The Necrobloom Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on October 18, 2025

The Necrobloom | Illustration by Ivan Shavrin

Modern Horizons 3 gave us The Necrobloom, a unique and powerful Abzan commander (). It’s a token generator, a Field of the Dead variant right from the command zone, and a card that allows you to “draw your lands from the graveyard” via the dredge mechanic.

There are plenty of options to build a flexible commander like this. Let’s take a look at the landfall mechanic in conjunction with this commander and the combos you can pull off.

Let’s dive in!

The Deck

Aftermath Analyst | Illustration by Danny Schwartz

This is a general take on The Necrobloom as a landfall commander. We have lots of ways to make more than one land drop, to play lands from our graveyard, and ways to fetch lands and thus generate two landfalls a turn. Our win conditions are tied to big mana and token creatures too, so our late game involves big flashy X-spells or some landfall-related combos.

The Commander: The Necrobloom

We can break The Necrobloom into three parts.

Our commander has a landfall ability that creates a 0/1 plant token. But if we have seven or more lands with different names, we get to make a 2/2 zombie token instead, so it’s the same ability that Field of the Dead provides.

The Necrobloom‘s most interesting ability, though, is that every land in our graveyard has dredge 2. We can mill ourselves to tutor for specific lands, have a land toolbox in our graveyard, and more. As such, this commander supports a lot of graveyard-centric strategies. We’ll also have many 0/1 plant tokens or 2/2 zombies in play, so sacrificing creatures for value will always be a strong option.

The Creatures

Since your commander puts tokens reliably on the battlefield as blockers and sacrifice fodder, the deck’s creatures are usually tied to the landfall aspect of the deck.

A card like Lotus Cobra generates mana on landfall, while Turntimber Sower doubles on your commander’s ability to generate Plant tokens. Since this deck isn't harmed by sacrificing creatures or lands, cards like The Gitrog Monster or Thalia and The Gitrog Monster are awesome engines to attack, defend, and generate card advantage.

The deck also has creatures like Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Ancient Greenwarden to fix your colors and ensure you’re making land drops when you draw a bunch of cards. Lastly, heavy hitters like Avenger of Zendikar boost your plant army while Woodland Bellower is a value creature that can tutor up a creature you need.

Interaction and Sweepers

Abzan colors allow you to play a lot of spot removal, which should be a primary line of defense.

Cards like Swords to Plowshares, Anguished Unmaking, and Fell the Profane are some of the tools you have to fight their threats. A single Damn doubles as sweeper and spot removal, and you can also easily interact with Flare of Malice by sacrificing a spare black creature. Culling Ritual is interesting here because you can sweep the board of tokens and mana rocks, as well as generate a lot of mana for a single turn to make an explosive play.

Green Ramp and Landfall

You have many cards that allow you to play more than one land a turn. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Ancient Greenwarden fit this bill. Cards like Lotus Cobra and Nissa, Resurgent Animist generate mana when a land hits the battlefield, and you can turn fetch lands into two sources of mana as well as fix your colors. Rampant Growth and Cultivate serve a double purpose of ramping and triggering landfall.

Card Advantage

Lands are the biggest source of card advantage you have, and you can play extras from your graveyard, library, or hand with the right support.

You've got cards like Horn of Greed, which rewards you for making land drops. Eerie Ultimatum, one of the best Abzan cards, is a big source of card advantage in Abzan graveyard-related decks. Two cards that offer you card advantage based on the 0/1 tokens are Fecund Greenshell and Skullclamp, the latter sacrificing them for cards and the former also giving you a card whenever a 0/1 creature enters. They get worse when your commander starts producing 2/2 Zombies, though.

Graveyard Shenanigans

Cards like Ramunap Excavator and Crucible of Worlds allow you to keep making land drops if the lands are in your graveyard. You can also reuse lands like Demolition Field or fetch lands for more landfall triggers.

If you've filled your graveyard, a card like Aftermath Analyst or World Shaper can put all your lands back onto the battlefield from the graveyard. You also have planeswalkers like Nissa of Shadowed Boughs, a recursion piece with a loyalty ability tied to landfall triggers.

Combos and Tutors

There are a lot of two-card combos you can pull off in this deck. The main combo is related to Perilous Forays, which allows you to sacrifice a creature to put a land with a basic land type from your library into play. With your commander on the battlefield, you’ll also make a token, which you can sacrifice to Perilous Forays.

It’s important that the lands enter play untapped, because you want to use the mana right away to sacrifice the creature you’ve just created with the land drop. Amulet of Vigor or Spelunking play a huge part in allowing this to happen. The other way is to use cards like Lotus Cobra to make the mana right away.

That’s a huge influx of lands and landfall triggers, which can fuel Retreat to Hagra or Mirkwood Bats to drain your opponents, or Scute Swarm to make a huge army.

Cards like Crop Rotation, Wight of the Reliquary, Diabolic Intent, Chord of Calling, or Enlightened Tutor can be used to tutor a combo piece you need.

You can also annoy your opponents with Strip Mine plus Crucible of Worlds or Ramunap Excavator.

Win Conditions

This is a grindy deck that has some flashy wincons.

Producing a large amount of tokens and mana via landfall triggers is going to be key to producing a huge Torment of Hailfire or Finale of Devastation.

Cards like Retreat to Hagra and Mirkwood Bats can slowly drain your opponents over the course of the game or during a big turn.

If your graveyard is filled with lands, especially fetch lands, you can rely on cards like World Shaper, Aftermath Analyst, Eerie Ultimatum, or even Scapeshift to produce many landfall triggers, too.

