Griselbrand Reanimator [Archive]

Ppa0

05-12-2012, 03:14 PM

I see that many people have been trying to come up with some sort a combo deck with Griselbrand but I think that a new take on an old classic would be the most optimal way to make him work. A reanimator deck that could win as early as turn one, and I don't mean have a big fatty out on turn one, I mean swing for lethal on turn one. Here is what I have been testing and I have to say that I think with some tweaking or further testing, it can be rather good. It's fast and pretty versatile. You can be greedy and try to get Griselbrand and Emrakul both into play in the same turn and swing or you can go for one or the other depending on the situation. Here is the deck list;

4 Entomb
4 Cabal therapy

3 Goryo's Vengeance
3 Shallow Grave

3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Griselbrand

3 and 4: [ Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Dark Ritual] <- needs more testing to see what is the most optimal acceleration

4 Careful Study
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm

3 Underground Sea
2 Island
3 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Verdant Catacombs

As far as the acceleration goes I have been testing Mox Diamond and Lotus Petal which is rather very good when Griselbrand is on the table and you don't have any mana open, however dark ritual can be justified as well because turn 1 -> dark ritual entomb -> reanimate can be pretty devastating. The Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond are pretty much the same in this deck IMO just because you don't really want to play either until you have Griselbrand on the table and then by drawing a ton of cards you can play either by discarding/exiling cards that are no longer needed. Chrome Mox can be slightly better just because there are only 16 lands but again, it all comes down to further testing. Anyways let me know what you think.

dahcmai

05-12-2012, 06:48 PM

It's been getting quite a bit of debate already here.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?8639-Deck-Reanimator/page161

JDK

05-12-2012, 07:03 PM

It's been getting quite a bit of debate already here.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?8639-Deck-Reanimator/page161

His deck follows a different approach than the common Reanimator builds.

Regarding the deck I would suggest taking the "common" Mono B Reanimator shell and swap the reanimation spells and targets with your ones. You don't need blue, if you want to be as fast as you initially wanted to be. Just play Putrid Imp, Unmask, Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal and maybe a tutor like Rhystic Tutor and you will be fast as hell, while not giving up discard outlets.

Ppa0

05-12-2012, 07:39 PM

dahcmai: ... I am glad you like tacos...

H3llsp4wn: thanks for the input, before I made this list I was actually thinking maybe going mono B. I think with your suggestions Mono B could be pretty solid, maybe even a better list. The big thing about adding blue is that it opens up the sideboard and even the mainboard list to things like spell pierce, FoW and other protection / draw engine.

bowvamp

05-12-2012, 10:23 PM

I like the shell, but I'm concerned about Emrakul not being able to be sent to the gy.

JDK

05-12-2012, 10:49 PM

I like the shell, but I'm concerned about Emrakul not being able to be sent to the gy.

Of course Emrakul goes to the graveyard. When he does, his trigger goes on the stack. That's why you play instant speed reanimation spells, which you can fire in response to that trigger.

rufus

05-13-2012, 12:44 AM

I like the shell, but I'm concerned about Emrakul not being able to be sent to the gy.

Emrakul goes to the graveyard, and then the ability pops. You can instant speed reanimate in response. I think a bigger concern is that if you reanimate Emrakul, you get a pop for 10 damage and some permanents, but then you run out of steam. When I was thinking about this concept, I was looking at Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur since it will reload your hand, and does nice things when animated on the opponent's EOT.

Ppa0

05-13-2012, 01:32 AM

Emrakul goes to the graveyard, and then the ability pops. You can instant speed reanimate in response. I think a bigger concern is that if you reanimate Emrakul, you get a pop for 10 damage and some permanents, but then you run out of steam. When I was thinking about this concept, I was looking at Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur since it will reload your hand, and does nice things when animated on the opponent's EOT.

I don't quite understand what you are talking about... Emrakul is 15/15, also annihilator 6... is nothing to laugh at. The whole point is to either A) resurrecting Griselbrand and drawing a ton of cards and setting up your next turn for lethal damage or putting Emrakul into play for 22 points of damage in the air the same turn or B) going straight for Emrakul and wiping the board clean. Even good players can't recover from that for a while so even if you draw nothing for 5-10 turns you are still most likely going to win.

Narcomoeba

05-13-2012, 03:24 PM

I was working on a deck just like this when Jin-Gitaxias came out. Griselbrand is definitely an upgrade to the deck but I would include one Jin to entomb for. Forcing your opponent to discard their hand is how you're going to fight combo decks. I also included a Godsire in my build, which tested pretty well. It obviously can't be returned by goryo's but shallow graving it during your opponent's end step allows you to swing for 16 and leaves you with two 8/8s. I would also keep the blue, it will increase your consistency and allow you to sideboard in show and tells. And yes, first turn dark ritual into Jin-Gitaxias is a great feeling.

JDK

05-13-2012, 03:36 PM

@Narcomoeba
nvm, I forgot to assume you play sorcery speed reanimation as well. (<- if you read this post before the edit)

Anyway, mono black is more explosive, which the OP wants to be (according to his initial statement). Plus you can just do tons of damage and also destroy the manabase or draw into discard to fight other combo decks.

OrGy

05-13-2012, 04:59 PM

TOP 8ed yesterday a Bazar of Moxen Trial (50 players) with a very similar list (running 4 Griselbrand / 3 Jin / 1 Emmy MD).

I'm positive your list needs at least 2 more reanimation spells. Stifle could be used MD to fight opposing Karakas, Wasteland or stifling EOT Exile Triggers.

The list is sick and one can safely assume that a reanimated Griselbrand at 12 life or more is gg any day of the week.

I'd like some feedback on your SB options. Mine was :
SB: 4 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 1 [SOM] Darkslick Shores
SB: 2 [M10] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 2 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 3 [M10] Duress

Philipp2293

05-13-2012, 05:16 PM

I'm really curious about your list, could you share it?

OrGy

05-13-2012, 05:26 PM

Here it is :

// Mana
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
4 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Flooded Strand
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox

// Creatures
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

// Other
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
2 Animate Dead
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Stifle

// Sideboard
4 Show and Tell
1 Darkslick Shores
2 Pithing Needle
3 Echoing Truth
2 Misdirection
3 Duress

The list runs very few lands and capitalizes into a very fast reanimated Jin/Griselbrand to win the game on the spot. This thread got my eyes since I began working on this list as soon as Grisel was spoiled.

JDK

05-13-2012, 05:28 PM

Would you consider playing Ritual over Mox, as it makes you faster, or do you want a permanent mana boost, even if it is smaller? Were you satisfied with your creature base or would you tweak it a little bit?

OrGy

05-13-2012, 05:56 PM

I tried Dark Ritual in the first place and was constantly frustrated as it bricks far too often.
Sure, T1 DR=>Entomb/Reanimation is game breaker but to run it safely, you get so much close to the god hand syndrome (1 land + Entomb + DR + Reanimation + Daze or Force + Pitch card = 5 to 6 cards to be reliable, so not statistically realistic).
This sequence cannot be done with Careful in lieu of Entomb so the chances of that happining are really slim.

On the contrary, a smaller mana boost is really often just what you need to be daze proof or dig for the missing puzzle piece and putting your plan to execution in the same turn.

The creature basis was satisfactory as is but after sideboard I wouldn't mind be running another Emrakul to have consistent T3 S&T with a really strong target (what Jin is sadly not).

Another Dumping slot in the maindeck would be nice but I think the other options available are worse than what I already run (Cabal Therapy comes to mind). I could consider running a single S&T MD to help fixing the residual consistency issues.

Ppa0

05-13-2012, 06:03 PM

I like the list OrGy and I am happy to hear you Top8ed. I think that the sideboard is very situation for most decks but combo decks are virtually always the same and having said that I didn't even come up with one, but I do like yours for sure. I think that maybe having MB S&T could be really powerful but the question is what to take out. Also can you tell us about the MUs you had and maybe brief description of what happened. Thanks :wink:.

OrGy

05-14-2012, 01:59 AM

For those of you confortable with french, a link to the original report Here (http://www.legacy-france.org/index.php?showtopic=8945&view=findpost&p=156396)

In summary, I encountered :
> RUG Cascade (fairly easy win)
> GW Maverick (lost to double scavening ooze preboard and lots of hate in game 2)
> Burn (fairly easy one too)
> TT (crushed that one real quick)
> A friend of mine playing Sneakshow w/ Griselbrand (Nailed double win post board through grafdigger's cage, feels good)
> ID to top 8
- Esperblade (lost to a lot of countermagic G1 and mana death G2, much closer match than it looked)

Kryptor

06-15-2012, 06:26 AM

I really like your list OrGy.

You are right that Careful Study dosn´t fit to Dark Ritual, but i would play Putrid Imp + Dark Ritual over Mox + Study. I was thinking about it and would try somethink like this:

4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand

4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
4 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Putrid Imp

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Not of This World
2 Daze

3 Dark Ritual
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Island
3 Marsh Flats
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Lotus Petal

SB Options:
(not sure jet)
SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 4 Lim-Dûl's Vault
SB: 4 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Spell Pierce
SB: 3 Pithing Needle

Final Fortune

06-16-2012, 03:10 AM

You want Hapless Researcher over Putrid Imp real bad IMO.

Kryptor

06-16-2012, 04:42 AM

You want Hapless Researcher over Putrid Imp real bad IMO.

