Ok so here's the next million dollar idea: Reanimator, but it's just a bunch of enchantments
Lame, right? That's why the deck is only worth $800 and not $1,000,000
So while this deck might not make you a millionaire, winning games with this deck will make you feel like a million bucks. Which is much more worthwhile, because money can't buy happiness!
Alright now that the Dad joke is out of the way, here's the primer you've been waiting for
Deck Construction
Draw, discard, and Dredge
The first problem I ran into with this deck was too many big enchantments, and not enough ways to toss them into my graveyard. This isn't a ramp deck, so you don't want to be casting any large enchantments. You want to cast the "dragon fodder" enchantments and sacrifice those to Ghen.
Mardu doesn't give you a ton of options. Drawing cards in Black comes with additional costs, Red requires you to discard some cards after drawing any. White is plain useless when it comes to card advantage. So when you can't beat 'em, join 'em. The goal is for everything to end up in the graveyard.
So here's the list of cards that gain you access to the rest of your deck, ranked in order of importance:
Draw
- Null Profusion: This is the gas pedal. Now floor it!
- Liliana's Contract: Most bang for your buck in the whole deck when it comes to card advantage
- Treacherous Blessing: Draw 3 without any immediate drawback
- Demonic Lore: Draws 3, but needs to be removed from the field by your end step
- Demonic Pact: Multipurpose, but only draws 2 cards, you can't make yourself discard, although it can act as removal. You have to wait until your upkeep to use it
- Infernal Tribute: Ghen's third hand, useful to sacrifice enchantments than need to get off the field or so that Ghen can (ab)use them again
- Bitter Revelation: Puts 2 cards in your hand and two cards in your graveyard, and lets you choose which ones go where. Now that's quality customer service
- Funeral Rites: Only 3 CMC and achieves the same results as bitter revelation, but doesn't offer you a choice
- Skeletal Scrying: A personal favorite, scales incredibly well with the game. Useful in a pinch to cycle itself, or you can draw more at instant speed.
- Phyrexian Arena: Always a reliable card, but is inconvenient to sacrifice before your upkeep
Discard
- The Flame of Keld: Arguably the best card in the deck. Drop this in at your upkeep with Ghen & discard your dredgers, then draw 3 cards at your draw step.
- Cathartic Reunion: Achieves the same result as The Flame of Keld with a little more selection
- Thrill of Possibility: Instant speed draw/discard
- Trading Post: A reliable way of discarding cards or making chump blockers. The only way to get it back from your graveyard is with Underworld Breach, which can be inconvenient
- Faithless Looting: A fan favorite. Cheap, reusable, but no card advantage is attached
- Oread of Mountain's Blaze: A semi-expensive mana sink that essentially lets you pay 3 mana to dredge. Easy to reanimate since it's an enchantment
- Geier Reach Sanitarium allows you to filter your hand when needed
Dredge & Mill
- Stinkweed Imp: No Introduction Needed
- Golgari Thug: #2 dredger, offer's a roundabout way of putting creatures back into your hand
- Gravebreaker Lamia: A Repeatable entomb, this card is critical to the deck
- Entomb: Just think of the possibilities! Usually gets a dredger, enchantment, or combo piece
- Dakmor Salvage: A dredger that also can act as a land drop when needed
- Ghoulcaller's Bell: May not be as great as Codex Shredder, but gives you the option of reanimating your opponents creatures, if they mill any
- Shenanigans: An undervalued card imo, the minimum dredge amount partnered with an often useful effect makes this card very reliable
Removal
In my opinion the the most important things in any EDH deck are as follows
- The cards that make the rest of your deck work (Ex. Dredging and Drawing)
- The cards that make your opponents deck not work
In EDH, never let the sleeping bear lie. Poke it with a stick and try to kill it while it's tired, not when it's fully awake. Here is a list of the "sticks" you have to poke your opponents with, not including the one mother nature gave you
- Parallax Wave: Effectively acts as a boardwipe. Remove all 5 counters, then sacrifice it to Ghen with the targets on the stack. Then your opponents creatures go to flavortown!
- Phyrexian Scriptures This card was made for this deck. Protects Ghen while killing everything else
- Martyr's Bond: Opponent trying to kill your stuff? Flash this in with Ghen and instantly punish them
- Oblivion Ring: Exiles any nonland permanent temporarily, or permanently
- Sinister Concoction: An all star in the deck. For only 2 mana you have a discard outlet, you get to mill a card, and you get to destroy a creature. But wait, there's more! Since it's a one drop, it's easy to play it just to sacrifice to Ghen
- Journey to Nowhere: A cheaper Oblivion ring, only hits creatures
- Faith's Fetters: Always a decent card, gains you some life while staying on the field to be sacrificed later
- Lightning Axe: Discarding a dredger or large enchantment while killing another creature always feels good
- Smiting Helix: This would be the worst removal card in the deck, but it's flashback ability gives us a lightning helix we can cast from our graveyard
- Act of Authority: Only hits artifacts and enchantments, but it exiles up to 2 of them. It's second ability is a may, so you can keep it around like a time bomb or just sacrifice it to prevent your opponents from gaining control of it
- Leyline of the Void: Specifically counters graveyard decks, I play against enough of them that this warrants inclusion. While it's nice on turn 0, play it on any turn at instant speed with Ghen to cause your opponent to have a bad time
Shenanigans!
No, not the card. These cards help Ghen weave you a board state.
- Frenzied Fugue: Absolutely busted, essentially gives you a second untap step every turn
- Thousand-Year Elixir: Gives Ghen haste and lets you untap him for an additional use. Not an enchantment, but Sun Titan can target it.
