One day, some number of years ago, I went flipping through a friend's trade binder, looking for things to acquire for my Jenara, Asura of War deck (my first EDH deck, which you can find a primer for here). I was pulling out some things as I went, as he was doing with mine. It came down to a point where I needed to find some more value to even out the trade, so I decided to look through again, looking at more than just things for my Jenara deck. I got toward the end of his binder, where the foils were located, and my eyes settled on the beastly looking Sedris, the Traitor King. I read it and instantly loved it. I decided right then and there that I would build a deck with him.
So, I acquired the foil Sedris, and started to build my list. My first list, quite frankly, wasn't great, but I was still having fun playing it. After a time I ended up getting a bit bored. My first Sedris build ended up feeling very much like a Grixis version of my Jenara deck, and so I ended up taking it apart a few months after building it, and built myself a Ghave, Guru of Spores deck. Sometime later I was playing one night with some friends, and one of those friends mentioned wanting to build a new deck, and we got talking, and I showed him Sedris. He liked him, but not enough to build a deck with him. But then I got thinking about the list, how I could make it better than it had been, what new cards I'd add from the sets that had come out since I'd taken it apart... and suddenly, I really wanted to rebuild it, to make it good. And so Sedris became both my second and fourth physical EDH deck.
This is that much better list. It's certainly not perfect, and I'm still making slight tweaks to it every now and then, but I'm quite happy with it, and it performs very well. The deck is quite powerful, is capable of being threatening at every stage of the game, and beyond that, there are just some things the deck can do that give me much, much joy. Like that time I played and attacked with six It That Betrays in a turn. Or that time I played against a Karona, False God deck, and when it came under my control I played a Teferi's Veil and never gave it back. Point is, the deck is a blast to play, and I hope others get the same enjoyment out of it that I do.
And that brings us here. If the information here helps someone new to Sedris get some joy out of him, or helps a Sedris veteran to breathe some new life into their list, then the effort is worth it. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences with this list or similar.
Why play Sedris?
That's a pretty important question. First, a quick rundown on Sedris himself. Sedris is easily one of the most powerful reanimation generals around. His ability is reasonably costed and allows for reanimating as many creatures in a turn as we have mana for. He's in a fantastic colour combination, giving us access to tons of great creatures for reanimating, plenty of counter and draw, and all the best tutors. On top of that, he's got a reasonable body for his cost, and can just beat down an opponent himself when nobody's looking.
Second, let's do some comparing. For someone who wants to build a reanimation EDH deck, there are a number really good options, each of which has its own merits and demerits. A few of the best of those options are Karador, Ghost Chieftain, The Mimeoplasm, and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. Each of those is a powerful card in a great colour combination to allow for a very powerful deck. So let's do a quick analysis:
Karador, Ghost Chieftain - This guy is very much like a Junk/Abzan equivalent of Sedris. Just like Sedris, he allows for recurring creatures from your graveyard, though somewhat more inclined toward small value creatures instead of fatties and large threats. Some key differences:
Karador can only recur one creature per turn, while Sedris can recur as many as you have mana for
Karador's recurred creatures stick around, while Sedris's go away without a little help
Karador frequently has a higher cost to cast, Sedris's cost is static
Karador recurs creatures for their original CMC, while Sedris allows for recurring any creature for 2B
Conclusions: Sedris has much more potential to be explosive, playing several huge threats in a single turn for a significantly reduced mana cost, but he has a reduced ability to maintain a large board presence without some help.
The Mimeoplasm - This one shares more colours with Sedris, which can cause a lot more card overlap between the two. However, Mimeoplasm decks are very frequently built as combo decks. In those cases, Mimeoplasm is quite different, so let's focus on more "fair" reanimator builds of Mimeoplasm. With that in mind, some key differences:
Mimeoplasm is capable of a form of creature recursion, but it always exiles whatever it recurs, while Sedris can use some added help to keep from losing the creatures he recurs
Mimeoplasm doesn't offer a whole lot of reanimation, requiring more help from a denser package of reanimation effects, while Sedris frequently provides all the reanimation you need
Mimeoplasm can serve as a form of graveyard hate, exiling creatures from opposing graveyards, an ability Sedris doesn't offer on his own
Mimeoplasm has a slightly lower mana cost, but it requires that it leaves and re-enters the battlefield in order to get more value off of it, which can lead to much higher costs
Conclusions: Sedris still retains the higher explosive potential, while losing out on a little bit of added utility that Mimeoplasm can offer.
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - Despite sharing the same colours as The Mimeoplasm, the really interesting thing about a Sidisi reanimator deck is that, instead of giving you a reanimation/recursion effect, she gives you an enabler on your general. When you've got nothing else, she can fill your graveyard for you, along with giving you a little added value when she does. So, let's compare:
Sidisi can fill your graveyard for you, while Sedris instead reanimates things you've already put there
Sidisi requires fewer enables but a heavier reanimation package, as opposed to the opposite in Sedris
Sidisi offers a bit of added value off of graveyard enablers (including herself), an ability that Sedris doesn't offer
Sidisi's lower cost makes her easier to cast, especially on repeat castings, and frequently gives you an immediate benefit
Conclusions: Sedris benefits more from playing more enablers and card advantage, which will almost always do something on their own, without the need to clutter things up with a heavier reanimation package, which is frequently dead when you're faced with an empty graveyard. While Sidisi's last ability offers an extra angle of attack via swarming with Zombie tokens, it's frequently a slow building wave, and still lacks a lot of the explosive potential that Sedris can offer.
That's a quick rundown of how Sedris stacks up against a few of his biggest counterparts. The biggest benefit of playing Sedris over the others is the ability to just win out of nowhere, without a combo. Sedris has the potential to just dump your entire graveyard on the table and win when the opportunity arises, making him a constant threat throughout the game. It is worth noting, though, that at six mana his cost can be a bit prohibitive at times.
Other Grixis Generals
Crosis, the Purger - Not the worst of that dragon cycle, but he doesn't really mesh with what we're trying to do here. Could be a reasonable choice for a discard themed deck.
Garza Zol, Plague Queen - Card draw on a general is always good, and shes got some aggression and evasion. Still doesn't really mesh with a reanimation deck.
Gwendlyn Di Corci - Another cool general for a discard heavy deck, or a reasonable choice for a control deck. This isn't really the kind of effect we want here, though.
Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge - This is a cool card, but if it used the graveyard instead of exiling it would be really cool, and would be a really solid reanimation general replacement. Unfortunately, as is, we don't want to be exiling our things.
Mishra, Artificer Prodigy - While there are some cool decks that are built to take advantage of this ability that would otherwise be useless for a singleton format, it would really not be worth while to try to incorporate here.
Nekusar, the Mindrazer - This guy is really cool, and he could even be a viable reanimator option, with a lot of cards that take advantage of opponents' graveyards. It's possible, and fairly common, to fit a mild reanimation sub-theme into the heavy Wheel decks built around Nekusar.
Nicol Bolas - Easily the best of that old Elder Dragon cycle, and he makes for a fine control general. For this sort of thing, though, it would be much better as 1 of 99.
Tetsuo Umezawa - This guy makes for a pretty cool control general, but he doesn't really offer an effect that we care about/need in this sort of deck.
Thraximundar - Probably the best other Grixis general. One of the best control deck finishers out there, and even a decent Voltron general. Here, though, he works wonderfully as 1 of 99.
None of the other Grixis generals really offer us the sort of effects we want. This deck is built very heavily with Sedris himself in mind, and he works here wonderfully.
Reasons you may enjoy playing Sedris
You enjoy abusing enter the battlefield abilities
You enjoy cheating large, scary creatures onto the battlefield at severely reduced costs
You enjoy playing a deck capable of being a major threat at nearly any stage of the game
You enjoy a deck capable of exploding into a win out of nowhere, without the use of an infinite combo
You see your graveyard and life total as resources to be used and abused
Reasons you may not enjoy playing Sedris
You prefer playing a deck with a heavy combo focus, that kills the table within the first five turns
You prefer sitting back and being reactive instead of proactive, controlling the table
You prefer playing a deck that doesn't represent an overt threat and tends to get overlooked for hate
You prefer slowly locking people out of the game to grind out a win over your opponents
You dislike using your graveyard and life total as resources
Strengths
Creature Swarm - Having access to Massacre Wurm with several ways to copy, recur, and tutor it, means that swarm strategies have a very hard time against us, and frequently just straight up die to the life loss.
Control Decks - Being able to not only evade many board wipes with Teferi's Veil but also able to just reuse all our creatures after a wipe means that many control decks have a really hard time shutting us down. Even with counter magic, most of the time it doesn't much matter. We have ways of reusing everything from our graveyard, and are too threat dense for most counter packages to ever really try to keep up. This deck also offers a ton of pseudo-card advantage (on top of a ton of real card advantage) to really do a lot of work to eliminate one of control's biggest advantages over most decks.
Mill/Discard - Most of the time these sorts of strategies will just enable us. We take full advantage of the graveyard, and having help filling it is rarely bad.
Weaknesses
Combo Decks - This deck is pretty heavily built to care less about what its opponents are doing and more about making itself work. While this deck can be very quick, the dedicated combo decks will very frequently be faster. This can be helped a lot by trying to mull into relevant answers in the opening hand, and/or trying to find them as soon as you can for when the combo deck inevitably tries to go off.
Direct Damage/Life Drain - A lot of the cards in here want to eat away at our own life totals. Things like Necropotence, Ancient Tomb, and Mana Crypt are prime examples of this. As a result, we can end up at a relatively low life total before we end up going to find some massive life gain (Whip of Erebos, Wurmcoil Engine, etc), and this can put us dangerously close to being Fireballed or Exsanguinated out. It's not a huge problem, but it can get us if it's not taken into account.
Graveyard Hate - This is really the main thing to be concerned about while playing a graveyard deck like this. Most people will be running at least a few graveyard hate cards, but some people will have a ton of it, and that can be problematic. The best way to deal with it is just to play around it as best as possible. Don't overfill our graveyards, don't hang onto certain removal/counters for when they really count, etc. Against the decks with a ton of graveyard hate, the best bet is just to ramp as much as we can and start playing out bomb after bomb the hard way.
To state the obvious, at its heart, this is a reanimator deck. It cheats fatties and value creatures onto the battlefield and doesn't even feel bad about it. Obviously reanimating things from the graveyard is the primary way of doing this, but cards like Sneak Attack do a ton of work, not only cheating things from your hand onto the field, but then dumping them into the bin to reanimate them and throw them back at your opponents again. And again. And maybe again.
Plan A also has a sub-plan. The only thing better than cheating gross things onto the field is getting to keep them, too. Sometimes after sneaking something onto the table, having it die at the end of the turn makes you sad inside. Diggingthings up only to watch them get exiled brings a little tear to your eye. That's where cards like Teferi's Veil (andsomeothers) come in. These cards break things like Sneak Attack, Sedris, and Whip of Erebos, by allowing us to keep the things we've cheated onto the field. This allows us to easily build a huge board presence and not need to continually dump our hands or empty our graveyards to remain a threat.
It is worth noting, at this point, that the "Mike + Trike" combo has been intentionally excluded. With a stronger focus on combo, this would likely be included in the deck. The key reason this is excluded while the others aren't is simply a matter of individual card value. With those other three combos, all of the involved cards do wonderful things for us on their own. They're always going to be good, independent of the combos they're a part of. While there could probably be an argument for Mikaeus, the Unhallowed in the deck, Triskelion is a card that just usually does little to nothing on its own. However, in a meta rife with 1 toughness creatures, Triskelion could become much more useful by itself, and adding this combo would be perfectly reasonable.
Every now and then we're going to have someone slam something like a Rest in Peace or a Containment Priest on the table and point and laugh at us. Despite what they might think, though, we're not just completely helpless when this happens. Not only does the deck have a fair amount of mana ramp potential to allow us to just cast those big scary things, and not fully rely on cheating, but Sedris himself has a pretty reasonably sized body and can put a fair amount of pressure on our opponents when he needs to.
However, because we still want to cheat, in any matches where you know one of the aforementioned hateful cards to be played, it's often a good idea to hold on to certain pieces of counter magic or removal (Crosis's Charm being particular good in this case), so that when those things do get played we can make sure they never hit the table or don't last long when they do.
When and how to play Sedris himself is generally fairly easy to determine. No matter what part of the game we're in, unless we really need the beater or blocker, we don't want to play Sedris out until we plan to Unearth something the turn we play him, or the next turn afterward. Playing him before planning to use him is usually not a great idea, as he'll often just eat a removal and cost us more to recast when we actually need him. Also, while sometimes it can be tempting to wait to play out Sedris until we have a way to break the Unearth (Teferi's Veil, Sundial of the Infinite, etc), that's not often a great idea. If we have plenty of other things to do in the meantime, then sure, but we don't want to sit there twiddling our thumbs while our opponents get ahead if we could be throwing things at them instead.
Opening Hands and Early Game
In general, there are three things this deck really wants to see in an opening hand:
1) Some early game way to dump something scary into our graveyard (Entomb, Buried Alive, Dack Fayden, Fact or Fiction, etc) along with a cheap reanimation spell. One of the most powerful starts the deck can have is turn 1 Entomb followed by turn 2 Animate Dead or Reanimate. What we go get in that situation depends a lot on the decks we're playing against, the rest of our hand, and various other factors. That being said, Consecrated Sphinx, It That Betrays, or Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur are usually prime choices.
2) Plenty of ramp. Ramping is always good, and trying to quickly get ourselves up to 6-9 mana is incredibly helpful for when we don't have anything to populate our graveyard or to cheat things out of our hand. In these sorts of hands it's also really nice to have something that will draw us cards once we've dumped our hand, or a tutor to get us whatever we need.
3) Cheap card draw. Once we've dumped our hands we're going to need a refill, so things like Fact or Fiction and Necropotence are fantastic here. Assuming we have enough ramp, even Stroke of Genius will be great, since after some ramp and land drops we should be able to get it off for at least 4, hopefully more. We ideally want to move out of the early game with a full hand.
The early game here should be dedicated pretty heavily to ramp. We want to get as much mana as we can on the table, hitting as many early land drops as we can and using any tutors in the first few turns to make sure that happens. Once we have that, our hand is going to be pretty bare, so here we ideally want to refill our hand. From there we're ready to progress into making people hate us.
Here are some samples of great hands and their first four turns:
At this point, we're either way, way ahead, or we've already won. If someone was holding removal and stopped our It That Betrays plan, the next plan at this point is to play Sedris, Unearth Rune-Scarred Demon, and go find more fun things to do. If we've already drawn another way to dump creatures, we can go get Teferi's Veil to start building persistent board presence, or Necropotence to refill our hand, etc.
We've still got a good number of cards in hand with multiple solid ways to keep drawing more, as well as having a couple of bodies on the table to attack or block as necessary. The odds are very good at this point that we've drawn some more land to play, and thanks to Fact or Fiction we either have some creatures in the graveyard, or some way to make it happen. from here, we can play Sedris and start to Unearth things.
