Khans of Tarkir in EDH: Sidisi, Brood Tyrant

     In duel commander, the graveyard is one of the most important resources you have, so important in fact that almost every deck includes some form of graveyard hate. Magic history has proven just how powerful a dedicated graveyard strategy can be and Khan’s of Tarkir has introduced a legend that makes players want to tap into that graveyard potential. The naga-shaman, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant in my opinion is the most exciting of the Khan’s legendary creatures. Complete with an awesome color identity and a very interesting ability, Sidisi is begging EDH players to build decks around her.

     Let’s take a closer look at her card, Sidisi is a 1BGU 3/3 with a sweet graveyard based ability that says whenever Sidisi enters the battlefield or attacks, mill the top three cards of your library and whenever one or more creature cards would be put into your graveyard from your library, put a 2/2 black zombie token onto the battlefield. Notice how it does not say form the top of your library, so cards like Entomb and Fact or Fiction still trigger her token generating ability. Pretty awesome right?

     The thing that makes Sidisi stand out when compared to the other Khan’s legends is the level of synergy a Sidisi deck can have. By including so many synergistic spells a Sidisi deck has the potential to be great. But, her best attribute is also her biggest weakness. The reason I say this is because her ability is so attractive that players will often start including weaker cards like Millikin and Deranged Assistant in hopes of letting Sidisi go completely nuts. But, if you decide to build her in this way and are unable to stick Sidisi on the table, your deck will be full of spells that don’t do much of anything. So remember to no get carried away and to strike a balance between both synergy and raw power.

With that being said, when building a Sidisi deck I found that there are a few important things to keep in mind.

First: Mana Dorks 

     When building Sidisi you want to make sure you are able to flip creatures every time you trigger her ability, this makes creature count very important. But other than that, the deck can be very mana intensive, full of double and triple color spells. So to make sure that you are able to cast your spells on time and are able to play a turn three Sidisi, mana dorks are the perfect tool. These cards are great in the early game letting you cast your spells, muck up the board, and also ramp into your bigger creatures.

Second: Looters 

     Looters are a lot better than you would initially think, maybe not so much in the aggro match-up, but against control they are a cheap threat that will help you find relevant spells.

Lastly: Dredge

     At first glance the dredge mechanic seems like it would be right at home in a Sidisi deck and it may be tempting to include every dredger that you possibly can. But, dredge is not as great as you may think. If you load up your deck with dredgers, more times than not you will be passing your draw phase to pick up a card that is ultimately useless. And passing your draw step to have a 2/2 token isn’t the best thing in duel commander, especially during the mid to late game, when you are trying to find high impact spells to keep pressure on your opponent.

     Keeping these things in mind, the game plan for Sidisi is very diverse, she is able to go into the red zone like an aggro deck and also reanimate big creatures. But for a standard build I would say the game plan is to play mana dorks, cast Sidisi, muck up the board with creatures, and over run your opponent with lots of threats. And if your opponent clears the board you have cards like living death that can bring you right back into the game.

     So if you guys are interested in seeing what I did with Sidisi, go ahead and take a look at my deck list down below. Honestly I would say that Sidisi is great for all magic players. Being so unique, interactive, and fun, she is perfect for players both new and old; so get ready to fill up your graveyard. Anyway the sultai legend is great she’s been very fun to test and is by far my favorite of the five Khan’s legends. So what do you guys think of Sidisi? Let me know in the comments. Until next time, keep shufflin’ magic players.