What got me to thinking about changing generals was how conditional Lim-Dul's ability is. I can only reanimate creatures that enter the graveyard from play, and only as
they enter the graveyard. That restriction, combine with Lim-Dul's CMC of 7 put me pretty well behind the pace of our average game. To counter this, I was packing the deck full of more and more recursion spells and fewer actual win conditions. Chainer's ability is less conditional, and Chainer himself has a lower CMC, but the price of using him is a fair bit steeper. So the deck went from a reanimator shell to more of a suicide black model.
As I see it, I will need to focus on three things to make Chainer work: sac outlets (ideally free sac outlets) to control the exile effect of Chainer's ability, life gain to mitigate what it costs me to use him, and abusive ETB effects that I can loop through my sac outlets and back into play with recursion engines.
[deck]Chainer, Master of ETB Abuse[/deck]
It takes some setup, but there's plenty of tutor to get what you need if you're short on parts, and Chainer himself provides consistent access to one of those parts. So really you're just looking for an outlet and something with a degenerate ETB effect, and enough life gain to keep your head above water. I have noticed that having a ton of mana at your disposal makes life way, way easier as well so I've opted to run an above average land count and mana doublers over mana rocks. Lily is to fetch out more Swamps. Her second ability is useful in an emergency, but she's there for ramp. Gauntlet of Power didn't make the cut
because black is a pretty common color at the table and I specifically want to avoid helping an opponent with that broad a stroke.
The idea is to create recursion loops with reanimation effects and sac outlets to abuse an already degenerate ETB effect by repeating it as many times as I have the mana to afford. Add undying from Mikaeus the Unhallowed for extra fun! [card]Geralf's Messenger[/card] lands for 2 life per ETB, and sacs once for free with his own undying. Kokusho, the Evening Star drains 5 life from everyone and nets me the total loss in gain every time he dies. Massacre Wurm can become a one sided board wipe that dodges indestructible. Duplicant exiles something every time it enters. Solemn Simulacrum is a Swamp on ETB and a draw upon death. Gray Merchant of Asphodel is either as good or
better than Kokusho a majority of the time. Wurmcoil Engine leaves behind two mini Wurmcoils when it dies, then comes back as a fully grown Wurmcoil ready to split in half again. Sepulchral Primordial is ETB recursion, and Rune-Scarred Demon is ETB tutor. Fleshbag Marauder and Slum Reaper are my weak links, I think. I don't like the conditional "each player" that their forced sacrificing carries. Its okay if I have an empty board, but not okay enough to double up on. I'm yanking out the Slum Reaper to replace with a Bone Shredder as we speak. It'll do until I get a Grave Titan or something.
I ran it once, and it worked okay. And by "okay" I mean when the table figured out how the deck was supposed to work they dropped what they were doing to archenemy me. I held them
all off and won. BUT I got really lucky on my draws with an opening hand of both Urborg and Coffers, an early Caged Sun that stuck, and someone else ditched a Mikaeus to their 'yard for me to take from them. After that it was just a matter of sticking a sac outlet and beating face until Rise of the Dark Realms into Gary for 31, sac Gary to whatever, Undying Gary returns for another 31. I expect them to be a little more attentive to my board state next time, possibly earning me the first Bojuka Bog instead of Scion or Karador. Luckily I play enough red to know not to overextend. Even so, I'm considering cutting Crystal Ball to run a [card]Feldon's Cane[/card] just in case.
Mikaeus's interaction with the deck makes things a little awkward. Still worth it, you just have to pay attention to the wording on undying; (When this creature dies, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its
owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it.) So anything I steal out of an opponent's graveyard with Chainer or Reanimate comes back into play under that opponent's control if I sac it while it has undying. That's not a deal breaker, but its something to be aware of before you go sacing everything.
Nobody understood the Snow-Covered Swamps. I didn't explain them, and I didn't draw into Extraplanar Lens so I'll just save that little bomb for later. I like when I can do something they didn't expect. Like run four mana doublers outside of green.
The thing I foresee needing to work on the most are my life gain engines and sac outlets. If I need more they will come at the cost of cutting redundancy and removal. Altar of Dementia is another free sac outlet, so there's that. And there are functional reprints of Bloodflow Connoisseur and [card]Bloodthrone Vampire[/
card] in Nantuko Husk, Blood Bairn and Carrion Feeder. Life gain engines are a bit clunky; one relies on creatures attacking, one is a Sorcery I can't get back unless Xiahou Dun is in play, and one gets treated like half of a win-on-the-spot combo even if I've made it clear that its not. But I guess black isn't the perfect answer for life gain.
That's were its at. Its not much right now, but I'm confident that it will become something and excited to try and develop it.
Change Log
), if you can manage to wait for him to get active. Otherwise, yeah, Karn's the only one I can think of in black.