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The M.E.T.H.O.D
09-04-2006, 11:34 PM
Yay for my first discussion post!

I think REanimator is a very viable archtype for the legacy metagame for many reasons. Legacy has hit critical mass with the amount of cheap CC powerful cards for this style of deck. And besides running into swords to plowshares and the mandatory crypts that most people SB there aren't many matchup specific cards that you might risk running to because of the aggressive speed and card digging ability. I chose to follow this route instead of the combo version (karmic guide + guys) and my teammate Jacob Orlove's versions for a variety of reasons. The main reason was that those kinds of builds are up to a turn/2turns slower then this build and they are more prone to encountering the hate cards and running into the maindeck problematic cards. Being even a turn slower you risk yourself running into the swords/crypts that my list would possibly run into, but you also leave yourself open to mage, daze, counterspell, bounce spells, or allowing your opponent to set up his gameplan to beat you or simply lose to the combo decks, goblins, or allow the control variants a chance to actually play permission. I also feel that a lot of the cards that those decks are forced to run by nature are underpowered or dead at many times. The combo version requirs most of the time for you to win via buried alive and jacob's version is prone to you having the wrong cards in the hand at the wrong time. (drawing a random squee off the top would the nut low.)

I tried to mirror my deck to two different reanimator decks that were legal in each format shift in extended. I looked at lists from 2 rotations ago and decks from the likes of Gadiel from the last rotation. They were pretty fast back in their day and with the legacy cardpool the lists could only get faster.

Without further ado, here's the list i posted in the Mana Leak open thread.

'shok style reanimator
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Buried Alive
4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4 Spirit of the Night
2 Duress
1 Sickening Dreams
1 Show and Tell

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
2 Island

/sb
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Phyrexian Negator
3 Pithing Needle
2 Duress
1 Simic Sky Swallower
1 Echoing Truth

- I don't run animate dead even with the "fall off" trick that now works with the guys because you can't tutor for it with mystical, it gives your opponent a chance to kill simic sky swalloer, usually your opponent doesn't have a creature to reanimate anyways (besides like a mogg fanatic or something), and it can randomly get annuled or something.

- Pithing needle was a champion all day in the board. It fights crypts, maze of ith, and counters many other of the cards people are prone to sb'ing against you as well as being a very proactive solution to a lot of matchups.

- SSS is obviously there for plow and it was also another all star post board. I won many games on Saturday and had my opponent flash me plows all the time when the game was over.

- The suicide black/napster cards in the SB were a very good transitional technique post board. I usually boarded out buried alive and mystical tutor because against they are funadamentally the weakest cards game 2 because mystical tutor is card disadvantage when your opponent frequently counters the card you tutored for and buried alive becomes a play over 2 turns when counters are involved and risks you losing to the buried alive go, opponent draws and plays crypt and says go. Negators are soo important post board against the combo and control decks because they provide a fast cheap clock and usually help combo kill your opponent when you reanimate after ripping their hand apart and team attack. The disruption is awsome because it lets you run the good aspect of the suicide black decks post board without the bad fluff and fodder they ran before.

- The deck digs very quickly and throws out guys on turn 1 or 2. The way this deck is build it also allows you to aggressively dig for cards very quickly and it top decks nice, and lets you throw out many reanimate spells against decks packing force of will and daze.

- I'll edit this post with more comments after but i think this thread would work better with me responding to comments but be sure i will add more stuff.

I think this deck is a consideration for people wanting a good deck to play in this format. I played every single popular archtype in my testing and in the actual tourney.

Im including the skeleton for my tourney report here so I can slowly add coverage after reflecting on my matches (i didn't take notes) to ensure accuracy!

Round 1 Goblins

Round 2 Rifter

Round 3 Elias with r/b goblins

Round 4 David Gearheart? with high tide

Round 5 Burning tog?

Round 6 ID
Round 7 ID

Top Eight Nick Cogley with Affinity.

URABAHN
09-05-2006, 10:32 PM
Grats on the big wins, Meth. Why'd you only run 2 Duress MD? Have you tried out Unmask, as suggested in the Mono-Black Reanimator thread?

