So, long story short my friends have been begging me to make an edh deck and I recently cracked an entomb from an eternal masters pack so I figured why not reanimator?
I landed on sedris or sidisi. Now I'm not too familiar with the format but I know the basics. Now that being said can someone help me out here with the strengths and weeknesses between Red/Green in reanimator and edh in general? Other then the obvious burn and dragons vs ramp and fatties? Maybe offer some other commanders as ideas? Im not interested in mimeoplasm or karador. Trying to avoid infinite combos and mass land destruction btw and this is for a group of casual players.
While I have a passion for grixis and I do maintain my own Sedris deck, if you are new to the format then I would have to recommend Sidisi first.
Mana accelearation and ramping in this format is very helpful, since in most multiplayer games the determing factor is who has the most mana to cast the best cards fastest. Running green for rampant growth/nature's lore/kodama's reach/cultivate/sakura-tribe elder/etc (insert enormous ramp staples here) is going to be far more helpful.
Sedris is not bad, but what red mana Sedris offers is not exactly equal to what green from Sidisi can offer when it comes to reanimator decks.
edit; after looking at my own sedris list, these are the only red cards that I run;
So how do you think you would go about a Sidisi deck? Running self mill/dredge/graveyard tutors to get a bunch of zombie tokens in the early game and then start trying to reanimate your fatties/ mass reanimate mid/late game?
While that is a good game-plan, and you would want some dedicated grave-yard focused cards like entomb and buried alive, my personal preference is a bit different since I only take my sedris deck out for more casual tables.
It will really depend on the speed of your opponents offensive ability and likelihood to answer what you are doing. Dredge effects can, if built correctly, fill your graveyard incredibly fast. If you can afford something like a bazaar of baghdad, and the non-basics to support a hermit druid shell, then you should absolutely run it.
But running dredge is slightly different than a dedicated reanimator deck, since you are dedicating card space to the dredge cards, and you then have to get a "draw" trigger (in-game time restriction or more non-reanimaton card reliance). Going with hermit druid nonsense is more combo than reanimator.
Doing that is not going to fill your graveyard as fast as a good dredge engine, but you are not dedicated card space to dredge, and you are not going to have card disadvantage since your graveyard filling is also your card-draw.
The potential is there for an explosive mass reanimation on the following turn. The problem is that this gives the opponent(s) one full turn to try and answer, necrologia really only works if you can squander 35x life into it (so aggro opponents = don't do it), and tunnel vision may accidentally mill you out completely, or just 5x cards deep.
That sort of play is more for funny games that you don't care about winning or loosing.
You don't really want to worry about putting stuff on the bottom of your deck with tunnel vision, you just want to call a mass reanimation spell with it and pray that you get 50% of your deck milled. You would also need to add in some generic supporting enablers like archaomancer to help return a mass reanimaton spell from tunnel vision and a few cheap tutors to search up a mass reanimaton spell if necrologia doesn't find you one.
Oh wow, I only just clicked that you can flicker cheat with Sedris because of those effects specifically returning the exiled card to the battlefield.
I know what my next deck is going to be
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
EDH RRGrenzo plays your deck, GGYeva's mono green control, WW9-tails trys desperately for monowhite not to suck RWBUTymna and Kraum's saboteur tribal, UWG Kestia's Enchantress Aggro, RUB Jeleva casts big dumb spells, RGB Vaevictis' big critters can kill your critters hard
My question is that when that card re-enters after being flickered does it count as a new entity? So when it dies it goes back to the yard and can be unearthed agsin?
Karador, Ghost Chieftain is another solid option, especially for his exceptional staying power. Even if you build the deck as a "creature aggro and control" focused deck, he almost always costs three mana when you need him, no matter how often he dies. These "always available" style commanders are incredibly strong because opponents can't just deny you access to him by killing him a whole bunch (okay maybe they can but it would take a LOT of kill spells and you would have to be incredibly far behind on mana).
Sedris, the Traitor King would probably work best as a nine-mana unearth effect (cast him and then immediately unearth your scariest dude for a quick swing), tapping out to cast him for six would be too risky as you would be considerably set back should he die before you untap. So you should build the deck to be mostly commander-independent and capable of functioning without him until you get to a massive pile of mana.
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is more like a commander you want to cast out as soon as possible to benefit from him. Depending on how pro-active your playgroup is, that might be fine, but if there's a spot removal-happy player in your group who likes to timewalk opponents by killing cornerstone commanders the turn they come out, you're going to be considerably set back almost every game.
The people I'm going to be playing with are super casual. Not really running high end decks with a big part of the decks just being a little tuned up precons. Though one of my friends runs an ephara token deck that's packed with board wipes and that's why sidisi makes me have second thoughts. I'm not really interested in karador as I don't have many white staples in my collection compared to the other colors.
Play Sidisi. Run zombie lords for the zombie tokens, reanimate Craterhoof Behemoth. You can use Dread Return. Since you can sac tokens and everything ends up in the yard, anyway, Dread Return is almost free. Snapcaster Mage (if you have/allow one) and Eternal Witness get stuff back, also trigger Sidisi. You can save a counterspell (not many, just one or two) for the inevitable board wipe.
As the above posters also suggested, run Sidisi. Run her with a metric tonne of creatures that come back from the graveyard/do something from the graveyard (Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodsoaked Champion and cards like Eternal Witness and Den Protector. Then reanimate Craterhoof Behemoth and go to town. Some of the Dredge creatures are also nice in such a deck. The strategy would be to simply overwhelm the opponent. But if you want a true reanimator deck, might I suggest The Mimeoplasm? He himself is a reanimation spell, and you can just... cram your deck with fatties and reanimate those, plus-size. He can be made as casual or competitive as you want, too.
My question is that when that card re-enters after being flickered does it count as a new entity? So when it dies it goes back to the yard and can be unearthed agsin?
Yes. After flickering when it comes back it will just die and go to the yard so you can unearth it again.
That said I highly advise Sedris over Sidisi. Sultai is easier to build for sure but Sedris is way more fun. I just put a bunch of creatures with etb effects in the deck so you can just get huge value out of unearthing. The fact that your commander has built in recursion on him is huge IMO.
Unfortunately every try hard from Sacramento to Shanghai preaches from the top of their 27 lands + Mana Reflection that Tooth and Nail and Time Stretch are fine to play in the same turn but Armageddon is unfair.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I landed on sedris or sidisi. Now I'm not too familiar with the format but I know the basics. Now that being said can someone help me out here with the strengths and weeknesses between Red/Green in reanimator and edh in general? Other then the obvious burn and dragons vs ramp and fatties? Maybe offer some other commanders as ideas? Im not interested in mimeoplasm or karador. Trying to avoid infinite combos and mass land destruction btw and this is for a group of casual players.
Mana accelearation and ramping in this format is very helpful, since in most multiplayer games the determing factor is who has the most mana to cast the best cards fastest. Running green for rampant growth/nature's lore/kodama's reach/cultivate/sakura-tribe elder/etc (insert enormous ramp staples here) is going to be far more helpful.
Sedris is not bad, but what red mana Sedris offers is not exactly equal to what green from Sidisi can offer when it comes to reanimator decks.
edit; after looking at my own sedris list, these are the only red cards that I run;
1x Dualcaster Mage
1x Feldon of the Third Path
1x Flayer of the Hatebound
1x Keranos, God of Storms
1x Knollspine Dragon
1x Mercurial Chemister
1x Steam Augury
1x Wheel of Fortune
That really is not a high number of red cards, and comparing those to something like woodfall primus, bane of progress, eternal witness and wood elves, should hopefully help display the difference.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
It will really depend on the speed of your opponents offensive ability and likelihood to answer what you are doing. Dredge effects can, if built correctly, fill your graveyard incredibly fast. If you can afford something like a bazaar of baghdad, and the non-basics to support a hermit druid shell, then you should absolutely run it.
