[Deck] Reanimator

1. In the early game (T1-T3), Jin is more gamebreaking than Iona :
- A T2 Iona on the play could lead us to name blindly. Jin is far more autopilot
- A quick Jin is almost always good (except against dredge) where Iona could be so-so despite you named the right color (e.g against TES where the opponent can go B. Wish => Empty the warrens)
- Iona could be raced. On the contrary with its draw 7 ability, Jin should allow you to reanimate another fatty the turn after (Sphinx, Archon) shutting down your opponent creatures

In order to get Jin in the early game more often you have to reduce variance of the Discard/Reanimate strategy (and not only rely on entomb). This is why people run 3 Jin (I do run 4)

2. Iona is still better than Jin in some match ups (Burn, Elves, Spiral Tide1...). This is why it deserves one of the 1-of tutorable (entomb) slots

3. Iona can act as the 5th Jin, being the second most gamebreaking early target (as long as you name correctly) so it helps reducing variance on the early creatures you reanimate. It could be a 2-of in some metagames

Garobidou what a great job you did !

Can I ask you to crunch the numbers for my list ? ( playing with LDV )

17 lands ( 2swamps, 2 islands, 4 underground sea, 9 fetch lands) - 4 entombs - 8 reanimate - 7 creatures - 12 permission - 4 LDV - 4 brainstorm - 4 careful study


LDV made me win so many games that I would not have won without it.

specially post board when i needed to find a side board card.

remember LDV is slower but it can find any card in your deck !

@ Clark Kant

If you have 4 sideboard slots to devote to creatures, here are my four:
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Terastadon
1 Flex Slot (in an aggro heavy meta this could be Stormtide Leviathan or Blazing Archon [the choice would further depend on how many merfolk decks you expect]); in a more combo/control environment I would go with Inkwell Leviathan or a second Sphinx of the Steel Wind.

@ Garobidou

At the rate the deck is currently playing it seems to be slightly exceeding the values you have calculated. However, that could be an artifact of a limited number of sample hands. Honestly, not having brainstorm is kind of neat. You second guess yourself less on mulligans which is nice. Sure you can't quite dig as far, but my results so far have show that doesn't seem to be necessary much of the time. This actually makes sense seeing as the more time you spend looking for pieces with a Brainstorm, the longer it will take to reanimate something. I should be able to get some solid sample hand data (50-100+ hands) collected and formatted by the end of the weekend. Actually I have only been testing on the play but I could test on the draw as well if it is desired. Let me know.

Sideboarding

Again we have circled back to sideboarding. We know that the deck is pretty consistent the next move is to determine what the best sideboarding techniques will be. This is an area that we really do need to work on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sturtzilla

@ Clark Kant

If you have 4 sideboard slots to devote to creatures, here are my four:
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Terastadon
1 Flex Slot (in an aggro heavy meta this could be Stormtide Leviathan or Blazing Archon [the choice would further depend on how many merfolk decks you expect]); in a more combo/control environment I would go with Inkwell Leviathan or a second Sphinx of the Steel Wind.

@ Garobidou

At the rate the deck is currently playing it seems to be slightly exceeding the values you have calculated. However, that could be an artifact of a limited number of sample hands. Honestly, not having brainstorm is kind of neat. You second guess yourself less on mulligans which is nice. Sure you can't quite dig as far, but my results so far have show that doesn't seem to be necessary much of the time. This actually makes sense seeing as the more time you spend looking for pieces with a Brainstorm, the longer it will take to reanimate something. I should be able to get some solid sample hand data (50-100+ hands) collected and formatted by the end of the weekend. Actually I have only been testing on the play but I could test on the draw as well if it is desired. Let me know.

Sideboarding

Again we have circled back to sideboarding. We know that the deck is pretty consistent the next move is to determine what the best sideboarding techniques will be. This is an area that we really do need to work on.

---

I remember a few pages back that someone suggested always siding out 2 Hapless and 2 Animate Dead (In a 3 Animate Dead build IIRC) for 2 Show and Tell and 2 Echoing Truth, regardless of matchup. I did that in that tournament I was in (Except I only had 1 Show and Tell), and it worked out decently.

