[Discussion] Building Mono-Black Reanimator

[SuckerPunch]

Updated Thread and Deck:

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

17 Swamp - For good luck.
4 Dark Ritual

4 Putrid Imp
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Blackmail

4 Reanimate
4 Exhume
4 Animate Dead
2 Life/Death

4 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4 Spirit of the Night
4 Simic Sky Swallower
2 Bogardan Hellkite

Sideboard:
2 Life/Death
4 Dance of the Dead
2 Bogardan Hellkite
4 8/8 Untargetable
2 Duress/Sickening Dreams
1 Swamp

You really have to try out the deck's curve and at the very least goldfish with it to see why I made the specific choices I made and why I opted to run so many creatures and animate effects. It really helps to be insanely consistent when you're likely to face atleast one Swords or Counterspell per game. Yes you don't draw a lot of cards, but this build lets you topdeck like a fiend.

The list may look like a pile just going for a speedy win but it has a lot of subtle synergies and an airtight curve and clock.

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.

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.

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, Blackmail and Duress from the side all can greatly hurt combo.

The sideboard in specific is designed to allow you to modify the deck to deal with what ever hate this deck most commonly runs into.

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 and subout the Reanimates for Dance of the Dead when you can't afford the lifeloss.

Against heavy creature removal, 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.

[kicks_422]

Here's the build that I'm testing...

18 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual

1 Akroma - best. fattie. ever.
1 SSS - I used to fear StP. Not much now.
1 Angel of Despair - against stuff like Confinement
1 Phantom Nishoba - life gain when its starting to hurt
1 Visara - knocks creatures off the board
1 Blazing Archon - stops aggro on its tracks, at least buying you a few turns
4 Avatar of Discord - discard engine, beater as well, nutz with Dark Ritual
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob - pitch to ZI or Avatar

4 Duress - protection
4 Cabal Therapy - protection
4 Buried Alive - search for a toolbox creature and/or Squees
4 Zombie Infestation - discard, Squee engine
4 Reanimate - lifeloss hurts, but I'll slit my wrist to cut your throat
4 Exhume - best reanimation spell IMHO

SB
4 Pithing Needle - Crypt, Wretch
4 Sickening Dreams - blazing fast aggro
1 Magma Giant - see above
1 Ascendant Evincar - see above, as well as those reliant on 1/1's (Welder)
1 Symbiotic Wurm - Putrefy and stuff
1 Plated Slagwurm - see above
1 Silent Specter - combo
1 Crosis, the Purger - see above
1 Scion of Darkness - Survival variants, mirror

3 Win conditions:
1) reanimated fattie
2) hoardes of Zombies via Squee-ZI engine
3) Avatar of Discord

Granted it still has a hard time against graveyard hate, but I've been having fun with it... And i'm very happy with the toolbox configuration...

EDIT: That list is in the old Reanimator thread here somewhere... You might want to check that thread out for ideas...

[xsockmonkeyx]

That list is very nice.

@suckerpunch: What kind of reanimation do you want to emphasize/use in your deck? Are you interested in the reanimation of your own big creatures, like the deck above, or the reanimation of creatures in general(exploit creatures in the opponants graveyard, recurring creatures with triggered "comes in to play abilities", etc.)?

[SuckerPunch]

I did a through search for reanimator and turned up nothing. A link to the old thread if you have it would be very helpful kick.

That list looks incredible kick. How's it been working for you. Have you played any of the top tier decks like solidarity, thres, goblins, and deadguy. How does it generally fare?

Mainly, I notice that the deck runs 12 great discard engines (though I would consider Funeral Charm in place of Buried Alive), but only 8 Reanimate effects.

This seems like a waste considering that all the discard engines discard multiple creatures that can be reanimated.

So I would....

-4 Cabal Therapy
+4 Animate Dead

and possibly Funeral Charm in place of Buried Alive.

I would think you would want to supplement your reanimation with 4 animate dead as above (better than dance of the dead, necromancy, living death, and recurring nightmare imo) to ensure you always have one when you need it, even if one of them gets countered.

Have you given any thought to that?

xsock,
I want the reanimation to be versatile. I don't mind reanimating your opponents Mystic Enforcer but Exhume is very good too.

[Slag]

I ran a mono black reanimator at day 2 of the D4D, and stunk up the place. The only thing I can really add is that you should probably unify your reanimation targets. Without blue's quality engine, you're going to be at the mercy of whatever fatty you happen to draw. What I mean is, include 3-4 thunder dragons in your reanimation suite. It acts as a sweeper and a kill card, and you'll probably want one as often as possible. You won't always have buried alive, and it stinks to have a sky swallower as your only creature facing down a hoard of gobs. You can still run a toolbox of your favorite fat, but don't bank on always having a buried alive or the right creature.

