Commmander Deck Tech: Tergrid, God of Fright
A few of the more recent decks I've brewed up articles on were 5-color. I wanted to get back to the basics and go with another mono-colored deck. Tergrid, God of Fright has been really popular ever since the card was printed in Kaldheim roughly 8 months ago. Since then, we've had several sets that have come out to add to the arsenal of what this deck can do.
As most of my decks go, I always want to pay attention to the mana acceleration and the capabilities of what the deck is going to do. You want to have heavy interaction with Tergrid, God of Fright by making your opponent discard cards and sacrifice permanents. You also want to do that while Tergrid is in play to get free permanents. The goal is to get Tergrid on the board as fast as possible while also having some free mana to play a spell the turn it comes out. This is not going to happen all the time, but with the amount of mana acceleration I’ve added it will happen in a good amount of games.
Mana Acceleration: Grim Monolith, Jet Medallion, Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Mind Stone, Sol Ring, Thought Vessel, and Thran Dynamo.
The amount of mana rocks is not over the top but the cost of some of the cards are on the pricier side. I want as much extra mana as possible to hopefully pull off casting Tergrid as early as turn 3. Tergrid is a big target once she does come into play. That usually leads to her being targeted by a counterspell or removal. Having all that extra colorless mana will help play Tergrid multiple times later in games.
Discard Spells: Court of Ambition, Bottomless Pit, Chain of Smog, Dark Deal, Divest, Hymn to Tourach, Mind Rake, Mind Shatter (you can change to Mind Twist), Thoughtseize, and Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage.
There are also quite a few discard creatures which in this deck play multiple rolls. They are your early game rats that start your board presence. They cause hand disruption that may make your opponents fall out in later turns due to discarding something they needed. In the late game the discard creatures are not as exciting unless you have Tergrid in play already. At that point they can become more advantageous if you are able to snag permanents. You can also intentionally sacrifice your 1/1's and other smaller creatures to the sacrifice creatures like Fleshbag Marauder and Plaguecrafter. This allows you to get more power on the board while also wiping out your opponents creatures. There are several other interactions with cards like Witch's Cottage and Volrath's Stronghold. You can use them to keep cycling discard creatures back on top of your library for your next draw. You can also do the same with your sacrifice creatures to keep making opponents sacrifice their creatures every turn. That's not necessarily what the deck wants to do all the time, but it's another layer of functionality in the toolbox of this deck.
Sacrifice Spells: Diabolic Edict, Liliana's Triumph, Pharika's Libation, Soul Shatter, Sudden Edict, Vona's Hunger, Barter in Blood, Innocent Blood, and Mire in Misery.
There are several other nifty interactions in the deck with the planeswalkers and Tergrid. I decided to run several cards that do multiple interactions with Tergrid cards that may have a discard effect and a sacrifice effect. Some of these are more expensive late game cards, but they are severely crippling if they do not get countered.
Crippling Effects / Game Enders: Death Cloud, Exsanguinate, Fraying Omnipotence, Pox, Smallpox, and Torment of Hailfire.
We also have one infinite Combo in the deck in the form of Chain of Smog + Professor Onyx. It's the combo that made Chain of Smog go from a few dollar uncommon to almost a twenty dollar card. One key thing to note is when Professor Onyx is in play you must target yourself with Chain of Smog. You are then able to copy it and keep Chain of Smogging yourself. Each time you do so you'll have to discard two cards, but you'll also be draining your opponent's for 2 life. Eventually you'll have no cards in hand, but can continue to copy the spell as many times as you like. This allows you to infinitely drain the life of all your opponents.
This deck is not for a casual game. This deck will severely upset your opponents by making them discard all their cards, and sacrificing all their creatures. Heck you might even beat them down with their own creatures or permanents. It will be interesting to see how the newer cards play out in the deck. With the addition of Modern Horizons 2 and D&D: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms we get to test out: Tourach, Dread Cantor, Archon of Cruelty, Grief, and Westgate Regent.
If you have any suggestions or fun interactions in a Tergrid, God of Fright deck drop a comment below. Thanks for reading!
