Something, something, something, lifelink...

Okay, so as of recently I have been spending a considerable amount of time playing EDH on MTGO. However MTGO’s form of EDH is not called Elder Dragon Highlander, it is instead called “Commander.” There are some significant differences between Commander and EDH that one needs to be aware of when designing a deck around the format.

First off, in Commander games are played between three to four players. The Client is unable to properly understand commander rules unless you play a three or four player game by choosing the Constructed || Commander Game Type and the Commander Play Structure. Unfortunately this means that you have to play in the Casual — Multiplayer Room and can’t play the game anywhere else in the client.

In EDH you cannot play a card unless it matches your Generals casting cost 100%. This means that it cannot have any mana symbols rules text or casting cost section that do not match what is in your Generals casting cost. This means that cards such as Thelon of Havenwood are illegal as Generals. However, in Commander, you are allowed to run a card that has mana symbols in their rules text that do not match your Generals casting cost, so long as their casting cost matches the Generals casting cost. This means that you can run any of the 5 of the Bringer’s in an appropriately colored mono, dual, or triple color deck, where as in EDH you would only be able to play them in a 5 color deck.

Some other key differences are the banned list differences. These differences are quite striking. First off, due to the fact that they have not yet been printed, in Commander not one of the Power Nine has been banned. Braids, Cabal Minion happens to be banned not just as a General (also known as a Commander) but as a card in the main deck as well. Grindstone is still banned in Commander, where as Painter’s Servant is not. Due to the Command Zone not having yet been introduced to Magic Online as of yet, Riftsweeper is still banned in MTGO’s Commander format. Despite Fastbond, Crucible of Worlds, and Strip Mine being an unbelievable force to be reckoned with in paper MTG, Fastbond is not actually in print in MTGO. As such it has yet to be banned in Commander. Neither Crucible, or Strip Mine are banned either at the moment. The following Cards are not in print on MTGO and thus not banned as of yet: Library of Alexandria, Metalworker, Time Vault, and Yawgmoth’s Bargain. Meanwhile the following cards that are in print in MTGO for whatever reason are not banned in Commander: Limited Resources, and Recurring Nightmare (They haven’t been banned yet; both have been released with the recent Exodus edition so have fun with them until March – MtGCP).

Ultimately, the biggest difference between EDH and Commander, comes in the form of a bug in the MTGO client. This bug makes it so the replacement effect that would allow the General to go to the exiled zone (yes Commander still uses the exiled zone) instead places the General in the graveyard first, and then only after it is in the graveyard gives you the option to place it into the exiled zone. This means that effects that trigger when a card is placed in the graveyard will always trigger before the general is exiled. So, cards like Progenitus are significantly worse in MTGO, where as cards like Child of Alara are significantly better.

My Deck: Brion Stoutarm;

When I first started playing MTGO in earnest, I decided I wanted to participate in the Commander community. So I had to decide on a deck to use for this purpose, at least to get me started. I decided to transition one of my paper decks into this format. The one I went with was my newest deck, Brion Stoutarm, The deck has some very interesting synergies while at the same time is a very potent deck. When I first started playing the deck on MTGO, I had a nack of taking players by storm and winning games quite often. I still win quite frequently, however not as often as I used to. One of the things I have noticed about myself, and that I need to work on, is that I often focus on the wrong player… the weakest link if you will. That needs to be changed if I am going to be able to stand any real chance in the Player Run EDH tournaments that the MTGO User DarkPrincess83 runs. The details of these tournaments can be found in this thread on the official WotC forums.

When I put the deck together, I had to decide on some things to cut from the paper list, as the paper list just wasn’t efficient enough, nor was it fast enough. Additionally there were just a few too many things that did not transition into MTGO due to not having been put into print as of yet.

The following is a list of cards I removed from the deck, along with the reason I removed them

• Shivan Gorge (basically, this card was too slow for this deck. What I mean by this is that the card requires you to invest mana into it every turn in order to do something. That is not something that a Brion Stoutarm deck really wants to be doing. It really wants to be focusing on dealing as much damage as efficiently as possible as fast as possible.)
• Keldon Megaliths (similarly too slow for this deck, plus it was very rare that it worked due to the deck not having any way to empty its hand reliably without actually playing threats.)
• Darksteel Citadel (Regardless of the Fact that this deck does run some land destruction, it really isn’t enough Land Destruction to really desire this particular land. Instead it is a particular type of LD that just would prefer that I run more basic lands.)
• Order // Chaos (There are definitely much better options than this card.)
• Soul Warden (This card has a much more potent big sister at 2 mana.)
• Reya Dawnbringer (Too expensive for what it does.)
• Fork (I don’t think this was nearly effective enough to warrant inclusion.)
• Boros Garrison (There was a better version of the card that doesn’t come into play tapped or cause a land to bounce.)
• Karmic Guide (not yet released on MTGO.)
• Congregate (not yet released on MTGO.)
• Mistveil Plains (decided to go with a dual land instead.)
• Mind Stone (in this particular case the Jitte is just so much better than mana acceleration in my opinion.)
• Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep (I wanted Eiganjo Castle instead for this deck, though after playing the deck a few times, I think I may end up going back to the Shinka as I have found the Eiganjo Castle to not really be all that relevant as often as I thought it would be. The only advantage it really offers is an additional white mana which is kind of important.)
• Kor Haven (Unfortunately not released to MTGO as of yet)
• Brightflame (This is too expensive for what it does, and Austere Command is infinitely better).

