[Deck] Reanimator [Archive] - Page 11

Garobidou

06-21-2011, 03:57 PM

Some more explanations on the model (as some questions arose) :

1) The models does take into account fetchs. It does take into account shuffling when you do Brainstorm then Entomb. In fact, I more or less ran every single hand and determined how to play it and how many cards you drew

2) I don't pretend the results of this model should be followed blindly. However we are a combo deck, we are supposed to combo as soon as possible and our keep or mulligan decision is based on that

3) Why did I consider a Reanimation by turn 3? For 2 main reasons :
- Because from experience in testing when you can't reanimate by T3 you're almost dead (except against Control but even there the window is very small as a resolved Jace is often bad)
- The format has shifted around 2 drops with New phyrexia. Stoneforge and Dark Confidant now define the format. For that reason Jin on T3 is extremely powerful as you're opponent will often be tapped out

On the specific point of Brainstorm

In my opinion Brainstorm is the best card in the format. However if we want to reach a "perfect" build we should try many options.

Before looking closely at the pros/cons let me give 3 ideas :

1) God hands aren't Brainstorm hands. Brainstorm is used in the "Other keepable hands" when you're looking for 1 combo piece. Brainstorm is really good when this combo piece missing is the discard outlet. Otherwise the discard outlet will give the extra draw you need to find the combo piece (on average). So Brainstorm is perfectly effective in 1/3 of the cases.

2) Instead of running cards to find combo pieces, one should just run combo pieces. I suggest one reads CalebD answers in this thread : http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?2571-DTB-UG-Survival-Vengevine-%28formerly-UG-Madness%29/page14

3) A Top 8 at a Scg Open is not a valid argument. But a player (Kyle Kloster) that keeps playing this deck (he certainly has 10 times more testing than all of us) and comes to the conclusion he has to run 2 Brainstorms should be taken into consideration and not rejected because no one can play less than 4 brainstorm in a Blue Legacy deck

Now looking closely at the cons you underlined about running less than 4 Brainstorms :

Con 1 : Brainstorm allows to find combo pieces. This point is dealt previously. Moreover, this is totally dealt in the numbers I'll give below as the draws from Brainstorm are taken into acount in the model

Con 2 : Brainstorm allows to find permission spells. I agree on this one as there will be no counterpart

Con 3 : Brainstorms allows to remove bad cards from hand. If your hand is full of bad cards you shouldn't have kept it (see Con 1).

Con 4 : Brainstorm allows to fight Discard. I agree however one should look at it more closely. If you're on the draw, Brainstorm won't do anythin against a T1 Thoughtseize. If you're On the play, you should have a better T1 to play and use your mana to play it : you won't hold Brainstorm with Hapless in hand, Careful + Creature, ...

Con 5 : Brainstorm allows to find our hate / anti-hate. Our hate on G1 is called Permission spells (so for this see Con 2). On G2-3, Brainstorms will obviously come in (see my previous)

Con 6 : stats are flowed as opponent interacts and we have variance towards creatures. On a G1 I know that my opponent will interact but I don't know how. As I am the combo player, I will do my best to put the pressure and follow my gameplan. So looking at optimizing the initial hands isn't pointless or biaised.
About creatures, this point is why I play 4 jin (to reduce variance).

Conclusion : I suggest we should do massive testings with the "Brainstormless" builds. Then we will compare and conclude. But it isn't that easy.
Now what you're looking for : the results.

Results

Builds Rank #1 to #25
http://img863.imageshack.us/img863/4588/rea1to25.jpg

Builds Rank #26 to #50
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/4389/rea26to50.jpg

Builds Rank #51 to #75
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/3971/rea51to75.jpg

Builds Rank #76 to #100
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/6273/rea76to100.jpg

Builds Rank #101 to #125
http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/6173/rea101to125.jpg

Builds Rank #126 to #150
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9571/rea126to150.jpg

Builds Rank #151 to #175
http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/4250/rea151to175.jpg

Builds Rank #176 to #200
http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/4422/rea176to200.jpg

Builds Rank #200 to #207
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2294/rea201to207.jpg

wcm8

06-21-2011, 04:52 PM

Fantastic work, and somewhat surprising results.

Regarding the land base... Should it be 2 basics, 4 seas, 4 darkslick shores, 8 fetch? Or less shores since we are wanting to cast daze and avoid a wasteland blow out? The only issue with fetches is the possibilty of opposing stifles -- though stifle is probably the least of our worries against a deck that's running them.

And what is the optimal 9th creature? A second Iona, or a second Sphinx? Or possibly a different option?

Then the sideboard issue comes up... Just like dredge, stomping an opponent game 1 is the easy part. Where do we look to optimize our chances against the control matchup, since thats typically going to be the most challenging.

Clark Kant

06-21-2011, 07:07 PM

Excellent question about Darkslick Shores. There do not seem to be too many disadvantages to playing it.

Fantastic work Garobidou. Thank you for taking on such an enormous task and crunching all the numbers.

P.S: I don't think it is ever a good decision to pass on going first to slightly increase your goldfish percentage. Because you are also effectively giving your opponent one extra turn by doing so.

The numbers are very clear and I think a lot of people should sleeve up Build #2 to try out. It's statistically near identical to build #1 but allows us to play 2 Brainstorm rather than just one, which does have value postboard. So taking sideboard anti-hate into account, Build #2 is almost certainly a stronger choice than Build #1.

Build #3 is also very tempting for me personally since it's close to my current build, and happens to have the highest win percentage of any build when you are on the play.

And there is still nothing neccesarily wrong with continuing to run a 3-4 Brainstorm build.

Every 0.1% drop in goldfish percentage corresponds to a 1 out of every 1000 games you play difference in whether you can combo off by turn 3 or not.

Every 1% drop in goldfish percentage corresponds to a 1 out of every 100 games you play whether you can combo off by turn 3 or not.

That might be compensated for by having a slightly better chance of finding your anti-hate postboard.

So for example, there's a chance I might continue to play Build #29, since it's pretty much identical to my current build. Doing so will cost me a one game out of every 500 games I play, which I think I am okay with.

Of note, the highest build with 4 Brainstorm is a 1% drop from the top ranked build. That's a fairly significant drop off.

And I agree that the precise configuration of any particular tournament winning build is irrevelant. Because even if the build was suboptimal, it wouldn't have made a big difference statistically. Just because a certain configuration won, does not mean that it is the most optimal configuration that could've been played. It usually isn't. Playskill and luck are always a much bigger factor in what ends up winning and what doesn't.

Thanks again Garobidou.

Based on your new data, here is my current list...

// Lands
4 [A] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp

// Creatures
3 [NPH] Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
2 [ARB] Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 [CNF] Inkwell Leviathan
1 [RAV] Blazing Archon
2 [JU] Hapless Researcher

// Spells
4 [FNM] Reanimate
4 [US] Exhume
3 [B] Animate Dead
4 [OD] Entomb
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
3 [NE] Daze
4 [OD] Careful Study
2 [FNM] Brainstorm

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Misdirection - Vs. Removal heavy, counter heavy and discard heavy decks etc.
SB: 3 Pithing Needle - Vs. Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Karakas, Painter, Belcher, Helm, Top, Jace etc.
SB: 2 Null Rod - Vs. Tormod's Crypt, Relice of Progenitus, Painter, Belcher, Helm, Top etc.
SB: 2 Echoing Truth - Vs. Leyline of the Void etc.
SB: 2 Show and Tell - Vs. Leyline of the Void etc.
SB: 1 Stormtide Leviathan/Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - Both are excellent options against Elves, Goblin, Zoo and other non-Merfolk aggro decks.
SB: 1 Terastadon - An all around answer to janky cards like Ensnaring Bridge and Noetic Scales that you don't have a great answer to.
SB: 1 Platinum Emporium - Seems essential versus Burn and Tendrils Combo.

Do you think four answers to Leyline of the Void postboard is enough? It's an exceedingly popular card.

Karhumies

06-21-2011, 07:48 PM

Thanks Garobidou for the work you have put into those numbers!

I would still like to remind you all of the importance of creature selection. The figures assume all creatures are identical / equally valuable. Since this is not true in real life due to diversity in stuff (eg. opposing strategies), we need to consider whether the additional MD creature slots can pull their own weight when "randomly animated" (e.g. Hapless -> Reanimate). This calls for a balance between consistency (= having multiple copies of the best targets) and variety (= having at least some MD out against most popular decks for which the best general targets are not as useful).

I guess what I attempt to do is to give a fair warning: Having a sub-par creature in a "random animation" type of opening hand turns it from god hand to a game loss against specific opponents; something which can screw up some of the math involved in the table.

To conclude with a practical tip, I suggest either 2nd Iona or 4th Jin (for consistency) or 1st Elesh Norn (for variance) as the 9th MD creature. Some other options can be successfully reasoned, but they need to be considered/justified before just slapping them in. SB is still the best place for meta/specialist stuff. Think of it this way: experimental SB creatures which fail do not affect G1 performance and you don't need to side them in if you suddenly realize they don't work or the meta deck is not present; but experimental MD creatures which fail turn easily into game losses.

Clark Kant

06-21-2011, 08:05 PM

Here is my question, there are three sideboard slots for utility creatures.

However, there are four excellent creatures vying for these slots...

SB: 1 Stormtide Leviathan - Due to it's very fast clock, this is excellent against every noncombo deck in the format with the exception of Merfolk. Even against combo and Merfolk, it's still unblockable and capable of racing.

SB: 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - Excellent option against Elves, Goblin, Zoo and Merfolk aggro decks. Has a huge advantage in that it tremendously sets tribal decks back, even if they manage to remove it.

SB: 1 Terastadon - An all around answer to hate like Ensnaring Bridge and Noetic Scales that you don't have a great answer to.

SB: 1 Platinum Emporium - Seems absolutely essential versus Burn and Tendrils Combo and solid vs Belcher as well. But I would love to see a more indepth analysis on which matchups you would side him in against.

Of those four, which three creatures are the best options? There is some overlap in functionality between Stormtide and Elesh Norn. So should one of these two get the boot, even though they both have such incredibly strong abilities (8/8 unblockable Blazing Archon)/effects (Permanent Infest cripples tribal aggro)?

Edit: On second thought, I see very few disadvantages to replacing the 2nd Sphinx of Steel Wind with a Stormtide Leviathan in the preceding list. Can you guys think of any, other than vs. Merfolk? If not, I think that's probably the optimal choice.

KevinTrudeau

06-22-2011, 01:24 AM

Looks like a large portion of the deck will be reprinted in a new Premium Deck dubbed 'Graveborn', due out in November for $35 MSRP. There's no explicit confirmation, but there is a strong hint of Entomb seeing a reprint:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/737

Awful timing for me, as I just traded for a set of Entombs today, each valued at around $27 :(.

I'm not a huge fan of Platinum Emperion. There are a lot of situations where you reanimate it, and you end up losing; Burn can just Smash to Smithereens it for example, it does nothing against Hive Mind or Emrakul, and Tendrils combo can just bounce it or destroy it with a card from their Wishboard. Obviously, those types of useless situations can happen with any target, but I feel it would be more so with Emperion. I like its synergy with Reanimate, but I think Emperion is one combat-oriented ability away (trample would have been nice) from making the cut; I'd rather play a second Iona than Emperion.

As for Elesh Norn vs. Stormtide Leviathan for the anti-creature slot in the board, Elesh Norn wins handily for me. Dredge literally can't do anything once she hits play, and she's quite good in matchups you wouldn't necessarily expect, like Welder MUD (takes out Welder and Metalworker). Plus, she turns your Hapless Researchers into blue Wild Nacatls, which isn't super amazing, but is just really cool. In my mind, Elesh Norn is very close to being playable in the maindeck, but unfortunately, she is just a 4/7 against a lot of decks.

So, I think a general list for sideboard utility creatures, as of now at least, would be:

1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Terastodon
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria

theBloody

06-22-2011, 02:54 AM

I don't think they reprint entomb because they simple didn't said it. "Entombs" was there used as a verb, so it don't have to refer to a card. There are many ways to "entomb" something.

Question: if you reanimate Platinum Emperion, did you lose life? I thought yes, but two things confuse me. You guys with term "low life", but more this (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=6894455&postcount=489).

...so I Entomb Platinum Angel, Reanimate it, and proceed to win at -6 life.
Thanks:-)

Sturtzilla

06-22-2011, 10:25 AM

@ Garobidou

First of all, I would like to say thanks to Garobidou for the awesome work he has put into optimizing this deck. Moreover I really appreciate the fact that you are sharing this information with the rest of us. Now I have been testing a 2 Brainstorm build for a few days with mixed results. Currently I am working on site at a National Lab and do not have my actual cards with me. Therefore I have been using MWS. My results have been okay. I am not sure if it is an artifact of the shuffling mechanism or just bad luck, but I have had some pretty good (turn 2-3 dudes) and pretty bad hands (openers with 5 lands or no lands) with the build. I know these happen but the frequency of the poor hands was a bit crazy. So with the information that you have provided, I will get back to testing and hope I get some better e-shuffles tonight. I will post my results in a few days on what I have come up with. I think I will be testing builds 1-3. Thanks again!

@ KevinTrudeau

Looks like a large portion of the deck will be reprinted in a new Premium Deck dubbed 'Graveborn', due out in November for $35 MSRP. There's no explicit confirmation, but there is a strong hint of Entomb seeing a reprint.

This is really exciting! I have been wishing that there were foil Exhumes for a good bit of time. Looks like they are finally getting around to it.

@ KevinTrudeau and Clark Kant

I'm not a huge fan of Platinum Emperion. There are a lot of situations where you reanimate it, and you end up losing; Burn can just Smash to Smithereens it for example, it does nothing against Hive Mind or Emrakul, and Tendrils combo can just bounce it or destroy it with a card from their Wishboard. Obviously, those types of useless situations can happen with any target, but I feel it would be more so with Emperion. I like its synergy with Reanimate, but I think Emperion is one combat-oriented ability away (trample would have been nice) from making the cut; I'd rather play a second Iona than Emperion.

I have to agree. Sure it is cute that you don't lose life when you reanimate after he is in play, but that seems poor when you can't use FoW or Fetchs after. Better question (and sorry Clark Kant, I am not trying to tear you down): Why not just find Jin or Iona against either Burn or Tendrils? Jin forces burn to kill you on their 3rd-4th (depending if you are on the play or draw) turn. I have played burn for a good bit and sure turn three kills are possible but really unlikely. You are more looking toward a turn 4-5 kill. And this would be in the case of a good hand and a tuned build. You could even be helping them out 9-10 points but with either option they shouldn't come out on top. With Jin you will have a hand with some counter magic, which should help keep you alive. Then at the end of turn they get to go to topdeck mode. With Iona they are just done. You call red and it should be game over right there. You should get basically the same blowout if you are playing a Tendrils deck. With Jin you force them to go off regardless if they are ready or not. There is a guy who plays TES at the store I play at. He whiffs nearly everytime I get Jin. And even if he would have enough I have a counterspell for him to hit the key play (last tutor or Ad Naseuam). Moreover in this situation you should have some counters to stop the key spells. Iona depending on the build pick a color (black is probably a good call). This will stop infernal tutoring, dark rits, cabal rits, ill-gotten gains, and tendrils. I really think we already have some really good main deck answers to both of these types of decks. Actually against TES, Elesh is a better sideboard option because she takes out all of the Empty the Warrens tokens. I really just don't think Platinium Emperion is worth a slot in this deck. In situations where he would shine, we have other options. He is a stalemate card and just doesn't pack emough punch for my liking.

Sandoz

06-22-2011, 05:19 PM

Great work, Garobidou. I take my hat off to that! Very helpful. It offers a range of new insights to me.
Did you develop and execute the model manually via an Excel-Sheet? Or did you develop a program for it?

If you don’t mind, I got one further question on your model.
You wrote, that the model takes into account fetchs. How many fetch-lands did you assume? Or, was it solely meant with regard to the shuffling effect of Entomb?

Thanks again! And sorry, if I missed the information on the fetch-assumptions in your previous posts.

Karhumies

06-22-2011, 06:11 PM

I agree with Sturtzilla: based on my play experience, Iona is the best target vs Burn and Jin is the best target vs Tendrils combo. The secondary choice in either case is Sphinx, because lifelinking even once for 6 can make you win the game in either MU. Also, prot. red is really useful vs. Burn as it pretty much negates their whole SB. Needless to say, Sphinx gets even better if the red deck is RDW rather than bure Burn, meaning that he has included some ceatures in the build e.g. MD Keldon Marauders or SB Stingscourger.

@ theBloody: Reanimate is resolved in order, one sentence at a time, like other cards in MtG. The key thing is the location of the periods. First sentence: "Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control." At this point, P.Emperion is put on the battlefield and his static ability becomes active. Then happens the second sentence: "You lose life equal to its converted mana cost." This is prevented by the static effect. Side note: P.Emperion also allows to play Toughtseize without life loss, because the life loss is not an additional cost. Life loss is the last part of the effect.

@ KevinTrudeau: I believe that as the 8th MD target, 2nd Sphinx is a better general target than 1st S.Leviathan. But if you are planning to run a build with 7 MD creatures incl. 1x Sphinx, with a second Sphinx in the SB, in that case I would consider replacing the SB Sphinx with a S.Leviathan.

My reasoning: Sphinx is typically never removed from MD to SB, because he is such a good general overall target. I am more often sideboarding out Inkwell (if no targeted removal) or Archon (if no creatures to prevent from attacking). Yes, we need a general target for the SB to fill out this kind of MD slot in the case we do not have a specific creature to answer that specific opponent. Yes, in the past this role was filled by 2nd Sphinx from the SB. But that was back in the time when Terastodon was MD due to a lack of better targets, ie. Jin-G was not yet printed (3 Iona -> 3 JinG + 1 Iona = -1 MD slot, which is Terastodon). Because of this change, I would recommend transfering the SB Sphinx into something that can absolutely crush particular matchups (e.g. Elesh Norn vs Dredge). Depending on the meta, the Archon-like S.Leviathan may be a really good choice.

theBloody

06-22-2011, 06:24 PM

Karhumies: Thank you very much. Good to know.

Karhumies

06-22-2011, 06:38 PM

What do you think of these two scenarios for deckbuilding:

1) Less MD creatures (let's guesstimate: 7). When sideboarding, exchanges less useful MD creatures to more useful SB creatures, while keeping the creature count within the 60 the same for G2.

2) More MD creatures (let's guesstimate: 9). When sideboarding, makes G2 creature count in the 60 smaller (not all removed targets are replaced with SB creatures, although some might be) to get room for non-creature utility cards for G2.

This is very much related to the Brainstorm discussion, but I think the phenomenom can be discussed more widely/generally as a deckbuilding principle than just 1 card.

1)
+ The worst target in any MU in G1 is the 7th best target
- Less G1 god hands because the utility is in, replacing the extra creatures
+/- Takes up an equal number of SB slots as the other option (let's guesstimate: 3 creatures)

2)
+ More G1 god hands because the creatures are in, replacing the utility
- The worst target in any MU in G1 is the 9th best target
+/- Takes up an equal number of SB slots as the other option (let's guesstimate: 2 utility + 1 creature)

The "correct" (= better statistical win%) answer should probably depend on the tournament size, and whether the meta can be estimated to some extent, or not at all. But for all I know, the statistical difference between the "correct" and "incorrect" answer may be so small that it eventually comes down to personal choice.

Which option would you have as your personal choice, and on what basis?

nyoro

06-22-2011, 11:54 PM

What's up with all these ridiculous only 2x bstorm list?

Sturtzilla

06-23-2011, 12:17 AM

What's up with all these ridiculous only 2x bstorm list?

Reading the last say, 3 pages of this forum would have brought you up to speed on that. I will enlighten you. Consider this situation: you have are one card away from having a perfect reanimation hand, yet you have a Brainstorm. You keep your subpar opener to find that you brainstorm whiffs on finding you what you need. In this situation you would flounder in topdeck mode hoping to draw the last piece before your opponent kills you. The fact is this happens all too often in Reanimator. And this problem we intend to remedy. Oh! I almost forgot, we have proposed 1x Brainstorm lists running around too... watch out for those!

While brainstorm has many uses and is an extremely powerful card, many times it falls short of what we desire it to do in this deck. With that in mind, Garobidou has generated some data regarding the varying builds that will statistically have the most reanimates by turn 3. The data actually suggests that by playing fewer Brainstorms and more combo pieces and land, you increase your odds of having a fast dude that will hopefully win you the game.

I have to say that I was a skeptic at first. I have been testing the build labeled number one with the highest probability and it has been quite favorable. I think right now the percentages are ~70% turn 2 reanimates, ~20% turn 3 reanimates, and ~10% post turn three. Now this data is from simple gold-fishing, which I have been tracking and logging in Excel. I am working on comparing the top three listed builds and will hopefully have some sort of data analysis to share in a few days. The take home message at this point is that this approach works. ~90% of my draws I have had turn 2-3 dudes... seems really good. But granted this is a limited number of testing. I will keep logging until I have some higher numbers say 50-100 games played with each deck which I will share.

Clark Kant

06-23-2011, 12:24 AM

So, given a maindeck creature base of this...

3 [NPH] Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 [ARB] Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 [CNF] Inkwell Leviathan
1 [RAV] Blazing Archon
1 a Flexslot that would otherwise be in the sideboard (Currently trying Stormtide Leviathan)

...do you guys think this is an optimal sideboard?

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Misdirection
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 2 Echoing Truth
SB: 2 Show and Tell
SB: 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
SB: 2nd Sphinx/1st Stormtide Leviathan (One is maindecked in the flex slot and the second one is put here in the board)
SB: 1st Terastadon/2nd Iona/4th Jin-Gitaxis

Assuming that you have 4 slots to play with, and one of them is allocated to Elesh Norn, how would you distribute the remaining three between a Stormtide Leviathan, a Terdastodon, a 2nd Sphinx, a 2nd Iona, or a 4th Jin-Gitaxis?

Clark Kant

06-23-2011, 12:34 AM

Also, one huge advantage to playing either Build #1 (9 creatures maindeck) or Build #10 (10 creatures maindeck) is that it (especially Build #10) makes Show and Tell from the sideboard a hell of a lot stronger while also freeing up creature slots in the board. You would have the room to run 3-4 Show and Tell in the board and make the deck extremely resilient to graveyard hate. Playing that many maindeck creatures (including 4 Jin-Gitaxis) also make Jin-Gitaxis stronger and more consistent.

I think that's something worth exploring.

Garobidou

06-23-2011, 04:01 AM

What's up with all these ridiculous only 2x bstorm list?

Stupid post. If we spend time on crunching numbers and developing arguments, you should at least read them. If you don't understand them, that's another story. Otherwise don't expect to get answered with anything else than contempt.

@Sandoz
- I developed a program on Visual Basics to do that
- You're totally correct, I did not give the assumption regarding the fetchs! :) Fetchs = Other lands - 4 (namely the Undergroud sea). I did not want to add a variable as it already took ages to run. So the assumption is in favor of Brainstorm

@Sturtzilla
I'm happy your results are so far favorable. I'm looking foraward to having your entire testing results

@Sideboarding options

- Creatures are often way less powerful G2 : the whole draw/discard god hand strategy is killed by a T1 Tormod's / Relic (whether it resolves or not). And be sure our opponent will mulligan to find his hate

- We can fight hate in 2 different ways :
1. Keep the same gameplan as G1 (reanimate as fast as possible) and fight their hate by having Needle/Rod come in
2. Get into a more controllish game and dodge their hate by our new reanimate spells, namely Show and Tell
- In both cases, Brainstorm has to come in as it perfectly fits the playstyle (searching anti-hate in case 1., filtering/reaching 3 Lands in case 2.)

- I'm testing Build #2 and my current sideboard is :
2 Brainstorm
3 Show and Tell
3 Pithing Needle
1 Misdirection
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
2 Sphinx of the steel wind
1 Iona
1 Terastodon
(my MD creatures are : 4 Jin, 1 Sphinx, 1 Iona, 1 Inkwell, 1 Archon)

- If we want to talk about sideboarding properly, I suggest we discuss how to side in / out in each match up

(nameless one)

06-23-2011, 08:04 AM

On the main, why is it Iona is only used as a 1-of?

What about a 2/2 JTCA/Iona Split. I am still aware that Iona can single-handedly blow out mono-colored decks.

Garobidou

06-23-2011, 08:33 AM

1. In the early game (T1-T3), Jin is more gamebreaking than Iona :
- A T2 Iona on the play could lead us to name blindly. Jin is far more autopilot
- A quick Jin is almost always good (except against dredge) where Iona could be so-so despite you named the right color (e.g against TES where the opponent can go B. Wish => Empty the warrens)
- Iona could be raced. On the contrary with its draw 7 ability, Jin should allow you to reanimate another fatty the turn after (Sphinx, Archon) shutting down your opponent creatures

In order to get Jin in the early game more often you have to reduce variance of the Discard/Reanimate strategy (and not only rely on entomb). This is why people run 3 Jin (I do run 4)

2. Iona is still better than Jin in some match ups (Burn, Elves, Spiral Tide1...). This is why it deserves one of the 1-of tutorable (entomb) slots

3. Iona can act as the 5th Jin, being the second most gamebreaking early target (as long as you name correctly) so it helps reducing variance on the early creatures you reanimate. It could be a 2-of in some metagames

Kaslan

06-23-2011, 09:17 AM

Garobidou what a great job you did !

Can I ask you to crunch the numbers for my list ? ( playing with LDV )

17 lands ( 2swamps, 2 islands, 4 underground sea, 9 fetch lands) - 4 entombs - 8 reanimate - 7 creatures - 12 permission - 4 LDV - 4 brainstorm - 4 careful study

LDV made me win so many games that I would not have won without it.

specially post board when i needed to find a side board card.

remember LDV is slower but it can find any card in your deck !

Sturtzilla

06-23-2011, 09:32 AM

Darksteel

06-23-2011, 10:16 AM

@ Clark Kant

If you have 4 sideboard slots to devote to creatures, here are my four:
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Terastadon
1 Flex Slot (in an aggro heavy meta this could be Stormtide Leviathan or Blazing Archon [the choice would further depend on how many merfolk decks you expect]); in a more combo/control environment I would go with Inkwell Leviathan or a second Sphinx of the Steel Wind.

@ Garobidou

At the rate the deck is currently playing it seems to be slightly exceeding the values you have calculated. However, that could be an artifact of a limited number of sample hands. Honestly, not having brainstorm is kind of neat. You second guess yourself less on mulligans which is nice. Sure you can't quite dig as far, but my results so far have show that doesn't seem to be necessary much of the time. This actually makes sense seeing as the more time you spend looking for pieces with a Brainstorm, the longer it will take to reanimate something. I should be able to get some solid sample hand data (50-100+ hands) collected and formatted by the end of the weekend. Actually I have only been testing on the play but I could test on the draw as well if it is desired. Let me know.

Sideboarding

Again we have circled back to sideboarding. We know that the deck is pretty consistent the next move is to determine what the best sideboarding techniques will be. This is an area that we really do need to work on.

I remember a few pages back that someone suggested always siding out 2 Hapless and 2 Animate Dead (In a 3 Animate Dead build IIRC) for 2 Show and Tell and 2 Echoing Truth, regardless of matchup. I did that in that tournament I was in (Except I only had 1 Show and Tell), and it worked out decently.

Perhaps listing the graveyard hate we'll possibly encounter and then the solutions first? Or is that common knowledge already? (I'm still not sure, myself. :P)

Tormod's Crypt
Relic of Progenitus
Leyline of the Void
Faerie Macabre
Ground Seal
Nihil Spellbomb
Bojuka Bog
Withered Wretch (lol)

Seems like Echoing Truth/Pithing Needle should cover Crypt/Relic/Spellbomb/Seal/Leyline, except Bog/Macabre which can be Stifled. Exhume helps with Ground Seal, as well. Come to think of it, Stifle technically works against Crypt and the like, doesn't it? Still, I'd rather have Echoing Truth most of the time. It also helps against random hordes of tokens as well as troublesome permanents like Humility (And Chalice of the Void at 1!) and such.

The question then is, what to actually sideboard out. Other than the aforementioned Hapless/Animate Dead, I often found myself sideboarding out a copy of Jin-Gitaxias. Against specific matchups, I removed less than adequate reanimation targets (Example: Jin against Dredge, Archon against Spiral Tide, etc) for better ones or more hate.

But I'd love to hear more about sideboarding, regardless.

metamet

06-23-2011, 11:03 AM

Sandoz

06-23-2011, 02:35 PM

With regard to the sideboarding theme:
Currently, I’m thinking about raising the number of creatures in my sideboard up to 6 or 7. After all, boarding in creatures has no impact on the speed of the deck.
I mean, I don’t know what you guys board out for g2. Sure, it depends on the opposing deck. But, most of the time I end up with reducing the number of reanimate and discard effects by 1 each in order to make room for ETruth, Pithing Needle and the like. It’s rarely acceptable for me to reduce the no. of counters in the permission slot.

Thus, sideboarding leads to a decrease in speed of the original game-plan (even when compensated thru sideboarding Show & Tell, which replaces one discard and one reanimate count with just one card).
Within this situation, it seems even more important to drop a creature that represents a real threat to the opponent’s deck. Therefore, after sideboarding the deck would ideally contain a selection of 8 creatures, where each of them is most likely game-winning after resolving.

In order to make room for this approach, I plan to kick Show & Tell out of my sideboard-plan. With 3cmc it appears too slow to me. And as gy-hate is not that intense in my meta at the moment, I think this risk is worth to be taken.
This results into a definite reduction of at least one discard and one reanimate count md after sideboarding. And an increase in the permission/disruption slots due to the integration of ETruth etc. BTW: with regard to this the numbers crunch for a build with 13 or 14 permission/disruption spells might be quite interesting for reference.

At the moment, I’m examining the 20 most popular deck concepts (which, by the way, is overdue as I don’t have the opportunity to play that often). Starting with the creatures which I would ideally bring in g2/g3 I’m writing down my sideboard plan against each deck. I’m sure, you guys already have done this exercise.

Another focus is on finding a solution which gets along with a smaller range of non-creature cards in the sideboard. Maybe Pithing Needle, for example, turns out to be dispensable. Hey, we have a bunch of counters to avoid gy-hate. Thus, having just a couple of Echoing Truth in the sideboard might be sufficient for any situation...

Would love to discuss the sideboard theme here in some more detail.

cheers

Sandoz

06-23-2011, 04:08 PM

Thought I would pass on a link to an article about Reanimator.

Kyle Kloster recently took 2nd place at the SCG Indianapolis event with Reanimator. His event report and thoughts on the deck went up today on Quiet Speculation. He discusses more than simply the event report, though, so it may be worth checking out.

I'm not sure if Kyle posts here, so comments in the comments section would likely be the most direct way to engage him in discussion or leave feedback, if that's what you're up for.

Here's the link:

http://www.quietspeculation.com/2011/06/jintonic-2nd-place-with-reanimator/

Cheers!

edit: site seems to be sluggish right now, so sorry if the link leads to a misformatted page!

Thank you. Great article. Viewing Brainstorm as a sideboard option for match-ups against control and discard decks sounds like a great approach.

On the other hand this would require more copies of the key anti-hate cards in the sideboard, as many matches would be played with just 2 or 3 Brainstorms main deck.
This makes the room in the sideboard even more tight.

At least there are 4 Careful Study and often a couple of Hapless Researchers, which in a pinch can be used to dig for an answer against cards hampering the reanimation engine. Thus, still around 9 card drawing spells before JGCA even when playing just 2 Brainstorm. Hmm ...

Sturtzilla

06-23-2011, 06:05 PM

@ Forum

Okay below you will find the results for my testing of Garobidou's Variant Number One in 50 games as shuffled by MWS. The columns from left to right are game number, turn the first fatty hit play/how the fatty got in the bin, what back up was in hand (i.e. extra reanimation spells or countermagic), and the last column would be possible targets for reanimation for the next turn. I apologize that it came out so messy, but I just copy and pasted it from Excel (mine is neat in Excel, so I am not really going to fuss with it here). Please note that these are all games that this deck was on the play. I will breakdown the numbers we care about below. I also took the liberty of abbreviating many of the cards based on their titles. If there are any questions please ask.

Variant One on the Play
Game Turn Reanimated Quality Counter/Extra Reanimation Back Up Subsequent Reanimate
1 2 Jin/HR FoW/Daze Iona
2 2 Jin/E Daze/Daze/MM Iona
3 2 BA/CS MM None
4 6 Jin/E Force/Daze Iona/Blazing Archon
5 2 Jin/E Force Blazing Archon
6 3 Jin/E Daze/Daze/MM Blazing Archon
7 2 Jin/E Daze Inkwell
8 2 Iona/HR FoW/Daze Jin (Turn 4)
9 2 Jin/HR Daze Blazing Archon
10 3 Jin/HR Daze Sphinx
11 2 Jin/E Daze Iona/Blazing Archon
12 2 Jin/CS Daze/MM Iona
13 2 Jin/HR None Any Creature
14 2 Sphinx/CS FoW/FoW/Daze None
15 3 Jin/E MM Iona/Sphinx
16 2 Jin/CS FoW/MM Any Creature
17 2 Jin/E Exhume Iona
18 2 Jin/E Animate Dead Any Creature
19 2 Jin/E FoW/FoW/Daze Iona
20 2 Jin/E FoW/Daze/MM Iona/Inkwell
21 3 Sphinx/CS MM None
22 3 Jin/E Daze/MM Iona/Blazing Archon
23 3 BA/CS Daze/Animate Dead Iona
24 3 Jin/CS Daze/MM Any Creature
25 3 Inkwell/CS FoW/MM None
26 2 Jin/CS FoW/MM Any Creature
27 2 Jin/E Reanimate Any Creature
28 3 Jin/E Reanimate/Daze None
29 2 Jin/CS Reanimate Any Creature
30 5 Jin/CS Daze Iona
31 2 Jin/CS FoW/MM/Reanimate Any Creature
32 8 Jin/CS FoW Any Creature
33 2 Sphinx/CS FoW/FoW None
34 3 Jin/CS MM Iona/Sphinx
35 2 Iona/HR None None
36 3 Jin/CS FoW/MM Any Creature
37 4 Jin/MD FoW/Daze/MM Any Creature
38 2 Jin/E Exhume/Exhume Blazing Archon/Sphinx
39 2 Jin/E Reanimate Iona/Sphinx
40 3 Jin/E FoW/FoW/MM Any Creature
41 2 Iona/HR FoW/FoW/MM None
42 3 Jin/E FoW Iona
43 2 Jin/CS FoW/MM/MM Iona/Inkwell/Sphinx
44 2 Jin/E FoW Iona
45 3 Jin/E MM None
46 2 Iona/HR Daze None
47 2 Jin/CS FoW/Reanimate/Animate Dead Blazing Archon/Inkwell
48 5 Jin/HR FoW Blazing Archon/Sphinx
49 6 Jin/E FoW/FoW/MM Sphinx
50 2 Jin/E MM Blazing Archon

So what I found in my testing.
Turn Reanimated: Number of Games
2:30
3:14
4: 1
5: 2
6: 2
8: 1

These results come out pretty close to what Garobidou calculated. My testing shows a 60% chance to get a dude by turn 2 and an extra 28% chance to get a guy by turn 3. This seems pretty solid. Now also we do need to take into account that these are results of only 50 games, these games were shuffled on MWS, and that they are by no mean definitive. By that I mean just because I hit fatties by turn 3 88% of the time does not mean that it will always perform this way. I am still really skeptical of MWS shuffling; occasionally I will get back to back shit or god hands/mulligans. So with that in mind I think some of those real late game combos, say turn 8 or whatever, could be remedied by pile/bridge shuffling in real life. Now even while being rather skeptical with these results, it seems that we can be quite certain that the number of Brainstorms doesn't really matter for the overall functionality. So I am on board with ditching the "Brainstorm is an auto-include" logic.

*I will make the special note that when I did mulligan, I was happy to see brainstorm.
*I rarely saw brainstorm in my openers. This was a nice change.

I will be testing from the other side now. So I will do a run of 50 games on the play and see where that leaves the build. My intuition would be that being on the draw will facilitate more quick reanimations. However that remains to be seen.

KevinTrudeau

06-23-2011, 06:27 PM

Yeah, while the maindeck is pretty close to being tight for a consensus list, I'd say the sideboard does need a little touching up.

Current sideboard:
3 Misdirection
(3 permission)
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Terastodon
1 Creature X (Iona, Stormtide, etc.)
(3 reanimation targets)
2 Show and Tell
2 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
3 Pithing Needle
(9 ways around grave hate)

The biggest questions I have:
Are having three Pithing Needle and two Null Rod overkill?
Is Misdirection a better card for the additional permission slots than Thoughtseize or another one mana discard effect?
Are permission slots even necessary with eleven already in the maindeck?
Are having only three sideboard reanimation targets enough?

Sturtzilla

06-23-2011, 06:48 PM

@ metamet

Thanks for the link. The article was a good read. Although I think we have come to nearly all of the points that were made in the article. It is good to hear that we are not totally crazy and off base.

@ KevinTrudeau

I agree with both the pilot's analysis and your statement that his board should have been tweaked a bit. I like the one you have listed above. It is exactly what I have been running.

@ Forum

I just have to apologize as to how messy my above playtesting post is. Again, if there are any questions, just ask.

Alsan

06-24-2011, 07:54 AM

Loved your playtest, Sturtzilla :D. Yesterday I won another tournament, with a 3 bstorm build. I made mull in every game, but I still won 2-0 every round (2-1 vs goblins in finals, made g1 mull 5 and he alpha striked me xD).

But the MVP in nearly every round was Flusterstorm. I played 3 instead Dispel in sb, and was amaaazing... I won all counterwars, vs Flusterstorms or Mental misstep, nothing to do, really. Now I think is a must-in. One game was "Show and tell. Daze. Fow! Fow! Bstorm, Misdirection! So, Flustertorm to your spells on the stack xD."

Philipp2293

06-24-2011, 08:32 AM

Could you post the list you played yesterday? Thank you.

Alsan

06-24-2011, 09:17 AM

// Lands
3 [A] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [UNH] Island
2 [UNH] Swamp

// Creatures
4 [NPH] Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
2 [ARB] Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 [RAV] Blazing Archon
3 [JU] Hapless Researcher

// Spells
4 [FNM] Reanimate
4 [US] Exhume
2 [B] Animate Dead
4 [OD] Entomb
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
3 [NE] Daze
4 [OD] Careful Study
3 [FNM] Brainstorm
1 [MM] Misdirection

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [OD] Coffin Purge
SB: 3 [COMM] Flusterstorm
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 2 [WL] Null Rod
SB: 3 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
SB: 1 [WWK] Terastodon
SB: 1 [SOM] Platinum Emperion

Same as usual, 12/10/11/12/16/3, but with a more improved sb.

nastirth

06-24-2011, 09:36 AM

Hey guys, I've been following this thread silently for months. But after reading this amazing statistical work you are doing, I decided to register and enter the discussion.

