October has come and gone and that means the spooky season is over. Put away the skeletons and tombstones and get ready for the snowy festivities just around the corner. Well, that's what most would like to say. While you get excited as Mariah Carey defrosts and you prep your trees for decoration, I simply want to sit over here, break out another horror film and let that moody creepiness continue to wash over me. That dark energy from the scariest month of the year lingers even as we move into more joyous times, and today I wanted to tap into that energy one more time for another Classic Commander list.

This time, I want to talk about Chainer, Dementia Master. Chainer was one of the coolest Magic cards and characters I knew of as a kid. Torment was the newest set and I was awestruck by how cool it felt at the time. Sengir Vampire, this legendary card I'd seen my cousins play in my earliest matches with this great game, was back. The set was filled to the brim with Black cards and had a deep vibe of evil. That which was good was corrupted with the Tainted lands making an appearance, long-time creature types getting darker Possessed versions, and nightmares filling the set.

At the center of it all was Chainer. Nowadays, you might know him from cards like Chainer, Nightmare Adept, Chainer's Edict, or Chainer's Torment. Despite having some particularly famous cards, however, you might know less about his story. For me, though, I grew up loving him. Torment featured one of the first books I ever read for Magic: the Gathering - the aptly and familiarly titled Chainer's Torment.

I remember how much I wanted to pick it up every time I walked in to a Waldenbooks, and eventually I had the opportunity to do so. The story centered around the Cabal's student of dementia magic, Chainer. In the Cabal Pits, he fought for glory and sought to make a name for himself. There he met Kamahl and the two became great friends and allies, with Chainer soon becoming a dementia master utilizing Kamahl's aid. With this newfound power, he attempted to control the might of the Mirari. At first, this was successful, and Chainer proved to be a strong ally of the Cabal. Unfortunately, it would eventually drive him to utter madness, causing the leveling of the Cabal City and forcing Kamahl to kill Chainer to end the insanity that had come from the Mirari's strength.

This book - along with Judgment around the same time - were instrumental in forging my love of Magic's lore. Otaria was a place I found myself returning to time and again and still wish we could see more of today. More importantly, I formed a bond with the characters that I still hold strongly today. Whenever I see characters like the aforementioned Chainer and Kamahl come back, it's always a tremendously exciting time. Writing about Chainer himself has felt like a long time coming and I felt that now, with Halloween fresh in our minds, I felt the time was finally right.

With that said, let's have a look at a list!

Classic Chainer | Commander | Paige Smith

• Commander (1)
• 1 Chainer, Dementia Master

• Creatures (26)
• 1 Avatar of Woe
• 1 Big Game Hunter
• 1 Bone Shredder
• 1 Corpse Connoisseur
• 1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
• 1 Faceless Butcher
• 1 Graveborn Muse
• 1 Kiku, Night's Flower
• 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1 Magus of the Coffers
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Phyrexian Rager
• 1 Plague Sliver
• 1 Puppeteer Clique
• 1 Royal Assassin
• 1 Sangromancer
• 1 Scion of Darkness
• 1 Shriekmaw
• 1 Soldevi Adnate
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Vampire Hexmage
• 1 Vampire Nighthawk
• 1 Visara the Dreadful
• 1 Viscera Seer
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Liliana Vess

• Instants (3)
• 1 Doom Blade
• 1 Entomb
• 1 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Ambition's Cost
• 1 Beacon of Unrest
• 1 Black Sun's Zenith
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Diabolic Tutor
• 1 Exsanguinate
• 1 Mutilate
• 1 Night's Whisper
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Sign in Blood
• 1 Victimize

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Animate Dead
• 1 Greed
• 1 Necromancy
• 1 Oubliette
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Phyrexian Reclamation

• Artifacts (14)
• 1 Basilisk Collar
• 1 Charcoal Diamond
• 1 Coldsteel Heart
• 1 Elixir of Immortality
• 1 Lashwrithe
• 1 Loxodon Warhammer
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Nightmare Lash
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
• 1 Phyrexian Altar
• 1 Pristine Talisman
• 1 Skull of Ramos
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strata Scythe

• Lands (38)
• 28 Swamp
• 1 Barren Moor
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Crypt of Agadeem
• 1 Ebon Stronghold
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Peat Bog
• 1 Polluted Mire
• 1 Unholy Grotto
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

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When I sat down to work on Chainer, there was one truly glaring thing I noticed quickly about him. For as much as I love Chainer as a character and as a card, as a Commander he risks falling very easily into the same kind of deck as Geth, Lord of the Vault. Both have a very strong reanimation focus that includes going after cards not just in your graveyards but in your opponents' as well. Given that I already wrote about Geth just a few months back, I really didn't want to end up simply building that same sort of deck. There's definitely a fair amount of crossover between the two as you need a lot of kill spells, reanimation effects, and creatures worth reanimating. With an older and smaller card pool like Classic Commander, your options end up getting a bit more limited.

