(Sharuum the Hegemon) | Art by Izzy / Gyruda, Doom of Depths | Art by Tyler Jacobson)

101 Reanimations

It’s RTA #8, and it’s time for the series’ first three-color deck. In all honesty, while the three-color Elder Dragons are pretty iconic, most older three-color commanders have been done to death or are simply outclassed by newer, more interesting cards. But I’m not throwing in the towel! The inspiration for today’s deck started with a two-color card, and it just so happens there’s a classic, three-color legend that pairs very nicely with it.

Having redundancy for your commander is a luxury, and here we are! Close enough, anyway. Both our commander and our companion bring things back from our graveyard, and the companion mechanic lets us play 101 cards (hence the name) without taking up a slot in our deck. This seemed like a great starting point, and it got me excited to put this list together.

Before we go any further, let’s take a closer look at each of these two cards. Gyruda, Doom of Depths is really what inspired me to start putting this one together. After getting beat on Arena in a Historic Brawl game by a very impressive deck featuring Gyruda and Kyodai, Soul of Kamigawa, I wanted to put something together that fit with this column’s theme (putting the spotlight back on older or underplayed commanders). Gyruda is quite strong; milling AND reanimating on the same card is amazing. It also presents a unique deckbuilding challenge – even numbered mana values only. I use the word “challenge” quite literally here, as this is no small obstacle. Restrictions can be fun to work with though, and this one is no different.

And then there’s Sharuum the Hegemon, only the ninth Esper (white blue black) commander ever when she was printed. Currently ranked 20th with 1,683 decks, Sharuum isn’t the most obscure commander we’ve worked with. She definitely had her time in the spotlight in the early days of the format (though I’d wager she still played second fiddle to Zur the Enchanter, who is still quite popular), but it’s time to give her the spotlight once again. Sharuum can return any artifact from our graveyard to the battlefield, which is pretty great. With Gyruda in tow, big artifact creatures will be a big part of our gameplan. And due to Gyruda’s even mana value clause, no Portal to Phyrexia for us, unfortunately.

Rather than just go plain ol’ Reanimator, our commander and companion both benefit from blinking and cloning effects since they’re creatures, unlike more common reanimation sorceries. That’s our plan in a nutshell: Get to six mana, play either commander or companion, and make copies or blink them until we’re returning enough big threats to win! Let’s get to it.

Deck Goals

Time to break down what the deck aims to accomplish before we get into card choices:

Cast our commander and companion reliably. This means generating plenty of mana. Getting to six ahead of time consistently is quite important, given the lack of one, three and five drops. There are a few ways to work around it but ultimately it’s a mana-hungry build.
Take advantage of enters-the-battlefield (EtB) effects alongside our clone army. If we’re reanimating creatures with a six-cost reanimation spell or a four-plus mana clone, let’s ensure we get maximum value off that action. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of artifact options for this, but we’ll play what we can alongside the nonartifact ones.
Reanimate the best and biggest threats we can. The last few sets have given us some interesting options alongside the old staples, so let’s go big. This deck isn’t overly expensive either due to some of these large threats being decently affordable.

 

Tips for Building and Playing Sharuum/Gyruda

Tip #1: Keep your graveyard healthy. It’s important to expect graveyard hate and try to play around it. You know your playgroup better than me, but expect that at some point, someone is going to mess with your strategy. I’m favoring draw/discard effects over single-shot milling for the most part for this reason. If we draw a reanimation target, we have ways to discard them by going this route.

Tip #2: Try to keep an opening hand with at least one piece of mana acceleration. Not having Sol Ring is rough, but there are plenty of good options at our disposal. A mulligan isn’t the end of the world if it means getting to six mana faster. Gyruda can do plenty of work on their own once we get there.

Tip #3: Look for combos and synergies. I admit, I don’t always see every bit of interaction my deck has until I play a ton of games with it. Sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised when things work together better than I expect. It’s a great feeling! That said, one to remember is that casting Phyrexian Metamorph with Sharuum on the battlefield can make infinite EtB and death triggers. While this combo isn’t at the heart of this deck, it’s there if needed. Combine it with Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim for insta-death for our opponents or Kappa Cannoneer to take at least one out (provided you stop the loop so you can attack).

The Deck

Key components of our deck include:

Big EtB Effects

Still strong: Noxious Gearhulk, Magister of Worth
New hotness: Bringer of the Last Gift, Archon of Cruelty, Sister Hospitaller

While these are mostly nonartifact targets, not to worry. If we miss them with Gyruda, we have a few other ways to get the back (even with Sharuum… more on that later). Each one of these creatures has a very powerful effect, making them worth reanimating, blinking or cloning. Thankfully, we can do all three. Bringer of the Last Gift is the newest addition to the party, and what an addition. Living Death on a large body is pretty ridiculous late game, especially with what this deck’s graveyard could look like. Our deck will help Sister Hospitaller can generate tons of value if it sticks around, too. And Magister of Worth is a fun and powerful political card. No matter how the vote goes, we should end up in solid shape.

