Sidisi, Brood Tyrant *Mini Primer*

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai)

alexs2112

Creature (36)

• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Death Baron
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Diregraf Captain
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Filth
• 1x Golgari Findbroker
• 1x Gravespawn Sovereign
• 1x Kiora's Follower
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Lord of the Accursed
• 1x Muldrotha, the Gravetide
• 1x Narcomoeba
• 1x Nullmage Shepherd
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Seedborn Muse
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Shriekmaw
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Stinkweed Imp
• 1x Sylvan Caryatid
• 1x Sylvan Safekeeper
• 1x The Scarab God
• 1x Undead Alchemist
• 1x Undead Warchief
• 1x Underrealm Lich
• 1x Vengeful Pharaoh
• 1x Voyaging Satyr
• 1x World Shaper

Land (34)

• 1x Blooming Marsh
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 3x Forest
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x Ipnu Rivulet
• 2x Island
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Memorial to Folly
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nephalia Drownyard
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Unholy Grotto
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Mortuary
• 1x Palace Siege
• 1x Parallel Lives
• 1x Path of Discovery
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Sylvan Library

Commander (1)

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Gaea's Blessing
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Mulch
• 1x Seasons Past
• 1x Victimize

Artifact (8)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Embalmer's Tools
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Sol Ring

Instant (3)

• 1x Entomb
• 1x Grapple with the Past
• 1x Grisly Salvage

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Liliana, Death's Majesty
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

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Sidisi is a versatile, graveyard based combo deck that seeks to stick multiple different permanents that generate immense value with Sidisi in play until you overwhelm your opponents or establish an infinite (or pseudo infinite) loop. While this isnt a cEDH list by any means, it tries to go off faster than each other deck at the table while resisting hate. If nobody interacts then sidisi tends to win the game faster than other commanders (barring cEDH lists that consistently combo off by turn 3 and 4) and can pretty consistently goldfish by turn 5.5

This is my paper magic list and I am missing a couple of upgrades, such as the remaining two dual lands and a better manabase in general (Its horrific right now and I'm trying to fix it)

Reasons to Play this Deck

You like really convoluted and typically complex decision trees where every card in your deck has a purpose and synergizes with multiple other cards.

You like to see each game as a puzzle that you can solve by finding different combo pieces.

You have multiple routes to victory every game and can play it differently every time.

A deck with a very high skill ceiling and very low floor that takes a lot of practice and goldfishing to figure out what to do every game in every situation

You like being able to explode out of nowhere and win the game after your opponents have dismissed you as a threat

You like winning

Reasons to not Play this Deck

You don't enjoy having a deck totally based on the commander.

You (or your playgroup) doesn't like winning through combos (Although you can easily cut the truly infinite combos and still do perfectly fine)

You prefer beating down with big dumb creatures all game

You want to enjoy a night of commander with friends and drinks and stuff and don't want to totally focus and think through every one of your plays.

You don't want to shuffle a commander deck like 20 times a game.

You don't like randomly losing to graveyard hate (still happens even though there are a lot of ways to beat it)

Gameplan

The goal is to play and stick a Sidisi, Brood Tyrant as soon as possible to start milling yourself and gaining value. You are digging to land some assortment of your synergy cards (detailed below) to generate multiple zombies per turn cycle and have several tutors for them in Fabricate , Tezzeret the Seeker , Demonic Tutor , Diabolic Intent and Sidisi, Undead Vizier . Alternatively you can just value mill yourself repeatedly until you can recur a piece using Eternal Witness and Golgari Findbroker

Mulligans

There are three types of hands that you want to be keeping.

• Ramp Hands that contain a way to cast Sidisi on turn 2 or 3. Turn 4 sidisi is really slow and you want to speed this up.

• Curve Hands that contain multiple plays for turns 1 through 3 so you can assemble a board state before sidisi comes down. Hands containing things such as Cryptbreaker , Dark Confidant , Sylvan Library or some artifacts and lords are pretty decent keeps as it allows you to cast sidisi and immediately start grinding value.

• Combo Hands that are slow but contain 2+ combo pieces, such as Doubling Season , Parallel Lives or Path of Discovery to get Sidisi into play and have enough pieces to basically win the game over the next couple of turns.

