One of the defining factors of a wide-open metagame is that sideboards are strained to bursting trying to hold enough answers to all the potential competitive decks. In such an environment, you can often get away with murder because many of your opponents simply don’t have the board space to punish you the way you deserve. (And you know you deserve it!)
Enter Reanimator.
Rising from the Dead. Again.
Much of the current attention on Reanimator strategies can be traced back to an aside posted on the Sideboard’s Chicago Masters Gateway update, which covered”the worst-kept secret in Chicago.” There’s a certain justice in the way Reanimator decks seem to come and go over the game’s history, gaining in popularity and then dying off, only to come back and repeat the process over and over again. Recent Standard environments had seen a smattering of it this time around, with attention on Bidding and other approaches popping up here and there, but it was Ben Seck’s Magic Online deck that really got people’s attention:
4 Barren Moor
4 Bloodstained Mire
6 Mountain
11 Swamp
2 Anger
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
4 Doomed Necromancer
1 Faceless Butcher
1 Guiltfeeder
1 Petradon
1 Phantom Nishoba
1 Symbiotic Wurm
1 Undead Gladiator
1 Visara the Dreadful
3 Buried Alive
4 Burning Wish
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
1 Last Rites
3 Sickening Dreams
2 Stitch Together
2 Zombify
Sideboard:
1 Buried Alive
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Decompose
1 Demolish
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Innocent Blood
1 Overmaster
1 Patriarch’s Bidding
1 Recoup
1 Sickening Dreams
3 Smother
1 Stitch Together
1 Zombify
This B/R incarnation serves as the starting point for the most common Reanimator strategies used currently, so I’ll be focusing on this to start. Once we’ve covered that, I can use the information to give a tour of some of the other reanimation options available.
The primary defining factors for these decks are:
- Disruption count and type (making sure you get to do what you want to do)
- Graveyard loading (getting goodies into the ‘yard)
- Graveyard emptying (show time!)
- Creatures available (which bombs do you have access to?)
- Tutoring/Searching power
Make ’em Say”Yes”
Reanimator is one of the most proactive strategies possible. Your single-minded goal is to drop one or more bombs into play and challenge the opponent to stop you. One of the ways to pull this off is by stripping your opponent of potential answers – and in this format, that means spells rather than creatures (with one major exception in Withered Wretch, which we’ll get to later). Disruption in this deck tends to come in the form of discard (to remove answers) and creature removal (to buy time and/or kill Withered Wretch).
Because so many of the deck’s enemies come in the form of non-creature spells – such as bounce, countermagic, and removal – Duress is the weapon of choice. You can’t really say”no” with this deck, so just make sure they can’t either. Cabal Therapy is also used from time to time for this, but I’m not impressed with its game 1 uses for this deck; against many opponents, there are several different potential things you need to worry about, and Duress just does a better job here. Granted, Therapy can be amazing when drawn in conjunction with Duress, but I was too often disappointed by it when testing game 1 duels. I found that I much preferred more removal and/or additional Last Rites, depending on which decks you expect (aggro or mid-game control). Last Rites does double duty by stripping out answers while also unloading any fatties you drew. It’s an amazing card, and it’s only because of the amazing speed packed by the aggro decks that you don’t see all these decks running three Rites main and one in the board to wish for.
As it stands currently, most people go with the full compliment of four Duresses… And for this version of Reanimator, I agree. At the very least, you should certainly have access to four for Game 2 if you don’t have them all main. Again, with the exception of Wretch, most of your opponent’s answers to your deck will be spells, not creatures, so Duress excels. The thing to keep in mind is how many ways you have to discard creatures you’ve already drawn.
Which brings us to removal. Most decks currently use Smother, which is considerably better against U/G than Sickening Dreams, and also quite useful against many other decks where Dreams can fall flat. Whichever you go with, it’s imperative that you have at least three or four answers to Withered Wretch game 1, and hopefully that’s not counting Wishes (which you’d rather have earmarked for furthering your combo).
But, if your game 1 deck is running Smothers over Sickening Dreams and no Cabal Therapies (which can target you when needed), it can be difficult to unclog your hand of uncastable monsters. This deck wants those guys in the ‘yard, not in hand. That means you’ll need to practice your version enough to know how many self-discard effects you can get away with. If your removal base is Smother and zero Dreams, your discard base may need more Last Rites to make up for it. Regardless, I would always include a copy of Rites in the board, as it makes for an outstanding Wish target in many matchups despite the warning your opponent gets that it’s coming.
