Sultai Arisen Upgrade Guide: 19 Easy Changes You Can Make

Last updated on March 29, 2025

Kotis, the Fangkeeper | Illustration by Evyn Fong

Sultai () graveyard stuff. Going back to Tarkir, of course we’re revisiting this iconic, if unfocused archetype in a Commander precon. Precons usually have a few focuses smashed together anyway, and as you might expect with Sultai, there’s even more chaos than usual!

Let’s sort out the Sultai Arisen Commander deck and get at the roots of what this deck should be doing!

Magic: The Gathering Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander Deck - Sultai Arisen

• FIGHT DRAGONS WITH DRAGONS—Return to Tarkir for an epic battle between dragons and clans; discover which clan fits your playstyle with distinct three-color gameplay, and add draconic power to your collection
• GROW BACK FROM BEYOND—Ally with the Sultai to fill your graveyard and return with zombie druids with this Black-Green-Blue Commander deck
• 2 FOIL BORDERLESS COMMANDERS—Command your army with the Mythic Spirit Dragon, Teval, or Kotis, leader of the Sultai clan; every Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander Deck includes 2 Traditional Foil Legendary Creature cards featuring gorgeous Borderless art
• BATTLE ALONGSIDE YOUR CLAN—Adept at transforming challenge into opportunity, the Sultai cultivate sprawling land into farms and cities. Not even death can stop them, as their powerful necromancers raise the honored dead to continue leading and serving.
• INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—Each deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering

$63.22

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Sultai Arisen Deck Overview

Will of the Sultai | Illustration by Cristi Balanescu

This deck is trying to self mill/fill the graveyard, recur threats, gain additional value from those recursions, and buff up the commander, Kotis, Sibsig Champion, along the way. Fine so far.

But a deeper dive into the decklist shows that this deck also wants to recur lands from the graveyard, get landfall triggers, put spells into the graveyard and recur them for value, make tokens, and sometimes Raise Dead creatures to hand.

To have any chance of making progress before someone at the table drops a Rest in Peace, you need focus!

Upgrade Plan

I’m going all in on returning creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield. It’s what the commander wants to do, and it provides a nice engine when you don’t have your commander out. If you’ve run into an Insidious Roots deck on the Arena Standard ladder, you kind of know what this does.

This build focuses on populating the deck with some basic synergies, but there are more advanced builds you can explore which give other directions to the deck. You can creep into the Agatha's Soul Cauldron space, or even brew a more general self-mill deck with spells payoffs like Murktide Regent. There’s lots to try, but we’re keeping it simple!

Muldrotha, the Gravetide

Suggested Cut: Hedron Crab

I mean, of course, right? Muldrotha, the Gravetide is a beautiful, horrible, exploitable engine for graveyard recursion. Unlike Kheru Lich Lord, which I’m not including, it doesn’t require extra mana to start this engine, and it doesn’t exile the cards so you can keep on keepin’ on.

I don’t think Hedron Crab adds a lot for this deck. Early mill, okay, but you hate topdecking this later. Hate it!

Syr Konrad, the Grim

Suggested Cut: Skull Prophet

Christopher Lee is a great payoff for self-mill decks, but Syr Konrad, the Grim gives you a nice group ping when you recur a creature from your ‘yard. As Bill Murray’s Frank Cross says in Scrooged, “you get two chances to rough ‘em up.”

Tap to mill is too slow, so no on Skull Prophet.

Havengul Lich

Suggested Cut: Springbloom Druid

I really want to play Zul Ashur, Lich Lord, but the precon doesn’t have quite enough zombies. Zul Ashir plus more zombies and stuff like Gisa and Geralf is a theme to build around if you want to pull in green and make Kotis into a zombie commander. But a more flexible option is a classic: Havengul Lich. You can yoink other people’s things while you’re at it, as well!

I don’t understand playing Springbloom Druid at all in this deck.

The Master, Transcendent

Suggested Cut: Disciple of Bolas

The Master, Transcendent a wicked card in its own space, milling others and taking their stuff. But as I play it in its original home with The Wise Mothman, it almost always serves to reanimate my own self milled stuff, and that’s what The Master, Transcendent is doing here.

I don’t see the right weird exploit things going on to make Disciple of Bolas work for this deck. There aren’t enough synergies.

Araumi of the Dead Tide

Suggested Cut: Consuming Aberration

There’s only so much you can afford to eat in your graveyard for recursion, especially because your commander is doing it, as well. But I see cards like Araumi of the Dead Tide as alternative commanders. With enough cards like this, you can let Kotis go to the graveyard sometimes to get it back into play without racking up mega commander tax. Other cards’ encore abilities are too expensive to bother with for this deck, except perhaps for Rakshasa Debaser, so Araumi giving cheap encore is really nice.

Wrong deck for Consuming Aberration.

Chalk Outline

Suggested Cut: Lord of Extinction.

Making hefty tokens as things leave the graveyard is really, really good for you! Let’s go, Chalk Outline, a Limited powerhouse back for another round!

