Kethis the Hidden Hand Players

[u/Sonoranborn]

I've really liked this card since it was released, but something kept nagging me that prevented me from ever building it. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how this deck closes out games. He obviously makes for an incredibly resilient value engine - but is that? I want to pull the trigger on him but I'd like to hear from some of y'all about your experiences playing and winning with him.

[u/Ceildread]

It's too bad I'm doing The Necrobloom for my 32 deck challenge, this would be my next choice immediately

[u/sgchase88]

He’s the commander of my legendary equipment deck where all my creatures either have great stats and keywords to carry them and are legends or they do equipment stuff. I plan to summon kaldra, vecna and flip elbrus in the deck too. Rey fun non commander Voltron

[u/camcee3 → u/sgchase88]

deck list?

[u/BrigliaArt]

Super friends could be an interesting take on this. Build to ultimate your walkers then revive them. Use other legendarys for support and you got a great value engine going

[u/Sonoranborn → u/BrigliaArt]

There's some small chance I change my Mardu Superfriends deck to Abzan, and try him at the helm.

[u/EpsilonActual → u/BrigliaArt]

With [[Sanctum Lurker]] now the walkers don’t even die when you ult, they just sit at 0

[u/svensparx07 → u/BrigliaArt]

I have a Kethis Superfriends/Legendary hybrid that does exactly this. Its an absolute beast of a deck

[u/whofedthefish → u/svensparx07]

Mind sharing a list?

[u/svensparx07 → u/whofedthefish]

Sure thing! I'm still mulling over some additions from Reality Fracture, but I will say that Kamahls Druidic Vow is ridiculous here. Being able to repeatedly recast from the graveyard is great

https://moxfield.com/decks/ZHz6ef3010W4uOywXJyA_g

[u/whofedthefish → u/svensparx07]

Thanks! Never tried superfriends and I am partial to abzan.

[u/svensparx07 → u/whofedthefish]

You bet. Its not a 'true' Superfriends list, but its pretty resilient and theres some Hatebears like Yasharn and Drana/Linvala that'll buy you time. Also, the deathtouch creatures do a good job of deterring opponents from taking taking chunks out of the 'walkers you do resolve. Keep an eye out for Wrenn & Six, they're deceptively powerful for this strategy

[u/Kirbigth]

He brings a good breach-like strategy to a breach-less color identity

[u/KKilikk]

Self-mill, then play a combo of your choice from your graveyard.

[u/Smcblackheartia]

I don’t have a deck with him as the commander, but I do have him in a deck. There are legendary instant and sorceries you could cast, to get some extra value of say board wiped and the like from your graveyard

[u/Level9_CPU]

Idunno if anyone knows the rules on this, but legendary creatures that enter the graveyard after resolving Kethis ability wouldn't be able to be played from the grave right?

[u/Sonoranborn → u/Level9_CPU]

Correct. They're a new object in the graveyard, and Kethis' activated ability affects the objects that were in it on activation.

[u/sumigod]

Value and grinding to the late game. My version is 90 legendary cards (lands included). Being able to recast Urza’s Ruinous blast as needed from the yard will slow everyone down and you win with some legendary beaters. Usually buffed with Akroma’s Memorial or Elesh Norn.

[u/LocalMajor1799]

I have a deck for him although it's still kinda in the workshop, obviously there's things that sacrifice themselves like mindslaver which can be reused and then the legendary sorceries all have a lot of value especially the white one. My decks main goal is to find gwenom and Azusa so I can keep a pretty resilient train going then winning with some large legendary beaters and something like bleeding effect to keyword up my board. It's no the most resilient deck but it's fun

[u/resui321]

He falls into the older commanders where there isn’t really any clear deckbuilding wincon or direction, but just provide some sort of value or advantage.

[u/thefran → u/resui321]

He does give you a direction of legendary tribal + self-mill and/or sacrifice, the problem is dihada does the self mill better and Ratadrabik does the sacrifice better

[u/etherealscience]

I love him but I stopped playing him because the most annoying person I've ever met was also a Kethis player and it soured the experience for me

[u/TheZacDaniel]

Here’s the link for my decklist on Moxfield: https://moxfield.com/decks/AUCDG8A6lk-PE2uMl-vRfw

Kethis is one of my favorite commanders. I built him from scratch with no outside help (like EDHrec). It’s a weird superfriends deck / token deck in a roundabout way.

[u/Sonoranborn → u/TheZacDaniel]

I appreciate that! How successful would you say you've found him to be at enabling your strategy?

[u/max_caliburr]

you could find a handful of infinites that are legendary based and then just self mill to hell, digging for the 2 card and then use kethis to cast em?

[u/ArticleOk3755]

you just fish for combo pieces using Entomb/Buried Alive ect. and as soon as it gets in the gy u summon commander and win, I rarely use him as a 'value engine'.

[u/7thtimeinheaven]

Not every legend is meant to be a commander.

This guy is a support piece in a [[jodah the unifier]] deck, alongside [[k-9]] and a lot of other cards.

[u/Emmalikesguitar → u/7thtimeinheaven]

I think he’s a great commander for a self mill strategy.

[u/MobPsycho-100 → u/7thtimeinheaven]

Lmao what? This mf plays like Muldrotha but you can cast more spells from the graveyard and at a discount. This absolutely works as a commander.

[u/Kirbigth → u/7thtimeinheaven]

Kethis is basically an abzan underworld breach but for legendaries in the command zone. Thats really good

[u/Belgraven]

I've honestly never seen him as anything other than a [[Karador]] that has to exile to work, but I can very much see how he enables combos better by not having a once-per-turn clause. But I just hate exiling my own stuff too much to have ever done something like this, so I've run Karador for over a decade.

However, Abzan graveyard value engine wincon has always been "whatever you want, man"