You know what I noticed recently? Everyone needs a king. Wait, scratch that, wrong choice of words: everything needs a king. Think about it for a second: countries have kings (sometimes called the President), rock & roll has Elvis, the jungle has the lion, fairytales have Old King Cole, mattresses have a King size, and menus have Chicken à la King. 

So why do I bring this up? Well, Magic also has a king like no other. A SPECIAL king... a DARK king... a SCARECROW king, and his name is Reaper. That's right boys and girls, you've guessed it, this article is all about that special Scarecrow sovereign, the one you all know and revere: the Reaper King. This new king is a wonderful card. He has a big body, a crazy casting cost, a powerful ability, and is extremely hard to keep in play (being an artifact, and thus vulnerable to Disenchant and friends). That’s why this article is all about him. That’s right folks, playtesting is over, and the deck is finally ready... But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the beginning, to the fateful day when my fascination with Scarecrows began: Shadowmoor.

Let there be Shadowmoor booster packs.

I distinctly remember opening my first pack of Shadowmoor. I was excited as hell, desperately hoping for one of the rare hybrid Spirit Avatars. I was specifically pining for a Ghastlord of Fugue, which would fit perfectly into my Blue-Black discard deck. I remember saying a silent prayer, trying to use my mind powers to influence the cards in the pack. I knew full well that it was impossible, that the cards were already in there and weren’t going to change, but I tried nonetheless. Finally, when I couldn’t resist anymore, I ripped open the booster, quickly flipped through the commons, noticed a Spectral Procession and a Corrupt in my uncommons, and at the end unveiled an insane rare in the form of… Painter’s Servant!?

My mind went blank for a couple of seconds as I pondered the possibilities. I finally concluded that Painters’s Servant was too easy of a card to build around, and thus beneath my skills. However, I couldn’t help but notice that it was a Scarecrow. Oh well, one booster down, 35 more to go. What? You mean I didn’t mention that I had just opened the first pack of my Shadowmoor booster box? Oops!

The King Has Entered the Building

I currently own a ridiculous amount of magic cards. Sometime in August I decided to sort them all alphabetically, by color, and by rarity. It helps me keep track of what I own, and also helps me find cards I need while deckbuilding. This is important to note because as I opened more and more Shadowmoor boosters, my artifact pile got steadily bigger, and was mostly composed of a new and odd creature type dubbed “Scarecrow”. Around my 17th pack, just as I began to wonder if there was a Scarecrow Lord, it happened: I pulled a Reaper King from a booster, and he was Glorious. Angels sang his many praises, and I basked in his glory. Now THAT was a Scarecrow.

Let’s get started

So, let’s have a look at the Reaper King, shall we?

First of all, his mana cost ranges from 5 (if you have one mana of each color) to 10 (if you have no colors). For every color of mana you have, he costs one less than ten. For instance, if you have Green and Red mana, the Reaper King will cost you 10-2=8 mana. Obviously, my first impulse was to build a five color domain deck, using my good old Collective Restraints (ask me about my first domain deck sometime), but I quickly dropped that idea in favor of artifact lands and multi-lands. (The reason for this was pretty simple: with artifact lands I can always play Glimmervoid, and I can Fabricate for the lands I'm missing, whereas domain would require basic lands and mana acceleration spells; but I digress, back to the Reaper King).

Second, his static ability pumps other Scarecrow creatures. This means that he would be optimally useful in a Scarecrow deck.

Third, his triggered ability happens when Scarecrow permanents come into play under my control. This is important because it means I don’t have to play them, they can destroy permanents by simply coming into play! For the new deckbuilder, this is not important, but for seasoned veterans, it’s the difference between having to play lots of Scarecrows from one’s hand and being able to reanimate a whole bunch of Scarecrows at once using Patriarch's Bidding.

Fourth, he’s a 6/6 creature. That’s pretty beefy.

Finally, he’s a 5-color creature regardless of how you play him, and he’s an artifact. The pros involve being protected from all the Terror effects which involve nonblack/nonartifact creatures, and being very cool. The cons involve not being able to target anything with protection from any color (that’s right, when you play a colorless Scarecrow, Reaper King is still targeting the permanent to be destroyed), and also being vulnerable to Disenchant and friends.
Ok, enough chit-chat. Deckbuilding time.

The First One

The original Reaper King deck I built looked something like this:

As you can see, it was a hodge-podge of random scarecrows, and it was terrible. It was also built around the time of Shadowmoor, so it was missing a lot of the good stuff that I included in later builds.
The main problem was that it was built without synergy: I simply went through the scarecrows I had, checked the mana curve, and fit them in. I included Taurean Mauler for power, and Mothdust Changeling to fill up the one mana slot. The Vedalken Engineers were meant to power out my scarecrows a little faster, Scrapbasket helped "turn on" the Wingrattle and Watchwing Scarecrows, and the Fabricates helped me fetch the Reaper King. The problem is cards that have no synergy don’t work well together, and so I lost game after game after game. I would often end up with a Wingrattle or Watchwing and no blue creature or Scrapbasket, making both of my guys overcosted and useless. The only card that was ever a threat was Taurean Mauler, and my opponents always saved their removal spells for him, so I never got to use him. By the end, I had lost so much that I decided that there just weren’t enough good Scarecrows to make a decent deck, so I opted to put the King on hold until Eventide, hoping that it would have better Scarecrows.

Enter the Eventide

So Eventide came out a few months later, and brought with it six Scarecrows. Five of them were INSANELY BAD, but the sixth more than made up for them. I’m talking, of course, about the magnificent Scarecrone.

