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Heavy Corpses

Commander / EDH* BGW (Abzan, Junk) Combo Hatebears Sacrifice

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Land (30)

Cheat (6)

Other (1)

Hate and Denial (20)

Ramp (14)

Commander (1)

Commander: Karador, Ghost Chieftain

Tutor and Dig (15)

Combo Pieces (13)

A deck with nothing but creatures and lands that can hold its own at a high power casual table. Karador, Ghost Chieftain is perfect for this deck, because his recursion makes up for a lot of the speed, flexibility, and defensive power lost by eschewing instants, enchantments, and artifacts. Plus, he rarely costs more than 3 mana to cast no matter how many times he gets killed.

The first version of the deck included a lot of cheap creatures with abilities mimicking other spells, like Spellshapers and Licids, and a lot of creature destruction. I refined it for a few years, and made a threatening hatebear deck focused on early game control with creatures like Gaddock Teeg and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, setting up ways to tutor and cheat in big guys, and then locking everyone down with brutal control combos like Eidolon of Rhetoric + Nullstone Gargoyle and Brisela, Voice of Nightmares + Gaddock Teeg .

That deck was fun to mess with people and control the table, but it lacked speed and the finishing power to kill opponents after slowing them down. This is the latest version, which focuses on nasty, table-killing combos and and the tools to get them out as fast as possible. I've kept in a lot of the hate and denial cards, especially the good early game ones, since this deck can never be fast enough to be a full combo deck, but they're support and backup now, rather than the main strategy

This is the deck as it is right now. Suggestions are welcome, especially suggestions about which cards I might be able to take out to make room for new goodies.

How to play the deck:

Starting the game is pretty simple. A good starting hand should have two lands and one piece of ramp, preferably with something to tutor or dig as well. If you have good ramp or great tutor and cheat, you can consider starting with only a single land, though it can be a bit risky.

Begin your game by ramping to 4 mana as soon as possible. More than that is nice, but if the game is going well, you won't need to cast many cards that cost more than 4. Start filling your graveyard as early as possible, so that you have good fodder when you find a graveyard cheat.

Once you have your 4+ mana, your job is to hunt out whatever combo pieces you can find and pull the trigger.

If you have a chance to tutor any card in the deck, the usual best choice is Protean Hulk. If you managed to get the Hulk's ability off, the recommended combo is: grab Karmic Guide (5 CMC) and Carrion Feeder/Viscera Seer (1 CMC). Guide brings back Hulk. Then sac Hulk for Saffi Eriksdottir (2 CMC) plus Blood Artist/Zulaport Cutthroat (2 CMC) plus whatever else. After that, sac Saffi targetting Karmic Guide, target Saffi with KG's ability when it returns, and repeat until victorious. Alternatively, grab Reveillark (5 CMC) plus Stitcher's Supplier (1 CMC), then sac KG and SS, then sac Reveillark to loop Reveillark and Karmic Guide + Supplier until you get a finishing move in the graveyard, then keep looping until everyone is dead

If you know what to expect from your meta, you can tune your hate, denial, and defense package. For example, this deck doesn't have a whole lot of answers to graveyard hate, so if you're expecting it to come up, tag in Riftsweeper. If you're playing 1v1, consider Mesmeric Fiend and Tidehollow Sculler. If you're facing combat aggro decks, put in Peacekeeper and maybe even Blazing Archon. If you're facing nasty things that can't be hit by most of your removal, like Animar, Soul of Elements... good luck, and consider Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Transmogrifying Licid + Reclamation Sage, Grim Poppet, or Iona, Shield of Emeria. Remember, you have several ways to sacrifice creatures, so you can run hatebears that hurt you too, and sac them as needed.

As far as I can tell, the fastest possible win for this deck is turn 3, though there are a few variations that can get you there.

Turn 3 Hands:

Turn 4 Hands:

  • Greenseeker + Fauna Shaman. Turn 1 Greenseeker. Turn 2 Shaman. Turn 3 tutor and cast Apprentice Necromancer. Turn 4 tutor and discard Hulk, reanimate, combo out at end of turn.

  • One half of a reanimator pair + one sac outlet + Artist/Cutthroat + Supplier/Circle Druid/Satyr + one ramp + the other half of the reanimator pair near top of library. Turn 1 sac outlet or ramp or Supplier. Turn 2 mill card, ramp or Artist/Cutthroat. Turn 3 whatever is left from turn 2, plus missing sac or ramp if necessary. Turn 4 hard cast combo piece, reanimate its complement, combo out. If Reveillark is your combo piece, the Artist/Cutthroat can be in the graveyard instead

Beyond that, I think you get the idea - get Hulk or any set of combo pieces, and then do your thing.

Here are all (I think) of the combos. Most of them require a sac outlet (Carrion Feeder/Viscera Seer/Yahenni, Undying Partisan) and a way to convert ETBs into a win (Blood Artist/Zulaport Cutthroat/Extractor Demon), so I'll just leave those out and point out when they're NOT needed.

If you manage to get either of these 3 card combos, you can play everything in your graveyard infinitely by using Saffi or Fiend Hunter to get an extra Karmic Guide trigger on every loop. These require a sac outlet, and might not win the game if you don't have the cards you need in the graveyard... And if you do, then you usually don't need this trick. But here it is anyway

Note: any combo that includes Reveillark can replace Blood Artist/Zulaport Cutthroat with a mill card to fish for a kill card, or Beastcaller Savant for infinite mana

An analysis of the cards, sorted by role:

Most of the ramp is pretty straightforward, though some pieces are a little more special.

