Sauron, the Dark Lord

Overview

You are Mairon the Admirable, called Annatar, Lord of Gifts; Gorthaur the Cruel; Thû, the Necromancer of Dol Guldur; Sauron the Great, the Abhorred, Base Master of Treacheries; the Deceiver, the Ring-maker, the Black Hand, Lieutenant of Morgoth; the Lidless Eye, the Shadow in the East, the Nameless Enemy; Dark Lord of Mordor and rightful Lord of the Earth — the Lord of the Rings.

Golden rules

The three golden rules of piloting this deck:

Connect with an Army every turn you can. Every hit from an Army is a Ring temptation: the Ring's tiers climb, every Nazgûl you control adds a counter to every Wraith, and Sauron lets you trade your hand for four fresh cards. The Army swinging is the engine turning.
Play your hand out before it discards itself. Once Sauron is online, cards hoarded in hand are draws you never get — cast freely, keep only the piece that beats the next board wipe, and let temptation refill you.
The Army is one creature — protect the stack of counters. Amass piles all its counters on a single Army, so get The Ozolith and Mauhúr down before the counters arrive when you can, and treat board wipes as your reset button, not your enemy — Living Death and Rise of the Dark Realms rebuild bigger.

This is a Grixis midrange deck that weaponizes your opponents' own game: every spell any opponent casts amasses your Orc Army by one, so the table grows your threat just by playing Magic. That Army connecting is a Ring temptation, which is card advantage (discard your hand, draw four), Wraith growth (six Nazgûl), and — as the Ring's tiers climb — evasion and a life drain. There is no single scripted line; you take whichever route the game presents:

The one great Army — a tall, menacing (Warg Rider), trampling (Orcish Siegemaster) Voltron token that drains everyone 3 per hit at Ring tier four.
The Wraith swarm — Lord of the Nazgûl turning your spell-slinging into 3/3 menace Wraiths, and all of them into 9/9s once you control nine.
The graveyard haymaker — all that discarding stocks your graveyard, then Living Death, Rise of the Dark Realms, Victimize, or Reanimate returns the board wipes' harvest under your banner.
The opportunistic steal — Hellkite Tyrant taking a table's worth of artifacts (and threatening the 20-artifact win off your own Treasure pile).

Any of these is the right win when it arrives. The deck's interaction (a compact counterspell suite, free removal, Cyclonic Rift) exists to protect the engine, not to control the game.

Mulligan Guide

The only thing a hand must do is cast Sauron on time — he protects himself with his ward once he lands, and the table's own spells do the rest.

Keep if you check these boxes (10-second scan):

3+ mana sources, on a path to five mana by turn 4–5 (lands + rocks both count)
A rock or Dark Ritual that gets Sauron down a turn early is a strong bonus
One cheap body to start the board — Nazgûl, Orcish Bowmasters, Gríma, or Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
Bonus: a spare legend (any legendary creature, The One Ring, The Ozolith) to feed Sauron's ward later

Ship it if:

It can't reach five mana on a normal draw — Sauron on curve is the whole plan.
It's all top-end (Rise of the Dark Realms, Cavern-Hoard Dragon, Sauron, Lord of the Rings) with no early board and no acceleration.

Color note: black is the deck's heaviest color and the mana base leans that way (13 Swamps); a hand whose only colored sources are blue can cast counterspells and nothing else — ship it.

Game Plan

Turns 1–2: set the table. Lands, Signets/Talismans, and cheap bodies. Orcish Bowmasters is often better held for flash — landing it in response to an opponent's draw spell is its best entrance. A turn-2 Nazgûl already starts temptations (its ETB tempts you) and gives you a Ring-bearer before Sauron ever shows up.

Turns 3–4: the Dark Lord arrives. Dark Ritual or any rock makes Sauron a turn-3 play; otherwise he's your natural turn-4/5. From the moment he resolves, every opponent spell — including the removal spell aimed at him and the counterspell aimed at your next play — amasses Orcs 1. Keep a legend on board or in hand as ward fodder, and remember Deflecting Swat and Deadly Rollick are free while he's out.

The snowball turns: swing the Army. Your job is now to make the Army connect. Warg Rider gives it menace (and amasses 2 every combat for free), Orcish Siegemaster gives it trample, The Black Gate makes it unblockable by the life leader, and Ring tier one stops anything bigger from blocking it. Each connection: temptation → tiers climb → Nazgûl counters → optional discard-four-draw-four. Dump your hand into the board and let Saruman turn every noncreature spell into more amass — then discard the leftovers to a temptation without regret.

