Chains of Dementia

Commander / EDH* Combo Competitive Control Midrange Mono-Black Reanimator

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Creature (39)

• 1x Abhorrent Overlord
• 1x Bone Shredder
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Cabal Therapist
• 1x Corpse Connoisseur
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Disciple of Griselbrand
• 1x Doom Whisperer
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x God-Eternal Bontu
• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x It That Betrays
• 1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1x Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip
• 1x Magus of the Coffers
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Mindslicer
• 1x Necrotic Ooze
• 1x Nirkana Revenant
• 1x Noxious Gearhulk
• 1x Phyrexian Devourer
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Triskelion
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Withered Wretch
• 1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Land (37)

• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Deserted Temple
• 1x Lake of the Dead
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 23x Swamp
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Vesuva

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Final Parting
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Victimize

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Phyrexian Arena

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana of the Dark Realms

Commander (1)

Artifact (11)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spawning Pit *list*

Instant (2)

• 1x Entomb
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

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Mono Black Control

Chainer, Dementia Master is one of the more versatile mono-black commanders available. His ability to reanimate any creature for the relatively low cost of 3 life and 3 black mana supports a huge variety of different deck builds. He lets you use the graveyard as an additional resource to your hand, and can consistently get more value from his creatures than other players by repeatedly reanimating them back. The deck can:

-Function through stax effects by cheating your creatures into play.

-Dodge counterspells by reanimating instead of casting, or reanimating a countered creature.

-Ramp with a multitude of creatures that increase your mana or fetch lands, and by dumping threats into the graveyard and cheating them out quickly, and

-Rapidly recover from board wipes by resurrecting all of your killed threats.

This particular build is a midrange/combo deck that focuses on controlling the board through removal and rapidly tutoring or drawing into one of several win conditions, with a backup suite of dangerous creatures to push aggressively when a combo is unavailable.

Win conditions and combos

Infinite Damage

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion is the deck's primary win condition. When both are on the board, remove a counter from the Triskelion to deal a damage to an opponent, then two counters to deal two damage to itself and kill itself. Then Mikaeus returns it to the battlefield with four counters, and you can remove 2 to deal 2 damage, then 2 again to itself. This can be repeated as many times as necessary for infinite damage.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Walking Ballista + a sacrifice outlet is another infinite damage loop. Remove any +1/+1 counters from the Ballista to deal damage, then Mikaeus will return it to the battlefield with a single additional counter. Because the Ballista will be buffed by Mikaeus, it cannot kill itself and deal damage, so you need to remove the counter to deal another damage, then sacrifice it to something like an Altar or Viscera Seer. The deck runs many free repeatable sacrifice effects, so this is generally not too difficult to accomplish.

The third damage win-con is Necrotic Ooze, Phyrexian Devourer, and Triskelion / Walking Ballista. The Ooze has all activated abilities of creatures in graveyards, including the Devourer's "Exile the top card of your library, and put +1/+1 counters on it equal to that card's converted mana cost." and the Triskelion or Ballista's "Remove a +1/+1 counter: deal one damage" abilities. With the Devourer and Triskelion/Ballista in your graveyard, and the Ooze on the battlefield, you can exile your own library to kill the rest of the table. This kill has a weakness in that it is technically not "infinite", relying on the cards in your library to deal damage. On average you'll still be dealing hundreds of damage, but use caution if your library is at a small size or your opponents are at very high life totals.

Life Loss

Kokusho, the Evening Star and Gray Merchant of Asphodel are the life-loss win conditions. Kokusho can act as an aggressive attacker or blocker, and when he dies he hurts every opponent and gains you plenty of life. You gain a minimum of five life when it dies, so it's a net-gain in life to sacrifice and reanimate Kokusho multiple times a turn. Gray Merchant acts as a potentially even more powerful version, depending on your devotion. One is a death effect and one is an ETB, so decide which to use based on the board state. With a free sacrifice outlet on the board, especially Phyrexian Altar, it can be trivial to reanimate one of these creatures enough times to kill at least one player in a single turn while netting massive amounts of life.

Other important combos

Abhorrent Overlord is a resource generator and potential win-con. Bringing him out generates harpy tokens; With enough devotion and a buff from Caged Sun or Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, it's possible to generate a large enough hoard of harpies to wipe another player out late game by reanimating and saccing him multiple times in one turn. When combined with Phyrexian Altar you sacrifice him and two of his harpies to create 3 mana to reanimate him again, and can repeat this as many times as you can pay life. Combined with Disciple of Griselbrand, you sacrifice a harpy for a mana, sacrifice the Overlord to the Disciple, and then sacrifice three more Harpies to reanimate the Overlord, making infinite life, tokens, and mana. This combos with several other cards including Blood Artist/Zulaport Cutthroat for infinite damage, Altar of Dementia for infinite mill, an infinitely large Exsanguinate/Torment of Hailfire, or infinite gravestorm triggers for Bitter Ordeal.

Cabal Coffers, Deserted Temple, and Rings of Brighthearth can create infinite black mana with 8 swamps, though the time spent assembling this combo is usually better spent going for a win. 2 mana to activate cabal coffers, 1 to use the temple to untap coffer, then spend 2 more to copy the temple's effect with Rings to also untap the temple. That's 5 mana to create a loop, plus you need 2 more to reactivate the coffers without needing to tap more land, so it costs 7 mana total. An eighth swamp net gains mana. This can be helped with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to turn the coffers and temple into swamps, or something like Caged Sun's extra mana gain.

Sacrifice effects

By now it should be pretty clear that sacrificing cards is very important, as most of the interaction in this deck relies on killing a creature or reanimating it multiple times in a row for maximum effect. Additionally, if Chainer dies, every creature he's reanimated is exiled, so it's very important to remove your own creatures in response before he dies. Because of this, any free sacrifice effect is one of the best because it wont take away your other resources.

The free outlets:

Viscera Seer lets you dig through your deck for important cards, primarily looking for combo pieces.

Yahenni, Undying Partisan becomes indestructible, surviving through potential boardwipes that will leave her huge and a dangerous attacker in her own right.

Altar of Dementia serves two roles. Most of the time you actually want to target yourself with the mill, filling your graveyard in the hopes of hitting key reanimator targets. You also can punish other combo decks by milling their win-cons away, or decking them out when you have enough board or mana for reanimation.

Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar both generate mana, which the deck needs a LOT of. Phyrexian Altar also enables more combos with Chainer's reanimation by providing black mana. These two are probably some of the most useful sac outlets in the deck for this reason, so protect them if possible.

Spawning Pit is best used when you block with creatures that will die in combat; block with creatures, and then sacrifice them to the Pit to eventually convert into more tokens. It doesn't combo with anything on it's own, but lets you stretch further value from your creatures and gives an outlet for your extra mana to bring in new creatures.

Other Important Sacrifice Effects:

Abhorrent Overlord requires a sacrifice on your upkeep. Usually, the correct choice is to sacrifice the Overlord to itself so you can reanimate it and make yet more harpies, but in a pinch he can dump another creature back to the graveyard.

Disciple of Bolas requires a secondary sacrifice outlet to get the maximum value, but is a useful one shot to bring another important creature back to the graveyard. If you can repeatedly sacrifice him as well, he provides reliable sources of life gain and card draw.

Disciple of Griselbrand is probably your most important non-free sacrifice outlet. For one mana, you can sacrifice a creature to gain life equal to it's toughness. Because you will be reanimating many things, it's easy to get dangerously low on life, and if you don't have Kokusho or Gray Merchant to top off, the Disciple is your easiest way to stock up life while continuing your sacrifice chains. As detailed above, it can also form a powerful combo with the Overlord. High Market is a weaker version that can only be used once a turn.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Razaketh, the Foulblooded are perhaps some of the most important cards in the deck, as reliable and repeatable tutors. When Sidisi enters the battlefield, you sac a creature to tutor. Sacrifice Sidisi to her own effect so she's immediately put back into the graveyard to reanimate. Every time you can pay Chainer's activation cost to reanimate Sidisi is another tutor. Razaketh works better if you already have a large enough board state, as you only need 2 life and no mana to tutor, but you need other creatures to use him. If you have a tutor spell in hand and need to tutor for multiple cards, it's usually a good idea to search out one of these two creatures and use them to find the rest of the things you need.

