This is one of the first decks I made. I loved the idea of centering your play around the graveyard and reanimating very powerful creatures with fantastic activated abilities for relatively cheap
The heart of this deck is Satyr Wayfinder, Commune with the Gods, and Grisly Salvage to mill yourself as well as retrieving other key cards like Whip of Erebos or much needed lands. This bolsters your graveyard, which is essentially your playing field.
once your graveyard has some presence, Obzedat's Aid or Whip of Erebos can reanimate whatever creature your heart desires onto the battlefield. Most creatures in the deck have relatively high mana costs, which reflects their very useful "when this card enters the battlefield..." type of abilities. But this mana cost is eluded by your reanimation cards. Depending on the particular situation on the field, you will have ample choice of powerful creatures to summon that will deal with tough situations such as land removal and land generation from Sylvan Primodial, hand control from Sin Collector, annihilation from Pathrazer of Ulamog, exiling permanents from Ashen Rider and Angel of Serenity, mass token generation from Abhorrent Overlord and wurm token generation from Armada Wurm. There are literally so many different effects to take advantage of when tapping whip or erebos or casting Obzedat's Aid.
Another recently added card is Obzedat, Ghost Council. When it enters the field, you steal 2 life from your opponent. Usually when Whip of Erebos reanimates a creature, it is exiled at the end of the turn. But you can circumnavigate this by using obzedat's effect; exile him at the end of your turn before Whip of Erebos does and return him to the field during your next upkeep. This allows you to basically permanently reanimate him as well as continuously activating his 2 damage lifelink ability.
but okay, so this seems more like a late game strategy. I know what you're thinking. How do you stay alive while you're waiting to mill yourself, generate mana, and draw your reanimation cards? That's what Lotleth Troll and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord are there for. They're the staples of the deck and hold everything together.
Lotleth Troll is known as the wall troll for a reason. You can attack and defend with him and whenever he's destroyed, just regenerate him for one measly black mana. He'll keep you alive. And that's not all he's useful for. He's a 2/1 for 2 mana with trample, regenerate and has the ability to discard a creature from your hand to put a +1/+1 counter on him. Now the deck is filled with high cost creatures that you'd (in most cases) want to play from the graveyard anyway. So if you get an 8 mana cost creature in your opening hand, just summon Lotleth Troll on turn 2, discard those cards to bolster Lotleth Troll and aggro and regenerate. Most games I play, i end up with one or two lotleth trolls usually around 5/4. And it has trample. you don't even need to utilize the reanimation to win the game in some cases.
Jarad, Golgari Lich lord is in the deck because he's too fun. Throw him on the field and he'll be a sheer hulk (at no point in the game besides maybe the first or second turn do you have zero cards in your graveyard) for four mana. Most people I play cringe when they see this card hit the board. Often he's at least a 6/6. Not to mention, if the game is coming to a close and your opponent only has a few life, you can sacrifice a creature (usually a powerful one reanimated with whip of erebos like an 11/11 Pathrazer of Ulamog and dish out that damage to finish the game). Or, most likely you can sacrifice any creature that is going to be exiled by whip of erebos anyway.
Have at it!
