Grave Pact
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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
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Grave Pact

Enchantment

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

Coward_Token on The Reunion At Last - Sephiroth V1

1 week ago

You've probably already thought of Grave Pact. Cut No Mercy?

Conjurer's Closet and stuff like Malakir Rebirth  Flip if you want multiple emblems, but probably too gimmicky. There's even Sword of Hearth and Home since OWA flies

Kaervek, the Punisher janky recursion/advantage

hyalopterouslemur on Beta Brackets Update Today

1 month 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 Tribunefoil 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 anyway? I actually wouldn't mind if it were 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 , 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.

Belfore on Mono-Black Pain

1 month ago

Drop the Temple of the False God it is a trap in this deck. and no Grave Pact, or Scheming Symmetry (to go with your Opposition Agent)?

Epidilius on Infinite Rulings

3 months ago

Tsukimi You're right, that was poorly worded, sorry. It is how I would approach my group with something like this though, I really do miss that kind of Timmy magic lol. Sacrificing Bottle Gnomes with Glissa, the Traitor *oversized* and Grave Pact was peak Magic for our group way back when.

But for the "Is it mass land destruction" thing, imo that is the problem that needs to be solved for every restriction. Is it MLD if I can recur and activate Ghost Quarter 80 times a turn? Is it MLD if I sacrifice Bearer of the Heavens while I have Avacyn, Angel of Hope in play? Where is the line drawn? That is why it is also my opinion that the best way to handle things would just be "Hey guys, no MLD or MLD like effects please" and trust the group.

I'm also not really trying to find a definitive solution, as I don't think there is one, but discussing Magic is fun haha

RiotRunner789 on Best color for this type …

3 months ago

Orzhov (black and white) would be my recommendation. You have Eriette of the Charmed Apple, Kambal, Profiteering Mayor, Kambal, Consul of Allocation, and Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim. All of which drain your opponents while gaining you life. Each has a unique way of winning without swinging.

Second best options could be golgari's Dina, Soul Steeper or Slimefoot, the Stowaway for Aristocrats build. Izzet (red/blue) or any spell slinging deck with a bunch of Guttersnipe effects are also solid.

Some black cards to consider, Hissing Miasma effects (of which there are many), Koskun Falls, or potential blanket protection effects such as Grave Pact or No Mercy.

Green has Elephant Grass and plenty of death touching deterants.

White has Peacekeeper and Sphere of Safety.

Blue has Dissipation Field and Propaganda.

Red has Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs plus all of your Guttersnipe effects as mentioned above.

You can easily make a deck that kills (or mills) people to death without ever swinging. Just depends on the flavor you want to do the murdering with.

DreadKhan on Why is WotC Reducing the …

7 months ago

While I think tutoring can be fine in Commander, but I'm pretty sure most groups would prefer limited tutoring in decks if they could vote on it (and I say this as a person who has multiple tutor based decks, including 2 'tutor in the CZ' decks). VERY few groups outside cEDH are fine with consistently ending games turn 4, most people would openly say that people who play that way (without being open about it!) are the biggest problem the format has, ymmv.

Tutors have a BIG effect on competitive play, arguably one of the biggest, tons of cEDH decks used to run one way to win the game, and they'd run tutors to find it (then we got Breach among other things). Tutors let decks be way more 'all in' on something like Ad Naus (or Flash back in the day) because they could count on finding it early consistently. For more casual games, every tutor you include is a card that 'does nothing', meaning you're only running 98 cards in the 99 if you run a Demonic Tutor, thus a higher percentage of your deck will have to be staples, because 'you always run the staples'. The less tutors you use the more likely you are to have a unique deck, in part because you are less likely to be combo dependent.

I hope this doesn't seem too disagreeable, but I don't know how you can argue Commander doesn't have some fairly strict rules about decks... I have multiple Stax decks, I understand I have to mention that before I play with those decks (outside cEDH), same with my Chaos/Wipes deck, this is why my Meren deck shaved a BUNCH of Merciless Executioner family cards (and avoided Grave Pact stuff), it was too consistently 'doing the thing', at which point nobody was having fun anymore, now I can just sit down and play with the deck.

I agree that part of improving most Commander decks is increasing their consistency (many popular decks are shockingly inconsistent, even with tutors Commander is a nuts format to play), but I think most people who give into their inner Chaos Goblin end up having a lot more fun playing Commander (but they're also more likely to be up until 3AM because their pod is terrible at winning games).

TLDR Tutoring has it's place in competitive play, but I think most people prefer to play Commander in a less competitive manner. Most pods would be happier if people only ran bad tutors, or just skipped them.

DrSnipy on Group (sl)(h)ug Carmen Voltron

7 months ago

Cool Deck! Might I suggest Grave Pact? Depending on the powerlevel of your play-group this card is nuts in this deck ;D (I wouldn't recommend Grave Pact for a causal pot)

Craeter on Burning Brains

7 months ago

Balaam__ I should add that Burning Vengeance definitely counts as removal, it's just not always accessible due to the trigger condition. I could just slide in another copy of Necroplasm for mass removal if you think that would be more effective than Grave Pact.

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