Are you trying to justify playing this blueless becuase you can't afford Underground Sea? That's the only logical explanation, from what I see. Because usually UB>Mono B.Originally Posted by Jon Stewart
I can see reasons why focusing on a black suite of discard would be better than a blue counter suite. I can't see a reason that splashing for Mystical Tutor and Brainstorm and Daze wouldn't be better, however.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I'm just curious here. But how many people here critiquing Mono Black Reanimator, have actually played any modern version of Reanimator (splash or no splash), just as long as it's a build that played 4 Entomb and is NOT an old build of Reanimator that played cards like Putrid Imp that are crap by today's standards.
I wrote this thread to share and discuss my findings based on my experiences with both my Mono Black Reanimator deck and my friends GP winning B/U Reanimator deck clone. Both of us have played both decks and came to the exact same conclusion upon testing, that the Mono Black version is faster, more explosive, top decks better, and can recover faster. And this is all without even taking into account factors like vulnerability to wastelands, stifle and blood moon.
I'm not sure exactly why this seems to be the case, but indeed, it absolutely does seem to be the case. Even our playtime with both decks today reaffirmed these findings, that the Mono Black version seems to be faster, more consistent and more explosive, and performs better in top deck mode (if the opening hand fails as it can for any combo deck).
I'm curious to have other people try out the Mono Black decklist that I posted in my OP and tell me whether they notice it too. So far, two out of two people who tried and compared both versions of the deck, do notice it.
I was talking about the standard B/U Reanimator lists (not a theoretical list that splashes solely for Brainstorm and Mystical Tutor and maybe a one of Echoing Truth). And compared to the standard list, I've regularly seen the Mono B version I'm playing out perform it.
Maybe you have a point about there might not being much disadvantage to splashing blue solely for Brainstorm and Mystical Tutor, but I am not convinced for a couple of reasons.. (Daze is easy to play around and doesn't tell you every thing in your opponent's hand so I still prefer discard to that). Daze is perfect in tempo decks because even if your opponent's play around it, it only gains you tempo. But in a deck like this, it's really important that key hate cards your opponents play don't resolve, and in that case, relying on a card that can be.
The splashing solely for Brainstorm and Mystical Tutor point is somewhat debatable for a couple of reasons. Mystical Tutor is card disadvantage and also more importantly, doesn't let you grab Nev's Disk with it. By not being able to grab Disk, M. Tutor doesn't serve Beseech's main function nearly as well. You have to settle for some weakass bounce spell like Echoing Truth that more often than not is just a delay tactic and not an actual answer to your problem card. Beseech being able to grab Disk or Oblivion Stone has been insanely useful and gamebreaking. I rarely need to use Beseech to grab a combo piece since the deck plays so many combo pieces already. So it's main purpose is indeed to grab you Disk (while occasionally grabbing you a missing combo piece). Mystical Tutor is unable to serve Beseech's most vital role nearly as well. And no Show and Tell is not the answer. Since it does nothing agianst random stuff like Noetic Scales and also, you rarely have a creature card in your hand since this build only plays 4.
Brainstorm is fantastic, but only if you have a shuffle effect, otherwise, it's often just par for the course. You probably are able to resolve a shuffle effect after playing the card about 50-60% of the time you play the card. But that other 40-50% of the time, the card can be very meh. That said, there is no real disadvantage to casting it then. But you are basically splashing a whole color just for that card, and also if that Brainstorm was a Buried Alive or Animate Dead, there's tons of scenarios where that really saves your butt. But I think inspite of this Brainstorm is never a dead draw and the single best card blue has to offer the deck (since Mystical Tutor is unable to serve the most valuable function that Beseech serves).
And lastly splashing a color does open you up to all sorts of hate. Since most blue versions of the deck run such an anemic land count and are extremely reliant on both colors (and can be screwed over completely by getting cut off from either color), getting lands Stifled or Wastelands or Blood Mooned or Magus of the Mooned. can be game over for you by slowing you down way too much. I've seen that and had that happen to me countless times when playing the B/U version. The Mono B version never has to worry about LD, which helps make the deck incredibly more resilient.
