Conquering Middle-earth with Sauron, the Dark Lord: A Guide to Building a Powerful MTG Deck
Master the wickedness of Mordor with Magic The Gathering's Sauron, The Dark Lord as your commander.
Sauron, The Dark Lord Commander Deck Guide for Magic The Gathering
The Necromancer. The Lidless Eye. The Lord of the Rings. These are some of the myriad titles held by Sauron, the Dark Lord. This dark power looms over Middle-earth throughout the entirety of The Lord of the Rings saga, pulling the strings of kings and hobbits alike like a sinister puppeteer. Although Magic: The Gathering has always found inspiration in The Lord of the Rings, it wasn’t until the much anticipated The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Universes Beyond set that any of the characters made it into the game. And Sauron came with all the might of the Hosts of Mordor.
No less than four versions of Sauron are available, but the most precious is Sauron, the Dark Lord. If you want to try your hand at conquering Middle-earth (or at least your local game shop), this guide is for you.
The Commander
Sauron, the Dark Lord is a 7/6 legendary Avatar Horror. At six mana (three colorless, one each blue, black, and red), he’s a little more expensive than other Commanders you’re likely to encounter, but 🚀 he brings excellent value and staying power to your battlefield.
His ward ability prevents opponents from targeting him unless they sacrifice a legendary artifact or creature, which is a hefty price to pay for a targeted removal spell which you’ll likely have an answer for anyways.
Not only does ward protect Sauron, the Dark Lord, but 🌪️ his second ability will punish your opponents for trying to remove him. Or do anything else, for that matter. Every time an opponent casts a spell, they’ll trigger his amass Orcs 1 ability, creating or growing your Orc Army. This feeds his third ability, where every time your Army deals combat to a player, the Ring tempts you.
- Time Limits in Tabletop Gaming: Adding Tension and Excitement to Yo...
- The Medium Build: Unleashing the True Power of Versatility in The F...
- Best Loadout for Terminid Build in Helldivers 2: Squashing Bugs in ...
The final effect gives you the option to discard your hand and draw four cards every time the Ring tempts you, allowing you to draw a fresh set of cards if you’re short, or to throw lots of creatures into your graveyard if you’re leaning into Sauron’s role as the Necromancer.
All four of these abilities are good by themselves, but together ⚡ they synergize beautifully to keep Sauron on the field, your Army growing, and your hand fresh. While these abilities will allow Sauron to reliably lead a Grixis (blue/black/red) Goodstuff deck, for this build we’ll try to maximize the benefits of his abilities to grow a massive army and to pull victory out of the graveyard.
Building the Deck
Sauron, the Dark Lord is good at building armies, drawing cards, and dumping cards into your graveyard, so we’re going to build around doing all three. Considering how well he protects himself from removal, you shouldn’t need to worry about much other card draw.
You should, however, worry about mana. Sauron is expensive for a commander, and without the land ramp afforded by green, you’ll need to run a lot of mana rocks to play him early enough to matter.
Mana Sources
Sauron costs six mana to cast out of the gate, and that only increases if he’s removed. In order to get him onto the battlefield, ✨ you’ll want a full compliment of multicolor-producing mana rocks. All signets and talismans that match his color identity should be in there, along with the standard Arcane Signet, Commander’s Sphere, and Sol Ring.
A thematic addition is Relic of Sauron, which costs four generic mana but produces two in any combination of Sauron, the Dark Lord’s colors, and adds a little more draw to the deck if you’ve got enough mana. It’s a big deal to get Relic of Sauron in play on turn two because it means you can 🏰 have your commander already out on turn three.
In addition to the standard mana-fixing and fetch lands, 🌑 include both Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth will make all of your lands Swamps, powering up Cabal Coffers. Lacking a way to search for a specific nonbasic land, though, make sure you have room for dual lands like Blood Crypt and Sunken Hollow, and the Grixis triome, Xander’s Lounge.
Amass Orcs
You shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket, but you can put a lot of counters on your Orc Army. Since it will get a +1/+1 counter every time an opponent plays a spell, you can expect it to grow by at least 3/3 each turn. And if an opponent destroys it without removing Sauron, it’ll just come back again.
Orcish Bowmasters is a great card for this deck (or any deck with black in the color identity), and 🏹 can potentially double your army’s growth rate while whittling down your opponents. And players may jump the gun to remove the Orcish Bowmaster early instead of focusing on the Army. Later in the game, you can use Grishnákh, Brash Instigator as an Act of Treason that also grows your Orc Army.
