Atris, Oracle of Mini-games (Primer)

Commander / EDH Blink Budget Control Reanimator UB (Dimir)

BuffLizardMan

Creature (28)

• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Dream Eater
• 1x Evil Twin
• 1x Glasspool Mimic  ^Flip
• 1x Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• 1x Gravebreaker Lamia
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Gyruda, Doom of Depths
• 1x Illithid Harvester
• 1x Intellect Devourer
• 1x Kotose, the Silent Spider
• 1x Massacre Girl
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Meteor Golem
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Orvar, the All-Form
• 1x Peregrine Drake
• 1x Phyrexian Delver
• 1x Possessed Skaab
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Sakashima the Impostor
• 1x Scholar of the Lost Trove
• 1x The Scarab God
• 1x Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood
• 1x Watcher for Tomorrow

Instant (14)

• 1x Blur
• 1x Countersquall
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Displace
• 1x Epiphany at the Drownyard
• 1x Essence Flux
• 1x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Illusionist's Stratagem
• 1x Mission Briefing
• 1x Sinister Sabotage
• 1x Siren's Ruse
• 1x Teferi's Time Twist
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Whirlwind Denial

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Conjurer's Closet
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Unstable Obelisk
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Blood for Bones
• 1x Connive / Concoct
• 1x Deadly Tempest
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Scheming Symmetry
• 1x Victimize
• 1x Voidwalk

Commander (1)

Land (34)

• 1x Blighted Fen
• 1x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Cryptic Caves
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 13x Island
• 1x Leechridden Swamp
• 1x Port of Karfell
• 10x Swamp
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Watery Grave

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Ashiok, Dream Render
• 1x Liliana, Death's Majesty

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Verity Circle

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Maybeboard

Creature (11)

• 1x Agent of Treachery
• 1x Burning-Rune Demon
• 1x Crafty Cutpurse
• 1x Master Thief
• 1x Mirrorhall Mimic  ^Flip
• 1x Oona, Queen of the Fae
• 1x Overseer of the Damned
• 1x Reaper from the Abyss
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
• 1x Undercover Operative

Artifact (2)

• 1x Coveted Jewel
• 1x Panharmonicon

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Bond of Revival
• 1x Final Parting

Instant (2)

• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip

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Description

A reanimator style deck with an interesting etb effect in the command zone that you can use to your advantage.

Introduction

My first reaction to seeing Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths spoiled was: "What a dumb card its a Fact or Fiction with downside. But Atris sat at the back of my mind, and little by little I wanted to build the deck just because the card was so weird, and I knew my opponents would be confused upon seeing it. I had a look at the few Atris decks that already existed and put together some ideas that would synergies well. The options were Flicker, Bounce, Self-Mill and ETBs. Clearly there was some overlap between these and I loved the idea of Fact or Fiction type effects. But once Atris is out it doesn't do a whole lot. This was a turning point for me. I began building a commander deck that did not heavily rely on the commander to generate value or win. Lets dive into what is in my opinion, my best constructed commander deck, helmed by a questionable legendary. Welcome to Atris and his minigame. Too bad the game is rigged.

Deck Strengths

This deck has plenty of removal that can start turning sideways and excels at removing creatures, slowly taking control of the game.

Deck Weaknesses

Aggro decks and very proactive decks will definitely be a lot more difficult for you to deal with. As this is a casual build, the mana curve is not as low to deal with such fast threats. Anything that shuts down ETB triggers such as Hushwing Gryff and Hushbringer will also be a problem for you.

Mulligan

You have more leeway when selecting a hand with this deck as you can use your commander to dig for more cards if necessary. You will want a hand with some lands, ramp, and either flicker or reanimater spells. Anything else is bonus.

Winning the Mini-game

Perhaps one of the intricacies of this deck, and definitely worth the effort of learning if you plan on getting those ETB triggers off Atris. Your opponent will have a hard time deciding what exactly they want to put in each pile, and with one pile face up you have limited information to decide which you would like to pick. Once your opponent has played the mini-game against you a number of times, they will have an even harder time trying to split the cards up. There are a couple key points to winning the mini-game. Firstly the game is rigged in your favour most of the time. With plenty of reanimate effects and targets in the deck, you will probably base most of your choices off this. For example if you need a reanimate you will take the pile that either has one face up, or the face down pile. This does two things. It gives you a reanimator effect, and will most likely fill your graveyard with targets to reanimate. The pile you choose mostly depends on the state of your hand and what you need. Short on lands? Opponents will try to get you to bin the lands you need. Need removal or counter spells? Pick the pile they're most likely to be in. Most of the time the only time you will lose the game is if you get greedy and get a pile of lands for an empty hand, or lose lands that you need by being greedy for a face up card that you cannot cast. Conversely, if you are playing against Atris and have to choose the piles there are two approaches. Play a lot of god damn mind games because you are familiar with how the Atris player will pick piles, or just pick the piles as if it were a Fact or Fiction.

