Inspired by the Conspiracy Unraveler thread, I went looking for something that would turn cards in the graveyard into a combo fodder, and turned up Eye of Duskmantle
There's a bit of conditionality involved but there are some potent ways to surveil cards into the graveyard:Eye of Duskmantle 5BB
Creature — Eye
Flying, lifelink
You may play lands and cast spells from among cards in your graveyard you’ve surveilled this turn. If you cast a spell this way, you pay life equal to its mana value rather than paying its mana cost.
3/8
Otherworldly Gaze
Contingency Plan
Taigam's Scheming
Tendrils of Agony is probably the most attractive option for regaining life while going off since it can serve double duty as a finisher, but there are other strong options like Children of Korlis if that's really an issue.
So, a combo package might look like:
4 Reanimate
4 Eye of Duskmantle
4 Otherworldly Gaze
4 Contingency Plan
4 Taigam's Scheming
2 Tendrils of Agony
Which leaves a decent amount of room for counterspells, bounce effects and brainstorm, and the surveil effects themselves can help finding the combo.
That said, I don't see how this is going to be better than a more conventional approach to reanimator.
Rules question: Is any of that actually Surveilling?
A lot of things have received errata to say surveil when they were functionally the same…
That said, like in the last thread like this, if I’m going to reanimate something why not just make it a better target and avoid all the clunkyness. Reanimate is already a payoff, why does it need more steps?
The Parfait Meta-Game
True, why pay 2 life to Taigam's Scheming (to then spend more life to cast things) when you can pay 7 to draw 7? Or pay 0 to draw 4-5 from top 10?
This is a fun thing to durdle with in Commander but doesn't do anything to improve what Legacy Reanimator already does.
I imagine that that was meant rhetorically, but I don't think the concept is actually so bad there: 2 life for +4 net cards and 1 life for +2 net cards are both a better rate than 7 life for 7 cards, and life is typically a more available resource than mana. I think the problems are more that the fizzle potential is too high and that the surveil cards aren't all that good without eye in play.Originally Posted by FTW
If that was the only life loss, sure. But it's 0 cards drawn unless you pay more life to cast those cards. Surveiling more cards doesn't really benefit you on its own. Draw7/Atraxa does have value on its own.
To not fizzle and do something for the life spent, you need a high density of Surveil cards (card disadvantage), you probably need to chain multiple Surveils (more life loss), then you need more life to cast the Surveiled cards. Total life spent could be greater than 7, and not on a 7/7 lifelink body.
Then what do you even cast? Casting Reanimate is worse then casting a big creature directly, so Reanimate is a dead card. Dark Rit & Lotus Petal are dead cards (not using mana anymore). Grief and Unmask cost 4 life instead of 0 mana (not putting black cards in hand). Animate Dead would be OK though. You end up where a good chunk of the core Renaimate cards are worse to cast off the Surveil than they would be as cards in hand. So either the deck becomes a mix of good hits and bad hits (high variance), or you completely change the core away from what's already proven to work.
The Surveil cards set up reanimation, so they could make a completely different core. You could maybe chain them and Children of Korlis into Surveiling your deck into Tendrils. It could work. But you end up running a bunch of bad cards to enable it. Seems worse than regular UB Reanimate or regular storm.
Another reason why this is not the time to innovate with UB Reanimator (with Eye or Conspiracy Unraveler).
1st place Legacy Showcase March 17th: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=53380&d=596636&f=LE (320 players)
1st place SCG Con March 10th: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=53161&d=594972&f=LE (217 players)
UB Reanimator/Scaminator is already a Tier 1 DTB. Why deviate from the core?
I don't think a time where eye of dusk is better or even equal to normal reanimator will come anytime soon but sometimes rogue decks that become optimized before cards get printed end up shining later on. Trying to make eye of dusk work now, will make things easier for when have more surveil synergies and options. Surveil is still a very young keyword and as time goes on there will likely be more and more strong surveil cards people can consider. This type of deck building where you're optimizing before you can be competitive isn't for everyone but in my opinion it is a good thing for the community and deck diversity none the less.
I think looking at tin fins decklists might be a better starting point than looking at traditional reanimator but its difficult and hard to say with something so unexplored.
OK, if you do want to try brewing, there are some structural hurdles to overcome.
You need consistent ways to:
1) Get Eye onto the Battlefield (rest of deck depends on it, no replaceable effect)
2) Get an Eye enabler into hand
3) Protect the combo
4) interact with grave hate
1 & 2 is already difficult to assemble. Reanimator has interchangeable enablers and interchangeable threats, so it can run 8x of each for higher consistency.
I think Reanimate is a trap here. It costs precious life, an important resource in the combo, and it's a dead card with Eye out (while other low cmc Reanimation spells are not).
You'd start with a core of:
4 Entomb
4 Eye of Duskmantle
4 Animate Dead
4 Taigam's Scheming
4 Contingency Plan
4 Force of Will
2 Children of Korlis
1 Tendrils of Agony
Mission Briefing is interesting. It only Surveils 2 but lets your recast other spells in GY including FoW for free.
Consider does not Surveil much but is a functional turn 1 cantrip that helps sculpt and isn't card disadvantage.
Mirko, Obsessive Theorist is interesting as an alternate fair wincon that doubles as a way to Reanimate Eye and go off. Eye only has power 3.
Noxious Revival is interesting. Precombo it returns disrupted pieces. During the combo it puts a used Surveil spell (or other needed spell) from graveyard to top of library to guarantee it is the next card Surveiled. It costs 0 from hand (2 life) and 1 life from graveyard. Seems more flexible to play 4 Noxious Revival than redundant copies of bad Surveil cards.
Doom Whisperer could mass-Surveil the deck in one go but that might be win-more. Then again, Taigam's Scheming is a really bad card, so "winning more" than that might be good.
I think something like this would work. Worldgorger Dragon + Surveil lands is amazing. Eye of Duskmantle may be winmore, but I like the idea of using surveil cards to both set up draws and get cards in the graveyard.
4 Eye of Duskmantle
4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Archon of Cruelty
4 Animate Dead
4 Dance of the Dead
4 Taigam's Scheming
4 Contingency Plan
4 Otherworldly Gaze
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Children of Korlis
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Undercity Sewers
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
It would certainly work. The problem is why? Dragon is strong enough on its own. Once you're on Dragon, that becomes its own plan.
-12 Surveil Cards
- 4 Eye
+16 good cards
Win rate goes way up because you can cram in more support
Adding Entomb, Ponder, Grief, Daze...
//Spells: 22
4 Entomb
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Daze
2 Chain of Vapor
//Enchantments: 8
4 Animate Dead
4 Dance of the Dead
//Creatures: 14
4 Grief
4 Troll
3 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier
1 Archon of Cruelty
1 Thassa's Oracle
//Lands: 16
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Underground Sea
2 Undercity Sewers
1 Island
1 Swamp
Instead of using Dragon + Surveil land to mill fuel for Eye (to make Eye into Tendrils), you could just mill the entire deck into Thassa & win. Or mill into Archon/Atraxa and Animate that.
Last edited by FTW; 04-14-2024 at 10:01 AM.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote