(Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber | Art by Alexis Ziritt)

A World Champion Commander Deck.

While the Magic world is rediscovering its foundations, we've all witnessed some history not long ago. MagicCon Vegas featured the 30th World Championship. The format was Standard, and the winner was once again Javier Dominguez. This was Javier's second win, and while many players are familiar with losing to his Fervent Champion card, I can't wait to see what card he gets featured on next.

His win and the cool cards printed in Duskmourn got my creative juices flowing. I paired up the big bad Valgavoth, Terror Eater, and cards from Javier's standard-winning Dimir Demons deck. My name is Nick, and let's look at what we get when we combine a whole mess of demons with a bit of World-Champion flair!

Standard Practice.

The most important part of this deck is the cards featured in many Standard decks at the World Championship in Vegas.

The most important card of the deck and tournament card is Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber. Using the new room mechanic from Duskmourn, this card is a take on a classic Phyrexian Arena. Card advantage at the cost of life, is there anything that screams black mana more than this? What the room can do that the arena cannot is kill your opponent. If you pay an additional 3, you get a 6/6 Demon to attack with and allow the card draw side to drain out the table slowly.

Next up is a high-risk, high-reward creature in Archfiend of the Dross. Four turns is all you get with this creature to try and end the game, or you will shuffle up to start another game. Your opponent's biggest mistake is thinking they can wait out the four turns until your demise. They have forgotten that our deck is full of hard-hitting creatures, and against the Archfiend of the Dross, chump blocking only speeds up their demise. Drawing something like Nuclear Fallout or Rush of Dreadmight also end some player's games on the spot with our archfiend out.

An accidental theme of this deck is new cards as a riff on classics. Caustic Bronco can provide some card draw and life drain, provided we have it saddled up. It also acts as a reminder of an all-time great card, Dark Confidant. This deck does try to live up to Bob's flavor text, Greatness, at any cost.

Emptying the Coffers.

This deck needs a lot of mana to do anything during a game. Mono Black has one of the best two-card combos to help facilitate this.

Turn all your lands into Swamps and power ahead of the mana curve thanks to Cabal Coffers. With these two lands, all you need is a fourth land drop to start profiting in your mana generation. Add in a Deserted Temple to untap the coffers or a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx once you have assembled some of our pip heavy permanents to show the table what you can do. Still, we want more, and by more, I mean I want our lands to tap for even more mana. Bubbling Muck might not be familiar, but it's black's version of a more famous card High Tide.

There's one more big mana trick at our disposal. Another blast from the past Extraplanar Lens and for this deck Snow-Covered Swamp. The wording on the lens means that only cards with the same name will get the bonus mana benefit. So even if everyone else at the table has typical Swamp, they won't get to share in any of our fun.

We don't just rely on lands in this deck. We have artifacts to join in on the fun, too.

Jet Medallion gives an excellent reduction to every single black spell we want to cast. At the same time, both Herald's Horn and Urza's Incubator work to reduce the cost of 19 Demons.

Terror Eater.

While Valgavoth, Terror Eater, wasn't present in Javier's winning list, the card is powerful. A 9/9 with flying and lifelink will keep you alive and help you kill opponents with commander damage in a few hits. Staple on protection with "Ward - Sacrifice three nonland permanents" and short of a complete board wipe, Valgavoth is not leaving the battlefield soon. But the last two chunks of text on Valgavoth show why even Terror can be consumed.

It doesn't matter if the card comes from the hand, the deck, or the battlefield. We get access to it as long as Valgavoth, Terror Eater, is around to grab a quick snack. This allows us to play some less frequented cards to help us have a steady stream of cards at our disposal.

As previously mentioned, Nuclear Fallout clears the board and gives rad counters to help mill our opponents' good cards so that we can use them instead. Grisly Spectacle is not the cheapest single-target removal spell. But it embodies the bigger they are, the harder they fall feeling. The bigger the creature's power we destroy, the more cards we get. As good as removal spells are one of the best cards to pair with Valgavoth, Terror Eater might be Incarnation Technique.

Cards with Demonstrate seem to be shied away from, as Incarnation Technique is only in 1% of decks and is the second most played technique. Yes, an opponent will get to reanimate a creature, but you get two creatures out of your top ten cards and what was already lying around in the graveyard. This is saying nothing of how good this card is with Valgavoth out on the battlefield.

Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree allows us to get a bit of ramp to either help cast Valgavoth or help fill their appetite. Much like how being in Duskmourn could mess with your mind, Scheming Symmetry is great at messing with an opponent. Let them think they have just found the answer they need or the card that will let them win the game and follow up with a Realmbreaker activation.

What About the Demons?

At the heart of this deck are Demons. Demons in Magic are often highly costed and have big effects tacked on them. Cards like Sower of Discord can help to take out multiple people simultaneously, with you only spending half the effort. Bloodletter of Aclazotz is a standard combo piece, but itself and Archfiend of Despair will leave the table wondering what happened to the 40 life they used to have.

Foundations provides two new additions. Abyssal Harvester, a cheap-to-cast token creator, and Arbiter of Woe, a big demon who can save us from our Archfiend of the Dross and provide card advantage.

Rune-Scarred Demon and Burning-Rune Demon can allow us to get the right card at the right time. Demonic Counsel will more often than not be a Demonic Tutor in this deck, but grabbing a Demon is what we want to do most of the time, so if we do not meet the Delirium requirement we don't care.

Lastly, Crabomination keeps the theme of playing our opponents' cards and who could hate a Crab Demon? In contrast, Doomsday Excruciator loses out on the combo potential found in Javier's deck unless we get lucky with our opponent's previously exiled cards. Still, it will be a laugher of a game-ending threat.

Contract, Covenant, Gambit, Pact.

Demons might offer power, but the power often comes with a price.

These cards do something good for us but come with various prices. From losing the game with Demonic Pact to losing itself with Demonic Covenant. All of them are too good to pass up in this deck. But how do we maximize our profit while minimizing our loss? With a Fateful Handoff. Being mono-black means, we lose access to the typical cards seen in these types of combos: Harmless Offering, Donate, and Zedruu the Greathearted. But color restrictions have never stopped commander players before, so Fateful Handoff all those enchantments and your Archfiend of the Dross with only one oil counter left on.

Wrap Up.

Valgavoth, Terror Eater can be a back breaking commander. With ways to possibly cheat it into play or out of a graveyard, this card can cause headaches for a table. Our build focuses on the Demons in the game, some alternate loss conditions, and cards featured in a World Championship standard deck, toning down the power level to a palpable level. This is not to say that everyone will believe you are not the primary enemy when you show up with this deck, but the ability to talk your way into trust makes up a good Demon.

One more time, congratulations to Javier on his win, and I can't wait to see what the second card with his likeness does. If you liked this deck, you can find it and everything else I've written on EDHREC.

Deck List.

Nicholas Lucchesi

Player and lover of all Magic the Gathering formats. Forged in the fires of Oath of the Gatewatch expeditions. Always down to jam games with anyone and everyone. When not playing Magic I am doing something else equally, if not more nerdy.