Game-plan

The game-plan is to use your ETB creatures to slowly take control of the game. Kill threats and then turn some of these decent sized bodies sideways to get in for damage. Casting cost a problem? Just dump big creatures into your graveyard and reanimate using any number of effects. Alternatively assemble an infinite mana/flicker combo to close out the game.

Combos

Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker + Peregrine Drake along with five lands produces infinite mana. Possessed Skaab can be subbed in for Archaeomancer. In this case Displace can also be used instead of Ghostly Flicker

Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker + Gilded Lotus produces infinite mana.

If you have executed this combo you can win the game from here using several options. If you have a Leechridden Swamp and two other black permanents you can drain your opponents, otherwise, add a large arbitrary amount of mana to your pool and change the second target of Ghostly Flicker from Peregrine Drake to any number of ETB creatures. As Atris is always available in the command zone you will always have something to dig through your deck. Other interesting creatures to flicker include Gravebreaker Lamia, Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign, Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Dream Eater. My favorite is using Gonti, Lord of Luxury to exile my opponents' entire libraries and using their win conditions. Infinite mana can also be sunk into Oona, Queen of the Fae to remove your opponents' libraries.

Notable Inclusions

Orvar, the All-Form is currently a of tech that I haven't experimented much with yet. Orvar can potentially provide ludicrous amounts of value using flicker spells.

Gravebreaker Lamia tutors cards to the graveyard that can be reanimated or returned with an Archaeomancer type effect. The secondary ability doesn't affect anything. Lifelink on a 4/4 body is not negligible and can help offset lifeloss.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury can be instrumental for ruining people who just tutored or stacked the top of their library. Can really mess with Noxious Revival plays, and just removed combo pieces from your opponents game plan.

Phyrexian Delver is a value machine that can enable you to chain a reanimation and then flicker it for further reanimation. It is particularly potent with Vilis, Broker of Blood as it will immediately cause you to draw eight cards.

Sakashima the Impostor, Evil Twin and Glasspool Mimic   all give you additional opportunities to get more ETBs, as well as the utility of copying your opponents creatures.

Meteor Golem and Overseer of the Damned whilst expensive (in cmc) can be reanimated and flickered to remove threats.

Noteable Exclusions

You'll notice the deck does not run a large amount of counterspells and removal spells. The counterspells in this deck aren't exactly top tier either, however there is some slight synergy with Sinister Sabotage. This deck is more focused around a more casual setting so I relaxed on counterspells to play more interesting cards that by them self affect the board. Also where is Fact or Fiction? ETB card draw/advantage is more repeatable, but could definitely be swapped in for something or even just used instead of Epiphany at the Drownyard which can either be used for lots or little mana.

Effects such as Reliquary Tower and Thought Vessel are excluded so you have the option of discard creatures to be reanimated later. There will be a surprising number of times where you end up with more than seven cards in your hand at end step.

I tried Nightmare Shepherd, but exiling cards feels really bad and can sometimes stop you. The Scarab God is just better if you need to exile your own things as it can steal creatures from your opponents graveyards and scry on upkeep.

Budget Cuts

How much you're willing to spend on singles and what cards are already part of your collection will limit how you put together a deck of your own. In the spirit of lower budget players this section will include some cheap alternatives for key cards over $5. I'll be ignoring lands as you can just replace those with basics in a pinch.

Animate Dead and Reanimate - Bond of Revival, Unbreakable Bond

Vampiric Tutor and Scheming Symmetry - Final Parting, Unmarked Grave

Sakashima the Impostor - Stolen Identity

Final Thoughts

If you enjoy reanimating, flicker or etb effects you'll enjoy this deck. Atris provides a unique mechanic that can bring some flavour to games, and I'm excited every time to resolve his ETB trigger. Watching your opponents struggle to choose is also very entertaining.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	2 years
Key combos	Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker + Gilded Lotus Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker + Peregrine Drake
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 29 - 0 Rares 29 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.67
Tokens	Copy Clone, On an Adventure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Casual, Sweet Decks, Dimir (UB)