How They Brew It - Raffine's Slippery Slope

Michael Celani • August 20, 2024

Deckbuilding
Raffine Commander Cover Image
 Raffine, Scheming Seer
 by Johannes Voss

Meet Jim

Welcome to my laboratory. Shut the door behind you, or you'll let the police in. I'm Dr. Professor Michael Celani, and I'm not a mad scientist, I'm just disappointed. It took years of my life, thousands of Italian lira in research grants, and a few ethical oopsie-daisies, but I've finally cracked the code: I have discovered a scientific, reproducible, and one-hundred-percent foolproof way to bring back a man from the dead. And that man's name is Jim.

Yes, it seems no matter what body you hook up to my patent-pending Reanimatron, they all inevitably resuscitate as Jim, a thirty-five-year-old accountant from Tinley Park, Illinois. Jim is a widower whose hobbies include bowling on Sundays and consuming Viagra. Initially, I thought this Jim duplication was due to a bug in my code, but that's impossible, because I wrote it in Rust. Indeed, further analysis confirmed that "Jim" is simply the default setting for the human soul; every single human being begins life as Jim, and you would not believe how many of them I killed confirming that.

Allow me to introduce my lab partner, Raffine, Scheming Seer

, who did all the work while I take all the credit. Raffine
 suggested that we use this fundamental truth about the human condition not for profit, but instead to create an army of clones that we can bend to our will. Thanks to our research and Raffine
's scheming, we can reanimate the same creature over, and over, and over again!

The Domino Effect

There's one truth that we're going to take advantage of when building our army: the default soul is very malleable. All you need to do is give it a little suggestion, or an example to follow, and it'll turn into whatever you want almost immediately.

This deck is all about reanimating clones

. Clones are different from most creatures in the game. Alone, they're worthless, but if there's another creature on the field, you can choose to have a Clone
 enter as a copy of that creature. This doesn't happen because of a triggered ability or anything like that; they simply enter as whatever creature you choose. That means you get any enters or dies triggers as if you cast the original creature yourself, and that is rife with potential for shenanigans.

It turns out that, while blue has a ton of clones, white and black have tons of creatures that can resurrect other creatures when they enter, so all you need to do is cast a creature like Karmic Guide

, use its enters trigger to revive a Clone
, and have that Clone
 enter as a copy of Karmic Guide
. This will net you a second enters trigger, allowing you to revive a second clone -- say, Clever Impersonator
 -- which you can have enter as a copy of, you guessed it, Karmic Guide
. Keep going down the list until you've reanimated every Clone
 in your graveyard, and thanks to Raffine
's attack trigger, it'll be a well-stocked one!

Billy and the Cloneasaurus

But hold on a second. At a glance, it seems like the payoff doesn't justify the setup. You might think, "after all is said and done, you only end up with a couple copies of a Young Necromancer

, and that's it? You might as well just play real creatures!" What you don't know is how much of an absolute buffoon you are, because while all clones are equal, some are more equal than others. Let's take a look at an example.

Most clones enter as a straight-up copy of whatever you want. In effect, if you have a thing, a Clone

will get you another one. Others go a step further and enter as a copy of whatever you want with an extra bonus tacked on. For example, Copycrook
 says it enters as a copy of another creature, except it has an ability that makes it connive when it attacks. This is a small boon, to be sure.

But some boons are not so small. Auton Soldier

enters as a copy of whatever you want, except it has myriad; whereas Quicksilver Gargantuan
 and Hulking Metamorph
 enter as a copy of whatever you want, except with a thick body.

These additional benefits aren't just buffs that get applied to the creature after the fact; no, they become part of the creature's copiable attributes. What that means is if you played a Young Necromancer

, brought back Hulking Metamorph
 as a copy of Young Necromancer
, and then revived a Clone
 off that, that Clone
 could come in as a copy of the Hulking Metamorph
|Young Necromancer
; in other words, the 7/7 version!

Instead of reanimating an army of 2/3s, this deck actually reanimates an army of 7/7s, and if one of those clones

in the chain happen to be Auton Soldier
, then guess what: they all have myriad, too. Indeed, they exist in the context of all in which they live and what came before them.

If you're worried about finding these specific, high-value targets, don't: the deck runs plenty of Entomb

-type effects that can search for a creature and put it directly into the graveyard. You can use these to find either the high-value clones, any of the kickoff creatures, like Phyrexian Delver
, or (if you already have both), a payoff creature, the final creature that gets reanimated when you're done chaining through all your duplicates. Speaking of the kickoff creatures, let's take a look at them now.

Here's the Kick

Once Raffine, Scheming Seer

has stocked our graveyard full of as many clones as possible, our deck hinges on finding one of five targets to start the reanimation chain, a group which I'll refer to from now on as the Kickoff Krew. These creatures all return another creature to the battlefield from your graveyard when they enter. All five have their own individual strengths and weaknesses, so we'll tackle them one-by-one.

Phyrexian Delver

Phyrexian Delver

is among the most straightforward of the Kickoff Krew. For , it enters and brings back any creature in your graveyard. Unfortunately and uniquely among the Krew, though, it costs you life to do this. On average, each Clone
 you put in the chain will dome you for four. That's not a small number, so Phyrexian Delver
 limits you in your ability to go far into your graveyard, but there are some silver linings to this tragedy. Notably, Phyrexian Delver
 is the only member of the Krew with two black pips in its casting cost, meaning it's the best choice if you ultimately want to revive Gray Merchant of Asphodel
. Failing that, you can always activate Children of Korlis
 once you're done reviving stuff to get all your health back.

