Sometimes you just want to watch the world burn. As we don’t recommend doing so in the real world, we very much do recommend occasionally causing some suffering in MTG.
This is especially true when it comes to Commander, because while most of us just want to have fun, every so often it’s nice to break away from that and inflict a bit of aggravation. So, let’s talk about Doom Foretold.
What is Doom Foretold?
Doom Foretold is a four-mana white and black enchantment that reads, “At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player sacrifices a nonland, nontoken permanent. If that player can’t, they discard a card, they lose 2 life, you draw a card, you gain 2 life, you create a 2/2 white Knight creature token with vigilance, then you sacrifice Doom Foretold.”
Doom Foretold is a bit like Smokestack, in that it encourages you to lean into a Stax playstyle. That means you’re aiming to restrict your opponents by eliminating their resources. However, it also allows us to lean into enchantment-led decks, and also, as a minor thing, Knight tribal mechanics.
So, we’ve found two commanders that you can slot Doom Foretold into to get the most out of it.
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Daxos of Doom
Daxos, the Returned is a three-mana white and black 2/2 that lets you get an experience counter whenever you cast an enchantment spell. You can then also pay three mana to “Create a white and black Spirit enchantment creature token. It has “This creature’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of experience counters you have.””
So, we’re playing enchantments here, with the main aim to be to punish everyone else, and allow you to swing in for massive damage. Blind Obedience is a two-mana enchantment that makes artifacts and creatures your opponents’ control come in tapped. It also allows you to pay one manae to drain your foes of one mana as long as it’s out thanks to extort.
You then want cards like Debtors’ Knell to bring creatures back from the graveyard to the battlefield. Ghostly Prison is excellent because it has your foes having to pay two mana for each creature they want to attack you with, which will save you from a lot of damage. Phryexian Arena is good for card draw. Smothering Tithe punishes foes for drawing cards. Finally, both Hallowed Haunting and Starfield of Nyx will allow you to turn your enchantments into power and win the game.
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Ghen Foretold
Our other choice is Ghen, Arcanum Weaver. This is a three-mana red, white, and black 2/3. It has an ability that also costs one of each of those colors, and you then tap Ghen and sacrifice an enchantment to return a target enchantment card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
You can use all of the cards we listed above for Ghen too, but you can also lean into cards like Curse of Shaken Faith and Curse of Obsession to punish a specific player, but then use Ghen’s ability to sacrifice these to target whoever the problem is, or just keep looping Doom Foretold.
You can also keep punishing foes with Oblivion Ring to get rid of problems, and Pacifism will work too. Seal of Cleansing and Aura of Silence both allow you to destroy problems too, and you can bring them back with ease. If you’d rather be more aggressive, you can also use cards like Kaya’s Ghostform to allow you to keep having your creatures die with no issue. All good fun, right?
Read More: How Good Is Foretell In Commander?
