The Reaper, King No MoreThe Reaper, King No More | Art by Zack Stella

Many Magic players have been waiting for a dedicated -1/-1 counter commander in a black, red, and green color identity since the first expansion that was set in Shadowmoor. Now, nearly eighteen years later, the upcoming set Lorwyn Eclipsed provides us with two extremely powerful choices with the Blight Curse precon.

Many of you will feel inclined to use Auntie Ool, CursewretchAuntie Ool, Cursewretch to these ends. Yes, I totally get that line of thinking. Auntie Ool is the face commander of Blight Curse and is therefore designed for the deck. However, I have something fairly different in mind. And now, introductions are in order: meet The Reaper, King No MoreThe Reaper, King No More!

The Reaper, King No More is a revisitation of Reaper KingReaper King. Reaper King is a fantastic and aesthetically interesting commander for Scarecrow-typal decks. However, that's roughly where its domain ends, mechanically. With this return to Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, we also revisit the character, and so too discover a new facet behind the Reaper!

This deck is meant to be a Bracket 3 Commander build. It primarily utilizes aspects of Aggro, but it also focuses heavily on Control and even has a bit of Combo to end stalemate board states. It's very fun to pilot, but, as a word of full disclosure, your opponents may get tired of it fairly quickly if they're unprepared for it.

With that, let's dive into how the deck is built!

What Does The Reaper, King No MoreThe Reaper, King No More Do?

Our commander for this deck tech has a neat mana cost. It costs three generic-or-colored pips, one in each of Jund's colors, with the generic requiring two mana. This means that while The Reaper has a mana value of six, its pilot can cast it for as little as , substituting any missing color for two more mana of types they already have on hand.

That's already phenomenal because, in three-color decks, some players have trouble getting their mana fixed to cast their pivotal commanders.

But that's not even half of what makes The Reaper, King No More so cool. When it enters, you put a -1/-1 counter on up to two target creatures. In this way, The Reaper facilitates its own personal creature-removal suite. Then, whenever a creature an opponent controls with a -1/-1 counter on it dies, you may return it to the battlefield under your control!

This commander is quite possibly going to be the bane of many playgroups for that last ability.

Commanders Similar to The Reaper

Lorwyn Eclipsed's Blight Curse precon actually answers the question of which commanders are similar to The Reaper, King No More. Most of them are already in the deck; if you're not interested acquiring The Reaper as a single, you have all of them on hand from Blight Curse! But to elaborate on the similar commanders we're not including in this build, there are two in particular that we either can't or don't care to add.

The first of these commanders is Auntie Ool, CursewretchAuntie Ool, Cursewretch. Auntie Ool is certainly a notable 1/-1 counter commander in their own right. While this strategy lends itself to an Aggro-Control build, Auntie Ool suffers from the design trap of "do a set's mechanical thing: draw a card." In turn, this leads to linear, potentially uninspired plays. That's why we're playing The Reaper over Auntie Ool.

The second of these commanders is Volrath, the ShapestealerVolrath, the Shapestealer, a legendary creature from the Commander 2019 precons. Volrath is honestly a pretty cool commander option, but for players who don't want to muck about with blue identities for this strategy, Volrath is simply not it for them.

And, aesthetically, there's also Reaper KingReaper King in its more basic, Shadwomoor printing. It's not even a -1/-1 counter commander, so while it's neat and pretty awesome looking, it explicitly doesn't qualify except for, in theory, Bracket 1 or 2 Scarecrow-typal play.

For the Control players who want an optimized, oppressive deck without strategies that end up too linear, The Reaper is likely the call to make.

The Reaper's Overall Strategy

As I mentioned above, The Reaper, King No MoreThe Reaper, King No More is a commander that dips its twigs into the three main archetypes of play: Aggro, Control, and Combo. With respect to its Aggro tendencies, we're running cards that can overpower a board while we shrink opposing creatures to nothingness using -1/-1 counters aplenty.

Its Control facets aim to make sure that no creature can stick around for too long before it withers (fairly literally) to ashes.

Finally, in the event that the board is locked in a stalemate, I've added certain combos to the deck to ensure we can come out of that scrap on top.

Key Cards for The Reaper

When I write deck techs for Commander, I tend to divide my key cards into three important sections. For The Reaper, King No MoreThe Reaper, King No More, these will be divided into the key play archetypes that the deck wants to exhibit: Aggro, Control, and Combo.

Careful With That (Aggro) Backhoe!

Aggro: The Reaper wants to have moderately-sized creatures swinging into boards of much smaller ones. This deck isn't concerned with mounting as aggressive a front as other Aggro decks, but in a world of 2/2s, a 3/3 or better is (Reaper) king. (Note that this doesn't necessarily mean attacking with your commander here.)

