[Re:Commanders] Karador, the Victory Song of the Dead

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Yatsufusa
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Post by Yatsufusa » 2 years ago

"All tales conclude, all bonds dissolve.
Infinite matter will always evolve.
Just pray for mercy at your time of death.
Be glad you existed, enjoy your last breath."

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Introduction


Welcome to Karador, the Victory Song of the Dead. Honestly, this deck exists as a "shadow" of my Animar deck in some ways. It's mostly goodstuff like Animar (and may have some of its leftovers that didn't make the cut), but it runs more of a mid-range reanimator than the battlecruiser deck of Animar. Spiritually it feels the ravenous void that there are too many cards/themes I just can't play in Animar, so I had to create another deck for that, even if they only share one color (although arguably the strongest one in the format).

If you have the luxury of listening to music whilst reading this thread, enjoy the appointed official song for Karador, the Victory Song of the Dead: Adabana Necromancy.


Disclaimers

Same across all threads, skip ahead if you've read it elsewhere before)
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Karador, the Victory Song of the Dead is part of Re:Commanders, a suite of eight decks I've established since 2015 with the intent to "retire" from the game/format, with its stability permitting me to bling my own decks out as my own vanity project. I've written out these guides roughly with the primer style guide, but they are not meant to be primers. In fact, my updates will be sporadic as in recent years I've had less and less time to play the game due to commitments.

Generally, Re:Commander decks / guides follow these rules:

High-Powered Cards – When I started Re:Commanders in 2015 I was already sitting on 11 years' of collection, including 4 years within the format that already assembled a structural skeleton for most of my decks. My decklists often contain a lot of high-powered, cEDH-worthy cards that can be easily deemed unaffordable to the random viewer seeing the guide at any given time, but I do not feel the need to feature budget options as those change with the times, as my focus on presenting the guide is to establish an understanding of what role does a card play in the deck, and the discerning player with the understanding should be able to find their own substitutes for that role within their own budget/collection/time. I merely used my own high-powered examples because I have it, nothing more. The game is just way too big (and getting bigger faster every year now) for me to cite random alternatives nowadays, especially with prices also randomizing on their own scales.

Personal Quirks - I have some small aesthetic quirks, the most common easy example being I don't play off-color fetchlands and I don't play ABUR duals because they can't be foiled. A lot of these small factors go a ways to lower the power level of my decks in small doses. I also try to diversify card options across decks, so while there are staples I play across all decks (mostly colorless artifacts and lands), I try to keep a variety of colored cards (and for those I don't I even try to get different art/frames to compensate) across my decks. If some colored staple feels missing, that's likely because it's housed in another deck in the suite I felt was just better for it (or I just lack it in my collection, I don't have everything, after all).

Personal Definition of "75%" – My personal definition on a "75%" deck is essentially a singular deck is flexible enough to perform on both casual and competitive tables. They aren't completely "just built to win" like cEDH decks, they're first built thematically, and then built with two distinct functions – first, a way to win within context of the theme, then secondly all decks usually have an infinite outlet (or at least a substantially huge wincon) or combo or some sort because I believe that a deck should always have a way to close the game when the primary plan/theme fails. Even a bland infinite combo used as a last resort is a better game-closer than you durdling an entire game playing Kingmaker/trying to lose last.

I don't shy away from tutors. This combined with the combo aspect does really ramp it up to feel close to cEDH levels (and almost certainly pubstomping in the wrong cases), but ultimately I built the deck for me, myself as the pilot. The Commander RC has a policy of "build casually, play competitively", but due to my wide-range meta (that can contain anywhere from new players to cEDH players depending on time), I adopted a custom formula – "Build enough to face competitive opponents but without abandoning the theme, then play accordingly to the table in question".

I'm aware some people feel like it's an insult to not "play at maximum" at a table, but I just don't see that way, I have a thematic way to (attempt to) win that's not too far above the casual table and my combos are now my last resort game-closers, something I actively want to avoid having seen purely-casual tables lack it and end up playing a game of too-much-politics-and-kingmaking-trying-to-lose-last compared to actual Magic played when thematic plans fall apart.

Deck History


For a full-blown history of the establishment of Re:Commanders as a whole, as well as anything the deck might have within its context, please refer to the central hub of the Re:Commanders here.
Deck History
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As I mentioned in the introduction, Karador exists almost entirely to satiate the hunger that there simply wasn't enough space for all the goodstuff cards/themes I could play in Animar that I had to "split it into two". In terms of organizational structure for Re:Commanders, it's second only to Animar and essentially shaped the remaining color combination possibilities of the rest of the decks. From a "heart" standpoint it should be the second-last deck to go if I had to eliminate decks for whatever reason (although from a practical standpoint I would probably actually let it go earlier because Animar would be the 3-colored deck to stay and I value the variety of color combinations to let only 2 3-colored decks remain).

Funny enough, it wasn't always a "shadow" of Animar. Making a reanimator deck was an inevitability for me when I first started out the format. I always fancied the idea of necromancy in fantasy (see my Grimgrin deck for more details) and I enjoyed the battlecrusier aspect of the format (which was why I started out with Animar). Reanimation in EDH was an easy obvious marriage of both.

