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The Lord of Pain is a very strong burn commander inMagic: The Gathering’sCommander format. It was the secondary commander of the Endless Punishment pre-constructed deck released as a part of the Duskmourn set. While it was a part of the precon, this guide will cover The Lord of Pain as its own commander rather than being used in Endless Punishment.
The Lord of Pain is all about spreading burn damage to all of your opponents, punishing them for casting spells while you sit back and enjoy the chaos. If you like burn with a side of politics, The Lord of Pain is the perfect commander for you.
Magda, the the Hoardmaster
Sin prodder
x9 Mountain
x8 Swamp
Tainted Peak
Witch’s Clinic
The decklistconsists of 32 creatures, five sorceries, four instants, 11 artifacts, 13 enchantments,and34 lands. The majority of the card lineup either deals burn damage or causes extra burn damage to be done to close out games quicker.
Key Cards
The Lord Of Pain
The Lord of Painis the commander of the deckand will be one of yourmain sources of constant burn damage. Since you are playing a burn deck, you don’t want your opponents gaining life, something The Lord of Pain covers by preventing opponents from gaining life (and notably not yourself).
The Lord of Pain triggersthe first time a player casts a spell. This includes yourself, and since there are almost always going to be spells being cast, you’ll be able to burn a different player. You can choose which opponent to target with burn, andthat’s where the political side of Lord of Pain comes in, allowing you to leverage burn damage to make deals with your opponents.
Sower Of Discord
Youwant to spread burn damage around evenlyto make sure no one feels too comfortable, and you can close out games.Sower of Discordis the perfect way to turn burning one opponent into two. Since all damage dealt to one player is done to the other,you can target two players while working together with the opponent not under Sower of Discord’s effect.
Alternatively, if one opponent is out of the game, youcan use Sower of Discord’s effect on yourself to dissuade one of your opponents from attacking you. Sower of Discord is a great card to use to start alliances with, as well as making it easier to take two opponents out of the game at once.
Gisa, The Hellraiser
The Lord of Pain willtrigger a crime every time the effect activates, which makesGisa, the Hellraiserthe perfect support card for the deck. While there are a lot of creatures in the deck, there aren’t a lot of ones that make for good blockers.Gisa, the Hellraiser willgive you an army of tokensto utilize both offensively and defensively.
Gisa’s effect only triggers once a turn, but with The Lord of Pain on the battlefield,you are committing crimes every turn. This means within one turn cycle, you will be able tountap with six 2/2 Zombie tokensthat get both +1/+1 and menace. These can help you bring life totals down even lower thanks to menace forcing your opponents to have more blockers.
Descent Into Avernus
One of the strongest burn and ramp cards,Descent into Avernusis one of the easiest ways to accelerate rapidly through the game.Rakdos (black/red) can struggle with mana generation, so the Treasure tokens Descent Into Avernus creates help you to cast your higher mana spells.
The burn damage that Descent into Avernus does snowballs quickly, constantly getting two damage larger for each of your upkeeps. While theburn happens evenly to all players, when combined with cards that deal extra burn damage to your opponents, you canburn your opponents out of the game before Descent into Avernus burns you.
Since the burn damage Descent into Avernus does affect you, too, you want to have some ways to gain life to ensure you don’t accidentally end the game in a draw. If you play Descent into Avernus too early, there is a chance you’ll lose the game before your opponents do - but sometimes that’s part of the fun.
How To Play The Deck
The Lord of Pain isall about sowing chaosand sending burn damage to all your opponents.It alsooperates like a politics deck, having you make deals with your opponents in exchange for not sending burn damage their way.
The deck has no shortage of other burn cards on top of The Lord of Pain to make sure you can close out games.Kaervek the Mercilessacts as a second copy of The Lord of Pain, with the same effect but for every spell instead of just the first.Wheel of Misfortunehas the potential for card draw and high burn damage, andPainful Quandaryforces opponents to lose five life or discard a card when they cast a spell.
you’re able to take everyone out of the game with the combo ofHeartless Hidetsuguandanything that burns for the damage lost that turn. Heartless Hidetsugu can tap itself to make every opponent lose half their life. Then, the other side of the effect triggers, causing your opponents to be burnt for the other half. Cards that can do this includeArchfiend of Despair, Solhpim, Mayhem Dominus, and Bloodletter of Aclazotz.
Onedownside of the deck is that it is low on defensive creatures. As such, you want cards that slow your opponent down. Since you don’t care about attacking,Silent Arbiteris perfect since it only allows one creature to attack or block every combat.Crawlspaceis one-sided, only letting your opponents attack you with no more than two creatures.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is through burn damage. The majority of the cards in the deck slowly burn your opponents, and in some cases, deal massive amounts. This is further pushed by noncreature damage doubling (or tripling) with cards likeCity on Fire, Dictate of the Twin Gods, Fiery Emancipation,andFurnace of Rath. The odds of you winning through combat are slim (but not impossible), so burn is going to be what you’re aiming for.
