[Deck]BUx Reanimator

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Originally Posted by PirateKing

I'm not sure I understand your plan regarding Daze, subbing them out game 1? Only playing them if you're going first? None of that makes sense.
What are you Dazing on turn 1 that isn't a counterspell in defense of your Reanimate? We're not a control deck, you can't afford to counter their spells just because you can. Our best creature against Grixis Control is Griselbrand drawing into either countermagic or enough gas to reup once they find a way to get him off the field. And since most likely you'll be tapped out, paying 7 life to draw into Spell Peirce is a nonstarter. So yeah Daze has a laundry list of downsides, but short of risking that 5th copy of Force of Will and hoping nobody notices, there isn't much free protection to draw into in a pinch. And if you're talking about expecting a control slugfest post-sideboard, Flusterstorm is better anyway. Reanimator is an A+B combo deck, what they're doing unrelated to your combo is superfluous. Don't get distracted because they cast Brainstorm in response to your Thoughtseize.

And then not to be cheeky, but the fastest possible UB Reanimator build is just RB Reanimator.
The tools you gain in blue is Brainstorm and Ponder to sculpt your hand, which is the opposite of fast; and Force of Will and Daze, which while good being free and all, but Unmask is just as effective if the goal is to 'combo' that turn. RB is just better at going fast, so any build I can come up with will sacrifice it's resiliency for speed and also not be as fast. Just a sub-optimal list in all aspects. Yeah more Lotus Petal and Dark Ritual will give you assets to T1 better, but then why play Ponder?

The super grindy game plans have been aided by Collective Brutality and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. Spellseeker might play into that, but CMC 3 you're already at our topend curve for a mediocre tutor. And your examples of utility cards, I'm not sure I understand the utility of Cabal Therapy or Extirpate. I'd only consider Cabal Therapy after maxing out on Thoughtseize and Duress first, and then I still think I'm better served with Collective Brutality. Any what role is Extirpate playing? Surgical Extraction has the better cost, and I'd rather play Faerie Macabre when I need to bother with someones graveyard. So I understand the sentiment, but your question doesn't make any sense to me.

Sorry if that's not more helpful. Reanimator is in a difficult spot, the hate has never been more effective and easier to cast. Most players don't even think about us when constructing a sideboard, we just get stuck in the middle of a venn diagram of hateful splash damage. So even the most perfect build will still be unfavorable against most of the top decks.

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Thanks I appreciate you taking the time out to type this response. Your comment with Daze makes sense, although I feel half the time, against Grixis Control I get Hymmed even before I can do anything. I feel like my options are dropping a fatty turn 1 or trying to disrupt him so I don't get Hymmed. Playing Stifles is another option I think can work. Seems like Grixis Control and Delver players in my meta are using white GY hate like containment priest and RIP so some mana disruption feels like the way to go.

I am already including 2 copies of Collective Brutality in my deck and yes Jace is definitely a good option. Although, I feel like any kind of more grindy or control based UB reanimator needs a game plan past t3.

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Originally Posted by Deatheus89

Thanks I appreciate you taking the time out to type this response. Your comment with Daze makes sense, although I feel half the time, against Grixis Control I get Hymmed even before I can do anything. I feel like my options are dropping a fatty turn 1 or trying to disrupt him so I don't get Hymmed. Playing Stifles is another option I think can work. Seems like Grixis Control and Delver players in my meta are using white GY hate like containment priest and RIP so some mana disruption feels like the way to go.

I am already including 2 copies of Collective Brutality in my deck and yes Jace is definitely a good option. Although, I feel like any kind of more grindy or control based UB reanimator needs a game plan past t3.

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My feeling is if we're "just" trying to go fast, we might as well play RB. We could play the same cards but Careful Study will always be weaker than Faithless Looting. UB has the advantage of being almost as fast G1 and much better at fighting hate G2-3 since we can dig into answers or avoid it altogether with Show and Tell. I'm trying to explore that possibility and see if it's viable. That is one of the reasons I dropped Daze entirely, the other being that it was always sided out and never brought back in after G1.

That is also why I'm trying 3 strix + 3 rats in the board. Strix gives you more time and protects your big dudes from edicts while Rat wins the game by himself. Rat is an excellent T3+ play and it completely evades all hate people board against us (well, not removal but they shouldn't have many left anyway). I'm really metagaming for the mid-late game with those cards while forcing opponents to respect an early griselbrand. Besides, Rat also sets you up for a later reanimation if he fails to finish the job so it's not like you lose much from activating it. You can just get rid of the big creatures/fetchlands you draw in topdeck.

