The Other Side
Welcome to the nether realm. If you're reading this, You have crossed over. You are now in the domain of shadows, of things that once were. You are in Karador's domain, a Greater Realm.
My first EDH deck was a Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind deck. This deck is nothing like that deck.
This is the most interactive deck I've ever built, and a deck I enjoy like no other. It's an absolute blast to play and I have yet to be inundated with complaints about how it's an unfair deck, or not any fun to play with.
This deck does play the long game and you should not expect to win in 3 turns or less. If you're looking for that kind of deck this primer won't help you.
This deck is fun, it's also very powerful and the interactions can be extremely complex in the late stages. Avoid playing this deck with players new to EDH, and especially with players new to all of Magic.
The primary aim of this deck is to fill the graveyard and cast one of a number of spells that leads to a win, Living Death is the most obvious, but others exist. Some combos exist that will also lead to a win, or a position from which a loss should be nearly impossible.
The Chieftain's Arsenal
Overview
Reading this decklist
Reading this decklist
The deck is currently sorted by the purpose of each card and I've done my best to sort the cards in a way that I feel is intuitive and simple.
The sorting is simple enough at first glance I hope that it can be understood but a couple categories might be confusing.
The Goodstuff category in particular doesn't seem especially intuitive but it simply represents any card that is good and fits into either too many, or no other, categories.
Deck colors
Deck colors
The deck is JUNK colors because
Karador, Ghost Chieftain
is JUNK colored. I am particularly fond of the resiliency that this color combination brings to the table.
Deck strengths
Deck strengths
This deck excels in the long game. I like to say that the deck wins with a crushing tide of inevitability. If we don't get hated off the table in the early turns of the game, it will quickly become too late. Creature removal is especially easy in these colors, even of indestructible or hexproof creatures.
Deck weaknesses
Deck weaknesses
As with any reanimator deck, we are weak to graveyard hate. However that does not mean that we scoop to Rest in Peace. There are enough ways to remove enchantments and artifacts in the deck, and a particularly nasty way to recover things from exile if we need to. I'll cover that later. This deck also does not have many ways to stop lightning fast combo decks, such as Animar, Soul of Elements. Finally this deck is built for multiplayer and does not frequently handle itself well in a one on one match
The Strategy
General strategy
General strategy
Overall the strategy is to win through creature damage, general damage is more or less irrelevant in our deck unless something somewhere has gone horribly wrong. The best way to do this is with the truly staggering card advantage that our general brings with him. Our graveyard is like a second hand, but use it sparingly. Too many reanimator decks get stopped by a timely Tormod's Crypt, don't be one of them. You won't find any dredge effects here, and every creature in the deck serves a purpose. ETB effects are especially important to us in this build.
Early game
Early game
In the early game we want to do a few things, as subtly as possible so as not to tip our hand.
First we want to get a solid 3 color mana base set up, there are a number of dorks in the deck to assist with this and filter lands like
Twilight Mire
are a huge help. We also want to begin filling our graveyard with creatures that can trigger some sort of useful ETB ability, such as Fleshbag Marauder or Wood Elves
Our goal for the early game is to get ourselves into a position where we can begin maneuvering powerful creatures into our graveyard without setting off alarm bells in our opponents heads.
Mid game
Mid game
At this point we need to begin setting up the table in our favor. This is best achieved through one of the many board wipes in the deck. The goal is to clear the creatures on the board and maybe put a few of those ETB creatures back in our graveyard if we're missing a sac outlet at this point for any reason. It's also time to begin maneuvering things like Grave Pact and Ashnod's Altar into play.
Late game
Late game
This is where we start to enact the actual win. If you have a graveyard full of nasty heavy hitters like Avenger of Zendikar and Massacre Wurm tutor up a Living Death or Rise of the Dark Realms and go to town. If we've been having trouble here, or have been hit with some form of intense graveyard hate, we may need to return specific key cards from exile with
Riftsweeper
or stall a bit more with Sheoldred, Whispering One. Finally once we have the win in hand, pick the right moment. Wait until the blue player is tapped out, and the turboFog player has blown his load to stop the token swarm. This is the right time to strike. When all else fails, a solid Karmic-Reveillark combo can end the game immediately with a mass scoop.