I briefly considered throwing my reanimation desires together with my Zombie deck (then Thraximundar), but it became clear that while thematically it was great, functionally it almost performed better when I just had the Zombie tribal synergy cards and the reanimation cards just felt like an outsider to some degree and I only had that much space in a deck. Animar was missing B, so it couldn't carry the theme, not to mention it had even worse space issues since it was so flexible. So, I sought out to make reanimator its own thing.

BG and BGW were the obvious first choices for me, as I personally felt B alone was boring (a demon-focus didn't interest me and I relayed a risk of leaning to close to Zombies otherwise). At this point, Animar was already overswelling with options because how easy it is for it to "goodstuff" (and I wasn't done exploring). I wanted a Commander that could handle those excess battlecruiser fun, so I opted for Teneb, the Harvester. Funny enough, I bought a Karador precon because it was during a period Teneb wasn't exactly easy to find at an LGS, but Scavenging Ooze inflated the price of the deck back then (I think this was around 2012/13, when the first precons were already running low, but options like Meren of Clan Nel Toth haven't existed yet).

I initially didn't like Karador because my front-loaded impression was I still had to pay the full mana cost to return a battlecruiser, which felt sort of not-the-point with reanimation (as Reanimate itself would suggest). Guess it also didn't helped I was heavily influenced for paying low costs because of Animar in my earlier years.
But guess what, Teneb was just too clunky, even when I had ramp options (although to be fair I'd bet I didn't run enough ramp in my early years, especially under the influence of Animar), so I turned around and gave Karador a look. Ever since then, Karador (combined with cheap creature ramp) became the nice engine grease for the deck, but while it smoothed out to paying full cost to cast a battlecruiser isn't too much an issue, somewhere in my battlecruiser heart I'm never impressed I have to do that in the first place.

Somewhere along the line I tried a "Legendary" theme with Animar (because I can, that was my modus operandi for Animar in my early days), but functionally it barely had any synergy over there. Then I discovered Captain Sisay, acquired a copy and moved the theme under the umbrella of Karador. Later years after the formation of Re:Commanders, the game would show support for the theme with the likes of Kethis, the Hidden Hand, which I even tried as a replacement Commander for a short while, but decided while it had Legendary and Reanimator, it felt too "combo-y" and forced the two themes to be fully synergized, so I went back to Karador quickly as Legendary felt much better as an looser subtheme.

Another fun sub-theme I had the deck adopt was mutate from Ikoria. Mutate's main weakness was how it was vulnerable to removal. While Karador doesn't exactly stop the problem, the fact some mutate cards are basically pretty run-of-the-mill utility effects (removal, recursion) and can be mutated from the graveyard since it's an alternative casting cost meant Karador could provide a "safer" home for the utility-mutate creatures and in return those creatures would provide some stacking fun that the mechanic was supposed to provide but was usually overshadowed by its weakness.

Over the years, the deck has become more midrange-y (at least comparatively to Animar), which is why I called it a shadow (in its earlier years it would have been more of a bad replica attempt than a shadow). It's toolbox-y and absorbs themes pretty flexibly like Animar, but it's also sort of its own thing in some other ways. But I've enjoyed it over the years (even when it was bad) and it entrenched itself as pretty much the #2 color lock when I planned for Re:Commanders.

Commander Analysis

Let's just start with a rundown of Karador's abilities, then compare with some other alternative choices.


Know death is only when you've lost your soul.
We are legends, no matter how perfected, our lives are short,
so an eye for an eye, glare back and bare your fangs.
One day we will all have our glorious discarded deaths,
so shine, and let every moment of your spark reach infinity.

This spell costs 1 less for each creature card in your graveyard.

Without this, Karador would be an extremely unimpressive 8-mana 3/4 creature (and its other ability would definitely not justify the cost either). What's impressive, however, is since reduction is applied after additional costs like Commander Tax, Karador can subvert the tax as long as you have sufficient creatures in your graveyard.

So, assuming optimal conditions, Karador is always a 3-mana 3/4 creature, which is pretty good, although the stats themselves are pretty unimpressive alone (3-power basically means you're never going to win with Commander damage). While the commander tax could be subverted, there's no real benefit in re-casting Karador over and over again, so it would be more prudent to try to keep Karador alive (3 mana is still 3 mana, after all) and Karador is pretty vulnerable to most removal under the sun (although he does have a niche of dodging spells that target low CMC, as his CMC is always 8).


During each of your turns, you may cast a creature spell from your graveyard.

The (ghostly) meat of Karador, basically once per turn a creature card in your graveyard is almost as good as in your hand. Of course there are some distinct differences, for one it isn't actually in your hand (which some cards take note of). But in the same vein, Karador's ability also has a distinction from most other reanimation options in that it actually casts the creature spell, rather than returning it from the graveyard to the battlefield directly, which also is matter for cards that take note for casting creature spells.

But the most important thing is that the full cost of the creature cast must be paid (barring alternative costs available from the creature itself or other sources, but Karador himself doesn't provide that). Usually reanimation spells are utilized to reanimate larger creatures at a lower mana cost, but Karador doesn't do that. That isn't a necessarily a bad thing, as it means there's more incentive to bring back smaller (utility) creatures since mana constraints might be a thing, which in turn means bringing Karador out earlier isn't as bad if there are cheaper creatures to bring back.

Sure, the once-during-each-of-your-turns restriction might feel like a damper at times, but at the very least it's a static ability so you don't have to cast a separate spell just to bring back a (smaller) creature, as long as you can keep Karador around. You may have to pay all the mana for a larger creature, but at least the avenue is available to you as an option should you end up in a favorable scenario.