Early Game

You should be focusing on playing card advantage and filtering spells and sculpting your hand through tutors while playing Sidisi when it is safe to do so. Ideally you want to be swinging with Sidisi turn 4 while having some sort of way to get additional zombies in play. (I typically like playing Path of Discovery the turn before Sidisi to get that extra explore trigger)

Midgame

This is where you want to be digging and assembling different combos while continuing to generate value with sidisi. This is where you want to begin presenting different combo pieces that demand an answer to force through a game winning play. The Midgame is where Sidisi thrives as other decks are still setting up and trying to establish a board presence while you are taxing their ability to do so by demanding answers.

Alternatively you can just play big fair cards like Muldrotha, the Gravetide or Cryptbreaker and grinding value and card advantage from your graveyard until you can establish a win.

Late Game

This part of the game can be rough for sidisi as other decks have set up a board presence and sweepers are online. Usually by now they have answered you once or twice and you are rebuilding. The goal is to appear unassuming and point your opponents in other directions (like against the guy with an Archangel Avacyn   or something) until you can go off on a single turn out of nowhere and steal the win.

Winning the Game

The Beatdown Plan

Sticking several zombie lords and beating down with a horde of, typically unblockable or flying, zombie tokens can usually one shot people out of the game.

Synergies that you are usually digging for:

• Multiple Zombie Lords: Death Baron , Diregraf Captain , Undead Warchief , Lord of the Accursed

• Ways to give your zombies evasion: Filth + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth , Wonder

• Craterhoof Behemoth , either reanimated or just hardcast is a good way to take out several opponents at once.

• Other general beatdown cards: The Scarab God , Sheoldred, Whispering One , Grave Titan

Altar of Dementia

Probably the best combo card in the deck, once your zombies are at 4 or 5 power through other lords or if you have no lands remaining in your deck it allows you to almost loop through your deck indefinitely by saccing a zombie to mill yourself, likely hitting a creature and creating a zombie. The normal end result is that you are 4-5 cards deeper into your deck and you have the same amount of zombies

Eventually as you mill you will run into either Kozilek, Butcher of Truth or Gaea's Blessing which shuffles your graveyard back into your deck. As this is a self mill deck rather than a graveyard value deck we don't really care all that much about losing our graveyard and you typically win or put yourself in a dominant position by the time you are able to start looping your deck.

• Multiple Zombie Lords: Death Baron , Diregraf Captain , Undead Warchief , Lord of the Accursed to pump their power, I haven't done the math but when the tokens are at 4 or 5 power (or even 2 or 3 with some more combo cards) it becomes very hard to fizzle.

• Going Infinite: Altar of Dementia + Mortuary + Narcomoeba Combo. Once you have an altar, it isn't super hard to tutor or find an Mortuary and from there mill your deck until you hit a Narcomoeba . You sac the Narcomoeba to the altar to mill you for 1. Mortuary triggers and puts the Narcomoeba back on top. The trigger resolves, you mill Narcomoeba and get a zombie from Sidisi. Repeat for infinite zombies and you can then sac them to altar to mill out the table.

• Pull every land from your deck into play: World Shaper . Once you are able to loop your deck and have a World Shaper in play, you mill until you hit both shuffle triggers. With them on the stack you can sac World Shaper to altar to trigger it, continue to mill out your deck with zombies and then once your deck is empty you resolve the triggers to put every land in your graveyard (and thus in your deck) into play tapped. This makes almost all of your draw steps live since you have basically infinite mana and no lands to draw as well as makes it next to impossible to actually fizzle more Altar of Dementia loops.

• Generate psuedo infinite zombies: Doubling Season , Parallel Lives , Path of Discovery , Embalmer's Tools , Once you have one of these cards in play along with an altar, every zombie token you create turns into two more, making it incredibly difficult to fizzle the loop (and sometimes impossible) while also creating a ton of zombies. Path of Discovery is disgustingly good in the deck and Embalmer's Tools is an insane zombie engine that doesnt require altar (and if you have 10+ zombies it is relatively easy to generate hundreds at instant speed with a Doubling Season or Parallel Lives )

• Drain them out (slowly): Diregraf Captain , if your zombies are sufficiently large or you have ways to make sure you don't run out of zombies and fizzle (or you just need to go for it) you can sac a zombie, drain them for 1, mill you to (hopefully) make a zombie, sac the new zombie to mill you, drain them for 1, hopefully hit a creature to make a zombie, rinse and repeat until you drain them for like 120 life in a single turn. Once your zombies are at 4+ power and you have a decent board state it shouldnt be too hard to drain them out.