Perhaps listing the graveyard hate we'll possibly encounter and then the solutions first? Or is that common knowledge already? (I'm still not sure, myself. :P)

Tormod's Crypt
Relic of Progenitus
Leyline of the Void
Faerie Macabre
Ground Seal
Nihil Spellbomb
Bojuka Bog
Withered Wretch (lol)

Seems like Echoing Truth/Pithing Needle should cover Crypt/Relic/Spellbomb/Seal/Leyline, except Bog/Macabre which can be Stifled. Exhume helps with Ground Seal, as well. Come to think of it, Stifle technically works against Crypt and the like, doesn't it? Still, I'd rather have Echoing Truth most of the time. It also helps against random hordes of tokens as well as troublesome permanents like Humility (And Chalice of the Void at 1!) and such.

The question then is, what to actually sideboard out. Other than the aforementioned Hapless/Animate Dead, I often found myself sideboarding out a copy of Jin-Gitaxias. Against specific matchups, I removed less than adequate reanimation targets (Example: Jin against Dredge, Archon against Spiral Tide, etc) for better ones or more hate.

But I'd love to hear more about sideboarding, regardless.

Thought I would pass on a link to an article about Reanimator.

Kyle Kloster recently took 2nd place at the SCG Indianapolis event with Reanimator. His event report and thoughts on the deck went up today on Quiet Speculation. He discusses more than simply the event report, though, so it may be worth checking out.

I'm not sure if Kyle posts here, so comments in the comments section would likely be the most direct way to engage him in discussion or leave feedback, if that's what you're up for.

Here's the link:

http://www.quietspeculation.com/2011...th-reanimator/

Cheers!

edit: site seems to be sluggish right now, so sorry if the link leads to a misformatted page!

With regard to the sideboarding theme:
Currently, I’m thinking about raising the number of creatures in my sideboard up to 6 or 7. After all, boarding in creatures has no impact on the speed of the deck.
I mean, I don’t know what you guys board out for g2. Sure, it depends on the opposing deck. But, most of the time I end up with reducing the number of reanimate and discard effects by 1 each in order to make room for ETruth, Pithing Needle and the like. It’s rarely acceptable for me to reduce the no. of counters in the permission slot.

Thus, sideboarding leads to a decrease in speed of the original game-plan (even when compensated thru sideboarding Show & Tell, which replaces one discard and one reanimate count with just one card).
Within this situation, it seems even more important to drop a creature that represents a real threat to the opponent’s deck. Therefore, after sideboarding the deck would ideally contain a selection of 8 creatures, where each of them is most likely game-winning after resolving.

In order to make room for this approach, I plan to kick Show & Tell out of my sideboard-plan. With 3cmc it appears too slow to me. And as gy-hate is not that intense in my meta at the moment, I think this risk is worth to be taken.
This results into a definite reduction of at least one discard and one reanimate count md after sideboarding. And an increase in the permission/disruption slots due to the integration of ETruth etc. BTW: with regard to this the numbers crunch for a build with 13 or 14 permission/disruption spells might be quite interesting for reference.

At the moment, I’m examining the 20 most popular deck concepts (which, by the way, is overdue as I don’t have the opportunity to play that often). Starting with the creatures which I would ideally bring in g2/g3 I’m writing down my sideboard plan against each deck. I’m sure, you guys already have done this exercise.

Another focus is on finding a solution which gets along with a smaller range of non-creature cards in the sideboard. Maybe Pithing Needle, for example, turns out to be dispensable. Hey, we have a bunch of counters to avoid gy-hate. Thus, having just a couple of Echoing Truth in the sideboard might be sufficient for any situation...

Would love to discuss the sideboard theme here in some more detail.

cheers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by metamet

Thought I would pass on a link to an article about Reanimator.

Kyle Kloster recently took 2nd place at the SCG Indianapolis event with Reanimator. His event report and thoughts on the deck went up today on Quiet Speculation. He discusses more than simply the event report, though, so it may be worth checking out.

I'm not sure if Kyle posts here, so comments in the comments section would likely be the most direct way to engage him in discussion or leave feedback, if that's what you're up for.

Here's the link:

http://www.quietspeculation.com/2011...th-reanimator/

Cheers!

edit: site seems to be sluggish right now, so sorry if the link leads to a misformatted page!

---

Thank you. Great article. Viewing Brainstorm as a sideboard option for match-ups against control and discard decks sounds like a great approach.

