Introduction
My first attempt at building to the 75% principle, this is intended to be a reanimator deck which can switch between grindy-but-fair and infinite combo - not full cEDH, hence no Boonweaver combo, just your average combo deck - depending on the opponents.
Meta
I have two regular EDH playgroups, with a lot of players at varying skill levels. One group has a modified Marath pre-con piloted by a newbie, a tuned Animar, and a few decks in between the two (Trostani tokens/lifegain, Angus Mackenzie Enchantress, St Traft control/voltron, Teysa 2.0 voltron). The other group is much larger and runs the gamut from kids playing Yeva Elves and Kemba voltron to combo Prossh and Glissa T STAX. Ideally I want the deck to be able to compete with any and all of the above decks without ruining the game for anyone.
Strategy
The top end of the curve has enough beefy utility creatures (the Primordials, Sheoldred, Woodfall Primus) to duke it out with weaker decks, using Karador once a turn to bring back the heavy hitters, and if a game-ending play is required various cards can tutor Filth into the graveyard (and Urborg to hand or battlefield) to make my team unblockable.
Alternatively the deck can play more of a control game, with heavy artifact/enchantment removal and a reasonable amount of spot removal for creatures. Without taking the infinite route there are still enough avenues to sac & reanimate ETB guys like Acidic Slime and hopefully police the board.
Against more powerful decks the aim is to combo out and win via an infinite loop; details of these are below. The deck can tutor for combo pieces without much difficulty and can mostly recur them via Sun Titan, Eternal Witness or Karador himself.
Strengths
- Resilient - not only can most combo pieces be recurred, but there are several ways to achieve the main combo win.
- Flexible - with several paths to victory through combat damage and a variety of combo finishes, the hope is that games will play out differently every time.
Weaknesses
- Ramp - the ramp included was chosen specifically to fetch duals/Murmuring Bosk, but is concentrated mostly in the 3/4 CMC range, so early acceleration is lacking. Prismatic Omen and Chromatic Lantern are in for colour fixing so I cut all three Signets in my colours, but this has left me without many options for an explosive start.
- Land count - still feels low to me. Considering cranking back up to 37 or even 38 lands, but what to cut for them?
- Graveyard hate - nature of the game, and without counterspells there's not much I can do to fight it.
- Lack of graveyard filling - the only self-mill that made its way into the build is Undercity Informer and Altar of Dementia, since both are sac outlets that can self-target. As such there is no easy way to quickly fill the yard for mass reanimation with Living Death or to fuel an early Karador.
Notes on combo plays (mostly a reminder to self on detailed workings):
Saffi + Sun Titan + sac outlet gives an infinite loop. Results vary depending on sac outlet/additional combo piece; Blasting Station for damage, Altar of Dementia for mill, Greater Good for draw, Ashnod's Altar for mana (colourless), Zulaport Cutthroat for life drain, Aura Shards to wipe all enchantments & artifacts, Grave Pact to wipe all opposing creatures.
Mikaeus + sac outlet + persist creature (Woodfall Primus/Puppeteer Clique) gives infinite activations of the persist creature's ETB ability; either blow up all non-creature permanents (can be used for mass LD in cutthroat games) or grab all creatures from opponents' graveyards and swing with them. Best used after a Wrath effect or, as the reanimated creatures get exiled at EoT, to set up a one-sided Living Death.
Mikaeus + Triskelion is infinite damage; remove 2 counters as damage to players, third counter to damage and kill Triskelion which returns with an additional +1/+1. Repeat.
Saffi + Reveillark + sac outlet + any creature power 2 or less loops infinitely; Eternal Witness returns any/all graveyard cards to hand, Sakura Tribe-Elder fetches all basics, Wood Elves fetches all forests (duals included), Fierce Empath tutors any number of CMC 6+ creatures to hand, Harmonic Sliver/Reclamation Sage destroy all artifacts & enchantments, Disciple of Bolas draws cards/gains life, Acidic Slime destroys all lands (for more competitive tables), Gray Merchant drains life, Karmic Guide reanimates all creatures from the graveyard, Triskelion allows roughly the same damage loop as with Mikaeus.
