“I would bleed a river just to see your pretty face”
Art:Tormented Hero
by Winona Nelson
Table of Contents
Todays Featured Commander Is:
Tormented Hero is a super sweet commander that we can get down very early and begin to setup a commander damage kill or damage through the heroic ability, this deck focuses on buffing up Tormented Hero and making them more evasive and setting up for an easy kill. Since we can cast Tormented Hero on turn 1 we can very easily start this very early. This deck is mono-black but really feels like an Izzet or blue cantrip style deck. Without Further Adieu Lets Get it!
The Deck:
Tormented Hero Lifeloss Heroic!
Why Tormented Hero?
Tormented Hero is a really sweet mono-black commander that can come down really early, and with how we built our deck we can easily do a ton of damage and gain a ton of life from cantripping and killing our opponents with commander damage. Tormented Hero is also great since we can cast them every game on turn 1 and them entering the battlefield tapped on the first turn really doesn’t matter!
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck!
Creatures:
Our creature package is pretty small but has some great ways to trigger Tormented Hero like Baleful Eidolon
and Cavern Lampad
which are both ways to trigger Tormented Hero’s ability and get some permanent buffs on him.
We also have Persistent Specimen
as a blocker that we can recur pretty much every turn this is great when combined with Falkenrath Noble
! Marauding Blight-Priest
is a great way to get more damage out of Tormented Heros trigger and is a great card that makes the game so much easier.
Instants:
Since we want to trigger Tormented Hero as much as possible we have a bunch of ways to trigger Tormented Heros ability and start doing some damage, some of these cards include Alchemist's Gift
, Aphotic Wisps
and Armor of Shadows
, all of these are just one mana ways to trigger Tormented Hero. Our deck is mostly comprised of these and many of them have very similar effects.
We have some instants that not only buff and protect Tormented Hero from death like Feign Death
and Undying Malice
. Dark Dabbling
is another sweet card that allows us to regenerate Tormented Hero and get that Heroic trigger!
We also have a few instant speed ways to destroy creatures like Murder
, Victim of Night
and Feed the Swarm
all of these are great pieces of single target removal that are pretty much always good.
Sorceries:
We have much less sorceries than we do instants, the first two that we have both draw cards, in Sign in Blood
and Read the Bones
. We do go through cards very quickly so we will always appreciate having more cards in hand! Ichor Slick
is a great way to deal with an opponents problematic creature or cycle it if we have no need for it. One of the few ways that we have to trigger Tormented Hero at sorcery speed is Nighthaze
which triggers Tormented Hero and draws us a card, a real win-win card.
Artifacts:
We mostly have mana rocks and ways to buff Tormented Hero in our artifact package, for mana we have Arcane Signet
, Pristine Talisman
and Charcoal Diamond
these cards are just pretty much always good and help us cast more on our turn.
We also have some ways to buff up tormented hero like Sylvok Lifestaff
which is a very easy to buff up Tormented Hero. Runed Stalactite
is just like Sylvok Lifestaff since it is a cheap way to buff up Tormented Hero. Leather Armor
is a great way to mildly protect Tormented Hero. The best artifact in our deck is Wedding Invitation
not only do we get a card but we also get a way to one shot our opponents with commander damage when we get Tormented Hero big enough.
Enchantments:
Most of our enchantments trigger Tormented Heros ability and give him a power / toughness benefit some of the best of these include Unholy Strength
and Vampiric Link
which are both really easy to cast great ways to trigger heroic and buff Tormented Hero.
We also have some enchantments that help protect tormented hero and help to make them more evasive like Predator's Gambit
and Skeletal Grimace
are both great ways to make Tormented Hero more protected / evasive and trigger heroic.
Land Base:
Our land base is pretty simple since we are in mono-black but we do have mono-black PDH staples like Bojuka Bog
which is a great way for us to remove an opponents graveyard. We also have Barren Moor
and Desert of the Glorified
are both great cards if we get flooded, in our deck it is pretty easy to get flooded since we have a pretty low mana cost overall!
Strengths of the Deck:
- Easy to get commander damage kills
- Easy to slowly ping our opponents and get the win
- Strong against aggressive strategies since we can easily gain life
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Without the right permanents / spells can be weak to single target hate
- Main win condition is our commander can be bad in games where that is not possible
- Weak to countermagic since we are very spell heavy with not a lot of ways to win on the stack
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
Our main win condition is either through commander damage or by pinging our opponents with the heroic trigger from tormented hero. With how the deck is comprised we can easily do a ton of damage and buff tormented hero very easily, since tormented hero’s ability targets each opponent we can very easily do 30 damage since we can get out tormented hero out turn 1. We typically do both so ease of combat / how big tormented hero is depends on what kill type that we go for!
Conclusion:
In conclusion Tormented Hero is a mono-black PDH deck that does not play like it almost plays like an Izzet cantrips deck. We are able to do a ton of damage to our opponents per turn and with all of the buffs that not only trigger heroic we can also begin to setup for commander damage kills. This deck is a super sweet build and is a ton of fun to play!
Thanks for reading to the end!