Horrors from Beyond

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) Discard Reanimator

Tinnuki

Land (34)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Forest
• 1x Forest
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 1x Island
• 1x Island
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Rejuvenating Springs
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Undergrowth Stadium
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Yavimaya Coast
• 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow
• 1x Zagoth Triome

Mimeoplasm Targets: The Power (5)

• 1x Consuming Aberration
• 1x Death's Shadow
• 1x Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1x Impervious Greatwurm
• 1x Lord of Extinction

Value / Card Advantage (16)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Dream Halls
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Windfall
• 1x Wonder
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

Interaction (11)

• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Slaughter Pact
• 1x Stifle

Mimeoplasm Targets: The Function (8)

• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Gaea's Revenge
• 1x Inkwell Leviathan
• 1x Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Spirit of the Night
• 1x Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
• 1x Wrexial, the Risen Deep

Commander (1)

Graveyard Setup (12)

• 1x Ancient Excavation
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Dream Halls
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Grimoire of the Dead
• 1x Grisly Salvage
• 1x Hermit Druid
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Unmarked Grave
• 1x Urborg Lhurgoyf

Mana (8)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sylvan Caryatid

Reanimation (7)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Exhume
• 1x Grimoire of the Dead
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Stitch Together
• 1x Victimize

---

"I have seen beyond the bounds of infinity and drawn down daemons from the stars... I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness..."

H.P. Lovecraft, "From Beyond"

Overview

During my early days of learning Magic, I greatly enjoyed the concept of utilizing the graveyard as a temporary holding zone for your cards. This naturally led me to exploring reanimator strategies, including the PDS Graveborn deck released around the same time. I loved that kind of flashy, big-Timmy play.

This deck tries to exemplify that mindset with a focus on early board control and a defensive, under-the-radar style of play while we set up, getting the right creatures into the graveyard to turn our Mimeoplasm into the unstoppable force we need it to be.

Commander damage is only one way to win; we can use our range of reanimation spells to cheat out some of Sultai's best creatures far ahead of curve.

Card Rundown

Utility Creatures

Eternal Witness: The commander standard for recurring a card.

Fauna Shaman: Basically Survival of the Fittest on a body, she'll help us cycle our big creatures into more immediately-useful ones.

Hermit Druid: Lob large chunks of our library into the graveyard.

Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord: Blowing up an oversized Consuming Aberration or Lord of Extinction is a great backup wincon.

Ramunap Excavator: A Crucible of Worlds on a body.

Urborg Lhurgoyf: Ideally, we want to play this double-kicked to maximize the effect.

Wonder: Adding that extra little bit of evasion.

Value

Card Draw: Fact or Fiction, Mystic Remora, Phyrexian Arena, Rhystic Study, Windfall

Value: Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Sylvan Library, Yawgmoth's Will

Removal/Disruption: Assassin's Trophy, Counterspell, Cyclonic Rift, Maelstrom Pulse, Mana Drain, Negate, Pact of Negation, Putrefy, Slaughter Pact, Stifle

Ramp: Birds of Paradise, Cultivate, Deathrite Shaman, Kodama's Reach, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Sylvan Caryatid

Setting up the Graveyard

Buried Alive, Entomb, Fauna Shaman, Intuition, Unmarked Grave, and Survival of the Fittest are the type of targeted cards that this deck needs to set up as efficiently as possible.

Dream Halls is particularly useful for cycling our reanimation targets into our graveyard while giving us free spells (including our commander!) for it.

Hermit Druid can be a risky gamble, having only 6 basic lands, but he often provides a nice payoff. A common combo piece for these type of decks, we play him just a bit more fairly.

Grimoire of the Dead can prevent our targets from sitting idly in our hand.

Performing the Ritual

Primary Creature Choices (The Function)

Consecrated Sphinx: Flying is always helpful, and it has the potential to generate a LOT of card advantage.

Emrakul, the Promised End: Not only a good source for power, she is an excellent choice for function as well. Depending on how long the game runs and how much the casting cost is reduced, hard-casting Emrakul might be attainable.

Gaea's Revenge: Haste, color-coded protection, and 8 power pairs well with our 13-power secondary targets.

