Happy Halloween!

Well, it's not quite Halloween yet, but in three short days, October 31st will be upon us. Whether you plan on partying, staying home to watch scary movies, or actually trick-or-treating, it's a great time of year for those of us who enjoy all things spooky. Today's column is about one of the spookiest legendary creatures released in Duskmourn: House of Horror.

Valgavoth, Terror Eater is an Elder Demon with flying, lifelink and a 9/9 body. He's got ward - sacrifice three nonland permanents, so he's unlikely to get removed except by boardwipes or by a player with enough junk lying around to not miss three extra permanents. Plenty of decks make so many clues, treasures, creature tokens, or even nontoken creatures that they might find it worthwhile to lose three of them just to get rid of him.

The real fun comes with Valgavoth's party trick. If a card you didn't control would be put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead. This shuts down graveyard decks. During your turn, you may play cards exiled with Valgavoth by paying life equal to the card's mana value. You can see how Valgavoth would really shine in the 99 of a Dimir or Sultai mill deck, but there's still plenty of nonsense you can get up to with him in the command zone.

It's worth noting that each pile of exiled cards that were exiled when Valgavoth was on the battlefield is linked to that instance of Valgavoth. If your commander were to leave and return for any reason, you would no longer have access to the cards exiled with any previous instances of Valgavoth. The new version won't see those exiled cards and you'll be starting from scratch.

The Elephant in the Room

I don't often build commanders with a mana value of seven or more, and I often find that six-mana commanders sometimes don't show up if a game goes too quickly or I happen to get mana-screwed. That doesn't happen too often, but it happens. I generally run around 37 lands so I'm almost always under the 40 land count that some deckbuilders swear by.

The elephant in the room for today's commander is his 9 mana casting cost.

Nine mana is an awful lot. Valgavoth, Terror Eater compares well to Avacyn, Angel of Hope, who has a mana value of eight. Avacyn has flying, vigilance, and protects herself and your entire board by making your permanents indestructible. Valgavoth has flying, ward, and an ability vaguely reminiscent of Bolas's Citadel. I think Valgavoth might be overcosted, but not by a lot. I'm sure the symmetry of having a 9/9 for 9 mana with 9 letters in its name, and 9 lines of text in the text box, was just too hard to resist for the game designers over at Wizards of the Coast.

To get to nine mana, this deck is going to need to focus heavily on two things. Making a lot of mana, and slowing down the game. I need to get enough turns to get to the point where I'm able to generate the mana to cast my commander. That means I need to run lots of ramp and lots of removal. Removal tends to put cards in graveyards, so it synergizes well with Valgavoth, Terror Eater.

From Anywhere

Removal may be a focus of this deck, but my boardwipes will probably be used as a way to survive until I can get enough mana to cast Valgavoth and start using his ability. Removing threats will probably be a defensive strategy rather than something I do proactively. Symmetrical boardwipes like Damnation should get played before I get to 9 mana.

Wraths that hit my opponents' creatures only, like In Garruk's Wake, are best played after Valgavoth is in play so I can exile those cards and gain access to them. Mass removal that can be scaled, like Toxic Deluge, will let me remove smaller creatures while leaving Valgavoth alive. Killing creatures with Valgavoth in play will see those cards get exiled and I can play them by paying life equal to the card's mana cost.

It's worth noting that asymmetrical boardwipes will invite any opponent paying attention to sacrifice three nonland permanents so they can pay the ward cost and remove my commander. Something about to die or get destroyed suddenly has much less value. To quote Moby Dick, from hell's heart, I stab at thee.

Valgavoth doesn't just care about creatures going to the graveyard from the battlefield. His ability will trigger when a card enters an opponent's graveyard from anywhere. That means I can also lean on mill and forced discard as ways to give me cards to play out of my opponent's decks.