Shriekmaw
09-05-2006, 11:06 PM
I was interested in your feeling about the Top 8 matchup with Affinity. It would seem like the matchup favors Reanimator in my opinion. Did you just have some bad draws in that matchup or did affinity just go crazy as it does sometimes?

You ended up beating me in the Top 8 in Toronto when you played Iggy Pop against me with Affinity. I know that was a terrible matchup for me, but I loved your deck selections during the last 2 events. Keep up the good work.

kicks_422
12-11-2006, 06:56 AM
I don't know if this is the right place to post, but since it's on this certain style of Reanimator, I guess this is where it should go... :tongue:

Here's my build as of the moment:

Mana
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual

Creatures
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Razia, Boros Archangel
1 Spirit of the Night
1 Simic Sky Swallower
1 Phantom Nishoba
1 Visara the Dreadful
1 Angel of Despair
1 Crosis, the Purger

Spells
4 Duress
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Careful Study
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Buried Alive
2 Show and Tell
2 Sickening Dreams

Sideboard
2 Show and Tell
2 Sickening Dreams
4 Pithing Needle
1 Blazing Archon
1 Kaervek the Merciless
1 Plated Slagwurm
1 Symbiotic Wurm
1 Silent Specter
1 Scion of Darkness
1 Dromar, the Banisher

I opted for the toolbox build over the 4 Akroma / 4 Spirit build, just so I have varied answers to varied situations... Buried Alive helps a lot in searching for the creature I need, and I feel that running only 2 types of creatures dilutes the power of Buried Alive.

I also dropped Brainstorms from the list and changed the numbers of Duress (which I think is vital for any Reanimator build), Sickening Dreams, and Show and Tell. Brainstorm was just fine for me, but I felt that it was just lacking. After SB, 4 Show and Tells MD for control matches, or 4 Sickening Dreams MD for aggro. More toolbox creatures in the Sb for certain situations (ex. Kaervek and Silent Specter for combo, Scion of Darkness for Survival variants, etc.)

I haven't tested much yet, but It looks good on paper. Thoughts?

Citrus-God
12-11-2006, 10:23 AM
Heres the Reanimator I'm currently running...


// Mana 20
4 Chrome Mox
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
3 Island


// Creatures 11
4 Putrid Imp
4 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
3 Simic Sky Swallower


// Spells 29
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Intuition
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Show and Tell


// Sideboard 15
4 Engineered Plague
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection


I dont play this deck religously, but it's been doing okay for me so far.

Maveric78f
12-11-2006, 11:03 AM
The only one that seem viable is the anti-american one because it has a lot of discard engines (11), a lot of reanimation (8) and tutor for them and a lot of discard.

Have you considered playing ideas unbound instead of imps and/or intuitions ?
I would play skyswallower over akroma (so basically, 4/3 instead of 3/4) because of STP.

I've always been surprised by SB of reanimator decks.

Why negator ? It looks awful to me in a non mana denial deck.

Why Misdi ? Hymn is better for that.

I understand why plague : gobs that are often faster than you are but nishoba, with its 14 lifes discripency : isn't it the best answer ?

I understand why FoW : faster combos. Why not. And what about sphere of resistance ?

Citrus-God
12-11-2006, 06:45 PM
Ideas Unbound forces you to discard those cards EOT, when I want those cards now. Intuition should never be taken out, as I can Tutor for 3 Therapies to disrupt my opponent with, fetch a Reanimation spell, or find some beatsticks to bring into play. For game 2 againsty Goblins, I just have to simply play 1 Plague, and Intuition for the other, how cool is that?

I really like SSS, but I want to kill fast. In case you dont know, I play this deck like The Game and Oath. I want to disrupt my opponent as much as possible, and then Combo and win.

Negators are there for you against decks like Thresh because they will bring in Graveyard hate, meanwhile you have a man plan with tons of disruption backed up.