Alternate Commanders
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Alternate Commanders
There's plenty of reanimator Commanders out there, I'm just going to run through a few of the alternatives I can immediately think of.

Teneb, the Harvester
Ah yes, the original Commander of the deck. Still not the worst choice, although even with better sense of deck-building now (mostly ramp) I still wouldn't go back because it will present an overlap with Animar I'm not as comfortable with now (even Animar has tamed down over the years). Yes, the obvious drawback is that you would need to deal combat damage to reanimate a creature, but the real concern is that with 6 power and commander damage being a thing, sometimes it feels like it's a awkward overlap (you either don't get to reanimate as much as you like and not deal commander damage on top of it, or you deal sufficient commander damage that the reanimation feels like a win-more/do-nothing sometimes). Still visually on the surface I like Teneb, there's always something awesome about a dragon that raises the dead.

Meren of Clan Nel Toth
An extremely strong reanimator commander, in the right set-up (which isn't hard to do), you just stack experience counters and essentially get a free reanimate at the end of your turn, making Karador almost look like a chump in having to pay mana. You lose a color, yes, but that arguably allows you to focus even better on the deck.

Ultimately though, it was a matter of timing for me. I already embarked on creating the deck over a year before she was released and when I started planning Re:Commanders a year after she came out, I was very comfortable with Karador already working as Animar's "shadow" and enjoyed the flexibility that the three colors gave (and contrasting Animar in some ways). I did briefly consider building around her when she first came out, but I quickly just went "she's going to work fantastically in the 99, since Karador can grant her pseudo-Commander properties from his own ability and with Sisay getting her out won't be too hard either".

Kethis, the Hidden Hand
Unlike Meren, I actually gave Kethis a quick test-run (mostly because I didn't have to shed a whole color) and my opinion basically boils down to him streamlining even more than Meren because he sort of forces the synergy between Legendary-matters and reanimation a bit too tightly. Meren already potentially could be "Karador-on-steroids", I easily felt that Kethis would tilt even further to be "just another combo-y Commander/deck" had I tuned the deck to align with him as time dragged on, which was why I cut him off pretty early in the test-run. I liked the relaxed direction I left Karador in (which naturally favored Meren, but isn't as overdrive when she's only in the 99).

Muldrotha, the Gravetide / Gyrus, Waker of Corpses
I'm actually mostly restricted by color combinations, to be honest, so I'll just skim through these two.
Muldrotha is "stronger Karador" in many ways, but I suspect it would run into the "Teneb problem" by virtue of cost. Also it would lose too much focus as it would likely tempt me in other directions (I actually run Muldrotha in the 99 of my 5C lands deck) and this deck is supposed to be a shadow of Animar (which is about creatures, obviously).
Gyrus has a less mana intensive problem and a necromancer hydra might be an even more swell idea than a dragon, but only allowing one use per creature in the graveyard just feels too suffocating, especially when it comes to small utility creatures you might want to get a couple re-uses out of.

Theme Analysis

Is Karador, the Victory Song of the Dead a deck for you?
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With the knowledge of what Karador is capable of, now we explore what my build for the deck features in its themes to support the Commander (and vice versa). If the following themes (combined preferably) appeal to you, then this deck might be for you!

Midrange – Karador consists of many small utility creatures and readily sacrifices them for benefits that outweigh the sacrifice (which also can easily be recast for more value). The benefits can be pretty much anything, from card draw to maintaining a huge creature that costed little mana-wise.

Legendary-Matters – Many card choices in the deck (not only creatures) were selected because they were Legendary and could be searched out by Captain Sisay or net draws with Reki, the History of Kamigawa.

Mutate – As mutate costs are an alternative cost and hence can be cast from the graveyard, I thought it would be fun to utilize the mutate creatures for utility (since mutate was largely subject to utility-with-set-mechanic treatment) in-lieu of the typical staples used in those slots. It's largest weakness is piling up on a single mutation made it vulnerable to removal, but the nature of the deck being able to cast it back from the graveyard and the willingness to sacrifice creatures for many other fits do a lot to mitigate that weakness to some degree, making it one of the better homes of such a wonky, but fun mechanic.


However, no deck can cover everything the game can offer and Karador does lack in multiple departments. Also, no deck comes completely without weaknesses. If missing any of these themes or having to deal with any of these weaknesses if a big red flag for you, this deck might not be for you.

True Reanimation – This deck doesn't even run Reanimate. I used to run such packages, but it turned out to become "just a reanimation deck" that used its Commander for color identity purposes, because Karador doesn't particularly favor creatures with large mana costs. As I started to expand on the rest of the subthemes of the deck (Legendaries, Mutate), the traditional reanimation package just felt really tacked on with not particularly much mechanic synergy, even if it looked great on the surface.

Spellslinging – Well, Karador, like Animar, is a blatant creature deck. Unlike Animar though, which had the bulk of its removal stapled onto creatures, Karador relies more sorceries and instants for removal, as the creatures are more focused on building value and Karador's once-a-turn clause means if I stuffed the deck to the gills with creatures like I did for Animar it would backfire instead. But removal in Karador is straightforward, so there's no spellslinging action to be found here.

