Mono-Black Reanimator

[Ozymandias]

So I've been tooling around with this deck on MWS, and it absolutely infuriates opponents. Between being able to cheat fatties into play, attack opposing strategies with discard, ignore all of the manabase hate in legacy, and not have to work around graveyard hate...well, I've been getting a lot of quits. Here is my current list:

Reanimation Targets
4 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Blazing Archon
1 Angel of Despair
1 Sphinx of the Steel Winf
1 Hellkite Overlord
Reanimation Engine
4 Putrid Imp
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
1 Life//Death
Discard
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Unmask
Backup plan
3 Tombstalker
Mana
4 Dark Ritual
18 Swamp

Transitional Sideboard
1 Tombstalker
2 Unmask
4 Nyxathid
4 Bitterblossom
4 Nantuko Shade

The basic plan is simple: Game 1, reanimate a fatty after stripping the opp's hand and win. Hellkite is for speed, Iona is for a lock, Blazing Archon is an out vs. Dredge if you're slow, and Nishoba is for lifegain.

Game 2, you bring in the entire sideboard, removing the 8 pack of creatures, Entomb, and 3 Exhumes (Reanimate and Life/Death can stay,they're good anyhow.) Your gameplan is now to work as a removal light, discard-heavy monoblack aggro deck, and you have the most resilient black creatures in the business to help you.

Game 3, you can cut discard and dudes to hybridize the strategies, bringing back at least entomb, exhume and 2 Iona, or you can continue to go one way or another. Either way, I suggest you sideboard by shuffling it in and pullng 15 cards.

I'd like a little help with a few elements. Tombstalker has been less than stellar in my testing, and he could easily become more discard MD or a different creature. Should Confidant replace him? I'm a little bit leery with all of the lifeloss already and all the 7+mana creatures that are flippable. Also, do I need other reanimation targets? I've been pretty happy with my current suite, but I feel like there are some good ones I could diversify to.

Also, my gameplan vs. Dredge is just Archon and then pray I can win before they can either DR Angel of Despair or Chain of Vapor/Firestorm it away. Should I make room for leylines, or just accept the unfavorbale matchup and hope I can duress/therapy/unmask them and quickly roshambo them?

Any answers, questions, or other suggestions are welcome. I hope to pick up the Entombs, which are the only pricy bit of this deck, fairly soon in paper, and I'd like to have a great deck to slide them into.

[kicks_422]

Tombstalker as a back-up win condition for Reanimator is just redundant. They will bring in graveyard hate against you, which makes your back-up plan really bad. Oh, and 8 reanimation targets is a bit on the high side... I'd say cut it down to 6.

I see what you're trying to do in making Reanimator less susceptible to graveyard hate with the transformational SB. But by doing that, you'll have a mediocre version of both Reanimator and Mono-B Aggro. I think for this deck, you simply just have to suck it in. Slit your wrist to cut their throat.

[Ozymandias]

Tombstalker came in in the first place in place of 2 Unmask (and a Life/Death,) so that's an easy reversion. I think I will probably change that, and go to 3 more dudes in the board, plus one main. My choices are Confidant, Hypnotic Specter, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Vampire Nighthawk, and Phyrexian Negator. Which one do you think the best choice is?

The other alternative is to run 4 Sinkhole and then an extra two wastelands (So I would have 16 swamp/4 Waste) main in the place of those stalkers and two targets, and then bring in 15 creatures out of the board. Then I have a pretty strong mana denial strategy to go along with beats.

As it stands, is Bitterblossom the right slot for the transitional SB? It's very resilient, but also very slow. Would Confidant be better?

[kicks_422]

Like I said, mixing in two decks within a 75 gives you two mediocre versions. The only cards you have in common are the 12 discard spells and the 4 Dark Rituals. However, if you can find a way to make the two decks share 20+ business cards between them, then it just might work.

My mono-black build, for reference. Straight up Reanimator. I've learned to play around grave hate as well, and the 12 reanimation spells help out a lot in resilience.

18 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Hellkite Overlord
1 Empyral Archangel
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Blazing Archon
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

4 Putrid Imp
4 Entomb
4 Buried Alive

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Animate Dead

4 Beseech the Queen

SB

4 Nevinyraal's Disk
4 Tormod's Crypt
7 other reanimation targets that I'm too lazy to type out

[troopatroop]

I don't see why you wouldn't run more Iona. If the correct number of reanimation targets is somewhere between 6-7, wouldn't the correct package be something like...