Young Necromancer

Young Necromancer

swaps Phyrexian Delver
's life-loss for an exile cost instead, so you can only use him to start the chain if you've got a large graveyard already. Raffine, Scheming Seer
 can get there, especially if you've used Spark Double
 or Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
 to double up on your connive triggers, but generally you'll need to put a lot of effort to get a large army out of Young Necromancer
. If you've slashed your deck to a fourth of what it would be with a Cut Your Losses
, though, then suddenly Young Necromancer
 starts to look a lot more appealing.

Karmic Guide

Karmic Guide seems like a perfect member of the Krew at first glance. Not only can it reanimate anything you want, no strings attached, it's also evasive and has protection from black, making it perfect for combat! There's just one glaring flaw here: that damn echo cost. Echo triggers at the beginning of your next upkeep after you gain control of Karmic Guide, and if you don't pay the toll, you have to sacrifice it.

There's no way you're paying for every creature in the chain, so if you use Karmic Guide, you either have to swing out with all your creatures that turn, or find some way to counter the echo triggers on your next upkeep. We run a copy of Summary Dismissal for that purpose, and Odric, Lunarch Marshal can potentially grant your creatures haste if you've cast something like a Bond of Revival or Swiftfoot Boots.

Angel of Indemnity

Angel of Indemnity is the most restricted of the Krew in what it can and can't resurrect. It's incapable of bringing back the big-ticket clones, like Auton Soldier or Hulking Metamorph, but it makes up for that by being pretty beefy in combat itself. A 5/5 flying lifelinking creature is no joke, especially if you can get four or five of 'em, and should Angel of Indemnity bite it to a board wipe, you can encore it to build a board back from nothing.

Sister Hospitaller

Alright, forget the other four: Sister Hospitaller is the true MVP of the Krew, taking Phyrexian Delver's downside and flipping it to an upside, in some sort of... upside-down-side. Anyway, not only does Sister Hospitaller revive anything you want, it gains you life for the privilege, meaning odds are pretty good you'll be at 70 or so life by the end of your chain. Other than niche scenarios, Sister Hospitaller should be your first choice when searching for a member of the Krew with an Entomb or the like.

Final Destination

Like a politician who's incapable of keeping their deals with the mafia quiet, I've already mentioned a few of the payoffs we're running. These are the cards we revive as our last creature, once we've exhausted our chain. Let's go through these as well, since which one you'll want to get depends on the situation.

Viscera Seer

Believe it or not, Viscera Seer is an absolute beating in this deck. Because of the way clones work, as long as you have at least two or three of them, you can sacrifice one in response to the revives trigger of another and make your resurrection chain go on forever by ensuring there's always a target for the next one to revive. This seems pointless, but if you have something like Auton Soldier in your chain, then you can use this to keep stacking those copiable benefits onto your constantly dying and reviving clones for as long as you want, giving your creatures a theoretically infinite amount of myriad abilities.

Odric, Lunarch Marshal

The main reason to play Odric, Lunarch Marshal is that it's the easiest way to give our clone chain haste, of all things. As long as one of our creatures has haste, all our creatures gain haste when we go to combat, meaning there's far less time for your opponents to handle your board of 7/7 flying myriad creatures. You can get haste in this deck via Apprentice Necromancer, Bond of Revival, Hall of the Bandit Lord, by unearthing Priest of Fell Rites, or by encoring Angel of Indemnity, who is capable of reviving Odric.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel

If the game's running long, Gray Merchant of Asphodel might be the creature you need to punch through and squeeze the last bit of life from your opponents. Just make sure you're using a member of the Krew that has at least one black pip in its cost, or Gary might be a bit of a flaccid finish.

Angel of the Ruins

Sometimes you just have to blow up two artifacts or enchantments. Angel of the Ruins also makes a decent general reanimation target if you're not ready to go off with your chain yet, since it's basically guaranteed to end up in the graveyard one way or another.

Guardian of Faith

It might seem counterintuitive to phase out all your creatures when you just got them, but Guardian of Faith acts as an alternative to Odric, Lunarch Marshal when you don't have a source of haste to radiate out to your entire army. It guarantees that, at the very least, your chain makes it to your next turn, at which point they'll no longer have summoning sickness.

Serra's Emissary

If you're not worried about removal for one reason or another, then Serra's Emissary might be the creature for you. Give you and your board protection from creatures to guarantee that you not only won't get blocked, but you also won't get destroyed by the crackback, either.

Literally Any Clone

Don't forget, clones aren't just for extending the resurrection chain. If an opponent has a really good creature on their side of the field, it might be worth it to use your last clone as your payoff by copying their thing instead.

It's Alive

I love toying with the fundamental aspects of the human condition! You know, based on my very scientific findings, I'm not absolutely insane. Studies show I'm actually only 95% of the way there! If I keep working at it, maybe I can get up to an even 96% by the end of the week. Wish me luck!

If you liked this How They Brew It, come check out our Discord, where you can chat with like-minded brewers, suggest ideas for the column, and vote on which you want to see next! You can also check out my other projects on my website. Hope you enjoyed reading, and I'll see you next time!

Slippery Slope

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Commander (1)

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Michael Celani

Michael Celani

Newly appointed member of the FDIC and insured up to $150,000 per account, Michael Celani is the member of your playgroup that makes you go "oh no, it's that guy again." He's made a Twitter account @GamesfreakSA as well as other mistakes, and his decks have been featured on places like MTGMuddstah. You can join his Discord at https://gamesfreaksa.info and vote on which decks you want to see next. In addition to writing, he has a job, other hobbies, and friends.