I don´t see that.
1) you can use Dark ritual to be very fast
2) when you got Grisel from grave and draw 14 cards (out of mana), you can use ritual, imp, discard emrakul and kill in this turn.

I dislike Researcher for 2 reasons: he coast blue, he can only discard 1 card
on the other hand is he an other pitch card for FoW

OrGy

06-19-2012, 12:50 PM

The list previously shown went through some minor changes, mostly to gain in consistency :

// Lands
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [ISD] Swamp (1)
1 [ISD] Island (1)

// Creatures
3 [NPH] Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
4 [AVR] Griselbrand
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

// Spells
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [OD] Entomb
2 [OD] Hapless Researcher
4 [CMD] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [MM] Misdirection
1 [TO] Cabal Therapy
4 [V09] Lotus Petal
4 [BOK] Goryo's Vengeance
4 [MI] Shallow Grave
2 [A] Animate Dead
2 [SC] Stifle

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 1 [MI] Impulse
SB: 3 [M10] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 3 [M10] Duress
SB: 2 [NPH] Surgical Extraction

Hapless Researcher is a fine addition to the maindeck : As a regular Reanimator player, I always found it too narrow in its uses. In regular Reanimator, you are trying to find the perfect creature to reanimate given a certain matchup. Due to its limited reach, the card is often underperforming in regard of the general strategy of the deck.

In Next Level Reanimator though, the card works perfectly as any large creature plays quite similarly. Sure Griselbrand is the card to go in most situations, but you can rely on Jin Gitaxias or Emrakul to dismantle your opponent's board or hand, meaning there are 8 Maindeck creatures to be dumped without any kind of major preference in reanimating one instead of the others.

HR helps a lot in reaching the critical mass in dump effect to ensure a T2 reanimation for the list. Furthermore, it can chumpblock one of the opponent's attacks, which proves very relevant in aggro matchups.

One of the card I'm eager to test in the near future will be Boseiju who Shelters All in the sideboard as UW CB Miracle have hard times dogging that particular bullet during G2/G3.

@Kryptor:
Don't take it too harshly but I think your list suffers from severe designing leaks.
As a matter of fact, I understand your temptation to go the ol' "Dark Ritual, explode in your face" road but as I commented earlier, this strategy leads to awesome starts given the appropriate hands and awful losses the rest of the time due to it's inner inconsistency. I'd rather explore a less explosive build provided it can easily manage a turn 3 goldfish average with protection (this is the case of the list presented above).

Furthermore, I have numerous issues with the list in itself :
4 FOW supported by a grand total of 10 blue card ? If the protection become active only when you have Griselbrand online, it's not a protection in the very first place. FOW must be supported by 18 cards at the very least.
Not of This World: cf. point above.

From a sideboard point of view: The tricky part is to realize that Personal Tutor and Lim Dul's Vault are inherently flawed cards when it gets to post board action in Reanimator. One of the (if not The) most potent card against us is Extirpate/Surgical Extraction. Playing the S&T post board plan helps to get our fatties in play despise said gravehate. Sporting LDV or PT, you open yourself to gigantic blowouts when tutoring for S&T: You just made your opponent hate active while the whole point of going S&T was to render it moot. Impulse or any sort of big reach digger is really what you'll be looking for post board. It also helps a lot to find the right solution in dangerous situations (bridge, leyline, karakas, and so on).

Kryptor

07-12-2012, 12:57 PM

Don't take it too harshly but I think your list suffers from severe designing leaks.
As a matter of fact, I understand your temptation to go the ol' "Dark Ritual, explode in your face" road but as I commented earlier, this strategy leads to awesome starts given the appropriate hands and awful losses the rest of the time due to it's inner inconsistency. I'd rather explore a less explosive build provided it can easily manage a turn 3 goldfish average with protection (this is the case of the list presented above).

The List before was my first try to understand that deck. Now i am testing this:

4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand

2 Putrid Imp
2 Hapless Researcher
4 Entomb

4 Shallow Grave
4 Goryo's Vengeance

4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
2 Stifle

3 Dark Ritual
3 Lotus Petal

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
1 Island
3 Marsh Flats
2 Scalding Tarn

SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 4 Doomsday
SB: 1 Shelldock Isle
SB: 1 Cloud of Faeries
SB: 1 Temporal Mastery
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Thoughtseize

After a bit of testing i can understand some of my mistakes with that list. But anyways i don´t want to cut dark ritual for 2 reasons.

1) it makes you very fast in Game 1.
2) if fits perfectly when i am changing the deck to doomsday / Show and Tell plan.

Furthermore, I have numerous issues with the list in itself :
4 FOW supported by a grand total of 10 blue card ? If the protection become active only when you have Griselbrand online, it's not a protection in the very first place. FOW must be supported by 18 cards at the very least.
Not of This World: cf. point above.

You are totaly right here. i played to less pitch cards for FoW. I still like NotW, but it´s not blue. so for now i test stifle in that slot.

But 1 thing is left that i dont understand:

I'd rather explore a less explosive build provided it can easily manage a turn 3 goldfish average with protection (this is the case of the list presented above).

How ? What "protection" do you run that allows you to get a turn 3 goldfish ? your List runs 2 Misdirection and 1 cabal Th. In this slots i now have 4 Daze.

Anusien

07-12-2012, 12:58 PM

Is there any hate you dodge this way? There doesn't seem to be any.

OrGy

07-13-2012, 05:04 AM

@ Kryptor:

First of all, Instant Reanimation stands as protection in both our lists.
T1 Dump => EOT T2 Reanimation to lure counters from your opp => T3 Reanimation again with Counter backup (this is why 10 Reanimation spells are key).

The comparison I made was based upon your former list, packing only 4 Force and 2 Daze as protection. Like I said, Not of This World is no protection at all.
Packing 6 protection spells is not sufficient without any additionnal discard to complement your free counters.

As it is, the list I'm currently running doesn't kill T3 right away. But my statement that it goldfishes by turn 3 still stands as at that time the likely scenario is that you have on board :
Griselbrand netting you enough gas to deliver the final blow the very next turn
OR
Jin Gitaxias to trash your opp hand and freeroll him.
OR
Emrakul to eradicate your opp board.

Winning from there is just as simple as it gets (I don't think I need to convince you on that point).

I'm still not sold on Dark Rit in a list that aims to win simply with creature swings.
The card fits much better in build such as Tin Fins as their plans is to use Griselbrand as a broken draw engine to storm their foes out.

I'm aware that Entomb + Reanimation + DR + land is just bonkers, but realistically, any hand with simply Entomb + Reanimation + mana is going to get it done basically a turn later, with the added value of 1 card available.
I don't think your aim should be winning fast in G1. Winning is enough :)

Shelldock Isle plan for G2/G3 is interesting but takes 5 slots at least to adress Gravehate and CB Top. What if you opponent drops Ensnaring bridge/Humily/Peacekeeper (commonly used as answers to Sneak and Show) ?
Sadly, nothing in your SB prevents that blowout.

The list as it currently is :

4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarns
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
4 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
1 Island
2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
1 Hapless Researcher
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
1 Ponder
4 Lotus Petal
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Shallow Grave
2 Animate Dead
2 Stifle

Sideboard:
3 Show and Tell
3 Pithing Needle
2 Boseiju, who Shelters All
2 Echoing Truth
2 Submerge
1 Impulse
1 Darkblast
1 thoughtseize

For the Sideboard in detail:

- 3 Show and Tell + 1 Impulse helps sculpting a T3/T4 S&T + Creature + Protection.
- Boseiju is nuts against UW Miracle as so many versions don't bother to play Wasteland: Just ensure you get your creature ready for Reanimation (a wary opponent will hit hard on your dump attempts) and go for it unopposed.
- Echoing Truth gets rid of Cages / Leyline / Thalia and many other nuisances.
- Submerge adresses Thalia/Ooze/KotR and nets precious time against Green based Aggro (Tempo Zoo is a frequent contender in my area).
- Darkblast is here also to hit Thalia. Entomb for Darkblast is a fine play as it both increases Darkblast consistency and provides a way to dump the top cards, hopefully a creature in the process. Knowing that you can dredge Emrakul with Instant Reanimation makes it less of an awkward situation.
- Thoughtseize. Hmmm counters, gravehate ? Can I see what you got, sir ?

By all means, this is far from a finalized list as several tests are underway and the meta is surely going to shift after M13 with the forecasted return of Merkfolks (a decent but not great MU).

@ Anusien:
I have the feeling that the question you asked was a concern with Doomsday/Shelldock plan (which I find laking) but I could be wrong.

Kryptor

07-15-2012, 03:13 AM

@ Kryptor:
First of all, Instant Reanimation stands as protection in both our lists.
T1 Dump => EOT T2 Reanimation to lure counters from your opp => T3 Reanimation again with Counter backup (this is why 10 Reanimation spells are key).

I´m going to try to add 2 Exhume.

I'm still not sold on Dark Rit in a list that aims to win simply with creature swings.
The card fits much better in build such as Tin Fins as their plans is to use Griselbrand as a broken draw engine to storm their foes out.

I'm aware that Entomb + Reanimation + DR + land is just bonkers, but realistically, any hand with simply Entomb + Reanimation + mana is going to get it done basically a turn later, with the added value of 1 card available.
I don't think your aim should be winning fast in G1. Winning is enough :)

Dark Ritual allows me to get around Daze, spellpierce and i am able to be faster.
Ok, thats maybe not a convincing point, but i really need it for my very special SB plan.

