[[Toshiro Umezawa]] is a human Samurai from the Kamigawa Plane.  He pissed off the [[myojin of night's reach]], who transported him to Dominaria and blinded him.  Apparently he whooped as much ass there as on Kamigawa, because he hooked himself up with a mansion and founded a clan. ~300 years later, his mega-grand kiddy [[tetsuo umezawa]] murdered the most evil badass in the multiverse, [[Nicol Bolas]].  See: [[nicol bolas, planeswalker]]. 

 

***The maybe-board is for cards I want to test, or cards I haven't traded for yet.  The side-board is for cards I'm actively testing but unsure of.*** 

<font color = "#64FE2E">***Purpose***</font> 

[[Toshiro Umezawa]] is a mono-black samurai spell-slinger! I tried to maintain this awesome flavor by giving my commander plenty of sneaky combat tricks to play with, and a sub-theme of death-by-poison. 

[[toshiro umezawa]] wields incredible power! Who doesn't want to cast [[vampiric tutor]] or [[treacherous urge]] twice???  Toshiro feeds this dark power by killing his enemies! 

<font color = "#64FE2E">***How the Deck Plays***</font> 

As you can see, this list is full of the most powerful instants (subjectively, I admit) available to a mono-black shell.  [[toshiro umezawa]] "sees" every death on the battlefield while he is in play.  It is helpful to remember these rulings: 

<font size = "1">**2/1/2005**
*You must still pay the mana cost of the target instant in your graveyard to cast it using Toshiro's ability.* 
**1/1/2011** 
*Creatures destroyed by an instant that you cast normally can cause a trigger that allows the instant to be cast again. For example, cast Terror on an opponent's creature. The creature is destroyed, triggering Toshiro's ability, and then the Terror is put into your graveyard. You can put Toshiro's ability on the stack targeting the Terror and then recast it when the ability resolves.*</font> 

In addition, it is worth noting that Toshi will see these deaths *during* a board wipe. 

Another take on this general can be found at: 
[[deck:nicol-bolas-is-a-whiny-bitch]] and is associated with an active MTG strategy blog.

Here is a primer for a reanimator build: 
<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/490438-toshiro-umezawa">Toshiro Umezawa Reanimator</a>