Chainer, Master of Mana and Graveyards

Commander / EDH Mono-Black

Greyhame888

Creature (26)

• 1x Abhorrent Overlord
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1x Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1x K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Merciless Executioner
• 1x Meteor Golem
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Murderous Rider
• 1x Nirkana Revenant
• 1x Noxious Gearhulk
• 1x Phyrexian Obliterator
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier *f-pre*
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General
• 1x Liliana of the Dark Realms
• 1x Liliana Vess

Artifact (13)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Land (36)

• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Deserted Temple
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 28x Swamp
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Witch's Cottage

Instant (3)

• 1x Entomb
• 1x Sudden Spoiling
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Commander (1)

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Mutilate
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Attrition
• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Font of Agonies
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena

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Here he is! My favorite mono-black commander by far. Chainer is ideal to build around a graveyard play and reanimation strategy, but we have some other alternative win conditions as well. See the headers below for a full break-down of what the deck wants to do.

Ramp, Acceleration, Card Advantage

One of the main purposes of this deck is to generate large amounts of black mana to dump into X spells or repeatedly loop certain creatures to drain the table. To that end, card combos like Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth generate massive mana. Cabal Stronghold + Urborg does something similar, but only for basics. Thespian's Stage is in the deck to become a copy of Cabal Coffers, because who doesn't like crazy amounts of mana? Being in mono-black means we will quite often have a large devotion to black, which makes Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx particularly strong. Deserted Temple is an all-star for ramp. Remember all that mana we get from Nykthos of Cabal Coffers? Why not get double that!

We also use things like Caged Sun , Crypt Ghast , Nirkana Revenant , and Liliana of the Dark Realms to make our swamps tap for significant amounts of black mana. Gilded Lotus can also produce black mana. Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are generic ramp while Solemn Simulacrum fetches a swamp for more black mana goodness. K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is one of the blackest cards ever. Paying life for mana is a great option.

We also have a number of good ol' black Pay-Life-for-Cards effects. Phyrexian Arena , Bloodgift Demon , Necropotence , Erebos, God of the Dead , and Bolas's Citadel will all let us turn life into more cards. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician plus any 2 creatures with Undying (or just add Mikaeus, the Unhallowed to give it to everyone) and we basically have a combo that say "pay 1 life to draw a card " Vilis, Broker of Blood is amazing black card draw with all the life we will be playing.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General will also synergies well with our board control game plan by letting us draw cards whenever one of our creatures die, which will happen alot.

Graveyard Fillers and Reanimation

Entomb and Buried Alive are great options to allow us to drop strong reanimation targets into our own graveyard. We also heavily use removal to help fill our opponents' graveyard to create more reanimation targets. Damnation , Black Sun's Zenith , Mutilate , Toxic Deluge , and Torment of Hailfire all help put our opponents creatures in the yard. Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos let us turn sac outlets into removal. Sacrifice a creature to force each opponent to do the same. We can actually double up this effect by playing creatures like Merciless Executioner and Plaguecrafter .

For reanimators, we have a couple options. The most utilized of course will often be our Commander, Chainer, Dementia Master . He can bring a creature from any yard at instant speed. But having backups is always a good thing in commander. Geth, Lord of the Vault does something similar, but we can also target opponents' artifacts. The downside is that it doesn't let us use our own graveyard, but has the pleasant upside of milling our opponents to create more targets! Good old Reanimate gives us some sorcery speed recursion. Turn one Entomb into Turn two Reanimate for Sheoldred, Whispering One or some other great creature is just plain nasty.

Speaking of Sheoldred, she is great for returning one creature per turn, but also keeping our opponents' boards smaller. We also have Rise of the Dark Realms and the ultimate ability of Liliana Vess which allow us to take ALL creatures from ALL graveyards, which can be game-winning.

A personal favorite reanimation is to use Chainer to return Phyrexian Obliterator to the field after an opponent swings with a massive creature. Nothing like forcing them to sacrifice tons of permanents!

Witch's Cottage is a backup for creature recursion. Also a swamp too, so it's fetchable and works with Cabal Coffers.

In terms of solid reanimation loop targets, we have some choices.

• Kokusho, the Evening Star or Gray Merchant of Asphodel can be used to drain the table and gain massive life.
• Solemn Simulacrum can be looped for ramp and card draw.
• Meteor Golem is basically our only way to deal with artifacts and enchantments.
• Massacre Wurm can be looped enough times to kill most creatures, and has that extra life-loss clause.
• Noxious Gearhulk is removal on a body, with a life-gain bonus tacked on.
• Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Rune-Scarred Demon can be looped for repeatable tutor effects.
• Grave Titan and Abhorrent Overlord can be looped for tons of tokens.

Sacrifice Outlets

Sacrifice is very important to this deck. Not only will it allow us to drop creatures in the graveyard for reanimation, it can also help protect them from those pesky Swords to Plowshares . It is important to note that if Chainer dies, anything he has reanimated will be EXILED. This is part of why sac outlets are so important. We don't want things exiled, so we can sac the creatures in response to the exile effect so they can be reanimated once more!

Sacrificing our own creatures can also be used offensively to force opponents to sac their creatures through Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos .

We have a number of repeatable sac outlets like Ashnod's Altar , Altar of Dementia , Attrition , Phyrexian Tower , Razaketh, the Foulblooded , Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Viscera Seer .

Abhorrent Overlord forces us to sac once per turn, but this can be a good thing with any Grave pact effect, or if we have Sheoldred out we can sac and reanimate the same creature for some ETB goodness.

The deck also includes a number of ETB or single use sacrifice effects like Merciless Executioner and Plaguecrafter , or Sidisi, Undead Vizier .

Liliana, Dreadhorde General will also sac both our creatures, and opponents.

Removal and Disruption

Removal is something we try to have plenty of in mono-black. We have some great board wipes, as well as targeted removal and forced sacrifice effects. Much of this is covered in the Graveyard Fillers section above.

• Boardwipes: Damnation , Toxic Deluge , Black Sun's Zenith , Toxic Deluge , Torment of Hailfire
• Single Target: Murderous Rider , Meteor Golem , Noxious Gearhulk , Attrition , Font of Agonies , Liliana of the Dark Realms
• Forced Sacrifice: Merciless Executioner , Plaguecrafter , Dictate of Erebos , Grave Pact , Phyrexian Obliterator , Liliana, Dreadhorde General
• Other Effects: Massacre Wurm , Liliana of the Dark Realms

Disrupting our opponents is always beneficial too. Removing their creatures is a great way to do this, but we have a couple other useful effects too. Sudden Spoiling is a great way to stop a massive swing from an opponent or remove a key ability for a turn. Erebos, God of the Dead shuts down any lifegain they may have.

Tutors

Tutors is another thing this deck has plenty of. Because we have so many good toolbox type cards and wincons, it's very handy to be able to find what we need. For single use tutors, we have Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Tutor . Expedition Map will let us go find Cabal Coffers, Urborg, or Nykthos. Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Rune-Scarred Demon are repeatable tutors if we find a way to reanimate them. Razaketh, the Foulblooded is also a strong repeatable tutor and sac outlet. Liliana of the Dark Realms helps us tutor for swamps to keep up with land drops, while Liliana Vess is essentially a multiuse Vampiric Tutor.

Wincons

Other than straight beating face with nasty black creatures, we have a couple ways to win the game in combo. First up, we can use Chainer, Dementia Master + Kokusho, the Evening Star or Gray Merchant of Asphodel and any sacrifice outlet to do a reanimation loop and drain our opponents as many times as our mana allows, which should be quite a bit.

Rise of the Dark Realms or Liliana Vess can straight up win for us if we have a good collection of creatures in our opponents' yards.

Sensei's Divining Top + Bolas's Citadel + Aetherflux Reservoir is a loop that can gain us infinite life and laser beam the whole table.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and any two creatures creates a repeatable loop. If one of the creatures is Kokusho, the Evening Star or Gray Merchant of Asphodel we can infinitely loop them to drain out our opponents.

Phyrexian Altar + Blood Artist + Abhorrent Overlord + Chainer, Dementia Master gives us an infinite life-drain loop. Have Blood Artist out, cast Abhorrent Overlord, get 3+ harpies. Sac at least 2 harpies and the Abhorrent Overlord to Phyrexian Altar for Black Mana, draining an opponent, gaining us life. Use 3x Black mana and 3 life to activate Chainer targeting the Overlord. Repeat until the table is dead. This has the added benefit of generating infinite black mana, but if you are killing the table it's probably not relevant.

Otherwise, we can generate a stupid amount of mana to pump into a massive Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire .

Utility and Goodstuff

Lifegain We don't have a ton of lifegain in the deck, but what we do have will often make a big difference. Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Kokusho, the Evening Star drain everyone else and boost of life total. Exquisite Blood turns all opposing life loss into gain for us. Aetherflux Reservoir is a bit of lifegain, but also part of a wincon combo. Noxious Gearhulk and Blood Artist can gain us a bit of life too. Token Generators Token generation is not a major theme of the deck, but having chump or sacrifice fodder never hurts. Bitterblossom is always nice to see. Abhorrent Overlord can end up creating a stupid amount of harpies. Grave Titan will always give us at least two zombies, but usually many more. Liliana, Dreadhorde General will almost always get us some tokens.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is just so good. Sac outlet, removal, and can turn all that card draw and mana into a quick proliferate/ult of one of our Liliana planeswalker. So very good.

Other Notable Interactions and Inclusions

Exquisite Blood + any of our life drain effects will often result in massive life gain for us. I specifically don't play Sanguine Bond because I don't overly like infinite combos, but you could certainly do it if you choose. Font of Agonies is particularly good here, as we will probably be paying life quite a bit. This will provide plenty of single-target removal.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and any two creatures basically allows us to create our own Yawgmoth's Bargain ! If one of the creatures is Kokusho, the Evening Star or Gray Merchant of Asphodel we will actually be GAINING life and draining our opponents! Even having Blood Artist on board creates the same effect.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	18 - 0 Mythic Rares 39 - 0 Rares 11 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.97
Tokens	Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Harpy 1/1 B, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Interesting Decks (copied), Mono Balck Ideas, Commander, Maybe decks, Other Decks, Decks To Reference