Cecil, Dark KnightCecil, Dark Knight | Art by Josu Hernaiz

No Pain, No Gain

Cecil, Dark KnightCecil, Dark Knight has captured the imagination of competitive players from Standard all the way down to Legacy. As a one-drop 2/3 deathtouch that can turn into a 4/4, it is incredibly undercosted. But its downside is also very intriguing to evaluate. Its focus on lowering your own life total is reminiscent of Death's ShadowDeath's Shadow, a creature that dominated Modern for a period and even made its way into Legacy. Cecil walks a tightrope between too conditional and too painful, but it seems to walk it successfully: the card has already found some play in aggressive decks in Standard.

Commander is a much different format from Standard, however, and having a creature whose greatest draw is just its stats is not as impressive. Serra AscendantSerra Ascendant is a one-mana 6/6 with flying, but it gains life instead of losing it, and it's... pretty good. Not format-warping, just pretty good. But Cecil, Dark KnightCecil, Dark Knight does have one other angle we can take advantage of: it's a great way to control our own life total, as well as a payoff for that control.

Key Cards for Cecil, Dark Knight

Paying Life for Fun and Profit

Cecil rewards us for dipping under half of our life total, which means we're going to want ways to pay large amounts of life all at once. Thankfully, black gives us access to a ton of effects that do this, most often in exchange for cards. Cards like Infernal ContractInfernal Contract and Cruel BargainCruel Bargain put us at that magical halfway point immediately, refilling our hand while doing so. Pain's RewardPain's Reward is very similar, but it also comes with a game of chicken between all the players. This deck wants to bid really high, meaning that even if we can't win the bidding war, this card can act as a huge burn spell.

Those cards are all very specific to this style of deck, but we also get to include some absolute all-stars to fuel our strategy. NecropotenceNecropotence and NecrodominanceNecrodominance are both ridiculous card advantage engines, the former finding its way onto the Game Changers list and the latter spawning entire archetypes in Modern and Legacy. Remember those spells that were asking us to pay up to twenty life for four cards? With these enchantments, the going rate is one life per card, as many times as we want. The next card, Bolas's CitadelBolas's Citadel, is also a Game Changer, and this one is arguably even more absurd. Granted, it costs six mana up front, but now we get to exchange our life total for not only cards but also mana. This card circumvents the two most important resource systems in the game by funneling everything through our health, and it is absolutely busted.

If we're going all in on lowering our life total early, then we can play some cards with pretty marginal effects as long as they get us there. Wall of BloodWall of Blood isn't bad as a blocker that can kill anything it touches, but it's mostly here so we can slim down our life total before swimsuit season. Blood CelebrantBlood Celebrant can give us some mana fixing, but it mostly serves the same purpose, and it is the most efficient way in the game to lose life. It shares that title with Hex ParasiteHex Parasite, which we can activate over and over again with X = 0, and it has an ability that's bound to do some cool things as well over the course of a game.

Finally, we get to play some great bread-and-butter interaction spells that incidentally use our life as a resource. Ashes to AshesAshes to Ashes is a classic double removal spell that is less popular than it should be, but we can also play staples like DismemberDismember and Snuff OutSnuff Out. Toxic DelugeToxic Deluge and ReanimateReanimate are time-tested powerhouses that are the best in their class and have been for years. Infernal GraspInfernal Grasp and Bitter TriumphBitter Triumph are more recent additions to the list, but are powerful nonetheless.

Profiting from Lowering our Life Total

There are a surprising number of cards in black and white that work well with an artificially deflated life total. First of all, we're going to want to play cards that allow us to swap our life total with an opponent's. Axis of MortalityAxis of Mortality is the most powerful of these, letting us repeat the effect every turn, but Soul ConduitSoul Conduit lets us do it at instant speed, giving us leverage to stop opponents from hurting us. Magus of the MirrorMagus of the Mirror is the most fragile of this effect that we're playing: it requires us to untap with a 4/2, and can only be used in our upkeep, but its mana cost still makes it preferable in this deck than Reverse the SandsReverse the Sands and Profane TransfusionProfane Transfusion. If we're looking to play fast and loose in an attempt to end the game right away, Repay in KindRepay in Kind gives us the same "burn spell" function as our life-swappers, but doesn't give us any breathing room in return.

