[Deck]BUx Reanimator

[Stryfo]

I can't tell you why SnT players don't play decay (I think many of them do, in fact), but as someone who plays only decays I can tell you I don't play SnT because I don't find it necessary, in fact, I find it awkward. I played the card when I started out and decided I didn't like it in the deck, so I have been playing with alternatives for years.

[owerbart]

I can't tell you why SnT players don't play decay (I think many of them do, in fact), but as someone who plays only decays I can tell you I don't play SnT because I don't find it necessary, in fact, I find it awkward. I played the card when I started out and decided I didn't like it in the deck, so I have been playing with alternatives for years.

Hi. I've been playing the full playset of Show and Tell for a while. Mainly because it completely bypasses the graveyard hate and sometime creates a ton of "ooops! I win" situations. I'm really considering playing abrupt decays tho. I'm sure they can coexist. I only have a Bayou and no tropical island tho, so i'll have to rearrange my fetches, or try to get a cheap one. A reason I don't like to get rid of SnT is because, at least from what I see, a lot of players rely on Decays to get rid of the hate, but without SnT and only decays you are conceding against the Black Leyline

An idea for both of them to coexist could be a sideboard like:

3 Pithing Needle
2 Show And Tell (2 in MB)
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize (2 in MB)
2 City of Traitors
1 Ashen Rider
1 Echoing Truth

Although this plan would completely drop my Serenity idea which to be honest I'm having a blast with :(

What do you guys think of City of Traitors? They are great to play against soft counters IMO

[Deimos]

Hi. I've been playing the full playset of Show and Tell for a while. Mainly because it completely bypasses the graveyard hate and sometime creates a ton of "ooops! I win" situations. I'm really considering playing abrupt decays tho. I'm sure they can coexist. I only have a Bayou and no tropical island tho, so i'll have to rearrange my fetches, or try to get a cheap one. A reason I don't like to get rid of SnT is because, at least from what I see, a lot of players rely on Decays to get rid of the hate, but without SnT and only decays you are conceding against the Black Leyline

An idea for both of them to coexist could be a sideboard like:

3 Pithing Needle
2 Show And Tell (2 in MB)
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize (2 in MB)
2 City of Traitors
1 Ashen Rider
1 Echoing Truth

Although this plan would completely drop my Serenity idea which to be honest I'm having a blast with :(

What do you guys think of City of Traitors? They are great to play against soft counters IMO

I think it's fairly standard for both SnT and decay builds to have access to 1-2 bounce affects in the board so conceding to leyline might be an exaggeration, also in my experience decks playing black leyline where matches I didn't really want to SnT, stuff like bug nic fit so they has access to problematic permanents like lili, sower etc, but that just might be my experience what decks have you come up against with black leyline and how has SnT been against them?

[owerbart]

I think it's fairly standard for both SnT and decay builds to have access to 1-2 bounce affects in the board so conceding to leyline might be an exaggeration, also in my experience decks playing black leyline where matches I didn't really want to SnT, stuff like bug nic fit so they has access to problematic permanents like lili, sower etc, but that just might be my experience what decks have you come up against with black leyline and how has SnT been against them?

Black Leyline I've seen it in Pox, Jund, that Leylines deck, and Dredge. I even remember one time having facing 2 black leylines against black pox, and i had both a fatty + SNT and the echoing truth. The good thing about SNT is that although you can get rid of those pesky leylines, sometimes you need to be as quick as you can and hopping that barrier instead of trying to break it with bounce effects/decays/serenities is a stronger and much critical play. Another good thing about Show and Tell is that sometimes your opponent has two different GY hate cards which forces you to find two bullets, which sometimes can be waay too long of a time.

About how SNT worked against those decks, most of the times it just ended the game. Black decks mostly have one way to kill one of your fatties, which is Liliana which them can't cheat with SNT.

[redesign1991]

Leyline also sees play in Tezzerator builds.

[Raystar]

Leyline also sees play in Tezzerator builds.

It is also becoming a sideboard staple of Shardless BUG lists. I would suggest to run Reverent Silence in the board to overcome it (and splash damage against CB+RiP).

[AustinP]

Hey guys finally decided to make an account on here, got third again in dallas this weekend playing legacy SCG, this time with reanimator and just wanted to let everyone know my matches, im usually a delver player and decided at 2am after losing with delver in practice all day that im just going to jam reanimator for the hell of it, here is how my day went.

Miracles 2-0
Miracles 2-0
Burn 2-0
Miracles 2-1
SneaknShow 2-1
Rug delver 2-0
double draw into top 8

top8:

Miracles 2-0
TES 1-2

Ended up third and had a ton of fun hanging out with all of my friends i see at the scgs and making a lot of new friends as well, everyone i played was really cool and most of us kept each other updated throughout the day.


Creatures (8)

1 Grave Titan
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

Lands (16)

2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs

Spells (36)

3 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
2 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
4 Exhume
3 Ponder
4 Reanimate
2 Show and Tell
2 Thoughtseize

Sideboard
2 Pithing Needle
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
3 Massacre
2 Show and Tell
2 Thoughtseize
2 City of Traitors

[Esper3k]

Well done and congrats on the finish!

[clashed]

Hi guys,

Stryfo and I are going to stream a daily on twitch.tv in 20 minutes. We will be using his BURG list with Izzet Charms. If you guys want to tune in and hear analysis about lines and generally learn magic as we learn, feel free to join us!

We will go live soon and hopefully we can hear feedback on plays you liked and didn't like and that can feed into some deeper discussion in this thread.

http://www.twitch.tv/clashed007

[Deimos]

Hi guys,

Stryfo and I are going to stream a daily on twitch.tv in 20 minutes. We will be using his BURG list with Izzet Charms. If you guys want to tune in and hear analysis about lines and generally learn magic as we learn, feel free to join us!

We will go live soon and hopefully we can hear feedback on plays you liked and didn't like and that can feed into some deeper discussion in this thread.

http://www.twitch.tv/clashed007

Missed it and you no vod on twitch, you got a vod on youtube or anything as I would be keen to check it out.

[owerbart]

Missed it and you no vod on twitch, you got a vod on youtube or anything as I would be keen to check it out.

I agree.

Also, has anyone EVER tried Dreams of the Dead? http://magiccards.info/ia/en/66.html

[redesign1991]

I agree.

Also, has anyone EVER tried Dreams of the Dead? http://magiccards.info/ia/en/66.html

Personally I haven't tried that card yet. But it doesn't look that good to me at 1st sight. You're basically paying 6 mana to get 1 creature into play, granted afterwards you can repeat the process for 1U. However, it can't target Iona of Elesh (or Sire if you're running him), there's the cumulative upkeep part that needs to be paid... And it get's removed if you can't pay it (and I assume that counts as well for Liliana's sac ability?). Which makes it impossible to return it later on with reanimate/exhume. Honestly, I'd just run Animate Dead instead. That card doesn't limit you to your own graveyard either.

On an other forum I saw someone mention trying Snapcaster Mage in this deck. Has anyone tried this? It can be flashed in to block a C. Priest or something else, can make you recast some spells, etc. This got me thinking about maybe trying a bit more control with the deck, but I haven't given much thought to it yet.

[TinkerRobot]

Did OK at SCG Worcester this weekend. Went 9-6 over all, 6-3 on day one and 3-3 on day two.

Played something similar to my usual UBr list.

My main take away from the event was that Stronghold Gambit is a beast. I actually found it to be more useful than Show and Tell. I think that's mostly because it costs less, and therefore gets around Dazes and Spell Pierces more easily. I bring it in against both Miracles and Omniscience, which were the two most well represented decks in the room.

- -

Congrats to my buddy Noah. Even though I wasn't the winner, it was good to ride home in the same car as the trophy.

[owerbart]

Did OK at SCG Worcester this weekend. Went 9-6 over all, 6-3 on day one and 3-3 on day two.

Played something similar to my usual UBr list.

My main take away from the event was that Stronghold Gambit is a beast. I actually found it to be more useful than Show and Tell. I think that's mostly because it costs less, and therefore gets around Dazes and Spell Pierces more easily. I bring it in against both Miracles and Omniscience, which were the two most well represented decks in the room.

- -

Congrats to my buddy Noah. Even though I wasn't the winner, it was good to ride home in the same car as the trophy.


Did OK at SCG Worcester this weekend. Went 9-6 over all, 6-3 on day one and 3-3 on day two.

Played something similar to my usual UBr list.

My main take away from the event was that Stronghold Gambit is a beast. I actually found it to be more useful than Show and Tell. I think that's mostly because it costs less, and therefore gets around Dazes and Spell Pierces more easily. I bring it in against both Miracles and Omniscience, which were the two most well represented decks in the room.

- -

Congrats to my buddy Noah. Even though I wasn't the winner, it was good to ride home in the same car as the trophy.

Nice to see someone getting good results with Stronghold's gambit. Against Miracles I usually board maybe pithing needles, the 3rd (maybe the 4th one too) show and tell and the decays. Did you really need it against Omniscience tho? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely think that Stronghold gambit has massive potential but Omnitell seems like a 90-10 MU in Reanimator's favor already.

Another card that I'd like to try is Intuition. It could serve both as a way to get a reanimation spell (thanks to redundancy) or it can function as a Entomb if you pick 3 fatties, all at instant speed.

[PirateKing]

Won a local 12 man tournament to take home $25 and a Wasteland. Took zero notes, so I can't give details beyond my recollections. I had lovingly totally plagiarized Stryfo's list because I felt I was in a rut with my current build and kept faltering at the same obstacles and was keen on a totally different take on the deck. So I sleeved it up his list verbatim (again, with love) and went to a tournament previous, going 3-1-1, beating Burn, Death & Taxes and Miracles; losing to MUD and drawing against Maverick. That was good enough for the number 6 seat in top8, only to get swept by Team America. So I took my experience home with me, retooled the creature suite, and armed with better play experience, showed up with this list:

4 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs

4 Hapless Researcher
3 Griselbrand
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Sire of Insanity
1 Grave Titan

4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead

4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Izzet Charm
1 Misdirection

Sideboard
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Inkwell Leviathan
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
2 Echoing Truth
1 Darkblast

Round 1 - Goblins - 2-1
Game 1 he's on the play and goes Mountain into AEther Vial. So before he can get a Lackey attacking I Entomb and Reanimate Elesh Norn. He takes his hits and Matrons up his Stingscourger, but Hapless Researcher and an Exhume wipes his board again and he scoops.
Game 2 he has Relic of Progenitus as his first play, I has Force but no blue pitch, end up drawing a Careful Study for my turn, would have been nice then. I'm able to bin a creature and force him to pop his Relic, but he keeps me off mana enough that my only follow up is Reanimate at 5 life, so I die.
Game 3 is very much like game 1, land Elesh Norn only to get bounced, redeploy for the lock.

Round 2 - Merfolk - 1-2
Game 1 he doesn't show much besides basic Islands, counters my early attempt at Griselbrand, then finally shows me a Merfolk. I get Elesh Norn and he has nothing to stop me, counter the single attempt to bounce her and get the game win.
Game 2 he has Grafdigger's Cage early and slowly starts powering out Merfolk through Cavern of Souls while I search for a way to get rid of the Cage. By the time I can access my graveyard, an army of Islandwalk fish kill me.
Game 3 I goes back and forth, I end up Reanimating his True-Name Nemesis so I can Exhume Tidespout Tyrant, he has Phantasmal Image to copy the Tidespout, the resulting counterwar bounces the majority of both our boards, and he rebuilds before I can find another reanimation effect.

Round 3 - RG Lands - 2-0
Game 1 goes fast, Griselbrand hits 3 times before he does anything of note.
Game 2 I play Pithing Needle on Thespian Stage turn 1, don't have much to do after that, but turns out neither does he. I get Grave Titan in play, and Maze of Ith does a good job at stalling the 6/6 himself, but can't do anything about the army of Zombies that eventually run him down.

Round 4 - ANT - 2-1
Game 1 he takes with a turn 2 combo to storm 12.
Game 2 I quickly deploy a Sire of Insanity, he reads it, then reads it again when I move to end step. We play draw-go while I hit him down.
Game 3 I'm thankful he doesn't have a fast hand, I beat him down with a menagerie of creatures. He shows me a hand of nothing but mana. Top card of his library? Tendrils of Agony. Storm 7 would have been enough to kill me. Scary.

I take a breath and a pee and look at top 8 posting, somehow with lots of draws going around and a good breaker, I'm the number 1 seed. Seems like every store is using the play/draw rule, so that's nice.

Quarterfinal - BRUG Delver/Pyromancer - 2-1
Game 1 he has some Wastelands to trip me up but my Darkblast keeps me safe long enough to stick a creature. I had my doubts with Darkblast before, but it pulled double duty here.
Game 2 I keep a weak hand and it plays out like I kept a weak hand.
Game 3 I win off what could be considered a misplay or miscommunication. He plays a Deathrite Shaman on his turn and passes to me. After some hand sculpting, I have in hand Entomb, Reanimate, Izzet Charm, Misdirection & Careful Study or Hapless Researcher, not sure which. In play I only have Underground Sea and Badlands. End of his turn, I play Entomb, getting Griselbrand. He stops me in my upkeep, plays Surgical Extraction, targeting my Griselbrand. I play Misdirection, pitching my other blue card, moving the target to his Scalding Tarn. He Forces, I tap out and play Izzet Charm, countering his Force. Stack resolves just like that, he eats his own fetch and I draw for turn tapped out facing down a sick Deathrite Shaman. Card for turn is Swamp, I jam it down and play Reanimate and take the game from there.
After the game, he explained that he wanted to play his Surgical Extraction on my end step, and complained I rushed through the steps and didn't give him the opportunity to play anything, hence the upkeep battle. I explained to him the turn ends after he passes priority on an empty stack, and only he can pass priority. Even if I rushed him, he could have just said "stop, I haven't passed priority" and then we'd rewind. But instead he said "wait, upkeep" so that's where we fought, after I untapped. In hindsight, that was his only window, since drawing that Swamp for turn would have given me mana enough to achieve the same results if he had waited for the Reanimate to play Surgical, but as he played it during my upkeep, I wondered why he hadn't waited for the Reanimate first. Also with him untapping into a Deathrite next turn anyway, it was do or die for me. He left kind of salty, upset at me for rushing him and upset at himself for not standing his ground on the timing of steps.

Semifinal - Loam Pox - 2-1
Game 1 I am able to squeak out a win despite his cards designed to crush me at every turn. He had at least 2 draw steps to grab any sacrifice effect and I dodged both.
Game 2 was close, landing Elesh Norn to wipe his board, then reanimating both of his Bloodghasts to hit him with a hasty 8 damage, I was feeling good. But a Pernicious Deed on his side followed by an Innocent Blood cleared me out, Chains of Mephistopheles put an end to my recovery, few hits put me to 2, and then running Smallpox made me dead.
Game 3 I'm sweating as I shuffle up, thinking I have to have a godly hand to beat him, one turn slow and I'd be buried under hate cards. Thankfully, my opening 6 cards lets me stick Iona turn 2, and naming black, he's stuck trying to dredge Loam to find his one of Karakas. Never sees it and I win.

Final - Affinity - 2-0
Game 1 I'm faster to bring a legitimate threat to the table, and a few chumps with Hapless Researcher to fend of a Cranial Plated guy gets me the game.
Game 2 I get Pithing Needle on Cranial Plating and clear the board with Elesh Norn. Grave Titan joins next turn and that's enough to get the win.

The deck felt good and the more I play it, the more I understand Stryfo's card choices. I'm still unsure about the miser Misdirection, at times I'll think a third Izzet Charm might be the more useful slot. Pernicious Deed got lots of use, catching every opponent off guard and letting me clear the board of threats and gravehate before making my play. Engineered Explosives was useful as well, especially at 0, but for this tournament specifically, paled alongside Deed. I thought I'd miss Ponder more than I did, a few games I did wish for a bit more cantrips, I was playing hellbent often, and a topdeck Careful Study or Izzet Charm didn't feel good. But Hapless Researcher did more than I originally gave it credit for; totally negating my opponent's bounce strategy, reanimating a dead Researcher on the cheap to rebin my fatty; dodging Edicts; playing nice with Exhume to sneak something through a Deathrite, and lastly attacking on a open board. Also welcome when all you have out is Elesh Norn and you want to push the clock up by a turn. Also learning to enjoy all the real mana sources, speed from Lotus Petals was fun, but inconsistent enough that first turn Reanimates were rare and now with a more solid mana base I'm finding it easier to cast the expensive cards like Deed and even Engineered Explosives at 4 (take that Leyline of the Void)

So yeah, good weekend. Going to keep this list for now, maybe adjust the creatures a bit as the meta moves around, but no major changes anticipated. I'll try and answer any questions people have, but this is all from memory; and I can't really take credit on the unique card choices, that again would be Stryfo.

[ThiefSlayer]

Hey PirateKing, I'm building a reanimator now and I found it very amusing the 4 color reanimator deck you guys are making. About the card choises, I just wonder if it wouldn't be better to cut some loothing effects (as this version with hapless researcher has 10), as you even think it would be good to put more 1 copy of izzet charm.

I use to play with UR Delver and TES, and in those decks Ponder is really great to find what you want and avoid dead draws. As your decklist cut ponder, maybe take off some loothing effects to insert some ponder? I mean, the old lists had only 4 of it (careful study), maybe 10 is more than the necessary.

[PirateKing]

ThiefSlayer, I can totally understand your concerns over Ponder, and they are ones I've shared in the past. Yes there have been games where I draw dead into Careful Study or Hapless Researcher that would have been live had it been a Ponder. But I've played many games of 'classic' Reanimator struggling to get a creature into the graveyard, thinking do I cast this Ponder and hope to find something, or just hold on and try and discard to hand size?
Getting that creature into the graveyard shouldn't be an obstacle when it's such a critical aspect of the deck, and especially so considering how much fight you can expect trying to get it back out. Any game you're stuck with a creature in hand, playing Brainstorm and Ponder trying to get either Entomb or Careful Study is a game where you're literally doing nothing. And sadly our window is so narrow that we just can't afford to spend 2 turns sculpting.

I've looked a lot at Izzet Charm and Careful Study, trying to figure which I want more. Izzet Charm alone is such a better card, all the options are amazing, and you can expect to use all three in a tournament. I can't think of a game where I wasn't happy to see it. Instant speed as well, just awesome. But then I look at :u::r: and I get apprehensive to jam more in the deck, since they're pretty much competing for space against Careful Study, and that :u: cost is so smooth.
I think I'll need more games to figure out for myself what the right balance is, but as I write this, I'm happy with the build as is.

I'd really recommend giving the deck a try, you'll quickly see that Hapless Researcher is so much more than looting effect 5-8.

[ThiefSlayer]

ThiefSlayer, I can totally understand your concerns over Ponder, and they are ones I've shared in the past. Yes there have been games where I draw dead into Careful Study or Hapless Researcher that would have been live had it been a Ponder. But I've played many games of 'classic' Reanimator struggling to get a creature into the graveyard, thinking do I cast this Ponder and hope to find something, or just hold on and try and discard to hand size?
Getting that creature into the graveyard shouldn't be an obstacle when it's such a critical aspect of the deck, and especially so considering how much fight you can expect trying to get it back out. Any game you're stuck with a creature in hand, playing Brainstorm and Ponder trying to get either Entomb or Careful Study is a game where you're literally doing nothing. And sadly our window is so narrow that we just can't afford to spend 2 turns sculpting.

I've looked a lot at Izzet Charm and Careful Study, trying to figure which I want more. Izzet Charm alone is such a better card, all the options are amazing, and you can expect to use all three in a tournament. I can't think of a game where I wasn't happy to see it. Instant speed as well, just awesome. But then I look at :u::r: and I get apprehensive to jam more in the deck, since they're pretty much competing for space against Careful Study, and that :u: cost is so smooth.
I think I'll need more games to figure out for myself what the right balance is, but as I write this, I'm happy with the build as is.

I'd really recommend giving the deck a try, you'll quickly see that Hapless Researcher is so much more than looting effect 5-8.

Now that you said it, it really sounds like a build without petals for acceleration and excessive digging for the pieces is too slow for the gameplan. Thanks for the insights, I'll get the final pieces until next week and will give it a try!

[sunlith42]

@PirateKing Do you think the inclusion of izzet charm slows the deck down? Since if izzet charm is the only discard spell in hand you couldn't use it until turn 2, then reanimate on turn 3. Or would you mulligan a hand with izzet charm as the only discard outlet?

[TinkerRobot]

I play Grixis for Izzet Charm and maindeck Pyroblast and I really think we need to move away from Ponder. Our deck has such a high density of combo pieces (I have 11 ways to get a creature into the yard including thoughtseize and 10 reanimation spells), and so few mana sources (I have 15 land + petals) that I always feel like I'm wasting my turn when I ponder. I only have 1 in the 75 now and I'm considering cutting it.

[PirateKing]

@PirateKing Do you think the inclusion of izzet charm slows the deck down? Since if izzet charm is the only discard spell in hand you couldn't use it until turn 2, then reanimate on turn 3. Or would you mulligan a hand with izzet charm as the only discard outlet?

So we're saying a opening hand of Izzet Charm, Reanimate, Griselbrand & 4 lands? I'd be inclined to keep that if I was on the play game 1 against an unknown opponent, but not on the draw. If the creature was something like Sire of Insanity or Elesh Norn that'd be a harder sell. On one hand you have everything you need in hand; creature, loot, reanimation effect. But then no protection, nothing beyond the draw for turn and the 2 from Izzet Charm, assuming your opponent isn't on point and doesn't stick a Daze/Peirce/Snare on the Izzet Charm. Then you're just in top deck for business.

But it must be said, at only 2 copies in the deck, it's use as a loot spell, especially as the only one available, is not a typical situation. Depending on your meta, you can expect to use it almost equally across all three options as well as a blue pitch to Force of Will.

[Gazoline]

Hello everyone!

Just a quick curious question. Why arent people using Pathrazer of Ulamog in a reanimator deck? i know its not flying, but wouldnt it still be devestating with Annihilator ( even if only Annihilator 3 would still put enemy far behind at round three or so) ? What am i missing? is it because of the manacost? Cheers!

[Nuke is Good]

Hello everyone!

Just a quick curious question. Why arent people using Pathrazer of Ulamog in a reanimator deck? i know its not flying, but wouldnt it still be devestating with Annihilator ( even if only Annihilator 3 would still put enemy far behind at round three or so) ? What am i missing? is it because of the manacost? Cheers!

Because 11 mana to reanimate that is pretty damn painful and the creature itself doesn't really do much by itself without attacking.

Iona stops mono colored decks, Elesh Norn slaughters weenies, Russel Brand is Yawgmoth's Bargain on legs, Sire of Insanity on T1 is usually enough to end any matchup other than dredge.

[MTGeezy]

I play Grixis for Izzet Charm and maindeck Pyroblast and I really think we need to move away from Ponder. Our deck has such a high density of combo pieces (I have 11 ways to get a creature into the yard including thoughtseize and 10 reanimation spells), and so few mana sources (I have 15 land + petals) that I always feel like I'm wasting my turn when I ponder. I only have 1 in the 75 now and I'm considering cutting it.

Whats your list look like? I'm really liking this Grixis scheme.

[Gazoline]

Because 11 mana to reanimate that is pretty damn painful and the creature itself doesn't really do much by itself without attacking.

Iona stops mono colored decks, Elesh Norn slaughters weenies, Russel Brand is Yawgmoth's Bargain on legs, Sire of Insanity on T1 is usually enough to end any matchup other than dredge.

Thanks for clearing it up! =)

[PirateKing]

Hello everyone!

Just a quick curious question. Why arent people using Pathrazer of Ulamog in a reanimator deck? i know its not flying, but wouldnt it still be devestating with Annihilator ( even if only Annihilator 3 would still put enemy far behind at round three or so) ? What am i missing? is it because of the manacost? Cheers!

If we aren't using the creature for some ability, then it'll fall into the category of bug dumb beater. So to clarify: we're obviously not playing Elesh Norn for her combat stats, nor Tidespout Tyrant or AEtherling or Sire of Insanity. Especially not Keranos, God of Storms.

So if we're just talking about combat stats, what matters more than evasion is preservation. The two most often used creatures used only to put damage on the opponent are Inkwell Leviathan and Grave Titan. Both protect themselves from common points of removal we expect to face; they're non-legendary and they're difficult to hit with Swords to Plowshares, Maze of Ith or some other point removal.

Another good point is that 9 power doesn't present a faster clock than 7 power. So the extra cost associated with the 9/9 stats isn't all that relevant to us, making it all the more painful when looking at the Reanimate in your hand.

So in the end we look to lose 11 life and get no defense against common removal cards.

[redesign1991]

I'm not sure yet if I want to give the UBrg list a try. But I'm definitely sure about giving Hapless Researcher a try in my UBg build. I'm not sure whether I want to cut 3 Ponders and try 3 Hapless instead. I'm also running 4 MD Thoughtseize which I like. Could cut one to try the 4th. What are the opinions on the # of discard spells this deck should have in the 75? At the moment I personally run 4 MD Thoughtseize and 2 Duress SB. I'm definitely not the most experienced player here, but so far the match ups against Omni have been pretty good.

On another note: how do you guys play against Food Chain combo? I've came across the deck 3-4 times and of course I could've just been unlucky to not reanimate something fast enough or bad luck on the draw or something. But no matter how many times I make them discard Food Chain or the creature (even reanimated it myself if necessary) I found the deck quite difficult to beat.

[owerbart]

Hello everyone!

Just a quick curious question. Why arent people using Pathrazer of Ulamog in a reanimator deck? i know its not flying, but wouldnt it still be devestating with Annihilator ( even if only Annihilator 3 would still put enemy far behind at round three or so) ? What am i missing? is it because of the manacost? Cheers!

