The Commander
Rogue Trader — Whenever Neyam Shai Murad deals combat damage to a player, you may have that player return target permanent card from their graveyard to their hand. If you do, that player chooses a permanent card in your graveyard, then you put it onto the battlefield under your control.
Guide
Gameplan
Neyam wants to connect in combat, give an opponent a small graveyard return, and in exchange cheat one of YOUR permanents straight onto the battlefield. Fill your own graveyard with bombs (via self-mill, sacrifice, and discard), get Neyam through with evasion, and reanimate something huge every combat. You grind the game with a stream of recurred threats while leaning on BW removal and lifegain to survive.
Strengths
- Repeatable, color-pinpoint reanimation that ignores mana value entirely
- Lets you cheat any permanent type—planeswalkers, big creatures, enchantments, artifacts—onto the battlefield
- Cheap four-mana commander in efficient BW control colors
- Synergizes with self-mill and sacrifice strategies you already want to run
Weaknesses
- The opponent controls which permanent you reanimate, so weak graveyards reduce value
- Requires combat connection, so she's vulnerable to blockers, removal, and fog effects
- You give an opponent a free permanent back to hand each trigger, a real downside vs strong decks
- No built-in evasion or protection; she dies easily and the loop stalls
- No green ramp; BW can struggle to power out big top-ends without dedicated rocks
Key Cards
- Whispersilk Cloak — Grants unblockable plus shroud, guaranteeing Neyam connects safely every turn to fire her trigger.
- Rogue's Passage — Reliable way to push Neyam through for the reanimation trigger.
- Buried Alive — Stuffs your graveyard with the exact creatures you want Neyam to drag onto the battlefield.
- Entomb — Tutors a single backbreaking permanent directly into your graveyard for reanimation.
- Stitcher's Supplier — Repeatable self-mill that loads your yard with permanents to cheat back.
- Sun Titan — A strong reanimation target that itself recurs your cheap permanents for extra value.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana and reanimation tutors (Entomb, Buried Alive, Vampiric Tutor) plus stronger top-end permanents so any opponent's choice still wins you the game. Improve evasion and protection (Whispersilk Cloak, Lightning Greaves) to guarantee the trigger fires every turn. Push toward a self-mill engine and a backup combo finish so the deck doesn't rely solely on combat damage.
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
- ▸Reanimating a chain of fatties and beating down with an overwhelming board
- ▸Aristocrats drain via sacrifice loops and recurred value engines
- ▸Sticking an oppressive reanimated threat (Sheoldred, Massacre Wurm) that grinds opponents to death
- ▸Assembling a graveyard-based combo with recurred permanents
Archetypes
- Reanimator — Her combat trigger is a recurring free reanimation spell, so the deck is built to fill the yard and connect.
- Aristocrats — Sacrifice outlets fuel your graveyard and let you abuse reanimated bodies for drain value.
- Voltron-lite Control — BW removal and protective gear keep Neyam alive and unblockable to grind out repeated value.
- Stax/Control — Reanimating disruptive permanents like Sheoldred or Grave Pact locks opponents out while you advance.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BW), by popularity.
