[Deck] Reanimator

[zmattk]

Originally Posted by Kurts_rejoinder

Hi, and welcome.

IMHO the demon is only good if you can tutor for something that wins you the game on the spot. The demon is good in vintage Oath because it can fetch you Time Walk or Will, which make you win the game (almost) right there. Unless Legacy has something with the same power level, I'd say there are better reanimate targets than R-S Demon.

Regarding your 3rd point, the black decks I've seen use either Smother or Diabolic Edict effects, when not splashing white or green for spot removal (from Swords to Plowshares to Maelstrom Pulse).

This is just my opinion, but I'm not a tourney regular and obv I've not tested the demon in the deck either.

Speaking of that, I've been toying a bit with the deck recently and wanted the regulars to provide some insight on what should work in the deck or not.

- I've seen that the 'consensus' deck runs 17 lands. Don't you guys think this is too low? Wasteland can be a pain in the *ss with only 17 ... obviously not in all matches, because the curve is really low, but from time to time I've been stuck for many turns with just 1 basic.

- Since Karakas usually breaks our back and Reliquaries are played here and there, don't you think that we should include MD hate? Like Wasteland or Pithing Needle?

- I saw someone testing Faithless Looting some pages ago. Has anyone tested it in tournament play? Adding a splash contributes to make our manabase weaker, but it also gives a lot in return: 4 more study effects with 2 Faithless Looting, Red Elemental Blast / Pyroblast and efficient artifact hate just in case the cage gets played everywhere.

- Other discard outlets: From time to time, I've seen some builds playing Turbulent Dreams. What do you guys think about Forbid, Recall or Insidious dreams?

To answer a few of your questions

I've always been fine with 17 lands in the deck. I do know of some people adding a land for more consistent draws. I am always very cautious and fetch basics and only get Underground Sea if I have to or have a pretty stable mana base out.

We do not need main deck Pithing Needle, having them in the side is where they should be. Although Pithing Needle is nice against Karakas and Knight of the Reliquary and more such as Jace, Liliana, Wasteland, Scavenging Ooze, ect, having it in your opening hand without knowing what to name against your opponent is just awful. It is better served in games 2 and 3 when you know exactly what to hit with it. Karakas is only seen in a few decks and only a huge problem against Maverick because they have the ability to search for it. In that matchup you need to be able to identify their deck very quickly, within the first few turns and Entomb correctly. Maverick and Bant are decks we don't want to be searching for Jin because of Karakas. Sphinx should be your first choice here since it has protection from all their creatures and will not be bounced with Karakas.

I posted a while back about red and Faithless Looting. What you need to ask here is what is red doing for us that we cannot already get. As a discard outlet Blue and Black have some great ones. Hapless Researcher is a body, can choose when it discards, and also has somewhat of a filtering ability like Careful Study and Faithless Looting. If discard is what you need, I highly suggest the Researcher over splashing. Black also has a pretty good outlet in Putrid Imp. Obviously it's not the best choice since when it hits threshold it cannot block and does not filter like Researcher does, but it is still in our colors.

Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast look much better on paper than they really are. All they essentially do is counter a counter spell. While this is important, it is not the only way for people to beat our decks. We also need the ability to counter graveyard hate and creature removal, which for the most part is not blue. So instead we have Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, and Duress at our hands. All of them can handle multiple threats to our deck. This versatility is crucial since you don't always know what your opponent will be bringing in against you or what they might have in hand. If you are looking for just simply countering counters, I also suggest looking at Dispel. All counterspells are instants thus Dispel will counter all counters as well as instant removal cards such as Swords to Plowshares. So within our Blue and Black shell we actually have more versatile cards than we would from splashing and weakening our mana base.

To mention the cards you listed. I cannot see myself using any of them in the main deck since they are all pretty slow and situational. But when you sideboard you almost never want to bring in additional discard outlets since your opponent will more than likely bring in gy removal. I tend to side out Careful Studies games 2 and 3 so bringing in more discard is out of the question. And like I said earlier, if you feel your deck needs more discard, just use Hapless Researcher. He fills the role perfectly, the only reason I don't use him anymore is because I prefer Ponder in my flex slot for more consistency.

To touch upon what everyone else has been talking about. I have tried Sheoldred and she was not my favorite card to search for. I can see where she would be useful, but for the most part she felt like a win more card. I would want her as my 3rd or 4th target, not really my first. But I can see that she would be amazing in the mirror as well as against Show and Tell decks. I feel she is heavily meta dependent so whether or not you use her should depend on what you expect to see.

Platinum Emperion is also not the best option for us. He is easily removed and blocked. He does not really change the game state when he comes into play. Sure its cute if you get to Reanimate or Thoughtseize for free off of him, but losing the ability to Force or fetch is just too risky for me.

