In this experiment, we embrace the opulence of the Sultai and create a zoo of zombies full of combo potential.

The Sultai Brood probably isn’t my favorite clan from a storyline perspective, but they do embody my favorite color combination out of all thirty-two options. (There are five mono-color, five four-color, ten two-color, ten three-color, five-color, and colorless combinations.)

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant has a graveyard-filling ability, which I can fully appreciate. But the ability is gated by the number of times she either enters the battlefield or attacks. Without Flicker or extra-combat-phase shenanigans—which can both be better optimized than with Sidisi—she won’t be filling our graveyard as quickly as we might like. However, she also rewards us for having creature cards enter our graveyard, and that can happen as frequently as we can mill ourselves.

A Subtype Interlude

I recently became amused by the idea of creating a Commander deck that was a kind of zoo in the number of creature types represented. When I realized I could potentially be building a Zombie-themed deck, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to fill it with Zombies with as many different racial subtypes as I could fit.

A kind of secondary impetus for pursuing this theme is that Sidisi, Brood Tyrant’s Zombie-generating trigger only works when we mill a creature card. If we’re milling three cards, perhaps with Sidisi’s first trigger, we’ll want at least one to be a creature card, which means we’ll want a third of our library to be creature cards. If we end up milling two cards at a time somewhat frequently—which just might be the case considering a primary synergy we’ll be covering in a bit—we’ll want about one out of two of our cards to be creatures. Because of that, I decided to run forty-nine creatures out of the ninety-nine non-Sidisi cards, and a significant chunk of those creatures are part of the Zombie zoo.

Of course, if you like some of the ideas of the deck but don’t feel like filling your list with crappy commons, feel free to forego the likes of Undead Minotaur, and find some Commander “good stuff” to replace it.

For reference, here are the races represented in our Zombie zoo:

Altar of Dementia

But if each does (and it won’t), we can mill our whole library. Of course, we can stop whenever we like. When we do stop, we want to have a bunch of graveyard-powered effects available to us. Being the optimist I am, however, I made sure the deck had a way to win as early as improbably possible.

If we cast Sidisi, Brood Tyrant on turn four, after having already cast Altar of Dementia, we can immediately start milling. The cards we’ll want to mill are Narcomoeba, Dread Return, Balthor the Defiled, Mogis's Marauder, and enough Zombies to kill our opponents.

On our fifth turn, we can sacrifice Sidisi, Narcomoeba, and a leftover Zombie to pay the flashback cost of Dread Return, targeting Balthor. We then use Balthor’s ability to return our zoo army to the battlefield, and Mogis's Marauder will give them the haste and evasion needed to kill our opponents.

To really speed things up, we could use Sol Ring for a turn-one Altar and then a land like Sunken Ruins to cast Sidisi on turn two for the same effect. That isn’t in my list, but it’s something to consider if it sounds appealing to you.

Zombie Tokens

Another direction I considered taking Sidisi was with Zombie tokens—or tokens in general. Playing with Bearscape, Deranged Hermit, and Army of the Damned, for example, could be an interesting direction.

One card from Khans of Tarkir that’s really had my attention is Empty the Pits. It has a very intimidating mana cost, but that delve keyword can really mitigate the issue. And given that we’re playing a deck that is capable of dumping a significant portion of its library into its graveyard, we may just have plenty to work with when it comes to generating a huge contingent of undead.

Consider the same situation from earlier, wherein we’ve milled ourselves with Sidisi and Altar of Dementia. But instead of having Dread Return and Balthor available in our graveyard, we have Empty the Pits in our hand. We’re not excited about exiling a huge number of Zombie cards, but it’s sometimes fun to just go all-in. Also, exiling a bunch of lands and less relevant cards doesn’t hurt too much.

Stragglers

Here are a few more cards in the list to pay attention to.

Gravecrawler and Rooftop Storm – Rooftop Storm is fun on its own in a Zombie deck, especially if we’ve resolved a big Praetor's Counsel or have Soul of the Harvest. But with Gravecrawler and a sac outlet, such as Altar of Dementia or Nantuko Husk, it’s big game. Remember that the Altar can target our opponents.

