[Deck] Reanimator

[coraz86]

Sphinx of the Steel Wind.

I sit corrected.

Carry on.

[practical joke]

playing both akroma and sphinx is quite unnecessary mainboard.
you should choose one of them.

Why I chose akroma, she kills every deck that sphinx also kills, but has haste as well. She can become an unexpected alphastrike the sphinx can not.
The sphinx is in SB for me, adding it when i play against zoo,loam,goblins etc.

nice report, btw, against DDANT, try to learn the way of playing that deck. You'll notice where the weak links are quite fast, he might've not won that 2nd match then :)


grats on your price

[whienot]

For those not aware, two Reanimator decks made top4 at the Dec. 19th tourny at Jupiter Games. Both were Buried Alive builds.

3rd place - Tariq White
1 island
4 swamp
2 bayou
4 underground sea
4 marsh flats
4 polluted delta
2 dark ritual
3 duress
4 entomb
3 buried alive
1 reanimate
4 animate dead
4 exhume
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 mystical tutor
4 force of will
1 empyrial archangel
1 sphinx of the steel wind
1 inkwell leviathan
1 iona, shield of emeria

sb
1 duress
3 extirpate
3 echoing truth
1 rebuild
1 rushing river
3 krosan grip
1 crovax, ascendant hero
1 thunder dragon
1 sundering titan

4th place - colin chilbert

1 iona shield of emeria
1 sphinx of the steel wind
1 inkwell leviathon
1 blazing archon
4 entomb
2 buried alive
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 mystical tutor
4 exhume
3 animate dead
3 Reanimate
4 force of will
3 thoughtseize
4 dark ritual
4 polluted delta
2 bloodstained mire
1 marsh flats
4 underground sea
2 bayou
3 swamp
1 island

sb
3 krosan grip
2 rushing river
2 pithing needle
1 empyrial archangel
2 duress
2 ravenous trap
1 natures rain
1 tormods crypt
1 thunder dragon

[spiderfreak]

Hi not alot to say, cuz i forget a alot (sorry)
31 ppl made top 4 with

1 Island
4 Swamp
2 Bayou
4 Underground Sea
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
2 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Entomb
3 Buried Alive
1 Reanimate
4 Animate Dead
4 Exhume
4 ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Force of Will
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

------Sideboard------

1 Duress
3 Extirpate
3 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
1 Rushing River
3 Krosan Grip
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
1 Thunder Dragon
1 Sundering Titan

I want 4-1

beating black/green with Natural Order
beating 43 land
losing to zoo
beating zoo
beating 43 land
top 8 beating Dredge
top 4 losing to Natural Order Bant

all in all a day good

[Rune]

I'm contemplating building Reanimator but it seems to me that ANT and Reanimator have very similar matchups, except it's very hard for Reanimator to win vs some control decks like Landstill, whereas it's considerably easier for ANT to win those matches. Can someone enlighten me as to why you would choose to play Reanimator over ANT?

[andiibooo]

Personally I find ANT to be a bit fragile when combo'ing off against control. Playing blue control, I've never lost against ANT, couple counters and they basically scoop. Reanimator only has two pieces: something to get a creature into the yard, and a reanimation spell and the deck has tons of redundancy and card manipulation (ponder, careful study, brainstorm, tutor) to fight through counters and hate.

Also, grats to spider and di. How was playing with buried alive - I personally it to cost too much to play, especially that many copies. And how would you feel about the matchups you played against?

[Di]

I'm contemplating building Reanimator but it seems to me that ANT and Reanimator have very similar matchups, except it's very hard for Reanimator to win vs some control decks like Landstill, whereas it's considerably easier for ANT to win those matches. Can someone enlighten me as to why you would choose to play Reanimator over ANT?

Reanimator has a much easier time vs. control decks than Storm combo, especially if you add Landstill into the mix. Landstill is arguably one of Reanimator's best matchups because they have as many counters as you have disruption, not to mention they still need to handle all your bury and Animate spells, and have virtually no clock which gives you all the time in the world to set up and stick Iona, which they have no outs to dealing with.