Hi. As explained above, every creature that we put into play must be backbreaking. Pathrazer only knows to attack. It doesn't do anything besides that. Compare that to:
Iona, who shuts down decks,
Elesh Norn, who can wash away armies of Elves, Goblins, Merfolk, Ichorids and Zombie Tokens.
Sire of Insanity which T1 or even T2 closes the game
Tidespout Tyrant, that gets rid of pesky permanents and makes matchups like lands really easy


If you really want just a beater, most lists run Inkwell Leviathan, who can race pretty much evertyhing, and the shroud thing makes it really amazing

About trying new creatures, I've been toying with Narset Enlightened Master lately

[Gazoline]

Thank you everyone for the clarification, ive just started playing legacy and with a nicfit deck. so im browsing through to get a better understanding of the diffrent kinds of decks i get to meet =) (and im a bit interested in getting my of reanimator deck one day)

Cheers!

[owerbart]

Thank you everyone for the clarification, ive just started playing legacy and with a nicfit deck. so im browsing through to get a better understanding of the diffrent kinds of decks i get to meet =) (and im a bit interested in getting my of reanimator deck one day)

Cheers!

Start playing in cockatrice, so you can get a good understanding of the deck. It's pretty fast and fun to play, and you have a lot of matchups where you have a crushing advantage. About IRL, try to get the FoWs first, it's a Legacy staple and you can use it in tons of decks. From there the only really expensive cards are the duals, but you can manage to always have your colours with just 2 underground seas (I played for a long time with two before getting the full playset)

Polluted Deltas are very cheap now with the KTK reprint too

[Kanti]

So we're saying a opening hand of Izzet Charm, Reanimate, Griselbrand & 4 lands? I'd be inclined to keep that if I was on the play game 1 against an unknown opponent, but not on the draw. If the creature was something like Sire of Insanity or Elesh Norn that'd be a harder sell. On one hand you have everything you need in hand; creature, loot, reanimation effect. But then no protection, nothing beyond the draw for turn and the 2 from Izzet Charm, assuming your opponent isn't on point and doesn't stick a Daze/Peirce/Snare on the Izzet Charm. Then you're just in top deck for business.

But it must be said, at only 2 copies in the deck, it's use as a loot spell, especially as the only one available, is not a typical situation. Depending on your meta, you can expect to use it almost equally across all three options as well as a blue pitch to Force of Will.

Just real quick, but woudn't being on the draw allow you to draw, discard Grisel, and have a t2 combo? You have a t4 protected combo as well, which isn't bad by any stretch, especially if you drew some more Daze, FoW, or TS as you can have double protection on t4, which will probably do it against most decks.

[TinkerRobot]

Whats your list look like? I'm really liking this Grixis scheme.

The list I played at SCG Worcester (made day two, record of 9-6 overall)

4 Polluted Delta
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
4 Lotus Petal
3 Griselbrand
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Sire of Insanity
1 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead
2 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Careful Study
1 Ponder
2 Izzet Charm
1 Pyroblast

1 Engineered Explosives
3 Pithing Needle
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Stronghold Gambit
2 Show and Tell
1 Massacre
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Grave Titan
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

It's a blast to play and has a lot of angles of attack. Give it a shuffle and let me know what you think.


Just real quick, but woudn't being on the draw allow you to draw, discard Grisel, and have a t2 combo? You have a t4 protected combo as well, which isn't bad by any stretch, especially if you drew some more Daze, FoW, or TS as you can have double protection on t4, which will probably do it against most decks.

I find myself discarding fatties to hand size quite often. Don't discount it. However you never know which line is correct until you've seen your opponent's turn 1 play and drawn a card for your turn, there are simply too many variables.

[Stryfo]

@Tinker, Just a small nitpick, I notice that you have tidespout but choose REB as your blast of choice in the board. It doesn't matter much, but I think it should really just be a second pyroblast.

[Gazoline]

Yeah, one underground sea already ordered, next in in a month or two, also looking into fows :)

Already have a playset of all fetches from ktk aswell as a playsett of verdant catacombs:)

Cheers for the comment, help alot! =)

/Gaz

Start playing in cockatrice, so you can get a good understanding of the deck. It's pretty fast and fun to play, and you have a lot of matchups where you have a crushing advantage. About IRL, try to get the FoWs first, it's a Legacy staple and you can use it in tons of decks. From there the only really expensive cards are the duals, but you can manage to always have your colours with just 2 underground seas (I played for a long time with two before getting the full playset)

Polluted Deltas are very cheap now with the KTK reprint too

[TinkerRobot]

@Stryfo REB was a conscious descision so as to have diversity of card names against things like Cabal Therapy and Meddling Mage, but you're probably right. I don't think anyone is going go name Pyroblast with Cabal Therapy or Meddling Mage anyway.

[Kanti]

His point was to the disynergy with REB. The fact that no one is going to name REB/Pyroblast with Cabal Therapy or Meddling Mage is more reason to just run the full set of blasts so if you resolve Tidesprout Tyrant you can target things.

[KobeBryan]

His point was to the disynergy with REB. The fact that no one is going to name REB/Pyroblast with Cabal Therapy or Meddling Mage is more reason to just run the full set of blasts so if you resolve Tidesprout Tyrant you can target things.

Out of dealing with so many people playing cabal therapy or meddling mage

NO ONE has ever named blasts or REB if they did not first look at your hand and it being the only card they need to fight off.

[Ancestral]

well about some lists that seems to be the most played latelty!

grixis vs UBg and helpless reseracher vs ponder

well red give us pyro and izzet charm and green gains us abrupt decay, both has their strenghts, wich seems better in metagame? omni and miracles appers to be in same pace and decay (now that miracles play even more hatebears) its better in that matchup, thoughts?

about reseracher my opinion its that g1 we are already favor in like 90% of the matches i guess , so researcher vs ponder doesnt seems to make such difference in g1, and after board ponder its better to search for anti-hate cards and other options no? i don´t run reanimator regularly but i guess if its good meta for any combo deck has to be reanimator now.

[MTGeezy]

So ive been toying around with the grixis delver list for the past couple days, including fnm last night, and I am just not digging it. I feel like reanimator as it was, was already to mulligan probe, and having two more non basics just make my hands that much worse. Grabbing seven cards with five black spells and a trop and volcanic does not feel good. I also feel that izzet charm is not as good as it seems, but it had its shining moments for sure. Ive since went back to UBg, but ive left engineered explosives in my side cause I like that card and I've left two hapless researchers main cause that card rules.

Edit ; I also have not missed ponder at all.

[sunlith42]

So I recently started playing reanimator, and my question is in the Death and Taxes match up what it the best reanimation target? Do i get Elesh to wipe their board, Iona to name white, or tidespout to bounce their stuff?

[Ancestral]

So ive been toying around with the grixis delver list for the past couple days, including fnm last night, and I am just not digging it. I feel like reanimator as it was, was already to mulligan probe, and having two more non basics just make my hands that much worse. Grabbing seven cards with five black spells and a trop and volcanic does not feel good. I also feel that izzet charm is not as good as it seems, but it had its shining moments for sure. Ive since went back to UBg, but ive left engineered explosives in my side cause I like that card and I've left two hapless researchers main cause that card rules.

Edit ; I also have not missed ponder at all.

after some tests to i agree that izzet charm is a bit underpower (and slow) so the red splash doesnt seem worth it, more often i get my mana base werid than profit of the splash, so i m gonna stick to UBg version, decay give us all e need to deal with hate, and other 11 slots can get pretty well covered over all.

about hapless i had the same thoughts but i m cutting it now for ponders, my argument is that in g1 we are often quick and eficient so ponder vs hapless doesnt have much difference here, but after board, ponder help us a lot more to digging for our sb options and doesn´t gets us card disadvantage if they have some kind of hate to our grave! so altough its a nice card and i can consider playing it in teh future if something change, i ll play with the ponders instead. but sokme doubts yet (not that many tests yet) about 3 or 4 ponder and 2 or 3 seizes main deck, and not sure if its even best run more seizes or the 4th daze, because g1 daze is ruthless!!

[PirateKing]

So I recently started playing reanimator, and my question is in the Death and Taxes match up what it the best reanimation target? Do i get Elesh to wipe their board, Iona to name white, or tidespout to bounce their stuff?

Typically your best card to get is Inkwell Leviathan. Can't be hit with Swords to Plowshares or Karakas, and can trample over the occasional relevant blocker, typically Serra Avenger. After that, Elesh Norn is second best to keep their board clear and avoid getting raced with something like Mirran Crusader holding a sword of some flavor. But that's a stopgap in most games, easily hit with Swords and Karakas, so they'd typically need to be drawing poorly to let themselves die with just Elesh Norn hitting them. Iona, Shield of Emeria naming white is a dangerously fragile lock. Their outs are Karakas and AEther Vial bringing in Flickerwisp to get her off a turn an develop a board to race you. I wouldn't even consider bringing Iona in from the side against D&T, it's just not effective. The only thing going for her is a 7/7 body, and we're better served by that with just Griselbrand.

[Nuke is Good]

Typically your best card to get is Inkwell Leviathan. Can't be hit with Swords to Plowshares or Karakas, and can trample over the occasional relevant blocker, typically Serra Avenger. After that, Elesh Norn is second best to keep their board clear and avoid getting raced with something like Mirran Crusader holding a sword of some flavor. But that's a stopgap in most games, easily hit with Swords and Karakas, so they'd typically need to be drawing poorly to let themselves die with just Elesh Norn hitting them. Iona, Shield of Emeria naming white is a dangerously fragile lock. Their outs are Karakas and AEther Vial bringing in Flickerwisp to get her off a turn an develop a board to race you. I wouldn't even consider bringing Iona in from the side against D&T, it's just not effective. The only thing going for her is a 7/7 body, and we're better served by that with just Griselbrand.

Yeah the shroud fatty like Inkwell is your best bet against DnT. Elesh Norn serves as a super massacre on a stick. I typically side out 2 out of 3 Griselbrands due to Karakas being a thing. I have a miserable DnT record due to the one DnT player at the shop lives and breathes that deck plus he knows my deck as well. Not enough Pro-White critters. I use Empyrial Archangel due to a heavy Burn presence as it helps stall while I search for answers.

Though if your decklist is capable of turn 1 reanimations consistently, Sire of Insanity is perfect to shit on DnT. It would take two turns at most to get rid of sire via STP and by then the damage has been done.

[Damaku]

So I recently started playing reanimator, and my question is in the Death and Taxes match up what it the best reanimation target? Do i get Elesh to wipe their board, Iona to name white, or tidespout to bounce their stuff?

My weapon of choice against D&T is the Inkwell Leviathan, the only answer for him is council and most of them dont run it mainboard

[owerbart]

Against Death and Taxes Inkwell Leviathan is a beast, I currently don't run it in my sideboard, but if your meta is full of DnT, Inkwell Leviathan is the way to go as it's really hard to for them to race it/get it out.

I've been trying a copy of Keranos, God Of Storms in the sideboard and it has been amazing, it dodges Karakas, StP, Liliana, and it also bypasses Containment Priest, because reanimate spells check that the card you are targeting is a creature while it's on the graveyard, but when a god enters the battlefield, if you don't have devotion, it won't enter as a creature but as an enchantment, so Containment Priest doesn't trigger. Keranos is great to wipe boards and even to bolt Containment Priest and keep the reanimation going.

I'll be rocking Reanimator at the Legacy side-events here in Grand Prix Buenos Aires. Maybe trying Goblins for one of the side events, but definitely will play reanimator in 4/5 of them.

[Ancestral]

Against Death and Taxes Inkwell Leviathan is a beast, I currently don't run it in my sideboard, but if your meta is full of DnT, Inkwell Leviathan is the way to go as it's really hard to for them to race it/get it out.

I've been trying a copy of Keranos, God Of Storms in the sideboard and it has been amazing, it dodges Karakas, StP, Liliana, and it also bypasses Containment Priest, because reanimate spells check that the card you are targeting is a creature while it's on the graveyard, but when a god enters the battlefield, if you don't have devotion, it won't enter as a creature but as an enchantment, so Containment Priest doesn't trigger. Keranos is great to wipe boards and even to bolt Containment Priest and keep the reanimation going.

I'll be rocking Reanimator at the Legacy side-events here in Buenos Aires. Maybe trying Goblins for one of the side events, but definitely will play reanimator in 4/5 of them.


keranos its deeeeep!! :p like it ahah

[sunlith42]

Has anyone ever tried Soulflayer or Cairn Wanderer as answers to graveyard removal such as contaiment priest and grafdiggers cage? It would let us continue to put things in the yard and play a relevant threat.

[clashed]

Has anyone ever tried Soulflayer or Cairn Wanderer as answers to graveyard removal such as contaiment priest and grafdiggers cage? It would let us continue to put things in the yard and play a relevant threat.

Problem with those cards imo, is that they die to swords which is what containment priest decks also have. If they already have board control, then those cards I think grafdigger's cage is less of a problem as every matchup demands abrupt decays and/or echoing truth. The card that has been most impressive in testing has been pernicious deed if running the green splash. It has been an absolute house against fair decks, and just randomly beats the niche decks as well as decks that run multiple ways of permanent based hate. The ONLY problem it doesn't solve is planeswalkers. It simultaneously hits hate and creatures that are clocking us at the same time, which is just crazy if you think about it. I was skeptical at first due to the mana cost, but give it a try and see if it's as good as I think it is (as a one-of).

If snapcaster mage wasn't so expensive, I would be down to try that as well.

[sunlith42]

Problem with those cards imo, is that they die to swords which is what containment priest decks also have.

If Inkwell is in the yard they would have shroud

[PirateKing]

Has anyone ever tried Soulflayer or Cairn Wanderer as answers to graveyard removal such as contaiment priest and grafdiggers cage? It would let us continue to put things in the yard and play a relevant threat.

If Soulflayer had Flash so we could bring him in response to a Surgical Extraction or a Crop Rotated Bojuka Bog or some such trickery then it might warrent more consideration. But either way it'd mostly amount to just having a flying Batterskull 4 out of 5 times. I'd say 5 mana is too much for us; while not impossible, and the fact that Cairn Wanderer counts all graveyards for it's abilities, realistically deploying him seems so unlikely I'm unwilling to dedicate a sideboard slot.

There are enough answers to Containment Priest in the green splash that also cover a host of other permanents, and any sideboard should include some measure of permanent bounce. And lastly, as those before have mentioned, decks utilizing Containment Priest have a tough time getting Keranos off the board.

[Kamus]

I'm currently trying this list:

Main deck:

4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp

4 Lotus Petal

4 Griselbrand
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Grave Titan

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
2 Show and Tell
2 Thoughtseize
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume

Sideboard:

1 City of Traitors
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
1 Misdirection
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Massacre
2 Show and Tell

[clashed]

I'm currently trying this list:

Main deck:

4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp

4 Lotus Petal

4 Griselbrand
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Grave Titan

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
2 Show and Tell
2 Thoughtseize
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume

Sideboard:

1 City of Traitors
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
1 Misdirection
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Massacre
2 Show and Tell

Show and Tell main is just a bad idea right now imo. It's dead against one of the most popular choices in the metagame in omnitell and way slower then other lines of play in the deck. Game 1, you are almost always going to reanimate, and with deathrite shaman becoming less popular, there is simply no reason to run it main deck anymore. Swap a Show and Tells for the misdirection and maybe a thoughtseize and/or pithing needle. Pithing needle main is something people almost never expect, and allows you to beat active Karakas and/or other problematic things like Jace (which are the only few things people can do against us g1). I would also have some number of echoing truths in the sideboard, possibly cutting an ee and a pithing needle, going down to 2 for all three. Echoing truth helps in matchups with leyline, and is fantastic against marit lage and other tokens based strategies, as well as bouncing grave hate in case you have to go that route.

[DoorDie]

@PirateKing,

Any chance you could do a new primer on the deck? Feline's works ok, but I see a lot of the same questions popping up in the thread. It would be helpful to have the main post updated with deeper analyses, deck variants, and metagame changes, which are rare but do happen (looking at you, Priest).

Also, nice work on the Izzet Charm build. I tried four-color and didn't like it, but amusingly the greed is totally justifiable.

[PirateKing]

@PirateKing,

Any chance you could do a new primer on the deck? Feline's works ok, but I see a lot of the same questions popping up in the thread. It would be helpful to have the main post updated with deeper analyses, deck variants, and metagame changes, which are rare but do happen (looking at you, Priest).

Also, nice work on the Izzet Charm build. I tried four-color and didn't like it, but amusingly the greed is totally justifiable.

http://i.imgur.com/1dWrX6j.png?1
Oh man oh jeez oh man oh jeez oh man oh jeez

Not sure if I'm qualified to write a primer for all of Reanimator, though it's an honor to even be considered. I can offer insights to my list and some of my historical builds, but as far as the BURG build, I need to send credit to Stryfo, he's the one who motivated me to drop Ponder and give Hapless Researcher a try along with the red splash. Did you have any specific questions or thoughts on my build? I haven't played a with a copy of Show & Tell for years, so I'm not qualified to say how that plays in the current meta.

I'll see if I can spend a few days to write something up of substance, but let's not set our expectations too high.

[owerbart]

http://i.imgur.com/1dWrX6j.png?1
Oh man oh jeez oh man oh jeez oh man oh jeez

Not sure if I'm qualified to write a primer for all of Reanimator, though it's an honor to even be considered. I can offer insights to my list and some of my historical builds, but as far as the BURG build, I need to send credit to Stryfo, he's the one who motivated me to drop Ponder and give Hapless Researcher a try along with the red splash. Did you have any specific questions or thoughts on my build? I haven't played a with a copy of Show & Tell for years, so I'm not qualified to say how that plays in the current meta.

I'll see if I can spend a few days to write something up of substance, but let's not set our expectations too high.

A new primer would be great.

I've been playing with Show and Tell in Reanimator and to be honest, I could never see them going away. It creates so many wins out of nowhere, and also punishes GY hate if that's the only thing they are banking on.

About it being weak against Omni-Tell, Reanimator (with or without Show and Tell) is already Omni-Tell nightmare. I've played against the deck quite a few times and it's terrible how in your favor it is. The fact that they MUST cast Show and Tell to win means that they always have to be worried about you cheating a creature for free. Post board I swap an Elesh Norn for an Ashen Rider, replace a copy of Show and Tell with Thoughtseize, and depending on what I see, I take a 2/3 cards for Serenity/Abrupt Decay (their GY hate is Cage most of the time). Still conceptually speaking even if you don't sideboard very well, you are still getting huge edges because their SnT will always be symetrical but your Exhumes and Reanimates won't.




A card I'm still considering at least in the sideboard is Loyal Retainers. It bypasses Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, REB, Spell Snare, and the fact it costs 3 Mana may be great against Miracles since they run few cards with cost 3 (Vendilion Clique, Council's Judgment)

[DoorDie]

I'll see if I can spend a few days to write something up of substance, but let's not set our expectations too high.

Well, the bar isn't that high either honestly. It is Legacy Magic, but it's also a pretty simple combo in the format. I prodded you because you frequent the forums enough and have demonstrated a strong knowledge base and balanced perspective on card choices and strategies. I'm no real authority myself; best I've done is taking home a Liliana of the Veil in 8th place at a LGS.

Don't forget you can lean on the community. If anything's wrong or appears biased in your primer, we'll fix it! I'd be happy to pitch in, and I'm sure others like Stryfo would as well.

I think structuring the primer to focus on vanilla U/B is key, since that's really the core of the deck. Other variants can get honorable mention, particularly the wonders that Abrupt Decay does for us. I'd also suggest to inject some humor, keep it from being so dry.

In regards to your 4-color build: I like the 10x Reanimation spell redundancy, shaving a Griselbrand because 8 is too many, and 17 lands frees up a slot over 14 lands + 4 petals. I've come to the same conclusions on all those things, myself. The problem I have is the mana really sucks; you have a RU and BG spell in a U/B-based deck. It's not like just splashing Tarmogoyf and Young Pyro; these spells, powerful and flexible as they are, are very demanding. I almost wanted Taiga in the board to provide both off-colors (except that Delta can't fetch it). But that said, it is Legacy, and fetches + Brainstorm do a lot of work in making this double splash viable.

Hapless vs. Ponder has been a debate in the past, and I don't believe either one to be better than the other. I just personally prefer Ponder for smoother postboard games. I also think Show and Tell isn't great anymore, but it's currently in my sideboard (shhh, don't tell anyone).

[sunlith42]

I have a question about the interaction between Hapless and exhume. If my opponent has a deathrite shaman in play and I have a hapless researcher. Can I cast exhume with nothing in the graveyard then activate hapless without him being able to respond using deathrite to remove it? Or do I have to already have a creature in the yard for the hapless trick to work, having him remove that other creature?

[bryanzoll]

I have a question about the interaction between Hapless and exhume. If my opponent has a deathrite shaman in play and I have a hapless researcher. Can I cast exhume with nothing in the graveyard then activate hapless without him being able to respond using deathrite to remove it? Or do I have to already have a creature in the yard for the hapless trick to work, having him remove that other creature?

After the hapless researcher ability resolves (meaning you pitch a card) with Exhume still on the stack, your opponent would be able to exile whatever creature you discarded.

The reason for this is because after a spell on the stack resolves and another spell/trigger is on the stack, both players receive priority to respond with instants / abilities while the spell/trigger is on the stack.

[PirateKing]

That won't work how you hoped. As bryanzoll said, in order for anything to resolve, both players need to pass priority without adding anything onto the stack. So if you add Hapless Researcher's ability onto your own Exhume on the stack, it can resolve, but before Exhume does, both players need to pass priority without adding anything. Which is unlikely if they have out an active Deathrite Shaman and an open :g: to spend. Since you're talking about Exhume here though, you could always just get back your Hapless Researcher as a consolation prize...

[sunlith42]

Did everyone see the Origins spoiler "Hallowed Moonlight" 1W, Instant, Until end of turn, if a creature would enter the battlefield and it wasn't cast, exile it instead. Draw a card.

This looks like it could be good in legacy against a lot of decks, as it doesn't say non-token. If this becomes a main deck card that could be annoying. It only happens once but its slightly worse for us than a counterspell and it seems like it could be main deck in white decks.

[ThiefSlayer]

Did everyone see the Origins spoiler "Hallowed Moonlight" 1W, Instant, Until end of turn, if a creature would enter the battlefield and it wasn't cast, exile it instead. Draw a card.

This looks like it could be good in legacy against a lot of decks, as it doesn't say non-token. If this becomes a main deck card that could be annoying. It only happens once but its slightly worse for us than a counterspell and it seems like it could be main deck in white decks.

I don't see it getting to the MD of white decks, as against decks that don't do that, it is a dead card that costs 1W to cantrip (which sucks completely). That means like a turn's mana loss or even a dead card in most matchups.

But still, looks very strong. But I don't see it being better than the white creature that does the same (forgot it's name), as the creature can be deployed and tighten up the clock with it's 2/1 body that can attack as soon as you pass the turn. I mean, I find the clock tightening "post-combo-screw" more important than getting 1 extra card, as it is a goblin guide in terms of damage dealing. Also, the fact that the card is a creature isn't usually a problem, as I don't think decks that put creatures into the battlefield without casting it usually don't have removal (not that I'm aware of, I guess).

I think this card will get more use in modern against collected company in response to twin's activation (gets an extra turn to kill the creature or destroy the enchant).

Anyway, even if it sees play in legacy, I really doubt it will get into the MDs.

[owerbart]

Hallowed Moonlight is just another reason to have a copy of Keranos in your sideboard. I went 4-0-1 in one of the Legacy side events here in Buenos Aires, will post a quick report in a few days, when I finish uni exams. :smile:

[DoorDie]

At least Containment Priest can be deployed at your leisure... with Hallowed Moonlight you have to hold up 1W always. Seems worse, particularly against Thoughtseize.

Cool flavor though.

[Damaku]

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/11-06-15-reanimator-copy/

I could use some tips for my deck for Lille. What do you guys think?

[PirateKing]

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/11-06-15-reanimator-copy/

I could use some tips for my deck for Lille. What do you guys think?

Might be my lack of experience with the European meta, but you seem to be anticipating a lot of white. Iona in the main is also a meta call, here there are far too many 3 color decks to justify always having her game 1. Not sure about your budget, but I'd turn one Swamp into an Underground Sea, that'll help with the 4 Dazes. Only other thing I'd like to see is more copies of Thoughtseize, since you're on the Show and Tell plan, it'll really help prevent a backfire. Maybe in place of a Daze main or Pernicious Deed side. Not much to say beyond that otherwise I'll start proselytizing other builds.

[Nuke is Good]

Might be my lack of experience with the European meta, but you seem to be anticipating a lot of white. Iona in the main is also a meta call, here there are far too many 3 color decks to justify always having her game 1. Not sure about your budget, but I'd turn one Swamp into an Underground Sea, that'll help with the 4 Dazes. Only other thing I'd like to see is more copies of Thoughtseize, since you're on the Show and Tell plan, it'll really help prevent a backfire. Maybe in place of a Daze main or Pernicious Deed side. Not much to say beyond that otherwise I'll start proselytizing other builds.

Iona main might be justified also with Omni running amok as well, as it's also a GP he might be seeing burn and such. For the Tri-Color decks, if I do happen to reanimate an Iona I always go after their removal color. I find Deed nice in Jund but I'm not sure how I feel about it in Reanimator, the big thing is that the sweeper effect doesn't really affect us but a 3 CMC spell could be supplemented with another decay/bounce spell.

[owerbart]

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/11-06-15-reanimator-copy/

I could use some tips for my deck for Lille. What do you guys think?

If you are running Inkwell Leviathan, do you really need also grave titan? I feel like both of those guys play the same role, but i could be wrong. I would bring some countermagic (flusterstorms or swan songs) in the sideboard. Sire of Insanity is also a goody against Omni-Tell because they never get to go off. If you are packing Show and Tell (which I'm a big fan of) do you really need the pernicious deed effects? I can see how you want to sweep all their cages and crypts in one go, but I think SnT just already bypasses all of that.

Also I would run some copies of Pithing Needle to battle against Shaman and the stinky Karakas

Best of lucks :)

[Nuke is Good]

If you are running Inkwell Leviathan, do you really need also grave titan? I feel like both of those guys play the same role, but i could be wrong. I would bring some countermagic (flusterstorms or swan songs) in the sideboard. Sire of Insanity is also a goody against Omni-Tell because they never get to go off. If you are packing Show and Tell (which I'm a big fan of) do you really need the pernicious deed effects? I can see how you want to sweep all their cages and crypts in one go, but I think SnT just already bypasses all of that.

