Reaper King
WUBRGLegendary Artifact Creature — Scarecrow

Reaper King

Mana value10EDHREC#8,571

The Commander

({2/W} can be paid with any two mana or with {W}. This card's mana value is 10.)

Other Scarecrow creatures you control get +1/+1.

Whenever another Scarecrow you control enters, destroy target permanent.

Guide

Gameplan

Reaper King leads a five-color Scarecrow tribal deck that pumps your artifact creatures and turns every Scarecrow that enters into a Vindicate, blowing up a permanent each time. You ramp into the King (his {2/W} hybrid cost makes him castable for as little as 5), then flood the board with Scarecrows—many of which are colorless artifacts that fit any deck—to grind opponents' boards to dust while building a wide, buffed army.

Strengths

  • Five-color identity gives access to the best removal, ramp, and tutors in the format
  • Every Scarecrow ETB is a free permanent destruction trigger—incredible incremental board control
  • Hybrid mana cost makes him surprisingly cheap and re-castable after removal
  • Scarecrows are colorless artifacts, enabling artifact synergies and recursion
  • Anthem effect makes a wide token board genuinely threatening

Weaknesses

  • Scarecrow tribe is shallow and many members are weak vanilla bodies
  • Relies on the commander to enable the payoff—removal slows you significantly
  • Five-color manabase is expensive and can stumble without good fixing
  • Slow to close games; can durdle without a dedicated finisher
  • Vulnerable to board wipes that erase your token investment

Key Cards

  • ConspiracySets all your creatures to Scarecrow, turning every creature ETB into a removal trigger and granting them the +1/+1 anthem.
  • ScarecroneLets you sacrifice artifacts to draw and reanimate Scarecrows from the graveyard, fueling recursion and triggers.
  • ReveillarkWith Conspiracy making it a Scarecrow, it returns small Scarecrows for repeatable destroy triggers.
  • PanharmoniconDoubles Reaper King's ETB destroy trigger, blowing up two permanents per Scarecrow.
  • Cryptolith RiteTurns your wide Scarecrow board into mana, accelerating into more bodies and big spells.
  • Chromatic LanternEssential five-color fixing that keeps the demanding manabase running smoothly.

Upgrade Path

Lean into blink and flicker (Restoration Angel, Eerie Interlude, Ghostly Flicker) plus Panharmonicon to weaponize the destroy trigger, and add Conspiracy/Arcane Adaptation so your whole deck becomes Scarecrows. Tighten the manabase with fetches, shocks, and Triomes, then include a hard finisher like Craterhoof Behemoth or Triumph of the Hordes to convert the wide board into a kill. For higher power, add reanimation loops with Scarecrone and Reveillark for repeatable Vindicate effects each turn.

Core Cards

The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.

Win Conditions

  • Swing wide with an anthem-buffed Scarecrow army for combat damage
  • Grind opponents out of resources with repeated destroy triggers, then close with any threat
  • Blink/recur a Scarecrow with Reaper King for a soft-lock destroying a permanent each turn
  • Drop a five-color bomb finisher (e.g. Craterhoof Behemoth) onto the token board

Archetypes

  • Tribal TokensReaper King anthems your Scarecrows and rewards flooding the board, especially with token-makers turned into Scarecrows.
  • Stax/ControlRepeatable destroy-target-permanent triggers let you grind down opposing lands, rocks, and threats.
  • BlinkFlickering Scarecrows re-triggers Reaper King's destruction, turning ETB engines into a removal machine.
  • ArtifactsScarecrows are colorless artifacts, so artifact recursion, cost reduction, and untappers all synergize.

Combos

Combos via Commander Spellbook.

Related Commanders

Same color identity (BGRUW), by popularity.

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