Kenrith, the Returned King Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on June 28, 2024

Kenrith, the Returned King | Illustration by Kieran Yanner

Typal decks are a long-time staple of Magic. Goblins, elves, and merfolk have been popular creature types to build around with competitive finishes thanks to their powerful synergies, proving that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts.

They play an equally important role in Commander. Some of the most popular commanders are typal legends, and they offer a fantastic entry point for new players. Don’t know where to start your first deck? Pick your favorite creature type, slap in Herald's Horn and other support cards, and you’re off to the races!

Let’s check out a typal deck built around Kenrith, the Returned King!

The Deck

Éowyn, Shieldmaiden | Illustration by Craig Elliott

This is a humans-typal deck that focuses on Magic’s most fleshed-out archetype. Humans are on almost every plane, with the current exceptions being Lorwyn and Bloomburrow, so most sets contribute a couple of humans.

Like most typal decks, this one focuses on flooding the board with an abundance of our creature type of choice, then using lords to buff them and overwhelm our opponents with a massive, synergistic board state.

In addition to the typal theme, our deck has a legendary subtheme. The recent focus on EDH has seen Wizards print more legendary creatures than ever, and they tend to be pretty powerful. The theme naturally came about while I picked some of the better humans.

I built this as the rare casual Kenrith deck. We don’t have scary stax pieces like Drannith Magistrate or any infinite combos with Kenrith. We’re just looking to play a bunch of humans and wallop our opponents.

The Commander: Kenrith, the Returned King

Kenrith, the Returned King is famous for much more than its elkification at the hands of Oko, Thief of Crowns. Kenrith can be an incredible combo engine, going infinite with Composite Golem while serving as a mana outlet for other infinite combos with cards like Food Chain. This combo potential lets Kenrith play at high-powered and cEDH tables.

But this deck does none of that. I chose Kenrith for the color identity plus creature type. Even without combo build-arounds, Kenrith offers immense value. There’s no such thing as wasted mana with Kenrith in play. We’re happy to use every ability except maybe the white one. Cards like Training Grounds and Seedborn Muse help squeeze even more value from this powerhouse commander.

Human Lords and Typal Synergies

Traditional lords buff your creatures like an anthem a la Lord of Atlantis. I’m broadening my lord section to include anything that buffs the team, with +1/+1 counters or otherwise. The other synergy pieces reward us for a team of humans with gifts other than power and damage.

Agatha of the Vile Cauldron pulls double duty as a lord-esque effect and a synergy piece with Kenrith. Since Agatha makes its activated ability cheaper, it stacks well with our lords.

Coppercoat Vanguard provides the deck with two minor buffs. Neither +1/+0 nor Ward are particularly significant, but both on one card make our team much more threatening.

Thalia's Lieutenant earns a spot as a 2-mana creature that’s relevant at all points in the game. It becomes a nasty threat when drawn early and chucks tons of power about when drawn later in the game.

General Kudro of Drannith is the list’s only traditional lord, but it excels at the task. We get a much-needed anthem, plus graveyard hate and a powerful removal ability. We can make tokens to throw with the General but don’t forget it can sacrifice itself if an opponent targets it.

Judith, the Scourge Diva puts lots of pressure on our opponents between the power buff and the pings. It gets better as the game goes longer, and your opponents can’t ignore 1 damage here or there forever.

I’m giving Théoden, King of Rohan honorary lord status as the role of a lord is to increase the damage our creatures deal. Spreading double strike across the team can force our opponents into tight corners.

Kyler, Sigardian Emissary provides one of the stronger human typal effects as an uber-lord that becomes a threat while embellishing the team. It plays well with our token producers.

Aragorn and Arwen, Wed provides the deck with a little top-end. These counters add up fast, not to mention it provides enough lifegain to win races.

Katilda, Dawnhart Prime straddles the line between lord and synergy piece. Spreading +1/+1 counters around gives this 2-drop late-game relevance while it’s still an excellent early play thanks to the huge mana advantage we get.

Heronblade Elite works well with our lords and regular humans alike.

Boromir, Gondor's Hope draws us a card or two. It’s not much, but it’s honest work. The deck has very few artifacts, so it almost always hits humans.

Sigarda, Font of Blessings might not be a human, but it’s an excellent reward for loading the deck with humans. It stresses your opponents’ removal since they need to remove this before interacting with more problematic creatures.

Riders of the Mark hits hard and fast like a Lightning Bolt and leaves the landscape forever changed and populated with Human Soldier tokens. We can play this pretty early thanks to our cheap humans.

Horn of Gondor might be the deck’s most reliable token maker. It certainly goes the widest by doubling our board with each activation. It even rebuilds our board from scratch if we get hit by a board wipe.

Simply chalking Black Market Connections up as a synergy piece undersells one of black’s best enchantments. The card draw and mana production abilities are incredible, especially factoring in how much life you can spend in Commander. The tokens also being humans only sweetens the deal.