Okay with the list of cards that I took out of the deck for the MTGO experience complete, now I want to elaborate more on the synergies in the deck. There are quite a few different ones to take a look at:

Vicious Shadows & Kher Keep, Luminarch Ascension, or Emeria Angel

This one is fairly interesting. Basically the idea is to create a bunch of Tokens, and then destroy them all somehow while Vicious Shadows is in play. This will trigger a chain of damage to all of any one, or even all of your opponents that could potentially win you the game. I managed to win at least one game off the back of a Vicious Shadows, my own Kher Keep, and an opponents Token generator, thanks to a timely Wrath of God.

World Queller & One of the Above Token Generators

World Queller can be quite powerful as a form of removal. I have found him to be one of the best removal spells in white as of late. However to be able to operate at his fullest potential, he absolutely requires a token generator of some sort to be able to deal with creature threats every turn (Tokens are not a card type. But creatures, which are tokens, are – MtGCP). He also has a rather large target on his head, so don’t be surprised if he gets killed relatively quickly.

Serra Avatar & Wall of Reverence

Wall of Reverence can really combo with any of your large creatures. However it works the BEST when combined with Serra Avatar. The reason for this is that you are basically getting a permanent Beacon of Immortality every single one of your end steps. This can be quite potent, and can lead to people quitting games all on its own. Add to the fact that along with your beacon of immortality effect you are also getting a monstrous creature to go along with it, and you are set up for a victory should an opponent not have a blocker of some sort

Decree of Justice & Benalish Commander

This isn’t so much a combo as a synergy. Basically what you want to do is suspend Benalish Commander for as much as you possibly can, and then on the following turn, cycle Decree of Justice. This thereby allows you to have the maximum number of Soldier Tokens as possible when Benalish Commander comes into play, thereby potentially making him rather large.

As far as this deck’s ability to win… there are a few key strategies that the deck tends to follow.

1. Victory by Overwhelming Forces. Basically the idea here is to get a field large enough that you can beat down all of your opponents within a few turns. This is best accomplished with Luminarch Ascension or even Decree of Justice when cast instead of cycled.
2. Victory by Might. Basically here the idea is to get a few Titans onto the field and swing in with overwhelmingly large creatures that the opponent cannot deal with. Ideally in this instance you want Predator Dragon, Hellkite Charger, one or two of the Akroma’s, Greater Gargadon, and / or Serra Avatar. Unfortunately this deck doesn’t directly have a means to give creatures Trample, however both Akromas come with trample built in, additionally all of this deck’s Dragons have flying (and all but one have haste, even that one has flash) and the Gargadon and Avatar are just so large that most people will only be able to chump block them for a few turns before attrition wins you the game.
3. Victory by concession. Basically in this case, you aren’t truly winning, but the program doesn’t know that. The idea here is to force your opponents into such an unwinnable situation that they have no other choice than to concede the match. This is best achieved with the various life gain cards in the deck, most notably the Wall of Reverence and Serra Avatar combo outlined above. However even a single Serra Avatar flung at an opponent off the back of a Brion Stoutarm can be devastating to opponents sitting across from you.

The Life gain Controversy:

There are several people out there who feel that life gain in Elder Dragon Highlander and by proxy Commander is obsolete due to the fact that we have things such as Commander and General damage. The thing I have discovered is that it is rarely the Commander or General themselves that is the win condition in many decks. As such, taking General or Commander damage is not really an issue. However outracing your opponents does tend to be an issue quite often, as such, life gain can be quite a potent answer to many of the decks that exist out there.

Personally I prefer decks that utilize at least some form of life gain. Either that or have some means of providing superior card or field advantage to press through against the opponent. This can be seen in both my Ob Nixilis, and Sedris decks, and even more so here in my Brion Stoutarm deck. Lifegain while not the sole focus of this deck, does present an interesting counter strategy to many of the decks that do exist in EDH, and I have won several EDH games because of life gain.

