Ah yes, Halloween. Everyone's favorite spooky time of year, filled with skeletons, bats, and ghosts. Pumpkins and hay litter doorsteps and there's an ever-lingering sense of mischief and fear in the air. It's also not uncommon to get some treats alongside a few tricks, and oh, dear reader, do I have a treat for you. Today, we're going to be checking out a scary and strong Classic Commander deck. That's right, the version of the Commander format that pre-dates all made-for-Commander cards, starting with New Phyrexia and working backward.

One of the biggest reasons I love Classic Commander is that it takes me back to one of my favorite points playing Magic. That's because right around this time is when I came back to the game, starting with Scars of Mirrodin in paper (though I played a few sets before that on Magic Online) - right around this spookiest of seasons. With little by way of bills, I went nuts with the game and built one Commander deck after another and played game after game with friends in college who also built a wide variety of decks. The result was a wide array of decks that I played with and against and had a truly fun time with. Creativity was rampant and there were tons of interesting and off-the-wall ideas being brought to the table.

And then there was Keith.

Yeah, you know the type of player I'm talking about. Keith was my partner in crime for a while, and if you've been around the Tampa Magic scene for a while, you might know who I'm talking about. We played a lot of events together, hung out frequently, even were roommates at one point. But it all started with the games that we played in college, where he was an absolute monster at our casual tables. No matter what he played, you knew you were in for a deeply terrifying challenge. And few decks were scarier than the spooky Reaper King.

Reaper King was simply a house, and it's funny because in theory the deck shouldn't have been nearly as good as it felt at the time. The way he chose to build the deck was to incorporate as many actual scarecrows as possible. I don't know if you've actually looked through the pool of available scarecrows - even through to what we have now. They aren't great! But they sure get a lot better even as bad vanilla creatures when they also cast Vindicate if the Commander is in play! While I didn't have access to a full and proper list from the man himself, I still tried to take the same beats from what I could remember and filled in the gaps a little myself along the way.

Here's the list:

Classic Reaper King | Commander | Kendra Smith

• Commander (1)
• 1 Reaper King

• Creatures (36)
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Blazethorn Scarecrow
• 1 Bringer of the Black Dawn
• 1 Bringer of the Blue Dawn
• 1 Bringer of the White Dawn
• 1 Chainbreaker
• 1 Chameleon Colossus
• 1 Etherium Sculptor
• 1 Fang Skulkin
• 1 Grand Architect
• 1 Grim Poppet
• 1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
• 1 Heap Doll
• 1 Hoof Skulkin
• 1 Jawbone Skulkin
• 1 Joiner Adept
• 1 Lockjaw Snapper
• 1 Mirror Entity
• 1 Painter's Servant
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Pili-Pala
• 1 Rattleblaze Scarecrow
• 1 Scarecrone
• 1 Scarecrow
• 1 Scrapbasket
• 1 Scuttlemutt
• 1 Sen Triplets
• 1 Shell Skulkin
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Overseer
• 1 Tatterkite
• 1 Taurean Mauler
• 1 Thornwatch Scarecrow
• 1 Watchwing Carecrow
• 1 Wicker Scarecrow
• 1 Wingrattle Scarecrow

• Instants (3)
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Thirst for Knowledge

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Distant Melody
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Open the Vaults
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Wrath of God

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1 Rhystic Study

• Artifacts (11)
• 1 Coalition Relic
• 1 Coat of Arms
• 1 Door of Destinies
• 1 Door to Nothingness
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Legacy Weapon
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Urza's Incubator

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Liliana Vess
• 1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

• Lands (37)
• 1 Mountain
• 2 Plains
• 2 Swamp
• 3 Forest
• 3 Islands
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Adarkar Wastes
• 1 Ancient Tomb
• 1 Battlefield Forge
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Brushland
• 1 Caves of Koilos
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Crystal Quarry
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Karplusan Forest
• 1 Llanowar Wastes
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Shivan Reef
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Sulfurous Springs
• 1 Temple Garden
• 1 Underground River
• 1 Watery Grave
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

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The majority of how this deck plays is simple and to the point: get your mana up to the point where you can play Reaper King himself and go nuts with your scarecrows. Even if you can't cast him, it's still quite fine to throw down a few regular old scarecrows to just have as simple creatures. You'd be surprised just how far they take you - especially in Classic Commander!

The power also starts to shine through in the utility cards as well. Truthfully, I could only remember a few cards - such as the occasional Open the Vaults coming in to fill the board suddenly with a ton of Vindicating creatures! A couple changelings and Sen Triplets also made their appearance and the Bringers from Fifth Dawn were always fun to make work where they normally can't function in the majority of Commander decks. The real fun was when you played Rite of Replication, though. If you kick Rite of Replication targeting Reaper King, all five copies come in simultaneously. The result is that even though you only keep one in the end, each copy of Reaper King - as well as the original - sees five other scarecrows coming into play. As such, this allows you to destroy twenty-five permanents!

But beyond that, there were still many cards that just were worth throwing in all the same. I can't recall cards like Distant Melody or Urza's Incubator showing up in his list in the past, but they're too clearly excellent for a deck like this that heavily focuses on a single tribe. Similarly, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas was a bit too pricey at the time when this deck would show up, so it never really made an appearance. However, with such a high density of artifacts in this list, it just makes sense to include him here.

One thing that definitely didn't show up back then was Painter's Servant! The card was banned for a long while to avoid issues with cards like Iona, Shield of Emeria and Grindstone, but has since been unbanned so it's cool to play here now! We're not doing anything too crazy like with those two cards, but it can help with the color-based abilities of many of the deck's scarecrows.

The deck list does lack a handful of types of cards, but making cuts got fairly difficult - particularly toward the end. For example, you might notice a distinct lack of artifact and enchantment removal, and even straight creature removal to a point as well. But really, how much of that do you really need when you're playing a deck with a commander meant to be a repeatable Vindicate? The cool thing about a big five color deck, though, is the sheer variety of options at your disposal, and thus a myriad of ways in which you can tweak and adjust the deck to your own playstyle as you see fit.

And there you have it! Another classic list in the books, and a scarily good one at that. I've been wanting to bring this one out ever since I started the Classic Commander series and now seemed like a perfect time to fill the pods with fright. Inject a little fear at your next Commander night with a little bit of the ol' pumpkin-headed scarecrow themselves. And until next time, may you have a delightfully spooky Halloween!

Kendra Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

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