Shelldock Isle plan for G2/G3 is interesting but takes 5 slots at least to adress Gravehate and CB Top. What if you opponent drops Ensnaring bridge/Humily/Peacekeeper (commonly used as answers to Sneak and Show) ?
Sadly, nothing in your SB prevents that blowout.

I like to compare this Deck with Sneak and Show. Reanimator (dont care which form) has a better chance to get a Turn 2 Fatty, but Sneak Show has the better Fattys as "normal" Reanimator lists.

The Main problem that i see is the following: After sideboarding (both) Reanimator lists are trying to Show and Tell something and still keep their reanimate plan. (i played a "normal" Reanimator for a while now). I dislike the splitting in Show and Tell AND reanimate for 1 reason:

for show and tell you must have your fatty on your hand. For Reanimate you must have it in Graveyard. A sneak and Show Deck dont have this problem. They want to have theri fattys on their hand in Game 1 - 3.
Your Hand is useles if you have 1 Entomb and 1 Show and Tell in your hand.

Thats why i am trying to change the complete Plan of the deck. When i am thinking that many GY Hate or absolute GY - Hate (like Leyline, Cage) is coming, i change
-4 Entomb
-4 Goryos
-4 Shallow Grave
-1 Imp / Harples

+4 Doomsday
+4 Show and Tell
+1 Cloud of Faeries
+1 Shelldock
+1 Temporal Mastery
+2 Thoughtseize.

Maybe now you understand why i am playing Dark ritual. It allows you a Turn 1 Doomsady
->
Shelldock
Emrakul
TM
2 other cards. maybe needle or stifle

Turn 2: play shelldock, hide Emrakul, put rest [Stifle, TM, anything] Turn 3: draw stifle, get emrakul with else, get next turn, show TM, get another turn, Emrakul atack 2 times -> win.

It also allows you to get a turn 1 Show and Tell. Maybe that is not such improtant, but if you are doing nothing in the first 3 turns, some fast aggrodecks (sometimes dredge, Gobos, Burn) can still beat you to low life and you may loose because of doing nothing in the first 3 turns.

Thats for explaining why i like DR ;)

Your comment was right, that i can´t do anything against Bridge, humility etc. But in fact i had never to play against that, BUT i will try to cange something to get 2 x Echoing truth and maybe my most loved card : Lim Dûl´s Vault

Is there any hate you dodge this way? There doesn't seem to be any.
If you are talking about my list: i am dodging all hate with Doomsday/Shelldock and Show and tell. How could a player get better around Graveyard hate if the player dosnt use the grave anymore ?

OrGy

07-15-2012, 08:16 AM

Additional Reanimation:
Animate Dead is still my favorite. Exhume is dangerous at times: You really never want to force a Knight of the Reliquary to give it back to your opponent later. Never.
Animate Dead doesn't have that much of a drawback (comboes poorly with Boseiju).
On a side note, Stifle on Animate Leave the Battlefield Trigger, though not being that frequent of a play, earns you the crowd cheers and style points.

Shelldock Isle / Doomsday:
Whereas I do know how Shelldoom works, I still fail to see how this Sideboard plan is optimal.

- First of all, it forces you to side out entirely your reanimation plan which may still be the most relevant strategy you have to offer G2/3 against Maverick, Dredge and the Mirror (siding just few cards to outweight their gravehate - Needle/Bounce/Discard). Against those decks you merely enter 2 Thoughtseize and get blown out by any Crypt/Relic T1. Not ideal for my tastes.

- Furthermore, despite thinking you are right on your observations on S&T - Doomsday plans parallels, I'd like to point out that you should also focus on those plans vulnerabilities opposed to Reanimator Plan.
You'll figure really quick that some of the common ways to hate Reanimation (the setup to do so, the act of reanimating itself and hate against what has been reanimated) are quite effective against Doomsday.
Shelldoom is extremely vulnerable to Wasteland (Tempo *****, Maverick, Bant), Ensnaring Bridge/Humility/Peacekeeper/Pithing Needle/Surgical Extraction/Extirpate. All common aswers stay quite potent against this plan B, leaving you with only S&T alternative.

- It forces to play Dark Ritual :)
I think that your build is well constructed in regard of what it tries to accomplish. Ironically, it's what it tries to accomplish that I find lacking.
Explosiveness puts too many constraints on the list. For exemple, you are forced to run 22 mana sources as opposed to 19-20 in regular lists. All the like, you are running only 16 blue card to support FOW : There's simply no room left for another blue card as it would not add any value to Dark Ritual. Consistency may be a crucial issue on this take as it lacks Careful Study to dig for specific combo pieces.
Explosiveness dictates that you must play 4 Griselbrand and 4 Emrakul which is quite sad as the second one offers no redundancy with the first one (whereas Jin certainly does).

Bringing in a S&T plan post board implies the requirements you described and those may conflict with Reanimation ones. That being said, this list packs a lot of cantrips (4 BS + 4 CS + 1 HR + 1 Ponder + 1 Impulse in my list for instance) to assemble the correct setup by T4, despite different requirements.

One last word on Lim Dul's Vault: I'm quite fond of that card but Surgical Extractions and Extirpates make for awful blowouts when it comes to siding it in playing Reanimator.

OrGy

07-18-2012, 10:17 AM

Regarding the lasted list prestend, a minor adjustment has been made with the replacement of the lone Hapless Researcher with a Maindeck Darkblast.

This choice was made to help G1 against Maverick and TT : Thalia is really though to beat when resolved and Delver puts us under too much pressure, too quickly.
To adress both, the lone Darkblast can be fetched with Entomb, without that much of a drawback since Dredging it in the useful Matchups will be a repetitive action, ensuring us to finally dump a fatty in the graveyard.

phazonmutant

07-19-2012, 02:02 PM

This list looks fairly similar to the TinFins thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24104-TinFins-3-Return-of-the-Onion-Burst
Maybe we can join forces?

Anusien

07-19-2012, 05:45 PM

@ Anusien:
I have the feeling that the question you asked was a concern with Doomsday/Shelldock plan (which I find laking) but I could be wrong.
I mean in terms of running the Shallow Grave/Goryo's Vengeance plan. It seems like the only thing you beat is slowrolled Karakas where they play it the turn after you play your fattie. Other than that, you still lose to all the same hate Reanimate and Animate Dead and Exhume lose to, right?

OrGy

07-20-2012, 04:09 AM

@phazonmuant:
As I said some posts earlier, I do think the correct way to implement Dark Ritual in the pack is to simply go the storm path as in Tin Fins (which I look at quite often, congrats btw).
I firmly believe though that the most stable version of the beatdown plan cannot rely on Dark Ritual (cf. earlier posts).

@Anusien:
The differences between Classic Reanimator and Next Level are not limited to the haste aspect of the reanimation.
Sure, we beat slowrolled Karakas but that's not the point of playing Goryo/Shallow (in fact that's just a nice bonus).
The real incentive to go GV/SG is that we mostly operate at instant speed, which is crucial against many forms of opposition:
- Against countermagic, reanimating during our opponent EOT forces him to commit ressources: From there, it's quite easy to reanimate again on your turn while your opponent is tapped out.
- Against Surgical/Relic/Crypt/Ooze: Reanimate in response to their move. It proves really relevant as people running that kind of hate don't blow or exploit it as soon as possible and wait to get some value out of it (i.e crack their hate in response to reanimation). Two reanimation spells in a row often roll them over.
- You get to reanimate friggin' Emrakul. It's not that I particularly love big flying spaghetti monstrosity but the Annihilator + Removal dodging clauses helps so much against so many forms of locks (Maze of Ith, Karakas) or perillous board situations that it's a great incentive to run instant reanimation.

On the downside, we have a lesser variety of key creatures to reanimate in given matchups (Elesh Norn, Iona, Archon).
But, Griselbrand seems so absurdily powerful that recent list of classic reanimator tend to restrain their list of creatures to have access to the full 4 Griselbrand MD, just like we do.

phazonmutant

07-20-2012, 10:51 AM

As I said some posts earlier, I do think the correct way to implement Dark Ritual in the pack is to simply go the storm path as in Tin Fins (which I look at quite often, congrats btw).
I firmly believe though that the most stable version of the beatdown plan cannot rely on Dark Ritual (cf. earlier posts).

Agreed with this. Dark Ritual isn't the sort of card that reanimator wants. An argument can be made for Lotus Petal if you want to be faster because it provides U for Careful Study, but usually reanimator is fast enough if it has protection.

I haven't playtested with the deck, so maybe it has surprising viability that's not immediately obvious, but it seems like it suffers from the same weaknesses as Reanimator without many benefits.

You do get to tap them out by reanimating instant speed, and you get to play around grave hate by reanimating in response, but those honestly aren't that big of a deal. Regular reanimator has more protection, which allows you to play around the same things.
You're still shut down by Karakas unless you manage to make 2 men at the same time. Difficult when most of your deck is legendary. All the reanimator hate hits just as hard! And you have your unique downside of having to find another man and reanimate him next turn. You're fairly likely to find a man and a reanimation spell and somewhat likely to resolve an out, but why take the risk?

rufus

07-20-2012, 03:59 PM

I mean in terms of running the Shallow Grave/Goryo's Vengeance plan. It seems like the only thing you beat is slowrolled Karakas where they play it the turn after you play your fattie. Other than that, you still lose to all the same hate Reanimate and Animate Dead and Exhume lose to, right?

