SCG Article - Reanimator draws 7!

[Rico Suave]

Don't forget that you can always Reanimate Platinum Emperion, and you'll never lose life for it (barring something silly like Humility).

And once it is in play, you will also have no way to protect it - you can't pay for Force of Will or Misstep's alternate cost. So there's little point to drawing a bunch of counters anyway.

[GGoober]

Except that crappy new Jin.
If you drew 7 when it enters the battlefield, it'd be a bit more awesome. As it is, it simpy loses you the game against basically any combination of opposing creatures and instant speed removal, things you normally shouldn't be caring about at all, and which also happen to be extremely played in this format.

The thing with Reanimator is to get an early Iona out and win. It was the combination of Iona and Entomb what made this deck good. Iona is the go-to creature during the first two turns and the rest are just for more marginal occasions and backup.

Not just Iona's ability, the fact that she's a 7/7 flying to win games in 3 turns is very important. If she was 6/6 she'll be much weaker (4 turns to win games i.e. one more turn for opponents to try to race your clock), and if she were 5/5 she'll be close to not worthwhile as a reanimation target because she will be crappy on the defense against aggressive decks with Goyfs/Knights/Burn.

Size and clock matter a lot when it comes to reanimation targets. Jin has a really weak 5/4 body for an effect that is not guaranteed to win games unless an opponent taps out (well you draw 7 doesn't mean you win, but if they discard you'll probably win, but a 5/4 isn't that hard to remove in Legacy) compared to a whole suite of other targets available for reanimator. I mean you can't even swing to win games with Jin since he's a 5/4. Even assuming you're still constantly drawing a buttload of cards and your opponents are down to no hands, topdecking Goyfs can put Jin in a very awkward position. In the SCG list, sure he can get a Platinum Emperion, but that's all he plays, drawing extra Jins (legendary) start doing nothing, and your opponents can just chump off emperion for the rest of the game or remove it since your FoW/Missteps are now all turned off by Emperion. What's even more hilarious, your opponents can just sit back with Goyf on the defense and let Jin draw the Reanimator to death in 7 turns.

I'm not saying Jin is horrible in Reanimator. I just don't think he's good enough, and I definitely think the SCG list in the article is horrible. Can the list even beat a Goyf in play?

[Jenni]

I'm not saying Jin is horrible in Reanimator. I just don't think he's good enough, and I definitely think the SCG list in the article is horrible. Can the list even beat a Goyf in play?

Other than the 1 Iona and the platinum emperion a resolved goyf is pretty hard for that list to handle at all - no removal and only Jin to try and stop it is a pretty bad spot to be in. With emperion out you can't even protect it very well so odds are it'll die to a removal spell of some sort long before it kills the goyf, leaving Iona as the only real chance this deck has against goyf (main deck, at least). So, if you get an entomb by turn two or three it can probably handle one, assuming Iona shuts down any removal they may have, and all the spells to get her out resolve of course.