On the other hand this would require more copies of the key anti-hate cards in the sideboard, as many matches would be played with just 2 or 3 Brainstorms main deck.
This makes the room in the sideboard even more tight.

At least there are 4 Careful Study and often a couple of Hapless Researchers, which in a pinch can be used to dig for an answer against cards hampering the reanimation engine. Thus, still around 9 card drawing spells before JGCA even when playing just 2 Brainstorm. Hmm ...

@ Forum

Okay below you will find the results for my testing of Garobidou's Variant Number One in 50 games as shuffled by MWS. The columns from left to right are game number, turn the first fatty hit play/how the fatty got in the bin, what back up was in hand (i.e. extra reanimation spells or countermagic), and the last column would be possible targets for reanimation for the next turn. I apologize that it came out so messy, but I just copy and pasted it from Excel (mine is neat in Excel, so I am not really going to fuss with it here). Please note that these are all games that this deck was on the play. I will breakdown the numbers we care about below. I also took the liberty of abbreviating many of the cards based on their titles. If there are any questions please ask.

Variant One on the Play
Game Turn Reanimated Quality Counter/Extra Reanimation Back Up Subsequent Reanimate
1 2 Jin/HR FoW/Daze Iona
2 2 Jin/E Daze/Daze/MM Iona
3 2 BA/CS MM None
4 6 Jin/E Force/Daze Iona/Blazing Archon
5 2 Jin/E Force Blazing Archon
6 3 Jin/E Daze/Daze/MM Blazing Archon
7 2 Jin/E Daze Inkwell
8 2 Iona/HR FoW/Daze Jin (Turn 4)
9 2 Jin/HR Daze Blazing Archon
10 3 Jin/HR Daze Sphinx
11 2 Jin/E Daze Iona/Blazing Archon
12 2 Jin/CS Daze/MM Iona
13 2 Jin/HR None Any Creature
14 2 Sphinx/CS FoW/FoW/Daze None
15 3 Jin/E MM Iona/Sphinx
16 2 Jin/CS FoW/MM Any Creature
17 2 Jin/E Exhume Iona
18 2 Jin/E Animate Dead Any Creature
19 2 Jin/E FoW/FoW/Daze Iona
20 2 Jin/E FoW/Daze/MM Iona/Inkwell
21 3 Sphinx/CS MM None
22 3 Jin/E Daze/MM Iona/Blazing Archon
23 3 BA/CS Daze/Animate Dead Iona
24 3 Jin/CS Daze/MM Any Creature
25 3 Inkwell/CS FoW/MM None
26 2 Jin/CS FoW/MM Any Creature
27 2 Jin/E Reanimate Any Creature
28 3 Jin/E Reanimate/Daze None
29 2 Jin/CS Reanimate Any Creature
30 5 Jin/CS Daze Iona
31 2 Jin/CS FoW/MM/Reanimate Any Creature
32 8 Jin/CS FoW Any Creature
33 2 Sphinx/CS FoW/FoW None
34 3 Jin/CS MM Iona/Sphinx
35 2 Iona/HR None None
36 3 Jin/CS FoW/MM Any Creature
37 4 Jin/MD FoW/Daze/MM Any Creature
38 2 Jin/E Exhume/Exhume Blazing Archon/Sphinx
39 2 Jin/E Reanimate Iona/Sphinx
40 3 Jin/E FoW/FoW/MM Any Creature
41 2 Iona/HR FoW/FoW/MM None
42 3 Jin/E FoW Iona
43 2 Jin/CS FoW/MM/MM Iona/Inkwell/Sphinx
44 2 Jin/E FoW Iona
45 3 Jin/E MM None
46 2 Iona/HR Daze None
47 2 Jin/CS FoW/Reanimate/Animate Dead Blazing Archon/Inkwell
48 5 Jin/HR FoW Blazing Archon/Sphinx
49 6 Jin/E FoW/FoW/MM Sphinx
50 2 Jin/E MM Blazing Archon



So what I found in my testing.
Turn Reanimated: Number of Games
2:30
3:14
4: 1
5: 2
6: 2
8: 1

These results come out pretty close to what Garobidou calculated. My testing shows a 60% chance to get a dude by turn 2 and an extra 28% chance to get a guy by turn 3. This seems pretty solid. Now also we do need to take into account that these are results of only 50 games, these games were shuffled on MWS, and that they are by no mean definitive. By that I mean just because I hit fatties by turn 3 88% of the time does not mean that it will always perform this way. I am still really skeptical of MWS shuffling; occasionally I will get back to back shit or god hands/mulligans. So with that in mind I think some of those real late game combos, say turn 8 or whatever, could be remedied by pile/bridge shuffling in real life. Now even while being rather skeptical with these results, it seems that we can be quite certain that the number of Brainstorms doesn't really matter for the overall functionality. So I am on board with ditching the "Brainstorm is an auto-include" logic.

