This is my first primer so if you find typos, mistakes or things that don't make sense, tell me in a nice friendly way so that I can fix it
To start of this deck explanation, we first need to understand what exactly makes Karador, Ghost Chieftain so powerful. - His strong suit is his resilience. He is able rebuild his board state faster than any other general EDH has to offer. He is able to survive several board wipes due to his casting cost being so low after your graveyard is full of creatures. Karador, Ghost Chieftain ends up being a very fun commander to pilot and a very fun commander to build around.
Spells -
All of the spells in this deck fall into at least one of the categories. The ones that fall into a few of these categories like
Removal -
Removal is a key part of any Karador, Ghost Chieftain deck. This removal is both mass creature removal like Damnation and single creature removal like Vindicate. The best part is that most of this removal comes with a creature too such as Bone Shredder, Angel of Despair and Archon of Justice. These creatures keep you alive for pure late game domination.
Engines -
Karador, Ghost Chieftain loves it when Birthing Pod, Fauna Shaman and Survival of the Fittest are enabled. These engines are able to fill up our graveyard with creatures, while also getting better creatures.
Ramp -
Ramp is very important to Karador, Ghost Chieftain especially early in the game. Some of Karador, Ghost Chieftain's favorite ramp spells are Oracle of Mul Daya, Yavimaya Elder and Sakura-Tribe Elder. Mirari's Wake is pure awesomeness.
Draw -
Drawing cards can sometimes be a bit tough for Karador, Ghost Chieftain. Luckily, with cards such as Greater Good,
Skull Clamp
and Sensei's Divining Top. Any of these Spells can put you into enormous card advantage.
Reanimator -
There aren't too many Reanimation spells in this deck, mainly because our Commander is a Reanimation spell. The only reanimator spell is Victimize which is almost too good to not include.
Recursion -
Sometimes you just like your removal spells so much that you want to play them again. Cards like Eternal Witness and Regrowth make this easy to accomplish.
Tutors -
Tutors go find things that Karador, Ghost Chieftain really wants. He may want an engine or the final piece in a series of creatures or another kill spell. These spells are all extremely useful. Some of these cards include Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Tutor. All EDH decks that include the color black have likely considered running cards like these.
Protection -
Karador, Ghost Chieftain often struggles against super aggro decks such as Rafiq of the Many. These protection spells stop the huge amounts of lethal damage these decks can deal along with putting a creature in your graveyard. These cards are Spore Frog and Kami of False Hope. Because Graveyard hate is a strategy our deck cannot deal with
True Believer
is in here too.
Other -
All of the other cards that don't fall under this category are likely cards that too good to not include. These cards are Avenger of Zendikar, Craterhoof Behemoth, Deathrite Shaman, Yosei, the Morning Star,
visera seer
, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Mindslicer.
It's worth mentioning some of the All-Star cards in this deck because some of these can truely dominate the game.
Birthing Pod -
This is my favorite card of this deck hands down. It is probably my favorite card to build around. Some fun things you can do are the following...
play Yavimaya Elder pod it to then get Oracle of Mul Daya then play both the basic you got.
play Avenger of Zendikar getting you lots of tokens then pod Avenger of Zendikar to find Craterhoof Behemoth if this has been accomplished you would have turned you tokens into plants of mass destruction.
Mindslicer -
This guy just shutdowns everyone's plan, especially when against a control deck where their sole goal in life is to draw as many counterspells as possible.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed -
When you top deck this card in late game you will feel like you have just won a million bucks. Only 3 of the cards in this deck are humans meaning that all of the ETB effects on the others are amplified by a ton. If you have a sacrifice outlet too (Greater Good, Viscera Seer, High Market, or
Phyrexian Tower
), it makes it even better. All mtg players should know that when he comes out, he means buisness.
Greater Good -
This card is greater than good. It's amazing. It gets you lots of cards when you need them and who cares if your creature goes to the graveyard. Karador, Ghost Chieftain will likely get it back for you.
Hermit Druid -
Okay so this guy can be very, very, very, broken in certain decks. So broken that he was banned in Legacy. But it is not banned in EDH. Although he can be easily broken, I didn't want to give off the impression to my friends that "if I untap this guy, I win!". In order to make my deck work effectively in this deck, I made sure to include plenty of basics. The current number of basics in this deck is 9 so if you do the math, you are going to be putting approximately 11 cards into your graveyard per activation. Sounds fair to me...
Puppeteer Clique -
So when you boardwipe, or remove another creature of your opponents, sometimes you want it. This guy will satisfy your greed for your opponents creatures. Then once you use their creature it gets exiled. Plus you get to do it again and again until your opponents realize that putting Jin-Gitaxis, Core Auger was not so a good idea.
Yosei, the Morning Star -
Locking down you opponent from tapping mana is typically an effective way to win. It's not so fun for your opponents though, so only bring it out if you are facing big jerks.
How to Pilot
Luckily the piloting of this deck is pretty simple. Just focus on getting rid of your opponents biggest threats and then if they start going a little too creature crazy... board wipe. Once they have run out of their threats play Karador, Ghost Chieftain and reanimate a couple dudes to keep their other threats they draw away and proceed to win. In multiplayer games, operate as if you were a police officer. Don't abuse your power as a police officer, only use it to keep the threats away.
In Conclusion
So, That is Karador, Ghost Chieftain hopefully this deck inspired you to play or not play him. He can be annoying for some opponents due to the large amount of removal so Be Warned. This is a rather competitive build of this deck, so if you are looking for a more casual build, there are lots of ways to go about doing that with Karador. I have seen builds where he is only built using slivers, with and without infinite combos, with as many board wipes as possible, and many more. As long as you play around building him, I'm sure that you find a deck with him that you will like.
