[Discussion] Building Mono-Black Reanimator

[TheDarkshineKnight]

@TheDarkshineKnight: LOL, thanks... All I'm waiting for is a decent tutor/draw for mono-black as the last piece before taking it to a tourney...

I've tried Infernal Tutor, but Results have been negative... So I'm still waiting... C'mon Wizards, give me a good one...

I was wondering, have you thought about adding maybe Sundering Titan to the board to maindeck. He's big, and his effect is awesome.

[kicks_422]

I tried him out before, and yes the effect is great, but IMHO overkill... You want fatties that kill your opponent, and since it's got no evasion, that's a minus for him... But in today's meta, I might try him out to board against Thresh...

[Skogen]

Here is just an idea. I guess it isn't a "true" mono-black build, but I think it would be a pretty cool idea anyways.

// Lands
16 Swamp
// Creatures
2 Juggernaut (Might just be a place holder for better fat)
2 Sundering Titan
2 Triskelion
4 Hypnotic Specter
// Enchantments
2 Dance of the Dead
2 Animate Dead
// Spells
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Skeletal Scrying
3 Buried Alive
4 Duress
4 Exhume
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Reanimate

Cabal ritual will probably be the first thing to go, since probably/does have poor synergy with Skeletal scrying. I figured I'd give skeletal scrying a try since we would have a lot of burnt spells sitting in the yard (dark rit, all of the reanimation spells etc). I love the idea of basically paying two (Exhume) to throw down a titan onto the table. I liked the idea of trike in the MD to ping of stupid creatures. Like I said, just an idea I came up with like 2 hours ago.

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

Eww.. please cut Cabal Ritual. It seems rather awful in this deck. Also, in place of Juggernaught try running Akroma Angel of Wrath, as she is pretty nuts. Also, the main reason why Reanimator has a decent matchup with Goblins and other fast aggro is because of Zombie Infestation. That card is a definite 4 of in this deck! Good luck!

[Skogen]

Duly noted on the fat change up. For some reason before I didn't realize that using DotD on Akroma was awesome. Stupid me. I put 2 of Zombie Infestations MD, since I figured I am not going to run up against goblins all of the time, and 2 SB for when I do run up against goblins.

Even though this deck may not be techincally 'viable' in the current format, it is still very fun to play. Nothing beats an opening hand of Dark Rit, Swamp, Swamp, Buried Alive, Dance of the Dead, Animate Dead, and Duress.

// Lands
16 Swamp
// Creatures
3 Triskelion
2 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4 Hypnotic Specter
2 Spirit of the Night
// Enchantments
2 Dance of the Dead
2 Animate Dead
2 Zombie Infestation
// Spells
4 Dark Ritual
4 Skeletal Scrying
4 Buried Alive
4 Duress
4 Exhume
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Reanimate

[TheDarkshineKnight]

Eh, uh, Skeletal Scrying? WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU RUN THAT IN REANIMATOR?!? Honestly, the point of the deck is to dump stuff into the discard pile, and use reanimation spells to bring said stuff on to the field. Removing cards from the game is somewhat, oh, against your strategy.

[Skogen]

Eh, uh, Skeletal Scrying? WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU RUN THAT IN REANIMATOR?!? Honestly, the point of the deck is to dump stuff into the discard pile, and use reanimation spells to bring said stuff on to the field. Removing cards from the game is somewhat, oh, against your strategy.

I figured I'd give skeletal scrying a try since we would have a lot of burnt spells sitting in the yard (dark rit, all of the reanimation spells etc).

What exactly am I going to do with all the reanimation spells when they are sitting in the yard? Regrowth them? Christ. You must think that I would be stupid enough to remove the creatures from the game.

On the other hand you may be able to draw the conclussion that I wouldn't want the draw because I would draw into the creatures instead of using Buried Alived to make them go to the yard and play them for much cheaper. But that wasn't your argument.

Honestly, please think before you post.

[DeathwingZERO]

Eh, uh, Skeletal Scrying? WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU RUN THAT IN REANIMATOR?!? Honestly, the point of the deck is to dump stuff into the discard pile, and use reanimation spells to bring said stuff on to the field. Removing cards from the game is somewhat, oh, against your strategy.

That's about as smart as saying Dragon shouldn't use 4 Squees, because unless you have Bazaar or Compulsion on the board, he's taking up valuable space in your hand.

The whole point is to cycle through the deck as quickly as possible, and Scrying serves as a card to throw away things like used Dark Rit, Duress, Reanimate, Buried Alive.....etc, etc, etc to gain a few more cards for a little life and mana invested. Consider it a "late game" tactic (by late I mean turns 4 on) to get a little more steam going. Everything you do in order to get said creatures in the graveyard requires spells that are just graveyard fodder once cast, so your basically just making them say "1: Pay 1 life, draw a card". Reanimator rarely cares about it's life total, as long as reanimating a game winner (such as Akroma) won't cost them the game.

