Arcane Foundry › Commanders › Balthor the Defiled
Balthor the Defiled
Legendary Creature — Zombie Dwarf · {2}{B}{B} · Black commander
What Balthor the Defiled actually does
Read off the card by the same engine the Forge and Analyzer use — this is the mechanical classification, not a summary.
- Activated ability{B}{B}{B}, Exile Balthor: Each player returns all black and all red creature cards from their graveyard to the battlefield.
- AbilityMinion creatures get +1/+1.
What a Balthor the Defiled deck needs
Plays as reanimator. What the commander asks of the other 99 — read from the card and checked by hand.
- black and red creatures in your graveyard — self-mill (its exile returns them all)
- Minions
The Balthor the Defiled deck plan
The roles the Forge fills for this commander, and how many cards of each.
- 16× Put your own cards into your graveyard as a resource
- 9× Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it
- 10× Find the exact card the plan needs
- 3× Answer a whole board at once
- 12× Refill your hand
- 5× Keep a permanent you control alive through removal
- 11× Get ahead on mana
- 20× A permanent that does something every turn it is on the battlefield — the deck's body, for a commander whose text asks for nothing specific
Best cards for Balthor the Defiled
Ranked by an engine that reads what each card does — its real cost, its delay and how reliably it works — rather than counting how often other people play it.
Put your own cards into your graveyard as a resource
- Takenuma, Abandoned Mire0 mana
- Stitcher's Supplier1 mana
- Ripples of Undeath2 mana
- Eden, Seat of the Sanctum0 mana
- Tomb Fortress0 mana
- Millikin2 mana
- Perpetual Timepiece2 mana
- Syr Konrad, the Grim5 mana
Actually remove one problem permanent — preventing its damage is not removing it
- Defile1 mana
- Tragic Slip1 mana
- Infernal Grasp2 mana
- Fatal Push1 mana
- Bitter Triumph2 mana
- Black Sun's Twilight1 mana
- Cut Down1 mana
- Erebos's Intervention1 mana
Find the exact card the plan needs
- Entomb1 mana
- Demonic Tutor2 mana
- Diabolic Intent2 mana
- Vampiric Tutor1 mana
- Imperial Seal1 mana
- Demonic Consultation1 mana
- Grim Tutor3 mana
- Tainted Pact2 mana
Answer a whole board at once
- Toxic Deluge3 mana
- Damnation4 mana
- Bontu's Last Reckoning3 mana
- Sickening Dreams2 mana
- Crypt Rats3 mana
- Extinction Event4 mana
- Endemic Plague4 mana
- The Meathook Massacre2 mana
Refill your hand
- Skullclamp1 mana
- Black Market Connections3 mana
- Braids, Arisen Nightmare3 mana
- Morbid Opportunist3 mana
- Phyrexian Arena3 mana
- The One Ring4 mana
- Vexing Bauble1 mana
- Ayara, First of Locthwain3 mana
Keep a permanent you control alive through removal
- Lightning Greaves2 mana
- Swiftfoot Boots2 mana
- Eldrazi Monument5 mana
- Commander's Plate1 mana
- Mithril Coat3 mana
- Akroma's Memorial7 mana
- The Walls of Ba Sing Se8 mana
- Brotherhood Regalia2 mana
Get ahead on mana
- Sol Ring1 mana
- Palladium Myr3 mana
- Worn Powerstone3 mana
- Chrome Mox0 mana
- Everflowing Chalice0 mana
- Mox Diamond0 mana
- Mana Vault1 mana
- Wayfarer's Bauble1 mana
A permanent that does something every turn it is on the battlefield — the deck's body, for a commander whose text asks for nothing specific
- Crashing Drawbridge2 mana
- Bontu's Monument3 mana
- Oketra's Monument3 mana
- Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose3 mana
- Nightscape Familiar2 mana
- Cemetery Reaper3 mana
- Hazoret's Monument3 mana
- Rhonas's Monument3 mana
Combos with Balthor the Defiled
Known combos from Commander Spellbook that Balthor the Defiled is a piece of, and how many decks list them.
- Balthor the Defiled + Dual Nature + Basal Sliver
- Balthor the Defiled + Dual Nature + Blood Vassal
Build this deck in the Arcane Forge →
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