Every EDH deck that has life gain should have some other strategy to win with other than just life gain. For this deck it is the beat down approach or the combo approach. However for others it may be something else entirely. Not every deck can be the same when it comes to life gain and its alternative win strategies. The problem with life gain in paper EDH is that there is no time limits to speak of. As such you really can’t stall out your opponents. And on MTGO, despite their being time limits, the problem I have encountered with this deck is that it often takes an enormous amount of set up. So by the time you are ready to sit back and coast your way through the rest of the game, your timer has already run to critical levels making that a rather difficult prospect. Ultimately alternative strategies of winning are key to this deck which is why the heavy beatsticks are included.

All told this deck is incredibly fun to play. Despite not being able to win every single game, the fun is not necessarily in winning with it, so much as playing the deck. That is why I enjoy it. Every time I play it, new challenges arise and I always enjoy facing these new challenges with a bright outlook and having a fun time with my new opponents (Click here for the full decklist).

Also, I want to give a shout out to Zahey who was the first person I encountered on MTGO to compliment me for these articles on here. He was running a Grixis Reanimator deck that was based more or less on my Sedris Reanimator deck list that I posted a while back

Feed Me!

Black has various ways to ramp up mana. However it is relatively difficult to find ways to ramp lands. However this task is not all together impossible. One of the most fun decks I have come across to date, at least for multi-player, is a deck whose General is the only General at the current time with the Landfall mechanic.

Building around the Landfall mechanic in mono-black is extremely difficult to do. You have to be willing to add in cards that may be sub par in many other decks. However these additional cards are generally what make the deck run extremely smoothly. It isn’t at all unlikely in this deck to see the General on exactly turn 4 or 5, and then to proceed to kill not just one, but two players simultaneously with the General thanks to his ability which has an interesting ability which I will get to in a moment. First however I need to cover a special note about General Damage: General Damage can only be caused by Combat Damage. As such this General’s ability, which causes life loss cannot cause General Damage as it is neither damage, nor combat damage. Now as for that ability, it reads as follows:

Landfall – Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may have target player lose 3 life. If you do, put three +1/+1 counters on Ob Nixilis, the Fallen.

The beauty of this ability is that if you can find a way to make Ob Nixilis unblockable, he can easily become a 12/12 creature in less than two turns. Further, even on the first trigger, if an opponent burns out Ob Nixilis with something like a Lightning Bolt, the primary trigger still occurs. That opponent will still lose three life before Ob Nixilis is killed. However the +1/+1 counters do not get put onto Ob Nixilis until after the Lightning Bolt has resolved, thus it is impossible for the creature to survive the Bolt that way. Alternatively, if an opponent goes to burn out Ob Nixilis, and you respond by using something such as a fetchland to trigger his Landfall ability, he will survive the bolt due to the way the stack resolves.

Now, Landfall is a mechanic that requires a very specific category of mana ramp. That is ramp that instead of generating as much mana as possible, instead puts as many lands as possible into play from either the deck or your hand in either a single turn or over the course of multiple turns. So… lets take a look at some of the better cards that generate such forms of land acceleration available to Black:

Ghost Quarter — This card has traditionally been used as land destruction. And while it can be used as such in this deck, it can also be used as a Landfall enabler. In this capacity what you do is use it on one of your own lands that you no longer want, in order to search out a basic land. You can potentially trigger Landfall up to twice in a single turn with this card. One needs to remember however that the land you get with Ghost Quarter comes into play untapped. So make sure to use this to the largest advantage you can get from it.

Journeyer’s Kite — Essentially it lets you take lands from your library and put them into your hand. Thus making sure that you never run out of landfall triggers (at least for as long as you still have basic lands in your library anyways).

Terrain Generator — This card combo’s really nicely with Journeyer’s Kite, enabling you to immediately put the cards you searched for with the Kite directly into play. This combo is a tad expensive, but is definitely worth it.

Solemn Simulacrum — Solemn enables you to put a land directly into play when the simulacrum enters play. Then when the simulacrum leaves play it lets you draw a card. This is among the best card advantage engines available in MTG.

Thawing Glaciers — Allowing you to search for any basic land you want, this card is a really nice enabler of Landfall. Not to mention that when used Thawing Glaciers returns itself to your hand, and happens to be a land itself, thus ensuring constant landfall triggers.

Panorama’s — These cards search for any basic land. They do not bounce to your hand after use the way that Thawing Glaciers does. However, they are available for use immediately after you play them, enabling you to get 2 landfall triggers in a turn. The problem is that they cost mana to use. The advantage to these over Fetchlands is that they tap for mana themselves, thus allowing you to use them while you are preparing to summon your General.