Also I would run some copies of Pithing Needle to battle against Shaman and the stinky Karakas

Best of lucks :)

Grave Titan serves as an out vs edict effects and Inkwell is catchall against targeted effects.

[Darklingske]

I took reanimator to GP Lille. It was horrible!
R1 against infect (0-2)
Mull to 5, mull to 4 and way to slow of course!
R2 against Miracles (0-2)
G1 mull to 6 but I manage to discard my opponents CB T1, only to see him rip one from the top. I never succesfully cast a spell again that game.
G2 I reanimate grisel T2 and my opponent flips Terminus on his turn. Next turn I reanimate again Grisel (had 2 grisel discarded with careful study) and my opponent blind flips terminus. Next turn Clique lands an beats me further in the ground...
R3 against Elves (2-0)
G1 T3 Elesh = GG
G2 T2 Iona = GG
R4 against Burn (0-2)
G1 mull to 5 and despite 2 ponder, 1 BS and a study I never find an entomb or Fatty.
G2 mull to 5 and again all the luck is on my opponents side. I ponder T1 only to see BS, BS, BS. So Shuffle and draw... BS. My opponent plays T1 Crypt, crypt and Guide. I manage to force him to crack both crypts in T3 (grisel) & 4 (Iona), but I never find a fatty or entomb again.
At this point I'm fed up with all the bad beats and decide to drop. A day to forget very fast!!

[PirateKing]

Bad mulligans are a shitty way to lose games. It'll be interesting to see what this new mulligan rule does to the format. Were your hands totally unplayable or were you fishing for a better combo? Typically the deck is so packed with redundancy that we can rely on a Careful Study or Brainstorm getting us into the second half of a combo. Against your opponent's Terminus, did you not have the life to draw 7 and find Force of Will? I get that bad draws happen, but I'm counting 8 mulligans in 8 games played, I got to suspect something else is going on. Care to share your list?

[Darklingske]

The mulligans were all because of no lands or too many lands. And to answer the question on the terminuses: the first one I didn't find a FoW, but the second I was too low on life to draw another 7. My list is the list without S&T main (7 fatties, 7 cantrip, 9 disruption, standard reanimate package, 3 Petals & 17 lands. 17 lands with 1 Swamp, 1 Island, 3 USea, 1 Bayou, 2 Trop & 9 fetch so I can hardcast Grisel if it needs to be (really a cornercase, but still, I like it).

[sunlith42]

The mulligans were all because of no lands or too many lands. And to answer the question on the terminuses: the first one I didn't find a FoW, but the second I was too low on life to draw another 7. My list is the list without S&T main (7 fatties, 7 cantrip, 9 disruption, standard reanimate package, 3 Petals & 17 lands. 17 lands with 1 Swamp, 1 Island, 3 USea, 1 Bayou, 2 Trop & 9 fetch so I can hardcast Grisel if it needs to be (really a cornercase, but still, I like it).

Usually if you run lotus petals you only run 14 or 15 lands. 17 lands plus 3 lotus petal is probably too many mana producing sources.

[owerbart]

Usually if you run lotus petals you only run 14 or 15 lands. 17 lands plus 3 lotus petal is probably too many mana producing sources.

Agreed. I play 14 lands and 4 petals, and sometimes I wish i could drop down to 13

What do you guys think about Aetherling against Miracles?

[Nuke is Good]

Agreed. I play 14 lands and 4 petals, and sometimes I wish i could drop down to 13

What do you guys think about Aetherling against Miracles?

Aetherling is amazing against Miracles if you have the mana to keep it afloat. I'm still partial to shroud fatties like Inkwell or Empyrial Archangel as I can put it against more decks like Delver and DnT. Right now I'm playing Miracles so Reanimator has been on the sidelines but I'm most likely bringing Reanimator back for Eternal Weekend, as it always gave me the strongest results besides Jund which is in a poor position now. I've tweaked the list and I'm looking at this so far.

Creatures (8)
1 Sire of Insanity
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Tidespout Tyrant
3 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Spells (36)
4 Lotus Petal
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
3 Daze
4 Exhume
2 Show and Tell
1 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
Lands (16)
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
Sideboard (15)
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Pithing Needle
2 Dread of Night
2 Flusterstorm
3 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Show and Tell
1 Grave Titan

I've been playing the deck for a while and it might just be my luck but I haven't even used my Dazes. I've used my singleton misdirection more than daze. I thought about cutting a daze or two to bring thoughtseize back in the main. My MD creature suite is a product of my LGS meta.

[Stryfo]

Alright friends, here is the new list I've been working on for a while. I haven't got to play it much yet, only a couple of smaller tournaments but I really like the way the deck plays right now, as my only losses have been to 3 hate spells out of painter (any combination of 2 was beatable, 3 being beatable given one more turn), drawing one land in the top 15 cards against Jund, and pilot error against Jund in the same match. Both matchups felt extremely winnable.

Creatures (11)
4 Hapless Researcher
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Archetype of Endurance
1 Tidespout Tyrant
3 Griselbrand
1 Jin-Gitaxias

Spells (32)

4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
2 Animate Dead
4 Exhume
2 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
2 Izzet Charm
1 Dack Fayden
1 Dig Through Time

Lands (17)
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea

Sideboard (15)
2 Echoing Truth
2 Pithing Needle
1 Sulfur Elemental
2 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Iona
1 Keranos
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Pyroblast
1 Darkblast


The idea behind this list is that daze is awkward in ~50% of game ones (the ones on the draw) and gets boarded out in a lot of matchups. I have been playing Izzet Charm a lot recently and it has been fantastic, I use every mode with frequency. I also upped the misdirection count to 2, as I cut the dazes and wanted an extra permission spell. I am currently testing out a single DTT and a single Dack. I can't say much about the dig, as I haven't got to cast it much yet, but the Dack has been incredible, drawing three cards a turn gets you to the combo quite fast, and taking an artifact is surprisingly relevant. Also, I have gotten to ult it in a postboard game (my list was playing a pair of pyromancers at the time, so I got to just block forever) and ulting it with active darkblast is just silly. Archetype of Endurance is phenomenal in matchups like DnT and Maverick, they suddenly have almost no answers to what you're doing, and it's what I would currently recommend at the shroud spot unless you need to up your blue count. It's possible that Sulfur Elemental should be Dread of Night, but I like having Sulfur Elemental as a beater in the Miracles matchup, rather than just a DnT hoser.

[Nuke is Good]

Alright friends, here is the new list I've been working on for a while. I haven't got to play it much yet, only a couple of smaller tournaments but I really like the way the deck plays right now, as my only losses have been to 3 hate spells out of painter (any combination of 2 was beatable, 3 being beatable given one more turn), drawing one land in the top 15 cards against Jund, and pilot error against Jund in the same match. Both matchups felt extremely winnable.

The idea behind this list is that daze is awkward in ~50% of game ones (the ones on the draw) and gets boarded out in a lot of matchups. I have been playing Izzet Charm a lot recently and it has been fantastic, I use every mode with frequency. I also upped the misdirection count to 2, as I cut the dazes and wanted an extra permission spell. I am currently testing out a single DTT and a single Dack. I can't say much about the dig, as I haven't got to cast it much yet, but the Dack has been incredible, drawing three cards a turn gets you to the combo quite fast, and taking an artifact is surprisingly relevant. Also, I have gotten to ult it in a postboard game (my list was playing a pair of pyromancers at the time, so I got to just block forever) and ulting it with active darkblast is just silly. Archetype of Endurance is phenomenal in matchups like DnT and Maverick, they suddenly have almost no answers to what you're doing, and it's what I would currently recommend at the shroud spot unless you need to up your blue count. It's possible that Sulfur Elemental should be Dread of Night, but I like having Sulfur Elemental as a beater in the Miracles matchup, rather than just a DnT hoser.

4 color thats ballsy. My local meta has lots of blood moon so I wouldn't consider it I even thought of reverting to straight U/B at one point because it was so strong. You are definitely right about Daze being an awkward card, though I cannot justify removing it altogether due to keeping the blue count up for force. I've tested Archetype out in the past and thought it was solid but against DnT I was still facing down fliers which lead me back to the Archangel route, I've had a hilariously high amount success with Akroma Angel of Fury in that matchup but it's because I knew those players had a lower Karakas count.

Sulfur Elemental is justifiable in your list as it's hardcastable, not sure how I feel about it being a Miracles beater though. Why Jin though? He's so painful to reanimate and Griselbrand does a pretty good job replacing him.

You have a better long term game than my UBg list, I'd probably consider engineered explosives over deed due to your color count.

[PirateKing]

I had tried Dig Through Time when it was first printed instead of the two Ponder in my then current build, and found they were a bit slow game one and became collateral damage from the Rest in Peace and Relic of Progenitus brought in against me game two. I determined then at least that an always on Ponder was better than a maybe super Ponder. The white decks do seem to be waning though, so it could be more viable now, but still is a slower card in a faster deck.

I still don't see what Archetype of Endurance does that Inkwell Leviathan doesn't do better. Both can only really be killed with Terminus and Council's Judgement, but Archetype of Endurance gets chumped into oblivion where Inkwell is unblockable at best and tramples over any opposing flyers at worst. The only benefit I can see is it makes any other creature nonsense we're doing a step better, but we have such a hard time getting one creature into play, getting a second is usually greedy or just overkill.

No Daze is interesting, I agree with your assessment, they get pulled in just about every sideboard game. I try to not lean to much on Misdirection, because it isn't a clean counterspell itself, only a reaction to one. Not having any relevance against a Liliana or Jace makes me weary of too many copies. Dack Fayden is an interesting call though, and one that interests me as well. It is a bit slower, but offers a potential longer term advantage. I could see some issue with the discard and then not having a followup; I find it good practice to avoid letting your opponent untap with your reanimation choice sitting in the graveyard, it just feels too exposed to removal. But I'm wanting to test it anyways, seems like a fun card to have in our list.

I have a single copy of Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives in my sideboard, but I'd be hard pressed to pick only one to run. The X or less provision of Deed is a real godsend in some matches. Not covering planeswalkers is the only real limitation, as we rarely have anything on our side that we're sad to see go. EE is faster to blow up at zero, plus being able to play around Chalice and Counterbalance is fun times for all.

[Stryfo]

Archetype protects your other guys, making it a ridiculous second target. If you get this guy down after t2 griselbrand, the game is over, even against decks like dnt or maverick, that sometimes have game even after turn two fatty. It allows you to play the game in such a way that you don't have to lose to councils judgement if you don't have a FoW, because you can more aggressively reanimate d7s, also the number of creature decks that can beat this alongside elesh is not large.

[PirateKing]

I get the two card lock, I'm just more in the philosophy that each creature should be able to stand on its own and be able to close out the game. Since we only have the 4 Entombs, odds are we'll be putting a creature in the graveyard off a Careful Study or similar effect, and won't always have the luxury of choice or a second creature. Though all this being said, I've doubted your card choices before only to be won over after playing them myself, so don't pour too much into my comments.

[Nuke is Good]

Still good to spur discussion nonetheless. If we all had a consensus on what to run, the other decks would have an easier time shutting us down. For example I still subscribe to the show and tell plan/mainboard Iona as a response the the Omni-Tell decks running around. Getting down Iona and Sire of Insanity down in the same Turn against Death and Taxes at the finals of a LGS tournament was my favorite moment with this deck.

In other tech options, I was facing off in a BUG Matchup that ran a bit too long since my opponent had both Jace and Lili out. My target of choice Grave Titan kept getting bounced by Jace and Lili just -2'd the Tokens. Sigarda Host of Herons is such a narrow option I've considered in the past but the body attached to her is not that durable vs Empyrial Archangel nor does it hit as hard as Grave Titan.

Also, anyone figure out the silver bullet against MUD? I can't really think of a card in our deck that instantly shuts the game off against them. Most of the time I just go for any fatty and hope their deck's inconsistency backfires on them which it does quite a lot.

[Stryfo]

Mud is just already a pretty easy matchup, I don't think we need a bullet for them. If you want, there is a dragon that gains control of all their artifacts when he hits, but that seems super narrow to me for a matchup that is already favorable. As an aside, dack is hilarious in that matchup.

edit: @pirate, I agree, entirely, my view on archetype is that it allows griselbrand to be that creature in more matchups, by increasing his resiliency.

[PirateKing]

I try and get Griselbrand just to try and find a Force of Will for that key spell, typically Kuldotha Forgemaster or Staff of Domination, and then just try and kill them as fast as possible. After that, next card choices would be Elesh Norn to kill their Metalworker, but they can recover from that. A very early Sire of Insanity is always good, they'll have a hard time rebuilding a position. We really don't have an artifact silver bullet, though as I write this I'm more and more keen on one or two Dack Fayden. I guess if MUD is a huge issue you could bring out Hellkite Tyrant lol

[Luca Grease]

Hello everyone! I am thinking of building reanimator as I've recently acquired 3 underground seas, and I wanted to get some feedback before I fully commit to one particular version...

1) how well positioned is it in the current dtt infested metagame? From the test matches I've had on cockatrice it seems to be exceptionally strong against the most widely played combo decks (omnitell, ant, elves), which is one of the main incentives to play it. It should also crush stuff built to prey on fair decks such as lands and loam strategies, while still having an OK mu against most delver decks. I figure rest in peace is also at an all-time low since everyone wants to be delving right now.
What worries me, except for drs, is the miracles match-up, which seems pretty miserable on paper and from my limited experience. Is a fast Iona on white with fow for jace our best course of action here?

2) for a time, it looked like gemstone caverns could actually be real in this deck, but all recent lists I have seen se to have moved away from them... Has it been pretty much established that they are not worth the loss in consistency?

3) another thing I haven't seen around for a while are the hybrid young Frankenstein lists... Izzet charm is already a great card for reanimator, and having an additional angle of attack (with a possible transformational sb including a playset of delvers, since we run more spells then any delver lists) seems like a very good reason to go full grixis. This would probably entail dropping the green splash to avoid further weakening an already fragile mana base, but their post board hate would probably look quite silly while they're getting swamped by delver and young peezy. Thoughts on this tentative list?

4 young pyromancer
2 griselbrand
1 Iona
1 elesh norn

4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 daze
4 gitaxian probe
4 force of will
4 izzet charm
4 entomb
4 reanimate
3 exhume

3 underground sea
3 volcanic island
1 badlands
9 fetches

Sb:
1 inkwell leviathan
4 cabal therapy
4 delver of secrets
3 pyroblast
1 grave purge
2 flustersorm

The idea is that you could totally transform into a tempo/reactive deck post board if you don't think the reanimate plan is going to work or if your opponent is overloading on hate, while also threatening to get back on the reanimation plan on a moment's notice...

[Stryfo]

I was trying something very similar for a while and the problem was that I was giving up too many percentage points game 1, for not enough points in post board games. The main problem being that some decks have game against both strategies, and not having real sideboard cards to answer those strategies made things very difficult.

[Nuke is Good]

Hello everyone! I am thinking of building reanimator as I've recently acquired 3 underground seas, and I wanted to get some feedback before I fully commit to one particular version...


The idea is that you could totally transform into a tempo/reactive deck post board if you don't think the reanimate plan is going to work or if your opponent is overloading on hate, while also threatening to get back on the reanimation plan on a moment's notice...

1) The decks that pack DTT are slower than ours so we are favored. I haven't had enough practice with Grixis Control but I imagine Elesh Norn does the job kills everything except for the angler which Elesh can kill via a block. Inkwell Leviathan provides a fast clock vs miracles. Aetherling is also pretty devestating vs Miracles. Though if you have Iona and want to reanimate her, you usually choose the removal color which is White in this case.
2) Gemstone caverns generates way too much card disadvantage/relies it being on the opening hand and doesn't provide colored mana if you draw it. Joe Lossett is a great player but I disagree highly with that plan. Lotus Petals can help power out a turn 1 reanimation and be color fixing.
3) The problem with young frankenstein was it's either a weak young pyro deck or a weak reanimator deck. Also Monastery Mentor is making waves in Legacy so sweeper effects are going to come back with a vengeance like they did during the U/R delver era.

[feline]

Someone may be working on a new Reanimator Primer, they messaged me here and it would be nice to see it continue in the right hands as I have been rather inactive as of late. Whenever that happens, follow his thread as it will be more up to date than this one. ^.^

[Rivfader]

It should also crush stuff built to prey on fair decks such as lands and loam strategies, while still having an OK mu against most delver decks.

From a Lands point a view, Reanimator isn't the crushing matchup you think it is (depending on having Bojuka Bog / Karakas maindecked). It can be hard for Reanimator to push through 3 Mazes, Karakas, Glacial Chasm and Bojuka Bog before our own unfair fatty pops up.

[Stryfo]

The only losses I have ever taken to lands involved things like turn one mana bond into marit lage, otherwise, tidespout tyrant makes the matchup an actual cakewalk. where I play (and online), lands players tend to run bog and karakas main.

[Rivfader]

The only losses I have ever taken to lands involved things like turn one mana bond into marit lage, otherwise, tidespout tyrant makes the matchup an actual cakewalk. where I play (and online), lands players tend to run bog and karakas main.

Tyrant is indeed what I fear most. Still I prefer playing against Reanimator, than matchups like Storm or Omnitell that really do crush Lands. At the very least Lands has some direct interaction with Reanimator's graveyard and creatures, besides the possibility of a quick Marit Lage.
Personally I've had a good amount of losses, but I've had my fair share of wins as well, so I perceive it more as a challenging but manageable matchup, rather than a crushing mu.

[litenkatt]

So I thought I'd just share some general thoughts about this deck. A friend of mine has been playing this deck ever since we started playing legacy, about 4 years ago. And as our legacy community is very limited, it's mostly been him and me playing over and over. I've been playing lots of different decks throughout the years but he's always been on reaminater. Here's some things we've concluded:

This deck does not need more than 2 UG sea. I don't know how many basics he's got in his deck currently, but I believe around 5. He's very happy with it, and it's most def been proved to be just fine and probably better than running the full playset.

Best way to deal with Karakas is to play Grave Titan.

He doesn't run Ponder and been doing very well without it. He has some extra discard instead of those

Lotus Petal is great.

Blood Moons in the SB are awesome. Great suprise factor, deals with troublesome lands and sometimes wins matches on its own. I really recommend this card. Having Lotus Petals is nessecary though

He's never been a fan of Tidespout Tyrant. I'm not sure myself about the card

Engineered Explosives > Pithing Needle. Needle is not even needed. Explosvies deals with shamans, priests, cage, chalice etc etc

Containment Priest is the best card against this deck

Counterbalance is tough.

Daze is great.



Some thoughts are obvious I guess. There are more stuff we've learned about the deck, I'll add them when they come to mind

[Luca Grease]

Thanks everyone for your quick and insightful replies. I agree that lotus petal is probably better than caverns, especially when you're running tidesprout tyrant.
I also understand the argument that, if reanimator is a winning strategy in your meta, it's probably better not to dilute it and slow it down, and dedicating your sideboard slots to robust, reliable anti-hate cards like abrupt decay.
On that note, do you feel like a sb show and tell plan is necessary to fight through the hate? I've never really liked that card but it might end up being necessary against opponents stacking surgicals/leylines on top of shamans...

[PirateKing]

litenkatt
Engineered Explosives is good, but to say Pithing Needle isn't needed is a bit much. Problem lands and planeswalkers like Jace or even Karn and Ugin are going to be untouchable with EE alone. Pithing Needle is a quality "fire and forget" permanent that won't require a full turn to play and a second to blow. If your friend doesn't value Tidespout, I'd say he either hasn't played enough games or has a meta that I'd be envious of. I'll admit he's a level above a necessary evil, I'd be nice if there was something a little better than return to hand; but getting permanents off tho board without targeting restrictions is something we're always going to need, and being able to Entomb for it is one of the better ways we can manage. As far as Containment Priest goes, sure it sucks in response to our spells, especially off AEther Vial, but I'd much rather that then Extirpate or Rest in Peace. At least with Priest on the board, we can still develop our graveyard, making the most out of our Careful Studies, before we try again. In the face of RiP, we can't do much of anything except find a way to remove it or dig for Show and Tell.


Luca Grease
Myself and a few others here have moved past Show and Tell in the side, opting instead for cards like Abrupt Decay and Echoing Truth to remove obstacles to our graveyard. We're a weak Show and Tell deck, and worse, some opponents will preemptive anticipate that route and side accordingly, negating somewhat the entire exercise in having alternative pathways to victory.

[Deckerator]

I do have some problems with boarding strategies.
Maybe you can help me and tell me how you board against the following decks.

Merfolk
Punishing Jund
Miracles
OmniTell
Elves
Reanimator
BUG Delver
ANT-Storm
Death and Taxes

[Nuke is Good]

I do have some problems with boarding strategies.
Maybe you can help me and tell me how you board against the following decks.

Merfolk
Punishing Jund
Miracles
OmniTell
Elves
Reanimator
BUG Delver
ANT-Storm
Death and Taxes

For me:

Merfolk: -1 Reanimate -1 Exhume -2 Daze +2 Show and Tell +2 Abrupt Decay. Iona or Elesh Norn being my goto targets.
Punishing Jund: -2 Careful Study -1 Misdirection -3 Daze -2 Exhume +2 Show and Tell +1 Pithing Needle +1 Grave Titan +3 Abrupt Decay. If I see Leyline of the Void Game 3 I'll bring in my single Chain of Vapor in favor of another abrupt decay
Miracles: -1 Iona -3 Daze -2 Careful Study +1 Pithing Needle +3 Abrupt Decay +2 Flusterstorm. With Mentor becoming more popular Dread of Night might come in and I cut more careful studies.
Elves: -3 Daze -2 Careful Study -1 Exhume +3 Thoughtseize +3 Abrupt Decay +1 Pithing Needle
Omnitell: To be honest I haven't been playing Reanimator much when Omnitell has been running rampant, since even mulling to 2 with an Iona in your hand is enough to scare most Mono-U players. Though -1 Elesh Norn -1 Empyrial
Archangel -2 Daze -1 Lotus Petal +2 Flusterstorm +3 Thoughtseize
BUG: -2 Reanimate -2 Daze -1 Lotus Petal +2 Abrupt Decay +2 Show and Tell +1 Show and Tell. I honestly hate Shardless's matchup more if it gets drawn out. Being on the receiving end of a resolved Jace and Liliana blows.
Storm: -3 Daze -1 Elesh Norn -1 Empyrial Archangel -2 Exhume -2 Careful Study +2 Flusterstorm +2 Show and Tell +2 Abrupt Decay +3 Thoughtseize

[Stryfo]

I can help, but not without a list. Edit your list into your previous post and I'll edit my plans on this post.

[Deckerator]

Thanks for your answers.
My list ist the following:
4 Griselbrand
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Grave Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

4 Lotus Petal
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
3 Exhume
2 Show and Tell
1 Animate Dead
1 Misdirection

1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs

Need one more land not sure about a second swamp or island or watery grave.

I am not sure about the sideboard yet.
2 Show and Tell
1 Aetherling against the Miracle match up
Maybe 2-3 Abrupt Decay
Maybe 1-2 Pithing Needle
Then Flusterstorm and/or Spell Pierce
Maybe Thoughtseize






My meta is the following:
1x Elves
1-2x Reanimator
1x ANT
1-2x Merfolk
1x Dredge
1x Punishing-Jund
1x BUG Delver
2-3x Miracles
1x Omniscience

Gesendet von meinem SMART-E4 mit Tapatalk

[Damaku]

Hiere is my list http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/16-07-15-reanimator/. Our metas are kind of similar. I would start by cutting 1 Grizzel main for ether 1 Inkwell or 1 Archetype.

[DarkJester]

Hiere is my list http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/16-07-15-reanimator/. Our metas are kind of similar. I would start by cutting 1 Grizzel main for ether 1 Inkwell or 1 Archetype.

Why do you play Helm of Obedience?
Why do you play Keranos without a single red source except for Lotus Petal?

[Nuke is Good]

Thanks for your answers.
My list ist the following:
4 Griselbrand
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Grave Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

4 Lotus Petal
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
3 Exhume
2 Show and Tell
1 Animate Dead
1 Misdirection

1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs

Need one more land not sure about a second swamp or island or watery grave.

I am not sure about the sideboard yet.
2 Show and Tell
1 Aetherling against the Miracle match up
Maybe 2-3 Abrupt Decay
Maybe 1-2 Pithing Needle
Then Flusterstorm and/or Spell Pierce
Maybe Thoughtseize






My meta is the following:
1x Elves
1-2x Reanimator
1x ANT
1-2x Merfolk
1x Dredge
1x Punishing-Jund
1x BUG Delver
2-3x Miracles
1x Omniscience

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Your SB should put into account for hate

Inkwell Leviathan would be fine for the Miracles Matchup and can be used against the other blue decks if you dont have Iona out
Sire of Insanity is a back breaker since you have 4 petals you can power out on turn 1 at times so consider it
You have Bayou and Trop Abrupt decay should be a 3-4 of SB
Flusterstorm is okay here
If you don't have Thoughtseize mained at least put it in the SB.
Pithing Needle is always a good pick
Might want to consider a bounce card somewhere, AD does not hit Leyline of the Void which may rear it's head in the Dredge/Reanimator Mirror.


Why do you play Helm of Obedience?
Why do you play Keranos without a single red source except for Lotus Petal?

Keranos is a reanimation target that gets past Humility, Containment Priest, and that new 1W card from origins since Reanimator lacks devotion to put Keranos into play as a creature. It's a long play card that tends to be a lightning bolt a turn or extra draw into another answer. I personally don't like this card but other users here have had some success with it.
Helm of Obedience- Makes people's grave hate backfire on them. It's a bit cute for my tastes but utterly hilarious.

[Deckerator]

Hiere is my list http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/16-07-15-reanimator/. Our metas are kind of similar. I would start by cutting 1 Grizzel main for ether 1 Inkwell or 1 Archetype.
Thanks, do you like your two copies of thoughtseize?
Are 15 lands enough for you or do you get problems?

After your advice i try
-1 Griselbrand
+ 1 Inkwell
I am not sure how good Sire of Insanity is?

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[Damaku]

Thanks, do you like your two copies of thoughtseize?
Are 15 lands enough for you or do you get problems?