*I will make the special note that when I did mulligan, I was happy to see brainstorm.
*I rarely saw brainstorm in my openers. This was a nice change.

I will be testing from the other side now. So I will do a run of 50 games on the play and see where that leaves the build. My intuition would be that being on the draw will facilitate more quick reanimations. However that remains to be seen.

Yeah, while the maindeck is pretty close to being tight for a consensus list, I'd say the sideboard does need a little touching up.

Current sideboard:
3 Misdirection
(3 permission)
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Terastodon
1 Creature X (Iona, Stormtide, etc.)
(3 reanimation targets)
2 Show and Tell
2 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
3 Pithing Needle
(9 ways around grave hate)

The biggest questions I have:
Are having three Pithing Needle and two Null Rod overkill?
Is Misdirection a better card for the additional permission slots than Thoughtseize or another one mana discard effect?
Are permission slots even necessary with eleven already in the maindeck?
Are having only three sideboard reanimation targets enough?

@ metamet

Thanks for the link. The article was a good read. Although I think we have come to nearly all of the points that were made in the article. It is good to hear that we are not totally crazy and off base.

@ KevinTrudeau

I agree with both the pilot's analysis and your statement that his board should have been tweaked a bit. I like the one you have listed above. It is exactly what I have been running.

@ Forum

I just have to apologize as to how messy my above playtesting post is. Again, if there are any questions, just ask.

Loved your playtest, Sturtzilla :D. Yesterday I won another tournament, with a 3 bstorm build. I made mull in every game, but I still won 2-0 every round (2-1 vs goblins in finals, made g1 mull 5 and he alpha striked me xD).

But the MVP in nearly every round was Flusterstorm. I played 3 instead Dispel in sb, and was amaaazing... I won all counterwars, vs Flusterstorms or Mental misstep, nothing to do, really. Now I think is a must-in. One game was "Show and tell. Daze. Fow! Fow! Bstorm, Misdirection! So, Flustertorm to your spells on the stack xD."

Could you post the list you played yesterday? Thank you.

// Lands
3 [A] Underground Sea
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [UNH] Island
2 [UNH] Swamp

// Creatures
4 [NPH] Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
2 [ARB] Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 [RAV] Blazing Archon
3 [JU] Hapless Researcher

// Spells
4 [FNM] Reanimate
4 [US] Exhume
2 [B] Animate Dead
4 [OD] Entomb
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
3 [NE] Daze
4 [OD] Careful Study
3 [FNM] Brainstorm
1 [MM] Misdirection

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [OD] Coffin Purge
SB: 3 [COMM] Flusterstorm
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 2 [WL] Null Rod
SB: 3 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
SB: 1 [WWK] Terastodon
SB: 1 [SOM] Platinum Emperion

Same as usual, 12/10/11/12/16/3, but with a more improved sb.

Hey guys, I've been following this thread silently for months. But after reading this amazing statistical work you are doing, I decided to register and enter the discussion.

I've read Kyle's article and I totally agree with him when he talks about choosing the deck that fits you. I love reanimator. The first time I played it was back in 2003 at Pro Tour New Orleans, and it was a blast. It was a last call decision (I was playtesting RDW), but even unprepared I made my first money (top 64) at a Pro Tour and had a lot of fun reanimating first turn akromas :)

Last year at GP Madrid I repacked the deck with a strongly mystical tutor oriented version and I got DQ when I was 7-0 due to allegadly having an extra card in hand, which was not true, but I couldn't convince the judges in time. After I got the DQ, I took my time to reconstruct the game and prove I was right, but the damage was done. I didn't get any kind of suspension but I banned MTG from my life for a while.

Time heals everything and when the opportunity to go to GP Paris this year arose, I repacked thedeck again with LDV replacing mystical, and went to play the legacy events. LDV was interesting, but it was slow. So, right now I'm aligned with the current trend: redundancy.

