Karador's Graveyard Harvest (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

Karador's Graveyard Harvest

Commander / EDH BGW (Abzan, Junk) Reanimator

Kylesafgt

Lands (33)

Ramp (6)

Removal (19)

Draw/Mill (11)

Utility/Value (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Karador, Ghost Chieftain

Recursion (14)

Tutor (11)

Karador's Backstory

Once a high warchief of the Nessian centaurs, Karador was slain in a great battle. Now Karador haunts the valleys of his birth, an embittered king of a realm of wraiths and shades. He gathers ghostly minions for an assault on the rival warchief who deposed him.

"Death tried to uncrown me. But now I return, king of a greater realm."

Here's a link to a more refined, competitive collaborative primer between myself and Hercules23 hosted on MoxField: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ZAWAm3V_h06OgB3G3UdFLw

DECK PRIMER

"The end of one life is merely the beginning of thousands more."

A Karador EDH deck utilizes the graveyard heavily in all possible plays we can achieve. The colours of Abzan open up a lot of opportunity in deckbuilding and graveyard strategies. The deck is simple, we try to fill our graveyard to achieve a cheaper Karador and a large toolbox of options. From their we have alot of Graveyard goodstuff cards whilst also having a large focus on removal and control by ways of Exile effects. Our general win strategy is going to be combat based as we smack our opponents in the face with high value creatures that are hard to keep in the grave. Cards such as Filth benefit heavily from being in our graveyard and act as powerful win conditions if our opponents can't stop it. Aside from that we have a heavy supply of graveyard recursion and as mentioned, this creates quite a big issue for our opponents as it's quite hard to stop our plans. Where this deck crumbles is when someone has mass graveyard removal or lock strategies such as a Bojuka Bog or Grafdigger's Cage. It's an extremely fun deck to pilot and there's alot of routes to success. Furthermore, the most common way that I tend to win is through the use of Torment of Hailfire by dumping tonnes of mana into it using a combo of Urborg and Cabal Coffers. With the inclusion of graveyard matters and white, comes an abundance of card combos that can win on the spot. While this route of play is generally not taken, it is nice to know that the deck can compete at higher power levels with ease. I hope you enjoy my approach to a Karador, Ghost Chieftain deck and that my card analysis below proves beneficial to you in your own graveyard-centric EDH path.

"The best funeral shroud is the fabric of new life"

CARD CHOICES (note: this section is quite long)

Here I'll discuss why I think each card deserves a spot in the 99.

Commander

Karador, Ghost Chieftain : Karador is the pinnacle of graveyard strategies. His colour identity provides the solid removal, reanimation and card draw of black, the ramp and removal of green and the recursion and value of white. Karador wants creatures in the graveyard as he's cheaper the more creatures that are in there (effectively getting around commander tax and generally costing only BGW). Karador allows you to cast 1 creature from your graveyard each turn, while you have to pay the cost of said creature as opposed to a commander such as Meren of Clan Nel Toth you'd actually be surprised at how little this matters, especially when you're getting a suite of powerful cards in the white colour identity.

Card Draw

Card draw is quite important in magic as it allows us to find the answer to threats quicker than the threat can occur. The more cards you have at your disposal the more answers you will have to an immediate threat on the board. Our card draw package utilizes the death of creatures as we can easily recur them thanks to Karador's ability. In a graveyard focused deck, the act of milling or dredging translates to 'draw' for us. Within this section we will be utilising and abusing these keywords to our advantage.

Lands

Our mana base is a no brainer when it comes to wanting to play the game. It's also one of the hardest aspects to fine tune and tends to take alot of time and money. I've tuned it to the best of my ability currently and it's fairly consistent as long as I get an early Green source. The lands will provide us with the ability to cast what we want while also having some utility factors such as blowing up another reanimators graveyard.

Ancient Ziggurat : Majority of our deck consists of creatures and recasting creatures so this card allows us for optimal colour fixing, acting as a second copy of Command Tower for us, however the only issue being that it doesn't tap for mana outside of creatures. However we run cards like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth & Riftstone Portal to mitigate this downside.
Cabal Coffers : Karador decks tend to be mana hungry, well with Cabal Coffers we can negate this slightly by generating a large surplus of black mana (especially with Urborg on the field). We can also dump this surplus of mana into a few of our X spells, namely Torment of Hailfire (if Torment feels too brutal, maybe try Debt to the Deathless ).
Canopy Vista : Early game it will come in tapped but that generally isn't too big of an issue. Late game it'll come in untappped and immediately help colour fix. The subtype of the card also allows it to be fetched by all 3 fetchlands and Wood Elves .
Command Tower(CC1): Command Tower is a stape in all 2 colour+ commander decks, what's not to love.
Dryad Arbor : Has alot of versatility over a basic Forest in a Karador deck. Firstly if it's in the graveyard it's going to cheapen Karador's casting cost. Secondly it's skullclampable, allowing me to draw 2 cards on the cheap. It effectively turns my reanimation spells into ramp spells. Being a Forest, it can be fetched with fetchlands and can be used as clutch blocks to save me from massive damage. The only downside is that it can't be tapped right away, however that isn't too much of an issue with all the upsides (plus more I haven't listed) that Dryad Arbor can provide us.
Forest : I don't think I need to explain this. (I use foiled Dragon's of Tarkir #263's)

Godless Shrine : Pain lands are a staple in EDH decks running more than 1 colour as they allow to fix the apppropriate colours while also being fetchable by fetchlands.

High Market : Provides us with an easy way to move our creature permanents from the field to our graveyard to cheapen Karador and gain more value off of repeated ETB triggers or on death triggers. Such a simple card can go very unnoticed.

Indatha Triome : Basically an improved Sandsteppe Citadel with a touch of cycling for late game value.

Isolated Chapel : More likely than not this will be entering the battlefield untapped providing us with instant colour fixing.

Llanowar Wastes : It's sort of like an unfetachable Overgrown Tomb that keeps shocking you that can also be used as a colourless source for free. Completing the cycle with Caves of Koilos and Brushland might be a good way to increase deck colour consistency

Mana Confluence : Mana fixing at the cost of 1 life. We tend to feel strained on green mana early game (as green mana is our key ramp colour) so this helps alot.

Marsh Flats : Marsh Flats is one of 3 Fetch Lands that we run. Marsh Flats enables us to grab any Plains or Swamp card in our deck that allows us to always have the correct mana available. Marsh Flats is an important card for anyone in Orzhov colours that can afford it.

Murmuring Bosk : Fetchable Sandsteppe Citadel that only hurts when we tap it for Black or White is absolutely amazing. Running Woodfall Primus allows this to sometimes come into play untapped.

Overgrown Tomb : Golgari shockland is best shockland. Always good to have.

Phyrexian Tower : Taps for a black but also allows for ease of creature sacrifice while also allowing us to accelerate forwards quickly. Sacrifice outlets are a big upside in our deck. Not as good as his siblings in the cycle (Gaea's Cradle, Tolarian Acadmey etc) but still provides such great versatility.

