Here I will be updating my current Sidisi deck that is mostly Zombie focused and comparing it to a possible Varina deck. Essentially, we are putting green and white to the test to decide which color provides our undead with more tools and what gameplan these colors push their decks into. Mainboard is current build. Sideboard are upgrades to current build to focus more of the zombie theme. Maybeboard is a list of white cards that we would replace green with if we were to switch our Commander to Varina.
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is a mainstay within the Sultai shard. According to EDHREC.com, Sidisi is the most popular Sultai commander out there with several ways to play her. She self-mills when ETB or attacking to fuel our graveyard with zombies and graveyard synergies as well as provides a zombie token to add to our undead army.
Pros:
Sidisi triggers her self-mill when she enters the battlefield. You don't need to put her into the dangers of combat for the initial ability. "Whenever one or more creature cards are put into your graveyard from your library, put a 2/2 black zombie creature token onto the battlefield" Luckily, the zombie token triggers from any effect that will mill your creatures into your graveyard. This allows Sidisi to remain out of combat if you pair her with self mill spells. Sidisi's ability can create a 2/2 zombie every turn that can be buffed by our zombie support cards.
Cons:
Most of Sidisi's self-mill triggers will come from attacking. A 3/3 with no evasion going to combat will need extra cards in the deck to specifically protect her. We'll need a decent amount of self-mill dedicated cards for Sidisi to be most effective. Even then, milling over a creature is no guarantee which leaves the possibility of missing on a trigger. In my take on a zombie focused deck, there are many lords to choose from. Sidisi doesn't realize these benefits herself as she has a Naga Shaman typing. While Sidisi creates tokens while fueling your graveyard, she remains especially reliant on other cards to turn her zombies into meaningful attackers or to generate value.
Varina, Lich Queen will release with the Commander 2018 precon as a new, Esper shard commander. Varina looks to draw cards while also discarding to fuel possible recursion or graveyard synergies of her own. She also can create zombies of her own for 2 mana and exiling 2 cards from YOUR graveyard.
Pros:
For each attacking zombie. Varina draws that many cards, then discards that many cards while also gaining that much life. This is a potentially huge source of card selection. In Sidisi where we are milling 3 cards for our graveyard strategies we are at the mercy of the top of our library. One could argue that we are always at the mercy of our library yet Varina allows us to easily see more cards than Sidisi and make our own choice on what goes to our graveyard and what goes to our hand. Varina can trigger her own token ability at any time given you have 2 mana and a couple cards in the graveyard. She doesn't rely on a dedicated package of self mill cards to bring in her 2/2's. Varina is also a zombie herself, so the abundance of zombie lords continue to make her a formidable attacker. Even so, she doesn't need to attack to trigger her ability just the other zombies. Varina could also have a relevant lifegain package withinher deck as well.
Cons:
Varina doesn't create an army of the undead as easily as Sidisi. The cost to create a zombie in Sidisi is milling a creature card. When our deck is engineered to use our graveyard as a resource, thats almost a free 2/2. With Varina we must pay 2 mana and exile 2 cards from our own graveyard. Those are finite resources we are dealing with on a per turn basis. As for using our graveyard as a resource, Sidisi turns our graveyard into a 2nd hand where Varina feels as if she'll turn it into the next fossil fuel. Also, while she creates 2/2's at the previously discussed cost, her other ability relies entirely on how many attacking zombies you have. Attacking in commander isn't always easy, nor is building up that army large enough before someone decides you've had enough.
Conclusion:
Sidisi is my favorite deck I own. It rarely cares about what my opponents are doing because over the course of the game, she out values my opponents with recursion and hordes of zombies. They need to stop my gameplan if they have any hopes of winning. My meta is slow and more on the budget side because we're just here to have a fun and hangout with friends. While we want to win, we also enjoy crazy board states and interactions. I haven't played with Varina yet but I'm simply seeking a discussion between the 2 as dedicated Zombie commanders. Feel free to give your thoughts or suggestions. Thanks for reading!
