Pick-Up Sticks

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) Combo Competitive Reanimator

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Land (32)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Darkbore Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Ebon Stronghold
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Forest
• 1x Havenwood Battleground
• 1x Hickory Woodlot
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Peat Bog
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Snow-Covered Forest
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 2x Swamp
• 1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
• 1x Undergrowth Stadium
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Urza's Saga
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Woodland Chasm
• 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Artifact (9)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Resilience

Sorcery (22)

• 1x Bone Shards
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Collective Brutality
• 1x Culling Ritual
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Exhume
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Footsteps of the Goryo
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Life / Death
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Persist
• 1x Postmortem Lunge
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Soul Exchange
• 1x Stitch Together
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Victimize

Enchantment (13)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Burgeoning
• 1x City of Solitude
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Earthcraft
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Squandered Resources
• 1x Squirrel Nest
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x The Meathook Massacre
• 1x Wild Growth

Commander (1)

Instant (20)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Autumn's Veil
• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Imp's Mischief
• 1x Infernal Grasp
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Rain of Filth
• 1x Reclaim
• 1x Snuff Out
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Wake the Dead

Creature (3)

• 1x Asmodeus the Archfiend
• 1x Necrotic Ooze
• 1x Skirge Familiar

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Sideboard

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Carpet of Flowers

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This is a highly competitive reanimator combo deck revolving around casting the commander to dump all of your creatures into the grave, then using a single reanimation spell to win. Similar to the deck presented on the cEDH Discord, albeit tuned for a different meta.

The Deck

The deck is set up to ramp quickly and go off consistently by turn 3-4 (earlier with a perfect hand), but has options to play well into the midgame if necessary (albeit preferably if our few creatures haven't been exiled). We don't especially want a super long grindy game, but we can survive better than a lot of fast combo decks. On top of that, the simplistic strategy and almost total lack of creatures allows us to slot in more removal than most competitive decks, meaning making it to the late game is a strong possibility. Which is why we run multiple back up options (as covered in The Win Cons section below)

The Strategy

A few light Stax pieces (i.e. City of Solitude and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale) work to slow your faster opponents and help get around Control decks. In addition to powerful cards like the Tabernacle, we can play creature-based board wipes without worry, since we don't play our few creatures until the absolute last moment.

However, as appealing as this strategy can be, especially against certain decks, the main goal of the deck is to combo off as quickly as possible. We run plenty of ramp, letting us potentially reach our mana minimum by turn 2, and consistently reach it by turn 3. The set up is to play Old Stickfingers for X=3, dumping our only 3 creatures into the grave, where we can combo off with just a single reanimation spell. After casting the reanimation spell (which could be anything from to 4 mana, depending entirely on the spell), you still need (which can be substituted for if you have free cards to discard).

While some decks would find producing that much mana by turn 3 daunting, our colors and heavy ramp package make it a breeze. However, it doesn't leave us a lot left over for interaction, which is why I've included cheap protection slots such as Veil of Summer, Imp's Mischief, and Heroic Intervention. If you're the first to go off, it might be sensible to hold back enough mana for at least 1 of these. If you don't have the mana, or haven't drawn the cards, it's generally safer to let someone else eat a majority of the removal first to clear a path.

The Win Cons

To win, you reanimate the Necrotic Ooze, which uses the abilities granted from Skirge Familiar and Asmodeus the Archfiend being in the graveyard. Draw the entire deck, and either win through Collective Brutality by discarding a ton of cards, or just use Earthcraft/Squirrel Nest to make infinite 1/1 tokens.

Theoretically, if you haven't used Reclaim and Noxious Revival already you could also loop Praetor's Grasp to steal and cast an opponent's Oracle (using the other 2 casts of it to grab lands/rocks that tap for Blue). It's a pretty janky concept, but there are several players in my meta who would happily wait for me to draw my entire deck just to counter the Brutality and exile the Earthcraft, so it's nice to have an absolute worst case scenario option in the back pocket. Just don't expect to actually pull it off every time.

Overall, not only is the deck extremely fast and consistent (essentially building around Buried Alive in the command zone), but it has the ability to be resilient as well. I expect Mr. Stick to firmly take the title of Strongest Reanimator Commander, and hold it for the foreseeable future.

Date added	2 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 41 - 0 Rares 24 - 1 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.10
Tokens	Construct 0/0 C, Squirrel 1/1 G
Folders	commander