It's also a good boost against control and aggro alike late game, giving you the chance to get into that much needed reanimation spell, or forcing a counterspell on your opponent so you can cast the one already in your hand next turn, tapping them out on theirs in the process.

In all honesty, I haven't seen a good reanimator deck that didn't play at least 2 of these cards in it, just for the much needed steam if your first couple turns don't get enough beats on the board.

Edit: Also, in case nobody noticed, Zombie Infestation maindeck means you don't worry about drawing into your threats, they instead turn into a 2/2 creature for you. How nifty.....

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

I will say this over and over, ZOMBIE INFESTATION is retarded in this deck. It's one of the reasons this deck is actually decent. It seems pretty good against slowing up Goblins and other random aggro. and like Deathwing said, Zombie Infestation allows you to create threats and blockers when you feel like it, not hope you draw into your threats.

[Mirrislegend]

I will say this over and over, ZOMBIE INFESTATION is retarded in this deck

QFT

More specifically, ZI is abso-fucking-lutely BAHROKEN in any deck that runs black and likes putting stuff into the graveyard. It is a must run in all reanimator, not just Mono Black

[The Rack]

Why would just go for beats? I would want situational creatures to hammer the opponent no matter what the field looked like. Grab a Braids, Titan, Ascendant Evincar and that takes care of most decks.

[DeathwingZERO]

I agree Sundering Titan is SAVAGE in this deck. At the cost of your swamp, you've easily 2-1 nearly any deck in the format, even the decks playing 2 colors with basics. He wouldn't even need to swing, the favor gained from him coming into play would be rediculous enough. I think we've seen this proven correct time and time again with Survival Welder decks using him. Also, a Trike wouldn't be a bad idea. Nice trick to pick off weenies then chump block.

[SuckerPunch]

kicks, Slag, and Skogan,

I'm interested to hear if you guys have had a lot more playtime with your decklists yet, enough to advocate any updates to your original decklists.

Also of interest, here's Orloves Reanimator deck, it's not monoblack, and I'm not convinced it's better than the builds some of you guys posted, but it's still inspires some cool ideas...

Orlove's Quote (frome 7 months ago):

Since people were curious, I decided to start a thread on the deck now, even though I'm also planning on writing a report.

First of all, here's the list I actually played:

4 Zombie Infestation
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Phantom Nishoba
4 Exhume
3 Reanimate
4 Careful study
4 Burning Wish
3 Intuition
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Last Rites

4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
1 Island
1 Mountain
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
4 Wasteland
2 Mox Diamond

Sideboard
3 Last Rites
1 Reanimate
1 Buried Alive
1 Sickening Dreams
1 Pyroclasm
1 Echoing Ruin
3 Petradon
3 Disrupt
1 Plated Slagwurm

I went 4-1-1, drawing in the last round to make T8.

The key card in the list is definitely Zombie Infestation. It will almost singlehandedly win many games for this deck, especially in otherwise poor matchups. It is one of the major reasons why the deck has such a spectacular game against Goblins.

The next crucial element of the deck is definitely the discard spells. 4 Duress and 4 Therapy is a huge wrecking ball that can just tear people's hands apart (especially if they're sandbagging two swords). Intuition can get triple Therapy against Tide and the like, or you can throw a random Therapy in the mix if you're going for say, your last two Squees. Infestation and hardcast Squee make flashing back Therapy easy, and in some matchups you can just sac Akroma and then Exhume her again the next turn, especially if you have several spare animation effects and have Intuitioned for Therapies. Finally, Last Rites is a huge beating against almost every deck, and siding in two for the two Mox Diamonds against control strategies is just such a beating.

The final cornerstone of the deck is Burning Wish. This card just does so much. It gets Buried Alive to either tutor up fatties to animate or Squees to feed Infestation. It gets Reanimate to animate something on the cheap. It gets Sickening Dreams or Last Rites as discard outlets. Last Rites is also huge disruption, while Sickening Dreams provides a Pyroclasm that you can cast for 2BR in one turn, a way to kill larger creatures, and can act as a finisher, especially against decks like MWC or Tide. Finally, Pyroclasm and Echoing Ruin provide general utility.

Careful Study is just ridiculously good, especially if you have at least one Squee in your opening hand.