Terramorphic Expanse — Only searches for basics, does not tap for mana. However this card is available for use immediately after you play it, allowing for two triggers of landfall in a turn.

Fetch Lands — These enable you to fetch for any basic land type. That means you can fetch non-basic lands that have a basic land type. However not many such lands are available to Mono-Black (I think Leechridden Swamp is the only one (Except basics, it is – MtGCP)). Unlike with Panorama’s and the Expanse, the lands you fetch with these come into play untapped meaning you can use those lands immediately.

Crucible of Worlds — You remember all those cards you just sacrificed to thin out your deck? Do you want to keep doing it? Of course you do. This allows you to do that. Not to mention it allows you to continue triggering Landfall which isn’t that bad at all. Further it helps protect you against land destruction.

Twisted Abomination — Swampcycling is one of the best friends to Landfall available. Especially when it is coupled with a creature with a huge body and regeneration. The reason for the huge body is that there is a large amount of recursion available in Black that makes using that body extremely likely. Add to that the card Oversold Cemetery and you have a near infinite Swampcycling engine.

That would be about it for the really good land acceleration. However land acceleration in and of itself is not enough for most EDH decks. You also want to be utilizing mana acceleration. Mana acceleration differs from land acceleration in that mana acceleration seeks to add more mana to your mana pool than you would have from your current allotment of lands. Where as land acceleration simply seeks to get as many lands as possible into play. To that end you should also run following cards to help accelerate your mana:

Ancient Tomb — This card along with Temple of the False God, Sol Ring, and Mana Crypt are 2 for 1′s as far as mana acceleration is concerned. In essence they give you 2 mana for 1 card. Further these cards are all essentially permanent until destroyed in some way. The real benefit of playing Ancient Tomb in this deck however is that you really do not care about the life loss as you have got Ob Nixilis and various other means of gaining your life back.

Lake of the Dead — This is an interesting card. While it can provide you with a boost of 4 black mana, it costs you a land each and every time it does that. Not to mention it costs you a land when it comes into play. The best scenario for the use of this card is when you have not only an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play, but also a Crucible of Worlds in play there by negating the card disadvantage that you net with this card.

Cabal Coffers — Does not provide any mana on its own (unless you have an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play). However when coupled with 2 other lands (or an Ancient Tomb or other 2 for 1 mana producer) this card can create obscene amounts of mana so long as you have more swamps in play than you are using to activate this card.

Crypt of Agadeem — Like Cabal Coffers, it is possible for this card to produce obscene amounts of mana. Unlike Cabal Coffers this card relies on creature cards in your graveyard to power its obscene amounts of mana (where as Cabal Coffers relies on swamps) and the Crypt also produces black mana on its own without the aid of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Jet Medallion — Not truly a form of mana acceleration, instead this card lowers the cost of your black spells by a single colorless mana. Thus making it easier to ramp into big spells by a tad bit.

Extraplanar Lens — One of the best ramping spells ever created. The only problems with this card is that it requires you to exile a land to use it, and it affects your opponents lands as well as your own. This however could be offset if you use Snow-Covered Lands and your opponent does not, simply because of the fact that your Lens requires that the lands being tapped for extra mana be of all the same name as the land that was exiled when the lens was played.

Gauntlet of Power — Similar to the Lens, except that it pumps your creatures, and pumps your mana. It like the lens also affects your opponents. However unlike the Lens it doesn’t specify based on name of a land. It instead specifies based on whether the land tapped was a basic or not as well as the color of the creatures in play.

Now your land acceleration and mana acceleration lists may differ from the examples listed above, as there are plenty of options available to black decks. However the lists above are very solid examples that can be used to establish the base of an Ob Nixilis EDH deck.

Ultimately some of you may be asking, “Well how does Ob Nixilis connect if your opponent has creatures on the field?” which is a very good question. This question can be answered by using some or all of the following cards:

Sword of Fire and Ice & Sword of Light and Shadow — These two allow you to get past most of the creatures in at least 2 to 4 of the colors of Magic. The only color that these do not help you with is Green, the fifth and final color of the game. Maybe some day their will be an Equipment similar to these Swords that helps against Green, but that day is not now.

Loxodon Warhammer — What is better than a 12/9 creature with trample? One with lifelink! This hammer will not only give your General (or any other creature it is equipped to) a boost in the face, but it will give it trample, and lifelink at the same time, making him into a force to be reckoned with against most EDH decks. Add to the fact that this, the Sword of Light and Shadow, and the decks General all gain life, and you can assume you are going to have quite the edge unless your opponent is able to push through 21 General Damage before you are able to.

