Duskmourn: House Of Horror’s Death Toll Commander Deck Guide

Most Magic: The Gathering decks would prefer it if cards stayed out of the graveyard. A card in your graveyard is typically a card that can never be played again, barring some external forces that bring that card back into your hand or play.

But in Duskmourn: House Of Horror’s Death Toll Commander deck, a card in your graveyard can be many things. That’s because Death Toll wants the cards in your graveyard to have many different types for an ongoing state of delirium. If you’re looking for a Commander deck to deliriously dig through graveyards, then Death Toll is the deck for you!

Death Toll Commander Deck List

Here’s the full deck list for the Death Toll Commander deck.

Death Toll Commander Deck Themes

Look no further than the box-topper commander for the main theme of Death Toll. Winter, Cynical Opportunist mills cards every time he attacks with the express purpose of achieving a state of delirium, which requires at least four card types to be in your graveyard.

Delirium is the name of Death Toll’s game. Various cards in the deck get better when you have a variety of card types in your graveyard, and there are various cards that help you fill your graveyard with cards in order to achieve the required four card types.

But with this being a Golgari (green/black) deck, Death Toll can’t help but mess around with its graveyard at least a little. Cards like Reanimate and Whip of Erebos bring cards back from the dead for a second go, and Winter’s own delirium triggers the return of a permanent card from your graveyard.

With the deck’s commander being its own recursion engine, Death Toll has some serious staying power. You’ll want to seek the long game with Death Toll—don’t be too aggressive, set up your defenses, and show opponents the futility of messing with you by simply bringing dead cards back from your graveyard.

When it’s finally time to attack
, let cards like Ursine Monstrosity, Giant Adephage, and Titania, Nature’s Force lead the way! Or don’t attack at all and just Ishkanah Ob Nixilis chip your opponents to death.

Winter is the best commander to use with Death Toll, but there are two other potential commanders. Rendmaw, Creaking Nest isn’t a bad choice to lead, but this scary Scarecrow is looking for a lot or two-type cards that aren’t as numerous in Death Toll as they could be.

Old Stickfingers, meanwhile, does a great job of filling your graveyard with creatures, but Death Toll doesn’t have as many reanimation effects as Old Stickfingers would need to make this strategy truly shine.

To keep your cards coming back,
keep Winter, Cynical Opportunist as your commander
.

Death Toll Commander Deck Analysis

Because Death Toll wants to have a variety of card types in its graveyard, the deck tries to be fairly diverse. Even though it’s still mostly creatures (as most Commander decks tend to be), many of those creatures have multiple types, like Solemn Simulacrum, Skola Grovedancer, Nyx Weaver, and Haywire Mite.

Dual-type cards are especially helpful for activating delirium
. Vault of Whispers and Demolisher Spawn in your graveyard is all you need to satisfy delirium’s four card-type requirement. We’ll be talking more about these cards when we start making some upgrades.

This variety of spell types has the helpful side effect of providing Death Toll with a lot of tools. You can fill your graveyard with Grisly Salvage and Mulch, draw cards with Night’s Whisper and Harmonize, kill your opponent’s creatures with Putrefy and Ob Nixilis Reignited, resurrect your dead creatures with Reanimate and Deadbridge Chant, or stymie your opponents with Arachnogenesis or Inscription of Abundance.

Creatures still make up the abundance of Death Toll, providing the bulk of your offensive and defensive power. Moldgraf Monstrosity provides eight trampling power that replaces itself on death, and few decks can get past a Hornet Queen’s flying deathtouch tokens.

While Winter can return any permanent from the graveyard once delirium is achieved, you’re likely to find yourself bringing back dead creatures most often. Getting double the value out of Moldgraf Monstrosity is not something many decks can handle.

Death Toll is good, but as is often the case with these preconstructed decks, it’s not perfect. The deck could use even more variety in its spells so delirium is more reliably activated, it could do more with its graveyard, and it could have an expanded toolbox to more easily respond to threats.

Cards To Remove

Suspicious Bookcase, Carrion Grub, Gnarlwood Dryad, Moldgraf Millipede, Skola Grovedancer, and Obsessive Skinner can all go. They don’t offer the kind of power or efficiency that can easily be achieved by spending just a few dollars.

Professor Onyx is more geared towards decks that are heavy with instants and sorceries. There’s another Lilliana that isn’t too expensive that’ll fit Death Toll way better.

Convert to Slime just feels like an expensive Decimate that occasionally provides a big token monster, which seems underwhelming. Ursine Monstrosity is just a big bear that attacks mindlessly, which can be detrimental for a deck that needs to weave its way through table politics to get to the late game.

Talisman of Resilience, Reliquary Tower, and a Forest can all go too. We’ll be replacing them with mana sources that can better help with getting delirium faster.

Scavenging Ooze is a pretty good card, but it just seems weird to be hating on other people’s graveyards when you’re so engaged with manipulating your own. And Vile Mutilator, though good, has a high mana cost that could offer more power with just a tiny monetary investment.

Death Toll Commander Deck Budget Upgrades

Death Toll wants to get to delirium, so we’ll be giving it more cards with dual card types. We’ll also be giving it a few more tools to add to its toolbox, too.

Other Budget Upgrades To Consider

• Can’t find Drag to the Roots? Assassin’s Trophy offers most of the utility without the need to trigger delirium, and Eyeblight Ending is a dual-type (kindred / instant) removal spell that will even help trigger delirium.
• If you really want to go into delirium overdrive, add more battles. Invasion of Ixalan, Invasion of Zendikar, and Invasion of Ulgrotha are good budget candidates.
• Don’t like Shigeki, Jukai Visionary? Six is another cheap rare that offers graveyard recursion, but not the dual card types.
• Even with these additions, Death Toll is a little light on spells that reset the board. Finale of Eternity and Gaze of Granite can be good options if you find your table gets too unruly.