Snek Lady Make Zambers

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) Primer Reanimator

KhaosKontrol

Creature (55)

• 1x Bane of Progress
• 1x Bazaar Trademage
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Cavalier of Gales
• 1x Cavalier of Night
• 1x Cavalier of Thorns
• 1x Champion of Wits
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Corpse Augur
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Dreamscape Artist
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x Genesis
• 1x Ghost-Lit Warder
• 1x Golgari Grave-Troll
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Hedron Crab
• 1x Kederekt Leviathan
• 1x Lord of Extinction
• 1x Meren of Clan Nel Toth
• 1x Mogis's Marauder
• 1x Mortivore
• 1x Murderous Rider
• 1x Mystic Snake
• 1x Nighthowler
• 1x Nimble Obstructionist
• 1x Noxious Gearhulk
• 1x Nyx Weaver
• 1x Phyrexian Delver
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Plaguecrafter
• 1x Profaner of the Dead
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x River Kelpie
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Shadowborn Demon
• 1x Silumgar Sorcerer
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Splinterfright
• 1x Sylvan Caryatid
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x The Gitrog Monster
• 1x Torrent Elemental
• 1x Treasure Keeper
• 1x Underrealm Lich
• 1x Wonder
• 1x Wood Elves
• 1x World Shaper

Land (37)

• 1x Ancient Ziggurat
• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Drownyard Temple
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 3x Forest
• 1x High Market
• 2x Island
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
• 3x Swamp
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Commander (1)

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Splendid Reclamation

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Deathreap Ritual

Artifact (1)

• 1x Whip of Erebos

Instant (1)

• 1x Gnaw to the Bone

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Maybeboard

Creature (3)

• 1x Ayara, First of Locthwain
• 1x Beanstalk Giant
• 1x Molderhulk

Land (2)

• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Forbidden Orchard

Artifact (1)

• 1x Birthing Pod

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Snek lady is snek. Snek lady make zambers. Cratchers to grabyard make zambers when snek lady sees. Zambers are shambles for hurt. Grabyard is full of hurt. Many hurt will be give to any who make anger in snek lady.

I'm not humble at all about this deck because it's a passion project several years in the making, and has proven to be one of my most versatile and interesting decks.

What this deck IS

Snek Lady Make Zambers is, at its heart, a value-based graveyard deck. It focuses primarily on Sidisi’s ability to dump cards into my graveyard, generating a bunch of advantage with zombie tokens, and constantly blasting more cards into the bin for some sweet recursion targets. I run oodles of cards and effects to pull creatures out of my bin and back to my hand, and a few that put them right onto the battlefield. The deck outlasts opponents with resiliency and effective beatdown cards. In terms of power level, I’d put this deck right around the 75-80% mark. It’s good and has amazing synergy, but takes some work to get rolling and can be disrupted.

What this deck IS NOT

This deck is not a combo deck, as I do not much care for infinite combos. It purposefully does not utilize some of the “most powerful” cards in Sidisi decks such as Hermit Druid, Protean Hulk, Mesmeric Orb or Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord (though the deck did run Jarad for a long time, I grew bored of winning with him over half the time). Unfortunately, this deck is also not a budget deck, though it could certainly cost more – however, a version with a less tuned mana base can be built for a little over $200 by my estimation. Finally, this deck is not a conventional “goodstuff” deck. While some of the included cards are definite staples of graveyard strategies, I do not include what most consider “auto includes” – you will notice both Cyclonic Rift and Sol Ring are missing. Yes, I am indeed a mad lad.

Why this deck is FUN

Snek Lady Make Zambers is an amazingly versatile graveyard shell that can take whatever the opponent throws at it and keep on trucking. I’ve come back and won games where nearly half of my library was in my graveyard and someone Bojuka Bog’d it away. Not many graveyard-based decks can say that – sometimes one GY exile is all it takes for them to scoop it up because their needed combo pieces went away with it. My deck also runs very fun cards that make for interesting and enjoyable games. Having said that, let’s take a look at some of the stand-out selections:

Deck Strategy 1 – Creatures, Creatures, Creatures

My Sidisi list runs 55 (!!!) creatures, not including Sidisi herself. Over HALF the deck is creatures, which means any and all mill triggers from Sidisi or otherwise will almost always net me a zombie token. Of course, to facilitate this I need to run solid creatures with good effects stapled onto their butts. Classic rampers like Sakura-Tribe Elder , Wood Elves and Solemn Simulacrum help fire up the engines, while Champion of Wits , Grim Haruspex , Corpse Augur and River Kelpie help refill our hand as the game goes on. My general philosophy has always been “Why do with a noncreature what a creature can do nearly as well?”

