Tayam, Enigma Incarnate

Commander / EDH BGW (Abzan, Junk) Counters Infinite Combo Reanimator Tokens Value Engine

akumawerewolf

Creature (35)

• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bishop of Rebirth
• 1x Bloodflow Connoisseur
• 1x Caller of the Claw
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Champion of Lambholt
• 1x Corpse Knight
• 1x Devoted Druid
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Evolution Sage
• 1x Hallowed Spiritkeeper
• 1x Incubation Druid
• 1x Kitchen Finks
• 1x Knight of Autumn
• 1x Lost Auramancers
• 1x Luminous Broodmoth
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Ministrant of Obligation
• 1x Nyx Weaver
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Renegade Rallier
• 1x Rishkar, Peema Renegade
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Satyr Wayfinder
• 1x Selfless Spirit
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Tetzimoc, Primal Death
• 1x Wall of Roots
• 1x Weaponcraft Enthusiast
• 1x Winding Constrictor
• 1x Wood Elves
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar

Land (36)

• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 2x Forest
• 1x Gavony Township
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Idyllic Grange
• 1x Indatha Triome
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Karn's Bastion
• 1x Khalni Garden
• 1x Llanowar Reborn
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Nesting Grounds
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 2x Plains
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 1x Snow-Covered Forest
• 2x Snow-Covered Plains
• 2x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Instant (1)

• 1x Blossoming Defense

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Unearth

Commander (1)

Enchantment (20)

• 1x Abzan Ascendancy
• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Aura of Silence
• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Crawling Sensation
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Darksteel Mutation
• 1x Deadbridge Chant
• 1x Death's Oasis
• 1x Debtors' Knell
• 1x Defense of the Heart
• 1x Dreadhorde Invasion
• 1x Kenrith's Transformation
• 1x Martyr's Bond
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Pernicious Deed
• 1x Promise of Bunrei
• 1x Seal of Doom
• 1x Together Forever
• 1x Zendikar Resurgent

Artifact (5)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Oblivion Stone
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

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Hello everybody! I've been brewing many of the new commanders in paper since I've gotten my hands on them and I decided to throw this list together for everybody to see!

Out of all the Commanders in the C20 deck, Tayam, Luminous Enigma was the one that interested me the most (though that may just be my inner Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons players speaking...). Tayam provides us with a lot of different things all at once, and real quickly, I'm going to go over all his different parts.

Counters

Tayam, obviously, needs you to build a plethora of counters since he wants to remove them. As such, you need a constant flow of counters to satiate his hunger. Straight up, activating his ability is often one of the best things you can do in this deck. It's a 3-mana instant-speed ability that can get you more than just 3-mana worth of stuff if you play it right.

Graveyard / Self Mill

Of course, he wants to also fill his graveyard. Let's all be honest here, 3 cards ain't deep enough. You need at least a bit of extra fuel to push it a bit further. I will add, however, that if you have a plethora of either fetch lands or canopy lands, this deck takes insane advantage of them. Just paying 3 to return an untapped fetch land from your graveyard to the battlefield is actually pretty insane and can ramp you out insanely quickly.

Aristocrats

Why send something to the graveyard once when you can send it there over and over again? Tayam wants to do these, and he will reanimate some of that good stuff for you. So, all you need is the sac outlet then you're off to the races. What's great is this deck doesn't need too many Blood Artist effects since Tayam is just so insane at grinding and going through so much of your deck that you won't need to too many "just win-con" cards in the deck.

Tokens (Really?)

Trust me on this. Tokens are insane in this deck. Tokens are already really good and, honestly, pretty needed in aristocrat-style decks. But, tokens in this deck also give you the Vigilance counters from Tayam, meaning each token produces another counter you can take off to activate Tayam's ability. And, in case I haven't made it clear, you really want to activate Tayam's ability often.

So where does that land us? Well, honestly a deck that can have about a thousand different cards go into it but only 100 cards to work with. If you like reanimator-style decks but want to take a very interesting twist on it, plus have a commander that you can easily switch different cards in and out for depending on preference, then Tayam might be the commander for you!

So, let's check out which 100 cards I decided to put in!

The Secret Bombs

Lost Auramancers

Honestly, this card is a big reason I was so excited for the deck. Look at this card beside Tayam. This is a repeatable Academy Rector in this deck that also lets you active Tayam's ability! Oh, but she costs 4? No worries. The first hit you'll probably want to go for is Debtors' Knell so the Auramancers can come back every turn and tutor you up yet another enchantment from your deck right onto the battlefield!