Plains : I only run 1 basic plains as white is only really a splash to the GB core of the deck. (I use a foiled Amonkhet #255)

Riftstone Portal : Generates us alot of value and mana fixing if its in our graveyard. In this deck it's quite easy for it to end up there via discarding or dredging or milling or saccing. If you need to play it early game, you're still able to get it into the graveyard by using the life side of Life / Death and a sac outlet to help colour fix.

Sandsteppe Citadel : Gives us access to all the colours we need at the price of it entering tapped, its still a solid card to have.

Scattered Groves : New inclusion for the deck so I'm currently testing it out. The 'enters tapped' clause is what absolutely destroys this card but it's another dual nevertheless so we're able to fetch it. When we're mana flooded late game we're able to cycle it and draw a card which is probably its biggest upside.

Sunpetal Grove : Generally it'll be entering untapped so it's a great card to give us access to Selesnya colours

Swamp : I don't think I need to explain this either. (I use foiled Magic Origin's #262's which argueably have the best art of any basic land)

Tainted Field : We quite often control atleast 1 swamp so this'll always be tapping for W or B. As an added benefit it can still tap for colourless if we don't run said swamp.

Tainted Wood : After a turn or two we almost always have a swamp on the field. This is a great mana fixer.

Temple Garden : Gives us access to Green and White while also being fetchable by all fetches we run. Comes into play untapped for the small cost of 2 life.

Undergrowth Stadium : In commander we're pretty much always playing against two or more opponents thus this comes in untapped almost always.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth : Fixes our black mana. Brutal with Cabal Coffers . Lets us also bring Filth to its full potential giving our entire board the ability to attack while being unblockable.

Verdant Catacombs : Fetches allows us to grab whatever colour we're currently in need of so that we can continuously have a smooth game. They also allow us to shuffle away the top of our library in the circumstances of having Vizier of the Menagerie on the field. Verdant Catacombs allows us to fetch Black and Green, our most important colours. Green being a key factor in early game ramp and curve while Black being our big end game effects.

Windswept Heath : Fetch lands help us colour fix with ease. Windswept Heath is an obvious included in an EDH deck running Selesnya Colours.

Woodland Cemetery : Let's us have access to an untapped G/B producing land late game. Early game it can sometimes struggle as a tapped land but more often than not it's entering untapped.

Ramp Package

We're not going to be able to cast our big menacing spells without mana. Our ramp package will provide us with early game acceleration in our mana base.

Ashnod's Altar : Provides us with a way to sacrifice our creatures for cheap ramp and we can easily get them back, also enables a few game winning loops to generate infinite mana for a large Torment of Hailfire .

Avenging Druid : A great inclusion for the deck. He's going to allow us to mill our deck to fill up our graveyard while also ramping us slightly with ANY land. Great addition. More often than not our opponents won't care about the 1 damage worth, but will quickly realise the graveyard power he brings and wisen up.

Manabond : Has the potential to ramp us absurdly quickly while simultaneously dumping all our value creatures into the graveyard for a later date. Manabond allows us for an explosive start and could potentially pump out an early game Karador. Once Karador is on the field we're able to recast the creatures we've discarded via Manabond. Most of the time, an opening hand with Manabond accerlerates you so far ahead that you can easily play while hellbent just utilising your graveyard and 1 card a turn. Extra spicy with Life from the Loam .

Sakura-Tribe Elder : This little snake ramps like crazy. Being able to loop Sakura-Tribe Elder at the start of a game is a really strong early game strategy that I loved to abuse in my old Meren deck... Well guess what, we run Meren, it's a very possible scenario.

Wood Elves : A bigger brother to the other Land fetchers we run. Lets us fetch any forest in the deck (crucial for the early game) this includes any OG Duals or Shocklands which in turn will let us fix our mana base.

Yavimaya Granger : Basically a Dawntreader Elk except we don't need to pay for its death and therefore we save alittle bit of coloured mana. An issue I've always had with the elk is that I cast it but never have the green mana open to sac it... such a pain. Yavimaya Granger is a solid upgrade to the elk.

Recursion

Our strategy revolves around the graveyard but we can't rely on just our commander to help bring back creatures. We need a suite of recursion to provide more value from the grave to continuously pummel our opponents. This decks recursion is a key aspect in its power, many a game a powerful boardstate exists, an opponent/myself boardwipes and this deck has the power to completely rebuild on my next turn, absolutely shifting the tides in our favor. I can't state enough how crucial this section is. The core of the deck is this section, most of the time we won't even be needing to cast Karador due to the sheer amount of recursion this deck has.

Animate Dead : Gets our creatures (especially the big ones) back from the graveyard for cheap & early in a game. Targetable via Sun Titan due to its cheap casting cost, this enchantment aura can be a powerhouse when equipped to the right creature.

Dread Return : Unconditional reanimation that we can flashback later in the game by simply sacrificing some creatures (Did I mention this deck loves to sacrifice creatures for value?). Dread Return is a must have in a Karador deck, especially if you run token generators as Dread Return has virtually no downside. Due to the nature of the deck, we'll be having lots of cards entering the graveyard, generally this would be considered a downside. However, we're still able to cast cards such as Dread Return due to the flashback ability.

Eternal Witness : Karador likes abilities on creatures as he can easily get them back from the grave easily. However, we can't run all our effects on creatures nor can we 100% rely on Karador being on the board so we have to run some Instants and Sorceries. Eternal Witness allows us to get these Instants and Sorceries back to reuse again. She can fetch a land that we chucked to the grave because of Grisly Salvage and she can get back a creature if we just need a creature for the scenario. Honestly she's a staple in any deck that wants to run Green.

Karmic Guide : Another reason we splashed white with Karador. Karmic Guide allows us to return ANY creature from the graveyard to the battlefield on ETB. Karmic Guide will generally enter the battlefield with either a big beater or a utility creatures to blow up something. She also enables a few key combos.

Life / Death : Death is the primary side that we will be using as it acts as a second copy of Reanimate for us. The Life side is primarily used to help Razaketh, the Foul Blooded tutor in more competitive metas. We can use this to tutor out some combo wincons (Karmic Guide + Reveillark , or Protean Hulk) or easily set up a massive Torment of Hailfire by tutoring for Torment, Ashnod's Altar , floating mana, saccing lands to altar and casting a large Torment in metas with low counterspell counts. Life also allows as to tap a land and attach Skullclamp to the land to dig for answers in tough boardstates.

Liliana, Heretical Healer : Liliana is an absolute monster in this deck and there's alot of factors I'll need to cover to get this point across. Firstly, she's a creature to start off with and Karador adores creatures being in his graveyard. Therefore Liliana is a very easy card to get back to the field especially due to her low cmc. Secondly, the way she flips to her Planeswalker side is hilariously easy. Once you flip her with easy you gain a 2/2 zombie which you can easily just use as sacrifice fodder or a nifty little attacker. Her first ability (+2) is one sided, everyone chucks a card into the graveyard. But you don't care about cards going to the graveyard, that's just a second hand to you because of all your reanimation effects. Her second ability (-X) allows you to reanimate any non-legendary creature that you have in your graveyard. Just another big stupid reanimation effect that can grab almost any creature is just great. Her third ability (-8) is potentially game winning in almost every deck, especially this one. You see, we want things to be constantly dying and once she has this emblem, every time something dies it just comes back to the field under our control. Now we run alot of destruction effects such as removal so we'll be constantly forcing our opponents to sacrifice things (which will in turn come back under our control). I just cannot stress enough how great of a card Liliana, Heretical Healer is in this deck. Oh and did i mention that Sun Titan can grab her?

