Death Toll Precon: Decklist, Value, and Verdict

I usually write off these BGx graveyard precons, but I’m seeing the shell of something truly great here. If you can weed out the weak filler cards and tinker with the delirium enablers/reanimation targets, you’ve probably got a unique deck on your hands. And I like that both commanders fit the context of the deck but inspire me to adjust it in different ways. The reprint value is fine but not great, and the mana base is strategically competent but super dorky in terms of value. Seriously, y’all couldn’t sneak an Underground Mortuary in the BG delirium deck? Just this once?

Winter, Cynical OpportunistRendmaw, Creaking Nest

Death Toll is a Golgari graveyard deck heavily themed around the returning delirium mechanic, a personal favorite of mine. There are tons of nods to different card types here. If something looks odd or out of place, it was probably included because it provides another card type for delirium. We even see the return of kindred for that exact reason!

The face Golgari commander is Winter, Cynical Opportunist, one of Duskmourn’s survivors. My first read is that this is just bad Meren of Clan Nel Toth, but there’s so much self-mill in this precon that you should be able to reanimate giant permanents with ease. I’m not a fan of how Winter kind of works against itself, though. Exiling card types from your graveyard means you’ll be shutting off your own delirium cards on occasion, so there’s some non-bo energy here. But Winter can bring back any permanent, so it goes above and beyond the normal BG reanimator strategies.

Your alternative commander is Rendmaw, Creaking Nest, a new scarecrow that pays you off for playing cards with multiple card types. Super cool! This is the type of novel design space that gets me excited, and I’d actually bias towards Rendmaw as my commander instead of Winter. It even provides something of a win condition, since it makes a bunch of goaded birds for opponents to peck at each other with.

I’m gonna focus on a few avenues to upgrade this deck. We can add more self-mill, more ways to use our graveyard without relying so much on our commander’s ability, as well as more impactful cards to put on the table if we reanimate them. It’s also interesting to add more permanents that have two types (artifact creatures, artifact lands, enchantment creatures) and make it so that delirium cards are active at all times. Finally, we’re improving the card quality and adding a little bit more direct reanimation. This deck has some weak ways to mill and reap the rewards from having delirium, akin to something we see in Limited or lower-power formats like Standard.

Draftsim's upgrade guide makes 21 changes to this deck. The first picks (hover for the card):

• Destined / Lead
• Rise of the Witch-king
• Ripples of Undeath
• Millikin
• Six
• Coiling Rebirth

• Official Duskmourn: House of Horror Commander decklists (Wizards of the Coast)
• All 6 Golgari Commander Precons in Magic Ranked by A.L. Walser (September 20, 2026)