Tonight I got to Cast strix, block with it, reanimate it, and then chain entomb strix + reanimate + all the cantrips while I had tidespout on the board. Opponent went from 6 to 0 permanents in 2 turns and it felt pretty great. I'm liking it so far but it requires more testing.

I used to play baleful strix as a sideboard card a long time ago and liked it a lot, I think it's definitely worth testing. As for pack rat, I think that even though cryptbreaker is a weaker card, the fact that it's far less mana intensive is pretty nice in a deck with so few lands, and it does a pretty good pack rat impression anyways.

I've been trying to learn from the RB community a little bit while still sticking to my UB roots. I think it's possible that a version with a pile of both unmasks and forces is possible, it's just a bit of work to get the supporting cast to work out.

I think our other options are Bitterblossom and maybe Thing in the Ice?

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My feeling is if we're "just" trying to go fast, we might as well play RB.

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I don't want to go fast all the time. But I do want to be able to configure my deck to be able to switch it up and go fast or a little bit grindy. And to that end I am trying to figure out what is the fastest possible UB reanimator list. It seems like adding a 4th Lotus is the way to go and possibly 1-2 Dark Rituals?

I never tried Cryptbreaker but does it really win games? I feel like it's "okay" to pump tokens but these 2/2 will rarely be enough and I doubt we can count on it to draw many cards. I often got left with 4x Zombies when I played Grave Titan and it was never enough to kill. It also seems worse in UB since we don't play Therapy. I'm interested to know if anyone had any success testing it but I'm very skeptical.

I like Unmask a lot but having both enough U cards for force AND B cards for unmask is getting pretty tedious to balance when you sideboard :laugh: But seriously, when I tested goldfishing with the card, I felt like 4x force + 4x Unmask was too much card disadvantage. Maybe it's necessary to punch through today's defences which have gotten so much stronger.

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Originally Posted by Deatheus89

I don't want to go fast all the time. But I do want to be able to configure my deck to be able to switch it up and go fast or a little bit grindy. And to that end I am trying to figure out what is the fastest possible UB reanimator list. It seems like adding a 4th Lotus is the way to go and possibly 1-2 Dark Rituals?

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I tried Dark Rituals for a while (taking advantage of all the testing the RB collective has gotten recently) but I had to go pretty low on U count to make it work and I started having trouble forcing way too often (I was on 17 U I think). My current build is trying 18 U (usually is higher after boarding). I'm not sure just 2x rits is going to do much. That's the kind of card you want 3-4 of.

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Originally Posted by Cpt-Qc

I never tried Cryptbreaker but does it really win games? I feel like it's "okay" to pump tokens but these 2/2 will rarely be enough and I doubt we can count on it to draw many cards. I often got left with 4x Zombies when I played Grave Titan and it was never enough to kill. It also seems worse in UB since we don't play Therapy. I'm interested to know if anyone had any success testing it but I'm very skeptical.

I like Unmask a lot but having both enough U cards for force AND B cards for unmask is getting pretty tedious to balance when you sideboard :laugh: But seriously, when I tested goldfishing with the card, I felt like 4x force + 4x Unmask was too much card disadvantage. Maybe it's necessary to punch through today's defences which have gotten so much stronger.



I tried Dark Rituals for a while (taking advantage of all the testing the RB collective has gotten recently) but I had to go pretty low on U count to make it work and I started having trouble forcing way too often (I was on 17 U I think). My current build is trying 18 U (usually is higher after boarding). I'm not sure just 2x rits is going to do much. That's the kind of card you want 3-4 of.

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Cryptbreaker was very good in the last few games I have played him. I don't have enough games to be definitive but he won me 3 of my last 6 matches. I was able to create a board stall vs goblins. I was able to create a clock and kill a SnS player, and i was able to beat eldrazi. Many decks side out their small creature removal and side in lots of hate, so they keep a strong hand against a T1/T2 reanimate, but they just lose to 5 power worth of zombies. The draw is easier to enable than expected as well. Just making 2 zombies than drawing an extra card each turn in the board stall is surprisingly strong.

I've felt in a lot of my games, I always want at least one free effect, and hands that have enough that the card disadvantage is a problem are probably too light on combo elements anyways and will be mulligans.

