Primer updated 2024.03.01

Dimir Control Reanimator

> Introduction

Even without game changers, this deck absolutely meets the spirit of Bracket 3. I added Ancient Tomb, Fierce Guardianship, and Cyclonic Rift as 3 game changers - two of the top pieces of interaction and a piece of ramp to get to our 5 mana commander faster.

UB (Dimir) Control and Reanimator are probably my favorite archetypes. My (re)introduction to MTG and Commander was during Hour of Devastation, and I quickly fell in love with The Scarab God. Despite this, I had tried to brew The Scarab God over the years, but the decks always felt too slow, too sorcery speed, too clunky, too tribal, or too reliant on generic, boring Dimir combos. I’d try to police the table and wind up with no cards in my hand and hated out of the game. After years of Commander and exposure to Queen Marchesa and the Aikido playstyle in my playgroup, I realized how to successfully play control in a multiplayer environment. I word the deck title as Dimir Control first, and then Reanimator, because it it’s heart, this is a control deck that uses reanimation as the wincon.

> Rules of Engagement

I’d like to start here by listing my deckbuilding rules for this deck, so you don’t wonder why I’m missing specific cards. Control makes people salty, so I prefer to avoid the salt inducing cards in the salt inducing deck so I can at least get satisfaction of a clean win.

• No fast mana that doesn’t come normally in a precon (i.e. Sol Ring).
• No free spells (Fierce Guardianship, Deadly Rollick).
• Nothing out of EDHREC Top 100 Saltiest cards (Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, Cyclonic Rift, Mana Drain, and again Fierce Guardianship for examples).
• No infinite combos. I just don’t enjoy winning like that. If I want to play tight quick competitive games, I’ll just play 1v1 from my cube.

I go further into potential infinite combos you can add if you want and more excluded cards in later sections, but just thought I’d add this right up front.

> Overview

If you run over to EDHrec and punch in The Scarab God, you’re going to see a Dimir Zombie Commander. That’s not this deck and that’s not how this deck should be played. I don't care about zombies at all, except at the end of all things, when I've established my stranglehold over the table and am turning everyone's graveyards into 4/4 eternalized zombies on my side to drain them out.

Nor is this an all-in reanimator strategy. In fact, if you were looking to play a straight legacy style reanimator bomb-cheating deck, I’d encourage you to just put Rona, Herald of Invasion or Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator in the command zone. Having a two-mana looter in the command zone is INSANE for that type of strategy in commander; literally just fill your deck with bombs and cheap reanimation and you're off to the races. They've printed a TON of new 2 mana looters lately and I LOVE THEM ALL. Likeness Looter, Rona, Herald of Invasion, Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator,
Kitsa, Otterball Elite. Love them. Cultivate that perfect hand and put exactly what you want into the graveyard exactly when you want.

Anyways. This deck isn't that either. This is a control list. We try, for the most part, to play draw/go. The Scarab God’s activated ability is one of the most beautiful things we can do at instant speed, which, when combined with his upkeep triggered ability, gives us our gameplan – inevitability.

> Strategy

Here's a good spot to talk about playing control in Commander. People think control in Commander equates to control in 1v1. Answer every threat. Deny value. Be the fun police. These folks must not have played an RPG before. You need to control your threat. Don’t burn all your resources aggroing every player at the table and then get hated out of the game. For folks who try to play control and wind up losing this way, I suggest building and playing an Aikido style deck (Queen Marchesa, for example). There is a fantastic, active discord for Marchesa: https://discord.gg/QRSzHU6hmZ. This type of deck will teach you politics and restraint, how and when to respond to threats, and how and when to drop your bombs. The mindset from an Aikido deck is (in my opinion) the perfect mindset for playing control in Commander. You save your answers for the things that MATTER. Your focus should be on protecting your key pieces (and not losing). You should (almost) never deny value or remove things for no good reason. It doesn’t matter how seemingly overwhelming one of your opponents are if you’ve got the answer in your hand and they are using that power against your other opponents.

With control, you want to be playing draw/go. You want to hold up mana to respond to things that threaten your game state with cheap interaction and dump your mana on advantage right before your turn (which The Scarab God’s ability is unmatched for). Your opponents should honestly be terrified of attacking you or casting something against you; like the hornet’s nest, it’s just not worth the trouble. “Threat of activation” is still a thing in Commander games.

Here’s another thing. You don’t worry about playing The Scarab God as fast as possible. It’s your finisher. It comes out when you can bring it out and cover its ass until you untap. It’s is your parity breaker. All players have dwindling resources and filling graveyards. You bring out The Scarab God and start pulling away. You have a fist full of instants to answer any threat, and with any spare mana at the dead last second before your turn you grow your board for more value.

