Commander Legends brought with it a ton of fresh legendaries, many of which were brand new partner cards. Many of these seemed fairly tame and arguably a little dull on first read. Don't be fooled, however! Several of these new partner cards look innocuous enough initially on their own, but can suddenly take on a fresh new look when put with the right partner. Case in point, these two cards:

Armix is the product of experimentations with new etherium by the sculptor Breya. You see, etherium is a limited resource on Esper and no more could be made without a resource that can only be found in other parts of Alara. When Alara was brought back together in the conflux, Breya went hunting for this material and found it on Jund, where she came back and made the aggressive and violent monstrosity known as Armix.

I was disappointed seeing Armix at first because it just seemed like a weak and dull effect on the surface. Then I looked at Tormod, the Desecrator. Tormod was a character from the time of The Dark and went on a bit of a grave robbing and necromantic spree until he was killed by an angry mob. But as it turns out, death can't stop Tormod, and he came back to keep resurrecting the dead on his terms. As it happens, that works pretty dang nicely alongside Armix's discarding ability. With this, we can fill our graveyards with cards ripe for the unearthing.

Let's have a look at a list!

Armix and Tormod | Commander | Kendra Smith

• Commanders (2)
• 1 Armix, Filigree Thrasher
• 1 Tormod, the Desecrator

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Ayara, First of Locthwain
• 1 Bloodghast
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Doomed Necromancer
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Ghoulcaller Gisa
• 1 Grave Titan
• 1 Gravespawn Sovereign
• 1 Hell's Caretaker
• 1 Hollow One
• 1 Junk Diver
• 1 Junktroller
• 1 Lord of the Undead
• 1 Meteor Golem
• 1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1 Murderous Rider
• 1 Myr Retriever
• 1 Nether Traitor
• 1 Noxious Gearhulk
• 1 Phyrexian Triniform
• 1 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1 Reassembling Skeleton
• 1 Scrap Trawler
• 1 Skyclave Shade
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1 Undead Augur
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Zombie Master

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Liliana, Death's Majesty

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Agadeem's Awakening
• 1 Buried Alive
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Feed the Swarm
• 1 Living Death
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Victimize

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Endless Ranks of the Dead
• 1 Grave Pact
• 1 Necromancy
• 1 Phyrexian Reclamation

• Artifacts (21)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Blackblade Reforged
• 1 Bolas's Citadel
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Desecrated Tomb
• 1 Elixir of Immortality
• 1 Endless Atlas
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Jeweled Lotus
• 1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Skeleton Shard
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1 Trading Post

• Lands (35)
• 19 Swamp
• 1 Barren Moor
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 Dakmor Salvage
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Haunted Fengraf
• 1 Mortuary Mire
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Vault of Whispers
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold
• 1 Witch's Cottage

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As it turns out, it was surprisingly difficult to juggle some of the aspects of both partners. Armix wants artifacts to make best use of its ability, but Mono-Black decks aren't usually known for being very good at bringing back artifacts. At the same time, the deck still needed a decent number of creatures and ways to make reanimation and the like work effectively.

I started with artifacts because they'd likely set the stage best for the basic elements of the deck. I found a lot of the usual mana rocks, but soon noticed some cards that have really interesting effects with the deck. Myr Retriever and Junk Diver are always good in artifact decks, but they feel even better when used alongside Tormod to get some zombies. Mimic Vat also is really good because you exile the creature after it hits the graveyard, thus giving you a zombie in the process. If we really want to go hard at bringing artifacts back from the bin, Scrap Trawler and Trading Post can really get the job done. Heck there's even the likes of Junktroller if we really need to get some tokens.

Crucible of Worlds lets us get back some lands if we need to discard them to Armix and can even turn into a value engine with a handful of cards like Myriad Landscape and Buried Ruin. If we really need to get some artifacts off the board to fuel the engine, then Ashnod's Altar can help big time. The one card that I really liked for this deck, though, was Jeweled Lotus. The expensive and controversial card always seemed fairly overhyped to me, but here it seems fair as you're not really spitting out busted commanders or anything. It even has the benefit of being useful after it goes to your graveyard, since it continues to count towards Armix's -X/-X count.

The Black side of things relies more on filling the graveyard and finding inventive ways to get things back to benefit Tormod. Buried Alive is a pretty standard way to fill the graveyard, but so is Syr Konrad, the Grim. Some of the best options to pitch include Bloodghast and his friends Nether Traitor, Skyclave Shade, and Reassembling Skeleton. These cards all keep coming back for more at the drop of the hat. They may not be particularly strong, but that's perfectly okay since you want them to keep dying so you can repeatedly get them back - and with some zombie friends at that! And as they die, you can use something like Grave Pact (or a Dictate of Erebos if you want) to pick off your opponents' board in the process.

If you need to get some creatures back via different methods, though, there's plenty of interesting ways to do it. Phyrexian Reclamation does a pretty good job, as does Tortured Existence if you want to try finding a spot for it in this list (I cut it toward the end because other cards just felt better). You can even straight swap creatures if you have a Hell's Caretaker on the board, further filling your board with zombies. If you want to make even more zombies, Endless Ranks of the Dead does a great job at that. So too does Grave Titan or Ghoulcaller Gisa. You can make your army truly unstoppable as well with one simple pair of cards:

By playing out Urborg, all lands on the field are swamps - including each of your opponents'. With Zombie Master, each of your zombies can go straight to your opponents' faces thanks to swampwalk. And if you don't have the Zombie Master, that can be fine too, as Cabal Coffers will happily work hand in hand with Urborg to let you spit out whatever cards you need as quickly as you need them.

All told, I'm really happy with how this looks and proved to myself in the process that even when you use cards that appear mediocre on their own, they might just be good enough together. As it turns out, Armix and Tormod are a wonderful pair. I can't wait to eventually bust this out at a table in the near future and I hope you get to enjoy it as well!

Kendra Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

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