Because if you untap with Griselbrand, you win anyways. Children of Korliss requires white splash, and it does nothing for us that exhume doesn't do. It dilutes our plan, and it makes it so we need to add white splash so we can play it.Originally Posted by kihachi
The only thing I can think is decent with the white splash is the Loyal Retainers combo which can serve as a nice reanimation effect. But a third color is stretching it for this deck.
Also with Griselbrand to quote another user here:
Sub in dread return for something else.Dread Return brings back Griselbrand
You have a Flying Yawgs Bargain. You pay life and activate.
He karakas your bargain.
Griselbrand goes to hand.
You dont care because you now draw 7.
Your opponent probably dies.
This unfortunately is a very popular perspective on this deck. Why do we have other targets then? Against any deck with a Plains in it, Griselbrand has a tendency to pick up a plowshare and head off to the farm. Seasoned necromancers understand that Griselbrand often enough does not get there. It's totally matchup dependent though, so I'm not disagreeing with the statement in whole.
I think it's important to view Griselbrand more as a draw engine and less as the deck's primary win-con. Our greatest strength in my opinion is the ability to find the fitting poison for our opponent. Elesh Norn and Iona (/Sire) cover a lot of bases there. But the use of Griselbrand as a draw engine is the foundation for TinFins, which is what leads people to assume that is the only place for Children of Korlis.
Changing the deck's goal from "Winning with Griselbrand(tm)" to "Reanimating an Army" is something that's hit my mind too. When you draw 7, you will generally hit very little actual protection (Daze gets bad, leaving Force + Thoughtseize) but A LOT more reanimation. And as a combo deck we have one of the slowest kills. So to me it makes sense to try some hybrid approaches to resolve this structural weakness by bringing an army to the table rather than a single threat answerable by W (Terminus aside).
I'll pick up some Children and see if it works. The biggest sacrifice I think we'll have to make is the splash; it's not that we can't splash white but that splashing for 4+ colors becomes rather greedy with our low land count. A lot of people are on Sultai for Abrupt Decay, and I'm on Grixis for Izzet Charm. Wasteland's back, so I think cutting back to traditional U/B base for splashing white with Children is best.
I might also give Worldgorger a go-around if I find the motivation. My biggest issue there is we only have Animate Dead in common with his combo, but it's possible a Necromancy/Sol land approach could work. Any excuse to jam Buried Alive for me.
It's a popular perspective because about 90% of the time you draw 7 extra cards, you just win. Because our deck contains only cheap spells, 7 cards means we resurrect another fatty, have force/daze for the swords, or we just draw 7-14 and continue our turn after they swords Grisel. Playing legacy isn't standard. Almost every card in reanimator besides ponder, brainstorm, and lands have a win-now possibility, or protecting the win-now possibility.
I think it's important to view Griselbrand as what he actually is, a source of card advantage and a HUGE beating. It single-handedly beats all the delver decks and burn, draws you counters to win combo matches, and draws you out grindy control matchups. An active Griselbrand doesn't end the game on the spot, but the game is effectively over in a majority of games if you draw 1 time with him. That's something that I think people do wrong with the deck. Experienced necromancers as you say should realize that the plan is straightforward, redundant, and powerful. It is also successful because of those reasons. Essentially casting Grisel/Iona/Tidespout/etc. for 2. This isn't about drawing 14 and then gaining 14 and then killing him. In most situations, drawing 7 on top of Grisel in play means the game is over. Period. The enemy is bleeding out at this point, all you have to do is let him finish dying.
That's why it's correct to build the deck to your playstyle. Given the nut turn 2 draw where you put Griselbrand into play, you would have drawn 9 cards out of your deck. Even if force or daze wasn't in your opening 9, the odds of them being in the top 7 cards goes up significantly. Essentially (6-7 counters in deck/50 total cards in deck)^7 cards drawn. If swords is your concern, you could safely change that exponent to 14, or you draw petal and brainstorm/ponder and you make your chances of drawing a counter higher still. My metaphor to re-illustrate my point would be that having grisel resolve and waiting for your opponent is similar to having chalice on 1 against delver. Most times, it's enough to win the game. The speed of the kill isn't what reanimator players should be worrying about, because that isn't when the opponent actually is dead. The opponent is actually dead when Grisel hits play, and you untap with him. He just doesn't know it yet.
