Massacre Girl, Known Killer Commander Deck Guide

Massacre Girl, Known Killer | Illustration by Jack Hughes

One joy from revisiting Magic's planes is seeing new versions of beloved characters. Massacre Girl was a known character and fan favorite on Ravnica before her first card printing in the War of the Spark MTG set. Naturally, returning to the plane with a murder mystery theme necessitated an encore of everybody’s favorite assassin.

Massacre Girl, Known Killer is a fascinating spin on the original Massacre Girl, echoing its theme of “death by a thousand cuts” while providing tangible synergies to build around.

Let’s dive into a mono-black build perfect for casual EDH nights!

The Deck

Massacre Girl | Illustration by Chris Rallis

We’re keeping things simple this time with a casual mono-black midrange deck. There are no combos or super broken fast mana (short of Sol Ring, but who doesn’t play that?), just an emphasis on solid black cards that grind out our opponents for extended games.

Black excels at destroying creatures a la Doom Blade, but this deck leans into kill spells that give creatures -X/-X, an often-unutilized aspect of black’s color pie. These effects range from spot removal to board wipes, giving us plenty of spells and creatures to trigger our commander’s broken ability.

This list has more than just mono-black staples; thanks to the themes required to maximize our commander, we get a solid host of -1/-1 counter synergies that give the deck more flavor than “good stuff.” This extra dimension adds power not all black decks can leverage, making this a novel way to introduce a mono-black deck to your local game night.

The Commander

I called Massacre Girl, Known Killer’s ability broken, and I meant it! Not the wither part (though that’s powerful), but the card draw ability. This creature demonstrates why many modern Magic cards add “this ability only triggers once per turn.” Just imagine casting Toxic Deluge and drawing five+ cards off this black board wipe.

This makes our commander a potent card advantage engine that goes along with all our interaction. A solid chunk of our deck becomes 2-for-1s with the commander in play. While I glossed over the wither text before, that’s another crucial part of what makes the card so strong.

All our creatures distributing -1/-1 counters instead of damage grants a base amount of long-term advantages; that “damage” won’t get wiped away at the end of the turn, it skirts indestructible, and it impacts our opponents’ ability to attack us back. It’s often a great deterrent; who wants to attack a field of creatures that shrinks their best cards? The counters also enable those synergies I mentioned before.

-1/-1 Counter Synergies

These don’t make up an exhaustive amount of the deck, but the power and dimension they add are welcome. This section includes -1/-1 counter payoffs and the cards that distribute the counters.

Necroskitter reanimates our opponents’ creatures when they die with -1/-1 counters. Notably, the counters themselves don’t need to be what destroys the creature, and we don't even have to kill the creature ourselves. If we sneak a -1/-1 counter onto a creature that trades in combat or for another opponent's Doom Blade, we still get it back.

Skinrender distributes -1/-1 counters quite cleanly. This is a 2-for-1 alone that becomes a 3-for-1 with our commander; that’s plenty of value before factoring in how well it works with Saw in Half and Malakir Rebirth.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician fulfills the roles of distributor and payoff. It’ll spread plenty of -1/-1 counters around while drawing cards which we can discard to the activated ability! This may benefit the most from our creatures getting wither.

One benefit to running mono-colored decks is utilizing color-specific payoffs that reward playing one color. Or, in the case of Midnight Banshee, punishes everybody not playing a single color. This chunky creature spreads -1/-1 counters nearly as well as Toxrill, the Corrosive, to dominate long games while leaving our board untouched.

Black Sun's Zenith offers a -1/-1 counter-based wrath we can potentially play multiple times in a game. Some “pay X” wraths have the downside of being too expensive to deal with the bigger threats, but Zenith skirts this by permanently debuffing whatever survives.

Blowfly Infestation is one of the premiere payoffs for -1/-1 counter decks. It keeps the counters flowing, ensuring your opponents are always on the verge of losing creatures and triggering our commander. This is especially powerful against token decks.