Mid and Late Game
Once we get to the mid game we should be fully ready to start executing Plan A. To do this we want to prioritize getting things into our graveyard first, and then either play Sedris or another reanimation spell, and then find Teferi's Veil or Conjurer's Closet as quickly as we can. With a Teferi's Veil and Sedris on the table, we start to take over the game very, very quicky. As soon as we're that far, the quickest way to close out the game will just be to beat people's faces in. Wash, rinse, and repeat until we win.
If we get into the late, late game, and Plan A still hasn't done the job, that when we're going to want to seriously consider pulling out Plan B. If they've managed to stop us from killing them for that long, then there's a good chance that our best bet at this point is to combo off and just take them out. Of course, sometimes this will just happen by accident through the normal course of the game, and we'll combo much sooner.
It's important to keep in mind that a large part of why combo is Plan B is because it's vulnerable. When we try to combo off and someone has just the right cards to stop us, we're left in a very bad spot. Plan A is significantly more resilient in most cases. However, once we've gotten to that late, late game, most of the table will be out of answers, and it will become much easier to get a game winning combo off without hindrance.
Obviously there are many cards that we could play, but not every card makes the cut. 100 cards seems like a lot until we find ourselves sitting at 115 trying to make cuts.
So, with that in mind, here is a list of cards. Bold names indicate that the card is in the current incarnation of this list. This is certainly not a complete list of every card that could be in this deck, but more accurately a list of all the cards that are in this list, have been in this list, or have been considered for this list. Any and all suggestion for other cards to be added here are more than welcome.
On Colour Fetchlands - Bloodstained Mire, Scalding Tarn, Polluted Delta. These are at their best when we've got the dual lands and shocklands to go with them. Great for making sure we get the colours we need, they thin the deck, and they can be used in conjuction with Crucible of Worlds to ensure hitting land drops.
Off Colour Fetchlands - This one really comes down to a matter of preference. That being said, they're only worth running with the full set of duals and shocks, otherwise they're just not worth it. Having the extra fetchlands gives you some extra deck thinning, which is especially helpful when a build has a higher land count.
Battle Duals - Sunken Hollow and Smoldering Marsh (with presumably a third to come). Super solid extra set of basic typed duals. Great for fetching.
Any Colour Painlands - City of Brass, Mana Confluence, and Grand Coliseum. While the Coliseum can tap for mana without hurting, coming in tapped makes it by far the worst of the three. Most of the time the pain is worth the fixing.
Filter Lands - Graven Cairns, Cascade Bluffs, Sunken Ruins. These are fine lands to play, especially when lacking duals and/or fetches. They can really help with the colour fixing.
Basic Lands - Island, Swamp, and Mountain. Obvious inclusions. Always a good idea to play at least 2 of each to find off of Path to Exile or Ghost Quarter, and to grab off of the fetchlands when need be.
Academy Ruins - This is generally a staple land. Allows us to recur artifacts out of the graveyard, which is always handy.
Bojuka Bog - Fantastic piece of graveyard hate. Comes into play tapped, which can be unfortunate sometimes, but after that it taps for B, and even if it didn't, having this ability "for free" often makes up for the downside.
Cabal Coffers - Sometimes this card won't do a whole lot, but once you've got an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the table it does a whole bunch. Can't really go wrong with big mana.
Command Tower - The essential land for every multi-colour deck. Printed specifically for the format, it needs no introduction.
Creeping Tar Pit - This card is nice to have around for those odd times when we need to sneak some damage in on a planeswalker, or surprise protect one of our own.
Crumbling Necropolis - Unfortunate that it comes into play tapped, but it makes all of our colours with no other downside. Strictly worse than Command Tower, but still well worth having.
Phyrexian Tower - This can give us an extra little bit of ramp when we need it, but its most important use is as a sacrifice effect for our important creatures in response to exile and tuck/shuffle effects.
Wasteland - This card is just a strictly worse Strip Mine, but it's much better than the other options, and it's nice to have backup.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - A black staple land. Does good things on its own, giving us plenty of black mana, and it does wonderful things with Cabal Coffers and things with Swampwalk.
Volrath's Stronghold - This card is fantastic to have around for those odd times when we have no reanimation handy and we really need/want a creature out of the graveyard.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All - This is a great land and very nice to have in metas with a lot of counter magic and in lists with big instants and sorceries that you really don't want countered.
Ancient Tomb - Hurts every time we use it (excluding times with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the table), but it also ramps for free. All around solid card.
Desolate Lighthouse - The opportunity cost for playing this card is very low, and whenever there's room for it it's a great card to play, as it gives a repeatable looting effect when we've got nothing else going on.
Nezumi Graverobber - Sometimes this card can be a little slow, but the fact that it serves as both graveyard hate and a source of reanimation (not to mention being able to take opponents' creatures, as well), makes him pretty worthwhile. A lot of the time he's basically black's equivalent to Scavenging Ooze.
Snapcaster Mage - Frequently a blue staple. Being able to recur any of our instants and sorceries in a pinch, especially counter spells, is really powerful and versatile.
Jace's Archivist - Repeatable Windfall attached to a body is good times. Extra good off of Unearth, since it can be brought back with haste, used, and then forgotten.
Magus of the Wheel - It's a little bit unfortunate that this guy sacrifices himself to activate, but he's still an excellent extra Wheel effect, and just like the Archivist, he's great to Unearth.
Treasure Mage - This card is great to have if you have enough solid targets for it. I found that just Duplicant and Wurmcoil Engine weren't enough. But with the addition of more 6+ artifacts this would probably be worth finding a spot for.
Agent of Erebos - Graveyard hate is always good, and having a creature that nukes an entire yard on enter is fantastic. Getting to nuke more off of other Enchantments entering is just gravy.
Anger - Haste is a wonderful thing, and being able to give it to everything is lovely. It's often one of the cards you'll want to grab off of a Buried Alive, and sometimes off an Entomb when you don't really need anything else.
Archaeomancer - This guy is pretty self-explanatory, let's us recur instants and sorceries from the graveyard. Great for getting back things we want to cast again, or getting back things we never got to cast in the first place. Beyond this, this guy has two really good interactions. 1) Cauldron Dance + Archaeomancer + something else sweet. This allows you to recast Cauldron Dance every turn, and keep getting value or big attacks off of the other creature you pair with this. 2) Allows for infinite turns with Time Warp and any way to reuse his ability every turn (Deadeye Navigator, Conjurer's Closet, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, etc).
Body Snatcher - This is a really neat card, as it both lets us put a creature into our graveyard and later reanimate one. It's single use is a bit bothersome, though. This card is best in lists with more sac outlets.
Clever Impersonator - Arguably the best Clone ever printed. Being able to copy any nonland permanent is insane. Sometimes it copy our own sweet things, and sometimes it copies an opponent's sweet thing. Either way, it's just about always good.
Disciple of Bolas - This card is fantastic. Most of the time the best use for it is to sacrifice something that is about to die at end of turn anyway, or something we want to be able to reanimate. Usually draws at least 5 cards and gains a chunk of life.
Glen Elendra Archmage - This card is really good, and is always a fine inclusion. If this particular list were built with a bigger control package this card would likely be an auto-include.
Notion Thief - This card is mostly only good with variants of the deck that play Wheel of Fortune style effects. But when it's good, it's really good.
Phyrexian Metamorph - Another one of the best Clones ever printed. Not quite as good as Clever Impersonator, but it can still copy both creatures and artifacts, and can be cast for 3 and 2 life in a pinch, which is really nice. A favourite play with this card is Gilded Lotus into this guy copying the Lotus.
Solemn Simulacrum - Many people say that this guy is a staple for 99% of EDH decks, and I tend to agree. He ramps, he chump block like a champ, and draws a card when he dies. Great for recurring later, too.
Venser, Shaper Savant - Being able to temporarily deal with any permanent or spell (including uncounterable ones) is a really powerful ability, especially when it's something we can recur/repeat with multiple effects we're playing.
Wonder - This is a card that I end up trying to find a spot for every time I make changes to the deck, but it really just ends up coming down to the fact that most of the time the extra evasion isn't needed. Still, it's entirely possible it will find its way into the list eventually.
Body Double - In essence, this guy is just another reanimation spell. Cloning a creature in a graveyard allows us to recur one of our most valuable threats without exposing it to things like Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile. On top of that, having this guy in play along with Deadeye Navigator or Conjurer's Closet allows us to keep flickering him and then copying whichever creature in a graveyard is most useful at the time.
Chainer, Dementia Master - Chainer can make for a solid Sedris alternative. He comes down a little cheaper, especially if it's not the first time casting Sedris, but his cost for reanimating things is harder, with the triple black, and it hurts on top of that. The biggest issue, though, is that anything we bring back with Chainer is vulnerable. An opponent can take out our board with a single targeted removal spell, and then our things even all get exiled. Solid card, but high risk.
Izzet Chronarch - Just another Archaeomancer. Slightly bigger body, slightly higher cost. Unless you need/want the redundancy of having two of them, this guy usually loses out between the two purely based on the higher cost.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - This guy is incredibly powerful. Just like the Clones, allows us to copy the big scary things we play, as well as getting in for extra damage. On top of that he's also a key part of one of our combos, and an optional part of another.
Mulldrifter - Great for an extra little bit of card draw. Evoke it early and recur it later.
Phyrexian Delver - Basically the black equivalent of Karmic Guide, really solid card. Especially good for bringing back with Unearth, since we don't care necessarily if this guy gets exiled, but we can use the Delver himself to return something we really want to keep around.
Puppeteer Clique - Biggest issue with this card is that it can only take things from opponents' graveyards. Largely a meta call, based on how frequently an opponent's graveyard will have something sweet/powerful/awesome to steal.
River Kelpie - This guy doesn't do a whole lot at once, but he does an awful lot over time. Every time any spell is cast from a graveyard or any permanent enters the battlefield from the graveyard, including itself, it draws a card. Great way to keep our hands full when dumping and reanimating things. It can be a bit risky, though, since any player initiating a death loop while this is on the table will mill us out.
Sadistic Hypnotist - This is a very powerful card, and probably an auto-include in a list with a heavier focus on sacrificing its own things. Still, the effect is powerful enough that this card may find a slot.
Shriekmaw - Same deal as Mulldrifter, except Doom Blade instead of Divination. Evoke early, recur later. This guy ended up getting dropped from this list purely because the "nonblack creature" condition can be a bigger problem in certain metas.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier - This card is pretty cool. It's a pretty solid body for the cost, and her Exploit tutor is really good, especially when sacrificing things like Wurmcoil Engine.
Urabrask the Hidden - Along with Anger, this is one of the best options for a deck like this to give the whole team Haste. Goes extra well with Living Death.
Zealous Conscripts - Obviously this card is integral in two our combos, but even outside of that this card is fantastic. A favourite use for him is permanently stealing opponents' creatures, when using this guy in conjunction with Teferi's Veil, Deadeye Navigator, or Conjurer's Closet.
Consecrated Sphinx - Frequently considered a blue staple card. Sometimes it just eats a removal, but when it doesn't it just draws too many cards. Too many.
Deadeye Navigator - Some people love this card and some people hate it. It's one of the most common targets for ban whining, and it's easy to see why. It is important to note that this guy is not as invulnerable as some people believe he is. An opponent can respond to the Soulbond trigger, which is when this guy is left vulnerable. However, "it dies to removal" has always been a flawed argument, and when this guy sticks around he just takes over the game, plain and simple.
Duplicant - Another staple, generally speaking. Gets around protection from colours and indestructible, eats a lot of big threats and great for copying/recurring.
Flayer of the Hatebound - This guy is a pretty nifty card, and his ability pretty obviously goes nicely with the reanimation theme. That being said, when we're not reanimating a bunch of things he does little to nothing, and has a body very underwhelming for his cost.
Frost Titan - While really mice to have in a more controlling build of the deck, in this particular build he's not entirely ideal, though still very powerful. A solid inclusion.
Grave Titan - This is a great card, especially in a variant with more focus on sacrificing its own creatures, since he makes all kinds of zombies. Most of the ways to cheat him onto the field leave behind 4 zombies to play with, which is nice.
Inferno Titan - He offers direct damage, split up, which is great for killing small creatures (especially blockers), or taking out planeswalkers. Additionally, his firebreathing can just straight up kill people when we've got a lot of red mana to dump into him.
Kokusho, the Evening Star - Just like with a bunch of the cards on this list, this card is solid in a list that wants to sac its own creatures. The nonbo with Sedris's unearth is certainly disappointing, though.
Massacre Wurm - This thing is absolutely fantastic. It's often a win-condition on its own against things like tokens decks and whatnot, and even against other decks its fantastic. Especially when pairing it with a way to copy or recur it multiple times.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - This guy serves as a part of the "Mike + Trike" combo. On his own he's got a powerful effect, but it doesn't mesh with Unearth, and it would be much better with more sac effects.
Triskelion - The other part of the "Mike + Trike" combo. Fine card in a meta with a lot of 1 toughness creatures, but otherwise not great outside of the combo.
Vela the Night-Clad - This is a cool card to run because it gives the whole team some evasion as well as allowing for some damage whenever someone casts a board wipe. A fine card to play if the evasion is needed, but often not the best choice.
Wurmcoil Engine - Often referred to as the "6th Titan", this guy certainly deserves to be ranked among them. He just does a lot of great things, and is a favourite for sacrificing to Disciple of Bolas or copying with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
Dragon Mage - With the number of ways this deck can cheat creates into play with Haste, it becomes relatively easy to connect with this regularly, giving yet another Wheel of Fortune effect that also does a decent bit of damage.
Palinchron - This guy can enable some infinite mana combos with things like Deadeye Navigator and whatnot, but outside of combos he's not all that great. Not a bad choice for a more controlling build, though, that wants to always try to keep up mana on opponents' turns.
Rune-Scarred Demon - This thing is Demonic Tutor on a big scary demon and it's awesome. It's not unusual to get upwards of 4 tutors off of this guy throughout a game, between copying, recurring, etc. Absolutely fantastic card, definitely a must.
Sheoldred, Whispering One - Forces your opponents to sac creatures and allows you to reanimate one every upkeep. On top of that, it's a big body with evasion. Super solid card, usually an auto-include.
Sphinx of Uthuun - Very comparable with Rune-Scarred Demon, this thing will frequently give you 3 to 5 Fact or Fictions in a game, and that goes a long way. Keeps your hand full, your graveyard full, and it's a big flying body. Auto-include.
Thraximundar - This is one of the better early reanimation targets, since it has haste on its own and eats creatures, and an early Thrax can take out an opponent very quickly if unanswered. Also meshes very well with It That Betrays, one of the deck's best threats.
Avatar of Woe - This thing can be very powerful in a list that needs more removal and/or fills its own graveyard more. The ability to play it for BB actually comes up significantly less frequently than one might think/hope.
Bogardan Hellkite - An excellent source of direct damage, for taking out planeswalkers or low health opponents. Gives you a lot of added reach, especially in combination with copy and recursion effects. Beyond that, the Flash is not irrelevant at all, and will come in handy every now and then.
Kederekt Leviathan - This guy has a powerful ETB ability, but returning everything instead of just opponents' things doesn't put us nearly as far ahead as some other things could. It also nonbos with Unearthed things, since all of those things will then get exiled.