I've won many many many games against Leyline, Noetic Scales, Progentius and all sorts of random crap for one reason and one reason alone. Nev's Disk (and Oblivion Stone along side Disk in game two against stuff like Meddling Mage or Gadook Teeg). Game one, I am playing a single one of Nev's Disk and for whatever reason, I've almost never had any trouble tutoring for the card and using it whenever I needed it. The ridiculous number of times I keep reanimating stuff helps me immensely as well.
This has happened to me countless time in dueling, where my opponents gets off a Macabre or resolves a hate card, and yet I easily draw into another reanimate spell or Disk and made a full recovery.
But I think perhaps one of the best ways to test the resiliency of a deck to hate is to play it in free for all multiplayer. Just yesterday, I played around 7 games of multiplayer with this deck, against Pox, Leylines, Progenitus, Countertop, StP, PtE, Noetic Scales, Iona, Macabre, Damnations and Wraths, all sort of hate that you see in multiplayer games. Much of the hate obviously went after me, the guy playing Ionas, Blazing Archons, and the 7/11 islandwalking shroud tramplers. And yet, many games, I was able to reanimate out creatures 4-5 different times over the first six turns (inspite of opposing hate), all while blowing up Leylines, Countertop and Noetic Scales to win the game or atleast defeating many of the players in the game. Nev's Disk has been a god send. (I am playing Oblivion Stone in the sideboard in case opponents Meddling Mage Nev's Disk or something because the effect is just that good).
Plus you get so many more broken turn one or two plays with Mono B than U/B that help you outright steal games. And I never get mana screwed.
I already can't count the number of games I won to a first turn Ritual, Unmask, Entomb, Animate Dead/Exhume or a first turn Ritual, Thoughtseize, Entomb, Reanimate (or even either of those plays spread out over two turns). Or even Ritual, Buried Alive, Turn 2, Thoughtseize, Reanimate or Unmask, Animate Dead, Exhume. That resulted in my opponents scooping right then and there. With the mono black version of the deck, you almost always reanimate something on turn one or turn two, or at the very latest turn three with ridiculous consistency. And if they answer it, you also often have several other reanimate effects in your hand, and top decks with ridiculous consistency. It's hard to describe just how fast, powerful and broken the mono black version feels to play. You really have to just throw it together and try it out. There is no way around it.
The mono b version being faster and more consistent is so incredibly useful against the many many many random matchups you run into that have no good answers to reanimate. Everyone talks about countertop and Leyline (which the deck does have a fantastic out to), but no one considers that many fast but random decks and players still don't play much or any effective hate in their sideboards. Burn is something I see often, and being able to consistenly drop down Iona turn one or turn two is such a critical aspect to beating this matchup. And against those matchups, the mono b version is guarenteed a win, where as the B/U version can still sometimes be too slow in getting the combo pieces together and resolving them.
I can't overemphasize how incredibly strong Nev's Disk has been for the deck even and esp game one. I know, mathematically game one, it shouldn't work with just 19 lands. But often seems to. Where I am unable to win the game fast and early. It's only because opponents expend so much time and resources to dealing with my creatures or trying to stabilize with life linkers that I rarely have trobule getting to 4 lands on the board. Game two playing Disk (or O Ring), becomes monumentally easier when playing against hate.
Last edited by Jon Stewart; 04-26-2010 at 12:23 AM.
Seems terrible to play out a beseech with 4 lands in play to grab dsk, play disk, pass the turn, pop disk then try and win.
For that to work it requires 7 mana, most of the time it will be 1 ritual and 5 lands and to activate disk and then reanimate is at least 2, but more likely 3 mana after playing and passing ewww. Just seems really slow and clunky...and then Pithing Needle on disk comes down and you lose
There are so many things wrong with this post.
Yet everyone else has come to the opposite conclusion. Perhaps are you biased?
