Legendary Creature — Avatar Horror

Sauron, Lord of the Rings

Mana value8EDHREC#5,301

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The Commander

When you cast this spell, amass Orcs 5, mill five cards, then return a creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield.

Trample

Whenever a commander an opponent controls dies, the Ring tempts you.

Guide

Gameplan

Cast Sauron to immediately mill five, drop an Army token to 5/5, and reanimate the best creature from your bin, generating massive value off one card. From there you grind through graveyard recursion, beat down with a trampling 7/7 and your amassed Army, and pick off opponents' commanders to keep the Ring tempting you for extra evasion and card draw.

Strengths

One cast gives a body, a 5/5 Army, self-mill fuel, and free reanimation — enormous tempo and card advantage
Grixis colors offer the best reanimation, tutors, removal, and card draw in the format
Self-mill synergizes with graveyard payoffs and recursion engines
Trample plus the Ring's evasive buffs makes Sauron a real beatdown threat

Weaknesses

Eight mana is steep and the cast trigger only fires once unless you blink or recast from command zone
Heavily graveyard-dependent — vulnerable to graveyard hate like Rest in Peace or Bojuka Bog
No built-in protection; gets removed before generating repeat value
Reanimation off Sauron is random-ish, gated by what you milled

Key Cards

Animate Dead — Cheap reanimation lets you abuse the fat creatures Sauron mills before ever hard-casting them.
Buried Alive — Stocks your graveyard with exactly the reanimation targets you want to return.
Sneak Attack — Cheats Sauron and other huge bodies into play, retriggering value and swinging immediately.
Victimize — Turns mill chaff into two big reanimated threats, snowballing the graveyard plan.
Gisa and Geralf — Rewards self-mill by recurring creatures and reinforcing the zombie/army theme.
The One Ring — Thematic and powerful card-advantage engine with built-in protection in colorless Grixis shells.

Upgrade Path

Add fast mana (Dark Ritual, Jet Medallion, signets) and reanimation enablers like Reanimate, Entomb, and Sneak Attack to deploy threats well before turn eight. Upgrade your reanimation targets to format-warping bombs (Archon of Cruelty, Razaketh, Sheoldred) and add graveyard-hate protection plus card filtering. Lean into a tutor package and a compact combo finish (e.g., Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead loops) to convert grindy value into reliable wins.

Core Cards

From 1 Mythicwyrm deck.

Win Conditions

▸Beat down with a trampling Sauron plus a snowballing Orc Army
▸Reanimate game-ending fatties like Razaketh or Archon of Cruelty to take over
▸Aristocrats drain with sacrifice loops and Blood Artist effects
▸Combo finishes assembled with Grixis tutors and graveyard recursion

Archetypes

Reanimator — Sauron's cast trigger mills and reanimates for free, anchoring a self-mill-into-fatties strategy.
Aristocrats — Reanimating and sacrificing creatures repeatedly drains opponents and refuels the graveyard.
Amass/Tokens — The Orc Army grows with each Sauron and other amass effects for a go-wide angle.
Control — Grixis removal and counters protect the gameplan while graveyard recursion outvalues opponents.