Myrkul, Lord of Bones Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on August 17, 2023

Myrkul, Lord of Bones | Illustration by Isis

Myrkul, Lord of Bones is the dreaded god of death from the world of the Forgotten Realms, inspiring a healthy fear of the end in all living things. It bestows those same nightmares on your opponents in Commander.

This Myrkul deck creates that same foreboding doom as your opponents’ life is chipped away bit by bit by your inevitable enchantments. Myrkul is a nightmare and a half to deal with, so let’s take a closer look at the strategy!

The Deck

Grim Guardian | Illustration by Ryan Barger

This deck is very creature heavy. The average mana cost of spells in here comes in around 3.5. You’re a little lower to the ground because you want to cast creatures early and often, more than once per turn if you can help it. Myrkul, Lord of Bones is one of your most expensive spells so it might not see the field until the mid to late game.

The Commander

Myrkul, Lord of Bones is a legendary god from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate. It shares its indestructibility ability with the other gods in his cycle. Myrkul is the only legendary Abzan () creature that references enchantments, making it very unique for its color identity.

The trick to this deck is that, while Abzan-aligned enchantments don’t necessarily have much synergy, a lot of its creatures have effects that become very powerful on an enchantment. Not to mention that enchantments are much harder to remove than creatures, keeping those abilities on the field for much longer than you’d typically see.

On top of that you capitalize on it in the same way as tons of Abzan decks since you’re making tokens.

A Quick Death

Once Myrkul, Lord of Bones is on the battlefield you can start sacrificing those creatures to turn them into enchantment tokens. If your opponents are hesitant to block, try Altar's Reap or Village Rites to generate some advantage. Maybe even digging up a Bone Shards or Bone Splinters for some targeted removal?

Ashnod's Altar and Viscera Seer both have repeatable no-cost sacrifice abilities

And you could always just Duneblast the board, turning every creature you control into an enchantment in one fell swoop.

Creatures Make the Best Enchantments

Let’s examine the creatures you’re running. You want each to ultimately end up as a token enchantment of itself, thereby retaining access to a useful ability or combo piece.

Static Abilities

Most of your creatures come with essential static and triggered abilities. Blood Artist, Falkenrath Noble, Cruel Celebrant, and Syr Konrad, the Grim are all classic ways to drain your opponents and the damage really adds up over time since you’re sacrificing your own creatures a lot of the time.

Fountain Watch protects those enchantments from the scant removal they face while Aegis of the Gods can protect you from big Fireballs or Edicts.

Windborn Muse is Ghostly Prison on-a-body. You favor the former over the latter to get an enters- and leaves-the-battlefield triggers on your creature.

You’re running more than a few cards with the constellation effect. Grim Guardian further commits to your lifedrain strategy while Eidolon of Blossoms works as a better Enchantress's Presence for this deck since you’re not casting those creature tokens.

Archon of Sun's Grace and Ajani's Chosen both create a field of creature tokens. And you’ll need them since your enchantment-ized creatures won’t do much blocking for you.

Agent of Erebos puts in more work than Bojuka Bog, and it can wreak havoc on mill decks when combined with Syr Konrad.

Butcher of Malakir is a great Edict effect for multiplayer games. And it can create enchantment tokens out of all of your opponents’ best creatures when used in tandem with Gisa, Glorious Resurrector.

You’re running one creature for a little combo I love too much to exclude. Sporemound creates a little 1/1 Saproling for blocking or sacrificing, but it creates an infinite loop of triggers that ends the game immediately when combined with Life and Limb. This isn’t your main win condition but it is a quick out for a game that’s run too long.

Activated Abilities

There are a slew of activated effects you use to generate advantage. First and foremost are the infinite untappers Devoted Druid and Cinderhaze Wretch. Both untap themselves with a -1/-1 counter, effectively a built-in sacrifice effect.

And they get even better when they return as enchantments because their lack of a toughness score prevents them from dying to the counters. This allows you to infinitely tap and untap them, generating infinite mana with Devoted Druid or locking down your opponents’ hands with Cinderhaze Wretch.

Hitting the Field

Some creatures’ ETB abilities are useful enough that you want a second trigger when it comes back. Eternal Witness is a classic recursion piece in Commander.

In a similar vein you run Sakura-Tribe Elder just to search up another land when it returns as an enchantment.

Enchantments Also Make the Best Enchantments

Man cannot live on bread alone, and this deck won’t stand on creatures alone. The obvious includes are your token doublers, Parallel Lives and Anointed Procession. Second iterations of Blood Artists and twice the triggers on your Eidolon of Blossoms are insanely valuable.

Generate that advantage on the way out with Dark Prophecy and protect yourself and your enchantments with Sterling Grove, Privileged Position, and Sphere of Safety.

Starfield of Nyx converts your board full of enchantment tokens into actual immediate damage and serves as an alternate win condition should you desire.

Speaking of combat damage, you’re also running Ethereal Armor and Eidolon of Countless Battles to beef Myrkul up, potentially swinging for lethal commander damage.

Life Tap

Myrkul, Lord of Bones is an expensive investment so you want it to stick around once it hits the field. Luckily it has built-in protection. Its static indestructibility comes online once you’re at half your starting life total, so you need a plan to get there as soon as possible.

Black trades life for cards really easily, so Greed comes in handy.