Mesmeric Orb and Embalmer's Tools

The other two disgusting zombie generating artifacts in the deck. Embalmer's Tools are a better value play than both Altar of Dementia and Mesmeric Orb since you end up creating a ton of zombies every turn cycle as its tap ability bypasses summoning sickness. Mesmeric Orb generates a ton of hate at the table for some reason so hanging on to it unless it puts you super far ahead is usually a good plan.

Basalt Monolith + Mesmeric Orb with a Sidisi makes infinite zombies.

One of the artifacts + a Seedborn Muse gives you a metric fuckton of triggers since you untap and mill yourself for a ton of cards on each players turn. Seedborn Muse is generally pretty bad in this deck otherwise but its potential is insanely high.

Embalmer's Tools and either Doubling Season , Parallel Lives or Path of Discovery to make a ton of zombies. Detailed in the Altar of Dementia section.

Beating Graveyard Hate

This deck can be pretty resilient against graveyard hate unless a bunch of key pieces get exiled. For one shot graveyard hate, with the trigger or spell on the stack, as long as you have an artifact piece (if you don't then it is unlikely you are scary enough to use graveyard hate on unless its permanent) you can typically mill yourself enough to hit either a Gaea's Blessing or Kozilek, Butcher of Truth .

If it is a permanent, you have two ways to blow it up that you can tutor for in Reclamation Sage and Nullmage Shepherd (Also an absolute house against artifact and enchantment decks)

Past that, you can also just play a fair game of magic until you unlock your graveyard by powering out Sheoldred, Whispering One and Grave Titan as threats until you can set up your board state enough to go for it and win the game in a single turn.

What to do if?

Key pieces get exiled

Depending on the pieces it isn't super hard to go for a different win con or combo. The most disastrous things that can be exiled are both Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Gaea's Blessing since they are needed to loop your deck but you still have other outs in the Narcomoeba combo since that doesn't mill you past 1 card and just beating down with a Craterhoof Behemoth and other value cards.

That said, grave hate can be a problem if you dont have a good backup plan and I suggest killing the player with graveyard hate ASAP.

An opponent plays eldrazi

A lot of loops end up with making infinite zombies and milling your opponents out in a single turn. If they also have an eldrazi or way to stop from decking there are a couple of strategies to get them dead that turn.

• Craterhoof Behemoth and hope they don't have removal (or have backup with Sylvan Safekeeper ) and bash them for an arbitrarily high number of damage.

• If you are on the Altar of Dementia plan, you can mill enough of your deck to hit a Dread Return and return a Gravespawn Sovereign to then return as many creatures as needed, such as Diregraf Captain to drain them out.

Sidisi keeps dying and costs too much mana

This is one of the worst things to happen since every loop is reliant on sidisi. Undead Alchemist can be used instead although it limits your options ( Mesmeric Orb and Basalt Monolith no longer work) and is more risky unless you know your target is running 35+ creatures.

Trying to protect sidisi is super important and sometimes tutoring for Lightning Greaves or Sylvan Safekeeper is correct to guarantee comboing off at the expense of slowing down.

If you have time, you can assemble Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to generate a ton of mana as well as Basalt Monolith to make casting Sidisi possible. By the time you can recast her you should have enough other combo pieces to win on the spot.

There are other combo decks

Ive found that Sidisi (this version anyway) can pretty consistently goldfish by turn 5.5

Against cEDH combo decks that can go much faster you are just dead in the water and have to rely on the table to stop them although that is the same for almost every non-cEDH deck.

Your board gets wiped

The main problem with boardwipes is that they kill Sidisi through protection, although unless they have a ton of pressure and can kill you in a turn or 2 after wrathing it isn't super hard to rebuild and then recast sidisi. It is very possible to win through several board wipes once you engineer a position where you demand an answer or you win.