Mindcrank is a notorious combo piece but in this deck I'd just be using it to try to increase the chances that I can get cards exiled while Valgavoth is on the field. Whenever an opponent loses life, they'll mill that many cards if this artifact is in play. It combos with cards like Bloodchief Ascension and Duskmantle Guildmage, which have players lose life when they mill cards into their graveyard.

Most of the best mill cards are in Dimir colors but Breach the Multiverse and Dread Summons are nice options in mono black. Breach costs a whopping seven mana and will have each player mill seven cards and will let me choose a creature or planeswalker from each player's graveyard and put them into play under my control. Dread Summons is an X spell so it will scale to my ability to produce mana. It will let me mill each player for X cards and will have me create a 2/2 tapped black Zombie creature token for each creature milled this way.

With Valgavnoth in play, any payoff for milling into the graveyard won't happen, as those cards will be exiled instead. That's fine, as it plays into my commander's game plan. If my commander isn't in play I'll get the full benefit of milling those cards, but I won't have the chance to use Valgavoth to play them out of exile by paying life.

Mill can be a bit of a hit-or-miss strategy, but forced discard may give me better results.

Duress and Harsh Scrutiny are well costed, and will give me some choice in what gets put into exile. The former will have target opponent reveal their hand and I'll chose a noncreature, nonland card for them to discard. The latter will have them reveal their hand and I'll choose a creature card for them to discard. Harsh Scrutiny will also let me scry 1, for what it's worth.

For a bigger impact and more mana, I'm running Dark Deal. This three mana Sorcery has each player discard all the cards in their hand and draw that many cards minus one. While that might not seem like a good deal, if Valgavoth is in play I'll have access to all of the cards my tablemates discarded.

Life Well Spent

If things go well, I'll survive until late enough in the game where I'm able to play Valgavoth, and I can get some of my opponents cards into exile. Lands will help make sure I don't miss any land drops, but I'll need a high enough life total to be able to pay for any spells I want to cast. I could just be happy I'm shutting off graveyard strategies, but the whole point of playing this commander is to use his coolest ability!

Playing spells out of exile will cost me mana. I might get lucky and have some lifegain decks at the table. Playing spells out of exile that can gain me a bit of life would be fantastic, but I have a few options of my own to help the cause.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel, better known as "Gary", is a classic staple of mono-Black decks. When he enters, each opponent will lose X life where X is my devotion to black, and I'll gain life equal to the amount lost. That could amount to a lot of life, and I was tempted to build very narrowly around trying to get Gary out and then loop him out of my graveyard to abuse this powerful ability.

An older staple of mono-Black lifegain is Kokusho, Evening Star. This legendary Dragon Spirit has a death trigger that will have each opponent lose 5 life and I'll gain life equal to the amount of life lost this way. Kokusho was actually banned in the early days of EDH, and was unbanned in 2012. Power creep has made this early banning seem quaint in comparison to the shenanigans Commander players get up to now, but it's hard to deny how helpful gaining ten, fifteen, or even twenty life could be for a Valgavoth, Terror Eater deck.

If I've managed to pay my life down far enough, Magus of the Mirror might come in handy. This Human Wizard can tap and sacrifice himself to let me exchange life totals with target opponent. That might sound great, but it's got a pretty serious limitation. I can only do that during my upkeep.

I tended to shy away from cards that involve paying life to draw cards in this list, but that might have been shortsighted. My reasoning was that I'm already hoping to pay life to play spells with Valgavoth, so I should avoid playing too many other spells that will lower my life total.

I could have leaned into lifegain even more, running equipment like Basilisk Collar and Loxodon Warhammer and aggressively attacking to try to gain as much life as possible. If you leaned into flying lifegain threats like Vampire Nighthawk and various flying Vampires and Demons you could probably make this work, but I wanted to focus on removal, mill and discard to try to make sure I make it into the mid and late game.

Terror for Breakfast

I couldn't help but wonder if Valgavoth starts his day off with a bowl of warm terror, or if he saves it for lunch or maybe even dinner. Does he subside on a diet of nothing but terror, or does he sprinkle in a little dread and trepidation for variety?

