him so you can swing everything else at someone else. If you’re looking for some serious synergy to play alongside this commander, I’d recommend adding cards such as Invasion Plans and Neyith of the Dire Hunt to your deck so that you can pummel your opponents into oblivion! “Not Gruul? Then die!”
Unshakable Tail
Exxaxl: Graveyard players rejoice, we have another card to add to our lists, and I think this one is just about slow enough to not immediately catch the attention of the rest of the table. Surveil 1 isn’t all that strong, but it does add up over several turns.
Milling creatures now generating clues is a mechanic I’m a big fan of though! More cards like this, please and thank you. The ‘or more’ part of the card does limit its explosiveness though. I hope you all get to activate Syr Konrad and Doom Whisperer many times with Unshakable Tail on the battlefield.
Trouble in Pairs
Chief: Whoever designed this card really wanted to make sure that it could draw cards reasonably often. I don't remember seeing an ability that triggers under three different conditions before, but here we are. They even managed to put some more text on the card to stop extra turns.
Jokes aside, this feels like a very interesting enchantment. I’ve played Mangara, the Diplomat a lot and usually liked him. This card having another trigger condition and also stopping cards like Expropriate makes this a cool prospect that will probably draw you a few cards.
Conclusion
Exxaxl: Overall I’m quite happy with the set. We finally got surveil lands! Which reminds me, I still have to order some Undercity Sewers. I’m still somewhat weirded out I specifically mentioned wanting those type of lands to be printed in my ‘Self-Mill in Commander’ article way before the preview season started. Sometimes I wonder if we should increase the cards we highlight per set coming out just so we can talk about more of them.
Chief: Like Deadly Cover-Up. It’s a card that's cropped in discussions online since it was first previewed. While it won't push out cards like Toxic Deluge or Damnation, it's a more than serviceable black board wipe that will probably see some play in Commander. It also has the ability to exile basic lands, which might come up from time to time.
People have been talking about whether this card should be banned because it can punish mono-color decks incidentally. I doubt that this is going to be commonplace, but I did want to say that I think the Rules Committee will take action if this actually becomes a recurring problem. Asking for bans before a card is even in the format leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
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