I've read Kyle's article and I totally agree with him when he talks about choosing the deck that fits you. I love reanimator. The first time I played it was back in 2003 at Pro Tour New Orleans, and it was a blast. It was a last call decision (I was playtesting RDW), but even unprepared I made my first money (top 64) at a Pro Tour and had a lot of fun reanimating first turn akromas :)

Last year at GP Madrid I repacked the deck with a strongly mystical tutor oriented version and I got DQ when I was 7-0 due to allegadly having an extra card in hand, which was not true, but I couldn't convince the judges in time. After I got the DQ, I took my time to reconstruct the game and prove I was right, but the damage was done. I didn't get any kind of suspension but I banned MTG from my life for a while.

Time heals everything and when the opportunity to go to GP Paris this year arose, I repacked thedeck again with LDV replacing mystical, and went to play the legacy events. LDV was interesting, but it was slow. So, right now I'm aligned with the current trend: redundancy.

Right now I'm packing Garobidou's config #2 (but with 4 basics). I want to test the build with 18 lands. I played with 17 lands in a couple of small local tournaments and I mulliganed a lot with mana problems.

I took this version to our local wednesday's legacy tornament:

Main Deck

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
3 Animate Dead

4 Entomb
4 Careful Study
2 Hapless Researcher

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze

2 Brainstorm

3 Jin-Gitaxias
1 Iona
1 Sphynx of Steel Wind
1 Blazin Archon
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Stormtide Leviathan

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

Sideboard

1 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod
3 Duress
3 Echoing Truth
2 Show and Tell
1 Iona
1 Terastodon
1 Platinum Angel
1 Elesh Norn

It was a small 3 round tournament. The deck was pretty solid. I won the tournament easily because I had good matchups. I think I played 20 minutes in all games :)

First matchup was against W/G. I dind't know what he was playing so I went for Jin in the first game, but in his turn he goes: StP, StP, PtE.. Yikes! Fortunately Jin got me 2 MM and 1 Daze which handled the hate quite well. 2nd game, Iona @ White and gg.

Second matchup, burn. It's so easy that it isn't fun. Iona @ Red, both games took me 5 minutes to play.

Third matchup, Affinity. He goes crazy, but I get Blazing Archon just in time. He needs to find ravager to kill me without attacking but when he finds it I already have the counterspell. 2nd game he goes nuts again, I play null rod, but he keeps me pounding with creatures, and I have to reanimate hapless researcher twice to chump block and try to draw a big fellow to put in the graveyard. Of course when I was about to die I draw an entomb and Blazing Archon sealed the game.

I played a couple more games vs affinity (with sideboard) and we finished 9-1, loosing only to a super god hand of him (null rod is key here to stop their shenanigans). I also played some games vs merfolks (without sideboard) and it was a lot harder (5-5). He had the same disruption we have plus the pesky cursecatcher that really is annoying as hell. One of the games was vey funny: he countered all my discard outlets, and when he start playing creatures I start drawing counterspells, countering his creatures, reanimating them and killing him with his own merfolks. So funny! I also had two hands good to test the draw-discard strategy (creature+reanimation, no discard outlet), but against merfolk the strategy didn't work very well because they have pressure, counterspells and... Standstill (well, not everyone packs standstill, but my friend packs it and it's really powerfull against us)

As for my sideboard, i'm not sure about some cards yet. The duress slot can easily become thoughtseize/spell pierce/misdirection/flusterstorm if needed. I love the null rods, they shut down all gy artifact hate and own a couple of decks on their own. But needle is also important to fight stuff that null rod can't handle (like maze of ith and faerie macabre). I only played with one because I only have one but I think 2 would be right (possibly trading for the 3rd echoing truth). I like to have creatures in sb to fix the reanimaton selection on game 2. Iona is a staple. It's just too good against some decks. Elesh Norn is very good against a couple of decks also so it should be there too. Terastodon is the utility card I like to have to handle things. The only creature that I'm able to give away right now is Platinum Angel. Angel is more fragile than Emperion but it doesn't shuts FoW/Reanimate down (i've done some negative life action which has also a cool factor). Finally, Show and Tell. I think it is good when I don't know what type of gy hate I'll face. If the meta is known, it can be replaced with fine tuning cards (like 3rd needle and 3rd echoing truth), but when facing a unknown metagame it's good to have a card that can put your creatures in play no matter what gy hate your opponent brings.

I'm also think that after stabilizing the main deck we should focus on sideboard strategies, since 2/3s of a round are played with sideboard. The deck is so tight that we will be sideboarding only 3/4 non-creature cards. Since I don't want to mess with the engine deck cards, I usually trade sideboard for disruption (daze or mm) since these are the only cards that don't mess with the numbers Garobidou provided.

It would be cool to see the numbers for Garobidou's model with an adicional parameter: number of sideboard cards. Thus observing the impact of sideboard cards in case of them replacing any of the engine components.

Ok, since this is already a rather long post, I'll shut up for now. I'm looking forward to the discussion of sideboard strategies, and I'll be reporting when I play in tournaments.

Regards,
Joao

PS - Garobidou, I wondered if playing with 4 basics instead of 2 would change the numbers. Can you please run the model for config #2 with 2 islands and 2 swamps? Thanks!

Sturtzilla

06-24-2011, 11:49 AM

@ Aslan

I am gald you appreciate the playtesting stastistics. Congratz on your win. By the way I do like the build that you have posted. It is really cool to hear that Flusterstorm was great for you. I guess I should also mention in regard to the stastics, that I have been playing this type of deck for quite a good bit (green-black reanimator was my first real deck. It quickly turned into blue-black) and have some decent idea of when to mulligan versus keep. With that in mind, I was able to maybe get slightly more favorable results than the projected results. I haven't begun yet, but I will do the testing from the other side... playing the deck on the draw.

@ nastirth

It is great to hear that you are also having some success with this deck. I have a question for you regarding creatures, how was Stormtide Leviathan for you? I am just not that sold on him, but I guess hearing how he works for others could change my stance. I am pretty sure that running more than one of each basic land will slightly reduce your consistency. I think we discussed this topic a few pages back. Check back for Garobidou's posts on this. I had been running 3 of each basic. I have lowered those to 1-ofs with great results. I filled in the gaps with extra fetch lands. I guess the other possibility would be using Darkslick Shores. Really you just want to be able to produce both colors as soon as possible.

nastirth

06-24-2011, 12:23 PM

@Sturtzilla

I'm not sure about Leviathan either, but I must say that he did the job when I needed it. The great thing about him is the 8 power and evasion, putting the opponent in a 3 turn clock. Archon sometimes has to stale if he faces flyers on the opposing side. On the other hand Leviathan doesn't prevent flyers and islandwalkers from attacking, which is not good against a couple of decks. I'm still testing it, and I consider his slot as my flex slot right now. Other options are the 4th Jin or one of the sb creatures, but for now I'll keep him.

Garobidou

06-24-2011, 02:05 PM

@Kaslan
Sorry I won't be able to give your the numbers, my model doesn't take into account tutors as LDV

@Nastirth
1) As Sturtzilla mentionned, running more basics decreases the probabilities. I did the maths for your list (list #2 with 2 island 2 swamps 14 others lands) and here are the results :
- On the play : 69,4% (ranking 65)
- On the draw : 76,3% (ranking 71)
- Overall : 72,8% (ranking 61). You lose 0,8% compared to the original list (list #2)

2) Sideboarding strategies could be run with the model, I would just have to consider the anti-hate coming in as permission spells.
The main problem comes from the draw/discard strategy : it isn't that great G2/G3 as a T1 hate totally invalidates it. Assumptions should be made on this particular point (either we remove all the Draw/discard hands from the model on G2/G3 or we don't care)

@Aslan
Congratz for the win. Flusterstorm is a killer at winning counterwars. Would you mind sharing what is your sideboarding plan while boarding in Flusterstorm? Thanks!

Rampart

06-24-2011, 03:44 PM

I played at a local 50 man legacy tourney and went 4-1-1. This was my second legacy tourney and the first time I played Reanimator.

this is what I played

Main

4 reanimate
3 exhume
2 animate dead
4 entomb
4 careful study
4 brainstorm
2 ponder
4 force of will
4 mental misstep
3 daze
3 Jin-G
1 Iona
1 Sphinx of the SW
1 terastadon
1 blazing archon
1 inkwell leviathan
3 underground sea
2 polluted delta - all I had at the time
3 misty rainforest
2 verdant catacombs
4 darkslick shores
2 island
2 swamp

Sideboard
4 Pithing needle
2 Echoing truth
1 animate dead
2 duress
1 platinum angel
1 inkwell leviathan
1 iona
1 elesh norn
2 random cards I cannot remember

Round 1 MUD with Blue

G1:He explodes while I have a good monster hand but no counters. I end up getting B. Archon in play to stop the bleeding. I start the beating him down with archon and he pulls a main deck Spine of Ish Sah. he blows up my archon and kills me.
G2: turn two sphinx with counter back up. I counter all of his relevant spells and I just get there.
G3: repeat of game 1 only I counter the spine and he rips Duplicant off the top :(

I didn't draw any sideboard cards, but I think if i drew a pithing needle it wouldn't of matter as his accelerations was to dense to stop with the needle. I made a mental note to pick up some null rods for my sideboard.

0-1 (1-2)

Round 2 Dredge
G1: turn 3 Iona on black while I was counter all of his relevant outlets.
G2: I loose because I don't read Stinkweed imp. I run my B. Archon right into it. Life Lesson read your opponents cards
G3: Turn 2 Elesh Norn. He cant do anything after that

1-1 (3-3)

Round 3 - Sneaky Show with painter/stone in the sideboard.

G1: probably the best game all night. we both end up mulling to five and just counter each others stuff until i manage to get an Iona on blue out, which locks him out of most of his relevant spells while I have FOW for Sneak Attack
G2: my inexperience in the format rears his head when he drops a grind stone second turn. I didn't expect that. It ended up being a race with him milling me with painter/stone combo one turn before I was going to kill him with Inky
G3: I lock him out of blue early with Iona, while he started with a mull to five. I have a wall of counters and i just get there.

2-1 (5-4)

Round 4 - Hive Mind

G1: turn three Iona on blue GG
G2: turn two Iona on blue GG

3-1 (7-4)

Round 5 - Combo Elves

G1: I make a mistake and entomb sphinx instead of Iona and it almost costs me the game. He started going off but fizzled with an army of elves on the board. I brought B. Archon back from the dead on my turn. he cannot win at this point.
G2: turn two Iona on Green. GG

4-1 (9-4)

Round 6 - Jund Brew

We ID and I have a headache. I end up 9th as the only 4-1-1 out of the top eight.

4-1-1 (10-5-1)

I feel really happy about the deck and how it played but I felt that I mull'ed a little to much so I have shifted the deck a little to add three hapless researchers which has made a world of difference

Sturtzilla

06-24-2011, 05:08 PM

@ nastirth

I appreciate the honest feedback. I am considering running/boarding him. He seems like a sideboard card at best, seeing as he really doesn't help against Merfolk at all. My experience has been that you can more or less count on playing at least one round of merfolk per five rounds of swiss. With that in mind Archon just seems better there. You get your kill in one or two more combats depending on the specifics of the game. I guess he warrants testing or a place in the board as he stops SFM and Batterskulls, while also setting up a pretty fast clock. He seems strictly better in that match up.

@ Rampart

I like the way your build looks. I will make a few suggestions. Garobidou has done some pretty awesome analysis, which suggests that Brainstorm and Brainstorm-like (i.e. Poner) spells may not be the best for the consistency of this deck. My recent playtesting would also confirm his calculations (at least for his build list as number 1). With that in mind I also had noticed that your reanimation count is a bit low. Therefore I would suggest the following changes:
+1 Exhume
+1 Animate Dead (preferrably from Beta)
+3 Hapless Researcher
+1 Underground Sea
+1 Fetchland
-2 Ponder
-3 Brainstorm
-1 Swamp
-1 Island

I think those should smooth out the deck a little bit. You mentioned that you have added 3 Hapless researchers to the deck. That chance in and of itself should help a lot (esp. if you added them in for ponders and brainstorms). As a side note, you might want to solidify your sideboard a little bit more. It looks pretty good but, if there are two cards that you just can't remember, maybe you should tweak it a bit.

Rampart

06-24-2011, 11:24 PM

@Sturtzilla

Yeah I have reworked the deck a little bit. I didn't have the extra sea (do now). I played in the tourny over a week ago, and have been working on my sideboard a lot sense then, so thats why I don't remember those two cards.

The deck was always smooth, I think that the only time that I couldn't drop a third turn monster was in one game and it was fourth turn. The reason why i mull'ed as much as I did was I needed to have a certain answers to my oppt. cards. turn one or two emrukuls suck. and every one of my oppt could have killed me on the third turn. Sometimes you need to get a FOW.

About the analysis. its impressive and a lot of work, but its just data that you can look at in a lot of different ways. To me its just 4 precent average difference from the high to the low over two hundred different deck lists, which for the sampling size I would expect something closer to 7-8%. I guess I feel that the outcome of a game is not about the how statistically optimized a deck is, at least not with a swing that small

my deck currently

3 Jin
1 Iona
1 Don
1 Sphinx
1 archon
1 inky
3 Researchers

4 entomb
4 careful study
4 FOW
4 Mental Misstep
3 daze
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate dead
3 brainstorm

4 underground sea
4 polluted delta
2 darkslick shores
2 misty rainforest
2 verdent catacombs
2 Islands
1 swamp

Sideboard
3 null rod
2 pithing needle
3 echoing truth
2 Show and Tell
1 Elesh
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Stormtide Leviathan
1 Iona
1 Jin

And you can skip the beta's mine are korean

Sturtzilla

06-25-2011, 02:57 AM

About the analysis. its impressive and a lot of work, but its just data that you can look at in a lot of different ways. To me its just 4 precent average difference from the high to the low over two hundred different deck lists, which for the sampling size I would expect something closer to 7-8%. I guess I feel that the outcome of a game is not about the how statistically optimized a deck is, at least not with a swing that small.

I guess on some level, I would have to agree with you. There is a coherent cutoff between playing what is the "most consistent" versus a deck you are comfortable with. For all I know, your comfort level and knowledge of the deck could very well out play me and my "optimized build." I have been testing the "variant number one," which should have the statistical greatest probability to get turn 2-3 dudes on the field. Now while this may be the case, there is some room for play style and "personal-izibility" to any deck. I believe that if you know your deck inside and out, you can out play a fully optimized deck. With that said, I will not take any more shots or make more suggestions to/at your build. Let's face it, even in the biggest tourneys you are playing 10-15 rounds, 1,000-10,000 game statistics will rarely rear their heads. Sure considering these events might win you a clutch game here or there, but knowing your deck can probably gain you the same advantage. So I will urge you to keep pressing on and pwning people in the name of Reanimator.

And you can skip the beta's mine are korean.

Now I may have just been real nice, but here is where it is about to get heavy. I have two questions to ask you. These will determine whether or not Beta > Korean or not.

Question 1: Are your Korean (I am guessing you are not because your English is pretty solid)?

Question 2: Can you read Korean?

At any rate, I will state my personal feeling on this. Cards from Alpha and Beta are superior to cards from subsequent sets, even if they are of foreign language, due to the rarity of finding them at this stage of Magic history. 15+ years in the game would dictate that finding Alpha and Beta Animate Deads would/could be a tall order. More specifically, I would wager it is easier to find a Korean Animate Dead from Unlimited or Revised than it is to find and English one from Alpha or Beta. Now with that in consideration, what bonus does having a foreign version offer you? Can you read it? Can you know the ins and outs of the rules text based on Korean characters (honestly, the wording is so fucked on the English ones that this is probably a moot question at this point)? Do you get to enjoy its totally awesome black-border-ness? What allure is there beyond it being a different language? Those are my questions posited to you. I would prefer to be able to read my cards and to have them be black bordered and/or foiled. I know not everyone feels this way but I guess my questions still stand, even if their basis is a bit biased.

nastirth

06-25-2011, 09:46 AM

@ Garobidou

1) Thanks for running the model for my config. I'm not very confortable running only one basic of each, but I'll give it a try, maybe it's just some preconceived idea.

2) I thought exacly the same, by considering sb cards as permission spells your model would work. About considering draw/discard in G2/G3, my opinion is to remove the strategy from g2/g3. Most players will mulligan to hate, unless they have a god hand. What do you guys think?

@ Sturtzilla

If you are expecting Merfolks, then you should run a 2nd Archon :) I wanted to test Leviathan to see if its 3 turn clock and moat ability could be enough to fight other aggro decks. I'm not sure about it yet, and I can accept changing it for a more suitable creature.

@ Rampart

I don't want to go off-topic here, but I couldn't resist. I'm also a kor/jap/chi fan, but in this case I'm with Sturtz. Beta is way cooler than k/j/c. I have a set of black border limited chinese birds and wraths and I'll trade them happily for beta ones :)

Sturtzilla

06-25-2011, 12:49 PM

@ nastirth

I might test him out a bit. I guess I just have a stronger liking for the Archon due to the amount of merfolk that I see. I think he is a great card for the sideboard. I am just not sure I know how I want to configure mine at the moment. I am pretty happy with the ones we have been kicking around, but if I add a Stormtide Leviathan, then I would have to figure out what needs to go. And honestly, I am not sure if he really should be in the board.

I am glad someone agrees with me on old cards. I know it is a bit off topic but it is just my personal preference for foils and old school cards. I sure enjoy my Beta Animate Deads. I picked them up a few months ago and when I play them I generally get questions or statements like: "What set are those from?" "How much are those worth?" and "I didn't know that those were printed in that set." It is amazing how the incorporation of a few old school cards into your deck can make for a good conversation piece.

Marvelous

06-25-2011, 04:57 PM

Hey fellow Reanimators, Grave Cheaters and what not.

Thanks to Garobidou for the thorough math and simulations with all permutations of the so-called "Jin&Tonic" deck, and to all the rest. I stumbled upon this thread while googling around, because I'm playing this very deck tomorrow in the closest thing we have to a nationals over here. I played Reanimator before, pre-NPH, but switched it up to Elves later. With the advent of NPH and Jin looking so awesome with Reanimator, in addition to recieving a lot of promises of boarded hate against Elves from other players after the last tourney I played in, I decided to go for Reanimator again.

Started out with 4 BS in the deck, and I'll admit I did think that while at times it was helpful, it isn't helping the deck. It doesn't discard, it doesn't reanimate, it's not a big broken fatty. What it is good for is fixing bad hands, that it's contributing to in itself by not being one of the combo pieces. The only pure benefits I see from BS is that it's fodder for FoW, it can dig for Hate cards on G2-3, and it *can* protect cards against discard. But as mentioned before, you rarely want to hold of on your T1 mana "just in case you get a thoughtseize on you". Reanimator's strength is it's speed and finding a creature a deck has issues dealing with. A lot of decks that play 4 BS is on a slower clock than we are.I've playtested with both 2-3 BS extensively the last week with our group. I like both over 4, though of course that might just be the random chance. I'm considering going 2, and sideboarding 1-2 as others have mentioned. It's just a matter of finding the right balance between between how much the different numbers of BS in the deck is hurting getting a more consistent starting hand vs how much does it help you being able to keep a sub-par hand.

I've tested this deck against Goblins, Elves, Merfolk, Stax, U/W Control, Junk and Dredge. I'll chime in a bit on my thoughts on the matchups.

All around I think Reanimator is very strong against Tribal decks. Even against Merfolk or U/W control, with MM we've now got so much permission that getting that T2-3 Jin isn't hard, and once it's out you usually draw yourself into more permission leaving him only with 1 round to do something.

Stax and Junk went good as well. Unlike many predicted, and despite our number of 1 drop spells, I feel MM in the meta actually made Reanimator stronger, especially when we're facing non-blue decks.

Dredge as predicted isn't a easy match-up. Both decks run on fast clocks, and have cheaply reanimated answers to each-other. Add to that that Jin is totally useless against Dredge, helping more than anything. Dredge made me wish for a mainboarded Elesh-Norn. My friend plays LED with a mainboarded Angel of Despair, so I needed to first get Iona out on Black to stop a DR Angel on Iona, then a Blazing Archon to stop the Zombie/Ichorid beatdown. After boarding it's all Elesh-Norn.

As for my deck I didn't get everything I need in time so I don't have the optimal lands and I'm lacking 1 Animate Dead. I'm considering using one Dance of Dead as a sub-optimal sub for 1. I also have Necromancy, and while I felt it would make a decent sideboard card (instantly reanimating a hasted Terastodon to blow up hate for example), it sort of falls on the expensive side of Reanimator's mana curve.

Landwise I only have 2 Underground Sea and 10 fetches. Going to sub in 2 Watery Grave for the missing US, run 1 Darkslick and 1 Island and Swamp for a total of 17 lands. Any suggestions or advice is always helpful.

Sideboard I'm looking at creatures obviously, Dispels, Null Rods, Pithing Needles, Echoing Truths. What are people's thoughts on stuff like Engineered Explosives?

I'll compile my final deck-list and post it later tonight, and report back on how tomorrow's tournament goes.

Cheers and keep on grave-loving!

Rampart

06-25-2011, 05:18 PM

Marvelous

06-25-2011, 05:41 PM

Question 1 - Nope.
Question 2 - Nope, I can read a little Japanese though.

What? finding beta animates deads is easy as there is about 20 of them on ebay currently. I don't really like beta stuff that much unless your talking about Alpha/Beta/Unlimited stuff only then its beta hands down. its actually very difficult to find some Korean stuff and sometimes much harder then beta's.

about foreign cards. I deck currently is half Japanese and I hope to get 56/60 done in the future. But I understand that foreign card can be confusing to new people and I keep a single copy of each card in a small binder that's English so that if there is ever a question I can pull it out. Used that thing a couple of times and I have found it to be very useful.

How many Null Rods do you think there should be in the sideboard? Should I just cut pithing needle all together and run a full set of null rods?

I'd advice against it. While Null Rod is more absolute in stopping Crypts and Relics, Pithing Needle is 1. Cheaper and 2. Much more versatile. You can name a card and stop it from activating any abilities. That's quite powerful. You can Pithing lots of combo pieces or other annoyances like Sneak Attack, Shackles, Jace, Karakas, Wasteland, hell even Fetches if you want to be annoying. I'm going to run both.

Sturtzilla

06-25-2011, 06:41 PM

How many Null Rods do you think there should be in the sideboard? Should I just cut pithing needle all together and run a full set of null rods?

Well I hope you get there with the foreign cards. I am currently foiling out my version (I still have a good bit to go). I think it is ideal to run a 2-2 or 2-3 split between Null Rod and Pithing Needle, respectively. We have discussed it a good bit here. Null Rod takes care of the most common grave-hate cards we will see all at once. The rod is also good against mono-artifact decks and affinity. Pithing Needle can double as but anti-grave-hate or specific hate for a multitude of targets.

Pithing Needle is 1. Cheaper and 2. Much more versatile. You can name a card and stop it from activating any abilities. That's quite powerful.

That is what the card does... insightful.

Sturtzilla

06-25-2011, 06:49 PM

@ Forum

Okay below you will find the results for my testing of Garobidou's Variant Number One in 50 games as shuffled by MWS. The columns from left to right are game number, turn the first fatty hit play/how the fatty got in the bin, what back up was in hand (i.e. extra reanimation spells or countermagic), and the last column would be possible targets for reanimation for the next turn. I apologize that it came out so messy, but I just copy and pasted it from Excel (mine is neat in Excel, so I am not really going to fuss with it here). Please note that these are all games that this deck was on the draw. I will breakdown the numbers we care about below. I also took the liberty of abbreviating many of the cards based on their titles. MD as a discard means is for "manual discard," which would be End Step Discard. If there are any questions please ask.

Variant One on the Draw
Game Turn Reanimated Quality Counter/Extra Reanimation Back Up Subsequent Reanimate
1 2 Jin/E MM/Exhume Any Creature
2 2 Jin/MD Reanimate/Exhume/Exhume/Daze Any Creature
3 3 Jin/MD Reanimate/MM/FoW/FoW Sphinx
4 2 Jin/CS Daze/Exhume Sphinx/Archon
5 2 Jin/CS MM/Animate Dead Iona
6 2 Jin/CS Daze/MM/FoW Any Creature
7 2 Iona/CS Animate Dead/Animate Dead Any Creature
8 5 Jin/E Exhume/Daze/MM Any Creature
9 2 Jin/E Exhume/Exhume Any Creature
10 2 Jin/E Daze/MM Iona/Inkwell
11 10 Jin/CS FoW/FoW/FoW/FoW Archon
12 2 Jin/E Daze/MM Iona and Sphinx
13 2 Jin/HR MM/Reanimate Any Creature
14 2 Jin/E MM/Reanimate Any Creature
15 3 Jin/E None Any Creature
16 2 Jin/HR MM Any Creature
17 4 Jin/CS FoW/Animate Dead Any Creature
18 2 Jin/E Animate Dead/Animate Dead Inkwell and Iona
19 2 Jin/E Daze/Daze/MM Any Creature
20 3 Sphinx/HR Daze/MM/FoW None
21 2 Jin/MD MM/FoW Archon
22 3 Jin/CS Daze/MM/FoW/Animate Dead None
23 2 Jin/CS FoW/Reanimate Any Creature
24 2 Jin/HR MM Any Creature
25 2 Jin/CS Daze/FoW/FoW Any Creature
26 2 Archon/HR MM/MM/FoW/Animate Dead/Animate Dead None
27 2 Jin/CS MM Any Creature
28 2 Jin/E None None
29 2 Jin/E Daze/Animate Dead Any Creature
30 2 Jin/E Animate Dead Archon
31 2 Jin/CS FoW/Animate Dead Any Creature
32 3 Iona/MD Daze/Daze/MM/FoW None
33 2 Iona/MD MM None
34 2 Jin/CS FoW Any Creature
35 3 Jin/CS MM/MM/FoW Any Creature
36 2 Jin/E Daze/MM Archon/Inkwell
37 3 Jin/MD MM/FoW Iona/Inkwell
38 3 Jin/E MM/MM/Daze/Daze Any Creature
39 3 Jin/E Daze Any Creature
40 3 Jin/MD Daze/Daze/MM/FoW/Exhume Any Creature
41 2 Jin/CS MM/FoW None
42 2 Jin/E MM Iona
43 2 Jin/E Reanimate Sphinx
44 2 Jin/E Daze Sphinx
45 2 Jin/CS Animate Dead Any Creature
46 2 Jin/HR Reanimate/Animate Dead/Animate Dead Any Creature
47 2 Jin/E Daze Sphinx
48 2 Jin/CS Animate Dead/FoW Any Creature
49 2 Jin/CS Reanimate/MM Any Creature
50 2 Iona/CS FoW None

So what I found in my testing.
Turn Reanimated: Number of Games
2:37
3:10
4:1
5:1
10:1

These results come out pretty close to what Garobidou calculated. My 50 sample hands show a 74% chance to get a dude by turn 2 and an extra 20% chance to get a guy by turn 3. Now also we do need to take into account that these are results of only 50 games, these games were shuffled on MWS, I did occasionally mulligan, and that they are by no mean definitive. By that I mean just because I hit fatties by turn 3 94% of the time does not mean that it will always perform this way. I am really astounded by the consistency that the deck has been able to achieve both on the play and on the draw. I hope the playing of these sample hands are in some way beneficial to you guys. Again if there are any questions, please ask me.

On a more personal note. I have built variants 1-3 in MWS and will be now moving on to testing variant 2 and 3. This is more for personal experience and my honing down to a build that I want to continue playing. I will keep everyone posted on how it goes.

KevinTrudeau

06-26-2011, 12:00 AM

I think the better question regarding the sideboard is what permission spell(s) should or should not be played. Thoughtseize? Spell Pierce? Flusterstorm? Misdirection?

-Thoughsteize can make sure the coast is clear on a combo turn, with the upside of having the ability to Reanimate a fatty of theirs if need be, but is worse mana-wise than any other permission/disruption spell since it costs B at sorcery speed. Can nab grave hate turn one on the play, and is the only way we can deal with Extirpate.
-Spell Pierce can stop annoying artifacts like Chalice of Void and Relic/Crypt, but is much worse against opposing countermagic than Flusterstorm.
-Flusterstorm, at its bare minimum, acts as a one mana uncounterable Force Spike (a half counterable one mana Rune Snag, if you will), but like Thoughtseize and Spell Pierce, is worse on the mana in the early goings and of course can only counter instants and sorceries. If the sideboard plan involves making the deck bit slower to accommodate grave hate though, wouldn't it not matter as much?
-Misdirection allows you to devote your turn one and turn two mana strictly to comboing (a VERY nice benefit) and can't be Missteped, but costs you a blue card to cast. Can't counter grave hate, aside from Ravenous Trap and Surgical Extraction.

I think it's between Misdirection and Flusterstorm, with Thoughtseize (or another one mana discard effect, though I think Seize is head and shoulders above the rest in Reanimator) a close third, and Spell Pierce a distant fourth.

The other thing I've been pondering regarding the sideboard of my four Brainstorm list (funny that that is now a distinguishing trait between decklists) is the correct number of Show and Tells and Pithing Needles. I've never been unhappy seeing S&T in my hand postboard, but have had Needles be dead quite often. I'm going to try out +1 S&T -1 Needle for a few matches and see how it goes.

@Marvelous- I completely agree that Mental Misstep improved the deck, rather than hurt it like I initially thought, because it allows us to fully use our mana in the first two turns, unlike Thoughtseize previously. It puts our disruption package pretty much on par with any other blue deck, but instead of casting a Stoneforge Mystic or Lord of Atlantis on turn two, we're dropping a Jin-Gitaxias or Iona. It's part of the reason why I think this deck could easily be tier one right now.

I just traded for a huge portion of the deck at a tournament earlier today, picking up a third Seas, a third S&T, sets of Exhume and Animate Dead, and a few targets like Iona. With my Entombs coming in the mail, I should have the deck completed within a month for the next big 1.5 tourney, and I'm really excited. I probably won't have a fourth Seas though, and will have to resort to a Watery Grave, Darkslick Shores, or an eleventh fetchland. Which option sounds best?

alderon666

06-26-2011, 12:26 AM

A note that Thoughtseize is a good sideboard against Extirpate, and it's probably the only answer we have to that, other than Exhume tricks.

S&T really asks for 4 Brainstorms, naturally drawing a S&T and the right fatty might be harder than you think, especially with less than a set of BSs.

Tested some games agains Team America today, went better than I expected. I got something like 60-40 pre-board and then 40-60 post board. Considering their deck is basically all answers and 10 creatures, I think that's pretty decent result. Special note to Sphinx of the Steel, which they can't kill and is nigh unraceable by Goyf and Tombstalkers.

Marvelous

06-26-2011, 03:07 AM

@Sturtzilla

Well if you know what the card does, it's pretty obvious that you shouldn't cut all of them in favour of more NR. Since he was thinking of cutting it I merely reminded him of what the card actually does... just like you did in your following post.

Nice testing. Looking forward to seeing your next results. I will be running Garobidou's build #2 in the big national tourney in around 3 hours. I'll report back how it went.

@Kevin Trudea

Considered Dispel? Also since I don't have a full list of optimal cards myself, I'm considering using one Rites of Refusal. A bit on the heavy side cost-wise but doubles as a discard outlet.

lavamancer

06-26-2011, 09:12 AM

Alsan, why playing 3 brainstorm in main , I would reduce 1 animate dead--4brainstorm(9 renimators effects would be enough?).

death

06-26-2011, 10:54 AM

Looking back at Garobidou's T3 reanimation model on p.126, I can't help but wonder where is Build #0. The values on the graph shows us that the optimum number of reanimation targets is 9 (#1). Substituting a target with Brainstorm (#2) results in a slightly reduced percentage, which is the same case as when a target is substituted with a discard outlet (Researcher) in Build #3. Meanwhile running a 3rd Researcher and 0 Brainstorm (Build #4) did not produce any better result than Build #1. However, it's a known fact that BS is golden at digging reanimation spells, discard outlets (and permission). So a second Brainstorm should up the chances of Build #1 a little more. I am proposing a Build #0 (2-9-2) as a deck for evaluation.

Here's the configuration:
11 reanimation-2 Researcher-9 targets-2 Brainstorm
I know the sample only ran 16 Lands but since 17 is doable and is proven stable, I'm sticking with the latter.

I haven't gone through the past 10 pages and I'm not sure if Hapless Researcher vs Putrid Imp has been discussed thoroughly yet. But I am going to share my thoughts on this based on my limited testing. I've tested Researcher awhile back and found it to be lackluster. It's ability to bin a single target is underwhelming. Sure it's blue and pitches to Force, it draws a card so card advantage right? Well, not really since there's a 17% chance of drawing another creature when you already have a creature in hand and there is no other way of binning a 2nd creature with Researcher alone. It being a single-shot only isn't too impressive. It also doesn't provide a body for combat.

On the other hand, a turn 1 PImp can reduce an opponent's life points to within 2-turn strike range of S. Leviathan instead of 3. Aside from having evasion, being useful in combat and ability to block, it's a perma-discard outlet. Having the capability to bin 2 targets makes redundant reanimation spells not dead in your hand. It also lets you do Exhume tricks, for example with Exhume on the stack, opponent can crypt/relic/bog (with KotR) in response. It's possible to let them resolve and just use Imp's discard ability to bin another target in the yard. With all that being said, here's my decklist, Build #0 with Putrid Imp in place of Researcher:

11 reanimation (4 Reanimate/4 Exhume/3 Animate Dead)
2 Putrid Imp
4 JGCA/1 Iona/1 Inky/1 Sphinx/1 Archon/1 Stormtide
2 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Careful Study
11 protection (4 Misstep/4 Force of Will/3 Daze)

//Lands (17)
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs (6:5 :b:::u: fetch ratio)
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Swamp
3 Island
4 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
2 Brainstorm
3 Flusterstorm
3 Chain of Vapor
3 Pithing Needle
1 Putrid Imp
1 Elesh Norn
1 Terastodon
1 Empyrial or Platinum Angel

Even with the absence of Mystical Tutor, I'd say the most recent lists are still well-balanced.

nastirth

06-26-2011, 12:56 PM

@Alsan and other Flusterstorm supporters

Can you please explain me why is Flusterstorm better than Spell Pierce? As I see it, it looks like a weaker spell pierce since it cannot counter vials & co. I don't see how the storm ability is helpful, except against storm. Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe my brain is melting down to this 40ºC hotness today :sweat:

(nameless one)

06-26-2011, 01:15 PM

If you're gonna use Flusterstorm against Storm, why not just Stifle the storm trigger?

Garobidou

06-26-2011, 02:27 PM

@death
The build you're suggesting has already been run : it's build #19.
However, the particular build you mention (with 2 Imps and 6 basics) should have an even smaller percentage as :
- Putrid imp doesn't allow you to draw
- Basics reduces the percentage (see previous posts)

So this is very far from build #0.

Concerning Hapless Researcher, Alsan listed a few pages back the 11 or 12 reasons why we consider it better than Putrid imp.

@lavamancer
You should read the thread before posting. Hint : you'll have the answer in the last 5 pages.

@nastirth
I don't feel a Vial is automatically a must counter (and moreover while being on the draw you should not be able to use Spell pierce if your opponent plays vial on T1).
I would play Thoughtseize instead of Spell Pierce (Thoughtseizing a Batterskull they've just tutored is quite a strong - and fun - play).

The flusterstrom/spell pierce slot is mainly a SB slot you board in to win the counterwar against heavy permission spells builds. This is why Dispel was a pretty good slot. Flusterstorm is better as it says : "I win this counterwar except if you have stifle or Flusterstorm". Indeed with storm the spell is replicated. So with a Storm of X, either you'll pay X+1 or, if you can only pay Y (Y<X+1), you'll have to counter Y-X-1 spells.

nastirth

06-26-2011, 04:03 PM

@Garib

The problem is that you usually go to counter wars when you are trying to protect your spell, and in that case flusterstorm doesn't win anything, because your opponent can counter the original spell in response to a flusterstorm. On the other hand if your opponent casts the first spell, then flusterstorm is very good at countering it. So, I don't think the "I win this counterwar except if you have stifle or Flusterstorm" argument is that valid, unless I'm missing something.

Alsan

06-26-2011, 04:30 PM

@Nastirith: The fact is, that if you play Reanimate <- Mental <- Mental <- Fow <- Flusterstorm, he cannot pay it unless he has 5 open mana, and in turn 2 is very difficult for him to have. In this case, Dispel = Flusterstorm. The cases where flusterstorm shines is when we're fighting against a solid counterwall plus discard, when we play daze to Hymn to tourach and he simply says "fow" and we lose. If we cast flusterstorm agains discard (wich is common to face), he couldn't stop the spell, unless he has another flusterstorm or 3+ counters.

Is better than dispel AND spell pierce in this deck (repeat: this deck) because when we're waiting to reanimate a few turns, he will have more than 2 mana to pay the pierce, but not the dispel, and none the flusterstorm (wich makes him a Hard Counter, better than daze). Flusterstorm defending is always a 1CC mana leak, or 1CC mana leak + rune snag, and cannot be countered by Mental misstep, so is indeed, a very good upgrade (and I had them foil jap, an now I'm buying Flusterstorms and very unhappy ¬¬).

Ah, against storm, is like stifle but still unbeatable with mental misstep (and it wins against chalice of void at 1. Useless to say, but fun), works better than mindbreak trap (wich loses to Pact of negation), and it's very good against Hive mind combo (the storm stops you from paying your pacts and shuts down show and tell).

@Lavamancer: garobidou made numbers, and 2-3 bstorms are better than 4 in THIS deck. Remember:; this deck. Bstorm is the best card in the game.

@DudethataskedmehowIsided: on the draw, I made -3 Daze +3 Flusterstorm when I needed a strong counterwall (against TA and Sneak and show). Never played on the play.

nastirth

06-26-2011, 06:10 PM

@Alsan

Thanks for the answer. On the general I got Flusterstorm right. I questioned it relating to Spell Pierce, because of two reasons:

1) I never had anyone paying 2 mana for spell pierce;
2) spell pierce can counter enchantments and artifacts also (dispel also cannot)

I also wanted to know if Flusterstorm could also be a "play" counter, but your answer confirms my thoughts. It is a "draw" counter, because it shines countering your opponent spells, and it's immune to mental misstep (and chalice@1 eheh) which is also very good. It's clear that when countering instants and sorceries, flusterstorm is better than spell pierce, but 1) can we ignore artifacts and enchantments? If we can, then we should consider flusterstorm vs missdirection. 2) What do you think about this "matchup"?

Sturtzilla

06-27-2011, 11:53 AM

Check this out...

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=39295

This list just made top 8 at the SCG Baltimore event. A few things strike me as odd. First both his discard and reanimate outlets counts seem low. Second his creature base is a bit interesting. For example, Sundering Titan seems like a better board card for TA and other 3 color decks. Third he ran 4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder... that is kinda counter intuitive to what we have been seeing success with here. Enjoy.

nastirth

06-27-2011, 02:48 PM

@Sturtz

With 4 ponder and 4 bs he should play with the 4 s&t mainboard :smile:
Now seriously, this build suggests that he's playing draw-discard g1, and s&t after sideboarding. Didn't see the reports yet to confirm, but looks like it.
What I find interesting is 4 animate dead and 3 reanimate setup. With so many MM around, this may be actually a clever step. As for sundering titan, I'm not a fan. Yep, he can kill some x-colored decks lands, but that's it. Angel of Despair however may compete with Terastodon since he can hit creatures. I packed him at GP Madrid last year, and only used it once (but it was crucial).
Now the Hymns got me puzzled. Maybe to dodge mm?

Sturtzilla

06-27-2011, 04:06 PM

HAHAHA! I agree with you ascertation of the 4 SnT. I guess if you are anticipating a lot of NO RUG, TA, and Zoo, Sundering Titan could be pretty decent. I have to say that I still believe him to be a sideboard card. I do think it kind of interesting to see the Angel of Despair and Elesh in his main. They both seem to fit more of a utility niche to be used against various decks post board. I just have to say that in my testing of the maximized builds (as calculated by Garobidou), that they have been really consistent. This would slant me at wanting to play one of these configurations. But then again, he is the one putting up the awesome stats at a large event. I am really interested in his tournament report... he has some different choices and I am curious as to why they were picked.

Garobidou

06-27-2011, 04:47 PM

His build is indeed quite surprising and as you both say it would be great to read his report. If you're interested I can do the math for his build but running 8 brainstorms-like should lead to a big loss.

On some specific other points you underlined :

1. The 4 Animate Dead might be worth trying. Yes he did chose it for his ability to dodge Mental misstep. However going down on Reanimate leads to a big loss in percentage as :
a. You increase the hands requiring 2 lands to be keepable/god
b. You reduce your on the play draw/discard strategy (in my opinion with a 2cc Reanimate Effect in hand such a strategy is a bad strategy as you won't be able to reanimate before T4)
c. You reduce the stability to mulligans (again due to the Draw/discard strategy as a 6 cards hand on the draw with a 2cc Reanimate Effect is the same as a 7 cards on the play, so the point above applies)
d. 2cc cards suffer from Spell Snare and to a lesser extent Daze

2) The creatures :
a. I totally agree regaring Sundering Titan (strange choice and not making the cut in my opinion) and Angel of Despair (a bit better, competing with Terastodon as you said but I prefer Mr. Don :p)
b. You know my opinion concerning Elesh, especially MD...
c. I am more interested by Grave Titan as it is a slot I wanted to try for a few months :
- It fulfills more or less the same role as Emperion allowing you to reanimate on low life (you can reanimate, fetch, cast a Misstep and still be able to reanimate, especially if Jin was killed)
- It has quite a good clock
- It allow to attack and keep some ressources to block (how many times did you reanimate a Iona but get raced by a single goyf?)
- It isn't blue, such as the tokens, so I can block Piledrivers (only 1 big or 2 medium piledrivers can race a Sphinx)

3; Hymn to tourach. This is also a card I wanted to try. Here it serves the same purpose as Thoughtseize (that I'm running with SnT), protecting the SnT. It's mental Misstep proof, more on the curve and potentially more gamebreaking. However I wonder if the Urborg wouldn't be absolutely necessary in that case (and I don't like that slot)

Sidenote : I've been testing build #2 for the last days and the results have been really great so far.

Alsan

06-27-2011, 06:33 PM

@Alsan1) can we ignore artifacts and enchantments? If we can, then we should consider flusterstorm vs missdirection. 2) What do you think about this "matchup"?

1- I think that yes, we can. We've been playing dispel > Spierce, and dispel doesn't cut artifacts or enchantments. We have Echoing and Pithing for them.

2- I play 1 missdirection MD, another SB. So I can rely on both of them +Fow, defending me from each situation :).

To the new build on SCGopen: with all my respects, I lost hope with this tournaments, except for great players like Gerry T. and company. I don't think that "old" version of reanimator is better than ours, and with that build I agree with the S&T maindeck and Personal tutors to search (wich I think is a bad idea, but...). As a note, a collegue of mine played last sunday my list of reanimator (same as #2 but with missdirection MD instead of 3rd animate dead) in a 60 person tournament winning merciless 2-0 nearly every round.

But BTW, please Garobidou do maths :D.

EDIT: in another forum they had posted the top8 (thanks to DuKe from there, http://www.elsantuario.es/foro/index.php/topic,10873.0.html)

Omar Rohner - Reanimator

4 Jin-Gitaxis, Core Augur
3 Hapless Researcher
2 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Blazing Archon
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
1 Misdirection
4 Careful Study
2 Brainstorm
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead
4 Entomb
2 Swamp
2 Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

SB:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod
1 Platinum Emperion
2 Echoing Truth
2 Dispel
2 Misdirection
1 Show And Tell
1 Elesh Norn, Great Cenobite
1 Coffin Purge
1 Terastodon

He played Dispel instead of Flusterstorm because he didn't have.

comeback

07-01-2011, 02:24 AM

I've not yet done a good result with this list, maybe due to the fact there are so many GW in my place either so many guys that just in tournament show me karakas from the hand once I've already reanimate the fatty, anyhow this is the list I'm playing...

3 Jin-Gitaxias, the Core Argur
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Platinum Emperion --> if your plan is to reanimate as first Jin-Gitaxias this is the best 2nd target
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Hapless Research
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
2 Animate Dead
4 Force of Will
4 Daze --> 1 Misdirection could be fine as 5th FOW or MM
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
9 Fetch
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp

1 Blazing Archon
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Terastodon --> I'm going to cut it out, never side in, to be replace with 3rd Seize or 2nd Rod
3 Spell Pierce --> It seems to be better than Dispel especially if you are on the play vs grav hate
2 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
2 Thoughtseize --> how can you win vs black based with a side in of extirpate?
1 Coffin Purge
2 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyll's Recall --> It's like the 3rd Echoing for artifact based

Garobidou

07-01-2011, 05:20 AM

@Comeback
1) Platinum Emperion at being the best 2nd target
I disagree. Platinum is only great when you reanimated once (e.g Jin), it was dealt by opponent, and your 2nd reanimate effect is a reanimate. Or against fast aggro/burn to stabilize. Platinum is great in a last chance scenario where you need time to find a more appropriate fatty.
If Jin is on the battlefield you should be in a winning position and only need to protect him, which means having reanimate effects (if your opponent removals aren't remove from the game effects) or counterspells (which interacts very poorly with Platinum). In that case a Iona/Sphinx is always better.
Don't get me wrong it's one of my 2 contenders for creature slot #8 (with the 2nd Sphinx).

2) Terastodon
I would cut it as it is a good answer to many annoying things (e.g Jace, resolved equipments, karakas) while being a good fatty. Moreover the denial strategy it can assume can be game over.

3) Spell pierce
Discard is way better at doing what you're suggesting : it deals with hate when we're on the play, it can also deal with Extirpate. It's a nice tempo tool too when you discard the equipment they've been searching with mystic.

4) Extirpate
Yes this is a very painful hate card. This is why I run 2 or 3 Show and Tell in my SB with some discard (as discard is good with SnT and good on its own at dealing with hate).

@Alsan
I like Omar's list, especially the creatures setup. I'm running the exact same and I've been very happy with that.
(sidenote : what a nice pimp deck you have :p)

Alsan

07-01-2011, 05:49 AM

@Comeback: facing an extirpate is relative easy. We have lots of ways to put a creature into graveyard, so with one in grave, we cast Exhume, he extirpate the creature, and with entomb or hapless we put another. In my case, with 2 misdirections, I can redirect to another creature my reanimation spell. It's tricky, but we can. And knowing he has an extirpate is easy: if he doesn't cast any graveyard hate and he never taps, he has it. If he doesn't cast any GH but he taps, he could have Faerie macabre instead- Or simply nothing.

@Garobidou: Yeah, me too, now I'm testing 1 Stormtide leviathan instead of the 2nd Sphinx, and I have opposed thoughts. Stormtide is an improved Inkwell, when you have nothing better to reanimate (and you're not playing against merfolks) is not that bad, works great shutting down progenitus, and is a 3turn beater (and I have jap foil xD, wich 2nd Sphinx is not). At the time I wanted to reanimate Inkwell I always wanted the 2nd sphinx, but now when I reanimate Stormtide I don't miss Sphinx.

Yesterday I was testing vs Goblins, he started, I didn't have Mental, he made the usual alpha strike (mountain lackey, siege gang + piledriver) but had +1 piledriver in hand, but I had in hand Careful + Stormtide and I won. He never had 8 goblins to his gelmpalm or 4 lands before my Echoing truth, and lasted 3 turns. With siege-gang I probably lost to Piledrivers. Is worth to test.

(and yeah, you like it? It's been hard to get all pieces... u_U. Now I'm following the last verdant and the Blazing archon, and I have incoming the 3 Flustertorm JAP)

Sturtzilla

07-01-2011, 09:05 AM

@ Alsan

I have also been considering a maindeck Stormtide Leviathan. Actually in my 1 Brainstorm build that I have been testing, I have been running 2 Iona. I am not sure that she is optimal. I think that possibly the second Iona in the main should become a Elesh or a Stormtide. They both add more utility and flexibility to the deck. But I have not come to a solid conclusion as of yet.

As for the pimpness of you deck, I was very impressed to see the scans you uploaded in the "Pimp My Deck Forum." I am not too big on foreign languages as where I play most people are just confused by them. I do however prefer Black Boarded and Foils. I am still looking for Foil Polluted Deltas, Mental Misseps, Dazes, and Entombs. So basically about a third to a half of my build is foiled. I am still trying to get the rest of the way there, but it will probably take some time.

KevinTrudeau

07-01-2011, 01:51 PM

In my bit of testing, I have come to the conclusion that three sideboard Show and Tells are not optimal with a sixteen-land build; three Pithing Needle, two Show and Tell is a much more comfortable number. Misdirection also seems favorable over Flusterstorm or another one-mana counterspell since it is difficult to leave one mana up in key spots with only sixteen lands, although I haven't come to a conclusion on that issue.

I have switched decklists thanks to Garibodou's large-scale probability tables. Here is the decklist with the highest average percentage of reanimating something on turn three that also includes four Brainstorms:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Underground Sea
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

1 Hapless Researcher
3 Jin-Gitaxias
2 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Blazing Archon

4 Careful Study
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead

4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze

SB:
3 Thoughtseize
3 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod
2 Show and Tell
2 Echoing Truth
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Terastodon
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

The eighteen lands should make casting Show and Tell a lot easier postboard; they also just straight-up swap for Animate Dead now, which is cool. I'm trying out Thoughtseize right now in my ever-changing sideboard disruption/permission slot; it should also benefit from the eighteen lands. I chose a second Sphinx over Stormtide Leviathan or another large one because Sphinx is quite possibly the greatest in-combat creature of all time and will get the job done rather handily against GW decks, Zoo (provided you have Misstep backup for PTE), Merfolk, Gobbos, etc.; lifelink is also very relevant if you want to be casting Reanimate over and over. A maindeck Stormtide Leviathan isn't out of the question, though. A fourth Jin doesn't sound bad either.

Sturtzilla

07-01-2011, 04:13 PM

@ Forum

I am still working on playing decent sized quantities of sample hands of Garobidou variants 2 and 3. I have not been able to make quite as much progress as I would like to be making. My work load out here at the lab has kicked into high gear this week. I am not only working on my research but I am grading labs and papers from summer undergrad students. I will hopefully have some more data to share by the end of the weekend, if I can crawl out from under this mountain of lab reports to grade.

In my bit of testing, I have come to the conclusion that three sideboard Show and Tells are not optimal with a sixteen-land build; three Pithing Needle, two Show and Tell is a much more comfortable number. Misdirection also seems favorable over Flusterstorm or another one-mana counterspell since it is difficult to leave one mana up in key spots with only sixteen lands, although I haven't come to a conclusion on that issue. I have switched decklists thanks to Garibodou's large-scale probability tables.

I had come to that conclusion a while back. Three SnT does seem to be maybe too much for the board. I had been playing 18 land, at the time. I would get awkward and rough hands, if I would sub them all in. I would suggest running 2 in the board at this time.

Another point would be in my testing I have really liked going back to 18 lands (I had been trying out 16 and 17 land builds). I have been running the variant 1 mostly. At 18 lands I am mulliganing less due to low land openers.

On the topic of mulliganing, I have had fewer poor mulligan decisions, due to my running of fewer Brainstorms. I am really liking variant 1 as it has a lowered probability of drawing into more draw spells... you get stuff you need when you careful study or use your one brainstorm. It is great to nearly always draw into business cards. Brainstorm really just slows the speed of this deck down, while improving mid to late game. I am loving running only one. Brainstorm may be one of the best cards in the game, but I am really thinking that it does not have to belong to this deck (at least as a 4-of).

Sturtzilla

07-01-2011, 05:58 PM

@ Forum

Okay below you will find the results for my testing of Garobidou's Variant Number Two in 50 games as shuffled by MWS. The columns from left to right are game number, turn the first fatty hit play/how the fatty got in the bin, what back up was in hand (i.e. extra reanimation spells or counter magic), and the last column would be possible targets for reanimation for the next turn. I apologize that it came out so messy, but I just copy and pasted it from Excel (mine is neat in Excel, so I am not really going to fuss with it here). Please note that these are all games that this deck was on the play. I will breakdown the numbers we care about below. I also took the liberty of abbreviating many of the cards based on their titles. If there are any questions please ask.

Variant Two on the Play
Game Turn Reanimated Quality Counter/Extra Reanimation Back Up Subsequent Reanimate
1 2 Jin/HR FoW/Animate Dead Sphinx and Archon
2 2 Iona/CS MM/Daze None
3 3 Jin/MD Daze Any Creature
4 2 Jin/E MM/Daze Iona/Sphinx
5 2 Jin/E MM Inkwell/Iona
6 3 Jin/CS FoW/FoW Any Creature
7 7 Jin/E Daze/MM/FoW/FoW Any Creature
8 3 Jin/E FoW/MM None (drew into a BS)
9 5 Jin/E MM/Daze Any Creature
10 2 Jin/E Daze Any Creature
11 2 Jin/E MM None
12 2 Jin/E FoW Archon
13 3 Jin/MD Reanimate/Exhume/Animate Dead Inkwell
14 2 Iona/CS Daze None
15 2 Sphinx/CS Exhume None
16 2 Jin/CS Exhume/Animate Dead Inkwell
17 2 Jin/E Reanimate Sphinx
18 2 Jin/CS MM/Daze None
19 2 Jin/E MM Any Creature
20 3 Jin/E FoW/Animate Dead Archon
21 5 Jin/E Daze/FoW Any Creature
22 2 Jin/E Daze/MM None
23 2 Jin/E MM Iona/Sphinx
24 3 Jin/E MM/Reanimate Any Creature
25 3 Jin/E MM/FoW None
26 2 Jin/E Daze/FoW Any Creature
27 2 Jin/E Animate Dead/Animate Dead/Exhume Sphinx
28 2 Jin/E MM Any Creature
29 2 Jin/E Reanimate/Animate Dead Sphinx
30 2 Sphinx/HR Exhume/MM/FoW None
31 2 Jin/CS MM/Daze/Animate Dead Any Creature
32 3 Jin/E Reanimate/MM/FoW Any Creature
33 2 Jin/HR None Any Creature
34 2 Jin/E Daze None
35 2 Jin/CS Daze/MM/FoW Archon
36 2 Jin/E Animate Dead Any Creature
37 2 Jin/E Exhume/Daze/FoW Any Creature
38 2 Jin/E MM/MM/FoW Any Creature
39 5 Jin/E Daze/FoW/Reanimate/Animate Dead Any Creature
40 2 Jin/E FoW/FoW/Reanimate Inkwell
41 3 Sphinx/CS MM/Reanimate/Exhume Iona and Archon
42 4 Jin/CS FoW Archon
43 5 Archon/MD Daze/MM/FoW/FoW Any Creature
44 2 Jin/E None None
45 2 Jin/E FoW Iona
46 3 Jin/E Exhume/Exhume Any Creature
47 3 Jin/CS Exhume/Exhume/Animate Dead/Animate Dead Any Creature
48 3 Jin/CS MM/MM/Reanimate Archon
49 3 Jin/E Reanimate/FoW None
50 3 Sphinx/HR FoW/Daze Archon

So what I found in my testing.
Turn Reanimated: Number of Games
2:30
3:14
4: 1
5: 4
7: 1

These results come out pretty close to what Garobidou calculated. My testing shows a 60% chance to get a dude by turn 2 and an extra 28% chance to get a guy by turn 3. This is exactly the same as what I found in my 50 hands of Variant 1 on the play. There are a couple things to note: First this build, as per my statistics has a faster average turn for reanimation. This build (Variant 2) is running an average of 2.66 as opposed to the 2.72 that I have calculated for the Variant 1 on the play. I would attribute this to the fact that on poor/mulliganed hands in which you do not have a turn 2-3 dude, Brainstorm becomes far more valuable, as it can fix up you crappy hand. Seeing as this build runs 2 Brainstorm instead of the 1 run in Variant 1 this makes perfect sense. The next point would be in a few games drawing a Brainstorm could have been a faster creature or a piece of counter magic which would have made for a better game. Both Variants posted 11 of the 50 hands which did not post a next turn creature. Variant 1 posted 12 games where the second reanimated creature could be the pilot's choice. Variant 2 posted 20 games with this same statistic.

Short and sweet, it looks like Variant 2 might be a bit better when on the play. This would seem to be due to the extra Brainstorms which make mulliganed hands better. It could also be better post boarding as you would be able to dig for your sideboard hate. I still aim to test out Variant 2 on the draw in addition to Variant 3 both on the play and draw. These tests should be able to give us some decent ideas about how these nearly identical decks function ever so differently.

nastirth

07-02-2011, 03:58 PM

Hi guys,

Last wednesday I went to the local club to another small legacy tournament. I kept notes this time, and I registered all my hands, mullingans and sideboarding.

Deck list
Garib's #2 with Jin x3, Iona, Stormtide, Inkwell, Archon and Sphynx

Sideboard
1 Flusterstorm (wanted to test them, but only one arrived in time)
2 Duress
1 Needle (still have only one, will add the 2nd, removing echoing truth)
3 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
2 Show and Tell
1 Iona
1 Terastodon
1 Elesh Norn
1 Platinum Angel

R1 - Mirror - 2-0

G1 - Draw
Hand 7: Hapless, Entomb, Exhume, USea, Careful, FoW, Jin
He plays island+ponder, and i put him on a combo deck. I go careful into Jin. Next turn he brainstorms and plays another island. On my turn I exhume Jin with FoW protection and it enters. Then when my oppo discards his hand I see 2 reanimates and 2 entombs... oppss.. Lucky me he didn't draw the black source :p

G2 - Draw
Hand 7: Entomb, Reanimate, Animate Dead, Fetch, USea, Island, FoW
I entomb for Jin at his eot, and on my turn I reanimate it, drew some counterspells and it was gg.

Sideboarding
Out: Exhume x4, Careful, Hapless x2, Stormtide, Archon, Sphynx
In: Iona, Platinum, Flusterstorm, Duress x2, Echoing Truth x3, Show and Tell x2

R2- Burn - 2-1

G1 - Draw
Hand 7: Brainstorm, Mental Misstep, Reanimate, Fetch x2, USea x2
Hand 6: Reanimate, Animate Dead, Fetch x2, Entomb, Mental Misstep
He plays mountain rift bolt. I play fetch and pass. He plays goblin guide and serves for two. At his eot I entomb for Iona. On mY turn I animate dead her and it's gg.

G2 - Draw
Hand 7: Reanimate x2, Exhume, Fetch x2, USea, Mental Misstep
Hand 6: Flusterstorm, FoW, Iona x2, Jin, USea
Hand 5: USea x2, Fetch x2, Exhume
I had a brain freeze and decided to keep the 5 hander. And lost miserably.

G3 - Play
Hand 7: Show and Tell, FoW, Careful, Animate Dead, Platinum Angel, USea, Fetch
I go careful into platinum. Animate dead it, and I was able to keep him alive all to the end by countering the crucial spells and needling his barbarian rings. I finished at -3 life but won. Without Iona the matchup is much tougher.

Sideboarding
Out: Jin x2, Stormtide, Inkwell, Daze x3, Animate Dead
In: Platinum, Iona, Elesh Norn, Terastodon, Needle, Flusterstorm, Show and Tell x2

R3- Merfolks - 0-2

G1 - Play
Hand 7: USea, Fetch x2, Exhume, Exhume, Sphynx, Brainstorm
This would be a very good hand to keep if on the draw, but I decided to keep it anyway because of brainstorm.

G2 - Play
Hand 7: Fetch x2, Island, Careful, Entomb, Reanimate, Brainstorm

The two games were essentially the same, by him countering all my discard outlets, and leaving me with the reanimation spells in hand and no creatures in gy.

Sideboarding
Out: Inkwell, Stormtide, Daze
In: Elesh Norn, Needle, Flusterstorm

I probably screwd up sideboarding, which leads me to launch sideboarding discussion. For what I've seen from the posted lists I can identify a converging trend on sideboard architecture, which I also share. I think we can define the following architecture as a standard sb architecture:

SB Architecture
3 disruption
2 needle
2 null rod
2 echoing truth
2 show and tell
3 creaures
1 flex slot

3 disruption is standard, with people choosing between duress, thoughtseize, dispel, spell pierce, misdirection and flusterstorm. The 2/2/2/2 package of needle, null rod, echoing truth and s&tell is also common. And usually at least 3 creatures are also present. These are 14 cards wich make a pretty standard sideboard. The 15th card is where I see more variation in terms of 4th disruption, 3rd needle, 3rd s&t, 4th creature. This probably should be the flex slot that adjusts your sb to your local metagame. But for the sb discussion I think we should settle the 15th sideboard card to help building a sideboarding strategy guide. In this case we should think about a sb for a big tournament field where you need to be the most flexible. My opinion goes towards the 4th creature or the 3rd needle. What do you guys think?

Sturtzilla

07-02-2011, 10:35 PM

@ Forum

Okay for the regulars reading this forum, you know the drill with my sample hand results. Sure they are messy but you can glean all of the necessary information regarding the playing of this deck and its consistency based on the notation below. If there are any questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Variant Two on the Draw
Game Turn Reanimated Quality Counter/Extra Reanimation Back Up Subsequent Reanimate
1 3 Jin/E Reanimate/MM Any Creature
2 2 Jin/HR None Any Creature
3 2 Jin/CS Daze Any Creature
4 2 Jin/CS Exhume Any Creature
5 3 Jin/MD FoW Any Creature
6 2 Jin/CS Daze Any Creature
7 3 Jin/E FoW Iona
8 2 Jin/E None Archon
9 2 Jin/E MM Any Creature
10 2 Jin/E FoW Sphinx/Archon
11 6 Jin/E Daze/MM/FoW Any Creature
12 2 Inkwell/MD Daze/MM/Reanimate/Reanimate/Exhume Iona
13 2 Jin/E MM/Reanimate/Reanimate/Animate None
14 3 Jin/HR FoW Any Creature
15 3 Jin/E Daze/FoW Sphinx
16 3 Jin/E MM/FoW None
17 2 Iona/CS Reanimate/Reanimate/FoW/FoW Jin-Gitaxias
18 2 Jin/CS Daze/MM/FoW None
19 2 Jin/CS Reanimate/MM/Daze Any Creature
20 2 Jin/E FoW/FoW Inkwell
21 2 Jin/E FoW/FoW/FoW Sphinx/Archon
22 5 Jin/E MM/MM/FoW/FoW None
23 4 Jin/E Daze/MM/FoW/FoW Any Creature
24 2 Jin/E MM/FoW Archon
25 2 Jin/CS Daze/MM/MM None
26 2 Jin/CS MM/Daze Any Creature
27 6 Jin/E Daze/MM/FoW Archon/Inkwell
28 3 Jin/CS Daze/MM/MM/FoW Any Creature
29 2 Jin/HR Reanimate Any Creature
30 2 Jin/E Daze/MM/FoW Sphinx
31 2 Jin/E Reanimate/Daze/FoW Iona/Inkwell
32 2 Jin/E Daze Any Creature
33 2 Iona/CS Daze/FoW/Exhume None
34 2 Jin/E MM/FoW/Reanimate/Animate Dead Any Creature
35 5 Jin/E FoW Sphinx
36 2 Archon/CS MM/MM/FoW/FoW None
37 2 Jin/E MM/Reanimate/Exhume Inkwell
38 2 Sphinx/CS MM None
39 4 Jin/E MM/FoW/FoW None
40 2 Sphinx/HR Daze/Animate Dead None
41 3 Jin/MD Exhume/Exhume/Animate Dead None
42 2 Jin/MD FoW/Exhume Any Creature
43 2 Jin/CS Reanimate Sphinx
44 2 Jin/E Daze/Daze/Exhume Inkwell
45 2 Jin/E FoW Iona
46 3 Jin/MD Daze/Daze/MM/Animate Dead Any Creature
47 3 Jin/E FoW/Reanimate Iona
48 2 Jin/HR Animate Dead Any Creature
49 2 Jin/CS FoW/Reanimate/Animate Dead Any Creature
50 2 Jin/CS MM/Reanimate None

Turn Reanimated: Number of Games
2:34
3:10
4:2
5:2
6:2

I have to again commend Garobidou on his calculations. A bit to my surprise, my results confirm the statistics posted earlier in this forum. My testing shows a 68% chance to get a dude by turn 2 and an extra 20% chance to get a guy by turn 3.

There are some very noteworthy items to see in these numbers. First this build, as per my statistics has a faster average turn for reanimation. This build (Variant 2) is running an average reanimated dude by turn 2.56 as opposed to the 2.46 that I have calculated for the Variant 1 on the draw. Overall, I summed the average turns of reanimation (for both on the play and on the draw). It would seem that for Variant 1 the average turn is 2.59 while summed Variant 2 posts 2.61. These numbers basically show that the builds are nearly identical. Maybe you would not a statistical difference in 2 out of 100 games. That being said, Variant 1 appears faster from my stats, while Variant 2 would allow for better digging for sideboard cards. So those two games could be won or lost either on speed of the deck or the ability to find you hate cards. With that in mind, I think it is pretty clear this choice should be made on personal preference.

I will most likely begin my testing of Variant 3 soon and will hopefully have some data very soon.

theBloody

07-04-2011, 01:05 AM

Hi. I don't have forces and underground seas so i try something different. I like more control oriented way. Won small local tournament (13 participants) with list below.

Main deck
----------
4 x Verdant Catacombs
3 x Polluted Delta
2 x Misty Rainforest
2 x Watery Grave
1 x Darkslick Shores
1 x Dryad Arbor
3 x Swamp
2 x Island

1 x Iona, Shiel of Emeria
1 x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 x Inkwell Leviathan
1 x Blazing Archon
1 x Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur

4 x Entomb
4 x Exhume
4 x Reanimate
2 x Animate Dead
4 x Mental Misstep
4 x Cabal Therapy
3 x Daze
4 x Brainstorm
3 x Careful Study
3 x Gitaxian Probe
2 x Lim-Duls Vault

Sideboard
----------
4 x Pithing Needle
3 x Spell Pierce
3 x Echoing Truth
1 x Terastodon
1 x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 x Iona, Shiled of Emeria
1 x Platinum Emperion
1 x Stormtide Leviathan

Short tournament overview: (dont remember much)
Round 1 - Mono U Merfolks
G1: t2 archon/iona
G2: t2/t3 elesh
Result: 2:0
Total: 1:0

Round 2 - UB control with Winter Orbs
G1: He have Diabolic Edict for my Inkwell (I don't have fetch for Arbor) and race me with some 1/1 merfolks.
G2: He have Boomerang for my createre, i land Iona after.
G3: Iona
R: 2:1
T: 2:0

Round 3 - U/W Stoneforge Mystic (extended version, hehe)
G1: He won some important counter war. Bounce my creature with Jace.
G2: He race reanimated Inkwell with equiped Mystic and Baterskull.
R: 0:2
T: 2:1

Round 4 - Mono U Merfolks
G1: Quick Archon/Iona.
G2: Elesh (he mull to 5)
R: 2:0
T: 3:1

Round 5 - Mono U Belcher (Mana Severance + Goblin Charbelcher combo)
G1: He have enough counters to back up his combo.
G2: He was after Mana Severance, but didnt draw Charbelcher next three turns so Iona race him.
G3: Pithing Needle to Charbelcher (second resolved).
R: 2:1
T: 4:1

Standings was good for me so i take first place.
Notes: In this build Jin dont fit so much. I never animated him at tourney. Elesh shined. Merfolk oponents dont expected him after g1 so they dont have right answer.

MirrorMask

07-04-2011, 04:46 AM

Hi guys,

@TheBloody

I know you don't have undergrounds and forces which makes the deck a lot weaker but using gitaxian probe and lim dul's vault WITH shock lands and only 2 animate deads is gonna kill you fast when you reanimate 66,7% of the time .what do you use dryad arbor for? Just for the occasional "sacrifice a creature spell ? Cause i see no green mana is needed in your deck at all.
If you are going for a slower version then wouldn't it be better to add some show and tells and ponders instead of lim dul's and/or reanimates main board?

theBloody

07-04-2011, 06:36 AM

@MirrorMask: Yeah, it killing me fast, but it isn't problem if u can stop opponent deck (iona,archon,sphinx), stabilize game and win. Dryad arbor is here for cabal therapy, green fetches find her. Lim-Duls Vault won me games, but as you stated it is slow so only 2 pieces are there. It shines when you discard opponents relevant spells with therapy and you don't have combo pieces. You can find both.
Show and tell force me to play more creatures which i dont have space for. But i didnt test it with ponders. I tested lim duls + ponders and it didnt work for me. Also to power up show and tell i have to have right creature in hand and if i will play ponders, i probably find entomb first.
Gitaxian probe work good with therapy and i often play it as "counter me" spell with no mana in play for 2 life if i have it in my opening hand. When they dont counter it, it support your therapy. If they do, they have one counter less which is good. Probe also dont destroy our discard EOT strategy if it isnt countered.

Karhumies

07-04-2011, 10:01 AM

@TheBloody:

I would do the following to your mana base (assuming low or normal amounts of Stifle and Wasteland in your meta):

-2 Swamp
-1 Island
+3 Darkslick Shores

-1 Dryad Arbor (move to SB; very often useless G1 when drawn)
+1 Polluted Delta

(and later -1 Misty Rainforest/Watery Grave, +1 Underground Sea)

This will make you fetch for Watery Grave more often, but it reduces the chance of having 2x the same basic in opening hand without access to the other color. It's a trade-off.

In other news, including Jin as 3+ x with FoW, Daze, MM support typically makes the MD Probe + Therapy tech redundant because no matter what they have in their hand, Jin is going to discard it all in their cleanup step. But that really requires protecting Jin from StoP with FoW. But in your FoW-less list, I think your approach is better than running just plain Thoughtseize (2 life loss, grabs only 1 card instead of multiples, no cantrip effect).

You may also wish to take a look at 4eak's take on budget Reanimator (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20587-Budget-Decks-My-Attempts), which is a different approach.

theBloody

07-04-2011, 10:21 AM

@Karhumies:
Thanks for advices. Good point with dryad arbor. But i dont like darkslick shores so much, because there is incooperation with daze. In my 1 x darslick shores build i was in situation where my hand contained shores as only blue mana source and daze.
On the other hand, im close to buy my first underground sea.

Sturtzilla

07-04-2011, 11:24 AM

@ theBloody

I have to agree with all of the points made here. I recognize you are trying to build on a budget. I would suggest losing some basic lands in favor of Darkslick Shores or Watery Graves. If you can get your hands on some Show and Tells, I think that would help your list out a bit. SnT in place of Ponders and or Lim-Dul's Vaults seems good to me. You are correct that you would need to run a few more creatures in that case. I hope that helps.

@ Forum

You guys know the drill... here are the stats for 50 games of Garobidou's variant 3 on the play. Questions, ask em' if you got em'!

Variant Three on the Play
Game Turn Reanimated Quality Counter/Extra Reanimation Back Up Subsequent Reanimate
1 4 Jin/MD Daze/MM None
2 4 Jin/HR Daze/Exhume/Reanimate Sphinx
3 2 Jin/E Animate Dead Archon
4 2 Jin/E MM/MM/FoW None
5 3 Jin/CS Daze/Animate Dead Any Creature
6 3 Jin/CS MM/Daze Iona/Archon
7 5 Jin/CS MM/Reanimate None
8 2 Jin/E Daze/Animate Dead Iona/Inkwell
9 2 Jin/E MM/FoW Any Creature
10 4 Jin/E Daze/MM/FoW Any Creature
11 2 Jin/E None Iona/Inkwell
12 2 Jin/CS Daze/FoW Any Creature
13 2 Jin/HR MM/Exhume Iona/Archon
14 2 Jin/HR Daze/Animate Dead/Exhume Any Creature
15 3 Inkwell/CS Daze/Exhume None
16 3 Jin/E Daze/FoW None
17 3 Jin/CS Daze/MM/MM/FoW Any Creature
18 2 Jin/E MM/MM/Daze Iona
19 2 Jin/HR Daze/FoW/Animate Dead Any Creature
20 3 Jin/E FoW/FoW/Animate Dead Any Creature
21 2 Jin/E FoW/Reanimate Iona
22 4 Jin/CS MM/MM Any Creature
23 2 Jin/E Daze/Exhume None
24 2 Iona/CS Daze/Animate Dead Inkwell
25 2 Jin/E Daze/Reanimate Any Creature
26 3 Iona/HR FoW None
27 4 Jin/HR MM/FoW/FoW/FoW Iona
28 2 Jin/E Reanimate Iona/Archon
29 2 Jin/HR FoW Sphinx/Inkwell
30 3 Jin/CS Daze Any Creature
31 7 Archon/HR MM/MM/FoW/FoW/Reanimate None
32 2 Jin/CS FoW Any Creature
33 2 Jin/E MM/Reanimate Sphinx
34 2 Jin/E MM/Exhume Archon
35 3 Jin/E MM/Daze Sphinx/Inkwell
36 2 Jin/E FoW/Animate Dead Iona/Archon
37 2 Jin/E MM/MM/FoW/Reanimate Archon
38 6 Jin/E MM/MM/Daze/Daze/FoW Sphinx
39 2 Jin/E None Any Creature
40 2 Jin/E Daze Archon
41 4 Archon/MD FoW/Reanimate/Reanimate/Reanimate Any Creature
42 11 Jin/E MM/MM/FoW/Fow None
43 3 Jin/E FoW/FoW Iona/Archon
44 2 Jin/E None Iona/Archon
45 3 Jin/CS Daze/MM Iona/Archon/Sphinx
46 2 Jin/E Daze Any Creature
47 2 Jin/CS MM/MM/Exhume/Exhume/Reanimate Sphinx
48 2 Jin/CS FoW/FoW/FoW Any Creature
49 2 Jin/E None Sphinx/Archon
50 2 Jin/HR Daze/FoW/Reanimate Any Creature

Here are the relevant stats condensed.
Turn Reanimated: Number of Games
2:29
3:11
4:6
5:1
6:1
7:1
11:1

These values give us an average turn reanimated of 2.88. This is significantly higher than the other builds I have tested so far (Variant 1:2.72 and Variant 2:2.66). I also feel that I mulliganed far more with this build. Mulligans were not a stat that I was keeping so this is just a qualitative observation. I was surprised how often I would mulligan away a poor hand with this build and get another poor hand. I will be working on comparing this build on the draw, next. Stay tuned for the results!

Karhumies

07-04-2011, 11:39 AM

@ TheBloody:

My previous manabase suggestions do not affect your deck's effective Island count for Daze. Here's a re-cap:

-2 Swamp
-1 Dryad Arbor
+3 Darkslick Shores

= no change whatsoever

-1 basic Island
+1 Polluted Delta to fetch an Island whenever necessary

= no effective change in Island-count game play-wise for Daze. Well, unless you really want to play 2 Daze on the same turn without fetching for Watery Grave to play the second.

Karhumies

07-04-2011, 12:39 PM

Since we're ATM discussing
a) the "uselessness of multiple Brainstorms"
b) the importance of animation speed, opening hands and muligan decisions
c) budget lists

I would like to...well..REANIMATE the notion of a "mono-black" Reanimator budget list. For less than half the price, you can get more than half the performance.

Here's a sample deck list from the top of my head:

Main deck (60)
17x Swamp
2x Dark Ritual (replaces B.storm)

8x Target
4x Entomb
4x Putrid Imp (replaces H.Researcher)
2x Raven's Crime (replaces C.Study)

4x Reanimate
4x Exhume
4x Animate Dead

4x Mental Misstep
4x Unmask (replaces FoW)
3x Thoughtseize / Cabal Therapy / Duress (replaces Daze)

Total:
12 Creatures
10 Discard effects (6 of them recurring!) + 3T.seize + 4 Unmask
12 Reanimation effects
11 Protection spells

What the deck loses from the full money list (MD):
- Draw 2 effect from Careful Study (typically 4x)
- Draw 1 effect from Hapless Researcher (typically 3x)
- Draw 3 effect from Brainstorm (typically 2-4x)
- Counters: Force of Will and Daze (typically 4x + 2-4x)
- Putrid Imp can not block after threshold (compare to H.Researcher)
In short: resilience and digging power, which are especially relevant post-SB

What the deck loses from the full money list (SB):
- Bounce effects
- Show and Tell
= Any outs to resolved opposing Leyline of the Void

What the deck gains:
- Recurring discard effects (Putrid Imp, Raven's Crime)
- Speed for occasional T1 animation (Dark Ritual or Unmask yourself + Reanimate)
- Resistance to non-basic land hate
In short: speed, which is especially relevant G1

Potential MD target list:
3x Jin-G
1x Platinum Emperion
1x B.Archon
1x Iona
1x Trench Gorger
1x I.Leviathan

Potential SB target list:
1x Terastodon
1x Elesh Norn
1x E.Archangel
1x S. Leviathan
1x Sphinx

Potential sideboard #1 "opponents won't play Leyline of the Void":
5x Target
3x P.Needle
3x Discard effect
3x Bojuka Bog
1x Darkblast

Potential sideboard #2 (desperately transitional):
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Grindstone
4x Painter's Servant
1x Helm of Obedience
2x Diabolic Tutor
...or something to that effect.

EDIT: Based on some quick Apprentice goldfishing, the MD is potent. However, Jin will be very vulnerable most of the time, digging for SB cards is down to luck, and SB Leyline of the Void is auto-concede.

Wess

07-04-2011, 02:48 PM

Here's the recent decklist I went 4-0 on MTGO, and 9-0 at another tourney, the key differences over the standard reanimator lists are the inlcusion of Gitaxion probe and Cephalid Coliseum:

Gitaxion Probe: This card easily won me a lot of matches that would have otherwise been sketchy at best. Obviously, it cantrips, which improves the efficiency of your 16 land build, and can be pitched to FOW, but it really improves the vital decision making in the first turn, (what should I entomb for, does the opponent have swords, should i fetch for underground sea, or a basic? Should I combo out or wait for protection, should I play around daze...etc). Also, in my build, I run personal tutor SB with show and tell, so it allows you to personal tutor and draw the card in the same turn.

Cephalid Coliseum: I consistently had threshold by turn 3, it allowed me to cut the hapless researchers for this more powerful draw and discard. It really improves the midgame, and cancels out the opponents boarded in GY hate. So many game 2 and 3's when I knew the opponent was running crypt, or ROP, i didn't even board in pithing needle. They remove my gy, so what? I just activate cephalid coliseum, bin some new fatties and draw more reanimation.

Its also great against control decks and combo decks, where both of you quickly deplete your hands in counter wars, one activation can win you the game.

someguy604 (4-0)
Legacy Daily #2537021 on 07/03/2011

Main Deck

60 cards

2 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
16 lands

1 Blazing Archon
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
8 creatures

1 Animate Dead
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
3 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Force of Will
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Mental Misstep
4 Reanimate
36 other spells

Sideboard
1 Daze
3 Duress
1 Empyrial Archangel
2 Extirpate
2 Personal Tutor
2 Pithing Needle
1 Platinum Angel
2 Show and Tell
1 Turbulent Dreams
15 sideboard cards

Philipp2293

07-04-2011, 03:38 PM

They remove my gy, so what? I just activate cephalid coliseum, bin some new fatties and draw more reanimation.

Maybe I'm just not getting it, but how do you have threshold after they remove your gy?

Wess

07-05-2011, 03:58 PM

When they remove your gy, it will usually slow you down 2-3 turns. Refilling your gy for threshold on cephalid coliseum usually takes that long. That is if you don't entomb or careful study what you need as well. Siding in hate for their hate also slows you down, while also diluting the power of your deck, Their hate slows them down and dilutes their deck, so, mostly, I just don't bother.

Sturtzilla

07-06-2011, 12:08 AM

@ Monoblack Build

I like the list. The major problem you run with a monoblack build is lack of being able to protect your combo without losing speed. Sure you can reanimate turn one off of a dark rit, but you still need to be able to force your combo through. I think the list is viable, but the blue black build is superior due to the 3 "free" counters you can run.

@ Forum

Here is the last installment in my top three Garobidou list sample hand analysis. If you have questions, ask em!

Variant Three on the Draw
Game Turn Reanimated Quality Counter/Extra Reanimation Back Up Subsequent Reanimate
1 2 Jin/CS Daze/Reanimate Any Creature
2 3 Jin/HR MM/Reanimate/Exhume/Animate Dead Archon
3 2 Iona/CS FoW/FoW Any Creature
4 2 Jin/E FoW/FoW Any Creature
5 2 Archon/MD MM/Reanimate None
6 2 Jin/HR Daze/FoW None
7 2 Jin/E Daze/FoW/FoW/Reanimate/Reanimate Any Creature
8 2 Inkwell/HR Daze/Daze/MM/Animate Dead None
9 4 Jin/E MM/FoW/FoW Archon
10 2 Inkwell/HR Daze/Daze/FoW/Exhume/Animate Dead None
11 2 Jin/E Daze/FoW/FoW Any Creature
12 2 Jin/CS FoW Archon/Sphinx
13 2 Jin/E Daze Archon/Sphinx
14 2 Jin/HR Daze/FoW/Reanimate Any Creature
15 4 Jin/E FoW/FoW None
16 2 Jin/E MM/FoW/Reanimate Archon and Inkwell
17 3 Jin/CS FoW Sphinx
18 2 Jin/MD MM/Animate Dead Inkwell
19 2 Jin/E None Any Creature
20 2 Jin/E FoW/Reanimate/Reanimate Any Creature
21 2 Jin/HR MM/MM Sphinx/Inkwell
22 2 Jin/CS FoW Any Creature
23 2 Jin/CS FoW/Reanimate Any Creature
24 3 Jin/E Daze/MM/FoW None
25 2 Jin/E MM/Reanimate Sphinx
26 2 Jin/E MM/Reanimate Sphinx and Inkwell
27 2 Jin/HR MM/Reanimate Archon/Inkwell
28 2 Jin/E Daze/Reanimate Any Creature
29 2 Jin/HR MM/FoW Any Creature
30 6 Jin/HR Daze/MM/FoW Any Creature
31 3 Jin/E MM Any Creature
32 6 Jin/E MM/MM/MM/FoW/FoW Archon/Sphinx/Inkwell
33 2 Jin/E Daze/Exhume/Exhume/Exhume/Animate Dead Archon
34 4 Jin/CS MM/FoW/Reanimate Any Creature
35 3 Jin/MD MM/MM/Reanimate/Exhume Any Creature
36 2 Jin/HR FoW/Animate Dead/Animate Dead Any Creature
37 4 Jin/HR Daze/Animate Dead Any Creature
38 4 Jin/E MM None
39 2 Jin/E None Any Creature
40 2 Jin/CS Daze/Animate Dead/Exhume Any Creature
41 2 Jin/E Daze/Daze/Exhume Iona
42 2 Jin/CS Daze/MM/Exhume Sphinx
43 2 Jin/E FoW/FoW Any Creature
44 2 Jin/CS FoW/Exhume Any Creature
45 3 Jin/MD Animate Dead Sphinx
46 2 Jin/E MM/FoW/Reanimate Archon/Iona
47 5 Jin/HR Daze/MM/FoW/Reanimate/Exhume/Exhume Archon
48 2 Jin/HR MM/Daze/FoW/Reanimate/Animate Dead None
49 2 Jin/E MM Any Creature
50 2 Jin/E None Iona/Sphinx

So what I found in my testing.
Turn Reanimated: Number of Games
2:36
3:6
4:5
5:1
6:2

These values give us an average turn of reanimation of 2.54. When averaged with the stats for this build on the play we get 2.71. As for the final comparison, here are the stats:

Variant:Average Turn of Reanimation (Play and Draw Averaged)
1:2.59
2:2.61
3:2.71

These values show that, as Garobidou calculated, Variants 1-3 are in the correct order of quick reanimation consistency. Garobidou's model is probably more accurate than just running sample hands. I would also like to point out that each build was slightly quicker on the draw. That could be beneficial to know. I hope these posts have helped in some way. Enjoy.

RexFTW

07-06-2011, 01:40 PM

MirrorMask

07-07-2011, 05:32 AM

The best way to find out what deck is really best is to write a program that takes every possible hand, then plays it against every possible hand of another deck, deciding whether you win or lose the game with the optimal play.

This will give you the win rate against each deck. Then you can bring the build for the expected meta. You can also test the same way to determine the optimal sideboard plan against each deck. [/troll]

Funny fact: its not much trolling . There are computer programs for chess that do this. They analyze each player's actions and possible future choices in a cartain depth though. They ovbiously cannot calculate everything :P. The same algorythms can be used to calculate the best course of action in simpler games like tic tac toe etc.. So if you ever play mtg against a machine don't cry if you get beaten :P

theBloody

07-07-2011, 11:00 AM

@MirrorMask: bro, you forgot that this algorithms were made for games without any random factor. With some kind of randomness they lose their efectivity. Anyway program what RexFTW sugested could be helpful. But you with that "best" deck still require skills and luck. For me, i stay with reanimator. So much fun.[/OT]

MirrorMask

07-07-2011, 03:57 PM

hmm yeah your absolutely right. but maybe a "bit" altered? It will have to take into account a load of info though. Not possible atm i guess. Hell yeah! animator kicks ass!!! i ve been playing it for some time now and its just awesome! Its never boring to smash them with &^%@*%@ fatties

Wess

07-08-2011, 03:04 PM

Played in another MTGO daily, again went 4-0...tweaked my original list a bit:
+2 ponder
+1 Daze
+1Watery grave

-2 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Island
-1 Reanimate

Also...It That Betrays SB is great against land decks with fetch for maze and karakas, completely destroys them.

someguy604 (4-0)
Legacy Daily #2562893 on 07/08/2011

Main Deck

60 cards

2 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave
17 lands

1 Blazing Archon
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
7 creatures

4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Force of Will
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Mental Misstep
2 Ponder
4 Reanimate
36 other spells

Sideboard
3 Duress
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Extirpate
1 It That Betrays
2 Personal Tutor
3 Pithing Needle
1 Platinum Angel
2 Show and Tell
15 sideboard cards

Round 1: Not sure..he conceded on t2 Jin reanimation

Round 2: Glimpse/Artifact Combo
Game 1: Counter his stuff, reanimate Elesh for a lock
Game 2: With 12 draw spells and 4 tutors, I don't find anything for 4 turns :(
Game 3: Counter stuff, reanimate Elesh for the lock

Round 3: Hive Mind
In all my matches, I have yet to ever lose to Hive mind...almost an auto-win, we're faster, more consistent, and with more counters

Round 4: Burn
Game 1: Reanimate Iona Red
Game 2: Slow start, made the mistake of reanimating Jin....got run over by unearth creatures
Game 3: Smartened up and reanimated Sphinx ftw

As for SB plans....I hardly ever sideboard unless i really have to answer a threat or make a simple creature swap, I prefer not to dilute the explosiveness of the deck. I think for Hive mind...brought in platinum angel and 3 duress

lord09

07-08-2011, 03:17 PM

I like the idea of It that Betrays. Though Inkwell would probably do the trick as well.

How are the 8 reanimate spells working out for you?

I've been playing with Probe and like it a lot, though I tried 4 originally, I've moved to 3 to prevent some awkward opening hands.

How do you feel about 2?

Wess

07-08-2011, 03:35 PM

Gitaxian Probe is amazing when you have it in your opening hand, but not so good mid-late game, hence why I change it to a 2/2 split of ponder. Ponder is also better at hitting land drops, which is also why I went +1 land...almost every game I lost was due to mana-screw.

My opinion is that people are focusing way too much on the early game. My list has the same speed early game, however, it also has a much better mid-game due to the ponder + cephalid coliseum. Sometimes you have to mull to 6 or 5, and sometimes your hand gets blown out in a discard/counter war and you need to rebuild fast. Also, cephalid can't be countered with MM.

It That Betrays is better than Inkwell as with Inkwell, its always a race, and usually they will win. Whereas with the Eldrazi, they lose 3 permanents per turn (usually 2 lands + a creature blocking), and you get +2.

nastirth

07-08-2011, 04:57 PM

@ Wess

I have to disagree on a couple of things.

First, if probe is only good at opening hand, by reducing them to 2 you are reducing the chances of they appear in the first 7. So why play them? (I tested them last wednesdey, but they where never relevant. The only matchup where they could be, they didn't show up. I'll keep testing them until I see them in action in relevant matchups)

About focusing too much on the early game, I like to be as fast and consistent as possible. I don't want to have a mid game, but if I wanted I'd pretty much prefer playing with lim-dul's vault, because these can really put you back on track at any moment.

Also by playing less reduncance you'll get a lot more "speculative" hands, and I really hate those hands.

About the number of lands, I always played 16/17 (with some mana troubles) until I saw Garibodou's numbers. I'm running 18 now and loving it because it's a lot more consistent.

Now, cephalid coliseum and it that betrays are interesting cards. I'll give them a try next time, although coliseum will mess up the mana base a little.

About sideboarding what do you do against graveyard hate cards?

Keep posting your online results. I wish I had the possibilities to have the deck online too. :)

Wess

07-08-2011, 05:34 PM

@Nastirth

The 2 Gitaxian probe used to be 4, to be honest, the main reason that I dropped down to 2 was because playing it in MTGO, I started knowing the best players decks just by their id, so, some of its novelty is lost. 2 may seem random, but that + ponder makes 8 cantrips, which makes my 17 land mana base stronger.

My SB strategy for gy hate is just to ignore it, I know that sounds crazy, but try it, their hate is rarely ever relevant....consider, you are going to roll them game 1. Game 2, they could have instant gy hate (extirpate, surgical) OR artifact hate, so, its really dumb boarding in needles, or echoing truth game 2. I just make sure to keep a hand with counters in it.
For game 3, if they have very heavy gy hate, that's where the personal tutor+show and tell comes in....though, in 3 tourno's I have never used it. I always feel their gy hate slows them down more than it slows me down.
I only ever bring in Pithing needle against Karakas+Maze decks, and stoneforge+Jace decks, decks where the needles are shutting off more than just gy hate.

KevinTrudeau

07-08-2011, 06:25 PM

3 disruption is standard, with people choosing between duress, thoughtseize, dispel, spell pierce, misdirection and flusterstorm. The 2/2/2/2 package of needle, null rod, echoing truth and s&tell is also common. And usually at least 3 creatures are also present. These are 14 cards wich make a pretty standard sideboard. The 15th card is where I see more variation in terms of 4th disruption, 3rd needle, 3rd s&t, 4th creature. This probably should be the flex slot that adjusts your sb to your local metagame. But for the sb discussion I think we should settle the 15th sideboard card to help building a sideboarding strategy guide. In this case we should think about a sb for a big tournament field where you need to be the most flexible. My opinion goes towards the 4th creature or the 3rd needle. What do you guys think?

I completely agree with having that as a sideboard template. To reiterate:

2 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod
2 Echoing Truth
2 Show and Tell
3 forms of disruption/countermagic - Thoughtseize, Duress, Flusterstorm, Spell Pierce, Misdirection, or Dispel
3 reanimation targets - a way to deal with problem permanents, Elesh Norn, and a flex slot
1 flex slot

I don't think I have enough experience with the deck yet to write out a quality guide to sideboarding, but I do know enough to give out a few pointers. Here's the list I've been playing (it's the list that has the highest chance of reanimating something by turn three according to Garobidou's statistics while still having four copies of Brainstorm):

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Snow-covered Island
1 Snow-covered Swamp

4 Careful Study
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead

1 Hapless Researcher
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Blazing Archon
1 flex slot reanimation creature (I've been playing a second Sphinx, but I don't know if that's right)

4 Entomb
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze

Sideboard- same as the template, with Terastodon, Elesh Norn, and Iona as the creatures, Thoughtseize as the disruption, and a third Pithing Needle as the flex slot

After game one, I'll 99% of the time put in both copies of Show and Tell (which benefit from the eighteen lands) in place of two copies of Exhume and/or Animate Dead; it's usually Animate Dead, but against something like Merfolk, I'll take out two Exhume because Cursecatcher can't counter AD.

Against decks that utilize maindeck artifacts (like Æther Vial, for example) that I suspect will bring in Relic or Crypt, I skip putting in Pithing Needle altogether and just put in both Null Rods, in place of a Hapless Researcher and the most useless reanimation target. I bring in Pithing Needle in those slots otherwise, especially against Knight of the Reliquary decks because of Karakas. If I suspect at all that the opponent will have Leyline of the Void, Echoing Truth goes in that slot.

Less useful targets get subbed for useful ones (Inkwell Leviathan out, Elesh Norn in vs. Elves, for example).

Game two I'll usually swap Dazes for Thoughtseizes, but that's not a given. Game three depends, but I've found myself usually leaving Seize in.

Sturtzilla

07-12-2011, 12:58 PM

I like the idea of It that Betrays. Though Inkwell would probably do the trick as well.

For a short period of time I was running one It That Betrays. There are times when he can be amazing. However the fact that he can be targeted and killed by a lot of the removal (specifically StP and PtE) in the format makes him not so good. His benefit simply doesn't outweight his potential liabilities in my mind. Creatures like Iona and Jin if played early, most of the time will mean a blowout. Because of their high reward they are worth risking playing and protecting with counter magic. Hell, we have Inkwell (with Shroud), Blazing Archon, Sphinx, and more in the board that are untargetable by Karakas. Learn to see that shit coming and/or play around it.

These next few go out specifically to nastirth and Wess, but I guess if anyone else has an intelligent answer I will consider it.

First, if probe is only good at opening hand, by reducing them to 2 you are reducing the chances of they appear in the first 7. So why play them?

Better Question: Why play them at all? This deck doesn't need a mana-free, life-costing cantrip. We are already using life as a resource. Sure you can see what they have but is that necessary? I think it seems gimmicky and lackluster at best.

early game

Why would you want to reduce your speed with this deck. Most of the time if you can land a turn 2 or 3 dude you simply win the game. I know it isn't always that straight forward. However if you land an Iona or Jin later (during your so-called-midgame), you lose some of the potential benefit that either reanimation target could have granted to you. Even with your beaters, if they hit play later than turn 2-3 they should meet a higher resistance. This generally makes it harder to seize victory. I guess my overall point here would be, we should be aiming for swift consistency, not mid-game. You can feel free to disagree with me, but my build will win out since I will reanimated something faster. : )

Also by playing less reduncance you'll get a lot more "speculative" hands, and I really hate those hands.

This is absolutely true. In my playtesting of my original variant (with 4 Brainstorms) I would get way more hands with a BS or two over the builds the Garobidou had ran numbers on. These give you a false sense of security. I mean that you will think that you can dig to hit whatever you need. Well, frankly, that happened about 50% of the games I needed it too. So don't overvalue your draw engine cards. Sometime playing more combo pieces is better, go figure logic like that for a combo deck.

About the number of lands, I always played 16/17 (with some mana troubles) until I saw Garibodou's numbers. I'm running 18 now and loving it because it's a lot more consistent.

I have recently been retesting my original variant with the 4 brainstorms and 17 lands. There were dramatic differences on how often I had to mulligan and how often I got stuck on one land. I am sold on 18 lands for the moment.

If I come across as harsh... too bad. This is a combo deck and being fast and consistent is what we should be aiming for. Sure it should have some flexibility but consistent speed is key here. If you disagree, enjoy your middle of the pack rankings and your midgame.

KevinTrudeau

07-13-2011, 01:12 AM

Sturtzilla

07-13-2011, 01:19 PM

Exactly, the point of the deck is to reanimate a fatty as soon as possible (in a mindful fashion) and ride it to victory while the opponent is still developing their hand/board. If you let the game advance to turn four, a lot of the time turn three even, without having done anything, your chances of winning usually decrease by a significant margin.

I am glad to hear that you agree. I have been playing various versions of this deck for quite some time. One thing that I have learned is: the faster you get a dude on the table, the more likely it is that you will win. So again, quick consistency is what we should be trying to improve in this deck.

I'm only a Verdant Catacombs, 1-2 Sphinx, 2 Exhumes, and 3 Thoughtseizes away from completing the deck! I'll definitely post some tourney reports once I have it finished, though my list will likely have -1 U. Sea for +1 Scalding Tarn, since I only have 3 Seas.

Sounds awesome! Good luck on finding the rest of the cards you are looking for (I have a Catacombs and a Sphinx that would love to have a loving player and a Reanimator deck to fit into; I just bought nearly the entire deck in foil... it looks awesome but might have been an unnecessary expense).

Honestly you can probably survive with 3 Seas as long as you run an extra fetch land. It is a rare case when you need more than 3 land. It is rare that you will see 4 Wastelands on your opponent's side as well. I have been play testing against Goblins (it is a friend's favorite deck), even with Ridishan Ports in play, usually hitting the third land is where the game turns to our favor. Furthermore, I did a small amount of testing with Darkslick Shores. It shows promising results; however, you can't fetch for it or return it to your hand to pay Daze's alternate casting cost. On the plus side, your opponent can't get islandwalk on you with it in play... take that you pesky Merfolks!

death

07-14-2011, 12:41 AM

I believe build#1's mana base hasn't been addressed before, although initially it may look like

1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
12 fetch

I would presume 8 fetch + 4 Gemstone Mine will be more appealing than say, 4 Darkslick Shores since this deck only plays business spells and almost no cantrips at all and lands are tapped on an average of 3~ per game. More than that means you are heading into mid-game (t4 onwards) and most likely not winning the match anyway. The mines doesn't make much of a difference with Darkslick Shores which is a dead land on turn 4.

Even 8 fetch + 4 Underground River may be a better option than Darkslick Shores if you don't want to stick with 12 fetchlands.

Although I personally wouldn't run less than 4 basics, just want to throw some ideas on what the ideal mana base *should* look like.

somethingdotdotdot

07-14-2011, 04:34 AM

Well I think the thing that makes darkslick shores better is that oftentimes when its your first or second land, its essentially the same as an underground sea. The other options all cost you life, which isn't ideal when you often lose 10 to reanimate. As for gemstone mines, in my opinion, its strictly worse than darkslick shores in this deck. The highest mana cost in the deck is 2 anyways, so it comes into play tapped when you don't really need that mana immediately (only reason would be vs daze/cursecatcher i suppose). But when you have a hand with just gemstone mine as your first land, it will likely be gone before the second or third reanimate spell fires off.

As for using more basics, I've tried going 2 swamp/2 island, but it often just felt like i would end up w/ a basic when i needed a dual/fetch and so i either had to keep the hand hoping to draw into a black/blue source or mulligan.

Sturtzilla

07-14-2011, 08:50 AM

Garobidou has addressed the number one build's mana base a while back. The math that was posted suggested that running more than 1 swamp and 1 island will cause the pilot to lose speed and consistency due to the inability to make the color of mana needed. I know that is a bit counter intuitive. I would prefer to run, say 2, of each basic, but this limits your color production. This can cost you games. I guess on the other hand, you should consider how many games you would lose to say Wasteland. In my play testing, it that hasn't been an issue. I lose lands here and there, due to Wasteland, yet since this deck only really needs 2-3 lands to function, it rarely matters.

Darkslick Shores is decent because it comes into play untapped when you would need it to be untapped. The drawback of coming into play tapped doesn't really matter. By the time you have the lands, a tapped Darkslick is inconsequential. I am of the opinion that it is strictly better than Gemstone Mine for this deck.

I am not a fan of running the pain land simply because we are already hurting ourselves a heck of a lot with fetches and reanimates... I would not run them. It is basically like asking to get burned out by Zoo, No RUG, and/or Burn. Man, it is scary enough to go down to 8-10 life on a turn two reanimate just because you fetched. I think it is suicide to add additional life loss beyond that to this list. You still need to play after you land Jin (or your other primo fatty). Having pain lands doesn't help that proposition.

My mana base currently is as follows:

4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats

AriLax

07-14-2011, 09:04 AM

practical joke

07-14-2011, 09:38 AM

KevinTrudeau

07-14-2011, 12:52 PM

4 is the correct number of Underground Sea in a strict B/U version. Even if you know your opponent is packing Wastelands, you should still be fetching Seas a vast majority of the time in the early goings, because you still want to be able to tap for U on turn one (Careful Study), then BB on turn 2 (Reanimate, second Reanimate because the first one got countered) if needed; playing around Wasteland by wantonly fetching basics in the early game will cause you to lose games, as will running more than one of each basic. You shouldn't be fetching basics until you know you're headed for a longer game and your opponent plays Wasteland/Wasteland recursion or some other form of LD. I'd say having five lands that actually tap for mana (2 basics plus 3 Seas) would be the absolute bare minimum for this deck, because if your opponent had three pieces of disruption in the early game (Misstep, FoW, Swords for example), then Wastes a Sea or two, you want to be able to have as many lands as possible when you set up your combo turn, three-four so you can potentially Thoughtseize+Show and Tell.

For budget versions, Darkslick Shores is definitely the way to go; the drawback from playing it as your fourth land is inconsequential.

Sturtzilla

07-14-2011, 04:25 PM

You don't need or want 4 Underground Sea. Your mana is good enough to cast cards that cost U and B or 1B without having every land you put into play be Wasteland vulnerable. Fetches can get duals when you need them and basics when you don't. The correct number for this deck is 2 Underground Sea.

By that logic, I should only play 1 Entomb and 1 Reanimate, because I will eventually draw them. That is horrible logic. I don't normally want or need more than one of either of those spells, but building in redundency to the deck improves how consistent it will function. Underground Sea is a 4 of in this deck. Sure you can play it with fewer U.Seas, but you really shouldn't. Only a cheap-ass-fuck or someone who has no play experience with this deck would claim otherwise.

I agree.....
you only need fetch + 4 lands, 1 basic of each type +2 seas. you could add a single bayou instead of a fetch in case of sideboard cards (i.e. nature's claim or xantid swarm)

Sure you can run on that many, but redundency is good. It improves consistency. See above.

4 is the correct number of Underground Sea in a strict B/U version. Even if you know your opponent is packing Wastelands, you should still be fetching Seas a vast majority of the time in the early goings, because you still want to be able to tap for U on turn one (Careful Study), then BB on turn 2 (Reanimate, second Reanimate because the first one got countered) if needed; playing around Wasteland by wantonly fetching basics in the early game will cause you to lose games, as will running more than one of each basic. You shouldn't be fetching basics until you know you're headed for a longer game and your opponent plays Wasteland/Wasteland recursion or some other form of LD.

Thank you for posting something that was considered and intelligent. You clearly have a decent understanding of why you need to find that 4th Underground Sea for your build.

death

07-14-2011, 10:48 PM

I think what Ari meant to say is you wouldn't need 4 Seas in play. As this deck can live with just an Island, Swamp and a Sea the entire game. However if we limit ourselves to 2 Seas + 2 basics, that would mean we must run 13 fetchlands to bring the land count to 17 which is somewhat ridiculous in terms of life loss. In case an opponent manages to Waste both of your Seas, that will also shut you off from casting multiple spells (entombs or reanimate in response to a crypt activation or mental misstep) in a single turn. A complete set of duals will only render the manabase stable and pain-free.

I think 4 basics is not a terrible idea, it will forgo unnecessary lifeloss. Besides drawing both Islands or Swamps (no fetch or Sea) is unlikely. Which brings us to my tweaked mana base

4 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Delta
2 Catacombs
2 Rainforests

somethingdotdotdot

07-15-2011, 07:59 AM

I'm no expert on this deck, but honestly, I feel like my draws have become a lot stronger ever since I started running 2 basics instead of 4. When i was running 4, I used to have a lot of starting hands with island as only source and all the necessary reanimation materials. And by keeping that hand, i often died to not drawing a black source. I think the thing is, I only ever want 1 basic on the field--just enough mana to drop the underground and cast an exhume/animate dead.

wcm8

07-15-2011, 08:35 AM

Kinderschreck

07-15-2011, 09:21 AM

Sorry if my question might sound stupid but:

Why aren't you playing any creatures that survives karakas, Swords to Plowshares and the removal list goes on.
Since today everyone plays Maze of Ith and removal options.
Legacy was maybe never so filled with removal for creatures than it's today.

alderon666

07-15-2011, 09:56 AM

AriLax

07-15-2011, 10:29 AM

By that logic, I should only play 1 Entomb and 1 Reanimate, because I will eventually draw them. That is horrible logic. I don't normally want or need more than one of either of those spells, but building in redundency to the deck improves how consistent it will function. Underground Sea is a 4 of in this deck. Sure you can play it with fewer U.Seas, but you really shouldn't. Only a cheap-ass-fuck or someone who has no play experience with this deck would claim otherwise.

Sure you can run on that many, but redundency is good. It improves consistency. See above.

I think you might want to play with 1 Reanimate if you had a card that cost 1 life and 0 mana to tutor for it or Exhume, your choice depending on scenario (like a fetch land). In fact, you may even want to as it's definitely a card that can be actively bad in some scenarios (like an Underground Sea).

And, if you care to resort to flaming insults, I probably have more good experience with UB combo than the vast majority of people and can summon up a play set of any Legacy card for an event (bar Juzam and Rolling Earthquake) given 6 hours notice. Neither play experience or budget has any bearing on me teaching you this important lesson about how to build a real mana base.

4 is the correct number of Underground Sea in a strict B/U version. Even if you know your opponent is packing Wastelands, you should still be fetching Seas a vast majority of the time in the early goings, because you still want to be able to tap for U on turn one (Careful Study), then BB on turn 2 (Reanimate, second Reanimate because the first one got countered) if needed; playing around Wasteland by wantonly fetching basics in the early game will cause you to lose games, as will running more than one of each basic. You shouldn't be fetching basics until you know you're headed for a longer game and your opponent plays Wasteland/Wasteland recursion or some other form of LD. I'd say having five lands that actually tap for mana (2 basics plus 3 Seas) would be the absolute bare minimum for this deck, because if your opponent had three pieces of disruption in the early game (Misstep, FoW, Swords for example), then Wastes a Sea or two, you want to be able to have as many lands as possible when you set up your combo turn, three-four so you can potentially Thoughtseize+Show and Tell.

For the times in the world I have and need double Reanimate, I will fetch my Sea (or the more realistic Entomb + Reanimate after you Ponder/Study on one). For every other time, I have a fetch land that isn't a Wasteland targetable non-basic. This is even more emphasized by the shift towards Animate Deads due to Misstep, meaning you need 1B on two much more than you need BB or UU.

Somethingdotdotdot: It is possible then that instead of keeping that hand, you should mulligan. If your land was a Sea instead, the odds of your opponent having Wasteland to kill you are probably the same as the odds of you missing a black source in time to win.

It is definitely possible the deck still wants minimal basics with a bunch of fetches though. You just don't want Sea as you are already land light and can't afford to get Stone Rained pretty much ever.
\

death:

You add more basics, which causes 1 problem, but keep the Seas, not solving another. Try one or the other, not both.

death

07-15-2011, 10:32 AM

@Kinderschreck
Karakas won't hit all our creatures (Inky, Archon, Sphinx, Stormtide, Terastodon). Against Swords there's always Inky, Iona on white and Jin + Misstep. Against a Maze of Ith (KotR builds) there is Inky, and I bet a resolved Jin will mean GG since a single maze can't stop a horde of fatties. I agree Maze of Ith is getting popular, but only as a go-to card of KotR. We have yet to see the rise of 4 Maze.decs.

@AriLax, care to share us your mana base?

KevinTrudeau

07-15-2011, 01:56 PM

I think Darkslick Shores are worth considering running in addition to Underground Sea.

My manabase:
4 Underground Sea
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats

There is some slight tension with the use of Daze, but I feel like consistent access to both colors is often more important than the Wasteland-proofing that additional fetches provide. I use black fetches because I typically want the basic Swamp more often than the Island.

Having ten lands that tap for mana is completely unnecessary. If you replace the Darkslick Shores with four additional fetchlands, you'll have virtually the same manabase, except one that is Daze-friendly. Reanimator's goal is to reanimate something as quickly as possible, with as many answers for the opponent's disruption as possible; the deck can often overcome two pieces of disruption in the early game (two pieces of countermagic for example, or countermagic+Swords to Plowshares), so by weakening the consistency of casting Daze, you're taking away a huge facet of the deck. The pain from fetchlands should be an accepted loss in this deck, as it should in all of Legacy. Shores should only see play in budget versions of the deck.

For the times in the world I have and need double Reanimate, I will fetch my Sea (or the more realistic Entomb + Reanimate after you Ponder/Study on one). For every other time, I have a fetch land that isn't a Wasteland targetable non-basic. This is even more emphasized by the shift towards Animate Deads due to Misstep, meaning you need 1B on two much more than you need BB or UU.

While this deck is a U/B combo deck, its philosophy is a lot different than the U/B Tendrils deck you've been popularizing over the past year. I understand and agree with fetching basics in that version of Storm because its foundation needs to remain intact in order to go off after cantripping into business in the early game, but this deck needs to go off as soon as possible because the effectiveness of all of the reanimation targets diminishes rather quickly after turn three, sometimes even after turn two. By playing around Wasteland by fetching basics, you'll often times be forced to wait a turn to cast everything you'd need to go off, and that can lose the game right then and there. I'm not saying that you should blindly fetch Sea every game (for instance, I'll likely fetch Swamp if my opener lacks Daze and contains a single black fetchland, Entomb and Reanimate, and I'll fetch both basics if I can assuredly cast an Exhume on turn two and have exactly two fetchlands), but fetching multiple Underground Sea is usually better against Wasteland than fetching only basics, or a combination of basics and duals; the principle behind that statement is outlined rather elegantly, or at least more elegantly than I can detail right now, in Dave Price's mini-article in the comments section of one of Steve Birklid's articles on why everyone should play more basics on CF:

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/sweeping-ice-and-other-important-topics-magical-christmas-basic-land/

Price is mainly referring three color manabases, but I still think his exposition rings true in a two color deck such as this.

Lastly, Animate Dead isn't being played because of Misstep, it's being played because it's been statistically shown (via an algorithm Garobidou crafted a few pages back) that having additional two-mana reanimation spells increases the goldfish of the deck, and Animate Dead just so happens to be the best candidate.

Wess

07-15-2011, 03:04 PM

Karakas is a huge problem, because this deck CANNOT, with any consistency, win without its Legendary creatures.

This decks modus operandi is putting a game-breaking creature on the board, the non-legendary creatures are just sub-par, they will not win you the game. In rare situations, against some slow, non-competitive decks maybe a Sphinx might win a race, but that's it.
This is especially so in the stoneforge-batterskull era, and the fact that every deck now plays unfair cards (green sun zenith, hive mind, stoneforge, painters, kuldotha...etc.

That is the reason for the Eldrazi...if you're going to race your opponent, its helpful to steal their permanents.

....i'm so tired of losing to a luck-sack 1st turn Karakas...so maybe I'm a bit bitter

Kinderschreck

07-15-2011, 04:25 PM

I played mono B reanimate some time ago (3-4 years *lol*).
Even then you wanted creatures with shroud, protection from X (mostly white and blue) or hexproof (I know, I know it wasn't called hexproof that time).
I don't think this situation has changed much, since I see some kind of removal in each deck and each color (even green got Beast within)
Inkwell Leviathan should be played 4x.
The predators are strong, I agree but still that strong? They'll eat removal as hell without Iona...
You might have some counterback up, put it costs you life again. And before you got to know what is happening you'll get killed by a lightning bolt (happend to me that time).

Sturtzilla

07-15-2011, 09:00 PM

And, if you care to resort to flaming insults, I probably have more good experience with UB combo than the vast majority of people and can summon up a play set of any Legacy card for an event (bar Juzam and Rolling Earthquake) given 6 hours notice. Neither play experience or budget has any bearing on me teaching you this important lesson about how to build a real mana base.

Dude, try reading the rest of the forum (let's say the last 5-10 pages, at very least). We have recently discussed multiple mana bases for this deck. And moreover many very similar deck configurations of varying single copies of cards. We have done this to see how it would change the speed and consistency of deck. Since you are so skilled at playing UB combo, you should know that the speed of your combo and its ability to be consistently played and both paramount. So maybe you should read the forum before you try to spout off some grand logic.

Four is still the correct number to play. That is what people posting results with this deck run. It improves consistency and your long game. I try to avoid long game but against some decks multiple copies are needed to combat wastelands or attrition based strategies. If you think 2 is good enough enjoy playing with 2. Thanks for the lesson on mana base construction.

This is even more emphasized by the shift towards Animate Deads due to Misstep, meaning you need 1B on two much more than you need BB or UU.

Dude people were testing out Animate Dead even before Mental Misstep hit the scene. Sure, it gives us more outs versus the MM heavy meta. However, this was being tried to fix the inconsistent nature of the deck before the printing of Jin (which helped a ton) and MM.

Wess

07-20-2011, 12:57 PM

MTGO Daily 4-0 Report

Main Deck

60 cards

1 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave
17 lands

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Sundering Titan
8 creatures

2 Animate Dead
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
3 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Ponder
3 Reanimate
35 other spells

Sideboard
1 Blazing Archon
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Extirpate
2 Flusterstorm
1 It That Betrays
3 Pithing Needle
1 Platinum Angel
15 sideboard cards

Match 1 - Dredge

Game 1- T2 Entomb-Reanimate Elesh Norn for the hard-lock.
Game 2- T1 Careful Study, T2 Animate Dead for hard-lock
SB: -4 FOW, -2Gin / +3 Extirpate, +1 Elesh, +1Eldrazi, +1Platinum Angel

Match 2 - BUG Jace Control (Not Landstill)

Game1: These were tough games, he ran: thoughtsieze, daze, mm, force, vendillion, Ssords, Jace miandeck...leyline of the void and meddling mage side.
1st game, I blew him out with a T2 Jin-Gitaxis after a mental misstep battle, I also had Force backup

SB: +2 Chain of Vapor, +1 Echoing Truth, +1 Eldrazi / -1 Sphinx, -1 Animate dead, -1Titan, -1 Watery Grave

Game 2: Open up with fast careful study + animate dead on Eldrazi....he swords it. I think he then thoughtsiezed. Then he lands Dark Confidant, Jace, and hardcast Leyline.

Game 3: T2 Gin, I believe he mulled down to 6 to get Leyline, but didn't. (BTW. Leyline is really bad against Reanimator).

Match 3 - ANT

Game 1: Him: Thoughtsieze Me: MM...entomb, reanimate.

SB: +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Platinum / -1 Elesh, -1Titan, -1 Careful Study

Game 2: He duress' and thoughtseize my reanimation spell, my deck stalls out for 12 cards in a row, can't find another to reanimate the Jin waiting in the bin.

Game 3: He aggressively mulls, not sure why, maybe he was running leyline? He attempts thoughtsieze, which meets mm. He then plays 2 Xantid swarms, a diamond and petal. Meanwhile I reanimate an army of Iona, Platinum angel, and Jin.

Match 4 -Hive Mind

Game 1: I have yet to ever lose a single match to hive mind...almost an auto-win.
In short, Jin blows him out.
SB, He brings in Leyline of the Void, and aggressively mulls into it...against Hive mind, I usually never side in anti-gy hate. +2 Flusterstorm, +3 Extirpate, +1Platinum, +1 Blazin Archon / -3 Entomb, -2 Reanimate, -2 Exhume
My strategy here is to sculpt my hand..let their show and tell resolve, drop a fatty, then counter their pacts...works everytime.
Plan B would be to hardcast a Platinum Angel, which I have also done more than once.

Usually, Hive Mind only runs ravenous trap in SB, in which case, I only bring in Flusterstorm, and combo off faster than them. This was one of the rare decks that has LOTV in the sb.

Sturtzilla

07-20-2011, 07:17 PM

Lastly, Animate Dead isn't being played because of Misstep, it's being played because it's been statistically shown (via an algorithm Garobidou crafted a few pages back) that having additional two-mana reanimation spells increases the goldfish of the deck, and Animate Dead just so happens to be the best candidate.

Pros:
Additional reanimation spells (increases consistency)
No cost of life (awesome with Jin)
Great post-Jin (you can still reanimate dudes without your opponent getting anything [see Exhume])
Can steal opposing binned creatures

Cons:
It can be disenchanted... (nearly a non-point seeing as you will likely see more creature removal than enchantment removal)

Karakas is a huge problem, because this deck CANNOT, with any consistency, win without its Legendary creatures. This decks modus operandi is putting a game-breaking creature on the board, the non-legendary creatures are just sub-par, they will not win you the game. In rare situations, against some slow, non-competitive decks maybe a Sphinx might win a race, but that's it. This is especially so in the stoneforge-batterskull era, and the fact that every deck now plays unfair cards (green sun zenith, hive mind, stoneforge, painters, kuldotha...etc.

I am sorry but you are arguing apples and oranges here. Sure lots of decks in Legacy are unfair. Look at the forum you are in. Reanimator is unfair as fuck, that is why people play it. Here is my issue with your post, you are arguing the weaknesses of the deck from both angles without being critical of the opposing deck in question. Your post seems to assume that the pilot of the Reanimator deck will always pick the wrong creature for the match up being played.

My point, if we see a deck like Hive Mind, Painted Stone, Storm, or other quick combo, we can resolve Jin or Iona on turn 2-3 and likely win. Why is this you ask? These targets are designed to serve this function. Moreover these decks don't run Karakas (your next point), which makes these safe targets. On the other end of the spectrum, decks with Karakas can be managed with non-legendary creatures or just countering KotR. Batterskull is silly. Sphinx blocks him all day long, while still netting damage. Archon or Stormtide stop him dead. A fast Jin or Iona can ensure that it doesn't hit play. This deck doesn't just run legendary creatures. A turn 2-3 Sphinx, Inkwell, or Archon/Stormtide will generally win a game. Sure it wouldn't be as consistent hitting a Jin or Iona, since most builds are running more copies of these guys. Game 2-3 you can board in Pithing Needle to stop Karakas.

In my testing, I have played a good bit against G/W and Junk. These are both decks that run KotR and can run Karakas. My testing has been positive. This is because you can always hit a non-legendary creature. Sphinx really shines since it can block Goyfs and KotR all day, while gaining you life. Your counter package goes to combat removal in these match ups, seeing as they wont be able to counter what you are setting up. Furthermore, Karakas is usually a one of that is tutored for with KotR. This is normally slower than our combo. So, if you pull off a fast Jin, you should take the game. Or... you could just counter the KotR. It has never been a problem for me. Then again, I don't walk into Karakas.

menace13

07-21-2011, 02:38 AM

Reanimator has been doing well on MTGO lately.
Recent MTGO lists.

Top 8 winning list

2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Verdant Catacombs

1 Angel of Despair
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Sundering Titan

4 Animate Dead
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
2 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Ponder
3 Reanimate

Sideboard
1 Blazing Archon
1 Daze
1 Echoing Truth
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Grave Titan
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Null Rod
2 Pithing Needle
4 Show and Tell

Daily event 4-0

1 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Sundering Titan

2 Animate Dead
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
3 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Ponder
3 Reanimate

Sideboard
1 Blazing Archon
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Extirpate
2 Flusterstorm
1 It That Betrays
3 Pithing Needle
1 Platinum Angel

Wess

07-21-2011, 12:42 PM

Yeah, that's my list that I posted 2 posts up:tongue: The other one is PTPaul's.

Not that many people play Reanimator on MTGO, when I play it, I almost always go 4-0, or 3-1. The deck is very strong on MTGO not only because its a fast, consistent, well-protected combo...but it hoses Hive Mind, which is the dominant combo deck that you play against at least once every tournament.

The only change I'm going to make to the maindeck is another Elesh Norn...she is just so good in the format.

Its a hard-lock against: Merfolk, Dredge, Goblins, Painter, Cephalid Breakfast
Soft-lock against: Stoneforge, Landstill, Bant Decks, BUG, Thopters, Faeiries/Ninja

Basically, the only decks that she's bad against is combo, which are good matchups for us anyways with 4 Jin-Gitaxis and 11 free counters.

menace13

07-21-2011, 03:02 PM

Wess

07-21-2011, 03:29 PM

menace13

07-21-2011, 03:35 PM

Ok...so I've only ever 4-0'd with Reanimator :tongue:

I've only played on mtgo for the last 3 weeks, and have played various decks (thopter/counter balance, zenith zoo, erayo-thopter)...and of course do not play every day. Not sure what the 50% win rate is about...if it only counts tourno's, or casual. because you can't quit games in MTGO (at least I don't know how), you have to click "concede" to end the match, or drop. Either way...I would say the win rate with Reanimator is 70-80%.
It only counts Dailies and Premiers. No way to count casual games.

You right click on the screen concede game or can quit match both options are on the right click menu. You have entered 14 events this year( don't know which event with what deck as the stats for that are only for placing lists) and placed 4 times, 3 4-0s with Reanimator and 1 3-1 with Countertop.

Wess

07-21-2011, 03:41 PM

Cool...that's what I thought. Honestly, reanimator is just a crazy good deck to play in legacy right now. When I played in the online tourno's, half the time is just for fun, and play with my Erayo deck to try and tune it...when I want to win, I always load the reanimator deck up.

...the countertop deck sucked, was fun to play though

~Wess

Edit: ...stats site is awesome, thanks for the link. Didn't know all of my events are public...guess I will have to only play competative decks now..lol

This makes complete sense now...whenever you start a match, your opponent always take 1 minute+ to respond...what they are doing is looking your deck up on mtgstats...crazy

menace13

07-21-2011, 03:44 PM

Cool...that's what I thought. Honestly, reanimator is just a crazy good deck to play in legacy right now. When I played in the online tourno's, half the time is just for fun, and play with my Erayo deck to try and tune it...when I want to win, I always load the reanimator deck up.

...the countertop deck sucked, was fun to play though

~Wess
Yeah, GY strats are looking good online now and honestly Show and Tell plan with Reanimator is busted good against almost anything. You can check the stats from MTGSTATS.com(Players stats, meta stats). Good Luck.

Benke

07-21-2011, 06:26 PM

Hi,
Im running a failry standard reanimator deck, and it works good exept vs graveyard hate. In my sideboard I have Show and Tells, Pithing Needles and echoing truths to deal with this.
The problem is, I dont know when to side what in, and what to remove? Which decks do "in general" have greaveyard hate in their sideboard?

All good /Benke

defector

07-22-2011, 03:12 PM

Every deck should be running GY hate of some kind in the board. If your meta has a lot of Dredge or Goyfs then people will be packing more. The rule for boarding is put all fifteen cards in your deck and the remove the worst fifteen. The best way to figure that out is to play test your list and those match ups as much as you can. If you start cringing whenever you draw a certain card then its a good candidate to get boarded out. If you only need to resolve one reanimation effect on one target once to win then you may want to reduce the creature density. Each match up will board in different ways, but you really have to test to know.

Mr. Froggy

07-23-2011, 12:32 PM

I have a pretty "stock" Reanimator build running Jin & Co. but was wondering since I already spent a bunch of money on the deck, does using Spell Pierce over Force of Will make much of a difference? I run Daze though, but I don't want to spend $75+ on one FoW. If I HAVE to run it, I'll see what I can do.

nastirth

07-23-2011, 07:42 PM

@Froggy

Yep, FoW is very important because you don't need mana to cast it. You usually don't have a lot of mana to work with, and you want to go as fast as possible.

@ Forum

Which leads me to a "crazy" thing I did last week. I wasn't getting much paper training so I downloaded mtgo v3, and logged in with my account (i didn't log in since v2.5 ended). I had a pretty nice account by that time, so I did some business and got around 800 tix just by selling stuff I didnt need. "Ok, this must be enough to buy a couple of decks" I thought. Until I saw FoW prices: 125 tix each! So what did I do? Forget about mtgo and cash in, as any wise guy would do? Of course not! Just spent 500 tix on FoW and now I have a reanimator deck online too... :eek:

This is the version I'm running on both sides:

3 Jin-Gitaxias
1 Elesh Norn
1 Iona
1 Inkwell
1 Sphinx
1 Archon
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
3 Animate Dead
4 Entomb
4 Careful Study
2 Hapless Researcher
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Flooded Strand

My main deck is garobidou's #2, but I replaced the 2 brainstorms for 2 lim-dul's vault. My reasoning is that 2 brainstorms is a bit random. If you want to play with brainstorms play with 4 and go for a "slower" version like wess's. LDV fits perfectly in that 2 slots. It is a card that I don't want to see multiples of in my opening hand, but if I have one, and I'm missing a piece, then I know that I *will* reanimate on the 3rd turn. This makes this version much more consistent than with the 2 brainstorms.
The problem with this "aggressive" versions is that they are awesome agaist all decks except for control decks with a good pack of permission/disruption. What happens is that if your key spells are nullified then you'll have much more trouble rebuilding than with a version like wess's one. LDV can help doing that, but as far as my limited testing is done, it has not been enough.

I'm not yet into tournaments because I want to get confortable with MTGO v3 interface first. However I've been playing in tournament practice room and have good results agaisnt most of the decks except for more controllish one or crazy decks with leyline mainboard. Another thing that hit me bad was a 1st turn blood moon, but that only happened once.

My sideboard online has a slight difference from my paper one because null rods cost 42 tix each and i've already made a crazy buy for a couple years to come :)

3 Duress
3 Show and Tell
4 Pithing Needle
2 Echoing Truth
1 Terastodon
1 Iona
1 Empyrial Archangel

I'm not sure about the 4th needle. Other than that I think I already used all the others, but I'll have to do a lot more testing to have a better grasp of what do sideboard and how to sideboard. Fortunately with mtgo I will able to test more frequently. :smile:

Mr. Froggy

07-24-2011, 01:09 PM

I'm thinking of removing Sphinx of the Steel Wind because I haven't found as useful as his other friends. Also, from testing, I noticed that Jin doesn't tend to stay too long. (still need to buy FoWs :'() I'm also wondering if I should go down to 3 instead of 4.
Thoughts?
EDIT:
Testing So Far:
GW/x Maverick: 1-2
Enchantress: 2-0
Junk (decks that don't fall into "categories"): 1-1

Rampart

07-24-2011, 07:35 PM

If you cannot afford FOW's you can sub Misdirection's for it. Misdirection is not nearly as good as FOW but really is the best sub for it as it is basically a free counter most of the time. IMHO the sphinx is not replaceable, it destroys zoo and junk style decks as well as being good against every aggro matchup.

nastirth

07-25-2011, 06:13 AM

@Froggy

Regarding Jin, that's another reason why you need FoW. After reanimating Jin you need to protect it for the next turn. By having FoW and Mental Misstep as "free" counterspells you have good chances of protecting him until your opponents end step. After that, it's easy. I agree with rampart, if you cannot afford FoW try Missdirection (I had them for a while before I got my set of FoWs).
As for Sphinx I would advise against removing it. It's gg in certain matchups, like zoo and goblins, or any creature based deck in general. With Sphinx on the table you just need to save your disruption to nullify the oppo's spot removal.

Moondancerbb

07-25-2011, 02:33 PM

practical joke

07-25-2011, 08:37 PM

Took this deck to star city open Seattle and i have to say i won ever single game 1 and then got graveyard hated out in games 2 and 3. The manaless dredge winning and regular dredge top 8ing is gonna make this deck hard to play for the next couple months i would guess.

Winning through graveyard hate is a matter of sideboarding correctly and being able to time everything at the right time.

Currently with reanimate's decklists having less and less thoughtseies it's slowly getting harder to interrupt things properly.
Besides that the only cards you should be affraid of are: extirpate and fearie macabre. These are the worst to interrupt.
I always used to board nature's claim (splashing a single bayou, but also used to play petals instead of more lands)
this is not necessary, since the most common gy hate cards are: crypt, relic, leyline.
these can be solved with simpler answers like: chain of vapor, nature's claim or pithing needle.
The last one protects from karakas as well, but doesn't do anything vs a leyline.

I think any proper sideboard must have graveyard hate solutions since you cannot rely on entomb tricks the entire match.

I'm not very fond of Jin, he does a few things right, but on the other hand iona, inkwell or sphinx would've gotten that match as well.

tbh, I also think it's slowly getting time again to bring back the good old empyrial archangel in the sideboard slot.

Creatures I recommend still:
- iona/Jin as maintargets (whichever you like)
- inkwell
- sphinx of the steel wind
- blazing archon

in sideboard has a few optional slots, but I would advice a second sphinx and an empyrial for sure with 2 slots for flextargets.

something like

5-6 anti-graveyard hate solutions ( 3 peedles, 3 chain of vapor i.e)
3-4 creatures
flexslots (meta-depending)
2 animate dead (for the aggro-match-up)

Alsan

07-26-2011, 08:04 AM

Exactly, why do you need Archangel? :/

practical joke

07-26-2011, 01:22 PM

Exactly, why do you need Archangel? :/

Since it completely shuts down the kill from the new landstil decks supporting batterskull.
they have a really hard time to get to 8 power.

bashing someones face with the archangel is the exact same ammount as a stoneforge and batterskull do together ( it can even withstand an additional mishra's factory)

you'll lose the race if you get an inkwell leviathan.

also if they play it well, a Jin isn't good enough.

It still has decent potential against zoo, since there have been numerous of variations in zoo lists nowadays, for example supporting pte +mm.
bringing in empyrial + animate dead creatures a huge dmg soaker.

Alsan

07-26-2011, 03:46 PM

We're not playing anymore Inkwell, instead we play Sphinx #2 or Stormtide Leviathan (IMO and testing is better).

Bashing someones face with Stormtide doubles the speed of a batterskull, and he's not gaining life meantime, wich stops the game (gaining life) until a second creature arrives (from any side). And it's a 2-3 hit killer. Only Iona can do so, and she is easiest to answer.

And if "they play it well", which is not a real argument, anything isn't good enough.

nastirth

07-26-2011, 07:04 PM

I've also included empyrial archangel in my sideboard. Sometimes I needed an *untargetable* archon to buy time and stabilize, and he does just that against couple of decks. It's also nice against karakas decks since it absorbs kotr while being immune to karakas, stp and pte.

However, on other situations Stormtide Leviathan is also nice specially because of his evasion ability. I was playing with it maindeck, but replaced with Elesh Norn. Elesh Norn is really good.

About Inkwell, I still have it maindeck, and it is a fact that I don't remember the last time I reanimated it. But with karakas decks floating around I like to have an untargetable creature maindeck just to have a solid solution maindeck (I considering replacing it for empyrial archangel, and using the sb slot for stormtide leviathan).

Another card I'm considering to replace is Terastodon. I never used it, ever. I'm thinking on replacing it for Angel of Despair, which is more versatile.

I'm also facing a lot of hate lately, usually in the form of extirpate *and* tormod's/relic which is a really nasty combo. Show and Tells are becoming MVPs, but with only two LDVs to manipulate the deck sometimes its hard to get the right creature into play.

Darksteel

07-26-2011, 07:56 PM

I took the deck to a lame 2-2 finish at a local Legacy tournament.

My list was:

3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
2 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Blazing Archon
3 Hapless Researcher

4 Entomb
4 Careful Study
2 Brainstorm

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
3 Animate Dead

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze

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

Sideboard:

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Stormtide Leviathan
1 Terastodon
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Echoing Truth
1 Show and Tell
3 Pithing Needle
2 Brainstorm
1 Stifle

Round One (Burn) Won 2-0

Both games I won on the back of Iona naming red before he could burn me out.

I sided in 2 Echoing Truths, 1 Show and Tell, and the second Iona for Archon, 2x Hapless, 1x Animate Dead

Round Two (B/W/u Torpornaught - He used Torpor Orb to avoid the drawbacks of Phyrexian Dreadnought and Eater of Days) - Won 2-1

Game 1: I get out the Core Augur before he can stabilize, also Daze-ing an Orb.

Game 2: I get out Iona and name white, preventing him from using Enlightened Tutor. Of course, he doesn't need white to cast Orb, which I didn't have a counter for, and multiple Dreadnoughts, for which I had no Missteps.

Game 3: Way too close. He actually has Reanimate of his own (which I did not see games 1 and 2) and reanimates my Blazing Archon! So I kinda freak out, but realize I have Echoing Truth. So I get out Jin-Gitaxias, and on the last draw-7-at-EOT before Archon could kill me, I rip the Echoing Truth and bounce the Archon back to my own hand and eventually win by swinging with Jin, countering a Dreadnought with a Misstep along the way.

I sided out a Jin-Gitaxias, Inkwell Leviathan, 1 Hapless, and 1 Animate Dead for Terastodon, Stormtide Leviathan, and 2 Echoing Truth.

Round Three (U/W Landstill) Lost 0-2

Game 1: This was a long game. All in all, I kept using reanimation spells, and he kept countering them. It took a while to draw Entomb, but eventually I get out Inkwell Leviathan and got him down to one more swing needed, but then he used Nevinyrral's Disk and beat me with three Mishra's Factories.

Game 2: He just had counters for everything I attempted to play. I had to Misstep his first turn Relic of Progenitus and it was just downhill after that. He got so many lands that Daze became useless, and I couldn't find another Force or Misstep for the life of me. He won with Factories again. He told me his opener had 2 Spell Pierce and a Spell Snare, and he drew into Force.

I sided out 1 Blazing Archon (Because he also had Jace),1 Sphinx, 2 Hapless, and 1 Animate Dead for 2 Echoing Truth, 1 Show and Tell, Terastodon, Elesh Norn (for Factory)

Round 4 (Bant Aggro with NO-Progenitus) Lost 1-2

Game 1: He beats me to a low life with a huge Goyf, made large by his countering of my Exhume on Inkwell Leviathan. I manage to get out a Sphinx, though, and stabilize until I get out Leviathan and win. Vigilance, lifelink, and pro-green helps.

Game 2: He starts out with Leyline of the Void and I draw no outs, even after using Careful, and a Brainstorm. He gets out Progenitus and I shuffle up for game 3.

Game 3: He starts out with TWO Leyline of the Void this time, and I have the Echoing Truth in hand. He casts Chalice of the Void at 2, and I'm forced to Echoing Truth in response. He gets out Progenitus and eventually kills me.

I sided out 2 Hapless, 1 Animate Dead, and a Jin-Gitaxias, for Stormtide Leviathan (for Progenitus), and 3 Echoing Truth.

So yeah, I'm sure I made plenty of mistakes. =P But I'm still not sure what to sideboard out. Everything seems so crucial to the deck as a whole.

Also, what is the best way to deal with Leyline of the Void? I like what Practical Joke suggested a few posts up, to use Nature's Claim off of a Bayou, but it's vulnerable to Misstep. Are there other cards besides Echoing Truth?

Mr. Froggy

07-27-2011, 05:11 PM

Are Hapless Researchers really useful in Reanimator? Its just I'm skeptical because of the million 1-drops this deck runs: MM, CS, Ent.

menace13

07-27-2011, 06:17 PM

Alsan

07-27-2011, 07:13 PM

In my world full of Reliquary knights and Karakas, yes, an counter-proof removal is harder to answer as 3-5 Stps.

But remember: is only in my world. In any other places, Iona is a 4x instead of Jin-gitaxias.

Jokes apart, yes. It's easy to combat an Iona naming white with GW Zenith (goyf+batterskull+SoFI+Green sun to reliquary/karakas) than a Stormtide leviathan (Scryb ranger+4swords). If not in turn 2, Iona is not enough to win.

Forgive my irony.

menace13

07-28-2011, 04:36 AM

Alsan

07-28-2011, 06:19 AM

No, but when you look at the Tier decks you see:

Gw Zenith, as I said before.
RUG Order, Iona naming... green! Then, Jace or the red part takes rid of her (they play the same counters). If they have 1 Goyf, they can race us with fire help. Stormtide has the same weakness, but can't be raced, neither progenitus can.
BUG Landstill, Iona naming... black. 4 Jaces and a strong counterwall, better than ours. Stormtide is as bad as Iona.
Hive mind, Iona naming... blue. Almost unbeatable. Stormtide is nearly the worst creature in this matchup xD.
Zoo, Iona naming... white. But they have KotR, Karakas, 12+ green/red creatures, and 9+ fire. Stormtide only cares about spot removal, ignoring creatures. Better than Iona.
Merfolks, Iona naming... damn, that vial owns us. Stormtide is as bad as Iona.
Goblins, Iona naming... red. If they have vial or a Lackey in play, you cannot attack. Is the easiest matchup of the list, indeed. Stormtide is autowin, better than Archon, kills in 3 swings, and nearly ignores Gempalm.
Reanimator, Iona naming black, and wins. The stormtide is the 3rd creature on list.

2-6 for Iona, 6-2 for Stormtide. What weird world of mine, where Iona and Stormtide can be rid the same way, but Stormtide is a better metagame choice.

Bonus: 7-1 for Jin Gitaxias. He rocks and rulez.

menace13

07-28-2011, 06:45 AM

Alsan

07-28-2011, 08:54 AM

As I'm telling Stormtide vs Iona, is not inflated. Stormtide is better than Sphinx in 3 matchups, worse than sphinx in 2, equal to sphinx in 3.

But you can try to missunderstand my words as much as you want. This is not a test of who knows more about Reanimator, is my answer to your bad argument ~ "if they play well". And this discuss (at least for me) is completely ended (do not answer, believe me, I'm gonna ignore you. I'm not feeding trolls).

To continue the thread, has anyone else tested Flusterstorms?

menace13

07-28-2011, 10:06 AM

Srovex

07-28-2011, 12:10 PM

Hello everyone! I got tired playing my ANT and, as I'm a sorry combo-junkie I decided to try out reanimator.

As for my starting list I decided to use Wess's list from few pages back:

Main Deck

60 cards

1 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave
17 lands

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Sundering Titan
8 creatures

2 Animate Dead
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
3 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Ponder
3 Reanimate
35 other spells

Sideboard
1 Blazing Archon
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Extirpate
2 Flusterstorm
1 It That Betrays
3 Pithing Needle
1 Platinum Angel
15 sideboard cards

As I don't own yet all the necessary card I decided to get the most important ones first and try it out at small tournament with what I have to get some feel of the deck. Currently I'm getting entombs, Jins, MMs, the varied reanimates for the above list.

As that was quite a investment I'm hesitant to pump any large amounts of money in it in such short time span.

So, I' still missing the following from the above list:
main:
1 Cephalid Coliseum (fetch, swamp)
1 Underground Sea (fetch)
1 Watery Grave (fetch)
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (terastodon, inwell, or moving Blazing Archon main?)

Sideboard:
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (some of the above suggestions?)
3 Extirpate (this seems like a general gravehate spot, so tormod's, relic, faerie macabre, leyline?)
2 Flusterstorm (spell pierce, stifle)

What do you guys suggest to replace these (my own suggestions in parenthesis)?
Also, could you help me with some general sb strategy against the DTB:s. With above list including changes.

Help greatly appreciated!
-S

practical joke

07-28-2011, 12:47 PM

I'm in a meddling mood today.

- Zoo rarely plays karakas (maybe side, different story)

in a world full of karakas (apparantly yours, since here they've downed quite a bit), use pithing needle in side or get inkwell/sphinx/archon/empyrial, depending on the situations.

Stormtide does crap against merfolk, where blazing archon is a near auto-win.
It has a 1turn slower clock, but also stops flying shenanigans. This includes not getting beaten to death by silly stuff as emrakul.

The fun thing about reanimate is there's a creature for different situations. It's not iona vs stormtide.
and really iona still works like a champ vs BUG landstill when you name blue. (oh no removal!!!!, you can counter, they cannot, they only play 4+ deeds and cannot dig for it)

right, next time, being raced by a single tarmogoyf...say what? unless you dropped yourself to 8 somehow, that shouldn't happen. avg goyf is 4/5 against reanimate. which means iona races a single goyf easily since you definately have the first attack.

Now have you finally realised reanimate is a toolbox deck? good...

now you can start learning to make less useless posts about which creature is better than another when they do not share the same purpose.

GW -zenith decks...since you do play a buttload of counters...what reason do you have NOT to put an iona on green?

btw flusterstorm is crap: avg reanimate list nowdays plays 4 fow, 4 MM, xx daze, xx thoughtseize.
3 undeground seas are enough, if you want more protection/counters fill up the daze/thoughtseize slots in your SB instead of flusterstorm, spell pierce could be another option.

it appears to me you have no shroud creatures at all, maybe 1 empyrial/inkwell might do the trick in SB.
Also I think 4 gin is to much, 3 is enough and add blazing archon.

Actually sideboarding is relatively hard since there are only a very few spots to take out.
mostly it's creature changes...

Against some decks it's good enough to take out 1 ponder, 1 reanimate-like abbility and a daze for 3 peedle/bounce (sometimes you take out dead creatures and putting less back)

the bare minimum is 6 and you want 7, 8 might be a little much, so that could help on sb-ing.

KevinTrudeau

07-28-2011, 07:08 PM

Going to my first tournament tonight with the deck. I'm missing a few cards, but I'll have to make due:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Scalding Tarn - should be 1 Underground Sea, 1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze

4 Entomb
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
2 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Blazing Archon

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead

4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
1 Hapless Researcher

3 Duress - should be 3 Thoughtseize (my biggest concern, seeing as Duress doesn't hit Faerie Macabre, among a host of other things)
3 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod
2 Echoing Truth
2 Show and Tell
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Terastodon
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

I'll edit this post later tonight with a report.

Report:

My store's weekly tourney format changed, it's now five rounds of Swiss, and anyone 4-1 or better at the end of the night triples their money (entry is $5).

Round 1 vs. Faerie Stompy

G1- I lose the roll. Opponent goes t1 Ancient Tomb, Chalice, which I Force because my hand is three lands, Brainstorm, Study, FoW, and Reanimate (I pitched the Brainstorm, which turned out to be the incorrect choice). I draw another land, cast Study, then draw and discard two more lands. I don't draw anything, and am eventually overwhelmed by Serendib Efreets.

G2- I keep a nice seven, play a land, then pass. I had the choice of playing Careful Study -> discard Jin-Gitaxias, but that would have left me vulnerable to any grave hate he might cast. His EOT, I Entomb for Iona, then on my turn, Exhume it back naming blue. Opp. takes three hits and perishes.

G3- I keep a hand that includes FoW, Echoing Truth, Show and Tell, Careful Study, and Jin-Gitaxias, in addition to two lands. He plays t1 City of Traitors -> Chalice, which I allow because I have S&T and Echoing Truth to combat it. We play draw, go for two turns, and on my third turn have the choice of either casting Show and Tell or bouncing his Chalice EOT, and the following turn casting Study into my freshly drawn Reanimate. I go with the latter because I'm afraid of what he could potentially put into play via S&T. The plan works, everything resolves, I draw seven. His turn, he drops down a Sower of Temptation, which I have the Force for. Thankfully, I made the correct decision in the Reanimate vs. S&T debate. I win in short order.

Match Record- 1-0
Game Record- 2-1

Round 2 vs. Zoo

G1- I lose the roll. I keep a hand with ample lands, Misstep, Exhume, and Entomb. Opp. plays Mountain and passes. I play a fetch and pass back. He plays a Forest and casts Tarmogoyf, which I allow. EOT I cast Entomb for Jin since he's tapped out, and Exhume it on my turn. Even though I have Misstep, he never casts Path, and I win later after Exhuming a Sphinx.

G2- Opp. mulls, I keep seven. I make three huge play mistakes that cost me the game. The first was waiting a turn to discard Sphinx and subsequently Reanimate it to play around potential disruption. The second was to not play Pithing Needle on his Grim Lavamancer after I Reanimated said Sphinx. The third was stupidly walking into his Pyroblast with my countermagic after he used some next-level vocal baiting, which allowed him to burn me out for exactsies with no cards left in hand.

G3- Opp. mulls, I keep seven. My hand is pretty good, two Missteps and a Reanimate, but no way to pitch the Iona in my hand aside from the cleanup step. I play a fetch and pass. Opp. plays a fetch and passes as well. I draw and pass. He draws, plays a land and casts a Lavamancer, which I allow. I draw and pass, discarding Iona. Opp. casts a Basilisk Collar, which I Misstep since Collar+Lavamancer would completely negate Iona. Next turn I rip Entomb and cast it, choosing to fetch up Sphinx since I have a Misstep to counter his potential Path to Exile, and the fact that I'd be on somewhat low life post-Reanimate facing down a Lavamancer. I Reanimate the Sphinx and pass. He can't deal with it, and it rides me to victory. Yay topdecked Entomb.

Match Record- 2-0
Game Record- 4-2

Round 3 vs. Matt w/ Burn

G1- I win the roll. I cast a turn 1 Entomb EOT for Iona after he Chain Lightnings me, then cast a turn 2 Reanimate and it's all she wrote (don't you just love this deck?).

G2- He plays turn one Tormod's Crypt, Goblin Guide, attack (flip a Pithing Needle, though I already have one in hand), pass. I play a land, Needle Crypt, and pass. He attacks, I flip up Hapless Researcher, which is nice to see since I can now discard the Jin-Gitaxias in my hand and Exhume it later. He then casts a Keldon Marauders, putting me at 15. I draw, play a fetch to take advantage of Guide's trigger, cast said Researcher, and pass. He plays another Guide and attacks with everything. I flip up Blazing Archon and have to make a decision. Opp. has three cards in hand, and I have a Pithing Needle, a Jin-Gitaxias, a Force, and an Exhume. If I Exhume Jin, I won't be able to protect it for sure since I don't have another blue card to pitch to Force, whereas Archon seems pretty advantageous in this board state and would allow me to keep Force up to protect it. I let both Guide triggers resolve, block the Marauders, sac the Researcher drawing and discarding Archon, and go down to 11. He plays a Jackal Pup and passes. I draw a third Pithing Needle and Exhume Archon. He does nothing on his turn, I go down to 10 from Marauders. I draw an excellent card, Mental Misstep, and attack him down to 15. On his turn, he casts a Lightning Bolt, which I take no chances with and hardcast Misstep. Surprisingly, Archon gets there three turns later. After the game, Matt tells me he had a Fireblast in his hand the whole game, meaning it was likely correct to Exhume Archon in Jin's stead.

Match Record- 3-0
Game Record- 6-2

Round 4 vs. Blue MUD

G1- I lose the roll. Opp. mulls, while I keep a hand with Daze, two lands, Entomb, Brainstorm, and Reanimate. Opp. gets off to a fast start, playing a turn one Ancient Tomb into Grim Monolith into Metalworker. I play a land and pass. He reveals three artifacts with Metalworker, plays a land, casts Wurmcoil Engine, casts Lightning Greaves, equips, and bashes me down to 14. Never fear, Sphinx of the Steel Wind is here. I Entomb for Sphinx and Reanimate it on my turn. Sam is pretty much out of gas after that explosive start, and doesn't really have an answer for Sphinx, which completely trumps Wurmcoil and goes the distance. The turn before Sphinx is lethal, he's at two life and has nine available mana in play. He taps everything but Ancient Tomb and casts Karn Liberated, which I Daze.

G2- I open up a hand with lands, Force, Elesh Norn, Animate Dead (I didn't know that he was strictly blue MUD at that point, and Elesh Norn is surprisingly effective against that deck considering they run Welder and Metalworker). He plays a turn one Chalice off of a City of Traitors, which I allow. I draw and discard Elesh. He plays a Mox Diamond and Seat of the Synod (saccing City of Traitors), then adds four mana to his pool to cast a Chalice at two, which I Force. On my turn, I play a land and pass. He plays another land and casts Metalworker. I Animate Dead my Elesh Norn during my turn, killing Metalworker. On his turn, he plays a Sol land, casts two Grim Monolith, a Lightning Greaves (which I allow) and as his final card, a Kuldotha Forgemaster (which I Daze). With his hand depleted, it looks like I'll be in the clear. Unfortunately, he topdecks a second Forgemaster the very next turn, fetches up a Blightsteel Colossus, and poisons me to death over the course of two turns.

G3- Opp. mulls, I keep your standard Entomb->Reanimate hand. I get an early Jin-Gitaxias out and win easily.

Match Record- 4-0
Game Record- 8-3

My fifth round opponent and I drew, so I walked away with $15. A pretty nice tournament, although to be fair, I had good matchups all night, never mulliganed, and topdecked rather nicely. MVP of the night was Sphinx of the Steel Wind.

Master Shake

07-29-2011, 03:59 AM

I wanted to double post my my link to my Reanimator article here so that you guys could read about my exploits with the deck.

http://www.gatheringmagic.com/rise-from-your-grave/

That is all.

nastirth

07-29-2011, 06:00 PM

Here's my report for last tournament:

Maindeck
3 Jin-Gitaxias
1 Elesh Norn
1 Iona
1 Inkwell
1 Sphinx
1 Archon
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
3 Animate Dead
4 Entomb
4 Careful Study
2 Hapless Researcher
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Flooded Strand

Sideboard
3 Duress
3 Show and Tell
4 Pithing Needle
2 Echoing Truth
1 Terastodon
1 Iona
1 Empyrial Archangel

GW Enchantress 2-1
------------------

g1, draw, 0-1: mull to 5, missing creature
g2, play, 1-1: entomb+ad @ iona green, fow @ oblivion ring
g3, draw, 2-1: hr+exh @ jin, entomb+exh @ iona white

sb g2:
-1 inkwell, -1 archon, -1 sphinx
+1 empyrial arch, +1 terastodon, +1 iona

sb g3:
-3 daze
+3 duress

Merfolks 2-0
------------

g1, draw, 1-0: mull to 6, t3, entomb+ad @ elesh norn, with 2x mm @ snare+cursecathcer
g2, draw, 2-0: t3, s&t @ jin (with 2 tormods on table eheh)

sb:
-3 daze, +3 duress
-1 inkwell, +1 empyrial archangel

Faeries 2-0
-----------

g1, draw, 1-0: t?, discard+exhume@sphinx, with FoW @ spellstutter | entomb+exhume@archon
g2, draw, 2-0: t2, discard+reanimate@iona/blue, with FoW @ spellstutter

sb:
-3 daze, +3 duress
-1 inkwell, +1 iona
-1 sphinx, +1 empyrial archangel

WW Stoneforge 2-1
-----------------

g1, draw, 0-1: entomb+ad@elesh norn, died to stp, couln't find nothing more
g2, play, 1-1: t4, entomb+reanimate @ iona/white
g3, draw, 2-1: t2, entomb+ad @ iona/white

sb
-3 daze, +3 needle
-3 exhume, +3 s&t
-1 inkwell, +1 iona

Tournament Notes
The main deck performed quite well. Only lost a game to the deck. LDV helped finding the needed pieces a couple of times. S&T is performing very well, since everyone packs MMs and/or Snares which are useless against them. 4 needles is too much, I'll cut one for the 4th creature, which will be stormtide or the 2nd elesh norn. I'm still debating whether I should replace terastodon for angel of despair. Never felt the need for
echoing truth.

mooN_MTG

07-30-2011, 06:01 PM

Hi people, I have a Reanimator deck too, but i don't have money to buy Force of Will and Underground Sea, maybe one day... Who can help me find another solutions, for mana base i think in Darkslick Shores, to replace FOW, it's impossible... Maybe a spell pierce, spell snare, spell snare, thoughtseize...

PS: I have Daze in Main Deck

Justin

07-30-2011, 07:16 PM

If you don't have force of will, it's probably better to play a non-blue budget deck that you can afford. If you insist on Reanimator, however, but don't have FOW, I would recommend that you go mono-black. Forget about countermagic (except Mental Misstep) and run Dark Ritual to increase your chances of powering out a turn one fatty. You can replace some of your other blue spells with black discard spells.

nastirth

07-30-2011, 07:53 PM

Just played my first online tournament. The deck is the same that I listed a couple posts before, I just changed 1 needle for 1 angel of despair. I forgot to take notes of what I sideboarded. Next time, I'll have to take some screenshots to anaylse my sideboarding options after the game.

Round 1 - WBG Junk - 2-0

Game 1
t2 jin, but no fow draw, him kotr, and i entomb shpinx.. kotr fetchs karakas and maze of ith. The game stalls for a lot of turns until i draw entomb to fetch blazing archon and kill him with the flyers.

Game 2
entomb @ jin
fow @ hymn
reanimate @ jin, drew 0 counters
vindicate @ jin
exhume @ inkell
ad @ jin

Round 2 - UGW Zenith - 2-0

Game 1
discard iona
reanimate @ iona/white, fow @ MM
fow @ green zenith

Game 2
discard jin
entomb @ inkwell, daze @ spell pierce
exhume @ inkwell
fow @ kotr

Round 3 - BRGW Aggro Loam - 2-0

Game 1
entomb @ jin
exhume @ jin
daze @ vindicate

Game 2
fow @ goyf, entomb @ jin
reanimate @ jin
mm @ stp, fow @ pyroblast

Round 4 - UGW NO Progenitus - 0-2

Game 1
I had this hand: 4 lands, 1 entomb, 1 reanimate, 1 exhume. This is a t2 goldfish hand but it's very fragile against decks with counterspells. I decided to keep it, and got my entomb missteped. I drew an archon which i discarded at eot of my turn, but my oppo had another mm for reanimate, and a fow for exhume.

Game 2
I have a hand with s&t, angel of despair, 2 lands, study, iona, exhume. No counters again but I decided to keep it again. He starts with leyline. I try to dig with study, but I'm unable to find the 3rd land until the 6th turn. Nevertheless I tried to s&t, since I was going to die next turn and had found a FoW but he dazes, I fow, he foWs, and thats gg.

Tournament Notes
The field was hard, but going to the final round there were 2 reanimate decks among the four that were 3-0 :cool:
Of the four decks I faced all of them had: KotR, Goyf, Karakas and MM. FoW was seen in 3 decks, along with assorted disruption. The other reanimate deck made 4-0 and was packing Xantid Swarm mainboard. Only saw gy hate in one game. My MVP for the tournament was FoW.

On a side note, I didn't know it was possible to animate dead inkwell, until I saw the other reanimate player do that :cool: (I thought shroud was like prot. black and the enchantment would jump off as soon as inkell entered into play)

Alsan

07-30-2011, 09:47 PM

Congrats! :D

J
Of the four decks I faced all of them had: KotR, Goyf, Karakas and MM. FoW was seen in 3 decks, along with assorted disruption.

This is easy to happen, nowadays. Did you feel that Angel was better than Terastodon? Today I've played a tournament (2-0 all rounds, Merfolks UB, Rubin Zoo, BUG ******** and BUG Infect), and I've won the LAST round against a interesting Infect deck with Terastodon (Needed 18 of Resistance to withstand the enormous Pyrexian Crusader...). I had Archon and Stormtide exiled.

mooN_MTG

07-31-2011, 09:34 AM

Somebody can give me some links fo Reports and Videos???

Sturtzilla

08-01-2011, 12:48 AM

KevinTrudeau

08-01-2011, 12:56 AM

Greetings All!

I have returned somewhat victorious from the SCG Pittsburgh Legacy Open. There is good news all around. Reanimator placed 3rd with an 8 draw spell (4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder) build and 15th with the build which I piloted. That deck was basically designed and tweaked right here in this forum. I have notes for the both the Saturday 4-round Legacy Challenge and also the Sunday 8-round Legacy Open. I will post a/both tournament report(s) in a day or so. This is what I ran.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=39923

Until then, keep on reanimating!

Awesome to hear! I look forward to the report.

So, just to spark some discussion, I compiled a set of ten opening hands via Cockatrice. Which hands would you keep, and which hands would you mulligan? Does the keepability of a certain hand change whether you're on the play or on the draw? Is a certain hand matchup-dependent?

1. Misty Rainforest, Polluted Delta, Daze, Mental Misstep, Exhume, Exhume, Blazing Archon

2. Island, Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Animate Dead, Exhume, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Sphinx of the Steel Wind

3. Polluted Delta, Swamp, Underground Sea, Verdant Catacombs, Daze, Animate Dead, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur

4. Misty Rainforest, Verdant Catacombs, Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Animate Dead, Exhume, Reanimate

5. Polluted Delta, Verdant Catacombs, Daze, Brainstorm, Brainstorm, Animate Dead, Exhume

6. Verdant Catacombs, Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Brainstorm, Reanimate, Blazing Archon, Sphinx of the Steel Wind

7. Polluted Delta, Daze, Daze, Careful Study, Animate Dead, Reanimate, Inkwell Leviathan

8. Misty Rainforest, Underground Sea, Verdant Catacombs, Daze, Mental Misstep, Reanimate, Sphinx of the Steel Wind

9. Misty Rainforest, Polluted Delta, Underground Sea, Verdant Catacombs, Mental Misstep, Careful Study, Reanimate

10. Underground Sea, Verdant Catacombs, Force of Will, Careful Study, Careful Study, Animate Dead, Exhume

Also, a certain play has been coming up frequently for me, and I'd to hear some input from others. Say you're on the draw and keep a hand contains two Jin-Gitaxias, a Brainstorm, two fetchlands, and two Exhume.

T1- Opponent opens with a Flooded Strand and passes. You draw another land, play a land, and pass.

T2- Opponent draws, plays another Flooded Strand, and passes. You draw another inconsequential card, let's say an Animate Dead. During your end step, opponent fetches a Tundra and casts Brainstorm, which you allow. During your cleanup step, you discard Jin-Gitaxias.