Contingency plan
Contingency plan
I'm not sure we have a specific contingency plan. The entire deck can be a backup to a failed plan. If someone exiles Reveillark we can get it back. If someone plays a Grafdigger's Cage we can destroy it. The most important part of our strategy is to not tip our hand before it's time.
Mulligans
Mulligans
Disclaimer: This deck is built for partial paris mulligans!!!
If your playgroup
Does NOT use a partial paris system, I highly recommend you add more lands.
A good starting hand in this deck includes 3-4 lands, either a mana dork or a land finder, a sac outlet, and a creature like Fleshbag Marauder or Bone Shredder or a board wipe, Damnation for value.
Things we DO NOT want to see in our opening hand are big nasties, Craterhoof Behemoth does us no good on turn 3, and Massacre Wurm Doesn't want to come out and play if your opponents haven't brought him any friends.
Matchups and sideboarding
Matchups and sideboarding
The deck is particularly strong against decks that rely on one or a few large angry creatures, voltron and the like. Removing that one large angry creature, sometimes permanently, can completely shut down some decks.
I don't run any sideboards in any of my EDH decks, however if your meta is particularly heavy with Eldrazi I would add
Martyr's Bond as people are far less likely to swing annhilator into anything that could cost them their permanents as well.
Combos and synergies
Combos and synergies
While most of the deck is synergistic, especially with Karador's 2nd effect. Some things are worth mentioning above all others. Bloodghast is a cheap way to keep using the same sac outlet, say if we need extra mana from Ashnod's Altar, or if Skullclamp is on the field.
Combos in this deck are nasty, somewhat complex and usually game altering.
The big kahuna of combos is Karmic Guide + Reveillark
, with any sac outlet and any creature with 1 or 2 toughness and an ETB effect. Acidic Slime is the favorite by far, as destroying all of our opponents lands, artifacts, and enchantments usually ends the game. The way this works is we cast Reveillark or Karmic Guide targeting it and then pull the desired creature out of the graveyard. We then sacrifice all 3 creatures so that Reveillark dies last, it's triggered ability upon LTB returning Karmic Guide and the other creature again, which will of course recur Reveillark again.
Ashnod's Altar + Grave Titan + Nim Deathmantle
creates an arbitrarily large number of 2/2 zombies. With the altar on the field, we cast Grave Titan and sacrifice it and one of it's tokens. Nim Deathmantle triggers, and we conveniently have in our pool, this recurs Grave Titan. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum to create enough zombies to kill all opponents. This combo works best if activated during an opponent's end step, reducing the likelihood of a response before we can win.
Card Choices Explained
Lands
Lands
Only a few utility lands have been included in the deck, I'll explain those here.
I included a slightly higher number of land destruction lands i.e. Strip Mine than other decks because I find that shutting down an opponent's Cabal Coffers during a key upkeep can be the difference between a win and a loss. There is a large variety of exceptional lands in Magic and sometimes they just need to not be under an opponent's control.
Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth both provide exceptional ramp, and can occasionally eat a land destruction spell from a worried opponent, over a better target.
Dryad Arbor
is simply an amazing land, as well as sac fodder and starts the pod chain. Great card all around
High Market and Phyrexian Tower both provide decent benefits and an alternate sac outlet, that second part is more important to us though.
Mosswort Bridge can be a powerful tool if we manage to hide something particularly interesting under it such as Craterhoof Behemoth or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, however try to avoid playing it too far into the late game as it can whiff hard at later turns.
Finally, I only included 3 basic lands by the final build of the deck, this is due to the high prevalence of dual lands and filter lands. I feel that this build works best, as it does give you targets should a creature meet Path to Exile but also leaves us with a more extensive range of mana fixing.
Creatures
Creatures
Most of the creatures in the build are simply great creatures in our colors. However I feel that some deserve special mention
Magister of Worth
in particular was a difficult to decide on card, I wanted a board wipe that I could continue using in the late game if I needed it. I decided on this creature because the other option, giving the Karador deck his entire graveyard, is almost never an actual choice for your opponents which guarantees the wipe.
