Bride of Young Frankenstein

[owerbart]

Did anyone saw the list of Alex Bridges in SCGIndy? Any updated list? I'm looking forward to build this

[wolftree]

Any chance the delve creatures from FRF might be useful for providing an alternate beatdown plan? I've been testing a bit and turn 2 Gurmag Angler/Tasigur is pretty feasible with DRS and Faithless Looting in the deck.

[Weapon X]

Given the choice I'd lean towards zombie fish but it doesn't feel needed. I might sooner go to tombstalker but it still doesn't feel needed.

[Redkid43]

Not too familiar with the deck's philosophy, but I think this deck doesn't want Tas or Angler.

For those asking, Alex's list:


Creatures [13]
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Bloodghast
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Young Pyromancer

Instants [9]
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Entomb
4 Lightning Bolt

Sorceries [18]
1 Dread Return
1 Innocent Blood
2 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Lingering Souls
4 Faithless Looting
4 Reanimate


Lands [20]
1 Marsh Flats
1 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Scrubland
2 Swamp
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs

1 Pithing Needle
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Merciless Executioner
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Wear // Tear
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Cabal Therapy


Forgoing blue gives us a more all in feel while still being quite resiliant due to our increased number of discard outlets. I would personally like to see Probe+Therapy because that combo is sweet and adding YP in the mix has been proven to be potent. I personally like Dread Return here, as it's basically another Reanimate for free if you Entomb with it. Bloodghast and lingering souls are quite resiliant and offer up as great fodder for Dread Return and Innocent Blood, while being major threats with an Elesh Norn in play.

I'm kinda eh about the sideboard---I would like to see another big dumb creature to side in against control like Grave Titan, Sire, Jin-Gitaxias, etc over that oddly played Grim Lavamancer. FRF's new Flesbag Maurader seems like a Show and Tell bullet, and is worth looking into.

[Weapon X]

I built bride as a hybrid deck. I liked the explosiveness of burning reanimator and the synergy within young frankenstein. The result lead me to white mainly for the stoneforge package which helps turn some of the weaker threats into must answers. The combination created a deck that can play fair and unfair and even hide full play options making it truly hard for opponents to sideboard.

All that said the RUB build is young frankenstein, this white splash build (WBR) that I created is The Bride of young Frankenstein and named as a nod to the precursor.

[Qweerios]

I made an almost identical deck yesterday when I felt like spicing up my 4c Bombardment deck ("The Expendables" in the Developmental section). The tournament went smoothly and some plays were absolutely nutty. Here's the list and how it played out:


4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Young Pyromancer
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Bloodghast
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

4 Entomb
4 Abrupt Decay

3 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
1 Lingering Souls
1 Dread Return

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
3 Badlands
2 Scrubland
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Swamp
//SB
1 Grave Titan
1 Thoughtseize
1 Coffin Purge
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Dread of Night
1 Blood Moon
2 Choke
3 Liliana of the Veil


2-0 against BG Pox

G1 Iona on black T2 via Entomb and Reanimate
G2 Swarm with Pyromancer and Bloodghast and seal it with topdeck Entomb and Reanimate on Iona

0-2 against Lands

G1 I my opponent had T2 Marrit Lage
G2 Grave Titan on T2 got Bog'd away via Crop Rotation, Blood Moon was KGripped, and Loam dredged a Maze of Ith the turn Iona would have killed him.

2-0 against UW CounterTop

G1 I get T2 Iona in play with Bloodghast via T1 DRS, Entomb and Therapy.
G2 I get T2 Grave Titan online, he gets Plowed and tokens eat a DSphere, RiP eats my Bloodghast, my Lily gets handled by Gideon, and Batterskull + Lingering Souls grinds him out.

2-0 against Reanimator

G1 He was a bit confused when I Entombed Elesh Norn with my Pyromancer army in response to his Exhume on Iona. He also Reanimated Griselbrand to defend himself but I had an Abrupt decay to prevent the lifelink on my lethal attack.
G2 I shredded his hand and Reanimated his Elesh Norn then slammed a Lily and a DRS to seal the deal.

A few comments on my experience and card choices:

-I think I was very lucky to chain Entomb Reanimate all night
-Dread Return feels utterly useless bececause having 3 dorks to sac means I could just win with them or Entomb more Souls or Ghasts instead. I would rather play Unburial Rites or a better card in that slot
-The manabase could use a Plateau
-I like how SFM + Batterskull is another "combo" in the deck and is unaffected by GY hate but perhaps only Jitte would do the trick?
-I want a 2nd Blood Moon for lands in the SB
-Sigarda might be a better alternate reanimation target than Grave Titan. She poses a smaller threat but she won't die to StP and get stalled by Maze of Ith and PFire. Against a deck like DnT she will carry equipments like a boss. She is also much easier to hardcast with a DRS on the board than a Grave Titan

I have yet to test against Delver and Aggro decks like DnT and Elves. I can't say for Delver but I expect DnT to remain favorable and Elves to become much more "hit or miss". Combo and Burn are definitely improved and I'll have to see about Miracles.

[TLK]

I really like your list. Am I missing something, or did you forget to list Reanimate in your 60?

[Qweerios]

You are correct, I did forget to list 4 Reanimate.

[Agrippa91]

*cough* lots of settled dust here.

I've been made aware of Young Frankenstein again on reddit and I remembered that I wanted to make the deck viable again after DTT was banned (before the strategy seemed bad because RIP was already good against Grixis as it was). I feel a lot more comfortable in my deckbuilding skills and analysis, too, so I tried a new take on this old bad boy.

As I tuned this decklist I made it my main goal to be as consistant as possible since that's already a problem with Reanimator sometimes and definitely is with a build that tries to incorporate another strategy.
My first take of just playing 4 entombs, 4 reanimates and 2 fatties led to very, very awkward draws so I adjusted a bit. Here's the list for the reference:


7 Creatures
4 Young Pyromancer
1 Bloodghast
1 Grave Titan
1 Griselbrand

39 Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Entomb
4 Force of Will
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Reanimate
2 Animate Dead
1 Dread Return/Intuition

14 Lands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands

Sideboard (15 Cards)
2 Spell Snare
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Echoing Truth
2 Pyroblast
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Darkblast
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Ancient Grudge

I didn't want DRS because it didn't add anything to the game plan: It's neither good with the reanimator shell (you work on low mana anyways) nor does it work particularly good with YP besides the t1 drs t2 yp->therapy dreamstart. So I cut the shamans alltogether and added stuff that made both strategies more viable: More cantrips in Preordain (helps find the combo, feeds pyromancer) and 2 Animate Dead because sometimes I just couldn't afford to reanimate the fatty because my life total was already too low.
I also would learn the hard way that entombing for Ancient Grudge in response to a Chalice does nothing when you don't play green in the deck

In the actual gameplay the deck just felt a tad too slow. preordaining and pondering helped me find the combo, but took quite some turns which gave my opponent lots of time to prepare. Worst of all I often times was already low enough in life total that I couldn't reanimate anything or was in burn range afterwards, Animate Dead wasn't just a worse Reanimate as I first thought (I don't play exhume for obvious reasons, the upside outweights the -1/0, decay isn't that much of a problem because we can discard it/have other targets/draw 7 cards anyways).
Dread Return never came up, when you have 3 creatures you're in good shape anyways most of the time and it really felt "win-more" while being just dead otherwise.

So I tuned to list to be more on the synergy-side: Every spell besides the pyromancer-probe-therapy-combo and the bolts should make the deck a better t2-t3 reanimator deck. Here's what I've come up with and am currently playing:

8 creatures:

4 young pyromancer
1 bloodghast
1 griselbrand
1 elesh norn
1 tidespout tyrant

4 enchantments:
4 animate dead

33 instants/sorceries:
4 reanimate
4 entomb
4 careful study
4 brainstorm
4 gitaxian probe
4 force of will
4 bolt
4 cabal therapy
1 intuition

15 lands:
4 bloodstained mire
4 polluted delta
2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
2 badlands
1 swamp
1 island

sideboard:
4 Echoing Truth
2 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
2 Spell Snare
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Grave Titan

I cut the Dread Return for an Intuition (making it a comfortable 18 blue cards in the mainboard with plenty more in the sb) and made sure to max out on the combo by playing 4-12 ways to get stuff into the gy and 8 ways to reanimate it. Basically I cut the 8 durdly cantrips for action that puts my opponent to the test each turn.

In the sideboard I have Echoing Truth mainly because it hits Leyline, it's also very nice with therapy. Not playing decays makes me more vulnerable to counterbalance, but I'm very content with 2 Spell Snares (also against RIP, hatebears and spheres) and 2 pyroblasts (mostly vs. miracle, not sure how good it's against delver, propably only against UR).

I favored Forked Bolt over Darkblast in Grixis Delver, but given the fact that it's tutorable Darkblast is just a must-have and has served me well on the few occasions I brought it in.

Needle is there against D&T, Miracles and Lands, not sure if I should bring it in against Shardless BUG (they have DRS alongside planeswalkers, problem is the decay).

Grim Lavamancer is just mean against creature decks without STP, recurring it can be a nightmare though they can of course outrace it.

Grave Titan is the most iffy one, I think I'll keep it for now though. I just would like another threat that doesn't get bounced by Karakas, but still has a really high impact, Archetype of Endurance or Stormtide Leviathan were considerations, I stuck to the threat though that can also deal with a full board of Eldrazi or white creatures (against Miracles it's also nice because I can hardcast it).

I keep in the Pyromancers against every deck really besides loam decks really, there I just hit them with the full power of Reanimator while keeping them in check with Truths, Needles and Snares (you can still flashback therapy with bloodghast theoretically). Note that the basics not only dodge Blood Moon but also allow me to go full UB against Loam without the vulnerability to Wasteland.

At last I should mention that I made this list with a certain thinking of budget in mind: I just don't own Show&Tell, more Griselbrands, Blood Moon or Scalding Tarns and I don't want to afford more of these 50 bucks cards. I tried to tune my list in a direction though that doesn't just replace them with "budget" alternatives, but instead takes advantage of the lower curve and the fact that I can rely on my graveyard in pretty much every game (due to the vast sideboard hate). That said I can still "steal" games by just tempoing them out with Pyromancer and bolt or stripping their hand off threats with YP or bloodghast.

Powerlevel-wise I would put this deck at roughly Omniscience-level: Not the absolute best but certainly on a level where the better player wins like 80-90% of the time. That said it has the huge advantage of your opponents not knowing what the hell in going on in most games which ups your win-percentage significantly. Last but not least I just really, really enjoy playing this deck. It combines tempo, combo and control in a very unique way and, given that you know your opponent's hand most of the time, lets you play around stuff accordingly, rewarding tight play as well as knowledge of your own deck, in short the things that make Legacy great!

[Weapon X]

TL;DR

I just want to point out that I made this thread for a variant I made at the time that is in fact mardu. It runs a reanimator package, stoneforge mystic, and young pyromancer plan creating very diverse options that synergize together.

[Agrippa91]

ah ok sry, I didn't find any "Young Frankenstein" thread itself so I figured I'd post it here since that's how the moderators do it with many delver decks/miracles, etc.

I mean I can't really post it in a Reanimator thread, so should I open a new one?

[Weapon X]

Honestly I think it's fine here, it's not like you are the first to do so. It's just be aware that this is a mardu thread first with relevant grixis talk second.

The removal that white adds, plus stoneforge, is why I feel this splash is stronger then grixis. It plays a different tempo game.

[markitus]

8 creatures:
4 young pyromancer
1 bloodghast
1 griselbrand
1 elesh norn
1 tidespout tyrant

4 enchantments:
4 animate dead

33 instants/sorceries:
4 reanimate
4 entomb
4 careful study
4 brainstorm
4 gitaxian probe
4 force of will
4 bolt
4 cabal therapy
1 intuition

15 lands:
4 bloodstained mire
4 polluted delta
2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
2 badlands
1 swamp
1 island

sideboard:
4 Echoing Truth
2 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
2 Spell Snare
2 Pyroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Grave Titan

Nice list!

Just a few comments (I have not been able to test your build yet):

• I think 15 lands is too low for this deck. I would like to see one or two more.
• Careful Study is not very good here, as there are only 4 cretures to discard. I would replace it with Ponder, which will help find relevant pieces (Entomb, reanimation or protection).
• Perhaps Collective Brutality can also help with the self-discard, so I would try in instead of Intuition (it is also faster and helps against Shaman).
• I would consider Blazing Archon in the spot of Tyrant, as this deck will reanimate a creature later than other Reanimator decks and the board state can be an issue.

Based on those comments, a list I would also like to test contains the following changes:
-1 tidespout tyrant
-2 animate dead
-4 careful study
-1 intuition
+1 Blazing Archon
+4 Ponder
+1 Collective Brutality
+2 lands