Card Choices

I won't go through every single card in the list here but I will go through the notable ones.

Artifacts

Some of the most powerful cards in your deck so there are some artifact specific tutors ( Tezzeret the Seeker and Fabricate ) to help find them.

• Altar of Dementia : The most broken card in the deck, it is really easy to combo off with and requires few other pieces (see the section above devoted to it)

• Basalt Monolith : Combos with Mesmeric Orb and gives temporary mana to power out big threats

• Chrome Mox , Sol Ring : Fast Mana, enables turn 2 Sidisi and accelerates your bigger plays

• Embalmer's Tools , Mesmeric Orb : The other two important artifacts, see the section above. Both are individual triggers so you get a zombie for every creature milled rather than 1 total.

• Lightning Greaves : Gives sidisi shroud and lets her swing immediately the turn you play her, functions sort of like a mana rock in that sense.

Creatures

Sidisi triggers off of creatures, thus we would like creatures in our deck. 35-40 is a good number to consistently hit (the more the better since it helps your artifacts create more zombies and Altar of Dementia loops easier to pull off) - Mana Dorks: Ways to cast a turn 3 Sidisi while also triggering her ability. Great cards to see in your opener

• Kiora's Follower and Voyaging Satyr : Mana dorks that also generate mana with stuff like Cabal Coffers and the karoo lands, although those lands are on their way out.

• Craterhoof Behemoth : A good way to steal games

• Cryptbreaker , Dark Confidant : Card advantage engines I'm never sad to see

• Filth , Wonder : Ways to give your zombies evasion, good Entomb targets.

• Lords: Described in detail in the Altar of Dementia section.

• Eternal Witness , Golgari Findbroker : Recursion, basically tutors on a body to trigger sidisi once you have some mill going on. There are so many different synergies it is rare they do not get you a card you need.

• Sidisi, Undead Vizier : Speaking of tutors on a body...

• Grave Titan , Sheoldred, Whispering One , Muldrotha, the Gravetide , Underrealm Lich , The Scarab God : Some big cards that let you do things without Sidisi. Good reanimation targets that work very well while going off.

• Gravespawn Sovereign : All around great art. Lets you really combo off with a ton of zombies to return basically every creature in your deck to play. In the late game it acts as a tutor ( Sidisi, Undead Vizier , Eternal Witness ) or lets you guarantee the win with infinite zombies after being brought back with Dread Return

• Stinkweed Imp , Vengeful Pharaoh , Shriekmaw : Your interaction, stinkweed and the pharaoh discourage people swinging at you (just dont miss the Vengeful Pharaoh trigger)

• Seedborn Muse : Does dumb stuff with Embalmer's Tools and Mesmeric Orb , pretty mediocre everywhere else.

• Undead Alchemist : Sidisi when Sidisi is dead. Also acts as graveyard hate and lets you start milling people out for value (and gets rid of pesky eldrazi shuffle triggers)

• World Shaper : Used to play every land in your deck with an altar or used to thin your deck for the future.

• Sylvan Safekeeper : Protection on a stick. Saccing lands doesn't matter a whole lot when you are protecting your game winning commander.

• Nullmage Shepherd , Reclamation Sage : Artifact and Enchantment hate. Shepherd wins the games against artifact decks.

• Kozilek, Butcher of Truth : Lets you loop your deck with milling. No Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre because I don't own one and hurts with Dark Confidant . You can also reanimate at instant speed with Gravespawn Sovereign or just hardcast for 4 cards and an annihilating beatstick.

• Narcomoeba : A free extra mill while looping your deck. Also goes infinite with Altar of Dementia + Mortuary

Enchantments

All of the enchantments are disgustingly good in conjunction with the rest of the deck since they synergize with multiple other pieces.

• Doubling Season , Parallel Lives : Basically the same in this deck, both are absolutely busted and make it incredibly easy to make a ton of zombies with one of your artifacts.

• Mortuary : Combos off with Narcomoeba . Also just a fine card in general to make your creatures resistant to removal and if you dont want to redraw them you usually have a means to just mill it.

