Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Karlov of the Ghost Council!

Karlov is a two mana 2/2 with whenever you gain life, you put two +1/+1 counters on him, and for two mana and remove six +1/+1 counters from him to exile a creature.

Having a creature that has their own form of removal is always great, especially since it is exile based removal, which can often matter more depending on which deck you are going up against.

Gaining life is not the hardest thing to do in our deck, and neither is putting +1/+1 counters, so the plan is going to be a life gain deck that errs on the more control aspect in making sure we remove any pesky creatures.

The first thing we need are ways to gain life, and not just gain one time bursts but a consistent stream of life gain would be ideal.

Soul’s Attendant and Soul Warden are examples of this sort of effect, because they trigger whenever a creature enters the battlefield, not just ours. Even if it’s just one life, that still gives Karlov a counter.

We have access to a huge suite of cards that have this exact ability or a variant of the ability at a decent rate such as Auriok Champion, Daxos, Blessed by the Sun, Lunarch Veteran, Hinterland Sanctifier, and Case of the Uneaten Feast to name a few of these example.

There is even removal that can gain us some life like Death Grasp which deals X damage to a target and we gain X life, Kaya’s Guile to be a modal spell that normally gives us two options or we can Entwine for an extra 3 that either forces each opponent sacrifice a creature, exile all our opponent’s graveyards, create a 1/1 token with flying, or gain us four life.

What we need to focus on next are ways to grind our opponents down, and a lot of that is going to involve some tax elements.

Kambal, Consul of Allocation is an example of which which makes it much more difficult for your opponents to cast noncreature spells, and also triggers Karlov with the drain effect.

Authority of the Consuls is also a spell to consider because it forces our opponents creatures to enter tapped and whenever a creature an opponent enters it gains us a life. Similarly there is Blind Obedience, which has our opponents artifacts and creatures enter tapped and Extort, which we can use to help trigger Karlov.

Archivist of Oghma punishes our opponents searching their library by giving us life and drawing a card, Polluted Bonds to drain an opponent for 2 whenever they play a land, Griffin Aerie to get some flying bodies on the battlefield, and Debt to the Deathless to drain each opponent for a decent amount of life and us gain a ton.

In order to help us close out the game, we need to find ways to make the most use out of us gaining a ton of life, and if it gains us life as well that’s even better.

Aetherflux Reservoir is probably going to be our best bet as a finisher, especially for the threat of us to activate it. We should be able to get over 50 life fairly easily, so having the looming threat will serve as a warning to our opponents, or it can be the target for removal which is less removal they have for our other things.

Since we are going to be having an excess amount of life gain, then Heliod, Sun-Crowned is not a bad option to help get Karlov get more +1/+1 counters to help remove a creature.

With us having access to a ton of life gain, Sanguine Bond and Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose are also ways to help us drain our opponents dry whenever we gain life. While not as much of a drain, Marauding Blight-Priest and Starscape Cleric are also ways to help our drain plan.

If you have access to Ketramose, the New Dawn then you have a way to make Karlov’s exile ability even more effective, especially since Ketramose also has lifelink, menace, and indestructible to help Karlov get bigger.

Karlov is a value Commander in that you can get a lot of value in playing into Karlov’s ability and get a ton of payoffs. The deck can also function without Karlov on the battlefield but functions better with him in play, which is a stealthy plus in case Karlov gets hit with the inevitable removal spell.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual