The Lord of Pain Commander Deck Tech
Lights, Camera, Pain
Enter the plane of Duskmourn: House of Horror, where The Lord of Pain waits inside the glowing rectangle of a T.V. flickering ominously. Prepare for a horror movie where every choice matters, and The Lord of Pain always watches.
As colors flash across the screen, the tension rises. The Lord of Pain springs into action whenever a player casts the first spell in their turn. You choose a target player, and that player takes damage equal to the mana value of that spell. In a multiplayer format like Commander, it's constant punishment. The Lord of Pain triggers off every player's first spell, both yours and your opponents', which can quickly start to dish out tons of damage. With the bonus of blocking life gain, there is absolutely no escape from the increasing pain.
Familiar Faces in the Horror Show
Before we go into how to make the most of The Lord of Pain's ability, a few cards have effects similar to The Lord of Pain. The first is Vial Smasher the Fierce, which is kind of like a mini The Lord of Pain. Vial Smasher only deals damage on your first spell each turn and at a random opponent or planeswalker; it's still a great piece of redundancy, and it's cheaper to get out than the Lord of Pain. The other card with a similar effect is Kaervek the Merciless, which deals damage to any target whenever an opponent casts a spell.
Maximize the Harm Done
How can you make the most of The Lord of Pain's damage-dealing ability? If you really want to deal tons of damage, consider spells with a high converted mana cost but some kind of a cost-reducer tacked on. The most obvious and absurd example is the Blasphemous Act, dealing nine damage to an opponent for the cost of !
Bloodsoaked Insight is also a great option with a ton of dual functionality by being an MDFC. Suppose your opponents have already lost life this turn, which should be super easy to do in this deck. Bloodsoaked Insight can cost as low as two mana and deal seven damage if it's the first card you've played in the turn.
In my opinion, the coolest cost-reducer is Shadow of Mortality. Shadow of Mortality's life total requirement won't be as challenging as it seems. We can have The Lord of Pain target and damage us when an opponent casts their first spell to easily reduce the cost of Shadow of Mortality. With the best-case scenario of a two-mana 7/7 that deals 15 damage to an opponent with The Lord of Pain out, this card is 100% our blockbuster T.V. nightmare.
Another way to maximize the amount of pain our opponents feel is by casting spells on your turns and theirs. The Lord of Pain is worded so that its ability triggers whenever you cast your first spell on each turn. This means that instants or flash spells are great ways to deal as much damage as possible each turn cycle. For instants, anything works; you're just trying to play as many spells on your opponents' turns as possible. I will say that any instant that can get its cost-reduced or is entirely free, like Curtains' Call and Deflecting Swat, work wonders.
Join the Party
While The Lord of Pain is awesome, we need other ways to deal with the damage. Adding other ways to deal damage helps to give depth to your strategy and keeps opponents on their toes. Some options listed below mesh pretty well with the general theme of dealing damage, but they all do it in different ways.
Damage from Card Draw
Your opponents won't want to draw cards when Stormfist Crusader and Fate Unraveler are out. Stormfist Crusader makes each player draw a card and lose one life during your upkeep, which can be added up throughout the game. Fate Unraveler will make drawing cards a pain by dealing one damage whenever an opponent draws a card.
Damage from Creatures Entering the Battlefield
Rampaging Ferocidon and Blood Seeker deal damage when creatures enter the battlefield, respectively. Rampaging Ferocidon deals one damage whenever a creature enters the battlefield, ours or our opponents, which acts as a double-edged sword; it also ensures opponents can't gain life, similar to our commander, The Lord of Blood.
Damages from Casting Spells
Scytheclaw Raptor and Hearthborn Battler punish decks trying to cast multiple spells hard. The Raptor deals four damage to a player each time they cast a spell, not during their turn. However, be careful because casting spells on our opponents' turns is part of our gameplan.
Damage from Creatures Dying
Looking to take advantage of death on the battlefield, say no more. Cards such as Massacre Wurm and Blood Artist are great options. Massacre Wurm has a nice -2/-2 enter the battlefield effect but, more importantly, deals two damage to each opponent whenever a creature dies.
You can mix and match your flavors of pain. There are a bunch of options for these tax-like effects. You don't need to include all these options in your deck, but pick and choose your favorites!
Doubling Down on the Pain
Between The Lord of Pain and any added sources of damage on the field, our opponent's life totals can quickly shrink. To speed up the process, we can add some damage and/or life-loss-doublers into the mix, acting as solid win conditions.
Fiendish Duo and Angrath's Marauders will enable your sources to deal double damage to opponents. Fiery Emancipation is especially strong, not doubling but tripling the damage our sources deal, which can quickly close out games.
Bloodletter of Aclazotz and Wound Reflection are similar to the cards we previously talked about. They double the life lost by our opponents instead of doubling the damage sources do.
I will say that quite a few different damage-doublers and life loss effects are floating around, all at varying converted mana costs, permanent types, etc. Pick and choose your favorites. I wouldn't overload on these effects because, with too many of them, you won't have enough sources of actual damage.
Painful Payoffs
The Lord of Pain and other cards in the deck all deal damage though noncombat damage and a lot of it. We can take advantage of this through some payoffs. Standouts include Fear of Burning Alive, which has a powerful delirium effect that triggers off of noncombat damage. Chandra's Incinerator doubles our noncombat damage in a way; it's also highly likely that Incinerator will only cost if we cast it after our commander's ability has triggered.
Florian, Voldaren Scion is an excellent card advantage payoff that cares about life loss; it doesn't have to be from a noncombat source. Florian can dig super dip with his ability in this deck. We shouldn't easily be able to dig 5+ cards without breaking a sweat.
Lifelink
While The Lord of Blood states that opponents can't gain life, we can earn tons of life by giving The Lord of Blood lifelink. Assuming each player plays at least one spell on their turn, The Lord of Blood will have its ability trigger four times, and with lifelink we'd gain life on each trigger. The easiest way to give our commander lifelink is through Equipment, such as Basilisk Collar. Witch's Clinic is a great way to give our commander lifelink; while it only grants lifelink to our commander until the end of the turn, it's a land.
With the Power of Friendship
What better way to amplify the agony than teaming up The Lord of Blood with Obosh, the Preypiercer? With Obosh by your side, we get a restriction that our deck can only contain cards with odd mana values and lands, but it's well worth it.
Obosh is a great companion for this deck. It pairs exceptionally well with The Lord of Blood, doubling the damage dealt by the ability this entire deck is centered around. We've talked about how deadly doubling damage is, and having easy access to a damage doubler throughout the game will end games even quicker.
The Final Curtain: A Painful Encore
As the credits roll, this deck is a real scream-a-thon full of twists and turns with a plot of just pure pain for your opponents tying it together. Every card plays a character in this show of horrors, continuously creating tension as your opponents will be on edge with anticipation.
So, what do you think? How would you extend the twisted strategies of The Lord of Pain to amplify the agony even more? Thanks for reading, and I'm eager to hear your spine-chilling ideas!
