[Deck] Reanimator Depths

[Griselpuff]

Reanimator Depths

4 Thespian's Stage
4 Dark Depths
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Swamp
1 Scrubland
2 Marsh Flats
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Lake of the Dead
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Griselbrand
3 Grave Titan

4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
1 Unburial Rites
4 Entomb
3 Collective Brutality
4 Thoughtseize

1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Tidespout Tyrant
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Coffin Purge
1 Dread of Night
2 Duress
1 Massacre
1 Keranos, God of Storms
4 Pithing Needle

Other Card Choices
Platinum Angel
Toxic Deluge
Serenity

So far I have a ~75% win rate in ~50 matches playing the deck on Magic Online. It's basically two-card monte, but gets to play two of the fastest broken combos in Legacy. The pieces synergize well (you can reanimate Hexmage to make a 20/20), and you have the backup plan of using Rituals and Lake to hardcast your guys.

So far, the bad match-ups appear to be Miracles, Death and Taxes, and Storm. Delver is surprisingly favorable as you attack from a variety of different angles.

Props to ewlandon for coming up with the deck.

We have both been streaming it at twitch.tv/griselpuff and twitch.tv/ewlandon

[filln]

Great to see others brewing this as well. I've been testing a Reanimator Depths list for the past half a year or so, but using Living Wish and Primeval Titan in the main. I know Living Wish has traditionally been too slow in most lists but I like the utility and it's just a fun card.

How has the Unburial Rites worked out for you? I tried it a few times but it just seemed so slow.

PS: For added discussion, here's a Renaimator Depths list that Top 8'ed a tournament in Japan (http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD27843S/) back in early May.

[Claymore]

I had some decent results when I ran Jund Depths with a Reanimator sideboard. Against the likes of DnT, the important pieces were Smallpox and Punishing Fire package, plus Vengeful Pharaoh can provide decent control.

A somewhat transformation sideboard could be something to consider.

I think a few Not of this World could overperform in this deck, protecting Lage, Griselbrand, and sideboard targets (Iona).

[Ewlandon]

If anyone has any ideas for beating storm other than being less unlikely or putting in 4x leyline that's my main concern right now.

[BlackStarDeceiver]

If anyone has any ideas for beating storm other than being less unlikely or putting in 4x leyline that's my main concern right now.

My first intention was adding Iona or Sire of Insanity to the maindeck, but i feel like Platinum Angel is the better fit as it is castable G1 (no idea what to cut though). Helm/Leyline of the Void works pretty good against storm and there is the option to play Trinisphere with Ritual in the deck.

Kambal might be worth a try, not sure though.

[TTX]

1 Ruric Thar for the Storm matchup? Sire seems pretty damn good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mackan]

Played vs Ewlandon yesterday. I got griselbranded g1 and kept a no land, 2 leyline of the void, fow+blue cards hand for g2 and hexmage hit me 10 times. I really like the idea with an extra
angle not only from a 20/20 but from that 2/1 aswell. Very good way to get around Jace/chalice on top of killing me :)

Re: the decklist.

1) I don't really understand 3 grave titans, how has it been working out? Good vs push and a way to combat deathrite/karakas but seems so... fair. If you want a castable fatty maybe a 1of gurmag angler/tombstalker fits the bill over the third? the yard will be pretty full so it's a lot easier to cast and flooding on grave titans with petals/dark rituals allready spent seems bad.

2) what about unburial rites? Isn't Animate dead just better?

3) As a way to fight combo/stackbased decks for monoblack the best thing there is has to be discard. I strongly advice 2 Liliana of the veil and 3 Hymn to tourach in the 75. This gives you a "plan" vs combo (Everything but sneak attack need more than one card in hand to win). It's also a great setup for blue decks where you side out your 1-for-2 cards for 2-for-1's instead.
Liliana pitching fatties is great while she also kills some hatebears and a deathrite in a pinch. Discard also goes way up in value for postboard games where your opponent has to respect the fast combo and keep a slower hand leaning on their disruptive sideboard cards. I like 1 Liliana main and 1 sideboard and the hymns for postboard games. I have no idea how to construct this sideboard, which cards are currently cemented and which are not?

Good job with the deck! :)

[Fox]

1) 6 mana is a pretty easy point for the deck to get to; even with rituals/petals it's a turn 3 plan (Urborg + Swamp, or 2 Swamp -> float mana + Lake). It is a pretty good target against Karakas, fog effects (Mother of Runes, Wirewood, Quirion, Scryb, and again Karakas), LotV [not Leyline], and Maze of Ith. It is also specifically the correct choice against the mix of LotV, Maze, and Tabernacle all at the same time. Against non-FoW decks it's usually Grisel first, but Titan is the eventual backup wincon with highest chance of success [especially true in Depths mirrors].

2) could play either, Unburial is an Entomb target in a deck that can pretty easily generate 4-8 mana (this deck hardcasts quite a few Grisels).

3) this deck generally isn't ahead on board, and Lilly doesn't really fix that...you also can't really +1 her and support Collective Brutality escalations, and at the end of all that she'll never win a game. Any time you're in a Dark Ritual deck I think you're more interested in Liliana, the Last Hope as a turn 1 play that says opponent has 4 turns to live; she's not good vs combo, but she is one of the highest quality wincons with a +1 this deck can support and pretty good alongside Hexmage backed up by Entomb finding Darkblast (or any creature you're missing with a -2 activation, or just get the creature back to escalate Brutality again). Hymn or Sinkhole would be fine, but if you really wanted to kill combo specifically it's not that hard to power out a 3-Ball or Nether Void. The question against combo though would be why aren't you sideboarding in a way that makes your deck faster; everything listed previously seems worse than a turn 1 Grisel. I think @TTX has the right idea, 5 copies of a silver bullet (the other 4 copies being Entomb); if you can get away with one sideboard slot for bad combo matchups, it seems like the right call versus trying to turn into Pox.

[gngpostalsrvc]

This deck looks super sick! How do you sideboard against some of the more common matchups?

[hovercraft]

I have been playing Tin Fins Depths based on u/j_blinder mtgo:clone103's list that he has been playing online. It's definitely a lot of fun, a bit different from the lists here on the reanimator side but the same concepts apply. Win cons here are Lab Maniac after abusing Grisel/Children combo, Tendrils for lethal after a big Grisel turn, or Marit Laige for the win. LED plays great with Unburial Rites, Exhume and Shallow Grave. Can also be used to activate Thespian's Stage.


Here is the list I have been using:
4 Dark Depths
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Swamp
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Children of Korlis
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Griselbrand

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Exhume
4 Shallow Grave
2 Unburial Rites
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
4 Unmask


Sideboard:

2 Collective Brutality
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Grave Titan
1 Massacre
2 Not of This World
3 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge

I have only played it at one actual tournament so far, but I went 3-0 beating RUG Delver, Shardless BUG, and Death and Taxes. Only dropped 1 game to DnT. You can really keep people guessing about your plans, and bait them into countering non-key spells. The deck's creator has a record of something like 75W-30L on MTGO since he has been tracking.

[Claymore]

If you want combo hate, then you need Lost Legacy or Sphere of Resistance and Thoughtseize/Hymns. Check the Dark Depths thread. Enough interaction to delay and then kill them first.

Or try 4x Chancellor, good to stop T1 kills and can effectively lock out Storm.

[Gadsen]

If anyone has any ideas for beating storm other than being less unlikely or putting in 4x leyline that's my main concern right now.

@Ewlandon
After playing B/R Reanimator for over a year now, discard is key to winning the matchup.
I recommend Children of Korlis + Unmask.
Unmask will help you strip their hand after a fast Griseldad without worrying about extra mana.
Children will help facilitate drawing enough discard spells // putting you out of range of a Storm Count: Three kill after casting Reanimate on Griselfather.

[tescrin]

If anyone has any ideas for beating storm other than being less unlikely or putting in 4x leyline that's my main concern right now.

A few things (this is also the Queller guy from your shop btw), I think 4 Pithing Needle is going pretty balls out. I realize it's for a mix of Karakas and Waste, but you could (branching into the reason I'm posting) go with a Tutor board. My board effectively has 4 needles, while running 2. Similarly, you can run 2 canonist against Storm and potentially tutor Canonist with either Entomb->Reanimate or with Tutor EoT, cast. This often buys you 1-4 turns against storm in all but the "they have both the nuts and the kill card in hand."

Your combo relies on only one spell (Hexmage) or an instant->sorcery (allowing you to cast across turns), giving you the ability to Entomb on their turn, reanimate on yours, even with canonist out. It could also branch out how you build your sideboard. If going this way, a singleton Sculler can also be hit by both tutors, and sculler is better than standard discard when you need it, because they can't flash back the spell. Lastly, ETutor can act as copies 2 and 3 of Seal of Cleansing, and your opponents (like myself) dropping Humility, Cage, Rip, etc.. can be insta-gibbed by a well timed cleansing.

Second point: you should probably just run Cabal Therapy and get good with it. Thoughtseize is alright, but it actively hinders Reanimate and Griselbrand, and if the opponent has a hand with multiple interaction points you are unable to do anything about it. Therapy is also live from the grave allowing you to tutor interaction via a Hexmage or Grave Titan (!!!)


To summerize:
-2 Pithing Needle +1 Tutor, +1 Canonist (and consider a second tutor)
-4 Thoughtseize, +4 Cabal Therapy

Side note: Against Storm you should always start therapy by naming LED. LED Is the best ramp spell and enables Tutor even with awkward hands. Secondly, it's not live in the grave so PiF doesn't interact with it. LED hands induce keeps with Storm quite often, because of it's insane ramp-ness.

[Ewlandon]

A few things (this is also the Queller guy from your shop btw), I think 4 Pithing Needle is going pretty balls out. I realize it's for a mix of Karakas and Waste, but you could (branching into the reason I'm posting) go with a Tutor board. My board effectively has 4 needles, while running 2. Similarly, you can run 2 canonist against Storm and potentially tutor Canonist with either Entomb->Reanimate or with Tutor EoT, cast. This often buys you 1-4 turns against storm in all but the "they have both the nuts and the kill card in hand."

Your combo relies on only one spell (Hexmage) or an instant->sorcery (allowing you to cast across turns), giving you the ability to Entomb on their turn, reanimate on yours, even with canonist out. It could also branch out how you build your sideboard. If going this way, a singleton Sculler can also be hit by both tutors, and sculler is better than standard discard when you need it, because they can't flash back the spell. Lastly, ETutor can act as copies 2 and 3 of Seal of Cleansing, and your opponents (like myself) dropping Humility, Cage, Rip, etc.. can be insta-gibbed by a well timed cleansing.

Second point: you should probably just run Cabal Therapy and get good with it. Thoughtseize is alright, but it actively hinders Reanimate and Griselbrand, and if the opponent has a hand with multiple interaction points you are unable to do anything about it. Therapy is also live from the grave allowing you to tutor interaction via a Hexmage or Grave Titan (!!!)


To summerize:
-2 Pithing Needle +1 Tutor, +1 Canonist (and consider a second tutor)
-4 Thoughtseize, +4 Cabal Therapy

Side note: Against Storm you should always start therapy by naming LED. LED Is the best ramp spell and enables Tutor even with awkward hands. Secondly, it's not live in the grave so PiF doesn't interact with it. LED hands induce keeps with Storm quite often, because of it's insane ramp-ness.


Not a terrible plan but I think it's way too slow (the tutor plan) to beat storm, I think Sire plus discard is how we beat storm just have to nut them and dodge discard basically.

I've discussed therapy and in the end I think too many cards are good against us unlike with storm where you just name fow.

[TLK]

Shout out on mtggoldfish:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-deep-reanimator-legacy

[solnox]

Put together this deck a few days ago. Not sure what to make of it as I've been drawing either half and getting crushed.

[Griselpuff]

Put together this deck a few days ago. Not sure what to make of it as I've been drawing either half and getting crushed.

I'll be doing a video series for CFB soon so maybe you can check that out. If I had to guess, I would say you are not mulliganing aggressively enough. Game 1 especially, mulligan down to 5 any hand that doesn't combo or buy a lot of time. You're really looking for either Dark Depths or Entomb because both of those mean you have 8+ draws that win.

[YIGIT]

Just throwing out some ideas which may not even worth testing but in case you find them interesting enough to give a shot:

- Does it worth to add Phyrexian Obliterator together with Shallow Grave? It can be hardcasted and can be used ass mass destruction weapon when opponent attacks by the help of Shallow Grave

- Does it worth to add Abyssal Persecutor together with Innocent Blood? Abyssal Persecutor can be hardcasted and by using the interection with Innocent Blood opponent can be killed.

- Is there a room for Shizo, Death's Storehouse in mana base?

[Jblinder]

I have been playing Tin Fins Depths based on u/j_blinder mtgo:clone103's list that he has been playing online. It's definitely a lot of fun, a bit different from the lists here on the reanimator side but the same concepts apply. Win cons here are Lab Maniac after abusing Grisel/Children combo, Tendrils for lethal after a big Grisel turn, or Marit Laige for the win. LED plays great with Unburial Rites, Exhume and Shallow Grave. Can also be used to activate Thespian's Stage.


Here is the list I have been using:
4 Dark Depths
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Swamp
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Children of Korlis
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Griselbrand

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Exhume
4 Shallow Grave
2 Unburial Rites
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Thoughtseize
4 Unmask


Sideboard:

2 Collective Brutality
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Grave Titan
1 Massacre
2 Not of This World
3 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge

I have only played it at one actual tournament so far, but I went 3-0 beating RUG Delver, Shardless BUG, and Death and Taxes. Only dropped 1 game to DnT. You can really keep people guessing about your plans, and bait them into countering non-key spells. The deck's creator has a record of something like 75W-30L on MTGO since he has been tracking.

clone103 here.

I've been discussing this deck some with ewlandon, and I've tried his version out (just one league; went 3-2). After giving it the test run, I still like my version with the Tin Fins style kill better, simply because it is more explosive. However, I will concede that in a fair format, this deck will perform a lot better, as it can grind/cast Grave Titan, etc. In my small sample, I found Lake of the Dead rather clunky, though I did use it some. I also found the Unburial Rites a bit slow without the LEDs. Sure, it is great as an Entomb target, but there is much more synergy with Lion's Eye. For instance, in my version of the deck, a hand like LED, Dark Ritual, Swamp, Griselbrand, Entomb makes turn 1 Griselbrand. Replace Griselbrand with second Entomb and it still makes T1. Unburial is really only good here when you have double Entomb and no Reanimation (or it gets countered), or like Collective Brutality/Griselbrand with no Reanimation. Even then you have to be able to generate 4 mana with a white. I'm not saying it's not worth the slot in ewlandon's version, just that it doesn't shine here like it does in the version with LEDs.

There are a few things that I liked enough about ewlandon's list to switch some stuff around in my Dark Fins list. Collective Brutality is just a very good card. Others had suggested it, and I really didn't give it enough credit, even though I had been playing up to 4 in other versions of Tin Fins without Depths. I just wanted my deck to be as fast as possible, but Brutality is still probably worth an include. I have been playing 2 in place of two Lion's Eye Diamonds in a shell similar to the above. I also replaced two Shallow Graves with two Reanimate. This is more experimental, but Reanimate plays better with Collective Brutality (ritaual/Brutality/reanimate being a T1 line) and SG plays better with LED. Splits on both may seem weird, but actually it gives the deck some versatility; drawing one LED and one Collective Brutality is a lot better than drawing two of either. Same goes for Reanimate/SG.

Another thing I am now doing is boarding out the Tin Fins package (Children/Labman) in the matchups where sticking a Griselbrand is good enough (basically any fair deck not running StP/Karakas).

A note to Hovercraft or anyone who wants to try the Fins style deck: I def do not recommend Tendrils of Agony. It's just a win-more card, really. One of ewlandon's big complaints about my deck is that he hates drawing Labman and/or Children (although Children is pretty hot to just draw and cast against ANT). They are essentially mulligans, and that's true. Adding Tendrils just gives you one more mulligan, while not adding a ton. If you are fully going off, Labman will always get the job done. If you have Tendrils in your hand, you can never use it if you sac an LED--the labman just gets reanimated before you draw off the deep end. He is very reliable and the only kill condition you need (other than attacking a bunch of times with Griselbrand or once with a Marit Lage). Tendrils will win some games on the spot where maybe you couldn't quite go full loop (maybe you draw 14, can't make a children, but have a couple Rituals and a Tendrils. However, most of the time you win that game anyway, even though you "fizzled." After all, you just drew 14 cards!

Shizo, Death's Storehouse is a card I didn't know existed. It is going straight in the deck. Will be very good against Turbo Depths, where you often have dueling Lages and eventually the Sejeri Steppe you.

Here's what I'm on (4-1, 4-1, 1-0 so far).

4 Griselbrand
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Children of Korlis
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
2 Shallow Grave
2 Reanimate
1 Unburial Rites (the first is one of the best cards in the deck, as frequent Entomb target, the second is ok but unneeded. It tends to not be a great natural draw)
2 Collective Brutality
4 Unmask (a card I also missed when playing ewlandon's version)
1 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse (not currently in my build, but will be next league)
2 Swamp
1 Scrubland
4 Polluted Delta

Edit: forgot SB. It's a work in progress.

4 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical
2 Fatal Push
1 Collective Brutality
1 Thoughtseize
2 Fatal Push
1 Massacre
2 Seal of Cleansing

I board out the remaining two LEDs (usually unburial also gets cut when LEDs go) in all the fair deck matchups, where going allin is less attractive, especially post board, and explosiveness isn't necessary. I board out Children and Labman if they aren't Swords to Plowshares decks. I still like to be able to power through StP and/or Karakas by winning on the spot with the Fins kill in those matchups. Shaving a Griselbrand or two is usually also a nice way to free slots post board.

Edit 2: Just realized Shizo doesn't work against opposing Marit Lage. That makes it more "meh." Still maybe worth it, but much less exciting.

[Jblinder]

I'll be doing a video series for CFB soon so maybe you can check that out. If I had to guess, I would say you are not mulliganing aggressively enough. Game 1 especially, mulligan down to 5 any hand that doesn't combo or buy a lot of time. You're really looking for either Dark Depths or Entomb because both of those mean you have 8+ draws that win.

Yes, aggressive mulligans are crucial. In fact, I don't tend to even keep 8 outers (especially on the play) when I'm on 7. Basically I want my hand (needing no draw steps) to make turn 1 or 2 Griselbrand, or at least a turn 3 Marit Lage. 8+ outers with a Thoughtseize or two are acceptable/good.

[hovercraft]

clone103 here.

I've been discussing this deck some with ewlandon, and I've tried his version out (just one league; went 3-2). After giving it the test run, I still like my version with the Tin Fins style kill better, simply because it is more explosive. However, I will concede that in a fair format, this deck will perform a lot better, as it can grind/cast Grave Titan, etc. In my small sample, I found Lake of the Dead rather clunky, though I did use it some. I also found the Unburial Rites a bit slow without the LEDs. Sure, it is great as an Entomb target, but there is much more synergy with Lion's Eye. For instance, in my version of the deck, a hand like LED, Dark Ritual, Swamp, Griselbrand, Entomb makes turn 1 Griselbrand. Replace Griselbrand with second Entomb and it still makes T1. Unburial is really only good here when you have double Entomb and no Reanimation (or it gets countered), or like Collective Brutality/Griselbrand with no Reanimation. Even then you have to be able to generate 4 mana with a white. I'm not saying it's not worth the slot in ewlandon's version, just that it doesn't shine here like it does in the version with LEDs.

There are a few things that I liked enough about ewlandon's list to switch some stuff around in my Dark Fins list. Collective Brutality is just a very good card. Others had suggested it, and I really didn't give it enough credit, even though I had been playing up to 4 in other versions of Tin Fins without Depths. I just wanted my deck to be as fast as possible, but Brutality is still probably worth an include. I have been playing 2 in place of two Lion's Eye Diamonds in a shell similar to the above. I also replaced two Shallow Graves with two Reanimate. This is more experimental, but Reanimate plays better with Collective Brutality (ritaual/Brutality/reanimate being a T1 line) and SG plays better with LED. Splits on both may seem weird, but actually it gives the deck some versatility; drawing one LED and one Collective Brutality is a lot better than drawing two of either. Same goes for Reanimate/SG.

Another thing I am now doing is boarding out the Tin Fins package (Children/Labman) in the matchups where sticking a Griselbrand is good enough (basically any fair deck not running StP/Karakas).

A note to Hovercraft or anyone who wants to try the Fins style deck: I def do not recommend Tendrils of Agony. It's just a win-more card, really. One of ewlandon's big complaints about my deck is that he hates drawing Labman and/or Children (although Children is pretty hot to just draw and cast against ANT). They are essentially mulligans, and that's true. Adding Tendrils just gives you one more mulligan, while not adding a ton. If you are fully going off, Labman will always get the job done. If you have Tendrils in your hand, you can never use it if you sac an LED--the labman just gets reanimated before you draw off the deep end. He is very reliable and the only kill condition you need (other than attacking a bunch of times with Griselbrand or once with a Marit Lage). Tendrils will win some games on the spot where maybe you couldn't quite go full loop (maybe you draw 14, can't make a children, but have a couple Rituals and a Tendrils. However, most of the time you win that game anyway, even though you "fizzled." After all, you just drew 14 cards!