Nicol Bolas - The original big bad Elder Dragon. When he can be cheated in early he can usually eat a full hand and really hurt somebody's feelings. He won't usually make it long enough to eat a second hand, but by then he's still done his job.
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur - A prime choice for early reanimation. If somebody isn't immediately holding removal, getting this guy out in the first few turns can get us waaaaay ahead, and even getting him out later does a great job of refilling our hand. A lot of the time, though, he'll eat a removal spell before every actually doing anything, and that always feels bad.
It That Betrays - Arguably the best non-legendary Eldrazi, and while those guys might be better, their shuffle effect really messes with our plan. This guy can easily take over games on his own, and gets insane when playing it with Clones and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Attacking with multiples of this guy feels really, really good.
Nihil Spellbomb - One of the better pieces of graveyard hate. Comparable to Tormod's Crypt, but often a little better because it can draw a card.
Scrabbling Claws - This cars is frequently overlooked in favour of Relic of Progenitus, but is generally preferable here as it doesn't nuke our own graveyard in the process.
Sensei's Divining Top - A general EDH staple. Great for top deck manipulation, smoothing out draws, and drawing in a pinch. Even better with shuffle effects.
Sol Ring - Another of the best mana rocks ever printed, this card should be in every EDH deck ever.
Dimir Signet - The signets are great mana rocks, widely loved and considered stapled. Choosing between these and Talismans really comes down to a matter of preference choice.
Izzet Signet - Same as above, though this one usually gets included along with the Talismans, due to a lack of enemy-colour Talismans.
Talisman of Dominance - These Talismans can't make two colours at once like the the Signets can, but they have a big advantage in that they can tap for mana on their own, which is nice.
Lightning Greaves - Frequently considered a staple card, these boots are great to have around for both the haste and the protection they offer. Helps to protect the threats we really want to try to keep around, like Deadeye Navigator, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, etc.
Sundial of the Infinite - This is another really solid way to abuse the abilities on our cheat effects, but the fact that it doesn't really offer any extra value beyond that makes it a little worse than Conjurer's Closet and Teferi's Veil.
Coalition Relic - This is a really solid mana rock and often the next inclusion whenever the deck feels light on ramp. Being able to get two mana off of this when needed is really good, and people very often tend to forget that you can, giving you some options where you can surprise your opponent with something bigger than they expected.
Crucible of Worlds - This card is a great way to recur lands that end up in our yards off of things like Fact or Fiction and whatnot, and it can be used really well in conjunction with fetchlands, to thin the deck and ensure land dropds, and with Strip Mine/Wasteland, which can really punish people sometimes.
Oblivion Stone - Every once in a while we're going to be behind on board and need to hit the rest button. This is that reset button. We can even play it into our own decent board state and slowly put Fate counters on the things we care about, and then pop it to get ourselves ahead.
Whip of Erebos - This card does two really great things for this deck. All that text is just a copy of the Unearth reminder text, and it serves as a bit of backup for Sedris's ability when we need it, and it gives our whole team Lifelink, which counts for a lot given how much some of the cards in this deck hurt itself, and tends to gain a lot since we're swinging with big scary creatures. It's also a fairly unthreatening card in many players' opinions, so it often gets to stick around for a while unhindered.
Conjurer's Closet - The primary purpose of this card is to remove the downside from Unearth and other cheat effects (by flickering them before they were be exiled or sacrificed), but it also offers a lot of added value by flickering our sweet ETB effects. It's another card that comes off as being pretty unthreatening, so it gets to stick around a lot of the time.
Animate Dead - One of the best reanimation spells at our disposal, it's cheap and the downside is very small.
Dance of the Dead - This is almost always going to be worse than Animate Dead, mostly because of the extra cost needed to untap the creature, but it does at least give a little pump. It's not a bad choice for an extra reanimation spell when wanted/needed.
Compulsion - This is a really solid card. It comes down early and allows us to both dig through the deck and put big scary things into our graveyard for reanimation purposes. It's fairly rare that the second ability will be used, but it's nice to have in a pinch or in response to removal when we're losing it anyway.
Teferi's Veil - The best thing about this card is how good it is in this deck, while being almost awful in most other decks. The primary purpose, of course, is to break most of our effects for cheating creatures into play. Phasing is a little bit weird, so to give a bit more explanation: While this is on the table, every time we attack, a delayed trigger is created for each creature that attacks, and at the end of combat that trigger will resolve, causing that creature to phase out. This will cause the game to treat the card as though it no longer exists. The cards to not leave the battlefield, they don't re-enter later, they just stop existing, and then they phase back in at beginning of your next untap step, before you untap. While these creatures are phased out, they can't be targeted, their abilities can't be triggered or activated, etc. For all intents and purposes they just stop existing until they phase back in. So, while the primary purpose of this card is to allow us to keep things after Unearth, Sneak Attack, Cauldron Dance, etc., it also serves the secondary purpose of wrath protection, since they aren't there to be destroyed during your opponents' turns. An important note: while this will stop Unearthed things from being exiled at end of turn, they will still be exiled if/when they do eventually leave the battlefield.
Necromancy - Essentially another Animate Dead. Costs a little more, but can be cast at instant speed in a pinch. It's a fine alternative, or a great extra.
Necropotence - While this can hurt sometimes by exiling anything discarded, and it turns off looting effects, the insane amount of card draw it offers is beyond worth it. Being able to refill our hand at the end of every turn can get us way ahead. It's worth noting, though, that playing this in a Wheel of Fortune variant of the deck is probably not a great idea.
Phyrexian Arena - Frequently a black staple. Drawing extra cards is always nice.
Stranglehold - This is a very powerful card and shuts down a lot of what a lot of people want to do. It's a great card to play, but it tends to attract a lot of hate, and it tends to work out a little bit better in more controlling builds.
Sneak Attack - Definitely an auto-include for this deck. It allows us to cheat big scary things onto the field with haste, and then reanimate them again after they die. Thoroughly fantastic card.
Dawn of the Dead - This is a really neat card, and gets even better when you have a sacrifice effect to go with it (or a Conjurer's Closet or Teferi's Veil to prevent the creatures it brings back from being exiled at the end of the turn.
Dack Fayden - While his ultimate will almost never be relevant for this deck, his first two abilities are fantastic. First, he allows us to dig and put cards into our graveyard, giving us plenty of resources. Second, he steals artifacts from other players. This is an incredibly powerful ability at any stage of the game. Early on, he can steal a Sol Ring or other mana rock to simultaneously slow down that opponent and bring us ahead. Later, he can be used to take bigger, more valuable artifacts, such as opposing Wurmcoil Engines, Staff of Nin, etc.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Obviously one of the best planeswalkers ever printed. Free Brainstorm every turn is very powerful, and his other abilities are definitely not irrelevant. He's especially good in more controlling builds and in combination with shuffle effects.
Liliana Vess - One of the staple cards for black decks, this gives us some extra tutoring capabilities, as well as the ability to both disrupt opponents' hands and dump our own big scary things into the graveyard. On top of that, every now and then her ultimate will allow us to just outright win games.
Tezzeret the Seeker - This guy gives us a great way to tutor up our utility artifacts, as well as artifact lands when we need them, and his ability to untap artifacts can give us large amounts of ramp with things like Gilded Lotus and Sol Ring.
Karn Liberated - A solid option for just about any deck. He eats people's hands, he can exile any permanent, and sometimes he just wins the game on his own.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker - Big bad Bolas. He does a lot of really good things, and he's a great inclusion for any Grixis deck. Bearing in mind, his cost can be somewhat prohibitive.
Entomb - This card is generally a staple for any sort of reanimation deck. This allows us, at instant speed for only B to tutor up any card to our graveyard, which is a very power effect.
Vampiric Tutor - One of the best tutors printed. Should often be an auto-include in any black deck.
Cyclonic Rift - This card serves for us as both another reset button (one that frequently gets us way, way ahead), and sometimes it's just nice to temporarily deal with problematic Enchantments, since these colours don't give us a whole lot of ways to deal with them.
Lim-Dûl's Vault - This is almost like another tutor. This card with often be very comparable to a Vampiric Tutor, usually costing more life but also giving much more information. It's really nice to be able to set up upcoming draws as well as find the card you need. This is better with redundant effects, so that you can dig until you find one of a set of cards, instead of only one specific card.
Mana Drain - The best counter. An auto-include for all those who can afford it. Strictly better than Counterspell. Countering something with it in the early game can get us way ahead quickly.
Reality Shift - Really solid removal, deals nicely with indestructible or pro black creatures. It can also be used to mess with people's top deck manipulation, which is a bit of extra value now and then.
Terminate - A perfectly solid removal spell. Instant speed, kill any creature. Great inclusion when that little bit of extra removal is desired.
Blue Sun's Zenith - A solid option for mass draw. This can also be used as a win condition with an infinite mana combo.
Counterflux - This is a fantastic card to hang onto against opposing blue decks, when we want to really, really make sure that something we cast doesn't get countered, or we really want to make sure something an opponent casts doesn't happen. Every now and then the overload will become relevant, as an answer to Storm-based wincons and the like.
Crosis's Charm - A really good card all around, with all three modes being relevant and nice to have. It's often best to avoid using this as a Doom Blade or a Shatter unless really necessary, since being able to bounce a problematic Enchantment at a key moment can be the difference between winning and losing.
Dissipate - Solid counter, exiles whatever it counters to prevent recursion and whatnot. Very solid.
Forbid - One of the better counters for us, as we can dump fatties to it for Buyback, giving us both a way to put things into the graveyard and a recurring counter.
Forbidden Alchemy - This card is great for both digging to find the things we want/need, as well as letting us fill our graveyard. It even has flashback, for extra value.
Frantic Search - Another solid option for looting. It's especially good when trying to dig for an answer, since it untaps three lands when it resolves. It can also be used for extra mana in a pinch by untapping a Cabal Coffers.
Hero's Downfall - Prime removal spell. Kill any creature or planeswalker, generally an auto-include for black decks.
Hinder - A solid counter spell, though with the recent rules change to prevent tucking commanders it has gotten a whole lot worse, with Dissipate being nearly strictly better at this point, and Forbid offering us extra value, making them both now better than this one.
Intuition - Sometimes this will just work similarly to another Buried Alive, but it can also do fun things like go get Academy Ruins, Crucible of Worlds, and any land we really want to have, or go get three of a same/similar effect. Generally, no matter what they choose, as long as we use this intelligently, it works in our favour.
Stroke of Genius - Almost the same as Blue Sun's Zenith, but with a slightly easier mana cost and it goes to the graveyard instead of shuffling back in.
Thirst for Knowledge - This is a great inclusion whenever the deck feels like it needs a little bit more early card draw, as it digs us pretty deep for the cost and also lets us fill the graveyard.
Cryptic Command - Often considered a staple for blue decks, it's one of the best counter spells and offers a ton of added value.
Fact or Fiction - Arguably the best option for card draw and graveyard filling in this type of deck. The mana to card ratio is really good, and we're essentially never unhappy to be casting this card.
Steam Augury - Almost a second Fact or Fiction. Playing this card can be very complex, and offers the potential for mind games upon mind games.
Cauldron Dance - This is a personal per card for me, and a really solid addition to any reanimation deck. It's expensive, but when it's good it's really good. This card is also a lot of fun to use with Archaeomancer or Izzet Chronarch, to allow for recasting every turn for fun and profit.
Careful Study - It's Faithless Looting in blue, without the Flashback. Generally worse, but not awful to have in addition.
Faithless Looting - This is a really solid card for early game draw and filling the graveyard. The Flashback on it gives this card a lot of extra value.
Reanimate - One of the best reanimation effects. The life loss can hurt sometimes, but playing this card on something scary in the first few turns can just take the game.
Demonic Tutor - The card that made us all use the word tutor for things that find things. Great card, find anything for cheap.
Diabolic Intent - This tutor is almost as good as Demonic Tutor. Sacrificing a creature is often even beneficial for us, as it allows us to reanimate it to use an ETB ability over again.
Exsanguinate - Some people believe this card should be included in any black deck, and it's definitely a really solid addition as a wincon for use with infinite mana. Gets better with more infinite mana combos added to the deck.
Buried Alive - One of our prime cards for filling the graveyard. Allows us to find any three creatures and put them into the graveyard. What cards we get with this will be different based on playstyle and game state, but a very solid choice is frequently something like Anger + Sphinx of Uthuun + Rune-Scarred Demon. This gives us haste, card draw, and a tutor effect. A solid choice for when we don't necessarily have any direct plan at that moment.
Compulsive Research - While this is certainly a solid card for drawing and filling the yard, it is also almost strictly worse than Thirst for Knowledge, purely because of the sorcery speed.
Victimize - This allows us to both return two creatures at once for only 2B, which is especially good with Kiki+Conscripts and Mike+Trike combos, and it sacrifices something else to reanimate later.
Wheel of Fortune - Effects like this, while sometimes being dangerous, are a great way to both dig through the deck and fill the graveyard. Combined with mass reanimation and a decent amount of graveyard hate (and some tricks like Notion Thief) they make for a very powerful option.
Yawgmoth's Will - This is one of the very few ways we can play in these colours for recurring enchantments, some of which are very powerful/important to us, as well as being able to recur anything else in the deck. It's really important to try to use this card at the best times, when we've got a full graveyard to choose from and our opponents aren't really in much position to cause us trouble for the turn, but sometimes it's correct to use it on just getting a specific, needed card from the graveyard.
Damnation - Even if we're frequently a big threat on the board, having a Wrath at our disposal for when we need it is a good idea. Simple preparedness.
Dread Return - This is far from the most powerful reanimation effect available to us, but it has a relatively cheap cost and has added value on the Flashback. All around solid choice.
Beacon of Unrest - Great card, allows us to reanimate a creature or artifact from any graveyard, allowing us to steal cool things from opponents when we don't have much going on in our own graveyard.
Living Death - There's no denying that this is both a cool and powerful card. It has some issues though. First, having someone nuke your grave yard in response is awful and will frequently leave you behind. Second, this is a double edged sword, and it requires us to have a fairly significant number of threats in our graveyard for it to be worthwhile and not be significantly helping our opponents. This card generally works a lot better with heavier self-mill/graveyard dump, and a higher creature count.
Time Warp - Taking an extra turn is always good, and this is the best card for this effect that we can play that can be recurred.
Capture of Jingzhou - This isn't generally worth it for the price tag attached, but it is one of the two next in line whenever an additional Time Warp is desired.
2015-03-28 Hinder --> Dissipate - Thanks to the new rules change abolishing the tucking of commanders, Dissipate is essentially strictly better, so easy swap.
2015-03-30 Dissipate --> Forbidden Alchemy - Without the added value of being able to tuck generals, I decided I just didn't really need the extra counterspell in here. The list isn't very controlling, and the counters are mostly there for "in a pinch" situations, so I don't need many. I played Alchemy before but I feel like I didn't give it enough of a chance before I ended up cutting it, so I'm trying it out again. Dread Return --> Coalition Relic - Every once in a while it was nice to have the extra reanimation spell, but I decided that between Sedris himself and the other ones I have I don't usually need it, and I felt this was the worst one of the bunch. Also, I kind of wanted to throw one more mana rock in there, and Coalition Relic seems as good a choice as any. Bojuka Bog --> Ancient Tomb - Between Nihil Spellbomb, Nezumi Graverobber, and a bunch of ways to get them both, I decided I didn't necessarily need the extra grave hate, and the extra tapped land was getting kind of annoying, so instead I'm beefing up my ramp even more.
