There are a few cards that seem counterproductive to the use of the god. specifically agen of erebos. I understand why hes good in almost any black deck as a counter to graveyard shenanigans, but with that you are essentially giving a clean slate to an option you have

Agent of Erebos ismainly in the deck to counter other graveyard strategies that don't rely on creatures. Even if they do rely on creatures, once some graveyard strategies get going, even The Scarab God 's activated ability won't be able to stop them or necessarily slow them down. That's why Agent of Erebos and Withered Wretch are in the deck as a cheaper and to some extent more efficient graveyard hate which I only use as a backup plan anyway.

looks pretty sweet, if I may I suggest, Exquisite Blood and Paradox Haze?

canapan69 those are some pretty sweet cards I didn't even think about, thanks for the suggestions, I'll find a way to put them in.

If you're running Exquisite Blood, I see no reason to not run Sanguine Bond too since they can make you win immediately if both are on field together.

Diabolic Revelation is a card I like much more than Behold the Beyond. It scales upward, so if you have more than 8, you can find more cards than you could with Behold, but it also doesn't make you discard your hand. Sometimes, also, you may just need 1 more card and Revelation can be one cheaper to cast in those situations.

Cabal Coffers would be phenomenal here. Expedition Map to more reliably find Coffers or Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth would be great as well (which would also benefit Zombie Master wins, too). Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx seems like a no brainer as well.

PookandPie your suggestions are highly appreciated. I'm not sure how, but I forgot that Cabal Coffers and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx existed even though I use them in other commander decks. Expedition Map flew completely under my radar and I'm really grateful that you suggested it. I would run Sanguine Bond, but I played against someone who managed to pull the 2 enchantment combo off, and it wasn't necessarily that fun. So even though it is a win condition I'll leave it out of my deck. Diabolic Revelation is another card that I didn't know existed until you mentioned it, but sadly I was already replacing Behold the Beyond with Demonic Tutor due to the fact that it never saw play even if I drew it, because it cost too much mana and the discard effect is also pretty nasty when you have a good hand.

I don't think Retribution of the Ancients is good enough to run just because of one card in your deck (Mikaeus, the Unhallowed). If he was your commander then that is a different sorry. It is a dead card without him. I would cut Ever After, not a lot for 6cmc.

I also would consider some Flash enablers so that you can keep mana up for counters, and bring back your commander before your upkeep everytime!

Could you check out my list at:

The Scarab God - by VexenX

Commander / EDH* VexenX

SCORE: 1 | 2 VIEWS

Corpse Connoisseur and Zombie Infestation.

I though about adding Corpse Connoisseur in the original rendition of the deck, but I removed it mainly due to the fact that it wasn't good then, but it might be good now. I'll have to playtest it to decide again.

Zombie Infestation as a card, is too slow in the deck, plus discarding our own hand isn't our own game plan.

Just curious, but, wouldnt you want to discard some zombies to make some zombies, then you can reanimate the zombies you discarded. You have many ways to get the zombie cards you discard back. Upvote by the way. Love this commander, love this build.

I would do that, but if I were to do that then I would probably put in Necromancer's Stockpile instead of Zombie Infestation. Plus even though this deck has lots of graveyard recursion, you still have to find it, which ends up being a problem, and then there's also the problem of graveyard hate, so I don't want to put that much important stuff early on in the game with discard effects. Especially when most of my playgroup has mass graveyard exiles.

Considering gravepact and Dictate of Erebos, have you considered Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet? It is pretty solid at producing zombie token.

I thought about adding in Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, but he ends up exiling the creatures that I can recur with The Scarab God, and I'm pretty sure 4/4 zombies that are copies of the creature are better than generic 2/2 zombies.

Fair enough.

Gempalm Polluter?

First time I've heard of Gempalm Polluter. I find him interesting, but not good enough, because his cycle effect only targets one player. The Scarab God does a better job for that, and Shepherd of Rot also does a better job compared to Gempalm Polluter, even though it hurts us as well.

i dont think you can afford to not run Patriarch's Bidding and Distant Melody, also Undead Alchemist, with the idea of milling just a bonus (if suspected creatureless just dont cast). off the top of my head

You should consider replacing more of your 5cmc cards with mana rocks like Sol Ring, Talisman of Dominance, and Dimir Signet. Those will help you get your commander out earlier.