After your advice i try
-1 Griselbrand
+ 1 Inkwell
I am not sure how good Sire of Insanity is?

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I had been working with 16 a long time. Supprisingly 15 works just as well. The Sire is the go-target in turn 1-2, especially in game 1. You need to try it!

Ed: Thoughtseize... I tend to side it out a lot. Still a nice Tool to Start into Show and Tell and to ward against counter

[Luca Grease]

I see various lists running spell Pierce main while only sideboarding thoughtseize: doesn't thoughtseize do basically everything Pierce does, but more reliably, while also serving as enabler in a pinch? Is it because of the non negligible life loss and wanting to keep the blue count up?

[Deckerator]

Have you guys tried Ruric Thar, the Unbowed?
Played against several Chlalice of the Void @ 1 - Decks. Really, really difficult to play. Any ideas how we can interact?

[bonkotsu]

So, I have been playing this deck for a few months now and LOVED it. This is the list I have been running and the last time I did well with it (6/7/15) http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=86013

I picked up some Show and Tells and haven't really enjoyed it in the side at all. Our meta is pretty diverse, I tend to get lots of practice vs many popular legacy decks except for lands. More players have been playing deathrites and tend to mull to get it turn 1. I have tried 1 Pernicious Deed in the main to try to give me something against maindeck hate. It has done pretty well and helps a lot vs all of the delver decks.

I feel as if lately I have hit a wall with it. I haven't had a game where Tidespout has been a solid choice. I am trying to figure out what to do at the Invitational and am unsure if I want to go with this deck or not. I have considered just going Tin Fins but would prefer not to.

Anybody else having some frustrations or suggestions getting me out of my rut?

Side note I have been considering Sire of Insanity vs tidespout

[PirateKing]

How often does the MD Iona prove useful? How often do you side it out postboard?

[Worldslayer]

So, I have been playing this deck for a few months now and LOVED it. This is the list I have been running and the last time I did well with it (6/7/15) http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=86013

I picked up some Show and Tells and haven't really enjoyed it in the side at all. Our meta is pretty diverse, I tend to get lots of practice vs many popular legacy decks except for lands. More players have been playing deathrites and tend to mull to get it turn 1. I have tried 1 Pernicious Deed in the main to try to give me something against maindeck hate. It has done pretty well and helps a lot vs all of the delver decks.

I feel as if lately I have hit a wall with it. I haven't had a game where Tidespout has been a solid choice. I am trying to figure out what to do at the Invitational and am unsure if I want to go with this deck or not. I have considered just going Tin Fins but would prefer not to.

Anybody else having some frustrations or suggestions getting me out of my rut?

Side note I have been considering Sire of Insanity vs tidespout

It's kind of the nature of the beast. Reanimator is a very very strong list when it wants to cooperate and you're having a good day, but sometimes you get Show and Tell syndrome where you just don't put A+B together across thirty cards. Sometimes you just run into "that guy" that has a reanimator player in his shop and 30 cards boarded for the matchup even if it makes no sense. I think we've all gotten frustrated at one point or another. In the span of the year I played only Reanimator, I went anywhere from 2nd at an old Legacy open to 0-3 drop because I just couldn't execute despite very aggressively mulliganing (something I think a lot of reanimator players dont do enough of).

I left home without 4 Show and Tell in my 75 once. Exactly once. I regretted it.

I definitely don't think Tin Fins is correct. TF is basically reanimator but even more goddamn finnicky and variance-leaning. If you're on the graveyard capital C combo plan, Dragon seems superior to that.

Tidespout and Sire are kind of different animals. Sire is for combo and Karakas decks to beat them on turn 1-2. Tidespout obviously is for Problem Permanent decks. Different animals altogether. Sire's most apt comparison is the Iona slot, and right now with Omnitell everywhere I think Iona is the better call. That deck almost just can't beat that card (outside of having the 1-of Emrakul in hand natural when they execute).


RE: Pirateking - Iona is pretty stellar lately what with Omnitell, and as a second string monster for Elves.

[bonkotsu]

It's kind of the nature of the beast. Reanimator is a very very strong list when it wants to cooperate and you're having a good day, but sometimes you get Show and Tell syndrome where you just don't put A+B together across thirty cards. Sometimes you just run into "that guy" that has a reanimator player in his shop and 30 cards boarded for the matchup even if it makes no sense. I think we've all gotten frustrated at one point or another. In the span of the year I played only Reanimator, I went anywhere from 2nd at an old Legacy open to 0-3 drop because I just couldn't execute despite very aggressively mulliganing (something I think a lot of reanimator players dont do enough of).

I left home without 4 Show and Tell in my 75 once. Exactly once. I regretted it.

I definitely don't think Tin Fins is correct. TF is basically reanimator but even more goddamn finnicky and variance-leaning. If you're on the graveyard capital C combo plan, Dragon seems superior to that.

Tidespout and Sire are kind of different animals. Sire is for combo and Karakas decks to beat them on turn 1-2. Tidespout obviously is for Problem Permanent decks. Different animals altogether. Sire's most apt comparison is the Iona slot, and right now with Omnitell everywhere I think Iona is the better call. That deck almost just can't beat that card (outside of having the 1-of Emrakul in hand natural when they execute).


RE: Pirateking - Iona is pretty stellar lately what with Omnitell, and as a second string monster for Elves.

I dont think I could do Show and Tell as a 4 of. I would probably lose my mind. I only run 2 which 3 may be the correct number?

I always had the 2 of Dread of Night for D&T and Maverick, I know some lists are 50/50 on it.

Golgari Charm has been one I have felt is lacking. Like it could be a board wipe against some of the smaller aggro decks, but being able to destroy enchantments has saved me. It is a 1 of in my side but I feel like an idiot the second I see the Leyline if I take it out. It being a 1 of also makes it rough digging for the answer. Is there a reason some people just don't have hate for leyline?

[Nuke is Good]

How often does the MD Iona prove useful? How often do you side it out postboard?

MD Iona is the reason I play Reanimator vs Sneak/Show and OmniTell. A lot of times Iona cannot be answered naming the color of removal and your opponent can't go on the offensive as long as there is a 7/7 flier on the field. The closest match I ever had was against an infect player, he hid his White splash until game 3 and STP'd my elesh norn. So I put out Iona on white, it basically stalled out the game. Each time he killed it I would reanimate it thanks to him attempting to Invigorate.

I side it out against Shardless as they have both Jace and Lili to deal with Iona, Elesh Norn does work in that matchup. I personally don't like Golgari Charm, Elesh Norn does that job but better.

I'm firmly in the Show and Tell camp, other pilots here have their opinion. Sometimes the grave hate is too intense so you gotta have a plan B. Especially when Leyline of the Void is a thing in your meta. Seeing 3x Leyline of the Void opening action is just a bad time.

On topic with Ruric Thar, he's a 6/4 that can be dealt with. Our deck also has a lot of non creature spells. Sire of Insanity would probably be the stronger play here early game. Best answer against Chalice on 1 is the Abrupt Decay plan, show and tell plan, or hoping you binned a fatty and can exhume.

[Worldslayer]

Is there a reason some people just don't have hate for leyline?

Because a lot of us have accepted that rather than have a counterplan for every individual hate piece where you have to guess right, we can just become a Show deck game 2 and dodge most of the hate entirely. Obviously this plan gets better the more Thoughtseize you run.

Decay is fine, has been since I started running it in 2013, but doesn't catch leyline. Krosan Grip effects can catch rip and leyline but not Ooze or Shaman, and destroy permanent effects don't help against ravenous trap or surgical extraction. There's just too many good angles to come at the graveyard from to properly board for all of them without completely burning most of your sideboard slots of stuff you might not even see. Packing 3 needle and the 2 show I'm not main decking changes most of my problematic cards into counter SnT cards, which are weak themselves to Thoughtseize before SnT and counter magic after. Now I don't really have to guess, and my sideboard has a lot more free space for things I want.

[Gilderbarin216]

Planning on playing the SCG in DC this weekend, here's what i plan on sleeving up:

3 griselbrand
1 Iona, shield of emeria
1 tidespout tyrant
1 elesh norn, grand cenobyte
1 grave titan

4 brainstorm
4 ponder
3 thoughtsieze
4 careful study
4 entomb
4 reanimate
4 daze
4 exhume
4 force of will

3 lotus petal

4 polluted delta
3 verdant catacombs
4 underground sea
2 tropical island
2 swamp

Board:
3 abrupt decay
2 duress
2 jace, vryn’s prodigy
2 pithing needle
2 surgical extraction
1 thoughtsieze
1 massacre
1 Aetherling
1 sire of insanity

Id like to talk about jace on the board, think it gives us not only a good non-show and tell hedge against all the midrange decks in the format after board, but is very powerful as both a looter and a recurring effect with cantrips and reanimate spells. On the downside, is still not great against graveyard hate, but i think with 6 discard spells and daze in the deck, he could be proactive enough to go under those effects. Also the loot is sweet because often against the more grindy match ups you want one less careful study, so a discard outlet is welcome. Any thoughts?

[Nordvoll]

Gilderbarin216

Your main deck seems good!
EDIT: I would -1 daze +1 Animate dead, but i guess this is a personal preference :)

I would have made some minor changes to the mana base
-1 tropical - 1 svamp + 1 verdant + 1 Bayou
You really want to be able to choose fetching BG or UG when you SB in Abrupt decay. this have been important for me many times.

Edit 2: Did not see the "missing" basic island. I recomand playing 1. Maybe -1 ponder (or a verdant if you want 15 lands)

I would not run either surgical extraction, jace, vryn’s prodigy, Aetherling or sire of insanity SB

You are the faster deck against dredge. Mirror is rarly relevant and in my opinion not worth sb slots. And against other decks there usualy is better options.
jace, vryn’s prodigy seems plain bad. way to slow, summoning sickness and to costly.
Atherling (against mircales?) is not needed in my opinion.
I have tested Sire. when she was good she was awesome. but she is often only good enough turn 1 (or turn 2 on the play). And against combo Iona is equal or better.

Some SB changes i would have made:
+1 Abrupt decay
+1 pithing needle
+1 Massacre if you are expecting D&T

You can also consider:
+1 echoing truth against decks that overload on permanent based yard hate (+ its an out against anoying Leylines)
+1 Ashen Rider (Omnitell)
+1 Inkwell (D&T++)
At the moment i am testing a 7th discard spell in my 75 (3 seize main and 4 duress sb). So far i have found it to be good against all combo decks and miracles. This way i often have the ability to check if the coast is clear before i cast entombe/reanimate, or distrupt their combo pieces until i find mine.

Hope you find some of this feedback useful and good luck! :smile:

[Gilderbarin216]

Hey Nrodvoll, thanks for the input, here is my retort for my choices:

4 daze is where i want to be. The games that you play in the manner that your deck should, daze is often your best piece of permission. It's "free" and it stops them from interacting favorably on turns 1-3 typically, daze is great.

I like playing 8 pieces of reanimate effect, they are often unnecessary in multiples. The decks ways to enable the combo are so powerful that those spells are often the ones being fought over ( careful study, entomb etc.). I think that the redundancy is unnecessary, especially with 4 ponders here.

I think the mana base is well tuned to fit the list. playing an island with abrupt decay and multiple discard effects can hinder the turns where you are trying to be efficient, like casting a duress before a reanimate etc. Drawing the island in the games where every land matters is more than painful. Wasteland decks could care less about our blue source anyway, its our worst color, so in order to make decay more lucrative, all of my lands now cast it. there is no real scenario in which you would need a bayou with 2 trops and 2 swamps, and the double swamp has been very good so far.

Against dredge, i concede that we are the faster deck, yes, but surgical is a sort of catch all. The games in which the dredge player has their hate, and that we don't , we will lose, so i feel that it is a necessary nod of the head to play something that interacts with them. Surgical proves great in the matchups where we have to attempt to play a game of longevity. Against things like lands, where recursive things like glacial chasm, karakas and bojuka bog can be issues, surgical is delight. Otherwise, omnitell has a distinct difficulty winning without show and tells, and sneak and show without sneak attacks. In the mirror, i also believe that surgical is the best piece of reliable interaction.

the reasons that i believe jace to be good are:

1) He is a longevity powerhouse, looting will be good for the entirety of the game in the matchups where he is good, even through things like rest in peace and cage.

2) Alternatively he can kill them with his ultimate, flipping onto such a high loyalty means that he is a very real clock against things like miracles and shardless, jund and the other miscellaneous mashups where bolts and decays are no longer in their decks.

3) enabling our discard is good because careful study is really bad in match ups where we have to respect card advantage.

4) gives a sense of redundancy when he flips and is able to cantrip and flashback reanimate spells.

Again, this is all speculative, i have only tested the card so much, but i believe that individually the card is potent enough to be reasonable.

Aetherling has and will always be a staple in my reanimator list. Aetherling is irreplaceable against miracles. Granted, that is the only matchup where the card is good, but it is easily your best card there. My sideboard plan against all of the blue, non-combo decks is to board out all of the forces and dazes, in favor of decays and duresses, so this makes it difficult to stick threats through their infinite removal spells. Regardless of what variation or what their idea of the matchup is, discard is much better than counterspells. I want to stay proactive, and for that I sacrifice that slot on the board. Aetherling improves, what after board i think is a not great matchup, significantly.

Sire is for a myriad of decks, but is just generally good early everywhere that elesh norn and grave titan are bad, or some variation on that. Sire is basically unbeatable on turns 1-3, so i think it deserves its slot on the board. My main deck configuration is very fair, with grave titan and tyrant, so i like to have something more potent in the board for the matches with not only less permission, but also more longevity.

Again, this list is trying to portray why the deck is so powerful. Reanimator is very efficient, and low to the ground. Not a fan of 3 mana sorceries like show and tell, or lands like city of traitors that make your deck susceptible to things like daze, wasteland and spell pierce as much. feel like the mass of discard spells have been really good, 7 seems like a lot but based on the meta you expect, that could easily be correct.

Anyway, thanks for the input, keep it coming. Sorry the post is so long :)

Jake

[Nordvoll]

Gilderbarin216:

I used to run 4 daze myself before, but i found them bad in multiples, and if the games drag out they lose value.. Thats my reason for cutting one. But as i said its a personal preferance (same with 9th reanimate spell)

Regarding land issues. 2 simplified scenarios:
1: Playing against D&T. You are on the draw with 2 fetchlands in your 7 + carefuel study + fattie + exhume. Your opponent play vial turn 1 + wasteland in hand. (This have been relevant for me more than once). If hi have no other strong plays, hi will waste your Underground Sea for sure.
2: Your oppoent have played an grafdiggers cage. You have reanimate, abrupt decay and draw entomb for your turn. You have 2 lands in play. Underground Sea + fetch If you fetch tropical you can abrupt in his endstep but not combo your turn if you dont draw another black mana source. Bayou will make it happen.

I think you are to worried about stopping other combo decks with surgical. Remember we are the faster deck. And in my experience Dredge choose Leyline as yardhate if they make room for it, Where surgical will do you little good. Against Omnitell i find it better to use discard. that way you can either check if the coast is clear to combo yourself or distrupt them if you have to. Surcial do you no good if you have combo in hand against their counterspells.

Regarding "jace":
We have enough enablers in entomb and careful study. in SB games we need to overcome the hate they bring.. witch usualy distrupt our yard somehow. extra enablers will do us no good.. And witch turn do you realistic see yourself using his main ability ? cast him turn 2 (without petal), use ability and combo turn 3. Provided they do nothing to stop us.

I think you and i play very different SB games against miracles :) Im not saying Aetherling is bad. Im just not convinced it deserve a slot over other sb options. i usualy reanimate /exhume grissel 1-2 times.. draw cards and try to close the game with a combination of iona + needles or gravetitan with force backup.

Have you played with sire alot? Because i have tested her. In matchups i wanted her to be good she was not strong enough after turn 1-2 on the play. and in other matchups where she worked, Iona usualy worked too :)

Anyway. Im not saying that i am right and you are wrong. im just speaking out of my own experience with this deck :)

[Damaku]

Jake Moldowsky reanimates to top 6 atr SCG Legacy Open. Interesting, Show and tell free list:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=89125

[Gilderbarin216]

Jake Moldowsky reanimates to top 6 atr SCG Legacy Open. Interesting, Show and tell free list:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=89125

List from above, minus the jaces +1 duress, +1 disfigure. :)

[Damaku]

List from above, minus the jaces +1 duress, +1 disfigure. :)


Sire is such a bomb, why is it not main? With the petals the t1 chance is there, and whats sweeter then a t1 sire?

[PirateKing]

Sire is such a bomb, why is it not main? With the petals the t1 chance is there, and whats sweeter then a t1 sire?

I agree, an early Sire covers more than Iona, so for game one against an unknown opponent, I'd prefer the blunt instrument versus the clean scalpel that is Iona. I mean, I'm running through decks in my head, what would Iona potentially shut down that Sire wouldn't also crush?

[bonkotsu]

List from above, minus the jaces +1 duress, +1 disfigure. :)

Any chance you would like to do a tournament report?

[Damaku]

Any chance you would like to do a tournament report?

That would be verry nice indeet!

[Nuke is Good]

I agree, an early Sire covers more than Iona, so for game one against an unknown opponent, I'd prefer the blunt instrument versus the clean scalpel that is Iona. I mean, I'm running through decks in my head, what would Iona potentially shut down that Sire wouldn't also crush?

That's the thing an early Sire is only good in the early game aka the first two turns at most. At least with Iona your opponent wont be able to cast spells of the color of your choice if they happen to topdeck it, usually you'll name the color that interacts with us, the 7/7 evasive body also provides a clock. Sire is more prone to getting chump blocked if our opponents have any semblance of a board presence due to the 4 toughness.

Don't get me wrong if I see the Entomb, Reanimate on my first turn I'll go for sire. It's just his usefullness really suffers in the longer game.

[Gilderbarin216]

Main reason that Iona is in the main and that sire is in the board is because of Omnitel and lands. Going into the weekend I knew those, miracles and delver would be the best decks. Iona is insane if stuck against any of those (minus lands to a degree. An early Iona on green can be very difficult to answer), whereas sire is more answerable for sure. After the weekend there is no way I would cut Iona from the main, and when I make the torny report, it'll be more clear why. Sire is my favorite card in the deck though, and I think could easily be a maindeck card based upon your expected meta and personal preference. When I lost in the finals of scg jersey last year, I had a sire in the main, and it was great. After yesterday I would definitely consider doing it again.

Report to come in a few hours, thanks for the support guys :)

[sunlith42]

Main reason that Iona is in the main and that sire is in the board is because of Omnitel and lands. Going into the weekend I knew those, miracles and delver would be the best decks. Iona is insane if stuck against any of those (minus lands to a degree. An early Iona on green can be very difficult to answer), whereas sire is more answerable for sure. After the weekend there is no way I would cut Iona from the main, and when I make the torny report, it'll be more clear why. Sire is my favorite card in the deck though, and I think could easily be a maindeck card based upon your expected meta and personal preference. When I lost in the finals of scg jersey last year, I had a sire in the main, and it was great. After yesterday I would definitely consider doing it again.

Report to come in a few hours, thanks for the support guys :)

I'm more interested in the MB Grave titan. I see him as a SB target against decks with multiple LotV and edicts. What matchups do you use him in?

[bonkotsu]

Main reason that Iona is in the main and that sire is in the board is because of Omnitel and lands. Going into the weekend I knew those, miracles and delver would be the best decks. Iona is insane if stuck against any of those (minus lands to a degree. An early Iona on green can be very difficult to answer), whereas sire is more answerable for sure. After the weekend there is no way I would cut Iona from the main, and when I make the torny report, it'll be more clear why. Sire is my favorite card in the deck though, and I think could easily be a maindeck card based upon your expected meta and personal preference. When I lost in the finals of scg jersey last year, I had a sire in the main, and it was great. After yesterday I would definitely consider doing it again.

Report to come in a few hours, thanks for the support guys :)

Thank you for chatting with us and great job at the open! I am looking to take Reanimator to Eternal Weekend and the Invi, very interested to read your report!

[Gilderbarin216]

Ok, drove to the event with some good friends, playing miracles, rug delver and lands. Felt pretty confident about every matchup except for death and taxes and some of the bug based delver decks. Omnitell, miracles, non-rug delver decks and lands are what i thought would be big at the event, mostly towards day two, so i wanted to make my deck as "low-to the ground" as possible, because i knew people would be gunning for the show and tell players. Because of that, i excluded show and tell. For a while I've been wanting to replace that slot with something that couldn't be pyroblasted or spell pierced in matches where i would want to go over their hate, but i wasn't happy with anything. Show and tell being 3 mana in a format dictated by wasteland and daze made me feel uneasy. In the end, i decided that instead of things like show and tell, i wanted to make our game plan as lucrative and efficient as it could be in each matchup, which is where my sideboard over performed. Earlier in this thread i discounted the power of the 7th discard spell, but after this event i think that discard is exactly where your want to be. I feel like people give you credit for being a blue deck because game one you have daze and force of will, but if what we want to be is a "blue deck" then we should just play omni tell. Blanking pyroblasts all weekend was very cool. Anyway, heres how my matches went as i can recall:

Here is my list for reference:

3 griselbrand
1 Iona, shield of emeria
1 tidespout tyrant
1 elesh norn, grand cenobyte
1 grave titan

4 brainstorm
4 ponder
3 thoughtsieze
4 careful study
4 entomb
4 reanimate
4 daze
4 exhume
4 force of will

3 lotus petal

4 polluted delta
3 verdant catacombs
4 underground sea
2 tropical island
2 swamp

Board:
3 abrupt decay
3 duress
2 pithing needle
2 surgical extraction
1 thoughtsieze
1 massacre
1 disfigure
1 Aetherling
1 sire of insanity

1) omni tell: win 2-0
probably the reason that the deck is so well positioned right now is because this matchup is very favored. At points in the game if you can hide the fact that you are on reanimator, they will cast show and tell into your griselbrand, which allows you to draw 14 cards and often kill them (Granted cunning wish is very good in this scenario.) Anyway, we are often much quicker, our disruption both games one and two is much better, and we have the added effect of having iona in our main deck, which makes it unreasonable for them to kill us through our first reanimate.

2) Infect: win 2-0
this matchup is better than not, but is definitely more intricate than the others. They are a daze/piece/force combo deck as well, and they are often just as quick as us. My opponent was not, unfortunately and i put elsesh norn into play through his disruption games one and two. Interesting thing about the games you play against the "Aggressive blue decks", is that once you resolve a timely discard spell, their pants are often down. If you know about your opponents fluster storm and daze, then play accordingly and take what you think you won't have the time to play around. Besides their drawsteps there is very little to feign at that point.
Some variants of this deck often splash white for things iike rest in peace and swords to plowshares, as well as crop rotation for karakas and bojuka bog, which makes your discard spells very valuable, as to not give them the time to resolve these spells or leave them up hoping that we play into them. An elsesh norn will close out a game here, as well as iona on green, but make sure that you are safe on board first. Ive lost many games to inkmoth nexus and blighted agent, even after i put a guy into play. Otherwise, i like this matchup a lot, and i think that our board plan of no counterspells, 7 discard spells and decay is very effective.

3) Miracles: lose 1-2
This is the only matchup that i actually cannot put my finger on. Based on their knowledge of your deck choice game one, the games can be difficult. People are taking after joe lossett with the double karakas lists, which makes your main deck men that aren't legendary very valuable. Game one, i try to stick grislebrand first, and then draw 7 or so cards, for when they get him off the table. You can try to prevent it, but if they have a karakas your game play has to shift towards tyrant and titan, which are admittedly alittle lackluster here. Watch for counterbalance, we have no decay main, so that plus top or even just a well placed brainstorm can be a k.o.

Game one i put a grislebrand into play on the play on turn two, and he dies. Game two he has surgical extraction and snap caster mage, which makes it tough for me to combo off. Game 3 I stick a sire of insanity after he resolves a dig and i get 7 spells out of his hand. He draws for turn and spikes a snap caster for the swords he discarded, and i lose my sire. I untap and draw exhume for my griselbrand, but am on 7 exactly. He untaps and draws jace and subsequently kills me.

for game 2 i board out all of my forces and dazes, as well as a careful study, the elesh norn, and the tidespout tyrant. study is not so hot in matchups that are incredibly grindy, because it is much less of a cantrip then we would like. Not netting a card off it makes it tough to have 4 in your deck after board, especially if they draw the game out to turns like 4 and 5. I like to again, give them as little time as possible here, because the closer they get to karakas, the closer we get to being locked out. When you try to pluck their hand, watch for brainstorm on their part, because our only other way to kill their balances and rest in peaces are the 3 decays. Your best threats game 2 are sire, if they tap out or if they have no top in play, otherwise griselbreand, and aetherling. Aetherling, besides pithing needle is unanswerable. They can race you with a timely entreat, but most lists have been playing things like monastery mentors, which make that less common.

4) Miracles: 2-0
If you lead with things like duress on turn one, and take their top, and then another discard spell on turn two, they fall very far behind. While that deck plays very well off the top, they have very limited manipulation other than their tops and brainstorms, which are very strained in this matchup. Watch for things like surgical out of the more creature heavy lists, and you should be fine. exhume is great against that card if you can manage getting 2 guys in the yard.

5) Miracles: 2-1
Game one goes well, putting a g grave titan into play on turn two and killing him with it on turn 4. Game 2 he is on the play and has rest in peace, cage, fluster storm, force and counterbalance in the first 3 turns, which i just couldn't get around. Game 3 i saw that his hand was pretty good too, when on the play i put sire of insanity into play on turn one with a discard spell. Lotus petal is pretty broken some times. :)

6) Shardless Bug: 2-0
Game one he mulligans to five and gets killed real fast. game two, he sticks a turn one deathrite which i then disfigure and he dies. The midrange matchups like stoneblade and shardless are often very easy. Their hate is limited, and their time is too. other than force and deathrite, their way of interacting on turns 1-3 are pretty strained, which makes it easy to stick an entomb and a reanimate through if you know their hand.