2015-04-06 Forbidden Alchemy --> Stroke of Genius - Once again I just found myself a little underwhelmed by Alchemy most of the time. Still a solid card, but I decided I wanted another option for mass draw for the times when I don't have the life to spare for Necropotence.
2015-04-18 Sheoldred, Whispering One --> Sidisi, Undead Vizier - I'm not entirely sure about this change yet, but it seems pretty good. Sidisi is awesome, and Sheoldred is a bit slow, and often eats a removal spell before ever accomplishing much. This change also brings down the curve a bit.
2015-08-25 River Kelpie --> Intuition - I'd been a little bit underwhelmed with Kelpie overall, lately, and Intuition is a fantastic tutor/yard filler that I'd for some reason always passed over. A great inclusion here.
2015-11-07 Cauldron Dance --> Lim-Dûl's Vault - I still love the Dance, but this change helps to bring down my curve and improve my consistency a bit more.
2015-12-29 Bogardan Hellkite --> Inferno Titan - These guys do nearly the same thing, this is mostly to lower the curve a bit for those times when I'm stuck hard casting things. Necropotence --> Wheel of Fortune - I decided I wanted to try playing with some Wheel affects, and Necro is a huge nonbo with those. Cutting Necro also allows me to play more loot style effects in the future, if I want to. Lightning Greaves --> Windfall - A little sad to see Greaves go, but it ended up on the chopping block to make room for Wheels, and Windfall is a really good Wheel effect. Wurmcoil Engine --> Magus of the Wheel - Wurmcoil is really solid, and there's a really good chance I'm going to try to find a slot for it back at some point in the future. Again, this was just a matter of things that ended up on the chopping block to make room for Wheels. Damnation --> Jace's Archivist - Adding Living Death sort of makes up for taking out a wrath, and I don't really need too many wraths anyway. Wheels! Beacon of Unrest --> Living Death - Now that I'm doing a little more mass grave dumping with Wheels, Living Death seems like a better fit than ever. Honestly, it should probably have been here before, but I was pretty fine without it before, when I was filling the yard more selectively. Tezzeret the Seeker --> Agent of Erebos - With all the Wheel effects in here now, and Living Death, I wanted to add in some additional graveyard hate, and this seemed like a great choice. I'm a little sad to see Tezz go, but he was most frequently just ramp in here anyway. Crucible of Worlds --> Notion Thief - With both Tezz and Beacon gone the Crucible is a little worse, and it didn't really do THAT much anyway. it was more of just a good stuff card. Notion Thief is here strictly because it's hilarious with Wheel effects. Conjurer's Closet --> Urabrask the Hidden - Just like the Crucible, this thing got worse with both Tezz and Beacon gone. It was already the worst of the options in the deck for breaking Unearth, and Urabrask gets put in because I really wanted to be able to give my creatures haste after a Living Death. Great Furnace, Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers --> Sunken Hollow, Smoldering Marsh, Island - With Tezz gone I no longer want the artifact lands, and I had already wanted to fit in the Battle duals anyway, so this works out.
2016-03-09 Coalition Relic --> Dragon Mage - I wanted to add an additional Wheel of Fortune effect and this seemed like the next best one. It's also just a solid reanimation target, so there's that. The Relic is still great, it just came up as the easiest cut in the list.
Comrade, I too will second the opinion here. This is a fantastic layout and I love the work that you've put into it. Mad props, comrade for it.
I would also play Grixis Reanimator with Sedris, but I have found that BUG is simply a better choice because of two cards: Greater Good and Surival of the Fittest. Those two cards are really the only reason I think BUG is better. With that being said, how do you think your deck performs without these excellent cards? Are there ways at you compensate for these type of effects? Or do you think your deck still runs smoothly without them? I think these are important issues to address for other readers out there. I would be converted to Sedris, but Tasigur has commandeered my love for Reanimator AND control.
Comrade, I too will second the opinion here. This is a fantastic layout and I love the work that you've put into it. Mad props, comrade for it.
I would also play Grixis Reanimator with Sedris, but I have found that BUG is simply a better choice because of two cards: Greater Good and Surival of the Fittest. Those two cards are really the only reason I think BUG is better. With that being said, how do you think your deck performs without these excellent cards? Are there ways at you compensate for these type of effects? Or do you think your deck still runs smoothly without them? I think these are important issues to address for other readers out there. I would be converted to Sedris, but Tasigur has commandeered my love for Reanimator AND control.
Thanks a lot, appreciate it!
As for Greater Good and Survival of the Fittest, those are definitely great cards (though they're both massive nonbos with one of my favourite cards, Necropotence), but I think that what red gives us makes up for it. We can still play a ton of ways in blue to allow us to draw and dump cards, especially ones that don't actually require "discard", like Fact or Fiction and Forbidden Alchemy, and having red gives us access to things like Sneak Attack, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Zealous Conscripts, and Cauldron Dance, all of which do a ton of work. Sneak Attack especially, as it comes down early and allows us to actually get huge value off of giant creatures we're discarding before they even hit the graveyard.
Beyond that, I think that in general Sedris's ability is just much more powerful than Tasigur's.
Of those two you mentioned, though, Survival of the Fittest is certainly the one I'd rather have access to, as it ensures we can just keep dumping a steady stream of creatures into the graveyard, and that's really good.
Hey guys so I've actually moved on from commander on to 60 card decks so I don't have any commander decks.
Anyway I've started my own gameplay channel in which I play games (Magic also)
You don't see a Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur in this list because he got cut one day when I got tired of him getting removed before ever actually doing anything. He ended up getting replaced by something more threatening.
Kederekt Leviathan certainly has a powerful ability, and I should probably add him into the card options section. Don't personally like him because he also bounces all of my own things. That's especially bad with Unearth since those things all then get exiled.
Buried Alive + Sedris is also an instant win with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts. But, as I mentioned a couple times throughout, combo isn't the first priority here, and outside of combos there are just a lot of things I'd rather be playing than Palinchron.
Mystical Tutor is a fine card, but it's far from mandatory. It's a card disadvantage tutor, and it only finds instants and sorceries. The deck already has several tutors that can find anything, and they're all much better.
Yeah, I think Survival of the Fittest should secretly be a black card. If that were the case, than the heavens would burst forth into glorious song and angels would descend to crown whoever creates that card at Wizards R&D. But I digress.
I think Sedris is a much more proactive general in play style. His unearth ability is sorcery speed, which is not my preferred way to play personally. Tasigur recurs instants and sorceries to hand as I need them and is a much more reactive general, I think. That preference simply comes down to play style of the person piloting the deck. I like to counter spells and break people's combos (there are a lot of them in my group) because then the game slows down a little more and the chess and poker aspect of Magic comes out more. I don't like racing a game as much as I used to, but when the mood strikes me to do so Tasigur still alows me to win on the spot in gross fashion.
Kiki-Jiki is a strong inclsuion, one I didn't consider when I made my Grixis reanimator several months ago. That seems like it emphasizes a different type of creature that you would want to reanimate, a potential reason why Jin-Gitaxias, a broken reanimator fattie, doesn't see play here. It seems like Sedris and your particular list emphasize attacking and ETB abilities; would you agree or no?
Have you considered Sire of Insanity? Mind Twisting everybody at EOT seems pretty strong, especially since you can capitalize most from that type of effect with Sedris in play. Nicol Bolas didn't make the cut? Whew. He's death in the air; he used to be my Grixis general for a long while.
Yeah, I think Survival of the Fittest should secretly be a black card. If that were the case, than the heavens would burst forth into glorious song and angels would descend to crown whoever creates that card at Wizards R&D. But I digress.
I think Sedris is a much more proactive general in play style. His unearth ability is sorcery speed, which is not my preferred way to play personally. Tasigur recurs instants and sorceries to hand as I need them and is a much more reactive general, I think. That preference simply comes down to play style of the person piloting the deck. I like to counter spells and break people's combos (there are a lot of them in my group) because then the game slows down a little more and the chess and poker aspect of Magic comes out more. I don't like racing a game as much as I used to, but when the mood strikes me to do so Tasigur still alows me to win on the spot in gross fashion.
Kiki-Jiki is a strong inclsuion, one I didn't consider when I made my Grixis reanimator several months ago. That seems like it emphasizes a different type of creature that you would want to reanimate, a potential reason why Jin-Gitaxias, a broken reanimator fattie, doesn't see play here. It seems like Sedris and your particular list emphasize attacking and ETB abilities; would you agree or no?
Have you considered Sire of Insanity? Mind Twisting everybody at EOT seems pretty strong, especially since you can capitalize most from that type of effect with Sedris in play. Nicol Bolas didn't make the cut? Whew. He's death in the air; he used to be my Grixis general for a long while.
Your statements on Sedris being more proactive instead of reactive is certainly accurate. I even mentioned that up in my "why play Sedris" stuff. I tend to enjoy both reactive and proactive decks. For this one in particular I wanted to be proactive, so that definitely influenced the build. There are a lot of cards I mention in my options list and whatnot that I could be playing if I wanted to be more controlling, so there's definitely potential for it, it's just not what I'm going for here. I wouldn't even necessarily say this deck is about racing, so much as just being a big threat constantly. It forces a lot of decks to play defensively. That aspect, in combination with knowing what to play when, when to dump your hand, etc, causes this sort of deck to still give a lot of the "poker+chess" feel you mention. It's just a matter of who is on the offensive.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Break is definitely one of the stronger red cards here, and he does a lot. My favourite things to do with it are copying It That Betrays, Sphinx of Uthuun, Rune-Scarred Demon, and Massacre Wurm. Especially the It That Betrays. Attacking with multiples of that guy just feels so good. While Kiki-Jiki himself is not solely responsible for it, you are correct in your observation that the types of creatures included here are influenced by him and some other cards. Abusing ETB abilities is quite powerful, especially the ones on high cost creatures, most of the time.
And yeah, as I've mentioned for Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, I just don't like that he frequently eats a removal spell before every doing anything, and he doesn't even have a big scary body to go with him like It That Betrays does. Your assessments are fairly accurate.
I have not considered Sire of Insanity. I like having cards in hand and play a bunch of ways to make sure I always do. I would probably play him if his ability was on ETB instead of every EOT.
Lastly, Nicol Bolas is definitely a strong card. He's in my card options list, and it's entirely possible he'll find his way into the deck sooner or later.
Thank you for this awesome thread! I usually just lurk here but I decided to make an account to thank you. I had been getting really unhappy with my Sedris deck and didn't know what do do with it so I decided to come here and try to find some ideas for a new deck I could build instead. But then I found this thread and I feel like my Sedris deck could actually be good now and I'm excited to try your list or at least one very similar. I really like your explanations and break down and your doing with this deck exactly what I want to be doing. I'm looking forward to more updates on this in the future and I will try to post my own list when I'm happy with it.
Sire of Insanity has won me three games in my Kaalia deck, because I'm the only one who can generally take advantage of the cards I draw when every EOT every player pitches their hands. It's been a very strong inclusion for me there and I think Sedris has a loosely similar idea of what Kaalia does: cheating fat things into play. While Kaalia has a stronger way to do that, I believe, Sedris complements an entirely different strategy that enables more late game consistency than Kaalia might.
Have you considered using Wheel of Fortune effects in your deck? You're playing the best colors for those type of effects and they definitely enhance your game plan. Giving your opponent's cards is risky, for sure, but the potential to consistently dump people's hands, strategies and your own fatties to the yard seems especially powerful. Notion Thief is a fantastic card in my meta, and he would be doing some overtime in this deck if ran in conjunction with Wheels.
Also, I think it would be cool if you could add some backstory to Sedris. He's really a cool character and to be able to learn more about him would be pretty awesome. I think providing links to his backstory, or at least his Magic Wiki page, might be a good inclusion to add richness to your Primer. I did that with my Memnarch Primer, and I think it adds another element that is enjoyable to the Primer. It's not only dry analysis of cards and strategies; it's got character and intrigue. I dunno. I could be crazy, haha.
Sire of Insanity has won me three games in my Kaalia deck, because I'm the only one who can generally take advantage of the cards I draw when every EOT every player pitches their hands. It's been a very strong inclusion for me there and I think Sedris has a loosely similar idea of what Kaalia does: cheating fat things into play. While Kaalia has a stronger way to do that, I believe, Sedris complements an entirely different strategy that enables more late game consistency than Kaalia might.
I definitely don't doubt that Sire can win games, I just don't love him myself. It's just, like I said, I would rather always have cards in hand. I'd be a lot more likely to add something like a Sadistic Hypnotist to the list, and go toward more sac routes.
Have you considered using Wheel of Fortune effects in your deck? You're playing the best colors for those type of effects and they definitely enhance your game plan. Giving your opponent's cards is risky, for sure, but the potential to consistently dump people's hands, strategies and your own fatties to the yard seems especially powerful. Notion Thief is a fantastic card in my meta, and he would be doing some overtime in this deck if ran in conjunction with Wheels.
I have considered them a bit, and to be fair I guess I should add them into the card options. Personally, outside of playing mono red (which gets almost no card draw), I really don't like to play those sorts or effects. Like you said, it's risky, and I'm loathe to give other people cards. I try to avoid playing symmetrical effects as often as I can. Also, Notion Thief is a card that sees a fair amount of play in my own meta, which is part of why I really like the draw effects that don't actually say "draw" (Fact or Fiction, Necropotence, etc), and playing a Wheel effect into an opposing Notion Thief is just not something I want to have happen ever.
Also, I frequently try to get out Necropotence just about whenever I can, and Wheel effects are a huge nonbo with that.
Also, I think it would be cool if you could add some backstory to Sedris. He's really a cool character and to be able to learn more about him would be pretty awesome. I think providing links to his backstory, or at least his Magic Wiki page, might be a good inclusion to add richness to your Primer. I did that with my Memnarch Primer, and I think it adds another element that is enjoyable to the Primer. It's not only dry analysis of cards and strategies; it's got character and intrigue. I dunno. I could be crazy, haha.
I don't usually pay much attention to lore and whatnot, but I could certainly look into adding a little something somewhere up there.
Thank you for this awesome thread! I usually just lurk here but I decided to make an account to thank you. I had been getting really unhappy with my Sedris deck and didn't know what do do with it so I decided to come here and try to find some ideas for a new deck I could build instead. But then I found this thread and I feel like my Sedris deck could actually be good now and I'm excited to try your list or at least one very similar. I really like your explanations and break down and your doing with this deck exactly what I want to be doing. I'm looking forward to more updates on this in the future and I will try to post my own list when I'm happy with it.
Thank you!!!
You're quite welcome! I'm glad I could help you out with your deck, and glad you liked my thread. Can't wait to see your own list.
I personally find River Kelpie a bit dangerous to play in commander, as I at least twice punished people playing it by just circling Saffi Eriksdotter and Loyal Retainers. But it of course depends on your meta and strength of your balls
Anyway, Sedris is the best, one of my favourite commanders. Maybe, I'll post my decklist one day too.
