Rise From Your Grave!: Building your Varina, Lich Queen Commander Deck

Varina, Lich Queen is a powerful commander for Zombie tribal decks, offering card draw, graveyard synergy, and life gain all in one package. With the ability to loot cards and create Zombies whenever you attack, she provides both card advantage and board presence, making her an excellent choice for a well-rounded, resilient deck.

With the release of Aetherdrift and heavy zombie support, her stock has soared taking her from a measly $0.20 bulk commander to a nearly $20 powerhouse. So if you’re looking to build a deck around this undead monarch, here are five essential cards that will take your Varina deck to the next level.

Strategy for Building Varina, Lich Queen

Early Game

The core strategy behind a Varina, Lich Queen deck revolves around attacking with Zombies to trigger Varina’s card draw and graveyard-filling ability. This means you’ll want a good balance of creatures, enablers, and reanimation spells to maximize your efficiency. Early-game plays should focus on establishing a board presence with small, aggressive Zombies while setting up your graveyard for future recursion. Cards like Champion of the Perished and Cryptbreaker help you gain early value while maintaining an aggressive stance.

Ramping Up

Mid-game is where Varina really shines. With the right setup, you can filter through your deck, gaining life and sculpting your hand to maintain control. Support cards like Lord of the Accursed and Diregraf Colossus help pump your creatures and create additional Zombies, ensuring that your attack triggers continue to generate value. Meanwhile, counters like Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, and Counterspell help safeguard your board from disruption.

Closing it Out

Late-game, the deck pivots to explosive plays with mass reanimation spells like Living Death and Patriarch’s Bidding, bringing back an overwhelming army from your graveyard to close out the game. With proper sequencing, you can loop Zombies with Gravecrawler and Phyrexian Altar to drain opponents out or simply amass an unstoppable force that overwhelms your table.

5 Must-Have Cards for Zombie Fun

The cool thing about Commander is that everyone has a slightly different take on how they build their decks. There are amazing resources online, like EDHrec that can give you pointers and player builds that you can take ideas from but at the end of the day, everyone wants a little individuality.

With all that in mind, here are 5 cards we consider must-haves when making your Varina, Lich Queen deck.

1. Rooftop Storm

In a deck built around zombies that also includes blue you have a ton of resources at your disposal. With Rooftop Storm, you can play zombies for free. It's a dream, and with the counters you can include in your build it's pretty easy to protect and keep on the board. Every zombie-based deck should include a free-play outlet. At at cost of 5B it may seem like a late play, but with cards like Dark Ritual, Sol Ring, and Culling the Weak, you could have this card out very early with a lucky draw.

2. Wayward Servant

Wayward Servant is a great low-cost creature that punishes opponents every time a Zombie enters the battlefield under your control. Since Varina and several other cards you should include create Zombie tokens, this card provides incremental life drain, keeping your opponents on a clock while sustaining your own life total. It’s a simple but highly effective synergy piece that helps maximize your Zombie horde's value.

3. Phyrexian Altar

Mana generation is key in any deck, and Phyrexian Altar is an essential combo piece in Varina decks. By sacrificing creatures for mana of any color, you can set up explosive turns, filtering through your deck with Varina’s ability while generating the resources needed to cast even more spells. Pairing this with recursion effects allows you to bring the sacrificed creatures back to the battlefield which can trigger enter effects. You see where this is going.

4. God-Eternal Oketra

God-Eternal Oketra is a powerhouse in this deck. Every creature spell you cast creates a 4/4 Zombie with vigilance, meaning that even minor plays quickly escalate your board presence. These larger tokens also synergize well with Varina’s attack trigger, helping you draw more cards and gain life while providing exile outlets ensuring you always have a threat on board.

5. Ketramose, the New Dawn

A newcomer and instant hit from Aetherdrift, Ketramose has a lot going for it. Its exile requirement to attack and block is easily met using Varina and the addition of Lifelink, Menace, and Indestructible makes it fairly hard to get rid of. It's also a boss at card draw when things are exiled and more than makes up for the 1 life lost per card drawn. Ketramose is quickly becoming a staple in a variety of builds but lends an extra strong punch to your Varina deck.

Varina, Lich Queen Commander Deck - Final THoughts

A well-built Varina, Lich Queen deck thrives on controlling the board while generating incremental value. Strong recursion spells like Reanimate, Patriarch’s Bidding, and Living Death ensure that your graveyard remains a second hand, bringing back key creatures when needed. Additionally, including mass removal like Toxic Deluge and Cyclonic Rift helps you maintain control while your undead army steadily overwhelms opponents.

With a balance of aggression, card advantage, and graveyard interactions, Varina, Lich Queen is an incredibly fun and powerful choice for Zombie tribal decks. Whether you enjoy grinding out value or assembling game-ending combos, she offers a dynamic playstyle that can be tailored to your strategy. So shuffle up, raise the dead, and prepare to dominate your next Commander game with zombie might!