Death is not the end inMagic: The Gatheringand that’s especially true inDuskmourn: House of Horror’s Death Toll Commander deck. Even when a card is knocked into the graveyard, it still serves a purpose, helping to propel new cards to the fore thanks to the deck’s many delirium triggers, or it pops back into play thanks to its many reanimation effects.
Death Toll brings quite a few ways to both sacrifice your cards for the greater good and then return them to play stronger than ever. Here are the ten cards to really look for in Death Toll.
10Vile Mutilator
An Awful Way To Go
Yes, seven mana is a lot to pay for a 6/5 flying trample, especially one thatrequires either an enchantment or creature sacrifice. But if you’ve got creatures, enchantments, and mana to spare, Vile Mutilator can prove itself to be a blessing in demonic disguise.
The key to Vile Multilator is how it forceseach opponent to sacrifice both an enchantmentanda creature. That’s two for your one, and that’s a multiplicative bonus that increases with each other player at the table. Enchantments are a relatively common sight in multiplayer commander formats, so you can get huge value out of this demon.
9Ursine Monstrosity
Someone Forgot To Give This Bear Its Face Skin
With the amount of mill in Death Toll, odds are Ursine Monstrosity is going to get at least some bonus power each time it attacks. That technically makes ita steal at three mana,trampling over an opponent every turn as an indestructible monster.
Ursine Monstronisty’s indestructibility (on the attack at least) means it’ll stick around for a while, but it also means thatyou’re going to be angering the table with your bear monster. If you may, try to keep Ursine Monstrosity in your hand until it’s time to put the pressure on.
8Demonic Covenant
There Are Worse Bargains To Be Made
You’ll at least get one 5/5 demon with Demonc Covenant. After that, the odds of you getting another steadily decrease. Even the most well-shuffled deck will eventually mill two lands or two creatures when those are the most numerous cards in the deck, sothe length of this covenant is limited.
But so long as it sticks around for a few turns, that’sseveral 5/5 flying demons, and when they attack, you draw cards and lose life. A pretty good deal, if you ask me.
Demonic Convenant is alsoa Kindred spell, which helps Death Toll activate delirium much more easily.
7Demolisher Spawn
Terrifying In Its Simplicity
There’s not a lot to Demolisher Spawn. It’s a 7/7 for seven mana with trample and haste, meaningit’ll likely surprise an opponent the turn it comes into play and attacks them. It’s also got a Delirium trigger that gives your other attacking creatures +4/+4, meaning it’ll further surprise your opponents when your generally timid critters turn into terrifying monsters.
Demolisher Spawn is simply attaching a big conditional buff to an efficient body and using it to win. And since Death Toll should be able to achieve delirium relatively easily, it’sa great card to ride to victory.
6Polluted Cistern / Dim Oubliette
One Is A Bathroom, The Other A Play Room
Polluted Cistern / Dim Oubliette isone of the better room enchantmentsadded in Duskmourn.Either side cast separately helps Death Toll’s overall plan, either milling cards or dealing damage while other cards mill. But it’s when both sides are played simultaneously that this card shines.
Play both, youmill three cards,return a creaturefrom your graveyard to the battlefield, andpotentially deal a bunch of damageto each opponentall in one fell swoop.
5Formless Genesis
You’ll Never Eat An Eggplant Again
Since lands are almost always the most numerous card type in any deck,any mill strategy(including the one in Death Toll)is going to send a lot of lands to your graveyard. Formless Genesis produces a token that gets bigger with every land in your graveyard, and that token has deathtouch.
But what really puts Formless Genesis over the top is its retrace ability. Not only does the created token keep getting larger with lands pitched into the graveyard, butanother also keeps popping up with every land you draw.
4Deluge Of Doom
Hornets Are Truly The Worst
Removing a lot of creatures, or even most creatures from the board is typically an expensive proposition. The cheapest one can usually do so effectively is around four mana, soDeluge of Doom pricing in at three mana makes it a pretty great deal.
Death Toll concerns itself with ensuring as many card types are in its graveyard as possible, soodds are Deluge of Doom will wind up a -4/-4 or even a -5/-5by the time you want to play it. That’s a steal at three mana.
3Rendmaw, Creaking Nest
As Scarecrows go, Rendmaw is pretty funny. As soon as it enters, everyone gets a crow that has to attack with every turn. After you manage to cast a few cards with two or more types,everyone has a murder of crows that are all forced to attack each other. And by the time the table is whittled down that those crows must attack you, Rendmaw has reach to start eating those crows one by one.
Just about the only problem with Rendmaw is how few cards actually have two major types on them. There arejust 17 cards in Death Toll that can trigger a Rendmaw to produce crows, which means you’re just not likely to get more than a few crows out in any given game.
2Into The Pit
Off You Go!
The usual price of drawing a card in black is one life.Paying a non-land permanent to draw a card seems like runaway inflation, but there area few things to help mitigate the sticker shock.
First, you get topeek at the card you could potentially draw, allowing you to gauge whether it’s worth the sacrifice cost. Second, you couldjust sacrifice a tokengenerated by Grist or Formless Genesis. Third,maybe sacrificing Solemn Simulacrum is just what you need to achieve delirium. Add it all together, and it’s Into The Pit we go!
1Winter, Cynical Opportunist
Deliriously Good
Being able to reuse a card that has already expended itself is usually pretty good in Magic.Being able to reuse many cards is even better. Winter, Cynical Opportunist, provides the opportunity to keep replaying cards that have died so long as you maintain a state of delirium.
Doing so with Winter isn’t all that hard, considering he can continually mill three cards per turn so long as he keeps attacking. Deathtouch makes him more likely to survive (or at least trade) whenever he does, but you’ll probably want tokeep Winter around to keep reanimating yourgraveyard.