Honestly, it's never once come up that someone's tried to kill me by making me infinitely draw off of River Kelpie. However, if someone is going to initiate any infinite loops, I would assume they're planning to win the game regardless, so it won't matter much.
Worldgorger Dragon is entirely a combo card, and without focusing on combos here there are just other things I would rather be playing. If I wanted to combo focus, he'd be here (along with the other two reanimation enchantments). Same thing goes for Oona, Queen of the Fae. These are cards that are incredibly underwhelming any time you're not comboing with them. Combo, as literally mentioned above, is plan B. It's something I only ever want to try to pull out if it becomes clear that it is the absolute only way I'm going to win.
The value of Necropotence can not be overstated. As it stands, in my list, the only thing messed up by playing it is the loot on Dack Fayden. Necro is the main reason why, as previously mentioned, I put a higher focus on things that draw cards and fill my yard without use of the word discard (Fact or Fiction, Forbidden Alchemy, etc). In many cases, these cards are better anyway, and on top of that, the value gained from Necro heavily outweighs any potential value lost by not playing some of the better among the loot and Wheel style options.
I've already covered a few posts up why I don't want to play Wheel of Fortune effects, and why I don't want to play Notion Thief.
If I were going to play anything like Leyline of Anticipation, I'd probably play Vedalken Orrery instead, purely because of the artifact type over enchantment. But I don't really have desire for an effect like this here. This isn't a control deck, nor is it intended to be. It taps out, or close to, on most turns, and that's fine. It's what it's intended to do.
I've always felt that Pact of Negation is best played in a combo deck. You don't care about having to pay for it later if you're just winning on the spot. That being said, it certainly does have some value here, especially given what I said above about frequently tapping out. Merits consideration, at least.
You're pretty articulate in making the points that you make about why you include certain cards and why not. You seem pretty fair and unbiased, and I appreciate that.
Anyways, since this is a tap-out kind of deck, I would recommend trying Sword of Feast and Famine. It helps your reanimated dudes get more value, maximizes your turn even more with the extra untap effect, causes you to create card advantage, helps your reanimated dudes get through two of the most common colors in EDH, and makes Sedris a 3 turn clock most of the time. I play it in my Memnarch list and it is fantastic, even only with one trigger. It seems like it would do some hard work here and help maximize your game plan. Of course, since it's such a powerful card it carries its own political negativity, and people will for sure be trying to stop you if you get one to resolve/stick around. The Sword breaks games, and I think it would do some awesome things here.
You're pretty articulate in making the points that you make about why you include certain cards and why not. You seem pretty fair and unbiased, and I appreciate that.
Anyways, since this is a tap-out kind of deck, I would recommend trying Sword of Feast and Famine. It helps your reanimated dudes get more value, maximizes your turn even more with the extra untap effect, causes you to create card advantage, helps your reanimated dudes get through two of the most common colors in EDH, and makes Sedris a 3 turn clock most of the time. I play it in my Memnarch list and it is fantastic, even only with one trigger. It seems like it would do some hard work here and help maximize your game plan. Of course, since it's such a powerful card it carries its own political negativity, and people will for sure be trying to stop you if you get one to resolve/stick around. The Sword breaks games, and I think it would do some awesome things here.
Thanks, I try to make sure to give every card a fair assessment.
I definitely know the power potential behind Sword of Feast and Famine. I run it in another of my decks and it's wonderful. However, the reasons it's much better there are because: 1) The other deck has a lot of small creatures, and the Sword helps to make every creature more of a threat. 2) That other deck is much more controlling, and wants to frequently leave mana open for opponents' turns.
I don't think this card would be bad here, but there really aren't any cards here that I'd rather have the Sword over.
Have you considered Flayer of the Hatebound? It has obvious synergies with your deck and can help the act of Reanimating things kill people faster.
Also, Living Death is a great card for Reanimator as well. It isn't included in your cards considered list and isn't in your decklist; I recommend at least putting it in the cards considered list.
I'm thinking Imma build a non-competitive Grixis Reanimator list with Sedris at the helm. Yay!
I think Sidisi, Undead Vizier is a good option. Being able to get creatures into your graveyard so you can Unearth or otherwise reanimate them is something that I feel is important. I made a Grixis list on Magic Workstation and I've wanted a sac outlet a few times so I could get things into my 'yard to abuse their ETB or massive game-warping effects again.
Most of the time if I want to abuse some ETB effects I go for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Deadeye Navigator. Plus there was already Disciple of Bolas I could go for when I wanted to sac something. Having the extra sac-for-value effect is certainly not bad, though. I expect I'm going to like the change. Sidisi is pretty awesome.
So I've been thinking more about building my Grixis Reanimator list in paper, and a thought occurred to me: what about Warstorm Surge and Pandemonium? Reanimator strategies are all about putting fat creatures into play, and Sedris particularly takes advantage of their power by giving them haste with his Unearth. By playing Pandemonium, because its CMC is better, you maximize the value of your Reanimator plays, add removal depth to your deck, and add a faster way to win. I personally like it a lot in theory and recommend it be added to the card choice. Think about Kiki-Jiki, Teferi's Veil, Conjurer's Closet, Sneak Attack, all of your Reanimating spells. It seems like ths kind of an effect would be particularly strong. What do you think? It might seem like win-more, but I think more often it will be removal. That's how I would consider it, anyways, a removal spell that kills your opponent's creatures and can sometimes put your creatures into the 'yard.
He bids his minions rise from their graves to their knees.
1.2. The Decision
3.2. Plan B (Combo)
3.3. Plan ...C? (????)
3.4. The King Himself
3.5. Game Breakdown
4.2. Creatures
4.3. Artifacts
4.4. Enchantments
4.5. Planeswalkers
4.6. Instants
4.7. Sorceries
So, I acquired the foil Sedris, and started to build my list. My first list, quite frankly, wasn't great, but I was still having fun playing it. After a time I ended up getting a bit bored. My first Sedris build ended up feeling very much like a Grixis version of my Jenara deck, and so I ended up taking it apart a few months after building it, and built myself a Ghave, Guru of Spores deck. Sometime later I was playing one night with some friends, and one of those friends mentioned wanting to build a new deck, and we got talking, and I showed him Sedris. He liked him, but not enough to build a deck with him. But then I got thinking about the list, how I could make it better than it had been, what new cards I'd add from the sets that had come out since I'd taken it apart... and suddenly, I really wanted to rebuild it, to make it good. And so Sedris became both my second and fourth physical EDH deck.
This is that much better list. It's certainly not perfect, and I'm still making slight tweaks to it every now and then, but I'm quite happy with it, and it performs very well. The deck is quite powerful, is capable of being threatening at every stage of the game, and beyond that, there are just some things the deck can do that give me much, much joy. Like that time I played and attacked with six It That Betrays in a turn. Or that time I played against a Karona, False God deck, and when it came under my control I played a Teferi's Veil and never gave it back. Point is, the deck is a blast to play, and I hope others get the same enjoyment out of it that I do.
And that brings us here. If the information here helps someone new to Sedris get some joy out of him, or helps a Sedris veteran to breathe some new life into their list, then the effort is worth it. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences with this list or similar.
That's a pretty important question. First, a quick rundown on Sedris himself. Sedris is easily one of the most powerful reanimation generals around. His ability is reasonably costed and allows for reanimating as many creatures in a turn as we have mana for. He's in a fantastic colour combination, giving us access to tons of great creatures for reanimating, plenty of counter and draw, and all the best tutors. On top of that, he's got a reasonable body for his cost, and can just beat down an opponent himself when nobody's looking.
Second, let's do some comparing. For someone who wants to build a reanimation EDH deck, there are a number really good options, each of which has its own merits and demerits. A few of the best of those options are Karador, Ghost Chieftain, The Mimeoplasm, and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. Each of those is a powerful card in a great colour combination to allow for a very powerful deck. So let's do a quick analysis:
Karador, Ghost Chieftain - This guy is very much like a Junk/Abzan equivalent of Sedris. Just like Sedris, he allows for recurring creatures from your graveyard, though somewhat more inclined toward small value creatures instead of fatties and large threats. Some key differences:
The Mimeoplasm - This one shares more colours with Sedris, which can cause a lot more card overlap between the two. However, Mimeoplasm decks are very frequently built as combo decks. In those cases, Mimeoplasm is quite different, so let's focus on more "fair" reanimator builds of Mimeoplasm. With that in mind, some key differences:
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - Despite sharing the same colours as The Mimeoplasm, the really interesting thing about a Sidisi reanimator deck is that, instead of giving you a reanimation/recursion effect, she gives you an enabler on your general. When you've got nothing else, she can fill your graveyard for you, along with giving you a little added value when she does. So, let's compare:
That's a quick rundown of how Sedris stacks up against a few of his biggest counterparts. The biggest benefit of playing Sedris over the others is the ability to just win out of nowhere, without a combo. Sedris has the potential to just dump your entire graveyard on the table and win when the opportunity arises, making him a constant threat throughout the game. It is worth noting, though, that at six mana his cost can be a bit prohibitive at times.
Other Grixis Generals
Reasons you may enjoy playing Sedris
Strengths
1 Sedris, the Traitor King
Lands (35)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Badlands
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Command Tower
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Drowned Catacomb
3 Island
1 Mana Confluence
2 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Steam Vents
1 Strip Mine
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Sunken Hollow
2 Swamp
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volcanic Island
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
1 Watery Grave
1 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Jace's Archivist
1 Magus of the Wheel
1 Trinket Mage
1 Agent of Erebos
1 Anger
1 Archaeomancer
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Notion Thief
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Body Double
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Duplicant
1 Inferno Titan
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Dragon Mage
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
1 Thraximundar
1 It That Betrays
Artifacts (10)
1 Mana Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Izzet Signet
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Talisman of Indulgence
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Animate Dead
1 Teferi's Veil
1 Sneak Attack
Planeswalker (2)
1 Dack Fayden
1 Liliana Vess
Instants (12)
1 Entomb
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
1 Mana Drain
1 Counterflux
1 Crosis's Charm
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Intuition
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Cryptic Command
1 Fact or Fiction
Sorceries (8)
1 Reanimate
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Buried Alive
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Living Death
1 Time Warp
Plan A also has a sub-plan. The only thing better than cheating gross things onto the field is getting to keep them, too. Sometimes after sneaking something onto the table, having it die at the end of the turn makes you sad inside. Digging things up only to watch them get exiled brings a little tear to your eye. That's where cards like Teferi's Veil (and some others) come in. These cards break things like Sneak Attack, Sedris, and Whip of Erebos, by allowing us to keep the things we've cheated onto the field. This allows us to easily build a huge board presence and not need to continually dump our hands or empty our graveyards to remain a threat.
• Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts = Infinite hasty 3/3s
• Deadeye Navigator + Zealous Conscripts + Gilded Lotus = Infinite mana and steal all permanents on the table
• Deadeye Navigator/Conjurer's Closet/Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Archaeomancer + Time Warp = Infinite turns
It is worth noting, at this point, that the "Mike + Trike" combo has been intentionally excluded. With a stronger focus on combo, this would likely be included in the deck. The key reason this is excluded while the others aren't is simply a matter of individual card value. With those other three combos, all of the involved cards do wonderful things for us on their own. They're always going to be good, independent of the combos they're a part of. While there could probably be an argument for Mikaeus, the Unhallowed in the deck, Triskelion is a card that just usually does little to nothing on its own. However, in a meta rife with 1 toughness creatures, Triskelion could become much more useful by itself, and adding this combo would be perfectly reasonable.
However, because we still want to cheat, in any matches where you know one of the aforementioned hateful cards to be played, it's often a good idea to hold on to certain pieces of counter magic or removal (Crosis's Charm being particular good in this case), so that when those things do get played we can make sure they never hit the table or don't last long when they do.
In general, there are three things this deck really wants to see in an opening hand:
1) Some early game way to dump something scary into our graveyard (Entomb, Buried Alive, Dack Fayden, Fact or Fiction, etc) along with a cheap reanimation spell. One of the most powerful starts the deck can have is turn 1 Entomb followed by turn 2 Animate Dead or Reanimate. What we go get in that situation depends a lot on the decks we're playing against, the rest of our hand, and various other factors. That being said, Consecrated Sphinx, It That Betrays, or Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur are usually prime choices.
2) Plenty of ramp. Ramping is always good, and trying to quickly get ourselves up to 6-9 mana is incredibly helpful for when we don't have anything to populate our graveyard or to cheat things out of our hand. In these sorts of hands it's also really nice to have something that will draw us cards once we've dumped our hand, or a tutor to get us whatever we need.
3) Cheap card draw. Once we've dumped our hands we're going to need a refill, so things like Fact or Fiction and Necropotence are fantastic here. Assuming we have enough ramp, even Stroke of Genius will be great, since after some ramp and land drops we should be able to get it off for at least 4, hopefully more. We ideally want to move out of the early game with a full hand.
The early game here should be dedicated pretty heavily to ramp. We want to get as much mana as we can on the table, hitting as many early land drops as we can and using any tutors in the first few turns to make sure that happens. Once we have that, our hand is going to be pretty bare, so here we ideally want to refill our hand. From there we're ready to progress into making people hate us.
Here are some samples of great hands and their first four turns:
Turn 1: Bloodstained Mire, fetch Badlands, Sol Ring
Turn 2: Tapped Watery Grave, Buried Alive, putting Anger, Rune-Scarred Demon, It That Betrays into the graveyard
Turn 3: Sulfur Falls, Beacon of Unrest targeting It That Betrays, attack
Turn 4: Phantasmal Image copying It That Betrays, attack
At this point, we're either way, way ahead, or we've already won. If someone was holding removal and stopped our It That Betrays plan, the next plan at this point is to play Sedris, Unearth Rune-Scarred Demon, and go find more fun things to do. If we've already drawn another way to dump creatures, we can go get Teferi's Veil to start building persistent board presence, or Necropotence to refill our hand, etc.
Sample Hand 2: Command Tower, Creeping Tar Pit, Island, Vampiric Tutor, Fact or Fiction, River Kelpie, Archaeomancer
Turn 1: Command Tower, Vampiric Tutor finding Mana Crypt
Turn 2: Island, Mana Crypt, Fact or Fiction
Turn 3: Creeping Tar Pit, Archaeomancer returning Fact or Fiction
Turn 4: River Kelpie
We've still got a good number of cards in hand with multiple solid ways to keep drawing more, as well as having a couple of bodies on the table to attack or block as necessary. The odds are very good at this point that we've drawn some more land to play, and thanks to Fact or Fiction we either have some creatures in the graveyard, or some way to make it happen. from here, we can play Sedris and start to Unearth things.
Mid and Late Game
Once we get to the mid game we should be fully ready to start executing Plan A. To do this we want to prioritize getting things into our graveyard first, and then either play Sedris or another reanimation spell, and then find Teferi's Veil or Conjurer's Closet as quickly as we can. With a Teferi's Veil and Sedris on the table, we start to take over the game very, very quicky. As soon as we're that far, the quickest way to close out the game will just be to beat people's faces in. Wash, rinse, and repeat until we win.
