Upgrading the Endless Punishment Precon (Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls)

Duskmourn: House of Horror has arrived, and proved to be an incredible set, with several pop culture references, fantastic artwork and new mechanics for us to explore. To follow up the new set release, Commander players were presented with 4 new preconstructed decks.

Today we'll talk about Endless Punishment, with the newest villain Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls as the Commander, in a group slug deck that promises a lot of torment to its opponents!

Endless Punishment is in the Rakdos color combination , a combination well known for the ability to make the game very hard for the opponents. This deck presents us with a Group Slug archetype - focus on damaging all players at an equal rate, and gradually eliminate opponents.

We chose to keep the original Commander Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls for its growing potential and card draw on each opponent's turn. If you can manage a constant damage source each turn, when your turn is back around the reward is 3 draws and an increase in Valgavoth's power with +1/+1 counters.

The alternate Commander The Lord of Pain is not to be forgotten, since it is as strong as Valgavoth. We will present another decklist at the end of the article, with a similar theme to the preconstructed Endless Punishment.

Cards Removed

We have several great cards within the original Endless Punishment list, but like any upgrade guide, we need to make room for new cards with even better effects.

Some were removed even though they have potential, such as Barbflare Gremlin, Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Tectonic Giant and Falkenrath Noble, for example . As we added other removals, Enchanter's Bane also had to leave despite dealing significant damage.

We also cut 2 lands and decided to keep the upgraded list with 36 lands, with the removal of a basic mountain and Shadowblood Ridge.

Even more Punishment

In order for Valgavoth to constantly trigger its ability and provide us with as many cards as possible, we need to add more resources to bother opponents on their turns.

Roiling Vortex plays this role well by pinging 1 damage on each player's upkeep, with the bonus of making spells cast without any mana spent punish the caster with 5 damage, besides preventing any and all lifegain for just one red mana.

Also in the theme of dealing damage on upkeep, we have Chandra, Awakened Inferno. Not only is it an uncounterable threat, its +2 ability creates an emblem that deals 1 damage to all opponents on upkeep. Just plussing Chandra once will be enough to keep us going for the rest of the game alongside Valgavoth, but the more emblems, the better. Chandra can also be a great removal for small creatures thanks to its -3, or even deal with specific problematic creatures, as well as exile it and avoid possible reanimations.

To punish other players' card draws, we added cards like Razorkin Needlehead and Underworld Dreams. For a little mana investment we have similar effects to cards previously in the original list, such as Spiteful Visions, Kederekt Parasite and Fate Unraveler. Having more instances of damage when drawing cards is great, especially considering how common and essential drawing cards is nowadays in Commander.

If these 5 permanents are on the field, each draw will cause 5 points of damage, and when we consider Spiteful Visions, we have 10 damage added to the total - 25% of starting life in just 2 cards drawn. It is also worth mentioning that the cost from Underworld Dreams contributes greatly to Gray Merchant of Asphodel's ETB, a classic card that is already on the original list.

In Endless Punishment, we have several ways to punish opponents' actions. Whether by drawing cards, with the previously mentioned cards, or by activating abilities with Harsh Mentor, or by casting spells with Kaervek the Merciless or Vial Smasher the Fierce, or by playing lands with [ [Nightshade Harvester]].

With these cards in mind, we added Zo-Zu the Punisher to deal extra damage to ramp players, and Rug of Smothering to limit the number of spells cast from opponents unless they deal with this annoying flying carpet. Having these constant sources of damage is our main way of winning the game, and they also synergize a lot with the Commander's triggered ability.

The more cards Valgavoth offers us, the better we can keep our momentum and continue with our game strategy.

More removals and Amplifying Damage

In the original list, there are several Lifelink sources: Witch's Clinic, Basilisk Collar and Mask of Griselbrand. We have other sources of life gain, and the reason is: this allows us to use Toxic Deluge, one of the best black removals in Commander, especially to deal with indestructible creatures.

We've also added spot removal in Terminate, for problematic creatures, and Withering Torment - the newest flex removal for creature or enchantment. This removal will be used in most black decks, like its predecessor Feed the Swarm. Feed the Swarm is already in the original list, and from now on it will be common to see both cards, especially in builds without green and white - colors that remove enchantments in the blink of an eye.

And lastly, to conclude our list of upgrades, we'll call directly from Phyrexia Solphim, Mayhem Dominus to double all our non-combat damage. It also becomes indestructible very easily in our build, since Valgavoth will provide us with many cards in the long term - therefore, discarding just two cards and paying 1 mana to have a strong indestructible creature is a very low price to pay .

Along with several cards mentioned above, the punishment for opponents when performing basically any action will be brutal!

And this is our upgraded list for the Endless Punishment deck! We only had 10 changes, and even though they were few, they were crucial in amplifying the number of times we will deal damage to our enemies during each of their turns.

The deck's win condition can be either torturing opponents in the long run or commander damage - after all, Valgavoth can easily go from 4/4 to 7/7 in one turn, and being an evasive threat, killing someone with 21 Commander damage is a solid way to finish opponents.

Alternative List with The Lord of Pain

This build with The Lord of Pain is very similar to Valgavoth, but with upgrades that surpass the preconstruced deck. We have access to a better mana base, and more aggressive options, like Damnation and Jeska's Will, for example. These are two great options that suit all types of players!

This deck is really good for a preconstructed level group-slug. It's interesting to see how Wizards manages to deliver a good product with a good base that doesn't even need to change that much to make it really fun and playable. I hope that from now on all the preconstructed ones come as complete and carefully built as they have been made lately!

Did you like the list? Do you prefer The Lord of Pain as Commander? Would you change anything? Tell us your opinion!