It Was A Graveyard Smash!
Ah, Sidisi. The first time I saw you, I thought it was to good to be true. A commander that fuels your graveyard, rewards you for a creature-heavy build, and is in the best colors in Magic? My dreams had come true!
This deck has evolved from a pile of Sultai rares into the deck you see before you. It is built to be piloted in casual-competitive environments, and is simply a blast to play. With this deck, you want to dump things into the graveyard and squeeze every last drop of value from them. Wait until you've created a butt-ton of zombies, and begin the face-smashing! One quick disclaimer: This deck is not built to combo off super quickly, but it is by no means casual. If you want a more cEDH style type of Sidisi deck, check out some of these wonderful decks:
You might like this deck if you:
- Like playing around with graveyards
- Enjoy comboing off from out of nowhere
- Love to turn creatures sideways
You might not like this deck if you:
- Want to ramp into big creatures
- Want to play politics and manipulate your friends
- Have Kinemortophobia (Fear of the dead)
If this deck interests you, let's dive into the primer!
Why Sidisi instead of the other BUG commanders?
Why does Sidisi pilot this deck, instead of the other on-color commanders? Let's compare her to the other commanders in her beautiful BUG colors:
- Damia, Sage of Stone: Damia is undeniably strong (I run her as a reanimation target in this very deck), but she lends to a different strategy of discard synergies and control as she continually refills your hand with gas, while Sidisi is more explosive.
- Tasigur, the Golden Fang: Tasigur is a great choice for a graveyard deck, but his style of play is less creature-heavy and more control-y. I've toyed with putting him in the deck, but ultimately cut him because I only run a couple delve spells, and he didn't make the cut.
- Yarok, the Desecrated:There simply aren't enough etb triggers for Yarok to be worth it, although he is a very good card.
- Muldrotha, the Gravetide:This is the card that's the closest to what we want to be doing, with reanimation stapled onto a body, and I'm running him in the 99, but he lends himself to a more grindy strategy, and while our deck can grind, we want to explode in a couple of turns, instead of getting repeated triggers from Spore Frog and co.
How to Pilot this Deck
- Midgame: Midgame can come as early as turn 4, if you got lucky with your graveyard triggers. By midgame, you should have amassed a zombie army or a couple of reanimation targets, like card:Razeketh, the Foulblooded or Vilis, Broker of Blood, and are smashing your opponent's face in. You should be self-milling with Emry, Lurker of the Loch, Satyr Wayfinder, Altar of Dementia and friends, and reaping all those tasty rewards with Muldrotha, the Gravetide, and the like. The best card to get out now is The Gitrog Monster. Watch the look on your friend's faces when you start drawing 5+ cards a turn!
- Late Game: By now, you've probably either amassed a board state to be proud of or combo'd off. Good Game!
Combos and Synergies
And now, we get to our combos. These are what make this deck tick. One of the best part of these combos are that we run almost no dead cards. Almost every card in the combos are good draws outside of them.
Combos
- The Gitrog Monster + Underrealm Lich: Personally my favorite combo, because both of the pieces are great inclusions in the deck anyway. It just happens that they'll combo off together. Remember, this combo won't necessarily win you the game, but it will net you 5+ cards and stock your graveyard with combo pieces and reanimation targets.
- Tap the zombie token, along with a previous zombie token, and exiling 5 cards from the graveyard to bring back Hogaak to the battlefield.
- Sac the two zombie tokens, creating two more, and repeat.
- Some Notes on the Combo: This combo is all in. You won't hit a zombie token with your sacc'ed zombie token, but I've executed this combo dozens of times, and it has never failed. All you need is one new zombie token, and you're golden.
Choose Your Cards! Individual Card Discussion Show
These are the reasons why I chose the cards for this deck. They're divided into 5 Sections: Artifacts, Creatures, Enchantments, Instants, and Sorceries.
- Altar of Dementia: This card usually means you win the game in a couple of turns. If you control a zombie lord or two, you usually win the game by milling your whole deck and assembling one the of the combos.
- Arcane Signet: One of the best mana rocks ever printed, and only for 5 bucks!
- Embalmer's Tools: This card is like Mesmeric Orb-lite, letting you tap a zombie to mill a card. Remember, you can tap it the turn it comes down, which can lead to some insane plays with Mesmeric Orb when you create 15 zombies in one turn.
- Lightning Greaves: This card is great at helping Sidisi and our reanimation targets stick around on the board.
- Mesmeric Orb: This card is one of the main reasons you build around Sidisi, snowballing into 20+ zombies over the course of the game.
