Kudo, King Among Bears Commander Deck Guide

Kudo, King Among Bears | Illustration by Peter Diamond

Nothing feels as good as locking down your opponent’s board with an army of cards that say things like “Players can’t…” and “If an opponent would do this, don’t” and “Your opponents can’t…”, etc. Watching them shuffle through their hand over and over desperately hoping they’ll find an answer there, to no avail. It’s priceless!

Modern Horizons 3 brings with it Kudo, King Among Bears, the ultimate hatebear and only possible commander for a true hatebears Commander deck. What makes a Kudo, King Among Bears deck work? Let’s dig into the oppressive hatebear archetype and see for ourselves!

The Deck

Kudo, King Among Bears | Illustration by Ekaterina Burmak

This Kudo, King Among Bears deck is themed around the concept of the hatebear: an archetype of creature in Magic that has a cheap casting cost, a 2/2 or similar body (a “bear” in Magic slang), and some effect that punishes or slows down your opponents. Famous hatebears include Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Grand Abolisher.

Once you’ve gained sufficient control of the board, you ’ll start buffing your 2/2 hatebears with +1/+1 counters and anthem effects and go to town on combat damage.

The Commander: Kudo, King Among Bears

The specific brand of hate that Kudo spits locks down your opponents’ big creatures by setting their base power and toughness to 2/2. Kudo also changes their creature type to include bear, which can have some interesting edge cases with cards like Caller of the Hunt and Coat of Arms. Shrinking your opponents’ board states can help your Selesnya commander and its troops to go wide and win combat in otherwise unfavorable conditions.

Hatebears

Every Kudo, King Among Bears Commander deck should start with the hatebears they want to include. The hatebears in this list fall into several categories.

The first are your anti-creature bears. These are the cards that shut down aggro decks and hastey creatures; Imposing Sovereign, Baird, Steward of Argive, and Windborn Muse. In a similar vein, though they aren’t traditional bears, Banisher Priest and Fiend Hunter are excellent Oblivion Rings on a body, becoming potentially buffable creatures if they can stick around until the late game.

The next are the anti-artifact bears. Kataki, War's Wage is the champion of artifact hate, usually resulting in a total wipe of your opponents’ artifacts. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben makes them harder to cast (slowing down their early mana ramp if you can drop it on turn 2), and Collector Ouphe shuts down every equipment and mana rock your opponents have played.

Next are the “limiters”: the hatebears that set a hard stop on your opponents doing too much each turn. Archon of Emeria and Alms Collector drag your opponents decks down to an agonizingly slow pace, while Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar and Grand Abolisher prevent them from pulling any tricks during your turn.

Finally, there’s a category I like to call “torture.” These creatures are a pain to play against and force your opponents to re-evaluate their typical game plan. Cards like Eidolon of Obstruction and Containment Priest can shut down entire decks built around a planeswalker commander or cheating creatures into play, respectively. Gaddock Teeg basically turns any noncreature X-spell deck into a nothing-sandwich, and Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor make tutoring nearly impossible. Last but not least, there’s Spelltithe Enforcer, which is just generally obnoxious.

Regular Bears

A handful of your creatures don’t fit into the hatebear archetype. Rather, they’re present to synergize with the army of 2/2 bears your stax-y creatures become.

Of course, you couldn’t run Kudo without its partner (romantically (?), not mechanically) Ayula, Queen Among Bears. Ayula makes those mild 2/2 creatures into threatening 4/4s when they hit the battlefield and acts as creature removal in a pinch. Serra Redeemer fulfills a similar role for consistency’s sake.

King Darien XLVIII and Maja, Bretagard Protector pump out tokens that become 2/2s while Kudo’s on the field, gaining an additional +1/+1 from Darien and Maja, respectively.

Toski, Bearer of Secrets, Ohran Frostfang, and Beast Whisperer are your main sources of card draw in green, while Esper Sentinel, Mentor of the Meek and Welcoming Vampire are your white sources of extra cards.

Finally, casting Caller of the Hunt and declaring “bear” as the chosen type means the Caller counts all of your opponents creatures when determining its power and toughness, usually meaning you’ll have a 4/4 for 3 mana at the bare minimum.

Hibernation

Once you’ve set out your board of punishing bears, you’re ready to hunker down for the winter in a nice, warm cave where no one can reach you. Use Reverence while Kudo’s on the field to prevent any creatures from attacking you, and Mark of Asylum plus Blessed Sanctuary to keep your creatures safe from any Blasphemous Acts that might come your way.

You’re protected from targeted removal with Asceticism and Mother of Runes, and you’ll use Wrap in Vigor in response to most other board wipes. Sigarda, Host of Herons saves you from Chainer's Edicts and the like.

Bear on Bear Violence

Disrupting your opponent’s game is a walk in the woods for this deck, but how does Kudo, King Among Bears finish the game? By sending your wall of beefed-up bears into your opponents’, of course!

If you’ve played your cards right, you should have an anthem effect or two on the board to ensure your 2/2s are bigger than your opponents’ 2/2s. The best anthem effect you can pull out of this deck is Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, which destroys all your opponents’ creatures as a state-based action when it and Kudo are on the field.

