[Deck]BUx Reanimator

[Islandswamp]

This is what I was playing the other night online. I wanted to try not having a splash. I've seen more wastelands lately, and a ton of Deathrite Shamans, which I kept in mind when picking cards. I only own two Show and Tells right now, I'm getting another soon.

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Careful Study
4 Reanimate
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
4 Lotus Petal
4 Exhume
3 Ponder
4 Entomb
2 Island
4 Brainstorm
2 Swamp
1 Ashen Rider
2 Show and Tell
2 Verdant Catacombs

3 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
3 Thoughtseize
1 Spell Pierce
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Surgical Extraction

I do have a list with a splash for Abrupt Decay, which I like, but again, I wanted to feel Wasteland-proof.

I played three matches last night before bed, then one quick one before work. I beat Dredge 2-0, I got a quick Elesh Norn, then a Griselbrand both games.

2-0 Vs Nic fit. He had turn one DRS, so I didn't crack my fetch lands for the first two turns (he was on the play, too), his second turn, he tapped out and made mana with shaman for Scavenging Ooze and Veteran Explorer. So, I cast entomb on his end step, got Elesh Norn out on my turn, and it was over soon. Game two, I had to force of will a turn one Shaman, but got out a quick Elesh Norn and GB, he scoops.

2-0 Vs a Hex Depths deck, not the exact turbo depths deck either. I thought he was on lands at first, named green when I reanimated Iona off of a careful study. He cast small pox next turn. I eventually got Griz going and win. Game two, we mess around for a while. He discarded an extra Dark Depths to a mox diamond. I played Surgical Extraction on Dark Depths, he thought about it, concedes as I'm searching his deck.

0-2 Vs RUG Delver Next morning. G1. I didn't have much, and concede fairly soon. G2. I went off when I had a couple reanimation spells I could play and a force of will, he had spell snare and two forces, I lost.

All in all, deck did well.

P.S. MTGO sorts the card names quite randomly, it only separates the deck and SB when I export the list. Sorry if it's annoying to read.

[TinkerRobot]

I think players should be wary of running Gemstone Caverns. While it appears on the surface to do what Lotus Petal does, I think it is actually much weaker. You do not want to draw it when you draw 7 off of Griselbrand. You don't need it after you've resolved a Tidespout Tyrant. Multiples are simply awful. If anything, I see it as a 1-of in the board. It could take the slot of a City of Traitors, for people who play them.

Where in new england? The weather has been bad in Vermont as well. What is the plan for city of traders? Bring them in game two on the draw to power out Show and Tell?

I'm in Western Mass. I play at X9 Games in Hadley and Worlds Apart Games in Amherst.

City of Traitors is good for fueling Show and Tell, but also comes in against decks with taxing counters (spell pierce, daze, etc) and I've hardcast Grave Titan and Sire of Insanity off of it an number of times as well.

[Islandswamp]

I think players should be wary of running Gemstone Caverns. While it appears on the surface to do what Lotus Petal does, I think it is actually much weaker. You do not want to draw it when you draw 7 off of Griselbrand. You don't need it after you've resolved a Tidespout Tyrant. Multiples are simply awful. If anything, I see it as a 1-of in the board. It could take the slot of a City of Traitors, for people who play them.



I'm in Western Mass. I play at X9 Games in Hadley and Worlds Apart Games in Amherst.

City of Traitors is good for fueling Show and Tell, but also comes in against decks with taxing counters (spell pierce, daze, etc) and I've hardcast Grave Titan and Sire of Insanity off of it an number of times as well.

I have been liking the Lotus Petals too much to not use them.

I had a Grave Titan, but I haven't been using it. I had a Tidespout Tyrant in the list as well, but I just have the Ashen Rider lately. I'll probably try to work Titan and Tidespout back in at some point.

Specifically, what decks do you try to get Grave Titan out against?

I'm still pretty new to the deck. I recognize what match ups I want Iona or Elesh Norn for, or Griselbrand. I only animated Tyrant once, and it probably should have been Ashen Rider in that instance.

EDIT
It won't cost me many tickets to try out Izzet Charm, so I'll give it a shot.

[owerbart]

I have been liking the Lotus Petals too much to not use them.

I had a Grave Titan, but I haven't been using it. I had a Tidespout Tyrant in the list as well, but I just have the Ashen Rider lately. I'll probably try to work Titan and Tidespout back in at some point.

Specifically, what decks do you try to get Grave Titan out against?

I'm still pretty new to the deck. I recognize what match ups I want Iona or Elesh Norn for, or Griselbrand. I only animated Tyrant once, and it probably should have been Ashen Rider in that instance.

