Reanimator: Rising to tier 1 status again

[RexFTW]

The main factors that are making Reanimator Tier 1 again:

- The format is slowing down. Reanimator is a slow deck.
- The fall of Aether Vial and Swords to Plowshares, and the rise of lightning bolts and stoneforge mystics.
- Mental Misstep, which answers the best 2 cards against this deck (Aether Vial, Swords to Plowshares)
- Gin Gitaxis essentially locks the game up in a single turn. Something no other creature could do.

Winning on the 5th turn or later makes you a very slow combo deck. Is there even another combo deck that wins this slowly?

Until recently, Merefolk was in almost every top 8, often with multiple copies. There were also often Bant and Zoo decks comprising a major portion of the field. All of these decks ran the two cards listed above (ok well zoo runs PTE which is actually often better than swords against reanimator). Top 8s would often contain 24 or more copies of vial/swords/path. Now top 8s are predominantly RUG, Team America and Hive Mind due to a shift in the meta. These decks play no swords or vials.

[KevinTrudeau]

The main factors that are making Reanimator Tier 1 again:

- The format is slowing down. Reanimator is a slow deck.
- The fall of Aether Vial and Swords to Plowshares, and the rise of lightning bolts and stoneforge mystics.
- Mental Misstep, which answers the best 2 cards against this deck (Aether Vial, Swords to Plowshares)
- Gin Gitaxis essentially locks the game up in a single turn. Something no other creature could do.

-A deck that aims to combo out on turn two or three is not slow
-AEther Vial is still played in a DTB, and Swords is still the premier removal spell in the format
-AEther Vial is irrelevant against Reanimator; if you're countering it, you've no idea what you're doing
-Jin-Gitaxias does not essentially lock up the game, and gets exponentially worse after turn three and sometimes turn two

[Dark Ritual]

Eh, as soon as Jin draws you 7 cards the game is essentially over against pretty much every deck unless you draw 7 land or lots of irrelevant cards. The draw 7 is good at any stage; sure he gets harder to protect the more turns that pass by but again this is dependant on the reanimator player's hand and how much countermagic they're holding.

Reanimator isn't slow.

Vial turn 1 against reanimator generally signals a favorable MU, since merfolk doesn't run removal and other vial decks don't have countermagic and their removal spells are usually cmc 1, making them missteppable.

Swords is still played in any deck that packs white sans storm combo. It is still the best removal spell in the game.

Also, misstep both hurt and helped reanimator. It helped it because it protects their non shroud dudes from cmc 1 removal. It hits it because misstep counters practically half the deck and it hits all the discard outlets sans the drawing up to 8 cards to discard a creature plan but they don't usually do that whenever I watch reanimator.

[RexFTW]

Winning on the 5th turn or later makes you a very slow combo deck. Is there even another combo deck that wins this slowly?

Until recently, Merefolk was in almost every top 8, often with multiple copies. There were also often Bant and Zoo decks comprising a major portion of the field. All of these decks ran the two cards listed above (ok well zoo runs PTE which is actually often better than swords against reanimator). Top 8s would often contain 24 or more copies of vial/swords/path. Now top 8s are predominantly RUG, Team America and Hive Mind due to a shift in the meta. These decks play no swords or vials.

[RexFTW]

Against a known heavy blue deck "drawing up to 8 cards to discard a creature plan" after drawing a hand of tons of reanimation spells is the best thing you can hope for.

[NyxathidHorror]

Eh, as soon as Jin draws you 7 cards the game is essentially over against pretty much every deck unless you draw 7 land or lots of irrelevant cards. The draw 7 is good at any stage; sure he gets harder to protect the more turns that pass by but again this is dependant on the reanimator player's hand and how much countermagic they're holding.

Reanimator isn't slow.

QFT.

I was especially iffy about Jin at first, but after testing the past few weeks, he is by far my favorite reanimation target. I don't worry in the least about opposing countermagic either; I'll take my Missteps, Fow, and Duress over their plan any day.

[Master Shake]

The main factors that are making Reanimator Tier 1 again:

- The format is slowing down. Reanimator is a slow deck.
- The fall of Aether Vial and Swords to Plowshares, and the rise of lightning bolts and stoneforge mystics.
- Mental Misstep, which answers the best 2 cards against this deck (Aether Vial, Swords to Plowshares)
- Gin Gitaxis essentially locks the game up in a single turn. Something no other creature could do.

Wait a second... this is the first post in the thread? This is almost totally contextless and also mostly wrong. Also, you misspelled Jin-Gitaxis, Core Auger.

This is what I get for looking at a thread that I didn't intend to come read...