We also run some ways to gain back all the life we're losing. Children of KorlisChildren of Korlis is a straightforward way to undo our recklessness, but Tainted SigilTainted Sigil also lets us profit from all of the life we might make our opponents lose. If we, say, pay thirty-nine life to a Wall of BloodWall of Blood and then cast Repay in KindRepay in Kind, Tainted Sigil will gain us up to 156 life! We can also use Evra, Halcyon WitnessEvra, Halcyon Witness as a roundabout way to preserve our life total. Her ability lets us "store" a life total on her power, and we can then fiddle with our life however we want before activating her again to reset it to that stored value. She's a great way to both lose a lot of life and gain a lot of life in a single turn, and while we're doing all of these life swings, Sorin of House MarkovSorin of House Markov becomes a potent threat. He only costs two mana, but if we gain life (which includes swapping life totals with an opponent with more life) then he can flip and burn out a player.

There are a few cards that give us an advantage for reducing our life total down all the way down to zero. Stunning ReversalStunning Reversal will save us from losing the game, whether we would lose to an opponent or by our own hand, and it pays us off by drawing seven cards for only four mana. Enduring AngelEnduring Angel also stops us from dying, setting our life to three and then transforming into a threat that can grow ridiculously powerful. Its attack trigger and its size are supposed to be limited by the starting point of three life that it creates, but in this deck, we can Tainted SigilTainted Sigil our way back into a healthy life total, then swing with a lethal flying threat. Finally, Phyrexian UnlifePhyrexian Unlife stops us from dying and converts all further damage into poison counters. It lets us straight-up kill opponents with Axis of MortalityAxis of Mortality since we can give them a negative life total. It also only turns damage into poison, so we can still use effects like Dark ConfidantDark Confidant and Cruel BargainCruel Bargain with impunity (remember that we can't pay life with a negative life total, but these effects don't have life as an activation cost.

Winning the Game with Cecil, Dark KnightCecil, Dark Knight

The most common way we'll win the game is by setting our opponents' life totals very low and then attacking with creatures like Cecil, Dark KnightCecil, Dark Knight and Evra, Halcyon WitnessEvra, Halcyon Witness. For this plan, card that can help push damage are especially important. HatredHatred is a crazy pump spell that fits perfectly in our deck. As long as we've manipulated it so we have more life than the defending player, any unblocked creature can finish them off. In a deck full of heavy-black costs, Gray Merchant of AsphodelGray Merchant of Asphodel also acts as a great finisher while also helping stabilize our own life in a pinch, maybe to enable more life-paying if our first attempt didn't get the job done. Phyrexian ProcessorPhyrexian Processor is a classic card, but it still works surprisingly well in Commander. Most tables will be able to deal with the first 30/30, but it's not easy to keep coming up with answers turn after turn.

Cecil, Dark Knight Commander Decklist

This deck is wild and fun, and it can also be very political. Our strategy sometimes puts us at risk of dying to a single attack if we are in between the losing and gaining life stages and we need to beg our opponents not to kill us. We can also work together against a single powerful player, swapping our small life total with theirs and then letting our other opponents finish them off. Most of the time, this deck benefits from the general social contract of Commander, where at least in the early game people attack the players with higher life so that everyone can stay in the game longer.

There are a lot of moving parts in this deck, but they all combine in cool ways. Some games we might draw Unspeakable SymbolUnspeakable Symbol and Caustic BroncoCaustic Bronco and play an aggressive strategy, and other times we might draw Wall of BloodWall of Blood and Font of AgoniesFont of Agonies and play more of a control game. What makes this deck tick is that it is absolutely stuffed full of card draw, from the humble Sign in BloodSign in Blood to the broken NecropotenceNecropotence to the sketchy Infernal ContractInfernal Contract. We get to see tons of cards every game and can find enough of our wacky payoffs to scrap together a powerful synergy. If you love winning in unconventional ways, managing your resources wisely, and living on the edge, this deck is for you!