Counterbalance decks are also much easier for us because we can handle Counterbalance itself much easier with Force of Will and sideboard Krosan Grip and Rushing Rivers which are easier to find and cast than with ANT, but also because it can fight through Counterbalance much easier. It is very difficult for ANT to combo through a Counterbalance because they need to resolve most, if not all the spells they cast in order to hit enough mana to win. Reanimator instead has the flexibility of only needing to resolve 1-2 spells through Counterbalance, which makes it easier on us.

On top of this, Reanimator is much better at going off multiple times than ANT. If ANT fails to go off once against a control deck, it's difficult for them to do it again as you need so many cards to do so. If Reanimator is stopped from comboing, it can continue to try it over and over again because there is so little needed to combo in the first place.

Also, grats to spider and di. How was playing with buried alive - I personally it to cost too much to play, especially that many copies. And how would you feel about the matchups you played against?

Buried Alive was very good for me all day. It worked incredibly well with Dark Ritual, and as additional copies of Entomb I was very pleased with it.

I'll write a short report within a day or two, but here are the matchups I played against:

Round 1: TES, I win 2-0
Round 2: Eva Green w/ Bloodghast and Entomb, I win 2-1
Round 3: Zoo, I win 3-0
Draw round 4 and 5 lol
Top8: 43 Lands, I win 2-1
Top4: Natural Order Bant, I lose 2-0

Granted I did lose 2-0 to Countertop, I lost through landscrew and nothing else, having a total of 3 lands between the two games. In the upcoming report I'll discuss the matches in detail, and then provide a bit of analysis on my list, what worked and what didn't work, and what changes the deck needs for future events.

[practical joke]

All those matches you played are considered a walk in the park for my version of the deck...
You can have bad luck against counterbalance, it's not the easiest match-up.

@ spiderfreak:how random is playing 2 dark rituals in a buried alive deck? are there any reasons why you played some cards with certain ammounts, because I'm not very impressed with the results you booked with that list since your match-ups are considered very easy. sideboard seems quite random as well.
Then again, I don't know your meta.


if you consider playing ANt or Reanimate...I'd choose ANT ( more consistent once you learned how to play with it well)

Reanimate's match-ups are different from ANT's. because compared to ANT, we CAN win actually every match-up. ANT will probably die horribly on counterbalance, where reanimate can take it down.
Reanimate is much more easier to play if you are not that experienced.
About the zoo decks? where they naya or domain?

Grats on both results nonetheless :)
good to see my pet-deck working as intended after unbanning of entomb.

[spiderfreak]

@ spiderfreak:how random is playing 2 dark rituals in a buried alive deck? are there any reasons why you played some cards with certain ammounts, because I'm not very impressed with the results you booked with that list since your match-ups are considered very easy. sideboard seems quite random as well.
Then again, I don't know your meta.

was playing 17 lands and 4 rituals. did not like not having lands, so want to 19 lands and 2 rituals. it did not go off turn 1 or 2 alot, but turn 3 a good amount of the time. im now back to 4 rituals and 19 lands.

@meta i don't know too lol that way i have what i have

[practical joke]

Hi not alot to say, cuz i forget a alot (sorry)
31 ppl made top 4 with

1 Island
4 Swamp
2 Bayou
4 Underground Sea
4 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
2 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Entomb
3 Buried Alive
1 Reanimate
4 Animate Dead
4 Exhume
4 ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Force of Will
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

------Sideboard------

1 Duress
3 Extirpate
3 Echoing Truth
1 Rebuild
1 Rushing River
3 Krosan Grip
1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
1 Thunder Dragon
1 Sundering Titan

I still see 2 rituals here on that tournament, why crovax?

[Forbiddian]

I still see 2 rituals here on that tournament, why crovax?

It's about the only thing that could beat a resolved Thropter Foundry. Although they can still gain 1 life per land they have.

It's also pretty good vs. Goblins or w/e.