Shallow Grave doesn't target, so it avoids Ground Seal, and could allow some interesting tricks with instant-speed graveyard fillers like Entomb, though the other instant speed discard I can find seems like a pretty poor fit.. (Exhume is another piece of non-targeting reanimation and is potentially superior...)

OrGy

07-23-2012, 04:52 AM

Agreed with this. Dark Ritual isn't the sort of card that reanimator wants. An argument can be made for Lotus Petal if you want to be faster because it provides U for Careful Study, but usually reanimator is fast enough if it has protection.
Lotus Petal is in the list mainly to :
- Dodge Daze
- Reach for instant mana to Stifle EOT Exile Triggers
- Allow for T1: Draw Discard => T2: 2 mana Reanimation

Some of those slots usually get the axe G2 for Boseiju as permanent mana source (as G2 OTD is a lot less explosive).

You're still shut down by Karakas unless you manage to make 2 men at the same time. Difficult when most of your deck is legendary. All the reanimator hate hits just as hard! And you have your unique downside of having to find another man and reanimate him next turn. You're fairly likely to find a man and a reanimation spell and somewhat likely to resolve an out, but why take the risk?
Playtesting the list is in order as Karakas doesn't shut us out nearly as much as you seem to imply => Stifle (+ Emrakul Annihilator if necessary, usually when Maze is on board also) can severely hinder opposing plans.

That being said, I will strongly discourage playing Reanimator in any form right now. The metagame is not favorable as too many players pack an tremendous amount of hate and Sneak Show (one of the best MU of the deck) is declining. The GP results tend to support this vision as very few Reanimator decks made it Day 2.
But, on a positive note, due this apparent lack of results, the deck will surely dive under the radar, a position where lesser hate can be easily fought.

Tombstalker

07-23-2012, 10:08 AM

Awesome spin on the deck guys but one question, why is it called griselbrand reanimator instead of 'emrakul reanimator' or something to define it more from reanimator?

OrGy

07-23-2012, 02:18 PM

It's called Griselbrand Reanimator because the thread is named "Griselbrand Reanimator".
Duh !

:wink:

On a more serious note, I think the deck was originaly called Griselbrand Reanimator because at the time the deck was built Regular versions of Reanimator were kind of reluctant to incorporate Griselbrand in the MD (due mainly to the life loss of Reanimate), thus marking the big distinction. Now that the big scary Demon shows up its ugly face in all kind of Reanimator builds, this label no longer bears a clear meaning.

As far as naming is concerned, my team and I always refer to the deck as "Next Level Reanimator" which not only sounds like überfun but also don't give a damn clue about the Emrakul you may encounter while facing it.

Tombstalker

07-23-2012, 03:12 PM

It's called Griselbrand Reanimator because the thread is named "Griselbrand Reanimator".
Duh !

On a more serious note, I think the deck was originaly called Griselbrand Reanimator because at the time the deck was built Regular versions of Reanimator were kind of reluctant to incorporate Griselbrand in the MD (due mainly to the life loss of Reanimate), thus marking the big distinction. Now that the big scary Demon shows up its ugly face in all kind of Reanimator builds, this label no longer bears a clear meaning. As far as naming is concerned, my team and I always refer to the deck as "Next Level Reanimator" which not only sounds like überfun but also don't give a damn clue about the Emrakul you may encounter while facing it.
I like NLR better, I probably passed by this thread a hundred times before looking simply due to the title. God I hope my reanimator friends dont pick this up, I have a hard enough time with sorcery speed recursion.

I see the reasoning behind animate dead over exhume but what about a single recurring nightmare? Too costly maybe, IDK. Seems decent as a 1-of for jin or GB following up an instant reanimate.

OrGy

07-23-2012, 04:07 PM

recurring nightmare needs a sac target, which will be systematically problematic : Before your first reanimation, you don't have any bare the lone Hapless Researcher. After, well, it's game over generally.
Necromancy / Corpse Dance could be tried but I fear that their mana cost will prove too much of a nuisance.

phazonmutant

10-11-2012, 02:36 AM

Finally got around to playing Next-Level Reanimator, and it is sweet!

Playtesting the list is in order as Karakas doesn't shut us out nearly as much as you seem to imply => Stifle (+ Emrakul Annihilator if necessary, usually when Maze is on board also) can severely hinder opposing plans.
You're absolutely right! Stifle is amazing against Karakas when your man swings in that turn. Won through Karakas multiple times today.

I didn't look at this thread before playing in a tournament today, so my list was a little strange, but it worked out. I played this:
4 Griselbrand
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Angel of Despair
1 Hapless Researcher
3 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
1 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
4 Stifle
4 Lotus Petal
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Island
1 Swamp

SB:
1 Pithing Needle
2 Dark Rituals
3 Show and Tell
2 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
4 Pull From Eternity
2 Silence

It felt like there were some minor consistency issues, so I think I would cut a Stifle and a Thoughtseize for a couple Ponders, which helps with the blue count as well. I want to try out Jin in the main - I missed that if you reanimate him on your opponent's end step, they have to discard and you get to draw 7. Angel was underwhelming main, but might be good side.
The sideboard Pull From Eternities seem terrible, but they were actually ok. Reanimator typically doesn't have a good answer to Extirpate effects, but the interaction between Pull, Extirpate, and Shallow Grave is quite favorable (assuming enough mana). We even have stifle for Karakas or Crypt! Much better at playing around hate than expected.

Any other thoughts on the list? OrGy, any updates on your list?

I ended up playing this deck because I was unimpressed with TinFin's and Omniscience's performance against Miracles (and honestly, TinFins has consistency issues against the field and Omniscience is starting to get hated out and is fundimentally unable to beat the hate), and it seemed like this deck could play through hate better and just beat up on non-blue decks and Show and Tell combo decks. Top 8'd a local tournament, punted game 3 of the semis by not mulliganing a hand that did nothing. I mulliganed very aggressivly in the swiss, remembering that with traditional Reanimator, the only real sculpting you could do was with the mulligan and time was really fighting against you, but I guess I forgot that in the semis.

OrGy

10-15-2012, 05:08 AM

I'm happy to see that the deck still gets played from time to time.

Overall, I think the edition of Rest in Peace doesn't put us in a great spot against UW Miracle as newer lists tend to pack this nuisance in their SB.
CB Top Lock in not the only thing we've got trouble with them now and my tests results are really bad against this specific deck.
That being said, Maverick and Omniscience MU are still stellar, URg delver is favorable. More important, Dredge and regular Reanimator are less prevalent than few month ago, leading to lesser Graveyard Hate techs MD and post Board. A really nice niche position for the deck.

My last attempt was during French Legacy Championship (121 players) where I finished 19th. A really great run till I was 5/0 (Crushed Maverick, Merfolk, Aggro Loam, RUG Delver and Omniscience : 2 Top 8 including the final winner of the event). Then I lost to ANT (1/2 with a nice topdecks G3 from my opp coupled with an horrible missplay on my part), RUG Tempo Zoo (1/2 with nut draws such as 2 FOW, 2 Pierce, Daze, Fetch, Kird Ape leading into Ponder for 2nd mana source + Tormod Crypt... I mean...Come on...), and the dreaded UW CB TOP Miracle deck (0/2 with CB Top Lock T2 With FOW Backup each games... Saaad).
My teamates were astonished as I got litteraly dreamcrushed 3 times in a row. Well, sometimes, shit just happens.

The list I've played tries to solve the consistancy issues you were talking about : Ponder is indeed a solid inclusion in the build in its latest version.

// Lands
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [ZEN] Scalding Tarns
1 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [R] Underground Sea
1 [ISD] Swamp (1)
2 [ISD] Island (1)

// Creatures
2 [NPH] Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
4 [AVR] Griselbrand
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

// Spells
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [OD] Entomb
4 [CMD] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [TO] Cabal Therapy
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
3 [M12] Ponder
3 [V09] Lotus Petal
3 [BOK] Goryo's Vengeance
4 [MI] Shallow Grave
2 [A] Animate Dead
2 [SC] Stifle
1 [RAV] Darkblast

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 3 [M10] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [KAM] Boseiju, who Shelters All
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 2 [M12] Deathmark
SB: 1 [LRW] Inquisition of Kozilek
SB: 2 [M12] Duress

Darkblast is a total House against Maverick, Merfolk, Goblin as it neuters their main threats (The ability to slay Thalia on the spot against Maverick is what separates an easy MU from a nigthmarish one). After being put in the graveyard, Darkblast acts as an additional Dump slot to get a big fatty on its way to reanimation without spending a single mana to do so. I strongly advocate for this slot in the MD despite it being a tad risky : Emrakul lurks somewhere in the 60 and its interactions with Darkblast is not the most favorable one. That being said I remember winning one game simply by dredging Emmy with Shallow Grave at the ready and no relevant board state from my opponent.

