Life is Meaningless

Commander / EDH Aggro Tokens WUB (Esper) Zombie

MutaliskLord4

Land (37)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x High Market
• 1x Island
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Raffine's Tower
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Unclaimed Territory
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath

Boardwipe (5)

• 1x Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Kindred Dominance
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Winds of Abandon

Other (2)

• 1x Necroduality
• 1x Training Grounds

Weenie (20)

• 1x Archghoul of Thraben
• 1x Binding Mummy
• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x Bladestitched Skaab
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Champion of the Perished
• 1x Changeling Outcast
• 1x Corpse Knight
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Gravecrawler
• 1x Headless Rider
• 1x Lazotep Reaver
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Relentless Dead
• 1x Shepherd of Rot
• 1x Tidehollow Sculler
• 1x Undead Augur
• 1x Unsettled Mariner
• 1x Wayward Servant
• 1x Withered Wretch

Lord (8)

• 1x Bladestitched Skaab
• 1x Death Baron
• 1x Diregraf Captain
• 1x Diregraf Colossus
• 1x Haunted One
• 1x Lord of the Accursed
• 1x Lord of the Undead
• 1x Undead Warchief

Protection (8)

• 1x And They Shall Know No Fear
• 1x Flawless Maneuver
• 1x Haunted One
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Reconnaissance
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Unsettled Mariner
• 1x Zombie Master

Reanimation (3)

• 1x Lord of the Undead
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Relentless Dead

Evasion (2)

• 1x Wonder
• 1x Zombie Master

Commander (1)

Disruption (9)

• 1x Confounding Conundrum
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Grasp of Fate
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Snuff Out
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Withered Wretch

Ramp (9)

• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Undead Warchief

Draw (7)

• 1x Archghoul of Thraben
• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Lord of the Undead
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Undead Augur

MassDraw (7)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Graveborn Muse
• 1x Kindred Discovery
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Teferi's Ageless Insight

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Maybeboard

Other (13)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Bag of Holding
• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Dolmen Gate
• 1x God-Eternal Oketra
• 1x Haunted One
• 1x Lazotep Chancellor
• 1x Master of Death
• 1x Plague Belcher
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Wight

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"Life is meaningless"

-Varina

Why play Varina?

Varina is a 3-color zombie commander that incentivizes an aggressive playstyle. She wants a board of zombies on the battlefield the turn you play her so you can take advantage of her powerful filtering ability and loot 2-4 times. As a result, this is the perfect zombie commander to someone that dislikes the durdling playstyle that is typical of most other zombie commanders. Weenies are preferred over ramp and traditional cantrips in the early turns as a result. Here are some more in-depth reasons:

• She's a zombie commander that's 3 colors. Sure, you got your Thraximundars, Sidisi, Brood Tyrants and Sedris, the Traitor Kings, but Varina is the only 3-color zombie commander made with the tribe in mind. Also, there are a bunch of very good white zombies and utility cards that makes the third color a welcome addition. [Note: This was made before Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant came out so this statement is now somewhat untrue]
• Other classical zombie commanders are either slow, inefficient or are simply too limiting. Gisa and Geralf aren't even zombies, plus the card advantage of being able to cast only one zombie from your graveyard per turn is very slow. Grimgrin, Corpse-Born is just a sacrifice outlet that does not have many synergies with zombies themselves. It encourages an aristocrats strategy, not a zombies strategy. Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver is an interesting aristocrats zombie commander. It doubles up on zombies and draws a card a turn, which is around the same speed as Gisa and Geralf. Ghoulcaller Gisa is somewhat good, being able to generate a pretty big army, but sadly she is only limited to black and requires tapping to work, so there will usually be a turn delay before her powerful activated ability can be used. The Scarab God is a good commander, but its ability to turn other things into zombies makes it so that you won't have to be limited to just zombie cards, allowing you to play a UB Value deck rather than a dedicated zombie strategy. The deck is good but impure by zombie standards. The new kid on the block Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant is a fun alternative zombie commander that's both an army in a can and a boardwipe on a stick, which is very solid but still somewhat slow in my taste. If you want a less aggressive zombie commander then Nevinyrral is definitely the way to go.
• Her abilities incentivize a more aggressive strategy than is typical of other zombie decks. While the other zombie commanders are more passive in the way they obtain value, Varina gets straight up in the faces of your helpless victims to get her filter engine going. Furthermore, her filtering ability lets us discard useless cards while digging for the cards needed to answer the situation at hand, whether it is finding a card draw engine or an answer. If you want to get into zombies and get your hands dirty with aggression, this is the commander for you.

Alright, I wanna play Varina. What's the plan?

Varina looks to get on board quickly and use Varina’s powerful filtering ability to sculpt our hand. The best non-sol ring early game involves playing a bunch of mediocre 1-2 drops that will make Varina’s filtering strong out of the gate. Any early-game zombies that are drawn late can simply be discarded to the filtering, keeping only the best cards. Here's what the general plan looks like:

1. Play some cheap zombies
2. Play varina
3. Use Varina's filtering ability to try and find one of our powerful card draw engines. Alhammarret's Archive, Teferi's Ageless Insight, Bolas's Citadel, Graveborn Muse, Kindred Discovery, Necropotence, and Rhystic Study are the most powerful, with Archghoul of Thraben, Cryptbreaker, Lord of the Undead, and other cards in "Draw" working great as well, but we would rather have one of the former engines due to the raw amount of cards they are capable of drawing
4. Snowball out of control
5. Play a one-sided boardwipe such as Cyclonic Rift, Kindred Dominance, Archfiend of Ifnir or Winds of Abandon to reach the final stretch
6. Profit

Date added	6 years
Last updated	11 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 55 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.57
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Shapeshifter 3/2 C, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Army 0/0 B
Folders	Varina Ideas, Varina, Sample Commander Decks, Deck Ideas, yerr, Follow, edh, intersting decks, Cool EDH Decks