Dictate of Erebos

Enchantment

Flash

Whenever a creature you control dies, each opponent sacrifices a creature. (Dying is being put into the graveyard from the battlefield. Tokens enter the graveyard before they cease to exist.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

hyalopterouslemur on Beta Brackets Update Today

3 weeks ago

DemonDragonJ: Yeah, my loathing of five-color goodstuff mostly comes from how this is supposed to be the color-restricted format: I have a Ghave, Guru of Spores deck, but if I want to make a Rith, the Awakener or Marath, Will of the Wild *f-etch* deck, I have to lose the black cards (and probably the entire Aristocrats theme). So, no more Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos. No more Pitiless Plunderer. No more Diabolic Intent. No more Blood Artist or Bastion of Remembrance. I do gain red, though, so say hello to Purphoros, God of the Forge. Rhys the Redeemed or Nemata, Primeval Warden would be even more restricted, as token decks go.

My removal also suffers, since red removal is surprisingly bad in this format. (Seriously, I'd argue white has the best removal, followed closely by black. Green's a distant third, and red and blue are tied for fourth: Red has more removal, blue has better removal.)

And it happens between Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, Betor, Ancestor's Voice, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Beledros Witherbloom, and Licia, Sanguine Tribune too. All are lifegain, but only Oloro can use Absorb and Drogskol Reaver. Only Licia can use Lightning Helix and Searing Meditation. Only Betor can use Beledros Witherbloom. Ayli and Witherbloom are even more restricted, especially since Witherbloom can't use the color that's best at lifegain.

But that's the whole point. When I choose a Commander, I make a lot of choices regarding deck construction. I can't say "Cathars' Crusade would be good in my Animar, Soul of Elements deck." because, well, it wouldn't; it would be illegal. That forces me to pick, I don't know, Ivy Lane Denizen or Forgotten Ancient instead. Corpsejack Menace? You mean Branching Evolution? (Aside from the name, why is Corpsejack Menace {B} anyway? I actually wouldn't mind if it were {G}{U} just because that's Simic's thing.) And so on down the line.

Five-color goodstuff opts to ignore all of this. And right now, there are more five-color decks in EDH than in Legacy.

Eh, I can always just hate them out with Primal Order.

That's my rant about how too much five-color goodstuff is bad for the game.

Anyway, I play Aura Shards and Seedborn Muse in a lot of decks too. Aura Shards is really oppressive in a token build, or even a reanimator build. Seedborn Muse is interesting because she's either overpowered (anything {G}{U}, token builds, Yeva, Nature's Herald) or just a fancy Village Bell-Ringer without the Splinter Twin combo. I have to go through my decks now and see which ones have four or more game changers.

Crow_Umbra on Adding brackets to commander decks

2 months ago

I was talking last night with a couple of friends regarding how we list our Brackets for our decks. Although the majority of our decks are B3 due to Game Changer inclusion and other criteria, we feel that a growing sentiment for our decks is "B3 is the floor based on the baseline criteria being met, but B4 is a more accurate ceiling based on optimization in the deck that the Beta doesn't take into account yet".

We also speculated a bit on cards that aren't on Game Changers list, but could feasibly end up on there: Teferi's Protection, probably Deflecting Swat, free counterspells, mass edict effects like Dictate of Erebos, and stax like others have mentioned.

All that being said, I'm going to start retroactively adding a "Bracket Intentions" section to the primers of decks I currently have in irl rotation & outline my view on the floor vs ceiling.

Flarhoon13 on Victor's Enchanting Resurrections

4 months ago

Dec 20, updated 12 cards but lost again. Thomas took me out first, after dominating with Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools and Lagomos, Hand of Hatred. He had a huge Mob Rule, borrowing a Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. Thomas reminded me that it was my suggestion to add Mob Rule to the deck. He tutored in each of about four turn cycles with Lagomos, Hand of Hatred before sacrificing Juri, Master of the Revue to kill me--28 damage was just a point or two over my life total.

Victor, Valgavoth's Seneschal finally won in its fourth game, its second game with 12 cards updated. We all removed Kalamax, the Stormsire's permanents in a two-hour game. I had Extinguish All Hope and several turns later, Life's Finale targeting Will, on Sovereign Okinec Ahau, was enough for him to concede. Starfield of Nyx returned a ton of enchantments. I stocked my graveyard by drawing 17 with an early Necropotence in response to Ben targeting it with removal. Elspeth Conquers Death made multiple appearances and got an Auramancer to recur the Starfield of Nyx very late game. Legion Loyalty and moreso, Dictate of Erebos, made a huge contribution, thanks also to the Fanatical Devotion. I attacked with my enchantments for the Starfield of Nyx win at 5 life.

