Commander Overview
Uril, The Miststalker is a truly classic commander and one that has been around the format for an extremely long time. At the same time, you don’t see a ton of Uril decks being played anymore he is a blast to play, has built in hexproof and is in the best color combinations for an aura focused deck as we have access to All that Glitters, Pain for All and Ancestral Mask, having access to these cards allows us to be extremely strong and truly hit like a truck. On top of all that, Uril gets +2/+2 for each aura on them, which can stack up extremely quickly and hit the twenty-one commander damage threshold quickly. While Uril isn’t a commander you see all the time anymore, they provide some classic commander fun!
Creature 22
Instant 9
Sorcery 8
Enchantment 22
Land 35
EDH BRACKET
The average current preconstructed deck.
- No Mass Land Denial
- No Chaining Extra Turns
- No 2-Card Infinite Combos
- No Game Changers
- Few Tutors
How to Play the Deck
Uril has always been a very simple deck to play. At the same time, we do have a lot more support creatures than most Voltron decks. We don’t do a lot of complicated things within the deck. The overall game plan, a lot of our game plan is to buff up Uril as much as we can and swing as many times as we can. With all of the abilities and keyword soup we get from our auras, it is quite easy for us to hit the commander damage threshold. This deck is fine for a player of any skill level, still not a deck I would hand to a new player, but overall quite simple.
Synergy’s in the deck
The only synergies we have in our deck are our auras and our support cards. One of the strongest aspects of our decks is the support cards that help us draw a ton of cards like Enchantress's Presence or Sythis, Harvest's Hand, which can help to keep our hands full which is especially important in the mid-game where we often dump our hand quickly since many of our auras are low cost.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: We don’t really do anything in the early-game besides setup for when we can get Uril out, we can get Uril out a lot quicker with cards like Sol Ring or ramp like Cultivate/Kodama's Reach but besides ramping we can drop some great early cards like Destiny Spinner or Sanctum Weaver which are both great ways to get ahead.
Mid-Game: The mid-game is where things start to get great for us and get very out of hand for our opponents. Once we drop Uril, they are quite hard to kill since they have hexproof. While sacrifice effects can be good against us, we do have cards like Tajuru Preserver that can help stop that and ensure we can keep Uril on the field for a long time. It’s very easy for us to get Uril buffed up, as we have a lot of cheap auras in the deck. The core game plan doesn’t change here: we attack as much as we can with Uril, and if they have trample, we are extremely aggressive.
Late-Game: We are perfectly fine with games going long, if they do, Uril gets bigger and bigger, and since we do have a lot more creatures in the deck than most Voltron creatures, we can easily block opponents’ stuff and keep us alive. We are pretty great at the late game; many opponents can’t deal with an Uril that has flying, trample, and is a 30/30.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
Being in Naya allows us to be pretty good at ramp, we have creatures like Delighted Halfling, which allows us to be pretty good at casting Uril early and does provide the added benefit of making Uril uncounterable, which can be very helpful as opponents will quickly realize how much Uril matters to us. We also have cards like Cultivate and Rampant Growth, which are just early turn options to get all of our colors. I love Skyshroud Claim in this deck since we can grab our on-color shocks, which is great for a card that only costs four mana. We are great at ramping in this deck and can often get out Uril a couple of turns early.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Card draw is a very strong aspect of our deck, we have a ton of different ways to draw a ton of cards, almost all of them are enchantment related but since it is the main thing our deck does we can draw a ton of cards, Sythis, Harvest Hand is a great card for the deck and can come down early and continue to draw us cards throughout the game. We have many different sources of card draw, and being able to keep our hand full is key to the game plan.
Removal
We go from one of the strongest aspects of our deck to one of the weakest. We don’t really care about what our opponents are doing. Our ultimate goal is to run over our opponents with Uril, and we certainly don’t need any removal to do that! Even though this is a weak aspect of our deck, we do have some removal like Beast Within, Swords to Plowshares, and Generous Gift. While we can’t remove all of the threats our opponents have, we can most certainly take care of the biggest
Protection
We are already ahead of the game on the protection side since Uril has hexproof, which is a great way to make him very hard to remove already. While we can still get by board wipes, single-target removal wants to remove what is typically the biggest threat on the table. We also have some strong protection spells like Tamiyo's Safekeeping and Tyvar's Stand, which are great ways to keep some of our support creatures on the field, or in the case of Tyvar's Stand, can be a great way to get some extra power on Uril and hit even harder.
Utility / Support
Let’s go over some of the best auras in the deck! We cannot continue without mentioning two of the best auras in the deck in All that Glitters and Ethereal Armor. These make Uril extremely big very quickly and make him a humongous threat to all of our opponents, and since Uril naturally has hexproof, it can be quite hard to remove them. Ancestral Mask is an insanely broken card in this deck since it is basically a three-mana version of Uril, and putting it on Uril will double his power, which is a truly scary thing to see, at least for our opponents. Since we almost always only attack with Uril, we have Idolized, which is a cheap aura that provides a huge buff, just another great way to make Uril huge and threatening. We also have some auras that make Uril a true threat by giving them keywords like trample with Armadillo Cloak or make them extremely evasive with Asha's Favor. We are very good at hitting with Uril and making sure we hit.
Mana Base
Our mana base is quite efficient with all of the best ways to get our colors with cards like Bountiful Promenade and Spire Garden, allowing us to get our colors established quickly, which is perfect because we need Naya to cast Uril. I do want to highlight both Rogue's Passage and Kessig Wolf Run, which can make Uril a lot scarier when we buff them more and give them trample, and in the case of Rogue's Passage, can end the game easily.
Win Conditions
Our only win condition is combat, which is, of course, made a lot easier with Uril since they do get so big so quickly.
Strengths of the Deck
We are great at getting big quick, if an opponent doesn’t leave up blockers they can be one-shot.
Uril, with built-in protection, is very tough to deal with because single-target removal doesn’t work well against us.
Weaknesses of the Deck
We can struggle with control strategies or really any deck that has a ton of board wipes or sacrifice effects.
We do have a few alternate Voltron creatures, but they can lack a lot of “punch” and quickness if we don’t have Uril on the board.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Rafiq of the Many. Matchup Record: 3-1
We are basically playing the same exact deck as Rafiq, the biggest difference is that Uril grows a lot bigger, we are a lot faster and have a lot more creatures, which gives us the edge in this one.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Ancestral Mask, Destiny Spinner and Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor.
Game 2: Vs Saruman of Many Colors. Matchup Record: 1-3
I struggled a lot in this matchup; they have a lot of counterspells. It can be hard to resolve Uril and resolve any of our key auras. A speedy game where the Saruman player doesn’t mess with us much is the only real way to grab a win.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Destiny Spinner, Delighted Halfling and Mantle of the Ancients.
Game 3: Vs Toby, Beastie Befriender. Matchup Record: 3-0
The flying can be a bit rough, but overall, this is a great matchup for our deck. We are so much bigger than they are, and they really can’t do much about it. Buff it up and swing hard, and you will be all set!
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Generous Gift, Sythis, Harvest's Hand and Bear Umbra.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed! I loved revisiting Uril. It is another one of those decks that used to run tables in the early days of Commander, but is rarely seen anymore. Being able to play this again truly felt like getting back to basics and just having some good, clean, not-fancy fun.