Dictate of Erebos

Enchantment

Flash (You may cast this spell at any time you could cast an instant.)

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
Freeform	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 Thinking about how we evaluate …

1 month ago

So, I've been thinking a lot about how cards are evaluated. Specifically it comes down to two cards: Regrowth and Eternal Witness.

I've also been watching a lot of Magic YouTUbe, and there's a hipster movement to hate on Eternal Witness, among other EDH mainstays. Supposedly Regrowth is better, and I want to talk about that, and the two ways to evaluate cards.

First, Regrowth. In a vacuum, Regrowth is better. It costs {1}{G}, in contrast to Eternal Witness's {1}{G}{G}. That's one mana less. The 2/1 body is unimpressive in combat. This is all true.

But then you look at Eternal Witness. She's a creature, meaning Cryptolith Rite or Earthcraft turns her into a mana dork. Meaning you get two cards back with Panharmonicon. Meaning you get to trigger Cathars' Crusade or Aura ShardsGC. Meaning her death triggers Dictate of Erebos. Meaning she can be blinked or bounced. Meaning cards that count creatures (e.g., Shamanic Revelation, Pennon Blade, Gaea's CradleGC) count her. Meaning she can attack, triggering Hellrider, even if she's likely to just be blocked and killed. Meaning her entering triggers Purphoros, God of the Forge and Warleader's Call and related cards. Meaning Yeva, Nature's Herald gives her flash, which opens up other forms of abuse. (Seedborn MuseGC, anyone?) Meaning you can bring her 2/1 self back with Smile at Death. And no one's playing either card on turn 2 anyway.

Which one you pick says a lot about your personality, though neither choice takes away your Spike card, and there is no wrong answer. I tend to favor instants over creatures where applicable, for instance. And this doesn't make, e.g., Silverglade Elemental, good in most decks; mana cost still matters.

In reality, both are good cards, and you should probably play both if you can. but it depends on what you're trying to do. But which card you choose if you must choose one is far more complicated than simple rox/sux arguments.

hyalopterouslemur on Ode to the Old Commanders: Ta-ta-ta Tokens!

1 month ago

I'll treat yours as a Bracket 2 with no tutors.

Okay, so replace Savra, Queen of the Golgari with Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos. I'm assuming you want the card advantage, but this is better because 1) any of your creatures dying triggers it, and 2) it doesn't cost you life. At the same time, it won't gain you life either the way Savra will, but since lifegain is negligible...yeah.

Anguished Unmaking > Mortify Sure, you shock yourself, but you exile (which is permanent except for like, two cards that no one ever plays) any nonland permanent.

Morbid Opportunist is insane in Ghave. There is no reason you shouldn't be able to draw on each turn (not "each of your turns", each turn). The same goes for Welcoming Vampire.

Have you considered No Mercy? Ghave is kind of a KOS commander because of his potential for combos and Stax. No Mercy punishes players for attacking you.

Fertilid is just bad. I'd rather play Explosive Vegetation than Fertilid, and there are like, five strictly betters for Veggies.

Viscera Seer and Jar of Eyeballs are nice for consistency.

Blade of the Bloodchief gives you more +1/+1 counters.

Spike Weaver is another "just try and attack me" card. I like it more than Spike Feeder, which is only good in that it goes infinite with Archangel of Thune. Since you're trying to avoid infinite combos, I would avoid going that way.

Corpse Knight, Bastion of Remembrance, Cruel Celebrant, Zulaport Cutthroat, just pick a couple of these because they add a win condition in case an opponent uses Ghostly Prison and friends, or worse, Moat.

DatShepTho on Prossh's Pit - EDH

4 months ago

I think you would enjoy using some more efficient deck smoothers such as:

for ramp:

• Farseek
• Nature's Lore
• Three Visits

for card advantage:

• Night's Whisper
• Skullclamp

for removal:

• Pest Infestation
• Culling Ritual

...by cutting less mana efficient cards such as...

• Kodama's Reach
• Expedition Map
• Glorious Sunrise
• Investigator's Journal
• Vraska, Golgari Queen
• Hour of Glory
• Rolling Thunder

I also recommend trying custom tags to separate card purposes. Apart from lands, ramp, draw, and removal, I would make the other categories "enablers" for cards like Awakening Zone and "payoffs" for cards like Dictate of Erebos

You might notice you're not running too many ways to generate enough tokens and a tad too many sac outlets or payoffs that aren't triggering often enough.

hyalopterouslemur on Beta Brackets Update Today

10 months 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

1 year 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

1 year 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__

1 year 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

1 year 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.