- Sol Ring: This is Commander, so Sol Ring.
- Birds of Paradise: The best mana dork in the deck, as it can tap for any color of mana.
- Channeler Initiate: Channeler is a critical part of the Nooze combo, and can serve as a mana dork in a pinch.
- Death Baron: One of the best lords we have, and a great rattlesnake card, because what player wants to attack into 10 deathtouching 3/3s?
- Deathrite Shaman: Referred to as the "One-mana Planeswalker", this card is amazing in our deck, and randomly hoses graveyard combo decks like ours. It can almost always ramp, and helps gain life and deal damage every turn.
- Devoted Druid: This card is one of our combo pieces for the Nooze combo, and is the most versatile, because if it winds up in your hand, you can just cast it and immediately kill it.
- Dimir Infiltrator: Never cast this card. Instead, transmute it away for cards like Assassin's Trophy, Animate Dead, or Mesmeric Orb. Whee!
- Eternal Witness: This is a green deck, so we're running it here, but in this deck, she's turned up to an eleven. She's basically a tutor once you've gone through most of your deck.
- Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis: He was much better in his short-lived term in Modern, but an 8/8 recurring trampler on turn 4's no joke.
- Muldrotha, the Gravetide: This gal is a tank. She provides an insane amount of value, inexorably bringing you closer to victory. If left alone, she'll take over the game in just a couple of turns.
- Necrotic Ooze: One of our main combo pieces, and even if we're not comboing off, we're using The Scarab God's activated ability to create tokens, Doom Whisperer's ability to dig through our deck, and recurring artifacts with Emry's tap activation. Heck, he could be a mana dork If you wanted him to be!
- Phenax, God of Deception: The perfect card for this deck, he mills and mills and mills, and he creates a snowball effect, looting through our library in just a couple of turns, creating tons of zombies along the way!
- Stitcher's Supplier: The perfect one-drop for the deck, she starts to fill your graveyard as early as turn one.
- The Gitrog Monster: This guy's a drawing _machine!_ His "drawback" is negligible, and if you like drawing cards, this guy's for you!
- Undead Warchief: This card is one the best lords we run, doubling our zombie token's power, and cheapening all of our other lords.
- Walking Ballista: Our infinite mana outlet for the deck, and a great way to get rid of pesky mana dorks.
- Animate Dead: A strangely worded card, it basically reads, "return target creature from your graveyard to the battlefield with Animate Dead attached to it", so it's one of our stock reanimation cards.
- Cryptolith Rite: This card is insane in any token deck, and here, it's no different. A much better Earthcraft for 1/12 of the price, all you creatures are now Birds of Paradise, ramping you 5, 10, even 15 mana!
- Abrupt Decay: Great Golgari removal. Hits combo pieces, stax pieces, mana dorks, and generals, all uncounterable, all for two mana! Where do I sign?
- Assassin's Trophy: Hands down one of the best pieces of spot removal ever printed. I don't like auto-includes, but this is one of them.
- Dig Through Time: For my Money, the best delve spell. Digging seven cards deep is no joke, helping you find combo pieces, huge reanimation targets, and removal.
- Grisly Salvage: Graveyard filler and draw for two mana at instant speed. Whoa!
- Reality Shift: Some of the best blue removal, exiling and giving your opponent a meaningless token that often does them more harm then good.
- Ashiok, Dream Render: One of the best cards out of WAR, shutting down tutors and fetchlands, exiling problematic graveyards, and milling. Amazing!
- Echo of Eons: Wow, a 15 dollar Timetwister? What a card! But in all seriousness, this is an amazing card for the deck, refilling our hand for just three mana.
- Farseek: Ramp that can find our shocklands. Good fun!
- Reanimate: What the archetype is named after. No further explanation needed.
- Regrowth: Basically a tutor in our deck.
- Toxic Deluge: Best board wipe ever printed, and a staple in black decks. A three-mana wrath is amazingly efficient. The only other one I can think of is Bontu's Last Reckoning, which is pretty bad.
Budget Restrictions and Inclusions
This deck isn't super expensive, but its also not budget. Here, I'll be going over some budget replacements for all cards over 10 dollars.
- Shock Lands: These lands are important for the deck's consistency, but you can just slot in some more untapped duals, like Gain Lands or Karoos.
- Walking Ballista: There is no replacing this card. It's an integral part of the deck, and if you can't pick it up, proxy it.
Thanks for Reading!
Thanks for reading! If you liked the deck, make sure to upvote and comment, and as always, Happy Tapping!
Here are some of the links to my other decks, in case they tickle your fancy.
Flip
