Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Mogis, God of Slaughter!

Mogis is a four mana 7/5 with indestructible, isn’t a creature as long as your devotion to black and red is less than seven, and at the beginning of each opponent’s upkeep, Mogis deals 2 damage to that player unless they sacrifice a creature.

Mogis is a creature control burn strategy, which is great if our opponents don’t play a lot of creatures, but the nature of Commander means that there is usually someone who has some small fodder creatures they can sacrifice, which may in fact want to be sacrificed in some cases.

So our plan is to fully dive into a much more control type of playstyle, keeping creatures off our opponents board while also making sure that they can’t make use of creatures dying while we slowly burn our opponents out of the game.

The first thing we need to do is have a number of ways to make sure creatures stay off the board.

Black has a ton edict effects, which is what we are going to take advantage of, and Innocent Blood is the cheapest edict effect and it also happens to be symmetrical. Since we aren’t going to be playing a lot of creatures, we should be fine, taking advantage of the fact that Mogis isn’t a creature until we hit devotion 7 is a major factor helping here.

Angrath’s Rampage is a modal edict for an artifact, creature, or Planeswalker for a single player, Extract a Confession to either have each opponent sacrifice a creature or if we collect evidence 6 we can have each opponent sacrifice the creature with the greatest power, or Mire in Misery to have each opponent sacrifice a creature or enchantment.

While we aren’t going to be having a lot creatures, the creature we are going to play are ones like Plaguecrafter, which when it enters each player must sacrifice a creature or Planeswalker they control, and if they can’t then they must discard a card.

If a player gets out of hand early on in the game then something like Rush of Dread is ideal because it gets more and more effective the more mana we put into it via Spree, with the one we are going to use most often being target opponent sacrifices half of their creatures rounded up. Forcing an opponent to discard half of their hand and lose half of their life are also solid options to have.

The next thing we should focus on is making sure that the creatures we kill are kept away from the graveyard.

Leyline of the Void is one of the best choices for this because if we happen to have it in our starting hand then we can put it into play immediately, which has each card that would be sent to our opponents graveyard get exiled instead.

In a similar vein to Leyline of the Void is Planar Void, which for one mana exiles also each card that would go the graveyard, but it also effects us, which is a bit of a bummer but we aren’t going to be playing many cards from the graveyard so it’s not too much of an issue for us.

While most of our strategy is built around black cards, red also has ways to exile creatures through Disintegrate type of effects, which deals damage to a creature but instead of the graveyard the creature is exiled instead.

Anger of the Gods deals 3 damage to each creature and if a creature dies then it is exiled instead, Torch the Tower deals 2 damage to a target creature or Planeswalker or 3 if we bargain it (which also gives us a scry 1) and exiles the permanent if it were to go to the graveyard, and Agate Assault which either deals 4 damage to a creature exiling it if it were top die or exiles an artifact.

If a player has developed a wide aggro board, then Smoke is a card that will help slow things down because it only allows for one creature to untap during each player’s untap step.

The way we win is by using Mogis’s ability to burn our opponents unless they sacrifice a creature, which means any way to speed that up is helpful.

Mechanized Warfare is a cheap way to get a damage increaser out onto the battlefield, especially since it effects if we deal damage to a player or permanent with an artifact or red source.

To also help us in getting damage in to punish players who like getting a ton of creatures onto the battlefield we also have Aether Flash, which deals 2 damage to creatures who enter the battlefield, which if combined with a Repercussion can also deal damage to the controllers of those creatures.

We can use Rain of Gore to combat life gain decks, Stranglehold to prevent our opponents from searching their libraries and prevent extra turns, Everlasting Torment to prevent life gain and damage prevention effects and any damage dealt is done as if the source had wither, and Roiling Vortex to deal more damage on upkeep and if a player plays a card where no mana was spent it burns for 5 damage and can prevent life gain for a red mana.

Mogis reads like a burn Commander, but we can play with the space a little more if we decide to move into a much more creature control strategy. While the value enchantments will eventually have Mogis become a creature, it is indestructible and can deal 7 damage, which we can use to chip in for the last bit of damage if necessary.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual