Artifact Reanimate (EDH / Commander)

Strategy

Early Game
Our focus is on two things:

1. Get Osgir out early and generate value.

   • There are a couple cards that can get us a turn 1 Osgir, The Reconstructor. Jeweled Lotus is the obvious one and makes most openers with it keepable, the other option is more risky with Lion’s Eye Diamond which can theoretically bin a bunch of resources for Osgir to use, but makes us lose if Osgir eats removal early. Osgir should be out by turn 3 at the latest.

2. Drop Stax to slow our opponents down

   • Artifact stax can be sacrificed and reanimated as needed
   • Rule of Law doesn't hurt us much once Osgir is out.

Mid Game
Once we get our engine running we need to start applying pressure with attacks from Osgir while forcing our opponents to deal with tough stax.

Stax Engine
Our main gameplan is to sac and loop stax pieces to create disparities affecting only our opponents. This requires a sac outlet (instant speed) and ways to return stax pieces from the graveyard to the battlefield. Osgir is the first sac outlet we will likely use, tutoring a better one can help but isn’t necessary.

Sac Outlets
S-Tier

• Krark Clan Ironworks (free sac outlet)
• Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer (free sac outlet)

A-Tier

• Osgir, The Reconstructor (costs 1 but consistently available)
• Goblin Welder (needs to tap)
• Goblin Engineer (needs to tap)

F-Tier

• Kuldotha Forgemaster (needs tap AND 3 artifacts, not good)
• Oswald Fiddlebender (Sorcery Speed, not good for this purpose)

Reanimation
S-Tier

• Goblin Welder (swaps any two artifacts)
• Goblin Engineer (1 mana to swap low cost artifacts)

A-Tier

• Osgir, The Reconstructor (exiles + clones, not ideal for the loop)
• Myr Retriever (1 use revive with a sac outlet, decent with Osgir clones)

B-Tier

• Sevinne’s Reclamation (3 cards back, often better to keep for non-artifact permanents)
• Underworld Breach (one turn, best used on a turn where we go off)

Stax Pieces
Looped

• Winter Orb (strong stax piece against land based decks that doesn’t hurt us much, possible candidate to loop but also fine to play symmetric)
• Static Orb (very strong stax effect, good candidate to loop)
• Tangle Wire (Strong stax effect, good for looping or cloning with Osgir)

Not Looped

• Ethersworn Canonist (strong against non artifact based decks, play symmetrically)
• Treasure Nabber (Stolen artifacts can be sacrificed, good against other artifact decks)
• Blood Moon (strong land hate, symmetric)
• Torpor Orb (Useful hate effect, sac if we want to dockside)
• Stone of Erech (Asymmetrical GY hate)
• Drannith Magistrate (Commander hate, situationally GY hate)
• Archon of Emeria (Rule of Law effect)
• Eidolon of Rhetoric (Rule of Law effect)
• Phyrexian Censor (rule of Law effect)
• Trinisphere (good early game, after Osgir)

Taxes

• Smothering Tithe (Good in conjunction with more oppressive stax)
• Esper Sentinel (best used in conjunction with other stax pieces)
• Lodestone Golem (Tax on non-artifacts)
• Sphere of Resistance (Good Tax effect)
• Damping Sphere (Good against storm decks, also shuts off cabal coffers / Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx / Gaea’s Cradle)

End Game
We can end the game in a few different ways, but they follow a couple main paths:

1. Mycosynth Lattice Lock
2. Commander Damage

Mycosynth Lattice Endgame
This endgame is a good one to shoot for if we have Karn, The Great Creator or Vandalblast in hand as Mycosynth Lattice can be easily tutored (sometimes even to the battlefield). Kuldotha Forgemaster is the best tutor for this line, as we rely on Mycosynth Lattice so the cheated cost helps a lot. Mycosynth Lattice is fairly resilient to counters since it can be reanimated with Osgir or another source fairly consistently, this means we can try to play out the combo over several turns rather than waiting to have 10-11 mana to play it all at once. With 8 mana and Dockside Extortionist, we can probably recoup any lost mana before following up with a finisher.

Mycosynth Lattice + Karn, The Great Creator [10 mana]
= Lock-Out Opponents (all mana sources)
Mycosynth Lattice + Vandalblast (overloaded) [11 Mana]
= Destroy all Opponents Permanents
Mycosynth Lattice + Treasure Nabber [9 mana]
= Steal Opponent’s Tapped Lands (soft lock, good follow up to a Vandalblast)
Mycosynth Lattice + Osgir, The Reconstructor
= Sac any permanents to buff Osgir (9 artifacts is lethal commander damage)
Mycosynth Lattice + Dockside Extortionist
= Many treasures

Other Synergies
Lion’s Eye Diamond + Underworld Breach + Wheel of Fortune
= Mill through deck
Mesmeric Orb + Basalt Monolith
= Mill through deck
Smothering Tithe + Memory Jar / Wheel of Fortune / Reforge the Soul
= many treasures