A Heart Three Sizes Too Small
Commander / EDH* BUG (Sultai) Competitive Infinite Combo Reanimator Toolbox
Instant (14)
- 1x Abrupt Decay
- 1x Dark Ritual
- 1x Dig Through Time
- 1x Entomb
- 1x Frantic Search
- 1x Intuition
- 1x Mana Drain
- 1x Memory's Journey
- 1x Mystical Tutor
- 1x Noxious Revival
- 1x Pact of Negation
- 1x Songs of the Damned
- 1x Swan Song
- 1x Vampiric Tutor
Sorcery (13)
Enchantment (4)
Artifact (5)
Creature (31)
- 1x Apprentice Necromancer
- 1x Arbor Elf
- 1x Birds of Paradise
- 1x Bloom Tender
- 1x Body Double
- 1x Boreal Druid
- 1x Deathrite Shaman
- 1x Drift of Phantasms
- 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
- 1x Elvish Mystic
- 1x Eternal Scourge
- 1x Eternal Witness
- 1x Fauna Shaman
- 1x Fyndhorn Elves
- 1x Hedron Crab
- 1x Hermit Druid
-
1x
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Flip
- 1x Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
- 1x Llanowar Elves
- 1x Magus of the Will
- 1x Merfolk Looter
- 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
- 1x Necrotic Ooze
- 1x Phyrexian Devourer
- 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
- 1x Sage of Epityr
- 1x Satyr Wayfinder
- 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
- 1x Street Wraith
- 1x Tidespout Tyrant
- 1x Triskelion
Land (32)
- 1x Ancient Tomb
- 1x Bayou
- 1x Bazaar of Baghdad
- 1x Bloodstained Mire
- 1x Blooming Marsh
- 1x Breeding Pool
- 1x Cavern of Souls
- 1x Cephalid Coliseum
- 1x City of Brass
- 1x Command Tower
- 1x Flooded Grove
- 1x Flooded Strand
- 1x Forbidden Orchard
- 1x Gaea's Cradle
- 1x Gemstone Caverns
- 1x Llanowar Wastes
- 1x Mana Confluence
- 1x Marsh Flats
- 1x Misty Rainforest
- 1x Overgrown Tomb
- 1x Polluted Delta
- 1x Reflecting Pool
- 1x Scalding Tarn
- 1x Swamp
- 1x Tropical Island
- 1x Underground River
- 1x Underground Sea
- 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
- 1x Verdant Catacombs
- 1x Watery Grave
- 1x Windswept Heath
- 1x Wooded Foothills
Commander (1)
Maybeboard
Instant (4)
Sorcery (2)
Creature (2)
This is a midrange reanimator combo deck that is balanced between several fast and easy to assemble game ending combos. This deck has been refined to limit the number of dead cards. There is plenty of synergy between my win conditions and the cards supporting each combo. These include:
1) Necrotic Ooze in play with Triskelion and Phyrexian Devourer in the graveyard (2 Colorless and 2 Black Mana for Buried Alive and Reanimate ): Fastest combo, but only viable in the early game due to needing most of my library intact to work. Wins turns 1 to 5.
2) Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion (4 colorless and 2 black mana for Buried Alive and Victimize ): An outgrowth of the first combo to make Triskelion less terrible outside the first combo. Can realistically win on turns 2-5.
3) Eternal Scourge + Food Chain (5 colorless and one green mana to hard cast both). Probably the best combo overall since my 1 drop mana dorks serve as excellent Food Chain fodder on turn 3 after they have been tapped which brings the cost for the combo to a miniscule 4 total mana. That incredible mana efficiency gives me the luxury of tutoring for Food Chain or Eternal Scourge on turn 2 and still assemble the combo on turn 3. This combo is also resilient against grave hate and exile, and will almost always win the turn it is assembled with no extra cards in hand or additional mana needed (see related update for details).