Wipes – Less vulnerable to wipes for a creature-based deck because of our willingness to sacrifice and ease of recursion, but that just makes us more vulnerable to…

Grave hate - I don't even need to spell this out, actually, but since Karador derives much value from our graveyard, denied access to the graveyard or having it exiled effectively halves our efficiency. One-shot grave removal (even if it's the whole graveyard) might be bad, but if you still have a general control of the battlefield you could still reliably repopulate the graveyard. It's the constant effects like Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void that will really permanently cripple the deck until something is done.

Decklist


Now you've had a solid idea of whether you would enjoy the Commander/deck, I present you the decklist of Karador, the Victory Song of the Dead.

Karador, the Victory Song of the Dead
Approximate Total Cost:

Card Choices


My deckbuilding process goes in this sequence: Ramp → Draw → Removal → PRO (Protection, Recursion, Others) → Manafixing Lands. There are some specific processes that are done within/in-between, but I'll get into detail when as I move through this guide.

Ramp
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Magic games are fun because you can cast things, and the ability to be able to cast more things as the game progresses is vital. It's tremendously less fun to watch someone cast a huge spell a couple of turns earlier or cast 2 more spells than you did in your turn in the same cycle, or you to exhaust all your mana getting something out while everyone else could afford to leave mana open so they could interact with the game and turn it in their favor. Ramp is the backbone that solves all that, the cornerstone of decks everywhere.

In general, I recommend at least 15 ramp sources, around 10 of which are fast, early-game options and the remainder could be slower or conditional ramp sources that hopefully synergize with the themes of the deck.

The Big Three
I don't even think I need to introduce/explain these three cards. As much as I love my diversity, I had to admit these three cards are also dubbed the "ubiquitous three" for me and exist in every one of my decks (and yes, you will see this exact section in every thread). They obviously account for 3 of the early ramp options of every deck hence.
I usually don't mention prices, but Mana Crypt is a standout I have to state due to my personal declaration of ubiquity here. As long as your meta isn't as high-powered as mine, you don't need Mana Crypt, you can replace it with a (basic) land. In fact, the overall land count in my decks could be said to be 1 below-average solely because Mana Crypt is powerful enough to justify it and you should put a land in-lieu of Crypt to get healthier numbers for a deck without one.

Fast Ramp
Fast ramp is defined by the ability to drop on turn 2 or earlier and have an immediate effect on casting spells.

Mid Ramp
Mid-ramp refers to a specific group that essentially come online by turn 3 or later in a vacuum.


There's the awareness that creatures that tap for mana are more vulnerable and ETB triggers are generally better than death triggers, but I deliberately made my choices because I want variety among all my decks. Karador is a deck of attrition often with many sacrifice outlets so I opted for some cards less used/seen but synergize well with the deck. People are less inclined to remove your mana dork if they see you can sacrifice it in response for benefits and easily cast it back with your Commander, preferring to save their removal for bigger threats down the road instead. Cabal Coffers is an obvious inclusion in a tri-colored deck with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to potentially supply a ton of mana.

Of course, if your meta simply isn't conducive for creatures at all (be it wipe after wipe, or bad threat assessment skills), you are free to adopt more traditional choices like Sakura-Tribe Elder or even the Talisman/Signets.

Ramp Auxiliary
These cards are classified as such because ramping/providing mana and/or reducing costs isn't their primary/only objective, but they are more likely than not to act in favor of mana production as a byproduct in the process of performing their functions, or at least can function as an alternate mana source at the cost of their other/intended function. As ramp is considered paramount, their flexibility elevates them to this high position as opposed to just being classified as "Utility".


The Great Henge is easily discounted in this deck concerned about power and is also a source of card draw.
Card Draw
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Ramp may be the cornerstone of a deck, but there's no point in having mana if there's nothing to cast. Card draw is the axle-grease that keeps the deck capable of building upon itself in a game.

Like with ramp, I recommend at least 15 sources of card draw. It may sound excessive, but I personally classify a huge range of card effects under its umbrella, including cantrips, discard-draw effects and wheel effects. To me, the filtering provided by such effects to get to the correct cards you want to be casting at any given time qualifies them under the primary objective of drawing.

That being said, card advantage is an important factor, especially in a multiplayer game and as such between all sources of draws I recommend at the very least about 8 (preferably 10) of your draws are capable of generating card advantage, be it directly (one-shot draw multiples, or strong straightforward draw engines) or indirectly (can be cast multiple times by itself, or generates synergy with the deck's theme to do so like an on-theme conditional engine).
As most cards primarily placed for their drawing abilities are pretty straightforward, I will not be explaining each of the common sections and the choices that fall under them.

Single-Use

Repeatable Draw

Sacrifice-Draw

Basically every card draw in this deck is conditional, but it's a pretty well-oiled midrange machine that they practically just work as true draw essentially.

Tutors
Not quite card advantage, but I like to categorize tutors under the branch of card draw as it surrenders advantage for precision. This deck runs an above-average number of tutors and I'm not going at length to explain what each one does, but most of them involve creatures for obvious reasons and give the deck the toolbox edge it needs to function as a midrange deck reliant on creatures.

Draw Auxiliaries
Like with Ramp Auxiliary cards, these refer to cards that can generate card advantage incidentally, or alternatively at the cost of their intended function, and hence are also sorted accordingly above typical utility.
Removal
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EDH games are not played in vacuum – as much as you're ramping, drawing cards and presenting threats, so are your opponents. Someone has to be faster than someone else in most games and it's unlikely you're always the fastest on board. The ability to dispose of threats that would otherwise end the game (or you from the game) should never be underestimated.

