Some Commander decks explore brand-new strategies. Others use popular themes with minor twists. The Death Toll precon belongs in the latter group, as it’s your traditional Golgari (black-green) reanimator deck.
But that’s fine too! There’s a reason why this is such a popular theme. It’s just so satisfying bringing back enormous creatures from your graveyard ahead of schedule. In this article, we’re going to talk about everything you should know about this deck, including its theme, decklists, new cards, and more.
So, without further ado, let’s dive right in.
Fill Your Graveyard, Bring Back Creatures
The two lines on the packaging are “fill your graveyard” and “reanimate monsters”. So, that’s exactly what a typical reanimator deck does.
If you’re a newer player you might not know what a reanimator deck is. That’s a strategy where you somehow put powerful but expensive creatures, such as Sheoldred, Whispering One into your graveyard, so you can bring them back with cards like Dread Return.
Sure, that takes some work, but you’re spending less mana than you would if you actually cast those creatures from your hand.
If that sounds like fun to you, then you’ll probably enjoy the Death Toll precon. One more note – you might’ve noticed the blue mana symbol on the packaging. That’s a mistake, and the deck is green and black. That’s only a digital mistake, and the precon is printed with proper mana symbols.
Death Toll Decklist
Death Toll New Cards
A 2/5 deathtouch for four mana is nice, but as always with commanders, we’re most interested in the text box.
The first line of text (milling three on attacks) is useful in a graveyard based deck. It also enables the Winter’s key ability, which is tied to delirium. That’s a mechanic that cares if you have 4 or more different card types in your graveyard. (You can find detailed delirium rules here.)
So, at the beginning of your end step, you may exile any number of cards from your graveyard. The only restriction is that there must be at least four card types among them. If you do that, you may chose a permanent card exiled this way, and you put it directly onto the battlefield.
So, you need to do some work. Both during deckbuilding and during the game. But once you do so, you get an extremely powerful payoff. You get to reanimate not just a creature, but any permanent. As you can imagine, this can enable some broken plays, so Winter certainly packs a punch. (Hopefully, your opponents won’t be running too much graveyard hate.)
With that said, let’s take a look at the other new cards.
Death Toll Upgrade Ideas
If you’ve read my other precon guides, you know I like to discuss a few card that could work nicely with commander. If you’re sure you want to acquire this deck and upgrade it, you might want to get these cards right away, so you’ll be able to start with upgrading the moment you receive the Death Toll precon.
So, here are some potential additions.
Rise of the Witch-king
In Commander, it’s always a good idea to prepare a plan B for when you’re unable to access your commander for some reason. Thus, I like to include cards that use similar effects as my commander.
Winter is bringing back creatures, but perhaps your opponents dealt with it multiple times and its Commander tax is now too high. There’s a great reanimator target in your graveyard, but you can’t get it back. That’s when Rise of the Witch-King comes in.
Sure, it’s more expensive than something like Reanimate, but you are not losing life, and everybody needs to sacrifice a creature. This can be quite a powerful effect, although it depends on which strategies your playgroup uses. If they’re all on tokens, then this can be a bit weak of an effect.
Six
Next up, here’s Six, which is quickly becoming a staple in green Commander decks. It just does so much, and it fits perfectly in the Death Toll precon.
Similarly to Winter, it mills three cards on attacks. On top of that, you can also return a land card to your hand. Who doesn’t like some good ol’ card advantage?
Since you’ll be filling up your graveyard with this deck, you’ll also get a lot of mileage with its last ability. Six allows you to cast nonland permanent cards from your graveyard by discarding lands from your hand. This kinda adds your graveyard to your hand. In a graveyard-based deck, this effect is extremely powerful.
Grist, Voracious Larva
What I like about Grist is that it’s just so cheap. It’s easy to find a single mana left over on one of your turns to put this deathtoucher into play. You’ll probably be able to deter some attacks thanks to it being able to take out most attackers.
However, once you bring it or another creature into play from your graveyard, you can flip it into a planeswalker by paying just one green mana. If you do, you get quite an useful planeswalker, which can either be a Naturalize or further fill your graveyard. The ultimate is just an icing on the cake.
If you like on-theme cards, that are incredibly efficient, you’re going to love playing with this little insect.
More Duskmourn Commander Stuff
If you’re looking for more details about the other decks, don’t forget to check Duskmourn Commander decks. There’s bound to be something you’d like, especially if you’re a fan of the horror genre.
Until next time, enjoy playing Magic, and may you always reach delirium without much trouble.