Mirror Entity at first seems like a weak choice, a 1/1 with a rather mana intensive ability in a deck that doesn't usually seek infinite mana seems clunky. However I find that many of the people I play against are unaware that it's ability can be activated for , which serves as a faster than instant one sided board wipe if I need it. Say, in response to Final Judgment. It also serves as a combo enabler for the Karmic + Reveillark combo, you simply count how many times you need to activate the 3rd creature's ETB effect, and put Mirror Entity's ability on the stack that many times for , each time revillark's P/T becomes 0/0 his ability will trigger, go on the stack ahead of the next instance of Mirror Entity's and resolve the combo as normal.
Ashen Rider is a powerful creature, and a great target for an early game Karmic Guide, exiling two permanents, ANY permanent, is just too good to pass up.
Bloom Tender and Deathrite Shaman are two of the best mana dorks you can find, one produces up to 3 mana by itself, and the other can also eat creatures out of opponent's graveyards, in case they were thinking of copying our strategy.
I chose Shriekmaw and Bone Shredder to fill slots in the Birthing Pod chain, I neglected to add Nekrataal because at CMC 4, we should nearly always be searching for Academy Rector
Other cards
Other cards
As with creatures, a lot of the cards here are simply the best in these colors for their effects, nothing beats Demonic Tutor for example. However, again some are worth specific mention.
Unmake
is useful for those occasions when an opponent thinks that a pesky Blightsteel Colossus can stop us.
Reanimate is the only non-creature single target recursion effect in the deck, at CMC 1 it's simply too good to pass up. Prime targets include either praetor or titan.
Vindicate
is simply amazing removal, while at the same CMC Maelstrom Pulse doesn't hit lands, but can deal with swarms of tokens. Only downside is it's sorcery speed.
I haven't mentioned planeswalkers yet Sorin Markov provides decent utility as well as a way to deal with any opponent who's life total manages to eclipse our ability to deal with, while Liliana of the Veil fits all aspects of our strategy, filling our graveyard and controlling powerful creatures on opposing sides of the board.
Greater Good is an incredible sac outlet and can also provide a key way to drop creatures into the graveyard if we need to. A well timed sacrifice in response to a Sheoldred trigger can change games.
Pernicious Deed provides another way to deal with token decks if necessary, but more importantly it can threaten the entire board. Leave open and people become afraid to cast small creatures or enchantments. It can also come down fairly early in the game and occasionally be forgotten about until an opportune moment.
Cards Under Consideration
Cards Under Consideration
Currently I am considering adding the following cards for various reasons
Martyr's Bond: This card is effective against any eldrazi, and against targeted removal in general. It also serves as a second Grave Pact effect, however I'm not fond of the 6 CMC.
Voice of Resurgence: This card is currently undergoing testing, it fits in the Karmic+Reveillark combo to create tokens, and the tokens ability allows me to create far fewer of them than with other similar combos. It's also just a powerful card.
Aura Shards: Aura shards is a fantastic artifact/enchantment hate card but I'm not sure the deck has room for an other 3 drop enchantment at this point.
Other Information
Building this deck on a Budget
Building this deck on a Budget
This deck was not built on a budget, but should the need arise it can be.
Lands: Basic lands can replace the revised dual lands, as well as the filter lands. I would avoid any fetchlands that will bring a land into play tapped but that is probably more dependent on your individual meta.
Creatures: Academy Rector and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite are by far the most expensive creatures, neither is necessary for the build but both are immensely useful. To maintain the pod chain I would replace Rector with
Gamekeeper
and Norn with
Reya Dawnbringer
Other Cards: Crucible of Worlds can put the hurt on a wallet, and is definitely not necessary for this build. Life from the Loam is a decent replacement if you feel you need the land recursion, and the dredge can be helpful as well.
Change log
Change log
Unfortunately I have made most of the changes to this deck before I ever wrote this primer, however any future changes will be included here.
Feedback
I would greatly appreciate any feedback you have, however I ask that before suggesting cards to add or remove you read the primer entirely. It is by no means comprehensive and I will be making additions to it as my time allows. Questions and requests for clarification are welcome and I strive to answer them promptly. Thank you in advance for your help, and thank you for reading my primer.
The coding for this primer was developed by
Epochalyptik here.