Loaming Shaman : While we have alot of effects that brings back creatures to the battlefield or to our hands theres hardly anything allowing us to fetch our artifacts, enchantments, instants, lands or sorceries outside of cards such as Eternal Witness or Life from the Loam. Loaming Shaman allows us to select what we'd like to get mix back into our library while also being able to make it so that we cannot deck ourselves. We can also use him to get rid of a Cataclysmic Gearhulk that might impact our Living Death cast.

Meren of Clan Nel Toth : The previous commander of this deck and she served me very very well. But Karador adds white to the party with reanimator threats such as Sun Titan and Karmic Guide as well as punishing our opponents heavily with powerful exile effects. Meren provides us with turn after turn advantage and must be answered before she snowballs out of control. While not as effective as she is when she's our commander and the deck is centered around her she still needs to be answered quickly. Without the counters, Meren is providing us an Eternal Witness trigger each end step that can only target creatures. If our experience counters rise (which they likely will) she'll start to reanimate the creatures to the field which gets brutal when you can hit the larger beaters.

Necromancy : Basically another version of Animate Dead for redundancy. Like Animate Dead it's able to be recurred by Sun Titan and can also be grabbed by Commune with the Gods. A thing to note is its ability to be played as an instant speed reanimation effect which can come in handy in alot more situations than you'd think.

Ramunap Excavator : Crucible of Worlds on a creature, everything a Karador deck could ever want. There's not much more that I can say as it doesn't need much explaining as to why its great in this deck.

Reanimate : The namesake card of this strategy and one of the most prominent reanimation spells in the game. Life loss isn't an issue for us at 40 starting life when we're able to cheat into play high powered creatures early on.

Reveillark : Reveillark can hit alot of creatures in my graveyard and recur them with ease. Almost all of our creatures meet the requirement for Reveillark to reanimate and therefore Reveillark is a crucial reanimation component in this deck. It also has the capability of comboing quite effectively with alot of cards, namely Karmic Guide which allows us to reanimate our entire graveyard if the correct conditions are met.

Sheoldred, Whispering One : Aside from Sheoldred being a big stupid beater she also comes with very relevant abilities that Karador will absolute love. Her first ability is basically the same ability as Meren of Clan Nel Toth has but at the start of your turn instead of the end 'Return target creature from your graveyard to the battlefield', but this doesn't care about the cmc of the creature card so you can get back whatever you'd like. Her second ability allows her to work against our opponents. Sheoldred is a very powerful creature (and a large beater) and a great addition to this deck.

Sun Titan : Sun Titan is a primary reason why we dropped Meren for Karador's white colour identity. Sun Titan allows us to 'reanimate' any 3 cmc or less permanent on ETB or attack. This includes lands, artifacts, enchantments and creatures. He's quite a powerhouse with the correct targets. A large portion of our deck comes under this category and a large portion of this category is filled with value cards. No matter what Sun Titan targets, we'll be gaining pure advantage.

Removal Package

We're not going to be able to tackle our own strategy if we have opponents threatening us with powerful creatures, artifacts and enchantments so we need ways to remove these threats so that we can become the threat. Removal is essential in EDH as it allows you to go amount your gameplan without the roadblock that would be other opponents. Removal also provides us with alot of politics as we can bargain with other players to not remove threats or we can help people out by saving them from a massive smack to the face.

Acidic Slime : Acidic Slime provides us with a creature that comes equipped with an artifact, enchantment or land removal package. His Deathtouch is also quite relevant as opponents will not want to trade their creatures with him as he'll just come back and blow something up.

Anguished Unmaking : Probably one of the best removal spells you can have, the life loss is absolutely meaningless and the exile effect is absolutely brutal to the opponent. And for such a cheap cost you can't go wrong. The Instant speed removal is SO relevant in a format that consists of multiple turns between your turns.

Ashen Rider : Ashen Rider is the pinnacle of removal in my deck. Unconditional exile occurs on entering the battlefield and occurs on death. Over the course of the game it is capable of exiling a substantial amount of permanents.

Assassin's Trophy : Premium removal in GBx decks, wasn't very hard justifying its inclusion... its just that good!

Beast Within : One of the best Green removal cards in the game. It allows us to destroy any permanent at instant speed. The opponent gets a 3/3 but that isn't too much of an issue as it's bound to die from a variety of cards in this deck. Consider your opponents swinging at you with an enormous 20/20 Marit Lage, jokes on them BEAST WITHIN! They get a small 3/3 Beast. Ha!

Cataclysmic Gearhulk : Cataclysmic Gearhulk functions as an amazing recurrable boardwipe for us and can prove back breaking for go wide strategies. Being able to have a 'boardwipe' on a creature allows the Karador toolbox to continue to expand in versatility and power. Great card. I've only ever fallen into an awkward situation using it where I had a large graveyard of creatures (including the gearhulk) but was looking to cast Living Death . My route was to cast Loaming Shaman to remove gearhulk from the graveyard pile then cast Living Death . Another option if he's in the graveyard and you're wanting to cast Living Death is to stack the ETB triggers in a way that is beneficial for you.

Caustic Caterpillar : This little insect sure carries it's weight. One of the most efficient, instant speed, creature based, artifact and enchantment removal we have access to.

Generous Gift : White's version of Beast Within, destruction of any permanent can be quite valuable, we don't care about the 3/3.

Ghost Quarter : I feel that it is a necessity to run atleast one land removal card in EDH. Gets rid of pesky of a Gaea's Cradle or a Cabal Coffers . I'm looking into picking up a copy of Strip Mine or a Wasteland when I can afford.

Living Death : While it could be considered a win-more card, I view this both as a wincon and a removal card. It acts as a pseudo Wrath of God / Damnation effect while almost always having us profit more than our opponents. Majority of our creatures come with some insane ETB effects that can be abused to great lengths with this card. Alot of our creature removal is exile based, thus a lot of the threats that could be in our opponents graveyard will be in exile instead.

Path to Exile : One of the games best removal pieces for creatures. Unconditional Exile at instant speed and all they get is a basic land... Not going to help them too much and they've just lost a creature for good.

Pernicious Deed : This effect is absolutely brutal. Pernicious Deed creates a very powerful political game at the table as you're able to threaten people of a boardwipe at any time. You're also able to bargain this ability due to Pernicious Deed having the clause 'X or less' which allows you to generally create an unbalanced boardwipe but politically you're able to bargain with other and say 'I'll Pernicious Deed for 4 so your stuff stays alive as long as you don't attack me for the next few turns'. This political nature of Deed makes it a very powerful card to begin with. Outside of this Enchantments are among the hardest permanents to remove in EDH and hence it's hard for people to answer this before it's too late. It being a 3cmc enchantment greatly improves how amazing it already is as a Sun Titan can constantly bring it back after it has been used and you can repeatably do this when necessary. Pernicious Deed for 10 to remove almost all possible permanents... or just Pernicious Deed for 0 to absolutely cripple that token players swarm. I cannot stress how good of a boardwipe Pernicious Deed is. You'll have to try it for yourself to really see the true power. If you can't get a hold of one, check out its little brother Gaze of Granite which is definitely no where near as powerful but has almost the same effect and is still quite powerful in EDH.