EDIT
It won't cost me many tickets to try out Izzet Charm, so I'll give it a shot.

I think Grave Titan is great against decks with Karakas, because he's non legendary and can leave an impact on the board even if it's removed.
I like your list but only 6 monsters? I'm playing 8 and I feel sometimes I could have one more. Also I'm really trying to get a white splash going for Serenity and Unburial Rites. Serenity is great against a Meta filled with artifact + RiP + Leyline. It happened to me a lot that My opponent put in their first turns two different pieces of hate (Grafdiggers Cage + Tormod's Cript) for example, and all my Echoing Truths looked really silly. Serenity wipes the whole board at once.

Unburial rites may give some consistency as it can be entombed, transforming Entomb in both a way to put fatties in the graveyard and also as a way to reanimate them.

[PirateKing]

Grave Titan is used alongside Inkwell Leviathan against decks with Karakas, because the secondary threat there is Swords to Plowshares. Inkwell shines here, but Grave Titan is good in a pinch, you can apply some pressure even if you do get hit, and if they don't have it, 10 power isn't something to ignore.
Grave Titan alone shines in decks with Liliana of the Veil and Edict effects as their primary defense, and also gets use the few slug fest type decks still around. He's put on a winning clock against Tarmagoyf and Knight of the Reliquary when Griselbrand alone wouldn't have been able to give me enough life to survive more than a few combats.
In the end, Grave Titan fills the slot and the big dumb beater. 6 life gets you 10+ power to close the game out fast, despite having no evasions or other tricks.

[Islandswamp]

I'll give Grave Titan another try. Also, my list does have 7 creatures, but the strange order mtgo spits them out in put ashen rider near the bottom. I suppose he isn't much of a threat, but I always liked having an exile effect when I needed it. I tried to use tyrant in that spot, and I didn't have enough spells to play to use his ability to an advantage. I did bounce a karakas, but it wasn't enough to make me win. I haven't been playing the deck long, less than a week, so I probably gave up on grave titan and tyrant too soon

I played my friends legacy burn deck and things went very well for me, I also got one more show and tell today.

[Islandswamp]

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ashen Rider
4 Careful Study
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Show and Tell
4 Entomb
4 Lotus Petal
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs

2 Echoing Truth
2 Flusterstorm
1 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Show and Tell
1 Grave Titan
2 Thoughtseize

So, I made a few tweaks to the list. This is where I ended up. Having no splash has made Wasteland a non-issue. I don't even have to fetch dual lands very often anyway. Echoing Truth and Pithing Needle do a lot of work and are very easy to cast.

I've been winning a lot, so overall I feel this list is at least headed in a good direction.

[Nuke is Good]

1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ashen Rider
4 Careful Study
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
2 Show and Tell
4 Entomb
4 Lotus Petal
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs

2 Echoing Truth
2 Flusterstorm
1 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Show and Tell
1 Grave Titan
2 Thoughtseize

So, I made a few tweaks to the list. This is where I ended up. Having no splash has made Wasteland a non-issue. I don't even have to fetch dual lands very often anyway. Echoing Truth and Pithing Needle do a lot of work and are very easy to cast.

I've been winning a lot, so overall I feel this list is at least headed in a good direction.

No MD Thoughtseize hm? How is that treating you? I'm still on a tri-color build right now, I had a bad performance last week but I'm not chalking it up to the deck for now.

[Islandswamp]

It's been fine. Game one, I'm usually trying to catch them off guard and animate a bomb quickly. Game two and three, I bring them in as needed. I haven't faced a Delver deck or Miracles for a while (Which is odd playing on MTGO), but the real test will be if I can beat those decks whatsoever with this configuration.

I'll start keeping track of my wins/losses, and what decks I'm facing. I did beat a Landstill deck, which had quite a few counterspells, so it's possible that my build is decent.

I'm trying to get my MTGO clan to get a little bigger, to help promote legacy, and find people to test with. I also write articles for PureMTGO.com, and I'm planning on writing about reanimator for next week's piece. I was lucky enough to score a short written interview with a former member of R&D, and I'm probably going to fit it in as well.

Good luck, and may all your draw seven's be amazing!

[Stryfo]

I've been playing without MD thoughtseize for a LONG time, and my general thought on it is as follows:

If you play thoughtseize game one, what do you want to hit? Combo decks, and counterspells. The thing is, we are already extremely advantaged against combo, by both having counters and being on average the fastest among the combo decks (if the mirror were more common, I'd consider running thoughtseize, but reanimator isn't incredibly common). If you would nab a counterspell with thoughtseize, a reanimation effect would do the same thing (or sometimes more in the case of force of will). The difference is, if you cast a thoughtseize and they don't have a counterspell, sure you get their best card, but if it were a reanimation effect, you would just win the game.