If we get into the late, late game, and Plan A still hasn't done the job, that when we're going to want to seriously consider pulling out Plan B. If they've managed to stop us from killing them for that long, then there's a good chance that our best bet at this point is to combo off and just take them out. Of course, sometimes this will just happen by accident through the normal course of the game, and we'll combo much sooner.
It's important to keep in mind that a large part of why combo is Plan B is because it's vulnerable. When we try to combo off and someone has just the right cards to stop us, we're left in a very bad spot. Plan A is significantly more resilient in most cases. However, once we've gotten to that late, late game, most of the table will be out of answers, and it will become much easier to get a game winning combo off without hindrance.
So, with that in mind, here is a list of cards. Bold names indicate that the card is in the current incarnation of this list. This is certainly not a complete list of every card that could be in this deck, but more accurately a list of all the cards that are in this list, have been in this list, or have been considered for this list. Any and all suggestion for other cards to be added here are more than welcome.
Lands
Shocklands - Blood Crypt, Steam Vents, and Watery Grave. Almost as good as the original duals.
On Colour Fetchlands - Bloodstained Mire, Scalding Tarn, Polluted Delta. These are at their best when we've got the dual lands and shocklands to go with them. Great for making sure we get the colours we need, they thin the deck, and they can be used in conjuction with Crucible of Worlds to ensure hitting land drops.
Off Colour Fetchlands - This one really comes down to a matter of preference. That being said, they're only worth running with the full set of duals and shocks, otherwise they're just not worth it. Having the extra fetchlands gives you some extra deck thinning, which is especially helpful when a build has a higher land count.
Core Duals/Check Lands - Dragonskull Summit, Sulfur Falls, and Drowned Catacomb. Sometimes they come into play tapped, but they're still solid lands.
Battle Duals - Sunken Hollow and Smoldering Marsh (with presumably a third to come). Super solid extra set of basic typed duals. Great for fetching.
Any Colour Painlands - City of Brass, Mana Confluence, and Grand Coliseum. While the Coliseum can tap for mana without hurting, coming in tapped makes it by far the worst of the three. Most of the time the pain is worth the fixing.
Filter Lands - Graven Cairns, Cascade Bluffs, Sunken Ruins. These are fine lands to play, especially when lacking duals and/or fetches. They can really help with the colour fixing.
Artifact Lands - Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers, and Great Furnace. These are purely here because they can be tutored onto the battlefield with Tezzeret the Seeker, or into hand with Trinket Mage. Nice to have when we happen to need that extra fixing, ramp, or just to make a land drop.
Basic Lands - Island, Swamp, and Mountain. Obvious inclusions. Always a good idea to play at least 2 of each to find off of Path to Exile or Ghost Quarter, and to grab off of the fetchlands when need be.
Academy Ruins - This is generally a staple land. Allows us to recur artifacts out of the graveyard, which is always handy.
Bojuka Bog - Fantastic piece of graveyard hate. Comes into play tapped, which can be unfortunate sometimes, but after that it taps for B, and even if it didn't, having this ability "for free" often makes up for the downside.
Cabal Coffers - Sometimes this card won't do a whole lot, but once you've got an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the table it does a whole bunch. Can't really go wrong with big mana.
Command Tower - The essential land for every multi-colour deck. Printed specifically for the format, it needs no introduction.
Creeping Tar Pit - This card is nice to have around for those odd times when we need to sneak some damage in on a planeswalker, or surprise protect one of our own.
Crumbling Necropolis - Unfortunate that it comes into play tapped, but it makes all of our colours with no other downside. Strictly worse than Command Tower, but still well worth having.
Phyrexian Tower - This can give us an extra little bit of ramp when we need it, but its most important use is as a sacrifice effect for our important creatures in response to exile and tuck/shuffle effects.
Reflecting Pool - Most of the time this will just be a second Command Tower.
Reliquary Tower - Staple card, should be in just about every EDH deck. Especially good with Necropotence and Consecrated Sphinx.
Strip Mine - Every now and then an opponent has a land that just needs to go. Often this will be things like Reliquary Tower, Gaea's Cradle, and opposing Cabal Coffers. This can also really punish people in conjunction with Crucible of Worlds.
Wasteland - This card is just a strictly worse Strip Mine, but it's much better than the other options, and it's nice to have backup.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - A black staple land. Does good things on its own, giving us plenty of black mana, and it does wonderful things with Cabal Coffers and things with Swampwalk.
Volrath's Stronghold - This card is fantastic to have around for those odd times when we have no reanimation handy and we really need/want a creature out of the graveyard.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All - This is a great land and very nice to have in metas with a lot of counter magic and in lists with big instants and sorceries that you really don't want countered.
Buried Ruin - Given that we can play Academy Ruins in this deck, this card will frequently just be worse. It does mesh very well with Crucible of Worlds, though.
Ancient Tomb - Hurts every time we use it (excluding times with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the table), but it also ramps for free. All around solid card.
Desolate Lighthouse - The opportunity cost for playing this card is very low, and whenever there's room for it it's a great card to play, as it gives a repeatable looting effect when we've got nothing else going on.
Phantasmal Image - Being able to copy our big scary things for only 1U is really nice. Getting extra tutors off of Rune-Scarred Demon, extra Fact or Fiction off of Sphinx of Uthuun, etc. It's one of the best Clones ever printed.
Snapcaster Mage - Frequently a blue staple. Being able to recur any of our instants and sorceries in a pinch, especially counter spells, is really powerful and versatile.
Jace's Archivist - Repeatable Windfall attached to a body is good times. Extra good off of Unearth, since it can be brought back with haste, used, and then forgotten.
Magus of the Wheel - It's a little bit unfortunate that this guy sacrifices himself to activate, but he's still an excellent extra Wheel effect, and just like the Archivist, he's great to Unearth.
Treasure Mage - This card is great to have if you have enough solid targets for it. I found that just Duplicant and Wurmcoil Engine weren't enough. But with the addition of more 6+ artifacts this would probably be worth finding a spot for.
Trinket Mage - The majority of the time this guy is just going to go find a Sol Ring or a Mana Crypt, and that's awesome. When it's not those it can still go grab Nihil Spellbomb, Sensei's Divining Top, Scrabbling Claws, etc, or even the artifact lands when needed. Great card.
Agent of Erebos - Graveyard hate is always good, and having a creature that nukes an entire yard on enter is fantastic. Getting to nuke more off of other Enchantments entering is just gravy.
Anger - Haste is a wonderful thing, and being able to give it to everything is lovely. It's often one of the cards you'll want to grab off of a Buried Alive, and sometimes off an Entomb when you don't really need anything else.
Archaeomancer - This guy is pretty self-explanatory, let's us recur instants and sorceries from the graveyard. Great for getting back things we want to cast again, or getting back things we never got to cast in the first place. Beyond this, this guy has two really good interactions. 1) Cauldron Dance + Archaeomancer + something else sweet. This allows you to recast Cauldron Dance every turn, and keep getting value or big attacks off of the other creature you pair with this. 2) Allows for infinite turns with Time Warp and any way to reuse his ability every turn (Deadeye Navigator, Conjurer's Closet, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, etc).
Body Snatcher - This is a really neat card, as it both lets us put a creature into our graveyard and later reanimate one. It's single use is a bit bothersome, though. This card is best in lists with more sac outlets.
Clever Impersonator - Arguably the best Clone ever printed. Being able to copy any nonland permanent is insane. Sometimes it copy our own sweet things, and sometimes it copies an opponent's sweet thing. Either way, it's just about always good.
Disciple of Bolas - This card is fantastic. Most of the time the best use for it is to sacrifice something that is about to die at end of turn anyway, or something we want to be able to reanimate. Usually draws at least 5 cards and gains a chunk of life.
Glen Elendra Archmage - This card is really good, and is always a fine inclusion. If this particular list were built with a bigger control package this card would likely be an auto-include.
Notion Thief - This card is mostly only good with variants of the deck that play Wheel of Fortune style effects. But when it's good, it's really good.
Phyrexian Metamorph - Another one of the best Clones ever printed. Not quite as good as Clever Impersonator, but it can still copy both creatures and artifacts, and can be cast for 3 and 2 life in a pinch, which is really nice. A favourite play with this card is Gilded Lotus into this guy copying the Lotus.
Solemn Simulacrum - Many people say that this guy is a staple for 99% of EDH decks, and I tend to agree. He ramps, he chump block like a champ, and draws a card when he dies. Great for recurring later, too.
Venser, Shaper Savant - Being able to temporarily deal with any permanent or spell (including uncounterable ones) is a really powerful ability, especially when it's something we can recur/repeat with multiple effects we're playing.
Wonder - This is a card that I end up trying to find a spot for every time I make changes to the deck, but it really just ends up coming down to the fact that most of the time the extra evasion isn't needed. Still, it's entirely possible it will find its way into the list eventually.
Body Double - In essence, this guy is just another reanimation spell. Cloning a creature in a graveyard allows us to recur one of our most valuable threats without exposing it to things like Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile. On top of that, having this guy in play along with Deadeye Navigator or Conjurer's Closet allows us to keep flickering him and then copying whichever creature in a graveyard is most useful at the time.
Chainer, Dementia Master - Chainer can make for a solid Sedris alternative. He comes down a little cheaper, especially if it's not the first time casting Sedris, but his cost for reanimating things is harder, with the triple black, and it hurts on top of that. The biggest issue, though, is that anything we bring back with Chainer is vulnerable. An opponent can take out our board with a single targeted removal spell, and then our things even all get exiled. Solid card, but high risk.
Izzet Chronarch - Just another Archaeomancer. Slightly bigger body, slightly higher cost. Unless you need/want the redundancy of having two of them, this guy usually loses out between the two purely based on the higher cost.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - This guy is incredibly powerful. Just like the Clones, allows us to copy the big scary things we play, as well as getting in for extra damage. On top of that he's also a key part of one of our combos, and an optional part of another.
Mulldrifter - Great for an extra little bit of card draw. Evoke it early and recur it later.
Phyrexian Delver - Basically the black equivalent of Karmic Guide, really solid card. Especially good for bringing back with Unearth, since we don't care necessarily if this guy gets exiled, but we can use the Delver himself to return something we really want to keep around.
Puppeteer Clique - Biggest issue with this card is that it can only take things from opponents' graveyards. Largely a meta call, based on how frequently an opponent's graveyard will have something sweet/powerful/awesome to steal.
River Kelpie - This guy doesn't do a whole lot at once, but he does an awful lot over time. Every time any spell is cast from a graveyard or any permanent enters the battlefield from the graveyard, including itself, it draws a card. Great way to keep our hands full when dumping and reanimating things. It can be a bit risky, though, since any player initiating a death loop while this is on the table will mill us out.
Sadistic Hypnotist - This is a very powerful card, and probably an auto-include in a list with a heavier focus on sacrificing its own things. Still, the effect is powerful enough that this card may find a slot.
Shriekmaw - Same deal as Mulldrifter, except Doom Blade instead of Divination. Evoke early, recur later. This guy ended up getting dropped from this list purely because the "nonblack creature" condition can be a bigger problem in certain metas.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier - This card is pretty cool. It's a pretty solid body for the cost, and her Exploit tutor is really good, especially when sacrificing things like Wurmcoil Engine.
Urabrask the Hidden - Along with Anger, this is one of the best options for a deck like this to give the whole team Haste. Goes extra well with Living Death.
Zealous Conscripts - Obviously this card is integral in two our combos, but even outside of that this card is fantastic. A favourite use for him is permanently stealing opponents' creatures, when using this guy in conjunction with Teferi's Veil, Deadeye Navigator, or Conjurer's Closet.
Consecrated Sphinx - Frequently considered a blue staple card. Sometimes it just eats a removal, but when it doesn't it just draws too many cards. Too many.
Deadeye Navigator - Some people love this card and some people hate it. It's one of the most common targets for ban whining, and it's easy to see why. It is important to note that this guy is not as invulnerable as some people believe he is. An opponent can respond to the Soulbond trigger, which is when this guy is left vulnerable. However, "it dies to removal" has always been a flawed argument, and when this guy sticks around he just takes over the game, plain and simple.
Duplicant - Another staple, generally speaking. Gets around protection from colours and indestructible, eats a lot of big threats and great for copying/recurring.
Flayer of the Hatebound - This guy is a pretty nifty card, and his ability pretty obviously goes nicely with the reanimation theme. That being said, when we're not reanimating a bunch of things he does little to nothing, and has a body very underwhelming for his cost.
Frost Titan - While really mice to have in a more controlling build of the deck, in this particular build he's not entirely ideal, though still very powerful. A solid inclusion.
Grave Titan - This is a great card, especially in a variant with more focus on sacrificing its own creatures, since he makes all kinds of zombies. Most of the ways to cheat him onto the field leave behind 4 zombies to play with, which is nice.
Inferno Titan - He offers direct damage, split up, which is great for killing small creatures (especially blockers), or taking out planeswalkers. Additionally, his firebreathing can just straight up kill people when we've got a lot of red mana to dump into him.
Kokusho, the Evening Star - Just like with a bunch of the cards on this list, this card is solid in a list that wants to sac its own creatures. The nonbo with Sedris's unearth is certainly disappointing, though.
Massacre Wurm - This thing is absolutely fantastic. It's often a win-condition on its own against things like tokens decks and whatnot, and even against other decks its fantastic. Especially when pairing it with a way to copy or recur it multiple times.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - This guy serves as a part of the "Mike + Trike" combo. On his own he's got a powerful effect, but it doesn't mesh with Unearth, and it would be much better with more sac effects.
Triskelion - The other part of the "Mike + Trike" combo. Fine card in a meta with a lot of 1 toughness creatures, but otherwise not great outside of the combo.
Vela the Night-Clad - This is a cool card to run because it gives the whole team some evasion as well as allowing for some damage whenever someone casts a board wipe. A fine card to play if the evasion is needed, but often not the best choice.
Wurmcoil Engine - Often referred to as the "6th Titan", this guy certainly deserves to be ranked among them. He just does a lot of great things, and is a favourite for sacrificing to Disciple of Bolas or copying with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
Dragon Mage - With the number of ways this deck can cheat creates into play with Haste, it becomes relatively easy to connect with this regularly, giving yet another Wheel of Fortune effect that also does a decent bit of damage.
Palinchron - This guy can enable some infinite mana combos with things like Deadeye Navigator and whatnot, but outside of combos he's not all that great. Not a bad choice for a more controlling build, though, that wants to always try to keep up mana on opponents' turns.
Rune-Scarred Demon - This thing is Demonic Tutor on a big scary demon and it's awesome. It's not unusual to get upwards of 4 tutors off of this guy throughout a game, between copying, recurring, etc. Absolutely fantastic card, definitely a must.
Sheoldred, Whispering One - Forces your opponents to sac creatures and allows you to reanimate one every upkeep. On top of that, it's a big body with evasion. Super solid card, usually an auto-include.
Sphinx of Uthuun - Very comparable with Rune-Scarred Demon, this thing will frequently give you 3 to 5 Fact or Fictions in a game, and that goes a long way. Keeps your hand full, your graveyard full, and it's a big flying body. Auto-include.
