It’s rare for an unheard of MTG deck to make breakout appearances in 2025. Thanks to online play and community sourced knowledge, formats are solved incredibly quickly nowadays. The best MTG players can often hope for is an old card breaking out in Commander thanks to newly discovered synergy. With this in mind, an entirely new strategy appearing with cards that players never considered using together is extremely exciting.
As rare as this occurence is, it actually happened rather recently. A rogue strategy proved its meddle at one of the biggest tournaments of the year, causing many MTG players to rediscover the power of Smallpox, a card as controversial as it is bizarre.
Smallpox MTG
For two mana, Smallpox offers an incredible amount of value hidden behind a tricky minigame. This essentially gets rid of three of your opponent’s cards for two mana, which is an incredible rate. This gets multiplied in Commander, getting rid of nine cards since you have three opponents. All of that said, you also lose the same cards, which means you need to find ways to break parity.
There are two rather infamous Commanders that are equipped to do this seamlessly. Tergrid, God of Fright is one of the best options for this, with Smallpox seeing a 77% play rate within them, according to EDHREC. Since Smallpox requires your opponents to sacrifice cards, Tergrid will put everything they sacrifice into play under your control. You’re essentially ramping two lands and getting three creatures for the cost of two mana, which is incredibly powerful.
Alternatively, in Braids, Cabal Minion decks, the other popular home for Smallpox in Commander, you’re trying to keep all of your opponent’s resources under control. Both of these cards force the table to sacrifice a bunch of resources, forcing an incredibly resource light game that most Commander decks are not equipped to play.
All of that said, if you’re planning on giving Smallpox a try in Commander with these generals, we would recommend some caution. Both Tergrid, God of Fright and Braids, Cabal Minion are on the Game Changer list due to their powerful and unfun play patterns. Going after lands like Smallpox does is something that could even be considered bannable at the third Bracket level, so making sure you’re at the right table for these shenanigans is important.
While Smallpox does have its niche in Commander, it sees far more play in Legacy. The sudden appearance of this deck is the main reason why MTG players have been rediscovering this decades old card recently.
Smallpox MTG in Legacy
Smallpox only started seeing a ton of Legacy play recently. The rogue Legacy deck, based off Smallpox as its namesake, appeared in the top four of the North American Eternal Weekend event. Before this finish, this archetype wasn’t considered a serious contendor anywhere. This Legacy Smallpox’s performance wasn’t a one-hit wonder, either. The archetype is now consistently 5-0ing Legacy Leagues online, and is putting up some moderately impressive results in Challenge events. This sudden uptick in performance even caused an Edge of Eternities Commander card to spike in price.
Adding to its allure, Smallpox offers a playstyle as rare and nostalgic as its current competitive breakout. This deck wants to prevent your opponent from playing Magic, but it does so by literally removing every single card they have in play. Smallpox accomplishes this by teaming up with Wasteland and Life From the Loam to prevent your opponents from keeping lands on the battlefield.
All of that said, just getting rid of lands usually won’t be enough to win a game. Other pieces of interaction like Thoughtseize and Fatal Push prevent your opponents from sticking a meaningful threat, and Smallpox’s latest addition, Eumidian Hatchery, breaks the parity that Smallpox enforces by flooding your board with Insects. Some graveyard synergies, involving infamous cards like Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, help make the most of your limited resource gameplan.
Notably, Smallpox is legal in Modern, but doesn’t really see play there. The supportive elements that allow the card to thrive in Legacy are not legal in Modern, making a strategy that tries to choke mana a lot harder to accomplish.
Smallpox sees almost all of its play in Legacy, especially after its strong finish a few weeks ago, but its sudden reappearance has led players to rediscovering the card entirely. It will be interesting to see where this resurgence leads in the future, but with how controversial Smallpox’s play patterns are, it wouldn’t be surprising if this interest becomes short lived.
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