Commander Deck Tech: Olivia, Crimson Bride - Reanimator

We will start the Innistrad: Crimson Vow season with the eternal diva Olivia Voldaren. Olivia, Crimson Bride's card impresses with its triggered ability that reanimates creatures whenever it's declared attacker, being the driver of decks with the reanimator archetype or a piece in daring combos.

Olivia, Crimson Bride's deck proposal is for an Eldrazi-based reanimator, utilizing our commander's ability to circumvent the mana costs of these titanic creatures. Her main strength is in her interactions with the graveyard and in her combat tricks. An alternative form of victory lies in the sequence of multiple combat phases.

Olivia Voldaren is a vampire native to Innistrad and the progenitor of the Voldaren bloodline. She is a famous eccentric and bon vivant and intends to form an alliance with the Markov to take control of Innistrad and their vampire families. Her plan is to unite Innistrad's vampires through an ultra-exclusive wedding, where Olivia will marry Edgar Markov, the first vampire.

The Olivia, Crimson Bride card has relevant power and toughness and has haste, which guarantees the use of its triggered ability on the turn that she comes into play, granting a significant advantage.

Its notable feature is putting creatures from our graveyard into play, tapped and attacking in the combat phase. This ability allows for numerous interactions, but the only downside is that its reanimations gain: "When you don't control a legendary vampire, exile this creature."

Our deck has a strategy based on reanimation, using the commander as an engine to play cards from the graveyard. Drana, the Last Bloodchief and Feldon of the Third Path are replacement alternatives on early turns, while Malfegor act as a finisher.

The use of sacrifice outlets, such as Bloodthrone Vampire, leverages our strategy by allowing you to unleash ETBs ("Enters the Battlefield") abilities multiple times. In turn, Breath of Fury allows you to generate infinite turns by sacrificing tokens or reanimated creatures.

Olivia, Crimson Bride's deck peaks in the middle of the game, so to get around threats in early turns using removals is important. Bone Shards at the cost of one mana discards a card from the hand or returns one of our creatures to the Graveyard, which we can use to our benefit while it destroys an opponent's planeswalker or creature. Another card that generates this same advantage is Malfegor, which when it comes into play discards your hand, and each opponent sacrifices a creature for each card discarded in this way.

Our other removals aim to affect as many targets as possible: Feed the Swarm and Mire in Misery remove creatures or enchantments. Abrade and Angrath's Rampage remove creatures or artifacts, the latter also affecting planeswalkers.

Red has one of the best removals of the format: Chaos Warp can handle any types of permanent. Rakdos Charm is a distinctive removal in that it exiles an opponent's graveyard, or destroys an artifact, or deals damage to all players equal to the number of creatures they control.

Witchbane Orb is a way to protect our graveyard from most removals, Swiftfoot Boots and Mirror Shield are point protection for determinant creatures, granting Hexproof.

Among the dual lands and color fixes, some utility lands make up our mana base: Geier Reach Sanitarium grants additional draws and discards.

Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace also can discard cards. Rogue's Passage work as evasion and sometimes as a finisher.

Due to our commander's high mana cost, we have added a significant amount of low-cost mana rocks even if they enter tapped, as the intent is to correct the mana colors and ensure solid entry from our commander.

Olivia, Crimson Bride's ability depends on whether legendary creatures that have the vampire subtype remain in play. Therefore, we selected some legends to be part of the deck, dividing them into two groups: card advantage and combat advantage.

Anje Falkenrath and her ability to discard a card to generate a draw creates a huge advantage in graveyard-based decks. Florian, Voldaren Scion also grants card advantage in the main phase after combat.

Our group of fighters. The Commander relies on Olivia, Mobilized for War that whenever a creature comes into play, we can discard a card and that creature gains haste and a +1/+1 counter and adds vampire to its types.

Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats grants all of our creatures deathtouch. Drana, the Last Bloodchief has an ability similar to Olivia, Crimson Bride by retrieving creatures from our graveyard to the battlefield.

The Haunt of Hightower and Sengir, the Dark Baron are very offensive, growing in power with each combat. The Haunt of Hightower grows as opponents send cards to the graveyard, interacting with our utility lands. The Dark Baron, on the other hand, grows as other creatures die. Both are very synergistic with our interactions in combat.

Among our draw options, we choose those that discard cards before drawing. The “Red Looting” or Rummaging allows you to select the best cards for the graveyard at any given time. Faithless Looting and Thrill of Possibility are cards that belong to this category. Dragon Mage has a similar effect, making each player discard their hand and draw seven cards when dealing combat damage.

In reanimate decks, the graveyard is an extension of the player's hand. We chose several options for tutors, who put cards from the deck directly to the graveyard.

Oriq Loremage when tapped to activate its ability selects a card and puts it into the graveyard, thus generating a lot of advantage in a short time. Vile Entomber performs the same action when entering the battlefield.

Several ETBs with this ability make up our tutors, shown below. Fervent Mastery is an especially interesting tutor in this deck, as it doesn't matter whether the selected cards end up being discarded.

We can often win even before casting our commander or solidly developing our battlefield.

Victimize reanimates two creatures by sacrificing one. Cauldron Dance is a powerful combat trick that throws two creatures with haste onto the battlefield, one from the hand and the other from the graveyard, and at the end of the turn sacrificing the first and returning the second to hand.

Torrent of Souls is a spell that reanimates a creature and grants an increased attack and haste to all of our creatures until end of turn.

Stitch Together is an interesting card that allows you to return a creature from the graveyard to your hand, however, when we have seven or more cards in the graveyard it returns a creature to the battlefield.

Dread Return when in the graveyard can be played for the alternative cost of sacrificing three creatures, which can easily get our Eldrazi into play as soon as possible.

Feldon of the Third Path doesn't reanimate creatures, but creates tokens that are copies of creatures in the graveyard, adding haste, and are sacrificed at the end of turn.

The Eldrazi are a tribe of large, imposing creatures, and their Annihilator ability (Whenever this creature attacks, the defending player sacrifices permanents) is staggering, quickly upsetting the game's balance. We chose those that best fit our budget and also those that didn't have special restrictions on their mana cost or abilities.

Bane of Bala Ged has an improved Annihilator ability, exiling two permanents from the defending player.

Artisan of Kozilek is a fantastic creature in addition to a formidable body of power and toughness 10/9, it also has Annihilator 2.

Breaker of Armies forces all opponents' creatures to block him, clearing the board for your other creatures.

Discard the right creatures into the graveyard and reanimating them. Gravebreaker Lamia and other tutors helps us ensure the right pile of cards in the graveyard.

Demoralize is a powerful tool that prevent our opponents' creatures from blocking. Rogue's Passage grants Olivia, Crimson Bride evasion, so we can freely attack with her.

In addition to direct combat, we have a combo line using Breath of Fury and Olivia, Crimson Bride:

- Enchant another creature with Breath of Fury;

- Attack with Olivia, Crimson Bride and the enchanted creature;

- Olivia, Crimson Bride's ability will trigger, returning a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield.

- When the enchanted creature deals combat damage, sacrifice it and attach Breath of Fury to the reanimated creature.

- You will gain a new combat phase.

- Repeat the process for infinite combat.

My favorite targets for reanimation when using this combo are Malfegor and Dragon Mage, which alternately allows to eliminate all opponents' creatures in a few attacks.

To improve the different strategies in this deck, I bring you some suggestions based on different lines.

Some powerful creatures can replace the Eldrazi, such as Razaketh, the Foulblooded which is a powerful tutor and allows for multiple combo lines.

Master of Cruelties can be reanimated by coming into play tapped and attacking, reducing the defending player to 1 life.

Sire of Insanity forces all players to discard their hands every turn, generating a big advantage for our deck that uses the graveyard as a resource source.

Mana curve optimization is one of the paths to take, so Burnt Offering and Culling the Weak are viable options for rituals based on creature sacrifice, as well as Songs of the Damned that generates mana based on the number of creatures in your graveyard.

Replacing cards with others with the same function and better mana cost is also important. Reanimate is a cost one spell that reanimates a creature. Persist is similar and only costs two, such as Animate Dead. By adding similar enchantments, we can include Worldgorger Dragon, gaining a new finisher.

Some other additions might include creatures that grant extra combat phases: Combat Celebrant, which can be exerted to grant an additional combat phase. Port Razer that every time you deal damage to a different opponent you guarantee a new combat phase. Moraug, Fury of Akoum which has the same ability on Landfall.

Along these lines, cards like Altar of Dementia and Goblin Bombardment are highly recommended.

Olivia, Crimson Bride allows you to build many fun decks for those who enjoy combat or graveyard-based strategies.

Her high mana cost makes her especially viable on casual tables, however with the proper adjustments it could find a place among higher power groups. We recently had another tech from a Rakdos Commander Kalain, Reclusive Painter in a very different strategy based on artifacts and treasure tokens.

I also recommend reading the Old Stickfingers deck tech for graveyard enthusiasts.

Thanks for reading and good games!

Any questions, I'm available in the comments!