And so we continue our tour de sins. Last week, we looked at a deck that wanted everything for itself. Readers had some great ideas for other sinful commanders—thanks! (Do we Magic players know too much about sin?) This time, let’s mess around with what is probably my favorite sin of them all: gluttony.

See, gluttony is defined as “habitual greed or excess in eating.” And I love food. I love chocolate, cheese, bread, pasta, cream, butter, and just about everything else in the world we’re not supposed to eat too much of. When a cake is delicious, I’ll eat three pieces even though I’m full just because it tastes so good. And recently at a wedding, my wife said to me four of the sweetest words I’ve ever heard put together: “There’s a dessert buffet.”

And yet, I watch my dogs eat, and I don’t hold a candle to them. If I didn’t control how much I fed them, they’d all eat themselves nearly to death. We can’t leave food on the coffee table and turn our backs around here—it’s gone in an instant. If given the choice, I’m fairly certain they would never stop eating.

Which leads us to today’s commander—a wild beast who really never knows when to stop.

We’re also going to explore a couple of different takes on the sin today. My editor normally gives me some suggestions for the deck I build and helps make sure my writing is clear, correct, and understandable. Every once in a while, though, he gets excited about an idea and goes wild with it. This is one of those cases—we each built a deck based around this commander with the theme of gluttony in mind. We didn’t look at each other’s decklists before they were finished, so there will be some overlap (we both, for example, used devour as a subtheme), but the decks are different in some key ways. Mine, which I’ll present first, is form over function all the way. It’ll work, but it’s designed to demonstrate gluttony in every way it can, at the expense of its ability to win the game. My editor’s, on the other hand, is a potential threat at a table—it’s not going to beat a super-tuned Sharuum the Hegemon combo deck, but it has the potential to really go crazy while still being good and gluttonous. More on that one later.

We get to draw cards, but most often, it’s at the expense of one of our creatures—eat more, right? Carnage Altar and Phyrexian Vault are nearly the same. Culling Dais is funny, but it can refill our hand at just the right moment. Eye of Yawgmoth is particularly gluttonous in its cost, but most often, it’ll just be an expensive Carnage Altar. Skullmulcher lets us devour for cards, and Life's Legacy and Momentous Fall both sac a dude for more cards. This deck will eat anything.

Our answers are all over the place as well. We can Fling something at someone’s huge creature. Ravenous Baboons will eat someone’s troublesome land. Doom Cannon can fire some Goblins at someone’s dome. Arms Dealer and Siege-Gang Commander both can Shock for the cost of a Goblin. Voracious Cobra can hold off a lot of things—it basically has deathtouch and first strike. Caldera Hellion will wreck another token player’s day, and it will leave us with a giant dude.

So we’re going to make a bunch of Goblins, and then we’re going to eat them, sacrifice them in rituals, and throw and fire them at our enemies. Then, we’ll make more. (When else do we get the opportunity to play Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII?) Meanwhile, our big dudes will be feasting on our ravenous little Gobs, making themselves stronger for the fight. Plus, we have a bunch of great, gluttonous names, including the aptly named Gluttonous Slime and Gluttonous Cyclops, in addition to a few ravenous things and a couple of voracious guys.

Thromok the Insatiable ? Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Thromok the Insatiable

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Arms Dealer
• 1 Beetleback Chief
• 1 Caldera Hellion
• 1 Chancellor of the Forge
• 1 Dragon Broodmother
• 1 Elvish Skysweeper
• 1 Gluttonous Cyclops
• 1 Gluttonous Slime
• 1 Goblin Lookout
• 1 Goblin Marshal
• 1 Goblin Rabblemaster
• 1 Gorger Wurm
• 1 Hellkite Hatchling
• 1 Mogg War Marshal
• 1 Mycoloth
• 1 Phyrexian Soulgorger
• 1 Predator Dragon
• 1 Preyseizer Dragon
• 1 Ravenous Baboons
• 1 Ravenous Baloth
• 1 Ravenous Leucrocota
• 1 Siege-Gang Commander
• 1 Skullmulcher
• 1 Thorn-Thrash Viashino
• 1 Thunder-Thrash Elder
• 1 Voracious Cobra
• 1 Voracious Dragon
• 1 Voracious Wurm
• 1 Warbreak Trumpeter
• 1 Wort, the Raidmother