Loading and Emptying
Once you’ve cleared the way with disruption (and often before), it’s time to get those bad boys in the ‘yard where they belong – at least temporarily. In the B/R archetype, this is ideally done with Buried Alive, dumping an Anger and your two monsters of choice. At a casting cost of three, it’s a perfect setup punch for Zombify or Doomed Necromancer (if you have double black). This spell is so important in this archetype that you’ll always run one Buried Alive in the board and four Wishes main, with the goal of maximizing your chances of getting a Buried Alive on turn 3.
Unfortunately, therein lies this deck’s biggest problem – its dependence on Buried Alive. Unlike other Reanimator archetypes, without one you’re stuck relying on whichever monster you (might have) drawn, and which you can hopefully dump into the graveyard with the help of some discard effect like Last Rites. One thing I’ve experimented with is running Entombs. Entomb is a lot better with a card like Akroma in the deck, and Entomb/Zombify can often save you against U/G (Visara), Sligh (Nishoba), Slide (Wurm), and MonoBlack Control (Wurm). With two Entombs, you can even add the Anger effect. It’s not anywhere near as good as Buried Alive, of course, but it’s certainly better than having neither in your hand and makes for a respectable”Plan B.” Once you start adding Entomb, you get access to other goodies – which is what led me to the hybrid deck I’ll be covering later.
As far as getting cards out of your graveyard, eight spells is the most common number. Typically an additional Stitch Together and Zombify will be in the board, allowing you to Wish for whichever is best, and I agree with this. It also allows you to board in an extra reanimation spell for those matchups where it’s just about getting the combo off (like Control Black). I currently favor the typical two Zombify, two Stitch, four Necromancer version but I feel that decks which pack a combination of six or more Last Rites and Sickening Dreams should run three Stitches and a single Zombify instead. Either way, I highly recommending keeping one of each Reanimator spell available in the board for game 1, as there will be plenty of times you specifically need one or the other in a pinch.
The Starting Lineup
Which creatures you decide to go with is a big part of this deck – in fact, it’s so important that I’m going to cover them one by one.
2 Anger
Anger is the card that makes all this work. If you could reliably get big fatties into play but they had to wait a turn to do their work, the deck would be much, much weaker. Aside from the straight-out damage racing potential, Anger makes cards like Arcanis and Visara much better than they would otherwise be in a deck like this. The only question is whether you can get away with just one; if you only have one and it’s stuck in your hand, your deck is much worse, and the time to cast Anger can be fatal. We want your minions to be angry, not you! The result is that either you run two Angers or you have enough discard effects to be able to reliably dump him almost every time you ever draw him. This problem is one of the main reasons I advocate the version we’ll be getting to a bit later, but it’s important to understand the background of this choice.
Arcanis the Omnipotent
This should always be main. I still see a lot of versions either skip this legend or start him on the bench, and that’s craziness. Against several decks, particularly Slide, this guy will win games all on his own. I have a deal with mine that I always make sure he gets to come over for the final swing. Keep yours as happy as mine is and you’ll see why this card is a must.
Akroma, Angel of Ability Text
While she’s not in the original decklists because she wasn’t around yet, this one is another must. Several decks will put you under enough pressure that you’ll need two fatties working together, and this one swings fast and hard while also covering your butt at the same time. Against R/G and Sligh in particular, this is the one Nishoba will be calling in for backup when Butcher Orgg can’t cut the mustard. Against midgame creature decks like Beasts, she’ll play backup for Visara or Nishoba. Also note that she’s invulnerable to Visara in the mirror, and even blocks while sending the angelic beatdown, just to rub it in Visara’s face.
Phantom Nishoba
The man with the plan when it comes to aggro decks… And in this case, the plan is”smash them, gain life.” Sometimes simple is best. I’ve sometimes messed around with a second in the sideboard, but so far haven’t been impressed enough to make the space on a more permanent basis.
Faceless Butcher
Included in many lists and sideboards, this is outdated and no longer necessary. Akroma is a far better use of the slot and she accomplishes most of the same functions and more. This was originally included as an answer for an opposing Visara, but you have better (and less fragile) options now.
