Wrong turn here and a scary night!
Art:Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern
by Yongjae Choi
Table of Contents
Todays Featured Commander is:
Tergrid is one of the meanest commander decks of all time, taking all of your opponents permanents and making them yours! This deck is as mono-black as they come full to the brim of destruction, sacrifice and reanimation effects. This deck will not make the most popular at the table but is good at mid-high power tables, but im sure your opponents would appreciate a rule 0 discussion with this one!
The Deck:
Tergrid, God of Fright Sacrifice!
Why Tergrid, God of Fright?
Tergrid is the key portion of our deck while we have a ton of combos and a bunch of ways to win on our own why not clear the board and get all of their creatures as well another powerful effect of Tegrid is that we get the cards that are discarded as well! We typically only ever cast Tergrid as a creature and rarely cast her for her artifact side. Tergrid enables us to play a ton of cards that sacrifice our opponents creatures since we can easily get them! Overall Tergrid is a really powerful commander that may not make your opponents very happy but is a very powerful deck!
Deck Overview:
Since we can get our opponents creatures on discard or on sacrifice our creatures do both! Cunning Lethemancer
is a cheap early creature that can begin contributing to the theft of our opponents permanents pretty early! Fleshbag Marauder
and Merciless Executioner
are both great cheap ways to get a few permanents and with reanimation. Plaguecrafter
is really the best of both worlds for our deck being either a sacrifice or a discard! Mindslicer
is one of our best creatures and an absolute all star especially when we can sacrifice it and get every permanent from our opponents hand! Sadistic Hypnotist
is another all star creature in our deck since it is not only a sac outlet but a great way for us to get more cards from our opponents! The Haunt of Hightower
is not only a big creature but a discard outlet himself and also benefits heavily from us making our opponents discard. Whether evoked or hard-casted Grief
this is a great way to get a discard and grab that permanent for ourself! Reassembling Skeleton
is a great sacrifice target especially when we have other creatures like Butcher of Malakir
and we can easily recur it a bunch of times and steal more permanents. Since we are so heavy on swamps Crypt Ghast
can be an absolute game-changer when it hits the field since we can make an absolute crazy amount of mana!
Our planeswalker package is small but has a couple sweet cards! Liliana of the Veil
is a planeswalker that we rarely ult, but her plus being a discard and her minus being a sacrifice is just perfect especially when we have Tergrid on the field. Professor Onyx
is typically used as a combo piece but her minus sacrificing our opponents biggest creature is super helpful for our overall gameplan! We typically don’t ult Onyx but in the games that I did it was absolutely devastating to our opponents and we absolutely took over the game!
Our spell package is full of sacrifice discard and removal! Culling the Weak
is a sweet pseudo ramp spell and a sac outlet! Village Rites
is once again another sac outlet with the added benefit of drawing cards we are mono-black so drawing cards does not come easy! One of our “counterspells” is Imp's Mischief
which is a great way and acts almost as protection for Tergrid. With Tergrid on the field Smallpox
can give us a ton of permanents for only BB mana! Since we steal so many creatures it is very easy for us to get the cities blessing so Vona's Hunger
can be a great boardwipe to get an absolute ton of permanents. Virtus's Maneuver
is a sweet card and we typically always choose Foe and use it as another card to discard and get more stuff with Tergrid! Dark Deal
is one of the best cards in our deck and if we can resolve it with Tergrid on the field we can get very close to winning the game. In testing when I casted dark deal I was able to get 10 permanents from my opponents!
Mithril Coat
is one of the best cards in our deck and it is a great piece of protection for Tergrid who is very often targeted since she is the key portion of our deck! Ashnod's Altar
is a sweet sac outlet for our deck that we can use to keep casting spells and getting Tergrid triggers when we have our sac benefits on the field. The other artifacts in our deck are mostly used for combos and can be found below.
Our enchantment package is where a lot of our sacrifice benefits come from like Grave Pact
and Dictate of Erebos
which can turns our sacrifice outlets and spells into multiple steals from Tergrid. Necrogen Mists
is a consistent way every turn to get a card from our opponents hand from Tergrid. Underworld Dreams
is another great way for us to continually wittle down our opponents life, while we don’t have a ton of ways to make our opponents draw cards it is still a great way to passively do damage.
Our land base is really simple with only two nonbasics, we have Bojuka Bog
which can be used situationally to remove our opponents graveyard especially in games where the Tergrid plan hasnt been working to well. Cabal Coffers
is just a really efficient way for us to make a ton of mana since we have so many swamps!
Strengths of the Deck:
- Our opponents cards are ours
- Very easy to clear opponents boards
- Noncombat combo wins allow us to win without attacking
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to graveyard hate
- Deck is noticeably weaker without Tergrid on the field
- Not a ton of target interaction most interaction is broad or choice based
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
Our main win condition is whatever creatures we can get from forcing our opponents to discard and sacrifice their creatures. We also can take things in our own hands and win / set up for a win with these various combos!
Professor Onyx + Chain of Smog
Result: Infinite lifeloss. Infinite lifegain. Infinite lifegain triggers. Infinite magecraft triggers.
