Hello awesome folks and happiest of days to you and yours! Today I want to take another looksee at a recently released legendary dork from Jumpstart (2022) and as you can tell from the title, this is an Orzhov colored dork with both lifegain and reanimation things.

This Vampire Angel (note both tribes for things like Kaalia) has flying and deathtouch and lifelink, that's nasty. When you gain life, he gets indestructible for the turn. Then at the end of your turn, you can Zombify a dork from your graveyard to the battlefield where its mana value is less than or equal to your life gained this turn, and you have to spend two to do it and it can be White, hence the Orzhov color identity. Flying and deathtouch are nasty powerful together on blocking. You'll love them loads together. We need enough life gain to bring back the stuff and enough creatures to make that matter. Ready?

Life Gain is Key

Let's start with win cons tied to life gain with these two Black dorks. The Vampire is a 1/2 with a trigger in your upkeep. Deal damage to your foes, and then gain that much yourself, so in a four-player game that's a free 3 life each turn. That's pretty strong, and it's a win-con too. The Zombie is a six-drop 2/7 with extort that gives your team extort. This lets you pay one hybrid mana each time you cast anything to force your foes to lose a life each and you gain it, so again that's 3 life each activation and you can get a few triggers each cast and really dominate the board and opposing life totals quickly with it.

Blind Obedience is a two drop white enchantment with extort that also gives you that sweet triggers. Plus, you can slow your foes down as their dorks and artifacts arrive tapped. I also am running extort master mana-maker Crypt Ghast. I am also running the recursive Treasury Thrull that wants to swing to bring things back and adds to both life gaining and recursion. Then I have the classic multiplayer sorcery X spell Exsanguinate. This forces each foe to lose X life and you gain all life lost, so again, in a four-player game where you put a modest 5 into this, that's 15 life gained. Pretty strong at my kitchen table.

Key Creatures to Bring Back

Now let's turn to creautres to bring back. Scion of Darkness used to be heavily played in multiplayer and casual, and I like it here. 8 mana, trample, a smaller 6/6 body, cycling three, and when it deals combat damage to a player you recur a dork to your control from their graveyard, which is likely with the trample. The idea here is to cycle it early for a card, and then reanimate it in a turn you gained at least 8 life. It also has a lot of powerful things happening.

Serra Ascendant is a Commander classic. On turn one you can drop this lifelink, flying, 6/6 beater and as long as you have 30 life, you can keep up the pressure. You only need to gain one life to bring it back. And with the lifelink beater you can gain 6 life a turn from attacking and keep at 30 easily.

Check out this Standard legal mono-White duo. The Seraph can be dropped 3rd turn as a 3/3 or sixth turn as a 5/4. It has flying. On your combat step you can give any dork (including itself), lifelink, flying, or vigilance. It's here to give vigilance to your leader with its flying and deathtouch to swing and get unblocked and then stay back for more blocking. You can give lifelink to itself or a beater like the Scion lifelink for the turn as well.

The Paragon is four drop 3/4 with flying. Once in your turn you can play a land from your graveyard (which has added synergy you'll see later) or cast a 3 cost or less permanent spell, which is nice recursion. Then when the card you played dies, it's exiled and you gain 2 life, for triggering purposes. It's very easy to bring back, and plays into this machine with life gaining recursion.

Synergies and Win Conditions

The Book is a three-drop artifact that costs triple White which is a bit rough, but has two abilities. At your end step, if you gained at least three life, make a 3/3 Angel token with flying. That's just one extort trigger or Creeping trigger. That's strong creature making over time for free just for doing what you are doing. Then you can tap it and exile the Book to put an enlightenment counter on an Angel and you cannot lose while it's on the battlefield. With an Angel in the Command Zone that's pretty likely.

The Cookbook is a one-drop, nothing to tap and use and discard to make a Food token. The idea here is to discard for recursion in your second main after you know how much life you gained, and then crack the Food for life on a future turn, or this one if you need the life now. Also, three life from a cracked Food is enough to trigger The Book. You can sacrifice this for four mana and then Raise Dead any creature from your graveyard to your hand, another incidental recursion option here.

Now let's check out a hidden synergy: cycling and discard. I have a few discard effects in here like the Cookbook above that will put creatures into your graveyard for the recursion. Why not turn that into a discard matters archetype? We also have other cycling cards I added to the deck to make this pair work, like cycling lands that you can recur with the Paragon. The Demon is an on-curve 5-cost, 5/4 flyer that turns discards or cycles into -1/-1 counters onto every opposing dork, so that'll blow through your opponent's stuff very quickly.

The Zombie is also a five-drop, this time a 4/4 with three discard triggers based on what you discarded for your effect. A creature will make you a 2/2 dork, a land will give you two mana and the other stuff will draw a card, which is powerful card flow over time and discarding to the Cookbook and drawing a card and making a Food seems pretty cool. This turns this into a very different Rodolf brew.

