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Contents hide Murders at Karlov Manor Commander Precons Revenant Recon Decklist Notable Reprints: Revenant Recon Themes And Archetypes Revenant Recon Deck Analysis Budget Cards To Upgrade Revenant Recon With The Ancient One The Scarab God Persist Stitch Together Deep Analysis Counterpoint Final-Word Phantom Phyrexian Arena

Revenant Recon is one of the four pre-constructed Commander decks released alongside Murders At Karlov Manor. It is a Dimir deck with a heavy focus on the graveyard, taking advantage of the many cards that benefit creatures and other permanents being there. The deck is the strongest of the four Commander decks for Murders At Karlov Manor, and as such is a little more to it compared to the other decks built more in line with mechanics specific to the set. This is the Murders At Karlov Manor Revenant Recon Commander deck guide.

Murders at Karlov Manor Commander Precons

Packs

4 (Blame Game, Revenant Recon, Deadly Disguise, Deep Clue Sea)

Cards

400

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Revenant Recon Decklist

CategoryCardsCommanderMirko, Obsessive TheoristCreaturesAmphin Mutineer, Baleful Strix, Copy Catchers, Dimir Spybug, Dogged Detective, Doom Whisperer, Dream Eater, Eye of Duskmantle, Final-Word Phantom, Grave Titan, Lazav, the Multifarious, Marvo, Deep Operative, Massacre Wurm, Master of Death, Mulldrifter, Nightveil Sprite, Overseer of the Damned, Phyrexian Metamorph, Ravenous Chupacabra, Shriekmaw, Sinister Starfish, Sphinx of the Second Sun, Syr Konrad, the Grim, Thoughtbound Phantasm, Twilight Prophet, Unshakable Tail, Vizier of Many Faces, Watcher of Hours, Whispering SnitchSorceryBlack Sun’s Zenith, Charnel Serenade, Connive / Concoct, Deep Analysis, Discovery / Dispersal, Notion Rain, Reanimate, Rise of the Dark Realms, Toxic DelugeInstantsBrainstorm, Consider, Counterpoint, Curate, Ephara’s Dispersal, Mission Briefing, Otherworldly Gaze, Pile On, Price of FameArtifactsArcane Signet, Dimir Signet, Everflowing Chalice, Foreboding Steamboat, Mind Stone, Ransom Note, Sol Ring, Talisman of Dominance, Thought VesselEnchantmentsAnimate Dead, Case of the Shifting Visage, Disinformation Campaign, Enhanced Surveillance, Necromancy, Phyrexian ArenaLandsAsh Barrens, Bojuka Bog, Choked Estuary, Command Tower, Darkwater Catacombs, Dimir Aqueduct, Drownyard Temple, Fetid Pools, Hostile Desert, Island (9), Myriad Landscape, Mystic Sanctuary, Port of Karfell, Reliquary Tower, River of Tears, Rogue’s Passage, Sunken Hollow, Swamp (9), Tainted Isle, Temple of the False God, Tocasia’s Dig Site ✓ Johnny’s Annotation:

Notable Reprints:

Revenant Recon has the best reprints of the four Commander decks, with most of the best reanimator spells seeing a reprint in the deck. Notable reprints include Animate Dead, Necromancy, Reanimate, Rise Of The Dark Realms, and Toxic Deluge.

Revenant Recon Themes And Archetypes

The main archetype of Revenant Recon is surveil. Surveil is a mechanic where you look at a certain number of cards at the top of your library and can put as many of those as you like into the graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order. The primary commander Mirko, Obsessive Theorist is a payoff for surveiling, growing with +1/+1 counters as you do while letting you bring creatures back to the graveyard at your end step. 

The other main theme for Revenant Recon is reanimator. Since surveil lets you put so many cards into your graveyard, many cards in the deck let you bring creatures out from the graveyard without paying their mana costs.

The sub-theme for the deck comes from its alternate commander Marvo, Deep Operative. This is clashing, which has each clashing player reveal the top card of their library, and whoever reveals the card with a higher mana value wins. For Revenant Recon, the mana value of most of your cards is high, letting you win clashes more often than not to cast them for free. 

Revenant Recon Deck Analysis

The deck has plenty of ways to dump cards into your graveyard. The lower mana value cards are the ones that surveil, such as Dogged Detective which surveils two, Sinister Starfish which can tap itself to surveil one, and Doom Whisperer which lets you surveil two at the cost of two life. Doom Whisperer is the best card to surveil with, as so long as you have two life to pay, you can keep surveiling. 

All this surveiling leads to your powerful creatures getting dumped into the graveyard that are normally a bit too costly for you to pay. Sphinx Of The Second Sun gives you extra beginning phases (which include the untap, upkeep, and draw steps) and Eye Of Duskmantle lets you play cards from the graveyard so long as you surveilled that turn and lets you use life instead of paying their mana costs. 