[SuckerPunch]

I would love to see what build you ran (or wished you ran) just as a source of reference (number of discard outlets, reanimation effects etc).

[Slag]

1 Engineered Explosives

Creatures
3 Phantom Nishoba
1 Plated Slagwurm
3 Putrid Imp

Enchantments
4 Zombie Infestation

Instants
4 Dark Ritual

Legendary Creatures
1 Razia, Boros Archangel
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Sorceries
2 Buried Alive
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Exhume
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Reanimate
4 Sickening Dreams

Basic Lands
18 Swamp

Legendary Lands
4 Tomb Of Urami

Sideboard:
4 Damping Matrix
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Engineered Plague
4 Hymn To Tourach

The main problems I had were not having enough of a guaranteed clock against combo, and not having enough sweepers against aggro.

The idea was to have mana consistancy, being mono black, but also not to be too dependant on the graveyard. Besides typical reanimation strategy, you can also go control -> urami, or stall with ZI. In reality, that didn't work out so well, as the only quality engine I had was infernal tutor, which was only so-so. Sickening dreams was nice, but thunder dragon would have done the same job as well as actually killing people. I am of the camp that you should risk having too many discard outlets over too few.

If I were to change it, I would sneak in some thunder dragons, but I would also have a transformational - beatdown sideboard, perhaps with negator or flesh reavor or the like. This would throw off graveyard hate sideboard strategies, and increase your consistancy against combo.

[kicks_422]

In my list, I only have 8 reanimate effects because it's not my only way of winning... Sure, they can counter my Exhume, but they'll run out of them with the discard and have none left when I drop an Avatar or a ZI with 2 Squees in the yard...

That's also the great thing about Buried Alive, as it can get Squees in the graveyard... I would neveer cut it, especially since Dark Ritual is present... I've won a lot of games by this set-up:

T1: Dark Ritual, Buried Alive for 2 Squees and Akroma
T2: ZI
T3: Duress, Exhume

or

T1: Duress
T2: Dark Ritual, Avatar of Discord (discard two fatties), Reanimate

The deck's very versatile, and I feel comfortable knowing that reanimation isn't my only way of winning...

I would also never cut the Therapies, as Duress+Therapy can win games on their own, as well as nabbing multiple Swords, Crypt, etc... And also for Animate Dead, if you do want to squeeze that one in, that's one less way of reanimating Akroma... It will get her in play, but the enchantment would fall off of her... I'm not sure when though; next upkeep, I think...

[SuckerPunch]

Thanks so much again for posting your lists guys.

Slag, your build differs a ton from kick's so I would love to hear your input on that build as it's probably close to what I'll testing and then building and slowly modifying into my own deck. For example, you opted for 22 land over 18. Do you think that's neccesary, or do you get mana flooded.

Good reasoning, kick.

If no one has any other advise to add, I'll slowly start getting the cards. So please give me any other advice, suggestions, alternate discard outlets that you like more etc if you have them.

Before I do though, do you have any quick input on around how well it does versus top tier decks. Not testing results per se. Just a general performance outlook from when you played the deck, like when you usually won and stuff..

How's the mana base been, 18 lands, 4 rituals seem too low, would chrome mox help a ton? I'm probably going to run 2 Tomb of Urami over 2 Swamp like Slag, just for the hell of it. Do you think that's unneccesary.

And most importantly, how do you feel about 2 Last Rites and 2 Animate Deads in place of Cabal Therapy. Or possibly how about Last Rites in place of Zombie Infestation. Last Rites I think is incredibly strong in this deck but in your experience, is it too mana intensive.

[kicks_422]

In my experience, 18 land + Dark Ritual has been enough, but in MWS it isn't (I hate that shuffler... LOL...) You might already be getting hurt a lot with the Reanimates, but if you feel that Tomb of Urami might give some leverage, it's worth a shot...

Thresh is a difficult match-up, as they have Mages and Swords, as well as Needles for ZI... This is where your discard comes into play (and that's why I advocate Cabal Therapy so much), as it could buy you a few turns to get what you need into play...

On Goblins, first game is okay, depends on both of your hands' speed... Game 2 with Sickening Dreams (out Duress) and SB Magma Giant and even Evincar helps out a lot, but they could still get those nutz draws...

There's a chance of racing Solidarity (Duress and Therapy!), SB with Crosis and Silent Specter helps a bit...

