commander · Xira Arien
Deathdancer Xira (TD0).
A Jund graveyard reanimator deck from the original 2009 MTGO Commander Theme Decks, led by Xira Arien, fill the graveyard with Dredge and Buried Alive, then return everything to the battlefield through Cauldron Dance, All Hallow's Eve, and Dread Return.
The Commander
Deathdancer Xira is one of the five original 2009 MTGO Commander Theme Decks, digital-only precons that first brought Commander to Magic Online. Xira Arien is a 1/2 flying Insect Wizard for one black, one red, and one green. Pay one of each color and tap her to have any target player draw a card. That tap drips you extra cards while she holds the air as a flier, and she opens up Jund, the first three-color pairing to get a Commander precon built around graveyard recursion.
Xira Arien keeps the cards flowing to feed the graveyard plan. The deck's muscle is its recursion suite: Cauldron Dance reanimates a creature mid-combat, All Hallow's Eve returns every creature from every graveyard two upkeeps later, and Dread Return sacrifices three creatures for free to bring back the biggest thing in the bin.
Key Cards
Golgari Grave-Troll
Enters with a +1/+1 counter for each creature card in your graveyard. Dredge 6 lets you replace any draw by milling six cards and returning this card to your hand instead. The Grave-Troll grows its own power by stuffing the graveyard, and Dredge 6 mills six more each time you'd draw. In a deck built to abuse the graveyard, every draw step becomes six more cards in the bin and a Troll that enters as a 10/10 or bigger once it's full. It's one of the most efficient self-mill engines in the format.
Cauldron Dance
An instant for four black and red, cast only during combat. Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield; it gets haste and returns to your hand at the next end step. You can also drop a creature from your hand onto the battlefield with haste, though its controller sacrifices it at the next end step. This reanimates a creature mid-combat, at instant speed, as a nasty surprise. The returned creature attacks right away, and bouncing back to hand at end step means it's ready as Dread Return fodder or a replay next turn.
Avatar of Woe
Costs ten mana normally, but if there are ten or more creature cards in all graveyards combined, its cost drops to two black. It's a 6/5 with fear and a tap ability that destroys any creature, no regeneration allowed. In a Dredge-heavy game where graveyards fill fast, the Avatar shows up by turn five for two black. Tap it each turn to blow up a creature, and you have repeatable removal on a body that only black and artifact creatures can block. If someone kills it, Dread Return puts it right back.
Dread Return
A sorcery that returns any creature from any graveyard to the battlefield, with an alternate cost of sacrificing three creatures instead of paying four black. Once the graveyard is stocked with big threats and you have token fodder to sacrifice, Dread Return brings back Avatar of Woe, Golgari Grave-Troll, or any other bomb for free. That alternate cost is its flashback, so the spell can fire twice: once from your hand and once from the graveyard.
All Hallow's Eve
A two-black sorcery that exiles itself with two scream counters. At the beginning of each upkeep, remove a scream counter. When the last counter is removed, each player returns all creature cards from their graveyard to the battlefield. So two upkeeps after you cast it, every creature in every graveyard comes back at once, yours included, packed with everything Dredge dumped in there. In a four-player game with multiple full graveyards, All Hallow's Eve drops the biggest board you'll ever see all at the same time.
How to Play
Get Xira Arien out early and tap her to draw cards and feed the graveyard plan. Play Golgari Grave-Troll so you're Dredging 6 every draw step and stacking creatures in the bin. Buried Alive drops three specific targets straight into the graveyard: Avatar of Woe, Genesis for recursion, and Eternal Witness for card recovery. Once ten creatures sit across all graveyards, Avatar of Woe costs two black and takes over the board. Cast All Hallow's Eve and wait two upkeeps. By then the graveyard holds your whole creature base and it all comes back at once. Cauldron Dance handles combat surprises with instant-speed reanimation. You win by flooding the board with mass graveyard returns while your opponents have nothing in their bins to match what's coming back under your control.
