SO Blight Curse
- bonzaientertainmen
- Jan 19
- 9 min read
Welcome back to Stripped Out! The series where I take a Commander Precon, strip out the off theme cards, and make some additions to strengthen the core theme. 2 new decks just dropped whanks to Lorowyn Eclipsed: Dance of the Elements, and Blight Curse. You can pick up either deck using my TCG player link or Mana Pool link. It's a great and easy way to support what I do here.
Back to the article! I'm really excited for this set. I've always enjoyed Lorowyn and have been anticipating its return for years. I was a little disappointed when I saw the choices for commander decks announced. They seemed very straightforward and somewhat bland. We've had a ton of 5 color options, especially when it comes to commander decks. A 5 color creature deck tends to devolve into playing the best creatures that type has to offer. Those types of decks always feel uninspired. The second option was better, but narrower in a different way.
A deck built around -1/-1 counters generally comes in 1 of 2 flavors. You either poison your own creatures or you poison opposing creatures. Either way, expect to see a lot of support cards that Proliferate and ones that reward you just for placing counters on things. When I think of this strategy, it conjures up 2 main options: Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and The Scorpion God. Making this deck Jund colors means I get to pick the best of both worlds when tweaking the deck.
I mentioned previously that this strategy concerns itself with adding counters to my creatures or my opponents. That is front and center with the 2 commander options. Auntie Ool, Cursewretch protects itself from targeted removal with Blight. More importantly, it rewards either direction by providing card draw when poisoning my own creatures and hurting opponents when placing my -1/-1 counters on their creatures. The secondary option only concerns itself with half of the strategy, putting counters on opposing creatures. That might provide an interesting deck building challenge to give opponents your own creatures, but this isn't Make EDH Weird Again, so I'll just keep that thought to myself for now. So I'm sticking with Auntie Ool for maximum efficiency.
Let's look at my classic negative counter commanders and see what the core of the deck is. Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons does generate -1/-1 counters when she deals combat damage. More importantly, she makes creature tokens when I put -1/-1 counters on creatures. She's very open to placing counters on my or my opponents' creatures. The Scorpion God rewards me with card draw instead of creature tokens. That ability is static, so it doesn't matter where the counters come from. It also provides an avenue to generate these counters and place them on any creature. The Scorpion God doesn't care how many counters are on the creature when it dies, just that it's present, so I don't need to exclude other removal options in my final decklist.
The deck comes packed with cards that put those tricky -1/-1 counters on my things and oppponents'. Sinister Gnarlbark is a new card that tweaks the standard black ability to pay a life and draw a card by making you put a -1 counter on one of your creatures and draw a card. It's a fun way to work the ability into a new mechanic. Wickerbough Elder is a great older card that enters with counters and lets me trade those negative counters for removal. Not only am I clearing a troublesome artifact or enchantment from the battlefield, but I'm powering up my creature to its base stats. If you pair these two together, you get a repeatable removal engine.
When it comes to putting counters on opposing creatures, the deck comes with Contagion Clasp. Sure, it lets me put the -1/-1 counter on an opposing creature, but more importantly, it's a repeatable Proliferate option. I just have to sprinkle those counters around, and then I can grow them all at once and tear through the board.
The deck really shines with cards that offer flexibility and reward you just for putting counters on anything. Wickersmith's Tools is a flavor win and is a fine mana rock. In the late game, I can sacrifice it to generate a ton of tokens. I like cards that passively accrue value and can change the course of a game. Dread Tiller doesn't care who owns a creature dying with -1/-1 counters on it. It lets me ramp from my graveyard regardless of whose creature it was.
Being a Precon, there are some easy cuts to make from the deck. Grave Titan is pricey and offers no counter support. Archfiend of Ifnir makes no sense with the low number of cycling/discard cards available in the deck. Tree of Perdition? Why? I have no untap shenanigans, so I can't hit everyone all at once. Putting a dozen counters on this tree just to tap it and reduce an opponent's life total to 1 would be funny, but it's impractical. I'm also cutting Ignoble Heirarch. I don't get why people love mana dorks. They don't have a ton of toughness, so they can't withstand multiple counters. They die to boardwipes, so I can't expect to generate mana on multiple turns with them, and I can't tap them for mana the turn I play them. It's just inefficient. I'm not doing anything with exalted or commander damage, so it's an easy cut for me.
A lot of precons also suffer from the expensive colorless spell problem. Sure, playing 3 colors has the potential to cause fixing problems, but playing 5+ mana value colorless spells is not the solution. So goodbye Grim Poppet, 7 mana is too much to move counters off it freely. Similarly, Chimil, the Inner Sun is costly at 6 mana. I'm not heavy on self mill, so Discovering repeatedly is not likely.
Here's what I cut
The Reaper King No More | Ferrafor, Young Yew | Tree of Perdition |
Midnight Banshee | ||
Skin Render | ||
Chain Reaction | Sol Ring | |
Hoarder's Greed | Cathartic Reunion | Fire Covenant |
Binding of the Old Gods | Cathartic Pyre | |
Exotic Orchard | Rakdos Carnarium | Gruul Turf |
Golgari Rotfarm |
Adding cards offered a lot of opportunity to turbocharge what Auntie Ool is doing and play some politics along the way. What do I mean by this? It's easy to put counters on my own creatures. The deck is built to do that. That only accounts for half of what my commander offers. When it comes to putting counters on opposing creatures, that's a harder proposition to guarantee, especially as opponents start getting removed. If I want to drain opponents with Auntie Ool, I need to keep the counters flowing. I can solve this problem just by giving my opponents creatures.
