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Oooo, a Chainer That Doesn't Need Oracle Text

Commander / EDH BR (Rakdos) Budget Control Discard Madness Value Engine

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Lands (37)

Ramp (12)

WinCons (10)

OneMoreTime! (14)

DiscardFodder (11)

BoardWipes (3)

Tutors (3)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Chainer, Nightmare Adept

JustKeepDigging (13)

Removal (11)

Chainer, Nightmare Adept - The commander I was most excited to build around from C19 but never got around to it. But now I have, and boy am I excited. Chainer offers Red-Black things it's never seen before. While it doesn't provide the combo-potential of Anje Falkenrath, or the sheer card advantage and explosiveness of Greven, Predator Captain, it does provide a general, controlling value engine that can get out of hand if your opponents don't take care of it. This deck is incredibly resilient (since you can basically play out of your graveyard, like, always), and can deal with threats while out-valuing your opponents to death. Suggestions are very welcome, but please keep the $30 budget in mind.

Breakdown by Category

These cards are what makes the deck "go". With these cards, we can turn Chainer's ability into a 2-for-1 (but in a good way, as in we're gaining cards). For example, let's say we have an Ingot Chewer in our graveyard, and we want to recast it for it's evoke cost - simply discard Big Game Hunter to Chainer and cast it for it's madness cost - now cast Ingot Chewer. You've just turned Chainer's 1 for 1 into a 2 for 1. Instead of losing a card to gain a card, you lost nothing, to gain a card.
It's EDH and I want to win. It's not the best ramp because this deck is budget, but it does what it's supposed to do.
Come on and celebrate, ooo yeah, alright, let's start the dancing.

These are the cards that we want to be recasting with Chainer every turn, and we can chain them together into some really cool stuff - for example (and this is Magical Christmas Land here but bear with me)

Kroxa is in our graveyard, we have a card in hand, 6 mana, and 5 other exilable cards in our graveyard (to be honest this isn't even that unreasonable, this has happened before and probably will happen again) - Discard a card to Chainer, cast Kroxa from your graveyard. Both abilities trigger, all your opponents discard, Kroxa gets sacrificed. Now, exile 5 cards from your graveyard and pay Kroxa's escape cost. It's now on the battlefield, its first ability triggers, it stays, its second ability triggers, all your opponents discard again. Now, because Kroxa didn't enter from the battlefield, it has haste due to Chainer. Attack, get another trigger, all your opponents discard again. For 6 mana, a card from your hand, and 5 cards from your graveyard (one of which could be the card from your hand), you've made all your opponents discard 3 cards, you have a 6/6, and that ability is repeatable every turn because it's on ETB and attack.

We need to churn through our deck, and because we want our yard to be pretty huge, cards like Cathartic Reunion really don't have a downside - card selection is the same thing as card advantage for this deck.
Grab the perfect thing for the perfect scenario (and let's be honest, it's almost always grab a Fleshbag Marauder and Feldon of the Third Path so that your friends hate you). Stuff that puts creature cards in our graveyard is just as good as stuff that puts creatures in our hands, so Final Parting is very, very good here.
I'm only running two board wipes, but they're pretty good ones in my opinion (does Blast Zone count? Sure, it counts).

Archfiend of Ifnir is obviously the stronger choice here - it's efficient, it does what the deck wants to do, it gets around indestructible, and it only hits our stuff. It is a very solid card, but it's slow.

That's where Last One Standing comes in. It's incredibly efficient, it'll only leave one threat out (and the chances are somewhat good that it might be ours), and if we cast it at the beginning of our turn we can rebuild later on. It's different than Archfiend of Ifnir, and I wouldn't say one is better than the other. They're both selectively good in certain circumstances.

Lastly, there's Blast Zone - is it incredibly strong? Absolutely not. Is it versatile? Yes, and that's exactly what utility lands should be. It's good enough that I can take out a basic, but not good enough that I would give it a slot in the deck.

Since we're playing control, we want to be versatile, resilient, and able to respond to our opponent's threats. Unfortunately, we do not have counterspells, which are a big part of that. Probably the biggest. Instead, we'll just run a ton of removal. Almost all of it is synergistic (except for Bedevil and Rakdos Charm - they're just good), and about half of it is repeatable, which means we're able to respond to anything on the board. Except for enchantments (but not nearly as bad as it once was with Feed the Swarm!!), and I guess lands, but who wants to blow up other people's lands? Let the green player waste a Beast Within if it's that much of a threat. We can deal with any other permanent type, which makes us versatile, resilient, and able to respond to our opponent's. Wow, look at that! This whole paragraph was leading somewhere. Who would've thought...
Lands are good. They allow you to cast spells.
Flayer of the Hatebound - Deal direct damage over time, and eventually our opponent's life totals will go to 0 - simple

From Under the Floorboards - Discard this, dump a bunch of mana into it, gain a bunch of life, untap with a bunch of zombies. It doesn't guarantee a win, but it does secure a win if we're in the lead and it brings us back into the game if we're falling behind.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel - If we can keep looping Garry by sacrificing him, discarding a card, and recasting him, we can eventually drain our opponents out. It's slow, it's grindy, it's hard to stop because it centers around the graveyard and ETB effects, and it's hard to beat because we keep gaining life while it's happening. The perfect strategy for this deck.