This deck has a great enchantment package to support it on top of that. Zendikar Resurgent gives that wonderful boost of mana and card draw. Animate Dead and the like will immediately revive it if you don't have the patience to wait or you're looking to combo off with those cards (more on that later). Pernicious Deed is just a straight up board wipe. Defense of the Heart can potentially push for a win on the spot. Crawling Sensation helps push the self-mill plan. And there are so many others. If this guide and decklist gets a good amount of attention, I'll go into more detail about it all and even perhaps include a board of more enchantments to think about if you want your own package of them.

Tetzimoc, Primal Death

What's this random rare draft chaff even do? Well let's read it together:

" Reveal Tetzimoc, Primal Death from your hand: Put a prey counter on target creature. Activate this ability only during your turn."

Okay, stop reading, because that is literally all you need to know about this card. Yeah yeah, it can do more and maybe kill a couple things, but that's just like a little extra frosting on already a large triple-layer cake. Tetzimoc just says , but a counter on anything. This isn't counterable. This isn't some card the opponent can kill on your board. This is just an extra card sitting in your hand that'll only go away once the opponent makes you discard it through some way. That is insane! I know it's not the most mana efficient, but it's always a nice backup to have in the deck.

(Okay, not secret but worth mentioning) Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Luminous Broodmoth

Do I even have to say why these are all stars? Let's be honest - I don't. Mikaeus has long been a feared card in Commander/EDH and Luminous Broodmoth is about to be the same thing. On top of that, they synergize extremely well with the Commander since removing counters both lets me activate my Commander and lets cards die and be brought back by them again.

Top Enablers

Alright, here's where I get to play so many cards that don't get to see a lot of play but are star players in this deck:

Weaponcraft Enthusiast, Ministrant of Obligation, Hallowed Spiritkeeper, Caller of the Claw, and Promise of Bunrei.

What I'm looking for here are permanents that cost 3 or less that create 3 bodies. Why? Because all 3 of those bodies get a vigilance counter, allowing me to pay the three mana and remove those counters to activate Tayam's ability. If I have a sac outlet, I can always sac them to bring them back with Tayam just to get the counters again.

But here's where it gets crazy. With Ashnod's Altar, I just straight up get to go infinite by sacrificing the bodies to also pay the mana requirement for Tayam's ability. Phyrexian Altar was a card I considered for this deck as well, but it didn't make the final list, but it would certainly be insane still in the deck. Ashnod's Altar will just win the game this way and I will write the lines to go through further in the guide.

On top of that, just having the extra tokens for other sac fodder like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician or extra creatures entering for Cathars' Crusade and Champion of Lambholt is a great upside too. All in all, they just end up being great enablers, both for filling the graveyard and for winning the game.

Dreadhorde Invasion

This is potentially two extra counters entering every turn for Tayam to activate his ability, with both the +1/+1 counter and the vigilance counter. Like the token producers above, having tokens be created has many upsides as well. It doesn't go crazy, but like Tetzinoc, it's a nice constant flow of counters you always have access to.

The Mana Dork Selection: Incubation Druid, Devoted Druid, Wall of Roots

When I point these cards out, I'm sure it's easy to see why they'd be in this deck. Again - counters.

Incubation Druid is a good backup for Tayam. If I need a way to active Tayam, I adapt Incubation Druid, tap him for the three mana to use Tayam's ability, then remove the 3 counters for Tayam's ability. Is it that great? No, honestly, but it's a nice backup to have. On top of that, there are random ways throughout the deck to give him a +1/+1 counter to make it so he's just a Gilded Lotus for 2.

wall of Roots is a mana dork that can be used the turn it comes out, which is already nice. Plus, I can always remove the counters off it so it never dies from using its ability. Simple enough.

Devoted Druid is the crazy one here. As pointed out by many people, if you just make Devoted Druid have 2 more toughness, it goes infinite with Tayam. Tap and untap Devoted Druid 3 times, producing three mana and the three counters needed to activate Tayam, then repeat until you mill your whole deck and reanimate everything. It cannot be understated how much weight this thing can pull.

Evolution Sage

This one is also a fairly obvious inclusion, but with a lot of extra upside. Of course, getting a bunch of extra counters for each land entering is a great upside that helps in the activation of Tayam, but it gets better. With Tayam, if you get back a land (or even better yet, a fetch land of some kind), Tayam can proliferate counters on your things to allow you to activate again. Plus, the land will pay for 1 mana of his activation cost. This lets you do some smaller loops with Tayam to quickly churn through a good amount of your deck.

On top of that, if you get Wood Elves and have Ashnod's Altar, you can proliferate the Vigilance counter on Wood Elves and some other counters, remove some of those counters, then sacrifice Wood Elves to pay for 2 mana while the land it searches pays for another 1 since it comes in untapped, fully paying for Tayam's ability. This isn't infinite since you can only search for Forests with Wood Elves, but it's a good inclusion and loop nonetheless.

