The coming madness is from the warped mind of BDC
I LOVE graveyard decks. Not going to explain that again. You can just check my take on this idea in Standard.
But I’ve been collecting cards that self mill and/or return lands or creatures from the graveyard for some time. But my favorite collection is creatures that get bigger with the number of creatures in your graveyard.
It all starts with my commander, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord. He begins with the type of power ramp I’m looking for.
He can also sacrifice a swamp or forest to return himself from the graveyard to your hand, so no need to pay pesky commander tax. Now, that can get expensive on the land base, so check out the section below about returning creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield.
Another spiffy ability is a mana ability that also costs you another creature (not a big deal in this deck/just pick the right one to off). But, if you have one of those big boys looming on the battlefield, they’re going to want to kill it or chump block it. This ability makes them pay for either. Just keep a swamp, forest and one other mana around to take life from ‘EACH OPPONENT’ equal to the sacrificed creature’s power!
So, how do we build a monster big enough to bleed your opponents dry? We just add a bunch of creatures that do the same thing as Jarad’s first ability!
As you can see, there a lot of creatures that feed off the graveyard. Now, most of them will fluctuate to that number and are in danger of graveyard hate. There might not be enough protection from that. But I’m not keen on worrying about that and would rather go Gruul on my opponent’s deck full frontal! There are a few that pop counters down just in case you loose your graveyard, gods forbid! Golgari Grave-Troll and Rhizome Lurcher guard against this.
But there are many cards that do a myriad of things equal to the creatures in your graveyard. From mana, to negatives to their power and toughness to card draw and outright destruction, you name it, there’s a card that does that to the theme.
First off, there’s so many ways to either ramp a creature or create a token or do damage all equal to the creatures in your graveyard.
There’s a lot to gain by filling your graveyard up with creatures. But first we have to do just that. It’s called self mill and, strangely enough, it’s one of my favorite things to do! So pure self mill will go a long way to attaining your goals.
Luckily, Magic the Gathering has produced a massive group of cards that do just that. Don’t be afraid to mill those creatures into the graveyard, cause that’s the point, right?
But, what if you get the wrong cards stuck in the graveyard and I thought you said I could let my commander go to the graveyard? How is that going to work?
Well there are a lot of cards that self mill into your graveyard that allow you to pull a land or creature out to your hand.
The above cards all return lands to your hand from the graveyard. That way if you want to use Jarad’s land sacrifice, it’s easier on you.
There are also plenty cards that bring creatures/permanents back whether they mill or not. And most of them don’t put any stipulations as to which card to get. Gives you a lot of choices.
And there’s a few that do both!
So here’s the deck I’ve built. Check it out and let me know if you have better ideas. As i’ve said continually, ‘we do not brew in a vacuum!’ We learn and grow together. So I would LOVE to see your decks and suggestions!
AoE Table Top 