Edge of Eternities has brought us a lot of unexpected things, but one of the most unexpected might be the resurgence of a classic Magic creature type - Kavu! A look at the way they are depicted in this new set makes it clear that in this futuristic corner of the multiverse Kavu have evolved to the point where they are sentient, having creature types like pilot, soldier, and artificer. Old-school Kavu probably didn't have the brainpower to pilot a spaceship even if the comprehensive rules might allow it.

As a Commander writer, I pay attention to how many legendary creatures are in a set, so it was something of a surprise to see that Edge of Eternities only has 17 new legendary creatures. We're now able to use legendary vehicles and spacecraft as commanders, so that adds 6 more options, but 23 pales in comparison to the 164 new legendary creatures released in the Final Fantasy set.

I decided it might be fun to see if we've got enough new Kavu cards to make that creature type viable in mid-powered EDH. Kavu has long been an obscure creature type with weird abilities, not much support, and no notable legendary cards to lead them. Edge of Eternities gives us 10 new Kavu, 2 of which are legendary. Neither of the 2 new legendary Kavu cards care about Kavu and one of the most interesting of the old school Kavu is in Naya colors so I decided to build under a 5 color Changeling that needs no introduction.

Morophon, the Boundless puts us firmly in five colors. It's a changeling, so it is every creature type, and when Morophon enters I'll choose a creature type (Kavu). Spells of the chosen type cost WUBRG less to cast, and that reduction only affects the amount of colored mana I pay. It also gives a +1/+1 anthem effect to other creatures I control of the chosen type.

The real purpose of this exercise is to see what kind of Kavu deck we could build if we mixed a bunch of the new cards in with some of the old Kavu from the Invasion block. I'm not expecting anything very powerful, and I'm choosing to leave out game changers, so this deck should fall comfortably into bracket 2.

Something Old

Before we check out Edge of Eternities cards, let's take a look at what Kavu looked like a quarter of a century ago. They were simple, brutish, lizard-like creatures with some genuinely interesting abilities.

There are three Kavu with the ability to tap and turn a land into a specific type of land until end of turn. Kavu Recluse can turn a land into a forest. Slimy Kavu can turn a land into a swamp. Tundra Kavu can turn a land into a plains or an island. It does not turn it into a basic land, but it does lose all abilities and until end of turn just taps to produce the color of mana associated with its new land type.

Not only can this neuter a Rogue's Passage or Gaea's Cradle until end of turn, it can also be used to keep a player from accessing a key color of mana if they only have one source and you change that land into a type they don't need. Does that mono-Blue player have a single Blue mana up and a Swan Song in hand? Turn that island into a plains with Tundra Kavu and they won't be able to Swan Song your spell.

Bloodfire Kavu is a little Kavu version of Bloodfire Colossus. This 2/2 can be sacrificed for one red mana to deal 2 damage to each creature. It's far from a boardwipe if you don't give it deathtouch, but it can still clear out an army of Thopters, Scute Swarms or many other go-wide token armies if they don't yet have an anthem on board.

The Kavu with the highest ceiling might be Yavimaya Kavu. It has a power equal to the number of red creatures in play, and toughness equal to the number of Green creatures in play. In a multiplayer game it could get really huge, and will grow with my own Kavu army as my creatures are almost exclusively in red and Green.

Card draw is always a concern in EDH, but if you're up against one or more Black decks, Pygmy Kavu will be happy to help. When it enters play, I'll draw a card for each Black creature my opponents control.

Removal is also a constant need when playing Commander and Hunting Kavu is a decent option. It costs three mana in Gruul colors and for its casting cost it can tap and remove itself and target attacking creature without flying that's attacking you from the game. That's a mouthful, but in short - it can't hit flyers and it can't be used to save anyone but yourself.

The card that really prompted me to look beyond building a Gruul deck was Radiant Kavu. This three mana Naya Kavu has an activated ability that can fog combat damage from Blue and Black creatures this turn. That's not great, but in low-powered EDH you usually resolve games through combat so there will be times when this 3/3's repeatable fog effect will come in very handy.

There are a range of other old Kavu, mostly following in the footsteps of other more successful creature types. Kavu Climber will have you draw a card when it enters play. Firemaw Kavu has echo and can ping a creature for 2 damage when it enters and 4 damage when it leaves play. There are a few surprises when you look through old Kavu cards, but they aren't exactly overpowered.

