Commander Deck Tech - The Pride of Hull Clade

Murders at Karlov Manor has brought us several new commanders, and some of them are quite different and unusual. One that stood out to me enough to make me build a deck around it was The Pride of Hull Clade, which today is in our defender list with card draw as a sub-theme.

The Pride of Hull Clade seems to be inviable because it costs, incredibly, 11 mana, but we'll reduce its cost with the total toughness of the creatures we control. This means this deck is a like an Arcades, The Strategist deck without White: it has defenders who do attack and deal damage with their toughness.

This build has several interesting Simic defenders, and card draw as a sub-theme, considering our own commander can possibly draw us 15 cards. We added a few cards that interact with that, besides ways to attack with our defenders and deal damage equal to their toughness.

We included a few tricks to attack with our defenders and deal damage with their toughness, like attacking for 15 damage at once with our commander, for instance. We also have a few other win conditions to not lose the game through deck out, considering we'll draw cards quite frequently and in great quantities. That being said, let's go!

Accelerators

In this list, we use a few mana rocks, ramp, and walls that serve as mana dorks. The rocks we use are Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Simic Signet, the most common ones, and we also use Thought Vessel and Decanter of Endless Water to get rid of our hand limit, considering this deck will draw us a lot of cards.

As for ramp, we have almost all 2-cost cards: Rampant Growth, Nature's Lore, Farseek, and Three Visits, to look for non-basic lands, such as Breeding Pool and Rimewood Falls, early on. As 3-cost cards, we have the classic Kodama's Reach and Cultivate.

Finally, we have some creatures with defender that are also mana dorks, and discount our commander's cost thanks to their toughness. They are Overgrown Battlement, Axebane Guardian, Vine Trellis, and Sylvan Caryatid. I'll highlight the first two, considering they create mana equivalent to the number of defenders we control, and like so can create a lot of mana for us.

Creatures with Defender

Above, we added various creatures with defender so we aren't as dependent on our commander to deal damage. Starting with the simplest ones, that don't have effects that are that relevant, we have Riptide Turtle, Hover Barrier, Wall of Blossoms, Wall of Frost, Shield Sphere, Wall of Tanglecord, and Glacial Wall - we use them to discount The Pride of Hull Clade, and hold on until we can actually put pressure on our opponents.

Now, let's see our other creatures with defenders, which indeed have interesting effects. Starting with the most important one: we have Walking Bulwark, which, for just one mana, grants us a 0/3 body, and its activated ability provides haste to the target creature with defender, which will allow it to attack and also deal damage with its toughness. It is one of the most important pieces in this deck, so it is critical to protect it well.

We can both cast Drift of Phantasms or use it to tutor other important 3-cost cards that we'll mention soon.

Axebane Guardian is an example of what we can tutor. Shield-Wall Sentinel is another efficient tutor in this list, considering it guarantees us creatures with defender, such as Walking Bulwark.

Tree of Redemption lowers our life to 13, but in exchange gives us a 0/40 body (if we are at full health), which, if it deals damage with our commander's ability, will draw us 40 cards, which is incredibly relevant. It is imperative to use it wisely, considering the life total we'll have after we do.

Crashing Drawbridge and Suspicious Bookcase grant us haste and evasion respectively, and allow us to play unblockable creatures that will deal lethal damage, depending on how we play them. If Walking Bulwark uses its ability on a 0/40 unblockable Tree of Redemption, for instance, it will be a significant threat to our opponents.

Finally, in this section on creatures with defender, we added Fog Bank, which is an excellent blocker to handle almost all threats on the board, and Weathered Sentinels, which is useful even as a political threat against your opponents, considering its effect allows you to attack if someone attacked you.

Creatures and Utility

We have a few other creatures without defender which help our strategy in some way. Charix, the Raging Isle allows us to play The Pride of Hull Clade for just one green mana, for instance.

We added Biomancer's Familiar to discount our commander's ability to just , which will help us activate it more often.

Towering Titan can become quite big considering our choice of creatures, and also gives us evasion because it gives trample to all our creatures if we sacrifice a creature with defender.

Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive turns most of our creatures into unblockable creatures, considering they usually have 1 or less power.

Finally, for utility, we have two possible win conditions: Laboratory Maniac so we don't lose by deck out and win instead (we can even tutor it with Drift of Phantasms), and Psychosis Crawler, which can end the game if we draw 40 cards at once, as we mentioned before.

Jace, Wielder of Mysteries has the same role as Laboratory Maniac - it is an alternative win condition.

Swiftfoot Boots is a simple equipment card we chose so we can access more haste and also hexproof.

Meekstone will be a headache for our opponents, and won't affect us in any way. With it in play, our opponents will have to think twice before attacking, and they might even lose all their blockers.

To draw a lot of cards and try to finish the game with the cards we listed before, we have Last March of the Ents, which fits this deck like a glove, and Sea Gate Restoration. Even if these cards don't end the game for you, they'll still be excellent cards, particularly Last March of the Ents, which can build us an entirely new board with a lot of creatures all at once.

Majestic Genesis has a similar role because it draws us 11 cards at once.

Assault Formation is one of the few cards we have that allow us to attack with our creatures with defender, so it is another important piece, and we'll need to keep it on the board at any cost. Treefolk Umbra does the exact same thing, but it only works for one creature, so our priority will be to use it on our commander.

Finally, we have Training Grounds to discount The Pride of Hull Clade's activated ability to , just like Biomancer's Familiar, and Unnatural Growth to double not only the power but also the toughness of our creatures every combat. This will allow us to deal lethal damage to an opponent, depending on our board state, and it might allow us to build powerful defense lines on turns we're being attacked.

Answers and Removals

We have a wide array of answers in case we need to defend ourselves or deal with some problematic card during the game. We included a few enchantments to "disable" the permanents we'll enchant with them: Kenrith's Transformation, Song of the Dryads, and Imprisoned in the Moon. These enchantments will help us deal with permanents that have already entered the battlefield if we don't have counters.

And, speaking of counters, we also added some of them to deal with our opponents. Counterspell, Negate, Arcane Denial, and An Offer You Can't Refuse are more than enough to stop possible global removals, or if your opponents try to stop you from winning.

As target removal, we have Beast Within, Nature's Claim, Pongify, and Rapid Hybridization to deal with isolated problematic cards. Now, as AoE removal, we have Aetherize and Aetherspouts to prevent powerful attacks, and Cyclonic Rift to get rid of everything at once.

We also use Heroic Intervention and Simic Charm to save our creatures. Finally, we have Growth Spiral to draw cards and possibly accelerate a land, and Tower Defense to catch our opponent's off guard, increase our creatures' toughness even more, and even discount our commander's cost.

This is our budget version, which still has all the important cards we mentioned before: Jace, Laboratory Maniac, almost all essential mana dorks, Psychosis Crawler, and Tree of Redemption. We also added other cards to make up for the cards we removed from the original list, but nothing that will disrupt our game strategy.

This deck seems fun to pilot, even if it does have a commander that costs 11 mana (and even if it doesn't cost that, not really). It is very different from what I'm used to, and it seems cool, interesting.

Did you like this list? Do you think we missed any cards? Would you take something out? Share your opinion with us!

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!