Shilgengar, Sire of Famine, is a new Orzhov Commander debuting in Modern Horizons 3 with a devious effect. By combining classic vampire strategies with sacrifice and token play, Shilgengar gets the best of multiple archetypes and dominates the field through graveyard interaction.
This Legendary Orzhov Creature can be cast for a cost of 3BB. As a 6/6 with flying, Shilgengar can inflict some hefty punishment on foes in combat. However, this card’s real strength takes some time to set up.
By paying three mana in any combination of black or white, Shilgengar will return every Creature in your grave to the battlefield with a finality counter, ready to fight for you one last time.
Shilgengar allows you to sacrifice any of your Creatures and create a Blood token. Blood tokens are historically a vampire-based ability, allowing you to pay 1 mana in order to sacrifice the token, discard a card, and draw a card.
The discard and draw works incredibly well with Shilgengar’s final ability, filling your grave with Creatures to be resurrected in one fell swoop while ensuring that your hand remains stocked.
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Additionally, if sacrificing an Angel Creature, Shilgengar will create a number of Blood tokens equal to that Creature’s toughness instead of just one.
Thankfully, while Shilgengar’s mana value includes purely black mana, its final ability cost puts this card squarely into Orzhov territory. As a result, players running Shilgengar as their Commander can include all manner of powerful angels and angel token generators like Entreat the Angels or the new Decree of Justice.
Decks making the most of this Commander will include a healthy variety of Angel Creatures for sacrifice fodder. While it might seem like a good idea at first to focus on sacrificing solely token Creatures, Shilgengar’s final effect works best when the graveyard is already stocked full of non-token Creatures, ready to return and wreak havoc.