The deck is open in terms of game plan right from the start. If you wanted my idea of a perfect opener, it’s something like three lands, a two-mana looter, a piece of card advantage, a piece of ramp, and a counterspell. That's heaven right there.

> Infinite Combos

This deck is tuned for my meta. There are no infinite combos that I know of.

Easy combos to include:

• Astral Dragon + Machine God’s Effigy
• Necrotic Ooze + Asmodeus the Archfiend + Skirge Familiar
• Codex Shredder + mana positive rocks + Hullbreaker Horror
• Bolas's Citadel + Sensei's Divining Top
• Thassa’s Oracle combos (you’re in Dimir)

> Wincons

The deck is about inevitability. As the game progresses, your opponents are over-extending, burning resources, board-wiping and removing. Graveyards are filling. You take your licks and bide your time but set up key pieces on the board, protect them, and accumulate answers. Eventually you start dropping the “thumb screws”, the puzzle piece components that lock together to form an un-answerable mess for your opponents. You’ve got The Scarab God, Training Grounds, and Sphinx of the Second Sun out, a handful of interaction, and graveyards are full. You’re off to the races. There are endless examples I could throw here but the point is the deck is chock full of ways to get to this inevitable game state and close it out.

> Tips

The absolute most important things I can say here:

• Play Control with an Aikido mindset
• Do not cast your commander until you need to
• Activate your commander at instant speed at the dead last moment it makes sense each round

> Single Card Discussion

Reanimation:

• Reanimate: Staple. Hits any graveyard and costs a single black mana.

• Incarnation Technique: This is probably my favorite reanimation spell. Mill ten and reanimate two for 4B is a crazy rate.

• Metamorphosis Fanatic: Top-decking is the dream, but this is Christmas-land thinking. At the end of the day, it’s an ETB that puts a 4/4 with lifelink onto the battlefield that brings a friend along with it. And that friend gets lifelink too. It’s an amazing way to stabilize, and to get extra mileage out of your other threats. Instead of “cheating” out Sphinx of the Second Sun a single time as a flying 4/4 with The Scarab God’s ability I get the real deal as a 6/6 flying lifelinker and have opportunity to bring it back again later. Spicy

• Breach the Multiverse: You can kind of think of it as Incarnation Technique's bigger brother.

• Halo Forager: Gets around timing restrictions. It doesn’t have flash, but you can hit it at instant speed out of the graveyard with The Scarab God to give it pseudo-flash. Snapcaster Mage is better in your hand, but Halo Forager is better in the graveyard.

• Scholar of the Lost Trove: Scholar + Incarnation Technique or Breach the Multiverse is the dream.

Highlights from the Control Section

• Narset’s Reversal: Use it early to steal a ramp spell. Use it late to steal a game-winning Exsanguinate. Or just use it as a counter.

• Ertai Resurrected, Overcharged Amalgam, Smirking Spelljacker, Tishana’s Tidebinder: These are a family of cards that love sitting in your graveyard waiting for The Scarab God to hit them for a second use. Tishana’s Tidebinder can quite often turn someone’s entire deck off. This, Ertai, Resurrected, and Overcharged Amalgam are also great at protecting your graveyard. Smirking Spelljacker is extremely potent – it exiles spells instead of counters them, which means when you hit it with The Scarab God’s ability, the only way an opponent is not getting their spell stolen is by stifling the ability.

• Agent of Treachery. Backbreaking reanimator target but most importantly it functions as permanent removal for things you can’t easily get rid of.

• High Fae Trickster. There’s been many iterations of this effect that’s just left us wanting a bit more (Vedalkan Orrery, Tidal Barracuda, Final-Word Phantom) but we’ve finally arrived. A flash-speed flash-enabler for spells.

Highlights from the Card Advantage / Selection Section:

• Two-mana looters: I already spoke to these in the introduction. I love them.

• Abhorrent Oculus: I love this card. Not only does it fill your side of the board with chump blockers, it enables a steady stream of pseudo-surveilling to fill your graveyard.

• Sphinx of the Second Sun: This card was made for The Scarab God; there’s no way around it. Doubles your upkeep trigger, untaps for your draw/go plan, and draws a card to boot. If you land and protect this with The Scarab God out, you nearly always win the game.

• Valgavoth, Terror Eater: Best reanimator target they’ve printed in years. Just an enormous source of value no matter how you skin it.

