Any time you pick up a newMagic: The Gatheringpreconstructed Commander deck, you’re going to want to swap out a few cards to get it a bit closer to a competitive state. Even if your playgroup is running a bunch of Bracket 1 or 2 decks, there are some cards you don’t need.
The Sultai Arisen deck from Tarkir: Dragonstorm is designed around self-mill mechanics, Zombies, and reanimation effects. We’re going to suggest some swaps based on the main commander staying in charge, Kotis, Sibsig Champion, since he synergizes a bit better with what is already in the deck.
10Add: The Gitrog Monster
Cut: Millikin
We’re going to go ahead and cut the little mana dork who couldn’t in exchange for a big bad Frog who can capitalize on all your land drops. The Gitrog Monster is an absolute powerhouse on the battlefield, letting you play extra lands each turn and drawing cards whena land is put into your graveyard from anywhere.
That second clause is important since we’ll be self-milling a ton in the deck, likely hitting just as many lands as you do creatures. Combined with a few other ways to get lands, like Conduit of Worlds and Sakura-Tribe Elder, can net you plenty of extra cards per turn.
9Add: Canoptek Tomb Sentinel
Cut: Noxious Gearhulk
Cutting the Noxious Gearhulk is an easy removal to make, and adding in Canoptek Tomb Sentinel is a sneaky bit of graveyard trickery that most players won’t expect and will likely forget about after a turn or two.
Canoptek Tomb Sentinel has an ability that will trigger when it comes into play from your graveyard, exiling a nonland permanent. It has unearth for seven generic mana, but thanks to Kotis’s ability, you can cast it for its regular four mana and not have to exile it at the end of your turn.
8Add: Ledger Shredder
Cut: Nyx Weaver
Here’s the thing about self-mill strategies: you’re going to end up with a lot of cards that will functionally do the same thing, some better than others. Nyx Weaver finds itself in the ‘other’ category, so it’s an easy cut from the list.
Adding in a Ledger Shredder will help fill your graveyard up quickly, thanks to its connive ability, triggering fairly frequently as you have three other players to potentially cast two spells in a turn, giving you three discards before your next turn. The Ledger Shredder can attack fairly well later in the game, too, once you get enough +1/+1 counters on it.
7Add: The Master, Transcendent
Cut: Essence Anchor
A somewhat unique card that might be a bit tricky to run but can be very rewarding in a self-mill strategy, The Master, Transcendent distributes rad counters when it comes into play to a player of your choice.
You can then tap The Master to take a creature card that was milled this turn and put it on the battlefield, except it becomes a 3/3 Mutant creature but keeps all its abilities. You can, of course, use this on yourself to get some quirky reanimation effects, as well as on your opponents, should any of their creatures just happen to get milled.
6Add: World Shaper
Cut: Lethal Scheme
Getting rid of a four mana removal spell seems like a no-brainer here, so let’s go ahead and swap that out with a pretty efficient self-mill creature with a neat upside. Once World Shaper dies, either through combat damage or through some type of sacrifice effect, you get to bring back all lands from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
While landfall decks will love this effect, it’s more of a way to ensure you have all your resources available to you instead of constantly losing them to the graveyard as you mill yourself throughout the game.
5Add: The Scarab God
Cut: Afterlife from the Loam
Afterlife from the Loam is a neat card, especially if you’re able to cast it for just three mana, however, it just doesn’t quite do enough for us when there are more consistent ways to bring things back.
The Scarab God is a bit of a backup plan for when Kotis is either unavailable or not mana efficient anymore. This God can steal creatures from any graveyard for just four mana, giving you a 4/4 Zombie token copy of it. This is more than enough on its own to keep your opponents in check, but if you take the deck in a Zombie kindred approach, you can make use of its other ability as well.
4Add: Muldrotha, The Gravetide
Cut: Skull Prophet
Another efficient back-up plan, Muldrotha, the Gravetide lets you play lands and cast permanent spells from your graveyard, though only one type per turn. The downside is that Muldrotha will be an instant target for your opponents to remove, letting you stick your Kotis for a bit longer.
You might be tempted to swap out Kotis for Muldrotha, and there is merit in doing so, but you can always bring Muldrotha back turn after turn with Kotis, and eventually, Kotis will outscale Muldrotha in terms of power once you cast two creatures from your graveyard, and will only keep growing.
3Add: Six
Cut: Necropolis Fiend
A powerful pre-planeswalker creature, Six is a Treefolk that lines up perfectly with Kotis in terms of abilities. When you attack with Six, you get to mill three cards, conveniently the exact number of cards Kotis needs to cast creatures from the graveyard.
You also get to take a land from among those milled cards and bring it back to your hand if you happen to mill one. You then get to retrace all your nonland permanent cards on your turn, discarding that land you got back to cast a spell from your graveyard by paying its mana cost.
2Add: Scute Swarm
Cut: Welcome The Dead
Even if you nix many of the landfall cards from the deck, you will want to add Scute Swarm based on its ability alone. A land entering the battlefield gives you a 1/1 green Insect creature token, which is nothing to write home about.
Once you hit six lands, though, you start making token copies of Scute Swarm instead. If your opponents don’t have a way to deal with your tokens right away, you will gradually swarm over the battlefield. Just ensure you bring some dice or lots of tokens for when it starts to get wildly out of control.
1Add: Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
Cut: Reassembling Skeleton
Another creature that pairs nicely with Kotis, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant has you mill three cards when she either enters the battlefield or attacks, fueling the graveyard to start bringing your creatures back.
Sidisi rewards your self-mill effects bygiving you a 2/2 Zombie creature tokenwhen one or more creatures are put into your graveyard from your library, letting you get more value out of your triggers. There are plenty of ways to combo with Sidisi, giving you near infinite Zombies, mill effects, you name it. With Kotis as your commander, you can always keep bringing it back off your mill triggers.
