Legends Legends - Gwendlyn Di Corci

Jeff Dunn • February 25, 2025

Deckbuilding

Welcome back to the antepenultimate installment of Legends Legends! Over the past year,  we've dug through the 1995 Magic: The Gathering expansion Legends and built a Commander deck around nearly every single one of those original mythical heroes and villains from the minds of Steve Conard and Robin Herbert, two nerds who we should all aspire to be like when it comes to prolificity and unashamed integration of our own, private D&D campaigns into a larger product.

This week, we're tackling the last three-color legend on the list, Gwendlyn Di Corci

. Gwendlyn is an ancient and long-deceased temptress from the once-lush isle of Urborg. She's sexy, she's violent, and she forces discards; in other words, the perfect woman.

Before we dive in, here's a fun fact: the model for Julie Baroh's perfect card art for Gwendlyn was a Mr. Wendy of the 90s Seattle punk band Sick & Wrong, who Baroh knew throughout high school and at their time as students at Cornish College. This proves that Seattle was, at some point, the small city it claims to be, where everybody knew everybody, and they were all cool. 

General Thoughts

Gwendlyn Di Corci

is a 3/5 Human Rogue legendary creature that costs to cast. 3/5 was a pretty substantial body in the 90s for four mana, even if none of it's generic. She can tap and force a target player to discard a card at random, but only during your turn. Importantly, she forces them to discard a random card, meaning we have a small chance of forcing them to pitch something they actually needed!

Gwendlyn is perfect for a discard-themed deck. She's in the best color combination, giving us access to the best wheels, the best discard synergies, and the best draw engines to keep us in the game after we've decimated the table's hands. Even though our Commander will only net -1 card for each activation, we're going to make every single card hurt. We'll run some synergies to get additional activations out of Gwendlyn as well in addition to a plethora of other discard sources. 

Discard Sources

Gwendlyn Di Corci

's single random card discard is good, but she shouldn't have to act alone. That's why we've loaded this deck up with Specters and other nasty creatures to maximize the number of discard triggers we can activate each turn.

Us Old Fogey

s know about the epic struggle that used to exist between Hypnotic Specter
 and Serra Angel
. There was a time, back in the 90s, when these two were the definitive flying threats in the entire game of Magic. Nowadays, we're just happy to connect with our slightly evasive 2/2. He's still good for forcing a random discard, though, and that's the best way to remove any potential future threats!

Sedraxis Specter

earns its spot in this deck by virtue of being recurrable from the graveyard; just in case we need to pitch it to our Oppression
 or Necrogen Mists
, we'll still have access to an evasive body with a discard outlet.

Syphon Mind

has got to be one of the best mono-black spells in Commander: a draw three/discard three for four mana has the potential to put at least six damage on the board while accelerating our own hand. Burning Inquiry
 works similarly, albeit a bit less consistently.

In place of typical counterspells, we're running Recoil

and Dismal Failure
. While a bit more costly than Counterspell
, the opportunity to force a discard on an opponent's turn isn't one we can pass up.

Painful Quandary

and Bottomless Pit
 keep the discard effects rolling, while The Eldest Reborn
 does its best to be removal, discard, and recursion all at once.

Both Lilianas in our deck have a +1 ability to force either a target or every player to discard a card. These work great as pseudo-blockers, too, since it may be in our opponents' best interests to waste removal or attacks on our planeswalkers rather than swinging in at our face.

Finally, we have a handful of large creatures that'll work as both game-ending combat monsters and additional discarders. Dragon Mage

is a classic, and one of my favorite wheels in the game. Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
, should have no problem escaping from the graveyard in a deck that plans to pitch so many cards down the tube, and our Phyrexian Arena
-on-a-body Baleful Force
 can help refill our hand after we've devastated the table's ability to deal with our plays.

Gwendlyn's Wiles

With so many discard sources, and at least four ways to untap and reactivate Gwendlyn, we're pitching quite a few cards into our opponents' graveyard each turn. So, how much damage can we do with a single discard trigger? Let's find out!

No discard deck can run without either Liliana's Caress

or Megrim
. We're running both, luckily, as well as Raiders' Wake
. Raiders' Wake
's Raid trigger might seem antithetical in a deck that doesn't plan to attack very often, but you'd be surprised how often you can squeeze another discard trigger out by poking our opponents with a Bat from Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal
 or a Bird from The Raven Man
. 