Right now I'm packing Garobidou's config #2 (but with 4 basics). I want to test the build with 18 lands. I played with 17 lands in a couple of small local tournaments and I mulliganed a lot with mana problems.

I took this version to our local wednesday's legacy tornament:

Main Deck

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
3 Animate Dead

4 Entomb
4 Careful Study
2 Hapless Researcher

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
3 Daze

2 Brainstorm

3 Jin-Gitaxias
1 Iona
1 Sphynx of Steel Wind
1 Blazin Archon
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Stormtide Leviathan

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
2 Swamp

Sideboard

1 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod
3 Duress
3 Echoing Truth
2 Show and Tell
1 Iona
1 Terastodon
1 Platinum Angel
1 Elesh Norn

It was a small 3 round tournament. The deck was pretty solid. I won the tournament easily because I had good matchups. I think I played 20 minutes in all games :)

First matchup was against W/G. I dind't know what he was playing so I went for Jin in the first game, but in his turn he goes: StP, StP, PtE.. Yikes! Fortunately Jin got me 2 MM and 1 Daze which handled the hate quite well. 2nd game, Iona @ White and gg.

Second matchup, burn. It's so easy that it isn't fun. Iona @ Red, both games took me 5 minutes to play.

Third matchup, Affinity. He goes crazy, but I get Blazing Archon just in time. He needs to find ravager to kill me without attacking but when he finds it I already have the counterspell. 2nd game he goes nuts again, I play null rod, but he keeps me pounding with creatures, and I have to reanimate hapless researcher twice to chump block and try to draw a big fellow to put in the graveyard. Of course when I was about to die I draw an entomb and Blazing Archon sealed the game.

I played a couple more games vs affinity (with sideboard) and we finished 9-1, loosing only to a super god hand of him (null rod is key here to stop their shenanigans). I also played some games vs merfolks (without sideboard) and it was a lot harder (5-5). He had the same disruption we have plus the pesky cursecatcher that really is annoying as hell. One of the games was vey funny: he countered all my discard outlets, and when he start playing creatures I start drawing counterspells, countering his creatures, reanimating them and killing him with his own merfolks. So funny! I also had two hands good to test the draw-discard strategy (creature+reanimation, no discard outlet), but against merfolk the strategy didn't work very well because they have pressure, counterspells and... Standstill (well, not everyone packs standstill, but my friend packs it and it's really powerfull against us)

As for my sideboard, i'm not sure about some cards yet. The duress slot can easily become thoughtseize/spell pierce/misdirection/flusterstorm if needed. I love the null rods, they shut down all gy artifact hate and own a couple of decks on their own. But needle is also important to fight stuff that null rod can't handle (like maze of ith and faerie macabre). I only played with one because I only have one but I think 2 would be right (possibly trading for the 3rd echoing truth). I like to have creatures in sb to fix the reanimaton selection on game 2. Iona is a staple. It's just too good against some decks. Elesh Norn is very good against a couple of decks also so it should be there too. Terastodon is the utility card I like to have to handle things. The only creature that I'm able to give away right now is Platinum Angel. Angel is more fragile than Emperion but it doesn't shuts FoW/Reanimate down (i've done some negative life action which has also a cool factor). Finally, Show and Tell. I think it is good when I don't know what type of gy hate I'll face. If the meta is known, it can be replaced with fine tuning cards (like 3rd needle and 3rd echoing truth), but when facing a unknown metagame it's good to have a card that can put your creatures in play no matter what gy hate your opponent brings.

I'm also think that after stabilizing the main deck we should focus on sideboard strategies, since 2/3s of a round are played with sideboard. The deck is so tight that we will be sideboarding only 3/4 non-creature cards. Since I don't want to mess with the engine deck cards, I usually trade sideboard for disruption (daze or mm) since these are the only cards that don't mess with the numbers Garobidou provided.

It would be cool to see the numbers for Garobidou's model with an adicional parameter: number of sideboard cards. Thus observing the impact of sideboard cards in case of them replacing any of the engine components.

Ok, since this is already a rather long post, I'll shut up for now. I'm looking forward to the discussion of sideboard strategies, and I'll be reporting when I play in tournaments.