At the same time, there's only so much space you can afford for removal, especially having spent space for ramp and card draw and needing some for other utilities. I cannot you teach you the specifics as it differs game-to-game, but threat assessment is key skill in any EDH game, as it can easily seem that there are more threats than you have answers for, as there are three opponents. You need to identify which threats are the most dangerous to you, preferably as early as possible, but only dispose of them in a timely fashion, not necessarily as early as possible. If a threat has a chance to pose a bigger threat to another opponent, then it may be beneficial to either let it weaken said opponent first or let them notice the threat (even if it's blatant verbal politics) and spend their removal to get rid of a problem for you.

Removal is divided into two main catergories, Spot Removal, which are cards that remove usually one, but can be up to a few targets (and usually do use a targeting mechanic). The other is board-wipes, which refer to cards capable of removing an entire subset of cards (or almost) from every player (or opponent, but those usually cost more) in the game.

Counterspells for most part are almost always considered single-target removals, as the bulk of them are usually used to negate a singular threat before it manifests. There's some debate because there's an array of cards that exile entire graveyards, but I personally classify all grave hate to be single-target removal on the concept that most decks that don't rely on the graveyard as theme still do have some limited recursion options, and the reason one utilizes an entire graveyard exile is simply because the cards that perform them tend to be more cost-effective, and the real objective is usually a specific card. Sure, sometimes you hit a graveyard-reliant opponent and it feels like a boardwipe, but I don't feel that means I have to classify all cards that entire exile graveyards as wipes because they're opponent-dependent.

I recommend at least a minimum of 8 spot removals, with a reinforcement of 10-minimum if you're unsure about your threat assessment skills. Unless you have really good synergy with your removal options, generically around a cap of 12 spot removals should be ceiling, otherwise it'll pressure too little space for your utilities. Cover all your bases, make sure you have at least a way to get rid of graveyards and lands, as removals for those two are often overlooked while threats they present are no less dangerous than your usual culprits.

With board wipes my minimum recommendation is at least 3 and preferably 2 of those are capable of removing creatures, the most common permanent threat-type by nature of damage, but there should also be at least one option capable of handling artifacts and enchantments. Generally speaking mass land removal is socially frowned upon (especially if you're just going for walk-in games), so pay extra attention back to your spot removal to handle the notorious few problem-lands in the game.

Like with draw, the removal effects themselves are straightforward, with my emphasis already done on ensuring you have the diversity to deal with threats of varying natures being the actual important factor. Hence, I'm not explaining my specific choices in each deck and substitutes for this section are arguably the easiest to look for with any collection.

Graveyard Removal

Targeted Removal



Sacrifice Removal



Board Wipes
PRO (Protection, Recusion & Others)
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With three pillars of any EDH deck settled, we move on to slightly less important parts (no part can be considered unimportant because an EDH deck is supposed to be a machine with all its part working in sync ideally). Protection & Recursion can be said to be two sides of a same coin, under a function of keeping other parts of deck intact so those could perform their duties. Basically the opposite of removal, the attempt to keep your threats intact (or returning/reusing them after they got disposed).

Protection & Recusion

Protection is pro-active and prevents a card of yours from either be removed, or at least it helps by hindering your opponents from doing so (so effects that grant shroud or hexproof qualify). This prevents the card from leaving the battlefield or get countered, so it's less vulnerable to grave hate options, but in exchange, protection requires timing and mana left open and can be tricky to maneuver, even more so than threat assessment. Some counterspells can function as protection, but for simplicity's sake I just classified them under removal due to my processing order, but take note if you already run counterspells they might be pulling double-duty as Protection.

Recursion, as I said, is the opposite of the same coin. It doesn't prevent the destruction, but bringing something back from the graveyard to the hand, deck or battlefield means there's no real timing restriction outside your own personal urgency. Likewise, it's vulnerable to gravehate, which is arguably the #1 factor that would provide a sense of timing urgency.

While they're distinct enough that I have to provide paragraphs establishing their roles, Protection and Recursion could be said to be one tier below the three pillars of deckbuilding (ramp, card draw & removal), as it's theoretically possible for a deck to just ignore it altogether and operate on "If it's gone, it's gone" principle) and still reasonably perform well if it's other components are settled well. This cannot be said for the three pillars (which would visibly affect performance significantly more if they were missing).

That being said, it definitely never hurts to have some countermeasures of your own against removals, especially if your deck's themes and/or combos are heavily reliant on one card with poor redundancies/substitutes. There's no real "guide number", but I'd recommend around 5 in total, divided any way you want between the two sub-types. Most preferably your choices have synergy with your Commander of deck theme, even if it means going all-in with one and ignoring another.

Protection

Recursion
Others
Actually more accurately referred to as Utility (but PRO sounded much better than PRU), this is the "last" section you fill in. But wait, isn't mana-fixing lands after this? Yes, which is why you need to do one thing before you starting filling this "last" section, which is to clarify your numbers.
Walls of Text, but Critical to Deckbuilding
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At this point you need to tabulate the total number of cards already in your deck. Then you need to determine the number of lands you need in your deck. It may feel like a contradiction to think how many lands you need before you got all your non-lands in to determine your mana curve/intensity, but blindly going in more-often results in people loving to stuff it to the gills only to find out they only have space left for 20 lands (which is a big NO-NO), which is why this guide even focuses on establishing numbers for all your three pillars and PR before moving to this Utility section, which is probably the most "fun" part of deckbuilding.

