Vampires Of The Sea: A Guide To Runo Stromkirk / Krothuss Commander Decks | Magic: The Gathering 

Everyone: I want Vampire Commanders that boost vampires. We classy Lads: I want the Vampire Commander that turns into Cthulhu.

I love when Legendary Creatures are made with hoops to jump through to get a pay off, it just makes piloting the deck that much more rewarding when you go off.

Dear professor, i've been a loyal viewer for about 8 years now and there's something i'd like to personally ask. Would you mind showing your audience all your amazing suits and clothes? They're so catchy and stunning i'd love to "steal" your look sometimes at conventions. Many MtG players ask the question, what does the professor's wardrobe look like?

Runo is certainly a puzzle, there's a lot to take into consideration. Seems like a fun deck building excercise

I love the fact that I can build a full Lovecraft themed deck with this commander. I'll totally go for it!

I feel like Strionic Resonator could be a strong addition for this. Making two extra sea monsters is cool, but making four is a real party

I love runo! So happy to see you building a commander deck based on cthulu

I just ordered a lot of the singles for the deck, its a creature heavy deck with a slight re animator package as a fall back plan with draw and mill to take advantage of runos ability to put a creature on top from the yard

I love running sirens in this deck. It may not be optimal, but I love the flavour of Runo and his coastal angels singing in a choir to bring out the big bois.

A few cards to consider: River Serpent and Striped Riverwinder are 6 cmc serpents with cycling that allow you to easily flip Runo on schedule and running Sakashima of a Thousand Faces can allow copies of Krothuss, exponentially creating more copies every subsequent combat. Ghostly Pilferer is also one of the all stars in my deck, giving a decent card to copy with Krothuss and handedly allowing you trigger Runo's transformation. If you wanted to go a different route with the deck, Arcane Adaptation and Conspiracy are great ways get double the tokens on creatures that aren't already one of those sea monsters. Since we already have snow lands, Frostwalk Bastion, Avalanche Caller and ESPECIALLY Faceless Haven are great ways of ramping into your big fish. Finally, try to avoid Legendary creatures, because they die to the legend rule, but cards such as Gyruda, Doom of Depths still get their ETB trigger off before they die to legend rule and are still totally worth it. And of course, Spawning Kraken should be mentioned, because duh. Hope this helps someone aspiring to build this deck!

I'm thinking of building this into a Brineline & Ikra Shidiqi deck to add land ramp and Koma. This tech certainly showed me some pieces I didn't know existed. Thank you for all the great work!

Thank you so much for doing this deck! I've made a sea monsters deck with octavia as the commander and this gave me some fantastic addition ideas!

Just as I was looking to build! Thanks Prof!

Thanks for the Commander video, Prof! Always love to see the quick turn around that you produce these once the card is spoiled.

Definitely building my own version of this. Ive been wanting to make sea monsters for a while now and this is just the right amount of spicy change from the traditional simic route that ive been looking for

Just found this dude in last night's promo pack at the end of the pre-release and thought, wow this is a real cool dude what kind of deck would you make with it. And there you are the next morning.

I absolutely love these kinds of decks, when I first started playing Magic, my first rare I opened from a pack was Stormtide Leviathan, and I've never loved anything more than my huge sea monsters! For your next deck tech, I don't know if you've done it already, but I'd love to see an Ooze deck, U/G, B/G, or even U/B/G depending on the commander, whatever you'd like as long as it oozes goodness!

Trying to build this one myself and it is definitely weird. Personal recommendations are: Sakashima of a Thousand Faces to be able to target those legendary seamonsters with Krothuss as well as getting an exponential amount of Krothusses on the field Manlands like Creeping Tar Pit and Faceless Haven because Krothuss can weirdly ramp with them when you don't have enough mana to cast your fatties and the silly synergy of Grozoth being able to Transmute into Conive // Concoct

Awesome, I always like learning about cool combos since I've been away from the game on and off for past decade. Luckily my kids are into it, and got me back into playing

One of the most interesting dimir commanders I’ve seen in a while, looks like a really fun deck!

I used this as inspiration for a build about a year ago, changing a lot of ideas from yours. It's still one of my best and favorite decks to play and this video laid out such a good starter for an extremely playable sea monster themed deck that I just love.

I’m glad this is the first one you did for the new set. When he was previewed, I was excited to see a commander deck with him.

I really appreciate these graphics Prof! Very easy to follow and overall very informative- thanks you!!

