(Sauron, the Lidless Eye | Yigit Koroglu)

Introduction

In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.

There are lots of commanders that you may want to try.

There's Uglúk, Mauhúr and other Uruk-hai.

But today we'll look at Sauron, the Lidless Eye.

Only 416 people have built around this big bad guy.

But he's an awesome card, and now I'll show you why...

A Selection of Saurons

There may only be one Ring, but Magic: the Gathering features four different printings of Sauron.

The most popular is Sauron, the Dark Lord who currently leads 21'255 decks. This makes him the 7th most popular commander in the game, at least as of 12/08/2024 when all of these usage stats were gathered. The secret of Sauron the Dark Lord's popularity is his incredibly high power.

This card's ward effect makes it incredibly punishing to target it with removal. It has high power and toughness, and can generate an Orc Army token with stats that will rapidly balloon out of control.

Sauron also lets his controller regularly chuck their hand into the graveyard and then draw four new cards, providing card advantage and enabling graveyard and madness synergies.

Next up is Sauron, Lord of the Rings who leads 3,360 decks and is the face commander of the Hosts of Mordor precon. This version of Sauron has the best name of the bunch, which makes it unfortunate that it ended up getting upstaged by another commander.

Sauron, Lord of the Rings costs which is a huge investment. For the cost, Sauron, Lord of the Rings does produce masses of stats, 14/14, spread out over two bodies, alongside reanimating something from your graveyard.

Nevertheless, this card's massive mana cost has turned many players away. Saruman, the White Hand the backup commander of Hosts of Mordor leads almost twice as many decks, with 6,092 to his name. Sauron may be the lord of the rings, but it looks like Saruman is the lord of providing a meaningful effect at an efficient cost.

Then there's Sauron, the Necromancer, a mono-black reanimation commander. This printing of Sauron leads 753 decks, making it slightly too popular to be featured in this series. Every time he attacks, Sauron, the Necromancer snatches a creature from your graveyard and returns them to play as 3/3 Wraiths with menace. This makes Sauron, the Necromancer a great commander for creatures with impactful enter the battlefield abilities. Fill your deck up with cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Massacre Wurm and Ravenous Chupacabra and watch your opponents' threat and fume.

Finally, we come to Sauron, the Lidless Eye the subject of today's article. While Sauron, the Lidless Eye is the least popular printing of the lord of the rings, commanding only 416 decks, he's by no means a bad card. This downplayed dark lord has a lot of potential, allowing you to slot a Threateneffect right into your command zone. Let's gaze into his burning, terrible, eye and see if any inspiring strategies gaze back at us.

Keep your Lidless Eye on the Prize

Sauron, the Lidless Eye wasn't printed in The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth or included in one of the supplemental Commander decks released alongside the set. Instead, this card comes from the Tales of Middle-earth Starter Kit, an introductory product containing two 60-card decks designed to let new players battle it out as either the heroes or the villains from The Lord of the Rings. You may also recognize Aragorn and Arwen, Wed who served as the counterpart to this card in the deck focused on the Fellowship.

For Sauron, the Lidless Eye is a 4/4 that steals an opponent's creature until the end of the turn. As is typical for effects like this Sauron also untaps the creature and gives it haste so that it's able to attack.

To get the most out of this commander you also want to find ways of getting rid of the creatures that he steals, to prevent you from having to give them back at the end of the turn. Fortunately, given that Sauron, the Lidless Eye is a Rakdos commander, you have absolutely no shortage of sacrifice cards to send your stolen threats on a one-way trip to the graveyard.

You also want to find as many ways as possible of looping Sauron's effect so that you can steal multiple creatures in one turn. One of the easiest ways to pull this off is to target Sauron's with a card like Supernatural Stamina, Kaya's Ghostform or Fake Your Own Death before using one of the many sacrifice outlets in your deck to get rid of him.

Sauron will die, then return to play, and steal a creature as he does so. You can also use cards like Splinter Twin, Jaxis, the Troublemaker, or Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink to make token copies of Sauron, the Lidless Eye that will die almost immediately, but nab a creature as they go.

Beyond Sauron's ability to steal creatures, he also allows you to pay in order to give all your creatures +2/+0 and deal two damage to each opponent. You can use this ability to win the game if you're ever able to generate infinite mana.

You'll likely pull this off through some sort of kooky combo using Phyrexian Altar. For example, if you have a Phyrexian Altar, a Gravecrawler, any other Zombie, and a Pitiless Plunderer in play then you can keep sacrificing and recasting the Gravecrawler over and over again, ending up one mana positive each time.