I think that 1 Emrakul is just fine and I wouldn't trade the 2 Jins for anything else : Being able to make combo players or control discard their whole package EOT wins the game on its own, even without the Draw 7 attached.

phazonmutant

10-23-2012, 01:56 PM

OrGy

10-23-2012, 05:10 PM

That's fair. I think Helm-RiP is more prevalent in Europe than the US at the moment, but that matchup is definitely miserable. My roommate loves the UW Helm-RiP deck and we've done a lot of playtesting. It's awful. I could see running hot and crushing a tournament with this deck though. Does the Bojuka Bog in the board help against Miracles?
Bojuka ? You must be refering to Boseiju I suppose : This sideboard slot is pretty efficient nowadays. Very few Miracles decks run the full Wasteland Set. A lot tend to run only 2 or cut them to run a lone Dust Bowl. Against such compositions, Boseiju ensure you'll squeeze the critical Reanimation or Show and Tell, even when facing active Counterbalance.
Those deck being quite slow, CITB Tapped clause is not really an issue.

Your opponent's draws are really unfortunate. Bleghhhh.
Shit happens. Fortunatly, the three opponents that beat the crap out of me were good players and real gentlemen. It would have just sucked to be dreamcrushed by total douchebags.
Furthermore, in all fairness, I've had my share of nice draws so far, so, well... Karma and stuff :)

Why do you have the Thoughtseize / Cabal Therapy split? When I was playing the deck, I was always really excited to see Stifle, do you really think only 2 is correct? It stops a lot of maindeck hate as well as keeping our men alive.

The Darkblast tech is sweet. Great idea!
Thoughtseize / Cabal Therapy split : Seize is really the best pinpoint discard, no question about it. But, sadly, NLR is not as resilient to life loss than say Past in Flames ANT : In my experience, you need to take-off at +12 life to be safe with Griselbrand from pretty much any kind of board state. Against Aggro MU, Seize will help delaying their drops or clearing the way but in multiple, the life loss will often complicate the future course of action or result in dead cards in hand.
Given that I don't want to run the full set, I found the lone Cabal Therapy to be a really good complement to the three Thoughtseize, as you often just wish they don't hold FOW to prevent your take-off and will simply go for that. I don't need to stress out the flexibility and real trickyness of Therapy as a skill tester : A Caleb article on CF summarizes really well all that.
A singular application though : Sometime, post Instant Reanimation, being able to simply sac your creature to reuse it the very next turn also provides a nice trick.

Stifle x 2 : It depends on the situation but I do not find myself wishing for a Stifle all that often. Sure, when you can't reanimate Griselbrand and Karakas is in play, or when Scavenging Ooze is out there with one green up, those are some of the times you are reaaally desperate for your Stifle. The vast majority of the time, the card is simply good in and out of itself, but not one of the missing pieces you ask for. I've tried 1 Stifle and found it not reliable given that you'll draw 7 or 14 to neuter opposing Karakas/Maze for the win. 3 or 4 Stifle often lead to dead cards as one Stifle drawn is more than enough for what we intend to do with it.

I could easily see the point to run 3 Stifle MD with the intention to go transformationnal post board with something along those lines :

4 Wasteland
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tombstalker
1 Thoughtseize
1 Stifle
1 Bloodghast

That way the deck could turn into a non graveyard dependant UB Denial beatdown. An option to consider in testing.

dameus

10-23-2012, 11:08 PM

I admit, my heart & deck lean more toward the TinFins build. I like cheating Griz in, drawing 14 and winning on the spot. Nonetheless, there's stuff to learn here (the pro-Stifle arguments are rather persuasive, for ex). On the other hand, Dark Ritual isn't making the cut over here. If you draw a bunch off Griz, DR is almost essential for using all the fresh spells. So, I'm guessing draw 7 is the usual (probably the limit if you used reanimate)? I know I play Tendrils of Agony, which is beyond the scope of this thread, but I end up finishing things much more often with a dual Griz / Emmy attack anyway. Aren't you tempted to try to end it the same turn Griz hits play instead of having to pass the turn?
Also, I know there's a lot of variables like match-up and availability/luck, but about how often is Griz the 1st fatty to hit the battlefield for this deck?
Since several people here also browse/post in the TinFins thread, I'd like to ask about the comparison. I know several of the TinFins builds are light on protection, which could dissuade some. But assuming a UB TinFins build w/ 8 protection spells, what do you find the most compelling reason to prefer this reanimator build? I could perhaps see that essentially dropping the acceleration / ToA from TinFins to add more consistency / protection / disruption can be a good trade. Could you see a viable middle ground that doesn't run Reanimate?

OrGy

10-24-2012, 02:41 AM

First of all, this deck doesn't (-and really shouldn't-) run Reanimate as a Reanimation Spell. Goryo's Vengeance and Shallow Grave being favored for the exact same reason Tin Fins runs them and Animate Dead for Reanimation #8~10 (dodges Flusterstorm, doesn't alter your life total nor give any kind of advantage to your opponent a la Exhume). So draw 14 is in order (though drawing 7 is often both sufficient and safer).
Given that Griselbrand will be the Reanimation Target a rough 80~85% of the time (with all the cantrips, reaching him or entomb is not that hard), you will often draw 7 after reanimation and attack. Passing the turn in that conditions is really easy : At that point, you got permission in hand (at least 1 FOW), a target in the bin (discarded in excess during cleanup) and plenty of ways to ensure you'll resolve a second (and lethal) reanimation. I really don't feel any need to squeeze a win on the spot.
If you reanimate Griselbrand EOT, well, never mind what I said earlier, draw 14 and kill after you untap :)

Sadly as I told phazonmuant, I don't see a neutral ground to explore between Tin Fins and NLR, as they differ on key defining aspects of their respective strategies :
Dark Rit helps TF explode and kill early - NLR rejects it for being inherently inconsistant.
NLR runs a lot of protection as it's killing slower than TF which doesn"t run all that much protection due to explosiveness.
NLR runs Jin Gitaxias to complement Griselbrand, TF doesn't need it at all and run kill spells such as Tendrils.

It would be possible to post board transform one into another but that would be a waste of SB slots as the two decks also share a lot of their vulnerabilities :)

dameus

10-25-2012, 02:26 AM

First of all, this deck doesn't (-and really shouldn't-) run Reanimate as a Reanimation Spell.

Yeah. Sorry. Too much thread hopping before I finally posted. Whole-heartedly agree it doesn't belong in this deck!
However, I'm surprised Animate Dead gets the 8th reanimate spot instead of Goryo's Vengeance #4.

Also, I appreciate that Dark Ritual doesn't always synergize w/ Careful Study or FoW. Nonetheless, as long as Daze doesn't make the cut for the protection spots, I'd still say DR would be my 1st choice of acceleration over Lotus Petal.

On another note, I notice traditional reanimator typically runs 17-18 lands. The latest list of NLR I saw posted here runs 15 lands and 3 Petals. I'm not so sure you can sub accel for lands 1-for-1. I run 15 lands in TinFins, but then again, I have 9ish acceleration. I'm even tempted to run at least 1 Peer Through Depths in place of a Ponder spot, but keep coming back to Ponder not because of casting cost, but because I still find myself fishing for lands.

Is Karakas a possibility here as an anti Karakas/Thalia tool? I see ANT, S&T and tradiitional reanimator start using it sometimes.

I know PImp and Hapless Researcher didn't make the final cut here. I noticed an unusual vulerability about running those type of creatures in this deck... a simple bolt (or similar card) can make Shallow Grave misfire! Did that go into the decision process?

Careful Study's effectiveness diminishes as the creature count dwindles. With only 7 critters in the latest posted build, perhaps only 3 instead of 4 are justified? You really don't want to see multiples.

OrGy

10-25-2012, 06:42 PM

Yeah. Sorry. Too much thread hopping before I finally posted. Whole-heartedly agree it doesn't belong in this deck!
However, I'm surprised Animate Dead gets the 8th reanimate spot instead of Goryo's Vengeance #4.
One of my first drafts of the deck I considered viable and tournament worthly was all 4 and 4 on Instant speed reanimation spells. Practicing, I began noticing that despite their similarities I found shallow Grave a tad more efficient than its Goryo's dish best served cold counterpart. No targeting plus the old "Surgical resolves, retain priority, Entomb in response" (A.K.A, SR,RP,EiR, A.K.A couldn't find a worst acronym I swear) trick are keys to greater resilience.
Note aside : This is why post board if you maintain the Reanimation routine, you must always Shallow Grave EOT if the SR,RP,EiR is a valid scenario : Griselbrand will often be your reanimation target, and if you are able to entomb for Jin to Nuke your smart Extirpate/Surgical opponent to punish him for messing with your plans, you should try and do so.
Given that the 4th Goryo's Vengeance doesn't attract me all that much (I could understand very well some may feel a little different on that matter) and that 9 Reanimations is a magic number I find hard to mess with, the remaining good options were very limited :
Reanimate : Not ideal as seen earlier
Exhume : A good candidate to SR,RP,EiR (worst acronym ever, told you) but in my Maverick/Bant ridden meta, I saw myself forcing Knights of the Reliquary out way too often to even consider giving the access to Karakas back to my opponent while Exhuming my stuff. Any meta other than that could prove a fine home for Exhume.
Animate Dead : Interesting in that it dodges Flusterstorm, can give you access to your opponents dead creatures (during BOM I bashed to bits an infortunate opponent that thought he had game after extracting my 3 targets. Long story short, his own Vendilion Clique turned AWOL), comboes well with Stifle (Stifling leave the Battlefield trigger is one of the many tricks you can pull out) and has a slim to none drawbacks.
Corpse Dance / Necromancy : A little overpricy, meh.

