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Kess, Dissident Mage Reanimator (High Power)

Commander / EDH UBR (Grixis)

InchZer0

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Land (37)

Artifact (7)

Sorcery (21)

Instant (15)

Commander (1)

Commander: Kess, Dissident Mage

Creature (16)

Planeswalker (2)

Enchantment (1)

Welcome to my semi-unusual take on Kess, Dissident Mage! Most people looking at Kess see a storm or a spellslinger commander, and they wouldn't be wrong. However, Kess answers my largest issues with reanimator decks:

  • Your reanimation spell is in your graveyard and your reanimator targets are in your hand
  • You're playing a non-Grixis color combination ( Sedris, the Traitor King doesn't count)
  • Your commander becomes too crucial to the deck.

While the deck certainly excels with Kess in play, it ultimately doesn't need her to work. Our primary objective with this deck is to cycle through our deck to dump our reanimator targets into the yard while searching for ways to cheat them out.

Breakthrough : Quick and cheap, I am usually comfortable with X=3 so I can dump most of my hand into the yard. This card secretly is bad early game, but plenty versatile in the late game.

Buried Alive : Fairly self explanatory, this card can notably grab one of my 2-creature-infinites with a single spell (Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts / Deceiver Exarch .

Careful Study : Cheap, reliable, and with Kess out, we can easily cast it twice as needed.

Cathartic Reunion : Cheap discard outlet that replaces itself and the two cards you discard.

Faithless Looting : Very similar to Careful Study, Looting has the benefit of being castable from the grave even without Kess, giving it extra versatility.

Notion Rain : I am loving Surveil, and dumping some key reanimator targets or situational answer card to the grave for later use while also drawing two more cards sounds like a win--win. Besides, 2 life is nothing in this format.

Windfall : Windfall is a pet card of mine, and I just love playing it after I dump most of my hand with Breakthrough or after my opponents search their library for anything.

Ancient Excavation : Another pet card, Ancient Excavation has the utility of fixing mana in the early game while allowing us to replace our hand in the late game.

Entomb : It can grab anything. If Kess is in play, it basically adds a tax to any instant or sorcery in the deck, and it's a quick and cheap way of grabbing any of our reanimator targets.

Fact or Fiction : Fun way of stocking the yard. Considering that the graveyard is in essence a second hand, This card is mostly a win-win.

Forbidden Alchemy : Yet another pet card. I love this little card because it grants card selection and it drops stuff of into the garveyard. It also has added versatility by allowing us to cast it from the grave without Kess, albeit in a rather overpriced fashion.

Frantic Search : What's better than card selection? What about free card selection?

Champion of Wits : With a relatively cheap body, Champion of Wits provides card selection both early and late. Sure, it's not preferred to eternalize the champion, but it can help get us to more cards to play.

Doom Whisperer : The Whisperer is both a reanimator target and a reanimator aid. As previously mentioned, 2 life is nothing, and we can easily look through our deck to dump both targets and reanimator spells. Plus, hard-casting Doom Whisperer isn't out of the question if it ends up in our hand, so we can feasibly play it without having to reanimate it.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur : Another reanimator target that further fuels our morbid deeds, Jin helps t cut our opponent's options down while drawing us enough cards to cycle through our deck at an accelerated rate.

Merfolk Looter : Cheap, consistent, reliable. Not much to say here.

Sire Of Insanity : Thanks to our Kess overlord, we do not mind playing hellbent too much. Getting the Sire out early enough can screw our opponents out of the game.

Search for Azcanta  : Early, it fuels our graveyard. Late, it helps us find more draw spells and reanimator spells.

Jaya Ballad: While the triple Red hurts us slightly, both her mana ramp and her draw discard help us immensely. If we ever get to her ult, then Kess never needs to be in play again.

Dread Return : Semi-cheap, and should Kess be absent, I can still reanimate something. I hope we never get there, but it's an option.

Entreat the Dead : We usually will no benefit from the Miracle clause, but this card still offers the ability to reanimate multiple creatures at once, which warrants an inclusion.