Scarecrone is a card that adds two things to any Scarecrow deck: card-drawing and reanimation. It made me rethink the direction that my deck was taking. Up until this point, I had thought about obtaining five colors to be able to play the Reaper King for cheap, but it didn’t work out so well. By including Scarecrone in the deck, I also had the option to reanimate the King. The catch was that Scarecrone can only reanimate artifact creatures, so I removed the Taurean Maulers and Vedalken Engineers, and replaced my lost firepower with Lurebound Scarecrow. To keep him alive, I added my three Painter’s Servants, and kept in two Mothdust Changelings. Finally, to ensure that I would be able to reanimate a Reaper King, I included a playset of Thirst For Knowledge, which allowed me to both find and discard the King. I rustled up a new deck, and came up with the following:

This time around, the deck was not bad. I was no longer getting massacred, and even won a few games here and there. If everything went according to plan, then games would look something like this:

Turn 1: Land, Heap Doll.
Turn 2: Land, Painter's Servant.
Turn 3: Thirst for Knowledge, discard a Reaper King.
Turn 4: Scarecrone, chump block with Heap Doll or Painter's Servant and sac him to draw a card.
Turn 5: Use the Scarecrone's ability to reanimate the Reaper King.
Turn 6: Start dropping Scarecrows and blowing up my opponent's things.

Not bad hey? The problem was, if I didn’t get the Reaper King and/or Thirst for Knowledge, I was toast. My deck had become a one trick pony combo deck, except that it didn’t win when the combo went off, it just put a Reaper King into play, and even with him in play, there was no guarantee that I'd have enough Scarecrows to make him worthwhile or enough mana to play them if I did have enough. Completely stumped, I almost gave up. I decided to play one last game with Maggot, which I lost miserably.

“Hey man, don’t be sad”, said Maggot. “Your deck just sucks.”

“I know”, said I. “I just really wish it didn’t."

"Me too man. You've put so much effort into the deck that I really want you to do good as well."

"Thanks Maggot", I replied. "It's just that I need some way to play the Reaper King when I don’t get the reanimation combo out.”

“Oh. Do you want my Urza’s Incubators then?”

And just like that, I was sucked right back in! OF COURSE I WANTED HIS URZA’S INCUBATORS! That would solve my main problem right there! Without further ado, I took Maggot’s incubators and rebuilt the deck. I also addressed the problem of not having a Reaper King to reanimate by adding in the next most destructive Scarecrow I could find: Grim Poppet. The final tweak was to change the lands a little, and add Tolaria West, which would allow me to fetch Crystal Quarry as well as the latest new addition, Academy Ruins.

Ah, this version was a lot of fun. It was consistent, curved well and played well. I would often get a turn three Urza’s Incubator, follow by a turn four Scarecone and Thirst for Knowledge, discarding the Reaper King or Grim Poppet. Turn five I would reanimate the King, and then proceed to play a silly amount of FREE 1 and 2 mana Scarecrows thanks to the incubator, thus destroying most of my opponent's creatures, as well as some of his/her artifacts, enchantments and lands. When I would run out of Scarecrows but still had some mana open, I would sacrifice the smaller ones to Scarecrone, draw cards, and play more free Scarecrows.

Alternatively, if I didn't draw the King, I would reanimate the Poppet, and still manage to kill a large amount of my opponent's creatures. The key was to reanimate the Poppet on my opponent's turn, kill his creatures, then attack on my turn. If my opponent played more creatures, I would pay 1, sacrifice the Poppet using Scarecrone's ability to draw a card, then pay 4 and reanimate him to start the loop all over again. Cool eh?

Nevertheless, being the perfectionist that I am, I decided that the deck was still not quite complete. Occasionally, I would end up with a hand that didn’t have the Scarecrone in it, and when that happened I couldn’t reanimate anything. Obviously, this is where the Urza’s Incubators came in, as they let me play the Reaper King for cheap without having to reanimate, but more often than not that still took a little bit too long. Thus I began to look through the Gatherer cardlist for more spells that could reanimate creatures. Funnily enough, by mistakenly searching for the phrase “Return target artifact card from your graveyard to play” instead of “return target CREATURE card”, I stumbled upon Argivian Restoration, a little known common from Weatherlight that reanimates artifact cards. To ensure I would have enough ways to discard the Reaper King when I drew him, I also added two Careful Study. Finally, I hate not having multiple ways to go about getting a card into play so, I fixed the mana base by adding the Urza's lands. I figured with all my card drawing and Tolaria West, I would definitely be able to assemble the Urzatron every game. That, coupled with the Incubators, would ensure the timely arrival of the Reaper King.

Ah, pure bliss. This is the final version of the deck, and let me tell you, it's magnificent! Small creatures, big creatures, reanimation, lots of mana, card-drawing: this deck does it all. Against slow decks, I get my stuff out and blow up their permanents with the King. Against fast decks, I stall until I can reanimate something big. As an additional bonus, I left Scuttlemutt in there to give me extra mana, but also to make the Reaper King the color of my choice, thereby allowing him to destroy permanents with protection from certain colors.

And that concludes this article. I hope you enjoyed the deck progression, and are perhaps inspired to make your own Reaper King deck. With the advent of Conflux and plenty of new 3, 4, and 5-colored cards, mana bases are going to get very exciting again, and I'm sure you'll be able to make room for a little old Scarecrow King. Who knows, maybe you'll end up building your own 5-color domain Reaper King deck. If you do, I suggest Collective Restraint. It almost worked for me.

That's all folks, have fun Reaping! After all, if the King's ok with it, it's gotta be good!

~Potatobrain~

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