Swear to me, Necromancy
Art:Tortured Existence
by Keith Parkinson
Table of Contents
Todays Featured Commanders Are:
Tormod and Ghost are a super sweet partner pauper EDH deck that focuses on the graveyard and recurring from it a bunch of times. Tormod allows us to make a ton of tokens and Ghost allows us to recur cards that we milled / discarded that turn. Our deck is full of ways to consistently trigger Tormod and get some big creatures from the graveyard and cast them quickly, we are mostly a beatdown style deck focusing on attacking and doing a ton of damage! This deck is super budget and super fun and I would recommend it for anyone looking to get into pauper EDH.
The Deck:
Tormod / Ghost Zombie Mill!
Why Tormod, The Descrator and Ghost of Ramirez DePietro?
The main reason to select Tormod and Ghost is how well they work for each other and Ghost can easily trigger Tormod every turn. Additionally the partners being in Dimir allows us to play a bunch of great ways to self mill as well as mill our opponents and fill everyone’s graveyards. Tormod and Ghost are great commanders for this deck since they are just what we built around! We are at heart a graveyard deck with a pretty heavy zombie theme so not only are we on flavor but we are also super powerful! These commanders are super powerful and awesome and can start making a ton of creatures early and often!
Deck Overview:
Since we are zombie deck and a mill deck we of course have creatures that do a ton of both! Shepherd of Rot
and Gray Merchant of Asphodel
are both great game-enders and definitely make you a target when they come down! Faerie Macabre
is super great in our deck since we can use it to remove our opponents powerful permanents from the graveyard and when recurred we can not only make tokens but keep using Faeries ability. Stinkweed Imp
is super sweet in our deck since not only can we use it to fill the graveyard since Imp leaves the battlefield when dredged we can also trigger Tormod and get a zombie token out of the deal! Unearth creatures are also prevalent in our deck since they can all trigger Tormod and make more tokens! For our mill creatures we have sweet cards like Mindwrack Harpy
which also will trigger Ghost if we can do combat damage with them! Merfolk Looter
is another sweet card in our deck since it not only lets us draw but can be a discard outlet for creatures that we want to recur or our dredge creatures! Undertaker
is a great creature since it can trigger Tormod on pretty much every turn! Overall our creature package is full of zombies and ways for us to fill / interact with our graveyard!
Our spell package is full of interaction, graveyard recursion and ways to fill our graveyard. A lot of our interaction also interacts really with our deck like Overwhelming Remorse
which can become really cheap especially in our deck. One of the coolest cards in our deck is Forever Young
since it can trigger Tormod and help us recur important creatures allowing us to get more triggers of Tormod! Shred Memory
is a great card that allows us to take out some of our opponents problematic cards for combos or if they are playing a graveyard strategy as well! All of the flashback spells in our deck trigger Tormod so being able to get some cards out of it is a great benefit as well. Some of the best flashback spells in our deck are Deep Analysis
, Think Twice
and Dream Twist
. For graveyard recursion we have Unearth
which can target a bunch of creatures in our deck, Reaping the Graves
can be great on really any turn but is super good when we can cast a bunch of small spells and take advantage of storm!
Our artifact package is really all about mana with only one offensive card, Vessel of Endless Rest
is sweet not only to trigger Tormod and recur a permanent but also taps for mana. While Vessel is an expensive mana rock being able to trigger Tormod makes it pretty worth it for our deck. Our other mana rocks are Charcoal Diamond
and Sky Diamond
which are just one mana rocks in Dimir but are always helpful! Shard of Broken Glass
was a card in testing that I typically almost always attached to Ghost and not only buffs him but helps with the self mill and Ghost’s trigger!
Aqueous Form
is a sweet card in our deck since it is pretty much a guaranteed way to get Ghost’s ability to trigger. Tortured Existence is a sweet card that is a discard engine and a pretty consistent way to trigger Tormod. Chronic Flooding
and Curse of the Bloody Tome
are both great enchantments to mill in testing I would sometimes attach the curse to myself. Deep Freeze
and Frogify
are both great ways to remove problematic creatures! Oubliette
is a pauper EDH staple and a great piece of single target removal! Pestilence
is a pauper EDH all star and is pretty much in any deck that can run black and this deck is no exception!
Our land base is quite simple consisting mostly of Swamps and Islands, we don’t really have any lands that are too special or noteworthy. Besides our basics our landbase consists mostly of tapped duals and ways to produce both blue and black.
Strengths of the Deck:
- Can end games quickly with Shepherd of Rot
or Gray Merchant of Asphodel - Great amount of graveyard recursion
- Great amount of interaction
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to aggressive strategies
- Gameplan is much slower without Tormod or Ghost
- Very weak to graveyard hate
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
Our main win conditions typically come through combat but also can come through damage powerhouses like Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Shepherd of Rot. Since it is a 30 life format we can take advantage of that by playing big creatures like Gurmag Angler
. We another great way to win is through the tokens that Tormod creates, overall we have many ways to win and all of them can close out games with relative ease!
Conclusion:
In Conclusion I think Tormod and Ghost are a super awesome duo that work amazingly together and are a perfect combination for Pauper EDH. This deck is super sweet and can recur a bunch of cards and make a ton of tokens, since we have such a graveyard presence we can constantly return creatures and then make a bunch of tokens. This allows us to play a beatdown gameplan as well as being able to play more defensive spells and interaction. Ghost allows us to recur more of our cards when he does combat damage and trigger tormod again. Overall I think that this deck is a ton of fun to play and is a great deck for PDH!
Thanks for reading to the end!