That isn't to say that I don't encourage testing that goes against what has been tried and true, just that we should be cautious from making too many changes to the core tenets of the deck, which is putting fatty in yard, bringing fatty into play from yard, winning with fatty. Adding gain life to play more fattys in most cases, is win-more.
You brick only 10% of the time on his draw 7 then, that seems incredibly lucky.
There's a lot there I agree with. Where I think we fundamentally disagree is on the rough win percentage post-Griselbrand. I'll just say that how games play out for me against Delver, Miracles, Stoneforge, and the like is not anything like you describe. They are able to pack a lot more protection, so winning the counter war becomes non-trivial. If they're in red then Lightning Bolt becomes a concern. After they remove the pressure from Griselbrand with Swords, reassembling the combo is sometimes easy, sometimes difficult or impossible because of opposing pressure.I think it's important to view Griselbrand as what he actually is, a source of card advantage and a HUGE beating. It single-handedly beats all the delver decks and burn, draws you counters to win combo matches, and draws you out grindy control matchups. An active Griselbrand doesn't end the game on the spot, but the game is effectively over in a majority of games if you draw 1 time with him. That's something that I think people do wrong with the deck. Experienced necromancers as you say should realize that the plan is straightforward, redundant, and powerful. It is also successful because of those reasons. Essentially casting Grisel/Iona/Tidespout/etc. for 2. This isn't about drawing 14 and then gaining 14 and then killing him. In most situations, drawing 7 on top of Grisel in play means the game is over. Period. The enemy is bleeding out at this point, all you have to do is let him finish dying.
That's why it's correct to build the deck to your playstyle. Given the nut turn 2 draw where you put Griselbrand into play, you would have drawn 9 cards out of your deck. Even if force or daze wasn't in your opening 9, the odds of them being in the top 7 cards goes up significantly. Essentially (6-7 counters in deck/50 total cards in deck)^7 cards drawn. If swords is your concern, you could safely change that exponent to 14, or you draw petal and brainstorm/ponder and you make your chances of drawing a counter higher still. My metaphor to re-illustrate my point would be that having grisel resolve and waiting for your opponent is similar to having chalice on 1 against delver. Most times, it's enough to win the game. The speed of the kill isn't what reanimator players should be worrying about, because that isn't when the opponent actually is dead. The opponent is actually dead when Grisel hits play, and you untap with him. He just doesn't know it yet.
I also disagree on the speed of the kill being a concern. If you've ever played the Miracles matchup, giving them extra turns to dig for Terminus/Swords/Karakas matters a great deal in my view. I'm not saying that's the biggest weakness Reanimator has, but I do feel it's worth exploring as an improvement. Dig Through Time especially changes this dynamic as the fair decks now have a sort of draw 7 of their own when it comes to answers.
I found your post quite discouraging as you stated only disadvantages to adding Children and did not weigh them versus the advantages. Children could well be a terrible idea; I'm sure it's been tried before. But again we'll have to agree to disagree on whether improving the draw engine is strictly win-more.That isn't to say that I don't encourage testing that goes against what has been tried and true, just that we should be cautious from making too many changes to the core tenets of the deck, which is putting fatty in yard, bringing fatty into play from yard, winning with fatty. Adding gain life to play more fattys in most cases, is win-more.
Last edited by DoorDie; 02-01-2015 at 08:31 AM.
I'm all for innovation when it comes to this deck, but it seems to me as though adding white for (only) children is a bit greedy. If there are other reasons to include the splash, then maybe the children can find their way into the list after a white splash list is created. I remember people talking about unburial rites and loyal retainers, so it's possible that these cards can jusify a white splash. The question that I then have is: what matchups are we gaining percentages in by doing a white splash as opposed to a green or red one? I can imagine that a card like children makes burn easier, but that's not where I want my bonus points to be heading.