Now let's turn to two discard matters things that will trigger Rodolf: Feast of Sanity and Faith of the Devoted. The Feast is a four-drop uncommon enchantment. When you discard you can Ping any target for a damage and gain a life, nothing else needed. Free life gain when you are already doing your things is nice here. The Faith is a three-drop enchantment that requires a mana when you discard, but will drain 2 life from all of your foes, so it's a win con and life gain in one place. It's a nice pair to supplement your life gain in other places.

Check out this pair of mono-White synergies. The Uncommon is a two drop enchantment that discards any card from your hand repeatably for W each time to gain three life. Just one use of this will trigger The Book of Exalted Deeds. It also adds a gain life discard to your discard matters things. This is arguably better than The Cookbook since it's repeatable and doesn't take mana to crack the Food, but you cannot store it for later use. The rare is a five drop Human Warrior 3/4 with both flying and lifelink so you can gain three life with it's attacks. It's also legendary for the Command Zone. Then in your end step this has the same trigger as Rodolf, so it acts as a backup for that since you have already invested in that infrastructure, in case that is answered too many times for Command Tax.

Let's finish my synergy section with Vito and his Unicorn. Three mana for a smaller 1/3 when you gain life, a targeted foe loses that, this is the only one of that oeuvre in this deck. So, it's a win-con in your life gain deck. Then you can spend 5 mana to give your entire team lifelink. That's pretty strong since you can gain a ton of life from your stuff. The Unicorn is a three-drop on curve 3/3 with lifelink. It cycles for two, and then puts a lifelink counter on a dork you control, so you can gain life as a surprise after your attack is unblocked. It's also cycling for bringing it back as a three-drop, will trigger your discards, and more.

Answers and Card Flow

Now let's turn to answers like removal. This color combo is known far and wide as having great removal ever since the printing of Vindicate. But I need removal in my creatures or spells that gain life so I can reanimate them, so we are running some of these. The Presence is a four-drop 3/3 with a Swamp landfall ability that can draw you a card and lose a life or Shock something for two and then gain two life, so it's removal of smaller things or planeswalkers with lower loyalty or just aimed at opponents for 2 life gained on damage done. I am running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to make that more reliable. The Deathmark is a five-drop 5/3 with flash and on arrival to the battlefield will Murder any target and mill you of three cards to give you more options for recursion. A flashing dork with a 5/3 body that can also get brought back for 5 life gained to remove something else? Seems pretty strong from where I am sitting. It can easily be a 2 for 1 when attacked, by killing one attacker and trading with another. Plus a mill too.

Loran of the Third Path is a three-drop 2/1 with vigilance and on arrival to the battlefield will Disenchant. Nice removal on a stick, and then she can tap and draw one and your foe draws one too, and her vigilance will let her attack and then draw later. Bake Into a Pie is a four-cost Murder that will make you a Food for the extra mana, which you can sacrifice for life anytime for a nice boosted life gain.

Now let's turn to key card flow. With a six-drop Commander, the Study is obvious since you can draw 6 and lose 6 life in one spell, and it's instant speed. And you can do this no matter where Rodolf is. The Elixir is a four-drop artifact with a triggered ability in your end step. If your life total is 41 or more, draw a card. That's free, nothing else needs to be spent. If you don't, gain 2 life, again, free. Nice card flow fun times commence.

Check out this pair of card drawing fun times. The first card is a three-cost sorcery that mills two, draws two, and loses two life, so it's your standard Sign in Blood effect for this color, with the milling added, so you can mill while drawing stuff. I also tossed in Bitter Revelation that also mills from your library while drawing. The second card is a two-drop enchantment that will draw you a card each time you gain life for a pair of mana. You can also spend four mana to make a 1/1 Soldier with lifelink to chump block or gain life for its trigger. It's very strong here.

Glass-Cast Heart is a three-cost artifact with three abilities. Whenever one of your Vampires attacks someone, make a Blood token. This only triggers once per attack, and then you have three random Vampires in here plus one in the Command Zone, so that's likely. Discard and draw, nice graveyard filling, discard triggering, and drawing. Then you can tap this with a Black and lose a life to make a 1/1 Vampire with lifelink that will trigger your life gain, and the Heart as well. We'll ignore the other ability. What are you going to do if you want to recur a creature for a trigger but you control it? Sacrifice it and recur it again! Or you can just attack, then recur and untap it. Spend two mana to the Rites, draw a card, sacrifice a dork and gain a life and trigger your things.

Ramp, Rocks, Lands

Check out this pair. Since I have a six-drop Commander, I am running mana rocks like this Dynamo that tap for multiple mana to get it down reliably. I also have Gilded Lotus, Stonespeaker Crystal and Sol Ring doing multiple mana in one rock. Since I can bring back one dork a turn with life, enter the Hart. This 3-drop 2/2 Elk will sacrifice for three to ramp out two basics from your library to the battlefield tapped. You can do this on your main phase. Then gain just three life from a Food or your many other triggers, recur this for two mana and have it for next turn. I also am running the obvious Solemn Simulacrum.

Sunblade Samurai is an on-curve 4/4 with vigilance. You can channel it for 2 mana, search up a basic Plains, put it into your hand, and then gain two life. Two life at instant speed while ramping is great value here and then you can bring it back with recursion, trigger your discard stuff, and more. I also am running every Plainscycler and Swampcycler since those will get dual lands and put key dorks into your graveyard. The Necron Plasmancer is a four-drop 3/3 flyer, on curve. When it arrives at the battlefield, you can search out a basic Swamp, put it into your hand and shuffle. Nice combo here.

We'll finish with 6 lands. The Vault was the first nonbasic land I tossed in since it taps with four mana to give your team deathtouch and lifelink at instant speed. Having a mass lifelink giver in the lands is really hard to answer, but giving everything deathtouch too can really force your foes to play keep away as long as this and the mana are ready to go. This is also very strong with my ETB Dork base that have smaller bodies like Ravenous Chupacabra or Karmic Guide. The Fountain enters untapped, taps for colorless, and ETBs with two life, so free life gain in the land zone. I am also running every other life gaining land like Seraph Sanctuary.

These two lands tap for Black. The former arrives untapped but is here for channel to discard, mill three, and then Raise Dead a dork or planeswalker to your hand from your graveyard, and you can play it from your graveyard with the Serra card we looked at earlier. Milling is very strong here, and then it adds to your recursion options in the deck. The later arrives tapped, then can be tapped with five mana, three Black, and self-exiles and then you are milled of four cards and then you Zombify a dork from your graveyard to the battlefield, more recursion in your land base that also mills things into your graveyard for latter recursion from your Commander.

Geier Reach Sanitarium is a key card draw and discard trigger here. You tap this colorless land with two to have everyone draw and discard, so folks will like it a lot. It's better than your Blood tokens since you draw first. It discards for recursion, and it triggers your Archfiend of Ifnir cards. It's very strong here, and High Market is, too. This colorless land taps to sacrifice any dork and then gain a life. Another life gain, another sacrifice to bring back a key dork for another go around the bin or another trigger. I also tossed in Miren, the Moaning Well. Cool card alert!

Ready for the decklist proper?

Rodolf Reanimator | Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Rodolf Duskbringer

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Angel of the Ruins
• 1 Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1 Bone Miser
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Celestine, the Living Saint
• 1 Creeping Bloodsucker
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Deep Gnome Terramancer
• 1 Dread Presence
• 1 Eternal Dragon
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Loran of the Third Path
• 1 Necron Deathmark
• 1 Nirkana Revenant
• 1 Plasmancer
• 1 Pontiff of Blight
• 1 Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1 Ruthless Sniper
• 1 Scion of Darkness
• 1 Serra Ascendant
• 1 Serra Paragon
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Splendor Mare
• 1 Steel Seraph
• 1 Sunblade Samurai
• 1 Timeless Dragon
• 1 Treasury Thrull
• 1 Twisted Abomination
• 1 Valkyrie Harbinger
• 1 Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose

• Instants (3)
• 1 Bake into a Pie
• 1 Stinging Study
• 1 Teferi's Protection

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Ancient Craving
• 1 Atrocious Experiment
• 1 Bitter Revelation
• 1 Exsanguinate
• 1 Syphon Mind
• 1 Vindicate

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Blind Obedience
• 1 Dawn of Hope
• 1 Dying to Serve
• 1 Faith of the Devoted
• 1 Feast of Sanity
• 1 Peace of Mind
• 1 Vampiric Rites

• Artifacts (12)
• 1 Cosmos Elixir
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Glass-Cast Heart
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Stonespeaker Crystal
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 The Book of Exalted Deeds
• 1 The Underworld Cookbook
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Well of Lost Dreams

• Lands (39)
• 5 Plains
• 6 Swamp
• 1 Ash Barrens
• 1 Barren Moor
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Desert of the Glorified
• 1 Desert of the True
• 1 Drifting Meadow
• 1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 High Market
• 1 Kabira Crossroads
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Polluted Mire
• 1 Radiant Fountain
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Scoured Barrens
• 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1 Secluded Steppe
• 1 Seraph Sanctuary
• 1 Shambling Vent
• 1 Snowfield Sinkhole
• 1 Sunlit Marsh
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1 Tomb Fortress
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Vault of the Archangel
• 1 Witch's Clinic

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I really wanted to fit in Void Beckoner but ran out of room. Giving deathtouch at instant speed while triggering your discards and giving you a recursive 8/8 body seems like it works well here. Distinguished Conjurer from the same set? My last pull was Liliana's Shade, a ramper and a win con, which I loved but cut for Vampiric Rites.

And there we go!