Greetings all.

I'm a bit new to this format (though not to Magic - been playing since Mirage), and it seems to be both interesting and potentially fun. However, all the people who play it around here are strictly competitive players, and their decks are pretty powered up - Mana Drains, black-bordered Sol Rings, infinite mana combos with Tolarian Academy, you name it - if it's disgustingly broken, someone other than me is playing it. Since it gets boring to lose all the time, I figured I'd put my deck up on here and get some advice.

(Yes, I know I need Mana Drain. I don't have it yet)

General: Sedris, the Traitor King - current as of 1-iv-2009

1 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bad River
1 Rocky Tar Pit
1 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave
1 Badlands
1 Blood Crypt
1 Volcanic Island
1 Steam Vents
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Graven Cairns
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Underground River
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Shivan Reef
1 Dimir Aqueduct
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Crosis's Catacombs
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
5 Island
5 Swamp
3 Mountain

1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Grim Monolith
1 Dimir Signet
1 Rakdos Signet
1 Coalition Relic
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Obelisk of Grixis

1 Fulminator Mage
1 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Wonder
1 Mulldrifter
1 Dralnu, Lich Lord
1 Shriekmaw
1 Malfegor
1 Spitebellows
1 Crosis, the Purger
1 Kaervek the Merciless
1 Blood Tyrant
1 Hoverguard Sweepers
1 Kederekt Leviathan
1 Mindleech Mass
1 Avatar of Woe
1 Scion of Darkness
1 Bogardan Hellkite
1 Scourge of Kher Ridges
1 Prince of Thralls
1 Sundering Titan
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Dragon Tyrant

1 Ancestral Vision
1 Ponder
1 Entomb
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Compulsion
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Windfall
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Careful Consideration
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind's Eye

1 Slaughter Pact
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Innocent Blood
1 Terminate
1 Infest
1 Damnation
1 Void
1 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Decree of Pain
1 Plague Wind

1 Zombie Infestation

1 Liliana Vess
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker


Primer of Sorts:

Sedris is basically a reanimation engine, so the deck screams Reanimator. Unfortunately, white Akroma is distinctly non-Grixis-colors, so you have to get by with the guys in blue, black, and red - and there's actually quite a lot to chose from.

The deck's goal is to ramp on mana and then either cast or pitch some number of Big Guys. In the former case, the aforementioned Big Guys perform a special task known as Getting In There For The Win, but in the latter case you need to go through the extra step of unearthing them first.

Because you don't really care about whether or not your guys are alive, running a lot of sweeper effects isn't a problem.

Counters are in to stop problematic cards - namely, graveyard hate and things that make it difficult to attack.

There are more draw-discard spells than this deck could possibly run, but I'm deliberately light on them because of personal preference. Being a blue player almost from the time I started the game, I get nervous if I dip below three cards in hand for longer than a turn or two.

Here's a brief rundown of the things I've encountered so far around here:

Azami: Wizards combo/control, can kill either with Brain Freeze or Stroke of Genius. Has infinite draw (Fallowsage and Mind over Matter), infinite mana (Tolarian Academy and a number of things), infinite storm (Reito Latern + infinite draw engine) capabilities as well as a lot of counters and creature theft.

Captain Sisay: white/green Good Stuff. Has turn-three Akroma capabilities and runs most of the good Legendary cards in its colors. Worst combo for me is the Helm-Sword-Shield of the Kaldra - indestructible 9/9 with trample and first strike and the ability to RFG everything it touches...and even if you bounce it, he pays one mana to get it back!

Oros: straight control with a lot of Wrath effects. Slow as hell but doesn't need to be fast when it runs basically every sweeper ever printed in its colors. Also has Land Tax and Moat.

Nicol Bolas: straight storm combo with Tendrils, Grapeshot, and Brain Freeze kills. Access to all the best tutors and draw spells the game has to offer, with a light smattering of counters to hold off the opposition long enough to cut short what might have otherwise been a fun game.

Verdeloth the Ancient: basically a Heartbeat of Spring deck, except with Treefolk and the ability to make a metric fuckton of mana and then funnel it into making very big spells. First deck I ever saw that intentionally killed its own general for replaying purposes.

Rafiq: blue/white/green Good Stuff. Very aggro-control, but Rafiq can randomly win games without having to attack.

Horde of Notions: I have only a slight notion of what this deck does, but it seems that it tries to abuse Conspiracy and CiP effects with the general. The one game I played against it also had the Oros guy, so I never got to see what it did because we were too busy starting over every few turns.

There's also a guy who plays Zur but doesn't show up often, and a couple other people whose decks I haven't seen yet. EDIT: IIRC there's a Braids (the good one) player around here also.

EDIT: 25-ii-2009 - added a brief primer, updated the list.
EDIT 2: 1-iv-2009 - updated the list.

Are you mostly playing 1v1 or multiplayer? If multiplayer, typically how many at a time?

A lot of one-on-one, or groups of three for multiplayer. Most people around here don't like to play giant multiplayer games.