We've talked about all of the different opportunities this commander opens up, now let's have a look at the decks people currently have built around him.

Average Deck

EDHREC's average deck feature is a lot like Sauron. It takes all of the different decks people have built around a commander, and in the darkness, it binds them. It puts out a a single deck that's representative of all of the different brews people have listed on the different deck building sites that EDHREC draws from. At the time of writing, 12/08/2024, there are 416 different decks built around Sauron, the Lidless Eye. Here's what all of those decks look like merged into one.

I'll be completely honest this list is a bit of a mess. There are some sacrifice effects here, a selection of Orcish cards, and some other random includes from Middle-earth that just seem to be along for the ride. As a reminder, this commander wants us to steal our opponents' creatures and then sacrifice them before we are forced to return them.

Rather than going for the strategy outlined above, where we use different cards to loop Sauron's ability to steal the opponents' creatures, this deck instead runs other stealing effects like Act of Treason and Zealous Conscripts. This is a different approach, that ultimately gets us to the same end.

The Orcish theme may seem like it's just here for flavor, but Orcs and sacrifice strategies go together quite nicely. Many Orcs like Uglúk of the White Hand, and Gorbag of Minas Morgul either allow you to sacrifice creatures, or reward you for doing so.

The Orc 1/1 army tokens generated by the many amass cards in this deck can also be used as cheap sacrifice fodder. I'll leave it up to you whether you want to expand or cut this Orcish subtheme. It's certainly very evocative, but many of these Orcs aren't great cards in their own right.

Some of the cards in this deck command staggering price tags, enabling you to make some quick and easy savings by cutting them. Both Orcish Bowmasters and The One Ring are $50+ cards, enabling you to save over $100 by removing just two cards. While you're at it, get rid of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, which is a roughly $40 card, along with Blood Crypt and Luxury Suite, both of which typically sell for between $15 and $20.

5 Cards to Keep

Conjurer's Closet

Currently in 20% of decks.

Conjurer's Closet is an amazing card in any blink deck. Sauron, the Lidless Eye is not a blink deck, but it still provides a great home for this card. You do need to make sure that you use it correctly though. Your first instinct might be to blink Sauron himself. After all, Sauron steals a creature from one of your opponents whenever he enters play, so surely you want to pop him into and out of your Conjurer's Closet as much as possible?

The issue is that Conjurer's Closet activates during each of your end steps, and Sauron returns the creature that he steals at the end of each of your turns. That means that while Sauron would gain control of another opponent's creature for you, you would retain that control only for an incredibly short amount of time before being forced to hand them back over.

Instead what you want to be doing is using this card to flicker the creatures that you steal with Sauron. The creature will exit play and then return to play under your control, per the text of Conjurer's Closet. This means that the card returns to play as a new object, and does not need to be given back to whoever you stole it from. If you keep this in mind, and blink the creatures you steal rather than the lord of Mordor himself, then this card makes for an amazing include. As his name implies, Sauron has a lidless eye so he doesn't need to blink anyway.

Goblin Bombardment

Currently in 25% of decks.

One of the best sacrifice outlets in the game, alongside Viscera Seer who is also already included in this deck. Both of these cards are great because they allow you to sacrifice a creature and gain a benefit without needing to pay an additional cost. You don't need to offer up any mana and you don't need to tap anything, the creature just goes straight into your graveyard.

Goblin Bombardment is a great way of killing off the creatures that you steal from your opponents using this deck before you need to hand them back over. You even get to deal a point of damage to a target of your choosing as part of the bargain.

Easterling Vanguard

Currently in 26% of decks.

Of all of the cards included in the starter kit with Sauron, the Lidless Eye this humble common may be the one that is most worth keeping around. Sacrifice decks always love it when cards produce multiple bodies, and Easterling Vanguard gives you a 2/1 and a 1/1 for only two mana.

The 1/1 generated when Easterling Vanguard dies is also an Orc which plenty of cards in this deck care about.Easterling Vanguard may not be the most exciting card around, but it fills its role as sacrifice fodder well.

Vengeful Possession

Currently in 2% of decks.

As cards that temporarily steal creatures from your opponents go, Act of Treason (or I guess Threaten if you're feeling particularly old school) is the baseline against which all other such effects are measured. Vengeful Possession is strictly better than Act of Treason as, for the same cost, it also permits you to discard a card and then draw a new one.

Vengeful Possession is far from the only upgrade over Act of Treason that we've gotten over the years. This card is one of many improved sorcery speed creature stealing. Take for a Ride can be cast at instant speed, which is a huge upside on a card like this since it allows you to force your opponents' own creatures to block their attack.

