#chainer

[upimflames]

[samhaininy]

Slasher x Chain.. go my cross-ship!

also they get exploded.. heh..

(CR for the gif @macshake )

[xantchaslegacy]

[commander-deck-ideas]

Thinking about changing my teysa deck to a (new) chainer deck. The idea of chainer and kobolds In an aristocrats style deck amuses me. Assuming you have something like pawn of ulamog in play.

[dissonant-aria]

Commander 2019 shoutouts to the past pt2

[incorrect-mtg-theories]

Ashiok’s identity

(original idea from @goblins-choose-to-live)

Ashiok is our favorite nightmare planeswalker, and is wrapped in mystery (and black smoke). Little is known about Ashiok’s origin, age, exact abilities,... Nearly nothing, in fact, except that Ashiok deals in Nightmares and fears.

But what if, akin to the Raven Man, Ashiok might be a character that we already know, changed from their original incarnation by time and trauma?

What if Ashiok, the Nightmare Weaver is none other than Chainer?

First of all, who’s Chainer? Some of you might not know him, he was a character in the Odyssey storyline, an apprentice then master of Dementia Magic within Otaria’s Cabal, and as such capable of summoning Nightmares from reality and imagination, and often a mix of both. He was also the person who first discovered the Mirari and started a chain of event that would forever change the face of Otaria, and later Dominaria itself.

The Mirari responded to him like no other, and with it, he grew in power tremendously... And slipped more and more into dementia. In the end, he was able to collect the Nightmares of all of Otaria’s dementia casters as his own, and create Nightmares undistinguishable from reality. He accessed his dementia space by surrounding himself by a black smoke, which doesn’t mean anything but is certainly a nice touch.

And then... Chainer died. Consumed by the Mirari’s power and fighting the barbarian Kamahl, Chainer transformed himself into one of his Nightmare, finishing as little more than a black puddle. He was still conscious enough to entrust the Mirari to his friend, Kamahl, as his lucidity came back to him in that state, then perished as Kamahl left him in a corridor of Cabal City.

Or did he?

The Mirari was a probe made by Karn, a planeswalker. Planeswalkers’ spark are ignited by a traumatic event, generally of tremendous magical importance when it comes to oldwalkers. They could also shape their body, and survive almost anything. What if the Mirari called Chainer because it recognized a planeswalker spark within him? What if, as he turned himself into a Nightmare, his spark started igniting, and when Kamahl left him behind, was transported to another plane and reborn as a nightmare never to be seen on Dominaria again?

What if he took a new name, and learned more and more with the next centuries.

What if Chainer became... Ashiok?

[foxgirlintestines]

Chainer Loops

Looks like a lot of players have been swayed by this handsom devil. What a joke though, a simple adept cannot stand up to the Master. Why don’t I remind everyone why the original was one of the scariest mono-black commanders to ever be printed. (Ignore Yawgmoth and his son, those two were pushed pretty hard to be played so you can’t really compare a pre-modern card to cards streamlined to be sell packs and go into Command Zones)

Now here is the real Chainer. Despite being held back by his color identity Chainer is one of the strongest reanimation based commanders because of his absurdly costed activated ability. Triple Black and 3 life for instant speed reanimation without any restrictions and no need to tap so unnafected by summoning sickness and can be used more than once a turn. Chainer allows you to very agressively control graveyards and cheat out big things or reuse etb or death triggers. He has a lot of value built in, but more than that he has the makings of infinite combos. Chainer loops are infinite combos based on regaining the mana and life from his activated ability to be used multiple times. A lot of the advantages from this type of win-con is the ability to repeatedly activate Chainer at instant speed so you can simply respond to interaction. This does require a bit of mana, but Chainer finds himself at home in the Coffers where his idol of obsession, the Mirari was stored.