Nyx Weaver, Satyr Wayfinder, Crawling Sensation Altar of Dementia

Satyr Wayfinder and Altar are great at consistently milling yourself. Satyr Wayfinder is my choice for ETBs because it also draws you a land, and that bit of card advantage has always been what makes this Satyr attractive. Altar is another sac outlet that gives you more to do with your tokens as well. If you need extra mill to ensure you get good hits with Tayam, it's a great card, especially with the amount of +1/+1 counters floating around in the deck that can make you mill a good amount with it. Crawling Sensation and Nyx Weaver provide for a nice constant flow of mill. Crawling Sensation makes tokens while doing it while Nyx Weaver can serve as an emergency Regrowth.

The Removal

Plaguecrafter, Seal of Doom and Aura of Silence

Plaguecrafter and the like are always put in decks that can recur them easily, and this deck is no exception. It can put itself back in the graveyard for easy reanimation and easy removal. That means, at instant speed, you can often have the option to activate Tayam to make everybody sacrifice a creature.

Seal of Doom is in the deck for the same reason. It sacrifices itself for free and can come out as a source of removal if you need more single-target removal as opposed to just making everybody sacrifice their weakest thing. It's a great way to always threaten killing whatever an opponent plays. Sometimes, even just this being in your graveyard with mana up will be enough to deter somebody from playing their big bomb or even their commander.

Lastly, Aura of Silence does a similar thing to Seal of Doom while also doing something while it sits on the battlefield, allowing you to play it at any time and always hold it up as potential removal.

Knight of Autumn

This can hold several purposes in the deck. Either it can come in with its 2 +1/+1 counters and a vigilance counter when Tayam is out to immediately provide enough counters on it or it can serve as artifact and enchantment removal. The flexibility and synergy alone makes it worth a slot in the deck.

Darksteel Mutation and Kenrith's Transformation

While these don't sacrifice themselves, they are great removal still and near staples of their colors in my opinion. Darksteel Mutation is a great way of removing creatures semi-permanently, especially commanders, since the commander never leaves the battlefield to be sent to the command zone. The creature being indestructible is also very hard to deal with by itself.

Kenrith's Transformation draws a card on top of doing a similar thing, though the body is easier to destroy and a stronger body. Still, definitely a worthy inclusion.

Oblivion Stone and Pernicious Deed

These are recurrable board wipes! What's not to love? Both of them have a fairly hefty activation cost, but both can do it at instant speed. This means on everybody's turn, even when these are in your graveyard, you can threaten a board wipe. It can make it extremely hard to overextend against this deck.

The Protection

There isn't much, but they're worth mentioning.

Selfless Spirit

This is recurrable protection in the deck against everybody's destruction-based board wipes, including your own. Having this plus your O. stone or Pernicious Deed available turns into a 1-sided board wipe you can always bring back, which is utterly insane. On top of that, having the extra protection for your sac outlets and commander is always nice.

Blossoming Defense

This is fairly innocuous at first glance, but I think it's the right choice for the deck. Sometimes, it will just serve as protection against single-target removal, which is fine but, in my opinion, not necessarily worth making a slot into the deck, especially with cards like Lightning Greaves existing. However, this one just has a small bonus - that it helps go infinite with Incubation Druid. The +2/+2 bonus from it is just enough to win with it, and I think it makes it a worthwhile inclusion in the deck.

The Sac Outlets

The Sac outlets I chose were fairly obvious why even at first glance. Carrion Feeder, Bloodflow Connoisseur, and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician all provide counters when sacrificing creatures. Yahenni, Undying Partisan will just passively gain counters. And Altar of Dementia continues to push the self-mill plan and can be a win-con when you go through infinite sacrifice loops.

The Land Base

I'm going to be honest - I don't usually put a ton of effort into land bases other than making them even. I just kind of copy the ones off EDHrec for the decklist. This one, though, I wanted to make my own, and I think I came up with a good amount of things. This also gives me more time to talk about how important certain lands are for this strategy. I won't say these are all necessary, since certain lands can be expensive and/or hard to come by, but these are all nice to have for the deck for sure.

Khalni Garden and Field of the Dead.

Remember how I mentioned tokens are important for the deck? These two are worth running in the deck specifically because of that. Even though Khalni Garden is a one-time use, I believe it is worth it in this deck for extra sacrifice fodder and multiple things caring about creatures entering.

Field of the Dead, however, is the real heavy-weight lifter. it can produce so many tokens, especially with all the fetch lands and the ability to return lands from the graveyard to the battlefield with Tayam. This made it worth it to also run a mix of Snow-Covered and non-snow-covered lands just to have a good amount of lands with different names.

Fetch Lands (including Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Myriad Landscape, and even Field of Ruin)

Getting lands into the graveyard to get back with Tayam is great. It always allows you the option to ramp further if that's what you need. And do remember, of course, that ramping lets you activate Tayam more, which again is a lot of what you want to be doing in this deck. If you have access to them, I cannot exaggerate how synergistic these are for the deck.

Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, Idyllic Grange, Gavony Township, Karn's Bastion, and Llanowar Reborn

These are all lands that put counters onto creatures. Enough said, honestly.

Blast Zone, Ghost Quarter, and Canopy Lands like Nurturing Peatland

Lands that can sacrifice themselves for some extra effect or value are nice since they are also recurrable with Tayam. Usually you have to be careful of when you crack these since they're one-time use, but not in this deck!

The Reanimation!

Sun Titan and Bishop of Rebirth

These cards are already good, especially Sun Titan. But, when most of the deck costs 3 or less already, these might as well be auto-includes. While Bishop is slower and a lot less versatile, he's still incredibly good in rebuying the value for a lot of your creatures. Sun Titan, on the other hand, is insane and a strong part of comboing off (more on that later).

Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, and Necromancy

These are fairly easy to understand. I do run some creatures that cost more than 3, but these three enchantments are a great and recurrable way of bringing those back to the battlefield as well. On top of that, they're great for comboing off (more on that later).

And Finally, the Combos!

Infinite

• (Sun Titan or Renegade Rallier) + (2 of the following - Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, or Necromancy) + (Sac outlet i.e. Carrion Feeder, Bloodflow Connoisseur Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Yahenni, Undying Partisan, or Altar of Dementia) = Infinite Sacrificing. Perform this by playing Sun Titan. When Sun Titan enters, target one of the enchantments. In response to the ETB, sacrifice Sun Titan. When the enchantment enters, reanimate Sun Titan, it enters and targets the other enchantment. Repeat. (Obviously, Renegade Rallier can only bring back 2 of those enchantments.
• (Weaponcraft Enthusiast, Ministrant of Obligation, Hallowed Spiritkeeper, Caller of the Claw, or Promise of Bunrei) + Tayam, Luminous Enigma + Ashnod's Altar = Infinite Colorless Mana + Infinite Tokens + Infinite Mill + Infinite Reanimate everything that costs 3 or less. The three tokens will each enter with a vigilance counter. Remove 3 counters from among them, then sacrifice the original creature and a token to create 4 mana. This gives you 1 more mana leftover before activating Tayam again, fully paying for his ability. With Ministrant of Obligation, you will need to go in a slightly different order that requires counters on other creatures to start this off.
• Devoted Druid + (Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or Blossoming Defense) + Tayam, Luminous Enigma = Infinite Mill + Infinite Reanimate everything that costs 3 or less. When Devoted Druid is a 2/4, he can tap and untap 3 times to produce 3 mana and 3 counters for Tayam, Luminous Enigma, allowing you to reuse his ability as many times as you want.
• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Kitchen Finks + (Sac outlet i.e. Carrion Feeder, Bloodflow Connoisseur Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Yahenni, Undying Partisan, or Altar of Dementia) = Infinite Sacrificing + Infinite Life. When Kitchen Finks dies, it has both Undying and Persist, giving it both a -1/-1 and +1/+1 counter, which then erase each other so it can get sacrificed again.

Note: Add Corpse Knight to several of these combos or have that be the end result of infinite saccing and you win.

There are plenty more infinite combos that take more pieces, including ones involving Cathars' Crusade or Champion of Lambholt to provide counters for Tayam, Luminous Enigma. The ones above are just the easiest ones to execute within the deck.

Non-infinite

• Lost Auramancers + card:Tayam, Luminous Engigma = 3 mana to tutor out any enchantment from your deck right onto the battlefield. Start this by first search for either Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, or Necromancy to reanimate Lost Auramancers. Lost Auramancers will return to the battlefield with 3 Vanishing counters and a vigilance counter. Remove the Vanishing counters to kill it and continue searching for whatever you want, using Tayam to bring back the enchantment that reanimates Lost Auramancers each time. You can also just go find Debtors' Knell if you want to do other things during the turn other than grab enchantments.
• (Sakura-Tribe Elder or (Wood Elves + (Sac outlet i.e. Carrion Feeder, Bloodflow Connoisseur Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Yahenni, Undying Partisan, or Altar of Dementia))) + Evolution Sage + Tayam, Luminous Enigma = Ramping and providing counters for Tayam, Luminous Enigma continuously.

Of course, this deck is still likely to go through some edits as I play it and figure some of it out for myself. This is all theory-craft so far that likely needs some work.

Thank you for any and all feedback and I hope all of you out there get to enjoy the new Commanders! I know I will with this one!

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 37 - 0 Rares 31 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.11
Tokens	Bear 2/2 G, Insect 1/1 G, Plant 0/1 G, Servo 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 WB, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Army 0/0 B
Folders	Deck Ideas