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Reaper King

Commander / EDH Artifact Scarecrow

Brefin

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Creature (29)

Planeswalker (3)

Battle (1)

Land (31)

Sorcery (9)

Instant (2)

Commander (1)

Commander: Reaper King

Artifact (16)

Enchantment (8)

It's Harvest Time with the Reaper King. Accelerate out your mana then drop him the first time you can also trigger him. Proceed from there grabbing more scarecrows, reusing scarecrows, or just declaring everything to be a scarecrow.

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March 3, 2015
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Some notes on the history of the deck: The original version of the deck wanted to be 5-color reanimator. But that fell by the wayside because I lacked entomb and didn't want to grab Buried Alive out of one of my favorite decks. Some elements of that version remain in the form of Animate Dead, Beacon of Unrest and Maelstrom Wanderer.

So I began exploring ways to make it an actual Reaper King deck. Now, most of the scarecrows from Shadowmoor block suffer a lot from being underwhelming. And even the presence of the king doesn't make them all that grand. The best that I settled on for my original purposes were Scarecrone, Scuttlemutt, Grim Poppet and Aquameboeous Changeling (originally paired with Sliver Overlord, but I never lived that dream.) And backed up with Conspiracy and Xenograft. This meant that I needed a high amount of search and reuse for my scarecrows.

Now, one can't lean on your general alone. He might get tucked. So I added a number of other artifacts with Enter the Battlefield triggers. Basically, a solid component of Esper cards, especially sphinxes. High artifacts and desire to reuse eventually led to adding Goblin Welder, Master Transmuter and Kiki Jiki. Scarecrone herself can also reanimate any f your artifact creatures, not just scarecrows.

Later testing added Necromantic Ooze to backup those powerful creature effects. But also led to me doubling down on mana accumulation. King one turn, Scarecrow the next is incredibly hit or miss, but if I can do both in one turn, I get the value from the King. Later testing acquired three more scarecrows as fitting. Wingrattle is amazing. A 3-drop scarecrow that gains Flying and Persist(!) in the presence of the King. When sacrificing and returning scarecrows is totally a thing with the Scarecrone. Heap Doll is nice and cheap, a useful EDH effect, and an evil evil synergy with King + Glissa, the Traitor. For the longest time Pili-Pala wasn't making the cut, it fixes mana colors at a horrendous cost, and then I realized that the possibility of an overpowered Necromantic Ooze that could untap itself was worth it.

Manabase: This manabase is extreme. It's not terribly expensive, but the deck is completely committed to being a 5-color ramp deck. Use at your own risk. How extreme? 31 lands. 31. 7 of the 8 mono-green spells are mana boosting effects. 9 of the artifacts are related to producing mana. And then Sculpting Steel and Phyrexian Metamorph can easily and often are spare mana rocks as well. Tezzeret translates into more mana either with fetching or untaping. This is not a deck that expects to draw its mana. This is a deck that pulls its mana out of the library kicking and screaming while being held together by search at the expense of card draw. And if I fail to hit colors... well I can be missing a couple and still drop the King. Ideally, I want at least a couple lands and a mana boost. And hopefully be hitting the green as needed (18 of my lands can at least lead to green) to first fetch out Esper and then later grab a mountain.

Other comments on the deck: In many ways, the Reaper King also reflects a kind of one trick pony. I don't have a variety of playable scarecrows to use. It's often going to win, or make you concede with the same set of cards. And often not even by damage, but just coercing you to concede by having no board left. I do try to have some quirky cards in here. Maelstrom Wanderer for the extra push of cascade versus a blue player. Maelstrom Nexus and Sen Triplets both being an almost 'because I can' effect since I do have all five colors. And I removed Rite of Replication because while the abstract was fun. Hey, +5 scarecrows! Honestly, the only proper target is +5 Reaper Kings and crater the board. Which really didn't suit the way I want games to be decided. Along similar lines, while Kiki Jiki and Restoration Angel are in the deck. (Or Restoration Angel and Conspiracy) I don't go trying to assemble these cards together. If they happen in my hand, I'll do them, but otherwise they were all chosen as good cards on their own for triggering the Reaper King more often. Due to the destructive nature of the deck, I try not to pull it out too often. And it feels unsuited to fun 1v1 situations. (A few too many games where I ramp harder, drop the King, and then have no targets except to start harvesting my opponent's lands)

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Revision 11 See all

(8 months ago)

+1 Botanical Sanctum main
-1 Explosive Vegetation main
-1 Maelstrom Pulse main
-1 Rupture Spire main
+1 Ugin, the Ineffable main
+1 Verdant Mastery main
Date added 10 years
Last updated 8 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

42 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

16 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 4.36
Tokens Copy Clone, Emblem Venser, the Sojourner, Spirit 2/2 C
Folders EDH Ideas
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