The Commander
Whenever a nontoken creature an opponent controls dies, exile it.
, Put a creature card exiled with Shelob into its owner's graveyard: Put two +1/+1 counters on Shelob. Draw a card.
: Put target creature card with mana value X exiled with Shelob onto the battlefield tapped under your control.
Guide
Gameplan
Shelob turns every opponent creature death into your resource: you exile them, then either reanimate them tapped under your control or feed them back to draw cards and grow Shelob. You play removal, sacrifice effects, and edicts to fuel the exile zone, then steal their best threats and swing for value (and deathtouch).
Strengths
- Mono-black gives access to the best tutors, removal, and ramp in the format
- Turns opponents' removal and combat losses into your own card advantage and threats
- Reanimating opponents' bombs under your control is huge swing potential
- Self-contained: built-in draw engine plus a reanimation/voltron threat in the command zone
- Deathtouch + reach make Shelob a strong blocker and reliable attacker
Weaknesses
- Entirely dependent on opponents' creatures dying to fuel the engine—stalls against go-wide token decks or noncreature strategies
- Mono-black means no access to counterspells or efficient artifact/enchantment removal
- Activated abilities are mana-intensive and you compete with yourself for mana
- Vulnerable to graveyard/exile hate and commander removal shutting off the engine
- Replacement exile only triggers on nontoken creatures opponents control, so it whiffs on token armies
Key Cards
- Dictate of Erebos — Edict on every creature death floods Shelob's exile zone for reanimation and counters.
- Grave Pact — Mass sacrifice triggers feed Shelob with multiple exiled creatures at once.
- Fleshbag Marauder — Repeatable edict effects force opponents to kill creatures you can then steal.
- Black Sun's Zenith — A scalable board wipe that kills opponents' creatures into Shelob's exile while sparing your engine.
- Cabal Coffers — Mono-black ramp powers Shelob's expensive reanimation and counter abilities.
- Phyrexian Reclamation — Recur sac fodder to keep generating opponent deaths and exile fuel.
- Bolas's Citadel — Pairs with all the lifegain and card flow to dump your hand and pull ahead.
Upgrade Path
Add efficient repeatable edicts (Liliana's Specter effects, Plaguecrafter, Sheoldred), more board wipes that kill into exile, and ritual/big-mana sources like Nykthos and Cabal Stronghold to power the activated abilities. Tighten the removal suite with tutors (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor) to find Grave Pact/Dictate, and include reanimation backups like Reanimate so you aren't fully reliant on Shelob's mana-hungry ability. For higher power, lean into a Bolas's Citadel/Aetherflux or sacrifice-combo finish to avoid grinding too slowly.
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
- ▸Beating down with a counter-pumped deathtouch Shelob
- ▸Reanimating opponents' biggest threats and swinging with a stolen army
- ▸Grinding everyone out of cards and resources via the draw engine plus aristocrats
- ▸Assembling a sacrifice loop with Grave Pact effects to lock the board
Archetypes
- Reanimator (theft) — Shelob exiles dying creatures then reanimates them tapped under your control for X mana.
- Aristocrats — Sacrifice and edict effects force opponent deaths that feed the exile engine and the draw ability.
- Control — Removal-heavy mono-black grind that converts every kill into value and threats.
- Voltron — The counter-adding ability can balloon Shelob into a deathtouch beater that closes games.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