Use tutors to assemble the missing pieces of a combo to win, or grab some hate cards if you need to slow things down

  • Rune-Scarred Demon, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Oriq Loremage -- tutor for any single card (usually Protean Hulk)

  • Magus of the Order -- tutor for any single green card (usually Protean Hulk)

  • Fiend Artisan -- most of the time, this will be too expensive to use for Hulk directly, but there are tons of good options to find instead, including Fierce Empath or Fauna Shaman, or tons of great hate

  • Elvish Harbinger, Woodland Bellower -- you can grab a variety of useful cards, but most of the time you'll just want to get Fierce Empath

  • Fierce Empath -- Gets a big creature into your hand. Usually Protean Hulk

  • Fauna Shaman -- MVP tutor. Tutor a new card every turn, AND put stuff in the graveyard where it's easy to cheat out. Rad.

Self-mill isn't as strong as tutoring, but it can give you a lot of options once Karador is in play. The ones that mill on entering the battlefield can can be added to a reanimation loop with Reveillark to search for a win condition

  • Satyr Wayfinder and Circle of the Land Druid -- Add to your graveyard AND get some lands if you need them? Sure!

  • Stitcher's Supplier -- Cheap and fast. Awesome.

  • Undercity Informer -- A passable sac outlet, a fast way to fill your graveyard if you have spare creatures, and almost as good as a tutor if you have a reanimation loop without a finisher

  • World Shaper -- Puts cards in the yard every turn, plus killing it off can turn the game around if you need more mana

  • Hermit Druid -- MVP graveyard filler. Only two Mana to cast, he can dump about 1/6 of your deck every turn AND helps you make land drops every turn.

Cards to give you the time and security to find a combo. Some of these may draw some aggro, so consider the board before playing. Feel free to alter this list to for your table.

These cards will let you play important cards without paying for them, especially if they're in your graveyard. These creatures give the deck both speed and durability.

  • Elvish Piper, Howlpack Piper   -- Cheat cards in directly from your hand. The elf is better, but it's nice to have a backup

  • Hell's Caretaker -- A cheat every turn, plus a once-per-turn sac outlet

  • Doomed Necromancer -- Excellent cheat

  • Apprentice Necromancer -- Better than it looks. Possibly even better than Doomed Necromancer, because if it cheats in Hulk, you don't even need a separate sac outlet

  • Body Snatcher -- Also better than it looks! You can only use it once, but sometimes that's all you need

Most of the combos in this deck involve infinite reanimation loops. Those loops usually require sac outlets, and almost always require a way to convert creature deaths into player kills. These are the tools for the job.

  • Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat -- These provide the triggers that turn infinite reanimation loops into kills

  • Extractor Demon -- Expensive to cast, but if you already have your combo pieces, you can play him from the graveyard for only 3 mana and win before you have to exile him. As a bonus, you can always target yourself to dig for an alternative won con, if there's a player who you can't deck out

  • Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder -- The basic sac outlets. Most combos in the deck depend on having one of them in order to go infinite. Viscera Seer is slightly better due to the scry effect

  • Yahenni, Undying Partisan -- A backup sac outlet. More expensive, but slightly harder to kill and can be brought back with Loyal Retainers

These are the reanimator cards that make your reanimation loops. You basically pick any two cards off the following list that can return each other, add a sac outlet and/or etb/death trigger as needed, and you've won the game.

  • Karmic Guide -- The most versatile reanimator, since it has no restrictions. Returns anyone

  • Saffi Eriksdotter -- Returns anyone who was on the battlefield already

  • Reveillark -- The most flexible reanimator, because you get two creatures back. That lets you replace the usual etb/death triggers with a mill-yourself-on-etb card, or possibly even Beastcaller Savant. Returns Karmic Guide, Saffi Eriksdotter, Fiend Hunter, Loyal Retainers

  • Sun Titan -- Returns Fiend Hunter, Saffi Eriksdotter, Loyal Retainers

  • Loyal Retainers -- Returns Saffi Eriksdotter

  • Fiend Hunter -- Just remember that killing him before his first ability resolves will cause his target to be exiled PERMANENTLY. Combos with Karmic Guide, Sun Titan

  • Protean Hulk -- OK, Hulk is maybe technically more of a tutor than a combo piece. But it plays more like the start of a combo, rather than something that gets you incrementally closer to a combo, so I'm putting it here. This is usually how you get your combo pieces out

These ones were just to hard to put into a single category, because they have the potential to fill so many roles

  • Karador, Ghost Chieftain -- Lets you cast any creature from your graveyard. Helps you reuse ramp/dig/tutor cards for additional value, and makes hate cards much harder to remove permanently. I don't cast him in a lot of games, but it's always good to know he's there

  • Necrotic Ooze -- At 4 CMC I rarely call in the Ooze, but it can serve as a replacement for some combo pieces in an emergency, or an expensive copy of some ramp/tutor/dig cards

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Top Ranked
  • Achieved #14 position overall 6 years ago
Date added 6 years
Last updated 1 year
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

9 - 0 Mythic Rares

58 - 0 Rares

17 - 0 Uncommons

11 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.09
Tokens Day, Night, Pest 1/1 BG
Folders Interesting Commander Decks, Commander
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