2-3 Iona
1 Inkwell
1 Sphinx
1 Blazing Archon
1 Empyrial Archangel

Since you play Pimp and Therapy, and Iona is the "best" reanimation target, why wouldn't you play more than 1? It also makes you evaluate whether or not Archangel and Archon are good enough, considering the amount of times they'll be straight worse than Iona. It's something I've been mulling over. On one hand, you don't want to draw 2 Iona and only be able to reanimate 1, but it's going to win the most games, so you want to draw it more than the other targets. It's not like U/B where all their Burial spells search their Library. Is playing 4 Iona wrong?

[Illissius]

Is there any deck where Inkwell wins but neither Iona nor Empyrial Archangel do?

[Tacosnape]

Is there any deck where Inkwell wins but neither Iona nor Empyrial Archangel do?

Zoo comes to mind. I've had them deal the 8 to the Empyrial, and I've had them Bolt/Fireblast Iona if I name White or Path it if I name Red.

That said, I'd just play the 4 Iona. It's by far the best of the best.

[Kangaxx]

Like I said, mixing in two decks within a 75 gives you two mediocre versions. The only cards you have in common are the 12 discard spells and the 4 Dark Rituals. However, if you can find a way to make the two decks share 20+ business cards between them, then it just might work.

My mono-black build, for reference. Straight up Reanimator. I've learned to play around grave hate as well, and the 12 reanimation spells help out a lot in resilience.

18 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Hellkite Overlord
1 Empyral Archangel
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Blazing Archon
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

4 Putrid Imp
4 Entomb
4 Buried Alive

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Animate Dead

4 Beseech the Queen

SB

4 Nevinyraal's Disk
4 Tormod's Crypt
7 other reanimation targets that I'm too lazy to type out

I'd cut the Cabal Therapies for Thoughtseize, you have no creatures you want to sac and the life loss from Seize in conjunction with Reanimate should be a minimal issue. I <3 the Nevinyrral's Disks in the SB though, very techy. :wink:

[SaturdayKnight]

Mono-Black Reanimator:

--- Creatures ---
3x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Empyrial Archangel
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Sphinx of the Steel Wind

--- Spells ---
4x Buried Alive
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
4x Exhume
4x Life/Death
4x Reanimate
4x Thoughtseize
4x Unmask

--- Artifacts ---
4x Lotus Petal

--- Lands ---
14x Swamp


--- Sideboard ---
1x Blazing Archon
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
4x Extirpate
4x Sickening Dreams
4x Snuff Out

Reasoning:
I realize that U/B Reanimator is more consistant and on a higher tier than Mono-Black, but Mono-black is MUCH cheaper to build (from scratch). Just take a look at prices right now for FoW, Underground Sea, and Fetches ... With the right tweaking though, I believe Mono-black can still be very competitive in most Legacy metas.

Proactive Protection:
Unmask, Cabal Therapy, and Thoughtseize all allow me to either discard out of my hand or take out my opponent's counters or combo. Unmask gives the added benefit of guarding your first or second turn reanimate for no mana, if speed is really necessary. This makes up for lack of FoW and Daze that are in the B/U builds.

Reanimate Spells:
Reanimate, Exhume, and Life/Death give us 12 good spells that should be enough for finding them in the deck and fighting through any counters if they get past our discard strategy.

Searching:
We only have Entomb and Buried Alive for direct searching through our deck and into our graveyard. However the strategy of targeting yourself to discard will sometimes save you from searching. This is why I replaced Duress with Unmask.

Acceleration:
Both Lotus Petal and Dark Ritual. This makes this deck extremely fast. Turn 1 and 2 reanimates are the norm and with great consistency too. With the extra mana you can usually protect yourself too, by using a discarding card to look at the opponents hand and see the trouble you will face.

Strategy:
The key strategy with the Mono-Black build of Reanimator is to mulligan until you get a search spell or a useful creature in your hand. With 12 reanimating and 12 discard cards in the deck, one will come up very soon if you don't already have it. Mulling all the way down to 4 is even ok. All of our spells are mostly 1 or 2 mana anyway.

[Kangaxx]

Mono-Black Reanimator:

--- Creatures ---
3x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Empyrial Archangel
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Sphinx of the Steel Wind

--- Spells ---
4x Buried Alive
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Dark Ritual
4x Entomb
4x Exhume
4x Life/Death
4x Reanimate
4x Thoughtseize
4x Unmask

--- Artifacts ---
4x Lotus Petal

--- Lands ---
14x Swamp


--- Sideboard ---
1x Blazing Archon
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
4x Extirpate
4x Sickening Dreams
4x Snuff Out

Reasoning:
I realize that U/B Reanimator is more consistant and on a higher tier than Mono-Black, but Mono-black is MUCH cheaper to build (from scratch). Just take a look at prices right now for FoW, Underground Sea, and Fetches ... With the right tweaking though, I believe Mono-black can still be very competitive in most Legacy metas.