Something New

An old pile of Kavu isn't enough to get excited about, so let's jump into some of the newer cards that have this old creature type.

2018's Kavu Predator is the Kavu I have the most experience with, slotting it into a deck many years ago when I was regularly playing against an Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck. It quickly grew from 2/2 to become a huge threat with Oloro regularly gaining life. I highly recommend it as a bit of fun tech if you're often playing against lifegain decks.

In 2022 Dominaria United brought us Defiler of Instinct, the red entrant in the Defiler cycle. This Phyrexian Kavu has first strike and lets me pay life instead of mana for the red mana symbols on spells I cast. Whenever I cast a red permanent spell, Defiler of Instinct lets me ping something for 1 damage.

Edge of Eternities brought us a bunch of new Kavu, including Vaultguard Trooper. This five-mana Kavu Soldier will help me to keep from being hellbent (no cards in hand). On my end step if I control two or more tapped creatures I may discard my hand and draw two cards.

Possibility Technician had me hoping it would be a callout to Possibility Storm, but it's just a repeatable source of impulse draw. When it or another Kavu I control enters I'll exile the top card of my library. For as long as that card remains exiled, I may play it if I control a Kavu. This deck is nearly all Kavu, so that shouldn't be a problem.

The new legendary Kavu in Edge of Eternities is Tannuk. They are represented by two cards, the mono-Red Tannuk, Steadfast Second and the 2-color Tannuk, Memorial Ensign. The former is a haste enabler and will give my artifacts and red spells Warp at a cost of two and a red. Warp looks to be a very powerful ability, letting you cheat out big creatures cheaply and easily. The latter is a Kavu Pilot with a landfall trigger that lets me ping each opponent and draw a card if it's the second time this ability has resolved this turn.

Tannuk, Memorial Ensign is good enough to build around, but he doesn't care about Kavu in the slightest. I also wouldn't be able to run Radiant Kavu in a 2/c Tannuk EDH deck.

Kindred Kavu

I have to mention that in the spirit of precon decks, this deck has a backup commander you can swap in for a slightly different play experience. That commander is Karona, False God, a 5/5 Legendary Avatar with haste and a pretty neat party trick. At the beginning of each player's upkeep that player untapped Karona and gains control of it. Whenever Karona attacks, the attacking player gets to choose a creature type and those creatures get +3/+3 until end of turn. You'll forgive me for not wanting this deck to be Karona Kindred Kavu, if only for the acronym that deck name would inspire.

You'll note when you look through the list that for once I actually decided to be strict about my creature types. With the exception of Karona, this deck is exclusively made up of Kavu. I've got a decent amount of creature type support and the staples I lean on when deckbuilding. Being in White and Blue lets me run one mana interaction and stack interaction that a Gruul deck wouldn't have access to, but I'm not sure that puts this deck up into bracket 3.

Morophon Kindred Kavu | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Morophon, the Boundless

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Bloodfire Kavu
• 1 Defiler of Instinct
• 1 Firemaw Kavu
• 1 Flametongue Kavu
• 1 Hunting Kavu
• 1 Karona, False God
• 1 Kavaron Skywarden
• 1 Kavu Climber
• 1 Kavu Mauler
• 1 Kavu Monarch
• 1 Kavu Predator
• 1 Kavu Recluse
• 1 Memorial Team Leader
• 1 Molecular Modifier
• 1 Possibility Technician
• 1 Pygmy Kavu
• 1 Radiant Kavu
• 1 Slimy Kavu
• 1 Tannuk, Memorial Ensign
• 1 Tannuk, Steadfast Second
• 1 Terrapact Intimidator
• 1 Tundra Kavu
• 1 Vaultguard Trooper
• 1 Yavimaya Kavu

• Instants (16)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Aetherspouts
• 1 Akroma's Will
• 1 Arcane Denial
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Constant Mists
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Kindred Summons
• 1 Moment's Peace
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Swan Song
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Camaraderie
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Farseek
• 1 In Garruk's Wake
• 1 Kindred Charge
• 1 Kindred Dominance
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Shamanic Revelation

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Kavu Lair
• 1 Kindred Discovery
• 1 Shared Animosity

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Akroma's Memorial
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Chromatic Orrery
• 1 Herald's Hornfoil
• 1 Slate of Ancestry
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Stoneforge Masterwork
• 1 Vanquisher's Banner

• Lands (37)
• 13 Forest
• 13 Mountain
• 1 Bountiful Promenade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Spectator Seating
• 1 Spire Garden
• 1 Training Center
• 1 Undergrowth Stadium

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If you wanted to move to a 2/c deck under Tannuk, Memorial Ensign, you could still run nearly all of the Kavu I've included in this list. Tannuk is really a landfall deck, not a Kavu deck, so it isn't a great choice if you want to explore this creature type, but you run Kavu as a subtheme and have a good time in lower powered pods.