So thats the idea, Chainer can set up infinite combos to win. How are these loops set up though? There are a couple of common enablers: Phyrexian Altar

Phyrexian Altar refunds black mana by sacrificing the reanimated creature. The trick to this is that each reanimation must bring back a creature who has at least two friends. Grave Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Sengir Autocrat, Myr Battlesphere, and various other creatures will generate enough bodies to sacrifice to get the black mana back to use Chainer again. The way this loop wins though is from either excess mana from a creature like Myr Battlesphere that generates more than three creatures and then using the mana to funnel it into a source to drain opponents to regain life such as an Exsanguinate, Gray Merchant, or Kokusho added to the loop. The more simple way to win is off the triggers of Blood Artist, Zulaport Cuthroat, or any of the like. When the creatures die they will drain opponents to regain the life used by Chainer to make the loop truly infinite. Carnival of Souls

This is kind of a funky effect but basically it operates in the same way as Phyrexian Altar. You regain the black mana you spend by having at least three creatures enter the battlefield. This allows any sacrifice outlet to function the same as the unique Altar for redundancy, but Carnival of Souls costs more life so infinite loops are harder to make. You need to generate at least 6 life back per activation so you will need double the Blood Artists, a sacrifice outlet that gains life, or use one of the creatures that generates four or more bodies to add Kokusho or Gary to the loop. Because it requires a lot more, this is probably the last card you want to use to set up the loop.

Pittiless Plunderer

This is a relatively newer alternative for Carnival of Souls. Its much stronger as it can be part of a Buried Alive pile and does not require additional life gain. The loop is exactly the same but you gain the black mana from the treasures.You still need more cards than simply using Phyrexian Altar though, so its still not the primary way you’d want to set up the loop.

K’rrik

The new hotness however gives a far more potent and consistent Chainer Loop. K’rrik will replace the black mana requirement of Chainer’s ability with a 6 life payment which totals up to 9 life for instant speed reanimation. Kokusho will drain each opponent for 5 life gaining back 15 in a 4 player game and with the mana costs of Gary Chainer and K’rrik your Gray Merchant will drain for at least 7 gaining 21 life. So with any sacrifice outlet the loop is completed. When you get down to the last opponent you should have enough life to kill them, or with two more black symbols on your board Gary is still infinite. What makes this combo so powerful though is that it can be entirely assembled off of a Buried Alive. With Chainer in play Buried Alive and 3 black mana instantly activates the whole combo. You first activate Chainer to get K’rrik, then pay 9 to get Gary, then with the life you regained pay another 9 to get any creature based sac outlet. If that creature costs at least BB such as a Nantuko Shade then you have the full infinite even against a single opponent. The full combo can go off from 6 mana and at least 13 life with your commander in play. Since you do not use your hand after the Buried Alive you can go all in with Rituals and Lion’s Eye Diamond to set this up very early. Since Black has the best Tutors and you only need to resolve Buried Alive its very easy to set up this combo, and each 3 black mana (or 9 life if K’rrick got onto the field) is virtually a counter to interaction as the whole process is instant speed and can kill people in response. These combos seem a bit janky due to having many pieces, but most of the cards involved are powerful on their own and you can play a controlling game where you utilize Chainer for value and disruption until you can simply assemble any of these cards. These combos also have a lot of redundant parts. Even though there are a lot of cards that need to fall in place you will see them often and of course powerful draw and Tutors in black can simply fill in the gaps making the deck pretty consistent and resilient. Compare this to the new Chainer that is basically just an awkward Karador that staples haste onto creatures. You have to pay full cost and the discard outlet isn’t really advantageous as you could have cast the creature from your hand since there is no discount, and you are not gaining card advantage through reanimation since you still have to spend a card on it. (You also cannot play Hellbent Control because of the discard requirement but thats a article for another time). Chainer was once a powerful commander that was a low tier competitive deck. Cobblepott of the Lab Maniacs even tried to bring him to cEDH for a while (though he did not have overwhelming success). Chainer is simply too slow for cEDH and the lack of other colors does hurt. Back when Chainer was a more relevant face he competed with Karador who was prefered because of color identity, especially since the prefered combo of the time was Boonweaver Giant. K’rrik has definately added power to the deck, but he is still not cEDH. He is a really strong casual commander with a much better way to close the game with C19′s release, so he is worth giving a try.

[bacejelerenvorthos]

Chainer, Nightmare Adept

“A fiercely loyal member of the Cabal, the young Chainer learned to fight and wield his dementia magic in the Cabal fighting pits. With the power to harness dreamscape visions and give them solid form in the real world, Chainer can unleash a horde of nightmare creatures against his opponents.”

Art by Steve Prescott