Araumi Surfer of the Dead Tide (EDH / Commander)

Good synergies, and small combo, but not exclusively a combo deck

No Tassas Oracle line.

Protect your commander and your grave

The deck is very dependet to [[Araumi of the Dead Tide]]. So it is crutial to protect her. Cards doing so are: [[Swiftfoot Boots]], and [[Lightning Greaves]]. Another advantage of these is that you can use Araumi the turn you play her. Since the deck wants to be fast, additional protection is dilivered through counters like [[Force of will]] or [[Fierce Guardianship]]. [[Flusterstorm]] and [[Swan Song]] are cheap so can help against spot removal or board Wipes.
Another way is to kill your opponents within the turn you play Araumi - so she needs haste: [[Hall of the Bandit Lord]], or [[Thousand-Year Elixir]] can help out in these situations.
Protecting your grave with this setup can be very hard. Counters can come in very handy, or on spot removal for creatures like [[Dauthi Voidwalker]]: [[Snuff Out]], [[Feed the Swarm]] or [[Dismember]], which works on indestructible creatures aswell.

Fill your grave:

Since you want your toolbox in your grave and have to remove cards to encore your creatures you should fill it as soon as possible. Great cards doing so are:

1. [[Mesmeric Orb]] - in combination with [[Aphetto Alchemist]] and its selfuntapping ability you can easyly mill your complete deck in one turn. Disadvantage - if you play against another grave dependent deck you help out a lot with the Orb.
2. [[Glimpse the unthinkable]] - no disadvantage
3. [[Hedron Crap]] - very nice in the early game (turn one!)
4. [[Brain Freeze]] - which you should play in your opponents turn.
5. [[Ashiok, Dream Render]] - fills your grave, hates the grave of your opponents and its static ability is powerful aswell!
6. [[Emry, Lurker of the Loch]], [[Champion of Wits]], [[Stitcher's Supplier]] are most powerful if you encore them with Araumi.
7. [[Altar of Dementia]] is a powerful card, which is stronger in the middle of the game, if you can sacrifice your encored tokens. Generally you can play your low cmc creatures and have a sac outlet to get them to the grave and encore them with Araumi.

Filter and fill your grave

The nice thing about filtering is that there are some cards you want to have in your grave and others would be nice to keep in your hand. If you want to dig deep into your library, or search for a land.

1. [[Careful Study]] and [[Frantic search]]
2. [[Chart a Course]] - can be a simple card draw or a filter - as you choose, dependent on the situation. [[Windfall]] hmm. I like but am not sure.
3. In combination with other mill effects [[Brainstorm]] can act as a kind of Filter aswell. You can choose cards from your hand and filter them into your grave.

Win the game

Since you mostly have 3 opponents it is nice to have a counter in hand to protect your win con. If you are sure to win the game the next turn [[Pact of Negation]] can be usefull but also the other counters can save your ass.

1. Classic Araumi win is with its synergy with [[Gray Merchant of Asphodel]]. If you encore him with Araumi you get 3 tokens which have a devotion of 6 total, adding one from Araumi drains each opponent for 21 life and you get 63. Imagine if you have [[Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore]] or [[Phantasmal Image]] and are able to untap Araumi with [[Fatestitcher]] which you unearth from your grave, or another untap posibility. You can easyly win the game on spot. Tip: if you want to encore multiple times: encore a untapping creature first ;)

2. [[Buried Alive]] is an awesome tutor in Araumi anyway, but it can just tutor your total win con: [[Apprentice Necromancer]], [[Mikaeus, the Unhallowed]] and [[Triskelion]]. Encore [[Apprentice Necromancer]] with Araumi: get 3 copies, animate [[Mikaeus, the Unhallowed]] and [[Triskelion]], ping any target with Triskelion, ping Triskelion 2 times, Triskelion dies, undies - repeat infinite times. The combo additionally works with [[Victimize]], [[Wake the Dead]] and [[Agadeem's Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt]].

3. Another very complicated win-reanimation-loop is described here: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/to-drown-the-world-in-death-araumi-edh-primer/ but its not included in this deck.

Board Wipe

1. This is a more obscure combo: If we have [[Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore]] or [[Phantasmal Image]] as a copy of [[Cavalier of Night]], we can sacrifice it to any sac outlet ([[Ashnod's Altar]], [[Altar of Dementia]]). When we sacrifice the Mimic/Image, it has a “dies” trigger which reanimates a creature with converted mana cost three or less. Since Glasspool Mimic/Phantasmal Image is in graveyard fulfilling this condition, we can automatically return it to the battlefield as a copy of Cavalier and repeat. This combo is generating infinite mana, or mill. Note: For this combo, Cavalier of Night can be a token copy from Araumi, but Glasspool Mimic/ Phantasmal Image cannot be a token.
2. [[Massacre Wurm]] encored with Araumi - every creature gets -6/-6. you get a lot of life
3. [[Toxic Deluge]]

Get a lot of mana

If you encore [[Peregrine Drake]] and [[Cloud of Faeries]] you can untap your lands between the etb triggers: -15 mana for the drake and 6 mana for the Faeries
[[Soldevi Adnate]] can give you 6 mana for sure, if you have different creatures to sac it can even be more.

Untap Araumi

Since you mill yourself alot and most of the time you can not choose which cards you are milling, a lot of value is directly going to your grave. [[Fatestitcher]] is the perfect answer, and lets you encore two times even if it is in your grave. [[Corridor Monitor]] and [[Aphetto Alchemist]] are best to encore. Since they let you untap Araumi several times. If you have [[Peregrine Drake]] and [[Cloud of Faeries]] in your grave too you can encore them next: get alot of mana and encore other powerful stuff.
[[Minamo, School at Water's Edge]] is useful some times, but only untaps Araumi once.

Value to encore

1. [[Floating-Dream Zubera]] with three copies dying eot, you can draw 9 cards.
2. [[Ravenous Chupacabra]] - 3 times removal, [[Plaguecrafter]] - each opponent sacrifices 3 creatures.
3. [[Kokusho, the Evening Star]] - two copies die immideately, because of the legend rule. Anyway the touch the grave and drain each opponent for 10. Another 5 are added eot.
4. [[Archaeomancer]] - instant resecuration: best find [[Burried Alive]] or one of the double reanimation spells.
5. [[Grave Titan]] gets you 6 2/2 Zombies, than on attack additional 6.

Value, which is just value

1. [[Yawgmoth's Will]] since you have your toolbox in your grave it can give you all the cards you need. Be careful with milling yourself while it is active, since all the cards are removed from the game.
2. [[Pitiless Plunderer]] should be just played to get him on the battlefield and profit from his ability. If you are going to encore more than one time a turn, you can think of encoring him and get many Treasure Tokens.
3. Reanimation spells: [[Reanimate]], [[Victimize]] are very powerful. Using [[Wake the Dead]] to reanimate Kokusho, or Gray Merchant during combat of your opponents can be life saving.

Araumi is not the easiest commander deck to play but it sure is fun!

If you have any feedback let me know. If you have any suggerstions to improve the deck please feel free to tell me! And if you take some ideas from the deck just let me know!