After the first episode of Creatures are useless, here we are with part 2: Creatures are expendable.

Being Griselbrand sealed forever under the banhammer, we seek audience with the second most powerful demon in the multiverse: the mighty Demonlord from Amonkhet, Razaketh, the Foulblooded.

We are never paying his actual mana cost, so we might as well play him in a reanimator shell. And, surprise surprise, the arguably best tri-color combination in the game is also an amazing combination for a reanimator strategy.

And why Sidisi, Brood Tyrant over Tasigur, the Golden Fang or The Mimeoplasm? Well, I feel like the mimeoplasm is more suited for less-focused reanimator decks that run several reanimation targets with funky abilities, while Tasigur works better in a passive control build in a political multiplayer environment.

Sidisi, on the other hand, synergizes well with the gameplan while being a low-profile threat that's not removal worthy. She puts things in the grave, she can transform a Worldly Tutor into an Entomb, she produces bodies for Razaketh to use. Then, you can sac her to Eldritch Evolution or Birthing Pod to get your Phyrexian Delver or Body Double to bring Razzy in play. Alternatively, you can sac her to get corpse connoiseur in play and Razzy in the yard if you have a reanimator spell in hand.

Lots of possibilities is the key of this deck, which requires focus and attention to details in order to be piloted correctly. The deck almost always gives you a way out to most situations, but such a way if often not so obvious, at least until you successfully bring Razaketh into the equation.

Provided that you have a few life spare and a couple of bodies, Razaketh constitutes a very very very hard-to-deal-with threat, capable of grabbing all sorts of cheap counterspells, answers or reanimation spells in response to whatever trick the opponents will try to launch at him. And they can't just ignore him, because he can also quickly assemble one or more win conditions.

I decided to avoid infinite combos and to lean towars more "fair" wincons that fit well with the deck. Other than grindy combat steps, the two main kill buttons are Craterhoof Behemoth and Triumph of the Hordes. We are already playing lots of bodies to fuel Razaketh and Sidisi, so we might as well use them to go wide with infect damage or wide and tall with regular damage. Note that Triumph of the Hordes is very close to lethal even with just Razaketh and becomes lethal with little effort.

The reanimation package is a crucial part of the deck. After many experiments I've decided that "entombing" and "reanimating" need to happen on the same turn in order to play around opponents' interaction. Therefore, we only run reanimation that in the average scenario costs less than 4 mana, such as Animate Dead Dance of the Dead(lethal with infect) Necromancy Exhume Soul Exchange Victimize Life // Death (life is useful for infect, Craterhoof, and Razaketh)Dread Return (flashback) Body Double Phyrexian Delver (via Birthing Pod or Eldritch Evolution). We only are happy to pay more in the case of Living Death because the card is just huge value.

The deck has also an artifact subtheme involving Birthing Pod Ensnaring Bridge Tezzeret the Seeker Pithing Needle Phyrexian Revoker Skullclamp Reshape and the colored artifact lands. Such package spawns from the idea of including Tezzeret as a second copy of Birthing Pod and provides other versatile tools to answer many situations.

Other than Razzy, the fatty package includes a very small selection of bad boys:

The mana base is focused on getting the 3 colors on board asap but does not try to ramp like crazy. We just cannot afford to waste entire turns and card slots on ramping. The only incidental ramp is in the form of mana dorks, that are already there to fuel Razaketh, and a couple of cheap staples like Farseek Rampant Growth that help with the crucial color fixing at the beginning. The most crucial color to get things going is green, followed by black and blue that are less relevant in the very early game.

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Casual

99% Competitive

Date added 6 years
Last updated 6 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

9 - 0 Mythic Rares

29 - 0 Rares

25 - 0 Uncommons

19 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.86
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Manifest 2/2 C, Plant 0/1 G, Zombie 2/2 B
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