Maulfist Squad Commanders: Top Pairings to Amplify Its Effect

Maulfist Squad Commanders: Top Pairings to Amplify Its Effect

In TCG ·

Maulfist Squad card art from Kaladesh

Image courtesy of Scryfall.com

Best Commanders to Maximize Maulfist Squad's Fabricate Power

Kaladesh gave us Maulfist Squad as a clever little black artifact creature with a big promise. For an entering play, it delivers a choice: put a +1/+1 counter on itself or create a 1/1 Servo artifact creature token. That simple line—Menace and Fabricate 1—creates a surprisingly deep playground for Commander deckbuilding. The squad sticks around as a sturdy 3/1 on turn three, but its true value blooms when you lean into its two-track potential: grow with counters or flood the board with servos.🧙‍♂️🔥💎

When you pair Maulfist Squad with the right commander, you’re not just playing a single creature—you’re weaving a strategy that scales with the table. The card’s kalaidoscopic potential shines brightest when your choice of partner amplifies either the counter engine, the servo token swarm, or both. Below are five standout captains that consistently tilt Maulfist Squad into power-fantasy territory, each in its own flavor: counters, tokens, reanimation, and aristocrat synergies. Getting them right means your Maulfist Squad can swing from a nimble threat to a battlefield-wide lockdown in a single cast. ⚔️

1) Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice — Proliferate to the skies

Atraxa is the quintessential proliferate commander, a true north star for any build that wants to stack +1/+1 counters and push wide, resilient boards. With Maulfist Squad, the Fabricate choice to add a counter on entry becomes a perfect springboard for Atraxa’s global proliferation. Every time you untap and add counters to your Maulfist Squad, Atraxa can push those counters outward, turning a humble 3/1 into a proliferatable behemoth over the course of a few turns. And if you lean into Servo tokens, the proliferate effect helps you grow the board and your life total in a way that’s as satisfying as assembling a flawless combo in a vintage arcade. Expect long games where every counter tick feels earned—and every servo token feels like a tiny victory drum. 🧙‍♂️🎲

Practical tip: lean into a +1/+1-counter subtheme on a few other creatures to maximize the value of every proliferate trigger. Atraxa isn’t shy about showing you the layout: counters on Maulfist Squad fuel larger swings later, while Servo tokens provide a steady stream of bodies for trading, blocking, or churning into advantage via sac outlets. The result is a mid-to-late game explode that can swing from “okay board” to “I control the game” in a single big turn.

2) Breya, Etherium Shaper — Artifact synergy and relentless value

Breya centers artifact-centric play, and Maulfist Squad is a natural partner in that ecosystem. The combination leans into a cycle: fabricate gives you immediate board presence, Breya loves artifacts as a resource, and the token economy from Maulfist Squad acts as fuel for Breya’s Carmen Sandiego-level value plays. You can generate Servo tokens to feed Breya’s ability to generate card draw or direct damage, while Maulfist Squad grows with counters or more tokens as you carefully manage your board state. The result is a tempo/armory engine that keeps pressure on opponents while you stack artifacts and assemble inevitability. 🔧💎

Breya decks tend to love disruption, recursion, and the ability to sac for value. Maulfist Squad becomes a versatile entry point: it can be a sacrifice fodder, a servo production line, or a counter battery, all feeding Breya’s win conditions. It’s not merely about raw stats; it’s about building a resilient, modular engine that scales with each passing turn.

3) Meren of Clan Nel Toth — Graveyard gravity meets fabricate momentum

In a Maulfist Squad shell, Meren brings a graveyard-centric backbone that rewards you for creatures leaving the battlefield. The Fabricate path—growing through a +1/+1 counter or a Servo token—pairs nicely with Meren’s recursive engine. When Maulfist Squad docks into the battlefield and you choose to place counters on it, that additional value persists even if a later wipe clears your board, because Meren can pull a Maulfist Squad back into play or reuse a Servo token from the graveyard. The interplay between tokens and recursion creates durable value that can outlast the action at the table. 🧠⚰️

For the game plan, aim to protect Maulfist Squad and ensure you have enough targets in your graveyard to fuel Meren’s return spam. The result is a resilient, board-swinging engine that turns even modest openings into extended control by repeatedly reusing your key pieces.