I know Paradox Haze works really well with The Scarab God, but there aren't a whole lot of other cards in your deck that combo with it. Might consider adding in some cards that trigger during your upkeep, like Phyrexian Arena and Graveborn Muse for card draw and Tombstone Stairwell, which goes crazy with Plague Belcher and Vengeful Dead. Plus, you can stack the triggers so that the Stairwell triggers before Scarab's trigger and wreck face with it.

Necropotence is another great card for drawing, but exiling on discard kinda sucks.

Also, lands that make any color mana really help The Scarab God's eternalize ability in the event that you want activate abilities outside of your color identity, so throwing in City of Brass, Mana Confluence, and Exotic Orchard might be pretty sweet. Chromatic Lantern may also give you some ramp, but taking up a spot in a 2 color deck just for that effect may not be worth it.

Other than that, the deck looks pretty sweet. +1 from me!

+1 for no Grimgrin

dlaxw7 thanks for the suggestions, sorry it took so long to reply. In the case for upkeep triggers you are right, and I'll definitely find place for Phyrexian Arena, and possibly Tombstone Stairwell. I've played with Graveborn Muse before and killed myself with it, so I don't necessarily want to use it, although Tombstone Stairwell can also end up backfiring. For the point of activated abilities, I so far had no problems with it, because my playgroup usually doesn't play around with that many. I considered running Necropotence, but I decided against it, cause people in my playgroup love to play wheel effects. Thanks for the suggestions though, it's highly appreciated.

I recently pulled an Invocation Scarab God and want to build a similar Zombie / Reanimator / Mill deck. Out of curiosity what are the biggest issues and worst matchups you face with this deck?

BolasFucksSome of the biggest problems I've come upon in my playgroup is gravehate especially Relic of Progenitus, Flyers, and Combo decks.

Gravehate isn't necessarily a problem, because you can reanimate creatures in other people's decks with The Scarab God, but singe target gravehate like Scavenging Ooze, or exile all graveyard effects like on Relic of Progenitus are a pretty big problem for The Scarab God.

Flyers I've noticed are a pretty big problem for the deck, because you have no real way of stopping them without using removal or having a good old fashioned make everyone else sacrifice stuff. Out of most flyers I find Kaalia of the Vast to be pretty hard to deal with, because she cheats a lot into play.

The biggest problem I've come upon are combo decks. The Scarab God is a commander that takes time to get going, so interacting with combo in the early game is really rough. Against decks which can pull off turn 3 wins, and decks that rely more on spells rather than creatures are pretty difficult to deal with. If it's a combo that relies on the creatures in the graveyard, then The Scarab God can deal with that. In my experience, Saffi Eriksdotter can get pretty out of hand, because (at least in my playgroup) she pumps out turn 3 wins easily, and if that's not the case then it will become a (un)happy wait as they make infinite squirrels, infinite mana, or infinite mill. With The Scarab God I am able to somewhat disrupt the combos, but there are so many of them that even with Training Grounds I'm not able to stop them all.

Other mill decks can get annoying, and can set you back (turn 5 Traumatize), but in the end they can at the same time really benefit you.

These so far are the weaknesses I've found while playing in my playgroup. Hope it helps.

Thanks Hata98 for the quick reply. I haven't played against Saffi but the ability definitely seems like something that can do very broken things.

As far as the flying have you considered playing Eldrazi Monument? It's 5 mana but would give your zombie army flying AND indestructible, while the "downside" of having to sacrifice a creature each turn is minimized by the deck's recursion theme.

Also, I feel like truly competitive fast combo decks are problematic for everyone so that doesn't worry me too much. I noticed you only have one instant in the deck which is Fact or Fiction. Have you considered swapping some of the more expensive cards that play a redundant role in the deck (for example Grave Betrayal for early interaction like Negate, Dispel, etc? It seems like a waste to have access to blue and make no use of it.

I had Eldrazi Monument in the deck before, but it never really helped me that much, but I might put it into the deck again BolasFucks. The thing about it is that I'll have to search out Gravecrawler before I play it out, because then there is no real punishment for me. It's just that it never did much for me in the games that I used it so I removed it.

For the point of running counters, I'm generally against counters, because I enjoy seeing what everyone's decks can do, and I really dislike having thing counters, so I'm sure others would feel the same way. I'm currently thinking about replacing Call to the Grave with Phyrexian Arena for more card draw.