This pile just 5-0'd a league:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=17253&d=306757&f=LE
2 Flusterstorm
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Intuition
2 Lotus Petal
3 Daze
3 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Animate Dead
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Oona's Prowler
1 Ashen Rider
4 Hapless Researcher
4 Griselbrand
4 Volrath's Shapeshifter
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Island
SB:
1 Trickbind
1 Boomerang
1 Disenchant
4 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Fatal Push
1 Hydroblast
1 Massacre
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Thoughtseize
Anybody ever try Volrath's Shapeshifter? Is it something we could adapt, or is it too slow and/or pointless?
Disadvantages:
- a lot of mana; might be better if it was just another cheaper Reanimation spell
- no longer works with Iona under new rules (I think...)
Advantages:
- Pseudo-Reanimation and discard outlet in one.
- Blue card for FoW
- Can be a chump blocker in a pinch
- Plays around Grafdigger's Cage
- Allows one Griselbrand activation through a DRS, Surgical Extraction, etc. Same with Tidespout trigger potentially.
- Entombing Elesh Norn would kill DRS as a state-based effect meaning no exile in response (I think)
Thoughts?
Last edited by crowe_1; 10-21-2017 at 08:46 AM.
I'm SUPER late to the party, but I've been back on the Reanimators lately, and I haven't been running Daze at all. My disruption's 2x Thoughtseize (1x in 'board), 2x Brutality, 4x Force. I'm also running three Dark Rituals in the main.
So far it's been working well against everything but hard-control (Miracles). I'm only on 17 blue cards in the maindeck, but it hasn't really been a problem for Force yet. Worth mentioning that a stranded Dark Ritual turns Force into Cancel when we don't have another blue card lying around.
I find that when I'm worried about opposing countermagic, it's easy to junk a Ritual or a Brutality for a Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur after sideboarding. I also often take out the others for a mix of Pithing Needle, Echoing Truth, and Thoughtseize #3.
Obviously this is all based on very limited testing, but I'm happy with it for the time being. Definitely happier than I was with Daze, which just didn't feel like it did much of anything. If we could fit land destruction into the deck, I might reconsider, but I don't have any plan to bring Daze back at the moment.
A traditional UB Reanimator build made top 8 in the last legacy challenge:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=17910&d=311025&f=LE
I thought the 4/2 split between Animate Dead and Exhume was interesting. I know Animate Dead plays nicer with Tidespout Tyrant (which is absent in this list), but Exhume plays nicer with Entomb on the stack.
Anyone have any ideas why they would prefer Animate Dead?
I'm not familiar with online pricing, but it seems unlikely to be a budget consideration.
It could be a high level meta call, if you're anticipating more than 1 RB Reanimator list, or multitudes of Czech Pile, casting Exhume and giving them a free Griselbrand or Leovold or Baleful Strix makes your own Griselbrand somewhat lackluster. If his list was decidedly slower, it would reinforce this, but with three Chancellor of the Annex and Lotus Petal each, he's comfortable going fast.
Flusterstorm doesn't affect AD is the only real advantage I can see. It is a little odd though to see 8x reanimation effects that can target both yards but little ability to bin enemy creatures (Coll. Brut x1 main and Thoughtseize x2 sb). Double basic Island is rather strange, as well as 15 land total trying to cast mainboard SnT x2 and activate sb Pack Rat x3. Looking a the fetches, I am further confused by 8x Fetch that grab basic Island and 5x Fetch that can find basic Swamp - what is the heavy blue plan that requires more than 1x Island?
Presumably, t2 Ponder/Brainstorm into Careful Study without giving the opponent a Wasteland target. You don't want to cantrip chain with Petals, but you don't mind using a Petal for B for the animation spell. 0 Thoughtseize + 0 Dark Ritual MD means you should always fetch for basic island t1 (unless you have Entomb and are willing to spread the Entomb t1 end into reanimation t2).
That seems like a weak play. IMO ponder is at it's best on T1 to setup going off the next turn. Since we don't have much mana to work with, you probably won't be going off the turn you cast it anyway so it doesn't make much sense to get another island for just that one spell (all our buisness spells are black). Plus if you decided to use dark ritual instead of petals, black is 1000 times better.
Silent Gravestone: worth it to run in the SB as anti Surgical, anti DRS, anti Faerie Macabre card?
Downside: requires using Exhume, Shallow Grave, Volrath's Shapeshifter and/or Necrotic Ooze.
For us guys playing on the slow side, what do you think of a copy of search for azcanta in the sideboard?
As a maindeck plan Azcanta would push you towards more 2-drop [or higher] spells and away from Petals. In the board it still pushes you away from Petals, but is nice as a pseudo-land to bring in to cast SnT. I think JVP is probably still better as it fits better with the 14-16 land approach and interacts with all sides of the combo; that said, the constant Sultai Ascendancy-like effect of Azcanta probably does more for the deck than Ponder.