Balaam__ on Balaam__

4 months ago

Had a minute to comb through the Theros block legendofa, here’s what I found. A couple definites, a bunch of probably-not’s. I checked against your list, but ignore any duplicates I missed.

Definites:

•Read the Bones

•Mortal's Ardor

•Searing Blood

---

Possibles, but probably not:

•Polis Crusher I think it’s intended to be 1st person for effect, but no hands or any visible body parts.

•Satyr Piper maybe we’re looking through the eyes of one of the spearholders, but probably not.

•Staunch-Hearted Warrior is definitely FPP, but no hands, only shadow.

•Viper's Kiss I think the angle is too far from what could be a potential FPP.

•Witches' Eye could be 1st person, but the angle is pretty wide.

•Kragma Butcher I don’t think we’re seeing this from the perspective of those people at the bottom, but I’m not 100%.

•Dictate of Erebos is potentially FPP, but which agonized fellow reflected in his eyes are we seeing this from? I’m skeptical.

•Font of Return since I don’t know the game lore and I’m rusty on actual Hellenistic mythology, I don’t know if we’re seeing the reflection of the Minotaur type monster through his own eyes, or if he’s actually trapped in the bowl.

•Spiteful Blow I’m in favor of this one. I think it’s a perspective that is entirely possible, as if the giant is on one knee smashing his fist down in front of him and watching himself do it. The angle is odd though, so up to you.

•Supply-Line Cranes maybe we’re looking from the viewpoint of one of those hands, but doubtful.

That’s what I found. If you’re tired of getting these posts, just let me know. I don’t mind, but I don’t want to overstay my welcome, ha

TheVectornaut on Tergrid - making cuts

7 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.

Valengeta on Red Blood Gives You Wings (Primer)

7 months ago

Thank you very much. It is indeed a great and fun to play deck

The Butcher and other effects like Dictate of Erebos were considered, but I opted for Grave Pact for being much cheaper and harder to remove since it's an Enchantment

DreadKhan on Edh options

10 months ago

He's not heavily played, but Kresh the Bloodbraided can do some absolutely nutso things when he's big enough, and the deck often has some control elements (especially vs creatures, the deck wants to kill off everything but Kresh typically). It can be built on a budget (for Casual play) or as a High Power deck. On a budget you run all of the Merciless Executioner effects you can find, and at higher power you'll still run a bunch of them, but you'll also have Dictate of Erebos effects. Rite of the Raging Storm by itself turns Kresh into a huge body, and it's easy to include lots of Flings/Chandra's Ignition/Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord to win, but you can also use stuff like Mandate of Abaddon to wipe the board and one-shot someone, there are a TON of cards that play very well with Kresh, and people probably aren't familiar with the deck at this point.

Another option might be Azorius Control, Azorius is a great pair for wipes, removal and countermagic, meaning you can deal with problems, both for yourself as well as the table. I guess you might go something like Shorikai, Genesis Engine and play any vehicles that don't suck? You can freely wipe your pilots without risking your vehicles, even without things like Teferi's Protection. The card draw Shorikai offers can really help you dig, and it synergizes with untap effects.

My final idea would be something like Sauron, the Dark Lord, Grixis gives you a lot of control options, and Sauron makes you a big honking army very readily, and fwiw you can make an evasive Changeling (like Changeling Outcast) your Army in place of a token. Grixis struggles a bit vs certain types of permanents, but you can certainly pressure people and have input as to what stays around.

Oh yeah, just thought of a bad idea I've never gotten around to testing, but you might be able to build Optimus Prime, Hero  ^Flip with all the Jeskai wipes you can find? Optimus can 'survive' a wipe, so as long as you can give him Haste somehow you can swing each turn vs a cleared board, wiping whenever anyone gets anything relevant out. Would it be obnoxious? Incredibly so. But I think it could work, especially since you have Red for various good Haste sources. You probably need lots of things to protect Optimus from Swords effects, including a smattering of Blue counters that are either free or cost {U} so you can hold them up.

Taking a look at other people's ideas, I support Karazikar and Breena, both seem like great fits!

EchoSpice on Braids, the Mastermind

11 months ago

neat deck! I usually like running Grave Pact over Dictate of Erebos because it's cheaper and there's not usually a good opportunity to flash in something for 5 mana