4) One basic Hermit Druid and Mirror-Mad Phantasm + Necrotic Ooze : These cards are not a focus of the deck. I use them simply because they mill most or all of my deck cheaply to help me assemble a game winning combo. To win with these cards usually costs between 5-7 mana. I am using a compact HD package to cut down on terrible cards like Narcomoeba and risky win conditions like Laboratory Maniac. While this combo tends to be very fluid (with many possible game winning combinations), if I mill my whole library, I can flashback Memory's Journey to shuffle Songs of the Damned, Yawgmoth's Will and Street Wraith into my library. I then can flashback Deep Analysis to get yawgwin and Songs of the Damned in hand and use them to cast my graveyard for the win. I included one basic land to ensure I don't have to mill everything if I don't want to. Activating Mirror-Mad Phantasm on its own will often get me enough of my library in the graveyard to assemble a win condition.
Below is a slightly more aggressive version of the deck:
All Nightmare Long (SBT Primer)
Commander / EDH*
SCORE: 64 | 121 COMMENTS | 17793 VIEWS | IN 54 FOLDERS
When this deck was first created I based everything off of cheating large enter the battlefield effect creatures into play. Kederekt Leviathan + Necromancy was a thing that lost me a few friends. The deck was powerful, but somewhat inconsistent. It died hard to counterspell heavy decks, but against non-blue decks it completely dominated. The current iteration has retained the best cards and combos from that deck, gotten leaner, and introduced a couple fast alternative game ending combos such as Eternal Scourge + Food Chain and Necrotic Ooze with Phyrexian Devourer + Triskelion in the graveyard.
This hybrid deck is more resilient, faster, and consistent than the original and sidisi plays an important role in all phases of the game. She is a win condition, combo piece, token generator, reanimation engine, and a completely expendable Birthing Pod target all in one nice neat package.
In case you were wondering, the elusive turn 1 victory can happen a number of different ways, but essentially you play a turn 1 Swamp, Mana Crypt, and Dark Ritual to net 5 mana. You use that mana to cast a Buried Alive to place Necrotic Ooze, Phyrexian Devourer , and Triskelion in your graveyard. Then with your remaining 2 mana you cast one of Exhume/ Animate Dead/ Shallow Grave / Reanimate targeting Necrotic Ooze, which uses the two other creature's abilities to ping each opponent to death. gg
I have read Sidisi described as a "terrible general" in competitive forums. Many others have asked the question "why would you run her when you could play...?" It is widely accepted that The Mimeoplasm , Damia, Sage of Stone , and Tasigur, the Golden Fang are superior generals so many believe that trying to make Sidisi work in competitive environments is a pointless effort.
These popular notions are simply wrong. Her strength is less obvious, and she is WAY harder to optimize, but she has a number of advantages over the premier BUG commanders.
1) Sidisi is the only BUG general who can "2 card combo" with Eternal Scourge + Food Chain . This means she has easy access to one of the best combos in the format. (See food chain tazri by shapersavant if you don't believe me). It can win the game as early as turn 2 with Mana Crypt and consistently on turn 3 or 4. Sidisi and Tasigur are the only two generals that can "2 card combo" with Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron but Tasigur is more resilient with the latter combo.
2) Sidisi can affect the board earlier than Damia or Mimeo. Her lower cc also allows her to be recast from the command zone more easily.
3) She has synergy with flicker, top deck manipulation, and dredge effects. Mimeo can do some serious work but his exile clause can backfire if he can't win with the cards he exiled.
4) The card advantage Sidisi provides is immediate, which limits opponents response options towards her. For instance, with Damia, Sage of Stone many people try to power ramp her out with Dark Ritual and Mana Vault effects by turn 2 to 4, banking on her to replenish their depleted hand. But if she gets killed before you untap, you can get stuck in top deck mode with no way to recast her.
5) It is well known that Tasigur can win the game on the spot with infinite mana, but outside that capacity he is fairly useless outside a politically driven control build. Sidisi is simply better in the early to midgame. She provides free sac fodder and self mill which can easily facilitate Yawgmoth's Will wins out of nowhere and makes cards like Diabolic Intent more playable than they otherwise would be. Her high creature counts also ensure that cards like Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman are rarely dead draws, gives Birthing Pod and Eldritch Evolution many great options to choose from, and makes Living Death and Victimize incredible win conditions that have tons of utility at other phases of the game.