[arebennian]

There are a few things that stick out for me from the previous successful lists:

- Lack of Show and Tell (one of in the main or sideboard)
- Only 3 Thoughtsieze as actual discard between the two decks (not that you would want to target yourself, but in a pinch). I imagine the play is brainstorm, put it back and then Entomb?
- Mystical Tutor as a 4of rather than a 3of
- Reduction of Reanimate in favour of Animate Dead
- Over 8 Animation spells

NOTE: I don't disagree with these, and I can guess your reasoning but I would appreciate it if you could summise these choices when you give a deck breakdown Di; just for the sake of completeness.

[whienot]

@Practical Joke

was playing 17 lands and 4 rituals. did not like not having lands, so went to 19 lands and 2 rituals

I can see the reasoning behind cutting back on Reanimate and adding Animate Dead. Sometimes the lifeloss is just too much of a liability.

I imagine the lack of Show and Tell has something to do with only playing 4 creatures. Show and Tell drops in value when you aren't likely to have fat in your hand.

And 8+ Reanimation spells combos with Buried Alive. Multiple reanimations ftw. They also gives a sense of inevitability against non-counterbalance control.

[spiderfreak]

I still see 2 rituals here on that tournament, why crovax?

after the tournament i want back to 4 rituals. i did not like not going off T1,T2

@ crovax, Dredge

[conboy31]

I have played around with this version some: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=15359

It looks a bit different than the current versions, and the current versions actually fix some of the problems I found.

A) the deck needs brainstorm. It has too many bricks and once it goes into topdeck mode a brainstorm + fetch in hand can be the difference between going on to win or sitting there.
B) If you are playing against blue and suspect they have the slightest chance of bringing in Sower of Temptation, sideboard accordingly. Its tough to top the punch in the junk when your t2 Sphinx of the steel wind is control magic'd on t4.

[Dark Ritual]

Show and Tell seems to work better in lists with intuition...get 3 fatties, they force you to keep one in hand, then you show and tell it into play which shouldn't be hard with our tutor package of mystical tutor, brainstorm, and ponder.

Reanimate is more combo-y than animate dead because animate dead is aiming for consistency and not losing tons of life. Although animate dead is still iffy cause it is much more vulnerable as a permanent and qasali pridemage can just wreck us if they resolve pridemage and our only reanimation card in hand is animate dead whereas reanimate is permanent if it resolves.

[Vacrix]

Show and Tell seems to work better in lists with intuition...get 3 fatties, they force you to keep one in hand, then you show and tell it into play which shouldn't be hard with our tutor package of mystical tutor, brainstorm, and ponder.

Reanimate is more combo-y than animate dead because animate dead is aiming for consistency and not losing tons of life. Although animate dead is still iffy cause it is much more vulnerable as a permanent and qasali pridemage can just wreck us if they resolve pridemage and our only reanimation card in hand is animate dead whereas reanimate is permanent if it resolves.

I also support Intuition over Buried Alive. In addition to working well with Show and Tell, it insures that you will have a creature in your hand in the case in which your opponent removes your grave. You can play intuition at the end of your opponent's turn too, unlike buried alive.

I've had problems with both reanimate and animate dead, losing randomly to oblivion rings, pridgemage, etc. on my animate dead, or just not having the life to use reanimate, but reanimate is just too good to run 1 copy like some of these lists.

Also, for lists running 4 dark ritual...have you tried Living Death? WOGing and getting creatures from your grave is pretty legit. In fact, you already run Mystical tutor, enabling you to fetch it in sticky situations.

[konsultant]

The left field lists that Di and Spiderfreak are playing don't run Careful Study or Show and Tell, they also only run one copy of each creature making Intuition not as strong of a choice as Buried Alive in that slot.

Personally and I believe I can speak for them on this I prefer running as few creatures as possable to leave as much room for other cards as possable, I would also rather go off with the creature of my choice and not the one I happened to open hand. Careful Study can be amazing and it can be subpar, we have tested lists with it and we have come to prefer a list like the two lists that are posted above. Clearly Practical Joke has proven the capability of Careful Study and that it can certainly get you the win, we are just testing a different direction with the deck and so far it has been very successful.

[Di]

There are a few things that stick out for me from the previous successful lists:

- Lack of Show and Tell (one of in the main or sideboard)
- Only 3 Thoughtsieze as actual discard between the two decks (not that you would want to target yourself, but in a pinch). I imagine the play is brainstorm, put it back and then Entomb?
- Mystical Tutor as a 4of rather than a 3of
- Reduction of Reanimate in favour of Animate Dead
- Over 8 Animation spells

NOTE: I don't disagree with these, and I can guess your reasoning but I would appreciate it if you could summise these choices when you give a deck breakdown Di; just for the sake of completeness.

I finally have time to break this down, so here it goes. I'll be using my current list as a starting point of the breakdown instead though, which isn't all that different, but there are some important changes. I will mention here regarding Show and Tell, neither of these lists, including my current one, run more than 4 maindeck creatures. That's far too few to abuse Show and Tell consistently. In a build running 7+ creatures that's a terrific option, but these builds don't have that option. But for my report of my top4 performance at Eli's this past weekend uses the list that was posted above.

Round 1: TES

Game 1: He mulligans, and I'm on the play but don't know what he's playing, and open an insane hand with Swamp, Dark Ritual, Entomb, Exhume, Force, Brainstorm, Mystical Tutor. I go off for Inkwell Leviathan not knowing what he's doing, but we can't win in 3 turns either way through Force of Will.

SB: +2 Duress -1 Buried Alive -1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

[Note: I will mention that going into this event, having changed things around right before playing I didn't have set sideboarding strategies so a lot of my sideboarding may look random or bizarre.]

Game 2: I open a ridiculous hand against him with 2 land, Force, Brainstorm, 2 Duress and a Thoughtseize. I also ended up Brainstorming into an additional Thoughtseize. Needless to say, his hand was completely destroyed, and he was forced to attempt to combo fast because I got an Entomb but no animate effect, and he couldn't win through Force before I got Iona into play.

2-0
1-0


Round 2: Eva Green w/ Entomb and Bloodghast

Game 1: I know what he's playing since I watched his match previously so that helped. I ended up doing a lot of scouting during the event so I had a good idea of what I went into every single round. I'm on the play and open with a Ritual and Buried Alive. His turn one is land, go. My second turn I play Exhume for Iona on black and he scoops.

SB: +2 Duress +2 Rushing River +2 Pithing Needle, -3 Dark Ritual -1 Buried Alive -1 Mystical Tutor -1 Inkwell Leviathan

Game 2: I mulligan on the draw and open a hand of Island, Ponder, Dark Ritual, Entomb, Exhume, Animate Dead. I'll take it. He plays land, go. I Ponder into 2 Brainstorm and Buried Alive, and think long and hard about it before I decide to stay, assuming I'll find a black source from the Brainstorms. Naturally, I don't find a single land off either of them, and end up dying to a Bloodghast and a 3/4 Tarmogoyf. Weak.

Game 3: I open a questionably slow hand of 3 land, 2 Buried Alive, Exhume, Animate Dead on the draw. Turn 1 he Cabal Therapies and blindly names Buried Alive. Great. I draw Brainstorm and pass. Turn 2 he plays land go, which puzzles me. At that point I figured he was playing Extirpate, and decided to play around it. I Brainstorm eot and find a Mystical. I play my 3rd land and say go. On his turn, he plays Wasteland and Sinkhole on my two Seas. Ouch. We play draw go for two turns until he drops a Tombstalker. I pluck a second land and say go. He draws a Bloodghast and hits me down to 13 with Tombstalker. I eot Mystical for Entomb. My turn I draw Entomb and pass with only 2 lands in play. He attacks me down to 6 and passes, and I endstep Entomb for Sphinx of the Steel Wind. My turn I Exhume...and it resolves with him having 4 cards in hand. He seems rather upset. His hand is 3 Maelstrom Pulse and 1 Snuff Out. lol. Sphinx of the Steel Wind goes the distance for me.

2-1
2-0

Round 3: Zoo

Game 1: On the play I open a nutty hand of 2 land, Brainstorm, Entomb, Exhume, Mystical, Ponder. I have a turn 2 Iona, he kills it when I block a Kird Ape and he double Bolts, but can't deal with it when I Exhume it the next turn.

SB: +2 Rushing River +2 Pithing Needle +1 Empyrial Archangel, -3 Thoughtseize -1 Buried Alive, -1 Dark Ritual

Game 2: On the draw I open a hand of land, Entomb, Reanimate, Mystical, Inkwell, Brainstorm, Exhume. I don't draw the land on my turn, and I end up Entombing endstep and Reanimating Sphinx, hoping he doesn't have a Path. He doesn't, and I upkeep Mystical for Force of Will to protect Sphinx to go the distance.

2-0
3-0

The tournament was only 5 rounds, and I ID in both round 4 and 5.


Top 8: 43 Lands w/ Black for Entomb

Game 1: I'm on the draw, and open a terrible hand of 4 land, Dark Ritual, Animate Dead...Iona! He plays Exploration and some lands and says go. I draw and dump Iona. He does some land stuff, and my turn I Ritual Animate Iona naming green. She goes the distance.

SB: +2 Ravenous Trap +1 Tormod's Crypt +2 Pithing Needle +2 Rushing River +1 Krosan Grip +1 Empyrial Archangel, -4 Force of Will -3 Thoughtseize -1 Buried Alive -1 something I can't remember

Game 2: He opens with a Leyline, and my hand is 3 land, Mystical, Entomb, Exhume, Pithing Needle. I play my land and say go. He plays a Rishadan Port and says go. My 2nd turn I play Needle on Wasteland. I eot Mystical for Krosan Grip, and he draws and plays another Leyline. Hilarious. I kill one on his end step, then say go. Time flys by, and he manages to get 3 Ports in play to lock me down. I eventually sculpt a hand of Ritual, Ritual, Rushing River, 2 Entomb, Exhume, Animate Dead, but need another land in order to River his Leyline on my upkeep then go nuts. This went on for roughly 8-9 turns. Sadly I don't find the land in time, and on my last possible turn when I do get it, when I go off he has a Coffin Purge waiting for me.


Game 3: He doesn't have a Leyline, which is awesome. I open a sick hand of 2 land, Entomb, Mystical, Exhume, Ravenous Trap, Rushing River. I open with basic Island, go. He plays lands. I eot Mystical for Dark Ritual, and my turn I play Underground, Ritual Entomb Exhume Inkwell into play. He manages to get Tabernacle into play but I have the lands to pay for it, and I Trap him in his Loam shenanigans so he can't find Glacial Chasm in time.

2-1
4-0-2


Top 4: Natural Order Bant

Game 1: On the draw I open a hand of Island, Brainstorm, Buried Alive, Exhume, Exhume, Animate Dead, Reanimate. He plays land go. I don't draw a land and pass. He plays a Tarmogoyf, and I respond with a Brainstorm seeing triple Entomb. Frown. At this point, he has a full grip and a Tarmogoyf in play and I will be getting time walked for two straight turns, so I just move on to game 2. In retrospect I could've stayed in the game, but I would've been so far behind I wouldn't be able to come back.

SB: +2 Rushing River +2 Krosan Grip +1 Nature's Ruin +2 Duress +1 Empyrial Archangel, -4 Dark Ritual -1 Buried Alive -1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind, -2 Mystical Tutor

Game 2: I open a hand with 1 land, Ponder, Entomb, Nature's Ruin, Rushing River, Duress, and Krosan Grip. I Ponder turn 1 and find garbage then shuffle and peel Brainstorm. He plays a Noble Hierarch and passes. My turn I play Brainstorm and draw into a basic Island. He plays Counterbalance and passes. My upkeep I play Mystical and it resolves through CB. I get Entomb, then Duress him, taking Force of Will. He attacks and passes. My turn I fail to draw a land, and cast Entomb, he responds with Brainstorm and counters it. Next turn he plays Natural Order and gets Progenitus. I fail to draw the 3rd land for the rest of the game with Nature's Ruin, Krosan Grip, and Rushing River in hand. I try a desperation Exhume for Archangel after I manage to resolve an Entomb, but he has the Daze. Sad times.