The first thing I tried to do was look at doing something more with nightmares in general. I always kind of loved nightmares as a tribe and loved doing casual nonsense with them back when Torment first released. Chainer himself was certainly a big part of that, but another part was that this was me entering my teenage "I love all dark and edgy things" phase of my life. As such, it felt fitting to dip into that pool a little bit and dig up this lesser known strategy. The problem is, at this point in time, almost every single nightmare card was limited to Torment itself and they are all by and large extremely bad.

In total, there are nine nightmares that you can play in a Mono-Black Classic Commander deck. Those cards include the original Nightmare, Hypnox, Laquatus's Champion, Faceless Devourer, Slithery Stalker, Faceless Butcher, Gravegouger, Mesmeric Fiend, and Soul Scourge. Almost every single one of these is bad. Some are a bit more solid in a one-on-one competitive setting like Mesmeric Fiend. When it comes to Commander, though, there's only three truly viable options from this batch of cards and that includes Faceless Butcher, Slithery Stalker, and Nightmare. Even then, Faceless Butcher ends up being the only realistic one as Slithery Stalker is going to be a dead card in some pods and Nightmare isn't that exciting on rate without an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play. Yes, you can add some changelings into the mix if you want, but those aren't very exciting either.

As a result of going through all of these, I went back to focusing on more of the reanimation side of things. The simple solution to separating Geth and Chainer was in the card selection and choices for what would get utilized. Instead of cards like Necropotence, Caged Sun, and Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, I opted for cards like Greed, Magus of the Coffers, and Scion of Darkness. Not only are many of these cards a bit different while being similar, they're also quite a bit cheaper. Not every card in this list is a budget option, but it does help make the deck that much more accessible as a result.

This deck also has some pretty sweet additions that Geth doesn't, if I do say so myself. While some of the same removal options like Bone Shredder, Shriekmaw, Avatar of Woe, and Visara the Dreadful are still here, Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief provides an especially potent punch. Not only does she provide repeatable removal, but she pumps herself in the process, making her a serious threat. Speaking of pumping up, Nightmare Lash and Lashwrithe provide powerful and flavorful ways to attack for massive damage even if you can't make serious use of the reanimator strategies. Strata Scythe also works wonders in this role. There's even some rock solid mid-level creatures, such as Graveborn Muse to provide additional card draw and Plague Sliver to not only act as a mighty beater, but can also be incidental hate against those pesky sliver decks that can too often run amok.

The one thing that needed to be focused on when it comes to Chainer, though, is life management. Unlike Geth, who simply requires you to pay mana to reanimate things, Chainer requires you to pay life as well. That's in addition to the life loss you'll often incur from using cards like Phyrexian Reclamation, Reanimate, Greed, Graveborn Muse, and more. You need to be able to gain some life back or you'll lose to yourself far too easily. The simplest solution was to look for repeatable life gain options, so cards like Basilisk Collar, Loxodon Warhammer, Pristine Talisman, and Sangromancer were no-brainers. You can even get a big reanimation target into the mix with Wurmcoil Engine, which is getting a printing through Standard packs in The Brothers' War very soon. If you really need a big one-shot of life, though, you can use cards like Exsanguinate and Elixir of Immortality to help you out.

As a result, what you get is a slightly different take on the classic Mono-Black Reanimator archetype in Commander. It's simple, straight-forward, and will have you stealing not just from your graveyards but your opponents' as well time and time again. Not only that, but it's fairly affordable and you can easily customize it to utilize more budget-friendly options should the need arise. No matter how you build and play Chainer, though, you're sure to have an outstanding time at your next Commander night using him. Just try to make sure you don't go too mad with power in the process.

Paige Smith

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