I would never take out Therapies or ZI... If there's something that could be cut, it might be 2 Squees, but I'd only do that for a tutor or draw...

All in all, it's a fun deck to play because of all the options you have and how each game plays different from the last (beatdown with Akroma, Avatar, or swarms of Zombies?)... That said, graveyard hate still sucks...

[SuckerPunch]

Thank you for the excellent feedback guys.

After a couple of test games though, I've been pretty unhappy about the current lists. Neither of them can consistently get fat out till turn 3 or 4 sometimes. This I have found far too slow against combo and goblins.

Both builds had excellent ideas though. Putrid Imp is a nice fast discard outlet, much faster than Avatar of Discard. And 4 Reanimate is also blazing fast.

I merged ideas from both of them and added some of my own tech, Unmask, Chrome Mox etc, to get a deck that consistently gets fat out turn one or turn two while also packing a ton of disruption that often doubles as a discard outlet.

I edited it into my opening post above.

Feedback would be appreciated. But I really don't want to lose the consistently speedy fat aspect of the deck if I can help it.

[kicks_422]

The above list you posted is solid, but then again you're drifting back into the problems you raised before in reanimator... Reliance on getting a fattie out of the yard, and keeping it alive...

Testing might prove me wrong though... Post results once you get them, as I'm wary of going all-out cutthroat reanimator without a viable back-up plan... No, Threshed Putrid Imp doesn't count (though that little guy used to win me games... LOL).

[SuckerPunch]

Nevermind, if you notice, I added a second edit outlining the massive failure of that experiment. It only works about 40% of the games, no matter how aggressively you mulligan.

I've proxied up a number of different variants including one with Intuition, one with Enlightened Tutor, and a build akin to yours.

They are all too slow, but your build may well be viable. Regardless, I've grown somewhat disheartened with Reanimator altogether now that I know I can never hope to get a build that can consistently get fat on the table very quickly.

[Slag]

I think you've hit the heart of the matter. Reanimator, to function properly in 1 color, needs excessive redundancy. This weakens your game as you have to be completly devoted to your one goal - reanimation. This also makes you incredibly susceptible to graveyard hate. To overcome this, you need a quality engine, which black does not have a lot of. The blue splash helps somewhat, but careful study is still dependant on the stacking of your deck, and intuition is very slow. The alternative is to forego speed in favor of another strategy. A few months ago, EvilRoopey posted a deck with a threshold-like quality engine and control suite, which tries to circumvent the consistancy problem and treat reanimation like a control finisher. You might want to look at that and see if it treats you any better.

[SuckerPunch]

Nah, at that point I'll just stick with my Thres deck.

I was just attracted to the notion of consistently being able to turn an Akroma sideways on the second or third turn.

The mods can feel free to lock this thread, unless you guys want to discuss and further develop reanimator for your builds.

[kicks_422]

Well,Reanimator never was a top-tier deck anyway to start with... It's a fun deck, sure... But it needs some more pieces (and Entomb getting unbanned ) before it could become a legitimate contender...

[TheDarkshineKnight]

I don't know what it is about your deck, Kicks, but I love it.

[kicks_422]

@TheDarkshineKnight: LOL, thanks... All I'm waiting for is a decent tutor/draw for mono-black as the last piece before taking it to a tourney...

I've tried Infernal Tutor, but Results have been negative... So I'm still waiting... C'mon Wizards, give me a good one...

[xsockmonkeyx]

I think you've hit the heart of the matter. Reanimator, to function properly in 1 color, needs excessive redundancy.

You can increase redundancy with Urza's, Mishra's Bauble. A 60 card deck becomes 52. The draw next upkeep cantrips might slow you down too much to be effective though.

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

Yay! More people interested in Reanimator! Haha I love this deck, way way long ago I played Mono-black Reanimator and I had a blast with it. I never really did insanely good with it, but I did ok and the deck was hella fun to play. However, with the current meta and such, I really don't think that Reanimator, especially Mono-black, can compete in today's modern meta. Reason being is because of all of the graveyard hate for Threshold that decks are packing, they just so happen to hose Reanimator as well. It's almost like a 2 for 1 when they pack Tormod's Crypt and such, thinking they are going to play against Thresh all day. IF you are to play Reanimator and wish to play competitively, play the Mean Deck Reanimator build. The list is on TMD I believe, it splashes blue and red for Intuition (ThE NuTz), and Burning Wish. Both of these cards are retarded, and make alot of your not so good matchups alot better. Overall, I like how you guys are working on Reanimator and best of luck to you.