Profane Command — The advantage of this card is that it is a modal card that lets you choose two options when it is successfully cast. One of those options is to give X creatures fear where X is the mana you pumped into it when you cast it. This can bypass many of the blockers in EDH.

Shizo, Death’s Storehouse — This card like the Profane Command allows you to give a creature fear. Unlike the Profane Command it is limited to Legendary Creatures. Fortunately Black has a huge surplus of really good Legendary Creatures from which to choose, many of which have a decent synergy with this deck. This includes your General, whom you continually are making larger with the landfall mechanic. Additionally, if worse comes to worse, you can always just use this card as land destruction against another players Shizo, Death’s Storehouse.

Filth — Giving all of your creatures Swampwalk is really nice. Especially if there is an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play as that means that you can in effect attack all of your opponents unhindered unless they too have a Filth in the Graveyard or other swampwalking creature in play.

Thrashing Wumpus / Bane of the Living — As a means to deal with Tokens and other small creatures, Bane of the Living is incredibly useful as a surprise tactic. However Thrashing Wumpus has the advantage of being reusable over the course of a game, which is something Bane of the Living usually cannot do without the aid of something like Oversold Cemetery.

Mutilate — Serves much the same purpose as Bane of the Living. The advantage of Bane of the Living, Mutilate, and Thrashing Wumpus, is that all three of these cards can kill creatures without really risking the loss of your General so long as you have caused a landfall trigger on your General at least once or twice in the game.

Now as this is a ramp deck, there are numerous Black ramp targets that are all very useful to the deck. Some of these are alternate win conditions, others of these are more along the lines of utility cards.

Maga, Traitor to Mortals — This is a major alternate win condition. Maga is often considered one of the best Generals available to Black. However in this deck it serves primarily as a back up win condition for those games where Ob Nixilis is destroyed to many times to make recasting him a viable option.

Korlash, Heir to Blackblade — Another alternate win condition that is able to swing games in your favor quite heavily. The fact that Korlash has regeneration, coupled with the fact that he gets bigger with the more swamps that are in play, makes him quite a potent force to be reckoned with. He plays incredibly well with the Landfall mechanic. The unfortunate part is that in EDH it is impossible to use his Grandeur ability.

Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet — Serving the roles of both an alternative win condition and a targeted removal spell, Kalitas is perhaps one of the most interesting cards available in Zendikar. He isn’t too small, and isn’t too large. He doesn’t have any built in evasion, but his removal is quite potent as it not only removes a creature, but nets you one yourself.

Reiver Demon — Like Kalitas, serves the role of alternative win condition as well as the role of removal spell. The difference is that this card is what one would describe as a mass removal spell. Ramping into this card can be quite game breaking.

Myojin of Night’s Reach — If left unanswered (read uncountered) this card can singlehandedly swing games in your favor in a multi-player environment. It is perhaps one of the best discard engines available in multi-player games. It isn’t nearly as good in 1v1 games, but is still quite potent.

Mind Twist — Another incredible discard spell. This one is banned on the French banned list, and many other 1v1 banned lists (Unoffical 1v1, one day we’ll get to that topic – MtGCP). However in multi-player this card can set another player back so far that he is going to be the victim of all the other players. Either that or it will piss that player off enough to cause political talks to get your deck executed.

Beseech the Queen — An exceptional card to use in conjunction with Landfall. This card makes the Landfall mechanic into something really worth abusing as it in essence means you can fetch just about any card in your deck with a casting cost equal to the number of lands you control or less. Which is quite potent.

Decree of Pain & Plague Wind — These two are mass removal spells that have to be ramped into. Sure the Decree could always be cycled, but to get its full effect you want to be ramping up to hard cast it. The advantage of cycling the Decree is it gives you instant speed mass removal. The advantage of hard casting it is that it gives you mass removal that also serves as massive card advantage. Likewise the Plague Wind only affects the creatures of your opponent, thus it serves as a form of card advantage in and of itself. Both cards are incredibly powerful, but also incredibly expensive mana wise.

