These are the kool kats; the jocks of the deck. They are the creatures we're using as pure reanimator value. These are our answers to our opponents questions as well as our own questions to our opponents. The best part? We
want them to go to our graveyard so you can throw them into your opponents counter magic, use them as sacrifice fodder for Yahenni, or as aggressive pieces beside him whenever you can.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel is one of the most powerful creatures in black in EDH. The larger your board is the more damage Gary is going to do. The more damage Gary does the more life you're going to gain. Its easy to recur with all the reanimate effects we have in this deck.
Kokusho, the Evening Star does essentially the same thing. They are rediculously easy to take over a game with and win very quickly.
One of the coolest Kaladesh legends printed and an immediate EDH brew-around card:
Gonti, Lord of Luxury falls right into place in this deck. His enter-the-battlefied trigger is supremely powerful: exiling a card from an opponent's top four cards of their library
face down and being able to cast it when you want is stronk. Its an asymetrical card, it won't always be the same power level and it all depends on what your opponents are playing. Either way you usually will be able to find something you want to use and if you can't, you can try again or enjoy your 2/3 Deathtouch creature.
One of my favorite things to do is cast him after someone uses a tutor that places the card on the top of the library like Enlightened Tutor or Long-Term Plans.
This is a personal pick for me. I love this card. Abhorrent Overlord is similar to Gary since it's power level is dependent on your devotion to black. Since this is a mono-black deck it isn't hard to accrew six to ten or more devotion to black. Its enter-the-battlefield trigger creates 1/1 flying harpy creature tokens equal to your devotion to black. Its really good at clogging up the sky, getting around a large number of blockers, or being fodder for Dictate of Erebos to clear up your opponents boards. Its more of an answer than a question and is therefore going to be a second or third option rather than a first like Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Kokusho, the Evening Star.
The Myojin cycle from Kamigawa are underplayed cards. They aren't amazing but when they are put in the right shell they can do wonders. Myojin of Night's Reach is one of the more playable of the Myojins as, at CMC 8, its the cheapest costing Myojin. The way the Myojins work is, if cast from your hand, they come in with a divinity counter. As long as the Myojin has that divinity counter it has Indestructible. You can remove that divinity counter to get a powerful effect. For instance: Myojin of Cleansing Fire destroys all creatures besides itself.
Our black Myojin here works the same way. As a 5/2 creature that has conditional Indestructible, its not incredibly powerful given its CMC 8 cost. We don't care about its power, toughness, or conditional Indestructible, though; we have it for it's divinity counter. Removing it's divinity counter forces all opponents to discard their hands. EDH is a game that goes on for quite a few turns. Hands are often full or infinite in this format. The card advantage generated by Myojin of Night's Reach has a greater potential than all of our other removal combined. Did I mention you can remove that divinity counter at instant speed? This Myojin is one of the very few cards WOTC has ever printed that has an instant speed discard ability.
The problem with this Myojin is getting the divinity counter on it. It needs to be cast from our hand to get it meaning Reanimate, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Whip of Erebos, Mimic Vat, and every other to-the-battlefield recursion effects doesn't get us the desired result. The work around is Phyrexian Reclamation, Volrath's Stronghold, and Sword of Light and Shadow. These three recursion cards are the only way to get Myojin of Night's Reach back into our hand. Even with this difficulty it is one of the most powerful cards in the deck.
Demon of Dark Schemes and its similar cousin Massacre Wurm have an enter-the-battlefield trigger giving -2/-2 until end of turn to all other creatures. They both have triggers whenever a creature dies that benefit you. The wurm causes the dead creature's controller to lose two life. The demon gives you an energy counter that you can later use to recur a creature from any graveyard.
Our demon here is particularly useful since it fills a bunch of roles our deck wants: good enter-the-battlefield trigger that can be recurred easily to abuse, a boardwipe stuck to a body, and a way to recur creatures, and it benefits off of other things dying (we're good at that). Whats not to love?
This one is kind of a necessity. [Sepulchral Primordial (GTC)] is a black EDH staple. Reanimating a creature from each opponents graveyards is pretty rad. Cheating it onto the battlefield multiple times is hilariously easy and ridiculously powerful.
The Rest
Card Advantage Jockies: Rune-Scarred Demon; Sidisi, Undead Vizier; Disciple of Bolas.
Revomal Jockies: Duplicant; Noxious Gearhulk
Value Jockies: Solemn Simulacrum; Wurmcoil Engine
