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Enchantment (1)


The Scarab God raids graveyards to create a host of zombies! The decks attempts to either go wide with a massive zombie army or drain people out with The Scarab God and other zombie life drainers.

Our God had control issues. He likes to be in charge of who is allowed to live on the battlefield. This is done through boardwipes, zombies with ETB kill effects, counterspells, and instant-speed kill spells. It can take a while to build up a critical mass of zombies to drain opponents out and removal helps protect our God while he summons his army.

Boardwipes

Kindred Dominance: Expensive but acts as a one-sided boardwipe.

Necromantic Selection: Allows us to reanimate the best creature on the board as a zombie.

Damnation + Toxic Deluge: Cheap boardwipes.

Living Death: Mass edict effect that also reanimates our zombie horde.

ETB Kill Creatures

Fleshbag Marauder: Gets around hexproof and indestructible creatures.

Overseer of the Damned: Expensive but produces zombies as well as killing any threat.

Go for the Throat and Feed the Swarm: Efficiently costed instant-speed removal.

Counterspells

Unwind: Allows us to hold up mana for both countering a spell and activating Scarab God.

Arcane Denial: Probably the least annoying counterspell as it gives the spell caster a bit of card advantage. Also helps to negate our own card disadvantage by replacing itself with another card.

Swan Song: Dirt cheap counterspell that allows us to still have enough mana to Eternalize.

Countersquall: Another cheap counterspell that also drains an opponent which is on theme with the deck.

The most efficient way to fill graveyards for our God is to mill ourselves and opponents. The following cards help us achieve this:

Mesmeric Orb: Fills up everyone's graveyard very quickly for reanimation.

Gisa and Geralf: Mills and then allows us to cast zombies from our grave.

Buried Alive and Corpse Connoisseur: Throws our best zombies into the grave.

Compulsive Research, Thirst for Knowledge, Monastery Siege, Thirst for Meaning, and Frantic Search: Blue draw spells that also help us throw creatures into the grave for us.

Stitcher's Supplier: Self-mills and then self-mills some more when he dies!

Tomebound Lich: Looting zombie.

As well as alpha striking with his Zombies, the Scarab God can drain opponents out for the win. His own life drain ability, but other zombies can help speed up the process.

Plague Belcher, Diregraf Captain, and Vengeful Dead all drain opponents when our zombies die.

Lich Lord of Unx allows us to dump our mana into a life-draining ability.

Carrion Feeder and Grimgrin, Corpse-Born provide sacrifice outlets to trigger the life draining zombies listed above.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed is another enabler allowing us to sacrifice our zombies a second time due to the undying ability bringing them back.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel is an obvious life drain choice for the deck.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Not a ton of changes to the deck over the past while. I've added the Cabal Coffers/Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth/Expedition Mapfoil package as Scarab God's activation ability is very mana hungry.

Other changes:

Hero's Downfall ---> Feed the Swarmfoil: I've been less enamored with Hero's Downfall as I haven't found it gives enough flexibility for 3 mana. For one less mana Feed the Swarm gives Black the new ability to target enchantments. The sorcery speed isn't ideal but the flexibility and lower CMC make up for it.

Clearwater Pathway  Flip is a new dual land added from Zendikar Rising. It replaces Nephalia Drownyard which I rarely actually activated.

Vanquisher's Banner ---> Mesmeric Orb: The banner was just too expensive at 5. Mesmeric Orb fills everyone's graveyards very quickly

Fact or Fiction ---> Thirst for Meaning: Thirst is part of the cycle with Compulsive Research and Thirst for Knowledge. I like the quick burst of cards plus discard all of these spells give.

Josu Vess, Lich Lord ---> Phyrexian Delver: The deck needed some more reanimation. I was finding I was almost never using Josu's kicker ability.

Door of Destinies ---> Toxic Deluge: The deck needed another boardwipe and Door of Destinies just pumped too slowly. With reanimation you don't get the cast trigger necessary for it either.

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Revision 156 See all

(2 years ago)

+1 Animate Dead main
-1 Arcane Denial main
-1 Carrion Feeder main
+1 Cemetery Reaper main
-1 Compulsive Research main
-1 Corpse Connoisseur main
+1 Crowded Crypt main
-1 Dark Salvation main
+1 Empty the Laboratory main
+1 Endless Ranks of the Dead main
+1 Fell Stinger main
-1 Frantic Search main
-1 Geier Reach Sanitarium main
+1 Ghouls' Night Out main
-1 Go for the Throat main
-1 Grave Titan main
-1 Havengul Lich main
+1 Headless Rider main
+1 Herald's Horn main
-1 High Market main
and 50 other change(s)
Top Ranked
Date added 8 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

10 - 0 Mythic Rares

32 - 0 Rares

27 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.22
Tokens Ape 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Elemental 4/4 UR, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie 2/2 B w/ Decayed, Zombie Army 0/0 B
Folders Miscellaneous/Utility, Decks, EDH to build, EDH, EDH (Sac), Decks to Play, Compare to.... , Cool decks, Good black decks, Inspiration / Reference EDH
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