• Spells (28)
• 1 Carnage Altar
• 1 Culling Dais
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Doom Cannon
• 1 Dragon Fodder
• 1 Empty the Warrens
• 1 Eye of Yawgmoth
• 1 Fling
• 1 Goblin Assault
• 1 Goblin Bombardment
• 1 Goblin Offensive
• 1 Goblin Rally
• 1 Goblin Scouts
• 1 Goblin Warrens
• 1 Goblinslide
• 1 Hordeling Outburst
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Krenko's Command
• 1 Life's Legacy
• 1 Mogg Alarm
• 1 Mogg Infestation
• 1 Momentous Fall
• 1 Peregrination
• 1 Perilous Forays
• 1 Phyrexian Vault
• 1 Primal Growth
• 1 Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII
• 1 Trading Post

• Lands (40)
• 1 Blighted Gorge
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Encroaching Wastes
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Fertile Thicket
• 1 Forgotten Cave
• 1 Fungal Reaches
• 1 Gruul Guildgate
• 1 Gruul Turf
• 1 Kazandu Refuge
• 1 Keldon Necropolis.
• 1 Rugged Highlands
• 1 Shivan Oasis
• 1 Slippery Karst
• 1 Smoldering Crater
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Timber Gorge
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 9 Forest
• 12 Mountain

Buy This Deck

Suggestions? Eh. We’re all theme all day here, so play what you want. Make the theme yours and have a blast with it. Just messing around with devour is a ton of fun.

Which leads us to the next one.

Thromok the Insatiable ? Commander | Mark?s Editor

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (36)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Bloodspore Thrinax
• 1 Borderland Ranger
• 1 Civic Wayfinder
• 1 Drumhunter
• 1 Emrakul's Hatcher
• 1 Farhaven Elf
• 1 Gatecreeper Vine
• 1 Gluttonous Slime
• 1 Hellkite Hatchling
• 1 Hooded Hydra
• 1 Jade Mage
• 1 Kozilek's Predator
• 1 Mitotic Slime
• 1 Mycoloth
• 1 Predator Dragon
• 1 Preyseizer Dragon
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Rapacious One
• 1 Realm Seekers
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Seedguide Ash
• 1 Skullmulcher
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Stalking Vengeance
• 1 Thopter Assembly
• 1 Thorn-Thrash Viashino
• 1 Thunder-Thrash Elder
• 1 Verdant Force
• 1 Viridian Emissary
• 1 Voracious Dragon
• 1 Wolfbriar Elemental
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Yavimaya Dryad
• 1 Yavimaya Elder

• Spells (23)
• 1 Chandra's Ignition
• 1 Chariot of Victory
• 1 Decimate
• 1 Fling
• 1 From Beyond
• 1 Grab the Reins
• 1 Hammer of Purphoros
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Hull Breach
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Mage Slayer
• 1 Momentous Fall
• 1 Overwhelming Stampede
• 1 Parallel Lives
• 1 Primal Vigor
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Soul's Fire
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Vicious Shadows
• 1 Warstorm Surge
• 1 Whispersilk Cloak
• 1 Wolfcaller's Howl

• Lands (40)
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Gruul Guildgate
• 1 Gruul Turf
• 1 Kazandu Refuge
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Khalni Garden
• 1 Kher Keep
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Rugged Highlands
• 1 Shivan Oasis
• 1 Skarrg, the Rage Pits
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 13 Forest
• 11 Mountain

Buy This Deck

Here, we have a much more aggressive and streamlined version—and this one is out for blood. We’re still devouring our own creatures, but we’re no longer caring what we eat. Make tokens, eat them (preferably with Thromok), and then send him in for a giant kill. Also, we have another chance to run Fling in a Commander deck. When Thromok is 81/81, Fling will kill even an Oloro, Ageless Ascetic player out of nowhere. Throw some extra damage around with Vicious Shadows or Warstorm Surge. Draw crazy cards with Shamanic Revelation. Wipe the board—and possibly just kill your opponents—with Chandra's Ignition. Annoy everyone with Purphoros, God of the Forge. Smack someone upside the head with Mage Slayer. This deck does damage.

Either way, the game plan is essentially the same: make tokens, devour them, and attack opponents. One follows form, the other function, but both are insatiable, and both give us the chance to surprise our opponents with cards rarely seen in Commander.

Which deck would you be more likely to build? Why? Your answers may affect future articles, so let me know!

A quick side note on last week’s deck: I played a slightly different version of King Macar, the Gold-Cursed in a pickup game this week and actually managed to win. Gray Merchant of Asphodel did a bunch of work—when it hits for 15, that’s a lot—and extort triggers off Pontiff of Blight finished everyone off. The key was, though, the King did just what his greedy self was supposed to: He kept everyone else from having any creatures at all, and my pile of gold was a pretty serious stack by the end.

Now please excuse me; it’s lunch time!

Total cost for deck number one: $73.83

Total cost for deck number two: $74.42

Take a look at the previous Seven Deadly Commander Articles:

1. Greed