Playing politically with Kenrith, the Returned King [brainstorming]

[DirkGently]

kenrith, the returned king

Yep, another brainstorming thread about a mono-white commander with 5-color CI. I just got my **SuPeR**PiMp** non-foil Kenrith in the mail (god I hate magic sometimes), but I still don't have my collection back yet, so for now it's just a brainstorming thread.

I've had Kenrith on the back burner for a while - when spoiled, people brought him up alongside Phelddagrif, which generally gets my attention. Obviously Kenrith is pretty different from Phelddagrif for a number of reasons:

-Abilities can target yourself
-5 colors
-no built-in protection or evasion
-more expensive abilities
-abilities are generally more powerful and versatile

In terms of what this actually means from a gameplay perspective, I'd say that Kenrith:

-can be more easily used to increase your own power - and garner the attention that entails
-is less reliable as a wincon, though obviously much more powerful if he's able to stick.
-plays less nicely with board wipes
-doesn't require additional cards to keep pace in terms of draw, lifegain, etc.

Obviously the biggest difference here is that Phelddagrif is inherently political. I mean, Phelddagrif an ok beater too, but his abilities are usually most useful as a way to offer favors. Whereas Kenrith can, and often will, only use his abilities to help himself. Phelddagrif's abilities would be really, really powerful and efficient if they could target you, whereas Kenrith's abilities are priced with the assumption that you're targeting yourself - the lifegain ability isn't too far off Phelddagrif, but you're paying twice as much for putting 1/1 of stats on the board (arguably in a less-useful format as well), and four times as much for an opponent to draw a card. So it feels pretty expensive as a way to help opponents, especially with the draw ability. I could see giving an opponent life if it keeps them alive or as a specific favor, but unless I really want something I'm almost always going to target myself.

Let's just go through all Kenrith's abilities and I'll spew my thoughts all over the place.

R: All creatures gain trample and haste until end of turn.

This one is weird because it's the only one that's symmetrical. Granting everything trample is probably not going to matter except for the active player, but giving, say, an enemy arcanis haste is preeeetty relevant and might give the ability a pretty big downside. That said, it also gives all our stuff haste, which can be really strong for tap abilities, such as our own arcanis. I think it's the only blue haste enabler commander, which means ovinomancer FINALLY has a home! Hooray!

Anyway I doubt I'll be playing this as a big go-wide deck where trample is super relevant, but it could help someone kill someone else for you, so it's a nice niche addition with the added bonus of enabling tap creatures for us.

1G: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.

On face value this is pretty mediocre, but it's got some decent tech lurking under the surface. The next most obvious thing is that it interacts well with, say, spike weaver as well as persist creatures (and against enemy undying creatures, ha). It makes combat a slight headache for our opponents, although the way combat works in commander it might be hard to push the numbers enough to make a big difference. It'd be really funny to see someone make a big attack into someone else, and bump all the numbers to create a ton of trades, but even if that happened, it'd only work once before people cottoned on. So I think primarily it's useful for its synergy with creatures that care about counters, and secondarily as a combat ability. With maybe thirdly as a way to make Kenrith viable as a commander-damage killer.

2W: Target player gains 5 life.

The rate on this is pretty strong, enough that a control deck should be able to race a lot of stuff so long as it keeps the threat of a board wipe up. I run pulse of the fields in Phelddagrif which has been great, and this is better and more flexible. I've had people get really aggressive against me because of lifegain, though, so I think this is one of those abilities that's probably worth spreading around just to appear more innocuous. Lifegain is a really nice political tool because it can be literally life and death for another player, but as a control player doesn't really hinder our game plan in any major way. Could also be used synergistically with lifegain triggers.

3U: Target player draws a card.

As I said earlier, I think this ability is too expensive to use on another player in almost any circumstance. Letting opponents draw cards is risky anyway, so it's unlikely to be a good bargaining tool. It is a forced draw, though, so it does work as a win condition unlike Phelddagrif. Mostly I see it as a way to liberate the deck from needing other draw tools, which is good since we'd need cards to make up for Kenrith's other deficiencies, like protection.