As fir cryptbreaker, yes, it wins games, but it isn't good in every matchup, so we need to be careful when thinking about when to bring it in. As an aside, I am playing as many as 4 cabal therapy postboard, so I am getting lots of value out of random dorks.

If we're talking about 3mana spells, whats everyone's thoughts on Arcane Artisan? I really wish it had 2 or even 1 point of power sigh.

Also, UB reanimator was recently featured on MTGMuddstah's channel (they mainly do really good EDH videos). Link to the video here.

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Originally Posted by RNGesus

If we're talking about 3mana spells, whats everyone's thoughts on Arcane Artisan? I really wish it had 2 or even 1 point of power sigh.

Also, UB reanimator was recently featured on MTGMuddstah's channel (they mainly do really good EDH videos). Link to the video here.

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I think the general feeling is that it's a little too slow. Ability also requires 3 mana in order to activate. Having said that, it does dodge graveyard hate and Containment Priest and has 3 toughness which definitely helps survivability.

I'd imagine most people would rather play show and tell.

What if we drop careful study altogether? We rarely want two creatures in the yard at sorcery speed anyway. You can still entomb/hapless at instant speed for the second creature.

I don't own unmasks and I don't play MTGO so I'll probably have to acquire a few to test it at weeklies but this looks interesting:

3 Lotus Petal
3 Griselbrand
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Inkwell Leviathan
4 Hapless Researcher
2 Animate Dead
4 Entomb
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
1 Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
3 Ponder
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Unmask

2 Pithing Needle
1 Blazing Archon
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Pack Rat
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
3 Baleful Strix
2 Echoing Truth
2 Show and Tell

That's enough blue mainboard while having both force and unmask + cabal/hapless combo. Side is to be customized of course, I just put my current one.

Anyone see any glaring flaws? I think it's about time we put the collective UB brain to work :P

I'll caveat that I'm admittedly new coming to the deck :cool:

I tend to agree with Deatheus89 on Arcane Artisan - it's definitely not going to win in a speed matchup, but I see it as a "third" way out if the graveyard and Show and Tell are somehow locked out as options for getting our monsters on the battlefield. I see it as helpful out of the sideboard against Death and Taxes or anything else that might play Containment Priest, but I don't know if that warrants a sideboard spot.

@Cpt-Qc: I agree that Hapless Researcher sending one monster to the bin is sufficient, but I do appreciate the extra card on the front end of Careful Study. My initial reaction to your list is that the 3s of Petal, Unmask, Therapy and Ponder feels like they could be rearranged and optimized in a different manner. I apologize for not having a solid recommendation.

I feel like right now I just want to do something proactive that has more interaction than BR Reanimator, so despite the prodigious hate that's out there now I think the deck can still be competitive with a skilled pilot to navigate the hate. I like what I've seen in some lists like this with the Izzet Charms helping with not having to automatically punt to a g1 Chalice:

Creatures
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3x Griselbrand
1x Tidespout Tyrant
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria

Spells
4x Brainstorm
4x Careful Study
4x Entomb
4x Reanimate
2x Thoughtseize
3x Daze
4x Exhume
2x Izzet Charm
4x Force of Will

Artifacts
4x Lotus Petal

Enchantments
2x Animate Dead

Lands
1x Badlands
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Island
4x Polluted Delta
2x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island

Sideboard
1x Coffin Purge
1x Flusterstorm
2x Pithing Needle
1x Abrade
2x Echoing Truth
4x Show and Tell
2x Massacre
1x Grave Titan
1x Void Winnower

Hey all,

Just thought I’d share a small report on a recent MTGO competitive league I ran through. For those who aren’t familiar with the online scene, an MTGO league is basically like a local four rounder with no cut to the top eight, except it’s five rounds. If you win two matches or fewer, you get nothing. At three wins, you win your entry fee back and like a buck or buck-and-a-half (depending on what bots are buying treasure chests for). At four and five wins, you start to actually win stuff (more than your entry fee). Leagues are more competitive than locals (depending on your scene, of course) because they cost more (120 play points converts to 12 tickets or 12 bucks) and because you’ve got more dedicated grinders online than in real life. So, EV isn’t super great, but I’ve got three kids so I have no time to get out of the house to play. (In fact, I sold all my paper cards years ago.) Luckily, legacy cards prices have gone way, way down recently. Two or three years ago, it cost over $1000 to put Lands together on MTGO, but now only about $250 (thanks to a massive reduction in the price of Rishadan Port).