Honestly I don't there is a way to make the deck broken. You can however use an aggro strategy combined with the unearth power of sedris to create sudden massive alpha strikes. There's a guy in my play group that runs a deck with careful study and the like to put big beaters like sea serpent (you should use better ones) in the graveyard or just hard cast them off of mana fixing and the unearth them to get a ton of damage through. The nice thing about this deck is that it's pretty cheap to build and it plays right into the wrath the board strategy when you can reuse all of your big threats again. The card draw also puts the right spells in your hand like damnation etc to keep you in the game. It's a deck that doesn't seem like much of a threat until you unearth 6 guys and swing through for the win.

Damn, I knew it. :/

Thanks for the advice, but this deck already works something like that. Any improvements I can make?

You can use all sorts of dudes that have a plus ability when they come into play. Extra use out of a Flametongue Kavu or Man-O-War is always a plus.

Man-o-War got cut because he felt weak compared to something like Shriekmaw or Bone Shredder.

Flametongue Kavu was also in there at one point, but got cut for reasons I don't remember. I can stick him back in, though.

Would something like Kederekt Leviathan be better than Man-O-War here? Quasi-Upheaval on a 5/5 body seems pretty good.

Kederekt Leviathan is absolutely awesome. Reaver Demon has an effect similar to it, as well.

Only if you play him from your hand. I was going to use him until I saw that, then decided against it.

I would just suggest cutting stuff like cruel ultimatum and running more fat. Sedris decks don't tend to play like control decks so I think you should cut some removal (like terminate) because ultimately the board will get wrathed a lot anyway which is something you don't really care about.

On the flip side with the counterspells I think you should cut a few like condescend and circular logic and run either more fat or counters with a body like Glen Elendra which can do more fo this type of deck. Ultimately you have to consider the purpose of the counters which I think is to stop graveyard hate or combo decks which is why I don't like X counterspells in EDH since the player can ofter pay for it.

Going along with what Jeyal said, guys with a body do a lot more with sedris so I would suggest Nekrataal and maybe Dakmor Lancer to replace other spot removal. I would cut the two charms for this reason and just run more fat.

I still think you should consider the draw/discard strategy I suggested which works very well when every one else is low on resources. Just make sure you have counters to back it up because graveyard hate can completely wreck you. Removal without a body tends to be a lot less important in this build so you'll have room.

I'm considering doing a Sedris Build and I'll post it if I do go through with it

I would (and do...) run cards such as Careful Study, Frantic Search, and Thirst for Knowledge to, as Jukren54 suggested, pull spells you need while dumping your fat into the GY. And speaking of Fat here are a few mens I run that you might want to consider...

Crater Hellion
Hoverguard Sweepers
Scion of Darkness
Garza Zol
Vein Drinker
RAkroma

Thanks for the idea of running Dralnu!! btw, it gives me a reason to "dust off" the shiny one in my binder!! He is HUGE, like the Xbox...

End of Line

Mindleech Mass seems powerful enough

Also my personal belief is that any deck which can produce blue mana should be playing Thought Reflection.

i've found that decks like this play better with about 10-15 really great fatties and more acceleration and card draw and mass removal (especially multiplayer). if you have enough other activated abilities i would throw in a Rings of the Bright Hearth because it is nutty with planeswalkers. and generally, the more players in the game, the fewer targeted removal spells you want to be running.

Things like the charms really aren't all that strong in the end. In order to make this deck "broken" you need to up the power level of your spells, replacing charms with say, extra turn effects would be a good idea, or other random things like Insurrection. Dralnu is risky, but Draining Whelk is amazing in this format.

a Vampiric Tutor wouldnt hurt. and, where is your Darksteel Ingot? perfect card for this deck.

you could actually use a couple more lands. 38 lands and 8 mana artifacts usually works for me with decks of this type.

as far as card draw, Phyrixian Arena is a good fit.

anyways, cool deck, i think it could be great with a bit of tweaking. and keep in mind that you have to fine tune it for the number of players you are usually playing against. for example, counters are great in 1v1 matches, but are fairly bad in 4+ player games.

that should do it

I was fiddling around with my own Sedris build and I wanted to comment on how INSANE Maleforger is for this deck. It's probably the creature that wants to be unearthed the most AND it fills up your graveyard with other unearthables.

Question: when is the optimal time to play Sedris? I have a mayael build as well and I find that EDH's with central general themes tend to get killed a lot so holding back the general is often the right play. Is running out your fatties (unearthables), in "real life", the right thing to do, and have them get killed or whatnot and then unearthing them out later the way to play. I have never played this deck in my play group and I'm looking for advice on the best way to play it.

Depends. There are some games where I don't cast him at all.

Some things I found out tonight, when I was testing my most recent changes:

- I didn't like losing counters, but I liked my sweepers. I'll try to add more.
- Zombie Infestation is nutty.
- Living Death and its suspend equivalent are really good for this deck. I wasn't playing them, but another guy was, and it made me happy.
- I need a Darksteel Ingot here to combat Obliterate and similar cards. :/
- I need some artifact destruction. Ensnaring Bridge is a bitch and a half.

EDIT: I'd say the Kederekt Leviathan is the creature that wants to be unearthed the most, followed by Malfegor. Quasi-Wrath is good, but Quasi-Upheaval is insane.

Decklist edit in a day or two.