Deck Strategy 2 – Dump the Deck

Of course, being a Sidisi list, we’re very interested in dumping our deck into our graveyard. Dredge cards are wonderful for this purpose, but I only run a total of three in the deck since that’s all I ever really need – Golgari Grave-Troll , Life from the Loam and Dakmor Salvage . I have a few other cards that help donk cards into my bin such as Hedron Crab (I almost always target myself), Cavalier of Thorns , Nyx Weaver and Splinterfright , but I don’t need to go too crazy with this since my commander has this effect herself on both ETB and attack, so my graveyard is never empty for long. And since I get a zombie every time there’s a creature in one of my dumps (I need to reword that), the value train never ends.

Deck Strategy 3 – Control Package

This deck offers a ton of interactivity to keep our opponents in check. Many of our creatures blow stuff up such as Cavalier of Night , Shadowborn Demon and Reclamation Sage , and we even have board wiping big boys such as Bane of Progress , Profaner of the Dead and Kederekt Leviathan . Counterspells stapled onto creatures offer some great control options in Mystic Snake , Silumgar Sorcerer and (my personal favorite) Ghost-Lit Warder . And finally, ways to deal with debilitating effects such as that of Torpor Orb can be found with cards like Caustic Caterpillar .

Deck Strategy 4 – Graveyard Beatdown

What good would any of this be without a way to seal the deal? I’ve chosen to go with a relatively straight-forward beatdown strategy utilizing creatures that have power and toughness equal to something involving graveyards. Some just count the creatures in my graveyard - the aforementioned Splinterfright and Golgari Grave-Troll as well as Svogthos, the Restless Tomb ; some count the creatures in all graveyards - Nighthowler and Mortivore ; and one just says “screw it” and counts ALL cards in ALL graveyards – Lord of Extinction . These huge bad asses are further enabled by an absolute unit who not many folks know about: Mogis's Marauder . When I cast a big Living Death on my turn, he gives my biggest, baddest boys haste and intimidate which often spells death for all those who oppose the might of Snek Lady. And, should all this fail, I'll be falling back onto a potential alternate win con: Syr Konrad, the Grim .

Improvements / Suggestions / Final Thoughts

The deck is always undergoing improvement and testing - with the most recent set drops of Modern Horizons and Core 2020, I've slotted in a handful of cards that feel like they'd be fun additions to the deck, and in doing so have managed to increase the number of creatures even higher. Also, as previously mentioned, there are definitely cards that are great in Sidisi that I’m not running – this is by choice, as I find the most enjoyment in playing a unique and cherished deck list over “Sidisi Deck #2134”. Please don’t take this to mean I’m telling you what to play or not play to have your own fun – EDH is such a wonderful game purely because it allows us to express ourselves in cardboard format, be that with hyper competitive, super-tuned deck lists or with 100-card disasters that run jank like Treasure Keeper and Deathreap Ritual … oh wait.

Many folks build Sidisi as a Zombie tribal deck, and if that’s the path you want to take then I say “Go for it!” Zombies are a lot of fun and there’s tons of tribal support for them that matches both color and overall theme (zombie effects are on creature bodies so they trigger Sidisi). This was an early consideration of mine but a friend built his own Sidisi list that went the zombie route, so I chose a different path and haven’t looked back since.

I can tell you with all sincerity that this is one of the most fun decks I’ve ever piloted. I’ve received comments from my fellow LGS EDH players that they’re fascinated with this deck’s versatility and resiliency, that it can fight against the odds and still pull ahead to victory, all while playing interesting and unique cards. This ain’t your grandmother’s Sidisi deck – this is a bold, bombastic and bad ass graveyard blast, and it’ll be sure to bring joy to you and your meta.

tl;dr:

(Updated 9-23-2019)

Date added	10 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.67
Tokens	Champion of Wits 4/4 B, Experience Token, Morph 2/2 C, On an Adventure, Thopter 1/1 C, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Commander Folder, Completed Decks - 3 Color Enemy, 75%, Commander Decks, EDH