Fell Specter

takes this effect even further with yet another source of two damage for each pitched card, while Sangromancer
 hits us with the reverse-Lightning Bolt
 each time they lose the card. 

While our opponents are losing cards, our Waste Not

will generate all sorts of interesting advantage for us. We've got the Waste Not
-on-a-body Bone Miser
 here to help soften the blow of discarding our own cards to Necrogen Mists
 and our other symmetrical effects. Geth's Grimoire
 helps turn those discarded cards into new spells for us, as well.

Once our opponents' hands are sufficiently empty, we can use Lavaborn Muse

, Shrieking Affliction
, and Quest for the Nihil Stone
 to punish them accordingly. Tinybones, Trinket Thief
 ramps this damage up to 10 life for each activation, too.

The Haunt of Hightower

and Tourach, Dread Cantor
 are both midsize monsters that'll grow into a huge problem before long. Despite The Haunt's expensive mana cost, it should be a 6/6 after one pass around the table as all of our passive discard sources kick in.

Finally, and I may have buried the lead here, we're running Tergrid, God of Fright

. Tergrid does everything from ramping us with our opponents' lands to stealing that Darksteel Colossus
 they randomly discarded from our commander's ability. It's no wonder she's on the Game Changers list, after all.

Speaking of Game Changers, it's a little ridiculous that neither of the Sheoldreds we're running count as GCs. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

turns any of our wheels into massive hay makers, and Sheoldred's Saga-side basically gets us a Rise of the Dark Realms in with a lot of pain on the way there.

Mana Base

While Gwendlyn Di Corci herself isn't all that easy to cast, many of the rest of our spells are fairly straightforward, with one or two pips of a single color (usually black). Therefore, we're favoring ramp effects that'll get our mana up quickly rather than focusing on fixing it into blue or red. To that end, we're running 36 lands plus seven mana rocks. 

Brackets

It might be kind of late in the Legends Legends game to start talking about brackets, but I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention this deck's estimated power level. Moxfield puts this deck at Bracket 3, meaning there are no two-card combos, no mass land denial, and only two tutors in the form of Liliana Vess and Diabolic Tutor. We have one single Game Changer in our list, Tergrid, God of Fright, and I can't find fault with anyone for wanting to ditch her in favor of something more fair (try Duress if you want to swap something basic in).

Budget

This is not a cheap deck, sadly. Gwendlyn Di Corci alone comes in at just under $200, being one of the only playable Legends legendary creatures without a reprint. In addition, our pile of Sheoldreds and Tinybones drives the price up another $100 easily. A budget version of this deck does exist, but it'll look very different.

First off, get a proxy of Gwendlyn Di Corci. Even if you own a copy, I'll personally come to your LGS and bonk you on the head if I see you running around out in the wild with that.

Next, we can cut both Sheoldreds and Tinybones, Trinket Thief. This hurts, pulling one of three of the best game-enders out of the deck, but we can compensate by running The Rack and Rackling to squeeze some extra damage out of our opponents' low hand counts. Trade out our Damnation for a In Garruk's Wake and we're cooking!

Wait, since when did Thousand-Year Elixir break $10? Well, I guess we can always shave another couple bucks by running Magewright's Stone, but I'd really prefer the Elixir.

Gwendlyn Di Corci Decklist

Gwendlyn Di Corci

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Commander (1)

Planeswalkers (2)

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Wrap Up

Gwendlyn Di Corci is definitely one of the strongest Commanders to come out of Legends. Forcing random discards will always have play, especially when we can abuse it over and over again with untap effects, and then capitalize on it with Megrim look-alikes.

Of course, this is far and away from the only possible build with Gwendlyn. Astute readers will notice I've included Cloak and Dagger here as a stand-in for what would typically be a slot reserved for Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves. As a Human Rogue, I could see Gwendlyn Di Corci at the head of an outlaws-themed deck with lots of Rogues, Mercenaries, and Pirates, all in their favorite three-color shard!

How would you build around Gwendlyn Di Corci? What are your best discard payoffs? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Jeff Dunn

Jeff Dunn

Jeff's almost as old as Magic itself, and can't remember a time when he didn't own any trading cards. His favorite formats are Pauper and Emperor, and his favorite defunct products are the Duel Decks. Follow him on Twitter for tweets about Mono Black Ponza in Pauper, and read about his Kitchen Table League and more at dorkmountain.net