Ravenous Chupacabra : Provides us unconditional creature removal on a stick that is recurrable and fits nicely into the Birthing Pod Chain.

Reclamation Sage : Another creature equipped with the ability to blow up an artifact or enchantment as they enter the battlefield which can be abused by an array of effects in the deck.

Remorseful Cleric : Remorseful Cleric provides us with creature based instant speed graveyard removal. The Cleric has the perfect stats to also be skullclampable, fetchable with Recruiter, and evasive for early game damage.

Shriekmaw : An amazing piece of targeted creature removal in Black and synergises greatly with Karador. The evoke cost can be paid from the graveyard allowing for cheap removal of creatures on the fly even if Shriekmaw has been milled. Shriekmaw's condition of 'non-black' 'non-artifact' target sometimes is an issue but the deck runs that many removal spells that we're able to handle this issue with ease.

Swords to Plowshares : Probably the cheapest and the best spot removal in all of Magic's history. The life gain is not an issue whatsoever in commander or in any format. I feel beginners kind of misinterpret this life gain if you're going to win already and just need to carve a path, a few life isn't really going to stop you. It'd be crazy not to run Magic's best removal spell.

Toxic Deluge : A cheap boardwipe that can remove indestructible creatures for the low low price of your life. In commander you start with 40 life, life loss isn't too much of an issue in a 40 life format when you're able to remove all creatures.

Windgrace's Judgment : The heavy hitter out of C18 and for a reason. Hitting one nonland permanent of your choice from EACH of your opponents and at instant speed for 5 mana is crazy good. Definitely an instant staple and definitely worth running in decks that run G/B.

Tutors

Tutor cards make the deck run more consistently. EDH is a format that loves the random nature of an 100 card singleton format but sometimes you just need to give a deck the added kick. These cards provide that consistency and gain me valuable plays.

Birthing Pod : How can you make a graveyard based deck without Birthing Pod?? Well up until just recently I have and I've been stupid not to play it. The values all there. It's just that good. Work your way up the Birthing Pod chain for pure value.

Buried Alive : Think of Entomb but 3 of them in one card, this card is an insane tutor for this deck and extremely potent.

Eladamri's Call : One of the best forms of tutoring that we have outside of Vampiric and Demonic Tutor. The downside is that we can only grab creatures but the upside is that all of our creatures have crazy amounts of versatility as we play as a creature toolbox deck and therefore would be able to easily counter whatever the issue at hand may be.

Entomb : Turn 1 - Swamp, Entomb Sheoldred, Whispering One . Turn 2 - Animate Dead Sheoldred Whispering One. Entomb is a very good tutor in a graveyard based deck and especially in Karador where it can easily fetch you the option you need to fight back.

Fauna Shaman : Survival of the Fittest on a creature. Karador loves creatures and if you've ever seen Survival of the Fittest being used you'll know it's a powerhouse.

Knight of the Reliquary : Our best form of land tutoring allowing us to fetch up whatever land we need for the situation. It also gets bigger the more lands there are in your graveyard. The fact that we dredge and mill will fill our graveyard with a good amount of lands to start with making Knight of the Reliquary and exceptional card to run. Depending on our land prescence in our graveyard, she can be swinging for a large chunk of life.

Protean Hulk : Now that this absurd gem has been unbanned the potential for it to do filthy things in my deck is of a high degree. Everything about it matches my criteria for a great card and it sure can be abused to hell. Tutor a filthy combo or a clutch play mid game is so good.

Razaketh, the Foulblooded : Demonic tutor for the cost of 2 life and a sacced creature, all strapped to a large 8/8 trample + flyer sounds great. The ability to instant speed tutor for a card enhances our ability to use this deck as a pure toolbox. Razaketh has a steep mana cost so we will be wanting to recur him from out of the graveyard majority of the time. Functions well with another card we run, Life / Death allowing us to use the Life side, float mana, and sac lands to assemble a wincon if we're playing in a competitive meta.

Recruiter of the Guard : Recruiter of the Guard provides us with abusable tutoring. It's a good thing to note that almost all of the creature cards that I run meet Recruiter of the Guard's requirement and can be grabbed therefore resulting in a crazy cheap and powerful tutor. Just look at a card such as Imperial Recruiter who is an absolute powerhouse in the formats he's played in and almost identical to Recruiter of the Guard. Recruiter of the Guard allows us to grab whatever creature is relevant in said scenario for such a cheap cost.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier : A tutor on a creatures ETB is always good. A tutor on a creatures ETB that can sacrifice itself in a deck that brings back creatures from the graveyard is ridiculously powerful. You can loop Sidisi and search out all the necessary cards you need. She's a must include in any deck that runs black and wants things dying.

Utility/Value

These cards are cards that don't fit into other categories yet still manage to bring a large amount of value and advantage during games.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite : While being a huge and impactful card to reanimate, Elesh Norn also poses as a big play in my meta as she effects the vast majority of my opponents decks especially all the token decks running rampant that cant overcome her easy. Include how quickly this deck can rebuild its boardstate, she puts my opponents in a kind of 'non-creature only' lock. She also allows for a 4 point p/t swing which makes combat damage a good wincon.

Filth : We always want to be getting this card into our graveyards. With Filth in the grave and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the battlefield, all of our creatures are unblockable. Filth is our go to stategy in allowing creature damage as a viable wincon and making it nigh impossible for our opponents to block us. Filth is a card that we're always trying to aim to get in the graveyard as quickly as possible via Fauna Shaman, Entomb, Mill or Dredge.

Peacekeeper : Peacekeeper, as the name suggests, keeps everything at peace for us, creating a pillow fort when it isn't our turn. On upkeep we fail to pay the upkeep cost and it's sent to the graveyard... we can attack now... second mainphase he returns to dictate our opponents combat steps. Recurrable with Sun Titan & fetchable with Recruiter of the Guard, Peacekeeper ticks alot of boxes close to my heart. To add the cherry on top, skullclamp kills him off effectively.

Spore Frog : The fog frog is a force to be reckoned with. In my Meren deck he was an absolute powerhouse and nothing has change for this trusty amphibian. Allowing for constant fog makes attacking quite tedious. Honestly, Spore Frog really needs to be played with or against to understand its true power. When this card enters the battlefield, a mini game between my opponents starts called 'get rid of the frog'. If you want a second copy of the fog frog, go for Kami of False Hope .

Torment of Hailfire : Incredibly brutal when you can pour alot of mana into it (such as mana from cabal coffers). This card absolutely rips apart opponents board states, hands and life totals. Try it for yourself, you'll see what I mean and instantly fall in love with it like I have. Torment of Hailfire is one of my go to wincons in this deck and I find myself constantly aiming towards looping it late game and absolutely annihilating my opponents.

HOW TO WIN

Karador and the Abzan colours in general enable an incredibly grindy and resilient playstyle that is hard to disrupt. But we do need to eventually wrap the game up and this deck has multiple routes to victory.

