Okay, so now that it's been settled in the other rules thread that Animate Dead and Dance of the Dead DO get Akroma back (while staying in play as a simple enchantment) we can get to work.
I propose that Spirit of the Night now become the next #2 beatstick of the deck, since Animate/Dance works on him much the same way as it does Akroma. That gives us a large array of 6-power haste flying first-striking beatsticks that won't be easy to get rid of.
I also propose that based on this, Exhume and Reanimate are vastly inferior to Animate / Dance. No more life loss, no more opponents getting a creature back too.
Also, what do people think of possibly loading the deck with Chrome Mox and trying Chalice of the Void in this deck, since Chalice at 1 wouldn't stop anything that wasn't Duress, Ritual, or Therapy?
Originally Posted by majikal
Technically the Animate dead does not stay in play, it is put into the graveyard, it just doesn't take akroma with it.
Not according to Chris Richter.:P
The Animate Dead's attach ability fails, which means the part about it becoming an Aura fails also. It stays as the type it is, and it stays where it is.
What is your reasoning bhind that statement? What would possibly make that fail along with it?which means the part about it becoming an Aura fails also
Animate dead turns into an aura. It then fails to attach itself to akroma. Then as a state-based effect it is put into the graveyard because that is what happens to auras when they are not attached to anything. I'm sure Chris was not saying that it happened this way, since it was a faily irelevant point and he was agreeing that akroma stayed in play. There is nothing that says that once it turns into an aura, that if it can't attach it goes back to being a non-aura. There is also nothing in the rules that says an enchantment cannot become an aura if that aura cannot attach to anything.When Animate Dead comes into play, if it's in play, it becomes an Aura with enchant creature. Put target creature card from a graveyard into play under your control and attach Animate Dead to it.
Enchanted creature gets -1/-0.
When Animate Dead leaves play, destroy enchanted creature. It can't be regenerated.
That's...a valid point. I think I'll email him back and ask.
Animate Dead makes my head explode. Gah.
EDIT: Either way, at least we know that Akroma stays.
EDIT 2, THE SEQUEL: You're completely right. My mistake. Chris just emailed me back. That makes a lot more sense. Here's the email clip.
>>Thanks for all your help! One more quick question.
>>Does Animate Dead stay in play as an enchantment, or
>>does it go to the graveyard?
It becomes an aura enchantment that is not attached to anything, so it will go to the graveyard.
Last edited by Tacosnape; 08-30-2006 at 04:57 PM.
That's really interesting. I do think that losing the toolbox utility (not being able to grab simic sky swallower vs. Swords rich decks and such, not being able to grab Angel of Despair/Sundering Titan against a deck that's mana screwed or a maindeck Worship) would be quite bad however.
Thus I propose that Animate Dead be run over Exhume, since it works with other creatures as well, but that Dance of the Dead be left behind.
What I propose now is a mental exercise regarding the most broken manner in which to abuse Entomb.
Wizards banned Entomb, with just about the worst explanation "it's one of the best tutors in the game" imaginable. That's certainly not true. It's only truly broken tutor target is Worldgorger Dragon, and even that I question would be powerful as a deck. Even so, they could easily ban Dragon in place of Entomb and open the format to a number of diverse fun but underpowered archeatypes, from Reanimator decks, to decks that abuse that new Knight, to a control deck that tutors for Dredge and Flashback cards along with Wonder. They left far more powerful tutors from Burning Wish to Mystical Tutor and Enlightened Tutor untouched, thank god, as these tutors are NOT broken, just powerful in certain decks. The same is the case for Entomb (you could argue that they should ban Dragon instead but even that is probably unnecesary).
So as a mental exercise, let's build the most powerful Reanimator deck imaginable if the DCI were to unban Entomb, as a way to show DCI that Entomb in Reanimator wouldn't be broken.
Here's what I have come up with so far...
//Mana
20 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
//Disruption
4 Duress
4 Mutilate
//Bury
4 Entomb
4 Buried Alive
1 Akroma, Angel
1 Spirit of the Night
1 Angel of Despair
1 Simic Sky Swallower
//Reanimate
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Animate Dead
//Moddable
4 Night's Whisper
If you unban Entomb, running stuff like Intuition and Careful Study becomes unneeded and monoblack becomes very strong.
The above list has 12 ways to get a creature into the yard, one of which is not playing anything first turn so that you will have to discard the creature second turn.
The list has 12 Reanimate effects so you will always see one in your opening hand and can hope to draw into more even if your first one is countered.
It has the most undercosted card drawer in the format, thought it would be very easy to run 8 Fetchlands, 4 Duals, and run Brainstorm/Careful Study instead.
Is the above list (including the blue mod) the very most broken Reanimator build possible with unbanned Entomb?
I challenge you guys to build a stronger one.
That looks fairly optimal to me. You lose the complexities of the Squee/ZI engine, but at the same time you get the ability to only run a grand total of four creatures in the deck, which reduces your dead slots and makes the deck less cute and more effective. Mutilate and Night's Whisper seem flexible, though I can't think offhand of what I'd want in their place.