Butcher Orgg
I haven’t seen many other people run him, but I’m a big fan of The Biggest Butcher. There are many situations where the other fatties just can’t get you out of the hole, and The Biggest Butcher will swing the entire tide of games in your favor on many occasions while also lowering their life totals. In combination with Visara, he also means that you can almost always get around Worship. Against all the Phantom Centaurs running around, he gives you a way to quickly drop their stats – particularly when they have multiples. His main use comes in decimating the Goblins in one fell swoop, something no other card has pulled off for me as convincingly or as quickly. Try him before you judge him (now there’s a slogan) and I think you’ll agree he’s worthy.
Guiltfeeder
Butcher Orgg gets you around Worship and you have Wishes for Bridge. No thanks, and certainly not main.
Petradon
The ‘Don is great when he comes out quick, but today’s aggro decks are so fast that you often have to go straight to Nishoba, Butcher, or Visara just to survive. Against midgame decks you’ll typically want Arcanis, and against base black you probably want the Wurm first. The result of all that is this guy doesn’t fill his role as first onto the beach – and that makes him a liability when space is such an issue. He does allow for some dramatic wins, when he’ll hit turn 4 and another fatty will drop turn 5. It’s impressive, but I found him to not be worth the slot in this version since you’ll have better options too often.
Symbiotic Wurm
I went with one of these in the sideboard for several weeks – but with the abundance of Edicts, Bloods, and Wraths out there, the Wurm is too good to pass up for the main. He’s particularly good against Tog game 1, especially if they don’t have bounce. He’s also a solution in the mirror when they already have an Angel out and you need something to try and race. Also, remember to keep this guy in mind when using a version with Cabal Therapy; flashing back off this Wurm’s back is good times indeed. For you.
Undead Gladiator
When you’ve got somebody stuck in your hand and there’s no other way to get rid of it, this is your option. The Gladiator also provides some card-drawing gas – but it’s so slow that even Tog can punish you before it has much impact. This, in combination with the Anger issue above, is one of the main reasons I recommend the hybrid version that I’ll be covering later in this article.
Visara the Dreadful
Dreadful for them, wonderful for you. Another no-brainer.
While we’re at it, other players that don’t make the cut for me, and why:
Iridescent Angel:
Protection from everything does nothing. Against most decks, she’s almost always going to come out second… And I think each deck you face has a better backup than this Angel. The oft-cited exception is Slide – but even then I’d rather have a Wurm and Arcanis doing the job. Another commonly-cited example is Beasts, but there I’d rather have some combination of Visara/Nishoba/Akroma. Sometimes she will be good, but not enough to make the cut. The only real place I can see her is as a bounce-proof threat against U/G, but I’m not even convinced there.
Ashen Firebeast
This is a somewhat more recent addition to the deck, and shines against Sligh and other small beasties. For me, it’s more an issue of speed: the decks you want this against most, Butcher is faster against. He’s certainly not a bad addition, but I’m not convinced.
Tutoring Power
This is the B/R version’s biggest strength, since it has access to four Burning Wishes. As opposed to the Green versions I’ll be covering next, the B/R decks are far more reliable at getting that”Buried Alive and a reanimation spell” needed to get your combo. With two different combo pieces that have to come together, it’s a big advantage to have access to Wish so that you can go get whatever turns out to be needed. Without it, the deck loses consistency, resiliency to disruption, and a phenomenal amount of flexibility.
Take all that with a grain of salt, though. Like many Wish decks out there, this one tends toward excess. It’s nice to have answers in the board that you can get game 1, but that gets out of control quickly and easily. I find that you want to keep that”tutor target” list as short and sweet as possible, allowing you enough space to actually have a sideboard! At a very minimum, I would include the following Wish targets in a B/R build:
1 Decompose (primarily for Glory and Reclamation, though there are many other uses)
1 Demolish (primarily for Bridge)
1 Reanimation spell (1 Stitch and 1 Zombify is best, if you have the room)
1 Sickening Dreams
1 Last Rites (always always have one of these in the board to get when needed)
1 Buried Alive (never ever comes in)
That’s pretty short for the must-have list. After that, it’s a question of having other guys to bring in if needed, as well as more specific sideboard cards. Since you normally start with a balance of disruption and creature removal, you’ll want to have the rest of each element in the board once you know which you need. Against Sligh, it’s a huge bonus to be able to go up to three or four Sickening Dreams if you don’t have them main, and adding in Last Rites and/or Therapies can be great against Tog/MBC/Slide. Mostly, you’ll be using your board to tune your main deck to better anticipate the opponent once you know what they’re playing. You’ll also often save some room from the main by trimming out unneeded fatties once you know what you’re facing, such as removing Wurm and Arcanis against Sligh.