4B: Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under its owner's control.

Okay, this is really where Kenrith gets exciting. The rest of the abilities, meh, they're nice utility but don't really offer anything besides a watered-down Phelddagrif. This ability is pretty easily the one with the greatest opportunity abuse it personally, as well as probably the best way to control the game politically. I like it politically in particularly because, unlike draw, you know what you're getting, and unlike the other abilities, it can easily be very high-impact.

However, because of how powerful it can be to abuse yourself, I think this ability is really where you need to focus when building Kenrith politically. If you put in powerful creatures that people don't want around, it's going to be very hard to be political. No one is likely to be your friend with a void winnower in your grave. On the other hand, if you don't use it yourself, I think Kenrith is a little too boring, and is just a watered-down Phelddagrif that sacrifices the reliability and efficiency of Phelddagrif for one neat political trick.

So one of the big things I want to focus on when thinking about Kenrith is - what creatures should we use, and what SHOULDN'T we use, in order to function politically? I think there are basically 3 categories of minions I want to think about: minions that aren't too threatening but are still useful, such as sakura-tribe elder, minions that might be too threatening or might be ok depending on game state, such as elesh norn, grand cenobite, and minions that are pretty much always going to bring the wrath of the table upon you once they're visible, such as palinchron. I think the way the deck plays is going to depend a lot on what the creature composition is, group-wise. A deck focusing on the first category can probably play pretty politically, whereas a deck with a lot of 2s and 3s will probably play more as a straightforward control/combo deck.

That's my thoughts for now, I'll probably have more later.

[darrenhabib]

I haven't made a Kenrith deck yet, but here are my thoughts on a political Kenrith.

The r haste and trample is super powerful for a multi-player environment where you can encourage surprise attacks for your opponents to attack other players.
You want to create enough of an environment so that attacking you doesn't seem worth it.

With the 4b ability you can simply present creatures that can block and be brought back for value. Enough to discourage attacks into you.
In the basket of "not too obnoxious" creatures that deter attacking to a degree; Baleful Strix, Solemn Simulacrum.

Having a toolbox of creatures with ETB/LTB/sac effects can present opponents with not wanting to put those creature into the graveyard for you to bring back. Thus prevent certain attacks.
Examples are Caustic Caterpillar, Qasali Pridemage, Knight of Autumn, Manglehorn, Acidic Slime, Bane of Progress.
Also hand disruption might be the thing they fear; Vendilion Clique, Thought-Knot Seer, Mindslicer.
Maybe the thought of losing their graveyard; Remorseful Cleric, Agent of Erebos.

Spore Frog and Spike Weaver can protect you, but often opponents are stubborn and will attack you to use up your mana. So not as perfect a political tool for trying to get opponents to attack other players.

Windborn Muse and Baird, Steward of Argive are your pillow fort creatures.
Pramikon, Sky Rampart also perfect for political games.
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs is a great creature for preventing attacks on you.

False Prophet will create a divide. There will be those who want the board cleared, so will attack into you hoping that poking you enough will make you block. Then there will be those who have too much to lose so won't.

Slumbering Dragon is interesting in that it will discourage small attacks and you can power it up with 1g +1/+1 ability.

On the higher end of creatures that prevent attacking; Blazing Archon, Platinum Emperion, Hornet Queen, Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts,

Once you get to higher toughness then it's harder for your creatures to get killed (by attacks), but here are some options.
Yosei, the Morning Star, Keiga, the Tide Star, Kokusho, the Evening Star, Child of Alara, Lavinia of the Tenth, Cavalier of Dawn, Cataclysmic Gearhulk.

With the toolbox arrangement I really like the r haste with Captain Sisay, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, Prime Speaker Vannifar.