The mid-game: protect the engine, tax the table. Counterspells (Counterspell, Arcane Denial, An Offer You Can't Refuse, Disdainful Stroke, Three Steps Ahead) and spot removal (Terminate, Deadly Rollick) defend Sauron and your key engine pieces — with Hexing Squelcher out, your half of that war is already won, since your spells can't be countered and your creatures all have ward. Meanwhile Sheoldred, Orcish Bowmasters, Zo-Zu, Vial Smasher, and Treasure Nabber make every normal action — drawing, playing lands, tapping rocks, casting anything — cost your opponents something. This deck wins long grindy games because the opponents' escape attempts literally feed it.

The late game: cash in the graveyard. By now temptation discards, Relic of Sauron loots, and Windfall have stocked your graveyard with threats. After a board wipe (yours or theirs), Living Death or Rise of the Dark Realms turns every graveyard into your board; Victimize and Reanimate are the cheap, surgical versions. Close with Ring tier four drain (every Army hit: each opponent loses 3), nine 9/9 Wraiths, Hellkite Tyrant, or Mount Doom's board-to-ash finale.

How Sauron actually works

Sauron looks like a value engine; the rules details are where the games are won.

Amass builds ONE Army. "Amass Orcs N" only creates a new 0/0 Orc Army token if you don't already control an Army — otherwise all N counters go onto an Army you choose. You are building one tall creature, not a board. Mauhúr upgrades every amass (and any +1/+1 counters on your Orcs/Goblins) by one extra counter.
His temptation trigger is combat damage from ANY Army you control — Sauron himself never has to attack, or even be the one hitting. It's a combat-damage trigger, not an attack trigger, so an Army that connects for even 1 (menace and trample help) does the job.
The Ring's tiers are permanent and strictly in order. Each temptation, the emblem gains its next ability top-down and keeps it for the game: (1) your Ring-bearer is legendary and can't be blocked by creatures with greater power; (2) whenever your Ring-bearer attacks, draw a card, then discard a card; (3) whenever your Ring-bearer becomes blocked by a creature, its controller sacrifices it at end of combat; (4) whenever your Ring-bearer deals combat damage to a player, each opponent loses 3 life. After four temptations the tiers stop mattering — but the temptations don't, because of the next point.
Sauron's draw-four fires on EVERY temptation, from any source. Nazgûl entering, Witch-king of Angmar's trigger, Sauron, Lord of the Rings seeing an enemy commander die — each one is "you may discard your hand; if you do, draw four." So do all six Nazgûl: each temptation also puts a counter on each Wraith you control per Nazgûl you control.
You can discard an empty hand. Hand of zero cards, temptation resolves, you discard nothing and still draw four. Hellish rebuy at its finest.
Every temptation, you must choose a Ring-bearer if you control a creature — re-choosing the same one is fine. The choice is usually cosmetic until it isn't: Sauron, the Necromancer keeps his reanimated Wraith tokens only while he is your Ring-bearer, and tier abilities track the Ring-bearer, not the Army — put the Ring on the creature that's actually connecting.
The ward is an economy, not a shield. "Sacrifice a legendary artifact or legendary creature" is a real cost the deck can pay all game (a dozen-plus legends, The One Ring and The Ozolith included) — but each payment is a card. Feed it your cheapest spent legend, and remember the removal spell that forced the payment still amassed you 1 on the way in.

Key Loops & Interactions

The temptation battery. Six copies of Nazgûl (the card allows up to nine in one deck) means every temptation, from any source, is up to six +1/+1 counters on each Wraith you control — and each Nazgûl that enters is itself a temptation. Witch-king of Angmar tempts you every time opponents' creatures connect with you — getting attacked literally pays you. Casting one Nazgûl into three in play with Sauron out: temptation, tier, counters on every Wraith, and a possible fresh hand of four.