You are running a bad card in Disk, and then using that bad card to justify another bad card in Beseech. Consider that for a moment.The splashing solely for Brainstorm and Mystical Tutor point is somewhat debatable for a couple of reasons. Mystical Tutor is card disadvantage and also more importantly, doesn't let you grab Nev's Disk with it. By not being able to grab Disk, M. Tutor doesn't serve Beseech's main function nearly as well. You have to settle for some weakass bounce spell like Echoing Truth that more often than not is just a delay tactic and not an actual answer to your problem card. Beseech being able to grab Disk or Oblivion Stone has been insanely useful and gamebreaking. I rarely need to use Beseech to grab a combo piece since the deck plays so many combo pieces already. So it's main purpose is indeed to grab you Disk (while occasionally grabbing you a missing combo piece). Mystical Tutor is unable to serve Beseech's most vital role nearly as well. And no Show and Tell is not the answer. Since it does nothing agianst random stuff like Noetic Scales and also, you rarely have a creature card in your hand since this build only plays 4.
I have a much, much higher percentage of Brainstorms that shuffle. It's quite possible that churning one out as early as you can is the wrong play and you might need careful timing and patience in using it. Brainstorm is very much a card that the vast majority of people play incorrectly.Brainstorm is fantastic, but only if you have a shuffle effect, otherwise, it's often just par for the course. You probably are able to resolve a shuffle effect after playing the card about 50-60% of the time you play the card. But that other 40-50% of the time, the card can be very meh. That said, there is no real disadvantage to casting it then. But you are basically splashing a whole color just for that card, and also if that Brainstorm was a Buried Alive or Animate Dead, there's tons of scenarios where that really saves your butt. But I think inspite of this Brainstorm is never a dead draw and the single best card blue has to offer the deck (since Mystical Tutor is unable to serve the most valuable function that Beseech serves).
Like I said before, fetchlands solve any sort of "problem" that would arise against non-basic hate. You can fetch basics against Wastelands or Moon/Magus. Sure Stifle becomes a problem, but hey you have Force of Will with blue. And not many people play Stifle. And it's not too hard to play around it anyway. And it's equally not hard to just play basic lands either.And lastly splashing a color does open you up to all sorts of hate. Since most blue versions of the deck run such an anemic land count and are extremely reliant on both colors (and can be screwed over completely by getting cut off from either color), getting lands Stifled or Wastelands or Blood Mooned or Magus of the Mooned. can be game over for you by slowing you down way too much. I've seen that and had that happen to me countless times when playing the B/U version. The Mono B version never has to worry about LD, which helps make the deck incredibly more resilient.
Oh my dear lord. Please do not believe this, you are only hurting yourself.But I think perhaps one of the best ways to test the resiliency of a deck to hate is to play it in free for all multiplayer.
Unmask is worse than Force by a mile.I already can't count the number of games I won to a first turn Ritual, Unmask, Entomb, Animate Dead/Exhume or a first turn Ritual, Thoughtseize, Entomb, Reanimate (or even either of those plays spread out over two turns). Or even Ritual, Buried Alive, Turn 2, Thoughtseize, Reanimate or Unmask, Animate Dead, Exhume. That resulted in my opponents scooping right then and there. With the mono black version of the deck, you almost always reanimate something on turn one or turn two, or at the very latest turn three with ridiculous consistency. And if they answer it, you also often have several other reanimate effects in your hand, and top decks with ridiculous consistency. It's hard to describe just how fast, powerful and broken the mono black version feels to play. You really have to just throw it together and try it out. There is no way around it.
They have no good answer to reanimating. What is the problem here with EITHER version? Is this the kind of opponent you test your mono-B deck against, then claim it is superior than U/B? It seems to be, given your testing gauntlet so far has consisted of casual decks and multiplayer games, and that is all fitting of the 0-3 bracket.The mono b version being faster and more consistent is so incredibly useful against the many many many random matchups you run into that have no good answers to reanimate.
Suddenly, Fluffy realized she wasn't quite like the other bunnies anymore.
-Team R&D-
-noitcelfeR maeT-
So you wait until turn 4 to Beseech for Disk, drop Disk on turn 5, then blow it up turn 6.
