Conditions Allow - Massacre Girl, Known Killer

(Massacre Girl, Known Killer | Art by Billy Christian)

Slay, Girl, Slay

Hello, and welcome back to Conditions Allow. In this series I take a legendary creature with a drawback and try to turn it into a strength. With some commanders, that takes a little bit of work, but a drawback doesn't necessarily have to be a weakness, and perhaps no commander demonstrates that better than Massacre Girl, Known Killer.

Massacre Girl, Known Killer lets you draw a card whenever one of your opponents' creatures die as long as its toughness was less than one. That isn't a particularly hard ask for mono-black. Toxic Deluge and Mutilate are already excellent board wipes, with Midnight Banshee and Archfiend of Ifnir producing a steady stream of -1/-1 counters. I don't actually want to play either of those creatures, though. While neither is quite as oppressive as Toxrill, the Corrosive, they still drag games out as you repeatedly wipe the board. Even with your commander drawing a ton of cards, a deck dedicated to killing creatures will take a while to actually win, so I'm much more interested in what's possible with wither.

Creatures with wither deal damage to other creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters. This makes your creatures much more deadly in combat, leaving a lasting impression and even threatening indestructible creatures. It also means that, when your creatures take down another in combat, Massacre Girl, Known Killer will draw a card. Wither doesn't just apply to combat damage, either. Black doesn't have a ton of Prodigal Sorcerers, but even just Orcish Bowmasters is much more threatening with wither. My first thought, however, was how wither interacts with first strike.

The Bad Touch

Combining first strike and wither allows creatures like Drana, Liberator of Malakir to place -1/-1 counters on blocking creatures before they can hit back. With Massacre Girl, Known Killer in play, you need at least five power to kill Drana, Liberator of Malakir. Alternately, Drana can safely block any four-power creature attacking you. Mirri the Cursed can also safely block four-power creatures, but she grows whenever she deals damage to a creature, becoming harder and harder to deal with in combat. 

Unfortunately, there aren't many creatures with first strike in mono-black. We could use Equipment to make up the difference, but I'd rather tackle two problems at once. Wither already makes our creatures annoying to deal with in combat, making them prime targets for removal spells. Mithril Coat and Commander's Plate both keep your creatures alive in combat and protect them from most removal. Nim Deathmantle doesn't keep your creatures in play, but it does bring them back.

Of course, not all creatures need fancy Equipment to come back from the graveyard. As long as Ebondeath, Dracolich fights a creature with five toughness or less you'll have the chance to cast it from the graveyard again. If Massacre Girl, Known Killer is in play, you'll get to draw a card, too. Razorlash Transmogrant, Tenacious Underdog, and Wave of Rats also make an excellent aggressive lineup. Eventually your opponents will have to block, letting you draw cards as their creatures die. 

Finally, I'm including two pingers in this deck. Endbringer is a little expensive, but it will draw you a ton of cards with Massacre Girl, Known Killer. Orcish Bowmasters also gets to make a more permanent impact by shrinking your opponents' creatures as they draw extra cards. 

A Never-Ending Tide

Massacre Girl, Known Killer is also very powerful with a swarm of tokens. Wither ensures that even just blocking with a Bitterblossom token every turn will eventually take down even the largest of creatures. Where this interaction really shines, however, is with Nest of Scarabs. Any time you block, you'll get a number of 1/1 Insects equal to your creature's power. Then, when those Insects block, or are blocked, they instantly replace themselves. This creates a never-ending tide of chump blockers and sacrifice fodder.

In conjunction with Blowfly Infestation, Nest of Scarabs does in fact create a never-ending tide of 1/1 Insect creature tokens. This combo is one of the primary win conditions of the deck, using Sanguinary Priest or Syr Konrad, the Grim to drain each opponent of their life force. Sanguinary Priest is an excellent tool from the Warhammer 40K decks. Unlike most other Blood Artist effects, it deals damage to any target. Whenever any of your creatures die, it can dish out more -1/-1 counters, in turn creating more Insect tokens to sacrifice. 

A More Direct Approach

Based on the data on EDHREC for Massacre Girl, Known Killer, a more popular approach to this deck seems to be playing a lot of removal. By relying almost entirely on interaction that lowers a creature's toughness, you turn all of your kill spells into cantrips as well. This is tempting, but most spells have a hard time dealing with six toughness or more. This makes recursive creatures, like Ebondeath, Dracolich, extra important, since we can use them in conjunction with a removal spell to handle larger creatures without losing any cards.

Of course, that also requires a lot of mana, so I've made room for a little extra ramp. Throne of Eldraine is an excellent recent addition which also helps draw cards when Massacre Girl, Known Killer is destroyed.

I knew Massacre Girl, Known Killer would be a solid commander, but I wasn't expecting her to be as flexible as she is. You can go all-in on removal and mass -1/-1 counters, but you can also focus more on tokens or combat tricks. 

What would be your approach with Massacre Girl, Known Killer? If you built her with Midnight Banshee and Harbinger of Night, what's your experience been?