Tarkir Dragonstorm introduced several new Sultai commanders with a sub-theme of “when cards leave your graveyard” do a thing. I found this pretty interesting, and aside from Muldrotha, the Gravetide and Yarok, the Desecrated crazy, land tapping-untapping decks have never cared much for Sultai, and so I deliberately set out to make decks in a color combination I usually would avoid. This is the second of three articles, Stomp the Yard II. I have no idea if that movie got a sequel and I refuse to look it up.
FromTheShire:Â It absolutely did.
This deck again functions around using our graveyard as a resource because we can generate value that way. Teval, the Balanced Scale has two interesting triggered abilities.
The first is a mill and return on attack trigger, which isn’t particularly interesting other than it puts the returned land onto the battlefield, rather than into your hand. The second is a trigger that whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard, create a 2/2 black Zombie Druid creature token.
I swear R&D isn’t supposed to like to do this, putting both parts of the trick onto the same card. At least that is what they claimed at one point, but I’m pretty sure they’ve just completely abandoned that design principle since they do this all the time now.
Logically attacking, milling, and returning a land for ramp is nice, and you get a 2/2 black Zombie Druid creature token out of it.
Okay, I have to admit I’d love to hear the logic of that. Like, what does a Spirit Dragon have to do with mill and lands, such that when it attacks, it creates Zombie Druids? What even is a Zombie Druid? Is this from like Dawn of the Dead III and they were bored with “normal” types of zombie and wanted something interesting? Isn’t an undead creature like antithetical to Druids in general? Wouldn’t it react with revulsion at it’s own existence? Wouldn’t a Zombie Druid like immediately end themselves? Granted the concept of zombies with any kind of profession really makes no sense, they’re just mindless crawling monsters, animated by the force of someone else’s will but still sticky and wet as opposed to dry like skeletons.
Zombieland part III, the even more unfunny second sequel aside, this is a deck built on triggers, and it’s important to understand the minutiae of them.
Teval’s trigger to return a land doesn’t require it to be one of the cards milled from his attack, so long as you have a land in your yard he can return it. Generally you’ll want to use this on a fetchland, so that you get two land drops, and can thin your deck and generate multiple triggers. There’s so many different triggers here and they all work slightly differently, so I’ve gone through and bolded the important caveats since it’s your own responsibility to remember your board state.
Damage Triggers
Iridescent Vinelasher – Whenever a land you control enters, deal 1 damage to target opponent (this is doubled by using fetch lands).
Blood Artist – Whenever Blood Artist or another creature (not necessarily yours) dies target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Marionette Apprentice – Whenever another creature or artifact you control dies, each opponent loses 1 life.
Zulaport Cutthroat – Whenever Zulaport Cutthroat or another creature you control dies, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
The Meathook Massacre – Whenever a creature you control dies, each opponent loses 1 life.
Bastion of Remembrance – Whenever a creature you control dies, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Agent of the Iron Throne – Commander creatures you own have “Whenever an artifact or creature you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield each opponent loses 1 life.” This is a bit strange because technically if you have this out, and your commander gets stolen with Control Magic or something like that, it will still have the ability.
Mirkwood Bats – Whenever you create or sacrifice a token, each opponent loses 1 life.
Syr Konrad, the Grim – Whenever another creature dies, or a creature card is put into a graveyard from anywhere other than the battlefield (i.e. like milling with your commander trigger) or a creature card leaves your graveyard, Syr Konrad, the Grim, deals 1 damage to each opponent.
Value Triggers
Teval, The Balanced Scale – Whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard, create a 2/2 black Zombie Druid creature token.
Kishla Skimmer – Whenever a card leaves your graveyard during your turn, draw a card. This ability triggers only once each turn.
Bloodghast – Whenever a land you control enters, you may return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield (again doubled by fetch lands).
Kheru Goldkeeper – Whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard during your turn, create a Treasure token.
Chatterfang, Squirrel General – If one or more tokens would be created under your control, those tokens plus that many 1/1 green Squirrel creature tokens are created instead.
Teval’s Judgment – Whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard, choose one that hasn’t been chosen this turn: Draw a card or create a Treasure token or create a 2/2 Black Zombie Druid creature token
Skeleton Crew – Whenever one or more creature cards leave your graveyard, create a 2/2 black Skeleton Pirate creature token.
Play Lands from Yard
The deck actually wins either through trigger attrition, or setting up an infinite combo. The easiest infinite combo is an old standby, Gravecrawler or Oathsworn Vampire and a sac outlet alongside a damage trigger.
Sac Outlets
The deck includes a pretty standard ramp package for a three-color deck, intended for bracket 3, so 3-cost double land fetches, Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath (which plays really well with your various triggers) and a fairly standard instant speed interaction to stop opposing threats without being too oppressive. There is the Wasteland and Strip Mine play lands from the yard combo with extra land drops which can be somewhat oppressive, but it’s really just a sideline and a way to make sure you can keep playing lands if you need to.
For a starting hand you really want some way to ramp into the midgame, and ideally some kind of value trigger so you can smoothly get into an attrition state. Intended for bracket 3, there’s no nonland triggers, and while you can theoretically pull off a Gravecrawler + Bontu’s Monument + sacrifice outlet really fast, nobody should really complain, and if they do that’s really a litmus test about if you want to play with that person.
Generally you’ll want to mulligan anything with with less than 2 lands regardless, and you’re really looking for 3 + a ramp card, you really want a fetchland because of all the utility they generate.
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