Frankly, you could Mystical Tutor for Repeal, Echoing Truth, Wipe Away or Cryptic Command In a fraction of the time. You ought to be getting a turn 2 or 3 fatty. Why are your plans involving clearing the board on turn 6?
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
No that's not how it usually goes. This is how lots of games go. They see you playing reanimator, and they try to dump out their whole hand in order to try to race you (including Countertops, Chalice of the Voids and such annoyances that they use up turns to cantrip into/tutor for and cast). If you can combo off, you combo off and when you do succesfully, you win regardless. But if you can't combo off because they used up their turns to play Countertops and Chalices and stuff, and use up their countermagic to stop you, often RFGing important card that would've speeded up their deck to FoW, they've already spend a couple of turns doing that rather than playing creatures to brign down your life total. You buy even more time with your Discard, Mishra's Factories, or techy plays like forcing them to discard a Goyf or Sower of Temptation and Reanimating, Life/Deathing or Animate Deading it over to your side. All this stuff buys you long enough time for you to play and use Disk. Or it's also possible that you can simply Dark Ritual into Disk on turn two and wipe the whole board on turn three.
Yes it seems like a lot of trouble to go to play and use Disk. But Disk isn't some stupid bounce card, it gains you enormous game winning tempo right there. Disk costs 5 Mana. Pernicious Deeding for 4 costs 7 mana. And both have the same effect on the board. One disk and it's usually game over for most opponents. They can't recover when they've already expended so many cards to stopping and trying to race your combo, they usually have a close to empty hand.
You do get a fatty on turn 2 or 3. The Disk is what you use if you lose the fatty. The deck consistently plays a fatty turn one or turn 2, more frequently than in the B/U version. Many times, that's game right then and there. And you get a win (where as if the B/U version had to spend it's first turns Brainstorming and cantripping and tutoring it's way into the fat, it could easily be too slow for Zoo, Burn, Goblins and other aggro matchups.
Bounce doesn't save you against a board full of threats. Bounce buys you one turn, against one threat, and that's rarely enough.
But sometimes, it's not game as soon as you get fat on the board. They find a way to destroy it (edict, StP on sphinx, using sower of temptation to steal an iona that named white to stop their StPs, things like that).
In those situations, you do reach 4 land easily and it's immensely helpful to be able to clear the board of all creatures with a Disk.
Disk is not that slow in the situations it helps. Even without Ritual, you use it on turn 5. But the main stuff you need to use it for, stuff like Chalice of the Void, Counterbalance + Sensei's Top, also costs your opponent a turn or two of mana to cast, and sometimes another turn to cantrip into. So both you and your opponent are playing at a slower pace.
Postboard, Factories are tremendously useful in stalling for a couple of turns aggresive decks, and if those decks devoted some of their turns and cards to stopping your first attempt combo out, once again, you have more than long enough to use Disk to clear the board.
I never thought Disk would be useful when I put the deck together either. On paper, yes it does look too slow, and I never bothered maindecking it.
But I've been simply floored at how often useful Disk ends up being. You either combo off and win right away. Or your combo gets stopped delaying both you, and your opponent by a turn or two, which often is all the time you need for Disk to be useful. And it's impossible to overstate how massive of a tempo gain it is to Disk the entire opponent's board. It's also a card they rarely see coming until it's too late and they've already over extended.
And there's also plenty of situations where Dark Ritual accelearates into Disk or Oblivion Stone especially game two and three.
Yes, playing Brainstorm (the best card blue has to offer imho) does make the deck more consistent by showing you three more cards. But simply playing more combo pieces in it's place like wise also makes the deck more consistent. And it's easy to underestimate how much without trying the deck out yourself. Brainstorm is not a tutor afterall, there is no guarentee that the cards it shows are the cards you need. But simply playing more combo pieces gives you a 50/50 chance that it is precisely the card that you do need to combo off. Combine that with your tutor effects and ability to discard creatures, and it's actully more like a 70/30 chance that it is precisely the card that you do need.
P.S: this is off topic, but for everyone touting B/G builds, I would almost certainly run both Pernicious Deed and Sylvan Library in such a build.
