[Deck]BUx Reanimator

Not to knock the guy too hard (he did make the finals, so his street cred is worlds more than mine) but I'd like to know what his initial 7 was that motivated him to mulligan and then keep a dead end hands on camera. I carve my name into 5 card hands all the time, the deck is resilient enough to work low potential into game winning more times than people give it credit for. Unless I have it right there, a hand with only half and no Brainstorm or Ponder is a bad hand for me. Sucks that that is what beat him, not some epic play or solid battling.

The deck definitely mulligans well enough that some of his keeps were pretty loose. I've had mulligans to 4 where I'm still reanimating turn 1, sometimes turn 2 with protection (daze).

Also, I'm pretty sure at this point that Iona should be moved to the sideboard and replaced with either Inkwell or Grave Titan. Iona has been a terrible main deck creature in every tournament I've played in since I picked up the deck after champs.

Another SCG, another Top 8 for Altered Beast, with perhaps the most thematically appropriate last name possible.

Break the bridesmaid curse, Graves. DO IT FOR US.

Reanimator in the finals!

Holy shi...poop. Two in a row.

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Reanimator takes down Sneak and Show in the finals!

Boom, head shot!

I was really surprised that T1 Reanimate resolved in g3...

So having watched the finals, and coming under a similar board state as G3, I have a question.

My line of play went Careful Study, tossing Griselbrand and then playing Exhume, with a Reanimate in hand, but his yard was empty and no life loss with a Griz is nice. He responds with an Entomb, this being my first encounter with Jund Depths, I didn't see it coming, he bins his own Griselbrand, and Exhume resolves.

I attack into his, they both die. Now at a ton of life, I Reanimate, targeting his Griselbrand, the line being if he had Surgical Extraction or something similar, he would be forced to use it on himself. He didn't and it never mattered, and similarly in the finals, the choice existed for Graves to target either Griselbrand, but knowing the deck lists and sideboards, it didn't matter.

My questions is is there any possible downside to this line of play. If at worst the distinction doesn't matter and at best they have to Extirpate themselves, then why not always take this line. Unless there is something I'm missing, which is why I ask.

I was thinking about that too and would have Reanimated his Griselbrand as well.

Thomas Graves wins with reanimator. Kind of funny to me. A little more than it should be though...

Good to see this deck place. I've always liked Reanimator.

I'm really curious how you board with his list (Thomas Graves). I'm trying to get into Reanimator and while playtesting I figured I would like to board most of the Sideboard against most DTB, which seems bad, because I don't want to water down the main strategy.

Here is the Sideboard I was playtesting with (Thomas Graves):

2x Engineered Explosives
2x Pithing Needle
1x Ashen Rider
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Coffin Purge
1x Flusterstorm
2x City of Traitors
2x Show and Tell
2x Thoughtseize

What makes me most curious is: What to take out. Does FoW comes out sometimes? Do you even board G2 before you see what they bring in against you? Can someone of you enlighten me?

Let me start by saying that boarding with this deck is very challenging, you need to have a read on the deck you are playing against, you need to know what hate they plan to bring in, and you need to know what cards they will take out, so that you can craft an effective boarding strategy to deal with their new configuration.

Every deck in the format has certain sideboard cards that they gravitate towards in order to interact with you. The way you decide what to bring in is by identifying along what axes the deck you are trying to play against will interact with you. After that you need to decide what cards in your mainboard are not strong against that strategy as well as the general strategy of the deck you are playing against. For example, playing against elves, daze will almost always be dead, so it is an easy cut (at least on the draw).

If you want to sideboard against RUG, for instance, using that sideboard, you need to look at what they are trying to do: constrain your mana, bury you under soft counters, and kill you with one or two guys. Sometimes they play one graf cage. Cards to consider bringing in in that matchup:

EE: kills cage if they have it, their threats if they don't. Killing RUG's threats is actually an interesting decision point because they have so few, and as a game goes long, you will almost certainly develop a hand that will win.

