Over the top and back to the grindstone!
Here we go:
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (26)
Spells (23)
Where did this deck come from?
I got the idea working briefly with Dave Williams before Pro Tour Dark Ascension. He said he had an "obvious" deck enabled by Dark Ascension cards and showed me an earlier version of this strategy. I fiddled around with it some and suggested some pieces hither and thither but nothing stuck. (For example, at one point Patrick wanted to improve his sideboarded Humans matchup, and I suggested switching around his maindeck semi-soft locks somewhat and playing four Unburial Rites in the sideboard… He was already playing Desperate Ravings and Faithless Looting.)
The Frites deck to come out of Raph Levy at Pro Tour Dark Ascension looks to be the popular way to go Reanimator in Standard, especially with Eric Meng’s fine (but nevertheless heartbreaking) finish at the most recent Grand Prix.
The issue with Frites in my mind is that you have all these little green creatures. Little green creatures are a double-edged sword. Sure, you have a slightly more explosive potential opening hand… But on the other hand you have all these little green creatures. Cards like Galvanic Blast, Geistflame, for goodness’s sake Arc Trail, and even Curse of Death’s Hold are suddenly good against you. That is morally revolting to the average combo player, but besides the icky small green creatures feeling, you have the issue of drawing some kind of 0/1 in a topdeck fight plus your mana is more challenging because you need to devote so much to hitting G on turn one.
There have always been the "all-in on little green creatures" versus the more pragmatic (if less Katy Perry-esque) versions of many decks. There were U/G/R Opposition decks with Birds and Elves powering out turn two Call of the Herd, and there were those that were more resilient against Fire / Ice and relied more on two-drop Madness outlets. There are Wolf Run decks (the default, after Iyanaga) with one Birds of Paradise and those with all eight like Owen at States. And there are Reanimator decks with eight or nine one-drop accelerators versus decks like this one…with eight one-drop library manipulation spells.
Obvious?
Dave’s assertion was that Reanimator was a deck everyone should have. Faithless Looting is clearly one of the strongest cards in Dark Ascension, and it’s tailor made to latch elbows and go all kissy-face with Unburial Rites. It’s a bit funny that I made that messy mana comment about green because my deck’s mana is…ambitious.
The system I worked around was more or less all the in-arc red and blue Scars of Mirrodin duals (maximizing my chances of being able to play Ponder and Faithless Looting on the first turn) supplemented by Evolving Wilds and an appropriate number of basics. If you actually try this deck I think you will find that the mana is refreshingly clean. I was dazzled in testing by how many one land hands I could keep and just get there. Your deck has so much cheap manipulation that one goes into two goes into three…and all of a sudden you have a fourth turn Inferno Titan.
That said, Faithless Looting is a challenging card to play well. For example, I assumed it was "card advantage" out of the graveyard, and once played it after playing my land for the turn with no cards in hand. I was deliberately playing Hellbent, gaining advantage with Liliana of the Veil, but having never played Faithless Looting in this position before I ended up discarding my Consecrated Sphinx. Embarrassing, yes, but I had my opponent Liliana-locked with six flashback spells in the graveyard… I got over the red cheeks all right.
Speaking of Liliana and flashback spells, they go together like peanut butter and chocolate here. There’s no feeling like suffocating your opponent with Liliana of the Veil while pitching cards like Geistflame and Desperate Ravings over and over and over, turn after turn after turn. The synergy is awesome but the fact that the cards are all so good is kind of weird. When does that ever happen?
Anyway, this deck is super good, super fun to play, and you should definitely try it (but only if you’re interested in victory).
But before you do, there are probably some things you should know, especially if you’ve never played some of these cards in tandem (or at all):
Faithless Looting
When I have more than one copy of this card in my opening hand (or upon a Looting on the first turn or so), I will typically pitch all copies of Faithless Looting unless there’s something really obvious and/or alarming (like I can pitch both Unburial Rites and Inferno Titan immediately to set up the big turn four). Faithless Looting is powerful but punishing of imprecise play.
If my opponent goes first and plays an Island (or thereabouts), I’ll not typically play first turn Faithless Looting unless I have kept a loose/land light hand. I’m more than willing to side out as many as three copies of Faithless Looting, especially against decks with lots of counterspells.