If you want a good sweeper in Reanimator, play Living Death. Especially when you have access to Dark Ritual and Mystical Tutor, its straight up wins games against aggro. My philosophy though, is that if you need a board sweeper while playing Reanimator, then you are probably doing it wrong.
Okay, call me crazy here. You play a lot of discard because you think it's better than counters. Your complaint is that they dumb their hand and your discard suddenly doesn't work. So you're opposed to playing, say, Repeal.... why exactly? I mean, you get the general concept of how bounce + discard works, yeah?
Spoils had an entire color around this interaction. Seems relevant here. Seems better than paying nine mana to cast Beseech, Disk and activate over three turns. Seems better than going monocolor for no Earthly reason.
And really, I'm Mr. Monocolor over here, but there should be some compelling interest why you would go that route. In Reanimator it doesn't seem to make any sense.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Nonsense. Disk is not central to the deck, it's the ultimate back up plan. You often don't need it. If your primary plan fails for some reason, disk still singlehandedly wins the game for you.Read my post above or try it out and you'll see what I mean. Discard + bounce is FAR inferior. Discard is part of your primary plan but u occasionally use it to dump a goyf or sower in their yard and reanimate it for yourself.
Living death is largely useless. It only answers creatures.
This is misguided.
You have 8 ways to put fatties into the graveyard. B/U also has 8 ways to put a fattie into the graveyard.
4 of your 8 ways cost 3 mana! This is slow. All of B/U's options are 1 mana.
Both decks have 4 tutors to find one of the above enablers. Except your tutors cost 3, which is slow. Blue's tutor costs 1.
Oh yea, and you don't have Brainstorm. You are actually less likely to see a way to put a fattie into the graveyard than a blue deck, and very much less likely to do so in a timely fashion.
Suddenly, Fluffy realized she wasn't quite like the other bunnies anymore.
-Team R&D-
-noitcelfeR maeT-
Most decks with Tarmogoyf also have Qasali Pridemage.
Look, here's what I and others are trying to get through to you:
You can plan for every eventuality and always have an out, but past a certain point all you're doing is reducing the chances of your actually winning a game. What if Enchantress gets Karmic Guide and Confinement out? What if Loam follows up Chalice with Devastating Dreams? What about 43 Land getting out a Glacial Chasm and Karakas? What about Scepter-Chant?
You're going to lose some games. There's no way around that. Magic is a game of averages. You want to stack the odds so that you lose as few games as possible.
Weakening the deck by cutting a strong color and exploding your mana curve so you can pay nine mana to "win the game" by blowing up some situational permanents is probably not going to be the best way to go about that.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Let them play their creatures, only to eat a sweeper. Then you can just counter other threats. Its also good for long games against aggro control where they can put a clock on you AND counter your shit. Its one more reanimation spell and it sweeps the field. Reanimating one creature sucks sometimes if your opponent has a big enough team.Living death is largely useless. It only answers creatures.
It seems to me that the OP, and some posters, are more focused on the combo-esque variant of the deck and are getting suckered by cool things. I would back up IBA's point about one needing a compelling reason to go mono-black over UB, and would further suggest that you go either the control route favored by Your Move Games at PT-Houston 2002 or the attrition-based route favored by some builds of Rock and by Solar Flare when Time Spiral first rotated into Standard. I think I'd start with the YMG lists, myself.
I feel like Brian Davis' Free Spell Necro deck from PT-Chicago 1999 is worth mentioning too; I think Reanimator could take that kind of tempo stance in the right hands. I don't have the time or patience to try to make something like that work, but I think someone who has more experience with the deck and enjoys that style of Magic could really do well with it.
The kicker is all the Blue cards let you actually play a decent g2/3 against hate, meanwhile the Mono B build looks completely miserable since there's no real way to find answers or increase your hand quality into you overwhelm the opp.
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Kyle Boddy, re: legacy players, Winner of SCG Seattle 5kFor those saying you should win a tournament before calling people retarded, well, I did win one. And you guys are retarded.