Well i'm already playing 17 lands with zero means of acceleration. The binning effect is nice for fatties is of course nice, and also it looks as good way to retain the card advantage. I was thinking on 1 copy in the sideboard against blue control ecks. The main issue is that my sideboard is already pretty tight and the control match is much more manageable and competitive with the slow lists, since because you run no acceleration you have more cards that impact on the game in the long run (more reanimation spells, more digging). Going up to 5 discard spells made me feel much comfortable vs control.
I was trying to pick up UB Reanimator and this decklists was my catalyst. I've made some modifications (Exhume>Animated Dead) and Sire of Instantity, but the core of the deck is the same. Right now I'm lukewarm on packrat. I've got one person with it but other times it just immediately got pushes/bolted. (Not sure why they kept them in anyway, unless they didn't have enough cards to board in.) It's possible the 4x animate dead is to hedge against 4CC, since Exhume gets them back a strix to block.
Also, in a lot of the fair grindy matchups...I seem to board out FoW. Is this correct? I'm talking like DnT and 4CC Control. Thoughts?
I have yet to try the pack rat plan personally so I can't comment on that.
Good call on exhume being weaker vs czech pile.
I hardly ever board out FoW. I run a 4/3 split between FoW and Daze and will board out the 3 daze for whatever I feel will counter their sideboard plan. Usually I'll bring in 2 pithing needles and an extra thoughtseize or something like that.
First of all, UB reanimator cannot play Sire. It's extremely bad as our main way of protecting our combo/board is with countermagic. If you absolutely want to play it you'd better be playing RB instead. Fortunately for us we have Jin that's similar, if not better as it allows us to keep a hand while discarding our opponent's (your chances of drawing a counterspell and lasting till your opponent's end step are pretty good).
About FoW, I would say like the previous post that I almost never side it out. It's never great but it's also never dead as it's a catchall. At worst it can still stop a sideboard card that you did not expect so it's worth keeping them in. On the other hand, when I play misdirection main, I'll often side it out if it's not necessary in that matchup since it's restricted to countering counterspells and removal.
U/B can play Sire. It's more of a metagame call.
Back when Top was legal, Sire was very good against Miracles. It still has some utility against post-ban Miracles, and if you pop it early enough it's also a powerhouse against storm and glass-cannon combo decks.
Jin-Gitaxias has never impressed me much. If I want draw-seven effects I've already got Griselbrand. And if I want my opponent's hand empty, I don't want to give them a chance to untap and do stuff before forcing them to discard.
That's the thing. You don't really let them cast anything since you just drew 7 (read FoW 1-6 + maybe daze 1-3).
I maintain my opinion, from testing, that Sire is utterly awful for this version of the deck. That and we usually play 3 griselbrand so he's a nice 4th one that can be used even at low life.
How do you guys feel about the following few lists?
1) Foil Maindeck / Pack Rat sideboard. Similar to the 3 Foil list that FluffyPingo was playing online.
4 Griselbrand
1 Iona
1 Tidespout
1 Grave Titan / Elesh Norn
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead
4 Lotus Petal
3 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Careful Study
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Foil
3 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
4 Watery Grave
4 Underground Sea
SB:
4 Pack Rat
3 Echoing Truth
4 Thoughtseize
1 Swamp
3 Faerie Macabre
2) UBw "standard" maindeck, Mentor sideboard
4 Griselbrand
1 Tidespout
1 Iona
1 Grave Titan / Elesh Norn
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate Dead
4 Careful Study
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
1 Scrubland
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
Sideboard:
4 Monastery Mentor
1 Elesh Norn / Grave Titan
3 Echoing Truth
4 Cabal Therapy (plays nicer with Mentor than Thoughtseize)
3 Faerie Macabre
3) Either of the above, but with 4 Show and Tell as a sideboard package.
I'm pretty much locked in on 3 Echoing Truth 3 Faerie Macabre as useful slots, and I think that some hand disruption is good out of the board to bring in over either Lotus Petals or Dazes (grindy matchups like Miracles, Stoneblade and some combo matchups like Storm where Daze isn't great).
I would like input on Mentor sideboard vs Pack Rat sideboard vs Show and Tell sideboard. I spent the day jamming 3 leagues with Deck #1 and went about 50/50, which I deemed okay for making a few mistakes and just learning the deck. Pack Rat won the deciding game vs a Czech player and an Eldrazi player, and in conjunction with Force on Thought-Knot -> Reanimate Thought-Knot beat another Eldrazi player. However, I feel like Mentor would have performed somewhat similarly, perhaps coming down a bit later but killing faster to compensate. Both of those plans I am comparing to Show and Tell, which feels like it dodges most cards being played vs decks like this right now, with the exception of Leovold and Flusterstorm.
If you're wondering how I produce blue mana, I copy my opponent's Island with Thespian's Stage
My Youtube and Twitch usernames are DNSolver.
I am the Legacy metagame:
-2016 Eternal Weekend Europe won by BR Reanimator (I wrote the primer)
-2016 Eternal Weekend North America won by Turbo Dark Depths (I write about and develop the winning version specifically)
-Refiner of Hogaak Depths.
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