Two weeks back when writing about a couple ideas I had for Selesnya decks in Standard I hinted at a three-color deck I was working on that included the sweet card Seance. Seance was a card I fixated on pretty quickly after Dark Ascension came out because of the interesting puzzle it offered up. A recurring reanimating tool was quite powerful (just think back to Recurring Nightmare) but Seance had some potent limitations that seemed to put it squarely in the Timmy camp far from the raw power-hungry Spike domain of tournament play.

First it exiled the creature and made a creature token copy so if the copy was dealt with you couldn't reanimate the creature again (unlike the awesome Spike-a-licious Unburial Rites). Also the copy only lasted until the end of the turn… and it didn't have haste. So the creature either needed to naturally have haste or provide value in some other way presumably with some sweet comes-into-play ability.

The fact that you could use Seance's ability right away on your opponent's turn meant that you could also squeeze some value out of the creature as a potential blocker which was nice and all… but still for all the hoops you had to jump through to try and make Seance a relevant card it just didn't seem worth the trouble.

Sadly Seance kept working its way further and further to the back of my Standard White Cards deck box.

But then along came Return to Ravnica and with it Populate! A mechanic that cares about copying creature tokens in a world where most tokens are 1/1s and 2/2s. Copying them isn't exactly exciting now is it?

But how about copying a Craterhoof Behemoth token? Now that sounds like a token worth Populating no? Especially since the copy won't need to be exiled at the end of the turn like the token produced by Seance and can stick around and be Populated again.

The beauty of all this was that I had a white reanimation spell in Seance a green/white mechanic in Populate and plenty of great green and white giant creatures or value creatures worth reanimating. I even had potential tutoring ability in green with Garruk Relentless if I wanted to work in some silver bullet reanimation targets. Green-white also has the best mana in the new format.

The problem of course was trying to figure out a way to get the giant nearly uncastable creatures into my graveyard for Seance while staying in green/white. Sure I could just stick with castable value-creatures and use Seance to squeeze more value out of them but if that's the case why not just use Restoration Angel instead? No with Seance I needed to go big or go without and to go big I needed to figure out a way to dump the monsters into the graveyard. Trying to do so without adding a color meant leaning on cards that aren't really up to the weight. Grimoire of the Dead was interesting on theme but really really really slow. Trading Post was another option but you need more artifacts to make it worth playing and with Scars of Mirrodin block rotated out there's a real dearth of good artifact creatures worth juicing up Trading Post while also playing nice with a reanimation theme. Splinterfright Ghoulcaller's Bell and Cellar Door are too inconsistent. Mulch and Tracker's Instincts are proven Reanimation cards but don't help with reanimation targets already in hand except if you somehow manage to choke your hand with lands and can discard naturally.

I tried sketching out decklists with these cards but the results were just clunky and weak and didn't really give the sort of power you needed to justify playing a Seance deck.

So... I needed another color. Red was one option namely on the back of the amazing Faithless Looting but potentially other fringe cards like Reforge the Soul Dangerous Wager Rummaging Goblin Shattered Perception and Wild Guess. Or I could go blue for Civilized Scholar or maybe even Murder of Crows.

But no—black was probably where I wanted to go offering up a whole host of options for discarding reanimation targets in my hand not least of which were two brand new cards I was itching to try—Lotleth Troll and Pack Rat! Of course adding black to my green and white reanimation deck meant forcing me to ask the hard question—why play Seance over the proven powerful Unburial Rites? If we're going to go big Unburial Rites is the obvious superior choice—if you reanimate some giant creature and your opponent handles it well you can just flashback Rites and make them deal with it a second time!

When you compare the two cards side by side really the only advantage that Seance has it that you can potentially keep using it over and over and over. You don't want to waste Unburial Rites on some little value creature unless you need it to save you whereas with Seance you can keep tossing out dead chump blocking Elvish Visionaries and Borderland Rangers during your opponents turn to squeeze more value and more chump blocks all day long and feel good about it while you buy time for a bigger play to come around all for no mana investment after the initial four.

Which made me realize… maybe I should put both Seance and Unburial Rites in my deck?

Here's what I cooked up two weeks ago:

What I liked about this approach is that it's not necessarily cold to graveyard hate something you've got to consider strongly with Zombies roaming the earth. You can ride the value train just as well as or better than many other mid-range decks while having a potential combo finish of a reanimated Craterhoof out of nowhere. Lotleth Troll and Pack Rat are graveyard enablers who also have board presence something quite handy to have when facing down aggressive decks. Pack Rat is particularly cool here in that if one dies early on and you then cast Seance when you have the mana available you can exile Pack Rat to make a token and then use its ability to make a copy that will stick around.

Pack Rat and Lotleth Troll are both cards that want lots of cards in hand to pitch to their ability which means that Griselbrand makes a perfect fit as a reanimation target. While you certainly want to target him with Unburial Rites first in a pinch reanimating him with Seance during your opponent's turn is fine—it's highly unlikely your opponent will want to run any creature into its lifelinking large flying body so you'll get a Fog plus if you have enough life you'll also get 7-14 cards drawn in your hand to feed your various plots.

Did someone mention “enough life?” Yes this is yet another deck where Thragtusk is good even better than most—you hardcast it you Unburial Rites it you Seance it. Yeah you're gonna have enough life but if you want a little more let's add Trostani to the mix. Oh yeah I'd almost forgotten about the Populate angle that led me to return to Seance again in the first place! I originally had 3-4 copies of Trostani in the deck but realized she's really not a very good Seance target herself and wanted to slim down the mana curve some which led me to Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage—kinda like Pack Rat you can make a copy with Seance and if you have enough mana you can make more copies of itself that will stick around.

