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.)

Epidilius on Infinite Rulings

3 weeks 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 …

1 month 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 …

4 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

5 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

5 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.

Craeter on Burning Brains

5 months ago

Balaam__ I included Grave Pact since it's a pretty powerful permanent that can force removals. You'll notice for being a deck there is a distinct lack of removal options in here. Granted, Grave Pact would be more useful if there was even heavier token and sac, but I figured it could work since it can still get value from regular blocks / deaths without forced sacs.

If you've got some suggestions for better removal then I'm all ears. I'm just looking for permanents that can serve that function, since I don't have much wiggle room for a bunch of sorceries / instants.

Balaam__ on Burning Brains

5 months ago

Great theme, great list. Question though, is the lone copy of Grave Pact worth it? I view it more like an engine, an essential component part of the core build. If it doesn’t occupy that role here, I wonder how much it will really contribute. Unless it’s here purely for thematic reasons, which would make perfect sense.

TheVectornaut on Tergrid - making cuts

5 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 Ghastfoil 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 Ritualfoil 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.

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