Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - The Day the Dead Fly (EDH / Commander)

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant

Self-Mill
Make Tokens
Reanimate Creatures
Rinse and Repeat

When playing this deck, you want to mill as much as possible even if Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is not on the battlefield. There are three reasons for this. The first is the reanimate and regrowth effects in the deck. The graveyard is a second hand. I have more graveyard recursion in this deck than I have tutors, so it is more important to have the card in the graveyard than still in the library. The second is mass land recursion. I have two mass land recursion spells Splendid Reclamation and World Shaper. Play these spells once there are at least two lands in the graveyard. Four mana to get two lands on the battlefield is the standard rate. If you wait, then you won’t keep a mana advantage over your opponents. Third, you can win with Laboratory Maniac or Thassa’s Oracle when there are 0 cards left in the deck. An easy way to do this is if you have either of those cards and Tishana, Voice of Thunder, or Mulldrifter in the graveyard and you cast Living Death or Rise of the Dark Realms.

Early Accelerants
The goal is to get Sidisi out on turn 3. There are mana dorks, like Birds of Paradise, which are powerful but can get swept up in board wipes. There are ramp cards like, Sakura-Tribe Elder, to get lands from the library directly into play. There are landfall cards, like Tireless Provisioner, are amazing when you cast Splendid Reclamation. I want to highlight Avenging Druid. If you can hit your opponent once with that you are golden because you get a land untapped onto the battlefield and you may get cards into the graveyard. Notably Sol Ring is absent from this deck. I like to tell myself that it is too big big of a staple or it is not a creature so it doesn't synergize but in reality, I am just too lazy to put it into the deck.

Late Accelerants
The other type of accelerant is big mana which I referenced in the introductory paragraph. I like Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun because it is both a creature-based and a token deck. Having big mana in the late game can help you cast multiple spells at once. I tried to keep the CMC of most of my spells low but some of the higher CMC spells are the closers.

Card Advantage
Most of my card advantage is centered around creatures which can be a risky strategy but, in this deck, yields massive payoffs. Ohran Frostfang, Bident of Thassa, and Toski, Bearer of Secrets are massive engines, it would be reasonable to expect to have a few zombie tokens and a couple of non-token creatures on the battlefield at the same time. These cards enable the game plan in multiple ways. A. it gives card advantage and B. it helps the self-mill strategy by removing cards from your library. These cards synergize extremely well with Wonder and Underrealm Lich. There are cards that draw cards upon ETB, like Mulldrifter, these are part of the wincon as mentioned earlier. Drown in Dreams is powerful because it is an X spell that lets you dig 3X deep. Muldrotha, the Gravetide can allow you to play 3 extra spells per turn in this deck. The Gitrog Monster allows you to draw whenever you mill and sacrifices lands to get them into the graveyard for cards like Splendid Reclamation.

Self-Mill
These cards are the most important in the deck. Altar of Dementia is a faux infinite combo with Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. The altar can sacrifice the zombie tokens to mill yourself. If you mill a creature, you get another zombie token. This is better than Phenax, God of Deception because Altar of Dementia is 2 CMC and Phenax is 5 CMC. Altar of Dementia can act immediately and doesn’t care if the creatures have summoning sickness. I have several cards that mill on ETB and do one other thing. These are good low-cost ways to start the game and get cards in the graveyard. Stitcher’s Supplier is the best of the bunch because it mills twice, on ETB and death. Underrealm Lich is a very good card selection, especially with Bident of Thassa and similar effects.

Go Wide
There is a small zombie synergy in this section because of the tokens made but there are not many other zombies in this deck. The original iteration of this deck was a Golgari zombie deck. Wonder is great. I have a lot of non-basics in this deck now. So, make sure to fetch Islands for this card and Mystic Sanctuary or you might be SOL. Beastmaster Ascension is a wincon. Play it when you have open mana or can swing for lethal.

Regrowth Effects
These cards act like tutors because the graveyard gets exponentially larger with this deck as the game goes on. Eternal Witness can loop with Living Death and Altar of Dementia. Genesis is handy in the graveyard but is a dead card in hand. I have played around with the idea of having a discard outlet for this card and Wonder but haven’t decided if it is worth it yet.

Reanimate Effects
Reanimate and Unearth are nice to get an immediate effect. Hell’s Caretaker seems cool but I haven’t been able to cast it yet.

Removal
I used to run 20+ removal spells when I first build this deck. As a new player, this was not the worst thing to have because it allowed me to be more political and gain a greater depth of understanding of the game through threat evaluation. I would ask people what the biggest threat was and target that most of the time. This also helped me stay in the game as a deck with a lower power level because I could remove threats that would take me out of the game. Once I started building a more tuned deck, I took out some of the removal spells. I tend to value removal that can target multiple permanent types even if it is more clunky. Druid of Purification is funny because it wrecks the enchantment/artifact players' day. Plaguecrafter is powerful when it is recurred especially with Living Death because it can force players to sacrifice one of the few creatures they may have gotten back. The discard ability on Plaguecrafter pushes it over the top. Golgari Charm is magnificent, all its abilities are relevant, my favorite of which is regenerate all creatures you control. Sultai Charm is handy because it allows you to either destroy a permanent or draw two cards for only 3 mana!

Protection and Counter Magic
Don’t use the counterspells aggressively only to stop game-ending threats or to stop opponents from dismantling what you have going on.

Board Wipes
Find//Finality is great because it can let you get back two creatures from your graveyard or wipe the board and leave you with your best creature. Living Death is the second strongest card in the deck after Altar of Dementia. It flips the board and graveyard. I have never been at a table where I have not had the largest graveyard with the most creatures in it.

Closers
I don’t think I have ever cast Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur but it looks badass. Laboratory Maniac and Thassa’s Oracle are great. You want them in the graveyard because they are dead cards in hand. These two, Wonder, and Genesis are all dead cards in hand. Maybe I should get a discard outlet… Rise of the Dark Realms is a second Living Death but worse because it costs 9 mana. Syr Konrad, the Grim is probably the third most powerful card in the deck. Just whittles away at your opponents.

Lands
My mana fixing is pretty good at this point. The fetches are nice to get more lands in the graveyard. When fetching try to get Islands so Mystic Sanctuary can go online. Mystic Sanctuary can also be fetched because itself is an Island. I try to value lands coming in untapped, so I run fetches, shocks, crowd lands, pain lands, and slow lands. I also have Zagoth Triome for the color fixing.

Utility Lands
These lands fuel a greater engine at play. Bala Ged Recovery is another Regrowth. Bojuka Bog shuts down other graveyard decks, which is great for Living Death. Buried Ruin lets me get Altar of Dementia out of the graveyard. I put Golgari Rot Farm back in because it synergizes with all but one of my utility lands. It also gets you an extra land drop. If it plays out maybe I put in another bounce land. Lotus Field sacrifices two lands which gets more lands in the graveyard for The Gitrog Monster and Splendid Reclamation. Mystic Sanctuary can be fetched and can get Living Death and other power spells out of the graveyard and into my hand (just don’t mill after the ETB). The channel lands come in untapped and tap for a color. It’s free real estate. They also can be discarded into the graveyard for later use. Otawara, Soaring City can save a creature, bounce your creature for another ETB, or tempo an opponent. Takenuma, Abandoned Mire mills and returns a creature to your hand?!?!?!? What more can you ask for?