Regards,
Joao

PS - Garobidou, I wondered if playing with 4 basics instead of 2 would change the numbers. Can you please run the model for config #2 with 2 islands and 2 swamps? Thanks!

@ Aslan

I am gald you appreciate the playtesting stastistics. Congratz on your win. By the way I do like the build that you have posted. It is really cool to hear that Flusterstorm was great for you. I guess I should also mention in regard to the stastics, that I have been playing this type of deck for quite a good bit (green-black reanimator was my first real deck. It quickly turned into blue-black) and have some decent idea of when to mulligan versus keep. With that in mind, I was able to maybe get slightly more favorable results than the projected results. I haven't begun yet, but I will do the testing from the other side... playing the deck on the draw.

@ nastirth

It is great to hear that you are also having some success with this deck. I have a question for you regarding creatures, how was Stormtide Leviathan for you? I am just not that sold on him, but I guess hearing how he works for others could change my stance. I am pretty sure that running more than one of each basic land will slightly reduce your consistency. I think we discussed this topic a few pages back. Check back for Garobidou's posts on this. I had been running 3 of each basic. I have lowered those to 1-ofs with great results. I filled in the gaps with extra fetch lands. I guess the other possibility would be using Darkslick Shores. Really you just want to be able to produce both colors as soon as possible.

@Sturtzilla

I'm not sure about Leviathan either, but I must say that he did the job when I needed it. The great thing about him is the 8 power and evasion, putting the opponent in a 3 turn clock. Archon sometimes has to stale if he faces flyers on the opposing side. On the other hand Leviathan doesn't prevent flyers and islandwalkers from attacking, which is not good against a couple of decks. I'm still testing it, and I consider his slot as my flex slot right now. Other options are the 4th Jin or one of the sb creatures, but for now I'll keep him.

@Kaslan
Sorry I won't be able to give your the numbers, my model doesn't take into account tutors as LDV

@Nastirth
1) As Sturtzilla mentionned, running more basics decreases the probabilities. I did the maths for your list (list #2 with 2 island 2 swamps 14 others lands) and here are the results :
- On the play : 69,4% (ranking 65)
- On the draw : 76,3% (ranking 71)
- Overall : 72,8% (ranking 61). You lose 0,8% compared to the original list (list #2)

2) Sideboarding strategies could be run with the model, I would just have to consider the anti-hate coming in as permission spells.
The main problem comes from the draw/discard strategy : it isn't that great G2/G3 as a T1 hate totally invalidates it. Assumptions should be made on this particular point (either we remove all the Draw/discard hands from the model on G2/G3 or we don't care)

@Aslan
Congratz for the win. Flusterstorm is a killer at winning counterwars. Would you mind sharing what is your sideboarding plan while boarding in Flusterstorm? Thanks!

I played at a local 50 man legacy tourney and went 4-1-1. This was my second legacy tourney and the first time I played Reanimator.

this is what I played

Main

4 reanimate
3 exhume
2 animate dead
4 entomb
4 careful study
4 brainstorm
2 ponder
4 force of will
4 mental misstep
3 daze
3 Jin-G
1 Iona
1 Sphinx of the SW
1 terastadon
1 blazing archon
1 inkwell leviathan
3 underground sea
2 polluted delta - all I had at the time
3 misty rainforest
2 verdant catacombs
4 darkslick shores
2 island
2 swamp

Sideboard
4 Pithing needle
2 Echoing truth
1 animate dead
2 duress
1 platinum angel
1 inkwell leviathan
1 iona
1 elesh norn
2 random cards I cannot remember

Round 1 MUD with Blue

G1:He explodes while I have a good monster hand but no counters. I end up getting B. Archon in play to stop the bleeding. I start the beating him down with archon and he pulls a main deck Spine of Ish Sah. he blows up my archon and kills me.
G2: turn two sphinx with counter back up. I counter all of his relevant spells and I just get there.
G3: repeat of game 1 only I counter the spine and he rips Duplicant off the top :(

I didn't draw any sideboard cards, but I think if i drew a pithing needle it wouldn't of matter as his accelerations was to dense to stop with the needle. I made a mental note to pick up some null rods for my sideboard.