“It’s Not Easy Being Green”
Bonus points if you’re old enough to catch the reference!
Now that we’ve covered B/R, it’s time to move to a less common approach that nevertheless has a lot to offer our quest for the best reanimation strategy: Base green.
When I told Zvi I was going to be trying a comeback starting with Regionals, he suggested looking at a Reanimator deck that was his second choice (behind Slide) for the then-recent Masters event. The deck was base green and black, with just enough splash to get a mountain into play for Anger. The gain was screaming mana acceleration (a Zvi favorite) along with the inclusion of powerhouses Genesis and Gigapede. The original decklist he sent me is:
1 Anger
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Buried Alive
4 Doomed Necromancer
2 Duress
4 Entomb
1 Genesis
1 Gigapede
4 Krosan Tusker
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Phantom Nishoba
1 Rampant Growth
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Symbiotic Wurm
1 Visara the Dreadful
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Zombify
2 Brushland
3 Bloodstained Mire
8 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
5 Swamp
Sideboard:
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Cloudchaser Eagle
1 Druid Lyrist
2 Duress
1 Elvish Scrapper
1 Faceless Butcher
3 Smother
3 Solitary Confinement
One of the weaknesses of B/R is that it can run out of gas, especially if the opponent is able to deal with that first fatty; this is the #1 reason that so many people report having trouble with Slide decks when playing Reanimator. Add in Genesis, however, and all that goes out that window. Suddenly you have the ability to retrieve your Necromancer every turn if need be, allowing you to reanimate your guys pretty much non-stop. Designed in the weeks before Withered Wretch made his debut, this was a very strong addition and made the deck a nightmare for counter-less control decks like Slide and MBC. As a bonus, against slower decks you could even Buried Alive for Genesis+Necromancer+Fatty of Choice for those hands that don’t draw any reanimation. Further bonuses are the Genesis/Tusker combo against slower decks, as well as the ability to cycle Tusker at three mana and reanimate him at four mana in a pinch. Against slow decks, you also gain access to Tusker+Genesis recursion.
With Birds and Elves, you get the opportunity to Buried Alive on turn 2 and reanimate on turn 3, a pace that outruns even the aggro decks and forces them to pause their beatings to burn your mana guys. This speed also makes it much easier to slip spells in under opposing countermagic while providing bodies to sac to Edict effects. You also get mana fixing, far fewer games stuck at three mana, plus the ability to splash sideboard answers (not to mention occasionally hard-casting Nishoba).
Note that this is where Solitary Confinement comes in, which turns out to be an astoundingly good board card against Goblins – something that was a real need at the time. With one Confinement and Genesis in the graveyard or hand (which isn’t tough for this deck) you just locked your opponent, giving them zero answers unless they can somehow destroy all your green sources. Every time I dropped this combo game 2 against Goblins they conceded within a turn or two, realizing they would lose to decking (how embarrassing!). Note that with Tuskers available, you can even continue drawing cards under the Confinement, all the while remaining immune to anything they can do. Not bad!
Everything Comes at a Cost
So everything is dandy and we just play this deck right? Well, not so fast! Remember when I covered the defining factors of reanimation decks back toward the beginning of this article? Two of those categories are considerably weaker here – disruption and tutoring. All that mana fixing and acceleration takes space, and the cost is less slots for disruption and searching.
You only get two Duresses main, and with the lowered dependable red mana count you also lose out on any Burning Wishes. That makes the deck both less consistent and more susceptible to opposing hand disruption. A single Duress can really faze this deck, and Withered Wretch is even worse here than in B/R since you have nothing main deck and can’t even Wish for an answer (though you’ll wish fervently in your head that you had an answer, trust me!).
The addition of Entomb helps this consistency issue a bit, but losing the ability to draw any one piece and just tutor for the other is a serious blow, and the card drawing and mana fixing provided by Tusker is often too slow for this highly aggressive environment. This inability to deal with Wretch, in combination with a lack of tutoring power, is the deck’s #1 problem as compared to B/R – and it’s frustrating to deal with on an extended basis. After a certain number of rounds, you’re all but guaranteed a certain number of game losses just to having a hand with too many of one side of the combo and not enough of the other, or neither, or an opposing early Wretch. Aggressive mulligans will help this once you have enough practice to know how far to go, but I found the sacrifice to be too much.
