Commander Challenge - The Cauldron Of Eternity

Throne of Eldraine contained a lot of cards that people loved, a lot of cards that people hated, and a shockingly high number of fairly low value mythic rares.

It makes it a good set to look at when you’re trying to find an underplayed card to slot into your decks. After all, while winning is fun, doing it with ingredients that people aren’t used to is far more entertaining. Can you smell what we’re cooking?

What is The Cauldron of Eternity?

It’s a term used to describe the feeling you have when you’re waiting for your pasta to cook and you’re really hungry and it’s just not working.

Oh no, The Cauldron of Eternity is actually a twelve mana black artifact that costs two less mana to cast for each creature in your graveyard. It also allows you to pay two life and three mana to return a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield. One of the most interesting parts of the card, though, is that it reads, “Whenever a creature you control dies, put it on the bottom of its owner’s library.”

This means you can’t rely on things dying once it’s been cast. Instead, you’ll need to find other ways to fill your graveyard like self-mill or discard. There’s also one other benefit though, and it fits one very specific commander who happens to be a goblin.

Read More: This Black Card Is So Powerful In Commander

Grenzo’s Eternity

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden is a 2/2 creature that costs X, one black, and one red. They come in with X +1/+1 counters on them. On top of that, they have an ability that costs two mana that reads, “Put the bottom card of your library into your graveyard. If it’s a creature card with power less than or equal to Grenzo’s power, put it onto the battlefield.” This means the loss of creatures in the graveyard from The Cauldron of Eternity is actually a huge boon.

For this deck, we’re not interested in filling our graveyard at all. All you really need is a sacrifice outlet, let’s say like Siege-Gang Commander or Sling-Gang Lieutenant, and some cards that are worth sacrificing. In this instance, let’s say a card like Murderous Redcap, or just any other Goblin. You don’t need to commit to Goblin tribal, but it can be a lot of fun.

Also, and these cards will be useful with our next commander choice too, you’ll want cards that allow you to fetch creatures and put them into your graveyard. Unmarked Grave, Buried Alive, and Final Parting are all excellent for this.

Read More: Is Land Destruction In Commander Good Or Bad?

Varina’s Cauldron

Weridly, both of our options here have tribal tendencies, but this time it’s all about Zombies. Varina, Lich Queen is a four-mana white, blue, and black 4/4 that allows you to pay two mana and exile two cards from your graveyard to create a zombie token. Frankly, we think that’s rubbish, but it’s not the good bit. The good bit is “Whenever you attack with one or more Zombies, draw that many cards, then discard that many cards. You gain that much life.” So, you attack, you draw, you discard, you bring back good stuff with The Cauldron of Eternity, and gain the life back too.

There’s no real secret to what to put in this deck. Our advice is to simply fill it with all of the good Zombie tribal cards you’d put in any other deck. If you’re starting from scratch, then it’s worth buying the Undead Unleashed Commander Deck that came out alongside Innistrad: Midnight Hunt and using that as a basis for the deck, as it’s filled with excellent cards.

That’s that. Do you use The Cauldron of Eternity, if so, what decks do you run it in?

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