Combat Damage

The easiest and most straight forward route to victory for beginners is via combat damage. We can do this by racking up damage over time with our tiny utility creatures or by using our big beaters like Razaketh, the Foulblooded , Wurmcoil Engine , Sheoldred, Whispering One , or Ashen Rider . We can sit back and grind out the game allowing our opponents to kill each other by holding up a Spore Frog , or we can restrict the attacks of our opponents and only let ourselves attack using Peacekeeper .

When our opponents have a large, difficult to attack into boardstate, we can Entomb for Filth allowing our creatures to be unblockable, provided we have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the battlefield. Cards such as Life / Death have added utility by turning all our lands into small attackers for a turn, unblockable by using the Filth/Urborg combo (This line of play is stronger if one of the large beaters you run is Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite ).

Big X Spells

Abzan gives us access to valuable X spells such as Torment of Hailfire , Debt to the Deathless , and Exsanguinate . Pick your poison. I run Torment as it impacts the opponent significantly even if they don't die on cast. To pump a large surplus of mana into our X spells we'll be using the Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Cabal Coffers combo to generate a large surplus of black mana to utilise. We can also go ahead and use Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun + Life / Death to generate a large amount of mana in addition to this. If you have access to Gaea's Cradle , I recommend running this to further boost power and early game explosiveness.

But what if my big X spell is countered or stuck in the graveyard? Eternal Witness and Loaming Shaman are your answers. Eternal Witness also allows you to cast your big X spells multiple times a game.

Graveyard Combos

Being in Abzan colours gives us access to a large quantity of cards that coincidently go infinite with each other. The core of the package includes Karmic Guide and Reveillark who both fetch each other from the graveyard. With a sac outlet in play, you're able to infinitely loop these two creatures. This is the basis of the loop. To win using this loop you have a few options, some are already in the deck, others can be inclusions to increase win consistency:

Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar for infinite mana for your big X spells

Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat for infinite life drain

Bitter Ordeal to remove all opponents libraries

Altar of Dementia to mill everyone's library

Acidic Slime , recur him alongside Karmic Guide with Reveillark enough times to destroy all your opponents lands to force them to scoop or put you far ahead.

Life of Razaketh

Life of Razaketh is the name I've given to the combo containing Razaketh, the Foulblooded and Life / Death . It is a combo that is used to assemble all your win conditions in one turn, hopefully winning that turn, or to assemble the perfect hand. There are multiple routes to take within this combo based on your board state, hand, graveyard, and library and you will learn the lines as you play with the deck more but the general outline is this:

Razaketh in the graveyard, reanimate him with at least one creature on the board.

Sac the creature searching for Life / Death

Tap lands and float mana, casting the Life side

Use the new land creatures as sac fodder for whatever win condition you're looking for or infinite combo to win.

An example combo that this powerful tutor package can construct is this:

*Requires Razaketh, the Foulblooded , Karmic Guide , and Reveillark to be in the graveyard, 1 creature on board. Can easily be assembled via Buried Alive or Entomb for the missing piece/s

Reanimate Razaketh

Razaketh for Life / Death , using the creature on board as sac fodder

Float remaining 5 lands, cast Life

Razaketh for Animate Dead using a land as sac fodder

Razaketh for Altar of Dementia using a land as sac fodder

Cast Animate Dead, targeting Karmic Guide, bringing back Reveillark

Cast the Altar, sacrifice Karmic Guide, targeting an opponent to mill

Sac Reveillark, targeting opponent to mill, bringing back Karmic Guide with Reveillark's death trigger.

Karmic enters, bringing back Reveillark, repeat.

Pass turn, on each opponents draw step they fail to draw and die.

This route requires 6 mana total to perform. There are likely more efficient lines of play possible and as you play you'll likely stumble across them.

Other combos

This deck is currently 1 creature away from being able to perform the Boonweaver combo, that being Boonweaver Giant himself, so you can always opt for that route of play.

UPCOMING ADDITIONS

Cards that I will be adding in the coming future

Dread Return -> Kagemaro, First to Suffer : Dread Return has always felt clunky, I'm looking at testing a creature based boardwipe. If Kagemaro turns out to be a bad card, I'll likely test out more creature based stuff such as: False Prophet , Sunblast Angel , Massacre Wurm , Mageta the Lion , Bane of the Living , or Magus of the Disk

Ghost Quarter -> Wasteland : Looking to upgrade the land removal in the future. Strip Mine is arguably a better pick over Wasteland, however Basic Lands aren't really an issue and I'd rather run Wasteland... the arts nicer which is a plus.

The concept of a 'meta hate package'. This small package (maybe 5 cards?) will include cards to fight against common, meta dependant, themes. For example, if graveyard hate is beginning to increase within your meta, slotting an Aegis of the Gods might be a card that keeps you in the game longer. Cards that could be utilised:

Aegis of the Gods : to combat grave hate

Opposition Agent : to combat tutoring

Hushwing Gryff : to combat ETB triggers

Collector Ouphe : to combat artifact strategies

Vryn Wingmare : to combat noncreature strategies

Aven Mindcensor : to combat tutoring

Spirit of the Labyrinth : to combat card draw

Grand Abolisher : to combat control decks

Finally, I'm looking into sorting out the land base slightly. I'd like to add the Bond lands, Bountiful Promenade + Vault of Champions . Caves of Koilos and Brushland might also be good additions to the land base but I'm not sure and more testing is likely required.

POTENTIAL INCLUSIONS

Cards that YOU as a fellow Karador player, should also consider

Apprentice Necromancer : Great piece of cheap reanimation that Karador can continue to recur for value. The sacrifice at end step isn't too much of a hindrance to us as our creature would've already done the damage (aka hitting for alot plus ETB value). A line of play that I like the look of here is tap and sac for a Sun Titan , on ETB Sun Titan can bring back a heavy value piece and on attack bring back the Necromancer. Rinse and repeat. Another line of play is the Necromancer targeting a Wurmcoil Engine or an Ashen Rider , getting us great beaters (with Ashen Rider also blowing something up on ETB) and residual damage end of turn with Wurmcoil Engine multiplying and Ashen Rider blowing up even more things. Also, the Necromancer isn't limited to on your turn reanimation and therefore can produce spicy blockers that also provide great ETB value. Oh and let us on forget Apprentice Necromancer targetting Protean Hulk ... absolutely disgusting. Necromancer went under the radar for me for awhile but Commander 2017 reintroduced it to me. Great inclusion.

Aura Shards : Reclamation Sage is an amazing card in EDH, what if all creatures had a Reclamation Sage attached to them? That's what Aura Shards does, makes every creature have a destroy enchantment/artifact effect on ETB for the same cost. This card is honestly just downright oppressive and therefore I don't know how likely I am to run it.

Bazaar of Baghdad : Brings a lot of draw power to a graveyard deck. The card is incredibly expensive though so a proxxy might be worthwhile if your playgroup is cool with that.

Bitter Ordeal : If you're going down the combo route, you wouldn't be wrong in playing this card after infinitely looping Karmic Guide and Reveillark. Bitter Ordeal also allows us to remove graveyard hate from out of our opponents decks.

