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Varina, Lich Queen

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Varina, Lich Queen

At a glance

  • Commander: Varina, Lich Queen
  • Colors: Esper
  • Archetype: Dimir/Esper zombie self-mill reanimator grind
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

The real card (printed oracle text)

Whenever you attack with one or more Zombies, draw that many cards, then discard that many cards. You gain that much life. , Exile two cards from your graveyard: Create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

No discrepancy with the assignment — the scout’s paraphrase is accurate. Two engines on one body: (1) a combat-triggered loot-and-lifegain that scales with the number of Zombies attacking, and (2) a graveyard-fueled token factory that turns dead cards into a recurring Zombie army. commander_oracle_ok = true.

Gameplan

This is a grind deck, not a draw-go control shell. The plan:

  1. Flood the board with cheap/free Zombie tokens (decayed tokens, amass Armies, “make two 2/2s” sorceries). Even chumpy bodies matter because Varina cares about the count of attacking Zombies, not their quality.
  2. Attack with the swarm — each Varina trigger loots N deep (draw N, discard N) and gains N life. That dumps reanimation targets and Zombies into the graveyard while keeping the hand full and the life total out of burn range.
  3. Recur everything. Self-mill creatures stock the yard; white/black reanimation (Breath of Life, Resurrection, Rise Again, Late to Dinner) returns the milled bombs; cheap “return to hand” spells (Aid the Fallen, Disentomb, Gravedigger) buy back the best dorks; unearth Zombies (Dregscape Zombie, Viscera Dragger, Grixis Slavedriver) come back for free.
  4. Win by inevitability — Varina’s , exile two: make a 2/2` activation never runs dry as long as the graveyard refills, so the deck out-grinds depleted opponents with an evasive recurring Zombie squad plus the token engine. Edicts keep opposing blockers thin so a small flying/menace squad keeps connecting.

Key synergy lines

  • Token + Varina loot: Drop Diregraf Horde / Gisa’s Bidding / Moan of the Unhallowed, swing with 3–4 Zombies, loot 3–4 deep and gain 3–4. The discarded cards are fuel, not a cost — pitch reanimation targets on purpose.
  • Mill → reanimate: Armored Skaab (mill 4), Crow of Dark Tidings, Corpse Churn, Another Chance bury fat creatures; Rise Again / Resurrection / Breath of Life put them straight onto the battlefield.
  • Edicts dodge protection: Fleshbag Marauder and Demon’s Disciple are recurrable table-wide sac effects (each player sacrifices) — reanimate them to repeatedly strip hexproof/indestructible commanders. They double as your “board control” since true wraths don’t exist at common in WUB.
  • Sac fodder is free value: decayed tokens and chump Zombies feed Bone Splinters, Spark Harvest, Costly Plunder, Deadly Dispute, Eviscerator’s Insight — the deck is happy when its creatures die.
  • Varina’s token sink as a graveyard valve: late game, every two junk cards in the yard becomes a 2/2 attacker that grows the next loot trigger.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 37. 18 nonbasic fixing lands + 19 basics (10 Swamp / 5 Island / 4 Plains, black-weighted).
  • Ramp / mana fixing rocks — 9. Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Commander’s Sphere, Mind Stone, Manalith, Prismatic Lens, Chromatic Star, Wayfarer’s Bauble, Wanderer’s Twig.
  • Card advantage — 10. Sign in Blood, Read the Bones, Deduce, Corpse Churn, Another Chance, Skywarp Skaab, Costly Plunder, Deadly Dispute, Eviscerator’s Insight, Gravedigger (plus the whole self-mill suite as virtual card selection and Varina herself as a repeatable looter).
  • Spot removal / interaction — 9. Cruel Edict, Diabolic Edict, Geth’s Verdict, Devour Flesh, Bone Splinters, Spark Harvest, Feed the Swarm, Reave Soul, Doom Blade.
  • Mass / pseudo-wipe (table-wide edicts) — 2. Fleshbag Marauder, Demon’s Disciple (each player sacrifices a creature; both recurrable).
  • Payoffs / enablers — the rest. Self-mill Zombies (Mire Triton, Wailing Ghoul, Screeching Skaab, Armored Skaab, Crow of Dark Tidings, Deathcap Marionette, Shriekhorn, Cathartic Adept), reanimation (Breath of Life, Late to Dinner, Resurrection, Rise Again, Aid the Fallen, Disentomb), recursion/unearth Zombies (Dregscape Zombie, Viscera Dragger, Grixis Slavedriver, Twisted Abomination, Rotting Rats), and token makers / evasive bodies (Diregraf Horde, Undead Servant, Gisa’s Bidding, Moan of the Unhallowed, Reap the Seagraf, Shamble Back, Vile Rebirth, Falcon Abomination, Lazotep Reaver, Aven Eternal, Relentless Advance, Doomed Dissenter, Carrion Crow).

Manabase / fixing note

37 lands + 9 fixing rocks/ramp = 46 mana sources, ~24 of which produce any-color or two-of-the-pair. The all-three-color land Ancient Spring, the rainbow lands (Command Tower, Path of Ancestry, Crumbling Vestige, Crystal Grotto, Shimmering Grotto, Cryptic Spires), Esper-fetch (Esper Panorama, Contaminated Landscape, Wayfarer’s Bauble, Wanderer’s Twig), all three guildgates and their tapland duals cover every WUB pairing. Black is the heaviest pip, so basics skew Swamp.

Pilot notes

  • Mulligan for fixing + a token maker or self-mill enabler. You want to cast Varina on turn 4 and have at least one Zombie body to swing with on turn 5.
  • Discard with intent. Varina’s loot is “draw then discard” — bin reanimation targets, fat Zombies, and excess lands, never your reanimation spells.
  • Don’t over-commit into a removal-light table; do flood the board pre-combat so a Varina swing maximizes the loot count.
  • Hold an edict for the scary hexproof/indestructible commander rather than firing it at an empty-ish board.
  • Late game, the Varina token sink is your clock and your card-quality filter — keep activating it; two junk cards → a body → a bigger loot next turn.

Weaknesses

  • Graveyard hate (Bojuka Bog, Rest in Peace effects) hits both reanimation and Varina’s token activation — the deck leans hard on the yard.
  • No true board wipe at common in WUB — the edict package is the only mass answer, so a wide go-wide aggro deck can outpace early. Chump with decayed tokens and stabilize via lifegain loots.
  • Sweepers against you are brutal since the plan is to go wide; rebuild from the graveyard rather than recommitting everything at once.
  • Fast combo can race a grind deck that has no hard counter wall (counters were left out to stay on the proactive zombie plan); the inevitability plan assumes a normal-paced table.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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