The Commander
Myojin of Grim Betrayal enters with an indestructible counter on it if you cast it from your hand.
Remove an indestructible counter from Myojin of Grim Betrayal: Put onto the battlefield under your control all creature cards in all graveyards that were put there from anywhere this turn.
Guide
Gameplan
Cast Myojin from your hand to give it an indestructible counter, then engineer a turn where lots of creatures die — a board wipe, a mass sacrifice, or just heavy combat — and crack the counter to steal everything that hit a graveyard this turn onto your battlefield. You build toward one explosive turn that empties opponents' boards into your hand-of-creatures while flooding your own side, then convert that army into a kill.
Strengths
- One-sided mass reanimation: a board wipe plus the activation can swing a four-player game in a single turn
- Steals opponents' creatures, not just yours, so it punishes the whole table at once
- Indestructible counter protects Myojin through your own wipes and most removal
- Mono-black gives access to the best tutors, ramp, and graveyard payoffs in the format
Weaknesses
- Eight mana and one default activation make it slow and easily disrupted
- Graveyard hate (Rest in Peace, Bojuka Bog) shuts the whole engine off
- Only grabs creatures that died THIS turn — timing the wipe and activation is fiddly
- Removal in response to activation, or exile-based removal, neutralizes the payoff
- Mono-color means no access to blue protection or efficient cross-color answers
Key Cards
- Toxic Deluge — Cheap, scalable board wipe that fills graveyards on the same turn so Myojin can reclaim everything.
- Damnation — Clean mass kill that sets up the activation while clearing blockers for your reanimated army.
- Dictate of Erebos — Forces opponents to sacrifice when your creatures die, generating extra bodies in graveyards for Myojin to grab.
- Reanimate — Lets you cheat Myojin out early, though you'll miss the indestructible counter unless you add one another way.
- Karn's Bastion — Proliferate lets you bank extra indestructible counters so Myojin's ability becomes repeatable.
- Demonic Tutor — Finds your board wipe, Myojin, or a sacrifice outlet exactly when the line comes together.
Upgrade Path
Add proliferate (Karn's Bastion, Evolution Sage) and counter-doublers so Myojin's ability fires repeatedly rather than once. Lean into efficient sacrifice outlets and aristocrat payoffs (Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat) so even partial activations drain the table, and tighten the curve with fast mana like Dark Ritual, Cabal Coffers, and Bolas's Citadel to deploy Myojin and a wipe in the same turn. Top-end tutors (Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Intent) ensure you assemble the board-wipe-into-reanimation line consistently.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Wipe the board, reclaim a massive army, and swing for lethal the following turn
- ▸Reanimate a stolen game-ending creature alongside drain effects like Blood Artist
- ▸Combo a sacrifice outlet with Dictate of Erebos to grind the table out, then close with a big swing
Archetypes
- Reanimator — Its activation is one of the largest single mass-reanimation effects in mono-black, scooping up every dead creature at once.
- Aristocrats — Sacrifice outlets and death triggers fill graveyards on demand and provide value before you steal everything back.
- Control — Board wipes double as both stax-style defense and the setup for Myojin's payoff turn.
Combos
- Iname, Death Aspect + Myojin of Grim Betrayal
→ Put a selection of permanent cards from your library onto the battlefield
- Myojin of Cleansing Fire + Myojin of Grim Betrayal + Huatli's Raptor
→ Destroy all creatures except Myojin of Cleansing Fire during each turn, Infinite death triggers, Infinite ETB
- Myojin of Grim Betrayal + Blightbelly Rat + Ashnod's Altar
→ Infinite blinking, Infinite colorless mana, Infinite death triggers
- Myojin of Grim Betrayal + Blightbelly Rat + Phyrexian Altar
→ Infinite blinking, Infinite colored mana, Infinite death triggers
- Myojin of Grim Betrayal + Core Prowler + Ashnod's Altar
→ Infinite blinking, Infinite colorless mana, Infinite death triggers
Combos via Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