Crumbling Ashes destroys the opposition, quite literally. It’s important to note this won’t trigger Massacre Girl, Known Killer; the creatures are getting destroyed, not dying because of their toughness. Despite this small non-bo, it’s worth playing to help deal with larger threats.

Nest of Scarabs makes the combat phase a nightmare for your opponents. At the very least, your Insect tokens replace themselves since our commander gives wither to all creatures, but it can do much more.

-X/-X Cards

These cards are essential for triggering Massacre Girl, Known Killer. We pack tons of removal since our commander cares about it, with an emphasis on board wipes to draw as many cards as we can.

Grasp of Darkness and Drown in Ichor are far from what I’d call “exciting,” but they play their role well. -4/-4 for 2 mana trades up often enough while cantripping with our commander. A late Drown in Ichor can kill several cards, which is nice. We’re playing Whisper of the Dross for a similar reason: It’s a cantripping proliferate effect.

Defile and Mutilate provide two more payoffs for going mono-black, this time reaping the rewards of a Swamp-centric mana base.

Dismember should just be in more decks. I like to think of it as a 1-mana spell with kicker that spends some life. Nothing proves how broken Phyrexian mana is like a “colorless” spell that kills most creatures.

Yahenni's Expertise is, in my humble opinion, underplayed. Sweeping aside all small creatures while casting another spell is more than worth 4 mana. -3/-3 is the sweet spot since that won’t kill our commander while racking up the card draw.

Toxic Deluge is black’s best wrath and one of the strongest board wipes ever. 3 mana to kill everything is above rate compared to the various 4-mana wraths around. -X/-X skirts protective measures like indestructible. But it’s also so flexible! If we control Massacre Wurm or another large creature, we can save it by paying less life.

Liliana, the Last Hope provides constant pressure on our opponents’ small creatures with an ultimate that wins the game with little more than time.

Nightshade Assassin and Blight-Breath Catoblepas each kill creatures off the back of our black-centric deck and provide extra value whenever we can make them trigger again.

To write Grim Hireling off as nothing but a way to nug our opponents’ creatures would be criminally underscoring a powerful card. This creature loves wither; it puts a tough decision on our opponents: Accept the -1/-1 counters and potential card draw or provide us with a mana advantage. We’re happy with either.

Massacre Wurm provides us with a staunch win condition via burn. Wiping the board with this and/or Blood Artist in play can be enough to finish a close game.

Massacre Girl and Specter of Mortality are two powerful creature-based wraths. They each survive their own effects, leaving us ahead on board and cards, assuming our commander was in play.

Ascendant Evincar and Night of Souls' Betrayal provide minor but welcome debuffs to opposing creatures. Night doesn’t work great with some of our cards, but it’s still worth the slot.

Chittering Witch provides a burst of tokens and a way to shrink or kill opposing creatures! The tokens do a lot with our minor sacrifice themes.

Virtue of Persistence provides a powerful win condition while the Locthwain Scorn adventure does the thing with our commander. Having a non-creature win condition like the Virtue is great since we have multiple ways to wipe the board. It’s slow, but we have the means to buy time.

Staples

While the removal is an essential part of black’s color identity and a powerful combo with our commander, it takes more than that to win a game of Commander. The -1/-1 counter synergies also need a little help, so we’ve got some of black’s best (casual appropriate) cards to supplement.

-X/-X removal can’t always deal with every threat, so I’ve added a little hard removal. Snuff Out, Feed the Swarm, and Bitter Triumph provides just a bit of insurance to go with our other cards.

To supplement Massacre Girl, Known Killer’s card draw, we have the endless staples Night's Whisper and Sign in Blood, plus Syphon Mind. The latter isn’t quite as efficient as the others but offers a burst of card advantage.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury is just one of my favorite cards! I’m more than happy to play it here.