Geistflame
I chose Geistflame over Galvanic Blast (typical in decks with sixes these days) for two reasons: 1) I’m never realistically going to get metalcraft, and 2) Geistflame—at least Geistflame on curve—is pretty effective against most of the cards where you want a one mana point removal card (Delver of Secrets, et al.). It’s super synergistic with Faithless Looting, Desperate Ravings, Forbidden Alchemy, and of course, Liliana of the Veil. I’ve had some surprising wins with Geistflame powered by the opponent’s Nephalia Drownyard, winning against U/B Control.
Mana Leak
Two to keep them honest.
Inferno Titan and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
You can in theory play lots of different finishing fatties. Grave Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, and even Frost Titan have their merits. Primeval Titan is the most powerful of the cycle, but he doesn’t do anything spectacular in this deck (besides keep you mana-rich for lots of flashback and other card drawing). Inferno Titan and Elesh Norn have a job, and their job is to kill small Humans and Wizards. In theory whatever six (or seven) you hit is powerful enough to win the game… These ones do so while defending you against problem aggro decks.
Consecrated Sphinx and Curse of Death’s Hold
For the sideboard, one of the things I did was just choose cards that other good players said won them lots of games in other decks. I have never sided in Curse of Death’s Hold, but I still think it probably has a place. Consecrated Sphinx, on the other hand, has done lots of duty for me. It comes in against the popular U/B and against other Titan decks as well as for threat diversity against any deck with Surgical Extraction. Certainly the awesomest of the sideboard threats.
Go for the Throat
Per Ten Underrated Black Cards in Standard, Go for the Throat is even better than when I said to play it then; the resurgence of U/B has put not just Consecrated Sphinx removal but Grave Titan removal up there in terms of "things you have to do to win a tournament." Go for the Throat can also come in against small creatures… No shame there.
Liliana of the Veil
In against Titans, in against control.
Negate
… Has been awesome. Primarily for B/U Control; also effective against Rampant Growth and Green Sun’s Zenith.
Timely Reinforcements and Wurmcoil Engine
These used to be four Whipflares until I lost to a Brimstone Volley deck and a Hellrider deck. I was starting to take control in game 3 with Consecrated Sphinx, but instead his hand was five live cards and when one of them is Brimstone Volley, you really only need three. I have never sided these cards in, but I assume you need some kind of jazz to gain life and defend yourself against beatdown decks with reach.
A note on the mana:
I could probably figure out some way to play Ray of Revelation and/or Ancient Grudge… But the mana is really not bad the way it is. I know you might be scratching your head at it, but it’s there; however, you need to be there—there between the ears—to take advantage of it. This is a difficult mana base to manage. If you can keep your opening hand due to Ponder, Faithless Looting, and so on, you can usually get to the colors you need if not all the colors you want for all manner of fancy pants. Like you might get a Blackcleave Cliffs, a Plains, and an Evolving Wilds. You have a Mana Leak and Liliana of the Veil, plus Faithless Looting and are on the draw.
When I had this hand I played Faithless Looting and did not turn over any more lands; however I did show myself another Liliana of the Veil and Desperate Ravings. I played Evolving Wilds second and said go. My opponent missed his first second-turn Rampant Growth of the match, and I went and got a Swamp. Even if he had played Rampant Growth, I probably would have still gotten the Swamp. Every fiber of your "I have Mana Leak in my hand" being probably makes you want to get Island, but in this situation sticking Liliana is very good. My opponent had to start attacking it, and I stole an Inkmoth Nexus with Geistflame and eventually ground him out.
In a different game, I lost because I tapped wrong. I was up against a Steel Hellkite and I had access to all my colors. I knew my outs when I flashed back Faithless Looting… and killed myself. I indeed turned over Consecrated Sphinx but left up two Plains to cast Elesh Norn if I had drawn that (even though Elesh Norn was not an out). You ever do that? I think that is a pretty common mistake. "What if I draw Elesh Norn?" What if you draw the actual card that can block a 5/5 flyer and get value while doing so?
The deck has performed well so far against all the pillars of the metagame—Ramp, U/B and U/W Control, and Delver. I had a suspicion that all the Unburial Rites would make life difficult for Nephalia Drownyard, and I was right. I was able to grind out a U/B player tonight who had seven cards in hand to my one Faithless Looting (that I refused to ever cast) as my hand grew and grew by itself. Every three points from Inferno Titan added up, flashback after flashback. U/W is like B/U except they don’t actually have Nephalia Drownyard :)
Lines of Play:
The reason I like this deck is because you can mold your gameplan to the game at hand in a way very few Standard decks can. This is a result of having tons and tons of card drawing and library manipulation (which allows you to switch up what you’re doing), plus your cards are all extremely powerful.