Sign in Blood, Ancient Craving, Read the Bones, and Abzan Charm are all going to drain you and draw cards.

Your number one way to reduce your life total is Bolas's Citadel. But it’s very easy to go overboard with this card. Drunk with power, you might be tempted to cast and cast and cast spells off the top of your library, but you have to be aware of the board state. You don’t want to put yourselves in a vulnerable position immediately after you’re ready to cast Myrkul.

Ramp

Myrkul is an expensive cast at seven mana, and you need it on the field as soon as possible to bring your strategy online. So you do what any good green deck does and ramp your mana. You run both ubiquitous 3-mana rampers: Kodama's Reach and Cultivate.

Mana dorks play well with Myrkul, Lord of Bones since they still tap for mana as enchantments. Fyndhorn Elves is your Llanowar Elves-equivalent of choice.

The rare (but actually common) white dork Avacyn's Pilgrim also makes an appearance.

Devoted Druid is your most important mana dork Because it generates multiple green mana in a single turn. Myrkul can return it as an enchantment when it dies from those -1/-1 counters, allowing it to tap and untap to your heart’s content.

The Mana Base

You’ve got 35 lands in this deck. Though your deck favors black spells you’re running more Forests than any other basic. Green gives you access to most of your ramp spells so you want as much as possible in the early game.

The mana base here is on the cheap end. You’ve got the cycle of gain lands (Blossoming Sands, Jungle Hollow, Scoured Barrens) and the bounce lands (Selesnya Sanctuary, Orzhov Basilica, and Golgari Rot Farm) instead of shock lands or fetch lands.

The Strategy

The main idea here is to ramp into Myrkul, Lord of Bones early, assemble a board of punishing enchantments, and beat your opponents into submission with Myrkul. It’s not a reach to suggest you could defeat an opponent with commander damage with seven power, especially if you can cast Ethereal Armor or Eidolon of Countless Battles.

You want to try and keep a hand with the most ramp spells. You can always draw into more spells and creatures with Sign In Blood-adjacent spells, but Myrkul needs to hit the field for your deck to really come online. Alternatively, look for ways to easily drop your life below half before casting Myrkul. Its indestructibility helps it stick around until you’ve got your seven mana’s worth.

You want to have a few token enchantments on the field by the midgame, then you can start searching for the other pieces they need. For example, say you find yourself with Blood Artist looking for friends (Cruel Celebrant and Falkenrath Noble) or Sporemound but no Life and Limb. Bolas's Citadel, Greed, and Starfield of Nyx are always top tutors if the board is ambivalent and you just need to generate advantage.

You can end the game in a few different ways. Your simplest way is knocking heads with Myrkul, Lord of Bones wearing Ethereal Armor, Eidolon of Countless Battles, or All That Glitters. Opponents can also be drained out from the sheer weight of constantly sacrificing creatures with an army of pingers on the field. And you can always bomb the pod with a never-ending wave of Saprolings with Sporemound and Life and Limb.

Combos and Interactions

There are several infinite combos in this deck, one of which immediately ends the game. Devoted Druid can tap for green and untap infinitely when returned to the field as a token enchantment since -1/-1 counters do nothing to a permanent without the creature type. Combine with Exsanguinate for a game ender. Cinderhaze Wretch works the same way, and it’s extremely punishing.

But use with caution! This can quickly become an annoyance more than an advantage since it doesn’t necessarily end the game.

You’re also running the nuclear option. Sporemound and Life and Limb’s respective abilities interact in a chaotic way. Play a single Forest or Saproling and watch the abilities trigger off each other infinitely. Game over!

Budget Options

The singles for this deck run a little under $250. A bit pricey for some, and maybe a little too conservative for others. Let’s take a look at some other budget options.

Cheaper

The easiest cuts in this deck are Parallel Lives and Anointed Procession. One or the other can suffice, especially if you commit to tutoring it up.

You can also cut out some of the redundancies in favor of diversity. Swap out Fountain Watch and Second Harvest for some more creatures.

More Expensive

How can you crank this deck up? Start with the final piece to your token-doubling trio, Primal Vigor.

Consistently getting to 20 life is important, so you can swap out Duneblast for a Toxic Deluge. Then you want to look for some more powerful creatures, like Opposition Agent or Avacyn, Angel of Hope.

Still not satisfied? Pimp out those lands and get the shocks and fetches.

Other Builds

This Myrkul, Lord of Bones deck is broadly focused on sacrificing creatures that take well to being enchantment-ized.

Other Myrkul decks can zero in on other mechanics, and some are focused on hatebears and sticking cards like Grand Abolisher and Spelltithe Enforcer. Others still focus more broadly on enchantments, playing Doomwake Giant and other constellation cards in tandem with Myrkul.

Commanding Conclusion

Butcher of Malakir | Illustration by Jason Chan

The indestructible god creature known to mortals as Myrkul, Lord of Bones strikes fear in your opponents and leaves them with nightmares of your stax-ish enchantment-filled board of punishment. Here you’ve got a standard “right down the middle” Myrkul deck that showcases a variety of the best cards to turn into enchantments, and some of its best combos.

What do you think the best build for Myrkul is? How else could you beef up this deck? Let me know in the comments or over on Draftsim’s Twitter.

Thanks for reading, and tell your opponents to keep dreaming!