0-2
4-1-2


Now, granted this report shows that I didn't have a difficult road to success, it revealed a lot of the flaws of the deck and what needed to change. So, here is my current list followed by the breakdown:

Left Field Reanimator

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Empyrial Archangel

4 Entomb
2 Buried Alive
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Mystical Tutor

4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize

4 Exhume
3 Reanimate
2 Animate Dead

4 Dark Ritual
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Marsh Flats
4 Swamp
1 Island

Sideboard:
2 Krosan Grip
1 Reverent Silence
2 Rushing River
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkle's Recall
1 Echoing Truth
1 Nature's Ruin
2 Ravenous Trap
1 Tormod's Crypt/Extirpate
2 Duress
1 Blazing Archon



4 Creatures: Standard creatures here. After continuous testing with different versions of the deck, I'm convinced the small creature package is still the best. It provides the best draws, best lategame, and most consistency, not to mention it makes your opening hands much stronger. On the creatures themselves, although the Blazing Archon was great for the metagame, it's weaker overall so I swapped the Archangel back to the maindeck. This could continuously change though, because Archon is an autowin against Ichorid and Merfolk game 1. Otherwise nothing else is different.

4 Entomb: Yeah.

2 Buried Alive: These are stellar to me as additional Entombs, and I think they're better than Careful Study as Study doesn't guarantee a creature in the yard. When running Dark Rituals they become so much faster and more powerful. Overall I'm really happy with them.

4 Mystical Tutor: Although I still believe 4 can be a burden if you open multiples, they're still good in this situation as it guarantees a combo by turn 3. You want the most consistency out of the deck, and having all the tutors is needed to accomplish this.

8 Cantrips: There really isn't any need to comment about this.

9 Animates: I was running 10 as I loved the consistency of having multiples to go through opposing disruption, but I cut the 10th for the 4th Mystical Tutor, which is acceptable. The current configuration is the best I can make it imo, and it's been great.

7 Disruption: This was arguably the biggest eyebrow-raiser of the list, mainly because I only ran 3 Thoughtseize in the maindeck. The reason to me is that Thoughtseize is the weakest card in the deck. It's a poor mid/lategame draw, and it's only good in a portion of the matches. Still, it's a necessary disruption piece, so I keep at least additional discard in the sideboard so I can increase them in control matches. And Force of Will needs no justification.

18 lands, 4 Dark Ritual: The list I ran to the top4 of the latest Eli's event was 17 land. It wasn't enough. In my testing it ran fine, but I constantly saw very few lands, and ALL of the games I lost were due to manascrew. All of them. After I increased the count to 18 I haven't seen as many problems. However, I will say this about the manabase:

- Running under 18 land is dangerous, even with a curve as low as ours. I do have 2 Buried Alive, but they aren't seen as often as the rest of the deck, which is composed of 26 1cc cards and 6 2cc cards. Running fewer will have a significant effect on the consistency of the manabase, not to mention it will struggle mightily against mana-denial decks like Merfolk, Tempo Thresh, or even 43 Lands. If you are arguing for a list with 15-16 lands, I believe you are either A. Not doing sufficient testing against those decks named above, B. Don't have enough tournament experience with the deck, or C. Are lying about things and are making these lists off the top of your hand. Having the higher land count, which can occasionally flood you slightly, will guarantee having a sufficient number of land drops a majority of the time, and will also fight opposing Wastelands and such much, much better. You can get away with 17 but it's risky, but I personally advise at least 18 lands.


The sideboard:

2 Krosan Grip/1 Reverent Silence split: This was originally 3 Grip, but after seeing an increase in Leyline of the Voids, I opted for a single Silence. Silence is still good against Counterbalance as it's free and they likely won't be able to counter it, but being able to kill multiple Leyline of the Voids without having to pay anything is great as it increases the speed of your answers.

Bounce Package (1 Chain of Vapor, 1 Echoing Truth, 1 Hurkle's Recall, 2 Rushing River): I decided to change this up based on speed applications. I really missed Echoing Truth as I lacked something that could hit multiples, and Chain of Vapor is the fastest slot we have, which is big against aggro decks. Rushing River is still notably good against everything despite being a little slower, but hitting multiple permanents is solid. The Recall is also decent despite being narrow, but I run it over a 2nd Truth because it will hit Relic and Crypt at once, and is great against Chalice decks or Stax, and Affinity should you run into it.

