4×Creature–Default targetThe default, not the ceiling. Its trigger reads the top ten for one card of each type, and this list prints only four types, so it is usually a draw three or four rather than the draw five people quote.
2×Creature–Highest ceilingThe highest ceiling and the worst default. Against anything that pressures your life total it is the target you cannot afford to use, which is most of what the format is doing.
1×Creature–BridgeA Goryo target, a four-mana fair threat, and selective graveyard removal in one card. It enters as a copy of a creature card in any graveyard and exiles that card, so it answers the mirror while developing your own board.
The reanimation engine
8 cards
4×Instant–The whole pointInstant speed is the card, not a footnote. Cast in the opponent’s second main phase, the delayed trigger exiles the creature at the very next end step; cast after that end step has begun, you get a full untap and attack.
4×Instant–Permanence and valueThe returned permanent is a new object, so the Goryo trigger has nothing left to exile. Rebound gives a second blink on your next upkeep, which is why it is a value card and not only a combo finisher.
Graveyard enablers
11 cards
4×Creature–Best enablerThe discard is part of the activation cost, so it happens before anyone else gets priority. Retain priority afterwards and the target reaches the graveyard and Goryo reaches the stack in one window.
3×Creature–Board-positive setupThe most board-positive setup card. Mills toward a target, returns Goryo or interaction, blocks the one-drops that beat you, and gives Ephemerate somewhere useful to go when the combo is not there.
2×Instant–Safe instant discardInstant-speed discard that also gains two life, which matters more in the fast matchups than it looks. It does not grow the hand on the first cast, and the flashback is expensive.
2×Instant–Highest velocityThe fastest and cheapest setup in the deck, and the first card that should leave it. It costs a card, holds no board, and is worst in exactly the long post-board games it tends to survive into.
Free interaction
6 cards
4×Creature–Removal and payoffRemoval, a blink payoff and a lifelink body. Evoked and then Ephemerated with the sacrifice trigger still on the stack, it exiles twice and stays.
2×Instant–Window protectionNot generically free. It needs their turn, another blue card, a noncreature target, and a pitch whose loss does not collapse the hand. Against creature decks it is often the first card out.
Targeted interaction and the fair threat
7 cards
3×Sorcery–Clears the windowKept over Inquisition in an open field because the things that actually beat this deck cost more than three: Eldrazi, Titan, the large Neoform pieces, and the expensive hate.
2×Sorcery–Answers hateThe answer to a resolved hate permanent. Its ceiling is the reason Overgrown Tomb is in the mana base at all.
1×Instant–Instant answerThe instant-speed version of the same job, which is what lets you answer a hate permanent without giving up your own end step.
1×Creature–Graveyard-proof threatA 4/6 flyer that ignores graveyard hate entirely. Warp it for two, blink it before the warp trigger resolves, and it stays permanently having drawn twice.
Mana
21 cards
4×Land–Blue-black accessEleven fetchlands are not only fixing. Cracked in the opponent’s end step for a surveil dual, a fetch is a conditional instant-speed way to bin the target.
4×Land–White-black accessFinds Godless Shrine, Shadowy Backstreet, or the basic Plains or Swamp when Blood Moon is coming.
3×Land–White-blue accessFinds Hallowed Fountain, Meticulous Archive, or a basic. The white-blue fetch is the one Faithful Mending needs.
1×Land–Delayed enablerA surveil dual is not a discard outlet, but fetched at instant speed it becomes one. Play it on turn one only when the hand has nothing better to do with the turn.
1×Land–Delayed enablerWhite-black surveil. Worth holding for an end-step fetch rather than spending as an untapped land.
1×Land–Delayed enablerBlue-black surveil, and the one most often fetched in the same window as Goryo.
1×Land–Untapped dualBlue-black at the cost of two life, which is a real cost in a deck that also plays Thoughtseize and may want Griselbrand.
1×Land–Untapped dualWhite-black. Usually the shock that supports Ephemerate on the Goryo turn.
1×Land–Untapped dualWhite-blue, and the one Faithful Mending and double-white Wrath sequencing lean on.
1×Land–Fetch it lateThe only green source in the list. It exists for hard-cast Atraxa and the fourth colour on Prismatic Ending, and fetching it early is one of the deck’s common mana errors.
1×Land–Blood Moon insuranceFetch for the whole post-Moon turn cycle, not for the spell currently in hand.
1×Land–Blood Moon insuranceThe basic to find before the Moon turn when Wrath, Ephemerate or Ending has to stay live.
1×Land–Blood Moon insuranceUsually the first basic, because Thoughtseize and Goryo are both black.
Mana value appears where the guide states it; everything else about a card comes from the printed card rather than from this guide. Mana value, type and colour identity come from the printed card; the notes are the guide’s own reading of the slot.
Sideboard · 15
3×Configurable sweeperNot a sweeper with one setting. Cast it for the X you need, then pay only the energy that kills what has to die, and bank the rest. X=0 still takes tokens, artifact lands and Urza’s Saga.
3×Triggers and colourless spellsThe broadest card in the fifteen. It counters triggered abilities, including your own Goryo exile trigger, which means one blue mana can keep the creature without Ephemerate. Replicate splits it across two targets.
2×Threat that ignores hateBrings the deck to three. The post-hate threat: a 4/6 flyer does not care what the opponent boarded against your graveyard.
2×Activated-ability lockSymmetrical, and the symmetry is the whole discipline. It stops your own Frog and Griselbrand activations too, so everything you need from those happens before it lands.
2×Blue mirror taxAgainst blue interaction it is the cheapest way to win a window. Answers Frog, Riddler, Force, Consign and Teferi.
1×Two-mana enginesCounters Goryo and Psychic Frog in the mirror, and Neoform where that matters. Narrow and free.
1×Precise graveyard attackNot generic graveyard hate. Bring it with a named card, a route for that card into the graveyard, and a reason extracting it actually collapses their deck.
1×Sorcery-speed lockShuts opposing end-step Goryo lines and cascade resolution, and protects your own turn. One of the few cards that changes the mirror structurally.
Default targetAtraxa, Grand Unifier. It replaces itself immediately, blocks, gains life, and is the best Ephemerate target in the deck.
The ceiling is not the defaultGriselbrand draws more and costs seven life to do it. Against anything pressuring your life total it is the target you cannot use, which is most of the format. §9 →
Mana curve
39 cards
121
MV 14×2×3×2×1×
132
MV 24×4×3×2×
23
MV 32×
14
MV 41×
55
MV 54×1×
06
47
MV 74×
28
MV 82×
21 lands sit outside the curve. A land has no mana value to spend, and stacking a third of the deck at zero would flatten every other bar.
Card types
Creature19
Creature4×2×1×4×3×4×1×
Instant15
Instant4×4×2×2×2×1×
Sorcery5
Sorcery3×2×
Land21
Land4×4×3×1×1×1×1×1×1×1×1×1×1×
60 cards in the main deck.
Colour identity
Black24
Black4×2×1×4×4×3×1×1×1×1×1×1×
Blue24
Blue4×1×4×3×2×2×2×1×1×1×1×1×1×
White22
White4×4×2×4×2×1×1×1×1×1×1×
Green5
Green4×1×
Colour identity across all 60 listed cards. A card of two colours counts under both, so these do not sum to the deck size.
Mana value, type and colour identity are printed card values from Scryfall, joined against this guide’s list.