Proactive Protection:
Unmask, Cabal Therapy, and Thoughtseize all allow me to either discard out of my hand or take out my opponent's counters or combo. Unmask gives the added benefit of guarding your first or second turn reanimate for no mana, if speed is really necessary. This makes up for lack of FoW and Daze that are in the B/U builds.

Reanimate Spells:
Reanimate, Exhume, and Life/Death give us 12 good spells that should be enough for finding them in the deck and fighting through any counters if they get past our discard strategy.

Searching:
We only have Entomb and Buried Alive for direct searching through our deck and into our graveyard. However the strategy of targeting yourself to discard will sometimes save you from searching. This is why I replaced Duress with Unmask.

Acceleration:
Both Lotus Petal and Dark Ritual. This makes this deck extremely fast. Turn 1 and 2 reanimates are the norm and with great consistency too. With the extra mana you can usually protect yourself too, by using a discarding card to look at the opponents hand and see the trouble you will face.

Strategy:
The key strategy with the Mono-Black build of Reanimator is to mulligan until you get a search spell or a useful creature in your hand. With 12 reanimating and 12 discard cards in the deck, one will come up very soon if you don't already have it. Mulling all the way down to 4 is even ok. All of our spells are mostly 1 or 2 mana anyway.

I would hate losing to a budget deck, but I believe that's inevitable for some people who play against this. :wink:

[SaturdayKnight]

this deck has been working really, really good for me. Thinking about putting Zoo down for a week and bringing it to a local tourny ... Do you think my decklist is ready to submit for an established deck with primer?

[troopatroop]

My list, which has been great for me, is as follows


4 Putrid imp
4 Entomb
3 Buried Alive

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
3 Animate Dead

4 Unmask
4 Thoughtseize
3 Duress

3 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Blazing Archon
1 Empyrial Archangel

16 Swamps
4 Dark Ritual

It runs 11 cards in each department. Discard, Animation, and Protection. It goes off turn 1-2 with consistency. Buried Alive has been very very good to me, especially when the game goes long for whatever reason, or on turn 1 with Ritual. It's another card after entomb that gets you right back into the game after some1 nukes your graveyard. PImp is also good at that too. I've been toying with -10 swamps +8 Black Fetch +2 Bayou for Krosan Grip, and it's exactly what this deck needs to become more competitive imo. Overall, the deck is Fast, Resilient, and Effective. Thoughts?

[Clark Kant]

OP and kicks422(I like your list a lot). But both of you should absolutely play Thoughtseize instead of Duress.

Thoughtseize lets you target yourself to discard Iona or another creature in your hand, to reanimate/exhume next turn.
That can be a game winning play and is very much worth the 2 life. In addition, you can use it to force your opponent to discard their Fairie Macabre, Jotun Grunt, Withered Wretch etc prematurely, before you get a creature into your yard.

I would definately play Dark Ritual and Buried Alive. I would NOT play Lotus Petal, imo, that's too many slots being devoted to acceleration. Those 4 Petal slots can be used to make the deck more consistently.

Here is the ideal/perfect decklist...
4 thoughtseize
4 unmask
3 cabal therapy

4 reanimate
4 exhume
4 animate dead
2 life/death or another reanimate effect.

4 entomb
4 buried alive

2 Iona
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Blazing Archon
1 Empyrial Archangel

4 dark ritual
17 swamp

The deck plays 14 reanimate effects (just the right number to ensure you see 1-2 in your opening hand every single game).

The deck plays 14 ways to get creatures into the yard (4 entomb, 4 buried alive and 6 of the creatures themselves that you can either discard by either skipping a land drop or targeting yourself with unmask/thoughtseize/cabal therapy)

So it's consistency is up the wazoo. This high count of combo pieces makes up for the lack of tutoring or cantripping effects.

And you have discard to ensure that your key cards resolve. But the best insurance is to simply play enough reanimate effects that if your first attempt fails, you will easily be able to do another one.

[Clark Kant]

Do you think my decklist is ready to submit for an established deck with primer?

I think it's very close to perfect. I think you should test it both with and without minor alterations (over MWS if you can't over real life), and write up a primer and post it in the established deck list.

To me, discussing alternate card choices and writing details on the matches you played with the deck over MWS showing how the deck performs maybe more critical in a deck like this.