@clashed, I don't know what math you were trying to do, but (7/50)^7 is incredibly small(~1 in 800,000), and (7/50)^14 is much much smaller(~1 in 640,000,000,000). Honestly curious on where your calculation was intending to go though, so if you could rework it, that would be cool.
My 2 cents on Griselbrand: He is frequently enough to win the game on his own, depending on matchups, but when he is not, he can usually find the tools to win the matchup.
Children to me seems like a card that could be ok, but I think that to add it you have to make cuts from creatures, since cutting permission or combo pieces would decrease consistency or resiliency, and I can't convince myself that cutting something like elesh or tidespout for a children of korliss is correct (maybe you can?).
Card advantage also wins games, as per my previous post. Bricking on 7 for protection usually means we either draw another reanimate combo, or other ways to win. We need to align our definition of winning because as of right now, your definition of winning the game is when your opponent is at 0. My definition of winning is when the opponent is down 7 cards and we have a Griselbrand in play. We EFFECTIVELY win at that point.
If they pack red, all you do is don't block with Grisel, it's an easy thing to do as someone who has ever seen how blocks and attacks with giant growth work. Against Miracles you take the draw 7 and you run, you basically get 7 cards for 2. Effectively playing 2 treasure cruises. Hard to come back at that point. My deck runs 4 FoW, 3 Daze, and i'm thinking about adding Misdirection for the resurgence of BUG. Counterwars also generally take place on the reanimation spell, not on the fight for the protection of the fatty. Furthermore, decks that are heavy control that fight us on both reanimation spells and protection of the fatty usually don't provide any meaningful pressure because they would have wasted 3-4 cards out of their 8 to fight us. Including land drops, they don't have that much pressure. Think of swords to plowshares as destroy target creature, and your opponent draws 7 cards.
I acknowledge that Miracles is just one of those matchups that is bad for Reanimator, and Dig through Time certainly is a strong card, but they need pay 2 to draw with dig, than pay more for removal, whereas we only need to draw one of those counterspells in order to stop their answer.
Advantages of Children: Leads to gaining life so that we don't lose to delver and burn the turn we draw 7... Which can be avoided if we just don't draw until we need to (something everyone should be doing anyways). Drawing 14 then gaining 14 is obviously strong, but that's where the advantages end because it doesn't do anything to help us win other then gain life-> drawing more cards. If you could win the game by drawing 7 cards - which is more than enough in most cases, why would you need to draw 14?
Cons: I believe is win-more, forces us to splash white, combos well with Griselbrand but with nothing else in our deck. Literally a one-of synergy with 3-4 cards in our deck.
Sorry, I didn't mean to exponent, but I meant that you multiply in that case. It's been about 7 years since I took probability. (6-7 possible counter cards in deck/ 50 cards total in deck)* 7 cards drawn, but the math is slightly more complicated. It is actually (7/50 +7/49 + 7/48 ....) Rounded up, actually leads to close a strong majority % that you draw at least one of those cards that you need. You essentially have a ~14% chance per card per card drawn to be a counterspell. and 7 chances to draw cards. Sorry if either my math or my explanation of my math is convoluted.
What do you guys think about Echoing Truth vs Abrupt Decay in the sideboard? Obviously Abrupt Decay is better in most circumstances and match ups. But wouldn't it be good to have 1 or 2 E. Truths in the sideboard for Leyline of the Void?
While I haven't been playing the deck for a very long time so I don't have a great deal of experience with it, I do run a 3-1 split of decay and echoing truth for reasons like you mentioned.