So this line of play is what you can do with Seance:

Turn 2 Elvish Visionary draw a card chump block.

Turn 3 Borderland Ranger get a land chump block.

Turn 4 Seance. Make a Borderland Ranger token during your opponent's turn get a land chump block.

Turn 5 Make a Visionary token during your turn draw a card play Thragtusk…

Handful of cards Seance and Thragtusk in play... Probably feeling pretty good about this game.

Of course since cooking up this list we've had two big StarCityGames.com Standard Opens to see how the new metagame is shaping up and a few Reanimator lists to learn from. Let's take a look at some:

Dan Jordan's and Chris Weidinger's decks are what we would generally expect from Unburial Rites decks and they put up good results both very nearly taking home the champion's trophies in the two events. So why in the world would I monkey with success by trying to leverage in Seance? The problem I have with all-out Unburial Rites decks is similar to the issues I have with playing Ramp decks—you've got to play with a bunch of “set-up” cards to enable your strategy and if you don't draw the right mix of set-up and end-game you end up with too little game for the board and you get run over or else you sculpt several turns of effort into one big play and if your opponent has an answer you've just lost all your eggs in the basket. Being left helpless in a game of Magic is what terrifies my midrange-loving heart.

Dan Jordan's list actually goes quite a ways down the mid-range path and gives me some hope that I'm not totally being sucked into the danger of Cool Things. There are a couple other lists that are also not quite as “all-in” as Weidinger's deck both including my beloved Lotleth Troll:

So looking at these lists and percolating some gives me some ideas on updating my deck. One man's Junk is…

Centaur Healer has certainly proven helpful in keeping the archetype alive long enough to get your game plan in action so I thought I'd squeeze some in the main deck with probably the rest in the sideboard. I still like the land fetch of the Borderland Rangers to keep the mana flowing -- and to help potentially actually hard cast some of the large creatures in the deck if need be. I've added Murder to the mix when I asked myself what I would do against someone who untapped with Olivia Voldaren in play. Murder seemed like the best answer I could think of so I squeezed a few copies in.

Speaking of squeezing in a few copies I'd originally decided against Angel of Serenity because her best ability – being able to bring back a dead creature of yours if she dies potentially chaining multiple copies of Angel of Serenity – seemed to be at odds with the exile effect of Seance. But after seeing it perform so strongly in all four of the decks above leads me to believe it was a mistake to omit the card. Even if you exile it with Seance you're still clearing away blockers and forcing your opponent to spend resources recasting them. If you do it during your opponent's turn you can really buy a ton of time.

I'm still hanging onto Craterhoof here. This sort of deck can durdle and linger for quite a while and I feel like I need a way to finish games fast and #HOOF coming down with a Troll Beast token and Elvish Visionary in play can do so.

So what do you think? This is obviously a work in progress but I'm excited in the direction it's going and I really like the subtle power Seance brings to the archetype. I'm curious to hear any ideas or criticisms you may have in the comments below!

Special thanks to Elliot Scott along with Jason Clark Jeff Plotnikoff and Isaac Stoddard over on my Facebook page for their feedback and thoughts on the idea.

Take care

Bennie

starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com

Make sure to follow my Twitter feed (@blairwitchgreen). I check it often so feel free to send me feedback ideas and random thoughts. I've also created a Facebook page where I'll be posting up deck ideas and will happily discuss Magic life or anything else you want to talk about!

New to Commander?
If you're just curious about the format building your first deck or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch here are some handy links:

• Commander Primer Part 1 (Why play Commander? Rules Overview Picking your Commander)
• Commander Primer Part 2 (Mana Requirements Randomness Card Advantage)
• Commander Primer Part 3 (Power vs. Synergy Griefing Staples Building a Doran Deck)
  
  
• Commander Starter Kits 1 (kick start your allied two-color decks for $25)
• Commander Starter Kits 2 (kick start your enemy two-color decks for $25)
• Commander Starter Kits 3 (kick start your shard three-color decks for $25)

My current Commander decks (and links to decklists):

• Niv-Mizzet Dracogenius ( new player-friendly)
• Trostani Selesnya's Voice ( new player-friendly)
• Jarad Golgari Lich Lord (drain you big time)

• Nefarox Overlord of Grixis (evil and Spike-ish)
• Yeva Nature's Herald (living at instant speed)
• Johan (Cat Breath of the Infinite)
• Riku of Two Reflections ( steal all permanents with Deadeye Navigator + Zealous Conscripts )
• Phelddagrif (Mean Hippo)
• Sigarda Host of Herons ( Equipment-centric Voltron)
• Bruna Light of Alabaster ( Aura-centric Voltron)
• Niv-Mizzet the Firemind ( Chuck's somewhat vicious deck)

Previous Commander decks currently on hiatus :

• Ruhan of the Fomori ( lots of equipment and infinite attack steps)
• Phage the Untouchable ( actually casting Phage from Command Zone!)
• Ghave Guru of Spores ( Melira Combo)
• Glissa the Traitor ( undying artifacts!)
• Grimgrin Corpse-Born (Necrotic Ooze Combo)
• Damia Sage of Stone ( Ice Cauldron shenanigans)
• Geist of Saint Traft (Voltron-ish)
• Glissa Sunseeker (death to artifacts!)

Jor Kadeen the Prevailer (replacing Brion Stoutarm in Mo' Myrs)

Thelon of Havenwood ( Campfire Spores)

• Melira Sylvok Outcast ( combo killa)

• Konda Lord of Eiganjo ( The Indestructibles)

• Vorosh the Hunter ( proliferaTION)

• Progenitus ( Fist of Suns and Bringers )

• Savra Queen of the Golgari ( Demons)

• Uril the Miststalker (my “more competitive” deck)