Shizo, Death's Storehouse is a card I didn't know existed. It is going straight in the deck. Will be very good against Turbo Depths, where you often have dueling Lages and eventually the Sejeri Steppe you.

Here's what I'm on (4-1, 4-1, 1-0 so far).

4 Griselbrand
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Children of Korlis
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
2 Shallow Grave
2 Reanimate
1 Unburial Rites (the first is one of the best cards in the deck, as frequent Entomb target, the second is ok but unneeded. It tends to not be a great natural draw)
2 Collective Brutality
4 Unmask (a card I also missed when playing ewlandon's version)
1 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
2 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse (not currently in my build, but will be next league)
2 Swamp
1 Scrubland
4 Polluted Delta

Edit: forgot SB. It's a work in progress.

4 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical
2 Fatal Push
1 Collective Brutality
1 Thoughtseize
2 Fatal Push
1 Massacre
2 Seal of Cleansing

I board out the remaining two LEDs (usually unburial also gets cut when LEDs go) in all the fair deck matchups, where going allin is less attractive, especially post board, and explosiveness isn't necessary. I board out Children and Labman if they aren't Swords to Plowshares decks. I still like to be able to power through StP and/or Karakas by winning on the spot with the Fins kill in those matchups. Shaving a Griselbrand or two is usually also a nice way to free slots post board.

Edit 2: Just realized Shizo doesn't work against opposing Marit Lage. That makes it more "meh." Still maybe worth it, but much less exciting.


I like Shizo for DnT when they have Mom + Flicker/Serra Avenger or any other deck with flyers that can chump block.

I have won by Tendrils more than Lab Maniac so far, I actually love Tendrils with Shallow Grave and Griselbrand (I'm still on 4 Shallow Grave). Also gives you a potential win con even if Grisel and Depths are both Surgically extracted from your deck (Happened to me, then I stocked up a couple rituals and LEDs while attacking with Hexmage/Children and was able to win with Tendrils.) I agree than having the 3 dead draws is kinda shitty but as you said Lab Maniac can often be boarded out anyway. If I were to cut one I would cut Lab Maniac first at this point, but I still need to test against a bigger variety of decks.

I still think in the Tin Fins version you still want at least 1 Grave Titan in the SB/75 to further protect from Surgical Extraction and Karakas. G2 I pretty much always swap 1 Grisel for a Grave Titan.

I think both versions are going to be great combo options now as they can attack from multiple angles, but eventually people will realize what is going on if more and more people start playing it. Hopefully we don't see an uptick in Diabolic Edict or similar card that can stop both Marit Laige and Griselbrand. I'm going to have to pick up some Lake of the Dead and more than 1 Grave Titan so I can try ewlandon/Griselpuff version as well.

[Jblinder]

I like Shizo for DnT when they have Mom + Flicker/Serra Avenger or any other deck with flyers that can chump block.

I have won by Tendrils more than Lab Maniac so far, I actually love Tendrils with Shallow Grave and Griselbrand (I'm still on 4 Shallow Grave). Also gives you a potential win con even if Grisel and Depths are both Surgically extracted from your deck (Happened to me, then I stocked up a couple rituals and LEDs while attacking with Hexmage/Children and was able to win with Tendrils.) I agree than having the 3 dead draws is kinda shitty but as you said Lab Maniac can often be boarded out anyway. If I were to cut one I would cut Lab Maniac first at this point, but I still need to test against a bigger variety of decks.

I still think in the Tin Fins version you still want at least 1 Grave Titan in the SB/75 to further protect from Surgical Extraction and Karakas. G2 I pretty much always swap 1 Grisel for a Grave Titan.

I think both versions are going to be great combo options now as they can attack from multiple angles, but eventually people will realize what is going on if more and more people start playing it. Hopefully we don't see an uptick in Diabolic Edict or similar card that can stop both Marit Laige and Griselbrand. I'm going to have to pick up some Lake of the Dead and more than 1 Grave Titan so I can try ewlandon/Griselpuff version as well.


You say you win with tendrils more, and I don't doubt that's true. This is because tendrils will usually happen before labman...When you fully combo you'll draw the tendrils and win on the spot. However you could also win with Labman in that very spot. It just takes a few more clicks. I wouldn't count those as tendrils kills. Those are tendrils win-more.

You've identified some spots where tendrils is useful, but they really are typically corner cases. The problem with cutting labman before tendrils would be not being able to sac a led when you draw tendrils. It's gone forever if you do. Therefore it isn't as reliable. In the matchups where I am boarding out children and labman, I'd always be boarding out tendrils as well, if somehow i were playing one.

Death and taxes is a spot where Shizo could be good. I think it's worth inclusion, just not as sexy as I thought at first when I thought it could break the marit lage stalemate.

Agree that grave Titan should be in the 75, if not the main.

[Jblinder]

Last point on Tendrils in the Fins version (sorry for somewhat hijacking the thread on Fins/Depths and not the ewlandon version--they are similar enough I think we can share this thread; ew adapted his list from the fins version).

Yes, there are times when Tendrils will win a game that otherwise wouldn't have been. surgical on griselbrand and depths, and then drawing tendrils and being able to storm being one. But obviously that is rare. There are others, such as not being able to entomb/reanimate a children but drawing tendrils instead and winning (when combining off). This is less rare, but unless they combo kill you next turn, or make a karakas, you're often winning anyway. But it's clearly not useless. Tendrils will win some games.

However, replace that tendrils with, say, collective brutality. I can guarantee that you will win MORE games by drawing that card instead of a tendrils. DRS exists. It can be a discard outlet. It can peel away a force of will. I think it boils down to the simple fact that you want to make your Fins package, if you even include it (ewlandon ditched it altogether after not having a ton of success with my version), absolutely as lean as possible to make room for cards that actually do something.

Ok, so I hope I've made my case for only using two slots on children and (something). But I haven't made a case for labman over the other two options, which are emrakul the aeons torn and tendrils of agony. Emrakul would be my choice if I weeent running LED, but he is a nonbo there as he will take away exhume/SG plus Led discard lines when he is in hand. Otherwise he is best because there are times you actually want to entomb/SG him. He also wins even through ensnaring bridge (as do the other two) as long as you play a collective brutality. Once You have children/griselbrand going, you can loop through your deck infinite times, and use all your rituals and leds and petals to make infinite mana. Emrakul shuffles everything back continually and You can either cast collective brutality 10 times or just hard cast emrakul. It sounds complex and tedious but it's easy to execute with a little practice. Still, I don't like the interaction with LED when you draw him.

Tendrils suffers the same drawbacks that emrakul does, but is even worse. It's also a nonbo wirh LED, since it's gone forever if you discard it. Now imagine you fully combo off. Draw down to 3 cards left in library. Tendrils is bottom 3. You have to pass turn and maybe die playing against ANT or whatever. With emrakul, you'd just entomb him, shuffle everything back and keep going. With labman you just entomb him, animate and draw off the deep end. If you discard him early to led, no biggie. You just animate him and win anyway.

My preference is lab man>emrakul>tendrils, and certainly to use only one. Now that I'm down to only 2 LED, emrakul is a strong consideration. I'd be back on 4 shallow graves 0 reanimate if I made that switch

[Jblinder]

Great to see others brewing this as well. I've been testing a Reanimator Depths list for the past half a year or so, but using Living Wish and Primeval Titan in the main. I know Living Wish has traditionally been too slow in most lists but I like the utility and it's just a fun card.

How has the Unburial Rites worked out for you? I tried it a few times but it just seemed so slow.

PS: For added discussion, here's a Renaimator Depths list that Top 8'ed a tournament in Japan (http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD27843S/) back in early May.

I have a living wish version built as well. It's actually not bad; the living wish toolbox is really quite strong. You can get hexmage, depths, stage, or griselbrand (when you have brutality or led to pitch it). But you can also fetch loyal retainers as a reanimation "spell". Karakas as a silver bullet. Even ethersworn cannonist. It also allows you to run a tin fins package with children of korlis and labman or emrakul in the board instead of taking slots in the main. That plan is a little less consistent than when those cards are in the main though.

In the end, I've found that wish is maybe just a little too slow, and it doesn't sideboard as well because you have to devote most sb slots to wish targets. But the deck is certainly promising.

[Ewlandon]

Last point on Tendrils in the Fins version (sorry for somewhat hijacking the thread on Fins/Depths and not the ewlandon version--they are similar enough I think we can share this thread; ew adapted his list from the fins version).

Yes, there are times when Tendrils will win a game that otherwise wouldn't have been. surgical on griselbrand and depths, and then drawing tendrils and being able to storm being one. But obviously that is rare. There are others, such as not being able to entomb/reanimate a children but drawing tendrils instead and winning (when combining off). This is less rare, but unless they combo kill you next turn, or make a karakas, you're often winning anyway. But it's clearly not useless. Tendrils will win some games.

However, replace that tendrils with, say, collective brutality. I can guarantee that you will win MORE games by drawing that card instead of a tendrils. DRS exists. It can be a discard outlet. It can peel away a force of will. I think it boils down to the simple fact that you want to make your Fins package, if you even include it (ewlandon ditched it altogether after not having a ton of success with my version), absolutely as lean as possible to make room for cards that actually do something.

Ok, so I hope I've made my case for only using two slots on children and (something). But I haven't made a case for labman over the other two options, which are emrakul the aeons torn and tendrils of agony. Emrakul would be my choice if I weeent running LED, but he is a nonbo there as he will take away exhume/SG plus Led discard lines when he is in hand. Otherwise he is best because there are times you actually want to entomb/SG him. He also wins even through ensnaring bridge (as do the other two) as long as you play a collective brutality. Once You have children/griselbrand going, you can loop through your deck infinite times, and use all your rituals and leds and petals to make infinite mana. Emrakul shuffles everything back continually and You can either cast collective brutality 10 times or just hard cast emrakul. It sounds complex and tedious but it's easy to execute with a little practice. Still, I don't like the interaction with LED when you draw him.

Tendrils suffers the same drawbacks that emrakul does, but is even worse. It's also a nonbo wirh LED, since it's gone forever if you discard it. Now imagine you fully combo off. Draw down to 3 cards left in library. Tendrils is bottom 3. You have to pass turn and maybe die playing against ANT or whatever. With emrakul, you'd just entomb him, shuffle everything back and keep going. With labman you just entomb him, animate and draw off the deep end. If you discard him early to led, no biggie. You just animate him and win anyway.

My preference is lab man>emrakul>tendrils, and certainly to use only one. Now that I'm down to only 2 LED, emrakul is a strong consideration. I'd be back on 4 shallow graves 0 reanimate if I made that switch



Hey just wanted to chime in here,
I played your tin fins version quite a bit so I think I can comment on this debate. I tried tendrils, lab maniac and both. If you win with tin fins lab maniac is better hands down. Some games I wish I had tendrils as an out when I got them down to 11 or so with some weird beat downs. That being said in the end I decided lab maniac was better.

I had a couple issues with the tin fins version that I thought would keep it from tier 1-2 that I think this version overcomes. First, shallow grave is great but it really sucks when you top deck it the turn after you were forced to chump block with a hexmage. Second, tin fins leans toward being all in. I really hated discarding my whole hand and getting fow'd or surgicalled, you just lose. And, as you mentioned I really hated drawing one or both parts of the tin fins cards. I've always preferred fair decks to combo (mixing it up with combo from time to time) because of the ability to win longer games through multiple answers. Like you dont play delver, get it killed and just auto lose like you do with all in combo decks. Discard effects like we have in your tin-fins deck, BR reani, storm etc. are what make those decks good and something like belcher not, but I think there are too many games that the fins deck just loses to a silver bullet. This lake of the dead version gives you 3 different angles to win with one of which involves the very fair plan of hard casting grave titans. That's why I like it.

[Jblinder]

Hey just wanted to chime in here,
I played your tin fins version quite a bit so I think I can comment on this debate. I tried tendrils, lab maniac and both. If you win with tin fins lab maniac is better hands down. Some games I wish I had tendrils as an out when I got them down to 11 or so with some weird beat downs. That being said in the end I decided lab maniac was better.

I had a couple issues with the tin fins version that I thought would keep it from tier 1-2 that I think this version overcomes. First, shallow grave is great but it really sucks when you top deck it the turn after you were forced to chump block with a hexmage. Second, tin fins leans toward being all in. I really hated discarding my whole hand and getting fow'd or surgicalled, you just lose. And, as you mentioned I really hated drawing one or both parts of the tin fins cards. I've always preferred fair decks to combo (mixing it up with combo from time to time) because of the ability to win longer games through multiple answers. Like you dont play delver, get it killed and just auto lose like you do with all in combo decks. Discard effects like we have in your tin-fins deck, BR reani, storm etc. are what make those decks good and something like belcher not, but I think there are too many games that the fins deck just loses to a silver bullet. This lake of the dead version gives you 3 different angles to win with one of which involves the very fair plan of hard casting grave titans. That's why I like it.

I agree with a lot of what you said. I've been liking my current version with some of your ideas, but keeping the children/labman. Collective brutality is great when things aren't going as smoothly. I will also agree that grave Titan is a great plan vs stuff like grixis delver (as is the marit lage plan). I do have a comfortably winning record vs Delver decks, but yours is certainly even better there.

The counterpoint is that your deck is considerably weaker agains ANT (and other fast combo). the fins deck is just faster than ANT, and actually it's one of the best matchups for my version. Unmasks really help when you whiff on the full combo, as we have discussed, as stripping their hand with Gbrand in play is usually enough, while getting griselbrand into play and passing often isn't. Led speeds up both halves of the combo, as well (stage + depths + led is turn 2 lage).

I could really see siding into the fins package vs combo/ANT being correct for your deck. It's just 2 sb slots. Without LED you'll still lack some explosion, but winning outright when you make a griselbrand still helps a lot. Also, children themselves buy you tons of time if you just run them out. They need to tendrils with 19 storm or chain of vapor them to win. Adding unmasks won't hurt either. I think it's better than TS. Generally you can figure out which plan you're on, and pitch a redundant card or the other half of the combo. Saving the mana often helps, and saving the life is sometimes relevant. Obviously, it's much better once griselbrand is on the battlefield.

I'm going to keep playing/tinkering with the fins style and let's compare notes in a month or so. Ill probably try some stuff with grave Titan in the main and certainly in the board. There was a sweet Japanese list of a fins style reanimator list with grave Titans, lake of the dead and 4 grim monolith(!!) in the board. I might even try that.

I'll spreadsheet my results and get back with some more robust data.

[hovercraft]

A lot of good points on the wincons, I guess I am just reluctant to give up on Tendrils as a win con yet, since I'm coming from Burning Reanimator. I feel like Griselbrand and Tendrils are made to be broken together haha. One of the Japanese reanimator storm lists was playing Magus of the Will, seems like it might be fun inclusion with Tendrils main as a way to play it from the graveyard. Seems like a slow card to me, but if you could reanimate on a combo turn with Shallow Grave, at least it will have haste.

[Jblinder]

A lot of good points on the wincons, I guess I am just reluctant to give up on Tendrils as a win con yet, since I'm coming from Burning Reanimator. I feel like Griselbrand and Tendrils are made to be broken together haha. One of the Japanese reanimator storm lists was playing Magus of the Will, seems like it might be fun inclusion with Tendrils main as a way to play it from the graveyard. Seems like a slow card to me, but if you could reanimate on a combo turn with Shallow Grave, at least it will have haste.

Yeah. That's the sweet list with the grim monoliths and full set of grave Titans in the board. That is a spicy brew. There are some pretty big differences that make Tendrils the optimal kill in that deck. The main one is that he is playing 4 infernal tutor, making the natural storm kill more of real thing. Magus of the will acts as his children of korlis. if i recall correctly he isn't playing children, but can entomb magus, SG or corpse dance and then plays leds/rituals again and tutors up the tendrils (or plays it from the grave).

Tendrils is the right card for that deck for sure. I will try that deck out--I think my deck or ewlandons are both better/more resilient with the depths plan, but still that list looks too fun not to play around with a little. For those who are curious there is a thread I think started here by zooligan on that deck.

Anyway, in the fins version of depths/reanimator, laboratory maniac isn't just the cutest way to win. He's the right man for the job. We don't have room for any magus of the will shenanigans, as cool as that idea is. Put a collective brutality or another thoughtseize or cabal therapy in that tendrils slot and never look back, imo.

[hovercraft]

Yeah. That's the sweet list with the grim monoliths and full set of grave Titans in the board. That is a spicy brew. There are some pretty big differences that make Tendrils the optimal kill in that deck. The main one is that he is playing 4 infernal tutor, making the natural storm kill more of real thing. Magus of the will acts as his children of korlis. if i recall correctly he isn't playing children, but can entomb magus, SG or corpse dance and then plays leds/rituals again and tutors up the tendrils (or plays it from the grave).

Tendrils is the right card for that deck for sure. I will try that deck out--I think my deck or ewlandons are both better/more resilient with the depths plan, but still that list looks too fun not to play around with a little. For those who are curious there is a thread I think started here by zooligan on that deck.

Anyway, in the fins version of depths/reanimator, laboratory maniac isn't just the cutest way to win. He's the right man for the job. We don't have room for any magus of the will shenanigans, as cool as that idea is. Put a collective brutality or another thoughtseize or cabal therapy in that tendrils slot and never look back, imo.

Yeah I definitely agree extra discard is key, I just need to get more reps in with the Lab Maniac plan. I will probably test Magus for fun anyway, just for a bit of Yawg's will nostalgia. Great to see this archetype generating some quality discussions already, it's super fun to play.

[Emrakul503]

What about 3x Helm of Obedience and 4x Leyline of the Void in the side? Is that too cute/slow? I feel like the dream you could T0 the Leyline, T2 Lake of Dead out the Helm?

[Jblinder]

What about 3x Helm of Obedience and 4x Leyline of the Void in the side? Is that too cute/slow? I feel like the dream you could T0 the Leyline, T2 Lake of Dead out the Helm?

It is probably too cute/slow, yes. If you did try it, I might suggest Enlightened Tutors since we are already playing Scrubland. I'd probably throw an Animate Dead somewhere in the 75 as well, to make Enlightened Tutor better when it gets sided in.

In the end, it's likely just too many sideboard slots for a transformation plan, especially when our deck is already designed to attack from many angles.

[H]

One of our local guys was running this kind of deck for month's before Vegas, not sure if he is still playing it. He had some really good results locally, but didn't do so well at the GP.

His original list was:

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sire of Insanity
4 Vampire Hexmage

4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb

4 Beseech the Queen
2 Duress
4 Exhume
3 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize

4 Lotus Petal

4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
5 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse

I know at some point he cut Shinzo to run a Bayou to get Decay out of the board, and I think he tinkered with the number of some other things too (like going to 3 GBees).

If I can get a hold of his latest list, I'll post it. Maybe Friday, if I make it to play.

[Blinkgaze]

I recently built this deck as my first go at the Legacy format and have competed in about 5 MTGO Legacy Leagues so far with it. I have yet to 5-0 but I have managed to go at least 3-2 or 4-1 in all leagues. Very fun deck to play. I will be following this for any updates. Best of luck to all.

Sent from my SM-G720N0 using Tapatalk

[filln]

Took a version of Reanimator Depths that I've been tinkering with over the last few months to a weekly last night, going 3-1. My list is different from the ones gaining popularity recently in that it's Black-Green and leans a little more into the Depths combo with Crop Rotation and Living Wish.

3 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Primeval Titan
2 Grave Titan
3 Vampire Hexmage
4 Reanimate
2 Exhume
4 Entomb
3 Crop Rotation
3 Living Wish
4 Dark Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Thoughtseize
3 Collective Brutality

Sideboard
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Ashen Rider
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Pithing Needle

I defeated High Tide, UR Delver, and Sneak & Show, but lost to Miracles in my last round after a mull to four and then going all-in on the wrong side of my deck in the second game. The deck felt pretty decent all night, though likely the Primeval Titan is a bit too cute and should really just be Griselbrand. I think my next iteration would cut one of each Titan in favor of Griselbrand.

[Jblinder]

Took a version of Reanimator Depths that I've been tinkering with over the last few months to a weekly last night, going 3-1. My list is different from the ones gaining popularity recently in that it's Black-Green and leans a little more into the Depths combo with Crop Rotation and Living Wish.

3 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Primeval Titan
2 Grave Titan
3 Vampire Hexmage
4 Reanimate
2 Exhume
4 Entomb
3 Crop Rotation
3 Living Wish
4 Dark Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lotus Petal
4 Thoughtseize
3 Collective Brutality

Sideboard
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Ashen Rider
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Pithing Needle

I defeated High Tide, UR Delver, and Sneak & Show, but lost to Miracles in my last round after a mull to four and then going all-in on the wrong side of my deck in the second game. The deck felt pretty decent all night, though likely the Primeval Titan is a bit too cute and should really just be Griselbrand. I think my next iteration would cut one of each Titan in favor of Griselbrand.

When I have time I'll post my Living Wish list. I think LW should push you more into the territory of using Lions Eye Diamond. It opens up lines such as Living Wish/respond crack LED for WWW, discarding Griselbrand, fetch Loyal Retainers/sac reanimate. Or just fetch and cast a silver bullet like Eidolon of the Rhetoric (is that the storm hoser?).