If you completely have no idea of what your mana curve/intensity would look like, the general recommendation for total land count is to be at 38 lands. If it's not your first time building a deck and you could sort of mentally preview your curve to be much lower than the average, there's an argument for cutting down up to 2 lands, and if you're running Mana Crypt like me, you could safely reduce the count by 1. That makes the absolute minimum land count 35 and even then you really must anticipate/know your mana curve accurately.

On the opposite path, if you know you're putting too much weight, you might want to up to count by a couple at most, and even then 40 lands does put you at a risk of land-bloating that I would whether recommend you keep a tight rein on both the 38 land count and the "calorie intake" of your card choices instead. The only exception is if your deck is a lands-matter deck, and assuming it's a main theme of the deck, the numbers are skewed to around 40-minimum-to-45-maximum with no real average. There are some other decks out there that really delve deep into the theme with 50+ lands that do work, but I don't specialize in that and will not elaborate further (and 99-land decks are their own thing).

Let's say you took the 38-land assumption (no Crypt) and booted up on the minimum/average recommended suggestions I made (15 ramp, 15 draw, 13 removal and 5 PRs). That brings the total to 86 cards. Not counting the Commander (and I'm assuming no Partners), that leaves a whooping total of 13 spaces left for your utility, "fun" stuff. Sounds incredibly small, sad and not enough space for all the awesome ideas you had for your deck but now can't fit in.

It'll be tempting to start trimming cards from the prior sections, but please do not, for that is the most common temptation newer/casual players fall for, only to find out their deck doesn't churn along because the pillars that keep the deck (including the "fun" parts) running just aren't up to the task.

But, now is the time to restore a bit of hope. It's time to check back on the cards already in the deck and see how many lands are already residing there. Did you use Ancient Tomb as ramp? Did you let War Room smooth out your draws? Did you file Buried Ruin under recursion because you didn't want to waste a spell slot to get back one important but not numerous artifact in the deck? Everyone land you already used counts under the land total, which means you free one more space for your utility fun.

But what happens if you found out you didn't have that many lands that helped you free up space? Then I'd recommend you start looking up for those lands to take over some of your nonland choices in these categories to create that space. The secret to a well-oiled EDH deck that has space for its luxury plays is the one that finds the most land openings to fill in the pillars of its own oiling, not just cutting the pillars off for luxuries that no pillars are around left to support.

When it's done you should have around 15 to 20 open spaces for your utilities/fun (I actually have less because I usually go a couple above the recommended minimum for my pillars). It can still feel "little", especially for newer players, but at this point I just have to say that's the sacrifice it takes to be able to get what you consider fun up-and-running in a 99-card deck format with so much variance, it certainly isn't just 60+ cards of fun and lands. That's why like how you find lands in your pillar card-choices to make space, it's in your best interests to find nonland cards in those sections as well that synergize better with your themes, so that your pillars are also fun to play with as well.
Another small beacon of light to look forward to, there are lands that are utility and/or fun, and like with all lands before them, they fall under the land total quota, so they don't eat up your remaining spaces. That Treetop Village that isn't really protection but just small utility? Doesn't eat up your remaining establish space.

One very important thing to note when distinguishing if a land actually falls under the land total. I do not consider lands that are incapable of producing mana by themselves in a vacuum to one, if they're in for a non mana-fixing reason (which is why I count those last) and can't produce mana on their own, they're functionally like 0-mana "non-land" cards in a way. Maze of Ith strikes as the most common example (and no, even if you run Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth in the deck it doesn't just reverse this classification in the deckbuilding process, which usually favor in-a-vacuum status.
With the importance of juggling numbers in this section finally out of the way, let's briefly go through my miscellaneous card choices.
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Core/Combo

As I said, Re:Commanders decks are almost always built with combo-ways to close the games in case the primary win condition style is rendered unachievable, hence the pieces for these combos are usually my first priority in filling out my utility spaces. As I have a section dedicated to explaining the combos, I'll leave this part as short as possible.

Beatsticks/Finishers

Cards focusing on the power aspect of that, whether they're battlecruisers themselves or are pumping the team up.

Fodder Suppliers

This deck is hungry for sacrifices, so these cards either supply the fodder or are creative alternatives.

Other Utility

The remainder of the utility cards either provide some form of haste for the deck, some form of minor stax as disruption, or aid the sacrifice strategy.
Color-Fixing Lands
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At this point you should be done with all your nonland cards, and with some lands slots already taken up, you should roughly have about 30 land slots left in a multicolored deck, or substantially less (around 25) for a monocolored deck. Mono-colored decks pretty much don't need color fixing, so it's basically all basic lands filling the remainder. For multicolored decks though, now is the time to get your color-fixing options in, so you can reasonably produce the colored mana for your needs at any stage of the game.

I seldom talk about budget alternatives (be it high or low), but lands are among one of the more-commonly spoken of topics when discussing about budgets, so I'm supplying some alternatives here.

"Fetchlands" Package

I don't run off-color fetches solely for aesthetic purposes and also don't run ABUR duals because of price reasons (and also aesthetic reasons of they can't be foiled), so that leaves me with a simple fetch-shock combination.