Discussion of Finishers:

• Giggling Skitterspike: I think this card is the TRUTH. Get it in your graveyard and bring it out with The Scarab God right before your turn. Now it’s an indestructible 4/4 without summoning sickness. Make it monstrous on your turn and now it’s a 9/9. Swing to deal 9 damage to your opponents, then start dumping your cheap removal spells on it to trigger it repeatedly afterward. It’s a quick clock.

• Awaken the Erstwhile: Everyone discards their hand – except you’ve got The Scarab God out. While everyone is top decking, you’re living the drain dream off all the zombies you made and just making an army out of people’s graveyards.

• Gray Merchant of Asphodel: The gold standard of reanimation deck finishers.

> Notable Exclusions

• Rhystic Study / Mystic Remora: Playgroup is tired of these cards.

• Animate Dead / Dance of the Dead / Necromancy: These are fantastic reanimation spells. I don’t feel like I need them in this deck.

• Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Vilis, Broker of Blood, and other reanimator targets: I cycle through reanimator targets to keep it fresh. Run whatever bombs you want.

• Codex Shredder: Combo piece with Hullbreaker Horror. Outside of that, it felt very low impact. Didn't need the combo to win.

• Pact of Negation / Force of Will: Mentioned above. Avoiding free spells as part of my deckbuilding rules.

• Fast Mana: Mentioned above. Avoiding fast mana as part of my deckbuilding rules. Feel free to power the deck up. Mana positive rocks would allow greater consistency to combo with Hullbreaker Horror.

• Sensei's Divining Top / Aetherflux Reservoir: I've done it enough in the past.

• cEDH quality UB combos - I'm not interested in running these. Feel free.

• Expel From Orazca, Meteor Golem, (anything else that can hit enchantments/artifacts): I used to have a long explanation here for why I didn’t run these to deal with something like a Rest in Peace. Assuming they even land through counter magic, we now have Feed the Swarm, Resculpt, and Withering Torment to deal with troubling enchantments and artifacts. We have Tishana’s Tidebinder, Ertai, Resurrected, and Overcharged Amalgam to deal with a triggered ability like Bojuka Bog.

• Notion Thief and Opposition Agent: Simply a meta call here. As part of my deckbuilding rules, I don’t run anything from the top 100 saltiest cards on EDHREC. Opposition Agent is high on the list, and while Notion Thief isn’t on the list, Narset, Parter of Veils is and they’re functionally cousins.

• Sower of Temptation: I think Sower is a good card - it's a great target for The Scarab God. It can steal a creature, eat removal, and then get reanimated to steal something again. It's also costed nicely at 4MV, so you don't feel bad hard-casting it. However, I also feel like it's a huge target for removal, since the stolen creature is returned to its owner when Sower dies, thus incentivizing your opponent to remove it. If I am limited on deck-slots (and I am), I would rather run Agent of Treachery (and I do). It is much more difficult to hard-cast at 7MV, but we are relying on looting and entombing to get it into the graveyard to cheat the cost. Agent of Treachery also permanently steals - your opponent is not incentivized to remove it.

• Stubborn Denial: Probably great in a deck full of 4/4 reanimated creatures and a 5/5 commander. I think I'd rather use An Offer You Can't Refuse as it's not as conditional as Stubborn Denial and can hit artifacts unlike Swan Song (if we're worried about artifact graveyard hate). For the most part I'm only worried about removal / board wipes / winning a counter war.

• Whispering Madness, Windfall: Personal choice here. In Blue I simply prefer filtering cards into the graveyard. I'm trying to cultivate my hand with this deck and the card advantage / selection choices I've made. I (usually) don't want to just throw it away and then redraw it. That said these cards are a slam dunk / potential wincon with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse – you can easily tune this deck around things like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Syr Konrad, the Grim and other effects like this to combo with the wheels.

• Crypt Ghast, doublers: I didn't feel I had enough swamps to justify black doublers / Witch's Cottage.

• Mesmeric Orb: In previous sections I have explained my stance on surveil and entomb effects versus mill effects.

• Victimize: The upside is fantastic. The downside is something I experienced running this card in my Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy / Scion of Halaster deck, and it's why I don't run it in low creature count decks anymore. I had cast this card as a desperate move with only Gale out. I planned to sacrifice my Gale. In response to the cast someone Path of Exiled my Gale. Victimize fizzles since now I have no creature to sacrifice. In a low creature count deck, this card feels win-more – You have enough bodies to safely resolve this spell getting even MORE bodies. Otherwise, you struggle to cast it. It's in my Extus / Blood Avatar deck - slam dunk there.

> Change Log

Please check the Revision tab for change history - I keep comments on each revision.