This could be really good too, but Wishes and LED go together like peanutbutter and jelly so I'd recommend at least giving them a try. I don't personally have ESG or Crop Rotation. Maybe that's really good/better.

Edit: Just realized your list has 0 Griselbrand. Yes, definitely fix that! If you have been doing well with reanimating Primetime being plan A you'll be doing even better with Griselbrand.

[Griselpuff]

Made a video series!

https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-bob-huang-legacy-reanimator-depths/

[Jblinder]

Still putting up solid results with this:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/700937#paper

4-1, 4-1, 4-1, 4-1, 4-1, 5-0, 3-2, 2-3 in my last 8 leagues. One of my losses was due to playing turn 1 Stage, LED, turn 2 dark depths and then misclickung and discarding my hand to remove a Depths counter instead of making a 20/20.

After playing both, I'm still of the opinion that the Fins kill with Laboratory Maniac is stronger than the Grave Titan plan C, though it may just come down to familiarity with the lines the deck wants to take and playstyle.

I think the Grave Titan plan is better against the delver decks and the grixis control without delver, but that matchup is already good for the Fins version. I'm 9-3 vs Delver.

The fins plan is better vs new miracles, which is a tougher matchup for both versions. This is because if the fins version makes griselbrand, it can win that turn, even through karakas and/or swords. I recently won a game where my opponent had Jace active for 3 turns, Gideon of the trials with an emblem, and had just made 4 angels with entreat and faresealed to the top. I entombed to shuffle (GB was already in gy), drew exhume and fully comboed, including making hexmage to kill his Gideon before winning with labman. There are spots that you can get out of that would be unwinnable for more traditional reanimator builds.

The fins version is also much stronger vs combo, especially ANT/TES. It's a matchup that I'm quite happy to face and I think Grave Titan versions will struggle some.

[PeterSouth]

Anybody tried infernal tutor in the deck? Seems like it would be good with the many collective brutality.

[gngpostalsrvc]

The deck looks awesome. What's you SB plan against the more common decks in the metagame?


Still putting up solid results with this:

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/700937#paper

4-1, 4-1, 4-1, 4-1, 4-1, 5-0, 3-2, 2-3 in my last 8 leagues. One of my losses was due to playing turn 1 Stage, LED, turn 2 dark depths and then misclickung and discarding my hand to remove a Depths counter instead of making a 20/20.

After playing both, I'm still of the opinion that the Fins kill with Laboratory Maniac is stronger than the Grave Titan plan C, though it may just come down to familiarity with the lines the deck wants to take and playstyle.

I think the Grave Titan plan is better against the delver decks and the grixis control without delver, but that matchup is already good for the Fins version. I'm 9-3 vs Delver.

The fins plan is better vs new miracles, which is a tougher matchup for both versions. This is because if the fins version makes griselbrand, it can win that turn, even through karakas and/or swords. I recently won a game where my opponent had Jace active for 3 turns, Gideon of the trials with an emblem, and had just made 4 angels with entreat and faresealed to the top. I entombed to shuffle (GB was already in gy), drew exhume and fully comboed, including making hexmage to kill his Gideon before winning with labman. There are spots that you can get out of that would be unwinnable for more traditional reanimator builds.

The fins version is also much stronger vs combo, especially ANT/TES. It's a matchup that I'm quite happy to face and I think Grave Titan versions will struggle some.

[Jblinder]

The deck looks awesome. What's you SB plan against the more common decks in the metagame?

For reference, I'm using the same main board with an extra thoughtseize and seal of cleansing replacing iona and keranos in the sb.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/700937#paper

My SB and plans are a work in progress, but I'm where I want to be for sure vs Grixis Delver since it's such a common matchup.

Vs Grixis Delver:

-2 Griselbrand, -2 LED, -1 Unburial (too slow w/o Led vs a deck that actually provides a clock) -1 children of korlis, -1 labman.

+3 thoughtseize, +1 grave Titan, +3 needle.

Note that I no longer have Iona or Keranos in the board (up to 3 Thoughtseize). I do not think anything beyond Grave Titan is necessary, and in general my plan for playing around Surgical (other than using discard obviously) is to win with dark depths. It's built right into the deck! For similar reasons I won't board in seal of cleansing even if I see a grafdiggers cage in a matchup like this. That card is for chalice/blood moon decks only basically. Or leyline, which seems on the decline.

Plan vs grixis control/Czech pile type decks is similar. Def cutting the fins kill. Maybe leaving unburial is ok, as they are slower. 1 or 0 needles if they aren't on wasteland. Surgical is an interesting card as they have snapcaster, it can act as a discard spell or a peek effect to see if the coast is clear in more desperate times. Plans are all similar for the bug and grixis decks, but I will leave in the Fins kill vs suspected or known Aluren or Food Chain. Basically, they are all similar to grixis delver in principle, with tweaks based on wasteland, snapcaster and/or if they have a combo finish.

Vs burn: I also cut the Fins kill (labman), but leave in Children. Seal of cleansing comes in for eidolon, vortex, and potentially leyline/pyrostatic pillar. 4 eidolon alone is enough for me to want it. This matchup is hard to lose, you can probably shave the reanimates (dangerous, dead cards after turn 2) and labman for seal, fatal push and grave Titan.

Vs lands: I currently board -4 dark depths, -4 vampire hexmage, -2 collective. +4 needle, +1 seal of cleansing, +3 Thoughtseize, +2 Surgical. Thoughtseize isn't great by any means, but I think the Depths plan is quite bad against them. It can take something like crop rotation to prevent instant bog or be aimed at self as a griselbrand discard outlet.

Vs new miracles: I actually cut an urborg, as games go long often (you can win a long game, it's ok) so you'll draw too many lands over the course of the game, and these are legendary. Again, trim leds and griselbrands (common cuts) though here I like leaving unburial. Add in discard and Grave Titan and I like at least one surgical since it's a discard spell in a long game, and they have Snapcaster. I leave the Fins kill in here since it is the best way to power through potential karakas. Even Grave Titan isn't great here and maybe he shouldn't even come in as going for gb is always going to be better, even if they have karakas generally.

I see ewlandon and bob (in the CFB video) consistently trimming stuff like exhume, which I rarely like. This deck has no brainstorms and ponders; imo you need a critical mass of combo cards for the deck to function properly.ill occasionally shave 1. I've also seen petals being trimmed, which does make some sense as things slow down post board. I never do this as I still want the ability/threat to turn 1.

Vs Sneak and show: I think it's hard, because I want to keep all the Griselbrands, making show plan much riskier for them. +3 thoughtseize for sure, +at least 2 Needle for sure (naming sneak) and +1 seal for blood moon. Cuts are LEDs, unburial,probably a collective brutality or two (?). Shave some other stuff as you deem fit. It's one of those work in progress matchups for me (not that the matchup is too bad--it's somewhere near 50% probably on the favorable side).

Death and Taxes: it's a nightmare. It's the only truly awful matchup for the deck, imo. Of course I'm 1-0 vs it recently! My plan is to board out depths combo, and maximize my t1 and t2 kill rate with the Fins plan. This means leaving in all the griselbrand and leds. I also bring in thoughtseize and plan to target myself with them if I have a griselbrand more often than I would normally. Obviously massacre comes in and so does fatal push. I don't know if boarding out depths fully is correct, but it's a poor plan against a deck with 3x karakas, so I think it is. So -4 depths -4 hexmage. The rest of the slots after fatal push, 3 thoughtseize and massacre can be needles or grave Titan. Needle on karakas is cool, but I really want to absolutely maximize proactive cards here.

ANT: +3 thoughtseize -1 shizo, -1 hexmage, -1 brutality. maybe brutality is awkward cut, but it's a tad slow for the mu and thoughtseize is a clear upgrade. Surgical is tempting but it's hard to find cuts. Could always shave griselbrand (can do that instead of hexmage/brutality as well) but I like maximizing led lines which are the fastest kills the deck can produce. Confident +3 TS and +0/1 surgical is correct. Cuts somewhat unclear. Note that almost all hands that contain a castable children of korlis are keepable here. The card generally buys you insane amounts of time unless they have chain of vapor. Now that ANT players know the score they are bringing in all their bounce vs us (which they didn't vs fins sans the depths combo) which is rather unfortunate. A truly bad hand with t1 children is still a mulligan.

Elves: I don't board much. This is a good matchup because we are faster and their post board discard and couple surgicals aren't enough. Can shave a griselbrand or two and a shizo if desired and add a fatal push and maybe a thoughtseize or two as anti-surgical measure. Needle for DRS and some stuff like symbiote/ranger/druid is a trap imo. Be proactive! 1 if you must. Massacre is also a trap. Just make them dead. Side note re massacre: Massacre is for D&T and any other deck playing the card Thalia, Guardian of Thraben basically. It can be ok vs the stoneforge decks. Not particularly great if you're just targeting containment priest, as the instant speed will still ruin your day. Fatal push is better tool for that job.

Reanimator: surgicals and thoughtseizes, pretty obviously. Def go down to 2 griselbrand to limit their discard/reanimate lines. A land is cuttable here. Collective brutality is fine but a little slow, id shave 0-1. This is maybe the matchup where shaving 2 exhume might be right. Even here it's not bad, as you will usually win on the spot even if you both make Griselbrand...however iona can be problematic (though 7/7 lifelink>7/7).

A common theme in many matchups is boarding out a land. I used to play as few as 18 main deck! Generally, if you're in a matchup where you want the game to be consistently over by turn 3 (generally combo), especially matchups where aggressive mulligans aren't as costly (again combo, as you're fighting through less hate and mainly trying to goldfish) it's fine to board out a land (usually shizo). 2 on the draw is even maybe fine, but is probably risky/aggressive. Vs almost anything blue (note miracles exception above) and especially anything with wasteland obviously keep all the land always.

Finally, notice that I basically never cut Unmask. Some people don't even like running the card: I personally think that is crazy--the card is bonkers in this deck. You've probably figured out that I'm very long-winded by now; I could probably write a book on unmask in this deck. The cliffs: good against combo because it is the "fastest" and allows you to pull that potential surgical without costing you a turn. Good in the fair matchups when used properly. The cliff notes of the potential book would be: be patient! 90% of my unmasks are saved for the turn I am trying to go off only, especially vs the fair decks. This will give maximum information on their hand and won't let them hide something for later under a brainstorm or radically change the composition of their hand in future turns. It also gives you maximum information on what to pitch. Almost always you'll have something redundant or have a clear idea which half of the combo you are aiming for, with a card like hexmage or shallow grave from "the other half." If you're casting unmask on a turn you aren't trying to go off you are probably doing it wrong!

[gngpostalsrvc]

Thanks so much for the detailed SB guide and explanations, Jblinder! I'm going to try your build out this weekend at my LGS and will let you know how it goes. One quick question, though: in what matchups do you bring the Swords to Plowshares in?

[Jblinder]

Thanks so much for the detailed SB guide and explanations, Jblinder! I'm going to try your build out this weekend at my LGS and will let you know how it goes. One quick question, though: in what matchups do you bring the Swords to Plowshares in?

Sorry, forgot that is gone from my current board. Just make it a second Fatal Push or 3rd Surgical. There are corner cases where Swords is better than Fatal Push (I'd bring it in vs Reanimator and Eldrazi, for instance, where Push is useless) but being white decreases consistency. Push (and Swords) is/was mainly there for Thalia/Containment Priest. Push can come in vs stuff like burn and UR Delver as well.

[Ewlandon]

Reani Depths SB Guide



I've never done one of these but a few people have asked me to do it so I'm going to give it a shot.


This is based off my most current list which you can find here (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/707091#paper)


Delver Decks:


First thing I ask myself is do they have 4x drs and 4x wasteland. Most delver decks do so lets assume they do and it's grixis delver.

Play/Draw same

+4 pithing needle
+2 duress
-3 exhume
-1 reanimate
-1 chrome mox
-1 lotus petal

If you think they are running cage you can bring in seal but the idea is to not need to reanimate to win. In side boarded games you want to play a slower game so you dont get blown out by 1 counterspell or surgical. Usually you want to have some discard and a needle before going for a combo and finishing off the game with a titan if they stop the combos. Obviously if you have the turn 1 and no discard you go for it but those are the games you are going to lose more often than not. If you think you want to play a very grindy game you can also bring in massacre.


4c Control (leo control)

+2 duress
+4 pithing needle
-1 chrome mox
-3 lotus petal
-2 exhume

This match up should be pretty easy but post board you want to play around edicts and counters mainly. The needles go a long way as they don't play wasteland so you can name liliana/jace after deathrite shaman. They have a very hard time with merit lage. Edict is there only good answer so you want to try to play around that by getting a titan first or having lage combo with hexmage still in play. It's usually pretty obvious if they have the edict or not.


Storm

+2 duress
+2 lost legacy
+2 surgical extraction
+1 coffin purge
-3 grave titan
-1 lake of the dead
-2 hexmage
-1 dark depths

Lost legacy is the best way to beat storm game 2. Coffin purge is a great way to stop graveyard wins through discard. Iona is good but they usually have bounce so it isn't game over game 2. I usually go for griselbrand to try and draw into lost legacy or ritual a lost legacy early from my hand or just discard them to oblivion. Fast depths isnt a good way to win. Similarly, you want to watch out for fragile combo hands on the draw since they will usually start with a duress. Heavy discard hands are the best way to win vs ant. Vs ant you name tendrils with lost legacy, vs tes you name burning wish. Ant will usually bring in empty after losing to lost legacy so keep that in mind for game 3.



DNT

This match up so so difficult.

+4 needle
+1 massacre
+1 seal of cleansing
+1 tidespout tirant
+2 duress
+1 dread of night
-3 petal
-1 mox
-4 exhume
-1 depths
-1 iona

Basically you have to get lucky. There are three ways to win. Discard/dodge swords and have a fast titan. Discard/dodge swords and dodge karakas and have a turn 2 merit lage on the play. Needle karakas and wasteland and dodge/discard swords and combo with lage or gris. Discard their mother of runes, reanimate it, needle karakas and use mom to protect the combo. Good luck!




Reanimate Mirror

+2 surgical
+1 corpse purge
+1 tidespout
+2 duress
-4 exhume
-1 chrome mox
-1 lotus petal

This is pretty straight forward. Stop them from comboing using corpse purge, surgical and discard. Don't let them reanimate your stuff, try to reanimate their stuff. Coffin purge in hand is often better than surgical.


Lands/Turbo Depths

+4 needle
+2 surgical
+2 duress
+1 tidespout
-4 hexmage
-3 dark depths
-1 chrome mox


Vs lands you want to combo fast and needle their combo/karakas. Watch out for crop rotation bajuka bog, combo, karakas and maze. Often times titan is the best.

Vs Depths use the needle to stop their combo, you can copy their karakas (this is ok but not as good vs lands as well) or simply copy their depths and hope they dont draw crop rotation or a protection spell. Tidespout is very good.



Show and tell

+2 duress
+1 tidespout
+2 needle
+1 seal of cleansing

-1 exhume
-1 chrome mox
-1 hexmage
-1 depths
-1 petal
-1 titan

Here I just trim. You want to have a good creature to put in on show and tell, or a fast combo with iona on blue. Needle is for sneak attack. Seal of cleansing is for sneak attack or omniscience. Discard the tougher combo parts for you to beat such as emrakul or sneak attack. Putting in gris off a fast show and tell is best because you get to draw 14 and usually your 14 is better than their emrakul or the cards they draw off gris. Putting in iona is ok hoping they have omni (losing to a gris or emrakul) tidespout is good hoping they have emrakul or omni (if you have an instant).




Let me know if you think I missed anything important. This is based on what I face the most online.

[marshalltj]

Thanks Ewlandon - that was a really solid SB guide and some good insight based off the list that's starting to take form and do well based off of Bob's CFB video. I'm probably going to start trying this list out (I've been on BR Reanimator for awhile now)

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I think a few Not of this World could overperform in this deck, protecting Lage, Griselbrand, and sideboard targets (Iona).

As someone who loves Not of this World I would agree without you if not for the fact that Irona and Griselbrand don't need protection (one is protection, the other refills your hand with redundency).

Then again, I never followed through on playing it in this deck, so I'm happy to be wrong here.

[Ewlandon]

Thanks Ewlandon - that was a really solid SB guide and some good insight based off the list that's starting to take form and do well based off of Bob's CFB video. I'm probably going to start trying this list out (I've been on BR Reanimator for awhile now)



You're welcome. One thing I cannot emphasize enough is this deck is not BR or depths. It isn't linear like those decks where you must get A+B and protect it to win. It plays out much more grindy (post board). I play BR to and they just play very differently. When I play reani depths I am looking for a turn 1-3 kill game one or mull down to as low as 4. Game 2 I am not looking for a fast kill at all, in fact I do not want a turn 1 ritual reanimation hand unless i have discard too. I am looking for hand disruption/needle and two different halves to the combo so I can have something like 16-20 good draws. I think a lot of people will struggle with this deck at first if they try to play it like BR (not saying that is what your post was saying but just it reminded me to take note of that).

[ThisIsNilla]

So I just picked up this deck (and legacy in general) and I really am enjoying it, though sometimes it is super tough to figure out the sideboard. Like I know if they are playing anything that has a triggered ability that screws with us, I should put in pitting needle, but it is super hard to figure out what to take out when you are playing something that isnt super common. (Though the sideboard list from up top is really helpful)

[ottomanottoman]

Hello,

New to this deck. Have enjoyed turbo depths for about a year now but want to try something different. This seems like a natural sidestep. So far I've seen discussion on the regular WB Reanimator-depths version & a Fins-depths version (which looks sweet) but haven't seen much discussion on the beseech the queen version that got the deck tech on SCG a few weeks ago. Any word on this version? I've gotten in a few matches with this version and find beseech the queen to be a pretty good tutor that fits well within the deck. Never cared for the leyline/helm combo in the side though. I look forward to trying the other two styles in the near future though!

[ThisIsNilla]

Reani Depths SB Guide



I've never done one of these but a few people have asked me to do it so I'm going to give it a shot.




Hey dude I saw you 5-0d with some changes, what do you side in the Stormtide against?

[Ewlandon]

Hey dude I saw you 5-0d with some changes, what do you side in the Stormtide against?



Honestly they never really made a difference, I like having different fatties to diversify vs surgical but I'm pretty much always winning with gris/titan/lage.

[ThisIsNilla]

Honestly they never really made a difference, I like having different fatties to diversify vs surgical but I'm pretty much always winning with gris/titan/lage.

Ahh cool, also how do you like the 4th brutality and beseech the queen? Ive learned that sometimes draws are just super clunky so BTQ seems solid, and a brutality I assume can come in vs delver since DRS and delver are a ball ache.

[Ewlandon]

Ahh cool, also how do you like the 4th brutality and beseech the queen? Ive learned that sometimes draws are just super clunky so BTQ seems solid, and a brutality I assume can come in vs delver since DRS and delver are a ball ache.

I really like the 4th brutality, kinda wish I could find room for it main, may consider it over beseech. I originally tried 2 and 3 beseech but found that it was too slow, in match ups where it would resolve I was just losing because it was turn 5 before I could do anything, vs control if it mattered they would counter it or the thing you get. I'm not ready to cut it yet because it is a powerful spell.

[YIGIT]

Reani Depths SB Guide



Let me know if you think I missed anything important. This is based on what I face the most online.

@Ewlandon , Can you also let us know what you are siding in & out for following matches:
1) Aluren
2) Eldrazi
3) Infect
4) Elves
5) Dragon Stompy

[castellan]

Hey everyone!

I've been trying out a version of the decklist and so far had reasonable success. I'll post it soon.

Do you guys enjoy tournament reports? :laugh:

[YIGIT]

Hey everyone!

I've been trying out a version of the decklist and so far had reasonable success. I'll post it soon.

Do you guys enjoy tournament reports? :laugh:

yes, it would be great.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[castellan]

Allright then, my decklist is as follows:

Reanimator Depths

4 Thespian's Stage
4 Dark Depths
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
8 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Lake of the Dead

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

4 Vampire Hexmage
2 Griselbrand
3 Grave Titan
1 Iona, Shield Of Emeria

4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
4 Unmask
4 Entomb
4 Thoughtseize

SB:

1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Coffin Purge
2 Dread of Night
1 Massacre
2 Lost Legacy
4 Pithing Needle

The reason I went full-monoblack is simple: I cannot afford fetches/duals for splash.

'But scrubland is the cheapest-' yup it is but I can't afford it. :/

I've been playing it for a while now and had reasonable success with it. For the life of me I won't recall in details all the matches I had last week so I'll refrain from giving a shitty TR. I'll post it as soon as I have a fresh one tho ;)

[Ingo]

Wouldn't crop rotation be a good addition to the deck?
Evidently it would help the Stage-Depths plan.
But also, cropping for a Lake to hardcast Titans seems to fit the Reanimator/hardcast plan too.

[castellan]

Hey everyone! Here to report last night's tournament. My decklist is two posts above.

Round 1: Burn (2-1)

Game 1: He drops a mountain and bolts me, on my turn I drop a Marit Lage. He says 'let's see if I'm going to topdeck salvation', draws a card, goes 'meh', game 2. I wonder what 'salvation' was.