Thraximundar - This is one of the better early reanimation targets, since it has haste on its own and eats creatures, and an early Thrax can take out an opponent very quickly if unanswered. Also meshes very well with It That Betrays, one of the deck's best threats.
Avatar of Woe - This thing can be very powerful in a list that needs more removal and/or fills its own graveyard more. The ability to play it for BB actually comes up significantly less frequently than one might think/hope.
Bogardan Hellkite - An excellent source of direct damage, for taking out planeswalkers or low health opponents. Gives you a lot of added reach, especially in combination with copy and recursion effects. Beyond that, the Flash is not irrelevant at all, and will come in handy every now and then.
Kederekt Leviathan - This guy has a powerful ETB ability, but returning everything instead of just opponents' things doesn't put us nearly as far ahead as some other things could. It also nonbos with Unearthed things, since all of those things will then get exiled.
Nicol Bolas - The original big bad Elder Dragon. When he can be cheated in early he can usually eat a full hand and really hurt somebody's feelings. He won't usually make it long enough to eat a second hand, but by then he's still done his job.
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur - A prime choice for early reanimation. If somebody isn't immediately holding removal, getting this guy out in the first few turns can get us waaaaay ahead, and even getting him out later does a great job of refilling our hand. A lot of the time, though, he'll eat a removal spell before every actually doing anything, and that always feels bad.
It That Betrays - Arguably the best non-legendary Eldrazi, and while those guys might be better, their shuffle effect really messes with our plan. This guy can easily take over games on his own, and gets insane when playing it with Clones and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Attacking with multiples of this guy feels really, really good.
Tormod's Crypt - Great graveyard hate, tutorable with Trinket Mage, free to tutor with Tezzeret the Seeker.
Nihil Spellbomb - One of the better pieces of graveyard hate. Comparable to Tormod's Crypt, but often a little better because it can draw a card.
Scrabbling Claws - This cars is frequently overlooked in favour of Relic of Progenitus, but is generally preferable here as it doesn't nuke our own graveyard in the process.
Sensei's Divining Top - A general EDH staple. Great for top deck manipulation, smoothing out draws, and drawing in a pinch. Even better with shuffle effects.
Sol Ring - Another of the best mana rocks ever printed, this card should be in every EDH deck ever.
Dimir Signet - The signets are great mana rocks, widely loved and considered stapled. Choosing between these and Talismans really comes down to a matter of preference choice.
Rakdos Signet - Same as above.
Izzet Signet - Same as above, though this one usually gets included along with the Talismans, due to a lack of enemy-colour Talismans.
Talisman of Dominance - These Talismans can't make two colours at once like the the Signets can, but they have a big advantage in that they can tap for mana on their own, which is nice.
Talisman of Indulgence - Same as above.
Lightning Greaves - Frequently considered a staple card, these boots are great to have around for both the haste and the protection they offer. Helps to protect the threats we really want to try to keep around, like Deadeye Navigator, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, etc.
Sundial of the Infinite - This is another really solid way to abuse the abilities on our cheat effects, but the fact that it doesn't really offer any extra value beyond that makes it a little worse than Conjurer's Closet and Teferi's Veil.
Coalition Relic - This is a really solid mana rock and often the next inclusion whenever the deck feels light on ramp. Being able to get two mana off of this when needed is really good, and people very often tend to forget that you can, giving you some options where you can surprise your opponent with something bigger than they expected.
Crucible of Worlds - This card is a great way to recur lands that end up in our yards off of things like Fact or Fiction and whatnot, and it can be used really well in conjunction with fetchlands, to thin the deck and ensure land dropds, and with Strip Mine/Wasteland, which can really punish people sometimes.
Oblivion Stone - Every once in a while we're going to be behind on board and need to hit the rest button. This is that reset button. We can even play it into our own decent board state and slowly put Fate counters on the things we care about, and then pop it to get ourselves ahead.
Whip of Erebos - This card does two really great things for this deck. All that text is just a copy of the Unearth reminder text, and it serves as a bit of backup for Sedris's ability when we need it, and it gives our whole team Lifelink, which counts for a lot given how much some of the cards in this deck hurt itself, and tends to gain a lot since we're swinging with big scary creatures. It's also a fairly unthreatening card in many players' opinions, so it often gets to stick around for a while unhindered.
Conjurer's Closet - The primary purpose of this card is to remove the downside from Unearth and other cheat effects (by flickering them before they were be exiled or sacrificed), but it also offers a lot of added value by flickering our sweet ETB effects. It's another card that comes off as being pretty unthreatening, so it gets to stick around a lot of the time.
Gilded Lotus - Big mana rock, can go a long way toward casting our big things outright when we need to, and it comes with Deadeye Navigator and Zealous Conscripts. It's also really nice to have around for copying with Phyrexian Metamorph or Clever Impersonator.
Dance of the Dead - This is almost always going to be worse than Animate Dead, mostly because of the extra cost needed to untap the creature, but it does at least give a little pump. It's not a bad choice for an extra reanimation spell when wanted/needed.
Compulsion - This is a really solid card. It comes down early and allows us to both dig through the deck and put big scary things into our graveyard for reanimation purposes. It's fairly rare that the second ability will be used, but it's nice to have in a pinch or in response to removal when we're losing it anyway.
Teferi's Veil - The best thing about this card is how good it is in this deck, while being almost awful in most other decks. The primary purpose, of course, is to break most of our effects for cheating creatures into play. Phasing is a little bit weird, so to give a bit more explanation: While this is on the table, every time we attack, a delayed trigger is created for each creature that attacks, and at the end of combat that trigger will resolve, causing that creature to phase out. This will cause the game to treat the card as though it no longer exists. The cards to not leave the battlefield, they don't re-enter later, they just stop existing, and then they phase back in at beginning of your next untap step, before you untap. While these creatures are phased out, they can't be targeted, their abilities can't be triggered or activated, etc. For all intents and purposes they just stop existing until they phase back in. So, while the primary purpose of this card is to allow us to keep things after Unearth, Sneak Attack, Cauldron Dance, etc., it also serves the secondary purpose of wrath protection, since they aren't there to be destroyed during your opponents' turns. An important note: while this will stop Unearthed things from being exiled at end of turn, they will still be exiled if/when they do eventually leave the battlefield.
Necromancy - Essentially another Animate Dead. Costs a little more, but can be cast at instant speed in a pinch. It's a fine alternative, or a great extra.
Necropotence - While this can hurt sometimes by exiling anything discarded, and it turns off looting effects, the insane amount of card draw it offers is beyond worth it. Being able to refill our hand at the end of every turn can get us way ahead. It's worth noting, though, that playing this in a Wheel of Fortune variant of the deck is probably not a great idea.
Phyrexian Arena - Frequently a black staple. Drawing extra cards is always nice.
Stranglehold - This is a very powerful card and shuts down a lot of what a lot of people want to do. It's a great card to play, but it tends to attract a lot of hate, and it tends to work out a little bit better in more controlling builds.
Sneak Attack - Definitely an auto-include for this deck. It allows us to cheat big scary things onto the field with haste, and then reanimate them again after they die. Thoroughly fantastic card.
Dawn of the Dead - This is a really neat card, and gets even better when you have a sacrifice effect to go with it (or a Conjurer's Closet or Teferi's Veil to prevent the creatures it brings back from being exiled at the end of the turn.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Obviously one of the best planeswalkers ever printed. Free Brainstorm every turn is very powerful, and his other abilities are definitely not irrelevant. He's especially good in more controlling builds and in combination with shuffle effects.
Liliana Vess - One of the staple cards for black decks, this gives us some extra tutoring capabilities, as well as the ability to both disrupt opponents' hands and dump our own big scary things into the graveyard. On top of that, every now and then her ultimate will allow us to just outright win games.
Tezzeret the Seeker - This guy gives us a great way to tutor up our utility artifacts, as well as artifact lands when we need them, and his ability to untap artifacts can give us large amounts of ramp with things like Gilded Lotus and Sol Ring.
Karn Liberated - A solid option for just about any deck. He eats people's hands, he can exile any permanent, and sometimes he just wins the game on his own.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker - Big bad Bolas. He does a lot of really good things, and he's a great inclusion for any Grixis deck. Bearing in mind, his cost can be somewhat prohibitive.
Vampiric Tutor - One of the best tutors printed. Should often be an auto-include in any black deck.
Cyclonic Rift - This card serves for us as both another reset button (one that frequently gets us way, way ahead), and sometimes it's just nice to temporarily deal with problematic Enchantments, since these colours don't give us a whole lot of ways to deal with them.
Izzet Charm - The Careful Study and Spell Pierce modes on this card are both solid, and the Dead mode can be useful every now and then.
Lim-Dûl's Vault - This is almost like another tutor. This card with often be very comparable to a Vampiric Tutor, usually costing more life but also giving much more information. It's really nice to be able to set up upcoming draws as well as find the card you need. This is better with redundant effects, so that you can dig until you find one of a set of cards, instead of only one specific card.
Mana Drain - The best counter. An auto-include for all those who can afford it. Strictly better than Counterspell. Countering something with it in the early game can get us way ahead quickly.
Reality Shift - Really solid removal, deals nicely with indestructible or pro black creatures. It can also be used to mess with people's top deck manipulation, which is a bit of extra value now and then.
Terminate - A perfectly solid removal spell. Instant speed, kill any creature. Great inclusion when that little bit of extra removal is desired.
Blue Sun's Zenith - A solid option for mass draw. This can also be used as a win condition with an infinite mana combo.
Counterflux - This is a fantastic card to hang onto against opposing blue decks, when we want to really, really make sure that something we cast doesn't get countered, or we really want to make sure something an opponent casts doesn't happen. Every now and then the overload will become relevant, as an answer to Storm-based wincons and the like.
Crosis's Charm - A really good card all around, with all three modes being relevant and nice to have. It's often best to avoid using this as a Doom Blade or a Shatter unless really necessary, since being able to bounce a problematic Enchantment at a key moment can be the difference between winning and losing.
Dissipate - Solid counter, exiles whatever it counters to prevent recursion and whatnot. Very solid.
Forbid - One of the better counters for us, as we can dump fatties to it for Buyback, giving us both a way to put things into the graveyard and a recurring counter.
Forbidden Alchemy - This card is great for both digging to find the things we want/need, as well as letting us fill our graveyard. It even has flashback, for extra value.
Frantic Search - Another solid option for looting. It's especially good when trying to dig for an answer, since it untaps three lands when it resolves. It can also be used for extra mana in a pinch by untapping a Cabal Coffers.
Hero's Downfall - Prime removal spell. Kill any creature or planeswalker, generally an auto-include for black decks.
Hinder - A solid counter spell, though with the recent rules change to prevent tucking commanders it has gotten a whole lot worse, with Dissipate being nearly strictly better at this point, and Forbid offering us extra value, making them both now better than this one.
Intuition - Sometimes this will just work similarly to another Buried Alive, but it can also do fun things like go get Academy Ruins, Crucible of Worlds, and any land we really want to have, or go get three of a same/similar effect. Generally, no matter what they choose, as long as we use this intelligently, it works in our favour.
Stroke of Genius - Almost the same as Blue Sun's Zenith, but with a slightly easier mana cost and it goes to the graveyard instead of shuffling back in.
Thirst for Knowledge - This is a great inclusion whenever the deck feels like it needs a little bit more early card draw, as it digs us pretty deep for the cost and also lets us fill the graveyard.
Cryptic Command - Often considered a staple for blue decks, it's one of the best counter spells and offers a ton of added value.
Fact or Fiction - Arguably the best option for card draw and graveyard filling in this type of deck. The mana to card ratio is really good, and we're essentially never unhappy to be casting this card.
Steam Augury - Almost a second Fact or Fiction. Playing this card can be very complex, and offers the potential for mind games upon mind games.
Cauldron Dance - This is a personal per card for me, and a really solid addition to any reanimation deck. It's expensive, but when it's good it's really good. This card is also a lot of fun to use with Archaeomancer or Izzet Chronarch, to allow for recasting every turn for fun and profit.
Faithless Looting - This is a really solid card for early game draw and filling the graveyard. The Flashback on it gives this card a lot of extra value.
Reanimate - One of the best reanimation effects. The life loss can hurt sometimes, but playing this card on something scary in the first few turns can just take the game.
Demonic Tutor - The card that made us all use the word tutor for things that find things. Great card, find anything for cheap.
Diabolic Intent - This tutor is almost as good as Demonic Tutor. Sacrificing a creature is often even beneficial for us, as it allows us to reanimate it to use an ETB ability over again.
Exsanguinate - Some people believe this card should be included in any black deck, and it's definitely a really solid addition as a wincon for use with infinite mana. Gets better with more infinite mana combos added to the deck.
Buried Alive - One of our prime cards for filling the graveyard. Allows us to find any three creatures and put them into the graveyard. What cards we get with this will be different based on playstyle and game state, but a very solid choice is frequently something like Anger + Sphinx of Uthuun + Rune-Scarred Demon. This gives us haste, card draw, and a tutor effect. A solid choice for when we don't necessarily have any direct plan at that moment.
Compulsive Research - While this is certainly a solid card for drawing and filling the yard, it is also almost strictly worse than Thirst for Knowledge, purely because of the sorcery speed.
Victimize - This allows us to both return two creatures at once for only 2B, which is especially good with Kiki+Conscripts and Mike+Trike combos, and it sacrifices something else to reanimate later.
Wheel of Fortune - Effects like this, while sometimes being dangerous, are a great way to both dig through the deck and fill the graveyard. Combined with mass reanimation and a decent amount of graveyard hate (and some tricks like Notion Thief) they make for a very powerful option.
Windfall - Same as above.
Yawgmoth's Will - This is one of the very few ways we can play in these colours for recurring enchantments, some of which are very powerful/important to us, as well as being able to recur anything else in the deck. It's really important to try to use this card at the best times, when we've got a full graveyard to choose from and our opponents aren't really in much position to cause us trouble for the turn, but sometimes it's correct to use it on just getting a specific, needed card from the graveyard.
Damnation - Even if we're frequently a big threat on the board, having a Wrath at our disposal for when we need it is a good idea. Simple preparedness.
Dread Return - This is far from the most powerful reanimation effect available to us, but it has a relatively cheap cost and has added value on the Flashback. All around solid choice.
Beacon of Unrest - Great card, allows us to reanimate a creature or artifact from any graveyard, allowing us to steal cool things from opponents when we don't have much going on in our own graveyard.
Living Death - There's no denying that this is both a cool and powerful card. It has some issues though. First, having someone nuke your grave yard in response is awful and will frequently leave you behind. Second, this is a double edged sword, and it requires us to have a fairly significant number of threats in our graveyard for it to be worthwhile and not be significantly helping our opponents. This card generally works a lot better with heavier self-mill/graveyard dump, and a higher creature count.
Time Warp - Taking an extra turn is always good, and this is the best card for this effect that we can play that can be recurred.
Capture of Jingzhou - This isn't generally worth it for the price tag attached, but it is one of the two next in line whenever an additional Time Warp is desired.
Temporal Manipulation - Same as above.
Hinder --> Dissipate - Thanks to the new rules change abolishing the tucking of commanders, Dissipate is essentially strictly better, so easy swap.