If you get Fall of Cair Andros on the battlefield, any excess noncombat damage you deal to an opponent’s creatures will turn into a bigger Army. While Fall of Cair Andros does have a built-in way to deal noncombat damage, 🌩️ Blasphemous Act will clear most of the board, power up your Orc Army enough for it to survive, and leave your opponents with no blockers to stop the rampaging hordes of Mordor.
Sauron will die, true, but you’ll likely wipe out at least one opponent, and the rest may not be able to recover.
Sauron, the Dark Lord is protected by perhaps the strongest version of ward in print, but he isn’t invincible.
If your opponent is willing to sacrifice their legendary creature or artifact to target him with a spot removal spell, don’t hesitate to 💥 ruin their day by making him hexproof via Lazotep Plating or indestructible with Orcish Medicine. Both of these will also make your Orc Army grow just a little bigger.
Fill Your Graveyard, Then Empty It
Every time your Orc Army (or any other Army you control) deals combat damage to an opponent, Sauron, the Dark Lord, gives you the option to discard your hand and draw four more cards. This is an optional wheel effect, but one you can take advantage of by including plenty of spells with madness, flashback, and reanimation effects.
With your Orc Army on the battlefield, the easiest way to keep discarding and drawing cards is to give it some kind of evasion. 🌌 Rogue’s Passage and Whispersilk Cloak are commander staples for a reason: They’ll make sure your Orc Army keeps getting through and giving you those draws.
More traditional forms of evasion come in the form of flying and trample. If you discard Wonder into your graveyard and control an Island, all of your creatures including your Orc Army will have flying. The Reaver Cleaver will give your Orc Army trample, and more mana in the form of Treasure tokens.
While the discard and recursion mechanics will ensure that you have access to lots of large, expensive creatures in your graveyard, don’t neglect smaller ones that will synergize with Sauron.
You’ll be discarding and drawing cards almost every turn with Sauron, so include creatures like Chasm Skulker, which grows when you draw cards, and Archfiend of Ifnir, which will punish your opponents when you discard. Cards like Wheel of Fortune and Windfall will ramp them up even more.
Don’t forget that your commander is a 7/6 right out of the gate and only needs to hit an opponent three times to knock them out with commander damage.
After dumping a huge stack of cards into your graveyard, 🧟♂️ pull all of the creatures back onto the battlefield using a broad-spectrum reanimation spell such as Living Death or Rise of the Dark Realms. If you have a sac engine available, such as Phyrexian Altar, make sure you send all of your nontoken creatures, including your commander, to the graveyard before casting them.
Deck Tech
It can be tough to get a second Army into play since Amass checks for your existing Army and adds +1/+1 counters to it instead of creating a new Army. But there are ways to make other creatures into Armies, especially in Grixis.
Conspiracy allows you to choose a type for all of your creatures, while Maskwood Nexus turns all of your creatures into every creature type. 🃏 Suddenly your Orcish Bowmaster and even Sauron, the Dark Lord himself are Armies, which can grow thanks to Sauron’s second ability and trigger his fourth ability.
Eventually, your opponents will wise up to the threat of your growing Orc Army and target it, but The Ozolith (disguised as Argonath, Pillars of the Kings in Middle-earth) will let you keep all of the +1/+1 counters when it dies and drop them on another creature during your next combat phase.
When Chasm Skulker dies, you’ll not only retain those counters on The Ozolith but also gain the same number of 1/1 Squid tokens.
Angrath, Captain of Chaos is a great fit because he passively gives all of your creatures menace, making them more difficult to block, and can actively grow your Army with his loyalty ability.
An Army’s purpose is to fight battles, but we haven’t seen the fight mechanic yet. Besides, a whole Army fighting one creature would be unfair, so instead, 🗡️ we’ll have our Army fight everything else on the battlefield. Widespread Brutality is a perfect card for the Orcs, with amass 2 growing the Army before it turns around and attacks every non-Army creature on the battlefield. This can be as big of a rout as Blasphemous Act with Fall of Cair Andros.
🔍 Check out these other helpful articles for more gaming knowledge and tips:
- The Art of Building a Powerful Commander Deck
- 5 Essential Mana Rocks for Every Commander Deck
- Mastering the Art of Card Advantage in Magic: The Gathering
- The Top 10 Commanders in Magic: The Gathering
- How to Create Your Own Custom Magic: The Gathering Deck
💬 Do you dare to step into the shoes of Sauron and conquer Middle-earth with his mighty Army? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below! And don’t forget to share this article with your fellow MTG players on social media. Let the forces of Mordor spread far and wide! 🌍
