Planning on trying the no S&T-Dark Ritual build next. Anybody here have experience with it? Any strategies to aim for beyond scaling back the reanimation for hardcasting creatures? Are there any unintended consequences or new found threats in game 3 when the cat is out of the bag? Thanks.
Originally Posted by GreatWhale
Have you got problems against decks with DRS?
Does the mono black deck not fail a bit against graveyard hate?
Is this deck good in a meta full of sneak&show?
Reanimator is great in a meta full of sneak and show. Reanimator preys on all of the other combo decks in the format.
Does anyone tested Boseiju, Who Shelters All in the sideboard instead of city of traitors?
Its very strong against decks with endless countermagic.
But the problems are: the card is very slow because its enters the battlefield tapped and you cannot protect entomb and reanimate.
The purpose of City of Traitors is to add speed to the otherwise slow Show and Tell sideboard plan, turning a 3-turn wait into a 2-turn wait. Opposing countermagic has never been more of an issue now then it ever was before. All of our counters are defensive in nature, there to protect the otherwise devastating early threat that closes the game out before they get anything meaningful online. Slowing the deck down to add resiliency would be a net negative in that they have more time to prepare a proper defense and put up threats of their own. Additionally of our key spells don't have colorless in them, so Boseiju, Who Shelters All ends up falling too short to be included.
That's my read on the card at least.
I agree that Boseiju has no place in this deck. The only spell it really protects is Exhume and waiting till turn 3 to do it is dangers in a wasteland heavy format.
Hi all,
Owen Turtenwald has a nice article over on channelfireball. He also states that he thinks the Lotus Petals are weak in the deck. He does have a point I think, too me, he seems to consider them as a crutch.
Anyway, his arguments brought me back to an old idea. The deck is very very good, has a nice velocity but sometimes lacks action and interaction. These draws are holding the deck back.
I keeo trying to jam 4 Deathrite Shaman and 3 Liliana of the Veil in the deck. This fits easily enough if you consider Lotus Petals, Ponders and maybe a Daze or Show and Tell as cuttable (is that a word in English?) cards.
However, the blue count gets to low for a reliable Force of Will. Has anyone else considered this approach? Maybe this 'splash' could go even deeper and add red over blue for Faithless Looting (replace Careful Study, synergy with Liliana) and other quality cards to replace Brainstorm and Force of Will. Think stuiff like Lightning Bolt, more discard with Duress, higher number of Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek.
there are some problems of course, the discard is nice, but Griselbrand is sick in the deck in large part due to the alternative castable counters, with FoW headlining this section way ahead of Daze. This slot could be taken by the black discard which let's you remove a card (don't remember the name), but that doesn't keep you safe from a topdeck.
In such a deck, I also think that Tidespout Tyrant (any deck without Petals really) should be replaced with Ashen Rider.
A list, because list help visualize the results of the ideas;
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Faithless Looting
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress (or IoK)
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Griselbrand
1 Iona
1 Elesh Norn
1 Ashen Rider
4 Unmask (remembered!)
18 Lands
It loses the alternate plan of Show and Tell, it gains Deathrite Shaman + Liliana as alternate winconditions (though they're more control/tempo which synergizes with the deck).
Ideally, the deck would be BUG I guess, retaining the good stuff from blue. But how does FoW remain reliable?
Suggestions and criticism is welcome.
I'm not sure how I feel about splashing red and green. Seems a bit much for liliana and DRS and bolts. They don't really compliment our original game plan. and they're not too much of a reliable alternate win condition. I would much rather have a green splash in the board for abrupt decay and other problem permanents (like T.E.S. does). I'f you're going to cut Lotus petals, I think some sort of discard or extra counterspells are needed. My petal-less list is something like this:
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Careful Study
4 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
3 Duress (or IoK)
4 Brainstorm
4 Griselbrand
1 Iona/Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Elesh Norn
1 Ashen Rider
3 Daze
2 Spell Peirce
1 Show and Tell
18 Lands
Well, the above list runs 18 lands, so it's not really a change, just swap in 3 lands and a spell in over the Petals (like the deck on Channelfirbeall I mentioned).
But I think cutting Petals, retaining few lands (16) and adding 4 Shamans as additional mana-source is viable. We run a huge amount of fetchlands. Having something like this also works;
1 island
1 swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island (if you want 4 colors, which I doubt)
10 fetchlands
Maybe I should be less ambitious and just add the Deathrite Shaman over Lotus Petals. It's also mana so it should work. And it adds disruption (which Petals doesn't) and it adds lifegain, which is pretty sweet in this deck, effectively countering a Bolt in many situations (thus improving Reanimate, Thoughtseize and Griselbrand's ability). Maaaayyyyybe 3 Shamans and a Liliana, sicne the discard isn't symmetrical at all in this deck. And it's great against 'fair' decks which hinder us a lot (like Death and Taxes for example).
With the risk of looking silly, has anybody tried out a BUG version of reanimator? For awhile I thought such a build might be interesting to look at. I think the green splash is actually very intriguing, even if ultimately it's not the direction the deck should go. Xantid Swarm is a very powerful card for this type of deck. Also, so is Green Sun's Zenith, with the right targets. You can turn it into a protection spell by fetching the aforementioned swarm. You can ramp with Dryad Arbor, although admittedly the extra G is probably not the most useful due to color restrictions in the deck. You can get a discard outlet with Greenseeker. After board you can use zenith to fetch up anti-hate in the form of Viridian Zealot, or something similar. There's also the ability to play Abrupt Decay. Also, by moving to some creatures this gives you more outs to sacrifice effects and makes cabal therapy a very appealing card, which I think is potentially a very powerful protection spell and discard spell for yourself.
Anyway, I haven't tested this (because I'm lazy), but I like throwing things together for fun and talking about them, even if it's potentially terrible. Gotta fail until you find awesome things! So, with all the above thrown together a starting list I think might look like:
// Lands
2 [RS] Bayou
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [B] Tropical Island
2 [A] Underground Sea
1 [IN] Island (1)
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
1 [ZEN] Swamp (1)
// Creatures
4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
1 [THS] Ashen Rider
1 [TSP] Greenseeker
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 [AVR] Griselbrand
1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
// Spells
4 [FNM] Brainstorm
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [V13] Green Sun's Zenith
3 [OD] Careful Study
4 [PD3] Cabal Therapy
4 [OD] Entomb
4 [ARC] Reanimate
4 [PD3] Exhume
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DS] Viridian Zealot
I have been considering bug reanimator for abrupt decay for a while. I'm not really sure you want xantid swarm main deck though. It seems more like a sideboard card that comes in for control match ups. I also still like thoughtseize and duress better than cabal therapy. I also don't like 4 gsz either, you're not really getting anything of consequence. With as much miracles running around, maindeck abrupt decays seem really strong. I would start with something like this:
2 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
4 Griselbrand
1 Ashen Rider
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Thoughtseize
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
4 Entomb
3 Abrupt Decay
Sideboard:
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Pithing Needle
2 chain of vapor
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Show and Tell
Last edited by Juice11; 04-02-2014 at 05:15 PM.
6 thoughtseize?
Shhhhhhhhhh....art crawl.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I've recently cut Iona in favor of Grave Titan main. I was thinking about maybe trying to fit her into the sideboard, but I feel like I only used Iona for the Storm matchup because every other matchup feels better with one of the other options. I mainly play online so my meta is very very diverse. Are there matchups that i'm not utilizing Iona like I should?
This is the current 75 i'm running.
Lands (16)
4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
Creatures (7)
1 Ashen Rider
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Griselbrand
1 Grave Titan
Artifacts (4)
4 Lotus Petal
Spells (33)
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
2 Ponder
4 Entomb
2 Show and Tell
4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
2 Thoughtseize
Sideboard
3 Pithing Needle
2 Echoing Truth
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Massacre
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Show and Tell
2 City of Traitors
1 Thoughtseize
This is what I was thinking about when I put the sideboard together.
Pithing Needle for Karakas, Deathrite Shaman, Jace, Liliana, Relic of Progenitus.
Echoing Truth for Leyline, Rest in Peace.
Engineered Explosives for Rest in Peace, Counterbalance, random 1-3 casting cost roadblocks.
Massacre to sweep the Death and Taxes or Deathblade/Esper Stoneblade boards so I can solidify my boardstate again.
Inkwell Leviathan for Jace and targetable removal.
Show and Tell, City of Traitors, and Thoughtseize are a package to transform into a more Show and Tell strategy against massive grave hate.
I like having the creature suite of 4 Griselbrand, 1 Elesh Norn, 1 Ashen Rider, and 1 Grave Titan because I feel like I have more answers and flexibility with this suite. Griselbrand is just awesome and is usually the go to first target for reanimation. Elesh Norn helps sweep the board against most fair decks. Ashen Rider helps as main deck anti hate and isn't legendary. Grave Titan is a 2 turn clock that isn't legendary and has deathtouch plus gives me blockers on the back end.
Obviously not, I edited it. The 3 in the board were supposed to be show and tells. Any comments on the actual deck list besides pointing out errors?
I have some questions to the boarding plans in the Reanimator deck:
I am running this list:
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Griselbrand
2 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Force of Will
3 Ponder
3 Thoughtseize
4 Careful Study
4 Exhume
4 Reanimate
4 Lotus Petal
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Show and Tell
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Angel of Despair
SB: 2 Show and Tell
SB: 1 Empyrial Archangel
SB: 2 City of Traitors
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 3 Duress
How do I board against Miracles and how do I board against Team America?
Against u/w/x and white vial decks, I usually take out almost all the Griselbrands out for shroud targets like Inkwell Leviathan and Empyrial Archangel, and take out Daze for some combination of Spell Pierce/Thoughtseize/Echoing Truth, while trying to race.
Never take out Griselbrand.
Quick question: against Storm (ANT), do you usually go for Iona or Griselbrand post-sb? Iona on black can be beaten by Chain of Vapor (or Karakas), but Griselbrand can brick on drawing FoW.
Yes, that is a very good move. The reason is that those decks run Karakas and will bounce a Griselbrand. It also stops Mangara's ability.
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