1st Place at Jupiter Games NELC with Reanimator

[Dyvith]

Imagine this board state. You're sitting down at a tournament, in round three, or perhaps round four. Your opponent wins the die roll and plays an arid mesa and cracks for an unhinged mountain and chain lightnings you. You let it resolve. On your turn, you play an underground sea, cast entomb, find Iona, play a lotus petal, and reanimate it. Your opponent shows you a hand filled with lightning bolts, fireblasts, etc. Who would you rather be?

For a long time, I played fair decks. I played RUG Delver, I played Junk, I played BUG Midrange - anything that I could outplay my opponents with and win a grindy game. It was fun, for sure, and I didn't do poorly by any means, but for every game that I won by outplaying my opponent, there would be that game where your opponent just nut drew you and you kept a somewhat softer hand and just couldn't bring yourself to mulligan your decent hand down to five or even four, and so you lose because you can't beat having your hand ripped apart and being tendrilsed for twenty.

For those of you that are new to the format, or are thinking about getting involved in legacy, let me tell you something. You can do some very powerful things in this format, and as much as I love beating down with delver of secrets as much as the next guy, there is just something about drawing seven with Griselbrand on turn one that just feels so insane. There is nothing better than turn oneing your opponent in a tournament - and while it may deprive them of the chance to interact , does it really matter? I mean honestly, who doesn't like to have a freebie every once in a while.

So here we are, at Jupiter Games, running on four hours of sleep. I wanted to bring back some Griselbrands on the day, and I did it quite frequently. This is the list I settled on, and I'll be discussing some of the things that worked and didn't work on the day.

Main Deck:
4 Griselbrand
1 Iona
1 Elesh Norn
1 Tidespout Tyrant

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
1 Animate Dead

4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
2 Show and Tell

4 Lotus Petal
4 Delta
1 Strand
1 Misty
1 Tarn
4 U.Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Karakas

SB:
2 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
2 City of Traitors
2 Jace, TMS
3 Pithing Needle
2 Show and Tell
1 Angel of Despair
1 Echoing Truth
1 Repeal

I have a lot of changes that I will be making to the list going forward. First and foremost, the main deck was almost perfect, except for the Karakas which didn't preform for me at all in the main deck, but is still needed. I think that I will be keeping it the same anyway, because I only played eight rounds (nine with the I.D.) and I don't think my sample size is large enough to warrant cutting Karakas from the main.

In the board, the repeal is becoming another echoing truth, the Jace's are becoming V. Cliques, the city of traitors are becoming one spell pierce and one more Karakas. I may cut Angel of Despair for either the fourth Pithing Needle or Terastadon or a second Tidespout.

Anyway, here are the games in all their glory.

Round 1 - U/R Delver -

My opponent leads with triple Goblin Guide and I think that they get the god burn draw, but when I resolve Griselbrand off of an exhume without losing any life, it doesnt matter at all - thought it is slightly closer than comfortable. On the last turn of the game, he fetches for a volcanic island, showing me that he isn't on straight burn, and I become grateful that my Griselbrand resolved at all, knowing he could have had the force. In my last three tournaments, I've played against UR Delver in the first round and lost every time - it's a miserable match up and they bring in a ton of hate against us. Luckily, my opponent wasn't prepared at all, had two hate cards to bring in, and I crushed them again in game two off of a Griselbrand. My opponent seemed to be good but new at Legacy, and I was thankful that I was able to start my tournament without a loss, especially given my previous track record.

One thing that I learned with this deck is that you get to mulligan aggressively. You'll notice in my report that I have a lot of strong draws and go off early very often, usually on turn two. This is because I mulliganed a lot during this tournament, at least twice every match, even in the matches where I won 2-0.

Round 2 - Tibbetts on U/W/r Countertop

Game one I do my thing and go off super early. Skill game is skilled. My gameplan against this deck is to board out all of my reanimation effects, and bring in all fifteen cards out of my board. I do this because I expect Rest in Peace and more graveyard hate out of the board, which I saw. His hate made no difference because I had no reanimator effects left, but it didn't matter because he had an early Clique both games. In game three, I hardcasted Griselbrand twice, but he had double counterspell and I lost. Sad day.