T3- During the opponent's upkeep, they fetch another Tundra. Opponent then draws, plays a fetchland, and casts Stoneforge Mystic, which you allow. Opp. fetches up a Batterskull. Opp. says go with one Misty Rainforest untapped. Do you cast Brainstorm here?

In my experience, it's generally incorrect to cast Brainstorm in these situations; you'll have to redraw a card you put back, and you won't be utilizing Brainstorm when it's at its best in this deck, in rebuilding scenarios. However, you have no protection for next turn's Exhume/Animate Dead->Jin Gitaxias whatsoever, and a Swords to Plowshares would be absolutely devastating. Is wasting your Brainstorm early to dig for protection worth it? Do you hold off on casting Brainstorm on turn three and wait until turn four to cast a reanimation spell, do you go through with the dig for protection plan on turn three, or do you just cast Exhume with no guaranteed protection on turn three and save your Brainstorm?

comeback

08-01-2011, 04:05 AM

Yesterday splitted final in a 47 people tournament with the following list:

17 lands
4 polluted delta
1 marsh flats
1 flooded strand
1 verdant catacombs
2 bloodstained mire
2 island
2 swamp
4 underground sea

9 Creatures
1 platinum emperiom
1 sphinx of the steel wind
1 iona shield of emeria
1 inkwell leviathan
3 jin-taxias core aurgur
2 hapless researcher

14 Reanimate Tools
4 exhume
4 reanimate
2 animated dead
4 entomb

12 Protection
4 force of will
4 daze
4 mental misstep

8 Other
4 brainstorm
4 careful study

Sideboard
1 blazing archon
1 terastodon
3 spell pierce
3 thoughtseize
2 pithing needle
1 null rod
1 hurkyll's recall
2 echoing truth
1 coffin purge

R1 Welder Painter
1-2 / 1-2 one my error in G2 else it was 2-0 for me
0-1
G1 Iona after his painter
G2 I reanimate his painter calling blue instead of yellow so he blast my null rod
G3 He won t2 combo with fow & missted

R2 Belcher
2-0 / 3-2
1-1
G1 Land pass, himTaiga Tinder Wall but I misstepped, Iona red in T2
G2 He tried first turn combo but my fow stop him, Iona red in T3

R3 Mirror
2-1 / 5-3
2-1
G1 He start land pass, me too, he entombed in my eot (he didn't know it was a mirror) but did not reanimate in his turn, I reanimate his jin misstep misstep so I won
G2 His hand: entomb misstep misstep reanimate fowpitch entomb usea
my hand thoughtseize thoughtseize spell pierce reanimate land land brainstorm so he won
G3 He mull 5 and I start and T2 Jin after t1 thoughtseize but he discard inkwell, t3 entomb entomb for coffin purge save me from his potential animated dead

R4 GW
2-0 / 7-3
3-1
G1 First game very strange, hard mulligan 5 cards for both and I won
G2 T2 Jin protected with misstep and reanimate emperiom in T4 when I was 2 life point

R5 Burn
2-0 / 9-3
4-1
G1 I know he plays burn so I mull to 5 but I open with entomb reanimate so Iona T2
G2 My hand: animated dead careful study mistep fetch fetch sphinx daze so T2 sphinx

R6 Black Maverick
2-0 / 11-3
5-1 2nd in swiss
G1 T2 gin-taxias and after platinum emperiom
G2 He mull 5 with bojuka and karakas so land pass, me land thoughtseize and I opt for T2 reanimate per sphinx and he did't see stp for three turn

Quarter Enchantress
2-0 / 13-3
G1 I started T3 Iona white, he try to block me with elephant grass but I had 2 land
G2 He start land pass, I don't remember clearly just my thoughtseize on his cc3 key card, after I reanimate he tried an oblivion but I fow

Semifinal RUG NO
2-0/ 15-3
G1 He won the die, I don't remember clearly but I entomb in my T2 eot after his fetch, he played natural order daze fow fow I exhume jin and I won
G2 I wrong to side our emperiom for blazing, he played in my T2 draw phase vendilion and I discard careful but I draw brainstorm so brainstorm fetch entomb misstep misstep and jin is in grave, he attacked so 15 and in my turn I reanimate jin so 5, drew 7 and discard iona, he played goyf and attack so 2 and fetch 1, I tried to entomb platinum but I realized it was side out so I opted for blazing and I wronged, Iona red was better I drew bolt and he played it misstep misstep I can't fow so I sac hapless and I drew misstep so I won :) ... I was tired and vs a really good player so Iwas not my best errors: platinum vs blazing & blazing vs iona red, if I didn't wrong the side in I no needto be lucky... :)

theBloody

08-01-2011, 06:09 AM

@Kevin
It depend on your build, play/draw, opponent (you know what he/she playing or not). There is my quick thoughts (the deck i used there is your last):

1. Misty Rainforest, Polluted Delta, Daze, Mental Misstep, Exhume, Exhume, Blazing Archon
on play: if it is first game and he/she don't know what im playing then mull, because first game i want to "hide" the deck as long as possible
on draw: keep, if it is first game (like i said before). mm protect you versus their t1 discard

2. Island, Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Animate Dead, Exhume, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Sphinx of the Steel Wind
on play/draw: mull due to color screw

3. Polluted Delta, Swamp, Underground Sea, Verdant Catacombs, Daze, Animate Dead, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
on play/draw: mull due to no protection, t1 discard ruin your plan

4. Misty Rainforest, Verdant Catacombs, Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Animate Dead, Exhume, Reanimate
on play/draw: mull. The most inportatnt part of this deck is to put something (the best creature against your opp deck) in graveyard, you have lots of cards to anime it to play. You haven't any digging tool in this hand. Draw go mode is not your friend, because you want to be asap. Your probability to draw entomb/brainstorm/study/hapless (and the last three cards dont have to save you if they dont hit what you need) is about 25%

5. Polluted Delta, Verdant Catacombs, Daze, Brainstorm, Brainstorm, Animate Dead, Exhume
on play/draw: keep, it is risky, but the probability to draw study + monster, or entomb, or study -> entomb isn't that bad. daze is enought protection there. you just land a land first turn to use the full potencional of Brainstorm second turn.

6. Verdant Catacombs, Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Brainstorm, Reanimate, Blazing Archon, Sphinx of the Steel Wind
on play: keep, not ideal, but turn three sphinx with protection should be enaught
on draw: keep due to turn two sphinx

7. Polluted Delta, Daze, Daze, Careful Study, Animate Dead, Reanimate, Inkwell Leviathan
on play/draw: im not fan of revealing your deck first turn but this hand need it. Turn two Inkwell can race most of deck if it is reanimated without lifeloss. So Study first turn to hope you draw second land (within three cards on play or four cards on draw, it is decent probability). Also if you are able to animate Inkwell turn two and you can counter some creature after, do it and reanimate it to your favor (slow them, maximalize inkwells racing potential).
Also, it is discutable to fetch for Sea due to opponents potential wasteland.

8. Misty Rainforest, Underground Sea, Verdant Catacombs, Daze, Mental Misstep, Reanimate, Sphinx of the Steel Wind
On play/draw: Same like 6., the protection there is not that good due to your plan, but decent. if you are on draw, keep it definitely.

9. Misty Rainforest, Polluted Delta, Underground Sea, Verdant Catacombs, Mental Misstep, Careful Study, Reanimate
Difficult hand.
On play: mull. Your probability to draw one of your 12 creatures is low (two times about 25%).
On draw: keep. The probability is bit better, but still risky. Also you can draw brainstorm or another study at least.

10. Underground Sea, Verdant Catacombs, Force of Will, Careful Study, Careful Study, Animate Dead, Exhume
On play/draw: This hand depend a lot how quick your opp can be. i dont like multiple Studies, but if you hit creature to yard, you're fine. Keep it.

My counting with probability is not ideal, but as you can see, this deck need it. Im looking forward to your point of view guys.

Rampart

08-02-2011, 10:26 PM

Hey guys,

Just wanted to share my report for a 40 man tournament that I played in last week. I ended up coming in third/fourth and pulling a tropical island which I am really happy about considering that this is my third legacy tournament. I am playing a list very close to master shakes list with just a few small tweaks.

Report

Round One: Joe with his Helm Void//Vampire crazy deck

Game one: Joe wins the die roll and we both keep. Joe looks a me and starts giggling as he drops to Layline of the voids in play. REALLY, auto loose as I don't have any main deck answers to that crazyness. I ended up playing a couple more minutes to figure out what he is playing

Game Two: I get a good opening hand with a show and tell and an Iona. He blows me out with IOK and Hymn and multiple crypts that I cannot find an answer for. I get beat down with vampires.

0-1
0-2

Round Two: B/W deadman with a blue splash?

Game one: Third turn Jin-G which drew me into a lot of protection followed by an Iona on white for the win.

Game two: I mulligan and he blows me out with a hymn and a confident while I brick a couple turns in a row.

Game Three: Turn two Jin-G and I drew into a lot of protection.

1-1
2-3

Round Three: Mirror

Game One: I know what he is on, he doesn't know that it is a mirror and this info lets me push out a quick Iona on black to end the game quickly.

Game Two. I play a couple of early Hapless dorks that ended up killing him. He didn't draw into an reanimate spells but I had a fist full of counters for when he did.

2-1
4-3

Round Four: Boros stoneblade brew?

Game One: he doesn't do much the first couple of turns so I just sit and sculpt my hand.I am a little shocked that he is running main deck Mental Missteps but Its a blow out with a Jin-G and Iona right after each other I think? this games is a little fuzzy

Game Two: This is a little tricky as i counter a wheel of sun and moon and let him push a ensnaring bridge in play which is fine as I have a lot on answers to that. I end up getting an elesh norn out and it locks out all of his creatures. A couple of turns later I get Iona out and bounce his bridge at the end of his turn for the win.

3-1
6-3

Round 5: Belcher

Game one: First turn belcher but no mana to activate it. We play draw go for a couple of turns as I am trying to dig for a reanimate spell. I end up making a mistake and not countering a lotus petal. He petals then discards a spirt guide and with his land in play he kills me.

Game Two: I play a fetch. On his turn he makes 14 goblins and at the end of his turn I entomb Elesh for the second turn Exhume. Third turn null rod forces a scoop.

Game three: He starts to go off on turn two and wishes for tendrils wary of the entomb (which I had with a reanimate spell) he ends up hitting me for 16. The next turn I get Jin-G out and then sphinx with a lot of counters to finish the game.

4-1
8-4

Round 6 - Id with Goblins

4-1-1
9-5-1

Top Eight

Top Eight- Paul with Merfolk

Game one: Paul drops a mutavault. I discard a blazing Archon which i successfully exhume two turns later. Paul cannot find an answer soon enough.

Game two: I lose to a bunch a fish and losing ten life to reanimated Jin-G. I really didn't have any other plays

Game three: I have the nuts and entomb and reanimate a Elesh Norn for the lock on the second turn.

5-1-1
11-6-1

Top Four - Pattern hulk deck

Game one. I seem to brick for like 8 turns while he eventually sets up the combo. I make a HUGE mistake here and just scoop knowing that I am dead, I should have let him play the combo out so that I know how it works for the later games.

Game Two: turn two Iona on green seals the deal quickly

Game Three: I loose. He gets a pattern on a bird pretty quickly with a sack outlet but doesn't go off? I find this strange and cannot figure out what is going on. Well I end up reanimating in a blazing archon instead of Elesh or Iona which would most likely would have one me the game. it turns out he sideboarded out one of the hulks and had the other one in his hand and couldn't cast it. He kills me the next turn and I don't have a force, it didn't matter as he Cabal Therapy'ed me first.

5-2-1
12-8-1

Sturtzilla

08-02-2011, 11:10 PM

The following is my tournament report for the Star City Games Pittsburgh Open. This event was held on July 31st 2011. This event began like many other events which I have participated in, that being the “We Draft Homelands” crew met up and carpooled to the tournament site. Quick backstory on the group of guys that I playtest and hit tournaments with: we have known each other for a long time. To clarify that further, we have known each other and been close friends, since middle school or maybe a year earlier. Magic has been a large portion of the conglomerate’s bonding the entire duration of that friendship. About two years ago, the “team,” if you will, finally settled on the name “We Draft Homelands” due to a drunken decision to actually draft arguably Magic’s worst expansion. Drafting the six half sized packs of Homelands was miserable, but left a last impression on the entire team. We marveled over how far the game had developed since its early beginnings. The drive down was fairly standard. The two other guys riding in my car and I discussed the current meta-game, how college was progressing, girls, and what we had all been up to over the summer so far.

Upon our arrival a few of the guys played in the Standard Open. I chose to hold off on playing in the Standard Open, due to my lack of a competitive Standard Deck. I guess I could have played Blue-Green Pump Infect, but we all know how that would have ended. So I spent the majority of Saturday play testing with one of the other Homelands guys (Nate) and occasionally trading with passersby.

At around 4 in the afternoon, the Legacy Challenge began registration. I signed up for this event and ended up going 3-1 out of the 4 rounds. I can post the results of this tournament also if there is interest. Overall, what this event led me to was running Stifles over the Null Rods in my sideboard. The logic being that Stifle keeps the graveyard safe versus both Tormod’s Crypt and Relic of Progenitus, while also protecting us versus Faerie Macabre. Sure we are still vulnerable to Extirpate, but in that case there is nothing you can do but rebuild. So Stifle, hit 3 of the four major graveyard hate cards out there, while also providing a solid sideboard option versus Hive Mind Combo. Stifle also is a bit more multidimensional. I would argue that it has more applicable situations than Null Rod. Furthermore, Stifle still allows you to go for a turn 2 Reanimate effect. Many opponents will let you bin a creature, but won’t remove your graveyard until you go to reanimate. Therefore, Stifle offers you the opportunity to still get a creature on turn two, even with graveyard hate on the table. Casting Null Rod will cost you a turn and also possibly your first binned creature. These facts led to the slight mitigation to the discussed sideboard.

After the Legacy Challenge, the crew split up on where to eat. Three of us ate in a little pub we had sandwiches and beers. The other four, like true noobs, ordered pizza into the hotel. During the relaxing dinner in the pub, we discussed changed to our decks and how we would sideboard versus various matchups. This degenerated to discussing how many drinks we should have and who was going to get to sleep in the one bed in the hotel room. Long story short, I stopped at one drink and slept on the floor of the hotel room. I brought my pillow from home so I was set. Plus I didn’t have to snuggle up with another magic playing dude, so that in and of itself was a plus.

Okay with all of the background dispensed, on to the Main Event! We returned early Sunday morning for the Legacy Open. I was piloting Reanimator. The other guys were representing Goblins, NO RUG, and two differing builds of affinity.

Round One-Salvagers Combo
This was a match up that I was not really expecting. But sometimes that will happen.

Game 1: He wins the roll and decides to play. He lays a fetch and passes to me. I lay a fetch an pass back. He fetches at the end of my turn I fetch in response. Going into his second turn, He has a Tundra and I have a Swamp. He lays an Island and passed to me. At the end of his turn I Entomb for Jin. I try got the turn two reanimation with an Exhume. He Forces my Exhume and I am high and dry without counter backup. I have a reanimate in hand too, so I am not real worried. His turn 3 is Trinket Mage, tutoring for Tormod’s Crypt. Yes a singleton Tormod’s Crypt in the main deck. I have my graveyard removed and then lose a turn or two later after I let him combo. I really wanted to see the combo to know how to effectively sideboard.

Sideboarding: -3 FoW, -3 Exhume, +2 Pithing Needle, +2 Stifle, +2 Show and Tell

Game 2: I chose to play. I keep a hand missing a reanimation spell, but it has a Pithing Needle. I play fetch go. He fetches for an Underground Sea, didn’t see Black in game one, and Thoughtseizes me. I Mental Misstep, he Spell Pierces, I FoW, and he FoWs back. This leaves me with an Entomb, a land, and the Needle in hand. He chooses the Needle. I lose to the Combo a few turns later, after he tutors for graveyard hate.

Record:0-1

Round Two-Fast Zoo

I have had some extensive experience playing against this matchup and have a 3 solid maindeck targets.

Game 1: I get a turn three Blazing Archon off of a Hapless Researcher pitch. I am at a comfortable 11 life post reanimation. I am holding a Mental Misstep and an Animate Dead in hand. He fires Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning into my Archon. I Misstep the Chain Lightning, netting a solid two for one. I get in for five a few times and he racks up some more burn. He waits until I will swing for lethal, and double burns again. I let it hit and Animate Dead during my second main phase. After this he scoops and begins to board.

Sideboardiong:-4 FoW, -2 Exhume, +2 Show and Tell, +2 Misdirection, +Stifle

Game 2: I am on the draw and draw the absolute nuts. I draw 3 lands, Hapless Researcher, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Exhume, and Mental Misstep. I smile knowing that there is nearly nothing he can do to stop this hand. He leads by fetching for a Taiga and playing a Kird Ape. I follow with fetch for Island into Hapless Researcher. He fetches for a Savannah. Plays Goblin Guide and attacks for 4. I let it through, hoping that this will keep him from playing graveyard hate if he is holding it. Goblin Guide hit a land for me. I sac Hapless Researcher at end of turn, drawing a FoW and pitching the Sphinx of the Steel Wind. I untap and lay an Underground Sea. I Exhume getting the Sphinx. I get in a few times and he attempts to PtE Sphinx. I pay a blue for Mental Misstep. At this he scoops. I end at 27 life.

Record:1-1

Round Three-Zoo-Dan Musser

Game 1: My notes for this game are very short and brief. I go from having 10 life to 0. I guess I didn’t really put up much of a fight.

Sideboarding:-4 FoW, -2 Exhume, +2 Show and Tell, +2 Stifle, +2 Misdirection

Game2: This game started out pretty rough. I led with a fetch. My opponent led with a fetch into a Taiga and casted Kird Ape, not bad right? Oh yea then he played a Tormod’s Crypt. Well I have a Hapless Researcher in hand and Jin. So I bait out the Crypt by Entombing at the end of his turn. In my second turn, cast the Hapless Researcher and attempt to Reanimate. He cracks Crypt removing a copy of Jin from the bin. He plays Goblin Guide and swings for 4. I block and sac binning the Jin in my hand. Goblin Guide did net me a land. I prevent 2 damage by blocking. Next turn I animate dead on the Jin. The following turn I am able to grab Sphinx of the Steel Wind. He gets there for me.

Sideboarding:+3 FoW, -3 Daze

Game 3: Very similar to game 1. I have a Hapless Researcher and a Reanimation Spell but no creature to bin. I try to dig with a Brainstorm but a Red Elemental Blast holds me at bay. After drawing a few land, I dies to a field of Kird Apes, Goblin Guides, and a Nactl.

Record-1-2

Round Four-RUG-esque Control

Game 1: I know what I am playing against right off the bat. This guy shuffled in such a way that I see enough of his deck to put him on RUG. I land a turn 2 Jin. He doesn’t counter it. I follow that on turn 3 with a Sphinx. He is unable to beat a hand like that.
Sideboarding:-2 Exhume, -3 Daze, +2 Show and Tell, +2 Pithing Needle, +1 Stifle

Game 2: I have a good opener. I am just missing a creature. By the time I hit one he has Jace the Mind Sculptor online to bounce my dude. We go to game three.

Sideboard:+3 Daze, -3 FoW

Game 3: This game was pretty quick. I start off on the play and land a turn two Jin, while holding onto a Mental Misstep. He tries to Path (brought them in from the board, I guess) Jin going into my end step, Misstep hits its mark. He picks up his cards.

Record-2-2

Round Five-Natural Order Elves

Game 1: I don’t know what I am playing against this round. When I look at my hand and it has a turn two Inkwell, I am pretty happy. Well unfortunately my hand doesn’t have a FoW for his turn 3 Natural Order. I lose to Progenitus beats.

Sideboarding:-2 Exhume, -3 FoW, -1 Inkwell, +1 Iona, +1 Jin, +2 Show and Tell, +2 Stifle

Game 2: I keep an opener with Jin, Iona, 2 Land, Entomb, Exhume, and a Careful Study. I land turn 2 Iona on green. He looks at his hand and board. Then we go onto game three.

Sideboarding:-3 Daze, +3 FoW

Game 3: I am on the play. His first turn consists of Forest into a Nettle Sentinel. I play Underground Sea into Hapless Researcher. He attacks in and I let the two through, he plays some other elf in his second main phase. I sac for the draw/discard at the end on his turn, pitching Elesh Norn. On my second turn, I Exhume Elesh, nuking his board. I swing a few times, while setting up a turn 5 Iona on green. At the Iona on green, he scoops up his cards.

Record:3-2

Round Six-Standard-eque White Weenie

Game 1: This was a match up that I was not planning on seeing at all. I was okay with seeing this type of deck, because I didn’t really have to counter anything. I just had to go for Elesh, Iona, or Sphinx to lock him out. Well game one was a breeze. I wasn’t sure what the deck was in the first two turns. The guy played a Plains on both his first and second turns. So I wasn’t sure if he was land screwed or actually playing some white variant. Therefore Game 1, I went for Jin. I easily landed a turn Two Jin and quickly made him drop his hand to his yard. I got to see some white dudes and enchant creatures. I follow Jin with a Turn 3 Sphinx. At this he picked up his cards.

Sideboarding:-2 Exhume, -3 Daze, -1 FoW, +2 Echoing Truth, +2 Show and Tell, +1 Iona, +1 Terastaton

Game 2: He is on the play and leads with Plains then casting an Elite Vanguard. I play fetch go. He follows on turn two with a second Plains and a Grand Abolisher. I respond by cracking my fetch, finding an Underground Sea. I tap for a black and cast Entomb from my hand. I find and bin Iona. I Reanimate Iona the subsequent turn calling white. This takes me down to 9 life and he has 2 creatures on the board. Conveniently I am holding an Echoing Truth. I swing in my next turn bringing him down to 13 life. In my second main phase, I bounce the Abolisher back to his hand. This puts me ahead in the damage race. I kill him while still being at 5 life.

Record:4-2

Round Seven-Hive Mind Combo-AJ Sacher

Game 1: So I see the pairings for this round and my heart instantly sank. I was thinking, "how am I going to beat this guy?" He is one of the Open Series points leaders. Well, I suck up my lack of confidence and decide to just go for it. I win my first die roll of the day against AJ and decide to play. This was apparently the wrong decision. I look at my opener and I have no discard outlet. I am however holding a Jin, two land, two Reanimation spells, a Brainstorm, and a FoW. This seems like a decent hand. I instantly past turn to AJ. This seems to confuse him. He asks, “No plays?” I respond with, “Maybe in a turn or so.” I draw a Mental Misstep on my second turn draw. I move to my end step and discard Jin. At this point he seems to understand what is up. Turn three, I drop an Underground Sea and cast Reanimate. He responds by Brainstorming, and then countering with a FoW. I guess at this point, I could have forced it through with my FoW, but I was still holding an Exhume. So I figured I would try for Jin again next turn and save my FoW and Brainstorm for anything relevant he tries to do. He lays an Ancient Tomb and cantrips. I guess he is playing Hive Mind, which is correct, I decide to hang onto my FoW for this combo piece. I Exhume on my turn 4. He has no counters and it resolves. I land Jin, move to end step, and get my draw seven. At this point I am loaded with counter magic and have an Iona in the bin. He contemplates his position for a moment or two. He scoops and we go to game two.

Sideboarding:-2 Animate Dead, -3 Daze, -1 Mental Misstep, +2 Show and Tell, +2 Stifle, +2 Flusterstorm

Game 2: He lead with Ancient Tomb, tapping for two, and casting Chalice of the Void for 1. I look at my hand and see my turn two Jin being shot down. I draw for my turn and discard Iona. He plays a second Ancient Tomb and pays 4 for a second chalice at 2. The Exhume in my hand just lost all its little value. I still have a Jin in hand and Show and Tells in my Library somewhere. So I figure I will keep playing and make him actually kill me. Well we play draw go for a few turns. I drop fetches and after turn 5 or 6 draw a Show and Tell. I had also drawn into a FoW. So by this time, I figure I might as well swing for the fences. I cast Show and Tell. He casts Intuition in response. I FoW his Intuition, knowing he will either find Emrakul or Progenitus. My FoW resolves as does my Show and Tell. I get my Jin and my EOT draw seven. I hit a Flusterstorm and a FoW in the seven. He has no play and discards at the end of his turn. I untap am pretty sure I have the game at this point. I can now FoW and Flusterstorm any pacts he could set up. I send Jin in. AJ topdecks a Hive Mind and casts it. I cast FoW. I send Jin in a few more times and he shakes my hand on the Match.

Round Eight-Hive Mind Combo-Chris VanMeter

Game 1: I had just watched a friend play against Chris and knew he was playing Hive Mind combo going into the match. He won the roll and led with an Island and a Ponder or Brainstorm. I follow with fetch, go. He plays another land and passes back. I crack the fetch and get an Underground Sea, off of which I cast Entomb. I find a Jin for my graveyard. I untap and cast an Exhume which meet a FoW. After my last match, I figure it is safer to hold the counter magic for his Hive Mind. I play draw go for a turn or two. He keeps digging. I hit a reanimate on turn 4 and cast it. It resolves. I go down to 9 life. He doesn’t have the resources to go off in his next turn. He scoops after I draw seven and he sees his tops card.

Sideboarding:-2 Animate Dead, -3 Daze, -1 Elesh, -1 Blazing Archon, -1 Sphinx, +2 Show and Tell, +2
Flusterstorm, +1 Stifle, +1 Jin, +1 Iona, +1 Terastadon

Game 2: I am on the draw yet again. Just like the last match, Chris leads with an Ancient Tomb casting Chalice of the Void set at 1. I still have an Exhume in hand, so I am not concerned. I draw and drop Jin to the yard and pass back. He plays a land and casts Impulse. I lay a fetch and pass back. He lays another land but he can only make 4 mana. I have another turn to be safe from Hive Mind. I draw into a FoW and play a land. I crack both fetches and attempt to Exhume. My Exhume meets a FoW. I hold mine back to keep him from landing Hive Mind. He misses a land drop and I have another turn to live. I draw a reanimation spell after a turn or two of draw-go, I think it was an Exhume. I bring Jin back to life. I get my draw seven and hit 2 more FoWs. My hand after end of turn discard is: FoW, FoW, FoW, Flusterstorm, Show and Tell, Brainstorm, and Terastadon. Looks pretty good. He lays the last land he needs and attempts to cast Hive Mind. It meets a Force of Will. He fires back with a Pact of Negation aimed at my FoW. I allow it to resolve. I then FoW again. This one meets no rebuttal. I counter his spells and he would still have to pay for a pact next upkeep. After this Jin swings in a few times to land me the win.

Record:6-2:13-6

This overall record lands me right at 15th place out of the 200 or so people that played. I opted for the $125 in store credit. I needed to pick up a Volcanic Island, 2 Chrome Moxes, and a few other odds and ends to finish of TES, which is a deck that I have been wanting to play for quite a while. So, all in all I would say it was a great tournament. I had a ton of fun, played against some really skilled and well-known players, and managed to place in some money at the end of the day. I was really happy with how the build operated throughout the day. I think a lot of the time you just have to be a bit ballsy about mulliganing. If you can’t get a guy by turn three, throw it back and try again.

Props:
Jin-Gitaxias for winning me every game he hit the table.

Only being Wastelanded one time the entire tourney

Flusterstorm for being able to get in under a Chalice set at 1. It was never necessary, but great to have an out, just in case.

STIFLE! I never needed to use this card, but just having it in hand allowed me to play more aggressively in the face of graveyard hate. I think people should reconsider playing this card. It is pretty awesome.

Slops:
Losing to Salvagers Combo round one… WTF.

Inkwell. I didn’t get paired against any Landstill or control/removal heavy decks. So he really didn’t have a chance to shine. However, I think the 2-3 game I ditched him off of a Hapless Researcher would have been better if the singleton Inky had been a Jin.

Well that is the report. If there are any questions, I will gladly answer them. Thanks for reading!

Sturtzilla

08-02-2011, 11:10 PM

Well I finally found my other notes and had some free time. This is the coverage for my four rounds of the Legacy Challenge from SCG Pittsburgh. I was running the same deck as listed above.

Round 1-U/W Stoneblade
Game 1: I start off quick and powerful with a turn 2 Jin off of and EOT Entomb. I Exhume during my next turn. I see no counter but he comes back with a Stoneforge and finding Batterskull during his second turn. I dig up and Entomb Sphinx and reanimate it to go head to head with the Batterskull. He looks over his board position and decides to go to game 2.

Game 2: I mulligan to six. I don't know what the hand contained at this point but I had a turn two Inkwell reanimation attempt, after FoW of mine hit a Stoneforge. A FoW answered mine and made me wait another turn on the reanimation attempt. I stick a turn three Exhume for the Inkwell. Inky got there. I found out after the game he had Wrath of Gods but didn't manage to hit them.

1-0:2-0

Round 2-Forgemaster
Game 1: Game one I have seen Island and an Ancient Tomb. I put my opponent on Hive Mind Combo. I Reanimate Iona and call Blue only to find out my opponent is playing mono Artifacts.... FAIL! This is a prime example of why Jin is the go to creature. I would have won this game had I stuck to my guns and chose him. Frankly I probably would've beat Hive Mind with a turn two Jin also. I punt into a Forgemaster and a Wurmcoil Engine.

Game 2: This game I land a turn 2 Inkwell, but he is answered a turn or two later by a Wurmcoil Engine. I chain Reanimate the same Hapless Researcher 2 or 3 times to block sac to keep my opponent from gaining life and to hope to dig into useful material. I didn't find any.

1-1:2-2

Round 3-LED Dredge
Game 1: I led off with a Hapless Researcher, seem good right? Turns out you have to know how to interact with the other deck. He draws and discards Grave Troll. I have a turn two reanimate. I wasn't sure how to interact with this deck and missed sacing my Researcher to remove the Bridges and ending up getting picked clean from Cabal Therapies. I flounder and die due to zombie token beats.

Game 2: I resolve a Exhume for a Blazing Archon which luckily keep his growing numbers of zombie tokens at bay. Archon knocks him down to 14 at which time he Dread Returns Iona and calls Black. So, I can't bring back my own binned Iona and he can't attack. We play draw, go and Dredge, go for a number of turns, while joking and having a great time (we had been telling the guys beside us who were playing Stoneblade vs. Stoneblade, that they would go to time and at least we would be done... ironic, huh?). He ends up drawing out because he dredged his only bounce spell with 39 zombies on the board.

Game 3: I draw a solid opener and Reanimate a turn 2 Elesh-Norn off of an Hapless Researcher. Pretty awesome hand versus Dredge, right? I draw into the other Hapless Researcher in my build and get my Blue-Nactl beats online. He doesn't hit a bounce spell or an answer. Blue Nactl and Elesh get the job done.

2-1:4-3

Round 4-Homebrewed Junk
Game 1: He play Bayou into a Hierarch. I play Fetch, go. He resolves a Confidant after fetching out a Scrubland (this lets me know that he is, in fact, playing Junk/Rock). I let it hit and I follow with a turn two Exhume for Jin. Turn 3 both Sphinx and Iona come join the fray off of an Animate Dead and a Reanimate. Turn 4 Archon finally earns a scoop from this dude.

Game 2: He leads off on the play. His paly consists of fetch, crack for some :B:/x dual, then casting Inquisition of Kozilek targeting me. I mull it over for a minute or so. But having a fetch, Entomb, and Reanimate is too good to let him mess with. I Misdirection, pitching a Hapless Researcher, and send the discard spell back towards him. I play fetch, go (possibly my favorite leading play in this game, or at least with this deck). That quickly turns into a Jin on my turn 2. He scoops up his cards and extends the hand.

3-1:6-3

The 3-1 record earns me 6 packs of M12. I crack a bunch of garbage (this is one of the reasons that I like playing Legacy; you get to play with good cards and powerful interactions... not garbage) with the exception of a Chandra the Firebrand. I sell that to the dealers to make up for my tournament entry and to pay for my dinner and booze later that evening. Decent event overall. A misplay cost me the 4-0 record but it happens sometimes. I still had a ton of fun and got some good ideas for tweaking my sideboard for the Legacy Open the following day. Thanks for reading.

Dia_Bot

08-03-2011, 04:04 AM

Thanks for the report. I have one question though; is it really a good idea to side in show and tell against hive mind? You might just help him sneak in his hive mind.

lordofthepit

08-03-2011, 04:58 AM

Congrats on the finish.

Chris leads with an Ancient Tomb casting Chalice of the Void set at 1.
He plays a land and Brainstorms.
I draw a reanimate after a turn or two of draw-go. I bring Jin back to life.

Did you forget to include something in here regarding the Chalice at 1?

Alsan

08-03-2011, 08:20 AM

Congrats, Ben! :D I felt very happy when I saw you in the top16

Congrats on the finish.

Did you forget to include something in here regarding the Chalice at 1?

I've noticed too. Maybe he wanted to say reanimation spell.

menace13

08-03-2011, 08:28 AM

Congrats on the finish.

Did you forget to include something in here regarding the Chalice at 1?
Both the Reanimate and Brainstorm would have been countered by the Chalice set to 1.

theBloody

08-03-2011, 11:34 AM

@Sturtzilla: nice report. Did you take any notes or you just remember each games?

Sturtzilla

08-03-2011, 02:41 PM

Thanks for the report. I have one question though; is it really a good idea to side in show and tell against hive mind? You might just help him sneak in his hive mind.

Honestly I am not sure. Considering that Chalice at 1 and 2 shut the entire deck off, I would say having Show and Tell gives us another out. You just need to be very careful about when you cast it. You want to have a FoW and a Flusterstorm in hand. Stifle will work too in place of Flusterstorm, if they haven't Chaliced at 1. FoW holds Intuition for an Emrakul/Progenitus/Hive Mind at bay, while Flusterstorm counters the Pact if they sneak in the Hive Mind. Really it is a ballsy move... big risk, but big reward. All in all, it either wins or loses the game. My opinion is that with the right cards in hand, going for it is better that waiting for them to hard cast it and then kill you.

I also have to say that winning this match is very different than winning other match ups. You are playing agaisnt a deck with eight free counters and an instant "I win" clock. You have to play aggressively but not overextend, leaving yourself counterless. Try for a fast Jin or Iona, but do not FoW unnecessarily. If you can force through a Jin on turns 2-3, your draw seven should help you counter their Hive Mind attempt. However, if your Hive Minding opponent FoWs your reanimation spell, that means one less FoW to deal with for your next reanimation attempt. I would urge caution and suggest holding the FoW for when he Show and Tells or casts the Hive Mind.

Did you forget to include something in here regarding the Chalice at 1?

My bad! Chris had Impulses post board. I corrected my report. Good Catch!

@Sturtzilla: nice report. Did you take any notes or you just remember each games?

I tend to keep track of each match on its own sheet of paper on a legal pad. It gives me enough room to keep track of life, jot down what cards I see/want to sideboard against, and post match keep track of what I boarded in/out. I reconstructed each match for the report above from the notes I took while and after playing.

Congrats, Ben! :D I felt very happy when I saw you in the top16.

Thanks Alsan! I will continue to play this deck. I absolutely love it. Until the meta shifts or people start playing Extripate in their boards. Honestly with Stifle, you can afford to play in a more aggressive manner and not really get punished for it. Overall I think Stilfe is a great card. It has more uses than keeping our graveyard safe. It acts as mana denial, times walks agains certain combos (I never had to do this, but it can keep us alive for a turn or two when Jin drains our library, thus allowing for an alpha strike or two), and saves us versus Hive Mind.

nastirth

08-03-2011, 06:09 PM

Hey guys, congrats on your performances :smile:

@Strutz
I never thought on taking out FoW, but you did it a couple of times when you were on the play. Can you explain?
Stifle is an interesting idea, although it doesn't stop neither extirpate nor leyline, but neither needle or null rod can do anything about them. I may give them a try.

Online training
I've played in two more online tournaments going 2-2 and 3-1 loosing twice against UW Stoneforge (one of them with leylines!) and one NO GUW (this one i lost the 3rd game because I entombed for inkwell and exhumed but he outraced me with clique+goyf). My wins were against elves (elesh norn!), gobbos (iona@red and elesh - nice, but not so good because matron triggers), NO RUG (jin), ant (jin and iona@blue, should be black but he had bounce), dredge (elesh norn rocks!!).

Sturtzilla

08-03-2011, 08:25 PM

@Sturtz
I never thought on taking out FoW, but you did it a couple of times when you were on the play. Can you explain?

Well in games when you are on the play, Daze has added value because you are essentially a turn ahead in terms of mana production. Furthermore, since our deck only really needs to hit 2-3 land to operate, we can afford to daze, if it will for sure counter the spell it is aimed at. On the other hand FoW creates major card disadvantage, by two for oneing, when you cast it.

In every game we should be aiming to mitigate our counter package to be the most effective. Misdirection is clearly better than FoW, if your opponent plays removal or discard spells, especially Hymn to Tourach. In my matches against Zoo, I would board out FoW in favor of Misdirection. It gives you a two for two interaction (as opposed to a two for one in the favor of our opponent), since you can redirect a removal spell or burn at an opposing creature. This buys you turns and doesn't generate virtual card advantage for your opponent. Stifle also acts in a similar manner. Stifle keeps us safe agaisnt opposing graveyard hate, this saves card advantage for us by allowing us to not have to FoW.

Basically in the Zoo matchup when we are on the play, Mental Misstep and Daze can take out most of the opposing relevant plays. If we can sling a well timed piece of burn back at a creature. I would say it is better than losing cards to a FoW to prevent that bit of damage.

Stifle is an interesting idea, although it doesn't stop neither extirpate nor leyline, but neither needle or null rod can do anything about them. I may give them a try.

Dude, if someone plays Extripate, you just have to rebuild. That is all there is to it. On the other hand, if you see a leyline and end up going to another game, board in Echoing Truth and use it at the right time. That would typically be at end of turn when you have 2-3 lands and can bin and reanimate in the same turn. Try out Stifle, it is pretty decent. It lets you play more aggressively and keeps us from losing tempo, due to a lost graveyard.

Holden1669

08-08-2011, 03:18 AM

Hi. I have just put this deck together and I'm trying to figure out how to play it better. My maindeck is just like Eli Kassis' from Pittsburgh except I'm trying out two Hapless Researchers in place of two Ponders.

I have a scenario question and I'd love some feedback:

It's game one on the play against an unknown deck.
Opening hand:
Underground Sea
Polluted Delta
Careful Study
Entomb
Sphinx of the steel wind
Exhume
Mental misstep

Do you:
1. Cast Careful Study and put sphinx and something else in the yard?
2. Cast Entomb main phase in order to dodge daze and give them one less draw step for a counter but give them information on their turn?
3. Cast Entomb at the end of their turn?

If the choice is Entomb, is the default target Jin-Gitaxias against an unknown deck?

If the Careful Study is a Brainstorm instead, what's your play?

If instead of Mental Misstep you have Island, does that change anything?

Thanks very much.

Sandoz

08-08-2011, 05:22 AM

Do you:
1. Cast Careful Study and put sphinx and something else in the yard?
2. Cast Entomb main phase in order to dodge daze and give them one less draw step for a counter but give them information on their turn?
3. Cast Entomb at the end of their turn?

If the choice is Entomb, is the default target Jin-Gitaxias against an unknown deck?

If the Careful Study is a Brainstorm instead, what's your play?

If instead of Mental Misstep you have Island, does that change anything?

Thanks very much.

Hi, quite interesting question!

I would play the hand this way:
T1: Polluted Delta, Go.
EOT: Fetch for Swamp, Entomb for Jin (or rarely an even better creature, if I was able to identify the opponent's deck out of his first turn play). Thus, taking the risk of getting dazed/forced.

T2: U-Sea, Exhume. If Entomb got dazed/forced, and I did not draw an additional Land, then I would cast Careful Study in turn 2 instead.

If the Careful Study is a Brainstorm instead, this wouldn't change my T1 play.

If Mental Misstep were an Island, I would go for Careful Study in my main phase of turn 1 instead.

That's how I would play the hand. Taking some risk with the potential reward of droping a turn 2 Jin-Gitaxias, which many times turns out to be a game winning play.

Not sure if this is the optimal play, though.

cheers

Sturtzilla

08-08-2011, 10:43 AM

Underground Sea
Polluted Delta
Careful Study
Entomb
Sphinx of the steel wind
Exhume
Mental misstep

I would say play the fetch and pass. At end of turn attempt for the Entomb. If this line of play fails, then go to the Careful Study. I have two major reason for playing in this manner.

1. Against an unknown deck Jin-Gitaxias is always the best target. Sure games two and three he might not be. When you are unsure of what your opponent is piloting, you should get him. He is a target that is great against basically every deck out there, especially if you can get him turn 2-3.

2. Waiting until forced to use Careful Study gives you the advantage of another card draw (or potentially more). This is good because it gives you another natural draw to get FoW back up or another creature to pitch with the Careful Study.

If Careful Study had been Brainstorm, I would still go for the above line of play. If unanswered, you win. That is the kind of pressure you want to apply. However, depending on your opponent's deck (especially if it is blue and has counter magic), you might want to turn one entomb then turn two brainstorm. This might get you a FoW or a second reanimation spell, which would help ensure you get your guy into play.

If Mental Misstep had been an Island, I would still go for the above line of play. Unless you opponent has an abundance of counters they will let you bin and then counter the reanimation spell. Where you want to worry about protection is when you reanimate.

As a side note, the Eli Kassis version of this deck is definitely good; however, I prefer to play more business spells to improve my chances of being able to get a fast guy into play. I watched his feature match and it seems like he just cantrips and reorganized his deck a lot. I realize he placed better than I did, but running 8 draw spells just seems poor when you could run 8 more business spells and just draw them. The power of this deck is getting a big guy and getting him fast. Every turn you spend Brainstorming or Pondering, after the first, is a turn that could have been a guy on board. Sure Brainstorm might be the "best card in Legacy," but that doesn't me it is an auto-4-of for this deck.

alderon666

08-08-2011, 10:46 AM

Sturtzilla

08-08-2011, 04:33 PM

Trick I was thinking about, it is rather narrow but can be useful. If you're playing against Dredge and you really need to kill their Bridges for some reason. You can Animate Dead a Terastodon and have it destroy the Animate Dead causing the Terastodon to be sacrificed.

That is a bit of a cute trick, but you could just sacrifice a Hapless Researcher (if you have one). I would say you should do it in response to the Narcomeoba trigger(s), this keeps your opponent from getting dudes off of the Bridges, while also wrecking your hand. This keeps your hand safer and the board a bit cleaner. Overall it is just a better position for our deck. Seems easier too.

Another fun trick: if you think your opponent is playing Phyrexian Metamorph post board, Show and Tell an Animate Dead into play. The Metamorph's replacement effect will resolve first and then you get to pick your dude from the yard. This gets you value by saving a creature and board position and screws your opponent's game plan.

The problem with the "all business" plan is that you can just draw into all "entomb effects" or all into "reanimation effects". This has happened to me more than once, I'm stuck with 3 reanimation spell in hand and no creatures in the graveyard, because my Entomb/Study got countered/creature got RFGed.

Solution 1: Mulligan. Shuffle real well and draw a better hand.

Solution 2: Discard a fatty and reanimate the turn after. I know it seems a bit slow and sub par. Yet the speed that this deck can put on even when in that mode is good enough to compete with most of the other decks in the format. I did this versus AJ Sacher at SCG Pittsburgh and still managed to get the game and match.

And the you're just trusting your natural draw every turn to draw you the right card. While the 8-cantrip version surely is slower, it's more prepared to survive attrition war against Merfolk and other disruptive decks.

Solution 3: Use your counter magic to force your combo through.

Sure 8 cantrips might give you better long game, but this is a combo deck and its value loses efficacy each turn that you don't go off. More specifically, a turn 4-5 reanimate is not as powerful as a turn 2-3 reanimate. So I will play the fast variant. If you come up with valuable data or playtesting to rationalize the 8 cantrip version, sure I would like to see it. Just claiming that you get crappy hands isn't enough to convince me. I have played hundreds, maybe a thousands, of sample hands with deck and in a few different configurations. I know I prefer this variant. Ultimately, that may just be player preference though.

alderon666

08-08-2011, 06:44 PM

Another fun trick: if you think your opponent is playing Phyrexian Metamorph post board, Show and Tell an Animate Dead into play. The Metamorph's replacement effect will resolve first and then you get to pick your dude from the yard. This gets you value by saving a creature and board position and screws your opponent's game plan.

Metamorph can't copy the creature being brought to play by Show and Tell.

Solution 3: Use your counter magic to force your combo through.

Sure 8 cantrips might give you better long game, but this is a combo deck and its value loses efficacy each turn that you don't go off. More specifically, a turn 4-5 reanimate is not as powerful as a turn 2-3 reanimate. So I will play the fast variant. If you come up with valuable data or playtesting to rationalize the 8 cantrip version, sure I would like to see it. Just claiming that you get crappy hands isn't enough to convince me. I have played hundreds, maybe a thousands, of sample hands with deck and in a few different configurations. I know I prefer this variant. Ultimately, that may just be player preference though.

Not saying it's strictly better, just reporting what has happened to me while playing the "business" version. I play storm combo and cantrip heavy hands are somewhat problematic there too. But sometimes you keep a hand with a lot of mana and a Ponder, finds nothing on the top 3, shuffle and draws crap. Then you're left stranded trying to draw a threat of the top. That's where Top shines, altough it's slow as hell. I think more testing is needed, at least 4 BS seems necessary.

lordofthepit

08-08-2011, 08:14 PM

Another fun trick: if you think your opponent is playing Phyrexian Metamorph post board, Show and Tell an Animate Dead into play. The Metamorph's replacement effect will resolve first and then you get to pick your dude from the yard. This gets you value by saving a creature and board position and screws your opponent's game plan.

This is interesting but probably doesn't have the intended consequence. Phyrexian Metamorph cannot copy the creature/artifact being put into play off Show and Tell, so your opponent will almost certainly save Metamorph for the next turn, using it as a three-mana untargeted Terminate for Legends, instead of playing it off SnT. So you aren't really protecting anything by playing Animate Dead instead.

It is possible your opponent is unaware of how Clone effects interact with Show and Tell, which I wasn't until a few months ago. In this case, you have them beat, but you could have beaten them by cheating in your fatty off SnT instead of Animate Dead anyway, while saving Animate Dead as backup to bring back another creature or to revive your fatty if he kills it with Metamorph.

Except in rare circumstances, the worst a Metamorph can do to you is Legend rule your creature or trade Sphinxes. So if you had a Show and Tell, Animate Dead, and another fatty in hand, the optimal play would be to drop the fatty off Show and Tell. If Metamorph were able to do anything about it, it would be hardcast on your opponent's next main phase, presumably putting your fatty into the graveyard (after Legend rule or combat phase trade). That's where casting Animate Dead gives you the trump.

Sturtzilla

08-08-2011, 09:39 PM

Well for some reason the announcers on SCG were discussing this interaction when Eli Kassis cast a Show and Tell during his feature match. I was wondering why it mattered actually. But I still think it is kind of an off the wall way to have the deck run.

whienot

08-08-2011, 10:49 PM

Well for some reason the announcers on SCG were discussing this interaction when Eli Kassis cast a Show and Tell during his feature match.

There was an issue with a judge rulling. Kassis was playing against a Zoo player who had double Tormod's Crypt on the battlefield. He cheked the oracle text on Animate Dead and conferred with the judge. The ruling was that the Zoo player couldn't respond to the Animate Dead with Crypt since it enters the battlefield attached to a creature.

Truth is the entire situation was off. Metamorph could have only entered the battlefield as a copy of Tormod's Crypt or 0/0 and Crypt could have removed a graveyard with Animate Dead's "enchant type change" trigger on the stack.

lordofthepit

08-09-2011, 07:34 AM

Testing out Darkslick Shores as a 5th Underground Sea. Anyone else feel awkward when you have a Daze in hand but Darkslick Shores is your only land on board?

meow

08-09-2011, 01:45 PM

i would be placing watery grave instead to avoid those kind of troubles ^^

rupus

08-09-2011, 02:08 PM

kingtk3

08-10-2011, 03:43 AM

Personally I run 2 Darkslick Shores and 3 Daze: while sometimes (very few) I was with one Darkslick Shores in play and Daze in hand, it was definitely mitigated by having 5th and 6th Underground sea that doesn't deal damage. Life points are a resorurce for this deck (reanimate, fetches) and I try not to put any other burdens on it.
That's the reason why I personally wouldn't run watery grave.

Greetings.

lordofthepit

08-10-2011, 08:43 AM

whienot

08-10-2011, 09:53 AM

Hold on, this whole situation is confusing me. Animate dead enters attached to the creature in the yard. Then it has a trigger than changes it's type and returns the creature to the field. You can respond with the crypt and get his dude, no?
Yes, there is an opportunity to remove the graveyard with the etb trigger on the stack.

So did the judge just rule wrong or something?
Yes, bad ruling is bad.

alderon666

08-10-2011, 10:39 AM

How often do you guys choose to draw G1 against an opponent who you know plays Mental Missteps and Force of Will? If you have just one discard outlet but several reanimation effects in hand, are you likely to just draw-discard-pass on turn 1? Against what matchups would you generally commend this?

On the other hand, if I have three discard outlets in hand (multiple Careful Study, Entomb, Hapless Researcher), I love to simply lay down my land and bait out opposing countermagic.

Against control you're probably fine doing that. You get a free discard outlet and they probably can't punish you for the tempo loss.

I normally open with my worst spell. I've noticed people are a bit trigger happy when it comes to using Mental Misstep against combo.

MirrorMask

08-10-2011, 06:05 PM

lordofthepit

08-10-2011, 06:16 PM

Hi guys. What i m about to ask is a bit off the current topic. As i saw on gatherer, animate dead can NO LONGER bring pro black creatures in the field so it doesn't work with sphinx of the steel wind and anything else similar. So my question is, how much does it affect our game plan now that we play 3 animate dead plus 1-2 sphinxes which CANNOT be brought to unlife by it?

Sphinx of the Steel Wind doesn't (normally) have protection from black, so there is no problem trying to play Animate Dead on it.

I am also 99% sure that Animate Dead can bring back creatures that have shroud.

However, Animate Dead does lack synergy with Akroma, Angel of Wrath, which is one of many reasons why it has fallen out of disfavor.

Sturtzilla

08-10-2011, 07:49 PM

There was an issue with a judge rulling. Kassis was playing against a Zoo player who had double Tormod's Crypt on the battlefield. He cheked the oracle text on Animate Dead and conferred with the judge. The ruling was that the Zoo player couldn't respond to the Animate Dead with Crypt since it enters the battlefield attached to a creature.

Truth is the entire situation was off. Metamorph could have only entered the battlefield as a copy of Tormod's Crypt or 0/0 and Crypt could have removed a graveyard with Animate Dead's "enchant type change" trigger on the stack.

See I was watching the game, but he was cantripping so much I must have lost interest. Just kidding. I generally focus on what the players are doing disregard the announcers. So I caught some of that conversation but not all of it, I guess. Thanks for the clarification.

Testing out Darkslick Shores as a 5th Underground Sea. Anyone else feel awkward when you have a Daze in hand but Darkslick Shores is your only land on board?

We discussed this a few pages back. Darkslick Shores offers you the mana fixing the deck needs, while also helping against Wasteland heavy builds. However it can screw you from casting Daze for its alternate cost, which is quite relevant. I would suggest running another fetch in that slot, to avoid this issue.

Sphinx of the Steel Wind doesn't (normally) have protection from black, so there is no problem trying to play Animate Dead on it.

Exactly. Where is the problem here?

I am also 99% sure that Animate Dead can bring back creatures that have shroud.

At SCG Pittsburgh the player of the NO Elves deck called a judge on me for this play, during game 1. I targeted an Inkwell with Animate Dead. Well Shroud only matters when the creature is on the battlefield, so you can Animate Dead creatures with Shroud.

Holden1669

08-10-2011, 07:52 PM

coastieleeb

08-10-2011, 10:38 PM

For those people that are playing grave titan and sundering titan, what situations/decks do you bring those cards in? Also, what is everyone's opinion on hymn of torach out of the s/b?

Sturtzilla

08-10-2011, 11:45 PM

Sandoz + Sturtzilla,
Thanks for the responses. That is the play that I chose as well due to the general wait-as-long-as-possible-to-cast-instants-etc guidelines under which I have always played magic. I sometimes don't know how much I should be playing around specific answers in Legacy, where there are so many answers to everything. I guess that will come with more experience with the format.

You are quite welcome. It is a really diverse format; I am sure you will get the hang of it as you play. I hope it helped!

For those people that are playing grave titan and sundering titan, what situations/decks do you bring those cards in? Also, what is everyone's opinion on hymn of torach out of the s/b?

I have toyed around with Sundering Titan but haven't been running him lately. He is shines against decks that are running three or more colors. You can know your opponent off of multiple lands when he comes into play. In certain matches this can wreck your opponent so bad, you might be able to just win off of that.

Grave Titan is a bit of an conundrum to me. I am not sure if/when I would want him in play. Sure he makes you two little chumps but I am not sure if that really gets the job done against most decks. I would love to hear what how others are using this guy.

FlyingSkull13

08-11-2011, 12:11 AM

question, in a recent toureny i had a turn two Iona, my opponent had only a mountain and a grim lavamancer in play, what color would you name?

MirrorMask

08-11-2011, 05:34 AM

oops..! i was really tired yesterday sorry guys my question was completely wrong. We actually don't play any pro black at the moment. I was gonna say about shroud but messed it up. So they can be animated? Why? If i recall correctly animate dead re attaches it self to the creature when the creature comes into play but with shroud this cannot be done so imo the creature goes to gy in the end.

@FlyingSkull13 : Well... excluding a home brew deck where you are unable to know what he is playing there are , to my knowledge, two possible scenarios. First one is that he is playing zoo (but he played a basic mountain and a lavamancer? hmm...). The second one burn. If you name red you win the possible burn deck right away and you stop zoo's burn spells (hmm around 8?) allowing him to use only swords to plowshares/ path to exile and of course the rest of his deck. But most zoo deck lists contain only one mountain so the most probable scenario would be that its a burn deck. Still i wouldn't animate my Iona yet. I would wait and see what else he plays. Even if he plays a tarmogoyf next round, naming white shuts down almost his ENTIRE deck except mono green creatues and some burns which can be blocked by Iona easily ( he needs to have 2 burns and a blocked attacker to bring her down). This way you will have time to animate something else too and beat him. If its a burn deck then the worst scenario is him playing another mountain , attacking with lavamancer (1 dmg), casting 2 lightning bolts (6 dmg), sacrificing the two mountain for a fireblast (4 dmg) when you [cards]reanimate[cards] for a total of 11 dmg in your face but this is unlikely. Its a bit of a god hand for a burn deck but still possible. What reanimation spell did you have? If it was a reanimate then maybe i would name red and see what happens (whatever deck it is that you are dealing with has red in it and naming red is ok). If it was exhume/animate dead then you can easily wait for another turn (only for the first game against him of course).

nastirth

08-11-2011, 07:18 AM

@MirrorMask
Some pages ago I talked about this. I also had the idea that I couldn't animate dead Inkwell because of shroud, until I started to play online and noticed a guy doing that. I was like "wtf??"... What happens it that Animate Dead targets inkwell when it is still in the graveyard, and there shroud has no effect. When Animate Dead enters into play the Animate Dead changes it's status but doesn't target, so it remains attached to Inkwell.

Here's the actual Oracle text for animate dead:

Enchant creature card in a graveyard
When Animate Dead enters the battlefield, if it's on the battlefield, it loses "enchant creature card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with Animate Dead." Return enchanted creature card to the battlefield under your control and attach Animate Dead to it. When Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller sacrifices it.
Enchanted creature gets -1/-0.

MirrorMask

08-11-2011, 08:27 AM

Ah.. i see. The oracle got me confused here. Made me think that it targets twice... :) Thanks of clearing it up dude. I did like more some older oracle change though, that stated that animate dead would just go to the gy leaving the creature with pro black or shroud ON the field WITHOUT taking the -1/-0 cause it never attached to it. LOL silly oracle... hehe

Sturtzilla

08-11-2011, 10:54 AM

question, in a recent toureny i had a turn two Iona, my opponent had only a mountain and a grim lavamancer in play, what color would you name?

This is a tough call. There are three major possibilities. NO RUG, Zoo, or Burn. I would be willing to go out on a limb and say that, if your opponent leads with a Mountain, then they are probably playing Burn. Both of those other decks, Zoo and NO RUG, would likely have played fetch into a dual or simply played a dual. However, in this case it might be wise since 2 points from a Lavamancer in trivial as long as you didn't/don't use reanimate, to wait a turn to see the next play, before committing to the reanimation. Against Zoo, you want to call white. This keeps path/swords from hitting your Iona. Against NO RUG I would probably say green. It shuts down Goyf, Noble Hierarch, Green Sun's Zenith, and the scary Natural Order. Lastly against Burn you better say red.

Enchant creature card in a graveyard
When Animate Dead enters the battlefield, if it's on the battlefield, it loses "enchant creature card in a graveyard" and gains "enchant creature put onto the battlefield with Animate Dead." Return enchanted creature card to the battlefield under your control and attach Animate Dead to it. When Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, that creature's controller sacrifices it.
Enchanted creature gets -1/-0.

Thanks nastirth! The long and short of it is that it never actually targets the creature. Therefore shroud never comes into play, even when the shrouded creature changes zones.

Muppet86

08-11-2011, 12:54 PM

i'm going to a tournament this sunday with the following list:

1 Iona
3 jin&Tonic
1 sphinx of the steel wind
1 empyrial archangel
1 Inkwell leviathan

7 creatures

4 ponder
4 brainstorm
4 mental misstep
4 force of will
3 daze
4 careful study
4 entomb
3 reanimate
4 exhume
4 animate dead
38 spells

9 fetch
4 sea
1 island
1 swamp

SB:
2 Iona (combo, landstill, reanimator)
2 sphinx (zoo)
1 blazing archon (dredge, goblins, merfolk)
1 elesh norn (dredge, goblins, merfolk)
4 pithing needle (graveyard hate)
3 spell pierce (hive mind, landstill)
2 chain of vapor (leyline.deck, artifact, jace).

Do you guy's have any pointers on how i can change the maindeck/sb. I'm currently happy by playing without the hapless researchers.

On the sb i have a lot of doubts. What do you normaly board out? The md is pretty tight.

Sturtzilla

08-11-2011, 04:31 PM

Do you guy's have any pointers on how i can change the maindeck/sb. I'm currently happy by playing without the hapless researchers.

My suggestions would be play 2-3 Hapless Researchers, 1 more creature in you main deck, and 2-3 more land. I hear that you are happy without the Researchers but an extra 2-3 discard outlets in you deck can be very useful. I like the 7-8 creature range, so I guess you are good there. 15 land is not enough. I initially ran my build at 18 land (6 basics, 4 Underground Seas, and 8 fetches). I tested sneaking in more cantrips for land slots. I did this for 17 and 16 land builds. When you play fewer than 17 land, you will consistently miss land drops and this is not good especially if you expect to see some decent representation of Wasteland.

At very least, I would suggest +2 Land, -2 Ponder.

On the sb i have a lot of doubts. What do you normaly board out? The md is pretty tight.

The board looks pretty good. I don't think you need 6 slots for creatures and I also think you should consider Show and Tell as well as Stifle. You can see how I boarded at SCG Pittsburgh on the previous page. Good Luck!

FlyingSkull13

08-11-2011, 07:47 PM

thnx for reply's i said white, he was playing burn, i lost 3 turns later to a fiend and burn spells

MirrorMask

08-12-2011, 09:27 AM

ah well... there was no need to rush there :( . better luck next time.

rnightingale

08-14-2011, 09:27 AM

Short report... 5-2, from 90+ Players. Legacy Tourney.

Round 1 - (2-0 vs. Affinity)

Game 1 - Turn Two Jin Gitaxias Shut him down.

[Sideboard: -4 Daze, -1 Inkwell Leviathan, -1 Jin Gitaxias, +1 Sphinx of Steel Wind, +1 Blazing Archon +2 Pithing Needle, +2 Show and Tell]

Game 2 - He almost played his entire opening hand... but Elesh Norn sealed his deck.

Round 2 - (2-0 vs. Dead Guy Ale)

Game 1 - Opponent got a game loss from an incomplete decklist entry.
Game 2 - Turn Two Jin Gitaxias.

Round 3 - (1-2 vs. Merfolk)

Game 1 - Jin Gitaxias again!

[Sideboard: -4 Daze, -1 Jin Gitaxias , +3 Thoughtseize, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Blazing Archon]
Game 2 - Relic of Progenitus screwed my game plan.

[Sideboard: -3 Thoughtseize, +3 Daze, +2 Show and Tell, -1 Brainstorm, -1 Hapless Researcher]
Game 3 - I managed to put Elesh Norn in play but he outraced me with two Level 4 Coralhelms.

Round 4 - (2-0 vs. Pox)

Game 1 - Jin Gitaxias owned him.

[Sideboard: -1 Force of Will, -3 Daze, -1 Inkwell Leviathan, -1 Hapless Researcher, +1 Flusterstorm, +3 Thoughtseize, +2 Show and Tell, +1 Misdirection]
Game 2 - Mull to five. I got bad opening but i recovered and sealed him with Sphinx of the Steelwind Iona.

Round 5 - (1-2 vs. Bant Countertop)

Game 1 - Jin Gitaxias again...

[Sideboard: -4 Daze, -1 Jin Gitaxias , +3 Thoughtseize, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Terastodon]
Game 2 - Bad draws, like 5 consecutive land top decks. Relic of Progenitus wiped my graveyard.

[Sideboard: -2 Thoughtseize, +2 Pithing Needle]
Game 3 - Same as Game 2, but he already sealed by deck with a turn 2 Counterbalance and two Relic of Progenitus

Round 6 - (2-0 vs. Zoo)

Game 1 - Turn 2 Sphinx of Steel Wind. He threw 2 Path to Exiles, but both removals got answered by Mental Misteps then Iona sealed his White Spells.

[Sideboard: -1 Inkwell Leviathan, -1 Jin Gitaxias, -1 Daze, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Misdirection, +1 Sphinx of Steel Wind]
Game 2 - I took heavy beatdown from two 2/2 Nactls and Dryad Arbor plus a newly played Stoneforge. Elesh Norn wiped out his board.

Round 7 - (2-1 vs. Imperial Painter)

Game 1 - Turn 2 Jin Gitaxias. I also managed to protect jin from maindeck REBs and Pyroblasts.

[Sideboard: -3 Daze, -1 Inkwell Leviathan, -1 Sphinx of Steel Wind, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Misdirection, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Terastodon]

Game 2 - Got screwed by Trinisphere and Moon effects. Painter-Grindstone Combo finished the game

[Sideboard: +3 Daze, -2 Thoughtseize, -1 Terastodon]
Game 3 - He painted both of use with color blue, but Iona, Shield of Emeria sealed color blue and finished the game.

Sturtzilla

08-14-2011, 11:44 AM

Muppet86

08-14-2011, 08:54 PM

Played in a tournament of 79 people today. Went 5-0-2 and finished on top of the standings. We splitted the top8.

I played to following list:

1 Iona
3 jin&Tonic
1 sphinx of the steel wind
1 empyrial archangel
1 Inkwell leviathan

7 creatures

4 ponder
4 brainstorm
4 mental misstep
4 force of will
3 daze
4 careful study
4 entomb
3 reanimate
4 exhume
4 animate dead
38 spells

9 fetch
4 sea
1 island
1 swamp

SB:
2 Iona
2 sphinx
1 blazing archon
1 elesh norn
4 pithing needle
3 spell pierce
2 chain of vapor

Although Sturtzilla gave me some pointers, i tried my own list for once.

My matches went as following:

Round 1: Show and Tell/Defense of the heart brew
He playes a forbidden orchard into a tinder wall. I have no idea but I go for Jin. He tries a defense, i Fow, he scoops.

Board: +2 Iona, +3 spell pierce, -1 inkwell, -1 elesh, -2 reanimate, -1 daze.

Game2:He does almost nothing, i go for Jin, and after that Iona. He scoops.

1-0

Ronde2 Dark Tempo *****
Game1:
I keep a hand with a t2 or t3 reanimate inkwell. I have a study at hand, so that will come in handy. I don't have to fight over it. t2 i try exhume, wich is countered. t3 animate dead, which sticks. He scoops because he can't race it.

Board +2 sphinx, +3 spell pierce, -1 elesh norn, -1 jin -2 reanimate -1 daze.

Game2:
I try to bait him to use al his counters on my fetch lands, which works. After which i try entomb and drop Jin. He thinks a minute, then scoops.
2-0

Ronde3: Merfolk
I win the die roll and go for a t2 jin. He scoops after he reads that he has to discards his hand every turn:-)

Board: -1 inkwell leviathan, -1 jin, -2 reanimate, -1 daze +2 sphinx, +3 needle.

Game2: He missteps my study, My second study is also forced. That leaves me with no discardoutlets. I slowely die to the fish.

Game3: I reanimate a sphinx t3. The sphinx races the fish:-)

3-0

Ronde4: Tess
Game1:
Both of us use a lot of ponders and brainstorms, but we both find nothing. Eventually, he hits the jackpot and kills me with ad nauseum.

Board: +2 Iona, +2 Spell pierce, -1 elesh norn, -1 inkwell, -2 reanimate.

Game2:
I go t2 Jin, find a fow+blue card and a daze. He tries to go off, the daze is enough.

Game3:
I have a God hand. T2 Jin with double fow+blue card backup:-). He has no change.

4-0

Ronde5: PatternHulk Combo
Game 1: I have no idea what he is playing until he playes a carrion feeder. After a couple of turns, i go for Jin. He tries to natural order his academy rector, but it is white. So bye bye.

Board: -1 Inkwell, -1 Sphinx, -2 daze, +2 Iona, -2 reanimate

Game2:
I keep a decent hand with a t3 Jin, i find a lot of counterbackup and finish the game with 3 fow, 3 blue cards to go with them and a misstep.

5-0

I can draw my next to matches and finish on top of the tables.

The deck is pretty sick. Specially the Jin is a beating! With the meta not focussing on the graveyard, It can easily go nuts.

I don't know if the stifle sb will be good. But i will try them. The top8 was filled with maverick, which i don;t know if it is a good matchup?

Sturtzilla

08-15-2011, 11:54 AM

Played in a tournament of 79 people today. Went 5-0-2 and finished on top of the standings. We splitted the top8.

Gratz! Sounds like you had a pretty solid day.

Although Sturtzilla gave me some pointers, i tried my own list for once.

It sounds like you did great piloting your own build to a good finish.

The deck is pretty sick. Specially the Jin is a beating! With the meta not focussing on the graveyard, It can easily go nuts.

I totally agree. Many of the top SCG players are even running graveyard hate in their boards. Check out this question asked at the recent SCG Richmond: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22543_Quick_Question_Reanimator_Is_Back_In_BusinessHave_You_Adapted_Your_Deck_For_It.html

Most players are not really dedicating much sideboard if anything to it. The most I have seen is 2-3 relics or crypts in the sideboard. This is really good for us, as it mean our graveyard based plan is less likely to get screwed with.

I don't know if the stifle sb will be good. But i will try them. The top8 was filled with maverick, which i don;t know if it is a good matchup?

First off, it is quite possible that Stifle is just a personal preference. If you have it in hand, it means you don't have to spend your counter magic on their graveyard hate. Force of Willing a Tormod's Crypt is just a terrible way to begin the game. It lets you retain the control of the tempo of games 2-3, even if you fear graveyard hate. Instead of a single graveyard hate card 2 or 3 for 1-ing you (which many times leads to a blow out), you still can get your guy (which generally leads to a win). I really like siding in both Show and Tell and Stifle. It allows for 2 separate lines of play that make it significantly more difficult for your opponent to deal with.

I guess Spell Pierce basically covers the same area as Stifle, although not quite as well. Mana for Stifle does not necessarily need to be open when your opponent casts the graveyard hate (whereas for Spell Pierce it does). This allows for your early resources to be spent on business. You can still go for your turn one and two entombs and careful studies. Most opponents won't activate graveyard hate until you try to reanimate your guy. Knowing when the removal will occur allows us to budget mana and thus make sure we can secure the reanimation by Stifling the grave hate activation. Sure Spell Pierce can counter both Crypt and Relic, but it fails to take care of Faerie Macabre, which Stifle takes care of. Ultimately, it comes down to how you want to play the deck. I like the Stifles because it allows me to continue to be the aggressor even post board. Spell Pierce means you have to play a bit more control-esque and back off a bit. I think both strategies can work, I just like ensuring speed for this deck. I think Stifle gives us more in that department.

Second of all, Maverick should be a pretty easy match up. They have no counter magic, so our game plan will progress relatively unhindered. We also have the benefit of being able to counter the key pieces of their deck. The only thing you should worry about is active (non-summoning sick) Knight of the Reliquary. She can dig up a Bojuka Bog to take out your graveyard. I am not sure if most builds are running it in the main these days, but definitively expect it post board and maybe even in multiples.

Lastly, how did you like running 8 cantrips? It just seems like too many to me. I may test it out though.

rnightingale

08-15-2011, 09:20 PM

@ rnightingale

Nice tournament report. Sounds like you got screwed by graveyard hate a few times. I said it back during my last tournament report, but I will say it again. Try out Stifle. It lets you play more aggressively, even into the face of graveyard hate. For games 2-3, +2 SnT and +2 Stifle for, say -2 Exhume/Animate Dead and -2 appropriate (least useful) counter spell, really gives you more lines of play and lets you still use the graveyard line of play, which is your "Plan A." Just some food for thought. At any rate, I would love to see your deck and sideboard.

Here's my decklist.

4 Exhume
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
3 Animate Dead

4 Careful Study
3 Brainstorm

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Mistep
4 Daze // (on play) i really feel secured if i have Daze's in hand. (on draw) most of the time, i swap em' with Thoughtseizes.

2 Hapless Researcher
3 Jin Gitaxias, Core Auger
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

4 Underground Seas
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
2 Island

Sideboard

3 Thoughtseize (against control decks)
3 Show and Tell (this one didnt helped a lot..well, once. Yeah, but not all the time, i might)
2 Echoing Truth (good against Leylines, KOTR, multiple Goyfs.. etc.)
2 Pithing Needle
1 Misdirection (helped me a lot, i misdirected lots of Path to Exiles and Pyroblasts to protect my Jin Gitaxias)
1 Flusterstorm (it happens that i just have 1 pc. so i tried to use this card, pretty useless for now..)
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Terastodon
1 Blazing Archon

Additional Info:

-I used Careful Study as a Cantrip. But its a very bad idea. You really need to draw a creature card to make it effective, otherwise its a card disadvantage.

-Elesh Norn is better than Blazing Archon.

-Inkwell Leviathan got boarded out lots of time..might replace this with a better creature. Merfolks can still outrace you. I hope Innistrad has better fatties.

-Brainstorm doesn't help a lot anymore.. I'd rather cast a Turn One, Entomb or Careful Study. To me, running 3 Brainstorms is optimal.

Sturtzilla

08-15-2011, 10:35 PM

My main and sideboard look very similar to you list. We have very small variations between the two lists. I think yours looks pretty solid. Check out my stance on Stifle over the past few posts and see what you think.

I used Careful Study as a Cantrip. But its a very bad idea. You really need to draw a creature card to make it effective, otherwise its a card disadvantage.

You really want to have a guy to bin or you are just filling the yard. This is why Hapless Researcher shines. You can play him and just wait for the creature. Allowing you to leave mana open for counters and digging. He is like "Careful Study Light," that meaning he is only one card, which can be really helpful in some situations.

Elesh Norn is better than Blazing Archon.

I have been really liking Elesh as well (nothing like getting to Value-Town with Wild Nactl equivalent Researchers). However you will think this until you are starting down a Progenitus or Emrakul. Don't discount the Archon because he saves you ass in these situations.

Inkwell Leviathan got boarded out lots of time..might replace this with a better creature. Merfolks can still outrace you. I hope Innistrad has better fatties.

More and more, I have been not really happy/impressed with Inky. I keep wishing that he were a 4th Jin-Gitaxias or a 2nd Sphinx of the Steel Wind. These are the guys that generally win the game for me. I guess this might be a good slot to try out an Angel of Despair, as well. I like the idea of having some main deck, versatile removal.

Brainstorm doesn't help a lot anymore.. I'd rather cast a Turn One, Entomb or Careful Study. To me, running 3 Brainstorms is optimal.

I have been running 2 and liking it. I used to run the full 4 Brainstorm and 4 Lim-Dul's Vault. The current build is just faster and has a better counter magic package. I might try out a 3rd Brainstorm as it helps attrition-y games, but 2 have been serving me well.

[sic]

08-16-2011, 12:33 AM

planarvoid

08-16-2011, 08:04 AM

anyone tried a basic core list running 4 brainstorm and 4 gitaxian probe with 16 land?

alderon666

08-16-2011, 11:32 AM

;576850']In general, I like how you tweaked the maindeck against Mental Misstep. Although I think the sideboard may need help against Leyline of the Void. I'd suggest adding a 3rd Chain of Vapor.

Obvious LOL is obvious

I never liked Chain of Vapor, unlike other bounce like Echoing Truth, you can't use Chain of Vapor to bounce something after you got your fatty on the table, like bouncing a Lackey after you reanimate Iona for Red. And I really don't like having my bounce spell countered by MM, sure Echoing Truth is more likely to be countered by Daze... but at least you can try playing around that.

Sturtzilla

08-16-2011, 11:38 AM

anyone tried a basic core list running 4 brainstorm and 4 gitaxian probe with 16 land?

Honestly, Brainstorm and Ponder do a better job of digging for what you need at any given time, as they allow you to see more cards. My opinion is Gitaxian Probe is a bit too costly to our life total to cast for the alternate cost of two life. This deck many times doesn't do anything the first couple turns of the game, and as such we take a good amount of damage, when playing against aggro decks. I am even in the camp that doesn't run Brainstorm and Ponder as 4-ofs anymore. My opinion is that running cards you want to see is more important than running cantrip oriented cards. So, I would say that it really doesn't have a place in the deck.

Alsan

08-16-2011, 08:38 PM

I'm back from the Spanish National Legacy Tournament, we were 318 players, 9 rounds + top16 and I lost in top16 against BUG landstill, 'cause when I had the game won I made a mistake and I lost.

http://www.factoriademishra.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5493

There is the report, but it's in spanish.

Phyrexian Reanimator

3 [A] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [UNH] Island
2 [UNH] Swamp

4 [NPH] Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 [ARB] Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 [RAV] Blazing Archon
3 [JU] Hapless Researcher
1 [M11] Stormtide Leviathan

4 [FNM] Reanimate
4 [US] Exhume
2 [A] Animate Dead
4 [OD] Entomb
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
3 [NE] Daze
4 [OD] Careful Study
3 [FNM] Brainstorm
1 [MM] Misdirection

Side
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 2 [WL] Null Rod
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
SB: 1 [WWK] Terastodon
SB: 1 [SOM] Platinum Emperion
SB: 1 [OD] Coffin Purge
SB: 2 [COM] Flusterstorm
SB: 2 [MOR] Vendilion Clique

I played against Elves 2-0, GW zenith 0-2, UWr Stoneblade 2-1, GW Zenith 2-0, BRG Goblins 2-0, New Horizons 2-0, UWr stoneblade 2-1, UW Landstill 2-0, ID, BUG Landstill 1-2 (If I had won, the next pairs would have been Team america, Merfolks and GW Zenith) The vendilion cliques were AWESOME.

theBloody

08-16-2011, 08:45 PM

@Alsan: Gratz to you. I have two questions. Where were cliques useful? Didn't you have problem with mana (16 sources)?

Alsan

08-17-2011, 05:26 AM

I played Reanimator all weekend (like 6 tournaments), and broke the plan of 3 team america of mulliganing to leyline of void, put one vendilion under Standstill, raced a BUG landstill, and cicled creatures from my hand to draw better spells.

I don't have mana screw ever, I'm the unlucky man who floods always. In testing (nearly 5 months ago) I played 18, but reduced 2. When Garobidou showed his maths, I played his #2 configuration, but cutting 2 lands because it's nuts seeing how much do I flood with 18 lands.

BTw, thanks! :D

Muppet86

08-17-2011, 07:01 AM

First off, it is quite possible that Stifle is just a personal preference. If you have it in hand, it means you don't have to spend your counter magic on their graveyard hate. Force of Willing a Tormod's Crypt is just a terrible way to begin the game. It lets you retain the control of the tempo of games 2-3, even if you fear graveyard hate. Instead of a single graveyard hate card 2 or 3 for 1-ing you (which many times leads to a blow out), you still can get your guy (which generally leads to a win). I really like siding in both Show and Tell and Stifle. It allows for 2 separate lines of play that make it significantly more difficult for your opponent to deal with.

I guess Spell Pierce basically covers the same area as Stifle, although not quite as well. Mana for Stifle does not necessarily need to be open when your opponent casts the graveyard hate (whereas for Spell Pierce it does). This allows for your early resources to be spent on business. You can still go for your turn one and two entombs and careful studies. Most opponents won't activate graveyard hate until you try to reanimate your guy. Knowing when the removal will occur allows us to budget mana and thus make sure we can secure the reanimation by Stifling the grave hate activation. Sure Spell Pierce can counter both Crypt and Relic, but it fails to take care of Faerie Macabre, which Stifle takes care of. Ultimately, it comes down to how you want to play the deck. I like the Stifles because it allows me to continue to be the aggressor even post board. Spell Pierce means you have to play a bit more control-esque and back off a bit. I think both strategies can work, I just like ensuring speed for this deck. I think Stifle gives us more in that department.

Second of all, Maverick should be a pretty easy match up. They have no counter magic, so our game plan will progress relatively unhindered. We also have the benefit of being able to counter the key pieces of their deck. The only thing you should worry about is active (non-summoning sick) Knight of the Reliquary. She can dig up a Bojuka Bog to take out your graveyard. I am not sure if most builds are running it in the main these days, but definitively expect it post board and maybe even in multiples.

Lastly, how did you like running 8 cantrips? It just seems like too many to me. I may test it out though.

Tnx for the reply.

