The Commander
Deathtouch
Whenever Isareth attacks, you may pay 
. When you do, return target creature card with mana value X from your graveyard to the battlefield with a corpse counter on it. If that creature would leave the battlefield, exile it instead of putting it anywhere else.
Guide
Gameplan
Attack with Isareth each turn, paying X to reanimate impactful creatures from your graveyard with corpse counters. Stuff your yard early via self-mill, sacrifice, and discard, then chain back haymakers and value engines while grinding the table down. Win through repeated reanimation advantage backed by sacrifice and recursion loops.
Strengths
- Repeatable reanimation engine attached to the command zone—no card investment beyond mana
- Deathtouch makes Isareth a safe attacker that trades up against blockers
- Mono-black gives access to deep tutors, recursion, and ramp
- Corpse-countered creatures can be sacrificed for value before they exile, maximizing ETB and death triggers
Weaknesses
- Isareth must attack to trigger, so removal or constant blockers shut off the engine
- X-cost reanimation is mana-hungry and slow without ramp
- Corpse-counter exile clause limits long-term loops with the same creature
- Mono-color means no access to blue protection or interaction beyond black's toolbox
Key Cards
- Gravecrawler — Cheap recurring sacrifice fodder that fuels aristocrats lines independent of Isareth.
- Buried Alive — Tutors your best reanimation targets straight into the graveyard for Isareth to grab.
- Sheoldred, the Apocalypse — A premium 4-mana reanimation target that drains opponents and refills your hand.
- Ashnod's Altar — Sacrifices corpse-countered creatures for mana before they exile, converting them into ramp and triggers.
- Sidisi, Brood Tyrant — Mills yourself to stock the graveyard while making zombie tokens to push Isareth through.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana and ramp (Dark Ritual, Sol Ring, Cabal Coffers, Bubbling Muck) to pay larger X costs sooner, and lean into sacrifice outlets like Viscera Seer and Ashnod's Altar to bank value before corpse-countered creatures exile. Tighten the reanimation targets toward high-impact ETB and death-trigger bombs, and include evasion or protection (Whispersilk Cloak, Lightning Greaves) so Isareth connects reliably every turn.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Repeatedly reanimating and sacrificing value engines to drain the table via aristocrats payoffs
- ▸Beating down with deathtouch Isareth plus a recurring army of reanimated threats
- ▸Reanimating game-ending bombs like Sheoldred or Massacre Wurm to swing tempo decisively
Archetypes
- Reanimator — Isareth's attack trigger is a built-in, repeatable reanimation spell scaling on X.
- Aristocrats — Reanimated creatures can be sacrificed for value before the exile clause kicks in.
- Value/Midrange — Chaining ETB creatures back each turn grinds out incremental card and board advantage.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