Requires: Professor Onyx on the battlefield. Chain of Smog in hand. 1B available.
Steps: Cast Chain of Smog targeting yourself Professor Onyx triggers, losing each opponent two life and gaining you 2 life Resolve Chain of Smog, copying the spell and choosing yourself as the new target Repeat from step 2
Bolas's Citadel
+ Sensei's Divining Top
Aetherflux Reservoir
Result: Infinite card draw. Infinite draw triggers. Near-infinite damage. Near-infinite lifegain. Near-infinite lifegain triggers. Near-infinite storm count.
Requires: All permanents on the battlefield. Your life total is at least two.
Steps: Activate Sensei’s Divining Top by tapping it, drawing a card and then putting Sensei’s Divining Top on top of your library Cast Sensei’s Divining Top from the top of your library by paying 1 life Aetherflux Reservoir triggers, gaining you 1 life for each spell you have cast this turn Repeat until your life total is 52 or greater Activate Aetherflux Reservoir by paying 50 life, dealing 50 damage to any target Repeat
Magus of the Coffers
+ Umbral Mantle
Result: Infinite black mana.
Requires: All permanents on the battlefield. Magus of the Coffers is not summoning sick and can tap for mana. At least six Swamps under your control. 2 to start the combo.
Steps: Attach Umbral Mantle to Magus of the Coffers Pay 2 to activate Magus of the Coffers, adding at least six B Pay 3 to activate Umbral Mantle, untapping Magus of the Coffers Repeatedly tap the Magus for mana and untap it, generating at least B per iteration
Sedgemoor Witch
+ Chain of Smog
Result: Infinite creature tokens. Infinite ETB. Infinite magecraft triggers.
Requires: Chain of Smog in hand. Sedgemoor Witch on the battlefield. 1B available.
Steps: Cast Chain of Smog by paying 1B, targeting yourself Sedgemoor Witch triggers, causing you to create a 1/1 Pest creature token Resolve Chain of Smog, discarding two cards and choosing to copy it, targeting yourself with the copy Repeat from step 2
Maralen of the Mornsong
+ Opposition Agent
Result: Players cannot draw cards. Tutor for any card in an opponent’s library during their draw step with the ability to play that card. Requires: All permanents on the battlefield.
Steps: At the beginning of your draw step, Maralen triggers, causing you to lose three life, then search your library for a card and put it into your hand During each opponent’s draw step, Maralen triggers, causing them to lose three life, then causing you to search their library for a card and exile it You may play cards exiled this way due to Opposition Agent
Peer into the Abyss
+ Underworld Dreams
Result: Kill an opponent.
Requires: Underworld Dreams on the battlefield. Peer Into the Abyss in hand. 4BBB available. An opponent has cards in their library greater than their life total.
Steps: Cast Peer Into the Abyss targeting an opponent That player loses half their life and draws half their library They are then dealt damage by Underworld Dreams equal to the amount of cards they drew That player loses the game
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
+ Peer into the Abyss
Result: Target opponent loses the game. Near-infinite lifeloss for target opponent. Near-infinite card draw for target opponent. Near-infinite draw triggers for target opponent.
Requires: Peer into the Abyss in hand. Sheoldred on the battlefield. An opponent has a library size that is at least half their life total. 4BBB available.
Steps: Cast Peer into the Abyss by paying 4BBB, causing an opponent to draw cards equal to half their library size and lose half their life total, rounded up Sheoldred’s second ability triggers for each card drawn this way Resolve the first Sheoldred trigger, causing the opponent to lose 2 life Repeat step 3 until the opponent loses the game due to having zero or less life
Magus of the Coffers + Staff of Domination
Result: Infinite black mana.
Requires: All permanents on the battlefield. Magus of the Coffers is not summoning sick and can tap for mana. At least seven Swamps under your control. 2 to start the combo.
Steps: Pay 2 to activate Magus of the Coffers, adding at least seven B Pay 3 to activate Staff of Domination’s third ability, untapping Magus of the Coffers Pay 1 to activate Staff of Domination’s first ability, untapping itself Repeatedly tap the Magus for mana and untap it, generating at least B per iteration
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse + Bolas's Citadel Sensei's Divining Top
Result: Infinite card draw. Infinite draw triggers. Near-infinite lifegain. Near-infinite lifegain triggers. Near-infinite storm count.
Requires: All permanents on the battlefield.
Steps: Activate Sensei’s Divining Top’s second ability by tapping it, causing you to draw a card and put Sensei’s Divining Top on top of your library from the battlefield Sheoldred’s first ability triggers, causing you to gain two life Cast Sensei’s Divining Top from the top of your library by paying 1 life Repeat
As you can see there an absolute ton of ways to end the game on top of all the cards we steal!
Conclusion:
In conclusion I think that Tergrid is a really powerful commander that may not make you the most popular person but at the right table can be a high powered fun deck to play! Being able to use our opponents creatures against them is a great way to get the most out of all the resources at the table!
Thanks for reading to the end!