Singleton Shmingleton - Undying Evil
December 18, 2023 by
Jesse Barker Plotkin 
(Undying Malice | Art by Igor Kieryluk)
I'm Not Dead Yet!
Hello, and welcome back to Singleton Shmingleton, where I bend the singleton rules of Commander by building decks with as many functional reprints of a certain card as possible. Up this week, we're talking about the worst card in the very recent best deck in Modern, Undying Evil! This card (and minor upgrades) helped break the already-broken Evoke Elementals by allowing a player to play them for free using Evoke, and then responding to the sacrifice trigger by getting the creature back. This doubled up the enter-the-battlefield trigger while also leaving behind a big body. So, as with several of my other decks, this week's project started with an attempt to port that shell from sixty-card cutthroat Magic into our beloved goofy format. If you're in "Scam" withdrawal, turn to Commander to relive the dream.
Outside of this relatively new application, Undying Evil and its friends have mostly seen play in Draft sideboards and chaff boxes. While saving a creature from death can be powerful, and giving it a little boost in the process is nice, this effect is often too situational to be worth it. I'm always surprised when we get a new version of it, because it just never works. But still, it seems like every other set we get another of these cards. I'm starting to wonder if there's one Wizards designer who just can't give up on making this design play well in Limited, because over the last five or six years there have been almost a dozen little tweaks tried out. Here's a list of effects that will return a creature when it dies:
Undying Reprints
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The most played of these cards, in more than twice as many decks as the second-place finisher, is Malakir Rebirth, with 156,646 decks. The biggest weakness of these cards is not that they're underwhelming but that they're situational, and Malakir Rebirth adds consistency by being a land instead if its front side isn't useful. The second-most played version is Kaya's Ghostform, in 73,425 decks. This one is unique (or was, until new kid Fungal Fortitude showed up) in that it is an enchantment, which gives it extra synergies in some decks. Past these two, almost all of these cards see play in several thousand decks. I was pleasantly surprised to see how popular this effect is, given how non-flashy it is and how poorly it performs in other formats. The least-played version is Graceful Reprieve, with 1,131 decks. White isn't in the market for this effect nearly as often as black, so that makes sense.
How to Feign Death for Fun and Profit
Where are other people playing these cards? The "Top Commanders" for almost all of these cards featured some of the same generals again and again. Kokusho, the Evening Star plays well with as many Undying Evils as possible, combining with a sacrifice outlet to try and drain everyone for huge amounts. Cormela, Glamour Thief forms a simple infinite combo with Demonic Gifts (the only version that can return the creature untapped repeatedly) and a sacrifice outlet, or more complicated combos with other versions. And Gonti, Lord of Luxury loves to enter the battlefield as many times as possible.
But if we want to play a value game like the "Scam" decks in Modern, we're going to want a commander that loves both to die and to enter the battlefield. And there's no better Ogre Demon Dragon for the job than Hidetsugu and Kairi. They let us Brainstorm when they enter the battlefield, and they let us drain our opponents and/or cast a spell from the top of our deck when they die. If we have a sacrifice outlet and a hand full of Undying Malice effects, we can repeatedly put them on top of our deck with the enter-the-battlefield trigger and cast them with the death trigger, drawing cards and draining our opponents every time. Talk about value! This little synergy solves one of the risks inherent in packing a Commander deck with one card: what if we draw too many?
So what other cards should we play? Obviously Grief and Subtlety will excel in this deck, and in that vein, there are a few other Evoke card that play well in this deck. Mulldrifter can draw four cards for four mana, Aethersnipe and Shriekmaw can act as double removal, and Night Incarnate is a flexible board wipe that leaves a body behind. A similar mechanic to Evoke is Exploit, which also sacrifices a creature on entering the battlefield, but I only found one Exploit card I was excited about playing. Profaner of the Dead has a big impact on the board and combines well with other creatures that like dying, even though it's almost never useful to trigger its ability twice in a row. The next place I looked was for cards with Blitz, but in blue and black there weren't very many options. I think a different build of Undying Evil with Henzie "Toolbox" Torre at the helm could take advantage of Blitz very well.
The next place I looked was for other creatures that love to die and come back, and I found two slam dunks immediately in Cavalier of Gales and Cavalier of Night. Cavalier of Gales can function as "Hidetsugu and Kairi at home" if we stack the death triggers so it comes back before getting shuffled in, and Cavalier of Night can act as removal, reanimation, and sacrifice outlet all in one. Inga Rune-Eyes plays incredibly well in a sacrifice-heavy deck, often letting us draw six or nine cards in a turn. And tons of janky gems like Impaler Shrike and Augur of Skulls fill in the cracks.
Another genre of cards that play very well with Undying Evils is Apprentice Necromancer and friends, cheap creatures that sacrifice themselves to reanimate another creature. We can use Undying Evils to get multiple uses out of their ability, or we can reanimate something expensive and start getting value from re-using that creature's effects. Of these, Coffin Queen plays especially well in this deck. If Coffin Queen untaps, we have to exile the creature it got back, but if we sacrifice and Undying Evil that creature first, Coffin Queen forgets that they were ever bound together and we can untap it to get back more creatures.
How Do We Win?
One of the nice things about Hidetsugu and Kairi is that they're a win condition in themselves. The average Hidetsugu and Kairi deck plays tons of high-mana-value spells to cheat out and drain opponents for lots of life, but if we're able to loop our commander a bunch, we don't need many to be able to dig for them. The ones we will include will be things that we'll be able to cast even if everything else is going wrong, so we're not stuck with a hand of Clone Legions and Mnemonic Deluges. Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time are a must, as are other Delve spells like Temporal Trespass. Past that, Sea Gate Restoration has a very low opportunity cost since it can function as a land, and Zof Consumption is just as free while doubling as a way to dome an opponent for ten. Once we flip over a couple big spells we can finish up with our Mulldrifters and Impaler Shrike. Near the end of the game, it's surprising how relevant the +2/+0 on Supernatural Stamina can be.
The Decklist
Undying Evil
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I love the way this deck plays out. It's interactive, it's grindy, it can draw so many cards, and if we start looping Hidetsugu and Kairi, things get out of hand fast. Even without the commander out, our individual threats all need to be dealt with, and a lot of removal doesn't line up well against Undying Evil. It's always funny when Augur of Skulls or Inga Rune-Eyes becomes the must-kill threat on the table, but in this deck they're that scary.
Until Next Time
Let's continue with translating competitive decks into Commander! This little instant doesn't do much, unless it's doing absolutely broken things alongside permanents that can tap for mana and cards. Let's see if there's enough consistency here to fuel an engine like Pioneer Lotus Field decks use! Can Twiddle give enough value to be worth a card? Find out next time on Singleton Shmingleton!
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Jesse Barker Plotkin
Jesse Barker Plotkin started playing Magic with Innistrad. He was disqualified from his first Commander game after he played his second copy of Goblins of the Flarg, and it's all been uphill from there. Outside of Magic, he enjoys writing and running.
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