Also, I appreciate that Dark Ritual doesn't always synergize w/ Careful Study or FoW. Nonetheless, as long as Daze doesn't make the cut for the protection spots, I'd still say DR would be my 1st choice of acceleration over Lotus Petal.
I will try and test another time a build based on Dark Ritual if you have a list tuned for it. Only idiots don't challenge their convictions.

On another note, I notice traditional reanimator typically runs 17-18 lands. The latest list of NLR I saw posted here runs 15 lands and 3 Petals. I'm not so sure you can sub accel for lands 1-for-1. I run 15 lands in TinFins, but then again, I have 9ish acceleration. I'm even tempted to run at least 1 Peer Through Depths in place of a Ponder spot, but keep coming back to Ponder not because of casting cost, but because I still find myself fishing for lands.
I don't really see Petal and DR on the same fonctionnalities : I totally agree with you on DR not being 1 for 1 Vs. a land. Petal really acts as a land that can be put into the battlefield cheating on the one land per turn rule with the drawback of being sacrificed for its mana. It's not as persisting as a real land for sure, but can provide a little safe boost were DR would provide a huge boost without acting at all as a land. Two really different kinds of acceleration indeed.

Is Karakas a possibility here as an anti Karakas/Thalia tool? I see ANT, S&T and tradiitional reanimator start using it sometimes.
Same as above : If you have a list in mind that dodge the manabase stability problem, I'd be sincerily glad to try and help tuning it. There's plenty of building space around white : Chant/Silence of course but also really neat things I'd love to try out as Aethermage's Touch or Loyal Retainer (Iona and Elesh Norn would be such houses in this deck and LR would help it a lot to be viable).

I know PImp and Hapless Researcher didn't make the final cut here. I noticed an unusual vulerability about running those type of creatures in this deck... a simple bolt (or similar card) can make Shallow Grave misfire! Did that go into the decision process?
You totally figured it out sir. Those to little guys were tested and backfired from time to time. A lot of work around here involves reducing vulnerabilities not inducing them. I love PImp and HR, but they could make the final cut.

Careful Study's effectiveness diminishes as the creature count dwindles. With only 7 critters in the latest posted build, perhaps only 3 instead of 4 are justified? You really don't want to see multiples.4 Brainstorm and 3 Ponder help a lot in reaching the Reanimation-Target-in-Hand situation (I can't remember a time where S&T deck wouldn't dig their own grave by casting their namesake Sorcery aginst NLR). I don't mind getting 2 or 3 CS in one given game as one will turn to Force pitching material. This card is easy to replace, adds to the blue count and I can't convince myself to drop a functional dumper for say, the 4th Ponder ? I could be wrong here and would be pleased to be proved so.

So, now the duty is on you : I'd like to see what you got in store on the concept and would be pleased to discuss on DR or white oriented versions of NLR. This Timmy/Johnny/Spike monstrosity of a deck is a real pleasure to share.

dameus

10-29-2012, 12:51 AM

Well, here's my try at a more measured approach than TinFins. It's not tournament tested, so I'm not sure how it will perform. God, I miss the explosiveness of Dark Ritual! But I too have decided for this type of build that Lotus Petal is better than DR. I opted for 2x Intuitions as an additional back-up to Entomb instead of more fatties and Careful Study. Also note the 1x Karakas is in a spell slot. Not everyone will agree w/ my green splash choice, I'm sure. But Berserk fits so perfectly, I couldn't resist!

2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Karakas
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Lotus Petal
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Griselbrand
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
4 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Berserk
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Careful Study
2 Intuition
2 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Stifle
1 Abrupt Decay

Ppa0

10-30-2012, 06:45 PM

Who has two thumbs and started this thread? This guy -> Ppa0. OrGy and everyone who has tested/played/made their own version of this deck, I say to you, right on and righteous! I have not been playing since I made this tread but I am getting back into magic and I think I wanna make this deck, so keep up the good work tweaking, testing and playing this deck. More tourney results yo!

dameus

11-01-2012, 10:24 PM

I may have underestimated Loyal Retainers and Cavern of Souls.
If in the normal plan of Shallow Grave/Goryo's V, we want extra mana to pay for Daze/Spell Pierce etc., then LR + CoS is just as fast and can't be stopped with countermagic!
I've gotta brew some more!

OrGy

11-02-2012, 12:02 PM

dameus

11-13-2012, 03:07 PM

@Dameus :
Regarding the list you posted, don't you think that Berserk is a really good definition of the danger of cool things ?
I mean, yes, given you get an access to green you can pack it maindeck, as well as Life from the Loam or tarmogoyf for that matter. But that surely doesn't mean you should.
Berserk only pulls its weight as you have successfully reanimated a Griselbrand (as Emrakul is not a illegible target) : In that case, congrats, you just won, without any relevance of Berserk. If not, well, Berserk is a dead card anyway.

Karakas seems to be thrown out in your list: you play a miser one, with nothing to get it in you hand. I'm not really sure that it would prove stellar without a great deal of luck involved
:)

That being said I would gadly insist on a green splash being worthy post board to gain access to Abrupt Decay that proves itself really efficient against Counterbalance, Knight of the Reliquary, Scavenging Ooze and the major part of GY/Legend hates (with the notable exception of Karakas).

1st, the green splash is mainly for Abrupt Decay. It's only after I've already decided to splash, that Berserk enters the picture. I knew some would consider it a "win more" card. But it's only a 1 of anyway and there's plenty of opportunities to pitch it if not needed (Brainstorm/Careful Study). In its defense, while I don't have a lot of experience with this deck, I can say from my Sneak/Omni experience, that having a Griz on the table is not an auto-win nearly as often as I'd like! Especially, with this slower version (compared to TinFins), there should be a decent number of times that having Griz go Berserk with an additional draw 7 or 7 life could make a difference between winning and losing. It's also a nice response to StP when your Griz doesn't even get to swing and you know you'll have to survive a couple more turns. Afterall, even if you draw a FoW w/ Griz, it doesn't change the board state and fast aggro decks could have you up against a wall already.
As for Karakas, no doubt with only 1 that can't be tutored, it will require some luck (a little less post-board, as I'd have 1-2 more in SB). I'd rather have 1 out than no outs (that's always the way I think), even if it's not reliable. I want to play more cards than this deck has room for. Especially, if this deck were to go the route of adding Loyal Retainer's, Grisly Salvage and Living Wish might then become an option, where you'd have a better chance of seeing it. But of course, the mana base would become even further extended! And I'm not ready to suggest a build along those lines.
In any event, Karakas and Berserk aside (which I consider minor / personal preference issues), the main point I wanted to get feedback on was my choice of running fewer fatties, adding Intuition to compensate some, and having a couple extra MD slots to further compensate for any consistency loss.

OrGy

11-15-2012, 03:45 AM

I owe you an apology on overlooking the part of your list you truly wanted feedback on. I'll get to that in a few lines.

I'm sincerely surprised reading that a reanimated Griselbrand is "not an auto-win nearly as often as you'd like". Of course, at times Griselbrand underperforms, but in the vast majority of situation, its presence grants an overwhelming advantage. I frankly fail to see a good reason to include Berserk in a list as tigh as NLR, especially given that it only interacts with 3 Griselbrand (barring some borderline scenarii involving Berserking opp creatures to get rid of them).
Furthermore, people should be reminded that STP on Griselbrand (given you are at +7 Life and not facing a lethal board) is largely irrelevant : -1 card for them + 7 cards for you (minus the card you spent to reanimate Griselbrand), that is one hell of a deal.

On your choice to run Intuition, I must admit neither my teamates nor I did try it : The main reason is that it seemed a little to expensive. We never tried Forbidden Alchemy, 3 CC Instant Reanimation (Corpse Dance, Necromancy) under the same assumption.
Well, to say the least, 3 mana is a huge amount for a deck running less than 20 mana sources (3 or 4 of them being Petals). We feared that to efficiently support higher CC spells, we would have to increase the number of lands, thus reducing the flex slots. This reflexion was strongly reinforced with the inclusion of the lone (and stellar) Darkblast in the MD, which took the last real flex slot.
An idea could be to suppress entirely Carefull Studies for 1 intuition and 2 Sol lands, but I'm not sure the price is worth the effort.

Karhumies

12-03-2012, 05:20 PM

I used to run a very similar deck concept back when Jin-Gitaxias was spoiled, running Jin-Gitaxias + Emrakul. The main problems of that build were that

I Main deck

1) A single swing from Emrakul is 15 dmg, not 20, and achieving those last 5 points of damage was very difficult. Also, on T1, opponent has very little to be annihilated, so there is that as well.
2) Jin-Gitaxias got frequently hit by StoP before he could draw cards, and was only a puny 5/4 without flying or lifelink. Cue Griselbrand, and you may have a concept. Very risky and shaky one, but nevertheless.
3) Reanimating Emrakul screws up your graveyard, both when the animation is successful and when it is unsuccessful.
4) Hapless Researcher can jump block (or "dodge a bullet" called lightning bolt) and discard a creature with traditional reanimator creatures, but not when you want to discard Emrakul. That means 1 less block, and every life point counts.
5) Mystical Tutor is banned. This is a deck which would really, really need it. LDV is so much slower that you may as well play traditional reanimator.
6) Having an opposing discard effect hit a creature in hand with traditional reanimator = bad play from the opponent. Having the same discard effect hit your Emrakul when you don't want to animate it (even if you could) in opponent's main phase and getting Emrakul shuffled into your deck = sad panda.