Ophiomancer and Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia generate lots of tokens. These work alongside our various sacrifice outlets, but I like having snakes and zombies with wither. They don’t matter, especially since these engines replace them, and they provide a constant source of annoying damage for our opponents since blocking them is just bad.

Liliana, Death's Majesty and Liliana, Dreadhorde General also help on the token front. They provide a potent late game alongside Sorin Markov and Liliana, the Last Hope. Our deck is chock full of removal to protect these planeswalkers, especially sweepers.

Slaughter Specialist is an odd one, but worth including. Giving your opponents creatures isn’t something you traditionally want to do but this deck makes it work. That’s three more triggers off your Yahenni's Expertise. The Specialist becomes a massive threat thanks to this deck’s high removal count.

Imp's Mischief cultivates conversation. Few players see this spell coming, so it almost always creates a memorable moment and an interesting swing. You’ll commonly use it to protect your cards from interaction, but you can’t go wrong with redirecting Time Warp.

Phyrexian Obliterator and Gray Merchant of Asphodel are here because… well, it just wouldn’t feel like mono-black without them! We’re packing Crypt Ghast for a similar reason. Once you have Crypt Ghast, you need Exsanguinate to close out those lengthy casual games.

The Mana Base

There’s nothing too flashy here. We have a typical assortment of mana rocks, with the most notable inclusion being Jet Medallion as another way to benefit from playing a mono-colored deck.

Our trio of modal double-faced cards, Malakir Rebirth, Hagra Mauling, and Agadeem's Awakening, help us keep both our land and spell count high. Hitting land drops is incredibly important, so having a few spells that double as tapped lands is invaluable.

The mana base has a couple of powerful lands beyond the MDFCs. Takenuma, Abandoned Mire is a multi-format staple for a reason: Getting to draw cards off a random land is fantastic value.

Cabal Coffers and Cabal Stronghold provide even more mono-Swamp benefits. These work especially well with Exsanguinate to close out a game. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth turns all these value lands into Swamps so we don’t waste a bit of mana.

War Room and Castle Locthwain provide just a bit more utility, ensuring we’ll always have something to do with our mana if our hand runs low on gas.

The Strategy

This deck’s far from complicated. Jam our commander, kill some creatures, draw some cards. The most important things to consider are the cards in your opening hand and your sequencing, especially with Massacre Girl, Known Killer.

You’ll want some amount of removal in your hand. Mana acceleration is nice too, but this deck lives and breathes with its interaction; killing your opponents’ creatures at a profit is the deck’s fundamental strategy.

Early creatures also help this because we don’t always want our girl pouncing from the command zone as soon as we have 4 mana. It’s often best to wait until you can make a reasonable attack or have an interactive spell you can cast on the same turn, so you draw a card right away. It’s not uncommon to play it out as a 5- or 6-drop alongside Dismember, Grasp of Darkness, etc.

This deck has a glaring weakness: We rely on our opponents to have abundant creatures to kill. The scariest player will be the one rocking up with Arcum Dagsson, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin, or any other commander indicating a strategy based on any card type but creatures.

The best way to handle such a player is to polish your EDH politicking skills. You might strike up a temporary friendship against the non-creature player to minimize their impact on your game plan, or you could band together with the other opponents to eliminate them. Be prepared for a tricky match-up either way; if you end up in a pod with three non-creature-centric decks, it might be worth playing a different commander altogether to minimize the risks of floundering in the water.

Combos and Interactions

This deck doesn’t have infinite combos, but that doesn’t mean it lacks cool and powerful interactions. These interactions lean on our -1/-1 counter synergies.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Nest of Scarabs

For this combo, you need Yawgmoth and Nest of Scarabs in play, as well as an additional creature.

Sacrifice your extra creature to Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, and put a -1/-1 counter on an opponent’s creature. This will trigger Nest of Scarabs, creating an Insect token. You’ll then sacrifice the token, add another counter, and repeat. Not that this isn’t a true infinite combo since you can’t sac and Insect to activate Yawgmoth and put a -1/-1 counter on that Insect at the same time.

