<p style="text-align: right;"><em><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sauron, the Dark Lord" href="#" target="_blank">Sauron, the Dark Lord</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> | Art by <a href="https://www.kieranyanner.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kieran Yanner</a></em></p> <p>Hello everyone! I’m Levi from <em>The Thought Vessel</em>, and this is <em>Hidden Gems</em>, the series that looks at commanders from across the format and finds cards for their 99 that might not be getting the love that they deserve.</p> <p>For a card to qualify as a hidden gem, it must appear in less than fifteen percent of all registered decks here on EDHREC. The idea is to highlight cards that are solid additions for a commander that the larger community may be overlooking for one reason or another.</p> <p>Today, we are looking for hidden gems in the depths of Mordor with <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sauron, the Dark Lord" href="#" target="_blank">Sauron, the Dark Lord</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>.</p> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sauron, the Dark Lord"></div></div> <h2>What Does Sauron, the Dark Lord Do?</h2> <p><span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sauron, the Dark Lord" href="#" target="_blank">Sauron, the Dark Lord</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is currently the most popular <a href="https://edhrec.com/commanders/grixis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Grixis</a> (<span class="mana-container-container"><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-u" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-b" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span><span class="mana-container"><i class="ms ms-cost ms-r" style="margin-left: inherit !important;"></i></span></span>) commander on EDHREC, with over 30,000 decks to its name. That number alone tells you something. While a lot of those builds lean heavily into a <em>Lord of the Rings</em> theme, there’s more than enough raw power here to tempt players who have never read Tolkien a day in their lives.</p> <p>Sauron rewards us for doing something our opponents were already going to do: casting spells. Every time an opponent casts a spell, Sauron triggers amass Orcs 1, which either creates a 0/0 Orc Army with a +1/+1 counter or adds a +1/+1 counter to an Army we already control.</p> <p>Those counters stack up quickly. In a four-player game, spells fly around the table. Our Orc Army grows passively while everyone else advances their own plan. Before long, we’re staring at a creature that can one-shot someone out of nowhere. Some builds lean into an <a href="https://edhrec.com/tags/aristocrats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Aristocrats</a> strategy, sacrificing the Army repeatedly for value.</p> <p>The data, however, suggests that most players prefer the <a href="https://edhrec.com/tags/voltron" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Voltron</a> style approach: build one massive Orc Army and turn it sideways. That’s the direction we’re heading today.</p> <p>Sauron also has a few more tricks that push this deck from good to terrifying. Whenever an Army we control deals combat damage to a player, the ring tempts us. Then, whenever the ring tempts us, we may discard our hand and draw four cards. That sneaky and powerful ability means we can dump our hand onto the battlefield, attack, connect, and immediately reload.</p> <p>We get to overextend without fully committing to the consequences. If the board gets wiped, we will have four fresh cards. If it doesn’t, we’re even further ahead.</p> <p>On top of that, Sauron taxes interaction. Spells our opponents cast that target Sauron cost an additional sacrifice of a legendary artifact or legendary creature. That’s not nothing. It makes spot removal awkward and sometimes impossible. All together, this commander builds a board that snowballs fast and punishes hesitation.</p> <p>There are plenty of obvious inclusions for a list like this. The top played cards exist for a reason. But as always, we’re here for the overlooked tech. Let’s begin!</p> <h3>10. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Teferi&#039;s Ageless Insight" href="#" target="_blank">Teferi&#039;s Ageless Insight</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (9.2%)</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Teferi&#039;s Ageless Insight"></div></div> <p>We’re starting with a blue staple that still somehow flies under the radar in <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sauron, the Dark Lord" href="#" target="_blank">Sauron, the Dark Lord</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> lists. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Teferi&#039;s Ageless Insight" href="#" target="_blank">Teferi&#039;s Ageless Insight</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> doubles our card draw outside of the first in our draw step.</p> <p>The awkward part of Sauron’s wheel effect is that sometimes we discard six or seven cards and only draw four. That can feel like a net loss, especially if we were sculpting something specific. Teferi’s Ageless Insight erases that downside.</p> <p>When we discard our hand to draw four, we'll actually draw eight. <em>Eight</em>. That’s not refilling; that’s overflowing. It turns Sauron’s reload into a full-on card advantage engine.</p> <p>Instead of worrying about losing resources, we'll start looking for opportunities to trigger the ring tempt as often as possible.</p> <h3>9. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="The Reaver Cleaver" href="#" target="_blank">The Reaver Cleaver</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (9.4%)</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="The Reaver Cleaver"></div></div> <p>If we’re committing to building a single enormous Orc Army, we should squeeze every ounce of value out of it. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="The Reaver Cleaver" href="#" target="_blank">The Reaver Cleaver</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> gives an equipped creature +1/+1 and trample, which already matters when we’re talking about pushing damage through blockers. The real prize, though, is the Treasure generation. For each point of combat damage dealt to a player by the equipped creature, we create that many Treasure tokens.</p> <p>Attach this to a 20-power Army, and we'll suddenly have twenty Treasures. That’s absurd. Even if we only connect for eight or ten damage, that’s still a massive mana swing. Sauron costs six mana, and recasting him costs eight or more after removal. Having a stockpile of Treasures means we can rebuild instantly after a board wipe.</p> <p>When we wheel into a fresh four cards, we'll often want to deploy multiple spells right away. Extra mana lets us do that. The Reaver Cleaver turns our combat step into a ritual effect that fuels the second main phase.</p> <p>That’s the kind of momentum swing that wins games.</p> <h3>8. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Monument to Endurance" href="#" target="_blank">Monument to Endurance</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> (8.8%)</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Monument to Endurance"></div></div> <p>If we’re discarding our hand regularly, we might as well profit from it. Monument to Endurance is built for exactly that. Whenever we discard a card, we can create a Treasure token, draw a card, or have each opponent lose three life. We only get each mode once per turn, but with Sauron’s ability to discard our hand, we’ll be able to hit all three.</p> <p>So our “discard our hand, draw four” becomes discard our hand, damage the table, make a Treasure, draw an extra card, then draw our four. That means we'll effectively draw five instead of four, chip away at life totals, and build mana reserves. It smooths the wheel effect and adds incremental pressure.</p> <p>This kind of layered value is what pushes a deck from strong to oppressive. Every action feeds another resource. Discarding stops feeling like a cost and starts feeling like an engine.</p> <h3>7. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Breach the Multiverse" href="#" target="_blank">Breach the Multiverse</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> 6.5%</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Breach the Multiverse"></div></div> <p>When we’re constantly pitching cards to the graveyard, we’re going to lose some heavy hitters along the way. That’s fine; we can weaponize that. Breach the Multiverse mills each player for ten cards, then lets us reanimate one creature from each graveyard under our control.</p> <p>In a four-player game, that’s potentially four creatures entering the battlefield, one from us, three from our opponents. Because we’re already filtering our hand aggressively, there’s a good chance we’ve binned something powerful on purpose. Maybe a haymaker creature that we didn’t have time to cast earlier.</p> <p>Meanwhile, our opponents are unlikely to be thrilled about losing their best creature to our board. Stealing the table’s biggest threats in one swoop often shifts the balance beyond recovery.</p> <p>This card closes games; it turns the chaos of wheeling into inevitability.</p> <h3>6. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dauthi Voidwalker" href="#" target="_blank">Dauthi Voidwalker</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> 5.35%</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dauthi Voidwalker"></div></div> <p>The Ring tempts you mechanic gives us a lot to work with. As the Ring progresses, our Ring-bearer becomes harder to block, loots on attack, forces sacrifices from blockers, and eventually drains each opponent for three life whenever it deals combat damage.</p> <p>That last ability is huge. If our Ring-bearer connects, the table bleeds. So having a small, evasive creature that can reliably connect is valuable. Dauthi Voidwalker is perfect here. A 3/2 with shadow for two mana means it can only be blocked by creatures with shadow. In most Commander games, that effectively reads as unblockable.</p> <p>It also brings graveyard hate. If a card would go to an opponent’s graveyard, it’s exiled with a void counter instead. Later, we can sacrifice Dauthi Voidwalker to cast one of those exiled cards without paying its mana cost. So for two mana, we get an evasive Ring-bearer, disruption against Reanimator and recursion strategies, and the ability to steal a spell.</p> <p>That’s efficiency. Easy inclusion.</p> <h3>5. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kazuul&#039;s Fury" href="#" target="_blank">Kazuul&#039;s Fury</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> 3.6%</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards side-by-side"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Kazuul&#039;s Fury"></div></div> <p>We all dream of the perfect game where our Orc Army survives, grows, and swings for lethal. Reality is... messier. Board wipes happen. Fog effects exist. Sometimes one opponent is dead on board, and another is just out of reach.</p> <p>Kazuul’s Fury solves those problems while barely costing us anything. As a modal double faced card (MDFC), it can enter as a land when needed. That alone raises its floor dramatically. When we do cast it as a spell, we can sacrifice a creature and deal damage equal to its power to any target.</p> <p>So, we can swing with a 20-power Orc Army and knock out one opponent. Before passing the turn, we cast Kazuul’s Fury and fling that same Army at a second opponent. Two players gone in one turn. Flexibility is king in Commander.</p> <h3>4. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Library of Leng" href="#" target="_blank">Library of Leng</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> 1.7%</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Library of Leng"></div></div> <p>Discarding our entire hand is powerful, but it can also feel reckless. Sometimes there’s a specific card we want to keep. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Library of Leng" href="#" target="_blank">Library of Leng</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> gives us that control. When we discard a card, we may put it on top of our library instead of into our graveyard.</p> <p>With <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sauron, the Dark Lord" href="#" target="_blank">Sauron, the Dark Lord</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>, that means we can choose which cards actually hit the graveyard and which ones we redraw immediately. Maybe we want to bin a big creature for reanimation, but keep our <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Animate Dead" href="#" target="_blank">Animate Dead</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. Maybe we want to preserve a counterspell for protection.</p> <p>This card subtly transforms our wheel effect from chaotic to curated. We’re no longer just dumping our hand. We’re sculpting our future turns. At under two percent inclusion, that level of control feels criminally underplayed.</p> <h3>3. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Likeness Looter" href="#" target="_blank">Likeness Looter</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> 1.5%</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Likeness Looter"></div></div> <p>Likeness Looter does a little bit of everything Sauron wants. It’s a small evasive creature that can carry the Ring effectively. It has an activated ability to loot, meaning draw a card and discard a card, which helps fuel our graveyard and smooth our draws.</p> <p>Late in the game, it becomes something much scarier as we can pay mana to have it become a copy of a creature card in our graveyard. That effectively turns it into a flexible reanimation spell stapled to an evasive body.</p> <p>Early game Ring-bearer, mid game filter, late game threat. That kind of scalability is exactly what this deck appreciates. We’re already filling our graveyard with options. Likeness Looter turns that pile into a toolbox.</p> <h3>2. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Shadowgrange Archfiend" href="#" target="_blank">Shadowgrange Archfiend</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> 0.7%</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Shadowgrange Archfiend"></div></div> <p>Nothing shifts a board state like an unexpected sacrifice effect. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Shadowgrange Archfiend" href="#" target="_blank">Shadowgrange Archfiend</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> has madness, which means if we discard it, we can cast it for its madness cost instead of letting it go to the graveyard. In this case, three mana and eight life instead of seven mana.</p> <p>In a deck that discards regularly, that’s not magical Christmas land. That’s routine. When it enters, each opponent sacrifices the creature with the greatest power among creatures they control. We then gain life equal to the greatest power sacrificed this way.</p> <p>Sacrifice effects bypass hexproof, indestructible, and protection. They do not target. That makes them incredibly reliable. And because this specifically hits the largest creature, our opponents rarely have the luxury of sacrificing something expendable.</p> <p>After the dust settles, we’re left with an 8/4 Demon we can use to attack or as a threatening blocker.</p> <h3>1. <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dream Devourer" href="#" target="_blank">Dream Devourer</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> 0.34%</h3> <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Dream Devourer"></div></div> <p>We’re finishing with one of my personal favorites in this series: Dream Devourer. Sometimes we don’t want to discard a card, but we also don’t want to hold it and risk losing it to our own wheel. Dream Devourer gives all our nonland cards foretell. That means for two mana, we can exile a card from our hand face down and cast it later for its foretell cost, reduced by two.</p> <p>Before triggering the Ring, we can stash the cards we want to protect into exile. Then we discard our hand and draw four, knowing our key pieces are safe. Later, we can cast them at a discount.</p> <p>It effectively expands our hand size beyond seven. We’re banking resources for future turns while continuing to churn through our deck. In a strategy built around discard and reload, that kind of insulation is invaluable. At a fraction of a percent inclusion, this is the definition of a hidden gem.</p> <h2>Wrapping Up</h2> <p>As popular as <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sauron, the Dark Lord" href="#" target="_blank">Sauron, the Dark Lord</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span> is, there’s still room to experiment. <em>The Lord of the Rings</em> theme is flavorful, and it makes sense to build around it. With <em>The Hobbit</em> set on the horizon, interest in Sauron will likely spike again. But if we look past pure flavor, this commander is a flexible engine.</p> <p>In some ways, it reminds me of <span class="edhrecp__link"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice" href="#" target="_blank">Atraxa, Praetors&#039; Voice</a><span class="edhrecp__link-image"></span></span>. Not in raw power level, but in design philosophy. The abilities point us in a direction without locking us into a single path.</p> <p>If you have a Sauron, the Dark Lord deck, what are the hidden gems in your list? The card that overperforms every time it hits the table? Let us know in the comments below. We’re here to celebrate clever deck building and underappreciated design.</p> <p>Until next time, happy brewing.</p> 

lotr commander

Hidden Gems for Sauron, the Dark Lord Commander Decks