 

Big Artifacts To Reanimate

Still strong: Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Platinum Emperion, Wurmcoil Engine
New hotness: Parhelion II, Kappa Cannoneer, Cyberdrive Awakener

Dang, it seems a lot of the new big artifacts that I wanted to play here have odd mana values! Still, we have options. The classics shine here. Sphinx of the Steel Wind and Platinum Emperion need no introduction. Wurmcoil Engine is still very hard to deal with when it can be brought back repeatedly. On the newer front, Parhelion II is a monster of a vehicle and can generate a lot of value. Kappa Cannoneer is a big, evasive beater and Cyberdrive Awakener is a quality finisher, especially with all the mana rocks in this list. Lots to love here, even if we can’t run Portal to Phyrexia.

The Clones

Still strong: Phyrexian Metamorph, Vizier of Many Faces
New hotness: Auton Soldier, Mirrorhall Mimic, Preston, the Vanisher, Machine God’s Effigy

Get in, loser, we’re going to value town.

Clones have gotten a LOT stronger lately. There was plenty to pick from and some hard decisions to be made! We currently have the luxury of being able to choose the ones with the most synergy with our deck; all of these have that in addition to their copy effects. Machine God’s Effigy and Phyrexian Metamorph are particularly nice and flexible as Sharuum can pick them out of the ‘yard for them to copy her (potentially going infinite) or something else. Preston, the Vanisher can also generate some absurd card advantage with our commander and companion. I can smell the value already.

 

Blink Spells

Still strong: Momentary Blink, Vanish into Memory, Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
New hotness: Displacer Kitten, Twining Twins, Charming Prince

While the deck doesn’t go as hard on the blink theme as other effects, there are still some newcomers worth talking about. Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is right on that new/established threshold and is rightfully quite popular. She’s at home here. Vanish into Memory is an older card that I usually find to be to expensive, but since we want to fill our graveyard in addition to blinking it seems worth trying. Twining Twins is a nice new addition that’s both a blink effect and a reasonably-sized evasive beater.

Self-Mill/Looting

Still strong: Riddlesmith, Perpetual Timepiece, Ancient Excavation
New hotness: Shadow Kin, Likeness Looter, The Ancient One, Undead Butler, Rona, Herald of Invasion, Faithful Mending

I love all the new options for self-mill in these colors. Starting with the “loot” effects, Likeness Looter and Rona, Herald of Invasion might be the two best variants of this effect ever. Both offer some late game value in addition to the ability to flip through a deck. The Ancient One‘s loot ability is expensive, but also very effective at milling our deck. Did I mention it’s an 8/8 for two? It’ll get there consistently with this deck, too. Ancient Excavation is a quirky card from Commander 2016 that I don’t see much, but it’s quite good in this deck. We should have no trouble keeping a healthy graveyard with this suite (not to mention Gyruda).

 

Utility Artifacts

Still strong: Panharmonicon, Swiftfoot Boots
New hotness: Stonespeaker Crystal, Encroaching Mycosynth, Altar of Bhaal, Collector’s Vault

If there was a time for Panharmonicon, this is probably it. The other options for this effect are odd mana values, so let’s go for the original. Stonespeaker Crystal was effective in my Ishkanah deck, and it seems poised to be even better here. Altar of Bhaal is a nice backup plan to get Gyruda back from the graveyard, among other threats. Speaking of getting Gyruda and other nonartifact creatures back from the ‘yard, enter Encroaching Mycosynth. I’m getting a bit cute, but giving Sharuum access to every permanent in the graveyard seems worth trying. Collector’s Vault is another innocuous new card I’m pretty high on. Looting and making Treasures is a solid combo. It’s not the most efficient, but I like the mix of abilities on a two-mana card. In addition, there’s a full suite of Signets and Talismans in the deck to fuel our mana acceleration.

Bending The Rules

Being restricted to even mana values is… well, restrictive. But! Zero is technically even! Cards like Mox Tantalite and Sol Talisman aren’t always what a deck wants, but since we can’t run Sol Ring, they give us a few more early plays. Ancestral Vision as well. It’s not a great late game card, but it’s fine any time in the early and mid game. There wasn’t a ton of X spells I was into for this build, but The Meathook Massacre checked a lot of boxes. It will fuel the Sharuum/Phyrexian Metamorph loop to victory in addition to clearing the board. Can’t argue with that.

And here’s our list.

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How I Used EDHREC to Build This Deck

I actually didn’t notice the “Gyruda Companion” section of the Sharuum’s EDHREC page until I had pretty much written the article, so naturally this led to some last minute revisions! Even still, there’s only a handful of decks in the list so I’m glad to join the ranks. Sharuum’s page itself was very helpful, as was checking out Gyruda’s Companion theme page. Ultimately, there was a lot of Scryfall-ing going on to make this one, using some handy syntax (cmc:even commander:wub as a starting place), so shout out to them as well. Lastly, the Clone theme page was very helpful as well. As mentioned, there are SO many good Clone options out there. It was very hard to pick! I still opt for Clones that let me copy opponents’ creatures in addition to my own, though. Not to mention most of the “copy your creatures only cards” are three mana, so they wouldn’t work here anyway. Still, if there’s any place in this deck for some flexibility from my list, it’s there. If you try this list out and there’s a particular card that works really well for you, I’d love to hear about it.

Thanks for reading.

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