Reanimator isn't particularly the deck that makes Entomb scare me, though. Entomb scares me more when its used to fetch dredge cards, like Life From The Loam or Golgari Grave-Troll. It also fetches things like Deep Analysis, Roar of the Wurm, etc, and then all the reanimator targets in this deck. Also, unlike the Mystical/Enlightened/Worldly series, you get the card you want right away rather than having to wait a turn to draw it.
Entomb scares me more for the decks we haven't thought of yet than the ones we have.
My apologies for insinuating Animate Dead stayed in play; I misread the Gatherer rules summary.
It does, however, point out the weakness that Animate Dead's CIP can be countered (Stifle, eg), leaving you with a worthless Enchantment. It can also be Disenchanted in response, as its ability says "When -this- CIP, if it's in play, it becomes...." So the Animate Dead plan is not necessarily king shit, as decks like Angel Stompy maindeck Disenchant and could randomly game 1 you. But it is the most one-sided with the least potential for personal drawback so it begs research.
As an aside, Zombie Infestation is, in fact, incredible in a deck like this. You don't have to run Squee to make it good; in concert with cards like Putrid Imp you can speed the kill by a turn assuming ZI goes unchallenged. It also gives you the ability to, like, do stuff when you don't draw half of your reanimation game.
For what it's worth, Worldgorger Dragon is banned...
Based on that tourney top 8ing build, I came up with this list...Hey there! Im Rodrigo Gonzalez from San Diego, and i was the other person in the top 8 with B/G reanimator.
Well here is the decklist that i used and have been using for several months, Ill make some comments about some of the card choices i expect people will ask about afterwards.
4 Putrid Imp
4 Buried Alive
3 Animate Dead
4 Reanimate
2 Recurring Nightmare
4 Exhume
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Buried Alive
4 Dark Ritual
2 Sickening Dreams
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Windswept heath
3 OverGrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
5 Swamp
1 Ascendant Evincar
1 Thunder Dragon
1 Braids Cabal minion
1 Phanthom Nishoba
1 Symic Sky Swallower
1 Sundering Titan
1 Symbiotic Wurm
1 Akroma Angel of wrath
1 Angel of Despair
1 Bringer of the Blue Dawn
/sb
4 Defense Grid
3 Choke
4 Naturalize
2 Sickening Dreams
2 Pernicious Deed
Ok ill separate the cards into the basic elements of the archtype which are discard ( getting creatures into the grave) and reanimation, also utilities such as disruption and such.
Discard:
Imp : Cheap effective discard that works as a lackey blocker and beats down when necesary.
Cabal Therapy: Great when making opponent discard and really good for you as an outlet as well. makes the imps usefull after the creatures are already in the yard.
Sickening Dreams: kills weanie hordes as well as undisruptable discard, since the discard is in adition to the casting cost. Works well as last moment burn spell.
Buried alive: Best tutor after entomb for these decks ( PLEASE UNBAN IT WIZARDS!!!)
Reanimation:
Reanimate: duh. cheap and effective, also good at taking opposing critters.
Exhume: reanimation with a minor drawback.
Animate dead: It only got better after the rescent Pro black trick. Awesome!
Recurring nightmare: Nothing better than beaing able to switch out your fattie for a better one later in the game.
Creatures:
Akroma : DUH...i hear shes good.
Sundering Titan: One sided armagendon against any deck with duels. and hes huuuuuge!
Symic Sky Swallower: Flying Mongoose on crack. Wins games almost as fast ... and sometimes faster than Akroma.
Blazing Archon: great against Madness, Goblins and the mirror. and also any random aggro.
Phanthom Nishoba: YAY! Spirit link and near undestructability! goblins and burn aggro hate this card.
Thunder Dragon: Three damage to all non flyers and it stays in play. If it wasnt for Echo crater hellion would be here.
Angel of Despair: Kills any other anoying thing thats too expensive to deed, or just as a tempo boost.
Symbiotic Wurm: B I G fatty ! Allows beats post flash back therapy, and it works well with Braids.
Braids: Tempo advantage if out early and lock later on with the wurm. Great against Solidarity and random combo like belcher and iggy pop.
Bringer of the Blue Dawn : Perhaps the most controversial card in the deck, But if you stop to think about it, if your drawing 3 cards a turn you shouldnt be losing. ( just for concideration. I dont think ive lost a match where they left the bringer alive because they thought it wasnt powefull ...HA! )
The side board and two deeds main are the reason i splashed green in this deck. Humilty kills you if you dont have a deed or a naturalize.
Choke destroys grow.
Defense Grid annoys solidarity and landstill like hell.
And the extra Sickening Dreams and Deeds come in against Goblins and Grow respectively.
Match ups:
The deck itself has a good match against most of the field. But it shines its best in random metagames.
as ie mentioned before, i have been playing this for several months. close to 8 months or so with this build. so extensive testing against several decks has been done.
Goblins:
70-30 if mono red and green red, 60- 40 if they have white for swords.