The reason I compare a reanimation effect here to thoughtseize is that I am playing two animate dead in addition to the four exhumes and four reanimates, which is a slot most would reserve for thoughtseize.

[Islandswamp]

I've been playing without MD thoughtseize for a LONG time, and my general thought on it is as follows:

If you play thoughtseize game one, what do you want to hit? Combo decks, and counterspells. The thing is, we are already extremely advantaged against combo, by both having counters and being on average the fastest among the combo decks (if the mirror were more common, I'd consider running thoughtseize, but reanimator isn't incredibly common). If you would nab a counterspell with thoughtseize, a reanimation effect would do the same thing (or sometimes more in the case of force of will). The difference is, if you cast a thoughtseize and they don't have a counterspell, sure you get their best card, but if it were a reanimation effect, you would just win the game.

The reason I compare a reanimation effect here to thoughtseize is that I am playing two animate dead in addition to the four exhumes and four reanimates, which is a slot most would reserve for thoughtseize.

I'm thinking about running animate dead. I have ran it in the past, but I'm now using four exhume, four reanimate, two show and tell (3rd S&T SB). Thr point of Show main deck is to have a little hedge against the vast amount of deathrite shamans around. I'm not sure hoe big of a deal it is game one though, I've taken to using the tactic of not cracking my fetches until I can go off, which usually means they haven't realized what deck I'm on yet, and either use shaman for mana, or don't leave up green for the creature exile effect.

I suppose that Show is a self-contained fatty-cheating system, so it has some merit on it's own. It goes against the other plans of the deck though, such as Entomb and Careful Study.

One corner-case use for thoughtseize is to discard a creature out of your own hand, but combine that with a reanimate on one of your bigger dudes, and you could put yourself in burn range too soon.

[djjoseortiz]

I've been playing reanimator for the better part of the last year . Tons of wins and two 1st place at my local stores Thursday night events. I've played similar list to the ones you guys have listed on the last few pages. I've also played with and with out MD thoughtseize . I've played the gemstone caverns list. I even tried a main deck inferno Titan because at one point we had so many death and taxes decks in our meta. It was super effective BTW. My question is . Have you guys ever experienced long stretches where it just seems like you can't win ? The last two events I played in I won 1 game out of 7 rounds . It was to the point where my opponents looked at me looked at there hand and asked me why I haven't just won yet. lol The last event I played in I saw 1 reanimation effect in my opening hand in out 3 rounds. After brainstorming , studying and pondering my ass off still just not getting there. Am I just going through a bad run or is my favorite deck just not very good right now ?


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[Nuke is Good]

My losing streak is starting to bother me that I didn't even use Reanimator yesterday at the LGS, even with painter my 2nd strongest deck in the meta I'm in I still can't get it together. Reanimator has gotten me the best results in my competitive record so I'm back to seeing how I can fix the deck. This time I went for a more aggressive approach and aimed for T1 combos.


Main Deck (60)
Creatures (7)
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Tidespout Tyrant
3 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Spells (37)
4 Lotus Petal
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Daze
4 Exhume
2 Show and Tell
1 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
Lands (16)
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
Sideboard (15)
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
2 Dread of Night
3 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Show and Tell
1 Grave Titan
1 Sire of Insanity

Thoughts on the changes:

• It feels extremely weird to put Thoughtseizes in the sideboard and when would I even put them back in the board now? Combo matchups?
• Depending on how testing goes, I'd favor Sire of Insanity over Empyrial Archangel mainboarded as a T1 sire is backbreaking and the Archangel is a defensive choice.
• 4 Lotus Petals sound REALLY nice with tidespout
• 4 Careful studies have never changed but when am I supposed to side them out?
• BUG is coming back fierce so maybe MD Titan should be considered also

[Islandswamp]

My losing streak is starting to bother me that I didn't even use Reanimator yesterday at the LGS, even with painter my 2nd strongest deck in the meta I'm in I still can't get it together. Reanimator has gotten me the best results in my competitive record so I'm back to seeing how I can fix the deck. This time I went for a more aggressive approach and aimed for T1 combos.


