Sometimes, we all just need to play goofy Commander cards in Standard. And sometimes, a set like Foundations brings a ton of goofy Commander cards to Standard for us to play with, such as Rise of the Dark Realms. Rise of the Dark Realms is the single highest-power reanimation spell in the game, but it has an absolutely crippling mana cost that's very difficult to get to in a format like Standard… unless you ramp like crazy.
Today, we’re marrying ramp and reanimator to produce a huge payoff that can win the game on the spot. This deck is optimized for best-of-one because it is overly reliant on the graveyard and no amount of sideboard adjustments will likely be able to compensate for that fact.
That said, I was delightfully surprised at how well the deck performed. I first built this on my stream as a goofy feature and I truly believed my mythic rank would tank as a result, but after 37 BO1 matches, it had a 57% win-rate.
The Main Attraction
It may seem odd that I've been talking up this card as the primary engine of the deck, but the deck only includes two copies. There's an incredibly simple reason for this, and it's the mana cost previously mentioned. We only need to cast this card once in order to win, and if we draw even one additional copy, we have a dead card in our hand. In order to make the Rise of the Dark Realms cast a one-shot kill, we had to fill our deck with an absolute ton of self-mill and creatures that can reanimate and generate a one-shot kill.
One of my favorite cards in Edge of Eternities is the uncommon Glacier Godmaw. This leviathan gives your entire board a stat boost and haste whenever lands enter, so if it enters the field alongside a land-generating creature, you have the potential for a one-shot kill. This thing is a landfall Craterhoof Behemoth, and it's exactly as awesome as that sounds. Our other big monsters are here to be power boosts and to pull the lands onto the battlefield.
EOE brought some other leviathans to the party as well, that are clearly designed to work alongside the Godmaw, most notably Famished Worldsire. The Worldsire behaves similarly to the long-forgotten Nahiri's Lithoforming, except that it carries with it a huge body and land drops needed to make Glacier Godmaw a kill shot. If you can get even just these two in a Rise cast, you will likely win the game.
Lumra, Bellow of the Woods is pretty self-explanatory given everything we've been discussing. It's a huge stat monster and will also return all your lands in one swoop, triggering our landfall payoffs the entire time. One note on practicing safe Lumra is to not sacrifice every land you own if the Glacier Godmaw triggers, as this will result in a state-based check when Lumra's stats are 0/0 and it'll definitely die. That's an easy scenario to avoid, and it also usually happens at times when your other creatures have the game covered.
Lumra also illustrates the primary ramp method this deck uses, which is to reanimate lands from the graveyard.
The Support Team
Speaking of reanimating lands, Aftermath Analyst was a Standard all-star last year when teamed up with Nissa, Resurgent Animist for some very powerful plays. The Analyst is capable of putting a ton of lands onto the battlefield quickly for a relatively low upfront investment, which is the primary way we're going to get the mana we need to Rise.
Icetill Explorer is a new addition from EOE as well, and it does everything we want to do and maybe even a bit more. It has decent stats, allows for an additional land drop, lets us reanimate our lands, and even pays itself off with self-mill. Crucible of Worlds has always been a great card, but to have one that can feed itself by milling lands is unreal. This card fits the bill perfectly and even adds another body that the Godmaw can boost when we combo off. I freaking love this bug.
Given that we want to survive long enough to do the thing, having some removal on-hand is a must. Awaken the Honored Dead gives us supreme flexibility with what we're hitting and also synergizes with our gameplan with its second two chapters. Being able to pitch our reanimation targets and pull back a key setup piece or threat with chapter three is especially handy.
As Vivi Ornitier will tell you, Winternight Stories is one heck of a card draw spell. This card can help us fill the graveyard and also dig for our copy of Rise when we're finally ready to rip it. Having Harmonize is also valuable as we're able to cast copies that end up getting milled, and potentially on the cheap if we have a Sazh's Chocobo that doesn't have a strong attack.
Early Threats
One of my favorite moves in decks like this, that have a goofy high-power combo, is to run powerful one-drops that people associate with other archetypes. On the ladder, when Sazh's Chocobo drops, people will likely assume you're running some form of Tifa Lockhart landfall aggro and will spend a shocking amount of resources to remove it from the field. Since it's just a plan-B for us, that means those resources – be them blocking creatures and/or kill spells – aren't available to interact with our future plans. And, this little Chocobo is strong enough to be a snowball threat on its own if the opponent doesn't answer it.
Iridescent Vinelasher is a solid one-drop that is compatible with our gameplan as it translates all land drops into direct damage, reducing the number we need to get to for our big swings or even making them unnecessary entirely. Given that we're going to pull all creatures from graveyards later, if our opponents remove it early (assuming it's not exiled), we still benefit from it in the late game.
Conclusion
I was genuinely surprised as I played this deck just how much work this early package could do for us and how consistent our early games were. Don’t get me wrong, this deck is still on the jankier end and I wouldn’t recommend trying to adapt it to best-of-three for an upcoming tournament, but if you have these cards in your collection, you could have a really fun evening on the ladder with this.
Thanks for reading, and happy brewing!