Furnace Reins can generate a Treasure token if the stolen creature gets damage through. Finally, Twisted Fealty generates a Wicked Role token that powers up a creature you control. Keep Vengeful Possession around, but cut Act of Treason for one of these alternatives.

High-Society Hunter

Currently in 3% of decks.

A great new Foundations card that is both a sacrifice outlet, a threat, and a card draw engine all in one. The sheer amount of different things that this card can do is amazing, especially considering that it is currently available for less than a dollar.

High-Society Hunter is a five mana 5/3 flyer that can sacrifice a creature whenever it attacks to gain a +1/+1 counter, it also allows its controller to draw a card whenever anything dies. Creatures in Magic die constantly, especially when you're running a deck with a sacrifice theme. This is a high-society card without a high-society price tag.

5 Cards to Cut

The Balrog, Flame of Udûn

Currently in 25% of decks.

I'm sure that I don't need to spell out why you should cut this card, one look at it tells you all you need to know. This is a bad, bad Balrog. The Balrog, Flame of Udûn is a trampling 7/7 for five mana but with the, significant, downside that it goes to the bottom of your library whenever a legendary creature controlled by an opponent dies.

In a game of Commander all of your opponents are guaranteed to have built their decks around a legendary creature and so it's almost impossible to keep this card in play for any meaningful amount of time. The card only made the cut here since it's included in the same Lord of the Rings starter kit that Sauron, the Lidless Eye is from.

There are very few cards out there that meaningfully interact with the bottom of your library. Maybe someone out there will brew an amazing combo using this card and something like Cellar Door, River Song, or Grenzo, Dungeon Warden until that day comes though don't let this Balrog anywhere near your deck.

Claim the Precious

Currently in 26% of decks.

Claim the Precious is a bad removal spell, which attempts to lure players into using it by having the Ring tempt them when they do. "The Ring tempts you" is a fun, albeit somewhat convoluted, mechanic from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth. Since this is the only card in the entire deck that cares about the Ring tempting us, it doesn't synergize with anything else, and so it makes for an easy cut.

While it would be incredibly thematically appropriate to have Sauron in our command zone, and a deck based on getting tempted by the ring, Sauron, the Dark Lord is a better choice for anyone looking to build a deck like this.

The very first Under the Radar column that I wrote was actually about Aragorn Company Leader, a commander that utilizes this mechanic. There are plenty of other commanders out there who care about being tempted by the ring far more than Sauron, the Lidless Eye. Don't try to Claim the Precious, claim a better removal spell instead.

Snarling Warg

Currently in 24% of decks.

Some orcish typal cards that can carve out a niche and genuinely work in this deck. Snarling Warg is not among them. A 3/4 with menace for that becomes a 4/4 with menace while you control an Orc or a Goblin is not something that you want outside of maybe a game of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Limited.

Fires of Mount Doom

Currently in 32% of decks.

I should probably stop picking on cards from the starter set, but they are just such easy targets. Two damage for three mana is dreadful, spending three mana to exile the top card of your deck isn't great. With a commander like Prosper, Tome-Bound or Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald this second ability would be pretty good.

As it stands though the three mana that you sink into activating this effect is mana that could be better spent elsewhere, and also can't be spent attempting to cast whatever you have exiled.

March from the Black Gate

Currently in 26% of decks.

March from the Black Gate is an Amass card. This card's Amass 1 effect means that when you cast it, you will either create a 0/0 Orc Army token and then place a +1/+1 counter on it, or it will put a +1/+1 counter on an Orc Army you currently control. This card amasses again whenever you attack with your Orc Army.

Broadly there are two ways that decks use the Amass ability. Some decks want to build up a huge army and then grant it evasion so you can sock opponents in the face with it. Saruman, the White Hand is a great example of a commander that can build a massive army very quickly.

Other decks want to use amass to generate a 1/1 Army token and then sacrifice it. Uglúk of the White Hand is an example of a commander like this and so, for that matter, is Sauron, the Lidless Eye.

March from the Black Gate wants to go in a deck that's focused on amassing a huge army, rather than one like this that just wants to use the army token as repeatable sacrifice fodder. Even in the decks that this card was designed for it's pretty unremarkable, so it's really bad in a deck like this. You'll be sacrificing your token, rather than attacking with it, so this card often ends up being two mana to generate a 1/1 token.

5 Cards to Add

Angrath, the Flame-Chained

Currently in 9% of decks.