Exhume : Sure, every deck has creatures, but 2 mana is too cheap to ignore. Pretty fun to cast twice.

Living Death : A boardwipe and a reanimation spell rolled into one is the kind of card I love.

Reanimate : The tried, true, and mana-cheap reanimation spell, I cannot imagine a scenario where I don't want this.

Stitch Together : I find it funny that using this depletes your Threshhold, but that asside, the only downside here is having to reach Threshhold. It shouldn't be hard, but worth noting.

Victimize : I love this card so much. Kess is usually the sac source, but this beautiful spell gets my two-creature infinites into play with no hassle.

Yawgmoth's Vile Offering : More of a pet card that is limited to exactly one use, but I like versatile cards. This serves as a kill spell and a reanimator spell, It can grab stuff from our opponents graveyards, and it can possibly grab a planeswalker or two. I just like this card a lot.

Archaeomancer : Sometimes, I want to cast a spell more than twice.

Coastal Breach : Not quite a "destroy everything", but this is usually a 4-mana bounce everything, and I'm cool with that.

Damnation : Here's our 4-mana-destroy-almost-everything. Cheap, efficient. I am wondering if it would be more worth it to swap Damnation with a boardwipe with more versatility.

Decree of Pain : Thanks to cycling, I can safely cycle this bad boy away for a moment more useful. I hope that with the creatures I kill, I draw enough cards to eventually win the game.

Living Death : As mentioned earlier, this boardwipe will usually wreck my opponents boards than mine, while reanimating my swath of dumb creatures.

Toxic Deluge : Cheap yet life-intensive at times, Deluge can get around indestructible really easily.

Vandalblast : With the rising popularity of artifact decks, this Silver bullet typically has good utility all game.

Chaos Warp : The important factor here is that it can hit anything; planeswalkers and enchantments especially are sore points for this deck, so having the option is always nice.

Counterflux : I consider counters to be removal. The uncounterability of this one is what grants it a slot.

Crosis' Charm: Versatile removal is always welcome, especially since this can bounce someone's utility land or flipped Growing Rites of Itlimoc   and such.

Cyclonic Rift : No explanation required.

Disallow : Versatile counterspell that can occasionally save me against activated or triggered abilities.

Reality Shift : 2-mana exile is always welcome in my books. Even if their top card is something threatening like Blightsteel Colossus , they still have to work through flipping the creature.

Sinister Sabotage : I really like Surveil, so stapling it to a counterspell sounds like a swell time to me.

Bedevil : While it's pricier than Terminate mana wise, the extra utility of hitting an artifact or a planeswalker makes it more useful in general.

Meteor Golem : 7 mana is a lot, but usually, we will be reanimating the Golem. It mostly serves as removal for enchantments, the one permanent type that Grixis cannot naturally destroy.

Sol Ring : Self explanatory

Dimir Signet , Izzet Signet , Rakdos Signet : The Signets make for good color fixing.

Talisman of Dominance , Talisman of Indulgence : The one life payment is barely a downside at all, and if the game ever gets to a point where the one life matters, we can still tap them for a colorless. Will add the Izzet talisman once released.

Chroamtic Lantern: This ramp card helps fix our mana immensely. Of the ramp cards, this one is most likely to be replaced.

Deranged Assistant : While producing colorless, the Assistance can still dump cards into our graveyards, which gives it extra utility.

Dark Ritual : With a black-producing land, Dark Ritual can effectively lock the game on turn one (Dark Ritual + Entomb + Reanimate putting either Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur or Sire Of Insanity into play.)

Ashiok, Dream Render : Ashiok is repeatable graveyard hate who also can mess with our opponents "top of deck" strategies and can also mill some of our own cards if needed.

Rakdos Charm : Hugely flexible, allowing us to kill token players, destroy artifacts, or nuke someone's graveyard. I want this card in all of my Rakdos cards.

EDIT 1 (Jan 31, 2019): Swapped Terminate for Bedevil .

While Terminate is the cheaper option, I feel that the added utility of Bedevil is worth the swap.

EDIT 2 (April 30, 2019) : Swapped Agent of Erebos for Ashiok, Dream Render

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