Anywho, here’s the list I ran:

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

0cmc
4 Lotus Petal

1cmc
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Careful Study
2 Thoughtseize

2cmc
3 Daze
4 Exhume
1 Animate Dead

5cmc
4 Force of Will

Creatures
4 Grizzy
1 Elesh Norn
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Iona

Board
3 Show and Tell
3 Massacre
2 Pithing Needle
2 Flusterstorm
2 Echoing Truth
1 Duress
1 Ashen Rider
1 Jin-Git

Round One: Sneak and Show

Game One: I keep a slow, cantrippy hand and think my opponent is on Miracles when he plays out a couple basic islands. I figure I have time to sculpt and look for counterspells. I don’t. He goes for Sneak Attack third turn and crushes me with Grizzy and Emmy.

Game Two: I replace a Grizzy with a Jin-Git to edge against Surgical and lose the Dazes for 2 Needles and a Fluster. I keep a fast hand with counter back up and kill him with a reanimated Griselbrand.

Game Three: I keep a turn three hand but don’t have counterspells. He plays a Grafdigger’s Cage, I search for counters with a Brainstorm, and don’t find one. I now have now no outs because I didn’t board in Echoing Truth. Dumb.

Round Two: Maverick

Game One: I keep a turn two hand and Maverick can’t do anything about it. He does Swords the Griselbrand that I reanimate, but I draw into seven pieces of gas so he’s still toast. I end up countering three Knights of the Reliquary this game.

Game Two: I board out three Dazes, two Thoughtseizes, two Exhumes, and my singleton Animate Dead for three Show and Tells, two Needles, and three Massacres. I expect Leyline, so I keep a hand with a turn three Show and Tell into Grizzy. Opponent just plays Noble Hierarch and passes. No Leyline. Maverick plays Scooze on his second turn and passes. I draw Lotus Petal and Show into Grizzy and that’s pretty much it.

Round Three: RUB Delver

Game One: Opponent plays turn one delver, but I have turn two Grizzy with counterspell backup. Not much he can do but croak it.

Game Two: I board out three Dazes for two Flusterstorm and a Duress, one Animate Dead and an Exhume for two Show and Tells, and one Grizzy for one Jin-Git. I keep a hand with a turn two Grizzy off of Show and Tell, but on a mull to five Delver just plays land drops and passes, so I figure he’s got counterspells. I hold off on the Show and Tell until my third turn when I can back it up with a Flusterstorm, but Delver has a Force for the Show and Tell, which I Fluster. He lets that resolve and Flusters my Show and Tell. I die to Gurmag Angler beats.

Game Three: I keep a hand with Elesh and Iona, a Careful Study, and an Exhume for a turn two monster. He Forces my turn one Careful Study and it seems like I draw nothing forever and ever. I’m beaten down to nine with a Delver and an L Bolt. I figure I’m scragged since he’s got three cards in hand, but I just go for it when I find a Reanimate for a Grizzy I’ve previously Entombed because I’m dead either way. He Spell Pierces the Reanimate, but I can pay for it after fetching. So I’m at one life and die to an L Bolt, but if he doesn’t find the Bolt on his draw, I’ve got Grizzy and will gain life. He doesn’t find the Bolt and I win.

Round Four: Elves

Game One: Elves scoops to an Entombed Grizzy when I’m on the play. He hasn’t shown me any cards.

Game Two: Not knowing what I’m up against, I hedge against several options. I lose Dazes for a Flusterstorm, a Duress, and an Echoing Truth. I lose an Animate Dead and an Exhume for two Show and Tells. I lose one Grizzy for one Jin-Git. Elves mulls to four for a Leyline of the Void and doesn’t play a land his first turn, and I’m like, Eff yeah!, cause I’ve got a turn three Show and Tell into Jin-Git. Unfortunately, it seems like Elves draws the nuts off the top. He plays Bayou on his second turn and proceeds to tear my hand apart with two Cabal Therapies and elves that he sacs to them. On a mull to four from my opponent, I lose to elf beats.

Game Three: I board in the third Show and Tell and keep a cantrippy hand. He does have Leyline of the Void, but since he’s got no hand interaction, I have enough time to assemble Show and Tell plus Grizzy. GGs.