Bojuka Bog : Sometimes you just need to nuke an opponents graveyard. Don't want any other pesky graveyard shenanigans going on, that's your job.

Bountiful Promenade : Basically enters untapped in commander.

Blade of Selves : Allows us to abuse ETB triggers on alot of our creatures. For example: Ramping us with Wood Elves or draining everyones life total substantially with Gray Merchant of Asphodel or flickering a Sun Titan/Grave Titan into play for sweet tokens or to bring back a large portion of my graveyard.

Bloodghast : Quite easy to abuse in a reanimator deck that ramps fairly easily. Can also be abused with the likes of cards such as Skullclamp . Also, we're able to dredge or mill and then return Bloodghast quite easily. There are alot of other cool synergies we have with other cards such as Avenging Druid or Recruiter of the Guard. Bloodghast will fit nicely.

Blooming Marsh : First two turns this comes out as an unfetchable Bayou . Have you seen how expensive Bayou is? Blooming Marsh is an amazing card for any decks running Golgari.

Carpet of Flowers : Seems like a Sol Ring on steroids in a meta that contains Blue players. Potentially a high value card that keeps getting better as the game progresses and it'll need to be answered.

Chains of Mephistopheles : Great way to control our opponents draws while also filling up our yard if need be.

Contamination : Brutal for our opponents and we can sort of live through is however in a 3 colour deck it's alot more difficult.

Damnation / Wrath of God : Classic boardwipes... I already run some boardwipes but another could be a great addition. The colour density in my deck will determine which boardwipe I'll head towards.

Dawntreader Elk : Sac the Elk, gain a land, gain value. A very good card to loop early game.

Deathrite Shaman : Our 1 cmc planeswalker of the deck. Deathrite Shaman provides ramp, life drain, life gain and graveyard hate. He's a valuable utility creature in any GBx deck and should not be overlooked. He's our best form of targeted graveyard hate and applies pressure to our opponents as his 3 ability are quite good, especially his first tap ability allowing him to ramp whichever colour we desire. The fact that he has a split casting cost (G or B) allows us to have awkward first turn plays as we're always looking for a green mana source. With DRS we're able to utilize his first ability and remove a potential abusable fetchland. His second and third abilities provide us with a grindy win condition as well as allowing us to utilize a multitude of life draining effects that we run in our deck to better effect.

Deadly Rollick : Great removal if we have Karador on the field, okay removal if we don't

Debt to the Deathless : Pour alittle bit of mana into the X cost, gain back a decent chunk of life. Pour alot into the X cost, potentially win the game on the spot or atleast make the life totals completely off skew making it hard for the opponents to keep up. We run lots of ways to chuck this sucker back into our hand or back into our library that it isn't rare that we can cast it multiple times a game. With the likes of Eternal Witness being so easily fetchable, we're guaranteed this returning into our hands. With the inclusion of Cabal Coffers combined with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, this card suddenly can become an absolutely monster in the game, tearing apart at life totals and significantly increasing ours. Now that Torment of Hailfire has been released, I honestly think that Torment of Hailfire trumps Debt to the Deathless as our big X spell, therefore it was sadly replaced with a Living Death ... I'm not too sad haha

Diamond Valley : It could be compared to a High Market on steroids... Gives us a sac outlet while also keeping us nourished with life.

Dimir House Guard : Do not underestimate this little skeleton. He's a crucial part in a tutor package allowing us to tutor for some Karador staples such as Greater Good, Birthing Pod, Oracle of Mul Daya... The list goes on. When you Transmute he also fills the grave for Karador. EXCELLENT. What more could he potentially bring? I'll tell you, he comes with that juicy sacrifice outlet worthy of any Ashen Rider or ETB abuse plays. Even more, he's quite hard to take off the board due to his ability to regenerate and his evasiveness... But we mainly use him to grab some Karador staples via Transmute.

Drown in Filth : Probably not our best form of removal but it also allows us to shrink troublesome creatures. Early game this tends to be a dead draw but where it's quite good earlier game and somewhat late game is its ability to throw cards in the graveyard (similarly to Commune with the Gods & Grisly Salvage). Late game is where this card truly shines as we'll have a large array of lands sitting in our graveyard, we'll be able to removal larger creatures than we otherwise couldn't. The flavour of this card is sweet too, I like it.

Fetid Heath : Allows us to further colour fix.

Food Chain : Gives us infinte mana with Karador... So there might be some ways we're able to break this.

Glory : Glory provides us with a great way to grant our creatures against mass removal or even targeted removal. It also allows us to attack and block in awkward scenarios. Just an all round awesome graveyard based card. Similarly to Filth we have a variety of ways to get Glory into our graveyard ranging from Fauna Shaman to a strategical Buried Alive.

Golgari Grave-Troll : The dredge mechanic here is huge, allowing us to fill our yard on draw. He gets massive the more we focus on having a full yard too which is amazing. Unlike Splinterfright, he's also fetchable via both Recruiter of the Guard and Reveillark. However unlike Splinterfright, he cannot perpetually grow throughout the game and will instead remain the size he was when he entered the battlefield. Regardless, he's still extremely strong. His signature Troll ability, Regenerate, allows him to remain on the field as a constant threat.

Grave Titan : Amazing card in any black deck especially if you want to abuse his ETB and attack triggers.

Graveblade Marauder : A simple creature that has the potential to hit extremely hard in this deck

Growing Rites of Itlimoc : Can't afford Gaea's Cradle? Look no further as here we have a card that is almost on the same powerlevel of Gaea's Cradle... We just have to activate the flip. However to flip 'Growing Rites of Itlimoc' is crazy easy in a Karador deck choc full of creatures. Upon flipping you get yourself a Gaea's Cradle (oh boi) that can tap for green even after a boardwipe/no creatures on your side (!!!).

Hallowed Spiritkeeper : An absolute token powerhouse. Our entire strategy is to have creatures in our graveyard to use as a toolbox for Karador as well as to reduce his casting cost. With Hallowed Spiritkeeper on death a large surplus of 1/1 flyers are generated as our grave is absolutely filled with creatures. Late into the game the potential to spawn upwards of 38 1/1 flyers, which you can then recast Hallowed Spiritkeeper and repeat.

Harmonic Sliver : Synergises greatly with Necrotic Sliver and like Necrotic Sliver it's fetchable from Sun Titan. The more removal effects the better.

Hazoret's Monument : Red clause doesn't matter, what we care about is the discard/draw condition. Potentially very worthwhile in terms of card advantage.

Hell's Caretaker : A cheaper, lesser version of Sheoldred that can be grabbed with Dimir House Guard and Recruiter of the Guard. Hell's Caretaker is able to grab a creature from the graveyard each turn at the cost of another of your creatures (Notably usually a token or Hell's Caretaker himself). This ability allows us to cheat big threats into play or garner incremental ETB value. Imagine this scenario: Hell's Caretaker & Karador on the field, tap Hell's Caretaker sacrificing itself to recur Ashen Rider allowing you to Exile a target permanent, then due to Karador we can recast Hell's Caretaker... Congrats you casted an Ashen Rider for 4 mana. Rinse and repeat next turn.

