MTG Commander of the Week: Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Check out a new featured Commander to add to your build list! This week features Karador, Ghost Chieftain fills your graveyard with juicy recursion targets.
Welcome Planeswalkers and Praetors to our new series about the best casual experience in Magic: Commander. For the uninitiated, Commander is a semi-casual format for Magic: the Gathering. You use a deck of 100 cards led by a legendary creature, aka, your Commander.
Aside from basic lands, you are only allowed one copy of each card in the deck. Moreover, you can only include cards in your Commander’s “color identity” or artifacts. Each color and color combo has a unique playstyle and a wealth of mighty generals to lead your deck to victory. EDHRec.com is an excellent source for Commander info and can give you ideas to build your next Commander deck or tune an existing one.
The Commander
Karador is the textbook Abzan Commander: a beater that cares about your graveyard and rewards a full one. A 3/4 with no keywords for eight is a bit of a stretch, but Karador can pull strength from death. For every creature in your graveyard, Karador reduces his cost by 1. That is a decent trick, but it gets really cool after HE dies a few times. That reduction includes Commander tax, so he’ll stay cheap as long as you keep your graveyard full. Karador plays well with recursion, graveyard fishing, and board wipes. After all, who cares if your creatures die when you can simply cast them again, leaving your opponent’s wide open.
Featured Cards
Karador wants cards in your graveyard, and this is the perfect way to get them there. Entomb lets you dig out your best creatures and chuck them in the bin for Karador to play out later. This is a quasi-tutor in this deck since Karador will allow you to cast them once he’s out. Just watch out for graveyard hate.
Once your graveyard is totally full, you’ll want to get all the value back on the field. Living Death lets you put all those dead critters back onto the field while also wiping the board of threats. Just be careful: this works for everyone. You’ll want a little graveyard hate of your own to make sure only YOU are benefitting.
MTG is ever-changing, with new busted and broken cards rising to the top. Check back in next week for another featured Commander.
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