0-1 (1-2)

Round 2 Dredge
G1: turn 3 Iona on black while I was counter all of his relevant outlets.
G2: I loose because I don't read Stinkweed imp. I run my B. Archon right into it. Life Lesson read your opponents cards
G3: Turn 2 Elesh Norn. He cant do anything after that

1-1 (3-3)

Round 3 - Sneaky Show with painter/stone in the sideboard.

G1: probably the best game all night. we both end up mulling to five and just counter each others stuff until i manage to get an Iona on blue out, which locks him out of most of his relevant spells while I have FOW for Sneak Attack
G2: my inexperience in the format rears his head when he drops a grind stone second turn. I didn't expect that. It ended up being a race with him milling me with painter/stone combo one turn before I was going to kill him with Inky
G3: I lock him out of blue early with Iona, while he started with a mull to five. I have a wall of counters and i just get there.

2-1 (5-4)

Round 4 - Hive Mind

G1: turn three Iona on blue GG
G2: turn two Iona on blue GG

3-1 (7-4)

Round 5 - Combo Elves

G1: I make a mistake and entomb sphinx instead of Iona and it almost costs me the game. He started going off but fizzled with an army of elves on the board. I brought B. Archon back from the dead on my turn. he cannot win at this point.
G2: turn two Iona on Green. GG

4-1 (9-4)

Round 6 - Jund Brew

We ID and I have a headache. I end up 9th as the only 4-1-1 out of the top eight.

4-1-1 (10-5-1)

I feel really happy about the deck and how it played but I felt that I mull'ed a little to much so I have shifted the deck a little to add three hapless researchers which has made a world of difference

@ nastirth

I appreciate the honest feedback. I am considering running/boarding him. He seems like a sideboard card at best, seeing as he really doesn't help against Merfolk at all. My experience has been that you can more or less count on playing at least one round of merfolk per five rounds of swiss. With that in mind Archon just seems better there. You get your kill in one or two more combats depending on the specifics of the game. I guess he warrants testing or a place in the board as he stops SFM and Batterskulls, while also setting up a pretty fast clock. He seems strictly better in that match up.

@ Rampart

I like the way your build looks. I will make a few suggestions. Garobidou has done some pretty awesome analysis, which suggests that Brainstorm and Brainstorm-like (i.e. Poner) spells may not be the best for the consistency of this deck. My recent playtesting would also confirm his calculations (at least for his build list as number 1). With that in mind I also had noticed that your reanimation count is a bit low. Therefore I would suggest the following changes:
+1 Exhume
+1 Animate Dead (preferrably from Beta)
+3 Hapless Researcher
+1 Underground Sea
+1 Fetchland
-2 Ponder
-3 Brainstorm
-1 Swamp
-1 Island

I think those should smooth out the deck a little bit. You mentioned that you have added 3 Hapless researchers to the deck. That chance in and of itself should help a lot (esp. if you added them in for ponders and brainstorms). As a side note, you might want to solidify your sideboard a little bit more. It looks pretty good but, if there are two cards that you just can't remember, maybe you should tweak it a bit.

@Sturtzilla

Yeah I have reworked the deck a little bit. I didn't have the extra sea (do now). I played in the tourny over a week ago, and have been working on my sideboard a lot sense then, so thats why I don't remember those two cards.

The deck was always smooth, I think that the only time that I couldn't drop a third turn monster was in one game and it was fourth turn. The reason why i mull'ed as much as I did was I needed to have a certain answers to my oppt. cards. turn one or two emrukuls suck. and every one of my oppt could have killed me on the third turn. Sometimes you need to get a FOW.

About the analysis. its impressive and a lot of work, but its just data that you can look at in a lot of different ways. To me its just 4 precent average difference from the high to the low over two hundred different deck lists, which for the sampling size I would expect something closer to 7-8%. I guess I feel that the outcome of a game is not about the how statistically optimized a deck is, at least not with a swing that small

my deck currently

3 Jin
1 Iona
1 Don
1 Sphinx
1 archon
1 inky
3 Researchers

4 entomb
4 careful study
4 FOW
4 Mental Misstep
3 daze
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Animate dead
3 brainstorm

4 underground sea
4 polluted delta
2 darkslick shores
2 misty rainforest
2 verdent catacombs
2 Islands
1 swamp

Sideboard
3 null rod
2 pithing needle
3 echoing truth
2 Show and Tell
1 Elesh
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Stormtide Leviathan
1 Iona
1 Jin


And you can skip the beta's mine are korean