Hermit Druid : The inclusion of this card takes your deck from 0 - 100 really quickly, and can sometimes just read 'you win'. Very, very good card to start your deck off with an explosive start. I'd recommend running it if you want to ramp up your decks power significantly.

Hunting Grounds : We'll almost always have threshold so we'll be able to put creatures into play with ease.

Hushwing Gryff : While it can impact us negatively, we only play it when we're really far behind or really far ahead to negatively impact our opponents. Similarly to Peacekeeper, we can play some shennanigans with Hushwing Gryff so that it only effects our opponents. The flash ability makes this card even more crucial as it acts as a 'counterspell for ETB' style card which can prove very handy to have. All in all, while we can be negatively impacted by Hushwing Gryff, the advantages and plays that it brings to the board far outweigh the negatives. Fetchable with Recruiter of the Guard, this card further pulls its weight.

Journey to Eternity : Fits in very well with Karador's Graveyard recursion theme. It enables you to originally get value off of ETB triggers or death triggers and then returning flipped, helping you fix your colours while also allowing you to recur creatures from your graveyard. Another bonus about this aura is that Sun Titan can go and fetch it for you.

Kagemaro, First to Suffer : Creature based mass boardwipe, dependent on cards in hand

Kami of the False Hope: Second version of Spore Frog for heavy creature focus metas.

Knight of Autumn : Versatile creature, we probably want to be playing the artifact/enchantment removal option though.

Kokusho, the Evening Star : Similar to Gray Merchant of Asphodel but more consistent and can swing for alot if needed.

Lake of the Dead : While it might be a dead draw as a first turn play, it can enable me to generate a larger supply of mana than I should be able to generate. Without saccing a swamp it simply functions as a basic swamp. However when I have the wiggle room to sacrifice a swamp it allows me to jump ahead of everyone else at the table. With Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on the table the amount of targets for Lake of the Dead opens up and allows me to sacrifice lands that I don't really need at that point in time. Where Lake of the Dead truly shines is if you're running Crucible of Worlds or Life From the Loam where you're able to unconditionally sacrifice swamps as you can easily get them back. Another neat synergy we have is that Lake of the Dead powers Drown in Filth allowing us to removal even larger targets. Lake of the Dead also enables me to put my Riftstone Portal in the yard in the occurence that it ends up on the field from sources such as Avenging Druid.

Lifecrafter's Bestiary :- Absurd with Karador giving access to drawing a substantial amount of cards due to having so many creatures in our deck.

Magus of the Disk : Magus version of Nevinyrrals Disk. In a graveyard deck we can recur this with ease. One of the stronger boardwipes we have access to.

Magus of the Tabernacle : Allows us to keep our opponents in check while not hindering us too much as we never really run a large board and can easily recur anything we couldn't pay for. Bonus points for him being able to be fetched by Dimir House Guard . Kind of bummed though that he isn't a 2/2 or a 6/2 as Recruiter of the Guard can't grab him.

Manglehorn : The new Reclamation Sage of EDH. Sure he doesn't hit enchantments but he's able to tax our opponents fast mana. Like Reclamation Sage he's able to be abuse via ETB triggers to absolutely demolish our opponents board state.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed : This guy is a great enabler for alot of crazy plays. Hey allows our creatures to survive boardwipes while also synergising with sacrifice outlets gaining value off of all the ETB triggers we play.

Mimic Vat : Here to abuse ETB triggers on cards such as Ashen Rider. Notably can also be fetchable via Sun Titan.

Necropotence : There's a reason why this is banned in almost every format and restricted in the remaining. This powerhouse of a card allows us to always have a hand full of answers to absolutely abuse the game with. Skipping the draw step isn't an issue here due to how quickly we're able to fill our hand back up again end of turn. The discard into exile clause can be a troublesome effect... especially when we want to be discarding with Fauna Shaman, but she still allows us to tutor some great creatures with the small lost of a creature going to exile... perhaps I'll add a Riftsweeper to compensate for this interaction? Regardless, Necropotence is one MONSTER of a card and is often over looked. It's a must answer card.

Pack Rat : Pack Rat brings alot of 'enabling' to this deck as it acts as a power discard outlet. Discarding allows for us to enable alot of graveyard based plays as we're more powerful through our graveyard than our hand. Additionally, Pack Rat can swarm our opponents if left unchecked as it grows increasingly harder to deal with. Its low cost allows early game starts and the fact that it has a low power when not on the board allows for cards like Reveillark and Recruiter of the Guard to hit it. If you've ever played against a Pack Rat you'll know how intimidating and quickly things to can out of control. If the discard cost is too high for you then I recommend trying out Zombie Infestation , the downside is that it isn't creature based and theres alot less options to grab it out of your deck/graveyard and it isn't as threatening as a swarm of massive rats, however you can discard very quickly all at once to produce a large swarm of small zombies.

Phyrexian Altar : Like Ashnod's Altar it's a sac outlet however it produces coloured mana instead of 2 colourless.

Qasali Pridemage : Essentially a recurrable Krosan Grip that also boosts your attacker if attacking alone. The fact that it's on a creature enables some broken graveyard shenanigans. Krosan Grip provides more of a 'surprise' as you can't always see it coming and split second makes it uncounterable but Qasali Pridemage has an activated ability so it's alot harder to counter that too.

Reflecting Pool : The card is essentially a Mana Confluence that doesn't hurt us. It enables us to tap for any colour of mana we desire that we can already generate and therefore it would be a great inclusion in the deck. It doesn't colour fix for us but we have a multitude of other ways to colour fix, this card just accelerates our colour options further.

Riftsweeper : Our go to source in grabbing cards we want back out of Exile. Karadors worse enemy is exile and graveyard hate and Riftsweeper mends that Achilles heel slightly.

Rune-Scarred Demon : Demonic Tutor on a stick and with a decently big body too. We have a variety of ways to cheat this creature into play for free or a low cost.

Scavenging Ooze : Just like Deathrite Shaman, Scavenging Ooze provides us with targeted graveyard removal with the occasional lifegain and counters. Due to our large surplus of creature cards in our graveyard Scooze also provides us with a gigantic beater late game that can hit players for high damage.

Splinterfright : Not your conventional way of drawing cards, but with Karador and our suite of reanimation, Splinterfright reads 'Draw 2 cards'. Strapped onto this is the ability to get larger the more creatures appear in our graveyard. He synergises quite well with himself while also providing us with value in the form of our 'second hand', the graveyard.

Stinkweed Imp : Stinkweed Imp provides a large chunk of our library to be dumped into our graveyard to mess around with reanimation. He can act as an early game defense card too as no one would want to run into him, with the fear of loosing a creature plus dumping this engine into the graveyard to get the ball rolling.

Strands of Night : Such a great reanimation card. My deck can handle the occasional land loss as it has a strong land recursion theme alongside creature recursion. The 4 cmc just pushes it even further into my heart as Dimir House Guard can fetch it easily for me, giving me more reason to Transmute him.

Strip Mine : Amazing land removal card... it's banned in most formats and restricted in the ones it isn't banned in, that should tell you something. When it comes to EDH it's a phenomenal and broken card especially with the likes of Crucible of Worlds, Life From the Loam, Ramunap Excavator etc.