As someone who has played a whole lot of magic for it's vast and storied tales, It would be most interesting to see a Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage Historic deck focused around granting flash and spinning grand tales about the planes and history of magic the gathering for a whole table of players. Cards gain entirely NEW lines of play with Raff out on the battlefield. Sagas like Elspeth Conquers Death (depicting the planeswalker, Elspeth, breaking free of the Therosian underworld) or Legendary Sorceries like Urza's Ruinous Blast (depicting the activation of the devastating Golgothian Sylex) or even planeswalkers like Teferi, Master of Time and his Oath of Teferi (which gains all new utility with Flash, allowing it to blink cards at instant speed) are just a few examples. This isn't even mentioning that Artifacts also gain flash, allowing horrifying machines from Dominaria's past to come hurtling through time to assemble and End of turn win condition out of nowhere. I strongly encourage this themed deck to be looked at as I find it deals with the vorthos itch so many players wish they could scratch.

I love the animation. Great to help explain how the card actually functions.

Just tried the deck proxied and loved it. Literally have nothing to improve with it. Great job Prof!

Hey Prof! The quality of your animation in the videos have increased greatly. It's also very easy to understand a line of text when you get a picture of how it looks when you do it, and at what step in your turn. Very good for explaining and learning in an easy way! I would love if you keep this animation and explanation style in the future.

As someone who bought Runo recently, this was extremely helpful and informative!

YES! sea monsters was one of my first decks ever! I've been looking for a good cammander for all the water critters I have.

This is one of the most challenging decks I've built in a while due to the dimir combination Edit: also planning on making alters for the whole deck to really give it the horror of the deep vibe

Thing in the Ice is a pretty good fit in this deck too! Great video, Prof!

Building this deck at my lgs tomorrow hopefully they have a lot of the pieces, I love this commander thank you for showing me more pieces I didn't know about.

This is the card that caught my attention during preview season. Thank you for making this video.

The deck is pretty cool. If I ever gonna be building a blue deck in the future it's probably this deck.

Great video Prof! I been thinking about a Sea creatures deck lately. Thanks!

Hey Prof. Keep up the good work. When i came back to magic in 2017 your deck techs helped me get a grasp of balanced EDH deck building. As EDH did not exist when I last played. It has since taken on a personality of its own but my Ephara deck is still one of my favorite decks, and started off as instructed by your channel. That being said alot has changed in just 5 years. I think a good idea for a deck tech would be to revisit older and forgotten classic commanders that could be givin a face lift or a whole new identity with the high powered cards that have come out in just the last year or two. Jori En, Ruin Diver is a commander I've built in the last year, that has been suprisingly strong with the addition of new mechanics like magecraft. And cards like 1000 Year Storm. I bet your Sygg deck has seen some upgrades! Just say'n! Love the channel!

Man, I was already making a simic replication deck and now this just came out and it’s perfect. 🤩

this looks super fun. definitely gonna try this out.

I’ve wanted to do sea monsters for so long, this seems like a great way to do it

thank you prof for the video, i was thinking on building this guy the moment i saw it

Discussing your Opponent's Pongify Ape going against your Sea Monsters makes me think of the Simpsons episode where the kids watch a video in school about the food chain & one example has a Shark snatching a Gorilla out of a tree, hahaha

Your justification of merit lage reminded me of Voxy's reason for skittering surveyor from the episode of shuffle with Lexi and Amy. "It has legs"

Wow! Will certainly fit my tinkered reap the tides commander deck!

I would love to see what could be done with Grolnok, the Omnivore from Crimson Vow.

I started building a semi-budget Runo deck as soon as it was revealed, but I decided to to more the route of self mill and reanimation. It's cool to see the difference in approach (and there are certainly some good ideas here that I might steal)!

My playgroup actually was talking about doing a pirate/ocean themed gamenight. We've got a pirate deck, Norfolk are always good and now this. Beautiful. Just need one more.

Yes! I have been looking for a sea monster commander! Wish I was able to incorporate with Aesi but oh well this works

I plan on making a runo stromkirk deck when it comes out in a few weeks so thank you, this has helped me focus some of my ideas. I would love to see what you would do with Lynde cheerful tormentor.

Thanks prof, I really liked that deck teck.

No *Spawning Kraken?* It spawns Krakens. 9/9 Kraken tokens to be precise, and it does this whenever a Kraken/Serpent/Leviathan/Octopus deals damage. Exponential value in this deck. EDIT: It’s also a 6 cost to flip the Commander.

I'm actually working on this deck too. This video is Coolio no foolin yo.😎

Nice one prof! love those sea monster :)

Next I would definitely love to see a video like this on Olivia Crimson Bride, so glad you made this video because I've had my eye on Runo Stromkirk since the moment he was revealed

I pulled this card in a VOW bundle and was consider making an EDH deck like this. I'm too poor for the $400 cost of this exact deck, but I love having this resource.

Quest for Ula's temple can put a creature into play at the beginning of EACH end step. Holy moly

Your Death and Taxes video is one of my all time favorites. I wish you would do a legacy or a modern deck tech.