7) Omnitell: 2-0
he casts a turn two show and tell after a turn one preordain. I had pondered on my turn one and seen iona. He was not thrilled at how his show and tell turned out. Game two is much of the same, he brings in boseju, and because of it, my 3 discard spells make it difficlut for him to play the game, and he loses to my sire on turn 5.

8) Death and Taxes: 1-2
Worst matchup for sure. Cards like swords to plowshares and 3 karakas make it hard to play the game we want to. Thalia is a problem as well. The best way to win game one is to hope they don't have one of their karakas, and stick an iona on white, or an elsesh norn that gets good value when it hits play. Otherwise, don't have high hopes here. Game two, they have rest in peace, containment priest and the new thalia that flies. Makes it tough to win as well. Best chance is to be fast and go under them with grielbrand and draw into your massacre, or to stick a tidespout tyrant and put their board into their hand.

9) Rug delver: 2-0
easiest delver deck because of their lack of deathrite. They often have to chose between applying pressure or holding up their counterspells, which makes it easy to telegraph what they have, and how to play around it. Be careful of wasteland, and they often can't deprive you of enough resources to beat you. Game two, they have things like cage and surgical, as well as more pyroblasts and flusterstorms. For that reason, i board out all the forces and dazes, and try to just go under them. Again, very easy to kill them with a preemptive duress that lets you know which line to be taking.

ended day one at 7-2, pretty happy to be where i am, just hoping to dodge exactly death and taxes on day two.

10) CVM on omnitell: 2-1
Game one, he probes me and i thoughtsieze him early, so the cat is out of the bag on both sides. We sit their for a while, drawing and discarding because we are both low on resources. Eventually, i move to cast careful study, it resolves and i discard griselbrand. He probes me again to see 3 exhumes, iona, force, daze, blue card. He knows whats gonna happen, and conceedes. If you can sandbag your iona against them, they can almost never cast show and tell except for their emrakul. Another reason why the discard is so good, you can craft your plan around what you think their plan is, because show an tell often loses them the game unless they know a way around your fatties.
Game two, he catches me with my pants down and sticks an emrakul through a show and tell. Its difficult to have a guy in hand every game since we rely upon entomb so much for our combo to be quick. I lose two careful studies in this matchup because of that fact.
Game three I stick a grislebrand out of the yard while he has pyromancer in play with 3-4 tokens. i draw 7 and find land and a petal, and put iona into play the same turn.

11) Charlie Rineheart on camera: elves 2-1
I suggest going back and watching this match on the SCGlive archives on twitch, because its a good example of how the elves mashup usually goes. they put a lot of pressure on their death rites, and we have a lot of ways to make sure that they can't use it when we try to put elesh norn into play. Game one he dies to elesh norn after we both mulligan, game two he has double deathrite, i have needle, but he has surgical when i try to put elsesh norn into play. game 3 is quick, and my deck does what it wants to, which is disfigure/abrupt decay exactly their deathrite, and then kill them.

12) Travis Compton: lands 2-0
travis and i drove down together, and avoided each other every round on the account that we had had been in the same bracket since late saturday. We knew we would have to battle, and he was dreading it the entire time. I think that he doesnt give his deck enough credit in this matchup. They are a relatively quick deck to kill with dark depths, and they have maze of ith, karakas, and many, many ways to find their lands. You can also lose pretty quickly to wasteland locks, so be wary of that. I stick a grave titan game one, and he has only a maze of ith to answer it, and the zombies quickly eat him. Game two is much of the same. Tidespout tyranny is pretty unanswerable for them, and if you can get ahead of their trinishperes and sphere of resistances, and counter their crop rotations, you won't have too much trouble here.

13) Infect: 2-1
Got killed on turn two game one, with elf, invigorate berserk through my force of will and daze. Thats what i mean when i say the aggressive blue decks, often infect can use their forces in the way that we want to, which is to protect their combo, and make sure we stay dead. For the next games i recognize that i can't really afford to do that against a deck with fluster storm, daze and force, so i board them out. I don't remember much about these games except that he took the rout of killing me before i killed him, and thoughtsieze along with disfigure had something to say about it, and then elsesh norn got the last word.

14) Death and Taxes: 0-2
I just get rolled. Everything that could go wrong does. He has double swords for my tyrant and titan, and karakas for my griselbrand, and closed out the game with multiple flying thalias and some moms. game two, i thoughtsieze him to see containment priest, karakas, swords to plowshares, thalia, aethervial, wasteland and flicker wisp. He draws rest in peace after i take his priest, and we die very quickly. Next round is a win and in, just want to dodge D&T again, and i feel good.

15) James Rynkiewicz: 2-1
This match was really close, and i was just trying to cautious. I know what he is on, and he I, so he plays a glistener elf on turn one, and i lead with underground sea. He untaps, tanks and plays invigorate. he does it again, and i say ok. He then doesn't have a land, and plays heirarch for the last point to kill me on turn two, but i float a black and daze. I take 9 and entomb for elesh norn. I untap and have reanimate for it, and he conceedes. Game one you are both trying to accomplish the same thing, and the play is very relevant to the match because of it. Game two, he plays a turn one elf again, and i cast careful study binning iona and griselbrand. He then plays land, invigorate berserk, and we are on to game three.
Game three, he plays a few guys, and i struggle to recover from his early surgical. Eventually i ponder into 3 bad cards, shuffle, draw brainstorm. I cast brainstorm with nothing in had, and find entomb, exhume, thoughtsieze. Elsesh norn has something to say to his elves, and we are on to the top8.

In the top eight, I play Dylan Donnegan on the secondary camera match, but you probably didn't see it because he killed me so quickly.
4 Color delver: 1-2
Game one, he has dethrite with no green source, and i cantrip into exhume entomb, which i can cast on turn three. I thoughtsieze him on turn two to make sure the coast is clear, and that he isn't sandbagging the trop, and i take his cantrip leaving him with squat. In a swift motion he draws the misty rainforest off the top, and i die to a pyromancer pretty quick. Game two i kill him real quick because of thoughtsieze and a lotus petal, before he can interact much. Game 3 i lose on the draw. I have an out most of the game because he only has one deathrite, and i have a careful study with 1 guy in hand, exhume. Unfortunately, Dylan has 4 cabal therapy on his board, and i lose my hand before he kills me the turn later.

In any event, I had a great weekend, and i think the deck is really well placed. In a metagame filled with force of wills and very linear combo decks, I think reanimator is a great choice, and i really like the ability to just be the same game play after board. The only changes i would make to the list after the weekend is to fit another disfigure/massacre in the board, but i don't know at what cost. Also, i think that the aetherling could be an empyrial archangel, or at least something more general that could help in the death and taxes matchup. I don't like inkwell because i feel that it is very easily raced, but i assume the same could be said about archangel. My sideboard plans will be posted after i get home from work.

Sorry the report is so long, questions welcome about any of my matches of course, i was less thorough for the sake of the report being less than a full forum page long.

- Jake.

[Gilderbarin216]

I'm more interested in the MB Grave titan. I see him as a SB target against decks with multiple LotV and edicts. What matchups do you use him in?

Grave titan is just a generally good guy, that isn't a legend. He puts 10 power on board, and if he isn't interacted with, will kill most people in two attacks. He is easily the worst creature in the deck, but he does work against most of the fair decks, and is good against karakas matchups like death and taxes.

[Damaku]

Grave titan is just a generally good guy, that isn't a legend. He puts 10 power on board, and if he isn't interacted with, will kill most people in two attacks. He is easily the worst creature in the deck, but he does work against most of the fair decks, and is good against karakas matchups like death and taxes.

Hey Jake!
Thank you for the Report! I was watching your elf match with a bad hangover and was cheering for you like a foodball Fan in front of the TV. My girlfriend now thinks i am insane.
I share you D&T problems, what do you think about Deed, Helm of obidience and Keranos in the sideboard?

[bonkotsu]

Hey Jake!
Thank you for the Report! I was watching your elf match with a bad hangover and was cheering for you like a foodball Fan in front of the TV. My girlfriend now thinks i am insane.
I share you D&T problems, what do you think about Deed, Helm of obidience and Keranos in the sideboard?

I have tested Keranos a lot and he is just too slow. Have also tested Deed and have loved a single copy in the main to fight of deathrites and delver lists. My SB I have a split between 1 Massacre and 1 Dread of Night. Lists floating around now are skipping revokers and going for the Thalia Horse. I have also tried Tsabo's Web and while it is pretty solid against a couple of decks, I still struggle vs D&T. They are just heavily favored in my opinion

[bonkotsu]

Sorry the report is so long, questions welcome about any of my matches of course, i was less thorough for the sake of the report being less than a full forum page long.

- Jake.

Thanks for the report!

I haven't tested Aetherling but wouldn't it be better in general for those spot removal decks? I have considered empyrial archangel a few times, however I haven't tested it at all vs D&T, it feels like it could be a better inkwell but is it worth pitching the aetherling avoidance for your miracles matches?

[Gilderbarin216]

Keranos is definitely interesting, but i feel that the non-miracles matchups where i would want a card like that are already pretty good. If you can resolve a threat against stoneblade or shardless, regardless of what it is, it will probably kill them. that being said, miracles does not work that way either. Some players will trim on the white cards after board, and some will keep in up to 2 terminus and 3 swords. Because of that, i wanted something that could not be killed regardless of what they do (Unless they have needle in their deck, find it, and name aetherling.) I can testify that he is the real deal against miracles, but the question i have is "is he worth the slot for that one matchup.) There are definitely games where they lose to the first guy you put in play like sire or even griselbrand + 7-14 cards, so is there a real reason that that should be aetherling, and not just another guy who is reasonable in that matchup, but also in others like death and taxes where we are alittle lacking Thats where archangel would come in. I think after i play a bunch more sideboarded games against miracles, we can make an informed decision, but i don't have enough games under my belt yet to say for sure.

[Gilderbarin216]

Sideboarding Guide:

Miracles:

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will
1 careful study
1 tidespout tyrant
1 elesh norn

In:
3 abrupt decay
3 duress
2 pithing needle
1 thoughtsieze
1 sire of insanity
1 aetherling

Rug Delver:

Out:
4 daze
2 force of will

In:
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
2 abrupt decay

Bug/4 Color Devler

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will

In:
1 Pithing needle
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay

Omnitell:

Out:
2 daze
2 careful study
1 lotus petal
1 elesh norn
1 grave titan

In:
2 surgical extraction
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
1 sire of insanity

Esper/American stoneblade:

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will
1 elesh norn
1 tidespout tryant

In:
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
1 disfigure
3 abrupt decay
1 aetherling
1 sire of insanity

Storm:

Out:
1 elesh norn
1 tidespout tyrant
1 lotus petal
1 careful study

In:
3 duress
1 sire of insanity

Lands:

Out:
2 force of will/1 thoughtsieze (1:2 respectively when on the draw)
4 daze
1 elesh norn

In:
2 surgical extraction
2 pithing needle
3 abrupt decay

Death and Taxes:

Out:
4 force of will
4 daze

In:
2 pithing needle
1 massacre
1 disfigure
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay

Elves:

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will (Preference, can leave in 1-2 if you then cut 1-2 thoughtsieze.)

In:
2 pithing needle
1 massacre
1 disfigure
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay

Shardless Bug:

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will
1 elesh norn

In:
2 duress
1 thoughtsieze
1 pithing needle
1 sire of insantiy
1 disfigure
3 abrupt decay

Grixis Control:

Out:
4 force of will
4 daze
1 tidespout tryant

In:
1 sire of insanity
2 surgical extraction
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
2 abrupt decay

Infect:

Out:
4 force of will
4 daze
1 grave titan
1 careful study

In:
2 pithing needle
1 disfigure
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay

Should be all the popular matchups, if there are any i missed, feel free to let me know :) Also the reasonings may be unclear places, so don't be afraid about that either.

-Jake

[alaska]

Sideboarding Guide:

Miracles:

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will
1 careful study
1 tidespout tyrant
1 elesh norn

In:
3 abrupt decay
3 duress
2 pithing needle
1 thoughtsieze
1 sire of insanity
1 aetherling

Rug Delver:

Out:
4 daze
2 force of will

In:
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
2 abrupt decay

Bug/4 Color Devler

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will

In:
1 Pithing needle
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay

Omnitell:

Out:
2 daze
2 careful study
1 lotus petal
1 elesh norn
1 grave titan

In:
2 surgical extraction
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
1 sire of insanity

Esper/American stoneblade:

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will
1 elesh norn
1 tidespout tryant

In:
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
1 disfigure
3 abrupt decay
1 aetherling
1 sire of insanity

Storm:

Out:
1 elesh norn
1 tidespout tyrant
1 lotus petal
1 careful study

In:
3 duress
1 sire of insanity

Lands:

Out:
2 force of will/1 thoughtsieze (1:2 respectively when on the draw)
4 daze
1 elesh norn

In:
2 surgical extraction
2 pithing needle
3 abrupt decay

Death and Taxes:

Out:
4 force of will
4 daze

In:
2 pithing needle
1 massacre
1 disfigure
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay

Elves:

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will (Preference, can leave in 1-2 if you then cut 1-2 thoughtsieze.)

In:
2 pithing needle
1 massacre
1 disfigure
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay

Shardless Bug:

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will
1 elesh norn

In:
2 duress
1 thoughtsieze
1 pithing needle
1 sire of insantiy
1 disfigure
3 abrupt decay

Grixis Control:

Out:
4 force of will
4 daze
1 tidespout tryant

In:
1 sire of insanity
2 surgical extraction
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
2 abrupt decay

Infect:

Out:
4 force of will
4 daze
1 grave titan
1 careful study

In:
2 pithing needle
1 disfigure
3 duress
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay

Should be all the popular matchups, if there are any i missed, feel free to let me know :) Also the reasonings may be unclear places, so don't be afraid about that either.

-Jake

So you board out most or all of your countermagic in virtually every matchup?

I'm new to the deck, but why not just shave some main board for extra discard effects if they are coming in so often?

[Damaku]

So you board out most or all of your countermagic in virtually every matchup?

I'm new to the deck, but why not just shave some main board for extra discard effects if they are coming in so often?

I play a slightly different version then Jake ( http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/16-07-15-reanimator/ ), but my sideboarding choices concerning what will be taken out are nearly the same.
Countermagic is important! But when you know (or anticipate) what your opponent will do to disrupt it, your sideboard is more important.

[Gilderbarin216]

So you board out most or all of your countermagic in virtually every matchup?

I'm new to the deck, but why not just shave some main board for extra discard effects if they are coming in so often?

So countermagic is good game one when you are unsure about what they are going to be doing. Force of will as a catch all, and as a way to close the game with a griselbrand in play is important. After board you can afford to be more specific, and in the mathups where decay can answer their threats retroactively, and the duresses proactively, the counterspells are somewhat of a liability. There are mathcups where you can be the better "Blue deck", but against things like delver and miracles, where they have all of the countermagic you have, counter magic on their board, and elements like pyroblast and counterbalance, you want to go around their game plan of countering your spells effectively.

[Gilderbarin216]

I play a slightly different version then Jake ( http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/16-07-15-reanimator/ ), but my sideboarding choices concerning what will be taken out are nearly the same.
Countermagic is important! But when you know (or anticipate) what your opponent will do to disrupt it, your sideboard is more important.

Exactly

[alaska]

Good to know, thanks guys.

Currently running 1 duress, 2 thoughtseize main, 3 duress in the board (somehow I only own 2 thoughtseize).

I'll play in a GPT this weekend and see how I like that change.

[Deckerator]

I played a round against Death&Taxes. Had a beautiful start with turn 2 exhume into non legendary creature (i was scared of karakas) but then he sworded it. From this point i couldnt recover because of wasteland, Port, Thalia, RIP and C-Priest. If i had a creature with shroud i would have won this match. I think i gonna play Inkwell leviathan maybe instead of Grave Titan and Sire of Insanity instead of Tidespout Tyrant. Therefore i lost 1:2


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[Gilderbarin216]

I played a round against Death&Taxes. Had a beautiful start with turn 2 exhume into non legendary creature (i was scared of karakas) but then he sworded it. From this point i couldnt recover because of wasteland, Port, Thalia, RIP and C-Priest. If i had a creature with shroud i would have won this match. I think i gonna play Inkwell leviathan maybe instead of Grave Titan and Sire of Insanity instead of Tidespout Tyrant. Therefore i lost 1:2


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I dont disagree that the death and taxes matchup isn't good, but don't go off the deep end. In the main, tidespout is crucial, and grave titan is much better in a myriad of matchups as well. Tyrant is our best card against lands, and is a catch-all for anything after board that we might have a problem getting off the board that elesh norn can't. I think there is a very strong argument for something like inkwell or empyrial archangel, but not at the expense of tyrant in the main. Just my 2 cents.

[Deckerator]

Thanks for your comment :) It helps me a lot to get a different point view of our creatures.
Tidespout Tyrant is mainly against what permanents in special?

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[Gilderbarin216]

Thanks for your comment :) It helps me a lot to get a different point view of our creatures.
Tidespout Tyrant is mainly against what permanents in special?

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Tyrant is generally good because regardless of the matchup, it becomes increasingly more difficult for your opponent to play with no permanents in play. Lands can't get it off the table, with 5 toughness it doesnt die to anything short of 3 punishing fires, and its a quick answer to dark depths and maze of ith. Against death and taxes, its unraceable, it can take thalia effects off the table, and without a swords to plowshares they can't get rid of it. It also lets you answer whatever your opponent uses to interact with you/ race you. Things like moat and jace that abrupt decay can't break.

[Deckerator]

How do you play against a deck with Turn 1 chalice?
More and more chalice decks appear nowadays.

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[Nordvoll]

How do you play against a deck with Turn 1 chalice?
More and more chalice decks appear nowadays.

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Abrupt Decay / Force

[ubernostrum]

How do you play against a deck with Turn 1 chalice?
More and more chalice decks appear nowadays.

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Generally, by countering the Chalice, or bringing in Abrupt Decay from the board, since Chalice can't counter it and the decks that play Chalice often aren't putting enough pressure on you to force a "kill the Chalice and go off right now or you lose" moment.

On the topic of Inkwell Leviathan: thinking of running one in place of Grave Titan. There seems to be a bit less Liliana running around, and Inkwell is stronger to have in some of the problem matchups like D&T.

[PirateKing]

Thanks for your comment :) It helps me a lot to get a different point view of our creatures.
Tidespout Tyrant is mainly against what permanents in special?

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Tidespout Tyrant is our only answer to problem lands beyond Pithing Needle or maybe Wipe Away. Abrupt Decay can answer pretty much anything else that troubles us, Jace being the top exception. But the moment they throw down a Karakas or Maze of Ith or Glacial Chasm, our main out is Tidespout.

[Clark Kant]

What do you guys think about Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in Reanimator?

The looter ability is solid as both a draw spell and a discard outlet for your creature, basically a recurring Hapless Researcher/more powerful Merfolk Looter. It's very easy to flip and the -3 ability is exactly the effect this deck needs to have a mid-late game if the early game falls apart.

[Damaku]

What do you guys think about Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in Reanimator?

The looter ability is solid as both a draw spell and a discard outlet for your creature, basically a recurring Hapless Researcher/more powerful Merfolk Looter. It's very easy to flip and the -3 ability is exactly the effect this deck needs to have a mid-late game if the early game falls apart.


https://www.magickartenmarkt.de/Products/Singles/Judgment/img/38f9a32c17381e80ee21a641e414abbf/cards/Judgment/hapless_researcher.jpghttps://www.magickartenmarkt.de/Products/Singles/Innistrad/img/27a4ec449563fdc0e6e46af72d3c2e2d/cards/Innistrad/snapcaster_mage.jpg VS http://mythicspoiler.com/ori/cards/jacevrynsprodigy.jpg

Oh Boy:
Con:
1.) For 1U you can get a full reanimation done! Silverbullet and all ready to go!
2.) He is just standing arount for 1 round, as one of the fastest combodecks we dont need that
3.) He dies to nearly all kind of removal spells. Decay, Bolt, Swords,.....
4.) After you get the snapping done he mostly stands around and also dies to everything thats standing around, Chances are that you still dont have your reanimaton done by then...

Pro
1.) Can be pitched into force!
2.) Looting even with Thalia and the 4 Wingmanes on the board
3.) Block AND Loot
4.) Snapping can get you a second reanimation done OR protect things by enabeling a counter

-> If you like hapless researcher you might like jace, because the nearly do the same thing.

[sunlith42]

Oh Boy:
Con:
1.) For 1U you can get a full reanimation done! Silverbullet and all ready to go!
2.) He is just standing arount for 1 round, as one of the fastest combodecks we dont need that
3.) He dies to nearly all kind of removal spells. Decay, Bolt, Swords,.....
4.) After you get the snapping done he mostly stands around and also dies to everything thats standing around, Chances are that you still dont have your reanimaton done by then...

Pro
1.) Can be pitched into force!
2.) Looting even with Thalia and the 4 Wingmanes on the board
3.) Block AND Loot
4.) Snapping can get you a second reanimation done OR protect things by enabeling a counter

-> If you like hapless researcher you might like jace, because the nearly do the same thing.

I'm gonna say that new Jace is significantly worse than hapless researcher. Hapless researcher has none of the cons and all but one of the pros (item 4). The big issue with Jace is he can't loot until turn 3, if you play him turn 2. Where hapless and all of our other discard spells can be used turn 1, sometimes enabling a turn 1 reanimation if we run lotus petal. Jace could delay a combo by up to 2 turns which can be huge, especially with Omni-tell being such a big deck right now.

[bonkotsu]

Do you guys ever keep hands that are:

Force, daze, land, fetch, careful study, careful study, brainstorm?

Do you tend to mull into half of a combo piece or is a hand like above just safe against whatever you might be playing against? If the brainstorm was a thoughtseize does that change things? How often will any of you keep a blind careful study hoping to hit pieces?

[PirateKing]

Do you guys ever keep hands that are:

Force, daze, land, fetch, careful study, careful study, brainstorm?

Do you tend to mull into half of a combo piece or is a hand like above just safe against whatever you might be playing against? If the brainstorm was a thoughtseize does that change things? How often will any of you keep a blind careful study hoping to hit pieces?

Careful Study in hand with creature hoping to hit a reanimation effect blind is our best bet. Careful Study with reanimation effect in hand hoping to hit a creature is second best, we tend to run fewer creatures then reanimates. Trying to hit both wouldn't be my first plan. The brainstorm saves it though, being able to Brainstorm and then shuffle away the extra Studies once I found a creature, or both if I found an Entomb is key. I don't run Thoughtseize in the main, but if I did against an unknown opponent, the Thoughtseize hand wouldn't cut it. Too slow and we can't afford to attempt a tempo game plan with our counters, we're saving that to protect the business.

[Stryfo]

I'm assuming you mean blind game one:

I'd keep that hand with a brainstorm, not with a thoughtseize. With that hand, you get to look at 5 or 6 more cards before you even have to consider casting careful study, and almost every card you can hit is excellent. If the brainstorm was a thoughtseize your hand is disruptive, but doing little else, which isn't exactly where I'd like to be game one.

[David L Byer]

Thank you for your tournament report and sideboard options Jake. I am pretty sure I'll be going to GP Seattle in November and I read this entire thread in preparation for said tournament. I too am worried about the D&T match up. I currently run 1 Pithing Needle in fear of Karakas. I run another 2 in the sideboard.

My current Sideboard 15:

1 Echoing Truth
1 Aetherling
1 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
2 Massacre
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ashen Rider
2 Pithing Needle

Main Deck:

Creatures 8:

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Grave Titan
4 Griselbrand

Instants 16:

4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Entomb

Sorcery 16:

2 Ponder
2 Show and Tell
4 Careful Study
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume

Artifacts 5:

1 Pithing Needle
4 Lotus Petal

Land 15:

2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp

I need your help tuning my deck with regards to the GP Seattle expected/anticipated meta game. Any tips to help the D&T match would help as well.

David

[intelli78]

I have a related question about Karakas. Some say Tidespout Tyrant is an answer, but I don't get it. Since we can only reanimate at sorcery speed, the opponent can always just replay the Karakas on their next turn and bounce whatever we reanimated. Right?

[David L Byer]

I have a related question about Karakas. Some say Tidespout Tyrant is an answer, but I don't get it. Since we can only reanimate at sorcery speed, the opponent can always just replay the Karakas on their next turn and bounce whatever we reanimated. Right?


It is very important to get non-legendary threat/s into play as to get around Karakas. Tidespout Tyrant being non-legendary and a large flyer is almost perfect for the job. Pithing Needle is a more permanent answer to Karakas :smile:

[Damaku]

Thank you for your tournament report and sideboard options Jake. I am pretty sure I'll be going to GP Seattle in November and I read this entire thread in preparation for said tournament. I too am worried about the D&T match up. I currently run 1 Pithing Needle in fear of Karakas. I run another 2 in the sideboard.

My current Sideboard 15:

1 Echoing Truth
1 Aetherling
1 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
2 Massacre
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ashen Rider
2 Pithing Needle

Main Deck:

Creatures 8:

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Grave Titan
4 Griselbrand

Instants 16:

4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Entomb

Sorcery 16:

2 Ponder
2 Show and Tell
4 Careful Study
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume

Artifacts 5:

1 Pithing Needle
4 Lotus Petal

Land 15:

2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp

I need your help tuning my deck with regards to the GP Seattle expected/anticipated meta game. Any tips to help the D&T match would help as well.

David

You might consider cutting 1 Grisel for another Silverbullet here. I would advice you to Sire of insanity (since you play 4 petal) or Inkwell Leviathan ( Best for D&T)

[David L Byer]

I had liked 4 Griselbrand because of the 2 Show and Tell main. I have since moved Sire of Insanity, Inwell Leviathan and Surgical Extraction to my Sideboard and cut Aetherling, Ashen Rider and Echoing Truth (not sure about cutting Echoing Truth, I kinda expect alot of Leyline of the Void in Seattle). Still very early in testing but the main deck is still intact (for now).

[Stryfo]

having played the DnT matchup quite a bit, I recommend trying out archetype of endurance. It's harder for them to beat than Inkwell in my experience, since a hexproof elesh or GB is just about unbeatable for them.

[TokugawaEdo]

For the lists not running show and tell, is the plan to just wait for a chance to decay gy hate and then go off?

