Last week the new viking-themed set for Magic the Gathering—Kaldheim—released on Arena. The set features a host of fun mechanics for players to build decks around, including new options Foretell and Boast, and as always with the first couple of weeks post-release everyone is brewing some premium jank right now. Five Colour God Tribal, Izzet Giants, Orzhov Angels—right now the meta is shifting more than Kaldheim’s changelings, which is the perfect time to try out some funky combos.
With everyone’s attention focused on Tibalt’s Trickery at the moment though, some cards are flying under the radar. One of those cards is Tergrid, God of Fright. A double-sided creature/artifact, Tergrid’s ability to steal your opponent’s cards and her mono black colour scheme fit nicely into a bunch of deck combos. In the interest of science, we tried out a few of these to see where Tergrid best fits to get the most out of her and yoink as much as possible.
Attempt #1: Tergrid’s Army (Orzhov)
Our first attempt to throw Tergrid into a deck didn’t go too badly. The idea was to get out Tergrid and Doom Foretold, then keep sacrificing our Reassembling Skeleton to keep Doom Foretold going. Tergrid would grab anything Doom Foretold removed, and the board state would slowly tilt in our favour as we used their own stuff against them.
(Higher resolution deck image here)
As with most black decks, Thoughtseize was an obvious choice to add—even more so because of Tergrid’s ability applying to both discarded and sacrificed permanents (worth noting lands also fall under her ability!). Seal Away and Birth of Meletis provide some early game defence against aggro decks, while Blood on the Snow works as a last resort wipe card (with one returned creature courtesy of snow lands) if things aren’t going our way.
Initially Pharika’s Libation, Elspeth’s Nightmare, and Cruel Reality played a big part in the deck, but they weren’t quick enough to deal with opponents who played multiple threats by turn three so they were cut. Instead, Mythos of Snapdax was added as a bomb for when Tergrid is in play (to accompany our other bombs Valki and Kaya).
Kaya fits into the deck easily, returned sacrificed creatures to our hand and giving us some removal potential even before her ultimate. But Valki/Tibalt is the rogue choice of the deck. Played as a creature Valki works as a discard-but-not-really for a creature of our choice, but with Blightstep Pathways and Savai Triomes letting us splash red, we can throw out Tibalt in the late game to really amp up pressure on our opponent.
A lot of the issues with this deck came from having to work around an inconsistent mana base. For people with more Isolated Chapels and Brightclimb Pathways this shouldn’t be an issue, though.
Attempt #2: Golgargrid (Golgari)
Oh man, the less said about this one the better. The idea was to use green to ramp up into a high mana base, get Tergrid into play, and throw out Torment of Hailfire to end the game. Super simple combo that didn’t rely on much at all, so it should have been an easy win.
Not a chance. The deck suffered massively against aggro decks—lacking enough early game threat removal—and lifegain decks, who could just absorb the damage from Torment of Hailfire no problem.
A concept to revisit, but not one we could get working in the time we had.
Attempt #3: Tergrixis (Grixis)
What were we thinking throwing Tergrid into a Grixis shell? Well, after the disaster of Golgargrid we adopted the philosophy of throwing anything we could at her and seeing what stuck.
Ironically, it worked pretty well! With zero consistency, but plenty of removal and a number of threats other than Tergrid for opponents to worry about, this deck had a reasonably good win rate.
The downside? It was essentially a Grixis planeswalkers deck with Tergrid thrown in. Most of the wins weren’t due to her, and her ability rarely came into play (with all the discard and sac cards being used before she was on the field).
Attempt #4: Cruel Fear (Mono Black)
Unsurprisingly, this was the absolute best deck for Tergrid. A ridiculously high win rate in play queue (averaging 75-100%), with Tergrid earning most of the wins herself. The downside here is that in ranked it initially performed terribly, with constant mana floods and no answers to aggro decks. With that in mind we tweaked it slightly into its final form, which has performed quite well.
Most of the cards in the deck make use of early game discards, with Waste Not capitalising to give a boost into the mid-game. Once Tergrid is out the value of every card skyrockets, with even Plaguecrafter able to shift the balance in our favour. All in all this was the most synergised deck for Tergrid, and the most fun to play. If you’ve been playing Kaldheim looking to use her, this is the best place for Tergrid to go.
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