I have a strict policy for as little mana-fixing lands that only enter the battlefield tapped as possible for my decks, but for my 3-colored decks, an exception is extended to lands that can produce all three colors. Indatha Triome & Murmuring Bosk are fetchable and are the premier of ETBT lands I permit.

For those with a higher budget/min-maxing, you can go up to 9 fetchlands (with sole exception of Scalding Tarn), but you'll likely need to include the ABUR duals over my other dual land choices to supplement the large amount of basic land-types you'll be searching (although I guess anyone planning to run 9 fetches in a tri-colored deck should already know that).

For those with a much lower budget, you can sub-in the fetches with the likes of Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds or even Fabled Passage, which also means you can replace the shocklands with other dual alternatives I'll list in the later section.

Tri-Lands

Lands that provide all three colors. As I've said, this is where I permit ETBT lands. For those with a higher budget/less decks, you can also run other lands that provide mana of any color like City of Brass or Mana Confluence, or lands like Reflecting Pool. I personally felt there were enough duals that work well enough in a three-color deck to not have to get these cards (my only copies of such cards go to my 5C deck), especially when I have so many decks.

Conditional Lands

Lands that provide two colors unconditionally but need a condition to enter the battlefield untapped. While in a vacuum, unconditional untapped lands are "better", I find in practice there are enough easy-to-meet conditional untapped lands that you don't really need those to be the majority.

Between the basic lands and shocklands (with the fetch package), checklands are among the duals with the easiest untapped conditions to meet.

Alternatives include the SOI Lands/Snarls (Fortified Village, Shineshadow Snarl), which are like checklands, but require the basic land type to be in (and revealed from) your hand, which makes them marginally worse than the checklands, but it's not a condition hard to meet either.

Dependent Lands

Alone, the filterlands are unimpressive, only capable of producing colorless mana, but when combined with outside sources that can produced their colored mana, they becomes incredibly flexible, capable of turning mana of one color into two of another even. They're not necessary in 3-colored decks (and especially if you run the full-blown fetchland-dual package, you'd probably don't have the space for them), but realistically the chances of "bricking" when you only run 3 filters when you have colored mana sources from lands and mana rocks are abysmally low that the flexibility they provide is definitely worth their addition, although I wouldn't fault folks who don't have them replace these slots with duals from the above categories that they have instead.

I consider the Guild Karoos (Selesnya Sanctuary) under the same category, but the fact they enter the battlefield tapped means I do not recommend them as replacements generally (I only consider them acceptable in 2C decks). Those on a real tight budget can consider them, but note there's a substantial drop in power/flexibility if you do so. Sungrass Prairie alone I would still recommend over a Guild Karoo, but the cycle is incomplete (and I don't like those) plus it itself hasn't seen meaningful reprint for quite some time.

Others

All the lands here can be tutored out by the deck (be it via Captain Sisay or Green Sun's Zenith) and provide one color while being a different name for Field of the Dead. Flagstones of Trokair is useful for land shenanigans, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is an obvious inclusion for a three-colored deck with Cabal Coffers.

There's a lack of Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, but since there's no real synergy for Forests (unlike Cabal Coffers for Swamps) and we ramp well enough, I decided that it's a luxury optional choice for those who want it as an additional name.

These are my choices for color-fixing lands, and we'll round the rest of the deck with Basic Lands. Every deck should always run some Basic Lands to "passively" combat nonbasic land-hate, especially the stax ones. As a general rule of thumb I calculate the mana symbols in all casting costs and non-mana abilities to have a rough gauge to determine how to divide the colors among my Basic Lands, with a cap that I should at least run 2 of each land type for coverage even if one color is played so little the formula results in recommending only 1 Basic.

For Karador in particular, due to Field of the Dead, I run 1 Snow Basic of each type just to rack up the name counts (technically halving between snow and non-snow is better, but I just can't be bothered, ramp should solve most problems).


Piloting the Deck

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I'm not going in-depth into this section (partially because I haven't had many actual games myself), but if you've established an understanding of how each card in the deck works, I don't think I need to overtly dictate specifically how any of my decks should play out in a game. Bluntly speaking, you need to ramp and set up draws as early as possible, and your starting hand should revolve around that set-up. General threat assessment usually means don't waste your removal on early "threats" that aren't lethal or overtly crippling (unless someone's super-aggro), you'll need to juggle around the mid-game and if you've resourcefully saved them could afford to be a little trigger happy nearer to the end-game.

Mulligan & Early Game (T1-T4)

Like most other decks out there, ramping is of paramount importance in the deck, but in addition to ramp, it's also vital for the game to start stocking up on creatures in the graveyard early. The earlier more creatures hit the grave, the earlier you can get the Commander out, and the more turns you can take advantage of the various creatures in the deck to fulfill their roles, multiple times if necessary. If things go well, this deck should get utility from the graveyard enough to be slightly less reliant on scrambling for draw engines like plenty of other decks, although you'd still be primed to set up draws to assist the flow. The deck is flexible enough that one successful end should be able to lead to setting up the other.

Mid-Game (T5-7/8)

By now hopefully you've set up the midrange machine off for a decent start and should be primed to utilize resources from both the graveyard and your hand/draws. Just keep playing the attrition game, removing threats with as little card disadvantage as you can and when there's opening, send in some of the bigger threats to keep life totals in check.

