Scarab God | Zombie Pain Train

Commander / EDH*

JDSherrick

Creature (20)

• 1x Cemetery Reaper
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Diregraf Captain
• 1x Diregraf Colossus
• 1x Duskmantle Guildmage
• 1x Forgotten Creation
• 1x Ghoulcaller Gisa
• 1x Gravecrawler
• 1x Infectious Horror
• 1x Josu Vess, Lich Knight
• 1x Lich Lord of Unx
• 1x Lord of the Accursed
• 1x Lord of the Undead
• 1x Noxious Ghoul
• 1x Sakashima the Impostor
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Shepherd of Rot
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Undead Warchief
• 1x Zombie Trailblazer

Sorcery (11)

• 1x Army of the Damned
• 1x Dread Summons
• 1x Fraying Omnipotence
• 1x Karn's Temporal Sundering
• 1x Killing Wave
• 1x Life's Finale
• 1x Mind Funeral
• 1x Mind Grind
• 1x Temporal Extortion
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Traumatize

Land (36)

• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Dismal Backwater
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 5x Island
• 1x Jwar Isle Refuge
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 15x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Unholy Grotto
• 1x Watery Grave

Artifact (13)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Dimir Cluestone
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Grimoire of the Dead
• 1x Howling Mine
• 1x Illusionist's Bracers
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Profane Memento
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Trepanation Blade

Commander (1)

Enchantment (13)

• 1x As Foretold
• 1x Attrition
• 1x Black Market
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Endless Ranks of the Dead
• 1x Imprisoned in the Moon
• 1x Paradox Haze
• 1x Pestilence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Rooftop Storm
• 1x Training Grounds
• 1x Wound Reflection

Instant (6)

• 1x Capsize
• 1x Crypt Incursion
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Darkness
• 1x Forbid
• 1x Hero's Downfall

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Sideboard

Instant (4)

• 1x Illusionist's Gambit
• 1x Redirect
• 1x Soul Manipulation
• 1x Stunning Reversal

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Painful Quandary

Creature (2)

• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Necromaster Dragon

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The Scarab God

Unleash the Zombie Horde

This deck is a declaration. A declaration of war against everyone who dares challenge me. I've found that my playgroup is somewhat intimidated by my experience and knowledge of magic (which in their minds is far superior than reality). As such, I consistently experience having no board state, and still being attacked over another player with 5 Creatures, 3 Artifacts, and endless mana. I was looking at making a new deck and The Scarab God spoke to me. He said, "Screw it. They will attack you anyways. Might as well take them all with you, muahahaha." Or something like that. Anyway, here's my build. Enjoy!

Overview

The Scarab God is an extremely powerful Commander suited for several roles. Let's look at his text:

• At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent loses X life and you scry X, where X is the number of Zombies you control.

With this ability, I decided that card draw wasn't as important. If every turn I'm planning to be scrying anyway, I don't need the standard 10 or so card draw spells. Of course it's still important to keep cards coming, but you can get away with a few less and still be just fine.

Keep in mind, he's also doing damage to each player. So in your typical 4 or 5 person Commander game, you are becoming a giant target and need to plan as such. This deck not only emphasizes but capitalizes on this with Wound Reflection and other mass hate.

• : Exile target creature card from a graveyard. Create a token that's a copy of it, except it's a 4/4 black Zombie.

So with this you can both hate on someone's graveyard at instant speed (Sorry Grenzo, Dungeon Warden ) AND cheat/copy cards out of any graveyard for 4 mana while also being an engine for the first ability. Doing more damage and getting you your cards faster creating a snowballing chain of death.

• When The Scarab God is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.

I absolutely dislike the idea of relying on a Commander too heavily for a deck's strategy, simply because of how much removal people have in their decks. This ability, however, makes The Scarab God very hard to remove. Once I have Lightning Greaves out, the only way to put my Commander back in the Command Zone is with a mass exile spell, which is not very common in my playgroup, or destroying the equipment and then using a Path to Exile or something. He's still absolutely at risk, but this definitely cuts down the danger by at least half, leading me to believe it is a viable strategy.

Strategy

To put it simply, this deck wants to do 4 main things.

1. Create Zombies
2. Do lots of damage to everyone
3. Mill/ put creatures in graveyards
4. Keep the Commander out

In building this deck, I looked for the best value cards. Ones that could hit 2 or more of these at once. Dread Summons mills and creates more zombies. With The Scarab God out it also adds to the damage. Pure value. Cards like Cemetery Reaper and Lich Lord of Unx also help keep up the production of Zombies if The Scarab God isn't available as well.

Your best chance of success is to be ready to end things by turn 15 or earlier. Cards like Temporal Extortion and Karn's Temporal Sundering are likely to be most playable around then and can seal the deal fast. I find that you can keep many things at bay with the army of zombies, but if it gets to turn 15 and there are still 3 or more players rallying against you, it will be pretty difficult to come back. I usually just spread the hate and then focus on whatever player begins threatening me most with my Zombie army. Zombie Trailblazer really helps get that damage in.

Combos

Training Grounds + Illusionist's Bracers + The Scarab God = Double Zombie production for half the cost

Sakashima the Impostor + Paradox Haze + The Scarab God = 4x Damage and Scry

Altar of Dementia + Gravecrawler + Rooftop Storm = Infinite Mill

Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank = Infinite Damage

Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 2 Mythic Rares 45 - 5 Rares 20 - 1 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.28
Tokens	Copy Clone, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Knight 2/2 B, Zombie Wizard 1/1 UB
Folders	decks
Based on	Scarab God | Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better JDSherrick EDH