II Sideboard - More than 50% of tournament games are played post-SB.

Mono-black's greatest plus was redundancy in G1. That and Dark Ritual. However, post-SB vs modern day graveyard hate....bleaargh. Long gone are the days when a Pithing Needle solved all your worries.

BU builds: I found that the best least horrible strategy for G2 was Show and Tell sideboard. Which is slow. SnT -> Emrakul was too slow most of the time, and SnT-> Gitaxias was useless if opponent had removal. So, from my point of view, the deck used to have one of the best G1 win percentages, but one of the lowest G2-3 win percentages. Sounds very much like Dredge, so what is the advantage of this deck over Dredge? After all, at least even the dredge zombies stick to the field and can make jump blocks... I also considered transformational SB, but then what would the deck transform into? Not traditional reanimator because weaknesses are the same (grave hate). You could transform into a suboptimal Sneaky Show for games 2 & 3, which raises the question why not play Sneaky Show in the first place...

III Comparison to other decks:
Basically, this deck runs somewhat like Sneaky Show, except it is easier for Sneaky Show to get a second creature out after the first one leaves the table at end of turn (Sneak Attack).

On the other hand, more traditional Reanimator builds get the creature out permanently. It may cost life points and it may not be Emrakul-sized, but hey, unless they have an answer, that may well be good enough. Time and time again there have been people playing traditional reanimator builds witha more limited array of creatures (e.g. 4x Iona, 2-3 other guys) with moderate success. So why think "too much" outside of the box instead of just focusing on traditional shell with 4x Griselbrand + only 1-2 other guys MD for consistency, and leave the creature variety for the SB? I felt like tuning the UB build of this more and more towards consistency and protection just makes it more and more like a traditional reanimator build...

Compared to Omniscience, this deck is faster as long as the opponent does not have...well...interaction.

In other words, I found that this type of Reanimator deck had a better G1 win % than a traditional Reanimator build, but a much much worse G2-3 win % because it the deck is even more focused on the graveyard and not getting reanimation spells countered than traditional reanimator (Emrakul into grave, animation, gets countered, shuffle, sad panda). This translates into worse match win % = worse performance than traditional reanimator.

IV Some tricks I used to love while playing around with this deck:
- Shallow Grave / Goryo's Vengeance 1 creature during opponent's end step (leaves play effect triggers at the beginning of the end step = if you play the card after the end step is begun, the creature will stay on the board for your turn) + another one in your own turn, both swing at the same time = lethal. Comes out of nowhere.
- Shallow Grave Terastodon and destroy your own 3 lands either during opponent's combat phase to surprise block their creatures (9/9 leaves play at EOT but the 3/3 guys get to swing for 9 permanently) or during your opponent's end step (surprise swing for 18; no summoning sickness for tokens this way).

To sum it up, I had this great idea about Emrakul.DEC only to find out that the MVP was Terastodon, because it could swing for more at once and leave behind creature tokens onto the table. But it's also a one-sided Armageddon, which is very much all-in. Small tournaments can be won with a small number of god hands, but large tournaments are won only through consistency.

Stuff I did not try but considered trying in the build:
LEGENDARY build - Godo, Bandit Warlord + Batterskull to solve the blockers issue. Godo's 3/3 body is pretty useless, though. But if you animate him during opponent's end step, the extra combat phase with vigilance Batterskull should be nice.
NON-LEGENDARY build - Sovereigns of Lost Alara + Eldrazi Conscription to gain an attacker as big as Emrakul (although no flying and smaller Annihilator) which would not screw up the graveyard. With an advantage of attaching the Aura to something else instead. But this guy gets hit by StoP, so that's that.

OrGy

12-05-2012, 04:52 AM

The truth is that Griselbrand is the sole reason to run such a deck given the constraints Jin Gitaxias and Emrakul bring on their own.
Nice recap on your thoughts.

Right now, Death-Rite Shaman being overly played in my meta, I don't think Reanimator and NLR are safe choices
That's a shame because the builds sporting DRS severely hose Maverick which was kind of a risky MU (Karakas, Thalia, Ooze, Knight of the Reliquary being quite the nuisances).
More than ever Deathmark is a nice addition to the sideboard.

Bright Light Bringer

12-07-2012, 03:00 AM

You're forgetting that Abrupt Decay hits Animate Dead, while Reanimate is immune to it, it's also way faster and better fits this deck because it allows you to cast entomb/CS and reanimate right away on turn 1 if you have a petal in hand. Also, flusterstorm isn't a card that sees that much play to justify one card as opposed to the other, it's also never in 4-of packs when it shows up as well. In this same sense, one can argue in favor of Reanimate because it dodges Daze and possibly Spell Pierce that much easier, all of which are much more used cards. Reanimate does wins again in this contest of possible threats against our reanimation suite, since stifle is a much more relevant and seen card than flusterstorm and, while Animate Dead dies to it, Reanimate ignores it completely. I also disagree on this deck being more life dependant than the traditional one as you're saying, especially since it's way faster and, for being so, it is not as prone to being aggroed as it's "older brother". For this very same reason, I fail to see the problem regarding Griselbrand's life loss unless you're playing against Burn. I also happen to hardly ever find myself needing to draw 14 cards at one given time with him, so I don't think this is a true downside or deck changing characteristic whatsoever. For all these points, there really is no reason for Animate Dead to replace Reanimate. The fact that the much slower and more easily aggroed traditional list stands true for this fact adds to this conclusion as well.

The major thing that concerns me in your list is that, by each update, you're getting closer to the traditioinal list and it is to me a major contradiction that diminishes the whole purpose of using this version rather than the other. The purpose of this deck is to be naturally more explosive and aggressive than the traditional list, which is a much more controlish, slower and more prone to handsculpting than this one. With only 3 petals, this deck will be indeed slower than the original one, because all of your reanimation spells cost 2, while the traditional one has 4 Reanimates to their favor plus retains its aforementioned features. I can understand why you don't like Dark Ritual, but I think cutting the 4th petal and completely removing DR is bit too harsh on this deck's nature.

My list consists of
3 underground sea
4 polluted delta
2 misty rainforest
2 verdant catacombs
2 island
1 swamp

4 lotus petal
3 dark ritual
4 fow
4 daze
4 brainstorm
3 thoughtseize
4 entomb
4 careful study
4 shallow grave
3 goryo's vengeance
2 reanimate
1 emrakul
1 nicol bolas
3 griselbrand
2 jin

As for the sideboard, I don't really like Show and Tell and I think it can be skipped in favor of a more strategic game plan, so this is what I've been using:
3 Pithing Needle
3 Echoing Truth
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
3 Submerge
1 Darkblast
1 Coffin Purge

Other than that, I truly believe you should exchange 1 Jin or 1 Griselbrand for the singleton Nicol Bolas (the creature, not the planeswalker) for possible turn 1 massive multifocused damage/not-so-subtle win. This is what I've been doing and I think it's great, especially when your opponent gets that look on his face. This is an idea the Modern Reanimator list performs well, and legacy can do it just that much better and for much higher damage considering it's done turn 1.

xieyun006

12-08-2012, 04:18 AM

Bright Light Bringer

12-08-2012, 04:50 AM

can i get some thoughts on this mono black deck list? i was researching reanimator and realized that i enjoy the massive explosive mono black style over b/u's consistency, having said that do realize that this will be a kitchen counter deck. i have a good bunch of the key cards, so before i invested deeper into it i just wanted to make sure the deck didn't have TOO many holes.

reanimation spells:

4 shallow grave
4 goryo's vengence
2 exhume/reanimate

protection:

4 cabal therapy
3 duress
2 unmask
3 not of this world

enablers:

4 putrid imp
4 entomb

mana accel:

4 dark rit
4 lotus petal

reanimation targets:

4 g-brand
1 emrakul
1 jin gitaxias
1 nicol bolas (i read bright light bringer's point on him and it was a very valid argument earning him a place in the deck

land base:

15 swamps

its a pretty rough list, so don't be afraid to rip it apart

I would skip the 3 Not of This World for 3 Liliana of the Veil if possible. I'm also trying her out in the UB version, needs more testing though but overall I'm liking it. I'm a big stifle fan but so far it has felt really out of place in this deck, but there isn't really another way to protect yourself from Karakas here, so I'm not really sure about it yet.

xieyun006

12-08-2012, 10:07 PM

I would skip the 3 Not of This World for 3 Liliana of the Veil if possible. I'm also trying her out in the UB version, needs more testing though but overall I'm liking it. I'm a big stifle fan but so far it has felt really out of place in this deck, but there isn't really another way to protect yourself from Karakas here, so I'm not really sure about it yet.

correct me if i misunderstood you, but thats one of the reasons why NOTW is listed. liliana is a good choice and adds to consistency, but since all of my protection is proactive, i just wanted one card that can stop karakas/maze or sword to plowshares incase all my discard got countered, and i didn't draw any more until gris is on the field and its too late to protect him. *edit* its also one of the reasons why reanimate isn't a solid choice because of the life loss, this way its a better chance that i could activate gris twice and be at least 21 cards deep into my deck(if combo went off turn one), you said before that you never needed to activate gris more than once, but fortunately for you, your decks had more than 3 counter spells lol*end edit*. i know i'm putting alot on getting that great hand, but i look at it this way the b/u version of this deck has traded the versatility of traditional animator for speed of dark rit/petals, i'm just taking it one more step.

