Murders at Karlov Manor (MKM) Limited Over and Underperformers Guide

Hey everyone! We’re a few days into our investigation of the Murders at Karlov Manor and it has been an interesting journey so far. Crazy theories have been thrown back and forth all while people are being murdered by some dude’s Dog Walker. While that is an entire story to get into, I’m just here to update you on which cards have been under and over performing their expectations in draft.

It’s important to note that this is to discuss how cards are doing compared to the predictions that I made during preview season. It would be pretty pointless to sit here tooting my own horn about calling a bomb rare a bomb or being able to tell that Ghost Quarter is terrible.

I’ve been keeping the Tier List updated every couple of days as things unfold so I won’t be listing the numerical changes here. It’s more important to look at why the cards are performing as they are than the numbers anyway.

Murders at Karlov Manor (MKM) Limited Guides

• 📈 Tier List 🆕
• 🧪 Alchemy: Karlov Manor 🆕
• ☀ White Review
• 💧 Blue Review
• 💀 Black Review
• 🔥 Red Review
• 🌳 Green Review
• ⭐ Multicolored | Part 2
• 🏔 Artifacts and Lands Review
• 👥 Special Guests
• 📃 The List | Part 2

• MKM Limited Meta Report: Learning From the Best Players Using Draft Data 🆕
• Draft Guide
• Best Commons and Uncommons, Hidden Gems, and Trap Cards
• Over and Underperformers
• Archetypes and Example Decks
• Theorycrafting
• Combos and Synergies
• Removal Guide
• Sealed and Prerelease
• Mechanics

Overperformers

Escape Tunnel

Buy on TCGplayer $0.15 Buy on Card Kingdom $0.35 view card details

Evolving Wilds has always been a solid limited card, no matter what the format, as long as you are playing two or more colors in your deck. It goes up in value when you’re trying to splash and is amazing in any deck where you are trying to do a whole bunch of shenanigans.

There is a massive delta in power level between a lot of the gold cards and the monocolored cards in this set. That means that you should probably be splashing more often than you are and this is the easiest way to pull that off.

On top of that, you can give a disguise creature unblockable and flip it up to Lava Axe your opponent. While I’ll talk about it more in my draft guide, there have been plenty of packs where I took this first pick and wasn’t upset about it.

Doppelgang

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This has felt like the best way to go over the top in any matchup. If this can’t take over the board for eight mana, not much else would. I have done some disgusting things with it including casting it for three targeting Tireless Tracker and it doesn’t matter what else I targeted because I had four Tireless Trackers out in limited.

Being able to hit any permanent is a huge boon since it can make multiple Detective's Satchel, Makeshift Binding, or even let you go crazy with a bunch of cases.

Case of the Gateway Express

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The white aggressive decks are the only thing holding the crazy soup decks in check. They also tend to run over most of the mediocre decks before they get a chance to set up and this card is a huge reason why that happens. Its cheap, kills a creature, can often be solved the turn it comes down, and pumps the whole team of dorks.

If you’re on the play, this feels disgustingly unfair. Even on the draw, it usually helps you catch back up. I had three of them with two Case File Auditors and I felt like I was dunking on a Nerf hoop.

Detective’s Satchel

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As long as you are in the right deck, then this is an amazing card. Luckily the entire theme of this color pair is about taking advantage of what this card does. A continuous stream of Thopters is hard to play around with a premium being put on evasion. It even replaces itself twice, now that’s a bag worth the price.

Person of Interest

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Fellow Draft Lab member TaJoordan brought up an interesting point about this card. The three-drop slot is so stuffed from morphs and quality cards in the set that it makes good four drops better. There is less competition for that spot and you are spending your mana a little more efficiently than someone playing another morph on turn four.

Outside of that, this set really rewards you for going wide. It’s great whether it is getting multiple Neighborhood Guardian triggers, enabling Case of the Gateway Express, or just making their single target removal worse.

Underperformers

Living Conundrum

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In theory this sounded like a great way to set up for a win. In practice, it’s very rare that games come down to people hitting the bottom of their decks. It’s still a hexproof blocker with a high ceiling, but you can usually do better.

Connecting the Dots

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The plan for this was to drop it early and then sac it for approximately a million cards later. It even sounded decent to be a Divination type effect later on when you have a couple small creatures to run in. The problem has been that it is at its best in an aggressive deck, but you also should just be casting something to kill them such as On the Job instead.

Case of the Gorgon’s Kiss

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One of the biggest things people have missed on this is that it specifically says creature cards so it will ignore it if you kill a creature token.

It also is having trouble finding a great home. If you’re Golgari, you aren’t likely to be the early aggressor so you’re going to have trouble getting value out of the first part of the case even if you are more likely able to self-mill your way to flipping it. Rakdos sets up good situations for it, but doesn’t feel as good as the other aggressive decks. It really ends up feeling more like an Orzhov secret gold card to me.

On top of all that, this punishes blocking when there are a ton of things that disincentive you to block in this format.

Assemble the Players

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This is another one that finds itself in a weird spot. There are certainly times that this is your two drop and things just lineup right off of the top of your deck. There are also games where it’s a two mana do nothing that sits there all game. Obviously, you should consider your deck before putting it in, but sometimes the cards aren’t in the right order.

The problem lies in that you could have trouble keeping up against another aggressive deck who is going all in while you spent two mana on this. On the other hand, the possibility of drawing an extra dork a turn doesn’t do enough against the crazy over the top decks.

Rope

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None of the Clue equipment cards have been particularly good, but this one has been downright atrocious. The format is just too mana intense to be able to support an equipment that costs three mana to equip. It seems like what it does should line up well, but then you get your creature Murdered or bounced leaving you too far behind to come back.

Wrap Up

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back in a few days for MWM and a couple days after that with my comprehensive draft guide for Murders at Karlov Manor. Until then, stay classy people!

I’m always open to feedback, let me know what you loved, what you hated, or just send dog pics. You can contact me at:

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