Budget Mono-black Reanimator

[Jenni]

So this is a deck I've been playing around with for a little while now, it's a cheap mono-black reanimator list, that's been fairly decent so far, so thought I'd share.

land: (22)
18 swamp
4 ghost quarter
Set up: (21)
4 Zombie infestation
4 Dark Ritual
3 buried alive
1 entomb (would go up to 4 if I had them)
1 Liliana of the veil
4 duress
4 phyrexian arena
Reanimation Spells: (10)
4 reanimate
4 exhume
2 dread return
Targets: (7)
2 Iona, shield of Emeria
2 Sphinx of the steel wind
1 Terastadon
1 griselbrand (was an inkwell leviathan until I got 'brand)
1 blazing archon

It's pretty cheap, can have some really explosive draws (such as turn 1 swamp -> dark rit -> duress -> entomb -> reanimate ), and it's actually somewhat resistant to counter magic thanks to duress letting you check what your opponent has before deciding if it's worth going through with the reanimation.

Unfortunately, without adding blue, you have minimal card draw, unless you make room for sign in blood I guess (I'm not convinced sign in blood improves the deck), so your opening hand and first draw step or two really determine how well your game will go usuallt. Phyrexian Arena helps, especially if you get it out on an early turn, but it's just not as good as having ponder, brainstorm, or preordain to fix your draws.
The deck also just dies to an on-board leyline of the void or similar effect unless you side in (or make room for a maindeck) Nevinyrral's Disk or similar effect.

It's not as reliable as I would like for anything competative, the U/B reanimator decks have much more consistency, and resilience, because of blue's card draw and the option to run force of wills, daze, etc to protect the combo, but I've managed to win a few friendly games with it against Burn and High Tide (even getting through force of wills, thanks to duress).

If you want to make it more competative, I would reccomend adding blue if you can (ponder, brainstorm, daze), and of course go up to 4 entomb(dropping the buried alive), pick up wastelands instead of the ghost quarters, and adjust reanimation targets as for the metagame and your budget.

mystical teachings might be worth looking at, too, really, as a cheap(in money not mana), tutor to find entomb if you add in blue, using teachings can help you find a one-of entomb, saving you about 14$ but the cmc of 4 slows you down quite a bit.

Anyone have advice on the ratio of discard spells to reanimation spells to targets, though?
As it is now, with entomb and buried alive, + the creatures themselves, 10 cards that become a reanimation target, 10 reanimate spells, and 5 discard outlets doesn't seem right... but I don't know what tweaks would realy fix it, it seems like reducing either the targets or reanimate spells for more discard leaves you digging too often, replacing the dark rits with, say, putrid imp balances it out quite a bit, but then you lose all of the explosiveness that rit gives you, and lose the ability to turn 1-2 arena, or turn 1-2 buried alive.
Can't really remove duress, since the deck is very weak to counter magic without them, and it can get their graveyard hate out of their hand before it has a chance to hit you.

[Iron Buddha]

Putrid Imp is much better than Zombie Infestation.

Mystical Teachings is blue. So if you go the blue route, which is very powerful, you could also run Fact or Fiction (not very expensive card). While FoF is not as fast as Entomb, it is obviously much more powerful.

If you run Dark Ritual, you could just as well go the middle route between Reanimator and hardcasting big stuff. I'm thinking of Grave Titan, he is a great reanimation target, but with Dark Ritual you could just as well hard-cast him.

Without Entomb, that acts as a tutor, running 1-ofs doesn't make sense.


Have a look a this:

//23 Lands

// Enabler: 8
4 Dark Ritual
4 Exhume

// plain fat ass: 4
4 Grave Titan

// board-control: 8
4 Go for the Throat
2 Doom Blade
2 Echoing Truth

// disruption: 9
4 Duress
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Cabal Therapy

// to set up: 8
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Forbidden Alchemy


I've intensively worked on a similiar list like the above one, but not budget. The differences are a blue disruption package instead of black one, which is much better, Brainstorm + Fetchlands instead of Forbidden Alchemy, and no Exhume, but more disruption. But in a budget shell Exhume looks great. The board-control suite is the same.

[Jenni]

//23 Lands

// Enabler: 8
4 Dark Ritual
4 Exhume

// plain fat ass: 4
4 Grave Titan

// board-control: 8
4 Go for the Throat
2 Doom Blade
2 Echoing Truth

// disruption: 9
4 Duress
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Cabal Therapy

// to set up: 8
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Forbidden Alchemy


Wouldn't Reanimate still be better than exhume, for this list, since it does essentially the same thing, without giving an opponent a chance at a returned goyf or other nasty thing to slow your clock on them (or was the use of exhume over reanimate just a budget choice)?
The one-of entomb is really just because I only have one, at the moment, the buried alives in the original list should be entombs 2, 3 and 4, but I don't have 60$ to spend on a pet deck right now, since I'm still trying to get a few missing pieces for my (not as budgeted) enchantress deck (+ I really want to spring for at least 1 moat to add into that deck as an enlightened tutor target).

As for the Titans, they are great as a fatty, and I really like your list, but going with a titan plan means you lose a lot of the utility, or just lock-out potential that returning, say, Iona, gives you. I know in my local metagame at least, having Iona hit the field just wins a lot of games automatically, since there is a lot of mono-colour decks around.
Given the added consitency and digging, though, along with the resiliance to graveyard hate, the titans would probably improve the win/lose ratio, since the original list just dies to a leyline, but with the ritual into titan backup, it has an out to that, and a way to play around tormond's crypt and extirpates.

I like the idea of Fact or Fiction and Forbidden Alchemy to help set up, though, I actually hadn't thought of them. My only concern with adding a 2nd colour is the cost of multicolour lands and fetches.

[Iron Buddha]

I agree that Exhume is the wrong reanimation spell, since Exhume would just put a blocker in the way. Reanimate is definitely better. However, since the deck runs a total of 23 lands + 4 Dark Ritual, you could also look into a 3cc reanimation spell like Necromancy. Maybe a split.

The manabase is not much of problem: 4 Underground River, job done.
4 Underground River
9 Island
10 Swamp
with Polluted Delta, you would achieve Wasteland-immunity.

This is also ok imo, but 1 or 2 Underground river wouldn't hurt:
13 Swamp
10 Island

I’ve missed the Buried Alives, as they certainly provide card selection, just as Entomb. But if you ask me, what I don’t like about the Entomb/Buried Alive plan is that you put all eggs into one basket. For example buried alive is CDA without a reanimation spell, whereas FoF / Forbidden Alchemy are CA no matter what. Without FoW and such, this is a real liability.

As for utility, other cards have to fill the role of utility. Grave Titan is just body (a lot of body however, 10/10 growing every turn by 4). This where the removal package is supposed to fill the gap with spot removal for too many creatues and Echoing truth in case someone plays a Humility. If you need more utility, you could run Counterspells in place of a few discard spells.