Round Five: BR Reanimator

Game One: I’m up against ewlandon, a known grinder who has some good videos. I tell him in chat I like his BR Reanimator vs. Depths video, but then wish I hadn’t because it gives away that I’ve searched for Reanimator videos. I keep a risky hand of Careful Study into reanimate Iona on turn one, but I have to Study off a Petal, which means I have to find a land to go off. Something happens and ewlandon disconnects for a long time so I’m surfing the internet for a while. He comes back, and because I was on the web when he comes back, I don’t see the notification that he’s revealed a Chancellor of the Annex. On the play, I play my Lotus Petal and it gets countered and I’m like, Derf. He gets Grizzy on his first turn and I concede and it sucks.

Game Two: I don’t board much, just a couple Echoing Truths for Thoughtseizes. Both of us resist putting creatures into the yard for fear of Reanimates from the other side, but he discards my hand with Unmasks and Cabal Therapies. I draw a couple Forces and he tries to hardcast a Grizzy that I Force. I have a Force for his first Animate Dead but not his second, so I die.

Results: 3-2
Winnings: 120 play points, 1 treasure chest.

Peace out,
gigapatrick

UB Reanimator: 42nd at SCG Syracuse Legacy Open

http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/127372

Points of interest:

Four S&T plus three Arcane Artisan in the board.
No Echoing Truth in the 75.
Only 8 Reanimation spells (no Animate dead).

Nice run!

I guess by not running green and eschewing classic defensive bounce spells, they really went all in on the S&T effects.
I'm not a fan of Archetype of Endurance, but it does play nice with Arcane Artisan, so it makes sense there.
This does seem to be a pretty no-tricks list, glad to see vanilla Reanimator can still perform.

Hopefully a report is forthcoming

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Originally Posted by SJerusalem

I'll caveat that I'm admittedly new coming to the deck :cool:

I tend to agree with Deatheus89 on Arcane Artisan - it's definitely not going to win in a speed matchup, but I see it as a "third" way out if the graveyard and Show and Tell are somehow locked out as options for getting our monsters on the battlefield. I see it as helpful out of the sideboard against Death and Taxes or anything else that might play Containment Priest, but I don't know if that warrants a sideboard spot.

@Cpt-Qc: I agree that Hapless Researcher sending one monster to the bin is sufficient, but I do appreciate the extra card on the front end of Careful Study. My initial reaction to your list is that the 3s of Petal, Unmask, Therapy and Ponder feels like they could be rearranged and optimized in a different manner. I apologize for not having a solid recommendation.

I feel like right now I just want to do something proactive that has more interaction than BR Reanimator, so despite the prodigious hate that's out there now I think the deck can still be competitive with a skilled pilot to navigate the hate. I like what I've seen in some lists like this with the Izzet Charms helping with not having to automatically punt to a g1 Chalice:

Creatures
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3x Griselbrand
1x Tidespout Tyrant
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria

Spells
4x Brainstorm
4x Careful Study
4x Entomb
4x Reanimate
2x Thoughtseize
3x Daze
4x Exhume
2x Izzet Charm
4x Force of Will

Artifacts
4x Lotus Petal

Enchantments
2x Animate Dead

Lands
1x Badlands
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Island
4x Polluted Delta
2x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island

Sideboard
1x Coffin Purge
1x Flusterstorm
2x Pithing Needle
1x Abrade
2x Echoing Truth
4x Show and Tell
2x Massacre
1x Grave Titan
1x Void Winnower

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This is the list that got me interested in the deck again, I've seen it doing a few results over mtgo, but isn't more fluster/abrade/duress just better then void win over and grave Titan in the board?
I was also debating the use of petals vs a card like hapless and more lands, we don't seem to go of turn I've that much anyway

Hi guys

I would like to know about your side in and side out.
Against wich deck do you side in Archetype of Endurance ? And why ?

Thanx

^
I can only speak for myself, but the Hexproof/Shroud creature usually comes in against white decks to blank Swords to Plowshares and/or Karakas. Red removal is typically burn-related and can’t kill our large creatures, green removal effectively doesn’t exist aside from the rare Assassin’s Trophy, black removal is either Fatal Push (which we don’t care about) or Diabolic Edict (which doesn’t care about shroud), and blue decks usually don’t play a lot of straight-up bounce spells unless they have a specific reason to.

I could also see bringing it in against something like Lands to beat Maze of Ith.

In general its been a not-so-strong option these days due to the printing and popularity of Council's Judgment.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

True that. A creature to beat white decks is pretty much all I look for every spoiler season.