commander · Sauron, Lord of the Rings
Hosts of Mordor (LTC).
A Grixis reanimator and token deck led by Sauron, Lord of the Rings, discard cards to fuel the graveyard, tempt the Ring to build an unstoppable Nazgûl army, and reanimate the biggest threats.
The Commanders
Hosts of Mordor is a Grixis Commander deck built around Sauron's dark armies. It does three things: discards cards to fuel the graveyard, makes Nazgûl tokens off the Ring temptation mechanic, and reanimates creatures from the yard to swamp the table. Play aggressive, and punish opponents who ignore the Ring-bearer upgrades quietly stacking up in the background.
Sauron, Lord of the Rings is a 9/9 that tempts each opponent with the Ring at the start of combat on your turn. With three opponents, that's three Ring temptations a turn, so Lord of the Nazgûl pumps out Wraiths fast. Sauron also makes opponents discard a card when he attacks if they control their Ring-bearer. Either they get Ring-tempted or they discard, and he wins on both.
Saruman, the White Hand is the control-oriented alternative. Saruman copies the first instant or sorcery an opponent casts each turn. Against spell-heavy pods where opponents' interaction outpaces your threats, Saruman turns their removal into your removal and their card draw into your card draw.
Key Cards
Lord of the Nazgûl
Whenever the Ring tempts you, make a 3/3 black Wraith token with menace. With Sauron tempting three opponents a turn, that's three Wraiths per combat. Lord of the Nazgûl turns the Ring from a personal buff into a board-flooding engine. Menace means each Wraith needs two blockers, so six or seven of them is very hard to answer short of a board wipe.
The Balrog of Moria
A 7/5 trampling, hasty demon that only comes down from the graveyard. You discard it or bin it some other way, then cast it from there, which is why the deck runs a dense discard package. Once it's in, The Balrog makes each player sacrifice a creature or planeswalker when it attacks. It clears defenders before damage and swings for seven trample the turn it lands.
Shelob, Dread Weaver
Shelob has deathtouch and ward two life. Whenever she or another Spider you control deals combat damage to a player, that player mills three cards. When a creature card lands in any graveyard from anywhere, exile it and make a 1/2 black Spider token. So she mills opponents, shuts down their recursion, and grows a Spider board all at once. She's hard to kill, and she wrecks anyone trying to run a graveyard plan against you.
Living Death
Each player exiles their graveyard, sacrifices all creatures, then returns everything they exiled this way to the battlefield. In a deck that's been stuffing its graveyard with The Balrog of Moria, big Eldrazi, and reanimation targets off Faithless Looting, Living Death rebuilds your board and wrecks everyone else's. Your biggest threats come back, and opponents usually have far less in their bins than you do.
Reanimate
One black mana returns any creature from any graveyard to your battlefield, and you lose life equal to its mana value. With steady lifegain elsewhere in the deck, that's a fair price. Reanimate steals the best creature in any graveyard, opponents' included after a board wipe. Against creature-heavy pods, it's a one-mana spell that drops a Balrog or better straight into play before anyone can react.
How to Play
Fill the graveyard in the first three or four turns with Faithless Looting, Thrill of Possibility, and other discard, since The Balrog of Moria has to enter from there. Get Sauron down and start tempting each opponent every combat, and every trigger grows your Nazgûl army through Lord of the Nazgûl. Use Living Death or Reanimate to drop huge threats right when opponents can least deal with them.
There are two ways to win. Flood the board with Nazgûl that menace makes almost impossible to block profitably, or reanimate The Balrog of Moria to strip defenders and swing for lethal trample. The trick is knowing when to lean on the tokens and when to lean on reanimation, based on what the table is doing.