Game 2: He opens with a Leyline in play and now I have no graveyard, so either Lage or hardcast something is the way to go. He does mull to 4 to find it tho, so he's really out of gas. I kept a good hand that relied on my graveyard, so I draw a bunch of dead stuff as he bolts me turn after turn. I finally draw a Depths and with a big smile I drop a Lage. He says 'let's see if I'm topdecking salvation now', draws a card, and drops a Maze of Ith. Well fuck. By next turn he has a Sulfuric Vortex which brings me down to zero.

Game 3: I'm on the play. I say the magic words 'Iona. Red.'. There's no game after that.

Round 2: Stoneblade (1-2)

I don't know if this is a bad matchup for our deck or if I just suck at this, but I've never even won a game against Stoneblade. The only time in the past I managed to land an Inkwell Leviathan my opponent topdecks a Council's Judgement. In my opinion, every single one of those in the world should be set on fire.

Game 1: I don't know what he's playing but my opening hand has two halves of different combos and discard, so I keep and have something like 16 good draws - either Exhume, Reanimate, Thespian's Stage or Hexmage would set me off. I Thoughtseize him and take out a Jace. After that, statistics takes over and I just watch as he drops a SFM, Batterskull, Fire/Ice and I keep drawing Swamps, Rituals, Petals...by the time I was dead I was manually at 6 Ice counters on Depths.

Game 2: I open with the strongest hand possible, combo and discard. I Unmask him, see no counters, take out a Council's Judgement, and put an Inkwell Leviathan in play. Now it's time for redemption. He literally does nothing and waits three turns until he dies. He did, however, used his resources to keep me from seeing his hand. He wanted further information on my deck and kept hidden his sideboard choices.

Game 3: He mulls to 5 and opens with a Ponder, I do however mull to 4 and still don't find shit. I draw a Depths followed by a Stage, but even with Lage in play I don't think I can do anything since he's already at 28 thanks to Batterskull. He drops a Nemesis, which gets equipped with Skull and Fire/Ice, swings for two billion and there's nothing I can do. Not beating Stoneblade...not this time.

Round 3: BRg Homebrew (2-0)

Game 1: I never knew what he played because I won the dice roll and opened with Depths, Petal, Ritual, Hexmage, Marit Lage. He looks at Lage, says 'well, game 2'.

Game 2: He boards HARD, opening with Leyline and Cage. I Thoughtseize him and see only lands and a Blood Moon, which gets discarded. I play a Hexmage and after that the game stalls since he flooded as hard as a man can flood, and I see no way to hardcast the Titans in my hand. I ping him for 2 until he is dead.

Round 4: UBr Something (1-2)

Game 1: He wins the roll and Thoughtseize me. He finds and discards an Entomb. I draw a Stage and put it into play, he looks at it and goes 'dude wat'. I know that Depths Reanimator is a new deck, but in my local meta most people don't even know what's happening. After that I never found a black source and statistic gets me again, and I'm slowly beaten to death with Snapcasters.

Game 2: I open with the best hand a man can hope for and land a Griselbrand, which he never recovers from. He hided his SB choices just like my opponent before him, doing nothing and even Vendillioning himself to hide a card when I Unmasked him.

Game 3: We both mull to 5 and he opens with Underground Sea and Ponder, I open with a combo that gets FoW'd. A turn later we're both in topdeck mode, and he draws only cantrips and lands, giving me time to draw into a Stage + Depths, which makes me very happy. His graveyard is any Snapcaster's paradise and it does shit against a two-land combo. In my excitement, I combo out and bring a Lage into play, only to try to Unmask him AFTER I casted the lage. He responds with a bounce card in my token and then I'm out of resources and eventually gets beaten to death. This idiotic mistake costed me the game (OBVIOUSLY should have Unmasked him before comboin' out) and made me very angry - I mean, statistics and variance are a part of the game you can't get rid of, but when my excitement clouds my judgement with stupidity I get really, really mad at myself. Well, lesson learnt the hard way. This game loss prevented me from cashing out at the event and made me even angrier.

Overall comments:

At least in my current meta, this deck performs really well and my only bad matchup I personally had so far was Stoneblade (again, I might suck playing against it). There's this dude playing D&T at the store but I never played against him.
Before the event started, I played an ANT Storm guy with a very fancy, foil deck, and it was the easiest match of the night. We played eight games, with and without SB, and I won eight times in a row. I don't know if he sucks against a deck he never played before but it seems that ANT is the sweetest matchup of the century. I prayed to God that I'd face him in the tournament, but I guess his prayers were stronger since we weren't paired up together.

Next wednesday there's another event and the following day I'll write again.

[kombatkiwi]

After watching some videos on the two 'Lake of the Dead' decks (one with Depths ie. this thread, and one without, ie. only Reanimator like the video Andrea Mengucci just uploaded) it seems that the Depths version is stronger.

One thing I have seen is that because the deck attacks so strongly from a variety of different angles, opponents will often 'over-sideboard' into many different narrow answers and hope that you stumble enough that they can win with whatever other cards they have left over (e.g. Snapcaster beatdowns or Deathrite Activations).

With this in mind, is it possible a card like Phyrexian Arena could be okay for the sideboard, for when these slower, grindy games come up? Or is it better to try and 'hate the hate' with more cards like Massacre, Pithing Needle, etc

[hovercraft]

Hey everyone! Here to report last night's tournament. My decklist is two posts above.

Round 1: Burn (2-1)

Game 1: He drops a mountain and bolts me, on my turn I drop a Marit Lage. He says 'let's see if I'm going to topdeck salvation', draws a card, goes 'meh', game 2. I wonder what 'salvation' was.

Game 2: He opens with a Leyline in play and now I have no graveyard, so either Lage or hardcast something is the way to go. He does mull to 4 to find it tho, so he's really out of gas. I kept a good hand that relied on my graveyard, so I draw a bunch of dead stuff as he bolts me turn after turn. I finally draw a Depths and with a big smile I drop a Lage. He says 'let's see if I'm topdecking salvation now', draws a card, and drops a Maze of Ith. Well fuck. By next turn he has a Sulfuric Vortex which brings me down to zero.

Game 3: I'm on the play. I say the magic words 'Iona. Red.'. There's no game after that.

Round 2: Stoneblade (1-2)

I don't know if this is a bad matchup for our deck or if I just suck at this, but I've never even won a game against Stoneblade. The only time in the past I managed to land an Inkwell Leviathan my opponent topdecks a Council's Judgement. In my opinion, every single one of those in the world should be set on fire.

Game 1: I don't know what he's playing but my opening hand has two halves of different combos and discard, so I keep and have something like 16 good draws - either Exhume, Reanimate, Thespian's Stage or Hexmage would set me off. I Thoughtseize him and take out a Jace. After that, statistics takes over and I just watch as he drops a SFM, Batterskull, Fire/Ice and I keep drawing Swamps, Rituals, Petals...by the time I was dead I was manually at 6 Ice counters on Depths.

Game 2: I open with the strongest hand possible, combo and discard. I Unmask him, see no counters, take out a Council's Judgement, and put an Inkwell Leviathan in play. Now it's time for redemption. He literally does nothing and waits three turns until he dies. He did, however, used his resources to keep me from seeing his hand. He wanted further information on my deck and kept hidden his sideboard choices.

Game 3: He mulls to 5 and opens with a Ponder, I do however mull to 4 and still don't find shit. I draw a Depths followed by a Stage, but even with Lage in play I don't think I can do anything since he's already at 28 thanks to Batterskull. He drops a Nemesis, which gets equipped with Skull and Fire/Ice, swings for two billion and there's nothing I can do. Not beating Stoneblade...not this time.

Round 3: BRg Homebrew (2-0)

Game 1: I never knew what he played because I won the dice roll and opened with Depths, Petal, Ritual, Hexmage, Marit Lage. He looks at Lage, says 'well, game 2'.

Game 2: He boards HARD, opening with Leyline and Cage. I Thoughtseize him and see only lands and a Blood Moon, which gets discarded. I play a Hexmage and after that the game stalls since he flooded as hard as a man can flood, and I see no way to hardcast the Titans in my hand. I ping him for 2 until he is dead.

Round 4: UBr Something (1-2)

Game 1: He wins the roll and Thoughtseize me. He finds and discards an Entomb. I draw a Stage and put it into play, he looks at it and goes 'dude wat'. I know that Depths Reanimator is a new deck, but in my local meta most people don't even know what's happening. After that I never found a black source and statistic gets me again, and I'm slowly beaten to death with Snapcasters.

Game 2: I open with the best hand a man can hope for and land a Griselbrand, which he never recovers from. He hided his SB choices just like my opponent before him, doing nothing and even Vendillioning himself to hide a card when I Unmasked him.

Game 3: We both mull to 5 and he opens with Underground Sea and Ponder, I open with a combo that gets FoW'd. A turn later we're both in topdeck mode, and he draws only cantrips and lands, giving me time to draw into a Stage + Depths, which makes me very happy. His graveyard is any Snapcaster's paradise and it does shit against a two-land combo. In my excitement, I combo out and bring a Lage into play, only to try to Unmask him AFTER I casted the lage. He responds with a bounce card in my token and then I'm out of resources and eventually gets beaten to death. This idiotic mistake costed me the game (OBVIOUSLY should have Unmasked him before comboin' out) and made me very angry - I mean, statistics and variance are a part of the game you can't get rid of, but when my excitement clouds my judgement with stupidity I get really, really mad at myself. Well, lesson learnt the hard way. This game loss prevented me from cashing out at the event and made me even angrier.

Overall comments:

At least in my current meta, this deck performs really well and my only bad matchup I personally had so far was Stoneblade (again, I might suck playing against it). There's this dude playing D&T at the store but I never played against him.
Before the event started, I played an ANT Storm guy with a very fancy, foil deck, and it was the easiest match of the night. We played eight games, with and without SB, and I won eight times in a row. I don't know if he sucks against a deck he never played before but it seems that ANT is the sweetest matchup of the century. I prayed to God that I'd face him in the tournament, but I guess his prayers were stronger since we weren't paired up together.

Next wednesday there's another event and the following day I'll write again.

If white decks are giving you trouble, you could try Not Of This World for protecting Grisel and ML from Karakas/Swords

[castellan]

If white decks are giving you trouble, you could try Not Of This World for protecting Grisel and ML from Karakas/Swords

Not Of This World seems nice in theory but in the field it never really did anything for me. It might counter the first threat, but there's always another thing coming. Personally if I'm facing anyone with a Tundra/chance of Karakas on the table I'd rather just reanimate Inkwell Leviathan rather than trying to get a Griselbrand into play and protecting him. Marit Lage also dies to any bounce or blink so it's really plan C, plan B being hardcast a Grave Titan, which I'm strongly considering running four.

Anyway, here's the report for last night's event! Managed a 3-1 in a 4 round event. Ca$hed out!

Round 1: BR Reanimator (0-2)

Game 1: I open to a hand with no lands, but with Petal, Petal, Entomb, Ritual, Exhume, Thoughtseize...but before I make the play, he says 'I have an effect before you play', and reveals a Chancellor of the Annex. I draw a card and do a whole bunch of nothings as I watch him Reanimate everything unopposed.

Game 2: An opening hand with Surgical and two halves of different combos is good enough for me. I keep my hand, he keeps his hand, and before he makes his move - that Surgical is tingling in my hand at this point - he says 'I have an effect...' and I know I'm doomed. He reveals not one, but two Annex disgraces, and proceeds to win. I didn't get to play MtG at all in Round 1, I just watched a how-to-play YouTube video of BR Reanimator. Well, it happens, this is Legacy.

Comments: I think this should be a good matchup for us, but both his opening hands were ridiculous and against that there's nothing we can do. Variance does exist, so lets just shrug it out.

Round 2: Burn (2-0)

Game 1: I get 3 to my face, but in my turn I happily say the words a Burn player fears most: 'Iona. Red.'

Game 2: I get Swiftspear to my face this time, but when I get to draw a card again I have the pleasure of saying 'Iona. Red.'

Comments: I thought this would be an easy matchup, and bois was I right.

Round 3: Leovold Control (2-0)

Game 1: I open with discard and combo, resolve a Ritual turn 1, and the first thing I do is Thoughtseize him. It resolves too, and I see a hand with Jace, Snapcaster, Bolt, FoW and - surprise! - maindeck Edict. I take out the FoW, smile and combo out, bringing a Grave Titan into play. No Edicts can save him this time. He should have FoW'd my Ritual, but I think it would just bought him a turn or so.

Game 2: He opens with DRS and says 'go'. I draw the last thing I needed to rain hell upon him and try to Unmask him, baiting a possible FoW, which indeed happened. Then I play Swamp, Petal, Ritual, Ritual, Grave Titan. He draws a card and shakes my hand. He says 'let me show you why I FoW'd your Unmask', and reveals a hand with two Faerie Macabre and a Surgical Extraction. Turns out sometimes you can insanely hardcast things turn 1 :)

Comments: This matchup is pretty straightforward - resolve a Titan and they're powerless.

Round 4: Grixis Pyromancer (2-0)

Game 1: I open a hand which screams 'Let Marit Lage tear him a new one'. He plays an Underground Sea followed by Ponder, and in my turn I know I'm gonna get a counter but I go for it anyway due to my monstrously resourceful opening hand. I play Depths, Petal, Ritual, and Hexmage. It gets FoW'd, but the remaining mana Reanimates him. I get Marit Lage out, he draws a card and scoops. I still had another Hexmage and another Reanimate, so that Marit Lage was mos def gonna happen.

Game 2: I open with a hand with no combo components but it did bought a lot of time. I Have two Pithing Needle, Duress, Unmask...I needle Wasteland and DRS and two turns later I put a Marit Lage into play. He has no edicts but I have a Grave Titan to drop next turn. He managed to beat me down with Delver and Pyromancer tokens and even with Marit Lage in play, he swings for what he thinks it's exactly lethal. I'm at 2, and he says 'Ok, now I activate Shaman and you're dead', I just point at my Needle and he goes 'well shit', Brainstorm for a last resource but extends his hand. 'I totally forgot about that needle!', well, I didn't ;)

Comments: This match is grindy enough for me to try and Reanimate an Elesh Norn, but I guess I lucked out in his lack of answers, his misplay on game 2 and my strong opening hands.

I'll try to give more details on the next one if anyone feels it's worth it - SB choices, pics of opening hands, anything that helps us develop our tech.

[DNSolver]

Match 1 Game 1 your hand easily beats Chancellor on the play. Play a Petal, it gets countered. Play a second petal, ritual, entomb, exhume.

[castellan]

Match 1 Game 1 your hand easily beats Chancellor on the play. Play a Petal, it gets countered. Play a second petal, ritual, entomb, exhume.

The main reason I didn't follow with that play is because I'm stupid (https://i.redd.it/0nmfdyzx0e9z.png).

[castellan]

Hello everyone,

Here's a report for a reasonably boring, uneventful tournament from last night. We managed to gather only 7 people to play, the store owner himself joined and everyone matched with him got a bye just so we could play for 3 rounds.

Round 1: Bye :wink:

Round 2: UR Delver (2-1)

Game 1: I win the roll and try to combo out on turn 1, unaware of the deck I was facing. I get FoW'd, he drops a Swiftspear and quickly flips his delver, while I get to do nothing over and over again. When I land a fatty in the yard, I'm too low on life to reanimate and die to that flipped insect from hell.

Game 2: I didn't see any Wastelands, but I bring in 4 Needle just in case. Now he's probably loaded with Echoing Truth / Vapor Snag, so I thing Inkwell Leviathan would be a good target to Reanimate, but if he bounces Grave Titan to my hand it leaves tokens behind to block Swiftspears and creates more tokens when it comes back. Even so, Griseldaddy would be a better target for I can draw 7 in response to anything and rain hell upon him whilst blocking and gaining life. My opening hand is loaded with hardcast and discard, so a turn 1 Grave Titan and turn 2 Marit Lage seals the deal. Never had a chance to Reanimate anything.

Game 3: He had it all and I didn't stood a chance. FoW, Daze, Snapcaster, Vapor Snag, and I die quickly to his buffed Prowess thingy that flies, I didn't even knew it existed. I misplayed a lot on this game, if I wasn't a moron under pressure maybe I could have made better judgement calls.

Comments: Shouldn't be too hard of a matchup, but I did misplayed a lot. I think Elesh Norn would be nice to resolve, as well as Inkwell Leviathan, but Grave Titan leaves bodies behind and it's recasteable, whilst a bounced Inkwell / Norn isn't. Given that I was countered to hell and back, I couldn't land a single Griselbrand in any game.


Round 3: UB Stiflenought (2-0)

Game 1: He opens with a Gitaxian Probe and I reveal my hand: Petal, Ritual, Hexmage, Depths, Entomb, Reanimate, Thoughtseize. He scoops.

Game 2: It bizarrely goes to the distance in one of the most bizarre games I've played with this deck. He opens with a Grafdigger's Cage and a Petal with Thoughtseize, removing a Hexmage and hitting it with a Surgical. All this on turn one. Now I can't reanimate anything so I have 12 dead draws, but I can still manage to find a Stage to copy my depths. Well, could have, hadn't he dropped a Needle on Stage the following turn. We play draw-land-go for about 7 or 8 turns, and he strangely couldn't find anything either. I accumulate enough cards to have an all-in turn, trying to hardcast something after discarding him into oblivion, and it doesn't work. I empty my hand, he empties his, and now we're in topdeck mode, both hellbent. By turn 8011 I manage to draw and resolve a Lost Legacy, naming Dreadnought, and he extends his hand.

Comments: it's all about who combo out first. If he lands a Dreadnought in play I can't reanimate, if I land a Marit Lage he can't attack. Grave Titan also shines, being a 10-body with Deathtouch. If he attacks in a Titan, I only lose 2 life and he loses his wincon, If he attacks into Griseldaddy not only he keeps his monster but I lose mine, so I'm thinking Marit Lage first (pre-board), Grave Titan first (post-board).

[kombatkiwi]

Lost Legacy, naming Dreadnought

This doesn't quite work...

Situations like that game are why I think Phyrexian Arena could be a good SB card, some opponents will just play G2/3 with the plan of desperately trying to interact with you as many ways as they can, so it seems that to beat this you just want to be playing more ways to grind out advantage. Eventually you will hit the threat that dodges whatever lockpiece they have

[castellan]

This doesn't quite work...

Situations like that game are why I think Phyrexian Arena could be a good SB card, some opponents will just play G2/3 with the plan of desperately trying to interact with you as many ways as they can, so it seems that to beat this you just want to be playing more ways to grind out advantage. Eventually you will hit the threat that dodges whatever lockpiece they have

As Lost Legacy resolved he scooped, I don't see how it doesn't work. At least in this particular Stiflenought build.

[filln]

As Lost Legacy resolved he scooped, I don't see how it doesn't work. At least in this particular Stiflenought build.

"Choose a nonartifact, nonland card name"

[castellan]

"Choose a nonartifact, nonland card name"

Oh, literally doesn't work.

And we both missed it!

Apologise for the stupidity :frown:

[NegatorITA]

nobody plays the deck anymore? :O

[castellan]

nobody plays the deck anymore? :O

There's a tournament tomorrow to which I'll bring the deck. I'll also be playing it in Nationals by the end of november.

[castellan]

Hey there,

So here's what happened last night. Only 2-1-1, mainly because I'm still brain farting at the wrong times.

Round 1: Lands (2-0)

Game 1: He wins the roll, fetches a Taiga and casts a Gamble, discarding a Life From the Loam. Now I know that he's on Lands, and I manage do put a Grave Titan into play back in my turn. I swing for 10, then 14 and there's only so much his Maze can do.

Game 2: He opens with Ancient Tomb and Sphere of Resistance and tears stream down my face, for I had a combo ready to go in my hand which will most likely never happen. It slows me down a great bit, but eventually I manage to put a Tidespout Tyrant into play, which kept bouncing his Glacial Chasm and Mazes back to his hand before each attack. A hardcast Grave Titan seals the match.

Comments: Seems to be a pretty straightforward match. An early Titan is very difficult to deal with, and it's preferable over Griselbrand or even Iona on green, unless you Needle his Karakas first. Copying their Karakas to bounce their Marit Lage is also something to pay attention to. Or maybe I got lucky, he didn't assemble his combo in neither of the games.

Round 2: BR Reanimator (1-2)

Game 1: Dat opening tho - Reveals me a Chancellor, puts a Griselbrand in play. I never recover.

Game 2: I mull to four only to find a combo ready to go since I'm on the play, and pray to the heavens above so that he doesn't reveal a Chancellor before we start. It doesn't happen, I cast Iona on black and we go to game 3.

Game 3: It strangely goes to the distance, after he Surgical my Griselbrand and I Surgical his Chancellor. I cast a Hexmage only for him to Needle it, but we take so many turns drawing absolutely nothing that I beat him down to 4 with it. At a certain point I have Depths in hand and Thespian Stage in play, and he finds and discards a Tidespout Tyrant with Faithless Loothing and tries to reanimate it. I think that it might be a trap, so that I remove it and he can Griselbrand me somehow, so I let it happen, thinking 'Marit Lage is bigger!'. I summon her from her icy prison only for him to bounce it, and I realize the level of stupidity I operate on. Dear God, this one I deserved to lose.

Comments: If I didn't turn into a blind motherfucker when I'm excited about a play I'd have won it, but my stupid brain wouldn't let it.

Round 3: BRg Homebrew (2-0)

Game 1: I win the roll and Grave Titan turn 1, he drops a mountain and says 'go', he loses soon after.

Game 2: He opens with a DRS, but I cast Grave Titan again on my turn 1, and he also loses soon after.

Comments: I know this player and I know his deck - it is filled with edicts, lilianas and goblins, or in other words, nothing that answers a quick Titan. Never lost a game to this player.

Round 4: Stoneblade (1-1)

Game 1: I win the dice roll and go to town creating a Marit Lage turn 1. He topdecks a Plowshares and now I am at 40 life. With another Depths in hand, I just need to draw a Stage or Hexmage or Reanimate or Exhume to combo out again, which happens next turn. I smile from ear to ear, only to be slapped in the face with another Plowshares. I'm sitting at 58 life (having lost 2 points to Reanimate on Hexmage) and we play a long, long game in which he counters or removes everything that I do. I hoped to cast a Griselbrand and draw the whole motherfucking deck but it never happens, and almost 40 minutes later a Jace Ultimate seals the game for him.

Game 2: By the time we start game 2 we're almost on timeout. He mulls to 3 and FoW's my first attempt at combo (which would bring Inkwell Leviathan into play), but soon after I cast a Marit Lage. Unless he draws an answer I can swing and at least tie the match (never won against Stoneblade!), he draws a card and takes 20 to the face after revealing it was an uncasteable Jace.

Comments: this matchup is a nightmare and I think that my only chance is to bring a turn 1 Grave Titan or Inkwell Leviathan, preferably the latter. Even so, if he casts a SFM the Batterskull might buy him enough time to live. I'd rather just get stabbed in the balls than playing against Stoneblade.

[hovercraft]

I'm hoping to play this tomorrow at a win a FoW tourney. I'll report back how it goes.

[castellan]

I'm hoping to play this tomorrow at a win a FoW tourney. I'll report back how it goes.

Please do! Good luck :)



By the way, wanted to share that I played a lot of matches today against New Miracles and Storm, and here's what I think:

Miracles: 1-4 pre-board, 0-5 post-board


This matchup is nearly impossible. I won the very first game, but after that, there was no way I could get shit done. The one time I didn't get countered and managed to land an Iona for white in play, he Ponder and Snapcaster-Ponder his way into Karakas and bounces it. Grave Titan got Terminus to the face and no Griselbrand ever saw the light of day.

Boarding brought Pithing Needle, Duress and Inkwell Leviathan, all of them useless. I'm at a loss here, if you have some ideas to share I'm all ears. I even tried Lost Legacy into Terminus but it didn't resolve.

Storm: 4-1 pre-board, 4-1 post-board

Preeety easy. Playing against ANT, Iona on black is GG. I only kept hands with either immediate Iona or Marit Lage, to swing for full 20 on turn 2, or even hands without one of those but with a lot of disruption.

The only match I lost post-board was the first, I accidentaly boarded out all my Reanimate targets when I set them aside for choosing :really:

[silly]

Miracles is hard because they have a lot of ways to deal with your stuff.

One option is to go as fast as possible to get under their hate. If you can stick an early threat and keep them off balance enough with discard then you can win. Griselbrand is super helpful if he sticks even briefly, since you can draw a bunch of threats and overload their answers.

Iona isn't actually super great, I don't think, and might not be your highest priority. There is also strong justification for naming blue with Iona if she sticks. Naming white shuts down most of their removal options, but their deck is heavy blue and they will still have access to all their cantrips into a Jace to remove your Iona. If you think they have the removal then just name white, but if you think they don't or you know they don't, then naming blue shuts down most of their deck and makes it harder to actually find relevant cards.

Of note, miracles can't beat Archetype of Endurance + Iona on white, but this combo is much harder to assemble than just animating a single fatty.

[Darkness]

There's a tournament tomorrow to which I'll bring the deck. I'll also be playing it in Nationals by the end of november.

There's a legacy nationals? Where? When?

[castellan]

Miracles is hard because they have a lot of ways to deal with your stuff.

One option is to go as fast as possible to get under their hate. If you can stick an early threat and keep them off balance enough with discard then you can win. Griselbrand is super helpful if he sticks even briefly, since you can draw a bunch of threats and overload their answers.

Iona isn't actually super great, I don't think, and might not be your highest priority. There is also strong justification for naming blue with Iona if she sticks. Naming white shuts down most of their removal options, but their deck is heavy blue and they will still have access to all their cantrips into a Jace to remove your Iona. If you think they have the removal then just name white, but if you think they don't or you know they don't, then naming blue shuts down most of their deck and makes it harder to actually find relevant cards.

Of note, miracles can't beat Archetype of Endurance + Iona on white, but this combo is much harder to assemble than just animating a single fatty.

I barely get to put a single fatty in play, let alone Archetype + Iona. It would be great but I need to combo twice for that to happen...I guess your first assessment is the best way to go though. An early Griseldaddy can be too much if it draws 7 or even 14 cards it it was Exhumed and not Reanimated.

Naming anything with Iona can be frustrating. You've got a point about naming blue, but out of 4 Swords to Plowshares and 4 Terminus, one of them will eventually show up. Naming white leaves their cantrips for Jace and even Karakas though. Ugh this is hard.

But thanks for your input.

[castellan]

There's a legacy nationals? Where? When?

Sorry, should've made myself clear. It's in Brazil (http://eternalmagic.com.br/2017/10/nl2017-33-dias-para-o-maior-legacy-do-brasil/).

[Darkness]

Sorry, should've made myself clear. It's in Brazil (http://eternalmagic.com.br/2017/10/nl2017-33-dias-para-o-maior-legacy-do-brasil/).

You killed my dreams. Call the police and turn yourself in, murderer!

[castellan]

You killed my dreams. Call the police and turn yourself in, murderer!

Considering the place you can go ahead and leave 911 in speed dial :laugh:

[castellan]

Hey there y'all,

Another night, another tourny, not so good this time. Only 2-2.

Round 1: Stoneblade (0-2)

Game 1: I win the roll and have a combo hand ready to go - Unmask myself, discard Grave Titan, Reanimate it. I pass the turn, he plowshares my Titan. Soon after, he Snapcaster-blocks one of the tokens and Plowshares the others. Then, Batterskull, Jitte...can't say I didn't see it coming.

Game 2: I open with a combo that gets Surgical, I follow with a Marit Lage that gets bounced, then Rest In Piece nails my coffin. Sigh.

Comments: my new sideboard plan includes praying to whatever God you believe in, and if you happen to lose, find a new God.

Round 2: Elves (2-0)

Game 1: Marit Lage turn 1 - Depths, Lotus Petal, Ritual, Hexmage and he only has a Deathrite in play. Nothing to see here ;)

Game 2: He goes crazy turn 2, with a Glimpse of Nature and something like 14 elves on the board (could swing for lethal next turn, as they were nearly all just casted), and my only hope was to topdeck an Exhume or Reanimate, since I had sadly drawn my Elesh Norn and would have to discard it. Gods failing me in the first match, I pray to no one in my draw step but end up finding my Reanimate - I Thoughtseize myself, Elesh Norn in the grave, Elesh Norn in the field. All those green bastards are dead, he sticks nothing after my turn, and I end up killing him with my Elesh + his own Craterhoof Behemoth, which I managed to discard and reanimate.

Comments: If you stick an Iona for green on time its game, if you're too late just bring in Elesh, otherwise go crazy on Marit Lage early...it's hard to lose, easy match. There'd have to be unfair amounts of bad luck involved.

Round 3: Elves (0-2)

Game 1: I mull to six, five, four, three and stop because it won't get any better. I just watch him do his things and the green motherfuckers get a karma revenge win for the team whilst I do nothing, dead draw after dead draw.

Game 2: I feel like setting fire to my deck, mulling to four once again and stopping thanks to a single decent card (Pithing Needle), albeit with no mana source. "Nah, I'll draw it later on, I'm sure!". Man, never think that because 'later on' ain't gonna come. Once again, my opponent kinda just stares at me and does his thing as maybe he still didn't knew what he was playing against.

Comments: Remember that unfair amount of bad luck? Yeah.

Game 4: Burn (2-0)

Game 1: I start at 17 and drop to 8 after reanimating Iona, but getting to say "Iona. Red." is worth it. We're a total of 12 seconds into the round.

Game 2: I open with a stupid, stupid hand that I wish I could see more of. Depths, Petal, Ritual, Ritual, Entomb, Reanimate, Hexmage. Pulling off Marit Lage + Iona turn 1 is what I play this deck for. He laughs and says 'I'm not even mad, this is amazing'.

Comments: I'd say burn is easy and to lose you'd have to have unfair amounts of bad luck involved, but that might jinx my next Burn match so I'll just shut up.

All and all, it was a mediocre night with no interesting plays. I have no idea how many people still look into this deck and I know that in my city (even country) meta I might be the only one playing it, but so far I'm happy with how things turns out in average. At least the deck gave me loads of store credit so far ;)

[Ultrab77]

Just finished another league 4-1. I have been doing quite well online and at the LGS with my list.

Won vs BR Reanimator, D&T, Lands, UW Stoneblade. Lost to... Mr Ewlandon in the mirror!

BR Reanimator (2-1)
G1 I got T1 Iona'd on black (played a swamp on the play)
G2 ML gets him
G3 I keep a no lander with Leyline. He never recovers.

Mirror (Ewlandon)
G1 I misplayed but managed to kill him with ML after a long and grindy game
G2 I have T1 ML in hand, but I'm on the play and he has T1 Iona. It's better.
G3 We both make ML and I have Leyline, but 1 turn before I can cast my Titan he discards and reanimates it... too bad

Anyway it was great to play vs the sensei and creator of the deck.

D&t played by MALIMUJO
G1 He doesn't know I play ritual and tries to revoker my thespian stage while I have DD, TS and Swamp in play.
G2 Karakas slows me down, he exiles a Titan but I finally needle Karakas, draw dread of night and win

Lands
G1 I got ML'd quickly
G2 T2 Griselbrand does it (he then drops ML but I can get a Tidespout Tyrant into play)
G3 he bogs me but I managed to drop a ML with unread dark ritual :)

This is a very grindy matchup but we can attack from more angles

UWb Stoneblade
G1 T2 ML
G2 discard council's judgement, discard supreme verdict, drop ML, gg

Overall I still love this deck. You can go the unfair way or the fair way with the Titans vs D&T or Delver.

I'm gonna try the Helm's combo to have a 3rd out after SB.

List:

4 DD
4 TS
4 Urborg
1 Lake of the Dead
9 Swamp

2 Grave Titan
1 Griselbrand
1 Iona
4 Vampire Hexmage

3 Beseech the Queen (still not 100% convinced)
3 Collective Brutality
3 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize (or 4 Unmask depends)
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Pithing Needle

SB
4 LotV
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Duress
1 Grave Titan
1 Lake of the Dead
1 Dread of Night
1 Tidespout Tyrant
2 Pithing Needle

[DNSolver]

You can't Revoker Thespian's Stage.

[Ultrab77]

You can't Revoker Thespian's Stage.

You’re correct, I’ll look at the replay because I don’t have the details in head right know.

EDIT: so it was the play and he had Thalia in hand so I’m sure he missed it also. Anyway I’m not great vs D&T usually but the matchup is better than for Turbo Depths!

[castellan]

I've seen some SB to include 4x Leyline of the Void and 4x Helm Of Obedience for a third/unexpected combo. The user argued that it was yet another angle of attack which was more efficient than trying to board countermeasures for G2/G3 against some decks.

I've tried it out with reasonable success, however my sample space is not big enough to come into a reliable conclusion. If anyone has an insight to offer on the matter I'd be happy to hear it.

[hovercraft]

I've seen some SB to include 4x Leyline of the Void and 4x Helm Of Obedience for a third/unexpected combo. The user argued that it was yet another angle of attack which was more efficient than trying to board countermeasures for G2/G3 against some decks.

I've tried it out with reasonable success, however my sample space is not big enough to come into a reliable conclusion. If anyone has an insight to offer on the matter I'd be happy to hear it.

8 SB slots seems like a lot for a 3rd combo when you have no Brainstorm or Enlightened tutor to fetch the pieces. I do usually keep a miser's 1 Helm in my SB to bring in against Rest In Peace decks.

Went 2-0-1 with the Tin Fins-Depths style list this week. Beat UB Reanimator, RW Painter and tied Lands.

[Ultrab77]

8 SB slots seems like a lot for a 3rd combo when you have no Brainstorm or Enlightened tutor to fetch the pieces. I do usually keep a miser's 1 Helm in my SB to bring in against Rest In Peace decks.

Went 2-0-1 with the Tin Fins-Depths style list this week. Beat UB Reanimator, RW Painter and tied Lands.

Yes and you can tutor it with Beseech the Queen during a grindy game (vs Lands, Prison deck with Bridge on the board, D&T why not...)

I went 5-0 again last night, beat BUG, D&T, BUG again, Mono red prison, Belcher. Lost only 1 game in the league to Belcher, deck ran hot in the 3 first matches where I had turn 1 or turn 2 most of the time.

Edit: list https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/822482#paper

The most difficult game was vs Mono red, where he had a board with chalice on 2, blood moon x2, bridge x 2. I had a needle on Chandra, was able to land a Iona on red, to reanimate a Hexmage to kill his other Chandra while at 1 life, to reanimate a 2nd + hardcast Titan to kill him with Mage and Zombies.

I'm happy so far with main board and sideboard, I'm not sure if I want to bring in Elesh Norn for elves and what to cut for the Helm.

[hovercraft]

Yes and you can tutor it with Beseech the Queen during a grindy game (vs Lands, Prison deck with Bridge on the board, D&T why not...)

I went 5-0 again last night, beat BUG, D&T, BUG again, Mono red prison, Belcher. Lost only 1 game in the league to Belcher, deck ran hot in the 3 first matches where I had turn 1 or turn 2 most of the time.

The most difficult game was vs Mono red, where he had a board with chalice on 2, blood moon x2, bridge x 2. I had a needle on Chandra, was able to land a Iona on red, to reanimate a Hexmage to kill his other Chandra while at 1 life, to reanimate a 2nd + hardcast Titan to kill him with Mage and Zombies.

I'm happy so far with main board and sideboard, I'm not sure if I want to bring in Elesh Norn for elves and what to cut for the Helm.

Ah how do you find Beseech the queen? I haven't played with it before. Need 4 lands in play to find Helm or Leyline

Elelsh Norn is usually an auto win vs Elves if it resolves, I don't see why you wouldn't bring it in.

[Ultrab77]

Ah how do you find Beseech the queen? I haven't played with it before. Need 4 lands in play to find Helm or Leyline

Elelsh Norn is usually an auto win vs Elves if it resolves, I don't see why you wouldn't bring it in.

I meant I need something to cut for EleshNorn in my SB: Tidespout Tyrant?

Beseech the Queen is often boarded out, especially vs combo.

But you always get the 2 lands for Hexmage, reanimation or else (needle, dread of night, rite of consumption...)

In grindy matchups you will have the land count anyway for helm or you should not play the Helm combo.

[malekith]

Dear friends of The Source,
I'm returning to play MTG after a long, long time. After a period of updating and buys I have prepared some legacy decks and I will try one in a local shop legacy tournament in about two weeks.
Initially I was ready to try a BG Dark Depths deck, with the classic list but including Living Wish but I note the metagame will be full of big guys with some Eldrazis decks. D&T Elves S&S and even BR Reanimator
with this meta I'm considering change to a BG Reanimator Depths including also Living Wish, something like the list recommended by the user filln in this thread (with 3 abrupt decay in the sideboard) but including 2 x Griselbrand or my last option, to play BW Reanimator Depths.

I will be a total surprise at less in G1, because nobody knows my deck.
what do you think will be more competitive? pure DD, BG reanimator depth or BW reanimator depth?
and if I go with a Reanimator list, how and when can I use Griselbrand's ability without Children? and how can I protect Marit Lage or must I include Rite of Consumtion with the token? Sorry if I ask too much quedtions and thanks in advance.

[castellan]

Dear friends of The Source,
I'm returning to play MTG after a long, long time. After a period of updating and buys I have prepared some legacy decks and I will try one in a local shop legacy tournament in about two weeks.
Initially I was ready to try a BG Dark Depths deck, with the classic list but including Living Wish but I note the metagame will be full of big guys with some Eldrazis decks. D&T Elves S&S and even BR Reanimator
with this meta I'm considering change to a BG Reanimator Depths including also Living Wish, something like the list recommended by the user filln in this thread (with 3 abrupt decay in the sideboard) but including 2 x Griselbrand or my last option, to play BW Reanimator Depths.

I will be a total surprise at less in G1, because nobody knows my deck.
what do you think will be more competitive? pure DD, BG reanimator depth or BW reanimator depth?
and if I go with a Reanimator list, how and when can I use Griselbrand's ability without Children? and how can I protect Marit Lage or must I include Rite of Consumtion with the token? Sorry if I ask too much quedtions and thanks in advance.

Hey there buddy, here's my 10 cents:

I'd choose BW Reanimator Depths. I still have people tilting hard when they see me cast an Entomb with Dark Depths in play, the deck attacks from many angles and it's performing really well for me in my local meta. I've found that protecting Marit Lage barely ever works - in hard matches like New Miracles or Stoneblade they will - absolutely will - find another answer if you manage to, say, counter a StP with Not From This World. In said matches, throw Marit Lage to their faces and whilst they try to get rid of it try to put a Grave Titan into play. In my experience, however, I have about 10% WR against those decks and I don't even waste SB space with them anymore, I just roll with it.

About Griselbrand and when/how to use it, it's easier to say when NOT to use it. The answer for me is ALWAYS, except for:

- In decks with chances of finding an Edict (Either Diabolical or Liliana) Grave Titan is better;
- If I have to bring Iona against Storm, early Elves or Burn
- If Elesh Norn needs to wipe the board of Baldy tokens or similar;
- If someone managed to bring Marit Lage and Tidespout Tyrant needs to bounce it.

I think it's roughly the general rule. Also, when I Exhume it instead of Reanimate it, I usually draw 14 because I'm a greedy motherfucker but it's usually GG from there, as you'll mos def end up with Marit Lage and another fatty into play.

Edit: clarity

[castellan]

Hey everyone,

I know that Sire Of Insanity is a BR Reanimator staple, but how could that work out for us? I feel like a T1 Sire against decks such as Lands and any combo should be very favorable.

[DNSolver]

If you Sire vs Lands on the draw, you lose. If you Sire vs Lands on the play, if they draw Maze of Ith, or Land then Crop Rot for Maze, you lose.

[castellan]

If you Sire vs Lands on the draw, you lose. If you Sire vs Lands on the play, if they draw Maze of Ith, or Land then Crop Rot for Maze, you lose.

Indeed, but ain't it worth the bet on the play tho? What would you rather do? Dunno man, I'm still tilted from my last loss to lands.

[Whitefaces]

Indeed, but ain't it worth the bet on the play tho? What would you rather do? Dunno man, I'm still tilted from my last loss to lands.

Get Griselbrand, draw 14 cards. Karakas and Mazes can be frustrating, just try and disrupt them enough to stop that as fast as possible, maybe play a md Needle to Beseech for.

[castellan]

Heyo everyone, came back from Nationals this weekend, got home with a 5-3. Had it been a 6-2, I'd have made day 2. Overall I'm quite satisfied with the results, considering: 1) my whole deck costs about ~2 Volcanic Island; 2) I've made a lot of mistakes that could have been prevented if I paid more attention and got anxiety under control. Anyway:

Round 1: Storm (2-0) 1-0 Overall

Game 1: He wins the roll and goes off turn 1, storm count ~10 but fails to find anything useful. He passes and he knows he lost. I Iona for black and he scoops.

Game 2: Iona for black and nothing happens.

Round 2: Stiflenought (2-0) 2-0 Overall

Game 1: I win the roll and Exhume a Griselbrand, draw 7, a few Rituals and Petals later I put a Grave Titan into play as well. He probes, fetches, finds no answers and I swing for 17 the following turn.

Game 2: Phyrexian Dreadnought is big, Marit Lage is bigger. I'm down to 8 but he's down to 0.

Round 3: UR Delver (1-2) 2-1 Overall

Game 1: I'm on the draw and have black mana, Griselbrand, Reanimate and Depths in hand, however no Entomb. He plays a Delver, I draw and pass, EoT discarding a Griselbrand to the yard. He visibly goes 'well shit...', Ponders and Brainstorms his whole hand, swings for 1 and passes. I Reanimate Griselbrand and it's GG.

Game 2: I mull to 3 to find anything besides black mana and nothing but black mana, I'm out of gas when he Flusterstorm my only plan and he swings with lil' dudes til I'm very very dead.