Inkwell Leviathan: Islandwalk, Trample, and Shroud means Mimeo is going to be hitting blue players hard, and trampling everybody else.

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur: Do I feel bad about including him? Yeah, kinda.

Sheoldred, Whispering One: Trade your opponents' creatures for your dead ones. Swampwalk is nice, too.

Spirit of the Night: Flying, Trample, Haste, B-Protection, and conditional First Strike.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger: Gives you a boost to your mana and greatly dampens your opponents' plans.

Wrexial, the Risen Deep: Islandwalk, Swampwalk, and the ability to steal tutors, ramp cards, kill spells, and whatever else your opponents may have discarded.

Secondary Creature Choices (The Power)

Emrakul, the Promised End: +13/+13

Death's Shadow: +13/+13

Impervious Greatwurm: +16/+16

Consuming Aberration, Lord of Extinction: +?/+?
Yes, the * values hold across all zones.

Winning the Game

Once we have our Mimeoplasm built just as we need, our strategy shifts to beatdown. Using our reactionary spells and calculated attacks, we can easily use the pressure of massive commander damage to methodically mow down our opponents' battlefield presence, until nothing is left standing.

Our reanimation spells such as Animate Dead, Exhume, Living Death, Reanimate, Stitch Together, Victimize can be used to cheat out some of our targets if we're finding our commander locked down or otherwise inaccessible. Getting a Praetor or two in the first several turns can all but pave our path to victory and swiftly promote us to Archenemy.

As a last-resort wincon, we have a secondary backup commander in the 99: Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord. With a sizeable monster like Consuming Aberration or Lord of Extinction on the battlefield, 1BG can win us the game on the spot.

Card Notes

Cards to try:
Greenseeker, Harvest Mage: more cheap discard outlets are handy, but how many is too many? These ones ramp too, which is nice.
Yargle and Multani: 18 power is pretty tasty...

Cards to cut:
Grimoire of the Dead: Unfortunately one of the original cards that made up this deck, I feel like it doesn't do too much for its mana cost anymore, and I rarely cast it. I keep it around for nostalgia more than anything.

Comments on other cards:
Phyrexian Obliterator,
Stormtide Leviathan,
Simic Sky Swallower,
most other Eldrazi: Simply didn't make the cut.

Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon,
Blighted Agent, etc: I didn't enjoy infect wins.

Skullclamp,
Mana Crypt,
Mana Vault,
Sensei's Divining Top: I know these are all very good cards, I just don't have the space for them

Deck Analysis

The biggest flaw I experience with a concerning frequency is the speed of this deck. While I am often able to get the pieces to fall into place by turn 5 or 6 in preparation to cast Mimeo, if I am not able to find the right spells, this deck folds to faster, more aggressive decks. Not only that, but one instance of graveyard hate can cripple this deck, if you don't have the answers in hand.

I set out to build this deck while avoiding two tempting pitfalls. There are no infinite combos in this deck, and I have removed all instances of Infect. This is simply due to a personal preference, as I enjoy the puzzle of building my commander just right to one-shot my opponents without these shortcuts.

Deck History

Though I've been playing Magic since original Innistrad, the Tarkir era was when I started to seriously get into the game, and Commander specifically. The introduction of Sultai both as a clan, and as slang for my favorite three colors of Magic really struck a chord with me. Around this time, I was new to Commander, and only toyed around with making a Grixis deck. After seeing all the great cards coming out of Tarkir, I dropped those prospects and jumped straight to Sultai, settling on The Mimeoplasm as a commander, only narrowly beating Sidisi.

This deck has been with me since 2012, and I aim to upgrade and tune it with every new set release. It is one of the few decks that I've kept throughout several hiatuses and "breaks" from the game, and it's the one deck that I would truly consider to be "my commander deck."

Thanks for reading!

Top Ranked	Achieved #13 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #10 position in Commander / EDH 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Discard 3 years ago
Date added	10 years
Last updated	3 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.36
Folders	Budget EDH, Commander decks, Favorites, Tinnuki's EDH Decks, Possibly fun, Commander, cool decks, commander decks, Inspiration, Decks to Look at