[sunlith42]

Sideboarding Guide:

Death and Taxes:

Out:
4 force of will
4 daze

In:
2 pithing needle
1 massacre
1 disfigure
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay

Elves:

Out:
4 daze
4 force of will (Preference, can leave in 1-2 if you then cut 1-2 thoughtsieze.)

In:
2 pithing needle
1 massacre
1 disfigure
1 thoughtsieze
3 abrupt decay



In these two match-ups I don't understand siding out the counter spells. I understand your point about siding them out in match-ups vs other blue decks. But in this scenario I would think we can be the better blue deck.

[alaska]

I had liked 4 Griselbrand because of the 2 Show and Tell main. I have since moved Sire of Insanity, Inwell Leviathan and Surgical Extraction to my Sideboard and cut Aetherling, Ashen Rider and Echoing Truth (not sure about cutting Echoing Truth, I kinda expect alot of Leyline of the Void in Seattle). Still very early in testing but the main deck is still intact (for now).

Curious why you expect leyline of the void in Seattle?

Seattle is my local and I play graveyard decks almost exclusively. I rarely see leyline. Cage has been much more common as of late.

[owerbart]

No love for Sire of Insanity? :(

He proves to me frequently how insane it can be.

I'm currently running:
4 Grisel
1 Elesh
1 Iona
1 Titan
1 Sire

And one Ashen Rider and one Keranos in the sideboard :)

[AustinP]

No love for Sire of Insanity? :(

He proves to me frequently how insane it can be.

I'm currently running:
4 Grisel
1 Elesh
1 Iona
1 Titan
1 Sire

And one Ashen Rider and one Keranos in the sideboard :)

i could never go without my boy tidespout

[David L Byer]

Curious why you expect leyline of the void in Seattle?

Seattle is my local and I play graveyard decks almost exclusively. I rarely see leyline. Cage has been much more common as of late.

Thanks for the information Alaska. I heard a lot of pros talking about running Leyline of the Void as a 3 of in the Sideboard because of all the Delve and other decks that rely so much on the graveyard as of late. Could you tell me more about your local meta game?

[ubernostrum]

Looking around the room at people playing in the various events today, there's gonna be a lot of Reanimator in Legacy Champs tomorrow.

Saw an 8-player side event where three seats in a row had Reanimator.

[owerbart]

i could never go without my boy tidespout

sorry, typo, i meant tyrant instead of titan :)

tyrant is really good and it's better now with so many omniscience around

[ubernostrum]

Wound up 5-4 and dropping in Legacy Champs today, playing almost the same 75 as Gilderbarin216 -- only difference is I ran an Inkwell Leviathan in place of the Grave Titan. Never wished I'd had the Titan instead, and in fact Inkwell did some work that Titan couldn't have.

Rough summary:

Round 1 vs. 4-color Delver: Both games involve quick Griselbrands, and both games end quickly as a result.

Round 2 vs. Omnitell: Game 1 I stick an early Griselbrand and he isn't able to go off through it. Game 2 goes a bit longer; I eventually manage a turn where I reanimate both Sire and Iona, and he scoops 'em up.

Round 3 vs. Elves: a turn-three Elesh Norn, followed by a turn-two Elesh Norn.

Round 4 vs. four-color Delver (when I left, the guy was 8-1, so at least my first loss was to someone good):

Game 1 I just get run over as my hand never really comes together. Game 2 I'm actually in it for a while, picking off his Deathrites and positioning to be able to reanimate something big, and... I blow it. I get a Griselbrand out, but I'm already low on life and have to attack with it just to get back up to a safe range. Mistake number 1 is I Careful Study and discard the Inkwell, which pumps his Goyf one point larger. Mistake number 2 is the final turn of the game: I'm at 10 life, facing a 5/6 Goyf, an active Deathrite and a flipped Delver with a tapped Griselbrand (from attacking to get out of Deathrite range). The only line that could save me here is to draw 7, find two Petals, play them and a land and Entomb/Exhume Elesh Norn. Turns out I only find one Petal, but I'd have been dead anyway because I stupidly played a fetchland first instead of trying to draw into a non-fetch, meaning I'd have to go to 2 and die to the Deathrite in order to get the mana.

Round 5 vs. Rich Shay on Grixis Pyromancer:

Game 1 I keep a pretty good seven-card hand, likely to be able to go off turn three... and get Probed into Therapy'd for two copies of Reanimate. I don't recover. Game 2, I Decay and then Extract Pyromancer, then stick Griselbrand. Game 3, he Extracts Griselbrand in response to the Exhume, then sticks a Pyromancer and kills me with it.

Round 6 vs. Death and Taxes:

Not what I was hoping to see, but my opponent doesn't seem to understand how to play this matchup. Game 1 he leads on Plains into Mom into turn-2 Port... and then spends the next few turns durdling with the Port and giving me time to set up an Inkwell which kills him. Game 2 his deck does what it does, and I die to a Germ token toting a Sword of Fire and Ice. Game 3, I experimentally bring in the Ætherling, reanimate it, he Revokers it, I kill the Revoker, and get some hits in. A few turns later Inkwell joins the party and he scoops.

Round 7 vs. Merfolk:

Game 1 I go for the somewhat-risky line of reanimating Elesh Norn to wipe his board. I get repaid by having his Phantasmal Image copy it, and I don't manage to recover in time. Game 2, I Thoughtseize the Vial in his opening hand, then reanimate Iona a few turns later and pick off his next Vial with Abrupt Decay. Iona has to hang back, though, because he's got two Mutavaults and a random Silvergill and getting her into play knocked me all the way down to 8 life. A few turns later I manage to Exhume Griselbrand and ride it to victory. Game 3 features me Reanimating Griselbrand on my first turn, and ends quickly.

Round 8 vs. Deathblade:

Game 1 is weird. He has a turn-one Deathrite on the play and I don't have a Force for it. But he goes multiple turns without being able to find a green source, giving me all the time in the world to go off... except I just keep drawing big dumb creatures and no cantrips or ways to get them in my yard. I eventually die when he gets his mana sorted out. Game 2 I Thoughtseize on turn one and see (from my notes) fetchland, Ponder, TNN, Snapcaster, Deathrite and two Surgicals. Despite getting my Reanimates and my Abrupt Decays Extracted, I somehow manage to hang in there for a bit, but when I finally have an Exhume set up, I'm dead on board because it'll bring back the Deathrite to do the last few points of damage.

Round 9 vs. Miracles:

Game 1 is weird again. He leads on turn-one Tundra and does nothing. Turn two he casts a Brainstorm without playing a land; I Daze it and he passes. I counter a Top the following turn, but I'm low on cards and have no cantrips to take advantage of his mana issues. A couple turns later he finds a second land and a Top, which finds him more lands and a Jace. Game 2 I get Iona on turn two and he scoops. Game 3 he Flusterstorms my turn-one Thoughtseize, then drops Counterbalance. I try an exploratory Entomb which gets countered by blind flip of a Top, and promptly get locked the next turn. Two turns later Mentor joins the party and I die quickly and drop.

There's another event tomorrow for dual lands, I'll try again and see how it goes.

[PirateKing]

Went a disappointing 4-7-0 at Legacy Champs, then tweaked some cards to go 0-2 drop in the Vintage Champs to get the playmat. Once I'm home for real I'll consult my notes and give a breakdown of the games. Most of the losses were just me playing the odds and getting screwed or them just having the nuts. Had a few misplays, some of them noncritical and one that in hindsight could have been the match.

[David L Byer]

Went a disappointing 4-7-0 at Legacy Champs, then tweaked some cards to go 0-2 drop in the Vintage Champs to get the playmat. Once I'm home for real I'll consult my notes and give a breakdown of the games. Most of the losses were just me playing the odds and getting screwed or them just having the nuts. Had a few misplays, some of them noncritical and one that in hindsight could have been the match.

It would be great if you can highlight not only your mistakes but the cards/match ups that gave you the most difficulties. Your deck list and sideboard would be great as well.

[downtoonelife]

Switch to Reanimator again from OmniTell and made Top 6 yesterday with 37 players.

Decklist:
4 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacomb
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
3 Lotus Petal
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
3 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Peer Through Depths
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Pithing Needle

SB:
1 Grave Titan
1 Dread of Night
1 Echoing Truth
1 Golgari Charm
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Sylvan Library
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Surgical Extractions
4 Thoughtseize

Round 1 vs MBC (2-0)
G1: Turn 2 Iona - Black.
G2: Turn 4 Iona - Black. I entomb for Griselbrand turn 2 to bait for Surgical. He had extirpate. I had Careful Study, Iona and Reanimate in hand already.

Round 2 vs Infect (2-1)
G1: Turn 2 Elesh Norn - my Teammate concede.
G2: I lost to counter war when I cast exhume - I had Elesh Norn and Griselbrand in my yard. Died to his Inkmoth with Berserk and Become immense.
G3: He had turn 1 Inkmoth then Grafdiggers Cage. Then draw go for several turn he was mana screwed and I was flooding. I eventually resolve Show and Tell, drop Iona - Green and he has Inkmoth, Pendelhaven, Blighted Agent (he drop from Show and Tell) in play with me having 2 poison. Won with 3 attacks from Iona. Before my third attack with Iona, I hard cast Elesh Norn, he Force it then i Daze. If he pay for Daze he has no mana to activate his Inkmoth to block my Iona if he lets the Elesh Norn resolves then I will surely win.

Round 3 vs MUD (2-0)
G1: Turn 2 Griselbrand - it went all the way.
G2: Show and Tell for Tidespout Tyrant - he only drop a City of Traitors. Controlled the game with Tidespout and win.

Round 4 vs 4c Delver (2-1)
G1: Turn 4 Griselbrand - my teammate concedes. I resolve a turn 1 entomb and top deck an Exhume after he discard my exhume with cabal therapy from the previous turn.
G2: Got controlled by him, lost to 2 Deathrite Shaman - activations. He has Delver and Young Pyro and his tokens. I had Grave Titan in play though but just got block by the tokens.
G3: Turn 2 Show and Tell - Inkwell Leviathan with 2 Daze back up. It went all the way.

After Round 4 - I was the only one with a 4-0 record so I have to play the next round.

Round 5: Paired down to 4c Landstill with 3-0-1 record. (1-2)
G1: Able to resolve an exhume for Griselbrand after several turns. He concedes after with 1 Snapcaster, 2 cards in hand and several lands in his side.
G2: He Slaughter Game my Exhume, he has lots of answer in his deck - i thoughtseize him once and saw: Supreme Verdict, Wing Shards and Humilty.
G3: A Timing Slaughtered Game for my Reanimates in hand. I had Iona in the yard already, 2 Reanimates in my hand with Pithing Needle for Karakas in my board. I wasn't able to cast reanimate at the same time after I entomb for Iona because I had only I black mana source in play. Lost to Elspeth and his Mishra's Factory.

Round 6 ID with Aggro Loam (Teammate).

QF vs Aggro Loam same Teammate in Round 6
G1: I was able to exhume Griselbrand early got bounce back by Karakas. The game took long with me down to 2 life after I reanimated a Tidespout Tyrant. Lost to his Punishing Fire after 2 attacks from Tidespout.
G2: I won via Grave Titan.
G3: He had a KoTR 6/6, Bob, Thalia, Chalice for 1, Wasteland in play. I had 2 Swamp, 1 Verdant with 3 Brainstorm, 1 Exhume, 1 Reanimate and 2 Entomb in my hand. I top deck an Abrupt Decay. Destroyed his Chalice his EOT then he Wasteland my Bayou. Can't cast anything on my turn to be able to recover - had he had no Thalia in play I could still Entomb and Reanimate Grave Titan to delay the game a bit.

Pernicious Deed wasn't useful at all - I had it in play vs Aggro Loam game 2 but I was already winning, I might replace it with Emperial Archangel instead. The maindeck remains the same - I did not miss Thoughtseize main, the 2 Ponders and 1 Animate Dead. I might also remove the 2 Surgical Extractions in the SB and might replace it with 1 more Golgari Charm and maybe 1 more Show and Tell.

[PirateKing]

It would be great if you can highlight not only your mistakes but the cards/match ups that gave you the most difficulties. Your deck list and sideboard would be great as well.

My list is what's posted here expect with Keranos, God of Storms in place of the Sphinx of the Steel Wind in the sideboard.
So my day went:

Lose to Burn 0-2. Game 1 he zaps me a bunch while I find a Careful Study for the Griselbrand in my hand. Move to Reanimate and he bolts in response leaving me at 6 life afterwards. Can't draw 7, his turn he has two spells. Game 2 I keep a turn 2 kill, but he lands Grafdigger's Cage turn 1, and despite a healthy amount of digging, never see any Abrupt Decay or other removal, only lands and more creatures. My graveyard is stacked when I die. Feel bad.

Win to Grixis Pyromancer 2-1. Game 1 my hand doesn't pan out well while he makes tokens off countering the spells that would help me turn it around. Game 2 an Animated Griselbrand swings once and helps me find Elesh Norn to keep his board dead. Game 3 goes back and forth, but I power through his counters with an onslaught of reanimation effects until one sticks, he draws dead to Griselbrand and scoops.

Lose to Blood Moon/Chalice of the Void/Trinishpere 1-2. He wins the die roll and puts out Blood Moon. I play until I would have to discard, and having never seen my Swamp, I scoop. Game 2 I counter his locks long enough to get Animate Dead on Elesh Norn, killing him over 7 turns. Game 3 is a rough mulligan, and his open of Chalice on 1 really ruins me. He plays a Simian Spirit Guide and makes it hold a Sword of War and Peace, and sitting with many Brainstorms and Careful Studies in hand, I die.

Lose to Elves 0-2. Game 1 Deathrite Shaman with many untap effects makes it impossible to do much while I get drained to death. Game 2 I keep him stunted with Engineered Explosives and Pernicious Deed both making an appearance, but I can't find a discard outlet and he plays a Dryad Arbor into Natural Order for Craterhoof, and 11 becomes 5 becomes 0 without me being able to stop it.

Lose to Infect 0-2. Game 1 my Hapless Researchers do a good job stopping the damage on the ground but he counters aggressively and has Inkmoth Nexus online quickly and gets 10 over two swings. Game 2 is the one that really bothers me. My opening hand has Careful Study, Elesh Norn, Reanimate plus a Brainstorm for good measure. I bin Elesh Norm and get another Careful Study for my effort. Next turn my Reanimate eats a Spell Peirce, and I'm thinking, no problem, use the Brainstorm and the Carful Study to just find 1 of 9 cards and try again. I see about 14 new cards with nothing to show for it. The other line of play was to use the Brainstorm in response to the Spell Peirce and hope to find a Force, but also locking my top deck next turn. I feel the odds were in my favor and I just got a crap deal, burning any card equity I had to go all in on a single Reanimation doesn't seem the right play.

Win to a no show round 6. Eat a sandwich from the Market. Best round ever.

Lose to Death and Taxes 1-2. Game 1 I get to Izzet Charm a Thalia on the end step and stick Griselbrand the next turn. Game 2 Ports, Wasteland & taxes keep me from playing much. Game 3 settles into much the same as game 2. I suffer A bit of a misplay, moving to double fetch and get an Aven Mindcensor in response, and I end up resolving both my fetches using only the top 4 cards. Luckily I get both lands, in color as well to turn on Abrupt Decay, but it isn't enough, and I fall to a bunch of dorks.

Win to MUD 2-1. Game 1 I get a Griselbrand unopposed and he manages a Wurmcoil Engine, but block and sac with a Hapless Researcher keeps him of lifegain for the win. Game 2 he pumps out Grim Monolith and Voltaic Key and then manages Forgemaster when I'm short a blue pitch to take the game. Game 3 pits my Griselbrand against his Wurmcoil, but a followup Elesh Norn breaks the stalemate and I take the match.

Win to Omnitell 2-1. Game 1 he durdles on cantrips long enough to make it clear what he's trying, and I stick a Sire of Insanity to make it impossible for him. Game 2 I get stunted and he has all the time in the world to manage the extra turn off Emrakul. Game 3 I lose my Iona to Surgical Extraction, but follow up Griselbrand is good enough.

Lose to Elves 1-2. Game 1 I get Sire as my only creature off a Careful Study and we swing back and forth, but his top decks net blockers while mine do little, so he wins the race. Game 2 I win after landing Elesh Norn, leaving him only his Scavenging Ooze with a single counter on it. He pumps it massive and forces me to chump with Elesh Norn, but a followup of Pithing Needle and Tidespout Tyrant ends it. Game 3 I misplay for what could have been the match. He has Deathrite Shaman, untap effects in spades and Cradle to ensure nothing's getting though. I find a few Abrupt Decays but not enough matter much. What I do have is Exhume and double Entomb in hand. My opportunity presents itself when I'm at 6, he passes with only Bayou as a mana source, even with untap effects he can't get enough creatures to produce mana and eat at the same time. Plan in my head is to Entomb for Griselbrand, Exhume, wait for him to eat it and then grab Elesh Norn and set my house in order. He smartly lets the Griselbrand enter play, drains me end of turn and untaps and double drains me using Wirewood Symbiote. What I should have done was get Elesh Norn first, given him absolutely no choice but to eat it, then get Griselbrand. Barring a catastrophic top deck, he would only be able to muster two drains leaving me at 2 with an attacking Griselbrand next turn.

Lose to ANT 0-2. Both games he kills me with my win sitting in my hand ready to go next turn.

So final result is 4-7-0. Still like the build and will continue playing it; only real tilt moment was against Infect, having Elesh Norn primed to go and seeing that many cards without anything to show for it did get to me. A few of the other games were drawing Force the turn after Rest in Peace, but I can make peace with those situations.

Additionally, wanted the Tolarian Academy playmat, so made the following changes and went 0-2 drop in Vintage on Sunday. Watched a guy take infinite turns on turn 2 was kind of neat.

-3 Brainstorm
-3 Daze
-2 Izzet Charm
-2 Animate Dead
-1 Careful Study
-1 Hapless Researcher
+3 Mental Mistep
+2 Gush
+2 Oath of Druids
+2 Dack Fayden
+1 Ponder
+1 Misdirection
+1 Mystical Tutor
-1 Keranos, God of Storm
-1 Inkwell Leviathan
-1 Darkblast
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Hellkite Tyrant

I wouldn't recommend it.

[Stryfo]

Looking at your matchups it looks like you got quite unlucky. Losing to burn, elves, ANT(though less here) and infect.

I recently played in a GPT and went 3-1-1, then died in the top 8 to my own mistakes. Just a friendly reminder guys, your opponent's graveyard can be reanimated from as well >.<

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Okay, I'm a Grave Titan, a Reanimate (looking for a 4th foil), and a set of Show and Tells away from playing this deck. Is there a reasonable replacement for SnT until I buy my set? The other cards are an eBay browsing session away, but Shows will take just a little time, but I wanna play it sooner than two months from now. Any suggestions? How do people feel about the older Dark Ritual "glass cannon" version? Can it still be at least moderately competitive?

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[PirateKing]

Looking at your matchups it looks like you got quite unlucky. Losing to burn, elves, ANT(though less here) and infect.

Yeah, I feel if I could play the day over again, variance would swing back to my side. Many many games were winnable with just a top deck Careful Study or Hapless Researcher or Izzet Charm or even Brainstorm or Entomb; draw a land or a fatty. Try again? Land or a fatty.

My burn opponent did have some business going, my force on his Price of Progress gets me in range of Bolt and Fireblast, both games he gets me exactly on damage. ANT was fast as well, both were turn 3, game 1 I had Dazes mucking up his floating mana but even that wasn't enough.

But double Elves and Infect both game me all the time in the world to put something together, which is frustrating.

Worst part of the weekend was all of my opening hands for Vintage were really really good. Like every single one was turn 2 reanimate with backup or protection, but that didn't matter for shit in the face of Mental Misstep lol. So not only did the deck just shit the bed Saturday, it showed me what godly hand it could produce when it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

[Nuke is Good]

I dusted off Reanimator after not playing for nearly 3 months for Legacy Champs, I probably would have done better if I stuck to what I knew best instead of trying to learn another deck. I'll type my notes on the matches if I can find them in my luggage.

Round 1: vs Shardless Bug
Game 1: I knew he was on Shardless since I saw him at the players meeting shuffling up. Here's the funny part about the first game, I was so anticipating a T1 thoughtseize I kept mulling, also due to the fact I was getting either all land hands or non landers. I ended up mulling to 2 with an Iona and a Swamp. Lo and Behold turn 1 he was forced to thoughtseize my Iona. The next turn I reanimated on black with no real response.

Game 2: Leyline of the Void pregame action. I was heavy on the show and tell plan and bring out Empyrial Archangel on it and beat face.

1-0

Round 2: vs Mono Brown MUD
I have no familiarity of this matchup
Game 1: I force the first trinisphere only to get hit with a chalice on 1. We go back and forth, I had to reanimate Iona as it was the only thing in the yard via careful study at this time. He eventually establishes the staff of domination mana loop.

Game 2: He barfed out his hand like some kind of affinity player. I saw Tormods, Chalice on 1, Chalice on 2, and a Trinisphere within 2 turns. Also Ugin hurts with the bolting. Sire of Insanity fails big time when reanimated on turn 3.

1-1

Round 3 Grixis Delver/Tempo

Game 1: I thoughtseize Young Peezy out of his hand, as his hand was just full of delvers and a tasigur. I get Tidespout out on turn 3 and I get a clock finally. I was down to 4 life and he was down to 5, I know his hand was full of creature spells since delver did not flip but he did manage to get another young peezy. Unfortunately for me the next turn he was able to flip both of his delvers and on his attack step I left mana open to bluff I could bounce his creatures, but alas it didn't work.

Game 2: Turn 1 Elesh Norn, Turn 2 Iona on Black sealed the deal. Though a lightning bolt nearly killed me if it weren't for misdirection.

Game 3: My opponent outplayed me on this one. Everytime I tried to reanimate or exhume he had a surgical extraction ready on my fatty. Tasigur was laying on the pain pretty hard here.

1-2

Round 4 Reanimator Mirror
I have no experience with the mirror at all. The details on this one was hazy

Game 1: It's seriously just draw, land go, when he shuffles his deck he accidentally drops an entomb so I immediately know what he's on. I had an entomb in my hand and no reanimate so I waited until I had both in hand before I made my move. Eventually it was Entomb, Reanimate Iona on Black onto next game.

Game 2: My Careful Study and Entomb got forced leaving me out of the game. He gets Griselbrand out killing me.

Game 3: Both of us reanimate Griselbrands on our respective 2nd turns. We eventually trade off, I figured he had a reanimate in his hand trying to take my Griselbrand. My Pay 14 netted me no permission, so I just died while he got an Iona on Blue.

1-3

Round 5 Burn

Game 1: Turn 2 Sire of Insanity only gets me killed. He was able to drop a monastery swiftspear and just kill me with one land in play.
Game 2: I didn't understand what Exquisite firecraft did on the spell mastery part so he kills me with spam of red spells.

This loss almost made me want to drop.

1-4

Round 6 U/W Affinity Fliers

Game 1: I Tidespout Tyrant him out of the game
Game 2: I Elesh Norn him out of the Game

2-4

Round 7 MUD

Game 1: A "non" Interactive game as he puts it. Turn 1 Sire of Insanity puts him out of the game.
Game 2: I show and tell Griselbrand and he puts down a blightsteel colossus. I panic knowing what's gonna happen so I draw 14 to find my single chain of vapor. I bounce it thinking "phew I dodged that bullet". My opponent looks like he still can recover as he barfs out his hand except for that darksteel I bounced so I'm thinking to myself "okay I gotta end this quick, oh! let me Show and Tell my Empyrial Archangel". He drops the same blightsteel colossus I was fearing a turn ago, I panic yet again. When he was able to swing at me I decided to block with the Archangel so all the damage would go to angel instead of me (I think though I could have just did no blocks and still survive). After the angel died I just reanimated it again. Griselbrand gets me there.

3-4

Round 8 Esper...something?

I have no idea what my opponent was on as Elesh Norn caused a scoop if when I forced STP.

4-4

Round 9 6Tezz/Helmerator

This guy was such a fun opponent

Game 1: I'm seeing Dmir Signets, Artifact Lands, and MAINDECK LEYLINE OF THE VOID. I was wondering what he was on that game, he was mentioning that even with my Elesh Norn on the board about to swing for lethal in a turn that he had a way out. His way out was a Tezzeret 1.0 which I forced which I went to game 2.

Game 2: 2x Leyline of the Void is active we both draw jack crap. I show and tell Griselbrand in and the clock is on, until he drops an ensnaring bridge from my show and tell. Two turns later I get my abrupt decay to blow the bridge up.My opponent topdecks transmute artifact on his last possible turn, so I know he's searching for that helm to kill me. I dig 14 with Griselbrand seeing NOTHING, I was about to concede then I realized I had a brainstorm in there, so I decided to go for it. And thanks to that I was able to Force it and the game ends.

After this game we talking with my friend and his son about the whackiness that is Tin Fins with the doomsday transformational sideboard. And my opponent suggested that giving Reanimator a Doomsday option in the sideboard would be pretty funny. Something I might explore for fun.

5-4

Round 10 BUG Delver

Game 1: Griselbrand on Turn 1 killed him fast

Game 2: My opponent was showing his buddy his opening hand and they were laughing. So I was like...crap I kept a bad hand. I kept a possible turn 1 reanimation hand if I could bin a fatty with one of my careful studies. His turn 1 play was Deathrite Shaman but he had no Green source of mana. Because of the deathrite in play I waited before I made my move. His 2nd turn was another deathrite and he decided to just swing at me with the first deathrite. With that I decided to go for the kill. I casted careful study and I was able to bin empyrial archangel and reanimate it on the next turn. He apparently had no response to that. Apparently he was packing murderous cuts thinking it was enough to kill whatever I binned.

