The decklists for each of the five Secrets of Strixhaven Commander precons were fully revealed on April 1st, 2026. Dina, Essence Brewer is the face Commander of the Witherbloom Pestilence Commander deck, with Gorma, the Gullet as the secondary Commander. Both of their strategies revolve around creatures dying or being sacrificed. Dina also has a small life gain subtheme.

Let's take a look at this deck's gameplan and see what cool new tech is under the hood.

Dina, Essence Brewer

Dina, Essence Brewer wants to sacrifice, or sac, creatures on other players' turns because her ability triggers each turn. It only triggers once each turn, though. Her second ability is great for doing enabling her triggered ability. She has to tap to use her sac ability, so she can only do this once per turn cycle (any untapping shenanigans notwithstanding).

Cards like Umbral Collar Zealot sac a creature at will to Surveil 1. You could do that on each opponents' turn to draw cards with Dina. Ophiomancer is the perfect choice to create fodder for sacrificing every turn That's a nice little engine.

Making Sacrifice Fodder

In Aristocrats decks - a strategy that sacrifices creatures, looping death and life for value - it is important to be able to make recur-able creatures, or fodder, for sacrifice abilities. These decks love something like Ophiomancer or Tendershoot Dryad that can potentially give you a body every upkeep.

Creakwood Liege, Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia, and Mycoloth are also great options, even though they trigger only once on your turn. They make a creature on either your upkeep or end step. Trudge Garden is good, but only if you manage to gain life and have mana to pay into the ability. Dina gains life with her sac ability, so it's possible. It's a little bit of a song and dance, though.

Pest Infestation is removal for Artifacts and/or Enchantments that makes tokens you can use as sac fodder. Dual-purpose cards lie Infestation are incredibly synergistic for this deck. Anything that makes tokens and gives you access to removal is welcome here.

Pawn of Ulamog and Blight Mound can replace every nontoken creature that you sacrifice with a token for further sacrificing. Pawn of Ulamog is also ramp because the tokens it makes are 0/1 Eldrazi Spawns. They tap and sac for colorless mana.

Bloodghast and Nether Traitor can both be recurred repeatedly from the Graveyard, either through Landfall triggers or death triggers. They can be sacrificed to our sac outlets without the need to spend additional cards since they'll incidentally come back later. Just another good way to draw cards with Dina.

Veinwitch Coven and Witch of the Moors put cards back into your hand to cast again if you sacrificed them to an ability. Both require you to gain life, though. The deck does have a small life gain subtheme, so that should be very doable.

Sac Outlets

Umbral Collar Zealot, Viscera Seer, Woe Strider, and Yahenni, Undying Partisan all can sac creatures at will and for free. That's really important for Dina to guarantee card draw on other players' turns. They also provide a steady stream of Surveil and Scry triggers over the course of the game. All that card filtering improves your Dina draws, getting all those lands and useless cards out of the way.

Priest of Forgotten Gods and Plumb the Forbidden are sac outlets that come with a few more restrictions. Plumb can draw you a lot of cards, but you have to sac creatures up front, and it's a one and done spell. If you don't have enough fodder, you draw less cards. And you can't recur the spell later.

Priest of Forgotten Gods is repeatable but you have to sac two creatures. However, your opponents lose 2 life and also sacrifice a creature. You draw a card and add . The effect is nice, but you only get to do it once a turn cycle and requires a bigger investment up front. It's not a bad trade, though.

Card Draw

Smothering Abomination is going to net you a card every time a creature is sacrificed. It sacrifices a creature every upkeep, notably itself if you've got nothing else. This kind of deck is making you tons of tokens, so you'll be fine. You'll also be drawing a lot of cards.

Moldervine Reclamation is going to cost you one more mana than the Abomination at , but it gains you life and a card whenever a creature dies. The life gain is incidentally important for this deck, but being able to draw a bunch of cards when someone board wipes you is more important for rebuilding in the aftermath.

