Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - The Day the Dead Fly (EDH / Commander) [Revision 96]

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant

-Go Wide Token Strategy
-Self-Mill
-Zombie Tribal?

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 there is recursion for creatures in the graveyard. The graveyard is like a second hand. I have more graveyard recursion in this deck than I have tutors so it is almost more important to have the card in the graveyard than still in the library. The second is mass a land recursion. I have two mass land recursion spell Splendid Reclamation and World Shaper. It can be tricky to know when to play these spells but I would say as soon as you have at least two lands in the graveyard you should play the spell. The reason for this is four mana to get two lands on the battlefield is the standard rate. In the late game, the number of lands in the graveyard will often be more but if you try to wait until then this will become a dead card in your hand and slow you down in the long run. The third and last reason for this is if all else fails you will mill yourself out. This can happen in a grindy game or if you cast Living Death with Tishana, Voice of Thunder and Laboratory Maniac in the graveyard. Although people might feel deflated but such a seemingly out of the blue win-con this is definitely legitimate if people are creating a stacks or pseudo-stacks environment.

Accelerants

There are two types of accelerants and the first of which is to get Sidisi out. I use a lot of mana dorks in this deck. A controversial one is Skyshroud Ranger. I play this card because I frequently have a full hand with multiple lands; being able to put these on to the battlefield can exponentially accelerate me in a non-obvious and secure way. The reason I want most of my accelerants to be 2 CMC or less is if I play an accelerant by turn two I can play Sidisi by turn three and get an early start. 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 and Bident of Thassa are powerhouses, 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. I used to relentlessly attack my opponents. Now I would not recommend that as a viable strategy unless you are gaining an extreme benefit at a low cost. If you have either of those cards it helps twofold. 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. Path of Discovery is one of the win-cons in this deck. It helps you rip through the library and make a massive army of zombies that you can use to swing in with or as part of the value engine. Priest of the Forgotten Gods is an often forgotten card and is highly versatile. I mostly use this to draw an extra card but forcing your opponents to sacrifice a creature in the early game can often lock them down if they only have their commander out. Also having the extra black mana when enables you to cast additional spells. Tishana, Voice of Thunder might have an intimidating mana cost of seven but it often has a huge payoff. Because this is a token deck it is easy to refill your hand with Tishana. Also, Tishana helps enable you to win the game once you can Living Death when Laboratory Maniac is in the graveyard during the late game.

Graveyard Synergy

Wonder is great both in token decks and graveyard decks. If I do not naturally mill Wonder in the graveyard I can put it in there with either Gravebreaker Lamia or Jarad's Orders. If Wonder is already in the graveyard Vizier of Many Faces is another great option to throw into the graveyard. I put Kessig Cagebreakers in because although it is really slow it is extremely satisfying to pull off.

Go Wide

I including some zombie synergies in here because although I do not run many zombies, Sid can produce a ton of tokens. I also included Beastmaster Ascension. In the ideal situation, you should play Beastmaster Ascension right before you swing with seven creatures but I will not hesitate to play it if I have an opening the turn before I get seven quest counters on Beastmaster Ascension.

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 removals. Eleven removal spells is still on the high end but I see it as a throwback to my old deck and adds to its uniqueness as a deck to me. I tend to value removal that can target multiple permanent types even if it is more clunky. Try to hold the counterspells up until they are attempting to dismantle your combo. I often will try to outrace a big threat rather than stop it immediately. Golgari Charm is magnificent, all of its abilities are relevant, my favorite of which is regenerate all creatures you control. Plaguecrafter and Fleshbag Marauder have been in and out of my deck. I ending up keeping Plaguecrafter in because of how oppressive it can be to recur it multiple times. Forcing your opponent to discard a card if they cannot sacrifice a creature pushes the card into the range where I feel comfortable keeping it in the deck even though it cannot target specific creatures. Status // Statue is kinda a weird card, The paying four mana for removal is clunky as I was referring to earlier but being able to give your creature deathtouch in a pinch can really surprise your opponents and give you the edge.