Main Deck (60)
Creatures (7)
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Tidespout Tyrant
3 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Spells (37)
4 Lotus Petal
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Daze
4 Exhume
2 Show and Tell
1 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
Lands (16)
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
Sideboard (15)
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
2 Dread of Night
3 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Show and Tell
1 Grave Titan
1 Sire of Insanity

Thoughts on the changes:

• It feels extremely weird to put Thoughtseizes in the sideboard and when would I even put them back in the board now? Combo matchups?
• Depending on how testing goes, I'd favor Sire of Insanity over Empyrial Archangel mainboarded as a T1 sire is backbreaking and the Archangel is a defensive choice.
• 4 Lotus Petals sound REALLY nice with tidespout
• 4 Careful studies have never changed but when am I supposed to side them out?
• BUG is coming back fierce so maybe MD Titan should be considered also

I just cut one ponder for a main deck titan. I lost two matches today, and won two, but I've been winning way more than losing. I'm going to look at my log and see for sure. The games I lost weren't really in my hands to win anyway, variance and all.
Anyway, four brainstorm and two ponder has been ok. The deck spits out so many turn one or turn two Griselbrands anyway, it feels like the hand sculptors are there for when your plan begins to unravel a bit.

I'm pretty new to legacy, but it's more fun than anything else I've ever tried. I don't even have other decks, except a pauper delver deck. I sold out of the other formats. Once you're in, it is really a lot cheaper (on MTGO for sure).

I started with U/R Delver, during the TC days, then RUG Delver, sold that bought BUG Delver, then Shardless BUG (both bug decks I still have, and love), and Reanimator is my most recent.

I've had by far more wins with reanimator than any of the other decks. Not that they did bad, but reanimator is so powerful and consistent. Once you get a hang of a few of the tricks, you're all set. It might be easier for me because I'm playing online, so nobody knows what I'm playing and I can wait to go for a Griselbrand if I need to, to avoid DRS or draw a Force of Will.

[DoorDie]

[*]4 Careful studies have never changed but when am I supposed to side them out?

I side them out when I suspect or know about Rest in Peace. They really price you into getting blown out when you can't clear the way. Thoughtseize is an easy swap since it's more versatile, though less effective as a setup card.

[Islandswamp]

When I was playing Bug Delver and Shardless Bug, I faced miracles all the time it seemed, and I won most of those matches.

I hadn't ran into Miracles for a long time since picking up reanimator, and it did not go well. I did make a series of what I thought were good plays, using a turn of multiple business spells backed up by counter magic, but my opponent just had all the counterspells, and hit a blind counterbalance trigger.

The match up didn't seem good, and made me think that trying the abrupt decay splash might be a better idea than I'd thought.

I really like the smoothness of the mana base with just two colors, I never worry about wasteland or blood moon effects.

I had a bad run of games, which got me thinking I need to make changes. Part of me thinks that it's just something that happens sometimes, I did have a much higher win-rate for the few days prior.

[TinkerRobot]

Went 4-0 at local legacy. That's a total of 7-1 in matches in two weeks.
Still playing the same list. I think it's just the best iteration of this deck.

R1 2-0 vs Mono-U Omni-Tell
R2 2-1 vs Burn
R3 2-1 vs Death and Taxes !!!
R4 2-0 vs MUD

[clashed]

Went 4-0 at local legacy. That's a total of 7-1 in matches in two weeks.
Still playing the same list. I think it's just the best iteration of this deck.

R1 2-0 vs Mono-U Omni-Tell
R2 2-1 vs Burn
R3 2-1 vs Death and Taxes !!!
R4 2-0 vs MUD

The only hard matchup I feel is D&T there. How do you generally board in hard matchups? Nothing too specific if you feel like it's too much work. And why is your build better than BUG or BG. I feel like it has the added weaknesses of BUG without the unconditional removal that Decay brings. You obviously have success though, so I'm curious which cards are over-performing for you in red specifically.

[Islandswamp]

Went 4-0 at local legacy. That's a total of 7-1 in matches in two weeks.
Still playing the same list. I think it's just the best iteration of this deck.

R1 2-0 vs Mono-U Omni-Tell
R2 2-1 vs Burn
R3 2-1 vs Death and Taxes !!!
R4 2-0 vs MUD

I'll give it a shot. I think it's not too much to finish it.

EDIT
Good job on the wins man.

[zzregz]

Went 4-0 at local legacy. That's a total of 7-1 in matches in two weeks.
Still playing the same list. I think it's just the best iteration of this deck.

R1 2-0 vs Mono-U Omni-Tell
R2 2-1 vs Burn
R3 2-1 vs Death and Taxes !!!
R4 2-0 vs MUD

Can you record a video of your game? I wanna learn your gameplay. Is grixis much better rather than sultai build?