Basic Deck Structure:

General:

• Ob Nixilis, the Fallen

Creatures:

• Filth
• Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet
• Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
• Maga, Traitor to Mortals
• Myojin of Night’s Reach
• Reiver Demon
• Solemn Simulacrum
• Thrashing Wumpus / Bane of the Living
• Twisted Abomination

Enchantments:

• Oversold Cemetery

Sorceries:

• Beseech the Queen
• Decree of Pain
• Mind Twist
• Mutilate
• Plague Wind
• Profane Command

Artifacts:

• Crucible of Worlds
• Extraplanar Lens
• Gauntlet of Power
• Jet Medallion
• Journeyer’s Kite
• Loxodon Warhammer
• Mana Crypt
• Sol Ring
• Sword of Fire and Ice
• Sword of Light and Shadow

Lands

• Ancient Tomb
• Cabal Coffers
• Crypt of Agadeem
• Fetch Lands / Panorama’s
• Ghost Quarter
• Lake of the Dead
• Temple to the False Gods
• Terrain Generator
• Terramorphic Expanse
• Thawing Glaciers

All told, Ob Nixilis decks are really animals that appeal to a wide swath of the Magic the Gathering community. There are things about this deck type that will appeal to just about all three of the psychographic profiles. Timmy’s will find the deck engenders the play of some of the splashiest cards in the game. Spikes may find that the deck can be streamlined and customized to the point where it is among the most competitive of decks in existence. And Johnny’s are likely to discover an amazing amount of synergies and even possibly combo’s that can be played in this deck. It all depends on what one’s ultimate intentions happen to be as to what one will build.

By far and away what I have shown here in this article is only one possible way of building an Ob Nixilis deck. I can guarantee you that there are at least five or six different ways if not more of building this deck in a theoretical way. And beyond that the deck is even further customizable to the point where one list while following basic premises will likely have huge amounts of variance from another list.

Click here to see the full decklist.

Much Scarier then the Disco King

In the first few articles in this series I am going to try to explain the thought processes I went through when I designed my EDH decks.

An EDH deck is supposed to be a work of love in my opinion. These decks are perhaps the single most customizable decks in all of the various formats of Magic the Gathering combined. This is because the pool of cards one has access to when designing one of these decks is so large that they have a nearly infinite supply of cards from which to draw from, with very few exceptions.

The deck I am going to be discussing in this first article, was my first and is currently one of my favorite EDH decks I have put together. This deck is my Sedris, the Traitor King, Elder Dragon Highlander deck. One of the most important things to realize when designing a Sedris EDH deck, is that the majority of Sedris decks are going to be reanimation based decks. Those that aren’t just aren’t using their General’s ability to its fullest potential and probably would be better off using Garza Zol or another Legend as their General. The text on Sedris that makes him perfectly suited to reanimation is as follows:

Each creature card in your Graveyard has Unearth 2B. (2B : Return the card to play. The Creature gains Haste. Remove it from the game at the end of turn or if it would leave play. Unearth only as a sorcery.)

Now, when one designs a Sedris deck there are a variety of things one has to consider. The first thing one has to consider is the overall strategy that one is going to follow as outlined below:

Beatstick Reanimation: This basic strategy follows the premise of dumping large creatures that are usually prohibitively costed mana wise into your graveyard. Once they are in your graveyard you will use a variety of tools in the deck to reanimate these cards. This strategy can be extremely potent in 1v1 games, so long as the opponent isn’t able to race you too well. The idea in this scenario is to load your deck with lots of cheap cards that allow you to fill your graveyard as well as lots of cheap reanimation spells thereby ensuring that you are able to get a big fat beatstick onto the field before your opponent can do much about it.

187 Control: This strategy focuses on playing, reanimating, and bouncing various creatures with a wide variety of utility effects that trigger as they enter the battlefield or leave the battlefield (187 is the code that’s used in California to denote a murder. Original 187 creatures – MtGCP). This strategy has some vulnerabilities, but is overall extremely potent as it tends to run faster than the “Beatstick Strategy” due to the fact that many of the 187 creatures tend to have lower casting costs than many of the beatsticks. However this strategies primary weakness is that it has no true win condition.

187 Beatstick Combination: This strategy combines the two above strategies into a much more balanced whole. It uses beatstick creatures with 187 abilities (such as Bogardan Hellkite and others) to maintain board presence while at the same time providing a much more powerful reanimation suite. This is personally the approach that I took when designing my own Sedris reanimation deck.

Now that we know the strategy we are going to follow, we have to decide on the basic outline of the deck. First things first, we are playing EDH. Which means that since we are using Sedris, the Traitor King as our General, we are only allowed to use cards with the Red, Black, and Blue mana symbols anywhere on those cards.

I did a search on Magiccards.info for all cards with the phrase “enters the battlefield” which fall under the colors of Red, Blue, and Black” and whose power happens to be 5 or greater. The Results can be found here. Some good cards on that list include the following: Bogardan Hellkite, Ebon Dragon (1v1 only), Malfegor, Thunder Dragon, and Thundermare. Those are just some good examples of really powerful creatures with 187 effects. However keep in mind that to fill out this deck we are also going to need weaker creatures with 187 effects as well. Some such creatures include Trinket Mage, and Mulldrifter as well as Shriekmaw and possibly even Nekrataal itself after whom the 187 effect is named.