Game 3: I committed a fatal mistake here. Usually with Delver decks post G1 I try to not rely on Reanimate to win, if I do I'd only move forward having Duress or Seize first, however I mulled to 4 and he mulled to 3, so I said 'fuck this' and went for it. I Entomb a Griselbrand and pass, he Brainstorms and passes, but in my turn I forgot to add black mana from Urborg before playing the second Urborg so I could have mana to Exhume Griselbrand. I had both Urborgs in play untapped. I looked at my board, at my opponent, we both started laughing and he said 'well you shat your pants there right?' 'yeah, hard.'. I sac my Urborg, pass, he finally finds a Surgical and soon after I'm dead. Idiot storm count: 1

Round 4: Belcher (1-2) 3-1 Overall

Game 1: I win the roll and Marit Lage him turn 1, with 2x Petal and Hexmage. He tries to Belcher me but fails to find his LED.

Game 2: He keeps a hand full of potential Goblins and I keep a hand that would give me Elesh Norn T1, so I think I'm ok. He empties his hand and puts 18 Goblins into play. I shrug it off and cast Entomb, whilst holding a sexy Petal + Reanimate in hand. I go through my deck three times before realizing I forgot to board Elesh Norn in. Idiot storm count: 2

Game 3: Open with a Marit Lage turn 1 again, but this time I also had Unmask. I take out his only way of going off Turn 1 and he says he's going home.

Round 5: Splinter Twin (2-0) 4-1 Overall

Game 1: He plays Volcanic - Ponder and passes, I play Depths and pass back, he plays Tomb and with Griselbrand in my hand I think I'm going against Sneak & Tell, I'm happy because 14 draws from my Griselbrand usually ends up with a board full enough to overcome anything. However, he passes the turn and in my upkeep he plays Pestermite. Wat. I play Stage, Petal and Ritual, bringing Marit Lage. He finds no answer and he's dead soon after.

Game 2: He mulls to 4 to find a land and after that he floods hard. He actually does nothing while I bring fatties into play and he scoops soon after.

Round 6: BR Reanimator (2-0) 5-1 Overall

Game 1: I'm on the play and Exhume Griselbrand. Being a greedy motherfucker, I draw 14 and Unmask him to see what I'm going against, and find a hand full of big creatures. He had a Chancellor of the Annex but failed to reveal. I discard it, reanimate it and he scoops.

Game 2: With Faithless Loothing he puts two creatures in his graveyard T1, and when he tries to Reanimate one I pitch Faerie Macabre and remove both from the game. And this game is the most fun I had all weekend, because things got WEIRD from there. I Entomb a Griselbrand and he Surgical it. He Entombs his Griselbrand and I Surgical it. As the turns progressed we continuously Unmasked and Seized each other, taking away all reanimation spells we found, until I finally found a Depths. I laugh and say 'well buddy you have a 10-turn clock', which is exactly what ended up happening. I manually start removing Ice counters, by counter 5 we had Reanimated each other's Faerie Macabre from our Graveyards, and people started gathering around to see what the holy fuck was going on. After 84 years I remove the last Ice counter, swing for 20, he chumps with the Faerie, and I win the following turn. What the hell.

Round 7: UW Miracles (1-2) 5-2 Overall

Game 1: I win the roll and keep a hand that screams 'Marit Lage' - Depths, Hexmage, Petal, Ritual, Reanimate, Reanimate, Reanimate. I play Depths, Petal, Ritual and Hexmage T1, he FoW's the Hexmage, I Reanimate it, he FoW's it. Following turn I draw an Urborg, Reanimate it, he counters, Reanimate it again, he goes 'dude!' and I swing for 20 soon after.

Game 2: Miracles does the Miracles thingy in which nothing happens and I lose.

Game 2: Miracles does the Miracles thingy in which nothing happens and I lose.

Round 8: Moon Stompy (1-2) 5-3 Overall

Game 1: He opens with Ancient Tomb, Pitches a Simian Spirit Guide and lands a Trinisphere. I think 'well I can still combo out with lands', but the following turn he drops a Blood Moon. I just stare at the board until I'm very dead.

Game 2: I open with Marit Lage turn 1, he draws a card and says 'game 3', but not without showing me his hand - Surgical, Faerie Macabre, Ensnaring Bridge, Ancient Tomb but no Spirit Guide to pitch. Lucky me.

Game 3: He opens with Chalice for 1 and it foils my Griselbrand plan, I topdeck a way to Marit Lage and pass back, to which he responds with Bridge, followed by Moon, followed by Chandra. He pings me for 2 until I'm dead.

I think I recalled the important stuff correctly, and I can safely say that I still love the deck however it will lose to itself sometimes due to the inevitability of variance. It's important to notice that an idiot storm count 2 is too high for an event like this and I even though I can't get mad at variance I can get mad at myself for committing such gruesome mistakes. Fun event tho, 10/10 would attend again.

[chaosjace]

Just took this deck to an event, went 1-4. 13 hands with no mana sources all night (had 25 in the deck), the couple games I won was off turn one reanimation target.
The deck mulligans really well, several times I went down to 5 and saw Depths, Stage and Urborg.
Round 1 vs Infect
Game 1 turn 1 Griselbrand wins.
Game 2 Wasteland gets him the win on turn 2.
Game 3 Marit Lage early wins.

Round 2 Vs Delver
Game 1 Mull to 5, Opponent opens with DRS, can't recover.
Game 2 mull to 5, wasteland gets him far enough ahead I can't recover.

Round 3 VS Sneak and Show
Game 1 I get depths, Hexmage gets countered, next turn I have 2 reanimate, they get countered. Next turn they show and tell griselbrand, I have nothing, then top deck griselbrand and concede
Game 2 Mull to 5, Turn 3 Lage wins it
Game 3 mull to 5 I set up combo by turn 3 pass, they have sneak attack out and Emmy in hand.

Round 4 Vs Death and Taxes
Game 1 Mull to 4, have nothing, lose to beats.
Game 2 Mull, Turn 1 Elesh Norn gets me a win.
Game 3 Mull to 5, long game where I turn 1 Engineered Plague on human, they find non humans, I reanimate Elesh to wipe his board, it gets path'd, draw nothing for the rest of the game.

Round 5 VS Eldrazi Post
Game 1 Mull to 5, Wasteland keeps me off Depths plan, turn 2 thought knot seer, die to beats.
Game 2 I double Lotus petal, Dark Depths and Hexmage,
Game 3 goes long when he drops Ensnaring Bridge after I get griselbrand, I cast 2 titans and beat him to 6 with 2/2s, Only 3 Collective Brutality in the deck, by the time he casts Ulamog neither of us can do anything. Draw go until he is set up to destroy my hexmage and Ugin for the win. (note to self: I should have boarded in Tidespout or Helm)



I still like the decks explosive starts, I will continue testing with it since I just had incredibly unlucky draws.

[ChrisDissent]

Heyo everyone, came back from Nationals this weekend, got home with a 5-3. Had it been a 6-2, I'd have made day 2. Overall I'm quite satisfied with the results, considering: 1) my whole deck costs about ~2 Volcanic Island; 2) I've made a lot of mistakes that could have been prevented if I paid more attention and got anxiety under control

Thx for the report. Can you share your list pls ?

[castellan]

Thx for the report. Can you share your list pls ?

Hey! You're welcome ;) Here's the decklist (https://imgur.com/4dXeaC7).

[Ingo]

Castellan, how often did hardcasting Titan (or Grisel) win you the game (with or without Lake)? I did read your reports - thanks for sharing by the way -, but I don't think I recall such hardcasts.

[castellan]

Castellan, how often did hardcasting Titan (or Grisel) win you the game (with or without Lake)? I did read your reports - thanks for sharing by the way -, but I don't think I recall such hardcasts.

Not so much lately, and mos def not at last Nationals. Usually it happens when the only answer our opponents find in their SB for G2/G3 is Leyline or Cage. If they haven't seen Lake or even Urborg they will usually drop a Leyline/Cage, lay back and think they already won, and that's when it happens - T3 Grave Titan can really catch them off guard. Lake of the Dead is the card that gets the most 'wait, what?' looks in the deck.

[darker3030]

Hi All,

I've been playtesting this deck a little using collective brutality, and was wondering if anyone had tested both it and unmask. I could be wrong, but I get the sense that collective brutality skews a little grindier as it costs more (usually) and is more of a tool kit. How does that affect the decisions about what hands to keep? Does having collective brutality with a discard option make more hands keepable? I know you can unmask yourself, but that's even worse than thoughtseizing yourself.

Thanks for all for the detailed reporting!

[darker3030]

Hi All,

I've been playtesting this deck a little using collective brutality, and was wondering if anyone had tested both it and unmask. I could be wrong, but I get the sense that collective brutality skews a little grindier as it costs more (usually) and is more of a tool kit. How does that affect the decisions about what hands to keep? Does having collective brutality with a discard option make more hands keepable? I know you can unmask yourself, but that's even worse than thoughtseizing yourself.

Thanks for all for the detailed reporting!

Sry, didn't mean using both unmask and collective brutality together in the same decklist, just two similar decklists with just substituting one for the other

[Evilpurplemonkey]

Hi All,

I've been playtesting this deck a little using collective brutality, and was wondering if anyone had tested both it and unmask. I could be wrong, but I get the sense that collective brutality skews a little grindier as it costs more (usually) and is more of a tool kit. How does that affect the decisions about what hands to keep? Does having collective brutality with a discard option make more hands keepable? I know you can unmask yourself, but that's even worse than thoughtseizing yourself.

Thanks for all for the detailed reporting!Collective brutality is a fairly important improvement to the deck. Costing two can be limiting, since it sometimes slows you down, but it does double duty letting you both discard your self and discard something from your opponent, getting rid of a possible counter spell or removal. On top of that, it has the added benefit of the rest of it's toolbox kit, possibly killing a deathrite or any white hate bears, or possibly gaining you the extra two life for an additional Griseldaddy activation.

The real question you usually want to look at for your hand disruption is unmask vs. thoughtsieze. Unmask is more explosive, but thoughtsieze is better card advantage in grindy matchups. I have personally been running 3 CoBru, 3 unmask and 2 thoughtsieze in the main with an additional CoBru and a thoughtsieze in the side, but the mix is probably a meta choice/personal preference. Do you want to have more explosive hands and risk it all or do you want to keep card advantage for slower games.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[darker3030]

I see your point that the choice is between thoughtseize and unmask and not between unmask and collective brutality. I think I'm just gonna find as many different match-ups as I can (which I try to do anyway) using thoughtseize before comparing it to unmask. So far I've only been jamming games against eldrazi, elves, delver and infect.

[Ultrab77]

Hi, I find the Miracles matchup unplayable. Any tips or advice to beat them?

EDIT: my current plan is to board out 4 petals, 4 rituals, 1 Griselbrand, 1 Urborg and 1 swamp and board in 4 Leylines, 1 Helm, 2 Pack Rats, 2 Duress, 2 needles

[Mattskones]

does anyone know who was playing this at GPSC? Was wondering if anyone knows what their list was.

[castellan]

Hi, I find the Miracles matchup unplayable. Any tips or advice to beat them?

EDIT: my current plan is to board out 4 petals, 4 rituals, 1 Griselbrand, 1 Urborg and 1 swamp and board in 4 Leylines, 1 Helm, 2 Pack Rats, 2 Duress, 2 needles

Pray, and if that doesn't work find a new God.

Seriously, Miracles matchup = bye. I've won about 9% of the times.

[Ultrab77]

does anyone know who was playing this at GPSC? Was wondering if anyone knows what their list was.

The guy is Jeremy Bowers with 2 feature matches here (two losses lol)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/216345278

No idea about the list but BW looking at the fetches

[Ewlandon]

The guy is Jeremy Bowers with 2 feature matches here (two losses lol)

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/216345278

No idea about the list but BW looking at the fetches

Think it might be time for this to be moved to established decks. :smile:

[p01ng]

Hey all,

I ran this at our weekly yesterday:


Creatures (10)
4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Grave Titan
2 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

Spells (24)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
3 Thoughtseize
3 Collective Brutality
4 Exhume
2 Unmask

Artifacts (4)
4 Lotus Petal

Lands (22)
4 Dark Depths
1 Lake of the Dead
9 Swamp
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sideboard (15)
1 Coffin Purge
2 Dread of Night
2 Duress
4 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Tidespout Tyrant


Unfortunately only went 1-2, but I had fun with the deck!

R1 v. Grixis Delver
G1: I go Urborg -> Dark Rit which he Forces. T2 I Drop DD and play Hexmage. He flips Delver and passes, I make a spaghetti monster. He chumps then concedes next turn.
G2: Similar plays, but I strip his only threat (Delver) from his hand, then go for Hexmage next turn, which he counters. I reanimate her and he is thoroughly confused at this point. Make the spaghetti monster, which gets killed via Edict when I go to reanimate Hexmage a second time. Drop second Depths and EoT make another token. He digs with 2x Ponder and Brainstorm and finds Edict #2. I reanimate Hexmage for a third time and start the beats. He lands a YP then Probes + Therapies me seeing Griselbrand, Iona and Lake of the Dead. He takes Griselbrand so I can't hard cast down the road (which I'm not sure is correct). I end up hitting him to 7 with the Hexmage then hard cast the second Griselbrand with Lake, Petal, and some lands. GG.

R2 v. Miracles
G1: Lose the die roll. He plays fetchland and passes. I have a T2 Lage potential so I go Urborg -> Dark Rit, he Brainstorms and lets it resolve. I play a bait Entomb, which he lets resolve then Force the Hexmage (he knows I play BG Depths so maybe the Urborg was a giveaway and he had more interaction for graveyard shenanigans?). I proceed to draw redundant Depths so I go into manual tick down mode while he casts Jace and starts fate sealing. He hit it on the right turn because he only threw reanimate spells to the bottom of my library and I only drew lands (we had a good laugh at that). I get DD down to 1 counter and am ready to kill him (after he ulted Jace) then he drops Karakas on his very last turn... Damn!
G2: I entomb Iona and she gets surgicaled. He drops Jace and I never find another Entomb or fatty for the two CoBrus I drew to go with my three reanimate spells. GG. (I drew a lot of lands that match haha.)

R3 v. Elves
G1: I T1 Iona and name green because I know he's on Elves and he scoops.
G2: I keep a hand with 2 Entomb 2 Reanimate 2 Hexmage, Swamp and Urborg (?). He leads on Deathrite, I play Swamp and pass. He proceeds to Therapy me taking Entomb, plays a Symbiote, flashbacks Therapy and strips the Hexmages. I get killed by Deathrites because I drew... More lands... (Also punted and didn't reanimate a Hexmage when the one Deathrite was tapped out, but at least it didn't matter due to my dead draws.)
G3: I keep a loose hand with T1 reanimate and go for it. I get surgicaled and can't recover. He shows me two therapies he had in his opener as well. I think I should have mulliganed harder for DD combo here since he was probably packing more hate for the Reanimator side of the dead. Ah well!

I'll absolutely be running this one again, even if only for the confused looks. Definitely would like some games where I didn't flood as much, but thems the breaks from time to time.

[PeterSouth]

Anyone got information (deck list, etc) on the reanimator depths deck that made day two Worcester last weekend?

[Ultrab77]

Nope, but I’d like to see that! The deck is so inconsistent that it’s often more like an all-in choice for tournaments.

[Ultrab77]

So a tin fins depths with burning wish made Top 16 of the GP.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpsea18-legacy/9-16-decklists-2018-04-07

Bayou + wish allows to play Safekeeper and Reclamation Sage in the side, I like it.

I still feel more inclined to play the Titan version, but I’ll test BW for sure.

[Jblinder]

So a tin fins depths with burning wish made Top 16 of the GP.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpsea18-legacy/9-16-decklists-2018-04-07

Bayou + wish allows to play Safekeeper and Reclamation Sage in the side, I like it.

I still feel more inclined to play the Titan version, but I’ll test BW for sure.

Matt Nass played my list from this CFB article. https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/deck-of-the-day-tin-fins-depths-legacy/

I also played the gp and started 6-0 with no byes, but scrubbed out at 7-5 drop.

It’s funny that you mentioned safekeeper and reclamation sage, as those are the two wish targets I’ve since cut. At the Gp I replaced those with Necrotic Ooze and sejiri steppe. Necrotic ooze is a slam dunk. You wish for him when griselbrand is needled or you have a silent gravestone in play post board do retainers won’t work. I’ve also gone off turn 3 through a grafdiggers cage by casting wish, sacrificing two leds, casting ooze and finishing the labman chain. He will be a staple going forward.

Reclamation sage was not good, and was an experiment in that list that I happened to 5-0 a league with (as was cabal therapy and only 3 living wish—4 thoughtseize 1 unmask 4 living wish 0 therapy has been performing best). I talked with Matt at the gp and he agreed sage wasn’t good. The reason is because chalice on 1 isn’t scary for this deck, as there are still many ways to get the combo going without entomb...then if you need to you can hexmage the chalice to zero mid-combo after playing as many leds and petals that you can. Frequently you can even fully combo with a labman finish without ever dealing with the Chalice on 1. Ensnaring bridge isn’t really scary because Laboratory maniac doesn’t care about attacking. Sphere of resistance and early chalice on 0 are problematic, and wishing for Rec sage is way too slow to deal with either. Hitting a blood moon with a zero counter dark depths would be cute, but never happened to me or Matt, and the dragon stompy matchUp is already favorable.

Safekeeper was a staple in my board for a really long time...she may belong, although was only instrumental in 3 game wins in 190 matches where I had her in my board (I keep track of wish targets).

Steppe has won me some games against Aluren and Czech where they setup baleful plus Jace to deal with Marit Lage or just infinite harpy blocks from Aluren. It’s pretty marginal though.

I’m thinking about cutting more wish targets though for 2 nature’s claim. Probably better than decay since the big threats are sphere and chalice on 0 (and leyline), and costing 1 matters a lot, esp against sphere.

[Ultrab77]

Matt Nass played my list from this CFB article. https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/deck-of-the-day-tin-fins-depths-legacy/

I also played the gp and started 6-0 with no byes, but scrubbed out at 7-5 drop.

It’s funny that you mentioned safekeeper and reclamation sage, as those are the two wish targets I’ve since cut. At the Gp I replaced those with Necrotic Ooze and sejiri steppe. Necrotic ooze is a slam dunk. You wish for him when griselbrand is needled or you have a silent gravestone in play post board do retainers won’t work. I’ve also gone off turn 3 through a grafdiggers cage by casting wish, sacrificing two leds, casting ooze and finishing the labman chain. He will be a staple going forward.

Reclamation sage was not good, and was an experiment in that list that I happened to 5-0 a league with (as was cabal therapy and only 3 living wish—4 thoughtseize 1 unmask 4 living wish 0 therapy has been performing best). I talked with Matt at the gp and he agreed sage wasn’t good. The reason is because chalice on 1 isn’t scary for this deck, as there are still many ways to get the combo going without entomb...then if you need to you can hexmage the chalice to zero mid-combo after playing as many leds and petals that you can. Frequently you can even fully combo with a labman finish without ever dealing with the Chalice on 1. Ensnaring bridge isn’t really scary because Laboratory maniac doesn’t care about attacking. Sphere of resistance and early chalice on 0 are problematic, and wishing for Rec sage is way too slow to deal with either. Hitting a blood moon with a zero counter dark depths would be cute, but never happened to me or Matt, and the dragon stompy matchUp is already favorable.

Safekeeper was a staple in my board for a really long time...she may belong, although was only instrumental in 3 game wins in 190 matches where I had her in my board (I keep track of wish targets).

Steppe has won me some games against Aluren and Czech where they setup baleful plus Jace to deal with Marit Lage or just infinite harpy blocks from Aluren. It’s pretty marginal though.

I’m thinking about cutting more wish targets though for 2 nature’s claim. Probably better than decay since the big threats are sphere and chalice on 0 (and leyline), and costing 1 matters a lot, esp against sphere.

How were the Silent Gravestones? I’m considering playing a 3/3 Needle / Gravestone for the Delver matchup. SG can also be interesting for Lands or Reanimator.

Possible SB
3 Needle
3 Silent Gravestone
1 DD
1 TS
1 Hexmage
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Krosan Grip (or 1 + 1 Iona)

[Jblinder]

How were the Silent Gravestones? I’m considering playing a 3/3 Needle / Gravestone for the Delver matchup. SG can also be interesting for Lands or Reanimator.

Possible SB
3 Needle
3 Silent Gravestone
1 DD
1 TS
1 Hexmage
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Krosan Grip (or 1 + 1 Iona)

Silent gravestone is great. It stops DRS, Surgical and snapcaster, and yes it’s a house against reanimator.

I’m not sure if you’re doing the same maindeck, but if you are the sb you suggest is missing some key cards. Namely a win condition for when you draw your whole deck in Laboratory Maniac. That is how the deck wins when you get Griselbrand online, and is the point of the children of korlis in the main (and one should also be in the board).

Griselbrand should be in the board. Consider this hand: land, lotus petal, dark ritual, living wish, lions eye, exhume: you cast ritual, cast wish for griselbrand. Play led, cast exhume sacrificing LED in response and win turn 1. Wishing for griselbrand when you have LED is a common line of play.

Loyal retainers must be in the board. Cast living wish, respond by cracking LED for WWW discarding Griselbrand, cast loyal retainers. Reanimation from the sb is a key component to this deck. Necrotic ooze is a pseudo loyal retainers for when you have gravestone in play or they have a needle or spyglass naming griselbrand. Ooze also belongs.