This combo can one-shot threatening creatures or even wipe opposing boards if you’re willing to pay enough life (or control Blood Artist to offset the life loss). At the very least, it provides a potent source of card draw so long as your opponents have creatures to target. This combo could also spread -1/-1 counters on each creature to make effects like Night of Souls' Betrayal or Necroskitter more potent.

Black Sun's Zenith + Nest of Scarabs

This combo is simple. All you need is the Nest in play and Black Sun's Zenith in hand.

Cast BSZ for as much as you can (Crypt Ghast and Cabal Coffers help here) and distribute a bunch of -1/-1 counters. This will wipe the board, then trigger Nest of Scarabs.

Since creatures can have more -1/-1 counters than their toughness, you’ll make more Insect tokens than your opponents can handle. Even if you only get X=5 on three creatures, that’s 15 Insects. Destroying your opponents’ boards while maintaining a board state of your own goes a long way to winning games.

Malakir Rebirth + Saw in Half

Saw in Half is an awesome card. It straddles the line between a joke card and powerful effect in a way I appreciate, despite typically disliking this kind of design. It’s also one of our best value cards with our ETB creatures.

For this combo, you need both instants in hand plus a creature worth targeting. First, cast Malakir Rebirth on your chosen creature and let it resolve. Then cast Saw in Half. This will kill it, creating two token copies, and then the original creature will return to play.

This results in three copies of the card total. Reaching for ETB creatures is the natural strategy; three copies of Massacre Wurm or Gray Merchant of Asphodel triggering ends games. But the combo goes further!

Creating three Phyrexian Obliterators is hilarious and devastating; an opponent attacking you can lose their entire board to that. Triple Crypt Ghast stacks your mana production, a fantastic deal with Exsanguinate. You can create three copies of Grim Hireling for some intense ramp.

A note on sequencing: I said to let Malakir Rebirth resolve before casting Saw in Half. You can cast one, hold priority, and cast the other; the risk is that a single removal spell removes your creature and both instants. Letting Rebirth resolve first means you get at least one trigger if your opponent kills the creature in response to Saw in Half; and if your opponent gets spooked by Malakir Rebirth and tries to kill the creature in response, you can respond with Saw in Half to get two creatures. This is the safest way to deploy this powerful interaction.

Rule 0 Violations Check

This deck has no infinite combos, a fair, interactive game plan, and no busted staples like The One Ring or Dauthi Voidwalker. This should clear any Rule 0 conversation for casual decks.

Budget Options

The mana base is the best place to start making budget cuts. Trimming Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers alone saves ~$50. All the value lands can be replaced with Swamps without ill effect.

The Meathook Massacre provides a win condition and card draw, but still costs a ton of money post-ban. Languish or another -X/-X wrath can work; Zulaport Cutthroat is also acceptable as another way to drain when your creatures die.

Saw in Half provides exceptional value, but you could run any variation on this effect, like Undying Evil.

Imp's Mischief is hilarious but a little pricy. You could run any number of 2-mana spells here; Withering Boon gains a lot of value from people not expecting it.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is a multi-format staple, so it boasts a high price. Contagion Clasp can spread -1/-1 counters around in its place.

Other Builds

Massacre Girl, Known Killer suffers from success. It’s a complete engine all on its own but has rather stringent requirements. One way to tweak this list would be upping the power. We already have a minor sacrifice subtheme; it would take very little to strengthen it and include infinite combos. All these -1/-1 counters make me think Geralf's Messenger would go infinite with little to no effort, not to mention combo powerhouse Mikaeus, the Unhallowed.

Commanding Conclusion

Grasp of Darkness | Illustration by Daarken

There’s something delightful about revisiting familiar planes and seeing old faces on new cards. Massacre Girl, Known Killer has an intriguing design that balances synergy with raw value to create a powerful mono-black commander.

What’s your favorite mono-colored commander? Which Massacre Girl card do you prefer? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!