[Deck] Reanimator

hi guys

newbie here... also building a reanimator deck, although today i came across this rather nice version of a "reanimator" but with no black :D

http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/22236

I quite like this one! :D what do you think? Obviously it's a different way or making use of those huge beasts which cannot be literally used in our decks, but I think it sounds cool!

EDIT: just noticed they classify these as "sneak attack" decks on the site above... hadn't seen a deck discussion on here about them :)

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...-Show-and-Tell

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheMinel

hi guys

newbie here... also building a reanimator deck, although today i came across this rather nice version of a "reanimator" but with no black :D

http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/22236

I quite like this one! :D what do you think? Obviously it's a different way or making use of those huge beasts which cannot be literally used in our decks, but I think it sounds cool!

EDIT: just noticed they classify these as "sneak attack" decks on the site above... hadn't seen a deck discussion on here about them :)

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thanks!! :D

Hi,
i'm really interested in playing this Deck, but I have some questions reffering to right sideboarding.

My problem mostly is that I know what to board in, but not what to put out.

What are the common boarding strategies against the momentarily most played decks like maverick, dredge, ********, stoneblade or Merfolk?

In which situations do i board the show and tells?

Are there any "auto includes" G2 you board every time when you know against what deck you are playing?

I hope my questions are clear and i apologize for my bad english :rolleyes:

The List im reffering to

[deck]
Targets
3 Jin Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Angel of Despair

Enablers
4 Entomb
3 Careful Study

Reanimation
3 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Animate Dead

Protection
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Duress

Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
2 Blue Fetch
2 Black Fetch
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/deck]


[deck]
3 Pithing Needle
3 Thoughtseize
3 Show and Tell
3 Echoing Truth
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sundering Titan
1 Blazing Archon
[/deck]

Hey. I am rather new to this Deck, too. I've been trying it out once a while pre MM ban.
I think this Deck has to be well prepared to do well in big tournaments. There are two simple reasons for this belive:

a.) Your MD Creature selection has to be suited for the most common archetypes in YOUR metagame. It doesn't make sense to play Blazing Archon against a field of Storm, nor is Sphinx good enough against lots of control-style Decks. That's why the lists differ quite a lot. A good knowledge of the field seems relevant to me.
b.) Reanimator beats most Decks game1. Without the inhumanely good draws it's incredibly hard to beat. The raw power of it's reanimation targets is so brutal. Just insane. I've been playtesting wth some friends. I've lost like ~3 games out of 30 preboard. Postboard it gets extremely difficult to calculate the options your opponent has to play hatecards as tormod's crypt style effects or Surgical Extraction. I still win more than 50% of my postboard games due to the fact that I do know what to board and what hands to keep. In general: Information is key for sideboarding. Unless your opponents choises are obvious.

Back to your question. I just bought the whole deck just to play and get experience with and I had to look twice to actually believe what show and tell goes for these days. That's propably why you ask about their use. If not - just ignore it and forgive me, please.
Show and Tell does multiple things. It's a card with the option to do tricks your opponent can not respond to properly. It sneaks Fatties into play. And therefor it's perfect to dodge graveyard hate. At the moment you'll face a lot I think. The key is to go through Decklists and spy for show and tell targets which can be problematic to you. Example: Maverick has Knight of the Relinquary and Karakas. S&T allows them to sneak either into play and on top. boath lead to Karakas which lead to a fattie in your hand unless it's not a legend. Just look out for those slots and you'll be left with... Merfolk, SneakShow, Hivemind, etc. (I'm to lazy to think about all of them right now and the list is by far to long to remember after a couple of beers ;) )

cheers

Nice sig ;)

Just a thought for everyone else. I don't play this deck but I try to be helpful wherever I can so I hope this gets some though.

What about going back to the 3 Iona lists? Seems like she'd be effective since everyone's gone back to not worrying about her hitting play (meaning that most Reanimator players are grabbing Jinn) so they've gone back to their typical removal packages, usually sharing a color.

Just a thought.

I guess I am fine with playing 2 Ionas. The card still got no shroud and does not instantly win.