Rise of the Dark Realms - After the Jumpstart reprint I really couldn't help myself. This card is stupid good for any black deck, especially a graveyard deck. Yeah... there's not much to say. It's really good.

Glint-Horn Buccaneer - This kinda doesn't go anywhere else. Does it win the game? Absolutely not. Does it help a lot? Absolutely. Pinging each opponent for 1 every time you discard becomes really powerful. Cathartic Reunion becomes a 6 point life swing, which is absolutely bonkers. It sure doesn't win the game, but it's a war of attrition style card that this deck loves, and of those effects, it's by far one of the best.

Command the Dreadhorde - If it brings us down to 10 but still wins the game, who cares? I'm really surprised this card isn't more expensive/doesn't see more EDH play. 40 life is a lot of life, and it's worth it to spend some of it for a discounted Rise of the Dark Realms. Even if we only get stuff from our own graveyard (which we won't, we'll almost always get stuff from other graveyards), this card is still super powerful. Best of all, it's an alternate wincon if our graveyard gets shut down cause we can just steal from someone else.

Finale of Eternity - If X equals less than 10, that's fine. I get to destroy three problematic threats at a super efficient cost, and everyone's happy. If X is 10 or more, however, it's basically Rise of the Dark Realms but only for me, which is fine, because my graveyard will most likely be huge anyway.

Syr Konrad, the Grim - Ahh, another black powerhouse at, woah, wait, UNCOMMON? Damn Wizards, I mean I'm not complaining it's freaking awesome in this deck. Stuff is going into the graveyard, stuff is coming out, and Syr Konrad, the Grim is silently sitting in the corner, draining EACH opponent basically every time you do something. Card is awesome.

Underworld Breach - Honestly, I'm not sure about this one. It seems good, but is it a wincon? Is it even worth a slot in the deck, or does it require more build around? I have no idea, but we're gonna try it out. I feel like it's good, and worst case it can allow me to ditch stuff like Command the Dreadhorde early game, then tutor for Underworld Breach or just draw into it, and then reuse the Command the Dreadhorde at a slightly higher cost (exiling three cards), which feels really good. It will allow me to turn cards that can't be discarded without losing them into cards that can be discarded and then brought back, no matter the type. That seems really powerful at face value, but more playtesting will have to happen to actually test that theory.

Tergrid, God of Fright   - So whenever we make our opponents sacrifice or discard anything (something this deck wants to do a lot), we get to keep it for ourselves?? And it's not just creatures, it's all permanents????? This card is busted, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

How This Deck Plays

This deck is a toolkit. Some EDH decks are cars - the car is technically the same every time you drive it, but every drive is different, because you're going new places. Others are computer programs - they do the same thing, every time, without fail. If there's an error, they won't run. This deck is a happy medium in between. There are definitely a few lines of established play that you want to make use of - Feldon of the Third Path + Fleshbag Marauder to lock your opponents out of the game, Dualcaster Mage and a bunch of free mana to steal your opponents spells at flash speed, Apprentice Necromancer + Gray Merchant of Asphodel to continuously drain your opponents at a heavy discount. These are all established lines, yes, but you need to know when to use which ones.

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Updates Add

Syr Konrad is Absolutely Nuts — March 1, 2020
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After upgrading the deck with a few higher budget cards - chief among those Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Ox of Agonas, and Underworld Breach - as well as putting in a few budget cards that were released after the deck was made (Syr Konrad, the Grim, Gravebreaker Lamia, and Glint-Horn Buccaneer), the deck runs a lot smoother. One of the main problems with the first draft was that it was too durdly, and had trouble really closing out games. Some of the cards mentioned above have really helped with that, while sticking with the slow, war of attrition gameplay style. Highly recommend this deck as a fun alternative to common control decks seen in EDH, it's really fun and really unique.

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92% Casual

Competitive

Top Ranked
Date added 5 years
Last updated 2 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

6 - 0 Mythic Rares

27 - 0 Rares

22 - 0 Uncommons

20 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.59
Tokens Copy Clone, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders EDH, Helpful Decks, Decks, Chainer, Other People's Decks, Commander, Budget, commander, commander, Wish
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