Kudo, King Among BearsKudo, King Among Bears | art by Ekaterina Burmak

Kudos to you

Hello! Hi! How are ya? Welcome back to EDHighlights, the series where I build decks for 2024's most popular commander for each color combination.

Now that 2024's set releases (and the year itself) have finished up, I'll be taking a look at the most popular legendary creatures that released in the past year, talking a bit about them, and finally building hopefully-slightly-unique decks around them.

This week, I'm taking a look at 2024's most popular Selesnya commander, which means we'll be working with … Kudo, King Among BearsKudo, King Among Bears

KudoKudo was reasonably popular, with 4125 decks to his name as of the time of writing. He blew the other commanders out of the water, beating out second place Finneas, Ace ArcherFinneas, Ace Archer by about 1500 decks. So, without any further ado, let's see why KudoKudo is king among bears and Selesnya commanders.

Pseudo-Kudo

KudoKudo is a 2/2 Bear for 2 mana. That's kind of redundant, though, because a “bear” is always a 2/2 for 2. But, Kudo is both a Bear and a “bear.” You get me? You get me. I knew you would.

Anyways, Kudo also makes it so all creatures on the board, both ours and our opponents', have base power and toughness 2/2 and are Bears in addition to their other types. This is a pretty cool ability, but we need some ways to capitalize on it. There's a few ways to do this, from flooding the board with tokens, to anthems, to straight up Bear kindred.

What I'd like to focus on, though, is build a +1/+1 counter centric Hydra deck. Because Kudo ensures that every creature is a 2/2, and Hydras enter the battlefield with +1/+1 counters, we'll be able to make sure that we have the biggest, baddest, beefiest Bears on the battlefield. Let's get brewing!

Bear with me here…

The most important part of any Hydra deck is, as you might very easily guess, the Hydras! Here are a few of my favorites. Goldvein HydraGoldvein Hydra is a fantastic card, with some great keywords to act as an efficient attacker the turn it hits the board. Plus, thanks to Kudo's effect, it'll even be mana-positive when it dies.

Nyxborn HydraNyxborn Hydra is great too, buffing up whichever creature on our board we'd like before becoming a big creature itself when that creature goes away. And, should we find ourselves with a lot of extra mana on hand, Steelbane HydraSteelbane Hydra can turn that mana into repeatable removal.

There's also a whole host of x-costed creatures that aren't Hydras, but have Hydra-like text on them. For example, Vrestin, Menoptra LeaderVrestin, Menoptra Leader is a flying creature that gains +1/+1 counters when it enters the battlefield and makes a whole host of buddies too.

Farmer CottonFarmer Cotton is similar, but it makes Food tokens and 1/1 creatures instead of getting +1/+1 counters. I'm also a fan of Warhammer 40K's TervigonTervigon, which can be a nice repeatable source of token creatures.

I'm a particularly big fan of Jacked RabbitJacked Rabbit and Threefold ThunderhulkThreefold Thunderhulk. Both of these creatures will be big bodies when they hit the board, and give a constant supply of token creatures to block or swing in for damage with.

And, rounding out the notable cards in this section of the deck is Mikaeus, the LunarchMikaeus, the Lunarch. This card will provide a steady stream of +1/+1 counters to our board, ensuring that we'll be able to close out longer games with ease.

I can hardly bear it!

To support this x-spell centric creature base, there's 2 cards that'll prove quite helpful. First, there's Elementalist's PaletteElementalist's Palette. This seems rather unassuming as a three-mana rock, but it fits well into the deck's mana curve and general game plan. Playing KudoKudo on turn two, this rock on turn three, and some x-cost spell to trigger the palettepalette on turn four is a great start to the game.

Same goes for the other x-spell-augmenting card here: Unbound FlourishingUnbound Flourishing. Just like the aforementioned mana rock, this card fits into our mana curve super well.

If you've read any of my other work, you know I love cards that fit well into my deck's mana curve. So, here's a few more synergistic cards that do just that. Court of GarenbrigCourt of Garenbrig introduces one of Magic's most fun mechanics (the Monarch), and can result in an absurdly powerful board if we can protect the crown.

Because the vast majority of our creatures will have +1/+1 counters on them, Jiang Yanggu, WildcrafterJiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter can supercharge the deck's ramp package. And, he can even turn some of our creatures into mana dorks in a pinch.

Speaking of mana dorks, Kami of Whispered HopesKami of Whispered Hopes is one of the best cards in this deck. It comes down as a three-drop 2/2 that taps for 2 mana, and augments our counter production for the rest of the game.

I did it with my bear hands…

One notable thing about this deck is that it has a lot of creatures. There's 48 of them in the 99 of this deck, which is admittedly maybe a few too many. But, I'm sticking to my guns. Let's talk about the ways to take advantage of that high creature count.

Gala GreetersGala Greeters does a lot for just two mana, providing mana, life gain, and even +1/+1 counters for itself as the game goes on. All three of those modes are useful, so it's a great card for this deck.

Next up, because we'll have so many creatures on board, it'd be great to turn them into mana. Enduring VitalityEnduring Vitality and Circle of Dreams DruidCircle of Dreams Druid do just that, and can catapult us into the lead if our battlefield has just a few creatures on it.

There's also a pair of cards that care about us casting creature spells: Karametra, God of HarvestsKarametra, God of Harvests and Torens, Fist of the AngelsTorens, Fist of the Angels. KarametraKarametra can both ramp and fix our mana base, while TorensTorens can flood the board with creature tokens.

And, much like KarametraKarametra, the higher-costed Hamza, Guardian of ArashinHamza, Guardian of Arashin will make it easier to cast our spells as the game goes on.

Rounding out the creatures-matter portion of the deck are Growing Rites of ItlimocGrowing Rites of Itlimoc, Shaman of Forgotten WaysShaman of Forgotten Ways and March of the MultitudesMarch of the Multitudes. Each of these, in their own way, gets better when there's a lot of creatures on the battlefield.

Growing Rites of ItlimocGrowing Rites of Itlimoc will usually put a card in our hand on ETB and then provide a ton of mana, Shaman of Forgotten WaysShaman of Forgotten Ways will provide a healthy amount of mana with its first ability and can end the game quickly with its second ability, and March of the MultitudesMarch of the Multitudes can essentially double the amount of power we have on board.

You've probably noticed a theme throughout this write-up: a lot of cards in this deck provide mana advantage. That's by design. This deck has a lot of x-spells, which get much more effective when they can be cast with a big x-value. I didn't get to touch on all of the ramp, or even all of the x-spells in the deck, so here's the full list so you can take a look…

As a quick note, the "lands" section of the deck doesn't include MDFC lands. There are 36 lands in this deck.

This was unbearable

Thanks for reading this week's edition of EDHighlights! I'm pretty happy with how this deck turned out. +1/+1 counters are one of my favorite things in all of Magic, so I'm happy that I got to build a deck centered around them for this series.

And, although I feel badly about it, I did include Elesh Norn, Grand CenobiteElesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in this list. Usually, the counters we'll be putting on our creatures will be enough to overcome our opponents' comparatively smaller boards.

But, in the scenario that our game plan fails, it's always “fun” to completely lock our opponents out of the game to ensure our total and complete victory.

That's all for this week, I'll see you again next week to talk about last year's most popular commander.

Cooper Gottfried

Cooper is a student at Brandeis University, where he’s Editor in Chief of its community newspaper, The Brandeis Hoot. He’s played Magic for a few years, starting in earnest when he was gifted a precon during the summer of 2022. His favorite Magic card is Denry Klin, Editor in Chief, and he bets you can't guess why.