Iona and tidespout are not great here, since neither really work with shallow grave. And if you’re running reanimate and not shallow grave, silent gravestone isn’t going to be good. The living wish tin fins deck is different than reanimator depths, and you can’t really mix and match stuff that might be good in the other version.

Krosan grip is too slow. At that point you might as well play Rec sage since you can at least wish for it.

[ashent]

Hi all-

What are the Pithing Needles in the sb for? What are decks that this is coming in for (as these are not accessible via Wish) and what are the targets? I'm only thinking of DRS, which we are bringing in 3x Silent Gravestones for.?

[ashent]

Also I've been testing this deck a bit on XMage and the first time I had to Shallow Grave + crack an LED in response, Shallow Grave hit Children of Korlis instead of Griselbrand because you can't pick the gy order. What are we supposed to do here? I heard it was broken on MODO also. Is there some way to fix this? Is it just random or is it possibly affected by order of cards in your hand at the time? I'll test more.. but that was a won game that I had to concede, annoyingly.

[Jblinder]

Hi all-

What are the Pithing Needles in the sb for? What are decks that this is coming in for (as these are not accessible via Wish) and what are the targets? I'm only thinking of DRS, which we are bringing in 3x Silent Gravestones for.?

Needle on wasteland is excellent vs the delver decks who are otherwise soft to Marit Lage. Playing just one is reasonable. Backup to name drs when no gravestone in sight. They also come in vs lands and can name lots of stuff depending on game state, but it’s very hard to beat active Karakas if the land a sphere of resistance.

I’m down to 1 needle but wouldn’t go to 0.

[Jblinder]

Also I've been testing this deck a bit on XMage and the first time I had to Shallow Grave + crack an LED in response, Shallow Grave hit Children of Korlis instead of Griselbrand because you can't pick the gy order. What are we supposed to do here? I heard it was broken on MODO also. Is there some way to fix this? Is it just random or is it possibly affected by order of cards in your hand at the time? I'll test more.. but that was a won game that I had to concede, annoyingly.


Yeah there is no way around the bug on modo. Apparently it’s last card drawn on top. Since you can undo an led activation I usually just test it out first to make sure the correct card is on top. If I’m getting griselbrand I’ll undo and cast shallow, if not I’ll take some suboptimal line and file for reimbursement if I lose. It sucks.

Fix is prob right around the corner since they’ve only known about the issue for over a year...

[ashent]

So before I started testing this version, I had looked at the deck list and seen that the Lab Man was in the sb and was like ok that's cute, but didn't really assume it was the main win con. After testing the deck, it seems it is Plan A! During the testing, I also found that many times just drawing a Tendrils out of the deck would have been a cleaner/earlier kill and doesn't require as much set up as looping Children of Korlis, killing naturally after an attack step with Gris and a few rituals or petals cast. Is there any reason we can't fit a single Tendrils into the md?

Correct me if I'm missing something but it seems like the list I've been playing has these wins:

A: griselbrand -> draw a lot of cards, make a lot of mana, loop children of korlis, living wish for labman, draw last card in deck
B: marit lage
C: attack someone with griselbrand?

[kombatkiwi]

So before I started testing this version, I had looked at the deck list and seen that the Lab Man was in the sb and was like ok that's cute, but didn't really assume it was the main win con. After testing the deck, it seems it is Plan A! During the testing, I also found that many times just drawing a Tendrils out of the deck would have been a cleaner/earlier kill and doesn't require as much set up as looping Children of Korlis, killing naturally after an attack step with Gris and a few rituals or petals cast. Is there any reason we can't fit a single Tendrils into the md?

Correct me if I'm missing something but it seems like the list I've been playing has these wins:

A: griselbrand -> draw a lot of cards, make a lot of mana, loop children of korlis, living wish for labman, draw last card in deck
B: marit lage
C: attack someone with griselbrand?

The problem with playing a card like Tendrils maindeck in TinFins decks is that it's a total brick unless you're going off, and if you're going off then you should have already won anyway.
If you have 'an attack step with Gris and a few petals cast' are you really struggling to draw your whole deck? In these situations would you even be able to reliably find 1 copy of Tendrils?
Any card you cut for it will be something that helps you to set up the combo (Mana or a combo piece or disruption) so you need a reason TO play it, rather than a reason that you can't play it

[Th35warm]

Anyone got information (deck list, etc) on the reanimator depths deck that made day two Worcester last weekend?

Oh, hey - that would be me! Sorry I missed this post for a while. I piloted the deck to a 10-5 finish, going 3-2 vs. tournament boogeyman Grixis Delver. Other losses were to miracles, OmniTell, and Esper Mentor. Notable wins were Czech Pile, BUG Delver, Nic Fit, Elves, and Eldrazi. I spent a lot of time reading the forum in prep for the event so a BIG thank you to everyone on here for sharing! I based my deck mainly from ewlandon/Bob Huang lists and splashed Andrew Philip’s Leyline/Helm combo sideboard plan:

Creatures
4 vampire hexmage
2 grave Titan
2 griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ashen Rider

Artifacts
4 lotus petal
1 chrome mox

Spells
4 dark ritual
4 entomb
4 exhume
3 reanimate
1 animate dead
1 unburial rites
4 thoughtseize
3 collective brutality

Lands (21)
4 depths
4 stage
3 Urborg
1 shizo, death’s storehouse
2 bloodstained mire
1 delta
1 verdant catacombs
3 swamp
1 scrubland
1 lake of the dead

Side:
1 duress
1 lost legacy
1 seal of cleansing
3 Pithing needle
1 surgical
1 Magister of Worth
3 Leyline of the void
1 helm of obedience
1 tidespout tyrant
1 dread of night
1 massacre

Following the event I acquired another surgical to add to the board and would consider swapping ashen rider for a third grave Titan, though having just two did feel consistently good. Pithing Needle is anazing and it’s worth considering a 4th. Magister of worth is serving in place of Elesh Norn but grabs bonus points versus an emrakul off of show and tell.

If you have questions or thoughts, let me know - I’m happy to discuss!

[castellan]

Side:
1 duress
1 lost legacy
1 seal of cleansing
3 Pithing needle
1 surgical
1 Magister of Worth
3 Leyline of the void
1 helm of obedience
1 tidespout tyrant
1 dread of night
1 massacre



Hey there, it's been a while since I've last posted myself, but this SB got me thinking.

- How do you feel about dedicating four slots to the helm/leyline combo? I have not played that combination myself but I thought about either going all in with 4 helm/4 leyline or not considering it at all. Standing in the middle seems inconsistent. Have you felt differently playing with the deck?

- Ashen Rider won me a few games but the third Grave Titan won me a lot more. Some lists just cannot deal with them. Have not considered Magister of Worth, tho. Why swapping one for another?

- Based on my last experiences on my LGS I'm trying out something of a 'transformational' sideboard. I used to have a SB full of singletons and they hardly did me any good in matchs in which hate would hammer down on g2/g3. Now, when I know it's gonna come down to faerie macabre/surgical extraction/DRS I board in 4 Shallow Grave and 4 Silent Gravestone, boarding out 4 Reanimate and 4 misc. depending on the match. Since Exhume and Shallow Grave doesn't target it renders their faeries, surgicals and DRS useless, besides shutting down snapcaster and messing around with other decks randomly. I only have a few games to account for on that transformation, but so far I managed to get a few 'dude what the fuck' so that's a good thing.

I'll keep y'all posted.

All hail marit lage.

[castellan]

Hey y'all,

Not that there's any attention and development to this deck nowadays but he still holds a dear place in my heart and I'll continue to play it. My last idea, tho, was really shitty and I wouldn't take it any further.

Now it's back to the drawing board in dedicating SB slots for Death & Taxes, and an Elesh maindeck in lieu of a third Grave Titan thanks to the high influx of Goblins we're about to see.

[fishermanpants]

I'm trying trying monoB variand with slightly enchanced Marit combo.
Map also can get you a Lake, so you have more outs in grindy postSB games.


Lands (21)
4 Dark Depths
1 Lake of the Dead
4 Swamp
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
Spells (28)
2 Collective Brutality
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
2 Expedition Map
4 Lotus Petal
4 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
Creatures (11)
1 Ashen Rider
3 Grave Titan
2 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Vampire Hexmage
Sideboard (15)
1 Bitterblossom
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread of Night
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Lake of the Dead
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
4 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Toxic Deluge

[castellan]

Hello everyone,

Coming back from the weekend with good results and really, really happy with my Sunday evening. 26 people event, first place! Here is my decklist.

4 Dark Depths
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Thespian’s Stage
2 Lake of the Dead
8 Swamp
4 Vampire Hexmage
2 Grave Titan
2 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Collective Brutality
2 Unmask
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Thoughtseize

SB:

3 Bitterblosom
2 Duress
2 Dread of Night
1 Massacre
1 Toxic Deluge
4 Pithing Needle
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Grave Titan

Round 1: High Tide (2-0)

Game 1: He wins the roll, drops an Island and says go. I’ve got a good hand but I don’t know what I’m up against, and fearing a Spell Pierce I just play a Swamp and pass the turn. He drops another Island, taps for a Search for Azcanta and passes back, probably thinking I’m maybe running an aggro mono black. I draw for the turn and go full-on ‘boy lemme learn u smth’ bringing Marit Lage and discarding both his High Tide from his hand. He has the mana for a Cunning Wish on his turn, but not enough to bounce Marit Lage now that he’s stripped of High Tide, and it’s game.

Game 2: I open a godly hand with full combo and discard for protection, and I think to myself ‘well if I draw a Duress I can protect myself from both Spell Pierce and FoW on the same turn’, and having the Gods by my side, after he drops his Island and passes the turn I draw a Duress. I discard him into oblivion and drop a Griselbrand with Exhume, he topdecks an Echoing Truth and bounces Daddy, but I draw 14 in response and he scoops. ‘I thought maybe you’d forget to activate in response to the bounce!’, he said. Not today buddy.

Round 2: BG Depths (2-0)

Game 1: he wins the roll and opens with Thoughtseize, and tilts hard as he sees my hand – Depths, Hexmage, Entomb, Exhume, Petal, Ritual… - stating that he’d never played against the deck before. He discards my Hexmage, I Exhume it and create a big bad interdimensional tentacle monster which he cannot answer.

Game 2: He opens with Marit Lage turn 1, smiles and says ‘go!’. I topdeck a Depths, Entomb for Hexmage and create a Marit Lage too. ‘Oh man come on’. He just drops another Depths and passes the turn. I drop a Needle for Karakas and from that point on nothing happens for a few turns, for neither of us can swing and he has no other outs on his deck. I eventually get two Grave Titan into play, Iona for Green, Griselbrand and swing for a bazillion damage.

Round 3: Burn (2-0)

Game 1: He drops a basic Mountain and a Goblin Guide, swinging and giving me a Swamp in the process. I cast Collective Brutality discarding Iona and taking out his Goblin Guide, discarding a Bolt and, realizing he has a monored deck with no splash for other colors, I bring Iona for red and he scoops.

Game 2: He mulls to 4, giving me the time I need to find a Depths and swing for 20. A walk in the park here.

Round 4: White Eldrazi (2-1)

Game 1: He wins the roll, opening with Karakas and Mox Diamond to cast Chalice for 1, soon followed by Eldrazi Displacer and Thought-Knot Seer, which takes out my Grave Titan. I’m really really dead, really really quick.

Game 2: I manage to get a turn 1 Grave Titan, which quickly gets out of hand and overwhelms his army of alien spaghetti. He has Karakas and his Displacer keeps killing the zombie tokens, but a second Grave Titan makes it too much.

Game 3: He mulls to 4 and I once again thank the Ice Gods for my hand, which is fairly brutal. I keep it, praying to not get Chalice’d for 1 on the first turn, and he just drops a Karakas and passes the turn. I happily cast Petal, Ritual, Hexmage and Needle for Karakas, drop a Depths and pass the turn. He casts an Eldrazi Displacer out of Karakas and Eldrazi Temple but has no mana to blink my token, which I create at his end step and swing for 20.

Round 5: Death and Taxes (ID)

We both shake hands, split the (fairly good) prizes and go home.

I prepared my SB accordingly to my expectations of facing more Goblins and D&T, and I ended up not facing either (D&T match was ID). I will surely be playing this deck next chance I get and I’ll write reports here for the eventual reader. I’m very happy with yesterday’s results and I can’t wait to play again.

[castellan]

I'm trying trying monoB variand with slightly enchanced Marit combo.
Map also can get you a Lake, so you have more outs in grindy postSB games.


Lands (21)
4 Dark Depths
1 Lake of the Dead
4 Swamp
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs


This manabase seems greedy. Has it been working out for you? 4 fetches without splash + Lake seems too narrow at mid/late game.

[DNSolver]

Castellan, I'm glad to see someone still playing this deck. I've been trying to get it to work. Could you post your sideboarding against those five matchups, and maybe some more common ones (Delver, Miracles) if you have time?

Also, BG Depths can easily beat your Marit Lage with Sejiri Steppe.

[castellan]

I'll play it forever, I'll only drop it if all key cards get hammered at once! I really love playing it and most people don't know how to play against it. Every now and then I get a free win because of it.

As for the sideboarding and other matchups: I've prepared my SB as best as I could foreseeing a huge explosion in D&T and Miracles. Whenever I play at different LGS my sideboard changes accordingly.

Round 1: High Tide

+2 Duress
-2 Grave Titan

Creatures doesn't matter in this match, stripping his resources out does. Extra points for Collective Brutality here, for acting both as a discard outlet and a hoser on his plan. If I could run like 8 of those I would.

Round 2: BG Depths

+4 Pithing Needle
+1 Tidespout Tyrant

-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Collective Brutality
-1 Lotus Petal
-1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
-1 Griselbrand

In this matchup I just trim a few things. Tidespout to bounce his Marit Lage or his lands so he doesn't even get to create the token, Needle for various things.

Round 3: Burn

+2 Duress
-2 Thoughtseize

Duress over seize for obvious reasons. This is another matchup in which 12 Collective Brutality would be greatly appreciated.

Round 4: White Eldrazi

+1 Toxic Deluge
+4 Pithing Needle
+1 Tidespout Tyrant
+1 Grave Titan

-1 Elesh Norn
-1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
-1 Griselbrand
-1 Lotus Petal
-1 Dark Ritual
-1 Unmask
-1 Collective Brutality

Needle is really important to stop his Karakas and Displacer, Tidespout can really shine if it lands and Grave Titan can be a pain to deal with. Saved my ass that day.

I'll write about the rest of the matchups soon, but I can say that the part of my SB that I dedicated to Miracles and D&T remained unused for the whole day.

The D&T package can be as big as this:

2 Dread of Night
1 Massacre
1 Toxic Deluge
4 Pithing Needle
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Grave Titan

Dread of Night being key, and Deluge usually saving the day. Massacre is fantastic too.

Against Miracles, I planned on using this:

3 Bitterblosom
2 Duress

Blossom is fantastic, and since this is a game in which life doesn't really matter, a T1 Blossom can be a pain to deal with.

[Kanti]

What is your thought process on Unmask over Duress? Even though this deck seems fast, isn't it also able to grind a bit better? No having to exile seems cool.

[Ultrab77]

Hi Castellan,

Thanks for posting, the deck might be good right now. Surprisingly, it's better than a lot of other combo decks.

I just 4-1'd with this mono black list of yours, beating Infect, Moon, Aluren, Grixis and loosing to 12-post. Sideboard was bad overall.

I missed Serenity a lot from my WB list to beat LotV + bridge or Chalice + Moon.

I'll take back my needles, drop Elesh Norn because it's worse than Wurm vs Goblins / D&T / Karakas decks.

4 Dark Depths
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Thespian’s Stage
2 Lake of the Dead
8 Swamp
4 Vampire Hexmage
2 Grave Titan
2 Griselbrand
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Ashen Rider
2 Collective Brutality
2 Unmask
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Thoughtseize

SB:

1 Bitterblosom
2 Duress
2 Dread of Night
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Grave Titan
1 Lost Legacy
1 Marsh Casualties

[castellan]

What is your thought process on Unmask over Duress? Even though this deck seems fast, isn't it also able to grind a bit better? No having to exile seems cool.

Hello,

You can Unmask yourself to get creatures out of your hand to the graveyard and reanimate them. Duress comes in against decks with a heavy package of instants and sorceries, such as Storm or Miracles.

[castellan]

SB:

1 Bitterblosom
2 Duress
2 Dread of Night
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Grave Titan
1 Lost Legacy
1 Marsh Casualties

Hey,

Glad to know you did allright! Massacre Wurm can be really good against certain decks and I've been trying to get my hands in one to try it out. LGS is way too pricey.

I just don't get the single Lost Legacy in your SB - I used to run two, actually, but they turned out to be quite useless. Which matches are you thinking about when you SB them in?

[Ultrab77]

Hey,

Glad to know you did allright! Massacre Wurm can be really good against certain decks and I've been trying to get my hands in one to try it out. LGS is way too pricey.

I just don't get the single Lost Legacy in your SB - I used to run two, actually, but they turned out to be quite useless. Which matches are you thinking about when you SB them in?

I board in Legacy vs combo, naming S&T, Tendrils, Aluren...

I will change the SB anyway with the more useful Needles.

[castellan]

Hey everyone,

I had the pleasure of spending my whole Sunday doing silly things with 20/20 tentacle gods and monsters reanimated from the grave, and came here to share the experience with you all. Went home with a meh result of 4-2 – really really close to top 8, but not close enough. Let’s roll.

8 Swamp
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian’s Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb Of Yawgmoth
2 Lake of the Dead

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Entomb
2 Unmask
2 Collective Brutality

4 Vampire Hexmage
2 Grave Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
2 Griselbrand

SB
2 Dread of Night
2 Massacre
2 Duress
4 Pithing Needle
2 Grave Titan
1 Bitterblossom
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Tidespout Tyrant

Round 1 – Dredge (0-2)

Game 1: I think my operating system was still booting up because there was no reason on earth to commit the mistakes I’ve made. Unspeakable things left my opponent dazed and confused, thinking I had some sort of masterplan or secret tech up my sleeve, but hell no – all I had was disappointment. Seriously just take my word for it, he played against a traffic cone and won.

Game 2: Thinking I am prepared this time, I Thoughtseize him taking out a Cabal Therapy – he says ‘you know this is good for me right?’, and I realize my windows screen turned blue and compiled several execution errors. He wins again, because his opponent basically didn’t show up.

Round 2 – UR Delver (2-1)

Game 1: As soon as he opens with a Volcanic Island and Grim Lavamancer I knew what I was facing and was hoping I did not have the misfortune of bumping into that one maindeck Vapor Snag. My Collective Brutality single-handedly manages to take away his Lavamancer, strip away his FoW (he had no other blue cards in his hand), drain 2 life and place two creatures in my graveyard (Elesh Norn and Griselbrand). I seriously underestimated this card and I’m thinking about bumping the count to 3 or even 4. It’s just too brutal in some matchups. I reanimate Griseldaddy and the match is over soon after.

Game 2: I open with an insane hand with both combos – Griselbrand and Marit Lage – and go all in. ‘There’s no way he’ll win this game’, I think. ‘There’s no way my luck is that bad’, I think. But yeah, I got Flusterstormed and Vapor Snagged, and faced a flipped Delver with empty hands. Dead as fuck in three turns.
Game 3: We’re not playing combo decks to not have stupid, free wins right? Now the perfect hand not only has a combo ready to go but has two discards. Bait his counters, strip away the bounce, and a 20/20 intergalactic spaghetti monster kills him in one swing.

Round 3 – Elves (2-0)

Game 1: I have a 20/20 that flies, he has two awe-struck vegan creatures of the woods that watch in terror as this thing kills their master.

Game 2: he opens with random green vegan and I lay down a Collective Brutality killing him and leaving a creature in my graveyard. Later on I get Marit Lage and I’m sure it’s over, but he lays down an ooze and I forget about those two dudes in the graveyard – I swing for 20 and the ooze eats the creatures, leaving him at 2 life. Luckily, I had the second brutality in hand, and I proceed to kill him with it.

Round 4 – Goblins (2-1)

Game 1: For unknown reasons to me I’m on the play and I open with a Elesh Norn instead of a Griselbrand, thinking that he could never get back on his feet. He proved me wrong when goblin after goblin landed and protected each other with +1/+1 bonuses. He eventually kills me with a mob of angry red little bastards.

Game 2: Marit Lage for the win, no Stingscourger to bounce it.

Game 3: A turn one Griselbrand brings a turn 2 Grave Titan and nothing else happens after that.

Round 5 – Bant Blade (2-1)

Game 1: This was, by far, the most amazing game of the entire event. He suspends an Ancestral Vision turn 1 and proceeds to Plow my Marit Lage, suspends another Ancestral and Plows another Lage, cascades into two other ancestral visions and lands down three Nobles, which with exalted bonus pumps his Batterskull so he swings with a billion. I’m at 50-something life and I have only a single Entomb in hand, which I cast when he taps out for True-Name Nemesis. It resolves and places a Griselbrand in my graveyard. On my turn I draw an Exhume. It’s my only card, and my opponent drew a total of extra 12 cards so far and has a full hand of seven cards. I tap my lands and cast Exhume with the full extent of the knowledge that I’d be countered into oblivion, but somehow, for reasons unbeknownst to mankind, it resolves. I get back a Griselbrand into play and draw a total of 28 cards, and manage to put Marit Lage, Grave Titan and Elesh Norn into play, swiping away his board and sealing the game. What a crazy, crazy turn of events.