Oh man. This deck looks fun. On my Xmas wish list

Thanks Prof. Always looking for good deck building ideas. I know everyone does them, but I do like the precon upgrade videos. Maybe something that can help someone newer to the format get into decks that are still somewhat unique while giving a base to start out building from? Some of those older precons seem to have good value these days and may be ripe for building on.

Cool deck, professor! I always wanted to build a sea monster deck maybe another lifetime

Looks like an awesome deck. I might try to Build my version of it. I once bought a preconstructed deck that contained most of those card (I I remember right it was the set before kaldheim) so I am ready to go. Thank you prof

Nice I appreciate the time and explanation

Definetly going to build a similar deck with my own twist

This was the first Dimir legend I have been excited by in my 6 years of MTG. So excited to put it together

Great video man, very entertaining and informative =)

Would really love to see an Umbris deck list! Need some ideas for this one

Hey professor great deck! It’d be awesome to see Toxrill get a deck tech in the future

I would love a throwback Commander for your next decktech

Anowon from last year: Hey! I'm a vampire and I don't care about vampire tribal! Sygg: Yeah, you're just a different tribal commander... Anowon: ... shut up.

I pulled this during pre release and while I don't have all the cards I did already have a handful of the ones you mentioned. And I was able to fill in the gaps with other synergistic cards

Glob, I loved this video! I'd love to see you do one on Grolnok, the Omnivore next 😁

Did the production value just jump up a notch? Very slick

Sea monsters are my favorite! I would love to see a deck tech for Toxrill the slimey slug!

I am 100% convinced the professor started with the splash pun and worked from there

I've had a lot of big leviathans sitting in my collection for a while. Wrexial being one of my faves. Time to take them out for a spin!! Also...SLUGS. Slugs is the next deck tech you should do. It also looks super fun.

I was excited when I first saw Runo Stormkirk because Krothuss kind of reminds me Cthulhu and I can't wait to run him as my commander

Strionic Resonator will can copy a trigger abilty (such as you commanders attack trigger). Mirror Box and Mirror Gallery will nullify the "Legend Rule" for you or the table. Sakashima can do the same if you have the budget. All these options can dramatically increase your token generation.

I love the flavor of this card, but thought it would be too hard to build effectively. This might have given me the confidence to do it. 👍

Great video again 🙌

This looks like a fun deck to play and play against!

The credits at the end made e remember the time I spent watching kit, Xena and baywatch

I love this card so much and I'm going to splash blue just to put him in my vampire agro deck

i love the card border treatment that he has. if they were to update the backgrounds again i would definitely not be opposed to this as a choice

I’m building Thrasios & Ikra-Shidiqi Sea Monsters Tribal, and this creature along with Hullbreaker Horror will be insane. I also bought the Aesi Precon to mix in to this deck as well.

Hmm I was thinking about a kraken deck for some time(I even have a few pieces lying around in my collection) but now I actually have a goal with this decktech. Thx prof! I will tweak it a bit to fit my personal preferences.

So I recently built a runo deck, and despite all the things I've heard it's actually been working extremely well! I've got a lot of creatures with ETB's and decided to look at adding some cheap flicker spells to get more use out of them. Also for protection as well.

A re-visit to a strong zombie deck sounds cool, or at least a list of common zombie deck idea seeing that there are so many different ways to run zombies now

I've been holding on to a playset of Quest for Ula's Temple since Worldwake. Now that I have a Runo Stromkirk it's time to make that sea creature tribal deck. Bring on the Whelping Wave!

Super Cool Deck Tech - my fav is still the Vehicles deck :)

Prof saying “Apes aren’t robust swimmers.” Makes me think immediately to the monkey swimming in the ocean to the “life could be a dream “ song, lmao.

I have a Wrexial deck, and I have been trying for years to get it to work as Kraken tribal. Runo will make this so much easier.

I think a reanimated subtheme would be strong. Runo already likes things in your yard, and reanimation offers a good way to get around those mana values

Great deck profile. A minor nitpick/improvement I have is that you should run coldsteel heart instead of charcoal diamond. It has the same effect except strictly better. It lets you pick a color and counts as a snow permanent for icebreaker kraken :)

I would love to see a deck tech on the new Olivia crimson bride

I wouldn’t mind seeing a Eruth, Tormented Prophet deck tech. She seems super good.

Thanks for this video.

honestly, I'd like to see a deck tech around the disturb mechanic, which will probably cause the deck to also be spirit tribal but still interested in how you'd build it prof

An Osgir deck-tech would be awesome! I know he’s capable of being a powerhouse, I just can’t quite figure out how

very clean editing :D

Def gonna make a deck with this new legend

Vampire Hexmage. Get's Marit Lage out, AND is a vampire, so also very on theme. :)