I do the same thing. If wasteland becomes too common I'll have to go back to U/B with a 2-2-1 split of Chain of Vapor, Echoing Truth, and Wipe Away. Chalice decks are an issue so I spread out my CMC costs.
hi guys, i'm a new reanimator player. It's about a month that i play with this deck and it seem extremely poewrfull. This is my actual list:
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Griselbrand
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Reanimate
4 Entomb
3 Exhume
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
3 Daze
3 Ponder
3 Lotus Petal
1 Animate Dead
2 Show and Tell
SB: 2 Show and Tell
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Massacre
SB: 1 Inkwell Leviathan
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
Cause i'm not so experienced, i want ask the main strategy vs U-control decks beacause i have a lot of problems facing counters. In the primer there are some suggestions about side in show&tell and discard but what side out?? At my LGS there are 2 decks (miracle, grixis control) that beat me all times, what do u think about side 3x boseiju?? Thanks to all :)
Last edited by oracL3; 02-07-2015 at 08:53 AM.
Split first in a small Legacy tournament with this list. Never lost or drew a single game, outside of ID'ing into 1st/2nd.
4 Griselbrand
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
2 Ponder
4 Thoughtseize
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Animate Dead
4 Reanimate
4 Lotus Petal
4 Force of Will
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacomb
2 Nephalia Drownyard
1 Island
1 Swamp
Sideboard
1 Scholar of Athreos
1 Empyrial Archangel
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Pithing Needle
1 Massacre
2 Show and Tell
3 Dark Ritual
Round 1: Burn - Won (0-0)
Both games reanimated Iona and won the game. Pretty straight forward.
Round 2: Pod-Fit (Nic-Fit) - Won (1-0)
Game one, I kept a fairly sketchy hand, but I already mulliganed down to five. I kept a hand of griselbrand, Oona, petal, careful study, animate dead. Petal -> Careful study, didn't find a land. Luckily, my opponent was a little slower and within two turns I animated dead -> Griselbrand. Used Griselbrand to draw cards to get dragon + Animate Dead and combo off.
Game two, I turn two reanimated Iona name green. LUCKILY I chose reanimate and not animate dead because he was armed to the teeth with ways to deal with animate dead. Lesson learned = Reanimate is still the best, but animate dead will do in a pinch.
Round 3: Dredge - Won (2-0)
Game one, I was able to turn two WGD combo. Game two, my opponent slammed down Leyline of the Void, but within two turns, I drew my Chain of Vapor that I had boarded in and bounced it to combo off with WGD combo again.
Round 4: I ID'ed into 1st/2nd place. (3-0-1)
The deck felt extremely tight and I was extremely happy with the addition of Worldgorger Dragon Combo in the deck. It adds an "I win NOW" combo without diluting your deck down with less than stellar cards. The only changes I might make is -3 Dark Ritual, +2 Chain of vapor +1 Wipe Away in the SB.
Last edited by jvmauck; 02-08-2015 at 05:14 PM.
Hey guys, why does everyone think the Sneak and Show matchup is favorable for Reanimator? I'm going to play this deck for the first time in a tournament in march and I still don't get exactly why is so favorable for Reanimator.
What do you guys think of Tsabo Tavoc in the Sideboard for this matchup? It makes every show and tell they cast silly and kind of stops sneak attack a little bit, since it's not like Karakas where they can get to replay the same Legend, they need to have another one in their hand. Also 7 Damage with Protection from Legends means that it can deal good damage and sneak behind any blocker they may have.
G1 Sneak and Show has a disadvantage with Show and Tell since they risk giving you a free Griselbrand unless they probe first. Even if they put in Emrakul you'll be able to dig for Tidespout Tyrant to bounce it. And like our matchups versus a great many other combos, we are naturally faster and more redundant. Tsabo is interesting but lacks relevant evasion or an ability representing a massive advantage (think Griselbrand's draw 7, Elesh Norn's wrath, Iona's color lockout). Ashen Rider is a good alternative since it flies and can exile irritants like Karakas. Our alternate targets really need to stand on their own.
Tsabo Tavoc cannot defend against Griselbrand since the 'legend killer' doesn't have wings. I'm testing Avacyn, Angel of Hope against BGx (in a WGD deck), she looks promising and I like that she destroys Griselbrand all day. Of course Ashen Rider can do that too but poor cat is anemic on offense.
