“Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner

I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead”

-Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

Post-rotation Standard has left us with a wide gap of playable, exciting new decks. Many of which lie in the aggro-midrange spectrum, but I offer a new solution for the control and combo players among us. Trek into Area X, expose yourself to the fungal bloom and emerge bright and glowing.

Squirming Emergence is a card I have had an eye on since LCI dropped. I’m fascinated by the self-milling strategy paying off directly into the most efficient reanimation spell since Necromancy. The overall strategy is to use self-milling effects to fill your own graveyard with enough permanents to start Squirming on turn 3 and later. The obvious targets are Lumra, Atraxa, Virtue of Persistence, and Harvester of Misery. But what if I told you that Jace, the Perfected Mind is the actual wincon in this deck?

Let’s look at the list itself before we get too far. The deck is technically 4 colors to accommodate hard casting Atraxa and is aggressively milling itself out to generate a Squirming as early as turn 3. The most critical early line follows a turn 2 Founding (set to 1) freecasting a Free the Fae into 3-4 permanents, then turn 3 target yourself with Founding, mill 4 more, and cast squirming emergence on the nastiest threat in your yard. This isn’t very common, but similar sequences can lead to aggressive turn 4-6 reanimations that will end the game.

• Founding of the Third Path

• The bread and butter of the deck. This card allows the list to function in its entirety as it we can use the whole buffalo. Chapter 1 allows us to keep up with the board via interaction or turbo through our own deck looking for answers. Super flexible and Read Ahead allows us to use this as 4 more copies of any instant or sorcery in the deck

• Picklock Prankster

• Pioneer allstar makes an appearance once again proving that Free the Fae is incredible when it can chain together with itself. Founding chapter 1 allows you to cast adventure spells for free and this is one of the fastest ways to hit 8 cards in your yard by turn 3. The body is acceptable for blocking but doing so is going to drastically slow down winning paths.

• Fallaji Archaeologist

• A modern near-staple in another powerful reanimator deck that can serve similar purpose here. Notably the relevance of the body in Standard is actually worse than modern at first blush due to the highly aggressive, efficient threats popular in the format. This is great at picking up Squirming, Founding, Virtue, or Jace in a pinch. Could be trimmed.

• Wail of the Forgotten

• Surprisingly efficient, yet often short, Wail is a lot of medium effects stapled together that, when live, can be the difference maker in the deck. Most notably, this is a key bridge spell that can buy you precious time to set up plays. Without Descend 8 this card can feel wimpy, but oftentimes filtering the top 3 cards of your library can set up some powerful followup. One of the first cards I trim in more aggressive games.

• Steamcore Scholar

• A discard outlet that can prove better than expected. Scholar’s text is worded such that you can actively choose to discard two cards over an instant, sorcery, or flying creature, while including those very same cards in that discard. Discarding from hand doesn’t come up often, but when it does this is great at finding the next needed card and adding to your fathomless descent. If you want to replace this I’d seek out more Bitter Triumphs

• Bitter Triumph

• Speaking of–BT is a proven standard and pioneer player with some dabbling in modern. One of the most efficient kill spells printed recently, BT is a must-have for dealing with pesky midrange threats like Elspeth, Glissa, Sheoldred, and even other Atraxas. I’m usually discarding permanents to this one but you can respond to the Founding chapter 3 trigger by discarding an instant or sorcery to target. 

• Harvester of Misery

• New kid on the block eating Carnosaurs lunch. Not much to say here–instant spell effect to kill a small thing that can’t be countered easily. 2 in the main is defensible. Sometimes reanimating this on T3 will cause enough problems to give you ample time to find a new solution

• Virtue of Persistence

• Again, we know this well from rakdos reanimator of old. Efficient removal stapled to a powerful enchantment. Another great Squirming Target late if your opponent can’t easily answer an enchantment. 

• Squirming Emergence

• The marquee card. A powerful reanimation sorcery that punches up with the aggressive milling in the deck. The biggest downside in the current build is a lack of functional small targets when the opponent is exiling our yard consistently. 

• Jace, the Perfected Mind

• This is the real sauce of the deck. Jace does it all and thensome. At 2-3 copies you can reliably start casting Jace from hand as early as turn 3 to begin milling your opponent out. Typically, opponents that go to attack the graveyard attempt to do so with threats like Frillback and Soul Guide (RIP thankfully absent lately). Jace costing 4 mana allows us to Squirm Jace back to board cheaply for multiple rounds of -5 milling your opponent out for 15 each time. I have won as many games with Jace as with Atraxa at this point, especially in the grinder midrange and control match ups.

• Atraxa

• I don’t have much to say here. She is simply the best reanimation target printed since Griselbrand. 