Fleshbag Marauder and Merciless Executioner + Butcher of Malakir, Grave Pact, and Dictate of Erebos. These are your primary way to control the board. When you play the Marauder or Executioner, each player must sacrifice a creature. Ideally, you sacrifice the Marauder to itself to immediately put it in the graveyard for reanimating. Repeat enough times to clear your opponent's boards. Your Butcher, Grave Pact, and Dictate all make this exchange even more in your favor. It That Betrays gets honorable mention for turning these cards into ways to steal your opponent's permanents as well.

Weaknesses and tuning the deck

As versatile as Chainer can be, he isn't perfect. Several matchups provide unique challenges that you will need to adjust your deck to overcome. There is no one 'perfect' list for Commander, so if your meta is heavy on any of these things, consider adjusting the deck accordingly:

Heavy removal:

The deck heavily relies on Chainer to shine. In a meta where opponents can rapidly kill Chainer over and over, it becomes difficult to run the deck without reliably keeping him on the field. Every time he dies and exiles some of your creatures in the process, that's less tools for you to work with. Even killing your other creatures repeatedly can be taxing on your life total to reanimate them too many times. For a time I ran Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves to protect Chainer before cutting them to focus on tutoring my own combos. Also consider running Imp's Mischief if kill spells are a large threat.

Stax:

Stax is not the worst matchup for Chainer, and Stax Chainer decks can be quite powerful, but it is something you will need to keep in mind and build around if it's prevalent in your meta. Against cards like Winter Orb or Static Orb, your creatures such as Crypt Ghast or Nirkana Revenant become even more useful, along with the ever powerful Cabal Coffers. Cards that make it harder for you to cast spells can be dodged by using Chainer to reanimate instead of cast creatures. Gate to Phyrexia can provide answers to some Stax pieces, and I have successfully taken out Stax decks with massive Torment of Hailfires before.

Graveyard hate:

This is one of the harder matchups for Chainer. Cards like Nevermore, Grafdigger's Cage, or Leyline of the Void take away Chainer's biggest advantage. Black's lack of counter spells and difficulty removing artifacts or enchantments means that if one of these spells resolves it will be almost impossible to remove it. Midrange is a viable answer to these decks, relying on your ability to ramp in threatening fatties to try and kill the hate player quickly. Gate to Phyrexia again helps here to remove some hate cards.

Fast combo decks:

Chainer is not designed to win quickly. Chainer controls the board through value and removal until he finds his own combos. Decks like Food Chain Tazri or Doomsday Grenzo that can rapidly assemble a combo in the first few turns of the game have a huge advantage. To counter these decks, play Stax yourself. Build your deck much the same way you would build to counter stax; cut midrange cards, try to lock your opponents out of the game, and focus on your ability to break parity through cheating out value with Chainer. There are several excellent primers on Stax Chainer elsewhere online if you want to see an in depth look at this build.

Enemy reanimators:

This isn't a weakness so much as a double edged sword that both you and your opponent will need to be aware of. Opponents with heavy reanimation will be able to take just as much advantage of your graveyard as you do! Some of the most tense games I've ever played with this deck were against a friend's Chainer deck. Be selective with what cards you discard or how heavily you mill yourself unless you're confidant you'll be able to reanimate key targets before they can. Bojuka Bog and Tormod's Crypt can nuke the opponent's graveyard while leaving yours intact, while cards like Withered Wretch can selectively snipe key targets before the opponent can take them.

The meta at my main local game store is primarily made of aggro and midrange players, with a decent number of other decks that interact with the graveyard, and a small number of players that play dedicated stax or fast combo. As such I've built my deck somewhat greedily, with a focus on creature control and combo. My general early game is to use my first tutor or two to grab something like Cabal Coffers or Crypt Ghast to ramp and protecting myself with removal or threatening creatures while I try to assemble my Mikaeus Triskelion combo quickly. My deck is one of the only dedicated reanimator decks so my own graveyard hate is limited, with a Withered Wretch and Bojuka Bog to help answer other graveyards. In the occasional Stax matchups I generally try to play as midrange, presenting as many dangerous creatures as I can while trying to assemble a combo for when their shields are down. Against the faster combo decks, my ramp and tutoring is heavy enough it's possible for me to out race them to a combo, though that is much more up to luck as I have decided to not focus my build against them as they are a minority at the shop.

Date added	7 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 0 Mythic Rares 39 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.86
Tokens	2/2 C Artifact Creature Spawn, Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Harpy 1/1 B, Morph 2/2 C, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	4 commander, commander, Edh decks I like