Enter the hybrid:
1 Anger
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Arcanis the Omnipotent
1 Butcher Orgg
1 Phantom Nishoba
1 Symbiotic Wurm
1 Visara the Dreadful
1 Gigapede
1 Genesis
4 Doomed Necromancer
3 Buried Alive
4 Burning Wish
2 Duress
3 Entomb
2 Smother
2 Sickening Dreams
1 Last Rites
2 Stitch Together
3 Zombify
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
11 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 City of Brass
2 Forest
Sideboard:
2 Duress
1 Buried Alive
1 Chain of Acid
1 Decompose
1 Entomb
1 Innocent Blood
2 Last Rites
2 Overmaster
1 Recoup
1 Sickening Dreams
1 Stitch Together
1 Zombify
Trying to mate two different decks can be frustrating and dicey business, but this time around it was surprisingly successful. It took several tries and is still an ongoing process, but my current list – the one you see above – has been a significant improvement over the older designs in my experience. Here’s the breakdown:
Mana
The most important question in my mind for this design was how much damage I would be doing to myself and deck by trying to spread the colors out this way. I tried a couple versions that were more squarely base black and green, but it rapidly became apparent that the real power of the deck came from the B/R’s tutoring and removal, as long as it had Genesis and Gigapede to fuel things along and fill some voids. Having the mana acceleration and fixing was nice, but it didn’t turn out to be worth the slots or mana consistency.
There’s something ironic about passing on cards like Birds and Tuskers because of the damage it does to your mana – but in this case, Birds were dying, Tuskers were slow, and the increased green mana to support them meant it was too much of a struggle to get the other colors as needed. Perhaps more importantly, those cards weren’t pulling their weight in terms of slots – the deck performed far better when those slots were dedicated to more tutoring and disruption. That, in turn, allowed me to square the mana back over towards black, which significantly improved the deck’s consistency in getting out its colors.
The end result was a version of the original B/R that splashed enough green to support Genesis and Gigapede as well as enchantment removal in the board. In combination with updating the creature roster to reflect the current expected environment, I’ve found this version to be a great improvement over the original B/R and G/r/b versions.
Adjustments
This deck frees up some space over the original B/R by just using two Duresses in the main. After weeks of testing, I’ve found that in most cases you actually want Duress more often in game 2 or 3, when you’re starting to face cards like Equilibrium, Ensnaring Bridge, and other hate. As I’ve mentioned several times, most answers to this deck are spells, not creatures, so Duress is the weapon of choice. Unlike Therapy, it doesn’t force you to choose (or guess) which hate you think they’re holding at the time, and I’ve found that moving some of the discard to the board has been an improvement. You’ll want three or four Duresses in game 2 or 3 against a lot of decks, but game 1 they’re not as important.
This version also sports an extra reanimation spell over the more typical eight in other B/R builds. Currently I use an extra Zombify because it’s more dependable than Stitch Together, but I’ve swapped for each on occasion and it’s a pretty close deal. Stitch is better here than in many other builds thanks to the extra help from Entomb, but with only one Last Rites and to Sickening Dreams it’s not quite as reliable as I’d like when compared to the third Zombify.
The addition of Genesis and Gigapede does wonders for the B/R deck’s stability heading into the mid-to-late game. When I first started testing Zvi’s original G/b/r version, I emailed him at one point to ask what exactly his version offered over the tutor-driven B/R. His answer was that the green version didn’t just bring out one or two guys and stop – it could keep making guys as long as needed. That did indeed turn out to be the best feature of that design, and it’s even better in this hybrid where you get the consistency and versatility of the Burning Wish engine to fuel it.
The most dramatic improvements are against MBC and Slide, where you just completely demolish them with the power of Genesis/Necromancer. MBC doesn’t have enough time to set up a Haunting Echoes against you, and it’s surprisingly easy to get out a Wurm and then Arcanis to put things in the bag. Against Slide, you’ll often set up Arcanis first, and the fact that you have the Genesis/Necromancer combo will mean you are the overwhelming favorite. In something like ten matches against Slide, I still have yet to lose a match – including a game where I had to mulligan to four cards, going first. It’s that good for you! The match is so good that I no longer have a Tranquility in the board, instead combining the usual Demolish and Tranquility into one slot with Chain of Acid. The idea was first proposed by Seth Burn a few weeks ago, and the saved slot has so far made up for the lost Tranquility. Decks like this one are the reason running control without counter-magic can be so risky.
