The Commander
Vigilance, reach
All creatures attack each combat if able.
Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, put a +1/+1 counter on Thantis.
Guide
Gameplan
Thantis forces every creature on the battlefield to attack each combat, turning the whole table into a chaotic war zone while you profit. You weaponize the forced combat by punishing creatures that die or attack, growing Thantis off counters and grinding out value through aristocrats payoffs and combat triggers. Eventually you swing for lethal commander damage or drain the table dry.
Strengths
- Forces opponents to commit creatures to combat, weakening their boards and disrupting their plans
- Grows quickly via counters, becoming a hard-to-block reach threat with vigilance
- Synergizes brilliantly with goad, deathtouch pingers, and aristocrats sacrifice payoffs
- Jund colors give access to the best removal, ramp, and recursion in the format
Weaknesses
- The forced-attack symmetry can backfire, sending your own creatures into bad attacks and getting them killed
- Encourages opponents to gang up since chaos points damage everywhere
- Relies on having a developed board to convert forced combat into value
- Vulnerable to a single removal spell resetting Thantis's accrued counters
Key Cards
- Goblin Bombardment — Lets you sacrifice creatures forced into combat for direct damage, turning the chaos into reach.
- Blood Artist — Drains the table as creatures die en masse in the forced wars Thantis creates.
- Dictate of Erebos — Punishes opponents enormously since their forced attackers dying triggers mass sacrifice.
- Disrupt Decorum — Goads everything to amplify the chaos and point all aggression away from you.
- Spidersilk Armor — Gives your team reach to survive the forced flyer attacks while pumping Thantis.
Upgrade Path
Lean into deathtouch pingers and damage doublers so forced blocks trade up massively, and add more aristocrats redundancy like Zulaport Cutthroat and Bastion of Remembrance. Tighten the manabase with fetches, duals, and fast mana, and include protection like Heroic Intervention so your forced attackers and Thantis survive board wipes. Consider goad enablers and edict effects to keep the table's chaos pointed away from you.
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
- ▸Commander damage from a counter-pumped Thantis with reach and vigilance
- ▸Aristocrats drain via Blood Artist effects as forced combat kills creatures
- ▸Sacrifice outlets like Goblin Bombardment converting bodies into burn
- ▸Overrun-style alpha strikes after opponents' boards are depleted
Archetypes
- Aristocrats — Forced combat means creatures die constantly, fueling sacrifice and drain payoffs.
- Group Slug / Chaos — Compelling all creatures to attack creates board-wide carnage that you control and profit from.
- Voltron — Thantis snowballs counters off every attacker, becoming a lethal commander-damage threat.
- Stax-aggro — Forced attacks combined with attack taxes and punishers cripple opponents' development.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BGR), by popularity.