Everyone understands how Reanimator works. So there's no need delve on that in the primer. But the matchup details and possible alterations can be a lot more useful for people.

[whienot]

Troopa, no love for Cabal Therapy? That card is such a house in builds with Putrid Imp.

[johanessen]

Which is the reason to play Monoblack over B/U?

[Vacrix]

Which is the reason to play Monoblack over B/U?

You lose less to wasteland, and play more discard instead of countermagic. It looks consistently faster too due to maindeck Dark Rituals and Lotus Petals.


What matchups does this version win that B/U doesn't? Does anyone have any results?

[Sims]

The idea, I believe, was to make the deck a bit faster (ritual) and solidify the manabase to make it more resilient to the decks/cards that the B/u version hates to see. Counterbalance is never fun to sit down across from, but turn 1 ritual duress/seize can easily swing that game into your favor by getting your entomb and disruption in pre-cb hitting the table. The lack of duals (outside of the versions splashing for grip) makes wasteland weak against you, and the increased basic count would also make stifle less useful. Having more discard options and rituals also allows you to proactively try to dodge Chalices and Trinispheres from the Stompy Decks and Stax.

I haven't played the non-benzo (zombie infestation) versions of mono-b, so i cannot attest to their success rates, but I know that I don't like sitting down across from a tempo deck or merfolk even when i'm playing B/u, these versions might have a better matchup there if the meta you are in is chock full of those decks. However, I cannot say what you lose to make up that ground against tempo decks. You might just pack it in harder to some of the other decks that B/u has a better matchup against. I just don't know, and don't have enough of the tempo decks in my meta to really warrant me going deep into testing, but I'll follow the thread and keep an eye on it.

Wouldn't mind dusting off my beta rits and giving em some love.

[troopatroop]

Sims got it right, I just think the deck is faster. Unmask is such a good spell! Removing the card in your hand you need the least is amazing, and it can be anything. I find discard a much better strategy against FOW and friends, because it gives you the information you're hungry for. You know whether or not your stuffs gonna resolve, their whole gameplan, and exactly what color to call for Iona/what creature to Animate. The manabase isn't much better in my final version tbh, because I still need to play Fetchlands to get those Bayous, and Stifle still works. Wasteland is less effective, because you're fetching for Swamps game 1. I also play two less lands that traditional U/B lists, but there's 4 Dark Ritual on top of it, so it works out.

I think the Merfolk matchup is improved, along with Tempo decks. ANT/Belcher is worse when you're on the draw. I want to be careful with claims that this deck is better than U/B, because I don't have testing to support it. That being said, I personally like this deck more. It can go off turn 1 pretty easily, something the blue versions don't do. Some see the turn 1 as unimportant, because you first want to see what they're playing, but that's not the case here. The discard suite lets you know exactly what they're playing, and to me that's invaluable.

Krosan Grip solves almost ALL of this decks problems. Crypt, Relic, Leyline, Counterbalance, Chalice? You really need that green.


Troopa, no love for Cabal Therapy? That card is such a house in builds with Putrid Imp.

Cabal Therapy can miss where Duress can't. Turn 1 I'd much rather be casting Duress against a blind opponent. To be fair, Cabal Therapy can do really big things like devastate their hand after you've already seen it, and target creatures out of your hand, but I haven't gotten in enough testing to say for sure. The deck already plays more cards that search out creatures than most, so needing to target yourself might not be common. You're also losing 3 Discard spells to play it, so you'd be seeing their hand even less. I'm honestly not even sure. One thing tho, Animate Dead is probably the 3rd best reanimation spell (forget about Life/Death, Zoo/Sligh is for real) and it gets hosed by Qasali Pridemage, which definitely gives a case for Cabal Therapy.

[whienot]

Do test Therapy. It adds to the brokeness of the archtype. Blind Therapies aren't the best, but those are very infrequent. When they do pop-up, you name what you'd want to see the least. The fact that it takes out multiple targets is huge, not to mention that it is another way to stop a Faerie Macabre. Though, you already play 8 other ways of dealing with Macabre.

[Fuzzy]

A long time ago, CMU/YMG had played MonoB Reanimator on Extended. And that rocks!

You should search for the coverage (Kai won, Wallamies 2nd. Sorry, can't remember where)

[kicks_422]

I've long since replaced the Cabal Therapies in my list with Thoughtseizes. I was going to build this as a budget deck, but since the price of Entomb skyrocketed, I was left with no choice but LEDless Ichorid. I would have to say that it's not that worse from UB. It can be argued that it's better in some aspects, even.