Angrath, the Flame-Chained is a great planeswalker that does what this deck wants to do. This Minotaur Pirate planeswalker (which incidentally is an awesome combination of things to be) lets you steal and sacrifice your opponent's' creatures. This cards +1 effect makes each opponent discard a card and lose two life, this puts you 3 cards up compared to the rest of the table.

This is a much better rate than most planeswalkers +1 effects that are often roughly equivalent to drawing you a card. While you'll probably never get enough loyalty counters on Angrath to use his -8, if you do it deals damage to each opponent equal to the number of cards in their graveyard, almost certainly knocking out any Syr Konrad, the Grim or Muldrotha, the Gravetide players at the table.

Angrath's -3 is the real reason the card is here though. It's an Act of Treason effect that prevents the need to have a sacrifice outlet in play by automatically sacrificing the creature at the end of your turn if its mana value is three or less.

This can often function as a way to remove a problematic commander, since commanders these days are getting increasingly cheap. Angrath can steal and then sacrifice Isshin, Two Heavens as One, Giada, Font of Hope, and Najeela, the Blade-Blossom alongside many other tough but cheap creatures.

Seize the Spotlight

Currently in 14% of decks.

We talked above about the value of including upgraded Act of Treason variants in this deck. Seize the Spotlight, while technically not strictly better than Act of Treason, is just a really powerful version of this effect. You give your opponents a choice. Either they give you a creature of your choice from amongst everything they control, or you get to draw a card and create a treasure token.

It's usually not great to leave choices like this in the hands of your opponents, but whatever they decide you'll be pretty happy You'll do something on a spectrum between taking, and then sacrificing, all of the biggest threats in play or drawing three cards and getting three Treasure tokens. Whatever you end up doing, this card will put the spotlight directly on you.

Insurrection

Currently in 15% of decks.

Back in the olden days of EDH, Insurrection was regarded as one of the best cards in the format. Sadly, this is no longer the case, and Insurrection has fallen a long way since its glory day. Games no longer go on for as long as they used to, and massive creatures often don't play as big a role in ending them as they did in the past. Nevertheless, in the right place, Insurrection still works wonders and this deck is the perfect home for it.

When you get to turn eight, you can use Insurrection to steal all of your opponents' creatures, smack them all in the face, and then sacrifice them all to a Viscera Seer or an Ashnod's Altar. Sometimes this card will outright win you the game, and even when it doesn't it will pull you miles ahead as your opponents scramble to recover now that you've sacrificed all of their stuff.

Blood Artist

Currently in 19% of decks.

It feels very strange recommending this card since it feels like it should be included already. Every sacrifice deck out there needs a copy of Blood Artist and a Zulaport Cutthroat for good measure. Blood Artist deals damage whenever a creature dies, and decks like this will be killing a lot of creatures on plenty of different sides of the battlefield. Mayhem Devil is already around, give them some friends to hang out with.

The Beast, Deathless Prince

Currently in 7% of decks.

Let's make this a crossover episode and throw in this devilishly deathless Dr Who Demon. The Beast, Deathless Prince is an incredible Act of Treason variant that both enables you to steal an opponent's creature and pays you off for doing so. This four mana 6/6 enters play tapped with six stun counters on it.

That may sound bad, but the card also steals an opponent's creature and grants it haste and menace as it enters play. Whenever a creature deals damage to its owner, The Beast, Deathless Prince draws a card and untaps itself... Or, well, it removes a stun counter from itself initially.

For only a single black mana more than baseline Act of Treason this card does a whole lot more. It grants the creature it steals menace, it lets you draw cards and it eventually it turns into a powerful 6/6 beater. True to its name, this card is an absolute beast and makes a delightfully devilish inclusion in a deck like this.

Conclusion

Commanders focused on stealing your opponents' cards are nothing new. From Zareth San, the Trickster to Laughing Jasper Flint this is a niche that has been pretty thoroughly explored. Sauron, the Lidless Eye offers a very simple version of this play style, appropriate for a commander from a starter kit.

You don't have to worry about exiling cards from your opponents' libraries and changing the color of your mana as you would for Commanders like Xanathar, Guild Kingpin, or Evelyn, the Covetous. Let the other players cast their creatures, you just need to grab them when they're on the battlefield and use them to smash face.

Sauron, the Lidless Eye demonstrates that a simple game plan is by no means a bad one. The simpler your commander is, the more freedom you have to put your own spin on things. Whether you want to build a version based on Orcish-centric synergies, or on cloning Sauron repeatedly to steal multiple creatures, this commander is freeform enough to let you do what you want.