Or, you can use Serra Redeemer, Ayula, Queen Among Bears, Cathars' Crusade, and Loyal Guardian to buff your 2/2s into actual combat threats.

The Mana Base

Access to green cards means you can use the best ramp spells and mana dorks in Magic to your advantage to run out your hatebears early. To that end, this deck runs three mana dorks (Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, and Avacyn's Pilgrim), the four standard mana rocks (Sol Ring, Selesnya Signet, Talisman of Unity, and Arcane Signet), and three spells to fetch out lands (Cultivate, Rampant Growth, and Kodama's Reach).

There’s 35 lands in this deck. The average mana value is only about 1.99, meaning you won’t need an insane amount of mana to drop all those hatebears each turn.

The Strategy

Kudo, King Among Bears Commander decks play differently depending on your pod’s meta and which hatebears you actually end up running. This list uses a general selection of hatebear and stax effects, but you may want to include more Blind Obedience-style effects if you find yourself facing down a Krenko, Mob Boss deck every week. That said, let’s take a look at the strategy and play patterns for Kudo, King Among Bears.

Unlike many other Commander decks, Kudo, King Among Bears decks can function without a ton of mana in their opening hand. Since most of your creatures cost 3 or less mana, you’re set so long as you can drop a few hate bears early to slow your opponents down. My favorite opening hatebears are Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Leonin Arbiter, and Collector Ouphe to stop your opponents from ramping effectively.

Be careful if you open up with Gaddock Teeg. There are exactly six noncreature spells with a MV of 4 or more that you do want to cast at some point (Cathars' Crusade, Blessed Sanctuary, Asceticism, Smothering Tithe, Reverence, and Felidar Retreat). If you need to drop Teeg off the board to open up your hand, you’ll usually just be able to swing it into an unfavorable combat with an opponent; they’re usually just as happy as you to get rid of Teeg.

You don’t actually have to play Kudo as soon as possible. In fact, you should wait until you can protect Kudo sufficiently before you play your commander. Unless you have an immediate need to turn someone’s Wurmcoil Engine into a bear, it's best to keep Kudo safe until you need it. You’ll want either Ayula, Queen Among Bears or Serra Redeemer on the field first to buff Kudo as soon as it enters, or Mother of Runes or Asceticism to keep it safe.

Once Kudo’s on the field, you can start capitalizing on your 2-power creatures. Empty your hand of cheap creatures and reload it constantly with Welcoming Vampire, Mentor of the Meek, Toski, Bearer of Secrets, and Ohran Frostfang. Buff your entire board at the same time with Coat of Arms, King Darien XLVIII or Maja, Bretagard Protector, then swing in for damage.

Combos and Interactions

This deck has no infinite combos, but I want to call out an important note: Coat of Arms gives each creature +1/+1 for each creature that shares a type with it. This counts your opponents’ (now bear-ified) creatures, too! Don’t forget to include them when counting up just how strong your bears have become, but also don’t forget that their bears also receive the bonus. You can shortcut the math; every creature in play gets +X/+X, where X is the total number of creatures in play minus 1.

Rule 0 Violation Check

Stax commanders generally aren’t very fun to play against, but I don’t think that makes them invalid. If your opponents mention how they don’t care to play against decks that control the board, perhaps tell them to play interaction and get over it?

Budget Options

This Kudo, King Among Bears Commander deck comes in at just over $200. That’s fairly cheap for a complete Commander deck, but there are some easy budget cuts you can make while you assemble this deck piecemeal.

Worldly Tutor and Eladamri's Call give this Kudo deck some excellent consistency and let you dig up whatever synergy you need at the time, but they’re also $20 between them. Shared Summons is a fair bit cheaper, but it’ll cost more mana and possibly whiff if Gaddock Teeg’s on the field.

Next, Esper Sentinel and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite are probably the two best creatures to play alongside Kudo, King Among Bears, but they’re expensive. There’s no shortage of other hatebears to include, though, so consider some budget alternatives like Hushbringer and Spirit of the Labyrinth.

Other Builds

Kudo, King Among Bears is practically begging to be built as a bears typal deck. This makes Kudo’s ability a bit redundant for your board, but it’s still an effective hatebear all on its own and looks great surrounded by an army of Grizzly Bears, Runeclaw Bear, Mother Bear, and all those other 2/2s for 2.

Commanding Conclusion

Ayula, Queen Among Bears | Illustration by Jesper Ejsing

The concept of the hatebear in Magic has existed for a long time, so it's surprising to see Kudo, King Among Bears as the first legendary creature themed around it. Though Kudo is in the main set of Modern Horizons 3, it’s clearly a powerful Selesnya commander with an easy to build theme. Kudo’s design is an elegant homage to the hatebear; it's no wonder it's the king of the 2-mana 2/2s.

What are your favorite hatebears? Is running an entire deck of hatebears lame and oppressive, or based and awesome? How long until we get to see the Prince Among Bears that’s inevitably coming from Ayula and Kudo? Let me know in the comments, or over on Draftsim's Twitter/X.

Thanks for reading! Bear with me until our next deck guide!