6-4


Thoughts on Eternal Weekend:

Reanimator is something people are still afraid of.
The Legacy crowd is still amazing, I only had to deal with one salty dude the whole day.
Leyline of the Void, seriously? This isn't 2013 stop using that thing, it scares me.
Lots of homeless dudes in Philly, someone tried to rob me at the amtrak terminal even though my backpack was strapped on to me. Thank god a friend and me was able to double team him.
Acoustics were AWWWWWWWWFUL
I suck so bad at Vintage, my first round was against LSV only to get blown out horribly. First time playing Vintage and I go 2-7.
No one can read Phyrexian, I can't even I sometimes have to call a judge for oracle on Elesh haha.
Apparently having foil careful studies gave away the fact that Reanimator was one of my main decks if not my main deck to play.
Losing to burn really really makes me sad, I made Reanimator as a response to all the burn decks at my home meta.

MVPs: Show and Tell, Elesh Norn, and Empyrial Archangel. Everyone loves shroud and the inability to read Phyrexian. Also being able to scoff at Leyline of the Void is great.
LVPs: Sire of Insanity, Daze, and Grave Titan. Every time I decide to bring him out to the maindeck, he backfires on me. I'm re-evaluating if he's still worth it even in the sideboard. He originally was a storm silverbullet, but thinking back to the time the ANT player was able to Hellbent Infernal Tutor into Chain of Vapors my Griselbrand just annoys me. Daze never was there for me, never to be pitched to Force or to just tempo counter something. Grave Titan never saw any action due to lack of decks where I anticipated edict effects.

[David L Byer]

Looking at the reports coming in, Grave Titan seems a bit outdated at the moment. Is Archangel really that good? How is it in the D&T match up?

[Nuke is Good]

Looking at the reports coming in, Grave Titan seems a bit outdated at the moment. Is Archangel really that good? How is it in the D&T match up?

I'm a fan of Archangel as it's defensively strong. In aggromatchups doing 8 damage in one turn can be a chore. Others will say that Inkwell Leviathan may be the better choice due to its islandwalk, huge body, and trample. In Death and Taxes it's annoying for the opponent to deal with. I will concede though that I don't win the game with the Archangel alone. It usually helps me stall until I get another fatty out.

[PirateKing]

Looking at the reports coming in, Grave Titan seems a bit outdated at the moment. Is Archangel really that good? How is it in the D&T match up?

Grave Titan is first and foremost for the Edict matchups, decks that rely on Liliana of the Veil to cover themselves. Everything else is just secondary. Everything else he does can be done better or safer with other creatures. For the most part, he will never be a creature you Entomb for, but does quality work when you see him in the opening hand or off a Careful Study. Essentially, he's a more well rounded Sigarda.

Empyrial Archangel is just a more defensive Inkwell Leviathan. Not to say it's worse at all, but for me they're both candidates for an unlegendary untargetable beater to seek in removal heavy environments. In a removal heavy combat heavy environment, Archangel lets you attack with more safely. The trade off there is a slower clock, especially if they have blockers.

D&T can be taxing :tongue: but winnable, Inkwell Leviathan early will kill them before they can poop out enough creatures to matter, and will walk all over any flyers they put down to delay you. Your odds fall sharply the longer the game goes, they'll have every effect available to ruin you. Thalia for your spells, Aven Mindcensor for your Entombs, Rest in Peace for your graveyard, Containment Priest for your Show and Tells and Swords to Plowshares and Council's Judgement for anything that does make it into play. It's definitely not an opponent I wish to sit across from, but I think it's a better match up then some of the BUG flavors. Those always seem unwinnable to me, I've grown to absolutely despise them.

[alaska]

Thanks for the information Alaska. I heard a lot of pros talking about running Leyline of the Void as a 3 of in the Sideboard because of all the Delve and other decks that rely so much on the graveyard as of late. Could you tell me more about your local meta game?

Seattle meta can be a little tricky to pin down on any given day, because plenty of people have large collections and can switch among different decks.

That said, in my local shop (Card Kingdom), it is very rare to play against weird janky crap.

Expect an SCG-like meta: Bug and Grixis Delver, Miracles, Omni, DnT/Maverick. Storm, some reanimator. Elves and Merfolk make appearances too, there are a couple dredge players running around (I'm sometimes one of them). Also occasional stompy decks, but not many of those.

That may be so broad as to be unhelpful, but I haven't found the meta to be so slanted as to be predictable.

[David L Byer]

Seattle meta can be a little tricky to pin down on any given day, because plenty of people have large collections and can switch among different decks.

That said, in my local shop (Card Kingdom), it is very rare to play against weird janky crap.

Expect an SCG-like meta: Bug and Grixis Delver, Miracles, Omni, DnT/Maverick. Storm, some reanimator. Elves and Merfolk make appearances too, there are a couple dredge players running around (I'm sometimes one of them). Also occasional stompy decks, but not many of those.

That may be so broad as to be unhelpful, but I haven't found the meta to be so slanted as to be predictable.

Any suggestions on any specific cards I should be packing (Main deck and/or sideboard) for Seattle GP? Maybe I should come up a week early and see for myself. How is the Legacy scene during the week? Any guys just in the store playing or only tournament play?

[ubernostrum]

Looking at the reports coming in, Grave Titan seems a bit outdated at the moment. Is Archangel really that good? How is it in the D&T match up?

D&T is rough.

Like I said in my post further up, I think the guy I beat in Legacy Champs just didn't really know how the matchup worked; game 1 he spent way too much time trying to run the mana-denial plan and applying virtually no pressure, and that's how I was able to get him, and Inkwell is very strong against them -- Council's Judgment is the only thing they have to kill it, and it's not like they run a lot of copies of that. Also, Ætherling is pretty good to have so long as you can keep it from getting hit by Revoker.

Grave Titan, meanwhile, just feels like it's better suited to a metagame with more Lilianas in it. I didn't see a single one out of an opponent in 9 rounds on Saturday.

[alaska]

Any suggestions on any specific cards I should be packing (Main deck and/or sideboard) for Seattle GP? Maybe I should come up a week early and see for myself. How is the Legacy scene during the week? Any guys just in the store playing or only tournament play?

I only show up for "tournament" (well, weekly tournament) play, which is generally 30-40 people. I don't really have time or energy to show up on random off-days unfortunately.

As for specific cards, Decay and Needle obviously do a lot of work. Coffin Purge if you want to be cute. Extra discard I.e. duress, is something I've been testing based on suggestions here. Some degree of bounce spells - I run a Singleton echoing truth in the board, but maybe that's too skimpy.

[Gilderbarin216]

Ive been questioning grave titan as of late as well. The problem with shaving him from the deck is that he is such a good clock. For sure there are games where i entomb for him. Against a karakas he is the best threat in our deck, and he does put 10 power into play on the turn he enters, thats significantly more than any of out other dudes. I think that generally, unless your opponent has 2-3 answers, he is the best creature against death and taxes in our arsenal, and is much tougher to race than archangel. The deck plays vial, so in the D&T games, your opponent can easily put 8 power into play by turn 5-6, which is when archangel is due to be hitting for the 4th time. Id like to hear input on the slot for sure, as i think it will greatly affect out lands, miracles and death and taxes matchups inadvertently. Playing in the invi this weekend, i will most likely be sleeving up gravy titan.

[mistercakes]

Ive been questioning grave titan as of late as well. The problem with shaving him from the deck is that he is such a good clock. For sure there are games where i entomb for him. Against a karakas he is the best threat in our deck, and he does put 10 power into play on the turn he enters, thats significantly more than any of out other dudes. I think that generally, unless your opponent has 2-3 answers, he is the best creature against death and taxes in our arsenal, and is much tougher to race than archangel. The deck plays vial, so in the D&T games, your opponent can easily put 8 power into play by turn 5-6, which is when archangel is due to be hitting for the 4th time. Id like to hear input on the slot for sure, as i think it will greatly affect out lands, miracles and death and taxes matchups inadvertently. Playing in the invi this weekend, i will most likely be sleeving up gravy titan.


i think archangel might be correct vs death and taxes. by turn 5-6 you can easily reanimate an elesh norn even for just a wrath effect to make sure the angel gets there.

[Nuke is Good]

I don't like Grave Titan against DnT, all he does is eat a STP to the face with nothing to show but two zombies on the field that Thalia can easily dispatch. Elesh at least kills everything except Serra Avenger, Iona locks up the game until Karakas/Vial, and Griselbrand draws you stuff. In my testing the Archangel does create a significant headache against DnT, but due to SFM its pretty easy to hit 8 mana. There really is no silver bullet against DnT other than getting two fatties down the same turn. Even Tidespout has his merits bouncing the dreaded Karakas.

Or a turn 1 Sire of Insanity, but that creature has been extremely unreliable for me.

My philosophy on choosing creatures to entomb is:

1. What will cause my opponent to scoop if it hits the ground? Elves/Food Chain/Other small critter decks it's Elesh Norn/Mono Color it's Iona
2. Can my opponent interact with it? I will call Iona on their removal color or use a shroud fatty. Grave Titan on Edict Decks
3. Can I afford to lose the life from reanimate if this creature wouldn't insta-scoop? Empyrial Archangel and Griselbrand typically pay off reanimating due to damage redirect and lifelink respectively.

Outlier decks like Lands I go for tidespout tyrant due to Maze of Ith being a pain in the ass along with bouncing the Marit Lage token. Having options in the form of Reanimator's toolbox attracted me to the deck vs Sneak n' Show which just involves throwing down two of the strongest creatures in Legacy.

[Cybey]

I don't like Grave Titan against DnT, all he does is eat a STP to the face with nothing to show but two zombies on the field that Thalia can easily dispatch. Elesh at least kills everything except Serra Avenger, Iona locks up the game until Karakas/Vial, and Griselbrand draws you stuff. In my testing the Archangel does create a significant headache against DnT, but due to SFM its pretty easy to hit 8 mana. There really is no silver bullet against DnT other than getting two fatties down the same turn. Even Tidespout has his merits bouncing the dreaded Karakas.

Inkwell Leviathan is usually the #1 creature to go for against DnT, because they simply can't get rid of it. Although nowadays Council's Judgement can remove it, but they usually only run it as a 1-off when they run it.

[downtoonelife]

I used Archetype of Endurance before when our local meta has significant number of DnT decks. I animate him first then either followed by Griselbrand or Elesh Norn to beat DnT. My deck before also has 3 Pithing Needle maindeck replacing the 3 Lotus Petal slot in the usual build so Karakas wasn't a problem to me Game 1. Got 2nd and 3rd place before with that build.

With regard to Grave Titan - with my latest list - Grave Titan only help me with my Lands match-up. I lost to 4c Delver having Titan in play (the only creature I got in my yard when I was able to resolve an animate spell) - the Pyromancer elemental token just block the Titan and Zombie tokens. I think Sphinx of the Steel Wind can replace the Titan since Young Pyromancer is more common now than Liliana.

[sunlith42]

Archetype of endurance won me game 3 against death and taxes in a small local tourney last night. I plan to keep testing it, but so far I like him a lot in the inkwell/hexproof slot.

[Nuke is Good]

With regard to Grave Titan - with my latest list - Grave Titan only help me with my Lands match-up. I lost to 4c Delver having Titan in play (the only creature I got in my yard when I was able to resolve an animate spell) - the Pyromancer elemental token just block the Titan and Zombie tokens. I think Sphinx of the Steel Wind can replace the Titan since Young Pyromancer is more common now than Liliana.

If you're anticipating a deck that uses Young Peezy most likely the rest of his creatures are gonna be small so Elesh Norn is gonna do more work wiping the floor than Sphinx blocking a single token (though gaining life is nice).

[downtoonelife]

If you're anticipating a deck that uses Young Peezy most likely the rest of his creatures are gonna be small so Elesh Norn is gonna do more work wiping the floor than Sphinx blocking a single token (though gaining life is nice).

It was a wrong decision when I side in Grave Titan on that match-up as additional creature for my Show and Tell. I had Griselbrand in my yard also when I cast exhume however he responded with surgical extraction targeting the Griselbrand so I was left with Grave Titan. Sphinx would be more useful than Grave Titan on that match up in addition to Elesh Norn. Although there is still a possiiblity that a block from Gurmag Angler and a double bolt can kill Elesh Norn. For those who are still using Grave Titan, I think overall we can safely remove Grave Titan now in the deck (correct me if I'm wrong :smile:).

[sunlith42]

It was a wrong decision when I side in Grave Titan on that match-up as additional creature for my Show and Tell. I had Griselbrand in my yard also when I cast exhume however he responded with surgical extraction targeting the Griselbrand so I was left with Grave Titan. Sphinx would be more useful than Grave Titan on that match up in addition to Elesh Norn. Although there is still a possiiblity that a block from Gurmag Angler and a double bolt can kill Elesh Norn. For those who are still using Grave Titan, I think overall we can safely remove Grave Titan now in the deck (correct me if I'm wrong :smile:).

I am going to disagree. He fills the spot of big dumb beater. Sometimes you just need 10 power plus some blockers on the back swing. He is also great against edict effects like LotV. As well as being hard castable, I have won a decent number of games hard casting a grave titan.

[owerbart]

as said above tyrant is the creature that literally makes lands a bye. they can't karakas it, they would need a triple punishing fire, and you can bounce the marit lage token all day long

[PirateKing]

I am going to disagree. He fills the spot of big dumb beater. Sometimes you just need 10 power plus some blockers on the back swing. He is also great against edict effects like LotV. As well as being hard castable, I have won a decent number of games hard casting a grave titan.

The two contenders for the big dumb beater slot are Grave Titan and Empyrial Archangel. They each have the strengths and weaknesses that dictate to which meta they will best perform. Nobody here should be saying that Grave Titan is a bad target, he excels at pretty much every attribute you could want from the big dumb beater. But in an environment lousy with removal, the slower, safer Archangel will yield better results. So the discussion shouldn't be a contest between the cards, rather if the meta has shifted that edict effects are on the decline.

[H]

So, if I were a noob with Reanimator (and I am) what would be a good decklist to start off with?

In general I am expecting to run this in a mostly fair meta, with a few combo decks perhaps smattered about (more storm, less Omni).

I am thinking of a BUG build like I've been seeing, which agrees with me, because I have the Team America duals in FBBs, :cool:

Plus having Abrupt Decay of the the board seems good, in case someone decides to break out Miracles.

Thanks for any help.

[PirateKing]

So, if I were a noob with Reanimator (and I am) what would be a good decklist to start off with?

In general I am expecting to run this in a mostly fair meta, with a few combo decks perhaps smattered about (more storm, less Omni).

I am thinking of a BUG build like I've been seeing, which agrees with me, because I have the Team America duals in FBBs, :cool:

Plus having Abrupt Decay of the the board seems good, in case someone decides to break out Miracles.

Thanks for any help.

The largest distinction of the builds is Show and Tell or not. If you're in the S&T camp, you'll need Ponders and an otherwise cantrip heavy build to support getting both cards in your hand as fast as possible. If you're choosing not to run S&T, you'll need options to battle all that grave hate being brought in against you. Green does that well, offering Abrupt Decay and Pernicious Deed in the side. Thoughtseize and Duress do good work as well.

Here's what I ran in the JellyJam tournament:

4 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Griselbrand
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Grave Titan
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Sire of Insanity
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Izzet Charm
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead
4 Careful Study
4 Hapless Researcher
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Dack Fayden
SB: 1 Inkwell Leviathan
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 Keranos, God of Storms
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Darkblast

If you're not sold on the red splash, swap the red duals for the associated basic, and turn the Izzet Charms into either Ponders or Thoughtseizes. The Dack Fayden was a test where Misdirection once was. As we've been discussing, Grave Titan might not be the best creature in the current meta. Also Iona might be better in the main, it all depends on the local decks you're facing. If you're looking for a more balls to the wall speed deck, make the Hapless Researcher into Lotus Petals and you should be set.

[H]

Thanks, I think I like the idea of Iona in the main, but I will see how it comes together.

I think I would definitely want Show and Tells, as it seems like that would give me the best chance to play through (or around) some of the common grave hate. Pernicious Deed is one of my top three favorite Magic cards so no need to twist my arm to get me to play it.

When I get home from work, I'll see what I have laying around, I know I have everything expensive, I'll probably end up missing something dumb like a Careful Study...

[Gazoline]

im new player as well, been lurking around for awhile ;) Do reanimator really have the needed amount of mana for Pernicious Deed? isnt it a bit too slow? i mean at 16ish lands (Lotus petals not included tho) isnt abrupt better anti-gravehate card straight up? or even maelstrom pulse? or maybe im missing something again... i usually do ^^

[H]

im new player as well, been lurking around for awhile ;) Do reanimator really have the needed amount of mana for Pernicious Deed? isnt it a bit too slow? i mean at 16ish lands (Lotus petals not included tho) isnt abrupt better anti-gravehate card straight up? or even maelstrom pulse? or maybe im missing something again... i usually do ^^

Well, I've played Deed many times and the amount of those that I needed to pop it for more than 2 is small. I think I have popped it for more than 3 only once. It does cost a bunch of mana, but one of the great things is how it really sweeps up entire board states.

I think the mana here is probably fine to play it, because it would be very rare to need to ever go higher than X=2. Often Deed is also a Time Walk of sorts, since once it's there, they won't want to add to their board. Oh and it's great versus Miracles.

[Gazoline]

Well, I've played Deed many times and the amount of those that I needed to pop it for more than 2 is small. I think I have popped it for more than 3 only once. It does cost a bunch of mana, but one of the great things is how it really sweeps up entire board states.

I think the mana here is probably fine to play it, because it would be very rare to need to ever go higher than X=2. Often Deed is also a Time Walk of sorts, since once it's there, they won't want to add to their board. Oh and it's great versus Miracles.

Thanks alot for the input! I love pernious deed aswell after ive played nicfit. just always thought it was to expensive for reanimator till now, im definitly gonna try it in the sideboard some day in the future when whole deck is completed:) Like you said its great against miracles!
Thanks again! =)

[H]

Well, like clockwork, I own more than enough of everything for this deck, except Carefull Studies. Figures.

I'll pick some up soon and give this a whirl in a couple weeks then.

[PirateKing]

im new player as well, been lurking around for awhile ;) Do reanimator really have the needed amount of mana for Pernicious Deed? isnt it a bit too slow? i mean at 16ish lands (Lotus petals not included tho) isnt abrupt better anti-gravehate card straight up? or even maelstrom pulse? or maybe im missing something again... i usually do ^^

As H said, popping Deed for more than 3 is very rare. In my sideboarding, Abrupt Decay almost always come in, where EE and Deed only come in against opponents who I expect to overwhelm me with hate permanents. Death and Taxes, Elves and Maverick come to mind as opponents who beyond main deck headaches will bring in additional nonsense that will make a few Decays not nearly enough to pave the way.

Regarding playing Show and Tell, I think you'll be stressed to support the cantrips and hand hate necessary to get the combo in hand along with ensuring they don't have some nasty surprise of their own, all with also bringing in Abrupt Decay as well. Most times it's usually an either or build. Especially when most people run City of Traitors out of the side to support a faster S&T.

[Nuke is Good]

I've seen less of Sol lands to power out the show and tells in the remaining Reanimator lists using the plan B. Usually lotus petals are enough to help power out a faster SnT I've noticed.

I want to run a white splash for shits and giggles so I can power out a Loyal Retainers reanimation option.

[Hank Zhong]

Hi Everyone,

Played in the SCG invitational this past weekend in Somerset New Jersey, 8 rounds of legacy and 8 rounds of standard. Went 6-2 in Legacy with Reanimator and 5-3 in Standard, good for a top 64 finish and $250. I'll just write about my 8 rounds with Reanimator and spare you the Standard half.

Going into the tournament, I was set on playing Omnitell. However, I felt the deck had a huge target on its head, despite not being all that good. At the DC legacy open a couple weeks back, Omnitell did terribly overall on day 2, despite winning the tournament. One match that felt bad was the popular 4 color delver deck. Game 1 was usually excellent, as they only have FOW and Daze to interact with you. However, postboard, most builds bring in 3 pyroblasts and 4 therapies, which is extremely difficult to beat. As a result, I decided to audible last minute to an old favorite: Reanimator. The metagame is extremely soft to graveyard decks at the moment, with most decks packing only 2 grave hate cards in their sideboard. A combo deck that ignores pyroblast felt like the right choice. Additionally, reanimator also crushes just about every other combo deck: storm, sneak and show, omnitell, elves, dredge, list goes on.

Given my last minute audible and no time to test (I have not played reanimator since 2013), I copied Jake's list card for card, printed out his SB guide, and went to town.

As it turns out I played against 7(!) 4 color delver decks, all of which copied Bob Huang's winning list from Legacy Champs. The only other deck I played against was Omnitell, which I crushed easily.


Due to facing the same deck every round, I won't bored you with a round by round report, instead, I'd like to think of this as a case study and analysis on how to fight delver decks in general. Hopefully it will give everyone a very good idea of how to play against the most popular delver variant and learn some key principles, which I'll break down by Game 1, 2 and 3, as they all play fairly differently:

Game 1s - You are a huge favorite game 1 vs. delver. They usually only have 4 daze and 4 FOW for interaction. Deathrite is only good turn 1, and they have to know you're on reanimator, otherwise, they won't even fetch their green source for deathrite. For them to win, they have to be on the play, probe you to know you're on reanimator, have a turn 1 deathrite resolve, and keep it up the entire game. Even then, you can always exhume with 2 fatties in the yard. I won 6 out of 7 game 1's against 4 color delver during the tournament. The only game 1 I lost was due to a mull to 5, which was quite mediocre and opponent had pressure plus deathrite.

Sideboarding: I followed Jake's general plan of siding out all countermagic (4 daze, 4 FOW, 1 tidespout tyrant) and bring in discard, decays, and a couple needles (+1 thoughtseize, + 3 duress, +3 decay, +2 needle). I didn't have any disfigures, which would have been excellent here. 4 color delver will bring in 2 surgicals, 2-4 therapies, and maybe pyroblasts and vendillion cliques, they almost always cut all the bolts first and some slower creatures for these cards.

Game 2s - Assuming you win game 1, game 2 you'll be on the draw, and being on the draw sucks. I lost most game 2. While most games were close, the ones that were not close almost always involved wasteland. Due to only playing 15 lands and 3 petals, a double wasteland draw usually was game over. I sorely missed having a basic island in the 75 to cast my cantrips without getting wasted right away. The wastelands also made things like spell pierce and daze much better against me. These games were also grindier than game 1's, so having more lands would have been much better in most cases. Because everything dies to Elesh Norn in that deck (and they have 0 outs to it in the 75) and they board out bolt, you are in no rush to combo off. I only won 2 game 2s, going 2 for 8 for game 2's.

Game 3s - Assuming you lose game 2, you'll be on the play here. Wasteland is not as threatening when you're on the play, but again, due to the light land count, I often found myself in situations where if a petal were a land, I'd have won the game easily. There were a couple times when I needed to use a petal to cast brainstorm or ponder to draw into a land. Those plays felt terrible and needless to say, I lost both games where I had to resort to that. I won 4 game 3s, going 4 for 6.

Key Takeways:

1) Play lands instead of petals: Moving forward I would recommend a 17 or 18 land build with 0 lotus petals. Petal helped me play around daze once in 8 rounds and got me a turn 1 griselbrand once in 8 rounds. But even that time, if my turn 1 reanimation got forced, I would've been very behind. While petal is great game 1, I rarely wanted it postboard. Perhaps in a more combo heavy meta, petals would be good, but if delver is going to be so popular moving forward, I don't think the petals are needed.

2) Play a basic island: Speaking with Jake after the tournament, I understood the reason for not playing the island, however, the value of a basic island against a wasteland daze deck was very clear, since it makes wasteland bad and help pay for daze when you're going off. Moreover, postboard games are very grindy and wasteland becomes much more of an issue there.

3) There is no need for Show and Tell: Most of the delver decks brought in pyroblasts, expecting Show and Tell. Being able to blank that card is very important, as I was able to win a few games by taking their FOW, leaving their blasts in hand and reanimate a fatty. With needles and decays, it was also easy to answer deathrites and other permanent hate cards. The main issue with S&T, though, is that it is a different game plan from the reanimation plan, forcing you to keep fatties in hand. S&T is also bad against all the therapies running around. There were many games where my opponent tears my hand apart with discard, only to die to a topdecked reanimation spell. Until Omnitell ceases to be "tier 1", I would stay away from S&T.

Overall, my 5-2 record (vs. above average invitational players, including Christian Calcano, and Johnathan Sudenik) is a fairly good representation of the match-up, about 65%/35% in reanimator's favor. Moving forward, if we can get the miracles match-up to 60-40, and D&T to 50/50 then I feel reanimator will be a phenomenal choice for any tournament.

Thoughts, feedback and questions welcomed!

Cheers,
Hank

[Gazoline]

Thoughts, feedback and questions welcomed!

Cheers,
Hank

Just wanted to say i loved to read it! Thanks for great reading in the morning while eating my breakfast^^


So everyone, this is the deck im currently looking at, i dont have any S&T. would like to try packrat in sideboard against decks with much gravehate/leylione of the void. its a bit think on duresses/thoughtseizes. sadly i dont own more then one tropical n 2 mistys atm


1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sire of Insanity

2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs

3 Lotus Petal
1 Animate Dead
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
4 Exhume
4 Ponder
4 Reanimate
2 Thoughtseize
61 Cards total

Side:
3 Pack Rat
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Disfigure
1 Dread of Night
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Pithing Needle


Opinions? im quite heavy on creatures in SB due to packrats?

Best regards
Gaz

[Damaku]

Just wanted to say i loved to read it! Thanks for great reading in the morning while eating my breakfast^^


So everyone, this is the deck im currently looking at, i dont have any S&T. would like to try packrat in sideboard against decks with much gravehate/leylione of the void. its a bit think on duresses/thoughtseizes. sadly i dont own more then one tropical n 2 mistys atm


1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sire of Insanity

2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs

3 Lotus Petal
1 Animate Dead
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
4 Exhume
4 Ponder
4 Reanimate
2 Thoughtseize
61 Cards total

Side:
3 Pack Rat
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Disfigure
1 Dread of Night
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Pithing Needle


Opinions? im quite heavy on creatures in SB due to packrats?

