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Kenrith, the Returned King

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Kenrith, the Returned King

At a glance

  • Commander: Kenrith, the Returned King
  • Colors: Five-Color
  • Archetype: Domain goodstuff midrange
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

Commander

Kenrith, the Returned King — , Legendary Creature — Human Noble, color identity WUBRG.

Real printed abilities:

: All creatures gain trample and haste until end of turn. : Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. : Target player gains 5 life. : Target player draws a card. : Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under its owner’s control.

commander_oracle_ok: true — the scout paraphrase matched the printed text (mana sink across all five colors: pump, lifegain, draw, trample+haste, reanimate).

Gameplan

A fixed, ramp-heavy five-color board that snowballs into inevitability. The whole deck is built to assemble all five basic land types as fast as possible, which does double duty:

  1. It powers a suite of Domain commons whose effects scale with basic land types (Tribal Flames, Matca Rioters, Exploding Borders, etc.).
  2. It turns Kenrith into an always-on value engine. Once the mana is online, every untapped mana converts into card advantage (), board advantage ( counters + trample/haste for an alpha strike), life buffer (), or grind-out recursion ( reanimation of the best creature in any graveyard — yours or theirs).

We play a fair midrange game that simply out-sizes the table, then close with a Kenrith-fueled trample swing or Tribal Flames / Exploding Borders reach to the dome.

Key synergies

  • Basics-matter ramp → Domain. Almost all ramp fetches basic lands (Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Farhaven Elf, Wood Elves, Civic Wayfinder, Springbloom Druid, the five Panoramas, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Wayfarer’s Bauble). Farseek and Wood Elves grab the exact types we’re missing. Every fetch raises the Domain count, so Matca Rioters grows, Tribal Flames hits harder, Worldly Counsel/Shadow Prophecy dig deeper.
  • Kenrith + cheap value creatures + opposing graveyards. Reanimation targets the best creature in any graveyard, so removal-heavy pods feed us. Our own Mulldrifter/Phyrexian Rager re-trigger ETBs when brought back.
  • trample+haste as a finisher button. A ramped, counter-pumped board (or a single huge Matca Rioters / Strength of Unity target) suddenly attacks for lethal through chump blockers.
  • Pestilence / Crypt Rats are repeatable, mana-sink wraths that also push damage — and the lifegain on keeps us out of range of our own Pestilence.

Role breakdown (counts from the real 99)

  • Lands: 37 — 22 nonbasic fixing lands + 15 basics (3 of each type so every Domain card can reach 5).
  • Ramp / fixing: 16 dedicated — green fetch-ramp creatures & sorceries (Cultivate, Kodama’s Reach, Farseek, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Farhaven Elf, Wood Elves, Civic Wayfinder, Springbloom Druid, Sylvan Ranger), Wayfarer’s Bauble, Exploding Borders, and rocks (Commander’s Sphere, Manalith, Prophetic Prism, Arcane Signet, Pristine Talisman, Thought Vessel). Plus mana-dorks Gemhide Sliver, Quirion Explorer, Coiling Oracle, Llanowar Visionary that also fix/ramp.
  • Card advantage: 12 — Mulldrifter, Sign in Blood, Night’s Whisper, Read the Bones, Divination, Phyrexian Rager, Sea Gate Oracle, Compulsive Research, Worldly Counsel, Shadow Prophecy, Cloudkin Seer, Deduce (plus Elvish Visionary, Forecasting Fortune Teller, Prophetic Prism as cantrips, and Kenrith’s as repeatable draw).
  • Spot removal / interaction: 13 — Murder, Go for the Throat, Cast Down, Doom Blade, Eyeblight’s Ending, Diabolic Edict, Geth’s Verdict, Generous Gift, Lightning Bolt, Abrade, Tribal Flames, Drag Down, Bake into a Pie (plus Man-o’-War / Frost Lynx tempo and Wickerbough Elder artifact/enchant removal).
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe: 3 — Pestilence, Crypt Rats (both repeatable X-damage board control), Sulfurous Blast (instant 3-to-all). Lifegain from Kenrith and Pristine Talisman/Wandering Stream keeps us on the right side of the symmetric ones.
  • Domain payoffs (overlap above): Tribal Flames, Matca Rioters, Exploding Borders, Worldly Counsel, Shadow Prophecy, Drag Down, Gaea’s Might, Might of Alara, Strength of Unity, Wandering Stream, Aven Trailblazer, Kavu Scout.

Manabase / fixing note

37 lands, ~18-20 any-color or fetch sources before counting rocks/dorks. Untapped-or-cheap any-color: Command Tower, Path of Ancestry, Opal Palace, Crystal Grotto, Shimmering Grotto, Painted Bluffs, Crumbling Vestige, Rupture Spire, Gateway Plaza. The five Panoramas + Evolving Wilds + Terramorphic Expanse and all the basic-fetch ramp deliberately put basic-typed lands into play to switch on Domain. Six karoo bounce-lands (Azorius Chancery, Dimir Aqueduct, Golgari Rot Farm, Gruul Turf, Boros Garrison, Selesnya Sanctuary) give two-color fixing plus a small ramp-on-replay. 15 basics (3 each) guarantee all five basic land types are reachable — critical, since karoos/grottos are colorless or off-type for Domain purposes.

Pilot notes

  • Mulligan toward a fixing land + a green ramp piece. You want Domain at 4-5 by turn 5-6.
  • Hold Tribal Flames as flexible removal or reach — at full Domain it kills most things or deals 5 to a face.
  • Don’t over-commit into open mana; Kenrith rebuilds via reanimation and draw, so a board wipe hurts less for us than for the table.
  • Sequence Pestilence/Crypt Rats with Kenrith’s lifegain so you can sweep without dying to your own symmetric damage.
  • Closing line: stabilize, deploy a fat creature (Matca Rioters, a Strength of Unity target, or a reanimated bomb), then a couple counters and for trample + haste to push lethal.

Weaknesses

  • Slow starts / no early board. It’s a fair midrange deck; a fast aggro or combo table can race us before the engine comes online.
  • Reliance on Kenrith. If he’s repeatedly removed and we’re mana-light, value drops. Spread ramp helps recast.
  • No hard counters / limited stack interaction at common — we answer threats after they land, not on the stack.
  • Mass-wipe coverage is thin (3 sweeps, all damage-based) — wide go-wide decks with big toughness can outpace Pestilence.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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