So against a beatdown deck, the best course might be to Geistflame his one-drop, Mana Leak his Thalia, draw some extra cards, then stick Elesh Norn and try to ride that to the win. Once you have Elesh Norn down, you draw Draw DRAW while the opponent’s position becomes increasingly desperate.
Against control you typically use your library manipulation to hit all your land drops. I like to Mana Leak whatever I can Mana Leak that doesn’t suck (for example, I dunno, Gideon Jura). You don’t want to Mana Leak Think Twice or something like that unless you’re going to discard or you anticipate discarding on an upcoming turn (i.e. you have no lands in hand and you know that if you don’t pull one you’re going to be at 8-9 cards in a turn or two). However, it’s important to show your control opponent Mana Leak if you can so that he doesn’t try to go beatdown on you.
I’ve found I have an advantage against U/B opponents even outside of the ability to steal cards from their Drownyards because many seem to be playing PVDDR’s version with Tribute to Hunger rather than Liliana of the Veil. Most decks that could be playing Liliana but aren’t playing Liliana tend to get blown out by Liliana. I was originally down on Liliana for the Dark Ascension Standard due to Strangleroot Geist and Lingering Souls, but she’s so good with reanimation targets and flashback cards that I found a home for her.
As a control deck, you can actually play two or three different styles of control.
- Grinding Control – Use your cards to get two-for-ones. Attempt to win by card advantage exchanges followed by haymakers. Typically when playing this style you will want to hard cast a fair number of your Unburial Rites and/or fatties. There’s a reason you have two Plains in your deck.
- Tempo Control – Usually you have to get a bit lucky with your hand—and it often helps to have a cooperative opponent here—where you can literally use your Geistflames and permission on-curve, then use your card drawing to hold your advantage. You know, the old Geistflame-into-Mana Leak-into-Liliana of the Veil-into turn 6 Inferno Titan (with whatever setup on turns four and five) draw.
- Opportunistic, Inevitable, Hellbent Control – You actually have enough removal to kill all the threats in a fair number of decks in the format (so long as they don’t play Karn Liberated). You can play this insane game against many decks—including more controlling Control with lots of counter spells—where your entire game plan is Hellbent around Liliana of the Veil. It’s really quite an interesting feeling to be doing this in-game, where you play out your last land or run something into a one-for-one deliberately, turn after turn, so you can get +1 on the +1 with Liliana. Your graveyard, with its many Lootings, Rites, and Ravings, is so much better than the opponent’s hand usually even when the opponent is U/B. I’ve played Liliana in many different decks since she was first printed, but I would guess I’ve activated her ultimate more times in this deck in just a couple of sessions than I have in almost every other deck I’ve tried her combined; she’s just so suffocating here. It’s just a great feeling to make both you and the other cat play off the top, especially when you can constantly access tons of extra cards.
And, of course, you’re still a pretty good combo deck!
The general/straightforward gameplan is to use your card drawing to sculpt a fast, over the top position. Really, there are few decks that can compete—at any point—with your turns 4-7, and certainly not with your ability to repeat. Unburial Rites 4, Unburial Rites 5, hard-cast Inferno Titan, hard-cast Elesh Norn (or Ponder/Faithless Looting + another 4-6).
That said, almost every deck has some holes; here are the ones I’ve found so far (one common, one less so these days):
- Sword of War and Peace (but who plays that, anyway?) – Your main blockers are red or white; meaning they don’t if this comes online.
- Solar Flare – Their ability to chain Sun Titans into Phantasmal Images is problematic as you are theoretically approaching the same end game… Only you’re not.
I was surprised in my limited interactions with Grafdigger’s Cage. Sure, it sucked. But I mostly used my Lootings to get rid of Unburial Rites and just tried to gain card advantage some other way. Luckily I could use my manipulation to hit 6-7 mana and try to go windmill, slam, star destroyer over and over and over. Not to say Grafdigger’s Cage wasn’t quite relevant, but this deck has so many bombs plus you can make up for it quite a bit by digging to Consecrated Sphinx.
I do think the sideboard probably needs to respect the opponent’s permanents more; I’m not sure if the answer is to go with some kind of Ancient Grudge/Ray of Revelation with a slight tweak on mana (where the front side of either is already the equivalent of cards people are willing to play elsewhere) or to go with a generic solution like Ratchet Bomb, which has other applications against small beaters, Honor of the Pure, etc.
That said, ultimately I think you have most of the upside of the better strategies in Standard, with a great deal more development speed (and no small green creature liabilities). Enjoy!
LOVE
MIKE