I am going to outline some of the cards that did and did not make it into the deck, starting with cards that did not make it into the deck. They are separated by categories as to what was supposed to be in the deck.

Not Powerful Enough for this deck:

• Flametongue Kavu, Spitebellows — When I was first designing this deck these cards were both suggested to me. However I quickly realized that many of the creatures run in EDH were often too large for either of these cards to be of any use against them. Either that or the creatures would be immune to regular damage. As such I rejected these cards out of hand.
• Synod Sanctum (and company) — While the ability to save a card from the unearth mechanics drawback is highly intriguing, the ability in and of itself is not as useful for anything other than saving creatures from Sedris. For this purpose I decided against utilizing these cards for this deck since they would in many cases just be dead cards.

EDH Fun, but not for this deck:

• Elder Mastery — this card, while very potent in many cases is also highly vulnerable. If the creature it is attached to should die, then the enchantment dies with it. As such while the effect is worth running, losing that effect makes me not interested in running it.
• Genju of the Falls — this card, while intriguing, is simply not potent enough to make it worth running. The card makes a land vulnerable to both land destruction and creature removal, which I am not to keen on having my lands be vulnerable in such a way. As such I quickly rejected this card.
• Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker & Pestermite — Many people feel that every EDH deck in existence needs to run at least one Infinite Combo. I am one of the few people who disagrees with this sentiment. I would not be heart broken if someone decided to run a modified version of my list using the Kiki-Mite combo. However I am not a fan of infinite combos and refuse to run this combo if at all possible.

Was tested in this deck, but found lacking in potency:

• Browbeat — I have found that when one is playing Browbeat that just about ANYONE will pay the 5 life cost instead of letting you draw 3 cards. As such, browbeat simply is not as potent in EDH as it could be.
• Dragon’s Claw — I ran this card in the deck for a few weeks, until I was able to replace it and the other cards like it with the more potent artifact-equipment spells such as Lightning Greaves, Sword of Fire and Ice, and Loxodon Warhammer.
• Frozen Solid — The only thing I was ever able to accomplish with this card, was to temporarily stall a Azami, Lady of the Scroll deck. As such, this card has officially been replaced with the infinitely more potent Pithing Needle.
• Patriarch’s Bidding — This card, while powerful in its own right, just doesn’t play as effectively in this deck as does Living Death. Where as Living Death can act as a pseudo Wrath of God on occasion, this card can just as frequently backfire on me as it can help me win games. As such it is no longer run in this deck.

Cards that are great in Multi-Player Games:

• Blood Tyrant — This is possibly the best beat stick in existence for use in games with 3 or more players. The card can single-handedly wipe out an entire table if it is not answered quickly.
• Malfegor — Serves as a one sided wrath so long as you have enough cards in your hand to wipe out an entire opponents field. The added benefit that this cards drawback feeds Sedris and the other reanimation spells in this deck helps a bunch as well.
• Kagemaro, First to Suffer — This card serves as a highly political tool. People will start arguments over whether or not you should use his ability to blow up the table or not. He is a really decisive tool and quite fun.
• Rhystic Study — Perhaps one of the single most hated tools in multi-player games. This card can single-handedly create so much card advantage that it is nearly impossible for you to lose a game if left unchecked.

Reanimation Suite

• Sedris, the Traitor King — He enables you to reanimate cards for a single turn with haste, which enables a major alpha strike for that turn. The trick is knowing when to use him to your best advantage.
• Hell’s Caretaker — Turns your creatures that are in play into reanimation spells. It is quite useful and can combo with just about any other creature. In a pinch it can feed off of itself to reanimate another creature.
• Makeshift Mannequin — Instant speed reanimation is nothing to shy away from. This card while creating a vulnerable reanimation target enables you to create a blocker during your opponents turn, even if you didn’t currently have one.
• Dread Return — Reusable reanimation is nothing to be ashamed of. This card is highly powerful and is definitely something that should be considered when playing this deck.
• Living Death — Acts as a pseudo wrath as well as providing you with a new supply of creatures to fill the field. It is highly potent. The trick is knowing when the best time to utilize this card happens to be as it affects all players equally.
• Torrent of Souls — This card acts as both a reanimation spell, and an alpha strike enabler. As such it is highly useful and variable. So use it wisely.
• Liliana Vess — Only really a reanimation spell if or when you manage to activate her ultimate ability. However if that is possible, she becomes this decks single most powerful reanimation tool as she grants you the ability to reanimate and gain control of, every single creature in every single graveyard in the game.

