Magic: The Gathering - Duskmourn: House Of Horror's Endless Punishment Commander Deck Guide

Most Magic: The Gathering games can be interpreted as a sort of race. Each player wants to deal more damage to their opponents on their respective turn in order to win. Duskmourn: House Of Horror's Endless Punishment Commander deck, however, looks beyond merely doing damage on your turn and instead tries to deal damage on every other player's turn too.

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There's no respite for your opponents as you inflict the deck's titular endless punishment. With your foes taking damage not just on your turn, but their turns as well, you race so far ahead that there's no hope of anyone ever catching you.

Endless Punishment Commander Deck List

Here's the full deck list for the Endless Punishment Commander deck.

Endless Punishment Commander Deck List

Commander (1)

Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls

Creatures (32)

The Lord of Pain

Persistent Constrictor

Barbflare Gremlin

Gleeful Arsonist

Star Athlete

Mogis, God of Slaughter

Braids, Arisen Nightmare

Fate Unraveler

Kederekt Parasite

Massacre Girl

Massacre Wurm

Nightshade Harvester

Brash Taunter

Combustible Gearhulk

Harsh Mentor

Rampaging Ferocidon

Tectonic Giant

Florian, Voldaren Scion

Kaervek the Merciless

Rakdos, Lord of Riots

Stormfist Crusader

Vial Smasher the Fierce

Solemn Simulacrum

Fear of Burning Alive

Blood Seeker

Blood Artist

Falkenrath Noble

Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Morbid Opportunist

Syr Konrad, the Grim

Kardur, Doomscourge

Mayhem Devil

Sorcery (7)

Sadistic Shell Game

Decree of Pain

Blasphemous Act

Grab the Prize

Feed the Swarm

Sign in Blood

Light Up the Stage

Instants (6)

Suspended Sentence

Bedevil

Chaos Warp

Blood Pact

Infernal Grasp

Rakdos Charm

Artifacts (11)

Seance Board

Mask of Griselbrand

Basilisk Collar

Arcane Signet

Lightning Greaves

Sol Ring

Fellwar Stone

Mind Stone

Rakdos Signet

Talisman of Indulgence

Thought Vessel

Enchantments (5)

Spiked Corridor / Torture Pit

Enchanter's Bane

Spiteful Visions

Theater of Horrors

Bastion of Remembrance

Lands (38)

Blackcleave Cliffs

Canyon Slough

Dragonskull Summit

Exotic Orchard

Foreboding Ruins

Graven Cairns

Shadowblood Ridge

Shivan Gorge

Smoldering Marsh

Spinerock Knoll

Sulfurous Springs

Temple of Malice

Witch's Clinic

Terramorphic Expanse

Command Tower

Ash Barrens

Bloodfell Caves

Evolving Wilds

Geothermal Bog

Leechridden Swamp

Tainted Peak

Temple of the False God

Swamp (8)

Mountain (8)

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Endless Punishment Commander Deck Themes

Most red/black Commander decks are hyper-aggressive and indiscriminately throw damage at other players. Endless Punishment is no exception, with tons of cards that just deal damage alongside other effects (see Grab the Prize and Suspended Sentence).

What sets the good red/black decks apart from the bad is harnessing that damage for something greater. Endless Punishment does that best through its boxtopper commander, Valgavoth, Harrow of Souls.

Valgavoth's ability to draw cards and gain +1/+1 counters whenever an opponent loses life for the first time on their turn allows you to harness this seemingly indiscriminate damage and turn it into something truly powerful: card advantage.

With Valgavoth on the table, all you need to do is make sure an opponent loses life on their turn to give yourself one card and give Valgavoth a +1/+1 counter. With three opponents, that's a potential three cards and three counters before it's even your turn again.

The best way to ensure damage is dealt on your opponents' turns is to tie that damage to something players typically do during their turn; either playing lands, drawing cards, or casting spells. Nightshade Harvester, Fate Unraveler, and Rampaging Ferocidon are all great ways to ensure that timely damage is dealt.

It doesn't take long for Valgavoth to draw you a ton of cards and grow to become a game-ending threat. Valgavoth even comes with built-in evasion and protection thanks to the flying and ward keywords.

Unlike Duskmourn's other Commander decks, Endless Punishment comes with seven other potential commanders, but none of them have the sort of synergy with the rest of the deck as Valgavoth. Some don't synergize at all and will be removed in favor of better cards in our suggested budget upgrades.

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Endless Punishment Commander Deck Analysis

With Valgavoth at the head, Endless Punishment's game plan is simple: play cards that dole out the damage early on and then play Valgavoth as soon as you can to start drawing cards and gaining +1/+1 counters. Then with Valgavoth at the fore, you attack with your giant moth Demon to win.

There's no shortage of damage dealers in Endless Punishment. Mogis, God of Slaughter deals damage unless opponents are willing to sacrifice a creature, Fate Unraveler deals damage whenever an opponent draws a card, and Blood Seeker deals damage whenever an opponent plays a creature.

You only need one damage dealer to trigger Valgavoth, so if you've already got Stormfist Crusader on the table, maybe retain your Kederekt Parasite in hand in case your Stormfirst eats a kill spell.

Red/black decks often become the center of attention during games of multiplayer Commander. Dealing damage to an opponent is the surest way to get on their bad side, and dealing damage to everyone basically ensures players will try to gang up on you.

