Revenant Refurbish

Commander / EDH Counters Surveil UB (Dimir)

Sonicron

Creature (31)

• 1x Adric, Mathematical Genius
• 1x Agent of Treachery
• 1x Archon of Cruelty
• 1x Auton Soldier
• 1x Champion of Wits
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Dimir Strandcatcher
• 1x Displacer Kitten
• 1x Dogged Detective
• 1x Doom Whisperer
• 1x Doomed Necromancer
• 1x Eye of Duskmantle
• 1x Fain, the Broker
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Hexavus
• 1x It That Betrays
• 1x Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
• 1x Lazav, the Multifarious
• 1x Ledger Shredder
• 1x Master of Death
• 1x Nightveil Sprite
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Rona, Herald of Invasion  ^Flip
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Sinister Starfish
• 1x Snarling Gorehound
• 1x Soul Diviner
• 1x Toxrill, the Corrosive
• 1x Unshakable Tail
• 1x Watcher of Hours

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Kaito Shizuki
• 1x Teferi, Master of Time

Land (34)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 3x Island
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Nesting Grounds
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 2x Snow-Covered Island
• 2x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Tocasia's Dig Site
• 1x Undercity Sewers
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x War Room
• 1x Watery Grave

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x Case of the Shifting Visage
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip

Commander (1)

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Commander's Plate
• 1x Conqueror's Galleon  ^Flip
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Laser Screwdriver
• 1x Power Conduit
• 1x Sword of Hearth and Home
• 1x Sword of Once and Future
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x The Grim Captain's Locker

Instant (8)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Eat to Extinction
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Pile On
• 1x Price of Fame
• 1x Sinister Sabotage
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Victimize

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Maybeboard

Creature (29)

• 1x Astral Dragon
• 1x Blood Operative
• 1x Body Launderer
• 1x Braids, Arisen Nightmare
• 1x Burning-Rune Demon
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Corpse Connoisseur
• 1x Cruel Witness
• 1x Evil Twin
• 1x Likeness Looter
• 1x Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel
• 1x Massacre Girl, Known Killer
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Nezahal, Primal Tide
• 1x Obsessive Stitcher
• 1x Oriq Loremage
• 1x Pathrazer of Ulamog
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
• 1x Sanguine Spy
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Sphinx of the Second Sun
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
• 1x Vile Entomber

Artifact (12)

• 1x Blackblade Reforged
• 1x Blade of the Bloodchief
• 1x Champion's Helm
• 1x Conjurer's Closet
• 1x Darksteel Plate
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Lithoform Engine
• 1x Mask of the Schemer
• 1x Mithril Coat
• 1x Smuggler's Copter
• 1x Strionic Resonator
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Agadeem's Awakening  ^Flip
• 1x Careful Study
• 1x Charnel Serenade
• 1x Connive / Concoct
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Notion Rain
• 1x Start the TARDIS
• 1x Unmarked Grave

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Enhanced Surveillance
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Think Tank
• 1x Virtue of Persistence

Instant (12)

• 1x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Change of Plans
• 1x Consider
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Lethal Scheme
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pull from Tomorrow
• 1x Tale's End

Land (7)

• 1x Castle Locthwain
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Restless Reef
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Underground River

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Liliana, Waker of the Dead
• 1x Vraska, Betrayal's Sting

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It's been a long time since I've bought any precons, but this one excited me. Ever since its inception I feel Surveil has been massively undervalued by most players I know, but I love it! I've always wanted to play a Reanimator deck as well, so to me, Revenant Recon seems like a match made in heaven. The deck is fun to play right out of the box, despite some of its jank includes, but I want to see what happens when I crack it wide open.

• Our commander can get scary big REALLY fast - a full quarter of the deck triggers the central Surveil mechanic. Commander damage becomes a viable route to victory, seeing how Mirko is naturally evasive - provided we keep him safe. At the same time, reanimating even the beefiest of beefcakes from our graveyard should quickly become trivial to Mirko.
• Finality counters are a bother we can adress; several cards in our deck flatout move/remove them, whereas others blink our creatures, ditching the counters in the process. Deadeye Navigator even does so at will, enabling us to dodge spot removal (though I wouldn't recommend blinking our commander).
• Note the few 0/0 creatures - Mirko can resurrect them even at his base stats!
• While regular recursion, i.e. returning cards from graveyard to our hand is a low priority, a solid chunk of the deck is devoted to straightforward reanimation. No pesky finality counters to contend with there.
• Surveil is a great mechanic, but it won't be enough to dig through our deck efficiently. Therefor I included a suite of cards that loot (or connive) for proper filtering. In this type of deck, looting becomes actual card advantage as we stack both our hand AND our graveyard!
• Some of the card choices are not optimal, strictly speaking. This is, for the most part, intentional. The more I brew, the more I feel that including the obligatory staples everywhere dilutes a deck's identity; that's why I'd rather play Price of Fame over Deadly Rollick in a deck like this, for example.
• Factoring in close-to-optimal use of built-in cost reductions, and the fact that I view any creature with a CMC of 6 and above purely as a reanimation target, the deck's actual average CMC becomes not 3.64, but 2.8! With a deck this low to the ground, I think we can afford to run fewer lands than is customary.

As you can see from the Maybeboard, the amount of possible upgrades, sidegrades and different angles of approach is large. A lot of the fun in the deck is obviously in value plays and getting to torment our opponents with absurdly powerful creatures; this could be an avenue for keeping things fresh in future, as we swap in new big reanimation targets that are yet to grace us with their existence. Also, if your playgroup can't handle the salt score on cards like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, you could always dial it down a notch and sub in something like Nezahal, Primal Tide which fulfils a similar function but is much less prone to making people froth at the mouth.

I'll have to assemble the deck and do some serious playtesting to see if there are any pitfalls I fail to see at the moment. If so, I'll tweak accordingly, but for now I'm happy with this build. I'm always happy to hear new ideas, so let me know if you have any. And should you try the deck out for yourself, let me know how it went! Enjoy!

Date added	9 months
Last updated	8 months
Exclude colors	WRG
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	17 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 13 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.64
Tokens	Champion of Wits 4/4 B, Clue, Copy Clone, Emblem Kaito Shizuki, Inkling 2/1 WB, Ninja 1/1 U, Shapeshifter 3/2 C, Slug 1-1 B, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B