[Discussion] Building Mono-Black Reanimator

[SuckerPunch]

Updated Thread and Deck:

Okay, I've gotten a lot more playtime with the deck and have settled on what I think will be my final build.

Reanimator 1.0

17 Swamp - For good luck.
4 Dark Ritual

4 Putrid Imp
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Blackmail

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Animate Dead
2 Life/Death

4 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4 Spirit of the Night
4 Simic Sky Swallower
2 Bogardan Hellkite

Sideboard:
2 Life/Death
4 Dance of the Dead
2 Bogardan Hellkite
4 8/8 Untargetable
2 Duress/Sickening Dreams
1 Swamp

You really have to try out the deck's curve and at the very least goldfish with it to see why I made the specific choices I made and why I opted to run so many creatures and animate effects. It really helps to be insanely consistent when you're likely to face atleast one Swords or Counterspell per game. Yes you don't draw a lot of cards, but this build lets you topdeck like a fiend.

The list may look like a pile just going for a speedy win but it has a lot of subtle synergies and an airtight curve and clock.

I like Bogardan Hellkite (the new card from Time Spiral) a lot more than Thunder Dragon only because this is a fast build so both cards hit the same creatures, but Hellkite doesn't slow down your win against combo.

I've tried both the green, red and the blue splash and am completely convinced that neither is worthwhile.

The only time the blue splash is worthwhile is if you're going for a slower more controllish build and want to run Intuition. Otherwise, a combo deck like this wants to mulligan when it doesn't have the right pieces, it can't afford to mulligan because it's color screwed, which happens too often when you opt to splash. Also the additional vulnerability to Wasteland is not worth it if you're not going for a slow controllish build.

In general I am convinced that the slower more controllish route is NOT the way to go. As the game drags on, the amount of hate you are suseptable to that your opponent brings in is very significant. Also the lifeloss from Reanimte is only worth it if you can end games before turn 4-5 or so.

Putrid Imp is the best discard outlet you could ever hope for since it lets you play it turn one, but actually discard the card turn 2 right before you're going to reanimate it, thus avoiding a lot of graveyard hate. Cabal Therapy has great synergy with Putrid Imp and Blackmail as well. Cabal Therapy, Blackmail and Duress from the side all can greatly hurt combo.

The sideboard in specific is designed to allow you to modify the deck to deal with what ever hate this deck most commonly runs into.

The 4 Reanimate and the very low curve help me get away with just 16 lands and 4 Rituals but you can bring a Swamp in from the side and subout the Reanimates for Dance of the Dead when you can't afford the lifeloss.

Against heavy creature removal, you can bring in a full 8 Untargetable threats.

Against enchantment destruction, you can bring in life/death.

Best of all, against slower more controllish decks that pack tons of creature removal, you can side out all 12 discard slots and bring in 6 more fat creatures and 6 more reanimation effects. This effectively means that a full 3rd of your deck is fatties and a full third of it is reanimate effects. You are forced to not play anything turn one so you have to discard a creature turn 2and so forth, but you also run such a high density of creatures and reanimate effects that you can push on through and win even through 2 Swords and a counterspell or two.