Gisa and Geralfis a classic Zombie commander inMagic: The Gathering. This Dimir (blue/black) pairing is one that plays best with a strategy built around the Zombie creature type and feeds into reviving them from the graveyard.
There are many options for a Zombie commander in Magic, but Gisa and Geralf is one of the best options. Thanks to its Dimir color identity, you can access all the best Zombie support cards, as the creature type largely consists of black and blue cards, with the blue part of the color identity giving you more options in the way of protection.
Commander: Gisa and Geralf
Champion of the Perished
Lord of the Accursed
Vizier of the Scorpion
Drown in the Loch
Grimoire of the Dead
x6 Island
x9 Swamp
Unholy Grotto
Witch’s Cottage
The decklistconsists of 36 creatures, six sorceries, nine instants, nine artifacts, five enchantments,and34 lands. The deck is heavily creature-focused, so most of the deck are creatures and cards that support the Zombie creature type.
Key Cards
Gisa And Geralf
Gisa and Geralfis the commander of the deck and one of your main ways to re-cast your Zombie creatures. There aremultiple Zombies with enter the battlefield and death triggers, and being able to re-cast them with Gisa and Geralf lets you re-use those effects.
The effect to mill four cards is great too, as thecreatures you mill can be cast with Gisa and Geralf’s passive effect.The effect to cast from the graveyard isonly once per turn, so make sure it is bringing back a Zombie that will be impactful for the given board state.
If you cast a Zombie spell from the graveyard during your turn, then Gisa and Geralf is removed from the battlefield afterward, you’re able to cast another Zombie spell from the graveyard if Gisa and Geralf return to the battlefield on that same turn. This also works multiple times as Gisa and Geralf are considered to not have used the effect if it exits and returns to the battlefield.
Rooftop Storm
Dimir can struggle with ramping, so it can be hard to have a lot of mana to cast multiple spells in one turn. This is whereRooftop Stormcomes in. Once you get six mana down, you cancast Rooftop Storm to never have to pay mana to cast Zombie creature spellsagain (so long as it sticks to the battlefield).
Once youhave Rooftop Storm down, you can save your mana for casting interaction. It also pairs well with Gisa and Geralf in particular, as it lets you re-cast your expensive Zombie creatures for free so they always stick around in the game.
If you have another card that lets you cast Zombie creatures from the graveyard more than once, you can go infinite with Rooftop Storm. The best choice for this isGravecrawler, as so long as you control a Zombie you can cast it from your graveyard.
Endless Ranks Of The Dead
Endless Ranks of the Deadis a consistent way to keep growing your battlefield. Since Dimir takes a while to get all the mana it wants,Endless Ranks of the Dead turns your cheap creatures into more Zombie tokens. It grows each trigger, as itcounts the Zombie tokens you make for its effect.
There are a handful of cards thatsupport Zombie tokens in particular.Endless Ranks of the Dead is the best way to quickly generate a ton of Zombie tokens, which helps you to overrun the battlefield with creatures.
Necroduality
Your deck primarily consists of creatures, soNecrodualitywill double up on all your creatures when they enter the battlefield. While itdoesn’t copy tokes, you have many powerful Zombies with effects that’ll stack with each other to give your deck a big boost.
Necroduality pairs especially well with Gisa and Geralf. There arevarious sacrifice outletsin the deck, which let yousacrifice a creature you want to bring back to get even more copies of itafter you recast it.
How To Play The Deck
A Gisa and Geralf Commander deck is all aboutflooding the battlefield with Zombies and making a battlefield with too many creatures for your opponents to handle. Gisa and Geralf keep your best Zombies around, while other support cards keep those Zombies well-equipped with great stats.
Death Barongives Zombies a +1/+1 boost and deathtouch,Diregraf Captainboosts other Zombies by +1/+1 and burns an opponent for one life when one dies, andGisa, the Hellraisersgives Zombies +1/+1 and menace while also being able tocreate two Zombie tokenswhenever you commit a crime.
A crime is targeting an opponent, anything they control, or anything in their graveyard with an effect.
While you cast a ton of Zombies naturally, there’s also a sub-theme in the deck that generates Zombie tokens.Geralf, the Fleshwrightcreates a Zombie token when you cast any spell that’s not your first spell that turn,Open the Gravescreates a Zombie token when a nontoken creatures you control dies, andCryptbreakermakes a Zombie token by discarding a card and tapping itself.
Theprimary win condition of the deck is winning through combat. The deck has a lot of natural ways to generate a large battlefield presence andboost up the stats and abilities of Zombiesto make it easier to connect for damage.
Alternatively, you canwin with an infinite combo utilizing Gravecrawler and Rooftop Storm. All you need is a creature on the battlefield that deals burn damage when a creature dies such asUnbreathing Horde. Other permanents create tokens with a Zombie enters or when you cast Zombie spells (such asGeralf, the FleshwrightandWilhelt, the Rotcleaver), which will create infinite tokens instead.
Thebiggest flaw of the deck is that it is very slow to set up. Dimir does not have any ways to ramp easily, so you have to rely on mana rocks to get ahead in mana generation.Bontu’s Monumenthelps this somewhat by discounting your black creatures by one mana (which most of your creatures are). While you may flood the battlefield quickly, it takes multiple turns to reach this point, soyou’re going to be fairly exposed in the early stages of the game.