2015-03-30
Dissipate --> Forbidden Alchemy - Without the added value of being able to tuck generals, I decided I just didn't really need the extra counterspell in here. The list isn't very controlling, and the counters are mostly there for "in a pinch" situations, so I don't need many. I played Alchemy before but I feel like I didn't give it enough of a chance before I ended up cutting it, so I'm trying it out again.
Dread Return --> Coalition Relic - Every once in a while it was nice to have the extra reanimation spell, but I decided that between Sedris himself and the other ones I have I don't usually need it, and I felt this was the worst one of the bunch. Also, I kind of wanted to throw one more mana rock in there, and Coalition Relic seems as good a choice as any.
Bojuka Bog --> Ancient Tomb - Between Nihil Spellbomb, Nezumi Graverobber, and a bunch of ways to get them both, I decided I didn't necessarily need the extra grave hate, and the extra tapped land was getting kind of annoying, so instead I'm beefing up my ramp even more.
2015-04-06
Forbidden Alchemy --> Stroke of Genius - Once again I just found myself a little underwhelmed by Alchemy most of the time. Still a solid card, but I decided I wanted another option for mass draw for the times when I don't have the life to spare for Necropotence.
2015-04-18
Sheoldred, Whispering One --> Sidisi, Undead Vizier - I'm not entirely sure about this change yet, but it seems pretty good. Sidisi is awesome, and Sheoldred is a bit slow, and often eats a removal spell before ever accomplishing much. This change also brings down the curve a bit.
2015-08-25
River Kelpie --> Intuition - I'd been a little bit underwhelmed with Kelpie overall, lately, and Intuition is a fantastic tutor/yard filler that I'd for some reason always passed over. A great inclusion here.
2015-11-07
Cauldron Dance --> Lim-Dûl's Vault - I still love the Dance, but this change helps to bring down my curve and improve my consistency a bit more.
2015-12-29
Bogardan Hellkite --> Inferno Titan - These guys do nearly the same thing, this is mostly to lower the curve a bit for those times when I'm stuck hard casting things.
Necropotence --> Wheel of Fortune - I decided I wanted to try playing with some Wheel affects, and Necro is a huge nonbo with those. Cutting Necro also allows me to play more loot style effects in the future, if I want to.
Lightning Greaves --> Windfall - A little sad to see Greaves go, but it ended up on the chopping block to make room for Wheels, and Windfall is a really good Wheel effect.
Wurmcoil Engine --> Magus of the Wheel - Wurmcoil is really solid, and there's a really good chance I'm going to try to find a slot for it back at some point in the future. Again, this was just a matter of things that ended up on the chopping block to make room for Wheels.
Damnation --> Jace's Archivist - Adding Living Death sort of makes up for taking out a wrath, and I don't really need too many wraths anyway. Wheels!
Beacon of Unrest --> Living Death - Now that I'm doing a little more mass grave dumping with Wheels, Living Death seems like a better fit than ever. Honestly, it should probably have been here before, but I was pretty fine without it before, when I was filling the yard more selectively.
Tezzeret the Seeker --> Agent of Erebos - With all the Wheel effects in here now, and Living Death, I wanted to add in some additional graveyard hate, and this seemed like a great choice. I'm a little sad to see Tezz go, but he was most frequently just ramp in here anyway.
Crucible of Worlds --> Notion Thief - With both Tezz and Beacon gone the Crucible is a little worse, and it didn't really do THAT much anyway. it was more of just a good stuff card. Notion Thief is here strictly because it's hilarious with Wheel effects.
Conjurer's Closet --> Urabrask the Hidden - Just like the Crucible, this thing got worse with both Tezz and Beacon gone. It was already the worst of the options in the deck for breaking Unearth, and Urabrask gets put in because I really wanted to be able to give my creatures haste after a Living Death.
Great Furnace, Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers --> Sunken Hollow, Smoldering Marsh, Island - With Tezz gone I no longer want the artifact lands, and I had already wanted to fit in the Battle duals anyway, so this works out.
2016-03-09
Coalition Relic --> Dragon Mage - I wanted to add an additional Wheel of Fortune effect and this seemed like the next best one. It's also just a solid reanimation target, so there's that. The Relic is still great, it just came up as the easiest cut in the list.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
This is my first attempt at writing a primer, so I'd love some feedback/opinions/etc.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
I hadn't thought to use Conjurer's Closet. I should probably find a Crosis's Charm, too.
My Type 4 stack (Cube Tutor link)
Thanks a lot! I've put a bunch of hours into it over the last few days, so the positive feedback is pretty great.
Also, yeah, Crosis's Charm offers a lot of versatility. Boomerang, Dark Banishing, and Shatter all on one card.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
I would also play Grixis Reanimator with Sedris, but I have found that BUG is simply a better choice because of two cards: Greater Good and Surival of the Fittest. Those two cards are really the only reason I think BUG is better. With that being said, how do you think your deck performs without these excellent cards? Are there ways at you compensate for these type of effects? Or do you think your deck still runs smoothly without them? I think these are important issues to address for other readers out there. I would be converted to Sedris, but Tasigur has commandeered my love for Reanimator AND control.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Thanks a lot, appreciate it!
As for Greater Good and Survival of the Fittest, those are definitely great cards (though they're both massive nonbos with one of my favourite cards, Necropotence), but I think that what red gives us makes up for it. We can still play a ton of ways in blue to allow us to draw and dump cards, especially ones that don't actually require "discard", like Fact or Fiction and Forbidden Alchemy, and having red gives us access to things like Sneak Attack, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Zealous Conscripts, and Cauldron Dance, all of which do a ton of work. Sneak Attack especially, as it comes down early and allows us to actually get huge value off of giant creatures we're discarding before they even hit the graveyard.
Beyond that, I think that in general Sedris's ability is just much more powerful than Tasigur's.
Of those two you mentioned, though, Survival of the Fittest is certainly the one I'd rather have access to, as it ensures we can just keep dumping a steady stream of creatures into the graveyard, and that's really good.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
kederekt leviathan is amazing and can cause blowouts with enchantment reaniamtion (Necromancy)
Buried alive + Sedris can lead to instant wins if you add Palinchron
Get Chron, Deadeye, and Bogardan Hellkite and lol right to the bank
Why no Mystical tutor? Seems mandatory
Anyway I've started my own gameplay channel in which I play games (Magic also)
Twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/dies_to_doom_blade
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/UpsidedownHandshake
You don't see a Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur in this list because he got cut one day when I got tired of him getting removed before ever actually doing anything. He ended up getting replaced by something more threatening.
Kederekt Leviathan certainly has a powerful ability, and I should probably add him into the card options section. Don't personally like him because he also bounces all of my own things. That's especially bad with Unearth since those things all then get exiled.
Buried Alive + Sedris is also an instant win with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts. But, as I mentioned a couple times throughout, combo isn't the first priority here, and outside of combos there are just a lot of things I'd rather be playing than Palinchron.
Mystical Tutor is a fine card, but it's far from mandatory. It's a card disadvantage tutor, and it only finds instants and sorceries. The deck already has several tutors that can find anything, and they're all much better.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
I think Sedris is a much more proactive general in play style. His unearth ability is sorcery speed, which is not my preferred way to play personally. Tasigur recurs instants and sorceries to hand as I need them and is a much more reactive general, I think. That preference simply comes down to play style of the person piloting the deck. I like to counter spells and break people's combos (there are a lot of them in my group) because then the game slows down a little more and the chess and poker aspect of Magic comes out more. I don't like racing a game as much as I used to, but when the mood strikes me to do so Tasigur still alows me to win on the spot in gross fashion.
Kiki-Jiki is a strong inclsuion, one I didn't consider when I made my Grixis reanimator several months ago. That seems like it emphasizes a different type of creature that you would want to reanimate, a potential reason why Jin-Gitaxias, a broken reanimator fattie, doesn't see play here. It seems like Sedris and your particular list emphasize attacking and ETB abilities; would you agree or no?
Have you considered Sire of Insanity? Mind Twisting everybody at EOT seems pretty strong, especially since you can capitalize most from that type of effect with Sedris in play. Nicol Bolas didn't make the cut? Whew. He's death in the air; he used to be my Grixis general for a long while.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Your statements on Sedris being more proactive instead of reactive is certainly accurate. I even mentioned that up in my "why play Sedris" stuff. I tend to enjoy both reactive and proactive decks. For this one in particular I wanted to be proactive, so that definitely influenced the build. There are a lot of cards I mention in my options list and whatnot that I could be playing if I wanted to be more controlling, so there's definitely potential for it, it's just not what I'm going for here. I wouldn't even necessarily say this deck is about racing, so much as just being a big threat constantly. It forces a lot of decks to play defensively. That aspect, in combination with knowing what to play when, when to dump your hand, etc, causes this sort of deck to still give a lot of the "poker+chess" feel you mention. It's just a matter of who is on the offensive.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Break is definitely one of the stronger red cards here, and he does a lot. My favourite things to do with it are copying It That Betrays, Sphinx of Uthuun, Rune-Scarred Demon, and Massacre Wurm. Especially the It That Betrays. Attacking with multiples of that guy just feels so good. While Kiki-Jiki himself is not solely responsible for it, you are correct in your observation that the types of creatures included here are influenced by him and some other cards. Abusing ETB abilities is quite powerful, especially the ones on high cost creatures, most of the time.
And yeah, as I've mentioned for Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, I just don't like that he frequently eats a removal spell before every doing anything, and he doesn't even have a big scary body to go with him like It That Betrays does. Your assessments are fairly accurate.
I have not considered Sire of Insanity. I like having cards in hand and play a bunch of ways to make sure I always do. I would probably play him if his ability was on ETB instead of every EOT.
Lastly, Nicol Bolas is definitely a strong card. He's in my card options list, and it's entirely possible he'll find his way into the deck sooner or later.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Thank you!!!
Have you considered using Wheel of Fortune effects in your deck? You're playing the best colors for those type of effects and they definitely enhance your game plan. Giving your opponent's cards is risky, for sure, but the potential to consistently dump people's hands, strategies and your own fatties to the yard seems especially powerful. Notion Thief is a fantastic card in my meta, and he would be doing some overtime in this deck if ran in conjunction with Wheels.
Also, I think it would be cool if you could add some backstory to Sedris. He's really a cool character and to be able to learn more about him would be pretty awesome. I think providing links to his backstory, or at least his Magic Wiki page, might be a good inclusion to add richness to your Primer. I did that with my Memnarch Primer, and I think it adds another element that is enjoyable to the Primer. It's not only dry analysis of cards and strategies; it's got character and intrigue. I dunno. I could be crazy, haha.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
I definitely don't doubt that Sire can win games, I just don't love him myself. It's just, like I said, I would rather always have cards in hand. I'd be a lot more likely to add something like a Sadistic Hypnotist to the list, and go toward more sac routes.
I have considered them a bit, and to be fair I guess I should add them into the card options. Personally, outside of playing mono red (which gets almost no card draw), I really don't like to play those sorts or effects. Like you said, it's risky, and I'm loathe to give other people cards. I try to avoid playing symmetrical effects as often as I can. Also, Notion Thief is a card that sees a fair amount of play in my own meta, which is part of why I really like the draw effects that don't actually say "draw" (Fact or Fiction, Necropotence, etc), and playing a Wheel effect into an opposing Notion Thief is just not something I want to have happen ever.
Also, I frequently try to get out Necropotence just about whenever I can, and Wheel effects are a huge nonbo with that.
I don't usually pay much attention to lore and whatnot, but I could certainly look into adding a little something somewhere up there.
You're quite welcome! I'm glad I could help you out with your deck, and glad you liked my thread. Can't wait to see your own list.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
My Type 4 stack (Cube Tutor link)
Honestly, it's never once come up that someone's tried to kill me by making me infinitely draw off of River Kelpie. However, if someone is going to initiate any infinite loops, I would assume they're planning to win the game regardless, so it won't matter much.
Worldgorger Dragon is entirely a combo card, and without focusing on combos here there are just other things I would rather be playing. If I wanted to combo focus, he'd be here (along with the other two reanimation enchantments). Same thing goes for Oona, Queen of the Fae. These are cards that are incredibly underwhelming any time you're not comboing with them. Combo, as literally mentioned above, is plan B. It's something I only ever want to try to pull out if it becomes clear that it is the absolute only way I'm going to win.
The value of Necropotence can not be overstated. As it stands, in my list, the only thing messed up by playing it is the loot on Dack Fayden. Necro is the main reason why, as previously mentioned, I put a higher focus on things that draw cards and fill my yard without use of the word discard (Fact or Fiction, Forbidden Alchemy, etc). In many cases, these cards are better anyway, and on top of that, the value gained from Necro heavily outweighs any potential value lost by not playing some of the better among the loot and Wheel style options.
I've already covered a few posts up why I don't want to play Wheel of Fortune effects, and why I don't want to play Notion Thief.
If I were going to play anything like Leyline of Anticipation, I'd probably play Vedalken Orrery instead, purely because of the artifact type over enchantment. But I don't really have desire for an effect like this here. This isn't a control deck, nor is it intended to be. It taps out, or close to, on most turns, and that's fine. It's what it's intended to do.
I've always felt that Pact of Negation is best played in a combo deck. You don't care about having to pay for it later if you're just winning on the spot. That being said, it certainly does have some value here, especially given what I said above about frequently tapping out. Merits consideration, at least.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Anyways, since this is a tap-out kind of deck, I would recommend trying Sword of Feast and Famine. It helps your reanimated dudes get more value, maximizes your turn even more with the extra untap effect, causes you to create card advantage, helps your reanimated dudes get through two of the most common colors in EDH, and makes Sedris a 3 turn clock most of the time. I play it in my Memnarch list and it is fantastic, even only with one trigger. It seems like it would do some hard work here and help maximize your game plan. Of course, since it's such a powerful card it carries its own political negativity, and people will for sure be trying to stop you if you get one to resolve/stick around. The Sword breaks games, and I think it would do some awesome things here.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Thanks, I try to make sure to give every card a fair assessment.
I definitely know the power potential behind Sword of Feast and Famine. I run it in another of my decks and it's wonderful. However, the reasons it's much better there are because: 1) The other deck has a lot of small creatures, and the Sword helps to make every creature more of a threat. 2) That other deck is much more controlling, and wants to frequently leave mana open for opponents' turns.
I don't think this card would be bad here, but there really aren't any cards here that I'd rather have the Sword over.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Also fixed a few more typos I somehow missed in some other stuff.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
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Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Also, Living Death is a great card for Reanimator as well. It isn't included in your cards considered list and isn't in your decklist; I recommend at least putting it in the cards considered list.
I'm thinking Imma build a non-competitive Grixis Reanimator list with Sedris at the helm. Yay!
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
I'll add them in there. Thanks.
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Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
---
Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
---
Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
---
Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
---
Current Commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician (coming soon) | [Primer] Sedris, the Traitor King | Maelstrom Wanderer | Najeela, the Blade Blossom | Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
---
Retired Commanders: [Primer] Jenara, Asura of War | [Primer] Ghave, Guru of Spores | Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Saskia the Unyielding | Sydri, Galvanic Genius
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager