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Commander / EDH Aggro Artifact Combo Imprint Reanimator UBR (Grixis)

DavidBray

Land (34)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Haunted Ridge
• 3x Island
• 1x Lotus Field
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 5x Mountain
• 1x Mystifying Maze
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stormcarved Coast
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Xander's Lounge

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mimic Vat
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sundial of the Infinite
• 1x Whip of Erebos

Creature (23)

• 1x Apprentice Necromancer
• 1x Boldwyr Heavyweights
• 1x Chainer, Nightmare Adept
• 1x Corpse Connoisseur
• 1x Eater of Days
• 1x Feldon of the Third Path
• 1x Flamerush Rider
• 1x Hellkite Courser
• 1x Hunted Horror
• 1x Identity Thief
• 1x Ilharg, the Raze-Boar
• 1x It That Betrays
• 1x Jaxis, the Troublemaker
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
• 1x Pestermite
• 1x Phyrexian Dreadnought
• 1x Puppeteer Clique
• 1x Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded
• 1x Sedris, the Traitor King
• 1x Vile Entomber
• 1x Zara, Renegade Recruiter
• 1x Zealous Conscripts

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Alchemist's Gambit
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Day's Undoing
• 1x Demonic TutorGC
• 1x Footsteps of the Goryo
• 1x Gruesome Encore
• 1x Hate Mirage
• 1x Ideas Unbound
• 1x Postmortem Lunge
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Stitch Together
• 1x Unmarked Grave
• 1x Warrior's Oath

Commander (1)

Instant (14)

• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic RiftGC
• 1x Discontinuity
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Fierce GuardianshipGC
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Glorious End
• 1x Goryo's Vengeance
• 1x Mystical TutorGC
• 1x Stifle
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Tale's End
• 1x Through the Breach

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Flameshadow Conjuring
• 1x Sneak Attack
• 1x Splinter Twin

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Saheeli Rai

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Sideboard

Instant (3)

• 1x Corpse Dance
• 1x Final Fortune
• 1x Shallow Grave

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Dawn of the Dead
• 1x Psychic Vortex

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Last Chance

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Leveler

Instant (1)

• 1x Mana Drain

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Obeka, Brute Chronologist combo deck, that focuses on ending my turn before the negative repercussions of my actions come around to haunt me...a lesson I've still not learned. Uses Obeka and other turn enders to negate ETB and beginning of the next end step triggars, permit stupidly big creatures with harrowing downsides, use cheaper reanimator strategies to find them, and use copy or control until end of turn spells to (hopefully) keep the target at the 'end' of my turn.

As I do not like old card fronts, extra turns are not (for the time being) included in this deck.

End the Turn

Obeka, Brute Chronologist - Queen of the deck, Obeka taps for free, ending the turn. In most cases, this is during my turn. This allows me to nullify a bunch of "beginning of the next end step" effects (but not "end of turn" effects) before they can be a problem. The free tap and cheap casting cost mean this can begin quite early in the game. However, as most of the deck is built around her, protection for her is essential, so rarely is she out turn 4.

Sundial of the Infinite - pure redundancy for Obeka, Brute Chronologist, this does the same thing but for {1}{T}. It can enter earlier, but is unable to use Pestermite to untap. Healthy addition, and slightly harder to remove.

Discontinuity - 2 mana "End the turn" clause. While less repeatable, this is very cheap in a pinch and can allow the deck to begin work early.

Glorious End - Bloody dangerous...unless you have Obeka, Brute Chronologist out on your following turn, in which case, you're safe. Slightly more expensive and dangerous than Discontinuity, but negatable.

Day's Undoing - Sometimes much stronger than Glorious End, the clause to draw 7 cards is a great addition. However, giving your opponent 7 potential answers to a combo deck can often backfire worse than it helps.

End the Turn Exploits

But why on earth would we want to end our turn early, anyway?

Removing Horrific ETB triggars

Phyrexian Dreadnought, Eater of Days, Hunted Horror, Boldwyr Heavyweights each cause significant problems when they enter the battlefield. Phyrexian Dreadnought dissolves any board state we might have; Eater of Days loses us our most important economy - turns; Hunted Horror gives the opponent an arguably better board state; and Boldwyr Heavyweights puts 3 of our enemies' best creatures on the field. With Obeka, Brute Chronologist and her like on the field, this is not the case. While their triggars are on the stack, we end our turn, skipping to our End Step and erasing those cataclysmic downsides behind for good.

Allowing Creatures to be Remain Longer than Planned

Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger should die as it enters the battlefield, but if we "End the Turn" before this ability resolves, we get to keep him. Even better, because of the order of the stack, his second ability triggars first, so we can end the turn after that ability. Similarly, Hellkite Courser cheats in our Obeka, Brute Chronologist, but it should go back to the Command Zone "at the beginning of the next end step" - we can skip that step and jump straight to "End of Turn", leaving her to fight another day.

Exile Off-Colour

Identity Thief and Mystifying Maze both can blink a threat from existence, but "at the beginning of the next end step" they get it back, right on time to threaten us, again. If we skip to "End of Turn", that triggar never happens, leaving them with a missing threat and in Identity Thief's case with a hopefully large threat still on our side of the board.

Keeping Tokens

Feldon of the Third Path, Flamerush Rider, Jaxis, the Troublemaker, Saheeli Rai, Flameshadow Conjuring, Splinter Twin, Mimic Vat each create various tokens of creatures we or our opponents own. Again, they return from whence they came "at the beginning of the next end step" so we "End the Turn" and keep them around. It would be impossible to pick an MVP among these, but Flameshadow Conjuring's ability to double up creatures every time they enter is excellent, and they don't even need to be "cast" to gain the triggar.

Kiki-Jiki Combo

Even worse than tokens staying around is an infinite number of tokens staying around. The same trick of ending the turn early can be used to keep all the tokens generated by the traditional Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker / Splinter Twin + Zealous Conscripts /Pestermite combo. The only question would be: will you need to keep them?

Maintaining Control

Puppeteer Clique, Zara, Renegade Recruiter, Hate Mirage, Gruesome Encore each allow us to gain control of our opponent's creatures, either from the graveyard, hand, or battlefield. By ending the turn early, we get to keep our enemies' creatures for longer than we should.

Unnatural Speed

Cards like Sneak Attack, Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded and to a lesser extent Through the Breach (pretty much only there to cheat out It That Betrays) allow us to pay a significantly reduced fee to get a creature onto the board at instant speed. Similarly, Ilharg, the Raze-Boar serves the same function, though a little more fragile due to the tapped and attacking phrase. Tapping Obeka, Brute Chronologist stops these triggars from resolving, allowing us to build our board with more pace.

Unearth

Both Sedris, the Traitor King and Corpse Connoisseur use the Unearth mechanic to help us to keep utilising our graveyard. However, that ability requires us to exile the creature at the beginning of our next end step. Cancelled, leaving us with a permanent...permanent. Note that while Sedris, the Traitor King card text mentions "at end of turn", but the oracle text for Unearth is "the beginning of the next end step".

End of Turn Reanimation

Following these rules of ending the turn before we have to, we have a bunch of cards that allow us to bring things from our graveyard (a tactic we double-down on, in a bit). Cauldron Dance gets a creature out of your hand and another out of your 'yard; Footsteps of the Goryo grabs any creature from the 'yard for 3; Goryo's Vengeance is often a worse Footsteps of the Goryo, grabbing a legendary only, but costing less; Whip of Erebos recycles a creature from the 'yard for 4;Apprentice Necromancer swaps places with something in the 'yard as a cheaper Doomed Necromancer with 'downside'.

Mana

Only one, here, but if we end the turn just as Lotus Field enters, the "sacrifice two lands" triggar is cancelled, and we get to tap for value next turn without losing anything.

Extra Turns

Using Alchemist's Gambit, we can take an extra turn for 3 mana, as long as we end the turn before its non-Cleave triggar activates on the next turn...a little nod to the Final Fortune I would be using if those cards had modern fronts.

Triggar Redundancy

So, they've tapped down your Obeka, Brute Chronologist just as you cast your Phyrexian Dreadnought. You're about to lose 12 power...what do we do? Luckily, we have a bunch of methods to keep our core ability functioning.

We can use a similar process to stop the offending ETB triggar: countering triggared abilities. Stifle is incredibly cheap, allowing a turn 2 Phyrexian Dreadnought play, among other things, whilst Tale's End costs 1 more but has the added value of being able to counter our opponent's commander, if we're in a healthy board state.

Alternatively, we can untap a tired Obeka, Brute Chronologist with Minamo, School at Water's Edge, use a begrudging Pestermite in a pinch, even use Sneak Attack and others to cheat in a Zealous Conscripts, but by that point we really are panicking.

Reanimator

Much of the deck comes down to a few key players: Phyrexian Dreadnought, Eater of Days, and It That Betrays, so we use a small reanimation package to get them in the graveyard to resummon, or Unearth, later.

1. Get them in the Grave

Not unlike a tutor, we search our library for what we want and get it in the graveyard. We can go cheap as chips (Entomb), fair and reasonable (Unmarked Grave), or expensive but find all 3 (Buried Alive). Either way, we have our big drops right where we want them.

2. Raise the Dead

Now that our big drops are in the 'yard, we need to turf them back out and get them onto the battlefield. We can go cheap with Reanimate, but we need to pay life for our sins (oh no, 1 life for Phyrexian Dreadnought!) but make sure not to use on It That Betrays); put on your reading glasses and use Animate Dead which brings it back with a negligable -1/-0; hope that there are 7 cards in your 'yard with Stitch Together or simply put it into your hand to cast for its same, cheap price; or use our End the Turn abilities to keep creatures, using Footsteps of the Goryo. Goryo's Vengeance works similarly, but usually grabs our other combo pieces as opposed to our big drops.

We can use Sedris, the Traitor King to get a creature out of the 'yard for {2}{B} and end its Unearth triggar early. We can also use Chainer, Nightmare Adept to both get the creature into the 'yard and turfing it out to give it Haste.

Top Ranked	Achieved #12 position overall 12 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Reanimator 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH UBR (Grixis) 4 years ago
Date added	12 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 56 - 6 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.18
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Centaur 3/3 G w/ Pro Black, Copy Clone
Folders	Interesting deck ideas, Favorites, Yup, Things I Like To Test, Torpor Orb, Deck I'd Like to Playtest, Like, Decks I Like, turn 2 win, Fav standard or modern