There are several reasons why Sidisi has a bad reputation in competitive circles. The primary factor is that many people see zombie and go no further. A good proportion of casual players love tribal decks, and because of that, Sidisi is often used as the de facto tribal zombie commander. While zombies can be fun they are by no means competitive and sidisi often gets lumped in with a casual strategy. Another factor is that people often play her like an aggro general and try to simply swarm the board in order to win. Again, this is simply not the best way to utilize her in multiplayer.
A more legitimate concern with Sidisi is that her mill ability is too random. You may mill the wrong thing at the wrong time and screw yourself over. While this is a real downside, there are three things you can do to fix this issue.
1) Yawgmoth's Will and top deck manipulation: Sylvan Library ; Vampiric Tutor ; Scroll Rack etc.) While top deck manipulation certainly helps with consistency nothing is as effective as simply running Yawgmoth's Will and a bunch of fast mana cards like Mana Vault and Songs of the Damned. Building around yawgwin makes any milled card a useful one.
2) AT LEAST 1/3rd OF THE DECK SHOULD BE CREATURES: If you run less, hwr effectiveness is significantly diminished. The zombies she produces are very useful for cards like Dread Return, Food Chain, Victimize , and Diabolic Intent. I run less in my all in combo and her role is just win condition in the command zone
3) 10-15 REANIMATION/RECURSION SPELLS: It may be helpful to view sidisi as the opposite of Meren of Clan Nel Toth. Meren requires putting creatures into the graveyard from the battlefield and reanimates them for free. Sidisi puts creatures into the graveyard from the library for free and requires reanimation spells to get them into play. Fortunately for Sidisi players there are more than enough broken reanimation spells to all but guarantee you get one by turn 3 or 4 nearly every game
Joraga Treespeaker: Can facilitate a turn 3 victory with Survival of the Fittest and Victimize . Can also let me cast Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and then Reanimate a creature the same turn on turn 3.
Bloom Tender: Can tap for 3 mana most of the time.
Kiora's Follower: Its ability to untap anything makes this card always good. Facilitates a turn 4 victory if you Birthing Pod sidisi on turn 4 for Peregrine Drake to untap all of your lands. Then untap pod with follower to pod drake into Deadeye Navigator, then reanimate drake to untap the lands needed to go infinite.
Birds of Paradise and my 1 drop elves: These cards speed up my combos considerably, allow sidisi to trigger more consistently, and are expendable targets for cards like Food Chain and Eldritch Evolution.
Hermit Druid: Guarantees I hit my land drops and can potentially set up a game winning combo as early as turn 2. Beyond broken even with basic lands.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy : For this deck his ability is not only a form of card advantage but also pseudo ramp since he helps me bypass mana costs. Flashing back spells makes him broken.
Trinket Mage : Abusable ETB trigger that grabs the three best mana rocks in EDH: Mana Crypt, Sol Ring and Mana Vault. Helps Tidespout Tyrant go infinite colorless with any two of these mana rocks.
Hedron Crab Helps me get stuff in my graveyard fast. I prefer this over dredge cards because it mills me without costing me my draw and I don't have to waste resources getting it in my graveyard. Late game this card produces tons of zombie tokens for free and helps dig for combos.
Peregrine Drake & Palinchron: Not exactly ramp, but can they let me do a couple turns worth of work especially if I copy their trigger with Phantasmal Image or Phyrexian Metamorph.
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur: Makes my cup runneth over with cards so I can discard creatures and reanimate them on my opponents turn with Shallow Grave , Necromancy and my hapless necromancers.
Eternal Witness: Pure value.
Phyrexian Metamorph and Phantasmal Image: Copy effects are insane in this deck and these are the most efficient. If I had more room I would also include Clever Impersonator
Rune-Scarred Demon and Sidisi, Undead Vizier: The best kind abusable ETB effects.
Deadeye Navigator: Does nothing on his own, but immediately breaks any other ETB creature on my board.
All my non creature card advantage has to be off the charts good to be included in this deck since I have so few slots
Sylvan Library: One of the best cards in the deck. Ensures I hit my land drops, sculpts my top deck for Sidisi and draws 2 extra cards a turn if I pay the piper. Considering many of my opponents are trying to combo off on turn 3 or 4 I pay the piper often.
