Blight Curse Precon: Decklist, Value, and Verdict

Is Blight Curse worth buying?

from Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander Decks: Are They Worth It? by Timothy Zaccagnino

Blight Curse doesn’t appeal to my Timmy sensibilities the same way the other deck does, but I like what I’m seeing. It brings a new precon strategy to light, digs up a bunch of old cards people have likely never seen before, and gives you your money’s worth and then some.

This looks to be the more skill-testing of the two decks, so players looking to pick up the more interactive one should probably grab Blight Curse, though you’ll need to shave a few cards off the top of the curve to make it more consistent. I’ll leave that for our upgrade guide.

All-in-all, I respect this deck, and I look forward to seeing what people do with it.

How Blight Curse plays

primer from Blight Curse Upgrade Guide: 15 Easy Changes You Can Make by Steve Vrooman

Blight Curse is a Jund precon focused on -1/-1 counters. The face commander is Auntie Ool, Cursewretch, who rewards you for spreading negative counters around the board. You can shrink your own creatures or play cards that naturally enter with -1/-1 counters to draw cards, or you can weaponize them to tick down opposing life totals. It also showcases the new blight mechanic from the main set as a ward ability.

The Reaper, King No More is the alt commander, and it has a pretty simple effect of placing a few -1/-1 counters on board, then stealing creatures that die while they hold said counters. It’s kind of like a Necroskitter in the command zone. Auntie Ool looks like a more direct wincon, so I’d stick with that, though they’re fairly close in power level.

It’s hard to classify a macro-archetype for this deck. It’s kind of control, kind of beatdown, kind of combo. Speaking of which, there’s an infinite combo present that uses Blowfly Infestation, Flourishing Defenses or Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons, and Grave Venerations to take the table out. It’s not easy to set up and requires some rules knowledge to pull off, but it’s something to be aware of.