Witherbloom Pestilence Upgrade Guide: 15 Easy Changes to Level Up Your Deck

Gorma, the Gullet | Illustration by Brian Valeza

Greetings, planeswalkers. Secrets of Strixhaven is just around the corner, and with a new set comes new Commander preconstructed decks. Strixhaven has five schools of magic, including Witherbloom, the green and black school.

Witherbloom Pestilence is their EDH precon this time around, a nice, creature-centric sacrifice deck centered around Dina, Essence Brewer. Boy, WotC is getting better at delivering some good precons right out of the box. As with all Commander precons, there’s always room for improvement, so let’s change some cards without spending too much money and see what we can accomplish.

Magic: The Gathering Secrets of Strixhaven Commander Deck - Witherbloom Pestilence (100-Card Deck, Deck Box + Accessories)

• FACE YOUR GREATEST TEST YET—The hallowed halls of Strixhaven welcome you back to school! Choose your college of magical study and expand your education in the greater world of Arcavios as you stand against mysterious threats plaguing the plane
• POWER IS WORTH THE PRICE—There’s trouble brewing when Dina leads your Witherbloom forces, so prepare the Pests for sacrifice! Sacrifices grant life, cards, and stackable counters that prepare your next victim for gainful harvesting or pump your attackers for a deadly push.
• 2 FOIL BORDERLESS COMMANDERS—Every Secrets of Strixhaven Commander Deck includes 2 Traditional Foil Mythic Rare Legendary Creature cards featuring Borderless art that can be played as your commander
• INTRODUCES 12 COMMANDER CARDS—Each deck introduces 12 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering
• THRILLING MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue

$49.99

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Witherbloom Pestilence Deck Overview

Witherbloom Pestilence is a Commander precon built around Dina, Essence Brewer, a card that rewards you with card draw the first time you sacrifice a creature each turn. You can also use Dina’s ability to sacrifice a creature and put X +1/+1 counters on any creature you control, while gaining a bunch of life, although you need to pay 2 mana for that.

You’ll want to maximize your beefy, easy-to-sacrifice creatures so that you can pump out high-power threats. It’s also nice to have cards that are easy to sacrifice on your opponents’ turns, like the Eldrazi Spawn tokens.

The secondary commander, Gorma, the Gullet, gains a +1/+1 counter each time a creature dies (or you sacrifice a creature), so if you’re planning to sacrifice creatures constantly, it gets pretty big. It also lets your creatures enter with additional +1/+1 counters, so if you’re focusing on Gorma, the Gullet as a commander, you’ll probably want some +1/+1 counter synergy cards, like Hardened Scales.

Upgrade Plan

The main difference I see between the two possible commanders is that Dina, Essence Brewer wants to sacrifice a big creature so that you gain a bunch of life and put a lot of counters on another creature. Gorma, the Gullet, on the other hand, wants to sacrifice a lot of creatures in a single turn.

One direction I’ll take with this update is to add more high-toughness creatures and benefits for them instead of cards that remove a lot of tokens or creatures across the board. This deck already has plenty of cards that let you sacrifice other creatures, and cards that care about creatures dying.

It has an excellent mana base for a precon. To improve and solidify this decklist, I want to include some cheap, low mana value cards that have a lot of power so that Dina can sacrifice them and create beefy threats.

Witherbloom has a lifegain theme, however, and that’s very loud in this precon. Although I don’t care that much about lifegain in this deck, Dina can gain life in chunks, so I’m keeping cards like Defiling Daemogoth, which can be good when you sacrifice a 7/7, gain 7 life, and make each opponent lose 7 life.

Before we start, I’m on a budget here, so most of the suggested cards will be inexpensive. For example, you could add cards like The Ozolith to this decklist due to the +1/+1 counter synergies, or Phyrexian Tower as a sacrifice outlet, but these are $30+ cards, and some Game Changers like Bolas's Citadel could be interesting.

The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride

Suggested Cut: Ohran Frostfang

The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride is a way to take advantage of creatures with high power. You use them to saddle the Gitrog, hit someone with haste and trample, and draw a bunch of cards if you want to while you also ramp. Ohran Frostfang isn’t bad by any means, but we have a lot of card draw already, and this isn’t a deck that swarms the board and hits your opponents with small tokens every turn.

Bebop & Rocksteady

Suggested Cut: Mycoloth

Bebop & Rocksteady is tailormade for a strategy like this. You have a 7-power creature that can also sacrifice others, for only 3 mana. It’s very solid if you use Dina to sacrifice it. Mycoloth is a fine recipient for +1/+1 counters, but it’s one of the worst cards in this deck, so that’s the easy cut.

Daemogoth Titan

Suggested Cut: Gyome, Master Chef

Following the trend of high-powered creatures, it’s very hard to top an 11-power one. Daemogoth Titan fits our plans very well, and Gyome, Master Chef is more interesting in a deck with more dedicated lifegain payoffs.

Kalakscion, Hunger Tyrant

Suggested Cut: Pest Rescuer

Kalakscion, Hunger Tyrant is part of my high-power, low-MV package. It’s more of a synergy card, but sometimes you’ll connect with it, and if you don’t, there’s always Dina to sacrifice it. Pest Rescuer is also a 3-mana creature that sometimes won’t trigger because you already have pests with no way to sacrifice them.

