Why Lazav?
Dimir is a relatively unused color combination of mine and with it's variety of discard/mill/looting options I thought it would make for a fine choice. Lazav, the Multifarious, is cheap, unassuming and basically a back up reanimation spell. It also allows for good mana sink if we get our swamp heavy cabal coffers mana base online. In brewing I did consider Rona, Herald of Invasion, which I believe could be considered as a commander for this deck or a very similar one. Playing her could also load up with Pestilence effects for some board control and extra value.
So, how does this deck work?
Not reinventing the wheel here since it's reanimator. We play lots of cheap looters/millers so an have some early game action, this ultimately lets us fill the yard to reanimate big value creatures, that hopefully generate enough of an impact to let us close out the game with big attacks or lots of value we achieved from our reanimate targets.
I've also specifically chosen not to put any real combos in the deck. I play in a consistent pod, and I believe not having a combo removes a bit of the immediacy of you as a threat when you've seen a deck multiple times. Filling the yard is already a bit of an overt/obvious thing that we're doing, however, my hope is that if my opponents see what is happening yet they know I wont just up and combo they can make the assumption that "oh I'll just deal with the big dumb reanimated targets later when they're actually on the board and problem and have removal for that", and instead point their early game chip shots, heat, removal etc, at the immense grindy value player or the faster/sneaky combo deck... at least that's my theory.
How does this deck win?
- Plan A - Loot, fill the yard, reanimate big value targets, and make a splash. If they wipe the board kill your targets do it again.
- Plan B - Loot, fill the yard, use Lazav to copy big value targets, and make a splash. If they wipe the board kill your targets do it again.
- Plan C - Torment of Hailfire + Cabal Coffers
Deck list and description of package/card choices are below:
Shapeshifting Graves: Lazav's Reanimated Raves
Approximate Total Cost:
Packages:
Recursion - Don't think this needs a lot of explanation it's a reanimation deck, picked the best ones applicable mostly prioritized efficiency since we aren't ramping a ton.
Discard/Mill - We need to fill the yard, so a high density of this effect is needed in order to have some early game action and really start doing things. Most of these cards will at the very least let us begin seeing more cards so we can then start chaining effects to fill the yard. Also tried to prioritize ones that stuck around or let me keep filling the yard without having to invest more mana.
Land stuff - We're primarily focusing on a majority swamp mana base so we can use Cabal coffers to it's fullest extent. Crucible of Worlds also makes an appearance as self milling naturally puts lands in the yard and this helps us make drops. Added benefit of getting back Coffers/Urborg if we mill them or if destroyed. We're also playing a few off color fetches for crucible value and to make sure we can hit our blue sources early for some of our loot effects.
Threats - Prioritized big value demons and friends, such as: Elder Brain, Lord of the Void, Thieving Amalgam, Vilis, Broker of Blood, Brainstealer Dragon. Hoping that if they stick around for at least a few end steps (they don't even need to be ours) we can get some big value because they die, this will allow us to do it again or get other toys to play with. Phage the Untouchable can pair with Invisible stalker for a cheeky way to swing in for lethal with Lazav. Most of the threats also gain value just by being around and no entering the battlefield, so this lets them be good targets for Lazav to reanimate as well.
Tutors - For land tutors we have expedition map, and tolaria west. Entomb, Buried alive, and Unmarked Grave, can find our friends above, as well as dredgers[/cards] to fill the yard. [card]Dimir Infiltrator can find Torment, of Hailfire, and acts as a second unblockable effect for Phage.
Tokens - Tokens are mostly here as a draw engine for skull clamp, and to have bodies laying around for victimize and dead return, also having a few chump blockers lying around is always handy.
Draw - The raw draw package is light, but this is compounded by the massive draw/discard/loot package above as that's what we want to be doing most of the time. Skull clamp is great and Ayara, First of Locthwain pairs really well with Abhorrent Overlord.
