🔮 MTG builder

Two Feet in the Grave

A mono-black death-triggers deck that turns every creature dying into life loss, card draw, and a free Demonic Tutor.

Standard · by @evilBOD · 2026-08-11

Key cards

Massacre Wurm Massacre Wurm Hero's Downfall Hero's Downfall Midnight Reaper Midnight Reaper

$29.57 total value · €25.19 · prices as of 2026-09-15

Value over the last 8 price days: $30.32 → $29.57 (-0.75)
Most expensive cards
  • Emeritus of Woe // Demonic Tutor$12.32
  • Phyrexian Arena$4.28
  • Massacre Wurm$1.70
  • Arnyn, Deathbloom Botanist$0.35
  • Bitter Triumph$0.33
  • Hero's Downfall$0.30
  • Vengeful Bloodwitch$0.30
  • Vampire Nighthawk$0.26
  • Midnight Reaper$0.24
  • Vile Entomber$0.24
60 cards 43 spells 17 lands avg CMC 2.58 B57

Mana curve

0
0
10
1
13
2
10
3
6
4
3
5
1
6
0
7+

mana value · lands excluded

Card types

  • Creature 24
  • Instant 14
  • Sorcery 3
  • Enchantment 2
  • Land 17

Colors

  • B 100% (57)

🎴 Goldfish (test draw) 🖨 Proxy sheet

Strategy

Mono-black death-triggers midrange. You flood the board with cheap, disposable bodies (Burrog Banemaker, Infestation Sage, Send in the Pest tokens), trade or sacrifice them for value, and let your death-payoff creatures drain the opponent every time something hits the graveyard. Once two or more creatures have died in a turn, Emeritus of Woe // Demonic Tutor becomes prepared and lets you cast a free copy of Demonic Tutor — repeatable card advantage that snowballs the longer the game goes.

Roles

  • Threat: Sneering Shadewriter, Vampire Nighthawk, Massacre Wurm — evasive or disruptive finishers that close games.
  • Removal: Hero's Downfall, Bake into a Pie, Foolish Fate, Last Gasp, Moment of Craving, Bitter Triumph, Tribute to Hunger — a deep, efficient removal suite that also feeds the death triggers.
  • Card draw: Phyrexian Arena, Midnight Reaper, Vampiric Rites, and the free Demonic Tutor copies off Emeritus of Woe.
  • Protection: Masterful Flourish keeps a key attacker or blocker alive through combat.
  • Lands: 17 Swamp — the curve is low enough (average ~2.4) that 17 basics is safe even with Massacre Wurm's {B}{B}{B}.

Synergies & curve

The deck's engine is simple: cheap creatures die → Vengeful Bloodwitch and Kalastria Highborn drain life, Arnyn, Deathbloom Botanist punishes small deaths specifically, Midnight Reaper replaces cards, and Emeritus of Woe turns on once two deaths stack in a turn. Removal spells like Bake into a Pie, Hero's Downfall, and Foolish Fate double as fuel since they kill your opponent's creatures, and Dissection Practice/Last Gasp can finish off your own token if you need a second death for Emeritus. Cheerful Osteomancer // Raise Dead and Vampiric Rites recur or convert dead creatures into more resources. Curve peaks early (10 one-drops, 13 two-drops) so you're rarely without something to sacrifice, with Massacre Wurm as a one-of top-end sweeper that both clears blockers and drains for every opposing death.

Turn 5: attack with two tokens into a trade, both die; at end step Emeritus of Woe becomes prepared, and you cast a free copy of Demonic Tutor to find your last removal spell or Massacre Wurm.

Weak spots

The pool has no dedicated sacrifice outlet beyond Vampiric Rites, so death triggers mostly rely on combat trades and opponents' removal rather than a repeatable engine — you can't force deaths on demand every turn. There's also no graveyard hate or artifact/enchantment removal in the 60, and outside Massacre Wurm the deck has little answer to a wide go-wide board before you stabilize. Life total can dip low from Phyrexian Arena and Bitter Triumph against aggressive decks.

Decklist (60 cards)

View / copy / export as text

Plain text imports into Moxfield, Archidekt, MTGGoldfish, Deckstats and ManaBox. Arena format also imports into MTG Arena and ManaBox.

📦 Find in your boxes — by set

SOS · Secrets of Strixhaven · 38 cards

⚫ Black · 21
2× Arnyn, Deathbloom Botanist #74
3× Burrog Banemaker #75
2× Cheerful Osteomancer // Raise Dead #76
2× Dissection Practice #79
1× Emeritus of Woe // Demonic Tutor #80
2× Foolish Fate #83
2× Last Gasp #86
1× Masterful Flourish #89
3× Send in the Pest #100
3× Sneering Shadewriter #101
🏞 Lands · 17
17× Swamp #277 · only 2 here

SOA · Secrets of Strixhaven Mystical Archive · 1 card

⚫ Black · 1
1× Bitter Triumph #26

Not in the source lists · 21 cards

2× Bake into a Pie #169 · printed in FDN
2× Hero's Downfall #175 · printed in FDN
2× Infestation Sage #64 · printed in FDN
2× Kalastria Highborn #607 · printed in FDN
1× Massacre Wurm #754 · printed in FDN
1× Midnight Reaper #609 · printed in FDN
1× Moment of Craving #524 · printed in FDN
1× Phyrexian Arena #180 · printed in FDN
1× Pulse Tracker #612 · printed in FDN
1× Tribute to Hunger #614 · printed in FDN
1× Vampire Nighthawk #186 · printed in FDN
1× Vampiric Rites #615 · printed in FDN
4× Vengeful Bloodwitch #325 · printed in FDN
1× Vile Entomber #616 · printed in FDN

Grouped by the set of the copies in this deck's build-pool lists, then by color the way a sorted box is — # is the collector number inside the set.

Vote for next week's deck →