Round 3 - Burn

I win a tight game one at five life and I lose a tight game two the turn before I swing with Griselbrand to stabilize. Game three is the tightest. I'm at two life and my opponent has two cards in hand. He has two options - suspend rift bolt or cast Price of Progress. Price kills me right away, but he is worried I have a force, so instead he opts to suspend rift bolt and then cast Price the following turn so that even double force wouldn't save me. On my turn I rip the entomb, entomb for Iona, and exhume it, effectively blanking his entire deck, as well as the suspended rift bolt. Sick life.

2-1

Round 4 - Jund

I'm playing against Jund being piloted by a friend of mine, Dave Rice. These games are super lopsided, as I aggresively kill him and he just can't really interact with me. In game one, I keep a sketchy hand and he plays double deathrite by turn two, but I obviously have the Show and Tell for Griselbrand on my third turn and he just can't do anything about it. Game two I go off on turn one and he has no surgicals. Nice Deathrite, brah!

Round 5 - ANT

Another friend this time, Mike Cutrone. I've never beaten Mike in a sanctioned match, but I go off super early both games, and he can't really beat me. Reanimator is very very good at beating other combo decks, especially slightly slower ones. The fact that I have force, hand disruption, and the ability to draw seven cards whenever I want is pretty good. Game two I make the only big mistake of the game, where I force a Xantid Swarm and exhume the next turn, but it doesn't matter because the Exhume hits an Iona and I already have Griselbrand in play. He can no longer win, but still it was very dumb on my part.

Round 6 - I.D.

Top 8 - UW/r vs. Tibbetts.

The best part of the top 8 is looking at my opponents decklist, especially when I see no Rest in Peace in the maindeck and only one in the sideboard. On the play, I mulligan to six and have the ability to go off with no protection on turn one. I'm worried that if he has the force I'm probably dead, but it's too good not to risk. He has the force, but no second blue card, and I win easily off of Griselbrand.

This time, I know his hate is so light that I can just go hard. I go off on turn two, and I win the counterwar easily. I like Tibbetts alot, and we prize split so it wasn't a huge deal for him, but he was obviously annoyed to have been blown out. In fact, my three top eight matches were the biggest blowouts of the tournament...

Top 4 - RUG Delver, Paulo.

Paulo is on the play, and goes turn one delver followed by a turn two brainstorm flip into mongoose without thresh. Good thing that neither of those creatures have a butt bigger than two, and Elesh Norn comes down and demolishes his board and any chance he has to win. He plays a 1/1 Mongoose later once he hits thresh which blocks for a turn, but the game is just over at that point as I'm at 13~ life.

Game two looks pretty miserable as I have two cards to bring in compared to his six, and he has a third of his deck which is straight disruption. I considered cutting the Animate Dead to dodge stifle, but it's a good thing I don't, as it wins me game two.

On turn three, with three mana open, I cast animate dead targetting Griselbrand. My opponent audibly sighs, casting force of will pitching flusterstorm! He is even more dismayed as I proceed to flusterstorm his force of will. I guess I lucked out with my opponent drawing the creature heavy side of his deck and not the disruption heavy side.

Finals - Elves, Patnode.

These games can be summarized very easily. Turn two Elesh Norn, both games. The best part is that he kills me turn three if I don't ponder into a reanimate, as I only have one mana open. Ponder whiffs, I shuffle up, someone in the crowd says something about how insane it would be if I flipped a blind reanimate. Of course, it happens. Better Komar than good, as the newly appointed mantra, goes.

Game two is more of the same, where I careful study away Elesh and then brainstorm into not one, but two Reanimates. Better. Komar. Than. Good.

I know this wasn't the most detailed report, but I'm sleepy, the school year is almost over, and I have 150 high school essays to grade. Wish me luck.

P.S. - Every time Tom Leger skips on one of these events, I either win or do insanely well.

[rxavage]

Congrats, I'm glad to see one of my favourite decks is still being played and doing well.

[Koby]

Congrats! I love (and loathe it when I'm playing fair) this deck

Any thoughts about Notion Thief in the slot you would have run Vendilion Clique?

[cogitoergosum]

Grats on the finish. Reanimator will always have a special place in my heart :)

[Dyvith]

As far as notion thief goes, it is really mana intensive. While I can absolutely see it's applications, it's lack of flying and my inability to protect my own creature (which I can with V.Clique because of my own Karakas), I think it just isn't worth it.

I may be wrong.