Anticausal Vestige

Suggested Cut: Deadly Brew

Anticausal Vestige is nice in a deck like this. You’ll warp it for 4 mana, sacrifice a 7-power creature, get all the benefits your commander naturally gives you, and also play a card from your hand. Deadly Brew is one of the cards I’ve identified as a Gorma card rather than a Dina card, and that’s why I’m cutting it.

Daemogoth Woe-Eater

Suggested Cut: Swamp

Daemogoth Woe-Eater is a high-power creature that can sacrifice others, and if you sacrifice it, you get more benefits. It’s very fitting as a target for this commander. The deck isn’t that heavy on black, and you have a lot of ramp and Eldrazi Spawns, so bye-bye, Swamp.

Skullclamp

Suggested Cut: Bloodghast

Decks that run many ways to make 1/1 creatures usually benefit from a Skullclamp. You don’t trigger your commander because you don’t sacrifice a creature, but you draw two cards instead of one. Bloodghast isn’t a card you want to see in a deck that doesn’t have fetches, and I’m more interested in sacrificing one big creature a turn than creating Bloodghast loops.

Talisman of Resilience

Suggested Cut: Swamp

This deck has only a Sol Ring and an Arcane Signet, so let’s add one more mana rock in Talisman of Resilience. There’s some green ramp here, and we’re playing only two colors in a low-curve deck, so we don’t need that many mana rocks, but it’s good to have one more option in the 99. I’m basically trading a basic Swamp for this card.

Disciple of Freyalise / Garden of Freyalise

Suggested Cut: Forest

Disciple of Freyalise is a way to upgrade a basic land in this deck by adding another spell that cares about sacrificing big stuff. This deck doesn’t need that many basics, so I’m cutting some. Bye, basic Forest.

The Earth Crystal

Suggested Cut: Moldervine Reclamation

The Earth Crystal is a very good card in this deck, considering that it makes your green cards cheaper and it doubles your +1/+1 counters. Instead of using Dina’s ability to put, say, four +1/+1 counters on creatures, you’ll actually place eight counters instead. Moldervine Reclamation does what other cards we have do at a slower pace, so I’m happy to cut it.

Varolz, the Scar-Striped

Suggested Cut: Ominous Harvest

Besides being a free sacrifice outlet and a regenerating card that can get very big, Varolz, the Scar-Striped is an excellent way to take advantage of the big creatures you sacrifice. Scavenging a card like Bebop & Rocksteady for 3 mana means that you’ll put seven +1/+1 counters on any creature, so you’ll make another big beater and another great sacrifice target for Dina. I’m not seeing Ominous Harvest as a card for this deck, which prefers to sacrifice creatures at a pace of one per turn.

Jenova, Ancient Calamity

Suggested Cut: Merchant of Venom

Jenova, Ancient Calamity is one payoff for Dina’s ability. Putting a lot of counters on Jenova means that you’ll get that many counters on another creature you control. I’m taking Merchant of Venom out because if you want to sacrifice a big creature every turn, then maybe this card isn’t worth it.

Infested Thrinax

Suggested Cut: Feral Appetite

Infested Thrinax is one other way to make the most of our high-power buddies. Flashing this in when a big creature you control is about to die, or when you’re about to use your commander’s ability to sacrifice a big creature, gives you a lot of tokens. I’m taking out Feral Appetite not because it’s a bad card, but because our token suite is diverse enough that we won't get the pest bonus often enough.

Chittering Dispatcher

Suggested Cut: Priest of Forgotten Gods

If Chittering Dispatcher gets to attack, it makes three other Dispatchers which automatically die into Eldrazi Spawns. More cards to sacrifice, more death. Priest of Forgotten Gods is a little bit slow, and we’re not lacking in the sacrifice department.

Dread Drone

Suggested Cut: Beledros Witherbloom

Dread Drone has an okay power stat, but most importantly, it creates two tokens to sacrifice whenever we want, even on your opponents’ turns. Beledros Witherbloom is nice, but it’s also a 7-mana creature that supplies a lot of tokens over the course of the game, and it's better suited to a dedicated ramp deck.

The Final Deck and New Cards

Here’s the final upgraded deck, complete with all the cards I’ve replaced.

If you want to take a look at only the upgrades, here’s what’s been added. You can buy all of these with just a single click if you want, while helping Draftsim.

Commanding Conclusion

Dina, Essence Brewer | Illustration by Pauline Voss

And that’s about it for this precon upgrade, guys. Overall, this is a very solid BG aristocrats deck right out of the box, with a good mana base and most of the archetype’s staples. It’s an excellent start to a BG EDH precon, too. This deck wants to sacrifice creatures, but in different routes, so feel free to test both commanders and see the different layers they offer. If you want to focus on Gorma, the Gullet, you can make an interesting deck around sacrifice payoffs and bursts using cards that I suggested to remove, or you can take a different lifegain-focused approach with Dina, Essence Brewer, and other black EDH staples like Enduring Tenacity or Sanguine Bond.

How would you upgrade the Witherbloom Pestilence precon? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and for more Secrets of Strixhaven content and other Commander precon upgrades, be sure to check our precon upgrade guide.

Until next time, stay safe!

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