1 Nature's Ruin: This is an interesting slot for me. It could be another bounce spell, but there are times when I really wish I had an option of kills creatures. This could very well be something like Infest to hit weenies, but I'm more concerned with the Bant-style decks that have Rhox War Monk and Progenitus. This is the worst slot of the sideboard, but given how swingy that match is, I like the option of dealing with it. It also isn't terrible against something like Zoo, although I generally wouldn't board it in against them. Odds are though, this slot will be cut for something else that isn't as narrow, I'm just out of ideas at this time.

Graveyard hate (2 Ravenous Trap, 1 Tormod's Crypt/Extirpate): Ichorid is an iffy match. They can race us very easily and can win through our creatures. Having graveyard hate is big imo to help this. It also doesn't hurt against the mirror, loam decks with Glacial Chasm, etc. The Crypt/Extirpate slot is debatable. I prefer Crypt because it's stronger against those decks, but Extirpate is an option to Mystical Tutor for to hit something important.

2 Duress: I explained this above with the Thoughtseize comments. These are merely to provide additional disruption against control decks and black decks. I've been happy with them.

1 Blazing Archon: It's great against Ichorid, Merfolk, and other aggro strategies. I just moved it to the side in favor of Empyrial Archangel because shroud is becoming a bit more necessary for me, but this can go either way. As mentioned previously it's an autowin against a few decks game 1, so running this main isn't a bad idea.

I also support Intuition over Buried Alive. In addition to working well with Show and Tell, it insures that you will have a creature in your hand in the case in which your opponent removes your grave. You can play intuition at the end of your opponent's turn too, unlike buried alive.

I've had problems with both reanimate and animate dead, losing randomly to oblivion rings, pridgemage, etc. on my animate dead, or just not having the life to use reanimate, but reanimate is just too good to run 1 copy like some of these lists.

Also, for lists running 4 dark ritual...have you tried Living Death? WOGing and getting creatures from your grave is pretty legit. In fact, you already run Mystical tutor, enabling you to fetch it in sticky situations.

Intuition works better than Buried Alive solely when you run a higher creature count. If you keep a low, singleton count of creatures you can't abuse it properly because you might not get the correct creature in your graveyard. I've already explained the advantages of running a build with so few reanimation targets, but in the event that you're running a higher-creature build that features multiples of important targets (Iona, shroud creatures, Sphinx of the Steel Wind) and Careful Study, then Intuition is the more optimal choice.

Regarding the Reanimate and Animate Dead problems, these are going to be common with any player because they're the drawbacks of the cards. Part of the reason I went down to 2 Animate Dead is because it has the liability of being destroyed. Reanimate is not a 4of to me because I don't want to see it as consistently as Exhume because the life loss hurts in so many situations, but it's still too good to only be a singleton. Either way, we don't have better options so we don't have a choice but to use them.

On the topic of Living Death, it's crossed our minds on several occasions, and would be great way of killing aggro decks and getting multiple creatures in play. But the 5cc casting cost is far too restrictive for us, so we can't abuse it properly. It's rare enough we even get to 5 mana, even with Dark Ritual, so it isn't a worthwhile option. Still, it'd be awesome if someone pulled it off.

[Phoenix Ignition]

1 Nature's Ruin: This is an interesting slot for me. It could be another bounce spell, but there are times when I really wish I had an option of kills creatures. This could very well be something like Infest to hit weenies, but I'm more concerned with the Bant-style decks that have Rhox War Monk and Progenitus. This is the worst slot of the sideboard, but given how swingy that match is, I like the option of dealing with it. It also isn't terrible against something like Zoo, although I generally wouldn't board it in against them. Odds are though, this slot will be cut for something else that isn't as narrow, I'm just out of ideas at this time

No love for Perish? I mean I guess green creatures don't normally regenerate and Therapy is going to hit it a little less (not really since you are going to Mystical Tutor for it 3/4 of the time). Any reason for that? Perish is strictly better.