The Master of Lake-townThe Master of Lake-town | Art by Marius Bota

Describing a Commander deck can sometimes be a challenge. Today, however, the description for this deck is four simple words, coming from the flavor text of the original printing of Dark ConfidantDark Confidant: "Greatness, at any cost."

With the release of The Hobbit, we are introduced to The Master of Lake-townThe Master of Lake-town. As the ruler of a lakeside town, there are a few things on my mind: collecting taxes from the citizens, making sure the town stays safe, and most importantly, WINNING MY COMMANDER POD.

This deck is all-in on trying to win the game quickly and efficiently, using our own life as a resource and living squarely inside Bracket 3. You might die while playing this deck, but if you do, it will be in a blaze of glory. With nothing left to say, check out my build of The Master of Lake-town.

Marvel vs. The Hobbit vs. MTG

Starting at the end, let's take a look at how we are going to win the game. The main way we are trying to win the game focuses around one of three cards.

Plan A of the deck is to win with the effect of Doctor Doom, UnrivaledDoctor Doom, Unrivaled. A mono-black Laboratory ManiacLaboratory Maniac-style of creature, this is the main way we will be trying to win the game. Many of the cards in this deck cause us to pay life or lose life, and The Master of Lake-town will help by putting our deck into the graveyard. Once we find a card to give Doom haste, it's game over for the table.

Baron Helmut ZemoBaron Helmut Zemo was an underrated superstar when I was testing out the deck. The boast ability is only held back by the fact that we have to attack with it, but since we run plenty of fast mana such as Dark RitualDark Ritual, getting Zemo down early should not be too much of an issue. Once we do, filling the graveyard allows us to hit the 15 black mana symbols to use Zemo's ability quickly after the fact.

Last but not least is Syr Konrad, the GrimSyr Konrad, the Grim. An ultra-popular combo commander in its own right, and one who loves all the zone movement our cards will be going through. Syr Konrad also goes great with one of the best cards in the deck, MindcrankMindcrank.

Winning with this deck isn't very difficult, if I'm being honest. Getting there, on the other hand — well, you will see.

Life Keeps on Slippin'

In this deck, we need to lose life, but we need to lose life in some very specific ways. Waiting around for opponents to attack us is not going to help the deck function, but we also don't want to go too far, too fast. Luckily, we are in a color that specializes in paying life for effects.

Card-draw effects like Night's WhisperNight's Whisper and Sign in BloodSign in Blood are commonplace in the format. But, less often seen are cards like Cruel BargainCruel Bargain and Infernal ContractInfernal Contract. We even get counter magic with Imp's MischiefImp's Mischief and Withering BoonWithering Boon, plus classic removal spells like Snuff OutSnuff Out, Bitter TriumphBitter Triumph, and Killing WaveKilling Wave.

Even with all these options, there are still more that are less-known and somewhat more impactful in the list.

Temporal ExtortionTemporal Extortion is a hilarious extra turn spell. But in this deck, it acts as a turbo mill card. In fact, we rarely want to take the extra turn off this card.

Most players won't want to pay half their life on what could be turn four to stop us from taking an extra turn. We, however, want to do exactly that. A best-case scenario is using all of our lands that cause us harm, such as Tarnished CitadelTarnished Citadel, Cabal PitCabal Pit, and fetch lands; we cast our commander on turn three and follow it up with Temporal Extortion. At something around 35 life, we pay half our own life to counter the extortion and put 18 cards into the graveyard. Not too shabby.

Plunge into DarknessPlunge into Darkness has recently seen play in the Modern format as a combo piece with CosmogoyfCosmogoyf. Much like that deck, it is a perfect card to help us remove whatever is left of the library in turn to set up a win. In a pinch, we can gain some life when the game doesn't go our way, or put just a small amount of life into it when we need a card to help our game plan, but we might not be ready to go for the win.

Did you know that the card Garza's AssassinGarza's Assassin existed? If so, you are likely older than me or just a huge fan of Coldsnap. Not the best removal spell ever made, but one that is both reusable and comes with that ever-so-important life-paying ability our deck is searching for.