Troopatroop, I'm roughly a switch of Unmask for Beseech The Queen different from your list. I am very intrigued by having Unmask as an additional weapon, but I'm a bit wary of losing Beseech. With that much redundancy, is a tutor not needed at all?

[troopatroop]

When I first saw Beseech the Queen, I thought "Great! Here's a Grim Tutor that doesn't cost $100". When I tried it, I very rarely needed it, or wanted it in my hand. It's not nearly as good as Mystical Tutor, Brainstorm, or Ponder imo. I'd rather just play all cards that do what I want them to do, as opposed to running less of them and Beseech the Queen. It isn't quick/good enough. You want to reanimate turns 1 2 and 3, not 4.

[kicks_422]

It can be Ritual'd out though. Turn 1 Entomb, Turn 2 Ritual->Beseech for Reanimate, Reanimate happens often.

But I would admit there are times when I just wished it was something that I could cast early, be it reanimation, burial, or protection. I'm going to try this without them, with Unmasks in place.

[Exospaciac]

Sorry for the necro, but I didn't really want to post in the other thread, as it seems to be more discussion about the deck's performance.

I just built this deck for a friend who wanted to start playing Legacy. Even without Entomb, the deck isn't too bad, but I'm sure there's room for improvement. Yes, I know it would be much better with Entombs, but right now they're out of the question.

The list:

2 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Hellkite Overlord
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Thraximundar
1 Phantom Nishoba

4 Animate Dead
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume

4 Dark Ritual
4 Buried Alive /Entomb when he gets the money.
4 Duress
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Beseech the Queen
4 Putrid Imp

16 Swamp

2 Open Slots

The Thraximundar was not my choice, but the person who pilots this deck insists on keeping it in.
I'm thinking about filling the open slots with either Oona's Prowler for some additional discard enablers or Life/Death to guarantee 2 reanimates within the first few turns. Right now they're Sign in Blood, which is pretty bad.

I haven't built a sideboard yet, but I'm sure it's gonna have 4 Nev's Disk, Blazing Archon(s), and some Coffin Purges.

Suggestions?

[nevan7777]

Hey guys i`m just wondering, what will you do if its game two your on the draw and your opponent drops a 1st turn leyline of the void. . . I think this is arguably the most debatable issues that need to be clarified when one plays a mono black reanimator deck. :eyebrow:

[practical joke]

They'll cry and die probably.

Some random suggested nevinyrral's disk/oblivion stone for that.
He said it rocked the boat, I say just buy duals.

Black otherwise has no real answers except for braids, and that's not really a card I'd like to advice.


@exo: really ditch the nishoba, thraximundar and hellkite:

add empyrial archangel ( best second reanimate target), akroma angel of fury and poosibly blazing archon. Those are all better choises than the above.

The problem with mono-B is that it has NO answers to planar void/leyline and the like.
It has no removal except for a T5 disk. ( you really hope it's a T5 disk)
You'll be dead against most decks. Even a single crypt or relic can tear your deck apart, you shouldn't want that and pack some decent hate against those artifacts and enchantments, if not, you are doomed to die due to that when on the draw.

[Grollub]

I cannot see mono-black being any better than UB, unless the deck plays differently - UB is clearly better suited for the consistent speedy reanimation thanks to tutors and cantrips. To illustrate what I mean:

Manly (untested and purely for this post) Reanimator

Reanimation Package - 12
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Iona, Shield of Emeria

Disruption Package - 12
4 Smallpox
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy

WTF Package - 15
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Confidant
1 Dark Depths

Doombear Package - 4
1 Necroplasm
1 Bloodghast
1 Darkblast
1 Syphon Life

SPARTA? Package - 2
2 Beseech the Queen

Speed! - 4
4 Dark Ritual

Lands - 19
1 Dakmor Salvage
18 Swamps

It can puke out a fast Iona and just go to town reanimator style, or disrupt your opponent to hell and back until you assemble either a Hex/Depth or Iona in the 'yard (or rather a fatty in any 'yard) + Reanimate.

[kicks_422]

With Mystical Tutor gone from the U/B version, has that allowed the mono black version to close the gap a bit? It's been kicking ass for me in random MWS games, especially now that I've streamlined my build for redundancy.

EDIT: My updated list. SB's sketchy, as usual.


// Lands
17 [UNH] Swamp

// Creatures
4 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
1 [RAV] Blazing Archon
1 [CFX] Inkwell Leviathan

// Spells
4 [US] Exhume
4 [US] Dark Ritual
3 [WL] Buried Alive
4 [OD] Entomb
4 [TE] Reanimate
3 [VI] Necromancy
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [US] Duress
3 [MM] Unmask