First: Stifle vs Spell pierce. I think your assesment is accurate. It depens what kind of strategy you want. If you want to go aggro, you chose stifle. Spell pierce is more a control like card which i counter the graveyardhate.
The needles are in the sb for karakas, knight and all sorts of stuff. It's a versatile card and really strong as well.

Second: Maverick.

The deck is becoming pretty popular and has a good sb against us. I faced a version with 4 mental misstep mb, which is a good choice for the maverick player. Also they play the Ooze mb, which kind of sucks.

I think the match-up i still winable, but you have to be on your guard. Going for a sphinx is a beater:-), especially if you have a counter or 2 back up. Jin is also sick, but we already knew that.

Third: the cantrips

My playgroup consist of a couple of great ANT players. I build the list with them, and we figured that reanimator is like a combo deck that wants to find it;s combo pieces as quick and consistenly. Therefore, we chose to play 8 cantrips. I never had a moment when the were bad. The adjust your draw, and give you tempo. I advise you to try it in testing a couple of times.

Clown of Tresserhorn

08-18-2011, 05:52 PM

Just picked up my 4th entomb today. Old time combo player looking to switch into reanimator. Sturts, can you post your most recent list?

Sturtzilla

08-18-2011, 07:20 PM

@ Alsan

Great Job! I am really glad to hear that you did well. I like the innovation with Vendilion Clique; it seems like post board it can be really strong.

Third: the cantrips

My playgroup consist of a couple of great ANT players. I build the list with them, and we figured that reanimator is like a combo deck that wants to find it;s combo pieces as quick and consistently. Therefore, we chose to play 8 cantrips. I never had a moment when the were bad. The adjust your draw, and give you tempo. I advise you to try it in testing a couple of times.

I have played my list with 4 Brainstorm and also 4 Lim-Dul's Vault, which is nearly the same. I have also played the list with 4 Brainstorm and 2 Ponder. I found myself dead drawing about 50% of the time. I mean casting Brainstorm or Ponder trying to find whatever the hand was missing (creature, discard effect, reanimate spell, or counter magic), but failing to find anything useful. So I began running the list with fewer Brainstorms. This allowed for the inclusion of a bit more business. I am not saying that it is the only way to go, but it has been serving me better.

If you page back a ways, I did significant gold fishing of a few configurations of the deck with varying numbers of Brainstorms. I tested over 400 sample hands (you can find the results of each sample hand a few pages back) between different builds and what I found was the fewer Brainstorms you play, the fast the deck operates. One the other hand, the fewer Brainstorms you play, the worse the deck operates in poor mulliganing situations. Another separate consideration that should be noted is how cantrips effect your mulliganing decisions. The make openers harder to evaluate as you don't know what you will draw into.

There is a key difference in our game plan as opposed to an ANT player. Sure we are both playing combo decks, but our combo is far more compact. We don't need to spend the first two or three turn adjusting our hand to a perfect 6-7 cards for a kill. We need basically the right 2 cards and a land to win. I respect the comparison, but there is vast difference between the decks even though they are both considered combo.

Just picked up my 4th entomb today. Old time combo player looking to switch into reanimator. Sturtz, can you post your most recent list?

The following link contains my current list.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=39923

I have been debating the following two changes to the main:
-1 Inkwell Leviathan
-1 Marsh Flats/Verdant Catacombs
+1 Brainstorm
+1 Jin-Gitaxias

Inkwell hasn't really been shining lately. I am like very close to just moving him to the board.

I have been also think about working the sideboard a bit like this:
-2 Flusterstorm
+1 Stifle
+1 Flex Slot (potentially the boarded out Inkwell?)

Flusterstorm was a last minute inclusion at SCG Pittsburgh because I anticipated that I would be facing Hive Mind Combo. It has other uses (unprotected storm combos), but I doubt that it will be needed as Hive Mind Combo has basically fallen off of the face of the earth. It was like all the rage for about two weeks and then vanished.

Last Note: I got second at locals on this week. I will post a report later tonight. It was only three rounds so it will be short.

theBloody

08-18-2011, 09:08 PM

Muppet86: Dont forget that with more cantrips come more randomness. Yeah, you "can" draw what you want with ponder, but maybe you will be unlucky. For example if you have animate dead instead of ponder you know what combo part you already have and your mulligan decision will be easier and less risky.

Sturtzilla

08-18-2011, 10:16 PM

So I just moved out to Cleveland to begin graduate school. This relocation led me to investigate the local card shops and attempt to locate an establishment which could satisfy my need to play LEGACY! Well after checking out a few shops in the area, I found Kidforce Collectibles located in nearby Berea, Ohio. According to their website, weekly LEGACY tournaments were held for a handful of individuals. Armed with this information, I headed out for the weekly tourney. There were probably about 12-18 players at this event. We played three rounds and prize was given out to the top 3 as per the standings.

Round 1-Merfolk

For any followers of the altered art forum here on The Source, I played against Yawg07 one of our resident alterers. He was a really cool guy and we had great conversation while playing our match. Also his trade binder was nuts due to some of his awesome work.

Game 1: I take a few early points from a Cursecatcher and Mutavault, but stabilize and land a turn 3 Jin. The Jin quickly digs me into a Blazing Archon. At this we move to game 2.

Game 2: I have a turn two Jin or Sphinx off of a Hapless Researcher in my opener; however, a Relic of Progenitus sticks on his side after a counter war and I flounder until he fishes me out (Note: I failed to draw a Stifle to go though with that line of play).

Game 3: I kept an iffy opener with 4 land, Brainstorm, Reanimate, Careful Study. The Brainstorm got me into business, but he topdecked a Relic which kept me from getting anywhere. I just didn't have the counter resources.

0-1:1-2

Round 2-Team Itilia

Game 1: I draw the nuts this game. He lays land and tries for Figure of Destiny to which I toss a Misstep. I play fetch, go. He plays a second land and tries for a Dark Confidant. I respond by cracking the fetch, finding a Undergound Sea, tapping for Black, and Dazing the Confidant. He passes turn, but I use the black to Entomb a Jin. Turn 2 I lay a second land and Animate Dead for Jin. He is tapped out and I get a full grip with a Sphinx going to the bin. He Lightning Bolts me during his turn and discards his hand. He scoops after Sphinx comes to help Jin.

Game 2: This one was just a lapse of judgement on my part. I should have pitched this hand back and gotten a better six. I have no business and thumb my asshole, while Figure and burn make short work of my life total.

Game 3: This game I have business! I have a turn two Elesh! I go to 9 due to either fetches or Noble Hierarch pokes (not completely sure... my notes have three -1s) but he had no board presence. He must not have had burn either because I finished this game at 9. I later reanimate a nuked Figure to quicken the clock. I love paying one life for a 3/3... seems good.

1-1:3-3

Round 3-NO RUG

Game 1: I have a pretty solid opener: 3 Land, Entomb, Reanimate, Exhume, MM. I Entomb Jin at the end of his first turn, as I am on the play. He thinks for a good bit, which broadcasts that he has either MM or FoW... or both (foreshadowing... he does have both). I try for Reanimate and it gets Missteped. He lands some dorks. I attempt again with my Exhume, but my Exhume meets FoW. I die to dork beats and failure to draw an third reanimation spell.

Game 2: I We both get off to slow starts due to mulligans (I went to 5 and he went to 6) and counters flying everywhere, keeping the board clean. I manage to stick Jin on turn 4. I follow Jin with an Elesh which clears away a Nobel Hierarch and Bird of Paradise. He bins his hand and we move to game 3.

Game 3: I Reanimate a quick Jin on turn 3 (even after being Cliqued), which forces my opponent to discard a Goyf, Clique #2, and a Dryad Arbor. This became problematic during my next turn as I was face a three turn clock in the air due to the Clique. I caught a nice break by drawing and EOT discarding a Sphinx. This answered the clock and the air threat. On my turn 4, I take probably longer than I should have for this play (as it was pretty straight forward and awesome). I cast Animate Dead targeting his goyf and then followed that with an Exhume. I got back my Sphinx and he choose to get the Dryad Arbor... awesome power swing in my favor. He top decks a Lightning Bolt but being at 8 life, I had enough time to get in with Sphinx and lock the match up.

2-1:5-4

By another fortunate stroke of luck, I end 2nd overall. Yawg07 won the event. It was a $5 dollar buy in and I received $15 of store credit for my efforts. I used it to get a foil Tendrils of Agony and a foil Empty the Warrens for TES. I also managed to haggle in a large (the apple sized kind) spindown die to appease the girlfriend, since I told her I would get her a d20 at some point (she was really surprised at its size, when I got home) and also to use as a storm counter at the additional cost of a Blazing Archon out of my binder. All in all it was a great time. I had a great time playing LEGACY at a local venue, met some cool and skilled players, and placed in some money at the end of the day. Thanks for reading!

Sturtzilla

08-18-2011, 10:16 PM

Well this was a double post, so I figure I could just turn it into my post tourney thoughts. I didn't see any Hive Mind at this store so I will probably be taking the Flusterstorms out of the board and maybe throwing a 3rd Stifle into the board. I am not sure what I want to do with that last slot though. I am still toying around with changing the maindeck Inkwell to a 4th Jin. Although Inkwell seems like he could be pretty good against NO RUG. I mean it could probably win that race, but ultimately Jin is probably just better. I am still considering the Angel of Despair idea as well. I did have a few really bad hands. I think that would be an artifact of poor shuffling/cutting, bad luck, or and me not mulliganing like I should have been. Again thanks for reading.

Props
Kidforce Collectibles for having weekly LEGACY!

Yawg07 for kicking my ass.

Jin for still wining games.

Reanimate/Animate Dead for stealing opponent's creatures.

Slops
Me for not being ballsy enough to pitch back a few hands.

One last thing, I finally got around to posting the tournament report for the SCG Legacy Challenge, the event the day before the Open. The report is post #2664 in this tread. If you want to read some more fun reanimator antics, check it out!

Cacks

08-22-2011, 09:07 AM

Can I toss out an idea without attracting too much flame? ;-)

I used to play reaminator when mystical tutor was legal, but have found it subject to too much variance without it (although the raw power is still plainly there). What is needed are entombs 5 - 8, or tutors for them.

One option that I have been toying with is intuition. Not only can this search up entombs, animation spells or disruption, but by adding a single gigapede you can use it to directly entomb even the one-offs in the deck (eot intuition for two one offs and gigapede, next upkeep swap the gigapede for whatever they put in hand). The result is, therefore, almost a double entomb. For example you can intuition for gigapede and jin or iona + say sphinx, animate the first target and have sphinx (or whatever you most need) ready in the graveyard.

The increased tutoring capacity means that I am comfortable running only 2 Jin, and have cut back on careful study, where the card disadvantage can be mildly problematic, especially in multiples. Also if your one off animation target is stuck in your hand, with no way to get rid of it, entomb for gigapede allows you to (indirectly) put it into you 'yard.

The down side is that intuition is slow, at least as measured by the metric of this deck, with the result that I am running lotus petals again.

At present my build is as follows, but is far from set in stone:

4 Force of Will
4 MM
3 Daze

4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition

4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
1 Animate Dead
2 Careful study

2 Jin
1 Iona
1 Spinx
1 Gigapede
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Inkwell Leviathan

3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Island
2 Swamp
3 Verdant Catacomb
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Lotus Petal

Justin

08-22-2011, 11:52 AM

As soon as Mystical Tutor was banned, Reanimator players were considering cards to replace it. Intution was one of the options (along with Lim-Dul's Vault and Personal Tutor), but it never panned out. The consensus was that three mana was too slow for this kind of deck.

Reanimator has made a bit of a comeback since the printing of Jin and Mental Misstep. Decks that have top-8ed at major events (such as the recent Reanimator list from SCG Boston http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=40485) forgo tutors and mana aceleration and just run the usual stuff.

Dark Ritual

08-22-2011, 04:12 PM

Intuition isn't good here. You'd have to adapt to playing city of traitors and/or ancient tombs to effectively utilize intuition but that weakens the manabase a considerable amount and it isn't worth it.

LDV is also terrible with reanimate. It is also too slow for the deck.

Personal tutor is horrid since it only gets reanimation spells but not a way to pitch creatures. If entomb were a sorcery personal tutor would be the bee's knee's but it isn't both fortunately and unfortunately (EoT entomb is quite powerful).

The current lists are fine IMO. You have at least 8 ways to get creatures in the bin in careful study and entomb and then you have great dig and protection for the combo. Finding reanimation spells isn't hard when you run at least 8.

But yeah, Jin-Gitaxias and misstep revived this deck IMO. Jin is just unfair; when you draw 7 cards at the end of your turn you usually have the game locked up. Misstep protects your dudes and helps with counterwars obviously since misstep hits misstep.

Sturtzilla

08-22-2011, 06:04 PM

I do think the Intuition-Gigapede idea is cool; however, the problem is, that unless you are playing against a slower combo deck or some form of control, you will be under pressure too fast for the combo to matter. We have considered many options here, but ultimately the current lists seem to be the way to go. The major debate at present is Library Manipulation versus Moar Business. More specifically, should you play 6-8 Brainstorm and Ponder effects or should you play extra copies of reanimate effects and binning spells? Honestly, I think both routes preform well. The notable differences would be that playing more business generally lets you go for the reanimation attempt faster, while the library manipulation route lets you recover from lost counter wars or hand disruption better. Those have been my observations from testing builds across the build spectrum. My opinion would be that somewhere in the middle is the way to go to ensure both speed and consistency.

Mental Misstep has really allowed us to run a more diverse creature package and consistently keep our guys alive. Moreover, this card has let us move away from subpar creatures with shroud in favor of scarier guys like Jin that previously would have been considered un-runnable due to his lack of protection. Dark Ritual is right on, these two cards have really revitalized this deck.

MirrorMask

08-23-2011, 02:29 PM

Hi again guys. I just played today with a u/b/w wizard deck and i want to share my experience and thoughts on the game.

First of all don't laugh at the wizard deck; this guy has after a quite bit of time managed to make it a threat from the fun-only deck it was.
Here is his playlist as i remember it :

Creatures(20)

4xdark confidant
3xVoidmage Prodigy
4xpatron wizard
3xStonybrook Schoolmaster
3xtrinket mage
3xmeddling mage

spells

3xaether vial
4xswords to plowshares
4xgo for the throat
2xvindicate
2xchrome mox
1xengineered explosives
1xmeekstone (he didn't have it this time but he should have, had 2nd top)
1xsensei's divining top
3xopposition

lands
I can't recall but the usual i guess. Fetches and friends.

Sideboard
4xduress
2xrelic of progenitus
2xtormod's crypt
1xengineered explosives
plus other irrelevant stuff

My deck is Sturtzilla's first on the list but with an extra card MD (so 61), which is misdirection and a tropical island for the krosan grips in the SB.
My creatures are :
1xinkwel leviathan
1xempyrial archangel
1xiona shield of emeria
3xjin gitaxias
2xsphinx of the steel wind
3xhapless researcher
the rest stuff is the aforementioned.

My sideboard is:
2xshow and tell
2xmisdirection
4xstifle
1xiona
1xstromtide leviathan
1xblazing archon
1xelesh norn
2xkrosan grip
1xechoing truth

The win ratio was 50/50 maybe due to the bad luck i had in the first few games but one thing in my opponent's deck made it very scary. Being able to TUTOR for the graveyard hate made it hard for me and pressed me to drop a fatty ASAP. There were many times that he had DOUBLE hate on the field which was an auto loss. What i boarded in most games were the stifles plus show and tells removing some of the counters and haplesses. I have found that having to do the whole combo+stifle on the SAME turn to prevent him from activating the hate and to be able to race him immediately is a bit problematic. I could have just used entomb+stifle first and then animate but he was pretty quick to lock me out after the delay. His duresses were highly irrelevant. Only one time he managed to used them but he had already won anyway.

So my thought was if we were better off with pithing needle instead of stifle. I have found them a bit demanding in terms of combined mana with the rest combo while the needles are permanent in their effect and can used when you have a spare mana.
And one final note. If he had used that meekstone instead of the second sensei's divining top what would have happened if not countered? He could have locked all of my fatties out of the game except sphinx. A bad scenario. Some would argue that meekstones aren't played at all but if you take a close look at the meta (at least at my meta)
you can see a lot of high powered weenies (tarmogoyfs, knights of the reliquary, toobstalkers, nimbe mogoses, goblin piledrivers etc...)

What do you guys think?

Sturtzilla

08-23-2011, 09:06 PM

The win ratio was 50/50 maybe due to the bad luck i had in the first few games but one thing in my opponent's deck made it very scary. Being able to TUTOR for the graveyard hate made it hard for me and pressed me to drop a fatty ASAP. There were many times that he had DOUBLE hate on the field which was an auto loss.

Well with a deck that has as much potential to counter your key spells in addition to maindeck, tutorable graveyard hate should have a decent match up against us. I don't think that double graveyard hate is necessarily an auto loss. It is definitely tough to play through and you have to hit the right cards, but it can be done with a little skill and a good amount of luck. At any rate it seems like a pretty neat deck your friend was playing.

So my thought was if we were better off with pithing needle instead of stifle. I have found them a bit demanding in terms of combined mana with the rest combo while the needles are permanent in their effect and can used when you have a spare mana.

Pithing Needle is a great card to fight against both Relic and Crypt, but it fails to save us versus Maccabe. I haven't really had problems generating 2-3 mana to cast a Stifle in addition to a Reanimate/Exhume/Animate Dead. If you haven't been real pleased with it, maybe try out the Spell Pierce idea. You have to play a bit more of a controlling role as opposed to Stifle. You also get the benefit of having a better counter in some match-ups post board. I have been liking Stifle but who knows maybe i will give Piece a whirl here in the next few tournaments.

Clown of Tresserhorn

08-24-2011, 12:33 AM

This deck is officially on my radar. Put a list together and did some playtesting with the locals. I was ranching just about every deck. Here's the list I played and some commentary:

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

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
2 Daze

4 Brainstorm

4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
3 Hapless Researcher

4 Exhume
3 Reanimate
3 Animate Dead

3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Sphinx of the steelwind
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Empyrial Archangel

Remarks:

1) Inkwell was absolute shit in about every game I played. I can see it as a SB card vs. MUC, but it's getting cut ASAP. Jin #4 replaces him, as he's blue and pitches to FoW.

2) I'm not sure on archon vs. elesh. I think I want to run both and see which one I like better (or maybe replace archangel with archon?) Elesh was usualy enough, but I dropped a game to merfolk having trips lord.

3) I want more daze, but can't find a cut

4) 17 mana sources seemed greedy, I want 1 ponder or the 18th mana source. Maybe a hapless researcher gets cut.

zrbrt

08-24-2011, 02:34 AM

MirrorMask

08-24-2011, 04:49 AM

I ve been having the same problem. Everything seems very tight. What i did to the match up I analyzed was siding in 2 show and tell and 2 misdirection (for a total of 3). I should probably have siding in some stifles instead but i got really pissed off with them in the previous games. I sided out 2xdaze , 1xhapless and 1xiona (which sucks against 3 colored weenie decks-except zoo anyway). Against other decks which give you time might be ok to side out reanimation. I didn't have much time to reach the 3 mana threshold so it wasn't a stable option. Besides, you are running many brainstorm like effects so siding in even 4 show and tell might be a good thing. you can find them way easier than me and you can also find missing lands. And one last note. Inkwell leviathan isn't bad. Maybe in you meta there aren't many removals but in mine there are plenty. This guy really shines and laughs in their face ( as well as empyrial archangel). I wouldn't suggest removing him unless you are absolutely certain you won't face excessive removal as well. If , for example, i had reanimated any other fatty except inky i would be smashed most of the time. This guy was running 10 removal + 8 grave hate + 3 opposition. I did have counters but couldn't counter his whole deck could i?

Garobidou

08-24-2011, 10:14 AM

I apologize in advance for asking this if it is redundant, but could somebody help me out with sideboarding with Reanimator? Tonight I played my first Legacy tournament with the deck and just couldn't quite figure out what to bring in/out with each matchup.

I am playing something similar to Rob Castellon's list from the last SCG Open (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=40485)

I understand when each creature should be played (Iona for Elves, etc etc), but I can't really figure out what/when to side the S&T package, and what to take out. I found myself siding out:

-3 Reanimate Effects (I can't figure out if it should differ between decks or if I should just be cutting like one of each (ie: Aggro = side out all Reanimate, Combo side out all Animate Dead).
-1 Ponder
-1 Careful Study
-2 Creatures to make them Relevant (Should all Jin-Gitaxis stay in?)

+2 Pithing Needle
+2 Echoing Truth
+1 Show and Tell

I felt like I could easily stomp everybody G1 tonight, but I really lacked confidence in my ability to correctly sideboard and was frequently stuck in G2/G3 with lopsided draws/etc.

Am I on the right track? Thanks for reading all this :\

There are 2 parts in sideboarding :
- Switching creatures
- Fighting expected hate

As far as I understand your problem is about part 2 which is the most difficult. Here are some tips :

1) I run 2 kinds of cards to fight hate : Pithing Needle and Show and tell. I usually side in one plan or the other but not both of them.
There are 3 reasons for that :
- The more you board in this kind of card (anti-hate) the more you dillute you combo and the less you're consistent and explosive. Keep in mind Reanimator has to be fast to be effective (this is the main difference with other combo decks such as High Tide, Hive Mind, Doomsday. Btw this is a reason why Ponder doesn't shine as in thoses kind). Show and Tell is good because it is both an answer and a combo piece (counts as discard + reanimate) but it is "slow".
- Mental misstep hits Relic of progenitus, Exhume + Entomb (with a creature already in graveyard) dodges graveyard hate : you already have anti-hate cards MD.
- Pithing needle and Show and Tell don't serve the same purpose :
* Pithing needle allows you to be faster than Show and tell and deal with non-hate but problematic cards such as Knight of the reliquary, Jace, Karakas. It also hits Aether Vial and Stoneforge mystic
* Show and Tell is slower but allows to fight any kind of graveyard hate (extirpate, faerie macabre, leyline of the void)

2) Pithing needle plan
- Against any knight of the reliquary.deck, any fast deck (zoo, sligh) and/or Vial.deck
- On the draw : +3 Needle +3 Thoughtseize, -2 Hapless (I'm running 3 MD but you can draw-discard on the draw) -1 Reanimate effect, -3 Daze. I usually board out Exhume as I dislike not countering an annoying creature because my reanimate spell is Exhume
- On the play : +3 Needle, -1 Hapless - 1 Creature, -1 Reanimate effect

3) Show and Tell plan
- Against anything threats-light not running knight of the reliquary, emrakul or progenitus (or any other fatty). Show and Tell is more or less an auto include against anything playing Black (even if it runs knight of the reliquary)
- On the draw : +3 Show and Tell, +4 Thoughtseize, +1 Brainstorm (I run 3 MD), -3 Hapless Researcher, -3 Reanimate effects (usually 3 exhume or 2 exhume + 1 reanimate), -2 Daze
- On the play : +3 Show and Tell, +4 Thoughtseize, +1 Brainstorm (I run 3 MD), -3 Hapless Researcher, -3 Reanimate effects (usually 3 exhume), -2 Daze

4) Keep in mind these are general tips, you should modify them given what you saw in G1 and then in G2. But don't remove too many creatures, especially on the draw.

5) Others thoughts :
- Vendilion clique is quite appealing : people will usually mulligan agressively to find their leyline (if they run some). Having in 1 card something which applies pressure, disrupts and cycles your own "jank" cards seems very good. Especially against BUG as Alex stated.
- On the contrary I'm not a huge fan of Stifle on paper (but I will try it) for some reasons :
* It requires 1 more mana in your big turn (makes your exposure to Daze bigger)
* It is a 1-time effect against Knight, Jace, Karakas where Pihting needle is permanent
* You have a probabilty to lose too many ressources : you always play stifle in reaction to tormod's / relic activation which is a reaction to a Reanimation spell on your side. Thus, if your stifle gets countered (something one can expect since Mental misstep hits it) you lose your reanimation spell
* Thoughtseize should deal with Faerie macabre (in addition to deal with extirpate)

6) For reference, my SB :
- 3 Pithing Needle
- 4 Thoughtseize
- 3 Show and Tell
- 1 Brainstorm
- 4 Creatures (Iona, Archon, Sphinx, Terastodon)

Sidenote : congratz to both of you Sturtzilla and Alex for your results! :)

jcsy

08-25-2011, 04:04 PM

anybody splashed green, say for Nature's Claim, Krosan Grip

heck, I was even Considering 4 x Show and Tell together with Wordly Tutor :D

since cards didnt work, lol ;

http://www.blackborder.com/cgi-bin/prices/ex_prodshow.cgi?prodid=2872&sid=IUTYbKymgp

Cacks

08-26-2011, 03:34 AM

Hi Guys - rather belatedly, thanks for the helpful comments re my above post.

MirrorMask

08-26-2011, 04:48 AM

krosan grip is ok against countertop but other than that 3 mana is expensive. I have tried nature's claim even reverent silence ( we have an enchantress in the tournament and they were nice cards against him but before jin gitaxias was printed ). But in the end, nature's claim only targets tormod's , relic and the occasional layline of the void in this meta while pithing needle and stifle kick some serious ass at the time being, so i wouldn't advise you to use claim at all except if for some strange reason the aforementioned do not work. If you want to destroy leylines then just use echoing truth or chain of vapor. Its almost the same as destroying them.

Cenarius

08-26-2011, 05:10 AM

I also have some trouble's with my sideboard. I'm pretty sure that these cards are in there for 100%:

4 Chain of Vapor
2 Sphinx of the Steelwind (playing 1 mainboard)
2 Iona, Shield of Emeria (playing 1 mainboard)
2 Null Rod

Isn't the best card against an unknown hate, Chain of Vapor?

If he runs Extirpate/Surgical Extraction that Chain of Vapor can still be very important to bounce multiple creatures to win the race.
Chain of Vapor bounces Relic's, Crypt's, Leyline's, Scaveging Ooze and the what not, before you actually cast Entomb or Careful Study.
Sphinx are boarded against Zoo, Dark Tempo Threshold, Team America etc.
Iona against the mono-coloured decks.
Null rod can be boarded against decks that cludge artifacts such as Affinity, but also decks that potentially play Relic + Crypt and Thopter/Sword of the Meek.

I think the rest is pretty open. What would you want to play in the open space? Do you think my assumptions are right?

Swordfish

08-26-2011, 05:36 AM

I must strongly disagree with playing Chain of Vapor in reanimator. When you have a creature on the board, you can't use CoV because opponent will sac a land and bounce your dude with it.
You wrote that againist Extirpate, you can bounce multiple creatures to win the race, I don't see how is it possible.
Overloading your SB with redundant creatures (I see that in certain MU's you want to switch from Jin-plan to Iona/Sphinx plan, but this deck is designed to take advantage of early Jin, which either locks the game or just sets up further reanimation) is not the best thing you can do. See Garobidou's example sideboard few posts above.

MirrorMask

08-26-2011, 05:58 AM

yes. swordfish is correct. You shouldn't use COV. I used too for a bit but its sucks compared to needle,null rod and stifle. If you want to bounce stuff then echoing truth is very good. Null rod takes care of relic and crypt. Why not using some stifles as well for macabre? But in any case judging from my meta (always) rod isn't good at all. No one runs artifact to shut down so needle is always better and cheaper. (it also shuts down EVERY activated ability that matters to us)

Cenarius

08-26-2011, 07:13 AM

Your chains would mainly be used to bounce graveyard hate the turn before you entomb --> Reanimate/Animate Dead/Exhume.

There is a possibility of bouncing (F.E.) a Knight of the Reliquary when u have an Inkwell Leviathan on the table.

There are certain matchups where Iona and Sphinx are plain better and less risky than Jin & Tonic.

I'd like to take the risk of Faerie Macabre. To my knowledge, that card hasn't seen any play since Survival got banned - in any serious metagame -.

Sturtzilla

08-26-2011, 11:15 AM

Chain of Vapor is not really worth the risk of losing any creature other than an Inkwell Leviathan. The way the meta seems to have shifted, as of late, has made Inkwell a subpar target more often than not. So it is quite possible that many people wouldn't even be able to make the play you list above. The fact of the matter is, Chain of Vapor is a dead card after you have a guy on the board. Sure it is cheaper, in a mana sense, than Echoing Truth, but the probability, or even possibility, that you will not be able to cast it or that you top deck it after having a guy in play, makes it a poor choice for this deck. I try not to sideboard in cards that will become potentially dead as part of my main game plan.

Faerie Macabre, has fallen off a bit in terms of how much play it is seeing, but this is absolutely a player preference issue. Ultimately, it works just as well at stopping our plan as Relic or Crypt. I would argue that it is more devastating and overall probably a better pick, as you don't telegraph your play to your opponent. When a Macabre removes your dude, you are already casting your reanimation spell. This means it basically 3 (in the case of only one creature target in the yard [you have spent the a discard effect, binned a creature, and played a reanimation spell]) or 4 (if there are two valid creature targets in the graveyard) for ones you in terms of card advantage and tempo. It is tough to deal with as you can't counter it and you don't get a chance to line up any graveyard hate baiting strategy. Against Relic or Tormod's you generally have a few turns to set up some form of baiting scenario, in which you end up on top.

As for the green splash, this has been discussed a few times over the course of this forum. Green can give us Krosan Grip and Xantid Swarm, which can be really great additions. However, splashing for these raises two issues in my mind. The first issue is the destabilization of the mana base. By running an additional color, you decrease the chance that you will always or consistently have the colors you need to make the plays you want to make. As a corollary, by running three colors, you will in some situations create poor fetching decisions for yourself. What dual land to choose becomes very important and can be bad as you need green to casr Xantid but you also need black and blue to actually forward the game plan. The second issue that I would like to bring up is slowing down the clock. In the ideal line of play, you could play a turn one Xantid Swarm, then a turn two attack, then use a discard effect (Entomb or Careful Study) followed by a Reanimate. However if you don't want to lose life and also still land Xantid Swarm, you basically have to wait until turn three (this is a turn slower than and turn one Entomb/Careful Study into a turn two Exhume/Animate Dead). Now turn three dudes, are not bad, but the faster the guy lands in play the bigger the impact will be. I think running the third color destabilizes the mana base, could potential make straight forward decisions much more complex, and also really doesn't add that much to the deck. The counter magic or redundancy that we have access to within the original colors give you the same security as Xantid Swarm can give you and generally don't become dead draws after turn one or two.

jcsy

08-30-2011, 07:50 AM

how about nature's claim, 1 single mana 4 life to destroy artifact/enchantment

Sturtzilla

08-30-2011, 11:12 AM

how about nature's claim, 1 single mana 4 life to destroy artifact/enchantment

Seems bad for a deck that doesn't always run green. I wouldn't just splash a few green producing lands for the potential to run green artifact/enchantment removal in the board. I think both Stifle, Spell Pierce, and Pithing Needle are better options than either Nature's Claim and Krosan Grip. That is my opinion.

Grave

08-31-2011, 07:54 AM

I have a question, should I run 3 or 4 Jin-Gitaxias?

Thanks ;)

jcsy

08-31-2011, 11:15 AM

I have a question, should I run 3 or 4 Jin-Gitaxias?

Thanks ;)

ive tried 4, and tried 3

4 sometimes do seem overkill, and repeated

3 is just the right amount, well at least for me :)

Sturtzilla

08-31-2011, 04:17 PM

I have a question, should I run 3 or 4 Jin-Gitaxias?

Thanks ;)

I have been looking at this issue. I have made the switch of a singleton Inkwell to the 4th Jin in my build. I am not sure how well I like it at the moment, as I have not really done much real testing. I have done a small amount of play testing online and played a few guys at the local store. It seems to be running pretty well; however, I am not sure if there is a better target to be using in that slot. I will let you all know what come to in my testing. I will say that it seems that either a 3 or 4-off configuration seems to work pretty well.

into_play

09-02-2011, 05:40 PM

Thank you for the sideboarding insight Garobidou. I am admittedly pretty bad at sideboarding with Reanimator, as I feel that I am always taking away some of the deck’s fluidity when I side stuff out, but the Pithing Needle or Show and Tell plan seems like a good formula to deal with hate while maintaining the deck’s focus on getting an early monster out. I have a couple of questions though. What is your rationale for bringing in Thoughtseizes? I see that you almost always bring them in (except on the play against “Pithing Needle decks”). I know you said it hits Faerie Macabre, which is a great plus, but I hardly ever see that being played. Also, have you considered using either Spell Pierce or Dispel? I have seen a couple of decks run three of one or the other in their sideboards, and I assume they are for winning counterwars, but using them seems to be a little excessive when coupled with Thoughtseizes and either Needles or Show and Tells.

As far as the green splash discussion, I would recommend against it these days. I used to run green namely for Grip back in the days when Counterbalance was wrecking havoc, but those days seem to have passed, and any benefit of having Grips and Nature’s Claims seems to be outweighed by the dangers of a less stable manabase. Stuartzilla hit the nail on the head; the deck has a pretty solid manabase as is, so there is no need to get greedy and make poor decisions when fetching. I would still use the green splash over blue bounce spells, however. I tried Chain of Vapors and Echoing Truths before, and found that a temporary bounce would only give me a one-turn window if there weren’t more than one different hate piece already in play. If the opponent is running counterspells, you are in even more trouble.

KevinTrudeau

09-02-2011, 06:02 PM

Went 2-2 last night in a Legacy weekly, beating Loam Control 2-0 and Dredge 2-0, and losing to Merfolk 1-2 and Esper America 1-2 (in one of the closest and most exciting matches I've played in over a year, actually). Inkwell main won a game for me against Merfolk, but Elesh Norn would have been just as good in that situation. Even though I really feel that, in principle, there should be a creature with shroud in the main, I'm thinking I might be better off relegating Inky to the board as many others have in recent times, especially with the advent of Batterskull significantly weakening it against blue. God, I hate that card.

Sandoz

09-02-2011, 08:25 PM

Sturtzilla

09-04-2011, 01:31 PM

I tried Chain of Vapors and Echoing Truths before, and found that a temporary bounce would only give me a one-turn window if there weren’t more than one different hate piece already in play. If the opponent is running counterspells, you are in even more trouble.

What is the problem with this? You only need 2-3 mana (1-2 if Hapless Researcher in on your side of the board already) to pull off a one turn turn binning and reanimation. You only need to play a bounce spell at the end of their turn and then potentially Entomb (if you have 2-3 mana available [depending on the bounce you are running]). Follow it up with a reanimation spell. Or bounce at EOT and then Entomb/Careful Study/Hapless Researcher into a reanimation attempt (on your third turn). If played correctly and with a small bit of luck, you can still have a dude on turn 3 versus a Leyline. Your opponent running counter magic is irrelevant (most decks do these days). We should have counter magic to protect the combo to combat their counter spells and all of our counter magic is free. That is one of the great perks of playing this deck, going balls deep, but still having protection!

But, bounce is the only way to deal with enchantments like Leyline and the like.

I agree. I don't run the deck without 2 Echoing Truth in the board to deal with this issue. Again, Echoing Truth is the right bounce spell as it does not become a dead card post reanimation (I am alluding to you Chain of Vapor).

dahcmai

09-04-2011, 02:26 PM

I played last night in the local tournament and choose this to play around with. It's a standard list from one of the SCG tournaments.

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Terastodon
3 Animate Dead
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Entomb
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
4 Careful Study
4 Exhume
2 Ponder
4 Reanimate
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Underground Sea
1 Watery Grave

I have to admit I was impressed, though I hated some of the choices in this deck. Jin Gitaxias is a frigging bomb. I never thought he would actually go that well in here. I've played reanimators before for a long time and had the blinders on to him. Sure, that ability is awesome, but he's sooo small. lol Got the eyes opened trying him out for laughs. Yeah, he's a keeper as a three of for sure. I see why people can't decide on how many to use. You want 3 and 1/2 of him. You almost always want him early to refill after depleting the opponents answers and then want his buddies.

Anyway, I have a new deck to love.

I had to make some changes though to that standard list.

Watery Grave needs to go. There's no reason for that land in there. Also, given the incredible weakness to edict effects, I changed the fetches to green ones so that Watery Grave became a Tropical and a Dryad Arbor went in the board.

The tropical was added to accommodate a singleton Mimeoplasm. I kept finding myself in situations where I'd be low against No Rug in life due to Goys so I needed an out to them. Angel was the usual out due to her shroud, but she's too small to take really large hits like the Goyfs and bolts all at once. Mimeoplasm took care of that. He's a reanimate spell you can hard cast that makes whatever huge thing you need. At the worst, you hit their grave and get a fattie. At the best you get a flying shroud monstrosity that takes all the damage for you. Not much for testing on it, but it sounds pretty good so far. Considering that was my only problem I seemed to run into, I can live with an odd fix. It was nice having an out to Progenitus that didn't require bouncing or something. Just making a guy that's bigger and can suck up the damage works fine.

I found it funny that I did one thing before the tournament on accident that people agreed here with. That original list used a Chain of Vapor. Chain is nice in storm, but not so great in a Reanimator. It's nice to have outs to Chalice, but I changed it out for the Echoing Truth right off the bat. I'd rather have that.

I couldn't find my Steel Wind Sphinx so I just moved Elesh Norn to the main. I loved her. Kills stupid crap all day. Stoneforges, Confidants, Lavamancers, Steppe lynxs, and lowers Goyfs enough to not be so deadly in counter swings. I loved her main. She stays.

I also added a random Hibernation to the board. You really need it vs those No rugs. They are quick sometimes and can power out projo that can race you. It's not a bad match up, but it's a nice safety valve for them to make sure they don't just luck out.

Here's what I played against.

Stoneblade BW ver - Seems to be a beating against that. Jin just runs away with it and misstep keeps swords from ruining the day. Elesh makes sure nothing gets a sword on it. He even saw all 4 Vindicates one game. Elesh is pretty good vs Bitterblossom I hear. That didn't happen, but I realized there's not any creatures out of that deck aside from a couple of Jotun Grunts that can survive Elesh.

Enchantress - Terastodon kind of does a number on them. It's nice not having to punch through counters. Just hit the lands and go. I even manscrewed myself one game just to not let them have all the elephants. Jin just makes sure nothing is going to stop the Terastodon once he comes out. I kind of wish I had an Eldrazi or something with annihilate though, he seemed like he might be able to break through and drop something like Moat or something at some points. Jin kills Solitary which is an interesting interaction.

No Rug - Fun match. My only loss of the day was having him dump his Jace and a relic off Jin while I had creature, and Enchantment in addition to that normal stuff pumping an early goyf up too much to get through. I took two games, but it was close.

BW Stoneblade again - About the same as before. Batterskull can be a pain though. Not much killing that thing once they get three mana open. Jin off Show and Tell runs away with it though despite the Leyline of the Void on the table.

No rug - an awesome game. Game 1 had the god hand. Turn 2 Jin. Game 2 ended with a progo and Heirarch on the table. I had to force a goyf and reanimate Sheodred. I took one hit from projo, then reanimated Elesh to kill the Heirarch. Projo died to Sheodred.

Zoo - Missteped early Nacatyl with 1 misstep in reserve. Jin runs away with it. Game 2 brought out early Iona naming white and she holds off the critters until Elesh comes out. And that was everyone. Ending with an impressive 12-1-0 record overall.

Not a large pot, but not drawing in any game is always ok. Especially, since we have a pretty good meta here. It's nice playing against good decks every round.