I don't think it makes a lot of sense to try to tune this list up, but you could load in three of your favorite game changers and have a bracket three deck. I might pick a few cards that pair well with specific Kavu. Basilisk Collar and Loxodon Warhammer go nicely with Bloodfire Kavu to gain a ton of life and with the former it will have deathtouch so you'll also wipe the board.

Early Results

I was able to get this list into a game with my weekly Thursday night Tabletop Simulator playgroup. It's a group that generally plays lower powered decks, even though playing online gives us the freedom to load in any deck and any cards we like.

The deck did very well, coming achingly close to getting the win, only thwarted by the combination of lifegain from The Wind Crystal and a well-timed Inkshield. I mostly flew under the radar, never mounting too scary a boardstate and managing to dodge one boardwipe with Heroic Intervention.

The all-star of the game was Possibility Technician, which should be the first card you put into any Kavu Kindred deck. If you'll nearly always control a Kavu, there's no real downside. The second best card might have been Karona, False God, which was exiled and available to me thanks to Possibility Technician. Karona let swing all out for over 60 damage but the player who had that lifegain was able to bounce back easily.

I ended up conceding after drawing 19 cards with a Pygmy Kavu but I was at 5 life and the last remaining opponent had over 50 life. I had an In Garruk's Wake, Aetherize and Aetherspouts in hand, but it was late and I didn't think it was worth drawing out what felt like an inevitable loss. My buddy was sitting on 2 boardwipes so it would have been a while before things wrapped up.

One of the guys pointed out that I might have had a way to get there with commander damage, as I already had 7 and Morophon has a base power of 6, but I didn't see it happening. It would take all my mana just to get my commander out when adding in commander tax.

The other decks in the game were a budget Tannuk, Memorial Ensign deck, a Marchesa, the Black Rose deck, and the winning deck, Ardbert, Warrior of Justice. The thing that put Ardbert over the top at the very end was a Distinguished Conjurer, which when combined with the double life gain and the Inkshield ended up gaining them something like 38 life.

All in all, it was a pretty good game with lots of back and forths. The biggest takeaway I might have is that I might slot in a few Islands, Plains, and Swamps. At one point I was fine with my colors thanks to a Chromatic Orrery, but after that color fixer got destroyed moving into the late game, it was a challenge to see how I'd cast some of the spells I was drawing into.

Final Thoughts

I've been playing more lower-powered EDH in the past year or two and this deck felt pretty good for the playgroup I was in. Many of you might look over this big pile of Kavu and never even consider building a deck like this in paper. I think it's really good to have at least one very fair, lower powered deck in your arsenal, and this is the kind of deck that can fill that role for you.

I was definitely impressed by the variety of interesting things Kavu bring to a game. My biggest blunder might have been using interaction on the Marchesa player when I happened to be the player at the highest life total. They swung the team at me, and not wanting to be a punching bag I used a Pongify and my Hunting Kavu to remove a few of the attackers. I probably should have just taken that damage and left them with the creatures to be able to help deal with the lifegain deck.

My tablemate's Tannuck, Memorial Ensign definitely pushed out a ton of damage in our test game. They "went easy" on us at one point, not wanting to kill anyone too early. They also left me alive at 2 life in the late game and I ended up killing them on my turn because I didn't see a way that they wouldn't have killed me if they got another turn. Tannuck is the kind of deck that pushes out damage equally, preventing them from keeping a useful tablemate at a low life total alive if they're facing a more dangerous archenemy they need to take down. Once I was at under 5 life, they should have just finished me off, because they'd have to not play their deck on their next turn to keep me alive.

I don't expect I'll build this list in paper, but it was fun to play and I definitely would recommend it if you play lower-powered EDH and like building around odd old creature types.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!