Late-Game (T8+)

Hopefully by now the war of attrition has waged on and you're coming ahead of the pack with the midrange tactics. It's time to start finishing players with lower life totals off with some big beats. If someone has successfully protected themselves from this avenue, then attempt to finish them off with the likes of Jarad instead. If all else fails, there's only one infinite combo the deck can pull off and you'd have to time it well (usually within one of your turns when everyone's down). If even that fails, you'd have to hope that you can continue to win through a sheer show of attrition.

Remember, ultimately in a typical 4-player game where there can only be 1 winner, the odds are stacked against each player individually and the war of attrition is just a matter of who's the lucky one who managed to get his beatdown/combo down at the right moment when the other three exhausted all their immediate resources.

Combo Strategies


Bloodbond
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The classic Bloodbond combo, usually including Sanguine Bond, but creatures with similar abilities obviously synergize much better by virtue of the card type. Just set the two up, gain some life (or have someone lose some life) and just loop-drain to close the game.

The only thing to really take note is that Exquisite Blood should not be played carelessly. Alone, it's a card that already draws a lot of attention (because it nets you life regardless of who dealt the damage, as long as an opponent as lost life), not to mention Bloodbond's reputation means it sets off alarms as well, effectively making you archenemy #1 the moment it lands.

The creatures themselves could set up potential alarms, but they tend to be less threatening and easier to remove. That being said, a known combo piece in the graveyard with the Commander making it plenty clear that's where your main plans lie means you're likely #1 target for graveyard removal. Don't be too hasty to throw combo pieces in the graveyard, sometimes it's better to just let them stay in the deck until the late-game instead (especially when alone they're pretty much just bodies, and the deck has much better choices when it comes to those).

Closing


This brings us to the end of this guide for Karador, the Victory Song of the Dead. To be honestly blunt, it was a tad difficult to write this guide out, despite the ease and fun I have playing the deck, mostly because it's essentially midrange goodstuff with some thematic synergy. Even the subthemes (Legendaries / Mutate) were either loose enough to be goodstuff or just a selected variant of typical utility slots.

A lot of my card choices can easily be replaced by similar substitutes and honestly, should be with recent / in-print alternatives especially for newer players. I've been playing since Champions of Kamigawa and a lot of my seemingly-expensive card choices were all more or less acquired when those cards were around their lowest price points (and even when I aren't actively playing, I still keep a lookout on cards because I know I won't truly leave the format proper).

Flavor

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Well, this is no primer, so instead of giving credits, I'm just going to the customized flavortown for the deck. (Actually the real reason is I sort of just absorbed random tidbits over the decades and can't remember all the specific sources I got, some I simply kept/forgot in my brain until years later, only randomly recalling the tidbit when I come up or have to refine my ideas/decks).

I've mentioned that the deck is a "shadow" of Animar, my flagship deck, but it's arguably the "dumping ground" of a lot of aspects I enjoy. As I've mentioned, I have a fascination with necromancy/the undead in fantasy (Drudge Skeletons was one of the first cards that caught my attention when I first started out), I enjoyed the support the premier undead type (Zombies) received that my only "true tribal" deck is them and also enjoy how reanimation plays out in the game, but as I said there's so much for both mechanically I felt when I tried to play them together they just diluted each other. So I let reanimation be its own thing and merged it with as the "dumping grounds" for the battlecruiser leftovers of Animar (or desire for battlecruiser to be exact, since they only overlap one color).

I've also mentioned I tried a Legendary theme in Animar (before I discovered Sisay was a thing), somewhat in a "Avengers" way (I'm not big on comics, more on manga/anime) and just like the absorption of battlecruisers, I've merged the Legendary theme with reanimator/necromancy to envision this deck flavor-wise to be like an Overlord Lich that raises the Legends that died. In fact, there's an anime named exactly that as I envisioned how the deck is like.

So, why is the name "Zombie Land Saga" (which is also an anime) and not "Overlord"? Well, turns out the deck was also accepting refugees from my lands deck (Gitrog and Ramunap Excavator), because overloading on support made that deck too clunky, while Karador did stand to benefit from some land support. Then came along Field of the Dead (which I couldn't fit in the lands deck and while thematic in the Zombie one, I felt it was far too inefficient mechanically in non-green two color deck). I suddenly felt it was poetic that I should use the name, now that Karador has inherited reanimator (Zombie), lands-matter (Land) and Legendaries (Saga, which is close enough in MTG since they're both historic). As an added bonus, the anime (which is about zombie idols, I know, classic anime weirdness) referred to most of their main characters (and some events) as "Legendary".


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As such I deemed that the deck's theme song would be the first opening of the anime, alongside the 7 other songs (Each Re:Commander deck is assigned 8 songs, one as its own theme song and one that it shares with each of the other 7 decks of the suite). Links to each song are below, and disclaimer that it's safer to assume every link is NSFW than vice-versa so make sure you're in your safest environment before pressing any links.

(Theme Song) Adabana Necromancy
(Song with Najeela) Clattanoia
(Song with Freyalise) Sagajihen
(Song with Yorion) Silent Solitude
(Song with Extus) All Things Must Die
(Song with Ryusei) Dark Silver Wings
(Song with Animar) Fujimi no Ouja
(Song with Grimgrin) Hollow Hunger
If you enjoyed this [Re:Commanders] thread and would like to see another one, feel free to visit either the main [Re:Commanders] hub or any of the other [Re:Commanders] threads linked below

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Last edited by Yatsufusa 1 year ago, edited 1 time in total.

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