MTG Salvation

This list has 96 cards in it, since I haven't been able to locate a few of the cards I'd like to put on it yet. (Top, Intuition, and Liliana #2, mainly.) I need to find some relatively cheap (money-wise) cards that I could use to fill the gaps in the meantime.

I keep wanting to cut Ulamog from the deck, but then he ends up saving me from some piece of grave hate. Especially since this deck has relatively few real game-clinching combinations, and getting certain cards exiled leaves me in a bad position. I can only play around the grave-hate so much.

Hey there! I recently built a reanimator deck myself so I thought I'd try and help out. Though it is grixis colors with Sedris at the helm, I figure the concept is the same.

Looks like you have a pretty solid creature list so far. I would swap out Artisan of Kozilek for It That Betrays just because his Artisan's ability only triggers as he is hardcast.

Perhaps you could swap Dissipate for Spell Crumple and throw in Tunnel Vision for some mill shenanigans. Alternatively, you could mill yourself with Mirror-Mad Phantasm and follow it up with Twilight's Call.

Zombify, Makeshift Mannequin, Stitch Together, and Dread Return are a few more reanimation spells.

Buried Alive and Entomb to get specific creatures into the yard.

It looks like you have the looting effects pretty much covered, though I would suggest Pulse of the Grid, Careful Study, Forbidden Alchemy, and Compulsion.

As for utility creatures, I chose the following: Enclave Cryptologist (looter), Magus of the Bazaar (looter), Doomed Necromancer (reanimator / removal bait), Fleshbag Marauder (forced sacrifice that hits all players), Evil Twin (copy / removal), Necrotic Ooze, and Body Double (pseudo reanimation).

Let me know what you think!

I run a chainer reanimator that is mono black, but still has the basic idea of what you want since most of the core cards are black (check it out in my sig for some idea on how these decks work in general).

A few notes. I wouldn't run any of the eldrazi quite frankly. You want to fill up your graveyard and Ulamog works against that strategy, artisan needs to be cast, and It that betrays is mediocre. In general, it seems as though you are running too many high CMC creatures and may way to work on lowering your curve a bit with more utility creatures and only keeping the best-of-the-best fatties.

You need more card draw, and especially more ways to dump fatties into the yard. Entomb and Buried Alive are must includes. Mindslicer is a fun card to empty hands.

With a reanimator, you want to pack in as many ETB/LTB cards as possible so you can use and abuse thier abilities. You also want to find more reusable reanimaton outlets like Strands of night. I've learned from experience that cards like Reanimate don't cut it and you need cards that work more than once.

As far as a commander, I like Vela, the Night-Clad for UB reanimator. Especially if you up your sac outlets and reusable reanimation sources to 'cycle' ETB cards from your graveyard. She has the side benefit of doing 36 damage to all opponents if you kick Rite of Replication on her as a backup plan.

Have you thought about adding green ramp and dredge and running The Mimeoplasm? Your commander would basically be a 5 mana reanimation spell...

Don't know why I forgot to put Entomb and Buried Alive on here, since I'm running both of them as well as Corpse Connoisseur.

What I've been doing with Ulamog is holding onto him until I can either hardcast him (which I did manage once) or need to pitch him as a 'counter' to a grave-hate card (which I've done twice). If I increase the card draw/looting effects and lower the density of fat, this arguably becomes more effective since there'll be fewer of my own creatures for him to flip back. I haven't actually messed myself up with him yet, so I'll probably hold onto him until he proves otherwise.

Also, Compulsion is a card I knew I was forgetting, among the other instant-speed discard outlets listed.

As for the fat creatures, I'll probably cut the leviathans that aren't Kederekt, as well as a few others and add more good creatures in the 6cc range, that are reasonably castable themselves.

As for reusable reanimator magic, is there anything else besides Strands of Night or Beacon of Unrest that's actually resuable? I have access to a Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed I can include, which makes all the reanimator magic reusable to an extent, and synergizes well with Corpse Dance.

Edit: Made some heavy adjustments to the deck. It's not a typical reanimator setup, but something I want to experiment with. Unfortunately, I can't change the topic title to reflect that the deck actually has a general now...

Wrexial, the Risen Deep or Dralnu, Lich Lord are pretty good commanders too.

I've decided to go with the prior suggestion of using Vela as the general. It's nice that she provides an alternate wincon, as stated.

Also, would Strands of Night even work in this deck? Unless Urborg is on the field, I imagine my Swamp count isn't going to be too high, and I can't abuse something like Life from the Loam to get them back. I could use Crucible of Worlds, once I locate one, I suppose.

I have a feeling that this particular style of deck I'm trying to make really wants green, but at the same time, I really don't want to just go copy someone else's Mimeoplasm deck. Especially since my meta already has a Mimeoplasm player, and I like to try and stay diverse.

Edit: Well, for the meantime, my initial post now has a full deck of cards. Between Delver, Reanimate, Bloodgift, and Arena, I feel like the deck might spend a bit much of its own life, even with Kokusho making appearances to eat the table. I'll have to give it a spin.

Updated the first post. The deck has a few holes again, since I haven't been able to find and/or obtain some of the cards that I wanted to add.