Back Up To 40

An often overlooked piece of a life-loss deck is the ability to gain life. You need to have some ways to keep yourself from flying too close to the sun, or a way to recover for when you inevitably do. While there might not be any large gain life spells in this deck that you would typically see, such as ExsanguinateExsanguinate, we have some heavy hitters, I promise.

First up is a card that you have rarely seen hit a table for a game of Commander: Demon's HornDemon's Horn. You could also count Bontu's MonumentBontu's Monument in this portion of the list, but that does more than the Horn. Simply put, if anyone plays a black spell, we gain one life. Perfect for a deck that can chain together a few spells per turn and that wants to gain just enough life to not die.

Tree of PerditionTree of Perdition is the Plan Q of the deck to win the game, as there is a world we can life-swap with someone and finish them off. Really, though, it's here to life-swap with someone so that we can use the larger life total to our advantage and fill our yard.

Aetherflux ReservoirAetherflux Reservoir is not at full power in this list since we want to play in the Bracket 3 space, so I decided to cut the loops, focusing on GravecrawlerGravecrawler and Phyrexian AltarPhyrexian Altar or Ashnod's AltarAshnod's Altar. The card does gain life at a pretty fast clip, so a few spells will be all we need to stay afloat. If we run into a Lifegain deck, maybe we can combo with the Tree and steal a win by shooting someone for 50.

One Is Not Zero

As I have said many times, it's important to this deck that you do not die.

Sometimes, however, you will die, and it's unavoidable. When that happens, there are a few tricks up our sleeve to make sure we can keep playing and even sneak a win out of it.

First up is The Golden ThroneThe Golden Throne. Fittingly, the arcane life-support ability on this card allows us to stave off death, much like the Emperor of Mankind, and go to one. Less needed for the deck, but still important, is the ability to sacrifice a creature to add three mana. We do have a few throwaway creatures that can power us to a high-cost spell every once in a while.

Stunning ReversalStunning Reversal is a card that should maybe see more play in generic black decks. The instant speed means we can use it in response to a spell that would kill us, and we get the bonus of drawing seven bonus cards. The best use of this card is setting it up in a way for us to pay enough life to lose the game after casting this to get seven more cards, and hopefully combo off from there.

Out of the TombsOut of the Tombs is worse at keeping us alive than the first two cards, but it does something those cards can't: bring a creature back from the dead. Sometimes we will end up with Doom or another creature we need in the graveyard. When that happens, in most scenarios, an Out of the Tombs that has been around for two rotations should be enough to bring the creature back that we need, and if it's Doom, hopefully we have no library left and can win the game on the spot.

Extras

A key card you might be noticing is absent from the list is Platinum AngelPlatinum Angel. Normally, if I were building a deck whose purpose was to essentially die without losing the game, I would add this card. This deck isn't normal. Many cards in the deck require us to pay life as part of a cost or to use their effect, and that can't be done if we have zero or less life. While the Angel and cards like it would keep us alive, most of our cards would be unusable, and we would sit there until someone put us out of our misery.

While I decided to go with a Bracket 3 version of the deck, I don't expect that to be where this card is found. The Master of Lake-town thrives in Bracket 4, in my opinion. It has a plethora of easy-to-execute infinite combos, and the ability to cause opponents damage and mill them out at the same time is much easier than milling yourself to win the game.

We have a few of those combos in the deck, such as Bloodchief AscensionBloodchief Ascension + MindcrankMindcrank and Sheoldred, the ApocalypseSheoldred, the Apocalypse + Peer into the AbyssPeer into the Abyss. Still, they're primarily backups for when the main plan falls apart, or we find ourselves too low on life to execute the normal win conditions.

Just know The Master of Lake-town is as dangerous as it looks, and should be treated accordingly.

The Deck List

Wrap Up

The Master of Lake-town is an incredibly strong commander, and one that some people will find very fun to play. Most people will not, however.

This will be one of those decks where you are saying "I promise it's not that deck" when you sit down at the table and take it out of the box. If those are the types of deck you enjoy playing, then go for it, but if that isn't where you want to be when playing Commander, this might not be the deck for you.

All of this aside, The Hobbit set looks to be a certified banger of a release, and I can't wait to get my hands on some of these cards. What are your favorite cards from the set? Would you play against a The Master of Lake-town deck?

Let me know over on Bluesky and Instagram.