Culling the Weak

Instant

As an additional cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a creature.

Add {B}{B}{B}{B}.

Combos

• Culling the Weak + Unearth

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (44)

Necramus on Syr Konradical, the Grimmest

2 months ago

Femme_Fatale any chance we could get the foil Japanese promo version of Culling the Weak added at some point?

Also, love the new home page! :)

TheVectornaut on Tergrid - making cuts

6 months ago

You say you're going for more sacrifice than discard but the current list feels very much the opposite to me. If you are serious about wanting to make the deck more casual friendly, cutting all of the cards that exclusively care about discard does seem like the easy way to get down to 100. Having cards that do both like Rankle's Prank will probably be more palatable, even if the outcome is actually even more lopsided. As an aside in the event you do keep some discard spells, you'll be better off paying a little extra for the multiplayer focused options like Delirium Skeins vs. something targeted like Duress. Obviously, if you want to do a lot of 1v1, that evaluation changes. I like the idea of focusing on a sacrifice shell with all of Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, and Butcher of Malakir to ding opponents while you're sac looping your own creatures with various reanimator tools. Cards like Hell's Caretaker or Whisper, Blood Liturgist are favorites of mine since you can easily convert your chumps into discarded bombs or re-trigger ETB and death triggers. You have a ton of cheap Fleshbag Marauder-type cards and that's the real reason I'd recommend this angle. If you stick with at least some of the discard package, you can run plenty of Burglar Rat and Virus Beetle 1/1s to take advantage of Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker which is also conveniently good with Valgavoth's Faithful and other potential synergy pieces like Viscera Seer, Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat.

I'll also list some other cards I'd consider cutting, regardless of the focus on discard or sacrifice. Crypt Ghast feels excessive here since by the time you can play it and untap on the following turn, there's currently only two cards that you wouldn't be able to cast anyway. Since I'm also recommending the cut of All is Dust anyway for being too symmetrical of a wipe for its high cost, I don't know that you'll need all that mana very often. The obvious counterpoint here are the x spells, but I'd urge caution on keeping too many of those too. Unless you're ending the game with a final enormous Torment of Hailfire, these types of effects can fall squarely under the "feels bad" category, or at least that's my experience. If you do want to keep them as wincons, you probably want even more cards like Ghast to improve consistency in reaching that goal. For somewhat similar reasons, I'd also consider cutting Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak. Turbo-ing out your oppressive commander is exactly the kind of play pattern that earned the recent commander bans their new status. If the other players at the table feel like they have time to prepare potential answers to Tergrid, I think people will be much happier to play with you. And if you feel you need more mana and a way to sac guys you want in the yard, Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar are always an option. In terms of draw, I like engines that play off your deck's existing themes like Waste Not, Geth's Grimoire, Grim Haruspex, Harvester of Souls, etc. as opposed to once a turn effects like Dark Confidant or Phyrexian Arena. They may not always be more efficient but they're certainly more interesting. Necrodominance is an option I'd be careful with though since it has some anti-synergy with self-reanimator strategies. I like the idea of Deathgreeter to recoup some of the life loss from symmetrical pox effects and to benefit from mass sacrifice. I just think some of the previously mentioned options at two mana do the job better. Similarly, I feel that Osseous Sticktwister will accomplish less than some similar cards in the deck since your opponents are free to choose the life loss in a format that offers them plenty of life to spare. If you were going for a more explicit life drain strategy, I think the card could pair nicely with other 8rack staples. Unstoppable Slasher is another card that is only good if you're focused on dropping life totals quickly, and with no obvious ways to guarantee the damage gets through, I don't see this guy as being too impactful. The final card I'll mention is Mithril Coat. It makes sense on paper to protect your commander when you know it's going to get targeted. However, Tergrid is so feared at many tables that she's likely to get targeted and removed before you even have the spare mana to equip her. For this reason, I'd prioritize cheaper protection like Boots/Greaves. You could even try one of the many instants and auras that offer a one-time reanimation effect since those will also protect against your own sacrifice effects where equipment will not.

capwner on MASSIVE EDH RC ban list …

6 months ago

The fast mana bans are stupid because the banned cards were already rule-0'd out of pretty much any table where they would be considered unfair. The whole reason they gave for the bans (snowballing starts at casual tables) were never an issue to begin with, these cards only see play at PL 8+ groups where fast starts are acceptable. Plus there are TONS of other fast mana cards Mishra's Workshop Mana Vault Culling the Weak Treasonous Ogre Food Chain etc. etc. etc. turbo players will always be able to turbo, all that these bans do are make the worst offenders like K'rrik better at it in comparison to the rest of the playing field, because they took away the card EVERY deck can play. And it's a huge F you to the much more narrow slice of decks that can benefit from the lotus (expensive commanders and mono-color commanders), making commanders that already had dis-incentives toward playing them even less viable. Personally I will be rule 0 cancelling these bans for the high power games that I run and I hope the rules committee will respond to so much negative backlash by putting trust and agency back in the hands of players so they can play the game the way they want to, not the way some clown committee personally thinks it should be.

Azoth2099 on

9 months ago

Nice base! But if you want to consistently get a 3-pip 5-drop commander on the board in a reasonable time frame, you're going to need more rocks for sure. Arcane Signet, Fellwar Stone, and your guild Talismans like Talisman of Indulgence will go a long way here. I'd also recommend more rituals like Dark Ritual, Culling the Weak, Burnt Offering & Sacrifice. Tons of value!

Veethevvitch on The apocalypse (Sheoldred)

10 months ago

ShadowMasterNL Thank you for your comment, but I have more questions if you don't mind.

Do you always run 33 to 35 lands on top of all the rituals like : Dark Ritual+ Culling the Weak, dorks like: Crypt Ghast and rocks for extra mana ?

Because I was aiming to add more for fast mana in this case considering my avg cmc is around 2.84 so I wanted to play as much as possible as fast as possible to gain the edge and get ahead of the curve.

Should I consider removing some rocks and add more lands ? Or do you have any suggestions for cuts ?

I am a bit stuck at the moment with what to remove and still keep the deck balanced, asking for a friend lmao. XD

GorramScoundrel on Fuel Injected Suicide Machine

10 months ago

@capwnr Thank you I appreciate it! I can get away with a high curve because everything super expensive I want to throw away and cheat out on turn 4 (or 3 if I’m lucky). But it does really suck when I have Portal to Phyrexia sitting in my hand with no way to discard. Pentad Prism is a good idea, but I absolutely love Culling the Weak, so much synergy!

capwner on Fuel Injected Suicide Machine

10 months ago

Woah, another Oathbreaker player on T/O? Concept is cool, I haven't seen this Daretti built in OB yet. The curve seems a liiiittle high for the format, depending on how competitive your playgroup is anyway, it's definitely a turn 4-ish format at the competitive end. Maybe something like Pentad Prism can help ramp out a 4 drop and then act as sac fodder? Maybe also Culling the Weak?? I was gonna rec Blightsteel but then realized the shuffle effect totally counteracts your strategy lol. Cool list, and even cooler name. +1

Foster_I_Am on Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

1 year ago

Hey Masterful - Hope all is well! Wanted to check-in to see how your play testing is going.

Additionally, ever think of running Culling the Weak? Seems like a great card to get some instant ramp.

Would love to hear your thoughts on some of the newer cards and any cuts you made. Cheers!