Flusterstorm: Here you can bring in a counter to deal with their counters, but I don't think it's worth it. Flusterstorm is much better as a defensive spell than an offensive one, and you are requiring yourself to hold up an extra mana to cast a spell, not always possible against RUG's game plan.

Thoughtseize: allows you to do essentially the same thing as flusterstorm, but without the requirement of holding up a mana for every spell and with the added bonus of information, this is something you can bring in.

SnT and City of Traitors: These are sort of a package deal, especially against RUG. I can see bringing these in to increase threat density within the deck, these seem fine, but first we'll have to find out what to cut.

assuming your main 60 is the same as his, I think the pool of cards to look at for cuts would be:

Ponder: This may seem blasphemous, but in my experience this is the weakest card in the deck, some number of these could easily be cut while sideboarding, especially if you are increasing threat density with show and tells.

Daze: This card is more dependent on play/draw, I can see you leaving it in in either case, but it's a card you could cut if you wanted

Careful Study: This card gets weaker when you add more show and tells to the deck, cutting one or two could be appropriate in some cases.

Petals: They help you play around soft counters, but they are really one shot lands, city of traitors seems to have the same effect, but each city can work more than once. some number of these may be correct to cut.

Reanimate/exhume: If you want to add show and tells and cut a careful study or two it may be appropriate to take out a single copy of whichever of these spells you find to be weaker, though I don't advise this plan against RUG, it is easier to cast and resolve one and two mana spells than three mana ones.


With all of that thought put together, I think I would board something like this, assuming I am on the draw:

+2 Thoughtseize
+2 EE (These are a bit fringe, but I like being able to slow RUG down and deal with graf cage, since if the game goes long without graf in play, you will almost certainly win, bringing these in is up to you.)
+2 SnT
+2 City

-4 ponder
-1 petal
-2 Daze
-1 careful study

I don't play Graves' 75, so my boarding may not be perfect, but what I am trying to show is the analysis process that you need to go through when boarding with this deck. I don't have time to go through writing out this process for any other decks, but the way you go about it is the same.

In response to your last questions: I almost never board out force of will, we are a deck that cares about resolving one or two spells, and once they resolve, which FoW helps enable, we don't care about the card disadvantage that FoW gives, we only care that we can use them to keep us in the driver's seat. You should have some idea of what you'll see in game 2, if you don't have familiarity with the format and how the generic version of a deck will board, you need to learn that so that you can board correctly with this deck. Sideboarding is the most difficult and also the most important part about playing this deck.

Wow Stryfo! Thank you very much for your detailed answer! This helps me alot!

I second Stryfo's analisys: you'll often find yourself siding out a mix of ponder (if you play them), daze (if you are on the draw), study and reanimate (I almost never side out exhume because if you have 2 creatures in the grave, or entomb in hand, plays around grave hate).

The only thing I don't agree with is fow: it is possible to side out if the hate you're facing can be fought with other cards of your side, especially if the opponent is heavy on discard. For example against jund there aren't must-counter cards: drs can be raced or named with needle or you can play S&T, liliana cannot beat grave titan, ecc...
Moreover, counters are bad against Jund because they usually side in a number of REBs

Reanimator looks well positioned in this meta.

- Doesn't care about TNN.
- Favored against Sneak and Show (which is the DTB combo deck).
- Fast enough to fight DnT while also having a more stable mana based (U and B).
- Doesn't care about any weird mid-range decks trying to survive in this TNN meta (Shardless BUG, Nic Fit, etc)

The only matchups that look like a challenge are RUG, Team America, and Miracle Control (RIP version). Is Reanimator a good choice?

EDIT: http://www.tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Legacy

Currently sitting at 6th at the time of this post.

Chris Vanmeger in the t8 of SCG Baltimore with Reanimator!

Is there a stream to watch it?


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Scg.com has the stream going right now. It's vanmeter vs DeathBlade atm.

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