commander · Winter, Cynical Opportunist
Death Toll (DSC).
A Golgari graveyard deck from Duskmourn that mills itself on purpose and cheats permanents into play. Winter, Cynical Opportunist fills the yard on attack and reanimates off graveyard variety.
The Commanders
Death Toll is the Golgari graveyard deck from Duskmourn. It treats your library as a resource, milling cards into the yard on purpose and then cashing them in. The deck leans on delirium, the count of four or more card types in your graveyard, so it wants a messy pile of creatures, lands, instants, and enchantments rather than a clean one. Get there and a lot of cheap cards start hitting well above their cost.
Winter, Cynical Opportunist has deathtouch, so he trades up in combat and nobody wants to block him. Every time he attacks he mills three, filling the yard for free while he pressures a player. Then his real payoff comes at your end step: if you have delirium, you may exile cards with four or more card types among them and put a permanent from among them onto the battlefield with a finality counter. That is a reanimation engine every turn, and the finality counter just means the permanent exiles instead of dying, so you cannot loop the same card forever.
Key Cards
Old Stickfingers
When you cast Old Stickfingers you choose X, then mill until you hit that many creature cards, dumping all of them into the graveyard. It is the fastest way to load the yard with reanimation targets, and Old Stickfingers himself grows to the number of creature cards down there. Cast him for two or three early and you have both a body and a full graveyard to work from.
Deadbridge Chant
Deadbridge Chant mills ten when it lands, then each upkeep picks a random card from your graveyard: creatures go straight to the battlefield, everything else goes to your hand. It is a value engine that never stops and works no matter what it hits. In a deck already stuffing the yard, that random card is usually something worth having, turn after turn.
Reanimate
One mana returns any creature from any graveyard to play under your control, and you lose life equal to its mana value. With the deck milling fat creatures into the yard, Reanimate cheats out a bomb turns ahead of schedule. It also works on an opponent's graveyard, so a well-timed cast can steal whatever they just lost.
Grist, the Hunger Tide
Grist is a planeswalker that counts as a creature everywhere except the battlefield, which makes it a strange and useful reanimation target. Its plus builds a board of Insects while milling, its minus sacrifices a creature to destroy any creature or planeswalker, and its ultimate drains each opponent for your creature count in the graveyard. Every mode feeds the graveyard plan or turns it into removal.
Ishkanah, Grafwidow
With delirium active, Ishkanah brings three 1/2 reach Spiders along when she enters, which is a wall of blockers against fliers and go-wide decks. Her activated ability then drains an opponent for each Spider you control, so the tokens become a slow kill on their own. She is a strong reanimation target and a fine hard cast whenever the graveyard is stocked.
Whip of Erebos
Whip of Erebos gives your whole team lifelink, which matters in a deck paying life to Reanimate and Night's Whisper. Its activated ability returns a creature from your graveyard for a turn with haste, so you can pull a bomb back for an immediate attack or an enters-the-battlefield trigger. The creature exiles at end of turn instead of dying, but you already got the value.
Grim Flayer
Grim Flayer is a two-mana trampler that surveils three every time it connects, letting you dig and bin cards to hit delirium exactly when you want. Once you have four card types it becomes a 4/4 for two. It is an early attacker that sets up the whole graveyard engine and keeps pressure on while the bigger pieces come together.
How to Play
The first few turns are about filling the graveyard: mill with Old Stickfingers, surveil with Grim Flayer, and get your card types varied so delirium comes online. Winter wants to attack early since his deathtouch makes him hard to block and his mill sets up your end step. From the mid game on you are reanimating something every turn, whether it is Winter's own trigger, Reanimate, or Deadbridge Chant grinding value. Your kills come from big reanimated threats, Ishkanah draining the table, or Grist ticking toward its ultimate. Keep the yard messy, protect your engine pieces, and let the recursion bury the game.