To reanimate the creatures in your graveyard, you have plenty of spells to get that job done. The best of them is Reanimate, as it only costs one black mana to put any creature from any graveyard onto the battlefield under your control at the cost of losing life equal to its mana value (though in Commander with 40 starting life this hardly matters). Animate Dead is another cheap reanimator spell attached to an Aura that puts any creature back onto the battlefield but gets a -1/-0 debuff. Rise Of The Dark Realms is one of the best cards to cast if you manage to build up to nine mana, especially after a board wipe as it puts all creatures from all graveyards onto the battlefield under your control. 

For board wipes, you only have two options in the base deck. Black Sun’s Zenith puts -1/-1 counters on each creature, the number of which is determined by how much mana you pay for the “X” in its mana cost. Even if you don’t remove all creatures, you can significantly weaken the ones that stay behind. The other board wipe is Toxic Deluge. For just three mana you can pay life to give all creatures -X/-X equal to the amount of life paid. This is the most consistent way to deal with all creatures, unless it’s too late in the game when the life you have to pay is just too steep. 

Budget Cards To Upgrade Revenant Recon With

Precon Commander decks are generally a lower power than more refined decks and as such, upgrades are very common. These upgrades will look at cheaper cards to replace some of the weaker cards in Revenant Recon that don’t synergize with the deck very well or are a bit too low power.

The Ancient One

One upgrade that’s great for Revenant Recon is The Ancient One. Filling eight cards into your graveyard is trivial in the deck, so you’ll have a cheap 8/8 that makes for a great attacker and blocker. Not only that, The Ancient One helps to fill your graveyard with its other effect by drawing and discarding a card. You can opt to use it to mill an opponent or your own deck, something that feeds perfectly into the reanimator strategy while drawing you into more useful cards and discarding the ones you want in the graveyard.

The Scarab God

The Scarab God is another solid creature to slot into Revenant Recon. For four mana, you can exile any creature from a graveyard to create a 4/4 Zombie token. It will also let you scry at each upkeep equal to the number of Zombies you control, something you’ll have multiple of when you use its effect to reanimate. It also has lasting power, as if it ever dies you can return it to the hand at the next end step.

Persist

While there are a lot of reanimator spells in Revenant Recon already, the notable exclusion is Persist, which lets you put a nonlegendary creature from your graveyard onto the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it for two mana. This is a great way to easily bring back a powerful creature from your graveyard. Even though it has lower stats, you still get to take advantage of their effects which is often why you want to reanimate them in the first place. 

Stitch Together

One final budget upgrade for the deck is Stitch Together. For two black mana, you can return a creature from your graveyard to your hand. However, if there are seven or more cards in your graveyard you activate its threshold, you can return a creature to the battlefield instead. You almost never want to be putting the creature back into your hand, and instead be using its threshold ability. There are very rare exceptions, namely if you are trying to cast a spell for free with Marvo, Deep Operative.

You can’t have more or less than 99 cards in the main deck, so if you want to add in new cards, you will have to remove other cards. Luckily, precons are often crafted with this in mind as there are some weaker cards often included in them that are perfect to cut for upgrades. 

Deep Analysis

One card the deck doesn’t need is Deep Analysis. It simply has a player draw two cards for four mana and you can flash it back by paying three life in addition to two mana. While card draw is never bad, Deep Analysis doesn’t do anything that synergizes with the deck. At best, surveilling can put it into the graveyard to flash it back for cheaper, but in general you would rather be surveilling a card that will impact the board state.

Counterpoint

Another cuttable card is Counterpoint. While it does play into your reanimation strategy, you need to have a creature, instant, sorcery, or planeswalker card with a lesser mana value in your graveyard to take advantage of it. Cards that rely on your opponent casting specific things are often too random to be any good, and Counterpoint is no exception. Countering spells is a good effect, but for five mana, it has to be winning you the game to keep around.

Final-Word Phantom

Final-Word Phantom is a great card, but not one that works well in Revenant Recon. It lets you play cards as if they had flash during each opponent’s end step. It does help in other decks, but most of the spells you want to be casting you want to cast on your turn. You don’t have many cards that you want to flash in during the end steps, and you can’t ramp enough to make it worthwhile.

Phyrexian Arena

The last cuttable card is Phyrexian Arena. It gives you an extra draw at the cost of one life each time you do. However, the impact it has is rather minimal most of the time. Drawing cards is always good, but with how much surveilling you can do, you don’t often need the extra cards since you can control your top deck so easily and dump cards into your graveyard. 

Ultimately, cutting cards is a personal preference, and you may enjoy cards in Revenant Recon to the point you don’t want to cut them. There is a big community that enjoys playing exclusively with unedited precons, and Revenant Recon is an excellent choice for that variant of Commander. 

About the Author

Johnny Garcia

Magic: The Gathering

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