Best regards
Gaz

61 in Main? Cut 1 Island ;-)

[sunlith42]

Just wanted to say i loved to read it! Thanks for great reading in the morning while eating my breakfast^^


So everyone, this is the deck im currently looking at, i dont have any S&T. would like to try packrat in sideboard against decks with much gravehate/leylione of the void. its a bit think on duresses/thoughtseizes. sadly i dont own more then one tropical n 2 mistys atm


1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sire of Insanity

2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs

3 Lotus Petal
1 Animate Dead
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Force of Will
4 Careful Study
4 Exhume
4 Ponder
4 Reanimate
2 Thoughtseize
61 Cards total

Side:
3 Pack Rat
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Disfigure
1 Dread of Night
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Pithing Needle


Opinions? im quite heavy on creatures in SB due to packrats?

Best regards
Gaz

I have been playing 2 pack rat in my sideboard for a while. I did it at first while I was building the deck and was on a budget option, but once I finished the deck and I took them out I missed them. Sometimes they just get you a win out of nowhere, and its an alternate angle of attack. I have had a decent number of games where I land a pack rat, and my opponent is so focused on dealing with the multiplying rats that I am able to discard a fatty to pack rat and then reanimate while my opponent is worried about rats. I find hes most useful against rouge decks and does well for me because I play at 3 different stores in my area and don't know what Ill be facing.

[Gazoline]

61 in Main? Cut 1 Island ;-)

Haha yeah i know didnt know what to cut! 15lands feel way to shaky for me since its first time playing the deck. maybe when im getting more used to it!
maybe cut sire and put him to the sideboard instead? =)


I have been playing 2 pack rat in my sideboard for a while. I did it at first while I was building the deck and was on a budget option, but once I finished the deck and I took them out I missed them. Sometimes they just get you a win out of nowhere, and its an alternate angle of attack. I have had a decent number of games where I land a pack rat, and my opponent is so focused on dealing with the multiplying rats that I am able to discard a fatty to pack rat and then reanimate while my opponent is worried about rats. I find hes most useful against rouge decks and does well for me because I play at 3 different stores in my area and don't know what Ill be facing.

Ah nice, thanks for the input! =) Maybe two rats is enough in the sideboard then?

[whataboutcats]

Hi Everyone,



Glad to see somebody else did well with the deck at NJ. I was able to go undefeated in the Legacy portion of this event with a similar build of Reanimator.

I'm not sure I agree with taking out Lotus Petal - it gives you some necessary speed Game 1, even though I board it out most g2/g3 as well. Game 1 is about presenting the combo as quickly as possible, while g2/g3 you can move into a slower game of answering their hate and then moving in for the kill, a plan which lotus petal is not a good player in. I find myself boarding out of Daze as well in those scenarios.

I played 3 S&T in my board and don't think I ever cast one. It's hard to say if I want it or not, but I feel like my board was open enough to have it as a backup for decks that can hate out the graveyard really well.

If I can find time I can try to do a write-up of my matches: I played against 3 Delver decks (2 4C, 1 RUG), 2 Omnitell decks, a Tin Fins deck, some form of BUG deck, and burn. A few of my wins were from miracle drawing into the perfect solution, but the deck felt like it was ready to take on the field. I'd recommend it to anybody that's been considering!

[Gilderbarin216]

Hey Guys, played in the invi as well with reanimator. Played to 3-1, dying to a leyline round one after a tough game one mull to 4. Played no show and tells, and again was ecstatic about it. People were overloading on therapies, pierces and rebs like Hank said, and i felt like i wanted to be more streamlined with all of the delver decks in the format. Lost to grixis control, then beat storm, omnitell and 4c delver. Unfortunately, i was severely underprepared in standard, and played Abzan Hangarback. The problem with the invitational is that you're entire tournament life is contingent upon knowing both formats better than most of the players at the event, where the caliber is exceptionally high. Anyway, i won't write a report or anything, but i was completely satisfied with my list. Going into sunday, people asked about changes i would make, and i couldn't place even one. I am still pretty adamant about the island being not good in this list, especially when the board plan consists of boarding out dazes and forces for black spells that are often best on the turn you also cast your reanimate spells. Either way, here was my list, the creature package has still managed to impress me. There has been a lot of talk about liliana being absent, and consequently grave titan being not good, but i can't stress enough how powerful he is. There is no clock like him. 10 power is still so much, and there is no matchup you could play where an early grave titan will not pressure them to the point of near/actual death.

3 griselbrand
1 Iona, shield of emeria
1 tidespout tyrant
1 elesh norn, grand cenobyte
1 grave titan

4 brainstorm
3 ponder
4 thoughtsieze
4 careful study
4 entomb
4 reanimate
4 daze
4 exhume
4 force of will

3 lotus petal

4 polluted delta
3 verdant catacombs
4 underground sea
1 tropical island
2 swamp
1 bayou

Board:
3 abrupt decay
3 duress
2 pithing needle
2 surgical extraction
2 disfigure
1 massacre
1 aetherling
1 sire of insanity

Stay Classy, Jake.

[mistercakes]

hey jake,

qq's about your list:

you had prior no bayous, 1 trop and an extra verdant right? how has the bayou performed overall? did you miss the 2nd trop?

is sire still worth keeping in the sb? is aethering more effective than keranos (any testing done?) and have you tried extirpate over surgical, or a 1:1 ?

and what's your opinion on that green 5/5 that gives your guys hexproof or shroud?

[Deckerator]

Do you think it is possible to play something like a "OmniTell" sideboard. That means first match gonna play Reanimator, next match we change to OmniTell without making use of our graveyard

[mistercakes]

if you're going for surprise it might be okay, but i think most people are going to assume you are siding into show and tell anyway, which puts you in a bad spot vs red blasts and flusterstorms. b/c of all the discard postboard i'd say give it a try. maybe carpet of flowers could even get you to hardcast stuff.

[Gilderbarin216]

hey jake,

qq's about your list:

you had prior no bayous, 1 trop and an extra verdant right? how has the bayou performed overall? did you miss the 2nd trop?

is sire still worth keeping in the sb? is aethering more effective than keranos (any testing done?) and have you tried extirpate over surgical, or a 1:1 ?

and what's your opinion on that green 5/5 that gives your guys hexproof or shroud?

Sorry it took so long to respond.

Bayou has been good. Prior my manabase looked like 2 trop, 2 swamp, 4 uc, 7 fetches, and is now -1 trop, +1 bayou. Originally i was paranoid about not having enough blue sources without the island, but the more games i play, the more evident that blue is really a luxury color, and that the extra black source is necessary for the duresses on the board. It's been good so far, and i don't really miss the trop. Most games where you want to find a green source for abrupt decay, you also want to cast a discard spell the turn before, so the bayou gives you more fetching options to make your later lines more lucrative.

Sire has been phenomenal, there are a lot of mashups where your threats like elseh norn and tidespout are not good, and in almost all of those cases, sire is exactly what you want. It gives the deck another angle of potency in the early turns, and it great in the combo mashups as well as the midranged ones. Aetherling is more specific (Only for stoneblade and miracles) but is much more potent. If you play carefully, it is near impossible to remove him from the board, and kills in an average of 4 turns. The only caution that i want to exercise is that miracles now has access to mentor, which increases their ability to kill you on a dime, but aetherling is still exceptional. Just don't take too long idling if you have the option of putting him into play. Pressure is still crucial against that deck. Keranos for that reason, is not great. While it is better in a few more matchups, it does not apply that kind of pressure, and is answerable by councils judgment, or even just raced. Assuming that 2/3 of the cards you draw for turn are spells, it takes an average of 9-10 turns for it to get them dead, which is just not reliable enough for my taste.

Surgical is good because of cantrips. In matchups where you need it, you need it quick. Makes your discard more effective because it is free, and allows tapping out to be correct. As well, we have griselbrand and other effects that give you a bunch of cards, which makes again, not having to pay mana for the card much better. Its not often that a deck can really afford to fight over your disruption anyway. with 7 discard spells and 8 counterspells, backup for the surgical to resolve is not difficult to find. For that reason, i feel like surgical is almost always correct.

As for the Archetype, i think that it is too clunky and probably unnecessary. Assuming the card is for the D&T matchup, it is unlikely that we will have either the time or the mana to land 2 individual threats. In the same vein, Archetype doesnt actually do anything on his own. Without evasion or any real impact on the board, i feel like he is a waste of a slot. My philosophy is that we should just take our bad matchup with a grain of salt and continue to be consistent. Otherwise, i feel like we not only sacrifice our edge in other matchups by having him in our deck, and also how streamline the deck is. With 4 daze and 4 force, our gameplan is to stick a guy game one, and then protect it. Archetype undermines that and makes us go over the top to utilize him, which is something i would rather not subscribe to. Again, the creature package is all based on preference, there will never be a "correct" iteration, and if your metagame dictates something like that, then there is no reason not to test it. I would feel more comfortable with something like inkwell or empyreal archangel though.

Hope that answers some questions. If anything comes up, ask again :)
- Jake.

[mistercakes]

thanks for the feedback. one i have some time to play this deck more (real life eek), or just get the few cards i need to get this on modo - i can ask some more meaningful questions and maybe come up with some suggestions for the list.

-rob

[D@N]

So while getting ready for seattle has been my groups focus the last couple months I've been trying to settle on decklists I could run. Tried out storm but with the recent uptick in pyromancer and omni grinding station isn't where I wanted to be. I've been running reanimator in my weeklies lately and been 3-1 or 4-0 the last month and I'm just trying to figure out my board or at least understand it a little better.

3 abrupt decay
2 disfigure
2 duress
1 hurkyl's recall
1 massacre
1 iona
3 piting needle
2 flex

I've tried pack rat, spell peirce and flusterstorm in the flex slots amd haven't been happy with any of them. Massacre doesn't seem needed and I've never brought it in let alone cast it. Disfigure has been really nice vs midrange and white decks especially on the draw so u never have to worry about containment priest.

Really what I'm wondering is what about our lands match? We only have one player with that deck and he rarely shows so I only have online to test against it and it seems very difficult if they can ever get a chasm or a quick liege token. Any advice or constructive comments would help.

Thanks

[Nuke is Good]

Lands is an easy matchup for us. They only have Bojuka bog for gravehate and Tidespout Tyrant absolutely ruins their day bouncing Karakas and Maze of Ith.

[PirateKing]

Lands is an easy matchup for us. They only have Bojuka bog for gravehate and Tidespout Tyrant absolutely ruins their day bouncing Karakas and Maze of Ith.

Lands isn't that much of a slam dunk, sure Crop Rotation into Bojuka Bog is their only relevant response, but recurring Wastelands will limit your options and they can get good hands that end up being just as fast as us. I don't mind seeing Lands, but if you got to stick that Tidespout Tyrant, if you never see an Entomb or he out plays your counters and you lose him, it gets very hard from there.

[D@N]

So pretty much counter their crop rotations and exploration effects and present the combo before turn 4 for their fastest natural kill?

[PirateKing]

So pretty much counter their crop rotations and exploration effects and present the combo before turn 4 for their fastest natural kill?

Well yes if it's "Crop Rotation in response to your Exhume" pretty obvious play there.

It's when it's "Land, Mox Diamond, pitch land, Exploration, Wasteland your land, go" when you're sitting on only a Daze. Trying to use your Force of Wills aggressively on their turn 1 Exploration is okay if you also have the nuts in hand, but you're more likely only going to have half the combo, looking to pitch that Brainstorm you were hoping to patch the hand up. We're not a control deck, our counterspells are defensive, trying for the tempo play isn't a good play for us.

So there's a little more than just "counter their spells, easy" when facing Lands.

Also they can put out the token end of turn 2 for a lethal turn 3.

[Leaflitter]

I am getting into legacy and I have chosen reanimator as my deck of choice. After actually putting some games in with it I really like it. I had been messing around with dredge, burn, and delver but this deck really fit what I'm looking for in a legacy deck. However I dont have a complete mana base yet. Like I said just starting out. I have 1 Underground Sea and I am using shocks for the rest. what should the order be for what duals I acquire next? should it be the 4 underground seas first? or should i get a 1 bayou/ trop then Undrgrounds?


Thanks

[Secretly.A.Bee]

I'd get three Seas and a g/x dual and then go from there.

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[David L Byer]

I am getting into legacy and I have chosen reanimator as my deck of choice. After actually putting some games in with it I really like it. I had been messing around with dredge, burn, and delver but this deck really fit what I'm looking for in a legacy deck. However I dont have a complete mana base yet. Like I said just starting out. I have 1 Underground Sea and I am using shocks for the rest. what should the order be for what duals I acquire next? should it be the 4 underground seas first? or should i get a 1 bayou/ trop then Undrgrounds?


Thanks

I suggest you get the Underground Seas first. They are the ones most likely to jump in value on a moments notice. I suggest you get them all (The other 3 Underground Sea, Bayou and Tropical Island) in played condition first then upgrade to Near Mint as time goes on. If you have the cash...get them all in the best condition possible now because they would be easier to move in NM if you have to sell them later.

[KobeBryan]

New to the deck.

We run about 19-20 blue cards, but when we board, we take out quite a bit of blue cards. Does this make it unsustainable for force of will?

For example, against miracles. You will need decay for their meddling mage and counter balance. You will also need pithing needle against karakas and sensei's

So what do you take out?

Also, it seems like i NEVER entomb a tidesprout tyrant. What's the use of this card?

[Damaku]

New to the deck.

We run about 19-20 blue cards, but when we board, we take out quite a bit of blue cards. Does this make it unsustainable for force of will?

For example, against miracles. You will need decay for their meddling mage and counter balance. You will also need pithing needle against karakas and sensei's

So what do you take out?

Also, it seems like i NEVER entomb a tidesprout tyrant. What's the use of this card?

When i started to reanimate i also had my problems with the Tyrant. You have to learn him. He is incredibly strong, A universal tool to take apart nearly everything.

[Spam]

I don't play with this deck very often, but this shows how Tyrant can be nuts

https://youtu.be/p-vcWyVog-M

[H]

I've ordered the two Careful Studies I need to be able to play this deck, so I'll soon be on the Reanimator train.

On Tidespout, he is certainly unique in his ability to turn a minor advantage into a near complete advantage. Spam presented a good example of where Tidespout shut the door on a game. I would tend to think it is rare that you would specifically need to Entomb the Tyrant, but when you need him, there isn't anything else that will do. That seems to be the crux of the creature package, Griselbrand is always the go-to, each other is situational as needed.

[sunlith42]

New to the deck.

Also, it seems like i NEVER entomb a tidesprout tyrant. What's the use of this card?

Tidespout is great in lands matchups and 12 post. He can also be good against omni, I wouldn't entomb him but if you keep him in hand with an instant or two it makes it almost impossible for them to win.

[downtoonelife]

It is also great against MUD decks. It's the creature I always entomb first when facing MUD.

[KobeBryan]

Thanks all.

My bigger question is this:

We run about 19-20 blue cards, but when we board, we take out quite a bit of blue cards. Does this make it unsustainable for force of will?

For example, against miracles. You will need decay for their meddling mage and counter balance. You will also need pithing needle against karakas and sensei's

So what do you take out?

[sunlith42]

Thanks all.

My bigger question is this:

We run about 19-20 blue cards, but when we board, we take out quite a bit of blue cards. Does this make it unsustainable for force of will?

For example, against miracles. You will need decay for their meddling mage and counter balance. You will also need pithing needle against karakas and sensei's

So what do you take out?

Gilderbrain answered this really well recently. In matchups like miracles and delver we would side out all of our counter spells in favor of discard like duress/thoughtsieze and the needles and abrupt decay. You should go back a few pages and find his comments.

[H]

Thanks all.

My bigger question is this:

We run about 19-20 blue cards, but when we board, we take out quite a bit of blue cards. Does this make it unsustainable for force of will?

For example, against miracles. You will need decay for their meddling mage and counter balance. You will also need pithing needle against karakas and sensei's

So what do you take out?


Gilderbrain answered this really well recently. In matchups like miracles and delver we would side out all of our counter spells in favor of discard like duress/thoughtsieze and the needles and abrupt decay. You should go back a few pages and find his comments.


So countermagic is good game one when you are unsure about what they are going to be doing. Force of will as a catch all, and as a way to close the game with a griselbrand in play is important. After board you can afford to be more specific, and in the mathups where decay can answer their threats retroactively, and the duresses proactively, the counterspells are somewhat of a liability. There are mathcups where you can be the better "Blue deck", but against things like delver and miracles, where they have all of the countermagic you have, counter magic on their board, and elements like pyroblast and counterbalance, you want to go around their game plan of countering your spells effectively.

[KobeBryan]

Is it me or this deck suffers from one of the worst brainstorm locks

[n0ct3m89]

Sounds like you are casting bs wrong. How do you normally cast it?

[KobeBryan]

Sounds like you are casting bs wrong. How do you normally cast it?

Usually to hide stuff or if. Get a 1 landers I bs to find dig pieces

[Namida]

If you feel like you're getting locked more often than with other decks, and you don't believe it's because you're doing something incorrectly, what do you think is different in this deck that makes you more prone to locking yourself?

[n0ct3m89]

So for example.
Hand of reanimate, force, daze, probe, grisel, exhume, brainstorm, fetch.

What do you do turn 1?

If the answer is fetch brainstorm, thats wrong. Brainstorm doesnt find you anything relevant to that turn or your overall gameplan, so putting 2 back after wasting your shuffle is super bad. Correct line is just play fetch, leave it uncracked and pass. Next turn draw, probe, then decide. Without knowing what your opponent is doing or what other pieces you need, you shouldnt cast storm. Also, that starting hand is super good, so it doesnt improve dramatically with a bs. The more cards you see and can therefore manipulate with bs, the better the card gets

[KobeBryan]

So for example.
Hand of reanimate, force, daze, probe, grisel, exhume, brainstorm, fetch.

What do you do turn 1?

If the answer is fetch brainstorm, thats wrong. Brainstorm doesnt find you anything relevant to that turn or your overall gameplan, so putting 2 back after wasting your shuffle is super bad. Correct line is just play fetch, leave it uncracked and pass. Next turn draw, probe, then decide. Without knowing what your opponent is doing or what other pieces you need, you shouldnt cast storm. Also, that starting hand is super good, so it doesnt improve dramatically with a bs. The more cards you see and can therefore manipulate with bs, the better the card gets

probe. then get a card.

Then play a land. wait to next turn. Draw my second card. But at this point, i have whiffed so many times. I don't draw my second land from the brainstorm

I usually get locked out from lack of shuffling. I seem to be able to shuffle more with BUG delver. I have 7 fetches, 4 entombs, and 3 ponders. I feel it should be enough, but the lack of lands make me want to use brainstorm more often than not

[D@N]

Well yes if it's "Crop Rotation in response to your Exhume" pretty obvious play there.

It's when it's "Land, Mox Diamond, pitch land, Exploration, Wasteland your land, go" when you're sitting on only a Daze. Trying to use your Force of Wills aggressively on their turn 1 Exploration is okay if you also have the nuts in hand, but you're more likely only going to have half the combo, looking to pitch that Brainstorm you were hoping to patch the hand up. We're not a control deck, our counterspells are defensive, trying for the tempo play isn't a good play for us.

So there's a little more than just "counter their spells, easy" when facing Lands.

Also they can put out the token end of turn 2 for a lethal turn 3.

I meant the fastest natural kill, not "deez nuts".

After jamming out this weekend against lands and grixis control exclusively an early tidespout is def gg. My only question is what to pick apart on their end. Crop rot in response is an obvious counterspell, but what of their exploration effects?

In the grixis match up I've had more luck t1 discard into reanimate their yp and start cantripping then to try and make my own dude. What's the usual line there?

Oh and you should be playing 8 fetch what's ur list like?

[n0ct3m89]

probe. then get a card.

Then play a land. wait to next turn. Draw my second card. But at this point, i have whiffed so many times. I don't draw my second land from the brainstorm

I usually get locked out from lack of shuffling. I seem to be able to shuffle more with BUG delver. I have 7 fetches, 4 entombs, and 3 ponders. I feel it should be enough, but the lack of lands make me want to use brainstorm more often than not

Careful study also resets the top of the deck too dont forget. Are you running lotus petals?

[David L Byer]

So for example.
Hand of reanimate, force, daze, probe, grisel, exhume, brainstorm, fetch.

What do you do turn 1?

If the answer is fetch brainstorm, thats wrong. Brainstorm doesnt find you anything relevant to that turn or your overall gameplan, so putting 2 back after wasting your shuffle is super bad. Correct line is just play fetch, leave it uncracked and pass. Next turn draw, probe, then decide. Without knowing what your opponent is doing or what other pieces you need, you shouldnt cast storm. Also, that starting hand is super good, so it doesnt improve dramatically with a bs. The more cards you see and can therefore manipulate with bs, the better the card gets

What's this about Probe? Are people playing Probe in Reanimator now? Any decklists? How has it been for you?

[KobeBryan]

What's this about Probe? Are people playing Probe in Reanimator now? Any decklists? How has it been for you?

He's making an example.

[n0ct3m89]

Yea sorry, still on the storm mindset. Probe not usually played in this list, but it still stands. How you sequence a brainstorm drastically affects how good it is. To me, when someone is saying they get bs locked a bunch i tend to think its an issue of sequencing or keeps (i did this for forever when i moved into legacy)

[KobeBryan]

I just played a grixis deck. Won game 1. Lost game 2 and 3.

This guy had 2 cages, 4 drs, flusterstorm, force of will and a counterspell.

How do you fight through ALL of this

[Damaku]

I just played a grixis deck. Won game 1. Lost game 2 and 3.

This guy had 2 cages, 4 drs, flusterstorm, force of will and a counterspell.

How do you fight through ALL of this

http://a5.res.cloudinary.com/csicdn/image/upload/c_pad,h_300,w_300/v1/Images/Products/mtg%2520art/Apocalypse/full/Pernicious%2520Deed.jpg

Counter-protected Deed and lucky combo fireing into Elesh or grave titan

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Discard for the cages, Needle on DRS, counter-battle it out over a Reanimation spell and hope you win.

Do you happen to know if they were playing any Surgical Extractions?

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[Nuke is Good]

http://a5.res.cloudinary.com/csicdn/image/upload/c_pad,h_300,w_300/v1/Images/Products/mtg%2520art/Apocalypse/full/Pernicious%2520Deed.jpg

Counter-protected Deed and lucky combo fireing into Elesh or grave titan

Engineered Explosives also work as well.

[Fox]

The more mana efficient version of Pernicious Deed in your case would be crime // punishment if the target is primarily DRS - in a really bad game state [5 mana + petal] it's also reanimate'y.

[KobeBryan]

Discard for the cages, Needle on DRS, counter-battle it out over a Reanimation spell and hope you win.

Do you happen to know if they were playing any Surgical Extractions?

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

You guys make it sound so easy.

I thought the goal was to take out counters for pithing needle and abrupt decay and more discard.

I did not see extraction.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Well, perhaps I did make it sound a bit too easy. Honestly, it's difficult to discard the Cage, because it's a windmill card that is playable off any land, and most players only play 1. That said, if you get it gone, it's done. Decay handles it well, but finding Decay is the issue. What does your list look like?

From my phone. I do my best, dammit!

[KobeBryan]

3 griselbrand
1 Iona, shield of emeria
1 tidespout tyrant
1 elesh norn, grand cenobyte
1 grave titan

4 brainstorm
3 ponder
3 thoughtsieze
4 careful study
4 entomb
4 reanimate
4 daze
3 exhume
4 force of will
2 animate dead

3 lotus petal

4 polluted delta
3 verdant catacombs
4 underground sea
1 bayou
1 tropical island
1 swamp
1 island

Board:
3 abrupt decay
3 duress
2 pithing needle
2 surgical extraction
1 thoughtsieze
1 massacre
1 Aetherling
1 inkwell
1 flex

I'm not sure about the board. Inkwell is good and bad, I like aetherling. Any suggestions.

[Hank Zhong]

3 griselbrand
1 Iona, shield of emeria
1 tidespout tyrant
1 elesh norn, grand cenobyte
1 grave titan

4 brainstorm
3 ponder
3 thoughtsieze
4 careful study
4 entomb
4 reanimate
4 daze
3 exhume
4 force of will
2 animate dead

3 lotus petal

4 polluted delta
3 verdant catacombs
4 underground sea
1 bayou
1 tropical island
1 swamp
1 island

Board:
3 abrupt decay
3 duress
2 pithing needle
2 surgical extraction
1 thoughtsieze
1 massacre
1 Aetherling
1 inkwell
1 flex

I'm not sure about the board. Inkwell is good and bad, I like aetherling. Any suggestions.

This is close to what I would play. A couple differences:

I dislike lotus petal because in this deck, it makes your great hands insane, but make some otherwise good hands unplayable...aka more variance in a deck with already quite a bit of variance. I feel like you lose more games from getting mana screwed due to the petals than from being half a turn slower when you have the nuts already. I would just got up to 17 lands and a 4th ponder.

I don't think you need surgicals in the board. You are already good vs. omnitell, dredge, and other combo decks, so surgical is only really for the lands match-up. I would play 2 disfigures in that slot, deals with deathrite, delvers, thalia, containment priest etc.

Inkwell is bad from my experience. D&T can race it easily with batterskull and there are better targets in other match ups.

[KobeBryan]

This is close to what I would play. A couple differences:

I dislike lotus petal because in this deck, it makes your great hands insane, but make some otherwise good hands unplayable...aka more variance in a deck with already quite a bit of variance. I feel like you lose more games from getting mana screwed due to the petals than from being half a turn slower when you have the nuts already. I would just got up to 17 lands and a 4th ponder.

I don't think you need surgicals in the board. You are already good vs. omnitell, dredge, and other combo decks, so surgical is only really for the lands match-up. I would play 2 disfigures in that slot, deals with deathrite, delvers, thalia, containment priest etc.

Inkwell is bad from my experience. D&T can race it easily with batterskull and there are better targets in other match ups.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the petal either only because it leaves you quite dead a lot of times. I guess i can go up a swamp and a bayou in the slot.

so you suggest i do not need surgicals at all?

What should i do over inkwell.

[Damaku]

I wasn't the biggest fan of the petal either only because it leaves you quite dead a lot of times. I guess i can go up a swamp and a bayou in the slot.

so you suggest i do not need surgicals at all?

What should i do over inkwell.

I would leve out the surgicals. Playing Petals is verry important in my oppinion and 3 is the way to go, keep this up!