"Sidisi, Brood Tyrant EDH: Laboratory Notes"

"Sidisi, Brood Tyrant EDH: Laboratory Notes"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

After rummaging through boxes and binders of Magic cards and finally finding my Mesmeric orb I immediately went to work on my long postponed Sidisi Zombies EDH deck. After filtering cards and finally narrowing it down to 100 I began to do some play testing and was excited with the different combos in the deck. I will not be posting the entire deck for today but I will be pointing out certain combinations that have worked for the deck and tips on using it.

Let me begin with the Sidisi + Mesmeric Orb + Basalt Monolith combo. The two artifact cards could be fetched here by Fabricate , Diabolic Tutor and Liliana Vess. Barring any artifact destruction or Bounce cards these two work like a charm and could generate as many tokens as you want. With the inclusion of a Worldspine Wurm and Darksteel Colossus I was able to mill and generate tokens to my hearts content. Since this combo could be done at the end of an opponents turn I suggest that you do so. While normally you could use this combo to end an opponent with one attack always be cautious if they are playing  Black/Red colors. Since Rakdos Charm and Stronghold Discipline could easily turn your deck against you with so many zombie tokens in play under your control. Then again you could use a Gitaxian Probe and check if they have something like these cards in their hands before pulling off your combo.

Another thing is that you could stop the combo in order to cast a spell for its Delve cost to exile non-creature cards. Dig Through time and Treasure Cruise make great use of all the cards in the graveyard here. The great thing about doing this is that when you hit a "Shuffler card" like any of the Eldrazi Brood you are only returning creature cards in your library making the combo more efficient and more deadly when activated a second time.

"Because I am a fair guy...err...Zombie..."

One of the great things that interact with all these zombies is the card Shepherd of Rot that deals 1 damage for each zombie in play to each player. Yup he includes you because he is a fair zombie. So do a little math here , if you are ahead in life points because you have been attacking your opponent early you could just use this guy to take every one out without even attacking or you could probably eliminate an annoying player who keeps on foiling your plan,and then attack anyway. It all depends on the particular situation that you are in.Remember to count your life points before you tap the Shepherd of Rot.

"Yes I am a Zombie and a Spirit...go figure that one out..."

I have also included Graveborn Muse in this deck because she tends to draw tons of cards for me in a jiffy.I once drew 4 cards in one upkeep that led me to various lands and combinations that are in the deck. Be mindful of all your zombies here because life points are important in the deck , Power at any cost I always say but its not fun when you are stonewalled and die because you keep losing life due to Graveborn Muse. 

Vengeful Pharaoh gains a nod of acceptance in this deck because he makes the Sidisi milling much better. He could destroy a creature for you and then go back up to your library so that you would be able to draw him or let him fall to the graveyard once more to create another 2/2 zombie token. He keeps coming back for more to serve you. A true leader and servant. How about a hand for this guy right?

Now I would like to talk about the Graveyard feeders. Sidisi all by herself fills it up very fast and along with Splinterfright fills it up even more. My deck features Bonehoard , Golgari Grave troll and Lhurgoyf.Things that care about all the creatures in the graveyard. Kessig Cage Breakers is another great addition because of the attacking 2/2 wolves that it would produce for each creature card in your graveyard. The cool thing is that those wolves stay with you permanently and if the Kessig Cagebreakers are still alive on the following wave of attack then they could recruit more wolves for you!  I have found that attacking with Sidisi and the Kessig cagebreakers requires that you stack Sidisis ability first since she would like add to the creatures in your graveyard when you mill. Looks like a winning combination right? You produce a 2/2 Zombie token and increase the number of attacking wolves! The draw back is when you get one of the Eldrazi brood dropping into your graveyard , causing you to shuffle everything back into your library. One such play saw my Splinterfright and Lhurgoyf dying since there were no creatures left to give them any power! So a word of caution here if you want to attack with Sidisi along with your main force.I am contemplating on just removing any of the Eldrazi in the deck because of this drawback but I did promise myself that I will not die to something like Hinder+Tunnel Vision ever again.

"Who let wolves out? Woof , Woof, Woof , Woof Woof Woof"

And what truly makes them a laboratory note moment is the presence of the Laboratory maniac, In a way this guy has represented my deck building ways and I am happy to add him here in the Sidisi Zombie EDH deck as an alternate win condition when you already have your "shuffler" cards in your hand. You see , he represents a certain kind of mad victory. Drawing cards when you have no library. The Leveler and this guy could make short but beautiful music together but then again my Leveler still seems to be lost somewhere in that endless pile I call my Card Hoard.

Well by far , I have been writing about Sidisi more and more these past weeks. Time for more experiments with this particular deck. With Sidisi producing all of these servants , only one thing is sure , the Sultai are worthy indeed.