An important element of the toolbox is also getting creatures into your graveyard. Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman, Mirror-Mad Phantasm.

When it comes to political draw, Generous Patron, Consecrated Sphinx.

[Tevesh]

I have a pretty obnoxious Kenrith you can find in my sig. The idea is King Arthur cares about the land, so I added every Ixalan Flip Land as theme. Oddly enough, Kenrith helps flip a lot of them on his own. What you need to do is build things that give you an advantage when helping others. My favourite example is using Kenny's Green ability while I have a Generous Patron out.

Or giving away Xantcha, Sleeper Agent. Everybody gets to draw cards but there's a 5/5 out there trying to wreck people. And once she dies, just reanimate her again.

Even if you're just using base abilities without trickery, there's a lot of nonsense you can do. Give that Deathtouch Creature Trample, give +1/+1s until a Bounce turns into a Trade or put a Blocker into play that they weren't expecting. Hell, even turning Lethal Damage into not by giving out 5 life is interesting.

[pokken]

I really like that you can just skip the blue or red abilty or both. He's a really poweful abzan reanimator commander who could splash a tiny red to be able to make his dudes have haste. His green ability can reset persist creatures, and he can play murderous redcap as a splash without having to play any red.

From a political perspective I find mostly the red ability to be interesting - giving people's dudes haste when you have a strong defensive board state is very nice, but you can do some good stuff.

The green ability is *stellar* with dismiss into dream or willbreaker, so might be a pretty decent bant enchantments type commander as well.

The thing I take issue with him ultimately is that 5 cmc is a frigging lot for a general these days, especially one with expensive abilities. I think his best build is probably either:
1) focusing on making infinite mana
2) focusing on playing persist combos with pods (that could also have infinite mana!)

Ultimately, the devoted vizier + melira / anafenza / finks / redcap combos look really good with him to me. They're cheap and efficient and his abilities synergize very well -
resetting persist creatures for incremental value
giving devoted druid haste

Generally I find most of his profile to be way too expensive to have much application combined with his high CMC.

I think if I were going to try some kind of political thing I might try a goad theme, since goad + the haste ability is very strong.

[DirkGently]

My recent thoughts:

I think answers (removal/counters/wipes) are necessarily the core of any good political deck. They give the ability to compete against strong decks, the ability to shape the board as efficiently as possible, and another arrow in our quiver in terms of motivation that works in the opposite direction of Kenrith's boons.

So as far as how this deck will differ from Phelddagrif:

-probably few/none utility lands, since Kenrith already provides an excellent mana sink, making them irrelevant. Plus, y'know, 5c.
-more ramp, since Kenrith is more expensive, can't protect himself (needs to pay tax), and has mana-intensive abilities.
-much less draw and other value generation, since Kenrith has our bases covered on that score.
-creatures in more slots (removal/ramp/counter/wipe) to take advantage of his recursion - etbs in particular are sweet since Kenny can rip them from the grave as instants.

I'm writing this in reverse order for some reason so I already said some of this to darrenhabib, but I think controlling sacrifice options in the deck is going to be key to including creatures that aren't overly threatening yet are still useful and powerful. I think one of the most reliable ways to create an archenemy situation is when you can repeatedly reuse something that creates a major problem for opponents - for example, buyback spells like forbid and capsize can create an archenemy situation, as can value-generating DEN synergies. I commented on [mention]WolfWhoWanders[/mention] 's decklist that I think he's likely to create problematic situations thanks to, for example, mystic snake + ashnod's altar - I had thought the issue was mystic snake, but I think snake is actually fine and kind of great - it's the altar that's the problem. Snake on its own is great - you counter something, then you have a chump blocker that people might not want to attack into...and then once it dies, you get another counter, but it's still just one, so it doesn't create a situation that demands an answer in the way it does with ashnods. And similar situations exist with other strong etbs. Self-sacrificing creatures like burnished hart are fine, obviously, so long as they don't create problematic situations similar to the mystic snake thing.