4) Teysa Karlov — Doubling the dance of tokens and triggers

Teysa Karlov is the token engine you want when you’re chasing a mass Servo board or want to maximize every unit that Maulfist Squad can conjure. Her presence effectively magnifies the value of each token you create, turning a single Servo into a small army over a few turns. The synergy is as clean as it is brutal: Maulfist Squad enters, you fabricate a Servo or add a counter, and Teysa’s effects layer on top, multiplying the impact of board presence and triggers. The table’s life totals feel the pressure as you accumulate a swarm that’s hard to answer, and every servo is a reminder that timing is everything in Commander. 🥇🎭

Pairing advice: protect your life total early, then push into a tempo-forward plan that uses tokens to overwhelm opponents before they can stabilize. Teysa makes your Servos do more work for you per card played, turning small advantages into reliable board leverage.

5) Ghave, Guru of Spores — Sacrifice outlets and +1/+1 economy

Ghave anchors a classic archetype: creature sac engines that convert small bodies into big value. Maulfist Squad’s fabricate option creates a Servo that can become fuel for Ghave’s engine, while the +1/+1 counters you can place on Maulfist Squad fuel a growing army that can be sacrificed for further value. The interplay rewards smart sequencing: generate Servos, grow Maulfist Squad with counters, then sacrifice for a cascade of value—drawing into more threats and more counters. It’s a satisfying loop that scales into the late game, especially when you have access to sacrifice outlets or a Delver-like board state that turns every sacrifice into a win condition. 🔥💎

In practice, this pairing rewards decisive plays and careful resource management. Maulfist Squad provides a steady stream of bodies and a potential counter-upgrade, while Ghave ensures you always have a path to convert those bodies into momentum and inevitability.

Maulfist Squad isn’t merely a budget or a filler pick; it’s a hinge piece for a surprisingly deep Commander puzzle. Its Kaladesh roots remind us that innovation often comes from constraints—turning a 3/1 into an engine with the right captain is a ritual performers’ dream. And whether you’re assembling a proliferate storm with Atraxa, a token-doubling machine with Teysa, or a sac-outlet powerhouse with Ghave, the thrill of watching Maulfist Squad grow—either through counters or servos—feels like discovering a hidden gear in a beloved clockwork toy. 🎨⚙️

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Maulfist Squad

Maulfist Squad

{3}{B}
Creature — Human Artificer

Menace

Fabricate 1 (When this creature enters, put a +1/+1 counter on it or create a 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature token.)

"Nice invention there. Looks real fragile."

ID: 5e4cd13a-66b6-4c65-a5a0-82f93145d16a

Oracle ID: 2a8ec988-b513-4e66-b7f5-b2196b4bbff2

Multiverse IDs: 417664

TCGPlayer ID: 122927

Cardmarket ID: 292723

Colors: B

Color Identity: B

Keywords: Menace, Fabricate

Rarity: Common

Released: 2016-09-30

Artist: Matt Stewart

Frame: 2015

Border: black

EDHRec Rank: 28235

Penny Rank: 13222

Set: Kaladesh (kld)

Collector #: 91

Legalities

  • Standard — not_legal
  • Future — not_legal
  • Historic — legal
  • Timeless — legal
  • Gladiator — legal
  • Pioneer — legal
  • Modern — legal
  • Legacy — legal
  • Pauper — legal
  • Vintage — legal
  • Penny — legal
  • Commander — legal
  • Oathbreaker — legal
  • Standardbrawl — not_legal
  • Brawl — legal
  • Alchemy — not_legal
  • Paupercommander — legal
  • Duel — legal
  • Oldschool — not_legal
  • Premodern — not_legal
  • Predh — not_legal

Prices

  • USD: 0.03
  • USD_FOIL: 0.20
  • EUR: 0.05
  • EUR_FOIL: 0.10
  • TIX: 0.04
Last updated: 2025-11-20