As a longtime Lhurgoyf fan, I can tell you: Don’t play Lord of Extinction

Desecrated Tomb

Suggested Cut: Ob Nixilis, the Fallen

Like Chalk Outline, Desecrated Tomb is another hope at a wincon by allowing you to flood the board with tokens. Defiled Crypt // Cadaver Lab is also good, but it’s nerfed, so a card like the Tomb that isn’t gated is money.

Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, keep falling, and find another graveyard deck!

Insidious Roots

Suggested Cut: Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar

This deck doesn’t have a ton of plant synergies, but Insidious Roots is a self-contained powerhouse that can take over 60-card games. I think there’s enough redundancy in this deck to make it pop in EDH.

Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar is an awesome card, but I don’t understand why it’s here as a 6-drop.

Skeleton Crew

Suggested Cut: Necropolis Fiend

Second verse, same as the first! Skeleton Crew nets you tokens and can reassemble itself to kickstart other engines.

Necropolis Fiend is fun, but it kind of anti-synergizes with its particular brand of delving.

Tormod, the Desecrator

Suggested Cut: Noxious Gearhulk

Tormod, the Desecrator is less good than Skeleton Crew, but I’m looking to pack in redundancies. If that means tapped tokens, so be it.

Noxious Gearhulk is fine enough, but I can’t see getting this to do more than Murder once or twice in this deck, and it's a bit too clunky at doing that.

Whip of Erebos

Suggested Cut: Forbidden Alchemy

I’ve avoided putting in too many cards that exile the creatures that you recur lest you eat your resources, but Whip of Erebos is, for my money, the best card that exiles. The lifelink is useful, as is the ability to use this repeatedly. There are other cards in this space, but I think that’s the wrong road. Be careful!

Forbidden Alchemy is too cute and too expensive, and you have enough mill.

Journey to Eternity / Atzal, Cave of Eternity

Suggested Cut: Harrow

A pet card of mine, you can usually find a time to drop Journey to Eternity without a blowout if you’re patient. After that, it’s so easy to flip it into the land and you have a lovely engine on Atzal, Cave of Eternity, which is hard to destroy.

Harrow is okay, but you have other ramp.

Advanced Stitchwing

Suggested Cut: Crawling Sensation

This card is a bit pricy, but it does both things I want it to do. And if you can just mill Advanced Stitchwing from the start, it really gets a lot better. Fortunately, this deck can do that.

Crawling Sensation looks like it will be fine. You’ll never want to draw this card, I guarantee. You need to be faster, and you have other mill.

Bloodsoaked Champion

Suggested Cut: Wonder

Same thing here. Bloodsoaked Champion is easier to trigger in a deck with a lot of tokens, as you can always turn something sideways to enable raid.

You aren’t going to win the game with tokens and Wonder in the ‘yard. Drop a comment is you ever do that in this deck!

Cult Conscript

Suggested Cut: Timeless Witness

Perhaps the easiest of all these cards? Your tokens make it even easier to use Cult Conscript‘s recursion ability.

Timeless Witness is cool, but eternalize doesn’t hit all your triggers, and you have more efficient recursion.

Marang River Prowler

Suggested Cut: Diviner of Mist

A little more expensive, but Marang River Prowler can do this all day in a Sultai deck!

Diviner of Mist slaps, but not in this deck. Focus on creature recursion and plop this into an Izzet () something or other!

Ebondeath, Dracolich

Suggested Cut: Dauthi Voidwalker

Ebondeath, Dracolich is a later game card, but it’s a nice body, and it’s easy to get back out in a deck like this.

Dauthi Voidwalker is my hot take, because that card is often gas. But I think you’ll want this for a different, more controlling deck and should lean into the plan.

Altar of Bhaal

Suggested Cut: Avenger of Zendikar

This just puts a bow on it. You have enough token makers here to just feed bodies into Altar of Bhaal to return the tools you need. Rinse. Repeat.

Avenger of Zendikar needs to find another home. There isn’t enough landfall in the deck for this to matter when it drops on turn 5.

Agadeem’s Awakening / Agadeem, the Undercrypt

Suggested Cut: Forest

Talk about powerful! In a deck like this one, Agadeem's Awakening / Agadeem, the Undercrypt can dump a ton of value onto the table and net you a raft of triggers. The card is expensive for a reason. You also need to use this bit as a reminder to up the rest of your tough mana base with better duals and tri-lands!

The Final Deck and New Cards

And with that, here’s the final completed deck, and a separate shopping list with just my upgrades. If you want to snag either the completed deck for yourself or the cards I recommend, you can use the shopping cart icon in either decklist.

Commanding Conclusion

Steward of the Harvest | Illustration by Marie Magny

This deck seems like a tasty morsel of graveyard fun. But I’m a sucker for these decks; I think they’re thematic and cool. The deck still lacks a decent counterspell suite to stop big graveyard hate, but I’d say play it a bit before you contort this into a more controlling version to deal with the table. Just tell ‘em it’s a shiny new deck and you’d love to play it and not have everyone just Rest in Peace on turn 2 if they can choose something else to play. Because they like you.

Or used to.

Would you upgrade your Sultai Arisen deck in the same way I do, or are you taking a different route? Either way, have fun and let us know how it goes in the comments or on Discord!

Until next time, stay safe!

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