Whatever flavor of fear you prefer, the one undeniable thing about a deck like Valgavoth is that unless you're building around a combo in your own 99, you're more than likely going to be at the mercy of whatever your tablemates are playing. If they're playing combo you might live the dream and be able to combo off using the cards from their deck. If they're playing jank, you might be hard pressed to find anything you're excited enough to pay life to cast. One thing is for sure, this is the kind of deck where you're likely to have games play out differently every time because much of what you're really trying to accomplish has so little to do with the 99 cards in your own deck.

Valgavoth, Terror Eater | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Valgavoth, Terror Eater

• Creatures (26)
• 1 Ancient Cellarspawn
• 1 Archfiend of Depravity
• 1 Asylum Visitor
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Dark Confidant
• 1 Geode Golem
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
• 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1 Leaden Myr
• 1 Magus of the Coffers
• 1 Magus of the Mirror
• 1 Marshland Bloodcaster
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Nirkana Revenant
• 1 Pestilence Demon
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1 Sandstone Oracle
• 1 Skirge Familiar
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1 Tinybones, Trinket Thief
• 1 Toxrill, the Corrosive

• Spells (23)
• 1 Cabal Ritual
• 1 Cast Down
• 1 Culling the Weak
• 1 Dark Ritual
• 1 Sudden Spoiling
• 1 Withering Torment
• 1 Breach the Multiverse
• 1 Bubbling Muck
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Dark Deal
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Dread Summons
• 1 Duress
• 1 Exsanguinate
• 1 Harsh Scrutiny
• 1 In Garruk's Wake
• 1 Mire in Misery
• 1 Peer into the Abyss
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1 Thoughtseize
• 1 Torment of Hailfire
• 1 Toxic Deluge

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Black Market
• 1 Black Market Connections
• 1 Phyrexian Arena

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Jet Medallion
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mindcrank
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Thran Dynamo

• Lands (39)
• 33 Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage

Buy This Deck Export text

Mono- lack goodstuff can be powerful, fun and even oppressive but it's rarely crept up into cEDH territory. K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is in this list, and he entered the cEDH chat when he came out, but in general it's hard to make waves at the top of our format without other colors to build around.

Valgavoth can be more powerful than today's list, especially if you decide to lean into combo. Focusing on a voltron strategy might also work well, as you're starting with a 9 power threat, and it doesn't take much to turn him into a 2-shot lethal threat to kill players with 21 commander damage. The big challenge may still be still getting Valgavoth into play in the first place, as games tend to speed up as you move into high power and fringe cEDH. Faster mana would help with that but your commander's 9 mana casting cost is always going to be a challenge.

A lower powered or more budget friendly Valgavoth is possible. You could switch to basic Swamps, drop out the four or five most expensive cards in the list and drop the price tag of the budget by more than $100 without seriously impacting the deck's core. Replacing those cards with a raft of mana rocks would be easy enough and you might even speed things up a bit compared to this first draft I'm sharing today.

Final Thoughts

Lower powered and more casual playgroups may not enjoy playing against a deck like this. You're actively trying to remove your opponents' best threats, and at times the entire board, both to make it to the point in the game where you can cast your commander, and to give you cards you can play with Valgavoth's ability. Decks that focus so heavily on removal aren't always fun to shuffle up and play against.

If you're keen to build a Valgavoth, Terror Eater deck, I would urge you to have other decks as well. If you do what you want to do and your friends hate the experience of playing against your build, it's nice to be able to switch gears and play something a little less interactive or oppressive.

As we move into November I may be taking a look back at some old Universes Beyond commanders I've been revisiting. I'm not super excited about Marvel crossing over into Magic, because it feels like something of a flavor fail, but I always loved how well the Lord of the Rings cards fit into the game. I may treat myself to a few LoTR columns in the coming month.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!