The simplest way to repeatably give opponents creatures is with Forbidden Orchard. I get great color fixing, but more importantly, opponents get 1/1s. A single counter from this deck is enough to remove the creature and start bleeding an opponent. A 1/1 might not seem like a lot, but it opens me up to playing politically and giving the creature to an opponent that will not only not use it against me, but also use it against my other opponents. Adding that to the list was a breakthrough that I knew I could expand on. I really like “Hunted” creatures for this. These are powerful creatures that come with a significant cost reduction. The catch is that they give an opponent creature tokens that are problematic for my creature. Hunted Troll is an 8/4 for only 4 mana. That's a great rate, but it gives an opponent 4 1/1 flying Faeries. Those Faeries could block as a team and remove the troll under the right circumstances. Or, they can block one at a time and blank my attack for 4 turns in a row. That's not ideal. With this deck, they are easy to remove, or I can make a deal and give them to an opponent who will turn them against another player. Hunted Horror is even better. 2 mana for 7 power of my own, and 6 power for an ally. Hunted Dragon, Hunted Bonebrute, and even Clackbridge Troll found a way onto my list.
The deck came with a card I really like to play, Pupeteer Clique. It has a great ETB where I can briefly reanimate an opponent's creature. Even better, I can do it twice thanks to Persist. It's a cool effect and a Spell that brings creatures back. You can abuse the ability if you can remove the -1/-1 counter from the creature in question before it dies. That's fine in this deck, but there's a better option. Undying works the same way as persist, but the creature enters with a +1/+1 counter instead. These two types of counters cancel one another out, so I can lean into what my deck wants to do and keep recurring creatures with Undying. Treacherous Pit-Dweller works like the hunted cycle. It's mine at the start, but when it comes back from the graveyard, my opponent gets control of it. As long as I can keep putting -1/-1 counters on it after it dies, I'll keep giving it to an opponent that wants to play ball. Flayer of the Hatebound can just end the game if I can put enough counters on it. It will keep coming back and doing 5 damage to whatever I want. Direct damage is great, that's why I added Gleeful Arsonist as well.
I want to highlight a couple of cards that I think were egregious oversights from the original deck and needed to find a home here. Generous Patron tops that list. It's great card draw. Simple as that. Quillspike can not only remove the counters sandbagging my own creatures, or reenable persist, but it also becomes a great finisher. That +3/+3 adds up quickly and can really soften up life totals. Nest of Scarabs turns all of the counters I give out to 1/1 tokens. With enough time, I could take over the board with a card like that. Contagion Engine rounds out my list here. If Contagion Clasp is good in this strategy, the engine is even better. It shells out tons of counters, and the double Proliferate will clear out opposing armies.
The deck does have some powerful creatures that can lead the way on combat damage. Even my Commander is good at bleeding opponents over time. But I need more to push my strategy into a win con. All Will Be One is a necessity in this deck. It turns all of my counters into direct damage, essentially doubling up the second clause on Auntie Ool, Cursewretch. A deck needs that kind of redundancy and threat density.
After that game winning spell, let's look at the final list
Sinister Gnarlbark | ||
Rhythm of the Wilds | Dread Tiller | Arcane Signet |
Decimator Beetle | Oft-Nabbed Goat | |
Village Pillagers | Commander's Sphere | |
Necroskitter | Eventide's Shadow | |
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician | Massacre Girl, Known Killer | Aberrant Return |
Obelisk Spider | Black Sun's Zenith | |
Pharika, God of Afliction | Carnifex Demon | Painful Truths |
Puppeteer Clique | Persist | |
Dusk Urchins | Burning Custody | |
Channeler Initiate | Incremental Blight | |
Harmonize | ||
Glissa Sunslayer | Night's Whisper | |
Soul Snuffers | Grave Venerations | |
Evolution Sage | Puca's Covenant | |
Devoted Druid | Everlasting Torment | |
Kulrath Knight | Lasting Tarfire | |
Blowfly Infestation | ||
Thelon's Chant | Assassin's Trophy | Flourishing Defenses |
Infernal Grasp | Vraska, Betrayal's Sting | |
Putrefy | Lilliana, Death Wielder | |
Terminate | ||
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth | ||
Vernal Fen | Festering Thicket | Nesting Grounds |
Canyon Slough | Sheltered Thicket | Smoldering Marsh |
Cinder Glade | Dragonskull Sumit | Rootbound Crag |
Woodland Cemetery | Command Tower | Savage Lands |
Ifnir Deadlands | Evolving Wilds | Terramorphic Expanse |
Path of Ancestry | Riveteer's Overlook | |
Swamp x8 | Mountai x4 | Forest x6 |
I think the Blight Curse precon was a good baseline. There were some clear cards that didn't match the theme or lacked enough support that they could be removed easily. I kept 44 out of the original 61 non land cards for a retention rate of XX%. Are you surprised? In looking at the numbers, I was surprised at how high the land count is. 39 is super high. World Shaper from Edge of Eternities, which I also wrote up, had 42. That's understandable since the deck was built around sacrificing lands for value. Here, it just feels lazy. I want a deck filled with interesting and impactful cards. Don't cut corners and give me extra lands. What do 3 bounce lands even have to do with the deck strategy?
What would you do differently? Would you go all in on putting counters on your own creatures, or just on opponents? Would you pivot to the new Reaper King? Don't forget to pick up your copy of the Blight Curse deck here or here. The same goes for Dance of the Elements here or here. Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading and all the support to date. I have affiliate links with Mana Pool and TCG Player to help fund these off the wall strategies. It's what makes all this possible,
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