Morbid Opportunist only triggers once each turn, but it only costs . it can trigger on your opponent's turns, so the Umbral Collar Zealot and Ophiomancer combo strikes again.

Ohran Frostfang also makes an appearance in this deck. The particular precon is good at making tokens, so if you don't end up sac-ing them all, you can go wide with creatures. Giving your creatures deathtouch and drawing cards when they connect seems like a good back up strategy to the Aristocrats angle.

Death Benefits

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest is sweet in this deck. Being able to put +1/+1 counters on every creature whenever you sac a creature is an easy way to make your board oppressive. It also triggers when opponents sac creatures.

Priest of Forgotten Gods is good with Mazirek since it makes five potential triggers. Two creatures get sac'd from you and one goes for each opponent, which can get pretty nutty. Deadly Brew works in much the same way, giving Mazirek four triggers.

Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat are going to be your big life drain effects. Each sacrifice takes more life from your opponents. Dina, Soul Steeper being out doubles that drain.

New Cards For Witherbloom Pestilence

There are 12 new cards added to the game of Magic in Witherhold Pestilence. Each one benefits both Commanders, so if you decided to choose Gorma over Dina, the deck should still run well enough for you. We're looking at a combination of cards that care about death and sacrifice, tokens and recursion. Most of the new cards are creatures.

New Creatures

Gorma, the Gullet is the secondary commander for Witherbloom Pestilence. Gorma cares about creatures dying and nontoken creatures entering the battlefield. It's a Commander with a combat-heavy strategy. or at least a +1/+1 counter strategy.

I think this precon favors Dina's gameplan a little more since it's a little more general, but there are cards in the deck like Mazirek and Ohran Frostfang that lean more toward a "Go Wide" strategy that Gorma might like.

Stensian Sanguinist is an interesting card that encourages getting through for combat damage to Prepare it. It's one of the few cards I've seen that allows the creature to Prepare and use its spell the same turn so effectively.

It's easy to make the effect happen. You can give any creature Deathtouch, and it's when that creature, not the Sanguinist, deals the damage that Sanquinist becomes Prepared. Then you can drain the table. Sanguinist is pretty good in this deck because Dina and Gorma can both make this potential deathtouched, damage-dealer big with their respective abilities.

Being able to make a Pest every upkeep makes Pest Rescuer a great card for Dina. Fodder for the sacrifice train is important. Gaining life is a bonus. Being able to sac a Pest to the Viscera Seer, Scry 1, gain two life, and draw a card feels really good with Dina out.

The stat line on Eccentric Pestfinder is already good. for a 5/5 with Trample is above curve. If you gained life this turn, on your end step you Prepare it. The spell it can cast is low cost and makes three Pests. It's great for making fodder and sac-ing, one of them Prepares it again. It's a shame the spell is a Sorcery.

Merchant of Venom is going to get very big in most games. If another player is sac-ing Lands or Treasures, then Merchant of Venom is going to see it. It also has Menace, which means It'll be hard to block favorably. It enters and makes itself a 5/5. In this deck that wants to sacrifice its own stuff, it will absolutely be a problem for your opponents.

At the beginning of your end step, each opponent loses X life, where X is the amount of life you gained this turn. Defiling Daemogoth is absolutely going to be a life gain deck finisher from now on. The Daemogoth is a powerful card you can absolutely slam and end the game that same turn. I don't know how strong it is in this deck, with very little substantial life gain, but it's still a great card.

Ribtruss Roaster is perfect for this deck because both Dina and Gorma want to put counters on creatures. Being able to slam a bunch of counters on this creature and make a bunch of tokens is going to be a tide shift. On its own, it can only make one Pest, but in an upgraded deck this would be a house.

Non-Creature New Cards

There is a sub-theme of pests in this deck, so getting support for them is good with Feral Appetite. Paying to exile any card from a graveyard will do some good work against certain Graveyard strategies, which will almost always be relevant. It's not a reason to run it, but it is a bonus. It makes a Pest if that exiled card is a Creature, and the ability is repeatable so it might be worth the slot.

