pie chart

Chainer's Wholesome Reanimation Machine | V-HOB

Commander / EDH BR (Rakdos) Bracket 3 Casual Control Discard Primer Reanimator Wheels

Beebles

Upvote 0
0

Lands (37)

Bombs (8)

Steal (6)

Cycling (5)

Tokens (5)

Sac (3)

Haste (2)

Draw/Selection (23)

Ramp (16)

Wheels (6)

Protection (5)

Pain (4)

Life (3)

Copy (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Chainer, Nightmare Adept

Interaction (16)

Recursion (11)

Discard Fodder (7)

When Discarding (6)

Tutors (4)

Flash (2)

Maybeboard

Interaction (12)

Pain (6)

Discard Fodder (5)

Bombs (3)

Wheels (3)

Protection (2)

Sac (2)

Recursion (11)

Lands (6)

Ramp (6)

Life (3)

Flash (2)

Madness (2)

Tutors (2)

Draw/Selection (10)

When Discarding (10)

Tokens (4)

Steal (3)

Haste (2)

Copy (1)

Cycling (1)

enter image description here

Hello there and welcome to my Chainer discard and reanimation deck.

Origin

This deck started out as a slightly altered Merciless Rage precon with Anje at the helm. A wholesome bad casual deck. I kept it around because at the time I did not have a lot of decks fitting for lower-powered tables with gameplay I enjoyed. I liked the discard and reanimation themes in the precon, but my build did not have a clear focus at the time. It was mainly just a low powered control deck without any real win conditions.

At some point I added more discard synergies. Specifically cards that would trigger when I discard cards, such as Archfiend of Ifnir or Cryptcaller Chariot, with a few dumb reanimation bombs serving as finishers. However, that deck ultimately kept feeling a bit awkward as the different deck themes did not really gel into a cohesive whole. I figured I could make the themes I was gravitating towards shine more when switching to Chainer, Nightmare Adept. That led to the current iteration.

Deck Premise

This deck is still focused on those 2 things: discarding cards to reuse them later or cheat them out early through reanimation, and weaponizing our discards through triggered abilities. Wheels play a pivotal role here, as they allow us to churn through our deck, get our bombs in the bin, and trigger our discard/wheel payoffs.

Chainer, Nightmare Adept provides reanimation, haste and a discard outlet from the command zone. Combining reanimation with haste means we can abuse both low-costed utility creatures with a tap ability, as well as big bombs that have an ETB and/or attack trigger. In the first category, prime utility pieces include Magus of the Wheel which allows us to wheel more consistently, Oriq Loremage for repeatable Entombs, and Doomed Necromancer allowing for clean, repeatable reanimation. In the second category, cards like Grave Titan and Cityscape Leveler deliver more value right away when we recur them with our commander in play.

Recurring Nightmare

In the early game, ideally we have some cheaper utility creatures that we can keep recurring. Evoke creatures, such as Ingot Chewer, and other cheap creatures that sac themselves, such as Troop of Ponies or Accursed Marauder can easily be cast multiple times in a game. I used to run a Karador combo-control deck with lots of these small self-sacrificing utility creatures to recur, so it's nice to have a deck again where that is a possible line.

enter image description here

There are a few ways we can ramp up the amount of times we can rebuy some of these smaller creatures. Cost reducers such as Heartless Summoning and Lord of the Forsaken allow us to churn out more creatures or get them out sooner. Twilight Diviner gives us a free second copy once per turn; Ancient Copper Dragon adds fuel to our fires; and our recursion spells can also put the reanimation machine into a higher gear. Lastly, when adding flash through Vedalken Orrery or Winding Canyons we can use Chainer's ability on our opponents' turns as well, opening up more control options.

Wheel Away

In the mid to late game, there are a few routes through which the deck can become more threatening. We can combine wheel effects with our discard payoffs: Archfiend of Ifnir expands our board control options, Cryptcaller Chariot gives us a lot of creature tokens to work with, while pieces like Glint-Horn Buccaneer or Scrawling Crawler can pressure opponents' life totals. This route can also be the deck's contingency plan when acces to our graveyard is denied.

The main way to turn threatening though is by reanimating our big bombs. Some of them accellerate our game plan (Sheoldred, Whispering One, Dragon Mage). Other ones are just a PITA do deal with (Valgavoth, Terror Eater), help us control the board (Cityscape Leveler), or steal some of the things our opponents have discarded through one of our wheels (Sepulchral Primordial). Actually, most of the selected reanimate cards allow for this, adding another level of synergy to our wheel effects. I also like such cards in more casual decks because they scale with the power of the group.

enter image description here

Intended Power Level

When tuning the power of this deck I settled for GC-less B3 as the target. I liked that the deck could become another mid powered deck I enjoy mechanically that can join my average LGS and playgroup games. When allowing GC’s I would end up adding pieces too oppressive for that environment, such as Tergrid, God of Fright   and Orcish Bowmasters. Also note that I’m not looking to run any game-ending combos here, as I already have a full-on combo/reanimation deck (Vish Kal).

Closing Thoughts

I like that the deck proved to be a good destination for personal favorite cards, but had no home for yet, such as Lord of the Forsaken, Heartless Summoning, Twilight Diviner, Scrawling Crawler, Cityscape Leveler and Tortured Existence. A thing I'm still working on is adding more ways to protect against graveyard hate, as the deck relies on it so heavily to succeed. To remedy this a little bit, I'm experimenting with cards like Untimely Malfunction that can redirect Bojuka Bog-type of effects. I'm also looking for more interaction pieces that can target a broad range of permanent types to more easily remove the many hate pieces in the format that hose graveyard strategies.

Thanks for stopping by. And, as always, if you have some ideas for cards to include, then please do share your recommendations.

GL & HF

Beebles

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

Revision 51 See all

(1 day ago)