Game 2: Have you ever had to deal with a True-Name Nemesis pounding your soul with both Jitte and Batterskull attached? Ain’t a pretty sight is it?

Game 3: I cast an early Grave Titan and when I swing he drops a Batterskull instant speed to kill it with two blockers, killing my Titan too. I’m ok with it, because I Reanimate it back and now I have an untapped Titan with a bonus two zombie bodies, which quickly get out of control and swing for lethal.

Round 6 – Omni Show (1-2)

Game 1: The game was a featured match on Twich and it activated the windows-blue-screen mode in my brain, so of course my anxiety brought my shitty lines of play to the eyes of all of those watching the game. I open with a very strong hand with only a single black mana missing for me to combo out ( 8 swamps, 4 petals, 4 urborg and even 2 lakes – so a lot of sources), but that black mana never showed up and he drops Omniscience followed by Emrakul followed by a boot in my ass.

Game 2: Fully tilted out, I open with Swamp, Petal and two Rituals because I feared a spell pierce (reminder: he had no lands in play. Yeah). I use only two for Entomb and Reanimate, and a Iona for Blue plus a Needle on Sneak Attack seals the game.

Game 3: My opening hand is once again fully assembled except for one black mana. ‘There is no way my luck is that bad’, I think a second time. However free stupid wins are always walking side-by-side with auto stupid losses and I never find the single black mana, getting once again an Omniscience really, really up there Morty.

Extra games:

After losing my spot on the top 8 with the full attention of the stream and players from the store, I sat down to play a few random matches with other people who were also previously disqualified. Here’s how it went.

Aluren (6-0)

We played three games without SB and another three after boarding. Either all my hands were crazy stupid or this match is too slow for Aluren, which unless I’m mistaken only runs counters in the form of FoW. On all six games I either discarded the counter and proceeded to combo out or I vomited things straight into play with little to no resistance.

Death & Taxes (4-1)

Two games with no sideboard and two after boarding. Collective Brutality alone stole games 1 and 2, acting both as discard outlet and Thalia-Killing machine, and after getting my Griselbrand plowed at 22 life (thanks to Exhume and Brutality) I draw the whole deck and assemble an army that he can’t deal with. After boarding, I won one game thanks to double Dread of Night and double Massacre, and lost the other to a quick lock.

Overall, I’m happy with the deck and the results I’ve been getting – I commited a lot of mistakes and there’s plenty of room for personal improvement. Regarding the deck, though, I’m pondering the following:

- The best way around Swords to Plowshares decks in general (miracles, blades, D&T, etc) is brute force. Trying to reanimate that special creature with shroud or whatever the hell never worked in my experience, and nowadays just saying ‘well fuck this’ and vomiting all that you possibly can on the table should overwhelm their resources.

- The amount of graveyard hate after DRS ban is too damn high! I’m considering a sideboard in which I can transform the deck in such a way that I don’t need the Reanimate package on games 2 and 3. Something along these lines:

Out: 4 Exhume, 4 Entomb, 4 Reanimate, 1 Iona, 1 Elesh Norn
In: 4 Grim Monolith, 2 Grave Titan, 4 Pithing Needle (protection for Marit Lage if necessary), 2 Griselbrand, 2 Massacre Wurm

There is a large tournament two weeks from now and I’m going to try it then. I’ll let you know how it went.

[Ultrab77]

Great report Castellan, always fun to read as well!

I’ll grab the deck for the MKM Series in Paris early September.

Still looking for some adjustments:
- discard outlet: I’m on cabal therapy/ unmask / CoB 3/3/2 but I’d like sometimes the 4th Unmask. I find Cabal Therapy a good option (naming FoW when comboing G1) with Grave Titan’s zombies and an Ashen Rider main
- MD creatures: 2 Titans, 1-2 G-Daddy, Ashen Rider, Elesh Norn. But this could be a bit low if you wanna discard regularly on the draw or with T1 brutality

SB:
- combo: 2 discard
- fair with GY hate: 1 Titan, 1 Wurm, pack rat outlet?
- 4 Needle
- Moon, Bridge, Token etc: 2 Ratchet Bomb
- Grixis Control, Miracles, D&T: Liliana the last hope

I’ll be testing and keeping you posted.

[castellan]

Hey Ultrab77, thank you for your feedback. I'm always glad to know that someone still reads what shenanigans I've been up to with my favorite deck of all time.

And by the way, I'm here to write another report of an amazing night: 4-0 in an event with 41 players, which earned me a spot straight into the league finals in february! The league, called CLM, is a year-wide giant tournament that pools together resources from a good number of LGS and rewards the 8 players with the greatest amount of points by the end of the season in a final tournament, in which the winner gets a fantastic prize and recognition. This event on monday particularly offered a spot straight into said finals, and that is what I came back home with. I'm very very happy with the results, the pictures wouldn't let me lie. I don't know if it's against the rules or something to post it.

Anyway, let's roll. Here's the decklist:

8 Swamp
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian’s Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb Of Yawgmoth
2 Lake of the Dead

4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Entomb
2 Unmask
2 Collective Brutality

4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Grave Titan
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
2 Griselbrand

SB

4 Pithing Needle
4 Grim Monolith
2 Griselbrand
1 Grave Titan
2 Ashen Rider
2 Duress

Round 1: Grixis Control (2-1)

Game 1: I win the roll and open with a good sign of the universe - I unmask myself, Griselbrand into the graveyard, and Exhume it back. As I draw fourteen cards and drop a petal and rituals for Grave Titan he scoops.

Game 2: I'm trying to avoid at all costs graveyard strategies on G2 and G3, however my first seven cards consisted of discard and turn 1 Grave Titan. He seizes my Titan and hit it with a Surgical Extraction, I get FoW'd for entomb and when I summon Marit Lage he kills it with edict following up with Jace on his turn. This time the good guys won.

Game 3: I mull to five and still end up with Grave Titan on turn one into play. Take stupid risks, win stupid prizes - he shakes my and and that's it.

Comments: I might be wrong but this seems to be an even easier version to beat of the recently deceased 4-c Leovold. If you resolve a Grave Titan you're good, it's even better than Griselbrand if you have no other creatures into play to dodge those pesky edicts.

Round 2: Jund (2-1)

Game 1: Lost the roll and he drops a basic swamp and passes. There's this warm feeling inside me that tells me that life is good and worth living when you can vomit combos left and right without being afraid of counters and surgicals. I draw a Ritual, Seize myself, Grave Titan in the graveyard, Reanimate it back and he concedes.

Game 2: I mull to four, not looking for a crazy start but looking for ANY start - and the house comes burning down when I got kicked in the balls with a turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Inquisition, turn 3 Liliana and turn 4 maggots eating my eyes as my dead body rots away on the floor.

Game 3: After getting repeatedly stabbed in the balls I draw what I hope to be an amazing hand ready to combo his ass back to the jungle. I end up with five Swamps and two Urborg. Come on. I mull to five and find a hand with petals, Rituals and a single Grave Titan. He mulls to four and opens with a Leyline of the Void, I shrug and vomit a Titan and two little zombie thugs into play ready to fuck him up. He casts a Grim Flayer or whatever the hell little mid-range, oompa-loompa looking motherfucker it was and I swing back with a billion leaving another two brand-new thugs to chump block his hipster creature. He's soon beaten to death and we live on to the next round.

Comments: bad mid-range deck against combo. It's like the Grixis match but without FoW. Again, if you drop a Grave Titan, tears will stream down their faces.

Round 3: Big Eldrazi (2-1)

Game 1: You know, sometimes I question my choices and wonder if I could be playing any other deck. However, drawing 1/3 of your deck and having a Marit Lage and Griselbrand in play before they had the chance to play a land wipes those profane thoughts of my mind. Stupidity will live on, and so will Marit Lage.

Game 2: an early chalice locks my 1-drops out of the game forever, but Grim Monolith hardcasts two Grave Titans. He also has an army of lil' spaghettis tho, and being a fan of Monoliths himself, and having access to double-mana lands plus Vesuva lets him hardcast a goddamn Ulamog, exiling my Titans and kicking me in the face until I'm so very very dead.

Game 3: he mulls into nothingness to open with a Leyline of the Void, I shrug it away and cast a Grave Titan turn 2 anyway thanks to Ritual and Monolith. It gets out of control quickly and Zombie boy and his band seal the game.

Comments: this is a goddamn unholy matchup from hell which is not easy to win. Any decks that can Chalice or Trinisphere on turn 1 should steal games away from me quickly. Thank fuck I never even seen a Trinisphere on those three games.

Round 4: Grixis (2-0)

Game 1: I win the roll and find no opposition into creating Marit Lage turn 1. He draw for the turn and scoops.

Game 2: I pray he makes a bad decision and so he does - mulls into five to open with a Leyline. I bet you can guess what happened next right? Ritual, Titan, brutality taking away his Tourach and killing a Strix, and with my hands sweating (knees weak, arms spaghetti) I raise my fists into the air screaming as he concedes.

Comments: Please God, let Grixis be a very popular deck for as long as I shall live. The empty look of nothingness in their eyes when you cast a Titan is priceless.

Next Steps:

On saturday there's another huge Legacy event which I will attend. I'm thinking about some changes:

- I will cut Iona away completely in favour of the 4th Grave Titan maindeck;
- Maybe the sideboard should look like this:

4 Pithing Needle
4 Grim Monolith
4 Duress
2 Ashen Rider
1 Collective Brutality

Needle protects Marit Lage, Grim Monolith hardcasts Grave Titan when graveyard hate comes down, Duress and Brutality kills hoot-hooting deathtouch birds and Ashen Rider steals the Show And Tell away from them. K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, stupid. The amount of Death and Taxes does not justify too many SB slots, maybe 2 Duress / 2 Massacre.

I'm open to suggestions and critique as always. Congratulations if you've made it this far into the reading.

All Hail Marit Lage. Wish me luck on saturday!

[Ultrab77]

Hey, I hope you did well yesterday Castellan.

I went 4-0 in the trials for the main event of today, winning 2 byes.

The deck ran super hot I will write a small report.

Let’s hop I won’t suck today!

EDIT: my extensive report just disappeared of my screen... 1h lost. I'll write it again tomorrow evening.

[Ultrab77]

Hey all.

First, English is not my mother language, so it will be sometimes painful to read. Sorry for that.

I went 8-3 over the weekend, 4-0 at the trial and then 4-3 at the 200-man main event.

Overall it’s OK, but I was pretty disappointed by my X-1 and X-2 games.

So small report:

Saturday Trial (~40 people)

Round 1: Cyril with infect (1-0)
G1: I keep a T3 ML on the draw, he T3 kills me on the play
G2: I get a T2 ML, he crop rotates and I think I loose, but he grabs a Nexus and HE dies
G3: I get Marit Lage, Titan and he just swords something before dying. He again crop rotates into Nexus to save 1 turn.

I asked the guy after the match why he didn’t get Karakas, he said he prefers playing to win than defending to lose. Well.

Round 2: Vladimir with midrange Depths (2-0)

I know the guy and what he’s on because he top 8’d a large event last winter and won the Eternal Weekend Europe in May.
G1: I therapy and target crop rotation, I see Tarmo, Decay, Lili… and think he’s changed his deck. I drop some Titans and he dies.
G2: he drops Urborg and duresses me, taking Unmask and leaving Therapy, Entomb, Titan and some stuff. I therapy naming Hexmage, hit and leave him with just lands. Some time later he draws a vampire and gets his Marit Lage. I reanimate his Vampire and get mine. He can’t find any crop rotation or Steppe and I draw a 2nd reanimation spell for Ashen Rider and the win.

Round 3: Mathieu on Moon Stompy (3-0)

G1: I get mooned and rabblemastered to death
G2: T1 ritual + vampire + entomb Ashen Rider, T2 Marit Lage, T3 exhume Ashen Rider for his bridge and win
G3: he has T1 chalice and T2 magus and T3 rabblemaster, I have T3 vampire to remove the counters T4 Titan, T5 Wurm to kill everything and trigger my Depths. Adios Amigos.

Round 4: Denis on Steel Stompy (4-0)

G1: he chalices T1, I Marit Lage T2 which is better
G2: of course, he didn’t board in the Leylines, so he faces a T1 Griselbrand and a T2 Ashen Rider for his bridge. He looks sick and concedes

Then the main event, long story short let’s start where things go wild for me.

Boris on BR Reanimator (lose for 3-1)

G1: I see a bloodstained mire, for some unknown reason I think I have to entomb on my turn. He smiles and reanimates my Titan.
G2: I’m a bit tilted, mull to 5 to find a fast hand but stop with Iona, Unmask, Ritual, Urborg and Titan looking to draw a reanimation spell. He mulls to 4. I should have unmasked him but I let him petal/ritual/seize Iona/reanimate.

Guillaume on Miracles (lose for 3-2)

G1: I drop a Marit Lage T2, he brainstorms and ponders and everything but has no answer.
G2: I get miracle’d and die to Tefeiri on round 324
G3: that’s because of this game that I’m so disappointed. I keep a reanimator hand and seize T1. I see surgical, BS, counterspell, swords, 2 islands, fetch. I take the surgical, he lands an island. I entomb Griselbrand, Reanimate, he brainstorms and find his 2nd surgical… I lose soon after to 3 snapcasters surgicaling all my creatures.
Had he not found the surgical, I was 4-1 and at the top tables. But that’s life, I had luck the day before as well.

Claudio on White Eldrazi (lose for 3-3)

G1: I see a white basic, I therapy for STP but look at Karakas, maindeck Containment Priest, 2 Displacers and Jailer. Of course, I kept a reanimation hand.
G2: he keeps a hand with STP, Priest, rest in peace, TKS but I get a Marit Lage
G3: I have a Plan C-hand with swamp x 2, dark ritual x2, Titan. This time it’s a Thorn of Amethyst T1, same T2 and Thalia T3 with a Karakas. Thalia kills me.

Than, only the last game of last match was interesting vs OmniShow before I dropped to go home earlier.

G1: T1 on the play, I play Therapy hitting Brainstorm and seeing 2 Griselbrands. I play a 2nd therapy and wait for my reanimation spell. He never shows up, Emrakul does.
G2: Fast Marit Lage
G3: I play a therapy, not hitting. He surgical therapy and sees in my hand: entomb, animate dead and some other stuff. He has a confident look and plays show and tell. I entomb in response and show Animate Dead, target Ashen Rider, trigger. He looks sick.

This last one was very good, I knew it worked but never had the chance to do it. I don’t know if the play is obvious for an experienced S&T player.

Overall, I’m happy with the week-end and the main deck. The sideboard could be improved.

Potential changes:

Maindeck: 4 therapies, 3 brutalities, no unmask
Sideboard: go for the full hardcast plan (but could be weak to Bridge) with Grim Monoliths / pack rats or something

I’d like to get your feedback Castellan on this.

Sorry again for the laborious writing.

[castellan]

G1: I get mooned and rabblemastered to death



Hey there, how's it going? Getting mooned to death sounds way more funny than it actually is lol. And don't ever apologize for your english, it's good and even if it wasn't you're taking your time to write and improve the deck. That goes a long way. ;)

What are you planning to cut in order to get to 4 Therapies? 3 Brutalities seems like the right number, Unmask is really explosive but if it gets countered you get really far behind, whereas a countered Brutality still leaves a fatty in the graveyard for you to reanimate.

More often than not I've wished I had another Brutality in hand rather than an Unmask.

I'm currently trying the full-hardcast mode with my SB, didn't had the time to write about the last event but it performed well. Yes, we could be weak to bridge, but on games in which your opponent doesn't know your strategy to leave the reanimation package behind it's basically a free win - he will mulligan to hell and back to find hate, leaving him with a five or six cards in hand in which one or two are useless, and you still keep plans A, B and C up your sleeve.

Hail Marit Lage and hope you have a good weekend!

[kombatkiwi]

I was messing around with a version of this for a bit in the run up to eternal weekend and it seemed ok but I'm not an experienced depths/combo player and I couldn't get familiar enough with it for me to play it over a blue deck.

I think the list I was using was something like

2 Griselbrand
4 Custodi Lich
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Primeval Titan
1 Grave Titan

4 Reanimate
4 Shallow Grave
4 Entomb
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
1 Collective Brutality
1 Unmask

2 Lake of the Dead
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg
7 Swamp
1 Castle Lockthwain

Of course mono-black reanimator-depths is already a deck, the main thing I have done here is swapped Exhume for Shallow Grave and added 4 Custodi Lich instead of extra copies of Grave Titan or whatever other random reanimator target like Iona or Ashen Rider.

Some things to think about:

- Shallow Grave is obviously nice with Grisel to give haste. This might appear to be a problem because at the end of the turn you will lose the 7/7 wincondition and you don't have the same-turn tinfins storm kill but it seems you can usually draw enough cards to disrupt the opponent and set up depths.

- Shallow Grave lets you instant-speed reanimate your Hexmage which can provide some eot Marit Lage the opponent isn't expecting

- Primeval Titan was included because it seemed a better Shallow Grave target than Grave Titan (set up depths kill vs make 4 Zombies) in practice it didn't seem necessary but not convinced enough to cut it yet.

- Custodi Lich is only 5 mana instead of 6 which makes it easier to cast than GTitan with Rituals/Petals, Lake of the Dead turns typically make 6 mana for Titan but then this lets you push Lich through a Daze etc

- Shallow Grave Lich after the opponent steals the monarch is a good play (kill one of their creatures and take the monarch back) and because Shallow Grave is an instant you can even do it in their 2nd main before they draw a card

- Exhume is bad with Custodi Lich because it gives them a free creature to sac

- I felt like Grave Titan had become a lot worse because of Oko, DHA+Bolt etc, whereas the Monarch is relatively more difficult to interact with (and in the matchups where you expect it to be interacted with it's good for your 5drop to edict them on ETB)

Anyway I thought I might revisit this deck with the new 2BB monarch enchantment from the commander set, the deck probably can't fit many copies main but it does seem like a decent SB plan to juke combo hate

[kombatkiwi]

MH2 Shallow Depths Update

2 Griselbrand
4 Custodi Lich
4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Grief
1 Archon of Cruelty

4 Reanimate
4 Shallow Grave
4 Entomb
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

2 Lake of the Dead
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg
8 Swamp

Playing the shallow graves over another reanimate spell gives your griselbrand plays a boost which makes griefs stronger
Grief is also a good card in the deck, you can reanimate/shallow grave/hardcast it etc

However of course there is still an argument to play Exhume or Animate dead etc instead
Especially if you want to try to win with Archon to Beat karakas when you dont have enough life to Reanimate it, or something like that, it could be annoying
I think Exhume is maybe a bit worse with Grief / Lich than Animate Dead

[Clark Kant]

MH2 Shallow Depths Update

2 Griselbrand
4 Custodi Lich
4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Grief
1 Archon of Cruelty

4 Reanimate
4 Shallow Grave
4 Entomb
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal

2 Lake of the Dead
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg
8 Swamp

Playing the shallow graves over another reanimate spell gives your griselbrand plays a boost which makes griefs stronger
Grief is also a good card in the deck, you can reanimate/shallow grave/hardcast it etc

However of course there is still an argument to play Exhume or Animate dead etc instead
Especially if you want to try to win with Archon to Beat karakas when you dont have enough life to Reanimate it, or something like that, it could be annoying
I think Exhume is maybe a bit worse with Grief / Lich than Animate Dead
That's a sweet looking deck! How good has Custodi Lich been as a 4 of?

If I wanted to add 4 Dauthi Voidwalkers to the above list, how would you do it?

[kombatkiwi]

That's a sweet looking deck! How good has Custodi Lich been as a 4 of?
I think it's probably better than the grave titans of the original list because it's easier to hardcast and a bit better vs plow but this is somewhat debatable I suppose


If I wanted to add 4 Dauthi Voidwalkers to the above list, how would you do it?
Sideboard card (if anything), I don't think there is space in the main

[kombatkiwi]

With all the noise about initiative I think one of the black ones has flown under the radar a bit

From the Catacombs 3BB
Sorcery
Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control with a corpse counter on it. If that creature would leave the battlefield, exile it instead of putting it anywhere else.
You take the initiative.
Escape—{3}{B}{B}, Exile five other cards from your graveyard.

It's like a zombify with escape that also lets you take the initiative

- Anytime you go off with griselbrand but don't win that turn, your opponent has to grind through multiple escapes of this to win.
- Essentially mono-black unburial rites in terms of being an Entomb target
- If you don't have any solid targets in your graveyard you can always target any random creature from the opponent just to get initiative

So you could play a deck like in my previous post -1 Grief +1 this. You could also cut the Depths aspect entirely and use another recent suggestion of adding 4 Voidwalker (over the Hexmage), as the unblockable attacker is nice with the initiative/monarch aspects and is just a solid monoblack card as a plan B if your opponent has Leyline of the Void or whatever