Dark Ritual and Songs of the Damned: Fast mana cards with Yawgmoth's Will upside.
Yawgmoth's Will: Almost always wins the game when I use it. So incredibly broken with cheap instants and sorceries.
Food Chain: Produces some ridiculous plays even outside its combo.
The pupose of this section is how to get around the high casting cost of the key creatures in this deck.
Besides the mana base, the cards in this section are the first cards you will need to invest in. While there really is no replacement for the explosive plays that cards like Entomb can facilitate, the BUG color scheme has access to an impressive array of tutors even on a budget. Since this deck has no budget restrictions I only run the best. I dont play Grim Tutor or Imperial Seal, because they kind of suck despite their insane cost. Here are the tutors of the deck:
Unconditional tutors "get anything": Demonic Tutor ; Vampiric Tutor ; Rune-Scarred Demon ; Sidisi, Undead Vizier ; Entomb ; Imperial Seal ; Intuition
Specific tutors: Mystical Tutor ; Survival of the Fittest ; Fauna Shaman ; Buried Alive ; Birthing Pod ; Green Sun's Zenith ; Personal Tutor ; Manipulate Fate
Other useful tutors that I don't currently use but have used in the past: Muddle the Mixture ; Fierce Empath ; Woodland Bellower ; Worldly Tutor
Now I will cover cards that get large creature cards out of my hand.
Putrid Imp: Cheap creature that serves as a free discard outlet.
Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman : Allow me to dig for the perfect card while filling my graveyard at instant speed.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy : Merfolk looter with massive upside.
Next I will cover the reanimation effects:
Reanimate : Auto include
Animate Dead solid reanimation spell.
Doomed Necromancer and Apprentice Necromancer: Creatures that reanimate are always going to be good in this deck. These two are great because they can reanimate at instant speed. Usually my first Survival of the Fittest/ Fauna Shaman targets if I don't have a reanimation spell in hand already.
Necromancy Instant speed reanimation is kind if a thing.
Victimize : Getting two creatures into play for one zombie token or mana dork and 3 mana is insane.
Shallow Grave : Somewhat narrow but the power of this card is off the charts since I can use it to give Hermit Druid haste.
Living Death: The ultimate flipper of fates and sometimes tables.
Dread Return: 0 mana reanimation is beyond broken. Getting to three creatures is rarely a problem.
Body Double: Since it only copies the card in the graveyard I can then reanimate the card I copied right after to double the effect.
Exhume: Even with a drawback two mana unconditional reanimation is very good.
When I am not going for an early combo, this deck relies upon a handful of efficient methods to disrupt the plans of my opponents.
Tidespout Tyrant : Outside its combo capabilities, this card offers great tempo advantage against other combo decks and can get out of stax locks. Due to its multifacited nature I have dumped Terastodon and Venser, Shaper Savant.
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur: fills my hand to the point of bursting and hand rapes the table. If I can cheat Jin into play on turn 1 or 2, I usually win.
Void Winnower: Finally a playable 9cc creature in my Birthing Pod chain!! While it doesn't produce a hard lock this card can severely limit my opponents options once it resolves.
Now for my non creature based control cards:
Pact of Negation : Used for the most desperate of circumstances and can protect combo's.
Mana Drain: Hard counter for 2 that also serves as a delayed ritual. Hell Yes!
Living Death: Mass sacrafice with massive upside for me.
Beast Within: Answers pesky gravehate and stax cards and degenerate commanders.
I have built this deck for competitive play. Any reasonable suggestions are appreciated, but keep in mind I want to run between 34 to 36 creatures in order to make this deck have synergy with Sidisi. So if your going to suggest a noncreature card it better be amazing and have multiple uses.
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 9 years |
| Last updated | 5 years |
| Key combos | |
| Legality | This deck is Commander / EDH legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 9 - 0 Mythic Rares 58 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 100 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.65 |
| Tokens | Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Spirit 1/1 C, Zombie 2/2 B |
| Folders | Commander Decks, Saved, GUB, Potential EDH Builds, want, EDH (Graveyard), Decks to View, EDH Like, Cool EDH Decks, EDHRECs |
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