Street Wraith : Gives us a way to draw a card for free (via discard + paying life) but also allows us to cheapen Karador so we can cast him sooner. Once we have our engines to bring Street Wraith to the battlefield, we're rewarded with a 3/4 Swampwalker which is nothing to complain about.

Survival of the Fittest : The busted version of Fauna Shaman, if you've ever used this card you'll know what I'm talking about. In a graveyard deck the versatility sky rockets even further than it already was. Currently I'm only running Fauna Shaman to keep to the creature theme... However Survival of the Fittest is a BIG maybe.

Tempt with Discovery : I'm on the fence with this currently, I used to run it and it was amazing however the fact that it helps my opponents is really blegh... I'll continue to consider it but im not 100% if I'll ever add it back in... Unless the power level of my lands increase alot.

Terastodon : Remember how I said that Beast Within was the best removal Green has? Well welcome to this big stupid elephant that comes equipped with 3 Beast Withins that can't target creatures but can target virtually everything else. He can truly cripple your opponents strategy by blowing up key artifacts and enchantments while also slowing them down by completely nuking their mana base. A fun strategy would be to loop him a few times with Karador then cast a boardwipe leaving your opponents with nothing, not even lands. If blowing shit up isn't your style you're still going to be getting a massive 9/9 to smash into your opponents faces. I love this big stupid elephant.

Tymna the Weaver : My viewpoint on this new legendary is that she's a Phyrexian Arena on legs if you're able to hit a minimum of one player per turn, hitting anymore is just an additional upside. Her cmc and p/t are very valuable too being a 3cmc allows her to be the target of a Sun Titan and 2 toughness being targetable via Recruiter of the Guard.

Unburial Rites : Unburial Rites is a great reanimation card that functions quite well in a deck that likes milling itself. You're capable of casting it from the hand but also from the graveyard.

Vampire Hexmage : Another hate card towards counter and planeswalker based strategies that can be recurred easily with Karador.

Vampiric Tutor : Probably the best tutor in the format (arguable with Demonic Tutor). Vampiric Tutor lets us grab whatever we want at Instant speed for the cost of a small amount of life. Definitely a card that'll improve the consistency of the decklist.

Vault of the Archangel : Allows us to give our entire team deathtouch and lifelink providing us with difficult to block attackers or forcing attackers to retreat. Lifelink allows us to gain back the life we lose throughout the game.

Vengevine : So easy to constantly get this creature back out of your graveyard after it has died or after it has been milled. We'll constantly have access to this 4/3 haste creature. Phenomenal

Victimize : Brings us back 2 creatures for the price of one. They enter in tapped but all of our creatures give value on ETB so the coming into play tapped isn't too much of an issue for us. The mere price of one creature (generally a small token) is not a set back for us at all, because if it's a nontoken creature, we're still able to recast it from our graveyard.

Vizier of the Menagerie : In a heavy creature based deck, this Vizier ends up bringing a lot of value to the board. While in play, Vizier effectively (and most of the time) enables the top of your library to be a second hand, casting creatures from it. In addition to this, Vizier allows us to dictate whether we dump cards to our graveyard or draw to hand with a variety of abilities. Top deck manupilation such as Viscera Seer allows us to optimize our ability to cast from the top of the library. Finally, the Vizier enables us to colour fix for a large portion of our deck as it fixes colour costs for our creatures.

Void Winnower : The best piece of shutdown that I could run and allows for a perfect Birthing Pod chain into her. ALOT, and i mean ALOT of EDH cards are even cmc's so this card is just phenomenally brutal. Think of Iona but instead of 1 colour it hits even cmc cards but also prevents our opponents pre-existing even cmc creatures from blocking.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger : The pinnacle of creature ramp and opponent slowing. Vorinclex is a master at what he does which is accelerating us greatly yet crippling those who try to remove him by attacking their lands. Vorinclex is a must answer card as soon as he hits the field as his potential to slow the game greatly is immense.

Woodfall Primus : What a big, stupid, excuse for a creature. The amount of abuse you can use him for his hilarious and nuking your opponents non-creature permanents is the pinnacle of removal. The persist ability is such a relevant ability, allowing Primus to live through boardwipes and removal only to come back and hit harder.

World Shaper : Allows us to fill our graveyard per turn and has the benefit of ramping us, potentially quite hard, if it were to die. I tend to have alot of lands sitting around in my graveyard thanks to a multitude of card effects so this could prove to be potentially effective.

Wurmcoil Engine : He is indeed an engine. A value engine. The deathtouch makes him scary to block or attack into and the lifelink helps with other life draining aspects of this deck. You're also able to sacrifice him for his tokens and then bring him back end of turn. Rinse and repeat for an army of scary steel clad wurms.

Comments are greatly appreciated and I read + reply to every single one of them! I have put alot of effort into refining this deck, both card wise and description wise so an upvote would be so greatly appreciated if you like my rendition of Karador, Ghost Chieftain. Thankyou in advance!

Updates Add

Life of Razaketh Update — Feb. 1, 2021

Edit

With Murderous Rider underperforming and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite not being as relevant in my current meta, I've opted to increase win consistency. Currently, our win cons include either combat damage with the help of Filth and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, or a large Torment of Hailfire.

Razaketh, the Foulblooded is our new toy to play with over Elesh Norn. He brings a lot of power to the board being an 8/8 Flying Trampler. In addition to his good stats, he also is an instant speed Demonic Tutor on a stick. He enables an increase in deck consistency and 'toolbox-ness'.

Life / Death is the card I've chosen to run over Murderous Rider. The Death side is extremely relevant for us and acts as a second form of Reanimate, we almost always want to cast the Death side. So why not run something such as Stitch Together as we'll always meet the threshold and we don't lose life? Well, speaking of life, the Life side of Life / Death brings us added utility with Razaketh. Life also ends up being great tech when Riftstone Portal was used as an early game land drop and you'd rather it be in the graveyard.

The Razaketh + Life line of play, that I'm calling Life of Razaketh in this deck primer, enables us to assemble the perfect hand to win. Our route is this:

Razaketh in the graveyard, reanimate him with at least one creature on the board.
Sac the creature searching for Life / Death
Tap lands and float mana, casting the Life side
Use the new land creatures as sac fodder for whatever win condition you're looking for or infinite combo to win.

My line of play would usually lead me to grab pieces such as Karmic Guide, Reveillark, Protean Hulk, or Altar of Dementia. The rate in which this line of play is played is small as it's more for wrapping up slow, grindy games. Razaketh can simply just grab Torment of Hailfire, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, or Cabal Coffers.

This line of play is increased power-wise by running Gaea's Cradle in the list (which can be searched by Razaketh) or Lion's Eye Diamond.

Hope you've enjoyed my deck primer and constant updates to the list.

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Casual

94% Competitive

Top Ranked	Achieved #41 position overall 6 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Exclude colors	UR
Key combos	Karmic Guide + Reveillark
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 49 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.27
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Elephant 3-3 G, Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Experience Token, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Own, New decks, Intresse, Interesting Commander Decks, EDH, Decks I like, 1, asd, Deck idea inspiration, EDH Decks
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