Rainbow in the Dark: Haakon Reanimator Combo

Commander / EDH Combo Cruel Control Discard Knights Mono-Black Reanimator

FenIsABasicSwamp

Creature (30)

• 1x Abhorrent Overlord
• 1x Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Cavalier of Night
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Disciple of Griselbrand
• 1x Doom Whisperer
• 1x Fleshwrither
• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1x K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
• 1x Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip
• 1x Liliana's Standard Bearer
• 1x Magus of the Coffers
• 1x Magus of the Will
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Mindslicer
• 1x Nether Traitor
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Skirge Familiar
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Stinkweed Imp
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1x Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Land (36)

• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Deserted Temple
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scrying Sheets
• 20x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Wasteland

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Attrition
• 1x Contamination
• 1x Decaying Soil
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Null Profusion
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Tombstone Stairwell
• 1x Tortured Existence

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Damnation
• 1x Dead of Winter
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Ill-Gotten Gains
• 1x Living Death

Commander (1)

Artifact (15)

• 1x Anvil of Bogardan
• 1x Ashes of the Fallen
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Deathrender
• 1x Desecrated Tomb
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Ghirapur Orrery
• 1x Netherborn Altar
• 1x Null Brooch
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Sword of the Animist

Instant (4)

• 1x Insidious Dreams
• 1x Nameless Inversion
• 1x Shadow of the Grave
• 1x Songs of the Damned

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Sideboard

Artifact (4)

• 1x Coldsteel Heart
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Lifeline
• 1x Winter Orb

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Bitter Ordeal
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Fallen Ideal
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation

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Maybeboard

Creature (7)

• 1x Graveborn Muse
• 1x Martyr of Bones
• 1x Ogre Slumlord
• 1x Pack Rat
• 1x Rankle, Master of Pranks
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood

Land (2)

• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Petrified Field

Instant (1)

• 1x One with Nothing

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Behold the Beyond

Artifact (2)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Maskwood Nexus

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Intro: Rainbow in the Dark

The first and only Haakon, Stromgald Scourge EDH deck designed seriously to contend in a strong meta. This song by Dio expresses what I've come to feel about this deck: it's a Rainbow in the DAAAAARK! Meaning, it can do so many things generally ascribed to the other colors in Magic and unlooked for in a monoblack deck: ramp, control, tempo-shifting, beatdown, combo, etc. It does it all.

Show them something they've never seen before

For those who aren't familiar with Haakon, there's only two ways currently to play him. You need to get Command Beacon or Netherborn Altar out as early as possible to get access to Haakon at all, and then discard him to any number of discard outlets like Tortured Existence.

Previously this deck was built as an homage to Cleganebowl Korlash, Heir to Blackblade was like a secondary or alternate commander for this deck but I have since built him his own deck. Together Haakon and Korlash reminded me of Gregor "The Mountain that Rides" Clegane and his brother Sandor "The Hound" Clegane from Game of Thrones, respectively. The Mountain actually dies in the story and is reanimated as a zombie knight (Haakon is a Zombie Knight), and the Hound is a warrior whose fate is unknown in the books, but nearly dies in the show and looks pretty rough anyways from having most of his face burned off as a child (Korlash is a Zombie Warrior). Furthermore, The Mountain is literally a scourge on the Riverlands where he raids and pillages, sowing destruction and chaos in his wake. So I had the idea that this deck would sort of thematically reflect what is known amongst GoT fan conspiracy theorists as...

CLEGANEBOWL

What is hype may never die!

Why play Haakon over Korlash as the commander?

Haakon enables permanent recursion late game once you can get him out which is really nice to have, in addition to enabling combos involving playing and killing creatures repeatedly. Korlash, was mainly here for the one awesome combo below to ramp the deck really hard and get into the late game as fast as possible and then be a huge beater. In short, either one could be a great general for this deck, but ultimately I found Haakon's long-game possibilities more attractive.

Key combos

• (RETIRED)Korlash, Heir to Blackblade+Mirage Mirror + either Phyrexian Reclamation or Tortured Existence. With both Korlash and the Mirror in play, make the Mirror a copy of Korlash and put the real Korlash in the graveyard due to the Legend rule. Then return Korlash to your hand with either of the enchantments and discard him to the Grandeur ability on the Mirage Mirror copy of Korlash. Rinse and repeat for as many times as you have the resources to complete.