I think Kindred Discovery is in the running for Magic’s best typal payoffs. Drawing cards when your creatures attack makes this card a winner; it lets you draw at least a few cards right away, so you don’t need to worry about it being a 5-mana do-nothing that gets Reclamation Sage’d before you untap. It also doesn’t distinguish between tokens and nontoken creatures, which this deck easily exploits with the likes of Horn of Gondor and Adeline, Resplendent Cathar.

Value Humans

These humans don’t particularly care about the other creatures being humans, but they all have powerful abilities that warrant their inclusion. They’re the backbone of the deck, making it so we aren’t just buffing vanilla creatures. Many help our aggressive strategy, make tokens, or disrupt our opponents to help us cross the finish line.

Esper Sentinel is one of white’s best creatures. It puts our opponents between a rock and a hard place: Slow their development or give us cards? We’re happy either way. This being a human only makes it that much better, especially as this card benefits from our lords.

Mother of Runes keeps our critical creatures safe from spot removal and combat. You can even make the occasional creature unblockable against an opponent with a mono-colored deck (or at least board state).

I love Bob. Dark Confidant is just one of my favorite cards in the game, and it’s a human, so it made the cut. We have a low enough curve I’m not concerned about losing the life.

Dauntless Dismantler shines against Treasure decks, but any deck relying on mana rocks to curve out can find their plans fall apart against this 1/4. Acting as a late-game board wipe sweetens the deal.

Dennick, Pious Apprentice impedes graveyard strategies. It doesn’t hit everything; for example, Muldrotha, the Gravetide doesn’t care, but plenty of decks targeting the graveyard with reanimation spells and the like need to remove this to function. When they do, we get another creature in Dennick, Pious Apparition!

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben can be one of the strongest disruptive pieces in the game. Many decks rely on cheap ramp spells to curve out. Turning all those Talismans in 3-mana rocks and Rampant Growths into bad Cultivates gives us lots of breathing room at the beginning of the game. It also messes with the late-game of storm decks.

Lavinia, Azorius Renegade provides some admittedly narrow disruption. It’s great at messing with big mana decks and commanders like Pantlaza, Sun-Favored, but might not be the greatest fit for every meta.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is one of the deck’s best creatures. You get three tokens whenever you attack (that are Human!) plus a massive threat that gets bigger each turn. It’s incredible with our lords since more creatures equals more power added and it works with cards that trigger whenever humans hit our board. Two other creatures that help bulk the board with tokens are Torens, Fist of the Angels, and Selvala, Eager Trailblazer.

Champion of Lambholt might be the best of those creatures. It only takes a few counters (or lords) before this makes our team mostly unblockable. At the very least, decks can’t rely on chumping with tokens while this sits in play.

Commissar Severina Raine helps push damage with a powerful attack trigger. We have a bit of token protection to fuel the activated ability, but it can also be an effective way to minimize the impact of board wipes by converting some or all of our board into extra cards.

Loran of the Third Path has quickly become a staple of my white EDH decks. It’s just Reclamation Sage with more text! And a more relevant creature type for this deck.

Reki, the History of Kamigawa rewards us with card draw for playing all these legendary creatures. Our other legends card, Jodah, the Unifier, does this and more by buffing most of our team with more power than our opponents can handle.

Aragorn, King of Gondor fills a couple roles in this deck. Getting the monarchy helps us grind through longer games thanks to the card draw. Once we have all the cards we want, it helps turn the corner by making our opponents unable to stop our onslaught of creatures.

Aragorn, the Uniter makes Human Soldier tokens to flesh out our board but does so much more. We have a ton of gold cards in this list, making it easy to get multiple valuable triggers a turn.

Éowyn, Fearless Knight, and Ertai Resurrected both give us removal attached to a human stick, plus a little more value. Éowyn can turn the corner of a tight game with protection, while Ertai’s flexibility as a counterspell stops threats before they become an issue.

Inga and Esika is just good value. Our commander works as a fantastic mana sink, so making all of our creatures into mana dorks helps grind through long games, plus it provides card draw.

Éowyn, Shieldmaiden floods the board with human tokens to help dominate games. It also draws some cards, and there’s no such thing as too much incidental card draw in EDH.

Board Protection

As a deck with 44 creatures and a bunch of ways to make tokens, we must always fear Wrath of God and all the board wipes in its vein. This deck packs plenty of ways to deal with board wipes that can also help with targeted removal.

Neither Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard nor Jirina, Dauntless General cover all our creatures with their sacrifice abilities, but both offer enough coverage to be worth including. They also work well with Kenrith, the Returned King, since we can reanimate them for continuous board protection. Boromir, Warden of the Tower is our best version of this effect since it protects everything.

General's Enforcer protects our most important cards. The activated ability is a little costly and weaker than most of Kenrith’s, but I’m not turning down some incidental graveyard hate and token production.

In a world with Farewell and Sunfall threatening to exile our creatures instead of merely destroying them, protection spells that phase our creatures out are king, making Galadriel's Dismissal and Clever Concealment our best defensive cards. Concealment rarely costs more than 2 mana thanks to convoke, and Dismissal flexes between board-wide protection and an exceptional way of saving one creature from spot removal. Thanks to Kenrith, holding up a bunch of mana won’t even look suspicious!

