Sek'kuar Skeleton

Commander / EDH*

Zarco19

Creature (27)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1x Deathbringer Thoctar
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Farhaven Elf
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Joraga Treespeaker
• 1x Merciless Executioner
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Primal Druid
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Reaper from the Abyss
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Savra, Queen of the Golgari
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Viridian Emissary
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Wood Elves
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1x Zealous Conscripts
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Awakening Zone
• 1x Deathreap Ritual
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Evolutionary Leap
• 1x Fecundity
• 1x Goblin Bombardment
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip
• 1x Parallel Lives
• 1x Sylvan Library

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Victimize

Land (2)

• 1x Grim Backwoods
• 1x Reliquary Tower

Commander (1)

Artifact (4)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

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Maybeboard

Creature (26)

• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Catacomb Sifter
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Dire Fleet Daredevil
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Dualcaster Mage
• 1x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Falkenrath Noble
• 1x Harvester of Souls
• 1x Manglehorn
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
• 1x Meren of Clan Nel Toth
• 1x Molten Primordial
• 1x Murderous Redcap
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Puppeteer Clique
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Sadistic Hypnotist
• 1x Sepulchral Primordial
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Thallid Omnivore
• 1x Treasure Keeper
• 1x Woodfall Primus

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Attrition
• 1x Beastmaster Ascension
• 1x Elemental Bond
• 1x Golgari Germination
• 1x Journey to Eternity  ^Flip

Instant (1)

• 1x Malicious Affliction

Land (1)

• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Artifact (5)

• 1x MImic Vat
• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Whip of Erebos

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This is the skeleton of my Sek'kuar commander deck. It is an incredibly flexible deck- there are plenty of cards which go great in it, and I don't think a single card (aside from the commander, and even that's debateable) is critical to the functioning of the deck. I've organized it into "play if you have it" options in the mainboard (cards I tested or played and would recommend in any lean of the deck), and more "to your taste" or meta-dependent options in the side (including cards I didn't own but would have played if I did).

Sek'kuar as a commander asks you to have many nontoken creatures die. He pays you off in making sizeable hasty tokens which can pay off in value (just having board position) or allow you to pressure life totals well. To build this deck, I had a couple of basic guiding principles:

1. Sacrifice stuff. You need ways to trigger Sek'kuar on your own terms, so having a critical mass of sacrifice outlets is important. The deck essentially needs to have one to function; games where you don't have access to one are much trickier to play (but really interesting to navigate). As such, the deck runs about 10. Priority is given to those that are free to active, on cheap bodies, are instant speed, and/or give you a payoff for using them. You can decide how important each of these is to your gameplan.

2. Have stuff happen when you sacrifice stuff. The deck doesn't want the commander to be its only payoff- he's a vulnerable 5-mana creature so you shouldn't expect him to be always accessible. Instead, having him be a reliable payoff with more in the deck is a much more solid gameplan. As such, we want cards that make tokens, draw cards, force your opponents to sacrifice their own creatures, drain life, etc. when your creatures die or are sacrificed (mostly nontoken, but extra priority is given to effects which don't mind tokens dying).

3. Have good stuff to sacrifice. We want cheap creatures with effective ETB or death triggers. A good example is something like Reclamation Sage: we'd pay 2-3 mana for the removal effect alone, but if we sacrifice it with Sek'kuar and other payoffs on board we can draw some cards, remove some opponents' creatures, create tokens, deal damage, etc., multiplying the value of the "removal spell" several times. This is where a lot of the toolboxing and customization in the deck fits in, as well- you may decide to run a different loadout of ETB effects to deal with graveyard effects, artifacts/enchantment removal (I would run at least a couple of these effects, but some metas ask for 5+), token hate, etc.

The deck's main strengths include:

1. Resistance to creature removal (and somewhat to board clears)- instant speed sac outlets allow you to cash in your creatures whenever, and often you can make big plays in response to removal. You also can often simply let it resolve since you'll get payoffs either way. Board clears are tolerable depending on the board state and you sometimes don't mind them/can still get value out of them, but repeated board clears can make it hard to build up.

2. Value generation- this deck can get several cards' worth of value out of each creature through recurring value engines. The deck needs a critical mass of engine pieces and fuel to start generating this value, but once it does it can keep adding payoffs and generating value at a quicker and quicker rate. Often, the games where you "get going" involve drawing 10+ cards a turn and creating a massive board state. However, decks which can win on the spot or very early, clear the board easily, or remove engine pieces (usually artifacts and enchantments) repeatedly are strong against this plan.

3. Toolboxing and recursion- you're able to run redundant or situational cards since you can "trade them in" for death triggers and, depending on how much tutoring and recursion you run, find and reuse your silver bullets when necessary.

4. Fantastic single-threat removal- the combination of edict effects and a couple threaten effects allow you to continually remove large threats from the board. Decks that expect to have 1-3 creatures on board at a time (such as spell-based decks, voltron, or midrange value decks) by the midgame often will have a hard time establishing a board state at all. However, you're much weaker against token and go-wide strategies since you might struggle to make a big enough dent with edict effects and they don't have strong creatures to threaten. You struggle to run efficient board clears since they can really harm your own boardstate.

This deck will CRUSH "battlecruiser"-type metas, and possibly the greatest thing about it is that the cards that allow it to do so aren't the "powerhouse effects" which actually end the game like Living End or Craterhoof but rather the consistent meat of the deck. It's a ton of fun to play and every board state feels like a big machine where all the pieces fit together. New cards which could make their way in are continually printed and a lot of the deck's tier 2-3 includes are cheap as dirt, so you can definitely make a budget version and still continually find new gems to test out. You also have tons of room for customization and tech choices.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 21 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	49
Avg. CMC	3.26
Tokens	Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Graveborn 3/1 BR, Morph 2/2 C, Snake 1/1 B