I worked really hard on Mono-Black Reanimator. But it was entirely for budget purposes, which is out of the question now because of the astronomical prices of Entomb. Seriously though, if I had the money, the deck would be built UB in a heartbeat. How can you choose Duress/Beseech The Queen/Buried Alive over Brainstorm/Ponder/Mystical Tutor?
The Source: Your Source for "The Source: Your Source for..." cliche.
I'm just curious here. But how many people here critiquing Mono Black Reanimator, have actually played any modern version of Reanimator (splash or no splash), just as long as it's a build that played 4 Entomb and is NOT an old build of Reanimator that played cards like Putrid Imp that are crap by today's standards.
I wrote this thread to share and discuss my findings based on my experiences with both my Mono Black Reanimator deck and my friends GP winning B/U Reanimator deck clone. Both of us have played both decks and came to the exact same conclusion upon testing, that the Mono Black version is faster, more explosive, top decks better, and can recover faster. And this is all without even taking into account factors like vulnerability to wastelands, stifle and blood moon.
I'm not sure exactly why this seems to be the case, but indeed, it absolutely does seem to be the case. Even our playtime with both decks today reaffirmed these findings, that the Mono Black version seems to be faster, more consistent and more explosive, and performs better in top deck mode (if the opening hand fails as it can for any combo deck).
I'm curious to have other people try out the Mono Black decklist that I posted in my OP and tell me whether they notice it too. So far, two out of two people who tried and compared both versions of the deck, do notice it.
Dude, you started a thread about a deck that no one but you has played for years, and which you clearly have a huge fetish for as evidenced by your post history.
I don't think you get how this works. No one has an onus to prove your deck bad. You can present your deck for community approval. Clearly your question was answered- no, no one but you thinks this thing. Lacking logical or coherent explanations as to why their objections are wrong, it's up to you to put up some results to match those of U/B reanimator if you want to continue to push the issue.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I ask you yet again IBA. Have you played any modern version of Reanimator (splash or no splash), just as long as it's a build that played 4 Entomb in atleast the past few years? It's a simple question.
The thread makes it pretty clear that the purpose is to discuss the performance of various variants of reanimator. But to have a relevent discussion, it is prudent that the commenters at the very least has had some recent play experience with Reanimator, mono b reanimator would be preferable but experience any variant of reanimator would be okay, B/U, B/g, B/u/g, Mono B.
I wrote this thread to share and discuss my findings based on my experiences with both my Mono Black Reanimator deck and my friends GP winning B/U Reanimator deck clone. Both of us have played both decks and came to the exact same conclusion upon testing over several different days, that the Mono Black version performs better. And this is without even taking into account factors like vulnerability to wastelands, stifle and such.
I'm not sure exactly why the performance seem to favor the mono version of the deck, I posted several theories on why this might be, but can't be sure which are correct, but indeed, it absolutely does seem to be the case.
So far, two out of two people who tried and compared Mono B and u/b Reanimator came to the same conclusion, that the Mono b version seems to perform better, for whatever reason. I would like to discuss why it might be so, or if other reanimator players have had contradictory findings. I feel it could be very fruitful. It may well end up being the case that the ideal version of the deck is a U/b version of the deck that is identical to the Mono B version I posted, except replacing Beseech with Mystical Tutor and Nev's Disk and Life/Death with Brainstorm. Having this discussion, and comparing the performance of the two deck is the only way to know for certain.
Yes. I've even tried a discard-based suite; I always try out an Unmask suite over Force of Will (and often alongside), as I'm very fond of the card.
I also tried Animate Dead and found it fucking terrible when Qasali Pridemage is one of the most played cards. Not a lot of fucking point in having a 7/11 Shroud guy that dies to a 2/2.
Besides the fact that Force and Daze seemed better in the deck (although I kept Duress), blue was also invaluable for cheap card draw.
I think Stitch Together is possibly superior to Reanimate, which killed me more often than I would like, but that may be my own eccentricity. Certainly the card would be terrible in mono-B.
Do you have anything besides animal spirits?
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
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