The deck is, however, relatively indiscriminate with which creatures swing in, so long as you're whittling down life totals accordingly.

As a sidebar, I understand that this is a bit of a copout, but the deck really doesn't mind swinging in with whatever is handy. So, go ahead! Throw your opponents' creatures back at them as improvised weapons! Attack with something highly unexpected, even! It's going to be mostly fine in the end.

Control Those Pests!

Control: This is where the key core of this deck shines most brightly. The cards in this archetype are numerous, but most of them share the common theme of weakening the opposition to make way for aggression later.

Cards in this section include Archfiend of IfnirArchfiend of Ifnir, Kulrath KnightKulrath Knight, and a new card with utterly wicked potential here, Village PillagersVillage Pillagers.

In addition, we have a few good sources of card draw that stem from our Control strategy, allowing us to further fuel the game plan of the deck.

Generous PatronGenerous Patron is a creature that many players might overlook when exploring -1/-1 strategies because it won't often show up in search queries. However, it's a great card for this deck. Furthermore, The Scorpion GodThe Scorpion God is one of the competing commanders to The Reaper, King No More, but it's a great source of draw for this deck as well.

Lastly, Yawgmoth, Thran PhysicianYawgmoth, Thran Physician is a beloved mono-black dealer of counters both beneficial and detrimental. He also facilitates even more draw, which for us is just dandy!

Comb(o)ing Out the Fallow Fields

Finally, the combos of this deck that can unstick your spade from the muck are pretty diverse. They can either flood the board with necessary bodies, generate an infinite supply of mana, or scour your opponents' boards of any creatures they have on hand.

The first combo we'll discuss involves a new card from Lorwyn Eclipsed proper: High Perfect MorcantHigh Perfect Morcant. My fellow writer, the incomparable and delightful J. Rowe, wrote up an Elfball list with Morcant at the helm just last month. This build uses Morcant in a somewhat similar way. However, Morcant is in here primarily to combo with Flourishing DefensesFlourishing Defenses.

Seriously, all sympathies to those who speculated on the enchantment before it was revealed in the Blight Curse precon.

With this setup, you need only cast an Elf, including Morcant herself, while Flourishing Defenses is out. Doing so, you clear your opponents' boards while flooding your own with Elf Warrior tokens.

The next combo is a little less known right now, but it's a fun one. Everlasting TormentEverlasting Torment is an enchantment that gives the wither mechanic to every source imaginable. Pairing this with All Will Be OneAll Will Be One, all you need to do is deal one point of damage to any opposing creature. When you do, you loop All Will Be One to do so to all of your opponents' creatures.

More Good "Nooze"

This deck also contains a few lines that utilize Marvin, Murderous MimicMarvin, Murderous Mimic and Necrotic OozeNecrotic Ooze independently to generate all sorts of value. To some players' delight, this can include infinite mana generation.

Two lines that spring to mind immediately while writing this up are MorselhoarderMorselhoarder and Grim PoppetGrim Poppet. These both share usage of Devoted DruidDevoted Druid to fuel them. Notably, you can also use Cinderhaze WretchCinderhaze Wretch to this end (and to engage in discards!). However, Cinderhaze Wretch is not included in this deck due to its moderately high mana cost.

It's important to keep in mind the placement of your combo pieces regarding the above combo lines. Marvin does this when the pieces are on the battlefield, while Necrotic Ooze does this while they're in the graveyard. Don't mix these up!

How Does The Reaper, King No MoreThe Reaper, King No More Win?

You can win in a multitude of ways with The Reaper, King No More. For one, dealing damage to a very empty board repeatedly is a great way to end games. Additionally, you can make infinite mana with the aforementioned combos to fuel 100 tower counters on Helix PinnacleHelix Pinnacle. "If you build it, they will scoop," as your opponents may say.

Otherwise, you can also aim to frustrate your opponents with an attritive board state and locks. In turn, that may stall them to the point of aggravation. It's not optimal to force scoops in this way, but sometimes that does the trick. It's fun to be the King!

The Reaper, King No More Commander Deck List

Conclusion

The Reaper, King No MoreThe Reaper, King No More is inevitably going to be one of those commanders that people will ask you not to play in lower brackets. Granted, that's only really true if you overuse it. However, in unfettered metas, this commander will dominate pods. One might even go so far as to speculate that it could be cEDH viable. It's only a matter of time before we can determine that, so get your lumps in while you can!

And now, I'd like to open the floor to you, dear readers! Who among you is planning to build a deck after The Reaper, King No More? Do you have any special additions that I may have missed putting in this deck?

Furthermore, are you excited to play with the new cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed? Sound off in the comments below!