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Chainer's circus of value

Commander / EDH BR (Rakdos)

foxtrot_101


Sideboard


Introduction

Welcome to this Chainer deck, to begin, I would consider this deck midrange. For those of you who don't know what midrange is, midrange likes to incrementally minimize the amount of cards you use and maximize the cards your opponents use to gain an advantage over other players. We achieve this by using low cmc removal like Shriekmaw or Ingot Chewer and keep using these same, low to the ground removal to remove any mana dorks, mana rocks, or any small early to mid game advantage our opponents could have out. Midrange shines in the mid game and this deck especially. We eventually curve out very nicely and quickly with things like Gravebreaker Lamia and Heartless Summoning to help ramp us into our haymakers, those being Kokusho, the Evening Star, Etali, Primal Storm, and the likes. This deck adapts to any situation thrown at it very quickly with how often you can tutor in this deck with sidisi. There's enchantment removal, artifact removal, creature removal, grave removal, board wipes, life gain, and oppressive advantages, with a curve that doesnt go above 6 cmc to keep us churning out creatures easily and quickly. We also use Red's amazing ability to steal spells from opponents to help us play opponent's spells that we normally can't with cards like Dire Fleet Daredevil and, my personal favorite, Dualcaster Mage which has copied ramp, life gain, even a demonic consultation to get me bedevil to win the game. We also use cards like Animate Dead, and Necromancy and the likes to steal opponent's creatures from grave and use them for ourselves, because why play creatures and spells that costs us more than 6 mana, or isnt even in our color's, when our opponents can do it for us? Having the ability to take opponent's removal or their best creatures makes this a very strong midrange deck to adapt in a way most midrange decks can't. Opponent's used Hull Breach? Throw it back at them. The options and adaptations this deck offers really makes impacts on games and makes both playing the deck, and playing against the deck very enjoyable as the deck always plays different every time with few exceptions of set up. People have told me it's an extremely fun deck to play against and others have nicknamed this deck "the cockroach deck" as no matter what situation the deck is in, it will crawl out of whatever hole it's put in, and keep bouncing back with ease until the player piloting the deck is dead, or the whole table is dead.

ATTENTION:

For extra salt, or spice, you can impress your friends with this cool chainer trick! Here's the situation. your opponents have gotten out of hand, they have 30 creatures on board and are threatening lethal, and you draw a hail mary. A board wipe. Let's say for simplicity sake, Blast act. 1 mana blow everything up. But hold your horses. before you do that, activate chainer's ability, then cast the act. now you can cast chainer from the grave from his own ability! Then, because he's considered a new object, you can activate his ability again to cast something else and recover from that board wipe really quick!

Doomed Necromancer: takes care of a problem chainer has. Cheating mana costs.

Magus of the Wheel: refill your hand really fast and disrupt your opponent's hand all for 5 mana. I'll take it.

Liliana, Heretical Healer  : She's surprisingly good as when something of mine dies (which is all the time) she makes a zombie then turns into a Planeswalker. The planeswalker is interesting as well, +2 everyone discards, not a problem for you, upsetting to your opponents, -x reanimate, thats always good, -8 reanimating emblem, alright that's pretty good, but can we ever get that? maybe. If the Planeswalker dies, she reverts back to a creature in grave, so now, we don't need to rely on Xiahou dun to recover her, we have chainer for that and she's 3 mana, so we basically brute force her until opponents can't deal with her, then ult her eventually. sounds like a solid plan

Dualcaster Mage: this 3 drop will make your opponents think about casting a spell. Whether it be tutoring, countering, drawing, or anything, mage has you covered and the best part? He's got flash. That means, because chainer follows normal timing restrictions, you can cast mage at any time. Chaos ensue

Oversold Cemetery and Squee, Goblin Nabob: it's free discard real estate.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier: a recurable tutor. What more do you want?

Gravebreaker Lamia: Wow what a card to come out of theros for our friend chainer! After plenty of playtesting I have to say. This card is nuts and performs way better than final parting did, and better than sidisi. Every chance I have to tutor or entomb. I throw this in the grave as it allows me to do additional set up in the later turns, like throwing sidisi to grave with this to start the tutor cycle. This card is a double whammy against your opponents, they either kill this to keep you from getting a discount but give you another entomb, or dont kill it and give you a discount to keep you from entombing. And pairs obscenely well with heartless summoning giving you 3 discount, like a 3 mana etali. It's a win win and definitely is a back breaker.

Kokusho, the Evening Star and Gray Merchant of Asphodel: wincons without swinging. It feels great to drain everyone for 5 and gaining 15.

Dire Fleet Daredevil: remember how dualcaster copies spells? Daredevil takes them. Over and over again

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre: this is tech city. Need an instant speed grave shuffle to protect your grave from grave hate? Done. Have flash on board? In response to ulamog's shuffle trigger cast ulamog from grave if you have the mana and then blow something up. It's a win win.

Dockside Extortionist: what a card. 2 mana get more mana late game? And keep doing it with chainer? Yes please

Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed: I've been in love with this card for the last 3 years and have been wanting one but never found a true place for it. But with chainer, he's a must have. Damnation soft lock? Yep. Demonic Tutor recycle? Dun. Toxic Deluge lock? Pay the life baby! This 4 mana creature keeps the deck churning and rolling. Lose that phyrexian reclamation? Get it back and keep going! Xiahou dun is ludicrous and interacts with way too much

Vampire Hexmage is a fantastic planeswalker removal card at instant speed for 2 mana on a body. And with the Ikoria set adding keyword counters and other counters, this makes hexmage much better than your average removal spell.

Opposition Agent: another strong flash card that absolutely breaks this deck. Copying a ramp spell with dualcaster mage was fun. Stealing that ramp is awesome, and abuse it with field of ruin too and things get out of hand

Burning-Rune Demon is a good card out of kaldheim for the deck. In a sense this is a better combustible gearhulk. You tutor for 2 cards, an opponent chooses. And you always get the best of any choice. Tutor shenanigans and a creature, tutor two creatures, tutor for whatever you need x2. Selected grave fill is arguably better than mill fill.

Archpriest of Shadows The backup mechanic gave us one creature that smacks really hard, the archpriest, supports the aggro gameplan with etb tacked on

Ancient Brass Dragon more things on a big body, takes the theft strategy to a whole new level of almost rise of the dark realms level

Archon of Cruelty aggro hate bear and is one of the best reanimate targets in legacy for a reason

Canoptek Tomb Sentinel the card that ended it all. 4 mana exile any nonland permanent is titan tier level of removal only found in colors outside of chainer, and the unearth mechanic doesnt ever need to be used.

Reanimate: some extra grave recursion on the cheap. Great card

Gamble: fantastic card. Tutors and pitches something to grave. Just hope that it's a creature. Always tutor for a creature or shenanigans with this

Shenanigans: this card is an engine to say the least and is undervalued. 2 mana to destroy a pesky artifact and then dredge 1. You're filling your grave to destroy more things, I've destroyed Sol Ring with this on turn 2, multiple times, I've stopped someone's Bolas's Citadel as well. FOR 2 MANA. This card is awesome!

Sudden Spoiling: this is such a good utility card and can be devastating to your opponent. Very undervalued

Sneak Attack: so this may seem like a weird include. But, sometimes you need to drop kokusho for 1 mana then drain the board and even swing. It's a reliable way to get creatures to board and make sure they dont stick around. It's also good removal bait too as too many people are scared of this thing and for good reason.

Phyrexian Reclamation: sometimes you need more creatures back to hand to just discard them back to grave then cast them. Works wonders with sneak attack

Oversold Cemetery: grave is usually full so get a squee effect to keep discarding. Everything is a squee! great consistency needed.

Heartless Summoning: an odd one but straight forward. The static minus on creatures is pretty menial to the whole deck and can help in certain situations like Dire Fleet Daredevil. Etb sac and get the effect only for it to go back to grave so you don't have to try to get rid of it. In fact the whole deck was carefully crafted so that when this drops, nothing that wants to stay on board dies to this. And summoning gives you a static discount of 2. Extremely helpful since chainer doesn't discount.

Ugin, the Ineffable: Ugin might be strange, but It provides very nice spot removal for enchantments, the static 2 discounts to colorless permanents is very helpful at times, and manifest card advantage in a deck that loves killing things? perfect.

Winding Canyons: Flash on creatures is pretty good with chainer

High Market: Free Sac outlet like Phyrexian Tower, but lose the mana, gain the life. it works

These cards are ideas that need pondering and have potential in the deck

Dakmor Salvage: dredge is nice, yes. But is this needed?

Eat to Extinction might be a fantastic card to add to the deck by taking out Ransack the Lab as ransack can whiff and fairly often sadly, whereas extinction gives us hard removal of creatures or planeswalkers (which is extremely relevant) and essentially surveil, something ransack did but for 2 mana. Playtesting is needed

Deadly Rollick might also be fantastic removal option too

Cavalier of Night might be much more effective than Noxious Gearhulk because it gives us a sac effect and when it dies, we can recur a 3 cmc or less creature which might be really useful in comparison to the Gearhulk.

Grave Titan is always a good card and was pulled for other options, however, I've been pondering putting it back in

Feldon of the Third Path dou7bling up on creatures from grave is nice, im pondering whether i should add it and what to replace

After some browsing, the Dash mechanic works relatively well with chainer. The only dash cards that seems to work best with this deck is Flamerush Rider and Mardu Strike Leader because they get returned to hand for chainer fodder, and the rider creates token copies similar to blade of selves, and the strike leader creates more tokens for ashnods and phyrexian altar for mana.

These are things to consider based on your meta

Terror of the Peaks When you need more creature removal or more damage against opponents.

Feldon of the Third Path When you need more triggers on board to try to handle the rest of the board (considering main decking this)

Grave Titan When you need a wider board to stop opponent's wider boards

Mindclaw Shaman When you play in a spell heavy meta

The Immortal Sun When you play in a planeswalker heavy meta. Replace Liliana heretical healer with this

Suggestions

Updates Add

So, we had some set come and go since the last update. I have down some playtesting, came to some conclusions, so lets begin.

My meta had changed since we last spoke, so I ended up removing Bane of the Living to put Fulminator Mage back in. lands are getting stronger, and something needs to keep them in check.

we pulled Ravenous Chupacabra for the Canoptek Tomb Sentinel I'd much rather have exile any nonland permanent than destroy a creature, I would like both, but its not possible with how tight the list is getting

Dictate of Erebos got the cut for Archon of Crueltyfoil as we needed at least one more top end hate bear, and I felt archon needed the break the ice for a creature I want out above 6 mana

this led to Ancient Brass Dragon also entering the scene as a top end hate bear, strong reanimator, and a nice curve for the deck, I cannot remember what I had pulled for it, so I apologize for not recalling

We also saw card:Gonti, Lord of Luxry taking a drop with the introduction to Archpriest of Shadows, the backup mechanic is neat, but this is insane in chainer, cast this off chainer, etb, +1/+1 and give something deathtouch and reanimate? and the priest has haste too? so 2 things from grave? Very strong for this deck and gives the deck a go tall strategy with the +1/+1 counters

Comments

Casual

97% Competitive

Date added 5 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

18 - 3 Mythic Rares

53 - 2 Rares

14 - 1 Uncommons

5 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.38
Tokens Copy Clone, Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Morph 2/2 C, Pest 1/1 BG, Spirit 2/2 C, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
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