The Commander
Flying
Taborax has lifelink as long as it has five or more +1/+1 counters on it.
Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, put a +1/+1 counter on Taborax. If that creature was a Cleric, you may draw a card. If you do, you lose 1 life.
Guide
Gameplan
Taborax turns dying creatures into card advantage and a growing flying threat. Sacrifice fodder and Clerics all game to draw cards and stack +1/+1 counters, then close with an evasive lifelinking beater or a sacrifice-fueled combo. You operate as a grindy mono-black aristocrats deck that out-resources the table.
Strengths
- Built-in card advantage engine that mono-black otherwise struggles to find
- Cheap 3-mana flyer that snowballs into a real evasive lifelink threat
- Rewards sacrifice synergies you'd run anyway, plus a Cleric tribal payoff
- Mono-black gives access to powerful tutors, ramp, and recursion
Weaknesses
- Card draw costs life and requires creatures actually dying, so it can be slow without enablers
- Removal-heavy tables can repeatedly kill Taborax before counters accumulate
- Single-color means no access to interaction outside black or efficient combo pieces from other colors
- Relies on a critical mass of cheap creatures and sac outlets to function
Key Cards
- Viscera Seer — Free sacrifice outlet that triggers Taborax repeatedly with no mana cost.
- Doomed Dissenter — Cheap nontoken body that dies and leaves a Zombie, fueling counters and draws.
- Phyrexian Tower — Sacrifice a creature for mana while triggering Taborax's counter and draw.
- Pitiless Plunderer — Generates treasure off every death, ramping you while Taborax draws.
- Gravecrawler — Recurring sacrifice fodder that endlessly feeds Taborax triggers.
- Dark Prophecy — Doubles down on draw-on-death, stacking with Taborax for explosive card flow.
Upgrade Path
Add free sacrifice outlets (Carrion Feeder, Ashnod's Altar, Goblin Bombardment) and Blood Artist effects to enable drain combos, then tutors like Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor to assemble them. Improve the fodder base with recursive creatures (Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodsoaked Champion) and reanimation. Tighten the curve and add fast mana like Dark Ritual and Sol Ring to deploy Taborax and an outlet early.
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
- ▸Aristocrat drain via Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat off mass sacrifice
- ▸Commander damage from a large evasive lifelinking Taborax
- ▸Out-grinding the table on cards and resources, then closing with a finisher like Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Archetypes
- Aristocrats — Every creature death builds counters and refills your hand, the core of the deck.
- Cleric Tribal — Clerics dying specifically draw cards, rewarding a tribal sacrifice shell.
- Combo — Free sac outlets plus recurring creatures and Blood Artist effects enable repeatable drain loops.
- Reanimator — Mono-black recursion lets you reuse fodder and big payoffs from the graveyard.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