A card like Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest is at home in this deck since you sacrifice many fetch lands, produce many tokens that love +1/+1 counters, and with the Perilous Forays combo you can have an explosive turn.

The Mana Base

The mana base has plenty of basic lands for the Perilous Forays combo to work best. There are a few mana dorks that produce mana when you hit your land drops via landfall, or cards that allow you to play more than one land a turn. You also have a hefty amount of fetch lands to maximize landfall triggers.

Lands like Lotus Field and Echoing Deeps have downsides that you don’t care much about, as you’re able to retrieve lands in your graveyard or outright play them from there.

I’m not playing a card like Sandsteppe Citadel: It would work for fixing your mana, but it doesn’t have a basic land type.

Cards like Insidious Roots and Jaheira, Friend of the Forest turn your 0/1 tokens into mana dorks to ramp and fix mana.

The Strategy

When playing a 4-mana, 2/7 commander that produces tokens on the ground, you’re not that worried about surviving in the early game. Attacks in the air can be a bit of a problem since you don’t have many reach creatures or fliers, so you’ll rely on spot removal to do the job.

Courser of Kruphix adds another line of defense, giving you some lifegain here and there to ensure you live longer, and you can play lands from the top of your deck which is a strong source of card advantage and filtering.

In the late game, you should have an army of 2/2 creatures produced by your commander and Field of the Dead to close it up. Finale of Devastation and Torment of Hailfire can be good wincons once you have enough mana.

Another interesting interaction is Scapeshift with almost any card in the deck that cares about landfall triggers. You can Scapeshift, throw your lands into your graveyard, generate many landfall triggers, and get them back via other card effects. Just having your commander and Field of the Dead on the battlefield ensures a hefty zombie army.

Combos and Interactions

When you have a commander who’s a token producer on a landfall trigger, sacrificing creatures for value becomes a lot easier. Cards like Wight of the Reliquary and Diabolic Intent get a lot better. Your tokens are 0/1s in the early game, so Skullclamp nets you some cards there.

Tutoring Avenger of Zendikar with Finale of Devastation produces a lot of power. Avenger of Zendikar hits the battlefield and makes plenty of tokens, say 12, and then your creatures get +10+10 and haste at the very minimum.

Many of your win conditions rely on landfall triggers, so a single Scapeshift or an Aftermath Analyst’s activation can do the job, especially if you have a card like Lotus Cobra in play to generate X mana and win with a big X spell. If you already have Aftermath Analyst in play, a Scapeshift can be devastating because you can put all lands you have into play, first from your deck and later from your graveyard.

Depending on the board state, a Culling Ritual can net you 10-15 mana, which can be a huge blowout with a card like Torment of Hailfire.

Chord of Calling is an excellent tutor in this deck because you can use your 0/1 tokens to convoke and get different creatures you need, like an Aftermath Analyst, a Witch Enchanter, or a Timeless Witness.

Rule 0 Violations Check

There aren’t any infinite combos that end the game on the spot, but there are some annoying interactions in this deck. If you’re constantly destroying lands via Strip Mine + Crucible of Worlds, you can lock someone out of a color or outright lock them out of a game. This deck has many “I win!” moments, too, so as part of a Rule 0 conversation people should know that you can realistically drop 10+ lands onto the battlefield in a single turn. 

Budget Options

This deck currently sits at around $500-$600. Let’s see what you can do with a leaner budget.

Torment of Hailfire, Finale of Devastation, and Nissa, Resurgent Animist are all commander staples. These are very hard to replace and very core to the deck’s idea. Cheap alternatives could be something like Iridescent Vinelasher to deal damage via landfall, Titania, Protector of Argoth to generate value, and Moonshaker Cavalry as an impactful play.

Crucible of Worlds, Scapeshift, and Amulet of Vigor are also relevant combo cards for Eternal formats. You can change them for Splendid Reclamation, Wrenn and Seven, and Idol of Oblivion.

Regarding the lands: Wasteland, Strip Mine, and Verdant Catacombs can be replaced with Brokers Hideout, Obscura Storefront, and Thespian's Stage. Field of the Dead goes out and in comes Dark Depths. This way, you can replace a combo for another one and shave $100 bucks while you're at it.

Other Builds

Thinking about the land aspect of the deck, you could fill the deck with gates and use synergies like Basilisk Gate or win via Maze's End combo.

Reanimator is also a possibility because you have access to a dredge engine, the best white and black reanimator cards, as well as sacrifice fodder for cards like Dread Return.

Cycling-matters is also interesting because when you cycle a land, you can dredge it right away, and with cards like Fluctuator you can have a strong mill engine as well as cards like Astral Slide and Archfiend of Ifnir for payoffs.

You could try different lands in your builds like Glacial Chasm to create a lock, or the combo interaction between Dark Depths and Vesuva. Or, you can reuse channel lands like Takenuma, Abandoned Mire or Boseiju, Who Endures.

Commanding Conclusion

World Shaper | Illustration by Raymond Swanland

The Necrobloom is a very fun landfall commander to build around, allowing you to use lands and your graveyard in a different way. This commander ensures that every land drop you make generates something good for you, and you have the ability to mill yourself or reuse value lands sitting in your command zone.

This deck shows exciting possibilities for this commander, as well as interesting alternatives. Give this deck a spin, or change some cards to build it in a fun and unique way.

Let me know in the comments below or in our Draftsim Discord what you guys think of this build and the changes you would make, and I hope your brews bloom!