Flawless Maneuver rounds out our board protection with a simple, often free way to give our board indestructible, which handles most board wipes and removal options.

The Mana Base

A 5-color mana base doesn’t leave room for many frills, so ours is compact. I snuck in a few value lands with the Neon Dynasty channel lands, but almost all of it focuses on fixing our mana.

We have a handful of 5-color lands. Mana Confluence and City of Brass are staples in this regard, but we can get away with Plaza of Heroes and Great Hall of the Citadel thanks to all the legends. The focus on humans gets us Secluded Courtyard and Unclaimed Territory with relatively little cost.

We have a host of fetch lands, shock lands, and triomes with a focus on green and white since they’re our most common colors. It also means Three Visits can give us nearly-perfect mana in one swoop.

The Strategy

I mentioned typal decks being great for new EDH players because they remove many complexities of deckbuilding since you more or less have the guidelines of playing as many humans and as many cards that care about humans as you can. This strategy extends to the gameplay aspect as well.

We want to dump a bunch of humans on the board and then use our lords to make them more of a problem than our opponents can handle. This doesn’t mean the deck lacks complexity. You have plenty of decision points, especially when deciding who you want to attack. I generally recommend attacking the board pretty evenly; you don’t want to make an enemy of one player. If you focus all your resources on removing player B, they tend to focus all their resources on killing you or at least getting the heat off their backs. This leaves players C & D relatively unchecked. By the time you and player B have duked it out, you’ll find that players C, D, or both have amassed a board state you can’t handle because all your pressure went in one direction. Some hyper-powerful decks encourage removing that player first, but those archenemy decks will typically get focused by the entire table.

Be mindful of board wipes! Those are probably the scariest cards in our opponents' decks that don’t outright win the game. If you don’t have a protective piece, you need to consider how much you want to add to the board. Even with a protection piece, it might not be the right one; Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard stops most Wrath of God variants but does little against the likes of Flood of Tears, Toxic Deluge, or Farewell.

You need to find a balance between applying enough pressure so that your opponents are in trouble without dumping your entire hand into play. It’s often worth sandbagging a threat or two, especially if you think a board wipe is coming. A few cues that could indicate this would be a player who has a creature-based strategy not adding to the board or somebody making seemingly poor attacks or chump blocks with their creatures. Or the table will discuss how badly they need a board wipe.

One final bit of strategy to consider is adapting your game plan to the speed of the game. I would generally consider this an aggressive deck, but this isn’t all-in on aggro like Red Deck Wins would be. Our commander especially helps us grind out games because we can spend all our mana each turn without committing more cards from our hand to the board. Don’t make risky attacks just because you think the game has to end soon. We can go long when we need to.

Combos and Interactions

This deck doesn’t have any major combos to speak of. It was built with a simple game plan of filling the board and attacking.

One nice interaction comes from Agatha of the Vile Cauldron and Kenrith, the Returned King. Agatha makes Kenrith’s ability cost . We can pump a bunch of green mana into Agatha to give it 4 power, which reduces all of Kenrith’s abilities to a single colored pip and makes Agatha’s ability cost . Activating Agatha thrice from here builds our own Overrun and can exceed that. It’s a great way to end the game.

Rules 0 Violations Check

This deck should pass most Rule 0 conversations. Some players might raise an eyebrow at some of the disruptive creatures, but even that should be a minor issue. The biggest hurdle you might have will be convincing your table that your Kenrith deck is casual and you aren’t trying to pull one over on them.

Budget Options

The best place to make budget cuts in this list is the mana base. Cutting the fetches, shocks, and Triomes will cut a huge chunk of the budget. Play tapped lands instead; just be aware that the deck will slow down.

Cyclonic Rift gives the deck a great finisher, but it’s pricey. Kindred Dominance provides a similar effect.

Galadriel's Dismissal and Clever Concealment are so good everybody wants them, driving prices up. Make a Stand and Unbreakable Formation are excellent budget replacements, though they won’t help against Sunfall and friends. Any of these could also replace Flawless Maneuver.

You can replace Black Market Connections with Phyrexian Arena to maintain the card advantage or a mana rock to get the additional mana.

Other Builds

You could kick the power on this deck up a few notches by fleshing out the disruption package with cards like Drannith Magistrate and bringing in a couple of combo pieces like Composite Golem and Dockside Extortionist to get the most out of Kenrith.

Kenrith, the Returned King can also be a great commander for less-defined decks. Maybe you need five colors for a niche deck, like “Oops, All Chairs” or something. Since Kenrith gives you all five colors and generally powerful abilities without specific synergy requirements, it can be a great catch-all commander for jank decks.

Commanding Conclusion

Riders of the Mark | Illustration by Antonio José Manzanedo

Kenrith, the Returned King might be the most flexible 5-color commander in the format. It pairs nicely with typal strategies to give newer players a starting deck that’s easy to play and simple to build—which isn’t to say more experienced players can’t enjoy piloting the deck.

Have you ever built a typal deck? Would you build Kenrith as a casual value engine or a cutthroat combo machine? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!