• Decaying Soil + Deathrender + any sac outlet, preferably Phyrexian Altar let's you cycle a creature into play as many times as you have to pay for Decaying Soil's trigger by sacing the creature that has Deathrender equipped, stacking the triggers from Deathrender and Decaying Soil so the same creature dies, goes back to your hand, and then back into play. You can also just put any other creature from your hand into play and cycle every creature from your hand into play, then the yard and on and on. It's only infinite if you have Phyrexian Altar, otherwise it's limited by the amount of mana you have, and of course you need Threshold. Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed can return all your black cards to your hand to be re-cast infinitely or cycled into the Decaying Deathrender ETB/death loop.

• (RETIRED and replaced with Syr Konrad, the Grim) Gonti, Lord of Luxury will be able to exile each opponent's entire library with this combo and is the main wincon for the deck. He is also the source of the name: Rainbow in the Dark, because with his ability and exiling your opponents libraries, you can then cast their whole decks with an infinite mana source like Abhorrent Overlord who can make infinite creatures which translates to infinite mana.

• Archfiend of Ifnir combos with all of the discard outlets, including the Tortured Existence+Korlash, Heir to Blackblade Grandeur loop to drop a ton of -1/-1 counters on all your opponents' creatures.

• A lot of combos and sub-themes were removed from this deck in Spring 2018 to more finely tune it to do the main themes better, have more flexibility to respond to a diverse range of threats, and really focus on the discard theme. To that end, combos like the Nemesis Mask + Phyrexian Obliterator combo have been moved to my forthcoming Phage the Untouchable deck and others.

Harvest the Dead, Make them Work

As should be obvious from looking at this list and Haakon, there are only two knights in the deck: Midnight Reaper and Cavalier of Night. All the other mono knights are terrible and unplayable except for Josu Vess, Lich Knight, but his kicker ability makes him worthless. There are two ways to get around this: Ashes of the Fallen and Conspiracy. Since you only need your creatures to be Knights in the graveyard, the Ashes takes care of that. Conspiracy essentially does the same thing, as creature types are less significant elsewhere, except in the case of Cryptbreaker. On the other hand, naming Knights for Conspiracy makes Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder amazing as he no longer makes thrulls, and therefore can make creatures indefinitely, but this is pretty niche and Endrek hasn't made the cut for this deck in a long time. I would like to play both cards in this deck but the niche nature of their effects and high mana costs have kept me from including them so far.

The key piece of removal in this deck is the coolest (and best known) bit of tech with Haakon: Nameless Inversion. At instant speed, with Haakon on the field, you can remove all your opponents' targetable creatures according to how much mana you have. Harvest them all to make rats with Ogre Slumlord and feed the rats to the machine to keep cranking value out.

Korlash has gotta have a Blackblade right?

Sword of Feast and Famine seems like the perfect Blackblade for Korlash (and Haakon too if you look at his art), and is an excellent addition to any EDH deck. Actual Blackblade Reforged hadn't been printed when I initially built this deck and it doesn't serve much purpose in the deck as is, so I haven't added it.

Please remember to upvote if you like this deck and think that cool and unique decks should get more notice! Let's spread the word that innovation in EDH is the soul of the format!

Playing Haakon is inherently like playing with both arms tied behind your back, or just cut off...he's a true black knight!

Guilds of Ravnica Updates 10/14/18

Doom Whisperer, Plaguecrafter, and Midnight Reaper in and various other cards out. Some other long-overdue shuffling as well. Reaper was a no-brainer replacement for Grim Haruspex as the Reaper is a Zombie Knight, which are the two most relevant creature types in the deck. More of that please Wotc.

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	2 years
Exclude colors	WURG
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 56 - 5 Rares 12 - 4 Uncommons 3 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.53
Tokens	Bat 1/1 B, Emblem Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, Harpy 1/1 B, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie 2/2 B w/ Haste
Folders	EDH Decks, primer, EDH, DEcks, New deck, Flavor Town, 1, [7] Player Decks - (Not mine), Possible EDH Decks to use, EDH