Mortal Combat – We have plenty of creatures in our deck and enough milling potential that this card becomes a realistic win condition if we can draw it.

Memory's Journey – This helps us restock our library, but if we’ve milled our entire deck, it becomes even more interesting, as we can stack our next few draws.

Necromancer's Stockpile – With all our Zombies, this is a great value engine to make Zombies while discarding crappy ones and drawing replacement cards. Let’s use it to draw into Zombie Apocalypse.

Golgari Thug and Aphetto Vulture – The Vulture earns its spot for being a Zombie Bird in the zoo, but both of these have the ability to save us from decking. If one dies, we can put it on top of our library, draw it on our next turn, and sacrifice it to repeat. Of course, we can also pull back more useful creatures for a given situation.

Dralnu, Lich Lord – With all this stuff being dumped into our ’yard, instants and sorceries are the hardest to pull back. Dralnu can do that for us, allowing us to cast the likes of Empty the Pits, Zombie Apocalypse, or Praetor's Counsel from our graveyard.

Crypt of Agadeem – This deck is land-light, but with a huge mass of black creatures, the Crypt might finally have a deck in which to shine. Again, this is useful for casting a massive Empty the Pits.

Sidisi?s Altar a.k.a. Zombie Zoo ? Commander | Andrew Wilson

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (49)
• 1 Aphetto Vulture
• 1 Black Cat
• 1 Carrion Howler
• 1 Deathspore Thallid
• 1 Diregraf Captain
• 1 Dross Crocodile
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Festering Goblin
• 1 Fleshbag Marauder
• 1 Golgari Thug
• 1 Graveborn Muse
• 1 Gravecrawler
• 1 Grixis Slavedriver
• 1 Llanowar Dead
• 1 Lotleth Troll
• 1 Marrow Chomper
• 1 Mogis's Marauder
• 1 Nantuko Husk
• 1 Narcomoeba
• 1 Nefashu
• 1 Nyx Weaver
• 1 Plague Dogs
• 1 Putrid Cyclops
• 1 Putrid Imp
• 1 Putrid Leech
• 1 Quagmire Druid
• 1 Returned Centaur
• 1 Returned Reveler
• 1 Rotting Fensnake
• 1 Rotting Mastodon
• 1 Rotting Rats
• 1 Shambling Shell
• 1 Sidisi's Pet
• 1 Siren of the Silent Song
• 1 Soul of Innistrad
• 1 Soul of the Harvest
• 1 Soulless One
• 1 Stronghold Assassin
• 1 Twisted Abomination
• 1 Undead Minotaur
• 1 Vedalken Ghoul
• 1 Viscera Dragger
• 1 Vodalian Zombie
• 1 Waning Wurm
• 1 Balthor the Defiled
• 1 Dralnu, Lich Lord
• 1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
• 1 Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
• 1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed

• Spells (14)
• 1 Empty the Pits
• 1 Memory's Journey
• 1 Dread Return
• 1 Fabricate
• 1 Praetor's Counsel
• 1 Zombie Apocalypse
• 1 Deadbridge Chant
• 1 Doubling Season
• 1 Mortal Combat
• 1 Necromancer's Stockpile
• 1 Parallel Lives
• 1 Rooftop Storm
• 1 Sultai Ascendancy
• 1 Altar of Dementia

• Lands (36)
• 2 Forest
• 3 Island
• 3 Swamp
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crypt of Agadeem
• 1 Dakmor Salvage
• 1 Dimir Aqueduct
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Grim Backwoods
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Opal Palace
• 1 Opulent Palace
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Tolaria West
• 1 Vivid Creek
• 1 Vivid Grove
• 1 Vivid Marsh
• 1 Watery Grave
• 1 Woodland Cemetery
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold

Buy This Deck

If the Sultai Brood is relevant to your interests, or if you just like the idea of collecting as many types of Zombies as you can, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com