Discard is card advantage in this deck, not a cost. Anger discarded early gives your whole board haste for the rest of the game while any of your five Mountain-typed lands (Mountain, Badlands, Blood Crypt, Steam Vents, Volcanic Island) is in play — hasty amass tokens attack the turn they're made. Big creatures discarded to temptations become Reanimate, Victimize, and Living Death targets. Windfall after you've emptied your hand is brutally asymmetric — you discard nothing and draw a full grip while everyone else pitches theirs (and with Orcish Bowmasters out, their "refill" is a hail of arrows and amass triggers; with Sheoldred out it's 2 life per card).

The Treasure engine and its payoff. Goldspan Dragon (whose Treasures tap for two), Ancient Copper Dragon's d20 payday, Cavern-Hoard Dragon (usually nearly free against the artifact deck), Gorbag of Minas Morgul, Warren Soultrader, and Black Market Connections build a Treasure pile that pays for the top end. The pile is also a win condition: Hellkite Tyrant needs twenty artifacts at your upkeep, and one connection against an artifact-heavy opponent (stealing everything they have) plus your own Treasures gets there fast. Vandalblast's overload conveniently reads "destroy each artifact you don't control."

The goblin mob sideline. Krenko, Mob Boss doubles your Goblin count every activation — and the deck's lords make the mob dangerous fast: Warg Rider hands them menace, Orcish Siegemaster trample, Saruman ward , and a discarded Anger haste (so fresh Krenko tokens can swing, or tap-double, the same turn). Gorbag of Minas Morgul converts any Goblin or Orc that connects — mob or Army — into a card or a Treasure, and Warren Soultrader turns spare bodies into mana. It's a full second board the wipes-and-rebuild plan happily reloads.

The One Ring is the bridge turn. Cast it when you need to survive to your next combat — protection from everything for a rotation while the Army untaps — then let its escalating draws stack with Sauron's temptation refills (Sheoldred turns all that drawing into life). When the burden counters get heavy, Three Steps Ahead's copy mode makes a token One Ring: the legend rule clears the old one, the copy arrives with zero burden counters (no protection — it wasn't cast), and the drawing starts over. The same copy mode happily duplicates Goldspan Dragon or a key lord.

The punishment grid. Sauron taxes casting spells. Zo-Zu taxes playing lands. Sheoldred and Orcish Bowmasters tax drawing. Treasure Nabber taxes tapping rocks. Vial Smasher converts your own first spell each turn — including free ones on opponents' turns — into damage at a random opponent. There is no "safe" way to play against this table presence; every path feeds you.

Free spells still have mana values. Deadly Rollick and Deflecting Swat cast for free still amass 4 and 3 with Saruman, the White Hand out, and still hit for 4 and 3 off Vial Smasher. Saruman triggers on every noncreature spell you cast — each counterspell held up is future Army growth. (Overloading Cyclonic Rift doesn't change its mana value: it amasses 2, not 7.)

Gríma steals their spellbook. Gríma can't be blocked, so he connects every turn: the defending player exiles until an instant or sorcery flips, and you may cast it free. With Lord of the Nazgûl out, casting their spell still makes you a 3/3 Wraith — their own removal spell becomes a Ringwraith. The Mouth of Sauron reads the same graveyards: aim his ETB at the spellslinger's yard for the biggest amass.

Sauron, the Necromancer raids every graveyard. Each attack exiles a creature card from your graveyard (temptation discards keep it stocked) and returns it as a tapped, attacking 3/3 Wraith copy. Two things to know: the token is exiled at end step unless this Sauron is your Ring-bearer — so name him at your next temptation if you want to keep the copy — and because the token was never declared as an attacker, its own "whenever this creature attacks" abilities don't trigger.

Wipes are a gear, not a concession. Blasphemous Act and Damnation reset a board your one-Army deck can rebuild faster than anyone: The Ozolith banks the Army's counters and hands them to the next Army at your combat, Witch-king survives by discarding a card (indestructible beats both wipes), and Living Death / Rise of the Dark Realms turn the carnage into your next board. Barad-dûr's instant-speed amass sink even requires a creature to have died this turn — wipe, then rebuild the Army with X/X counters at end of turn.

Utility lands to remember. The Black Gate: your Army can't be blocked by the life leader's creatures — a guaranteed temptation for . Mount Doom: the endgame button — sacrifice it and a legendary artifact to keep your two best creatures and destroy everything else. Scavenger Grounds: exiles all graveyards, including yours — fire it against reanimator opponents before you need Living Death, not after you've stocked your own yard. Xander's Lounge cycles late when you need action, not mana.