Immoral Bargain seems like Aristocrats or Token staple in decks playing both Green and Black. Being able to sac three things and remove three pesky nonland permanents for three mana is strong. The sacrifices are an additional cost to cast Bargain, so if someone counters the spell then you're out those creatures. I think it's good for Token strategies because you'll be able to replace those Creatures easily.

Gravecrawler loops didn't need yet another way to win the game, yet here it is. Ominous Harvest is a way to draw cards for the number of things that have gone to the graveyard this turn. It has Gravestorm, and we haven't seen that mechanic in a while. With infinite death triggers, it will just deck everyone since it can target any player.

In this deck, it goes without saying that it'll draw a decent number of cards if you have a turn where you sac a lot Creatures. It's just a good generic draw spell.

The Decklist

Witherbloom Pestilence | Commander | Wizards of the Coast

• Commander (1)
• 1 Dina, Essence Brewer

• Creatures (39)
• 1 Beledros Witherbloom
• 1 Blood Artist
• 1 Bloodghast
• 1 Blossoming Bogbeast
• 1 Creakwood Liege
• 1 Defiling Daemogoth
• 1 Dina, Soul Steeper
• 1 Eccentric Pestfinder
• 1 Elvish Mystic
• 1 Gilded Goose
• 1 Gorma, the Gullet
• 1 Gyome, Master Chef
• 1 Haywire Mite
• 1 Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia
• 1 Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
• 1 Merchant of Venom
• 1 Morbid Opportunist
• 1 Mycoloth
• 1 Nether Traitor
• 1 Ohran Frostfang
• 1 Ophiomancer
• 1 Pawn of Ulamog
• 1 Pest Rescuer
• 1 Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 1 Ribtruss Roaster
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Smothering Abomination
• 1 Springbloom Druid
• 1 Stensian Sanguinist
• 1 Teacher's Pest
• 1 Tendershoot Dryad
• 1 Umbral Collar Zealot
• 1 Veinwitch Coven
• 1 Viscera Seer
• 1 Wight of the Reliquary
• 1 Witch of the Moors
• 1 Woe Strider
• 1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1 Zulaport Cutthroat

• Instants (5)
• 1 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Infernal Grasp
• 1 Mortality Spear
• 1 Plumb the Forbidden
• 1 Witherbloom Charm

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Casualties of War
• 1 Culling Ritual
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Deadly Brew
• 1 Final Act
• 1 Immoral Bargain
• 1 Night's Whisper
• 1 Ominous Harvest
• 1 Pest Infestation
• 1 Toxic Deluge
• 1 Witherbloom Command

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Awakening Zone
• 1 Blight Mound
• 1 Feral Appetite
• 1 Moldervine Reclamation
• 1 Trudge Garden

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (37)
• 8 Swamp
• 8 Forest
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Festering Thicket
• 1 Grim Backwoods
• 1 Haunted Mire
• 1 High Market
• 1 Llanowar Wastes
• 1 Necroblossom Snarl
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Study Hall
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Titan's Grave
• 1 Turbulent Fen
• 1 Twilight Mire
• 1 Vernal Fen
• 1 Viridescent Bog
• 1 Witherbloom Campus
• 1 Woodland Cemetery

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Conclusion

Dina seems to want to sac tokens and Gorma wants that as well, but still wants to keep nontoken creatures in play to buff. I'm not sure about the subtheme of life gain. The Pests gain life when they die, but there doesn't seem to be a way to actually take advantage of the life gain in the base deck.

Overall, there are a lot of cool synergies here. I think it's a little more in line with your typical Commander precon: not overly powerful, but still satisfyingly complex. Aristocrats strategies tend to be thread that needle a little bit.

I don't know if I would recommend Witherbloom Pestilence as the first precon anyone picks up, but it does function well out of the box. It contains some good Aristocrat staples, and if you're looking for a starting point for a Golgari Aristocrat build then look no further. Both face Commanders seem like fun build arounds, though I prefer Gorma.

Until next time, I'm @strixhavendropout on everything!