When thinking about what creatures to use or "Is this creature good for Reanimator," you really need to think about what it does as soon as it comes in. All of our creatures heavily change the game in our favor when they land. You never want to have a situation where you are about to lose, and you draw Careful Study but your only creature you can discard and reanimate will do absolutely nothing for you. Winning game one is almost always about speed and redundancy. Games 2 and 3 you should be bringing in your silver bullets for specific matchups. Cards like the demon are not quick enough to do anything game one and you will almost never want to bring them in games 2 and 3 because there is no specific deck that it is good against. Sure you will probably win some games with it because your opponent cannot deal with it fast enough, but our creature list is pretty fine tuned at this point. There are few creatures that can replace what we already have.

Ps. Sorry all of my posts are pretty much novels. I hope my insight actually is helpful to you guys.

[053590]

What about It That Betrays and Novablast Wurm? they can get pretty destructive first or second turn. Also i've been running a Necrotic ooze Triskellion and a Phyrexian Devourer combo that can go off first turn. Although, I am running a Mono-black, no FoW or duals to speak of. It works, just no backup.

[jaded grunt]

Second turn it that betrays seems pretty good on the play. I wouldn't want to try it without counterspell backup, though. It would make daze insane.

[csy]

it that betrays is one that I look at a lot for a creature MD, but my main concern is that he does nothing until you protect both his resolve and his first attack. I really prefer my fatties to make their presence known the second they hit the field. Or at least have protection to attack the next turn i.e., hexproof shroud.

[rxavage]

I may try It That Betrays in one of the flex spots just to see if his weakness outweighs the strength. I'm going to a small tourney at an GS I'm not familiar with tonight and If they have a singleton ITB available I will let y'all know how it worked out

[espectral]

Have you guys considered Not of This World to protect your big-sized creatures against removals?

[csy]

the only problem with NOTW is that its not free for all the creatures. emp, elesh, sphinx, etc. I guess if you ran terrastodon iona ItB and other 7 or bigger creatures it could be ok. but then you have to think about what to cut.

[espectral]

Originally Posted by csy

the only problem with NOTW is that its not free for all the creatures. emp, elesh, sphinx, etc. I guess if you ran terrastodon iona ItB and other 7 or bigger creatures it could be ok. but then you have to think about what to cut.

In the Peasant version of the deck, it would be a good idea to use it in order to protect that Ulamog's Crusher.

[csy]

yeah this isn't the budget discussion forum version though.

[CogitoErgoSum]

Not of this world, hmmm. IDK if it makes the cut in reanimator, especially while Gin is the best creature we have (IMO). That card seems more suited for show and tell or eureka decks.

[HastyJace]

Originally Posted by espectral

Have you guys considered Not of This World to protect your big-sized creatures against removals?

Not of This World is not worth playing over daze or Force. Force and daze have more applicability than Not of this World. Also it doesn't protect Jin, Elesh, Archangel, Sphinx, or Angel of despair. It protects none of our staple creatures. Most of the time Reanimator players are fighting the resolution of there reanimation spells than protecting their creature.



Is anyone on this forum anymore? lol I would like to know in players experiences what is the best way to combat surgical extraction? It is quite prevalent in my meta no matter what I play. Is show and tell, our few counters and discard enough? Usually I see surgical in combination with Relic of Progenitus

[BattleFish]

Platinum Emperion is good sideboard imo. What you really want it against is those burn decks. Just drop it and win forever. Sure you can't fetch or cast FoW but thats fine, you are already beating burn.

If you side it in game 2 and side it out game 3. The opponent might board in smash to smithreens and have dead cards.

Sure theres plow and whatever but bottom line. You only need it against red decks.

[ajfirecracker]

Originally Posted by BattleFish

Platinum Emperion is good sideboard imo. What you really want it against is those burn decks. Just drop it and win forever. Sure you can't fetch or cast FoW but thats fine, you are already beating burn.

If you side it in game 2 and side it out game 3. The opponent might board in smash to smithreens and have dead cards.

Sure theres plow and whatever but bottom line. You only need it against red decks.

Iona, Shield of Emeria
Emphasis added to your post to make my point.

[Kurts_rejoinder]

Many thanks zmattk for the insight on playing the deck and sound reasoning to all your points.

Just another question regarding card choices:

- Why is Angel of despair the 'vindicate' of choice over Woodfall Primus ? Has this possibility of hitting a creature ever mattered that much? I can see that this can be useful to hit a really big KotR, but then, if a knight gets this big, I'd say that we're losing anyway. So, have you ever been on a situation where hitting a creature really made the difference?

Originally Posted by HastyJace

I would like to know in players experiences what is the best way to combat surgical extraction? It is quite prevalent in my meta no matter what I play. Is show and tell, our few counters and discard enough? Usually I see surgical in combination with Relic of Progenitus

I don't know about Surgical (too bad we no longer have misstep), but Pithing needle gets almost all artifact hate (and Faerie Macabre). Since we run a low count of hard counters, guess we have the short end when dealing with a free extirpate. EDIT: Try with Dispel, it's the closest thing we have to Misstep.

[Granvolley]

Yeah... Angel of despair is much much better because he can hit batterskull of stonforge... In mirror is stronger and he can kills emrakul... Is this enough?