Bobmans

12-11-2012, 12:13 PM

That's fair. I think Helm-RiP is more prevalent in Europe than the US at the moment, but that matchup is definitely miserable.

I was always really excited to see Stifle, do you really think only 2 is correct? It stops a lot of maindeck hate as well as keeping our men alive.

So can the second ability of rest in peace be stifled? Or is this a replacement effect?

I like the idea of this deck. But i somewhat fear the overwhelming amount of deathrite shaman in the current BUG meta. Just like RIP (combo). Or can this deck outrace Deathrite Shaman with assistance of Stifle?

Koby

12-11-2012, 01:50 PM

Bright Light Bringer

12-11-2012, 02:40 PM

So can the second ability of rest in peace be stifled? Or is this a replacement effect?

I like the idea of this deck. But i somewhat fear the overwhelming amount of deathrite shaman in the current BUG meta. Just like RIP (combo). Or can this deck outrace Deathrite Shaman with assistance of Stifle?

I don't really care about Shaman tbh, I think it's a very inefficient way to deal with this deck also. It can only remove 1 creature per time and it has summoning sickness, you can simply ignore it most of the times with the explosiveness this deck has, dodge it with shallow grave + entomb or trick your opponent into removing a singleton griselbrand or jin and then dropping the Aeons Torn to his and the shaman's demise. In my case, since I pack 3 Lilianas maindeck, it gets even easier to do so. Therefore, I just really don't care about the shaman.

OrGy

01-04-2013, 05:20 AM

Returning after a long break, I've read carefully the new inputs on the list.

I don't really care about Shaman tbh, I think it's a very inefficient way to deal with this deck also. It can only remove 1 creature per time and it has summoning sickness, you can simply ignore it most of the times with the explosiveness this deck has, dodge it with shallow grave + entomb or trick your opponent into removing a singleton griselbrand or jin and then dropping the Aeons Torn to his and the shaman's demise. In my case, since I pack 3 Lilianas maindeck, it gets even easier to do so. Therefore, I just really don't care about the shaman.

I do agree that DRS is not a clear concern for us as opposed to Classic Reanimator lists which are severely hindered by the tiny Elf Shaman (This sole point makes me think that NLR is far more adapted to the recent metagame than its glorious ancestor).
Altought, the trick you are trying to illustrate here doesn't work as you'd think it would : Shallow Grave => Exile Jin/Grisel by DRS => Entomb on Emrakul will leave the stack as this

Up
Shuffling Trigger from Emrakul
Reanimation
Down

You can see that there's no efficient way to produce the 15/15 hasty Flying Pasta monster via the Entomb Trick.
That being said, Hasty Griselbrand will replenish your hand and overwhelm you opponent later just fine.

I do agree on Animate Dead being far from adapted with the spreading of Abrupt Decay in all BUG/Jund List sporting also DRS nowadays.
I don't think Reanimate is a valid choice though. The life loss is nothing to overlook given that most of our tools work better when we operate at a high life total.
But, the excellent new is that with the conjunction of DRS and Decay, Knight of the Reliquary, one of our most feared enemies gets to see less and less play.
Moreover, Classic Reanimator is less played than ever.
Those two facts combined let me think that Exhume is the slot we should incluse over Animate Dead => Big monster or Knight into Karakas are not really that frequent of a situation anymore. The Entomb Trick works here just fine as well as an additional way to play around DRS exile.

On your list, I simply prefer consistancy over explosiveness at all cost which the point in running Ponder over Dark Ritual. The deck still gets to draw 7 to 14 cards by turn 3 which is perfectly paced for the Legacy at the moment. I don't think the risk of running into mana flooded hand is worth running as opposed to regular turn 4 kills with protection all the way down.

On an unrelated note, the MD and sideboard could be adapted to splash G for 2 or 3 Abrupt Decay in the SB => Pretty much wreaks Counterbalance, while not being a bad answer to most of the traditional hate (Crypt/Relic/Spellbomb/Ooze/DRS/Cage). Leyline of the Void could be a problem but in a meta where Dredge and Reanimator are not frequent Matchups, I simply don't see Leyline being a good meta call.

phazonmutant

01-08-2013, 10:46 PM

I do agree that DRS is not a clear concern for us as opposed to Classic Reanimator lists which are severely hindered by the tiny Elf Shaman (This sole point makes me think that NLR is far more adapted to the recent metagame than its glorious ancestor).
[...]
On your list, I simply prefer consistancy over explosiveness at all cost which the point in running Ponder over Dark Ritual. The deck still gets to draw 7 to 14 cards by turn 3 which is perfectly paced for the Legacy at the moment. I don't think the risk of running into mana flooded hand is worth running as opposed to regular turn 4 kills with protection all the way down.

Good to see you back to working on NLR! Agreed with both of these thoughts.

I'm not so sure about splashing; I've been wanting to run fewer lands, which doesn't really allow for a third color. I think Pithing Needle is extremely well positioned now; it shuts off the majority of the hate that we're going to see and can be dropped before the combo turn. I played against a traditional reanimator list in the 3-0 bracket (no byes) at GP Denver that had Needle in the main.

I really want to try Gitaxian Probe and Cabal Therapy in this deck after seeing how insane it is in TES. You really don't want to play non-instant reanimates but do want more than 8 reanimate effects. Probe thins the deck, making hits more likely. What I tried out (unsuccessfully against ANT in an 8-man win-a-box):

4 Lotus Petal
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Careful Study
1 Stifle
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Griselbrand
2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
1 Karakas

// Sideboard
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Pithing Needle
3 Show and Tell
2 Echoing Truth
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Angel of Despair
1 Karakas
1 Darkblast

I only had one Stifle on me, otherwise I think I would have played more. Obviously the Stifle and the Karakas are unlikely to be drawn in the maindeck, but they sometimes are and they free board space. I liked Therapy a lot from the few games I played with the list. Therapy in general is insane and it gets even more value when we can sac our men for profit.

OrGy

01-10-2013, 07:12 AM

As an illustration of the green splash I'm currently testing, here's the list in its most recent shape.

18 mana sources
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Lotus Petal

7 Reanimation targets
2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
4 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

9 Reanimation
4 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Exhume

8 Dump
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb

7 Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder

8 Protection
4 Force of Will
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize

3 Miscellaneous
2 Stifle
1 Darkblast

SB: 4 Show and Tell
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Impulse

MD, the only change worth noting is the swap between Animate Dead and Exhume for previously mentionned reasons.
SB, Decay makes its entrance as an versatile answer to many of the problems we may encounter post board and a powerful tool against counterbalance.
Everything else stays quite simirlar to previous versions with the adding of the fourth S&T to increase our plan B consistancy.

dameus

03-22-2013, 05:13 AM

Just curious to see where this deck is at now. Has the explosion in popularity of TinFins contributed to this thread going dormant? I would think the proof of concept of the instant-style rez plan might have given this a boost instead. I still like the green splash for Abrupt Decay.

OrGy

03-22-2013, 05:39 AM

As I'm concerned, I'm toying with Tin Fins concept ATM, thus putting NLR in standby.
Your analysis is accurate as Tin Fins popularity proves Instant speed Reanimation to be a valid concept.

cogitoergosum

03-22-2013, 11:37 AM

Check the TinFins thread in established if you want to see where this deck is at. I'm not sure why this separate thread exists.

Bobmans

03-22-2013, 05:15 PM

Check the TinFins thread in established if you want to see where this deck is at. I'm not sure why this separate thread exists.

Before children of korlis was added to the deck there where lots of variations and ideas for instant speed reanimate and Tin Fins was just one of them. This version was stuck between regular reanimate and Tin Fins. Trying to rapidly reanimate Griselbrand, EOT Jin-Gitaxias or Nicol Bolas to wreck a players hand or even reanimate Emrakul. Next Level Reanimate. It never saw lot of play since it didn't have a clear plan.

Anyway, if you scroll thru threads in here, you will encounter lots of different kinds of Griselbrand reanimate storm comboish decks. None of them consistent enough until Children was found. I believe Dela suggested it somewhere begin January.

phazonmutant

03-22-2013, 05:49 PM

Before children of korlis was added to the deck there where lots of variations and ideas for instant speed reanimate and Tin Fins was just one of them. This version was stuck between regular reanimate and Tin Fins. Trying to rapidly reanimate Griselbrand, EOT Jin-Gitaxias or Nicol Bolas to wreck a players hand or even reanimate Emrakul. Next Level Reanimate. It never saw lot of play since it didn't have a clear plan.

Anyway, if you scroll thru threads in here, you will encounter lots of different kinds of Griselbrand reanimate storm comboish decks. None of them consistent enough until Children was found. I believe Dela suggested it somewhere begin January.

I don't really agree with that assessment. This thread was the first to suggest Griselbrand in a traditional reanimator shell (as far as I know) and it always had a clear plan.

TinFins was always designed to use Griselbrand as a Bargain. This deck is different - it's like traditional reanimator, but redesigned to maximise the incredible benefits Emrakul and Griselbrand have when they attack. They've converged to some degree, but so has traditional reanimator! It's running Lotus Petal also.
Even the TinFins versions with Force have a fundamentally different gameplan - they're still trying to combo-kill in one turn.

NLR is sweet and didn't see the play it deserved. I still think it's a fine choice and showcases awesome interactions with Stifle, but personally would prefer to play TinFins at this point.