Universes Beyond is the Future of Kindred Decks

Many players cool off of playing Kindred decks. There are only so many times you can run out your Elves, Vampires, Merfolk or Goblins before things get a bit tired. Play a lord, play a buffer, play a card draw engine… it all gets a little samey. Kristen argues the future of Kindred is in Universes Beyond. 

Over the years I’ve found that I’ve gradually shifted away from Kindred – or typal – decks, and I know I’m not the only one. I was chatting to fellow Commander writer Cas over at EDHRec this morning, and we ended up aligning on some certain key things that make these decks a little dull.

TYPAL DECKS ARE ALL THE SAME

The main issue is that Kindred decks of all types just feel the same. It’s rote gameplay at this point – play some kindred creatures, play a card draw one, play some lords, and then try and swing to win. So many Kindred decks fall into this play pattern that once you’ve played one, you’ve played them all. 

Playing some creature types more than others can feel quite dull after a while, and some decks feel quite weak without the Commander to hold them together. For every Silver or Dragon or Angel, you have a Frog or even an Elf that can’t meaningfully end a game without an overrun or big effect to tie it all together. 

I’ve found some typal decks haven’t stood the test of time for me, but others have managed a longer stay in my retinue. These are primarily typal decks that concentrate on a certain mechanic or gameplay pattern that is engaging and fairly unique. Goblin players tend to stick with Goblins if they’re doing burn, right?

I found that building my Lathril deck around going ten-wide to use Lathril’s ability, before untapping my board to do it again, was a lot of fun – there was the tension of not knowing when a boardwipe might happen, and it was different to the usual elfball. Similarly, some Merfolk decks that use Explore and landfall start to feel more interesting than just pure Merfolk Kindred.

Other decks I’ve found can’t string together unique and engaging gameplay, and nor can they do powerful gameplay without resorting to combos and hard control. 

THEME CAN’T CARRY A DECK

I love Fairies, and I think their art and general vibe is a lot of fun. That said, Alela is a deck I found difficult to enjoy. The faeries at base didn’t really provide much in the way of offensive power, and the secret to the deck was basically to run a full Goad deck using interaction on opponent’s turns. This becomes less a Fairy deck and closer to the kind of Wraith deck helmed by Lord of the Nazgul. A cool deck, don’t get me wrong – but not strictly a kindred deck. 

Theme can’t carry a deck, and if you try to build some decks theme-forward – particularly for kindred – you’re going to run into decks that struggle to close games. 

MECHANICS FIRST DECKBUILDING IS KEY

So to sum it up, Mechanics-first deckbuilding really is the key to making a kindred deck work. If you don’t have a strong mechanical identity as a through-line in your list, you’re going to end up with the samey kind of typal deck that feels the same as all of the rest. 

Mechanical theme with a side of typal ends up being the preferred route these days, and you can both see that in how new pseudo-Kindred Commanders are printed (like the aforementioned Lord of the Nazgul), and in how the overall casual metagame prioritizes synergy and many eggs in many baskets over having strong individual haymakers and something to tie them together. 

While I’ve written before about whether Play Design has fixed the issues with Dimir in Commander, I haven’t really touched on one aspect of new Commander designs for Kindred decks in particular that I feel is the future of themed deckbuilding.

UNIVERSES BEYOND GIVES THEME & FUNCTION

Universes Beyond is loved and loathed in equal measure, and while some see the rising ceiling of Commander design in UB products as a bad thing, I don’t think it’s that simple. Powerful designs in UB products were likely in the file for a while, and would have hit us either way with Commander being the favorite child. And, what’s more, I feel like UB is the key to building a strong Kindred deck going forward.

UB themes are unified and tight, and they offer strong synergy focused Commander options to lead decks. The art direction, tied with new art reprints, helps to cement a theme. This is something that I don’t believe is tied to UB, by the way – I just think UB is primed to lead the charge. Look at the Aetherdrift Commander precons, with their thematic art and reprint art treatments (particularly of Arcane Signet) and you’ll see what I mean. Theme can be tied together by much more than just creature types, and in fact that’s key to making kindred decks work.

Power level and synergy is good in UB products, too, which means they’re much more likely to give a mechanically interesting Commander and gameplay. Whichever way you slice it, that’s just how the trend has been recently. 

When I think about this in my own deckbuilding, I think of my Aurelia, the Law Above deck. It’s sort-of Human kindred, but runs a bunch of non-Humans too. This allows it to also run Winota, which is fun. The deck’s name is “Gondor calls for aid…” “…and the Boros will answer!”, which is a fun riff on how it’s basically a what-if Pelennor Fields involving backup from Aurelia, Elspeth and the Boros Legion. Ultimately, the gameplay is fun, and the deck feels less like a kindred deck because the Commander isn’t a kindred-matters one, and because the win conditions are varied between burn and go-wide. The strong theme, of course, ties it all together.

END STEP

I feel like Kindred decks are a little played-out, and I know I’m not alone. That said, I feel like Universes Beyond might well be the future of Kindred decks in Commander. UB designs offer fresh takes, new mechanical directions and synergies, and strong theming. We need more Lord of the Nazguls and Alela Cunning Conquerors, basically.