I am unsure about splashing colors. The discussions on the last pages were not quite satisfying.
When MT was still playable in Legacy a lot of the players tended to run 1 green dual + 1 or 2 grips. In addition to this you could also run Dryad Arbor now as something to make your creatures Edict proof or some kind of ninja blocker. Also Swarm might be decent.
I also thought of splashing red for the new spoiled Flashback Careful Study which also seems more than decent for the deck. You could also run Blasts in the Board which deal nicely with Snapcasters and Countermagic - blasts are at least a small upgrade to the Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm/Dispel. What sucks a bit is that I guess you would have to run like 3 Red Duals to be able to constantly cast or flashback the red study while the color is incredibly limited in suiting MD or SB cards.
Those splashes require a straight fetchlandsplit + 2 or 3 duals/arbor which is kind of bearable imo.

I would love to get some input on this. Even with the ideas of splashing being around like forever none seems to have success with a splashed list. Especially the possible red splash in the future is very appealing.

HI All:

Just want to share that I was able make top 8 with this deck. Here's the link

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...225#post604225

has anyone tried to integrate Intuition to this deck, as an addition to Entomb? obviously it costs much more but picking up 3 fatties and dropping 2 in the cemetery at instant speed doesn't seem such a bad idea!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheMinel

has anyone tried to integrate Intuition to this deck, as an addition to Entomb? obviously it costs much more but picking up 3 fatties and dropping 2 in the cemetery at instant speed doesn't seem such a bad idea!

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I think it has been tried or discussed a few pages back(pre MM ban). It was too slow to warrant a maindeck slot.

So...

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attac...9&d=1321954388

they're printing a superior version of Careful Study in red.

Considering that Careful Study is one of the strongest cards in the deck, it's a card that might actually be worth splashing for.

Hmm, in my opinion, splashing for red is not a wise idea. Just because it's similar to CS, that doesn't mean that the card is worth including. First of all: Faithless Looting is not blue. Reanimator, as most of U-Based decks, plays Force of Will in order to protect its fatties. Careful is a strong card because it can be used as a FoW pitch. Faithless will just make the U count in the deck drop dramatically.

You say that it is superior due to flashback. Reanimator does not have the greatest manabase worldwide. It plays usually 17 to 19 lands, just the minimum needed to go off quickly without flooding, maximizing then the utility density of the deck. Another point is that, in addition to this thin manabase, you will usually be held back by your own dazes, so reaching 3 manas would take probably some time.

Third, a 3 colored manabase, in a metagame rich of stiflewaste and such, is not the greatest idea ever, especially for such a not-fundamental card.

Finally some real input.

>Faithless will just make the U count in the deck drop dramatically.
>dramatically

While testing I ran 3 Lootings for which I cutted 1 Entomb and 2 Hapless Researchers (you need to run this card even if it sucks pretty hard). This results in -2 U cards which means I still got 1/3 U (21) cards which still seems at least decent when I think of decks running 16 U cards including Force and still being OK.

Sure you need some time to reach 3 mana but this seems like no problem at all. I would even consider this card if it would not have flashback because Careful Study was always the MVP for me. Looting seems decent in games which get kind of "grindy" because you do not have the completely bonkers opener and play against someone who is able to defend against the reanimation strategy.
The point for is - the card seems really good in situations where you are in kind of a bad spot and were you are therefore forced to dig for solutions for the particular problems.

Considering Tempodecks is a fair point regarding the current metagame but I was still fine while testing with 2 Basics instead of 3 or 4 against Canadian. Also Stifle and Wasteland are not that bad against the UB versions either because you also fetch a lot and got nearly the same amount of duals (-1).
Relying on only non basic land based red Mana sucks though and might the only argument for me not switching to UBr.

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Red would also provide blasts which are SO MUCH (!!) better than Dispel/Pierce because they also deal with CB, Snapcaster and other random U stuff.

Another top 8 finish for this deck. Made it all the way to the finals. Way to go!!

http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...a_vs_andr.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oRen

While testing I ran 3 Lootings for which I cutted 1 Entomb and 2 Hapless Researchers (you need to run this card even if it sucks pretty hard). This results in -2 U cards which means I still got 1/3 U (21) cards which still seems at least decent when I think of decks running 16 U cards including Force and still being OK.

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Why would you remove 1 Entomb in maindeck? this card is one of the core pieces of reanimator.. lol.
Take note that CS-effect cards can be a major card disadvantage.. especially when you dont have creatures to bin.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rnightingale

Why would you remove 1 Entomb in maindeck? this card is one of the core pieces of reanimator.. lol.
Take note that CS-effect cards can be a major card disadvantage.. especially when you dont have creatures to bin.

