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Dementia and Despair

Commander / EDH* Competitive Control Cruel Control Discard Mono-Black Reanimator

Rahvin2015

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Creature (32)

Planeswalker (2)

Land (33)

Enchantment (8)

Artifact (16)

Instant (1)

Sorcery (7)

Commander (1)

Commander: Chainer, Dementia Master

Maybeboard

Creature (14)

Planeswalker (1)

Enchantment (7)

Artifact (11)

Sorcery (3)

Some men just want to watch the world burn. Comments desperately wanted and appreciated!

This deck focuses hard on reanimation and sacrifice for value. We're pitching things into the yard for reanimation, generating tokens, and controlling the board through sacrifice.

There are several paths to victory, including some big scary threats ( Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth ), mass drain by sacrificing/reanimating Kokusho, the Evening Star and Gray Merchant of Asphodel, and some infinite drain/infinite mill/infinite Gravestorm combos to finish out quickly.

Lots of cards in here to give extra gas through draw, provide lifegain to cover for Chainer's cost, and to pitch reanimation targets into the yard, often with an additional benefit. Symmetric discard is used for this purpose int he hope of getting opponents to pitch creatures as well, so they can be stolen later.

Avoiding unlimited hand size since, almost always, I'd like to discard something and "cheat" it into play with Chainer rather than actually pay the mana cost.

Control elements are here to help hold down opponents while finishers are put together.

This is the first draft of the deck, so comments are very appreciated. Please tell me what you think is strong/weak, and what I could change to improve! My meta ranges from just plain strong decks and strong players, to relatively competitive (early infinite combos don't happen every time, but they do happen).

Combos and Win Conditions Show

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First actual play results — Aug. 1, 2016
Edit

Had my first night of play with this list last night, and results were mixed to great.

I made several errors (not all of which were capitalized upon) like reanimating without a sac outlet available, which leaves me vulnerable to exile. This is just me learning a new deck, and this deck can lead to some relatively complicated board states with all of the triggered abilities, counters, changing creature types, etc.

Big lesson: mulligan for more land and at least one sac outlet. Preferably enough land to cast all spells in hand, at least one mana rock or other accelerant, and one unlimited sac outlet (limited use outlets are acceptable but obviously not preferred).

Winners included:

Skithiryx - for the low low cost of BBBB and 3 life, he hits the table and swings for 5 infect with flying and haste.

Xathrid Demon + Nirkana Revenant + lots of mana. I had developed a large board state through repeatedly reanimating and saccing Wurmcoil Engine, which kept attacks to a minimum...and my opponents didn't realize what I was able to do. I pumped Nirkana Revenant for a ton, then sacced it to Xathrid to make my opponents lose all of their remaining life for game.

Altar of the Brood and Mindslicer. I also had Altar of Dementia as my sac outlet and Pawn of Ulamog. I repeatedly reanimated and sacced Mindslicer to Dementia to force mill and discard, and the cycle milled an awful lot. With no hand and repeated mill, the game was over fairly quickly. First time I've ever pulled off a mill win (it was against Oona 1v1, so it was nice to mill him out for a change).

Duplicant was used to great effect as instant-speed repeatable creature exile, mostly against enemy commanders. Absolutely worth the slot.

Weaknesses/losses were mostly due to lack of lands, and a Kaalia opponent's Winter Orb (which backfired on him the first time when Skittles came out to murder him, but the second time it crippled me). In one case I was just too slow (and my other opponent was as well) and Oona pulled off a planeswalker ultimate, which may as well have just ended the game there. Walkers with blockers seem to be difficult for me to eliminate; I may need to find room for Vampire Hexmage, I just don;t know what to cut.

Kaalia is really hard to deal with. In other control decks I've had enough board wipes that I always had an answer. This deck...not so much. The various combos limit me on my count for answers. More tutors would probably resolve the problem (and other problems), but again...no idea what to cut. Another option - No Mercy and/or Dread. Let her attack and be destroyed (and give me reanimation access to whatever threat she pulled out)...or just attack the other guy and give me some time.

I miss Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, who is typically in every one of my other decks. But with Chainer as a general and a tiny number of black noncreature spells for him to recur, he doesn;t seem to have enough value for a slot. Which sucks, because being able to repeatedly use a tutor (other than Sidisi or Rune-Scarred) would be super useful.

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Revision 2 See all

(9 years ago)

+1 Coldsteel Heart main
+1 Dark Prophecy main
+1 Mesmeric Orb maybe