- Triclopean Sight: Maybe this card is overvalued, but it comes out of nowhere. Can be used to bait opponents.
- Anger: Giving Ghen haste is pretty neat. There are 7 mountains in the deck
- Gift of Immortality: An enchantment that effectively gives Ghen indestructible while returning itself to your hand
- Swiftfoot Boots: Not an enchantment, and favored over lightning Greaves since we need to enchant our commander
- All That Glitters: When all else fails, just make Ghen thicc with X+2 C's, where X is the number of artifacts and enchantments you control
The Tools
So I've listed out everything that forms up the toolbox. Here's the tools you're going to end up using. Some you won't need, some you'll come to rely on. It completely depends on the game your playing
This part of the deck is unranked, because so many cards are situational. It's split up into "Protection & Disruption", "Recursion", and "Value Town"
Protection & Disruption
- Planar Chaos: Didn't lose the flip? Just call Ghen, he can fix that for you
- The Eldest Reborn: Keeps your opponents in check, then lets you reanimate something and puts itself back in your graveyard
- No Mercy: Use it to prevent your opponents from attacking, or wipe out your opponents attacking creatures
- Contamination: play this at the end of your turn, then just don't sacrifice a creature at your upkeep. Rinse, wash, repeat.
- Meekstone: Not an enchantment, but very convenient
- Blood Moon: Tough on your mana base, but even worse for your opponents. Just make sure you can sacrifice it with Ghen or Infernal Tribute
- Leyline of Sanctity: Has more uses than just preventing burn spells & hand hate
- Omen of the Sun: Makes some chump blockers, and you can choose to scry or let Ghen play with it
- Sphere of Safety: Better value than Ghostly Prison in this deck
- Solitary Confinement: Same as contamination - Play it at end of turn, don't pay the upkeep cost but still pass go and collect $200 ($200 meaning drawing a card). Rinse, wash, repeat.
Recursion
- Sun Titan: Instant value, a strong attacker and a tough blocker
- Underworld Breach: Allows you to cast anything from your graveyard, namely artifacts and instants/sorceries
- Auramancer: Often convenient
- Crucible of Worlds: In a deck with no ramp and a big graveyard, this card does work
- Animate Dead: Reanimate your creatures or your opponents' creatures
- Necromancy: A reanimation enchantment with flash. Use it to reanimate something your opponent would try to reanimate, or to enchant something useful
Value Town
- Grave Betrayal: Can be brought in as a response to a board wipe or before combat damage.
- Starfield of Nyx: Animates all your other enchantments, but doesn't animate itself as protection. Also dropping an enchantment onto the field every turn gets out of control very quickly
- Heliod, God of the Sun: Indestructible blocker that creates enchantment creatures. Sac 'em or block with 'em
- Assemble the Legion: Muster an army and overwhelm your opponents
- Outlaws' Merriment: It's hard to say whether or not this card is better than Assemble the Legion, but it gives you some options while amassing a board state
- Court of Grace: Last but no least, introduces the Monarch into the game guaranteeing you a draw while giving you consistent tokens. Easy to take back the monarch since the tokens have flying.
WOMBO COMBO! WOMBO COMBO!!!
In addition to winning by attrition, I've added a Splinter Twin win condition as well. This combo can be done in one turn, as long as you can untap Ghen an additional time with 6 mana open to activate Ghen twice. You need either Necromancy or Animate Dead in your graveyard with Village Bell-Ringer or Zealous Conscripts, along with Splinter Twin.
So I'll explain the possible scenarios you can execute the combo within
- Setup
- Starting at your untap step. You need to have Ghen, Arcanum Weaver on the field already or 9+ open mana (To cast and tap twice) with a haste enabler (Thousand-Year Elixir or Anger).
- Splinter Twin needs to be in your graveyard.
- Village Bell-Ringer or Zealous Conscripts must be in your graveyard. It's impossible to hold them in your hand throughout the game, you will most likely end up discarding them or milling them at some point.
- Necromancy or Animate Dead need to be in your graveyard. Either could be in your hand, instead of using Ghen's ability an additional time you can cast either enchantment. Casting Animate Dead makes the combo 1 mana cheaper.
- You need a way to untap Ghen. If Frenzied Fugue is already on the battlefield attached to Ghen that is optimal. Alternatively you could have Thousand-Year Elixir on the field (add one mana to the combo to use it's ability) or Triclopean Sight in your hand (2 more mana needed). If you are reanimating Zealous Conscripts then you can use it's ETB ability to untap Ghen
- Finally, you need two enchantments on the field to sacrifice. Frenzied Fugue or Triclopean Sight will count as one, you need another which you will almost always have.
- Execution
- Move to your upkeep. You will tap Ghen, sacrifice another enchantment (NOT Frenzied Fugue) and return Animate Dead or Necromancy to the battlefield. Return either Village Bell-Ringer or Zealous Conscripts to the field. If you have Frenzied Fugue attached to Ghen, you need to do all that in response the untap trigger
- Next you will untap Ghen with Zealous Conscripts, Frenzied Fugue, Thousand-Year Elixir, or Triclopean Sight.
- Finally you will tap Ghen a second time, sacrificing any enchantmant except for Animate Dead or Necromancy. You will bring back Splinter Twin and enchant Zealous Conscripts or Village Bell-Ringer. I'm sure you know what happens after that =)
And that's all folks, I'm not going to go into detail about the other possible interactions that can be done, those you will have to figure out on the fly. Thanks for Reading!
