The Commander
Flying, trample
When Orcus enters, choose one —
• Each other creature gets -X/-X until end of turn. You lose X life.
• Return up to X target creature cards with total mana value X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. They gain haste until end of turn.
Guide
Gameplan
Orcus is a flexible reanimator/aristocrats engine in Rakdos. Pay X on cast to either sweep the board (-X/-X to everything else) or mass-reanimate creatures from your graveyard with haste. You fill the yard early with self-mill and sacrifice, then loop Orcus's ETB by recasting him for value and overwhelming the table.
Strengths
- Built-in board wipe AND mass reanimation on one card
- Repeatable from the command zone, so the ability comes back after death
- Flying, trample body that can pressure life totals
- Excellent with sacrifice payoffs and self-mill fillers
Weaknesses
- Both modes scale with X, so they're mana-hungry and weak early
- Life loss on the wipe mode can be punishing in aggressive metas
- Graveyard hate shuts off the reanimation half
- Recasting from command zone gets expensive with commander tax
- No card advantage engine baked in beyond reanimation
Key Cards
- Buried Alive — Dumps your best reanimation targets straight into the yard for Orcus to return.
- Victimize — Cheats out extra fatties to pad value beyond Orcus's ETB.
- Bolas's Citadel — Provides explosive ramp to pay the large X costs Orcus wants.
- Gray Merchant of Asphodel — A reanimation target that drains the table and synergizes with the life-loss theme.
- Sheoldred, the Apocalypse — Powerful reanimation payoff that punishes opponents and refills your life.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana and big ramp (Sol Ring, Dark Ritual, treasures) so you can pay large X reliably, and curate premium reanimation targets like Razaketh and Archon of Cruelty. Tighten the sacrifice package with Mayhem Devil, Blood Artist, and Phyrexian Altar to convert reanimated bodies into wins, and consider Animate Dead/Reanimate as backup recursion when Orcus is too taxed.
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
- ▸Mass-reanimate a board of fatties with haste and swing for lethal
- ▸Drain the table with Gray Merchant/Blood Artist effects via sacrifice loops
- ▸Recur a combo creature (e.g., reanimate-sacrifice engines) for repeatable damage
Archetypes
- Reanimator — The second mode mass-returns creatures with haste, rewarding loading the graveyard with huge threats.
- Aristocrats — Sacrifice outlets feed the yard and turn reanimated bodies into repeatable drain value.
- Control — The -X/-X mode is a flexible commander-based board wipe you can scale to the table.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BR), by popularity.