Beatsticks:

• Bogardan Hellkite — This card is included in the deck for two main reasons. The first being its 187 effect; the second being the fact that it serves as an incredible beatstick.
• Thraximundar — Serves as both a beatstick, and a reusable removal spell all in one package. As such he is a highly sought after prize in this deck.
• Inkwell Leviathan — This card simply is the epitome of big, bad, and ugly. This card will throw your opponents for loops as they try to deal with it. The problem for them is that only mass removal in most cases can stop this card. That or untargeted removal such as edicts. So dealing with this threat is highly difficult to achieve. Add to that the fact that he has Trample and Islandwalk and he becomes highly difficult for many opponents to deal with.
• Bladewing the Risen — Not truly a beatstick in and of itself, but this card is really more of a beef enabler. Use him to get large creatures into play, and then to pump those creatures for lethal damage when possible. He is a very versatile Dragon.
• Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni — Can often sneak past an enemies defenses on its first attack, and steal one of their creatures while at the same time doing some damage. On subsequent attacks this card can be quite annoying. Throw in the fact that this card has regeneration and we have a killer set on the loose.
• Keiga, the Tide Star — A beatstick that will oftentimes be left to roam the board because having it on the field is oftentimes better for the opponent than should they kill it, due to the fact that killing this card often results in the theft of an opponents creatures.

There are other reanimation tools that this deck can utilize, such as Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, and Puppeteer Clique. However the ones outlined above tend to be the best and most powerful ones that this deck has at its disposal in most situations. These Reanimation tools will often swing games in your favor. However there is some strategy to using some of these.

When setting up to use a reanimation spell, it actually helps to have a creature in your Graveyard to reanimate. To that end, there are several spells that are suggested to help with filling ones Graveyard with creatures. They are as follows:

Fact or Fiction — 3U — Reveal the top five cards of your library. An opponent separates those cards into two piles. Put one pile into your hand and the other into your graveyard.

Frantic Search — 2U — Draw two cards, then discard two cards. Untap up to three lands.

Intuition — 2U — Search your library for any three cards and reveal them. Target opponent chooses one. Put that card into your hand and the rest into your graveyard. Then shuffle your library.

Thirst for Knowledge — 2U — Draw three cards. Then discard two cards unless you discard an artifact card

Entomb — B — Search your library for a card and put that card into your graveyard. Then shuffle your library.

Buried Alive — 2B — Search your library for up to three creature cards and put them into your graveyard. Then shuffle your library.

These cards help fill the grave, but don’t necessarily completely do the job. Some forms of the Sedris deck actually run mill cards such as Traumatize and Glimpse the Unthinkable in order to mill their own deck in an effort to fill their graveyard with targets for the purpose of reanimation. I personally find such a strategy to be utterly futile, and extremely risky in many situations.

Ultimately the deck can be designed several different ways. However my personal method of designing the deck follows a very strict method. There are a few slots that are open to meta calls, but the following is a rough skeleton of the deck list that I am currently running:

General:

• Sedris, the Traitor King

Creatures:

• Bladewing the Risen
• Blood Tyrant
• Body Double
• Bogardan Hellkite
• Hell’s Caretaker
• Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
• Inkwell Leviathan
• Izzet Chronarch
• Kagemaro, First to Suffer
• Keiga, the Tide Star
• Malfegor
• Mulldrifter
• Puppeteer Clique
• River Kelpie
• Shriekmaw
• Thraximundar
• Trinket Mage
• Venser, Shaper Savant

Enchantments:

• Phyrexian Arena
• Rhystic Study

Instants:

• Cryptic Command
• Entomb / Intuition
• Fact or Fiction
• Frantic Search
• Makeshift Mannequin
• Thirst for Knowledge

Sorceries:

• Buried Alive
• Cruel Ultimatum
• Damnation
• Demonic Tutor
• Diabolic Tutor
• Dread Return
• Living Death
• Profane Command
• Torrent of Souls

Planeswalkers:

• Liliana Vess

Equipment:

• Lightning Greaves

Artifacts:

• Nevinyrral’s Disk
• Oblivion Stone
• Pithing Needle
• Sensei’s Divining Top
• Sol Ring

Lands:

• Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• Reliquary Tower
• Volrath’s Stronghold

This listing leaves the deck with approximately twenty-one slots available to choose for non-land spells that are dependent on ones meta game. As well as Thirty-four slots available for a person to choose their land based cards as they want. These empty slots will be what makes ones deck unique and their own.

There are a few cards from Zendikar that I am toying with possibly adding to the list of cards that may be of use in this deck. Most notably is the card known as Rite of Replication. That card when coupled with many of the cards in this deck can be quite brutal to say the least.

Click here to view my version of this deck.