Grow:
with white..50-50 ( it really depends on who gets the best hand, swords play a huge part since they can put me in a clock, and as long as i dont nuke their lands with a titan they have a good even chance)
With just red ...70-30 ( no swords mean i win by both beats and if i get a Blazing Archon to stall enough to nuke the board with both titan and others).
Solidarity:
45-55 If i can get any disruption early enough and a couple therapies ( one flashed back) with a fatty for a clock, its all good. still not an easy match. After sideboard it gets considerably better. Choke helps, Grid stalls enough. But sometimes they pull it out of their ass.
Homebrew/ Pikula:
your hardest match would have to be Homebrew. Reanimator is a combo deck, so having every answer to it hurts alot ( swords... duress... hymm...edict...and wretch main hurt quite a bit but its still in range of being won. more like a 35-65.)
If there are any questions please ask.
If you want to check the consistency of the deck, check for the last 6 months in the top 8 in san diego, I believe we stoped posting results on the source a while back. but youll see that whenever i played reanimator ( this build ) i top 8'd, every sinlge time, and the tournaments old for about 30 - 40 people. not tiny 8-15 ish.
this deck arhctype is awesome to play and competitive as hell. but the hate still comes from everyone thats a skeptic about the consistency of its wins.
I wanted to keep it monoblack for budget reasons but I borrowed enormously from his build to create the below deck... what do you guys think?
4 Putrid Imp
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Buried Alive
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Animate Dead
4 Dark Ritual
2 Sickening Dreams
2 Plunge into Darkness
4 Petradon - Works With Wastelands
1 Akroma, Angel - Win Fast
1 Spirit of the Night - Win Fast
1 Simic Sky Swallower - Antiremoval
1 Angel of Despair - Anticontrol
1 Phantom Nishoba - Antiaggro
1 Silent Specter - Anticombo
4 Wasteland
16 Swamp
I am a little intimidated by the lists that I have seen here... but here is my build:
4 watery grave
4 underground sea
4 polluted delta
1 bloodstained mire
1 flooded strand
2 islands
4 swamp
4 peutrid imp
4 dark ritual
4 daze
4 force of will
3 exhume
4 reanimate
3 animate dead
2 sickening dreams
3 Tourbulant dreams
4 bringer of the blue dawn
3 mindleech mass
2 silent specter
Any comments that would help my build?
You need a better creature base than that, IMHO... You need the Akromas and Simic Sky Swallowers and whatnot to make a feared reanimator deck...
I think that unbanning entomb would be a major downside for the dci considering it would power up the following decks
salvagers, confinement, reanimator, ichorid, pebbles and probably more decks that could abuse the graveyard along with perhaps a crucible/ glacial chasm deck.
As for the optimal reanimator decklist I am not sure at all because I have not really studied the lists and figured what would work but I think everyone has come to a turning point of whether or not you go aggro and run the whole 6/x flying tranmpling hasty creatures or run utility that helps to close the game after a bunch more turns.
Has anyone considered using Pox as a discard outlet?
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
16 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
4 Putrid Imp
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Blackmail
4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Animate Dead
2 Dance of the Dead
4 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4 Spirit of the Night
4 Bogardan Hellkite
2 Simic Sky Swallower
Sideboard:
4 Life/Death
4 8/8 Untargetable
2 Simic Sky Swallower
2 Dance of the Dead
2 Duress/Sickening Dreams
1 Swamp
The list may look like a pile just going for a speedy win but it has a lot of subtle synergies and potential strategies.
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, Putrid Imp and Duress from the side all can greatly hurt combo.
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 when you're going for a slower strategy.
Against heavy creature removal and/or few blockers, 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.
14 fatties?... That's a lot of creatures... Maybe cut it down to 10-12?... I only run 6-8 in my build, but I have the Avatars and Squee-ZI engine, so I think 10-12 is just about right...
Blackmail is... Well... Interesting... Have you tried out Last Rites in that spot?...
Last Rites and Buried Alive were both tried. Both were far too slow.
Without Buried Alive, you acutally have to draw into the creatures you're going to discard. The only way to ensure that you do is to run 14.
It's not all bad though. Even if a creature gets Sworded, you usually have back up this way.
But that's the moot point of your strategy... You don't have card draw...
If you don't have a creature, a reanimate spell, and a discard outlet in your opening 7, you're going to have to rely on your topdeck... What if you're missing one component? Two?...
You might want to take a look at Overeager Apprentice's flavor text for advice...
In using the deck, roughly 60% of hands let you reanimate a creature on the second turn, and that's without mulliganing. Taking mulliganing and top decks into account, it's rather consistent and only fizzles about a fifth of the time.
And when hate is heavy, you can go the 30 Reanimate, 30 Beatstick direction post sideboard, and just draw go until you have to discard stuff.
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.
If I was using life/death and reanimate over animate dead, I would certainly opt for Rorix Bladewing over Spirit of the Night. The 3 life you don't lose is very significant.
Also, 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.
Last edited by SuckerPunch; 09-14-2006 at 03:58 PM.
This could use a bump.
I would interested to see what the most current lists look like.
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