MTG Salvation

As you can see, not much different in the land base from yours. The major different being Bazaar of Baghdad. I'm using Bazaar as a disgusting discard engine to drop the stuff I can't or won't cast in the yard. Then reanimate or bring back on demand. Breaks though Stax decks like you wouldn't believe. It's one of my favourite cards, even without being Dredge anymore. Been debating about changing the Cabal Coffers over, but not sure what to yet - it could be a basic Forest, or it could also move to Mortuary Mire.



Defense of the Heart replaced Pattern of Rebirth. The reason being is that the amount of exile coming into play with certain decks made it more relevant to use something to grab any two cards. Mike and Trisk if the route is clear, Woodfall and Winnower to break graveyard hate - and re-enforce our board state, Baleful Force and Graveborn Muse if we really want to start digging... the list goes on ad infinitum. Even if it's destroyed or exiled, it's going after something we would love to see triggered - but if not, then it's no big deal, we have other backup plans to make it work.



Here's where I started getting sneaky - that Caustic Caterpillar has taken many a folk off guard that I have an answer to Torpor Orb that isn't an instant. I originally discarded the idea as draft chaff, until I actually started realizing it's not only tutor-able by our black tutors, but Worldly, Fauna Shaman, AND Survival of the Fittest all can grab it too. It's flexible removal in the form of a one drop. That $h!t just isn't kosher.



As mentioned before, I have a black dominated meta. Slaughter Pact or Snuff Out is fine, but I can't run both Pact and Snuff Out - that's asking for too much trouble if I do so. So I slipped a Hero's Downfall in as the wider hitting Snuff Out. Deglamer and Unravel the Aether answer many a hasty Blightsteel coming at my face off a Sneak Attack, and answer other troublesome artifacts - thankfully, still no Arcum Dagsson in my meta, and still answers some artifact combos by forcing them to re-tutor for it. It's not bad, but if Wizards actually made Natural State closer to Nature's Claim, aka, make it hit the four CMC cards, I'd swap them in a heartbeat. (Because hitting Leyline of the Void can be relevant, damn it!) I also cut Wake the Dead - people are getting wise, and realizing if they don't exile my yard Main Phase 1, it's going to be brought back off Wake the Dead. Exhume isn't much better - but at least it can be done all in one round if we need to.



So far, because of Bazaar, I'm successfully hitting the Delirium trigger off of Traverse the Ulvenwald nearly every time. It replaced Tempt with Discovery - after getting Urborg, Tomb and Cabal Coffers every time someone else dug, everyone has gotten wise, and knows not to give me the second land. And threatening to get Strip Mine doesn't do enough to matter... sad about it, but hey, had to happen eventually, right? Diabolic Intent also made it in - forgot what I cut for it, but a second Demonic Tutor isn't bad. It's not great, because in a few occasions, we don't have a creature to sacrifice... but hey, we're reanimator as well, so even killing a Sakura-Tribe Elder is sometimes better than getting that land when we now have enough to get other stuff. I've been debating if Dark Petition may see play over it, for the free mana - but even then, I'm not entirely sold.



Null Rod is in testing and I'm not sure if I like it enough or not right now. On one hand, it shuts off some of our combos (Mike and Trisk; Jarad and Devourer; Mike, Primus, and Phyrexian Altar). However, it does buy us one thing that some decks won't let this deck get - time. There are days the deck shouldn't be drawing dead, but it does. And that's where Null Rod helps us. It shuts off Brago's abuse of artifact rocks, it shuts out Tormod's Crypt, and gives us a chance to answer certain cards we otherwise would have a harder time answering. I've been debating about Cursed Totem too, but I think it locks down my own deck too hard to even make it worth it.



Why fix what isn't broken? I honestly don't like her, but I also don't like the price tag on Grim Tutor which is about the only thing I'd cut her for at the moment.

And there lies the biggest problem for you, I feel - he's a great reanimator target, but can you hard cast him? Because I know you want to be able to hardcast your fatties if needed. Assuming it means colourless, and not generic mana, I don't think your deck can take the hit to hardcast it as it means you have to run the new Wastes land or something else that makes colourless mana... it would either come in off Tooth and Nail or Reanimation effects. Granted, if not, we both can still reanimate it - so it's a thing that doesn't slow me too much.

I was originally going to post my comments over on your primer before I remembered my own topic - and I appreciate you coming over to concur, haha. Though, I was curious how long though it was going to be until I saw you commenting on my cEDH post. Figured I wasn't getting much of an answer here until your comment, so expanding to cEDH was the next best thing.

If that new Kozilek is real, it is completely broken for this deck! I can't wait to discard my Dredge cards back to the graveyard to counter grave-hate. Wizards, you are TOO KIND! Only think I can think of cutting at this point is Greater Good, likely because it hasn't been cast in some time - now that the deck is much more Dredge aligned rather than Midrange aligned (sorry razzliox), fishing cards out of my yard is the name of the game. On top of that, it makes the Necrotic Ooze combo much more potent in the deck too.

Jarad is an interesting Commander to me, as when the Golgari vs Izzet spoilers started coming out, I think I about had a dance or three over how excited I was for what Jarad could do. I had never seen a creature that good before (in my opinion). At the time I was newer to EDH, and wasn't particularly combo savvy. A lot of my friends at the time were happy to see Niv-Mizzet's new foil art, while I was drooling at the thought of all the stupid stuff I could do with Jarad. At the time, I had was just starting into Legacy, so I thought that an efficient mana build with Jarad at the helm, and big monsters to throw would be the best idea. Cards like Phyrexian Dreadnought and Force of Savagery with any anthem effects would be wonderful. It didn't take long to get a first revision of Jarad out the door - and while I didn't always win, I had an interesting deck.

Then came the faster combo decks, the ones that would go off at the table and win before I could blink. My meta at the time were all guys making much more money then me, and I learned very quickly that big stompy usually got stomped by combo decks. During this time, I had run across Dredge in Legacy, and was amazed at how effective it was - even without Bazaar of Baghdad, it constantly made a top showing in my Legacy meta, leaving poor Charbelcher playing me in the dust. Suffice to say, I had a brainfart - I couldn't afford Dredge in Legacy, nor could I win in EDH. But what if I went and made a Dredge deck in EDH? I wouldn't need to buy 4 of anything expensive, I wouldn't be spending a ton of money on the deck, (HA! Suck it past me...) and I could stand a chance against the combo decks!

Let's look at the competition, shall we:

Glissa, the Traitor - Doesn't benefit from Dredge creatures hitting the yard. Also plays more with artifacts then this deck does.

Iname as One - Seems more suited for Tribal Spirits - and this deck doesn't run a lot of spirits... if any at all.

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest - an interesting general, but seems more oriented to take advantage of Grave Pact effects. While we could benefit from them occasionally, we don't run any in the deck because the deck doesn't need them.

Meren of Clan Nel Toth - a very common suggestion for this deck, as when your creatures die, your reanimation\return to hand is free. Not bad - but we don't often have things dying on our field. If we do, it's because we're comboing out and winning then, or just running some silly stuff to delay our opponents. Overall, a decent card, but not right for this deck, especially when stuff doesn't 'die' as much as it gets discarded.

Nath of the Gilt-Leaf - We're not Elf tribal. The discard is nice... but not really that useful in this deck. Especially since we can never be the target of the discard.

Pharika, God of Affliction - Exiling cards from our yard to get a small snake that doesn't do anything to help us seems bad. We're comboing from our yard, and not trying to exile it all!

Sapling of Colfenor - putting cards into our hand isn't where we want them. We want them in the yard, where we can reanimate them for cheap, and bring them effectively into play before someone else attempts something silly.

Savra, Queen of the Golgari - much like Meren, the sister to Jarad expects creatures to enter the graveyard from the battlefield. As we play as much as we can out of the yard, it's not the ability we can abuse.

Sisters of Stone Death - I feel bad talking smack about a Gorgon, but when she doesn't do anything for the deck, she might as well remain on the sidelines and never see the light of day. She's also 8 mana and never impacts our game plan.

Skullbriar, the Walking Grave - doesn't take advantage of graveyards, and only rewards counter strategies that this deck doesn't do.

Varolz, the Scar-Striped - While a good sac outlet and can use the yard to break in counters, he seems to want to exile from your yard to be useful. Otherwise, I could see him as a secondary commander/replacement commander. However, reworking the toolbox of creatures would be required.

Vhati il-Dal - While a traitor to Greven, he doesn't really do much of anything for this deck either.

which leaves...

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - To start off, he costs four mana. Four coloured mana, but four mana none the less. Already he's possible to cast within a decent amount of time. His first ability gets him big backed by a deck designed to play out of the yard. His secondary ability gives us reach to kill opponents if we start losing our way. And his final ability means that he can always be a commander to reliably enjoy at a decent amount of mana. Until they give us the Legendary that grants Dredge X to all cards in your graveyard, (which will likely never happen), Jarad remains the best choice for this deck.

But what if we added a colour?

The only colour that would want to be added would be Blue, for Intuition and for Tasigur. While it would add possible further redundancy, it's overall more streamlined in Golgari colours. White could allow Karador, but overall, white doesn't add anything we really need either - perhaps Iona, but even then, not really required for the deck's already redundant process. It would add Blazing Archon though which would help against a Maelstrom/Primal Surge deck my meta has - but not worth it enough to consider it, truth be told.

Despite how most decks in any format play, Dredge always plays differently then them. It wants cards in it's graveyard, and this specific build of Jarad abuses it to no end. Not only do we want cards in our graveyard, we want them in there so bad, we'll skip draw steps to actually fuel our graveyard. How? The answer comes from a powerful keyword, called Dredge. Every time you would draw a card, Dredge puts an optional trigger on the stack - you can mill yourself that number of cards and skip that draw, and get that card back to your hand. Seems useless in a vacuum sure, and worse still in a singleton format. However, that's where the Recursion and Reanimation spells come in - we're trying to mill ourselves until we get to one of our wincons or powerful Draw/Protection cards, then bring them back and start using them to interact with our opponents. Jarad also benefits greatly from this style of play, as he gets stronger for each creature in our graveyard, so if you have to visit people with Jarad, you most certainly can - and he will bring serious beats with him.

Ideally, in our opening hands, we want Bazaar of Baghdad, Hermit Druid, or a tutor spell to hit one of those. Failing that, we can fall back on our Dredge keyworded cards or Mesmeric Orb, though they are not as good as the previous suggestion. Because of the surplus of enablers this deck has, we have a bunch of hands that we can keep. Just remember a good rule of thumb - three lands are going to nearly assure you a win. If you need more than that, I'd be slightly concerned, though it's been known to be that way before.

On top of that, you will want either removal, or recursion in hand. Both is better then not, as gravehate has been known to be packed into the most unsuspecting of decks. I once saw a Bruna, Light of Alabaster run Rest in Peace to give an example - so it's not unheard of to have other decks that love the yard attempt to keep us from it. It's okay though, if they focus on hating the graveyard, no doubt someone will break it, because it doesn't seem to be EDH without someone playing with their graveyard. And if you're unlucky enough to be stuck with three decks that hate your graveyard ways, while much slower, we can still plan out our own wins by playing fairly.

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