• Lumra, Bellow of the Woods

• A new BLB mythic with a powerful effect. The split with atraxa here is to note that sometimes you cannot get 7 permanents into your yard in time for a T3 squirming. At 6 mana, Lumra is easier to Squirm and hardcast, while providing necessary additional milling, ramp, and being a Reach threat itself. I could see this being cut in the future, but at least 1 copy feels good to me for now.

Now that we’ve inspected the cards, let’s look at critical interactions and problems within the list. As discussed, Founding allows you to free cast 12 cards in the deck including Locthwain’s Scorn. This interaction is critical to keep in mind as it remains the most tempo positive play in many scenarios. That is, Founding chapter 1 freecasting a bitter triumph discarding Jace and killing their Glissa on your turn 2 will set you up for success as you then read Chapter 2, self-mill for four, burying an Emergence, and setting up a T4 Reanimated Jace to begin milling them out. That is all for the cost of 1U. By constantly setting up plays with Founding you can create time and space with other midrange/control decks to resolve powerful, game-ending threats. 

Notably, this deck can take some time getting off the ground if you have a medium draw. Struggling against the hyper-aggro decks in the format our creatures will struggle to keep up. Slickshot, Emberheart, Manifold Mouse, and more powerful aggressors from the R/x decks will require extremely interactive hands to manage as the bodies of Picklock and Fallaji are simply too insignificant to manage burst damage turns. Further, as you may surmise from the list above, Squirming Emergence, like other reanimator lists, can run into issues of drawing all your threats. It doesn’t happen often, and we have pressure valves in Scholar and Bitter Triumph to mitigate but it can cause lines to brick. Thankfully, if we are interactive enough we can buy time to resolve a Lumra or Jace to create some momentum. 

The Boy

Jace is a critical piece in the deck. Seemingly doing a little of everything, at 3 or 4 mana Jace presents a massive threat to the opposing Midrange and Control decks in the metagame. Often, resolving his -X ability as many times as possible becomes my main strategy against these decks. Atraxa, Lumra, Harvester, and even Virtue become major distractions until its too late for the Golgari pilot to realize I’m 1.5 activations from milling them out and passing the turn. Additionally, if reach mid-to-late game with a resolved Lumra ETB, it is not unlikely to cast multiple Jace in a turn and Squirm 1 for 3 -X activations in a single turn. Sure, the +1 ability can be useful but I find myself using it less and less (it is great against Glissa though). 

The Bear

Lumra is, as you might imagine, a bit win-more. Without Vinelashers, Nissa, or Analysts to combo from, Lumra is a big idiot that can ramp you forward in times of need and is castable in midrange games. I could see cutting this for more Atraxa or more effective ETBs but for the moment, the mill attached to the Bear is a bit coincidental and nice to have. I could see this becoming an Elesh Norn in certain metas.

All said, this is a fairly straight forward reanimator deck, but I will advise all new players here to identify the power of Jace before defaulting to Atraxa. I have had a number of games where activating Jace early and often wins in situations where Atraxa maybe draws us 4 cards and dies to removal.

Sideboard options should include a ton of cards for aggro. You will struggle against the hyperaggro decks of the format and 4 Cut Downs is a minimum. An early Atraxa is necessary as is more harvesters. If you are anticipating more aggro than midrange in your metagame, I would flip the Atraxa and Jace numbers as you cannot expect to mill out an aggro deck reasonably. I would also trim Archaeologists for more removal in the main to buy time to Squirm.

• Negates are great catch-alls as is Duress against the weird hammers your opponents may have for your strategy. Expect lots of Frillbacks, Lanterns, and eventually Rest in Peace to disturb your squirming. Thankfully we can quickly recover from a single piece of Graveyard hate without too much fuss. 

• Tear Asunder is an optional catch-all that hits RIP and Caretaker’s Talent. Pawpatch Formation is a consideration as well.

• Sorcerous Spyglass is a seldom-used option that has great effect against the Talent and Planeswalker Boros decks in the meta. As well as offering a final stopgap to Vraska/Innkeeper combo. This might be a bit outdated depending on your ladder position.

• Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree is a bit of a strange one, but a useful tool if you are finding more ponderous control decks like Domain lingering in your meta. I don’t mind 1 for ladder play. 
• Glistening Deluge, Terror Tide, Deadly Coverup: these sweepers are effective in highly aggressive metas but unlike the cleanness of Path of Peril you will find each option lacking against the most aggressive decks. 

In a generic ladder run I might suggest:

4 Cut Down

3 Duress

1 Harvester of Misery

2 Negate

1 Realmbreaker

2 Sorcerous Spyglass

2 Tear Asunder

To hedge against a wide field. 

I usually board on vibes but I often trim cards like Fallaji, Jace/Atraxa, Harvester, Scholar, Virtue, Lumra. 

My name is Jason and while Magic is a first love of mine I also maintain a podcast on video games, design, and the philosophy between it all. Check it out on Spotify or wherever you find podcasts, it’s called Use Your Items! Or find me on my blog, Useyouritems.substack.com.