[mention]darrenhabib[/mention] I agree about the red ability. ghostly prison etc is one way to go about it, sorta borders between politics and outright force. Pramikon I would say isn't political at all - he doesn't demotivate people from attacking you, he just says they can't.

I think an important decision I'll have to make with the deck is whether or not to include sac outlets. If I don't, it does have the benefit of allowing me to run strong-ish etbs without them being an obvious recurring threat, so long as people don't attack me, which I like. But of course I give up a lot of control in doing so.

I don't really have much interest in stuff that outright prevents attacks - they're anti-political imo. Rather than motivate your opponents to leave you alone, they can attract tons of attention by creating a situation that needs to be resolved before the game can progress (depending how many non-combat ways to kill you your opponents have, of course). I think there's a very important line between situations where your opponents don't attack you because they think attacking elsewhere is going to give them a better chance to win, and situations where your opponents don't attack you because they can't. Stuff like ghostly prison kinda rides the line since your opponents may still want to attack you, but not enough to pay the toll. I'll see how the deck operates before deciding how I feel about including that sort of thing.

[mention]Tevesh[/mention] Ha, flip lands are my weakness. Just thinking about it, he's gotta be one of the best commanders for flipping that RW one, or the UG one. BG one is kinda redundant but at least it protects him.

I think cards like generous patron kinda undermines the point of what I'm trying to do here. Sure, it's funny to give away a ton of hippos with Phelddagrif so you can Ezuri's Predation, but then you're not really doing favors anymore.

[mention]pokken[/mention] I wouldn't consider goad to be political, more like an alternative to politics. Good politics should try to put the game in a state that motivates its opponents to attack or otherwise hurt each other of their own volition, not simply make it impossible to do otherwise.

I could see the red ability doing "real" politics to a certain extent. The nice thing about it is that it motivates them to tap out pre-combat - which reduces the chance for them to play something during combat that creates a bad situation for you. I still think it's kind of a minor effect but I guess I'll have to play with it.

Anyway I'm not interested in infinite combos. I'm sure the deck will run a fair amount of ramp though - less about the initial 5cmc so much as to take advantage of his other abilities as much as possible.

[DirkGently]

Okay, so I've got some data to go with my conjecturing. I built a deck from my commander cube (rest of my cards are in transit) and gave it a shot. The main gimmick being, lots of etbs, no sac outlets, plus some other instant-speed interaction to play control.

I got to play 3 games, winning 2/3 and only losing the one I lost because of (1) a misplay and (2) an insane topdeck from an empty handed opponent - so I'd count that as practically a win for data purposes. Unfortunately, this mostly felt like simply winning by having the strongest deck, and politics weren't really involved at all (of course, made more difficult because I had the strongest deck, so no one wanted to haggle). One guy was pretty opposed to politics entirely, and also had a deck that was, in essence, a combo deck (the whole deck was basically just trying to cast a huge villainous wealth using tasigur to recur it). Another player had slivers, which are pretty hard to ally with too, since they can't really help you in any particular way except beating down other players. We had one player leave on like turn 6 because people were disrupting him and he was a baby...we had one person get stuck on 3 for like 10 turns...it was kind of a garbage fire all around, tbh. Most games were archenemy-ish against me for most of the back half, with me usually winning.

Anyway, having strong etbs did make me less appealing to attack me, so that part worked more or less. Sometimes giving enemy creatures counters so they'd trade with my creatures was even correct.

I think to really play this politically, to the point where targeting enemies with abilities becomes actually correct, I think you'd need to be playing very few creatures, if any, tbh, because the reanimation ability is so strong. And even then you'd probably mostly target yourself with the draw, lifegain, etc. So idk, politics might just be outside of Kenrith's abilities. I might make a creatureless version to try next, if I want to give it another go, but that'll be a lot harder without my full collection. Maybe I could just sub him in for Phelddagrif in that deck, and throw in some more dual lands, lol.