• Palace Siege : A value card. The lifegain can be relevant ( Dark Confidant , Sylvan Library , Cryptbreaker ) but usually isnt

• Path of Discovery : Waaay better than it looks, this card is disgustingly good with mill effects as it lets your zombies chain into more zombies.

• Phyrexian Reclamation : A value card that lets you return deceased threats. Also sort of negates the command tax of Sidisi since you can just send her to the graveyard and then return her to hand. Good after wraths.

• Sylvan Library : A card advantage, card filtering powerhouse two drop. You can usually just mill the stuff you dont want so you dont lock yourself to your top 3 every turn.

Instants

Only a few instants these are great for hitting land drops and finding creatures you need.

• Entomb : Acts as a tutor with recursion in hand or in play. Lets you mill yourself if you have nothing else going on with Stinkweed Imp . Gets back powerful lands ( Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth ) by getting Life from the Loam . Saves your graveyard by getting Kozilek, Butcher of Truth . A reanimation spell in Dread Return . Give your team flying or swampwalk with Filth or Wonder . Good card is good.

• Grapple with the Past : Graveyard recursion for creatures and lands that also mills you for sidisi.

• Grisly Salvage : Digs for lands or key creatures while also milling you.

Lands

A lot of the lands here are just mana sources until I revamp the manabase. Here are the notable ones:

Buried Ruin is gross, gets back your important artifact combo pieces.

Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth : Generates a ton of mana. Urborg makes all your dudes unblockable with Filth

Dimir Aqueduct , Golgari Rot Farm : Used to be good in my old budget build. They are currently mediocre at best since they dont let you play a ramp spell for sidisi unless they are exactly Kiora's Follower or Voyaging Satyr (However with those cards they generate a ton of mana per turn so they arent awful)

Ipnu Rivulet , Nephalia Drownyard : Lets you turn mana into zombies and potentially mill cards you can recur.

Memorial to Folly : Clunky and awkward but lets you return creatures that you need (like Eternal Witness or Diregraf Captain

Unholy Grotto , Volrath's Stronghold : Let you create zombies by returning a creature with a mill trigger on the stack but they are generally used to return key creatures and give you a recursion engine against removal (like playing Sheoldred, Whispering One every turn.)

Planeswalkers

Generally I don't love walkers in commander but these two are very strong.

• Tezzeret the Seeker : Tutors for 2 of your 3 artifact combo pieces. I am perfectly happy with just grabbing one piece and then him immediately dying as well so its straight value. Also grabs and generates mana if you need. Can grab the entire Basalt Monolith + Mesmeric Orb combo over 3 turns which lets you just play a sidisi and win.

• Liliana, Death's Majesty : Mills you, makes around 2 zombies per turn and gets gross with Parallel Lives in play. The -3 turns them into a zombie (for various synergies, most importantly Cryptbreaker and Embalmer's Tools ) and just gets back either huge threats or recursion for other combo pieces (Im happy with getting an Eternal Witness to recur an Altar of Dementia or something.) Ults in 3 turns if you randomly need a mostly one sided sweeper.

Sorceries

Helps you get busted things into play - Demonic Tutor , Diabolic Intent , Fabricate : Tutors

• Dread Return : Recently added as a way to make sure you can kill them once you make infinite zombies in case they wrath or something. Usually targets a Gravespawn Sovereign when going off but its perfectly fine to just slam a Sheoldred turn 4 or something. The sac 3 creatures cost is minimal in a deck that makes multiple every turn.

• Victimize : Reanimation spell that is insanely efficient. Good times when you randomly turn 3 Sheoldred + Grave Titan or something

• Seasons Past : A good way to rebuild as well as a good value card. Regularly draws you 6+ cards that you actually want for 6 mana. Lets you discard Kozilek or something to hand size if needed.

• Mulch : Ways to hit your land drops while also milling you. Its fine if unexciting.

• Life from the Loam : Lets you set up powerful lands (Urborg + Coffers) as well as mills you for 3 and lets you hit your land drops all game. A very good card.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Key combos	Basalt Monolith + Mesmeric Orb Filth + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Altar of Dementia + Mortuary + Narcomoeba Altar of Dementia + Mortuary
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 44 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.30
Tokens	Copy Clone, Zombie 2/2 B