MTG Salvation

It would seem that the Amonkhet block was one of innumeral gifts to the realm of EDH. Lots of amazing legendary creatures and other amazing cards for the format. Three of these legendary creatures will possibly never see commander taxation without representation: The Scorpion God, The Locust God, and The Scarab God. Oh, but if that weren't enough to make them broken, all three have some amazing abilities. This thread is my attempt to showcase the latter of the three, Beetlejuice's favorite deity.

I've already seen many others here give their take on how to play this legend. Meaning, there is no clear and optimal way to use it. That being said, this thread will be my outlet on how I believe it should be played. I will undoubtedly test and test and test some more until I acquire an optimized list of what I want to accomplish with it. My list is more or less a hodgepodge of many different possibly synergistic strategies to use with The Scarab God. There's a bit of milling and wheeling with lots of removal. Also, I run some essential zombies and token production in order to take advantage of all of The Scarab God's abilities. I will enter into greater explanation as to why I made some choices as well as some broken interactions I do. The deck has many wincons, almost none of them relying on combat. However, this is not a control deck. So I'm kind of happy that it's a strange deck with many paths to victory. If any of you reading this are familiar with my work, you know I like to think out of the box!

This isn't my first deck dealing with the zombie creature type, milling, or winning by taking advantage of zombie interactions. So I feel I have some proficiency on the matter. I still have to do some considerable testing. Yet, the only card from Hour of Devastation so far is The Scarab God, so it should be relatively simple to do ample testing before prerelease weekend.

So, without further ado, the deck lists!





The goal of my deck isn't to necessarily amass zombies to go smash face. The zombies serve to fuel The Scarab God's first ability while also serving as chump blockers. That first ability provides card quality as well as a viable wincon. The second ability is the reason for most of the hodgepodge of the deck. My creatures are strictly for support or for the wincon. Yet milling opponents' Avacyn, Angel of Hope and then exiling it to make a copy that's a zombie is just too broken to pass up. Not only that, but you can exile an Eldrazi titan in response to the trigger (sure, they recover their graveyard but still lose the titan) or exile creatures in response to being reanimated. The third ability is what pretty much prevents you from having to pay commander tax on The Scarab God getting destroyed. Sure, if it gets tucked or exiled it's best to send it to the command zone. But any type of death will just send it to your hand to be cast later on.

In order to have loads of mana readily available to cast the more expensive spells or activate the abilities (which most of require mana), I have some mana rocks (which also facilitate an early commander casting) as well as some mana acceleration in the form of Nirkana Revenant, Crypt Ghast, Magus of the Coffers, and Cabal Coffers, all of which appreciate me running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. I also run quite a bit of spot removal spells. Not only will they remove a troublesome creature, but with the creature being in the graveyard afterwards, I can exile/steal it with The Scarab God. The wheels and mill spells not only disrupt and bother opponents, but will also provide bodies in the graveyards in order to take full advantage. It's also another reason I run cards like Coffin Queen and Gravespawn Sovereign - zombies which can also steal creatures or reanimate your own in a pinch.

Some of the more broken interactions are the classic Lord of the Undead + Sidisi, Undead Vizier which can pretty much net me any card I want as often as possible. Another interaction that I love with the deck is Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar. This is hands down the best engine of the deck. Combined with Paradox Engine, it's beyond broken. That with some mana rocks provides infinite mana. Combining the Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar with Diregraf Captain, Vengeful Dead, or Plague Belcher is also an automatic GG. Yet, my favorite cards in the deck are Copy Enchantment, Paradox Haze, and Sakashima the Impostor. Sakashima copies The Scarab God for double the upkeep trigger, basically (oh, and sending Sakashima back to your hand if it died). Paradox Haze also essentially doubles The Scarab God's upkeep ability. Copy Enchantment copying Paradox Haze quadruples The Scarab God's upkeep ability. Having all 4 cards in play is even more intense, basically octupling The Scarab God's upkeep ability.

So, although The Scarab God's second ability is not the main way to pilot the deck, depending on your match, you can win by making awesome 4/4's, by abusing The Scarab God's first ability, or by combo. The synergy between the cards means that you don't really have to worry about dead draws. One change I am considering as I'm writing this is swapping out Copy Enchantment for Clever Impersonator. That's just such a great card that should be in every deck that runs U.

I know I have space for improvement so I encourage and welcome any and all comments and/or suggestions! As always, thanks for your attention!

Alright, after a bit of testing, I found myself mana flooded in many games even though I have only 36 lands that produce mana. I run 9 mana rocks so I took out 2 lands. Hopefully I don't get too mana screwed and The Scarab God could help me get lands when I need them with its scry ability. Since I'm stacking my topdeck as I please (pretty much) when I use the scry ability, I want to draw more into those cards; so I added some actual draw spells instead of just relying on Greed and Erebos, God of the Dead. I also removed Dark Deal from the small set of wheels because it made my hand smaller - something I didn't like. I kept the other wheels and mill spells because I still want to get creatures into graveyards. I removed 2 kill spells because there was already so many ways to kill creatures. I took out some other things for underperforming. Hopefully with the scrying and card drawing I can make the deck more efficient. Here're the changes:
Copy Enchantment . . Clever Impersonator
Snow-Covered Island . . Artificer's Epiphany
Snow-Covered Swamp . . Succumb to Temptation
Never // Return . . Night's Whisper
Ruinous Path . . Brainstorm
Viscerid Drone . . Catalog
Dark Deal . . Read the Bones

I actually really like this deck idea. I plan to use the theme you built for my own but with some changes to it as I start getting the cards. I was curious on one rules interaction that you had stated.


Sakashima coming in as a clone of the Scarab lord. If she is dies. I does she actually go back to the hand at the beginning of the next end step? I know she can if you pay the mana for the ability she keeps. I am just asking because it specifically says "When the scarab god dies" But she keeps her name and ability stays worded "when the scarab god dies". I'm not to great with the rules. Just trying to find out.

Ill be making a deck of this guy aswell. Our Zombie God has so mutch potential and looks to be the ebst Dimir commander.

Quote from Rogzor97 »

I actually really like this deck idea. I plan to use the theme you built for my own but with some changes to it as I start getting the cards. I was curious on one rules interaction that you had stated.


Sakashima coming in as a clone of the Scarab lord. If she is dies. I does she actually go back to the hand at the beginning of the next end step? I know she can if you pay the mana for the ability she keeps. I am just asking because it specifically says "When the scarab god dies" But she keeps her name and ability stays worded "when the scarab god dies". I'm not to great with the rules. Just trying to find out.

Thanks! And welcome to the forums!

Whenever a card mentions its own name, it's always referencing itself and not another card with its name. So the clause for Sakashima the Impostor still applies. The purpose of Sakashima keeping his name is to bypass the legend rule. Since it's a delayed trigger, Sakashima should in fact return to your hand at the end of the turn (provided it died, and is still in the graveyard as the same instance of card). However, I'm no judge and all I have to go by. So if someone can chime in and effectively tell me if I'm right (or wrong) I'd greatly appreciate it!

And yes, this legend has the potential to be ridiculous! Let's all do our part to try and break him, shall we?

Quote from RedGauntlet »

Ill be making a deck of this guy aswell. Our Zombie God has so mutch potential and looks to be the ebst Dimir commander.

I don't know if it will be the best UB legend out there (Oona for one is pretty broken) but it will definitely be one of the best ones to date.

What about that blue enchantment Training grounds? That would make all those abilities on creatures cost less.

One of the other cards I was considering in my build is Intruder Alarm(Not as good as Paradox engine but similar). I was thinking that with a way to constantly bring a creature into the field I can keep untapping my creatures or like Magus of the coffers to generate infinite mana to Exsanguinate

I have considered Training Grounds. But apart from The Scarab God which will always benefit from it, only 6 other creatures in my deck will benefit from it. So I am on the fence about it. I like Paradox Engine better than Intruder Alarm because Intruder Alarm could potentially help opponents whereas Paradox Engine only helps me.

Well... At first glance I can see a few cards that MIGHT be worth a look. Though I'll understand if you say no. And mind you, this is mostly just off the top of my head here.
Wrexial, the Risen Deep - You're already half milling folk, This is a way to gain a little bit more advantage. Not sure if you want to nerf your CMC for him though.
Gisa and Geralf - Yeah.. Just yeah. I get why you aren't running them, but it's worth a look (maybe)
Cyclonic Rift - Most decks that run U run this for a reason. Though, the fact that it is such an autoinclude is one of the reasons why I don't like it. Very nasty if you cast this then winfall...
Graveborn Muse - Little bit more on theme for your card draw. Though I could see you needing to run something like Whip of Erebos if you add this.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel - Just good if you're taking a beating.
Body Double - Just yeah. Not the strongest thing out there. But allows more use from their stocked GY...
Grave Titan - Just to get a few tokens out.
That's all that I can think of. Well, Maybe a Wrath effect or 2, It's not like you're too worried about getting your commander back lol. When I get a bit more time, I'll take a better look at this. The commander is broken as hell as is, I'm all for trying to break it more then The Locus God.

Thanks for the suggestions! Regardless if I end up using them, you never know what will strike my fancy! So always fire away!

I actually did try out Gisa and Geralf but ended up cutting them because I'm not milling or wheeling as often to make them worth a slot. I tried their individual cards as well. All 3 were underwhelming here, curiously enough.
Cyclonic Rift should definitely be in here. I literally have it in every single deck I have that runs U.
I originally wanted to add Graveborn Muse but it scared me as to possibly killing me off. It should be seriously considered for going in but then I'd need some way to get life.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel would be great to recover said life lost. However, my devotion to black is hardly ever that high. It should still be considered, though. For its life drain and for being a zombie.
Body Double is definitely a good card to consider for the deck since it's a great clone for what I'm doing.
Grave Titan is good but I want to avoid adding cards that are too high costed.

Again, thanks for your suggestions!

Anytime. I'll take a more in depth look later tonight. Cause as I said, those were mostly just the first thoughts that came to my head. And I would really try out the whip. It pulls it's weight somehow. Even moreso if you're the best player in your group and end up being the number one target. Even a few damage dealt with it out pads your life total usually by just enough to take the table. Or makes the table less willing to swing at your chump blockers (let alone your 4/4's). Even if you lose most of your blockers, you should end up at a higher life then you started, and if you point that out you can often talk them into swinging at someone else. With Gary, even if he's the only black devotion you have, at a 4 person table that's still gaining you 6 life for 5 mana. The math gets even better the more ppl there and for every B you add (though you won't be taking out the table even if you loop it with Phyrexian Reclamation )

Have you thought about adding or testing mindcrank? Seams really good with your upkeep trigger and lets you steal what your opponents mill

Quote from muffins1001 »

Have you thought about adding or testing mindcrank? Seams really good with your upkeep trigger and lets you steal what your opponents mill

Mindcrank is definitely something I should add because it mills when opponents lose life. Meaning that it's also helpful when opponents hurt each other independently from me . I'll definitely find a slot for it!