Akroma is simply the best reanimation target. Haste is crucial, as it speeds up the clock and lets her basically ignore sorcery speed removal, as you can just play another animation effect and attack again. Vigilance is very good against pretty much anything with creatures, especially when combined with First Strike. Flying, Trample, and First Strike also combine to make her essentially impossible to block effectively. Finally, Protection from Red is strong against Goblins, and Protection from Black is at least theoretically useful. If I'd been able to borrow four, I would have had four maindeck.

Finally, the manabase is just so good. Fetches and basics give me insane stability, and allied colors means I have no trouble getting the mana I need to cast my spells. Wastelands weren't spectacular, because everyone seems to be ready for them, but they're not bad. They compliment the Petradon plan very well, but I'd test Factories there, since that might be better overall.

The only real SB cards are the Petradons and Disrupts, which come in for control and combo. Petradon owns manabases, especially basic Islands. Disrupt buys time against combo, since you just hit whatever you can (Brainstorm and Impulse are very good targets). You really just want to buy enough time for your Petradons to finish the job. Leave one Akroma in against combo, though, because she is quick with the beats.

Against control, Disrupt is also really good, stopping Swords, Disenchant, Fact or Fiction, Vengeance, Force of Will, and other annoyances. They may be worse now that the list is public, but if your opponent slows down all their spells to play around them, they've done their job and you can just cycle them off of whatever.

Plated Slagwurm was just filler, and should have been something like Eater of the Dead for Survival hate. I basically didn't prepare for RG survival, and lost to it in the top 8, due to keeping an inappropriate hand game 1 (no discard for Survival) and to concocting a poor SB plan (exhume is basically fine against them, but I sided too many out).

Overall, I found the deck very solid, and often capable of doing broken things that just outclassed my opponent's deck.

[kicks_422]

To tell you honestly, it was Orlove's list that inspired me to make a reanimator deck of my own... I loved how he combined the Wild Zombies engine with the reanimator strategy, and when lots of good fatties in RAV block came out (Angel of Despair, Razia, Blazing Archon), I decided to give it a try...

Actually, the only change I've made so far is adding a Garza Zol to the MD... It's been nice for me so far, providing additional card draw, though the improvement she brings to the deck overall has been pretty minor, if any at all...

[SuckerPunch]

Your build is awesome kicks.

The only comment I have is that when I ran the deck, I've felt like I wanted just a smidgeon less discard and a smidgeon more reanimation effects as the first one gets countered or the first creature destroyed so often.

Thus I would make the following change to your list...
-1 Buried Alive
+1 Animate Dead.

As good as Buried Alive is, it's mana intensive, and also sucks in multiples. I thinks its perfect as a 3 of.

[Tacosnape]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Animate/Dance suboptimal in any build running 4x Akroma, since Animate/Dance just falls off of Akroma? I can maybe see Animate, but Dance seems awful.

[kicks_422]

Yes, it falls off... No way should you be running it in a build with 4 Akroma... But in a toolbox version, being able to get any creature except one mght be good enough (though the one you can't get is arguably your best one)...

Is lifeloss a huge deal for you? If not, I'd suggest you use Life/Death first... So you can still get Akroma...

[TsumiBand]

In regard to Animate Dead and Akroma, actually you *can* reanimate Akroma with it successfully.
I don't have the judge explanation as a link, unfortunately, but it works like this:
Animate Dead comes into play and becomes an Aura with Enchant Creature.
Akroma is targetted since ProBlack doesn't apply while she's in the yard.
Akroma comes into play.
Animate Dead and friends attempt to enchant her but since pro-black creatures can't be enchanted by black enchantments, it stays in play as a simple Enchantment.
Since Akroma was never actually enchanted by Animate Dead and the wording says "When -this- leaves play, destroy *enchanted* creature", she remains in play.

Now, whether or not Animate Dead is actually an optimal reanimation spell depends on your deck. But insofar as the 4x Akroma, 4x Animate Dead plan goes, it's basically a one-sided Exhume.

[kicks_422]

I saw the thread about this rules question... Apparently the argument is still not settled... If it does work that way, then I'm really going to be running Animate Dead... I'll be posting a new list once the rules have been clarified...

[TsumiBand]

I saw the thread about this rules question... Apparently the argument is still not settled... If it does work that way, then I'm really going to be running Animate Dead... I'll be posting a new list once the rules have been clarified...

Not settled? It's a clear case of the "Can't Rule". Pro-black creatures can't be damaged, enchanted, blocked or targeted by black things. Animate Dead can target it while it's in the yard but can't enchant it. gatherer.wizards.com stipulates that if Animate Dead's ability 'fizzles' it just stays in play as an Enchantment. Even if the Animate Dead were destroyed, it never enchanted Akroma so it can't "destroy enchanted creature".