But running dredge is slightly different than a dedicated reanimator deck, since you are dedicating card space to the dredge cards, and you then have to get a "draw" trigger (in-game time restriction or more non-reanimaton card reliance). Going with hermit druid nonsense is more combo than reanimator.
Since this is your first go, I would instead recommend keeping card advantage in mind. entomb and buried alive are nice auto-includes, but fact or fiction, epiphany at the drownyard, bitter revelation ( <- the worst of the bunch), forbidden alchemy, frantic search, moonlight bargain, jace's archivist, sphinx of uthuun, and the new fortune's favor are all great at keeping you from card dis-advantage while also filling your graveyard. Most of those can be done at instant speed, which helps against a lot of graveyard hate like bojuka bog and agent of erebos. You can also run a few mass-draw spells like recurring insight or something like disciple of bolas so you can over-draw and manually discard what you want to reanimate at end of turn.
Doing that is not going to fill your graveyard as fast as a good dredge engine, but you are not dedicated card space to dredge, and you are not going to have card disadvantage since your graveyard filling is also your card-draw.
Now if you plan on playing more casually;
Another completely off-the-wall idea is necrologia and tunnel vision. If you plan on stuffing twilight's call/living death/rise of the dark realms in your deck, or if you are doing tribal and running patriarch's bidding/zombie apocalypse, you can try to suicide yourself really early with necrologia or mill yourself with tunnel vision.
The potential is there for an explosive mass reanimation on the following turn. The problem is that this gives the opponent(s) one full turn to try and answer, necrologia really only works if you can squander 35x life into it (so aggro opponents = don't do it), and tunnel vision may accidentally mill you out completely, or just 5x cards deep.
That sort of play is more for funny games that you don't care about winning or loosing.
You don't really want to worry about putting stuff on the bottom of your deck with tunnel vision, you just want to call a mass reanimation spell with it and pray that you get 50% of your deck milled. You would also need to add in some generic supporting enablers like archaomancer to help return a mass reanimaton spell from tunnel vision and a few cheap tutors to search up a mass reanimaton spell if necrologia doesn't find you one.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
I appreciate all your advice so far though!
My list is pretty slow, budget and, in my opinion, tame compared to what some sedris decks can do.
There is a slew of flicker effects (ghostly flicker/conjurer's closet/essence flux/deadeye navigator and soon displace) since they can save an unearthed creature from Sedris or whip of erebos from permanently being exiled.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
I know what my next deck is going to be
RRGrenzo plays your deck, GGYeva's mono green control, WW9-tails trys desperately for monowhite not to suck
RWBUTymna and Kraum's saboteur tribal, UWG Kestia's Enchantress Aggro, RUB Jeleva casts big dumb spells, RGB Vaevictis' big critters can kill your critters hard
Arena Standard
UUUU Tempo, since before it was cool
Various Wx decks running Fountain of Renewal and Day of Glory
Anything I can cram Chaos Wand in to
Sedris, the Traitor King would probably work best as a nine-mana unearth effect (cast him and then immediately unearth your scariest dude for a quick swing), tapping out to cast him for six would be too risky as you would be considerably set back should he die before you untap. So you should build the deck to be mostly commander-independent and capable of functioning without him until you get to a massive pile of mana.
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is more like a commander you want to cast out as soon as possible to benefit from him. Depending on how pro-active your playgroup is, that might be fine, but if there's a spot removal-happy player in your group who likes to timewalk opponents by killing cornerstone commanders the turn they come out, you're going to be considerably set back almost every game.
Haakon, Stromgald Scourge plus Nameless Inversion fits into both decks.
WiJ
Peasant 540 Cube
Yes. After flickering when it comes back it will just die and go to the yard so you can unearth it again.
That said I highly advise Sedris over Sidisi. Sultai is easier to build for sure but Sedris is way more fun. I just put a bunch of creatures with etb effects in the deck so you can just get huge value out of unearthing. The fact that your commander has built in recursion on him is huge IMO.