When the deep awakens, sanity itself is the first to drown.

The Commander

At the center of this abyss lies Nihiloor, the Mind Flayer Tyrant, a creature that embodies domination and parasitic control. Every combat step, Nihiloor twists your enemies’ strength into your own, ensuring that no ally remains truly loyal to those who dare face you. Like Lovecraft’s masked horror Nyarlathotep, Nihiloor is not merely a monster – it is a force of will that bends all minds into submission.

The Strategy

This deck thrives on control, attrition, and inevitability.

  • Mill and Drain: Cards like Mesmeric Orb, Mindcrank, Altar of Dementia and Consuming Aberration turn libraries into fragile resources, while payoffs like Syr Konrad, the Grim, Geth, Lord of the Vault or Fleet Swallower punish opponents for every lost card.

  • Steal and Reanimate: With Sepulchral Primordial, Animate Dead, Beacon of Unrest and Sheoldred, Whispering One, the creatures you mill do not remain dead – they join your ranks.

  • Draw and Filter: Tools like Rhystic Study, Kindred Discovery and Phyrexian Arena keep the flood of knowledge going, while Notion Thief twists your opponents’ plans into your own advantage.

  • Control and Survival: Cyclonic Rift and Damnation reset the board when madness peaks, while Teferi’s Protection preserves your sanity against the apocalypse.

The Win Conditions

  • Overwhelm with Horrors: Endless Illithids, Horrors, and Zombies generated through Nihiloor and reanimation crush your foes.

  • Mill to Madness: Engines like Traumatize + Keening Stone or Archive Trap turn entire libraries into dust.

  • Steal the Battlefield: Reanimate the best of what has been milled or destroyed, until your army is no longer your own, but a twisted mirror of everyone else’s.

The Flavor

This deck was built as a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft’s vision of cosmic dread – a place where knowledge becomes poison, and the ocean’s depths hide ancient things that no mortal was meant to see. Nihiloor is the mask of Nyarlathotep: a being that manipulates, devours, and enslaves. Your victory is not loud, but inevitable – a creeping tide of horrors that swallows all light and reason.

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95% Casual

Competitive