I’m not sure I can say enough about Gigapede in this article, especially when I’m already running so long. The main reason he’s here is to provide a better alternative to having to run two Angers in the deck, but the ‘Pede does so much more than that, both swapping with a crucial fatty in your hand or getting his own beatdown going. Against ‘Tog, you sometimes just win by simply Entombing it and starting the beats on turn 5. You won’t always have the double-green to do this, but it happens often enough that you’ll find it a useful weapon to have in the arsenal. As an aside, this plan gets nasty fast when you have Anger in the ‘yard, too.
Against more aggressive decks, this will play more smoothly than the B/R version because you have the added graveyard loading of Entomb as well as the extra reanimation spell over the more typical versions. I currently run two Smothers and two Sickening Dreams so that I still have three discard effects in the main (counting the one Last Rites), but you can certainly tune these numbers around to fit your own expectations of the metagame. You won’t miss Duress much here in game 1 either, and with the extra combo power built into the deck it takes some pressure off of the Wishes. This often allows you to combo at least once just from your hand, at which point you can use the Wishes to mop up whatever’s left to be done. Against R/G and Goblins, you’ll typically start with a Nishoba and then put out either Visara, Butcher Orgg, or Angel, depending on the board position. My experience is that you have the edge on Goblins and are about even or slightly better against R/G.
Against U/G, you have a good matchup in game 1 unless they have the God draw and or several bounce spells. Visara is almost always your first stringer for this matchup and many versions of U/G will fold before her presence. Game 2 is much more difficult because these decks have a ton of hate in their board that incidentally happens to be good against you as well. Quiet Speculation for Krosan Reclamation (or Reclamations!) can really make you groan, and is one of the primary reasons I still have a Decompose in the board to Wish for. I’ve even experimented with having some Withered Wretches in the board for this purpose (among other solutions), but haven’t had conclusive results yet.
Compost can sometimes be a problem – but often, the turn they lose playing it is enough to let you set up. Bounce is irritating, but if they don’t have the Reclamation it means you can often just get Visara out, kill the worst guy, get her bounced, then replay her next turn or reanimate something else. Equilibrium can be more difficult, and is one of the reasons you’ll go up to four Duresses game 2 in this matchup. I don’t want to make this sound easy, it’s definitely not, but it’s not the impossibility some have made it out to be. Given that you have the advantage game 1, they will often need to sweep you game 2 and 3.
Against Slide and MBC, as mentioned earlier, you have a phenomenal matchup. With the increase in R/G there’s been an increase in Slide, which is one reason to consider this deck. Slide’s only chance is to have multiple Morningtides (or the ability to Wish for them), but even then they will often need to pull it off twice. Make sure not to load up all your best guys into the graveyard with that in mind and you should be fine. MBC is similar, but you’ll be leading with Wurm rather than Arcanis in most cases.
Against other decks, the key will be practice – and as with most complex decks, the more experience you get in with this deck the better off you’ll be. The single biggest weakness of this deck is Withered Wretch, and if they drop one out with an Unholy Grotto to back it up you’re basically packin’ up for the next game unless some extraordinary things go your way (Wish for Chain of Acid, kill the land, kill the Wretch, etc). As you become more experienced with the deck you’ll get a good feel for how to improvise in various situations as well as how often or aggressively to mulligan.
Conclusions
Many have written pure reanimation strategies completely off, and I think that’s a serious mistake. This deck has a tremendous amount of power behind it and is capable of stunning feats that no conventional deck can come close to matching. I’m also convinced that the version I’ve listed here is a significant improvement on other builds currently out there. It’s extremely fun to play and scary to face – two things that go a long way in an event like Regionals.
The important thing is to go in knowing your status. By picking this deck, you accept that you’ll need to mulligan more often than some decks, and that sometimes you’ll lose flat-out to inconsistent draws. You also accept that many Zombies and base-black beatdown decks will give you serious fits, and that you’ll likely encounter some hate every time you go to game 2. In return, you get an unfairly easy matchup against Slide and MBC and a reasonable-to-good matchup against just about everything else. If you’re easily frustrated, this isn’t the deck for you, but if you enjoy a challenge and playing something a little off the beaten path, this may be your best chance to play something other than”The Big 3.”
Happy reanimating,
Scott Johns
[email protected]