The biggest problem I have with the S&S match up is the same with TinFins, when they set out the Sneak Attack, maybe off at Show and Tell, in which case I get my Griselbrand, and they put out their own and draw a bunch and then also thrown down the Emrakul and attack for 22. Now granted, their god hand versus my crap hand wins in many other match ups, but this is the line that sees me with the most losses. So with that in mind, a sick Tsabo Tavoc does me absolutely nothing. Ashen Rider does more against S&S, and I don't even run it.
As others have said, against other combo decks, we're typically a turn faster, and run both discard and permission where they run one or the other to get their nonsense through. That being said, their nonsense usually ends the game that turn, and we're dealing with a whole other level of hate through the graveyard, but just looking at combo versus combo, the only thing I fear is the mirror. Against S&S, game 1 they risk giving you an opposing GeeBee, and attacking first pretty much breaks that symmetry. Game 2 & 3 they will have sided out their own Show and Tell, which makes them significantly slower while you're still on speed. They'll bring in permission and Surgical Extraction, maybe Tormod's Crypt to hate on you, but UR doesn't offer a whole lot post board that we shouldn't be expecting game 1 anyway.
You may stumble your first few games, but trust us here, after a few rounds, you'll be seeing what we're talking about.
Used to run reanimator with 3x grizzlebees and 1x Jin-Gataxis, but then moved to an area with no legacy...
Moving again soon, and wanted to know if this is still viable, or should I just trade for then 4th...
The very fact flamethrowers exist means that someone, somewhere said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire.... but I'm just not close enough to do it."
I run 3 Russel Brands and 0 Jin's. Entombs basically count for another 4 Griselbrands as it is. I'm not a fan of Jin as he does cost 10 mana and he hurts like a mofo with reanimate, he kinda reminds me of Sire of Insanity but with the hand dumping having every turn.
hi guys yesterday i went at a LGS for a small tournament went(3-1-0) and splitted in top2 Smile . this is my list:
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bayou
1 Island
4 Griselbrand
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Reanimate
4 Entomb
3 Exhume
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
2 Daze
3 Ponder
3 Lotus Petal
1 Animate Dead
2 Show and Tell
SB: 2 Show and Tell
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Inkwell Leviathan
SB: 3 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
round 1 vs burn.
Games very easy. Both G1 and G2 get a second turn Iona targetting red.
Side - 3 reanimate +2 decay +1 sphinx
round 2 vs pikula
g1 lost due a mulligan to 5. g2 griselbrand and tidespout tyrant seal the deal (side out:-2 reanimate, -2 study, +2 S&T, +1 decay, +1 needle). g3 second turn griselbrand and gg.( nothing sided)
round 3 vs infect
g1 lost cause a mullinga to 4. g2 griselbrand and again tidespout tyrant did a good job (side: -2 griselbrand, +1 inkwell, 1 sphinx). g3 get elesh and after iona naming blue so gg. (side: don't remenber it Smile ).
round 4 draw vs mud. We are both with 9 points so decided to not play.
Top8 vs infect
G1 third turn griselbrand and gg. g2 bad draw so i lost by infect damages (side don't remember). g3 , griselbrand and after tydespout did the job. (side: -1 daze, -1 lotus, -2 grizzly, +1 needle, +1 chain of vapor, +1 inkwell, 1 sphinx)
A consideration: the foundamental cards in the side are 2 needle, 2 decay, and 2 S&T. This are the MVC (most valuable cards) beacuse are usefull in a lot of cases (exaple: in a bad situazione, 1 time i used decay on shaman then on my turn i reanimate it so i get the necessary man for casting S&T. it was usefull too because oppo stop to attack me). Al the other card are up to the player. I used 3x Boseiju as a solution (testing phase) to miracle and grixis control versus which i lost all the games played.
Thank u :).
I dont think S&T is good anymore, cause Containment Priest hits both Plans...
I dont think Splashing a third Color is good, because of the Rising of Wasteland...
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote