--Abhorrent Overlord: A massive beater that brings an army with it and acts as a Sac outlet! This deck is build to have high Black Devotion, so we're likely to get LOADS of 1/1 Fliers when we cast this guy. He is a little expensive to "hardcast" (pay the 7CMC to play it), so getting him into the graveyard to reanimate is best!
--Archfiend of Depravity: A Psudo-Stax piece that forces our opponents to sacrifice all their worst Creatures, which then makes our other Edict effects like Plaguecrafter work much more effectively. It also has great stats, 5/4 Flyers can really beat down, and wear Equipment quite well!
"PRO TIP" Reanimate this guy with Chainer right before an opponents end step to give them minimal opportunity to remove him before he forces them to sacrifice their Creatures!
--Bloodgift Demon: Phyrexian Arena on a big flying stick! Great consistent card draw. Not a great reanimation target, but a good value Creature to hardcast as early as possible.
--Coffin Queen: A fantastic backup reanimation engine, she essentially works as miniature version of Chainer in the 99. She is more fragile, can't reanimate more than one target at a time, and really requires a Sac outlet to function best when reanimating your own Creatures, so be careful when/how you use her. She can also be used as emergency 'graveyard hate' on our opponents creatures, reanimating one each turn, then untapping to exile it! I haven't had much experience with her yet, so I'll keep updating this as she seems to have a lot of potential!
--Crypt Ghast: One of the most powerful cards in the deck, and a top Tutor target. Essentially doubling our mana potential, and giving us a way to use it with Extort. If it sticks around it can allow Chainer to reanimate a ton of Creatures, or fuel a lethal Profane Command.
--Daring Fiendbonder: I'm really suprised this guy isn't used in more Chainer decks. As a Creature, he's easy to tutor for with Buried Alive and Gravebreaker Lamia, and can be exiled for 2 mana to give Chainer an Indestructible counter to protect him! The ability is Sorcery-speed, but can't be countered without using a spell like Disallow.
--Deal Broker: One of the best creatures to play in the early game that's still very relevant in the late game. Early on it lets us put big expensive creatures into our graveyard to reanimate later, while drawing cheaper spells and helping us hit land drops. Later in the game it stops us from flooding out, by swapping lands and mana rocks for gas! Don't be afraid to discard expensive bomb creatures early on, there's plenty of reanimation options in the deck, and you'll often want targets for them in your graveyard the moment that you draw them... especially for Entreat the Dead
--Demon's Disciple: More of a removal spell than a Creature, just make sure you sacrifice him to his own ETB ability so he ends up in your graveyard, because he's a great target for Chainer. This deck has a lot of Edict effects like this, which tend to get progressively better when used in succession as the first effect might 'brick' on a worthless token, but the second might hit their bomb!
--Dimir House Guard: This guy is FANTASTIC. He's a free sacrifice outlet that protects himself and can even sacrifice himself to his own ability, which is surprisingly useful if we reanimate him using Chainer. He also has evasion, AND he's an uncounterable Tutor for a 4CMC spells that works well on-curve. The best targets for him as a Tutor are Crypt Ghast for Ramp, Daring Fiendbonder for protecting Chainer, Disciple of Bolas for Card Draw, Price of Fame for Removal and Whip of Erebos for Recursion! I really want to get a Foil copy of him!
--Disciple of Bolas: As a 2/1 Creature, you're really after it for its ETB effect. Luckily its ETB effect is great. It lets us sacrifice a Creature (which is often a bonus) and, depending on how big it was, gain a fair chunk of life and draw a TON of cards! She can be reanimated to have the same effect in a pinch, but if you choose the right target the first time, you're unlikely to need to again!
--Disciple of Griselbrand: An Instant-speed Sac outlet that can help us get back some of the life lost to Chainer. He can also sacrifice himself to his own ability in an emergency.
--Dread Presence: An awesome cheap Creature. He just does everything. Card draw or removal of small Creatures whenever you play a Swamp is fantastic. I'll usually try to play him followed up by a Swamp in the same turn, so I can trigger him at least once before anyone has a chance to remove him. Most of the time I'll use his trigger to draw, unless there's a really good target for the damage, or I'm running dangerously low on life.
"PRO TIP" Wayfarer's Bauble and Myriad Landscape are ways to put multiple Swamps into play on a single turn, allowing us to use Dread Presence to kill larger Creatures by repeatedly hitting them with 2 damage! We can also wait to crack them until Dead Presence is in play, so we get a lot of value out of him before anyone has much of a chance to kill him off!
--Dream Devourer: An interesting new card that lets us effectively "ramp" into our late game plays two turns earlier, and this deck has plenty of powerful high CMC cards. He also lets us store excess cards in exile, where they're safe from discard effects (although we don't usually mind discarding creatures that we can later reanimate) and can help avoid discarding to max hand size once we get some card draw engines going. It's also a nice early game blocker that has some serious 'threat of activation' when attacking in the late game (when we have a hand full of cards and enough mana to fortell them all at Instant-speed). He seems like he will work very well with reactive cards, letting us hold up some instant-speed removal with less mana... fortelling Dismember is nice, letting us cast it for just 4 life! Unfortunately fortelling a card with him does not help us cast any costs.
--K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth: K'rrik works primarily as a key part of the main lethal combo in this deck. It involves K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth + Gray Merchant of Asphodel + Chainer, Dementia Master + a free repeatable Sacrifice outlet. With K'rrik, Chainer and the Sac outlet in play, cast or reanimate Gray Merchant to drain each opponent for minimum of 7 (gaining 21 life with 3 other players). Then Sac Gray Merchant and reanimate him using Chainer by paying 9 life instead of mana (Using K'rrik's ability). Keep repeating this loop to drain everyone out! Use Buried Alive to tutor K'rrik, Gray and a Sac outlet into your graveyard all at once, then use Chainer to reanimate K'rrik to get the combo started for no extra mana! Outside of this combo, K'rrik can be quite fragil and using his ability to pay life to pay costs can put us too low to be able to use Chainer's ability repeatedly.
--Gonti, Lord of Luxury: Just a great value card. For 4 mana, it gives us a 2/3 Deathtouch Creature, which really dissuades attacks, along with the choice of a card from an opponents deck! This is a great way to get access to effects that Mono-Black usually can't, like Artifact and Enchantment Removal. He's also an excellent target for Mimic Vat, 3 mana to draw the best of top 4 cards of an opponents deck, plus a 2/3 Deathtouch chump blocker or attacker!
--Gravebreaker Lamia: Another great card that just seems to do it all! A big Lifelink Creature who puts a spell into your graveyard! The best targets for her "Tutor" ability are big expensive game-winning Creatures that you want to reanimate with Chainer, rather than hardcast.
--Gray Merchant of Asphodel: One of this decks main Wincons. With enough mana, Chainer and a Sac outlet, we can repeatedly reanimate and Sac him to drain our opponents to death. This deck is built to provide decent Black Devotion, so he's often more impactful than Kokusho, the Evening Star, which is a nonbudget alternative. He's another great Mimic Vat target as the token that the Vat produces have the same mana cost of the copied card, so the token copy of Gary will always drain for a minimum of 2 for each opponent!
--Leaden Myr: A nice little Black mana dork that can chump block and wear equipment! Also, being colorless means he can block Creatures with protection from Black! If you run into a lot of sweeper effects, consider running a normal mana rock like Charcoal Diamond in his place!
--Mindwrack Demon: A cheap Creature with fantastic stats that has good Black Devotion and wears Equipment really well! He also fills my graveyard with goodies to reanimate with Chainer... So what's the downside?...well...he punches us in the face each turn if we don't have Delirium.
"STATS" By himself, on average, he puts around 3 card types into our graveyard, because we have a nice balance of Lands/Instants/Creatures/Artifacts/Enchantments/Sorceries, and a few Artifact/Enchantment Creatures, which count as 2 types when in the graveyard. Creatures, Instants and Sorceries tend to make their way to the graveyard naturally, so if he mills a Land, Artifact or Enchantment, we'll probably be fine. We can also hold off on playing him until we already have a few card types in our graveyard, if our health is under pressure.
--Noxious Gearhulk: Removal and Lifegain on a big evasive body. A perfect target for Chainer or Mimic Vat. If you have a Sac outlet and enough mana, just keep repeatedly sacrificing and reanimating him with Chainer to kill any threats, and gain a ton of life!
--Nullpriest of Oblivion: A really nice versatile Creature from Zendikar Rising. A good turn 2 play as it's likely to get in for a lot of hits with Menace, and the Lifelink means it's going to have a decent impact on life totals. In the late game, it's a fine 6 mana play that can get you back a Creature from your graveyard (if Chainer is busy ;). She's a good Creature to hold onto as insurance when you already have a developed board, in case someone casts a sweeper you can use her to reanimate your best Creature quickly!
--Overseer of the Damned: More removal on a big evasive stick... that brings an army of zombies with it instead of gaining you life like Noxious Gearhulk! It is pretty expensive at 7 mana so it's a good target to put into your graveyard and reanimate. but it can really turn a game around. It also works as sweeper insurance, as it will "see" every other enemy Creature die, leaving you with an army of zombies after everything else dies!
--Plaguecrafter: The best version of this effect. He works the same as Demon's Disciple, but with the upside of forcing your opponents to discard if they're out of Creatures or Planeswalkers to sacrifice! He's a great target to Tutor directly into your graveyard using cards like Buried Alive and Gravebreaker Lamia.
--Sepulchral Primordial: A great budget finisher that works very well when reanimated himself. This deck has plenty of ways to kill your opponents creatures, so you'll often have plenty of good targets, and if you can re-trigger his ETB multiple times (using Chainer, Mimic Vat etc...) then you can easily take over the game.
--Sidisi, Undead Vizier: A repeatable Grim Tutor with Chainer if you target her with her own Exploit effect. She also has a pretty good 'failcase' as a 4/6 Deathtouch for 5CMC, but you'll almost always want to trade her (or your worst Creature) for a Tutor effect!
--Soldevi Adnate: A great Sac outlet that gives you some mana in the process, which is really handy when you want to repeatedly sacrifice and reanimate creatures with Chainer. You can also sacrifice it to itself for in an emergency, or if you want to ramp into a 5CMC play on turn 3!
--Solemn Simulacrum: A nice creature that brings some good consistency to the deck, and can act as Ramp and Card Draw when reanimated with Chainer, then sacrificed. A pretty good Mimic Vat target... when you have a Sac outlet.
--Steel Hellkite: A pet card of mine that also fits into Mono-Black decks very well as it's a way to destroy Artifacts and Enchantments. It also totally hoses Tokens as they (usually) have a CMC of 0. It also makes good use of the huge amounts of mana this deck can produce. The colorless "fire-Breathing" effect it has can easily finish someone off in the late game. Reanimate it with Chainer on an opponents end step right before your turn to give it "haste", so you have a better chance to get an attack with it before its killed... because it will get killed...
--Stinkweed Imp: A nice cheap creature that fends off early attacks. Nobody wants to attack into it because you can get it back each turn, while filling your graveyard with targets to reanimate. It's also a nice target for cards like Gravebreaker Lamia or Buried Alive if you're not looking to tutor directly for a combo piece.
--Toshiro Umezawa: He used to be my commander, but I found he really needed a lot of things to go right for him to do much. I ended up building my deck to be viable without him, which turned out to be about 80% of what you need for a good Chainer deck. I have him in here because he has some good potential to get more use out of the variety of Instants I still run... and because he's awesome!
--Vilis, Broker of Blood: The quintessential Creature in any Chainer deck. A massive threat that struggles not to draw you a TON of cards, and you can't really draw too many in this deck because your graveyard is like a second hand, so discarding down to 7 is often a bonus. Again, a massive 8/8 Flying beater can knock people out very quickly, and wears Equipment like Shadowspear very well!
--Yahenni, Undying Partisan: A free Instant-speed Sac outlet that's pretty hard to kill, and can grow into a huge threat if left unchecked. Another low CMC early game defender. I haven't had much experience with her yet, but I find it hard to imagine her NOT doing really really well, especially as this deck has a lot of ways to kill creatures!