To help keep yourself alive, Endless Punishment focuses on creatures for solid defense (32 besides Valgavoth himself). You've also got a few sources of life gain (see Mask of Griselbrand, Basilisk Collar, and Blood Artist), and a few ways to wipe the board if things get out of hand (see Decree of Pain and Blasphemous Act).

Being able to respond nimbly to threats is important in any game of Commander, and Endless Punishment does a decent job of including answers like Chaos Warp, Infernal Grasp, and Bedevil. However, you're likely to need more given how red/black has trouble making friends.

Endless Punishment could also do with a little refinement. There are several cards that deal damage, but crucially, they don't deal damage during your opponent's turn and thus do not trigger Valgavoth. We'll be looking to cut those cards in favor of more synergistic options in the next section.

Cards To Remove

Seance Board

Thought Vessel

Falkenrath Noble

Fear of Burning Alive

Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Bastion of Remembrance

Rakdos, Lord of Riots

Massacre Girl

Theater of Horrors

Combustible Gearhulk

Grab the Prize

Vial Smasher the Fierce

There are only 17 cards in the deck that could benefit from Seance Board, which isn't a lot. It's decent for keeping Valgavoth around if he manages to die a few times, but doesn't see much value beyond that.

Thought Vessel is a decent mana rock, but the deck already has quite a few mana rocks, and having an unlimited hand size doesn't seem like it's all that useful.

Combustible Gearhulk, Vial Smasher the Fierce, Grab the Prize, and Gray Merchant of Asphodelall deal damage during your turn and not your opponent's turn. While they're all decent cards, they could be replaced by something that plays better with Valgavoth.

Falkenrath Noble is a little expensive for what it provides, and Fear of Burning Alive has a delirium requirement that might be difficult to achieve in a deck with relatively few ways of throwing things into your graveyard.

With these substitutions trying to focus more on the theme of doing damage on your opponent's turn rather than your own, it might be really hard to get Rakdos, Lord of Riots on the board, so he gets cut. Massacre Girl is fun, but she doesn't really help the overall game plan.

Finally, Theater of Horrors is an expensive way to deal damage that could be improved with a minor substitution.

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Endless Punishment Commander Deck Budget Upgrades

What Endless Punishment needs is more consistent damage dealt on opposing turns and a few more answers to threats. We're going to provide both in our budget substitutions.

Image

Name

Reason

Bolt Bend

Valgavoth is conveniently a four-power creature, which means Bolt Bend is a one-mana instant that redirects an enemy spell. Great value for a fun red trick.

Chandra, Awakened Inferno

Chandra's loyalty-gaining ability provides exactly what Valgavoth wants: one damage to every opponent every turn. She's a little expensive mana-wise, but she's worth it even if all she does is put that emblem down.

Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant

Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant is perfect for Valgavoth. Goaded creatures deal damage during your opponent's turn, and Karazikar's second ability also ensures at least one damage is dealt not on your turn. Plus you get a 5/5 and a source of card draw out of the deal.

Magebane Lizard

While most spells cast in Commander are creature spells, there are certainly plenty of noncreature spells cast too, and Magebane Lizard will ensure damage is dealt whenever one of those spells are cast. It's also a cheap Lizard with four toughness, making it great on defense.

Pain Distributor

Theoretically, your opponents could just let all those Treasure tokens pile up and never cash them in, but let's be real. Nobody can stare at free Treasure and not use it for long. And once those Treasures start cracking, Valgavoth is laughing.

Reckless Impulse

Reckless Impulse is better than Grab the Prize. You don't deal damage, but it's damage that would be dealt on your turn, so it hardly matters, and at least with Reckless Impulse you don't have to discard anything.

Roiling Vortex

One damage every turn is already perfect, but also being able to turn off life gain whenever you want is the real winner with Roiling Vortex.

Rug of Smothering

Everyone casts spells, which means Rug of Smothering offers consistent damage on opposing turns. It also damages you, but as they say: no pain, no gain!

Underworld Dreams

Even more than playing spells, drawing cards is the most consistent thing a player will do on their turn. Underworld Dreams ensures that opponents suffer for it, and Valgavoth grows in power.

Untimely Malfunction

Utility hate, redirection, and combat tricks all in a single two-mana spell. It's hard to beat Untimely Malfunction's utility.

Zulaport Cutthroat

Cheaper than Bastion of Remembrance, Zulaport Cutthroat will often deal damage on opposing turns and also will gain you a bit of life for your trouble.

Zurzoth, Chaos Rider

Valgavoth is a Devil, and so is Zurzoth, Chaos Rider, so whenever they attack a player, you get to draw a card and then discard one. This works well with Underworld Dreams, Fate Unraveler, and Spiteful Visions, but it also produces 1/1 Devil tokens that deal damage when they die. An easy way to make sure they die is to block with them, which also helpfully triggers Valgavoth.

Other Budget Upgrades To Consider

• Feed the Swarm can sometimes result in a lot of life lost. Consider Terminate, Abrade, or Withering Torment.
• Razorkin Needlehead would be an excellent addition to the deck, but it's a little beyond our budget restrictions. If you get it in a pack or on the cheap, use it instead of Underworld Dreams.
• Suspended Sentence is asking a lot for four mana. Maybe consider replacing it with either Pestilence or Pyrohemia. You get better long-term value plus the potential to sweep the board.
• If you find Valagoth still has trouble surviving, consider Whispersilk Cloak, Swiftfoot Boots, and Malakir Rebirth.
• Swap a swamp with Sanguine Morass for a little more flexibility in your mana and a spell in case you draw it late game.

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