Is Defiling Daemogoth good in Commander?

Defiling Daemogoth

Creature — Demon

Menace
Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you gain 1 life.
At the beginning of your end step, each opponent loses X life, where X is the amount of life you gained this turn.

CMC: 5
Mana cost
Color identity: B
Rarity: rare
Set: Secrets of Strixhaven Commander
Price: $2.72
EDHREC rank: #10745

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Defiling Daemogoth lands as a massive threat that drains opponents every time you sacrifice a creature — the catch is that upkeep forces a sacrifice or you lose life. Pair it with Revival // Revenge or a Dina, Essence Brewer life-gain engine and the downside flips into repeated inevitability.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

Dina, Essence Brewer

71.3% of decks · synergy 0.62

Dina, Essence Brewer converts every Defiling Daemogoth drain trigger into additional damage, turning the sacrifice-and-drain loop into a kill condition that snowballs off a single engine piece.

Blech, Loafing Pest

27.1% of decks · synergy 0.18

Blech, Loafing Pest generates a steady supply of token fodder, which feeds Defiling Daemogoth's upkeep demand without burning through your real threats.

Raphael, Fiendish Savior

12.0% of decks · synergy 0.12

Raphael, Fiendish Savior produces Demon tokens and rewards running a critical mass of Demons, making Defiling Daemogoth a natural fit that pulls double duty on both axes.

Ardyn, the Usurper

14.4% of decks · synergy 0.12

Ardyn, the Usurper wants creatures dying on a schedule, and Defiling Daemogoth's forced sacrifice syncs cleanly with that gameplan while draining the table in the process.

Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor

10.2% of decks · synergy 0.08

Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor turns combat damage into card advantage, and Defiling Daemogoth's consistent drain pressure forces blocks that keep Gix's trigger flowing.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

Format	Verdict
commander	legal
legacy	legal
modern	not legal
pioneer	not legal
standard	not legal
vintage	legal
pauper	not legal
oathbreaker	legal

Commander is where Defiling Daemogoth does its best work — the multi-opponent drain scales hard in a four-player pod, and the sacrifice-or-lose-life clause is far easier to route around with the redundant token engines and recursion that EDH supports. Legacy and Vintage are legal but uninterested: a five-mana creature with an upkeep tax competes poorly against the raw efficiency those formats demand. Oathbreaker could support it in a dedicated life-drain shell, though the 60-card singleton constraint makes the required sacrifice fodder harder to assemble consistently.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

143 decks