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Take note that instead of encouraging your argument you ridicule it and yourself with that "lol".

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Anyway I ran 9 creatures while testing and never had issues to discard a creature. One of my friends who is more experienced with this deck in practice also said that you might want to not cut an Entomb but that the intention is understandable. Obviously the exact numbers got to be figured out in about 2 month and nitpicking on single points while not even delivaring better ideas sucks.

Sure the card itself is pure carddisadvantage but it does it exactly want you want it to do. Trippling your "Getting creatures into your grave while digging for cards you want"-card is just too good to be completely ignored.

with it being blue for force of will
1 mana cost
gets creature into bin
digs

only disadvantage, would be card disadvantage..

i would consider hapless before anything else, :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oRen

Finally some real input.

>Faithless will just make the U count in the deck drop dramatically.
>dramatically

While testing I ran 3 Lootings for which I cutted 1 Entomb and 2 Hapless Researchers (you need to run this card even if it sucks pretty hard). This results in -2 U cards which means I still got 1/3 U (21) cards which still seems at least decent when I think of decks running 16 U cards including Force and still being OK.

Sure you need some time to reach 3 mana but this seems like no problem at all. I would even consider this card if it would not have flashback because Careful Study was always the MVP for me. Looting seems decent in games which get kind of "grindy" because you do not have the completely bonkers opener and play against someone who is able to defend against the reanimation strategy.
The point for is - the card seems really good in situations where you are in kind of a bad spot and were you are therefore forced to dig for solutions for the particular problems.

Considering Tempodecks is a fair point regarding the current metagame but I was still fine while testing with 2 Basics instead of 3 or 4 against Canadian. Also Stifle and Wasteland are not that bad against the UB versions either because you also fetch a lot and got nearly the same amount of duals (-1).
Relying on only non basic land based red Mana sucks though and might the only argument for me not switching to UBr.

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Red would also provide blasts which are SO MUCH (!!) better than Dispel/Pierce because they also deal with CB, Snapcaster and other random U stuff.

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red blasts do not counter swords to plowshares. the ability to fight through countermagic isn't that big of a deal most of the time and is pretty easily done with force/ daze/ thoughtseize/ pierce out of the board. the blasts are not upgrades just narrower cards that don;t do as much in my opinion.

i also do not think that looting is where you want to be as i continually find myself boarding out 1-2 copies in games two and three if im on the show and tell plan since i will need all of my countermagic and my fatties in hand. also diluting to a third color seems sketchy if you are only gaining more copies of careful study.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ThomasDowd

red blasts do not counter swords to plowshares. the ability to fight through countermagic isn't that big of a deal most of the time and is pretty easily done with force/ daze/ thoughtseize/ pierce out of the board. the blasts are not upgrades just narrower cards that don;t do as much in my opinion.

i also do not think that looting is where you want to be as i continually find myself boarding out 1-2 copies in games two and three if im on the show and tell plan since i will need all of my countermagic and my fatties in hand. also diluting to a third color seems sketchy if you are only gaining more copies of careful study.

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Fair points.

I got to admit that I am not a particularly big fan of SnT in this Deck. I had a lot of situations were this card just did not win. With that much other Reanimator and Maverik (+ a lot of random junk like CB Thopter; Hive Mind, ?) in the metagame I am pretty sure that it is not the right call.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oRen

Fair points.

I got to admit that I am not a particularly big fan of SnT in this Deck. I had a lot of situations were this card just did not win. With that much other Reanimator and Maverik (+ a lot of random junk like CB Thopter; Hive Mind, ?) in the metagame I am pretty sure that it is not the right call.

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boarding in SnT in the mirror is miserable, and i have no idea why that would even be an option? there are ways to beat the mirror. mainly it comes down to alot of draw go and whoever blinks first and can stick their threat and protect from the ensuing bounce.

i really do not know how you are beating a scavenging ooze though, or an active knight, or a a creature which can blow up 2-3 of your reanimation spells and they still have other removal + karakas. maverick is really rough.

if your metagame is maverick and reanimator i wouldn't even play reanimator personally. the mirror is one of the most disgusting things ever and i haven;t figured out how to beat maverick yet, other than god draws. which this deck does have alot of.