Mis-D is just a free counter versus Control and Solidarity, and FoW serves that exact same function. These counters arent just for Combo, it's also for Control.

valor
12-11-2006, 08:52 PM
After working with a Survival Reanimator deck, I switched to B/U again, the few things I used differenty were:
Avatar of Discord: Yeah sometimes he can suck really bad, but hes still almost as big as the guys you bring out and he comes nicely off a ritual. Replaced Imp and its probably not the best idea but hes awesome so I'm still testing it out anyway.
Mental Note: I used Intuition instead of these for the longest time and never missed them. Its the same effect except you obviously don't choose the cards with Note, but the speed was worth it in my opinion, especially with Brainstorm to order your library. Intuition is still so good here though, I want to find room for it.
I'm running a toolbox of creatures and Exhume over Animate Dead, even with the Akroma trick, because I dont want SSS to die.
2 Show and Tell has been awesome for me, for when I can't find a Discard outlet obviously.
I also ran a Scrubland and Sided Pull from Eternity, from that B/W deck, to combat Crypt/Swords/Wretch and such.

kicks_422
12-12-2006, 05:55 AM
Isn't the toolbox strategy of reanimator decks to abuse Buried Alive not powerful enough anymore? I've seen most reanimator decks shunning Buried Alive and the 8 toolbox fatties for a full/near full set of Akromas plus another monster (SSS/Spirit of the Night/Razia/etc.)...

I just feel much more comfortable knowing I can get a turn 1 Crosis on the board against combo, or an Angel of Despair to destroy a Solitary Confinement, or a Phantom Nishoba to combat burn. Granted that you sometimes never get the right creature for the right situations (e.g. Visara against Solidarity - though that clock is stil nice), optimizing the deck to have more chances of getting the right creature could push it to popularity, right?

Plank
12-12-2006, 03:48 PM
Could I get confirmation as to why the Akroma / Animate Dead now works. Nobody seems to believe me, not even the judges at my local card shop...

Drathro
12-12-2006, 04:10 PM
Could I get confirmation as to why the Akroma / Animate Dead now works. Nobody seems to believe me, not even the judges at my local card shop...
The Wizards Gatherer ruling can be found here (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&Name=Animate_Dead). Look at the ruling at the bottom which reads:

10/4/2004 If the creature card put into play has Protection from Black (or anything that prevents this from legally being attached), this won’t attach to the creature. Then this will go to the graveyard as a State-Based Effect. This will not destroy the creature because it is not enchanting the creature at the time it leaves play.

The issue that practically everyone has with this is that it is a nearly complete reversal of how local judges used to rule this. (They used to say that it attached and then fell off due to pro-black. Even the judges might have been wrong; I don't know what the "DCI official ruling" used to be.)

valor
12-14-2006, 11:12 PM
You can target Akroma in the graveyard because there is no protection in the Graveyard zone, then when it comes into play it will bring her with it, but it can't attach to her and become an Aura so it will just leave play, but since it was never on Akroma it wont bring her with it. I've had a hard time convincing people of that too, but its 100% true.

UberNewHacks
12-20-2006, 03:47 PM
here is my reanimator build
4 Angel Of Despair (if land, slows down a turn, otherwise eleminates threats)
4 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Reanimation Spells
4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
1 Show and Tell
Discard
3 Putrid Imp
4 Buried Alive
4 Careful Study
Card Searching
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
Land & Mana Makers
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
2 Swamp
2 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta

Sideboard
4 Engineered Plague (goblins is one of the best decks in the format, you need a way to deal with it)
4 Hymn To Tourach (hurts control)
4 Pithing Needle (stops tormod's crypt, which is widely played because of threshold)
3 Simic Sky Swallower (stops STP)

please tell me what you think and ways to improove

dr4g0n
12-20-2006, 05:05 PM
Try running Necromancy or Animate Dead instead of Reanimate. You could also think about running Kokusho's for quick drain. I find Living Hive works well against goblins, whereas Plated Slagwurm or Simic Sky Swallower both work well against threshold. You could also sideboard Leyline of the Void against thresh, as it can't be countered and works far better than Crypt