I've been playing Magic for the past couple of months. I bought a Deathfed deck and had a lot of fun trying to make it stronger. Eventually I ended up removing like 90% of the cards and turning it into a unique (maybe not all that great) reanimate deck.
I don't play competitively, and my budget is not large. At the most I'd like to not spend more than $15 on a card, and those cards would be few and far between.
What I would like is for some help on tuning what I've put together especially with mana and also to make it a little more efficient. Here is the decklist:
So some of the mechanics that I thought about while building this:
-Dimir Infiltrators and Drift of Phantasms as Tutors, or in a pinch, defenders. Drawbacks being mana color combinations needed to play. -Tutor out Buried Alive and/or Animate Dead/Necromancy when possible if not already in hand. -Buried alive to put in It That Betrays, Brawn, Woodfall Primus the first time. Woodfall Primus, Avatar of Woe, Wonder the second time if needed. -Woodfall Primus can also be flash reanimated with Necromancy on opponent's turn, so it comes back with persist on my turn with no tapped lands. -If I need graveyard cards, I can play Eternal Witness if I have it. If EW is in the graveyard and I have an Unearth, I can EW back from the graveyard to play and one card back to my hand for one black. -Gnaw to the bone if I've taken a lot of damage early on while setting up combos.
Major drawbacks I've noticed in the ~15 games I've played:
-Slow. If hand isn't optimal, it could take 4-5 turns to have things reanimated while I have nothing on the board due to lack of mana while I tutor, bury alive etc. Wish I could afford Entombs. -Mana screw due to badly constructed mana base/too many colors in deck. -Possibly not enough counter.
I want to try and keep this deck at least slightly different from most of the reanimate decks out there if possible!
If anyone has thoughts or improvements, I'd love to hear them! Thanks in advance!
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Exhume is really powerful and cheaper (both price wise and casting cost wise) than Necromancy. I'd probably look at Dark Ritual or cheap discard like Duress. Putrid Imp lets you get your fat guys into your graveyard if you draw them. A great hand would be like, imp, discard fat guy, exhume.
I don't think Green adds much to your deck--it makes your mana base shaky. Blue is not in alot better of a place. What does Blue add besides a couple of negates? I think both are just hurting your game plan.
I really think Entomb is necessary to play really competitively but if you want to go more casual which is why it demands the big price tag. If you are dead set on on using buried alive, I'd probably build something like this.
An ideal hand would be dark ritual into buried alive, dropping Necrotic Ooze, Trikselion, and Phyrexian devourer into the Graveyard. Turn 2, you cast animate or exhume to animate the ooze, who gains the powers of Trisk and Devourer. You then you turn over cards into your deck and ping your opponent to death.
in a slower hand you might first turn duress, second turn hymm, and then third turn tutor for buried alive or necromancy with dimir machinations/beseech the queen and finally fourth turn animate/ exhume/animate just like you did in the first game.
I'll admit this is a different deck than what you really had in mind since it plays more like combo, but you have strong early discard and you can avoid buying price tag heavy creatures.
Most reanimate decks run Griselbrand and Entomb and other really pricy cards. Grisel lets you replenish your hand, but such cards are so expensive I fear we'll exceed your budget. The best thing about a single color is you don't need to buy fetchlands or even shocks. Again, dropping two colors makes a really different deck...less about swinging for the win and more about comboing out, but avoiding the attack step lets you get those juicy turn 2 wins.
So initially I was hoping to keep my personal touch in the deck since I did spend a lot of time modifying my deck and playtesting it over the past month or so. I also spent so much time figuring out trades etc to get all those cards (I have pretty much all the cards from my OP decklist). But after reading your decklist, it looks like so much fun. I'm so tempted to abandon my initial deck and just make the one above But that would mean I just stole a decklist and started playing it. So I'm quite torn!
I really appreciate your help! I'm trying to come up with a way to include the It That Betrays into your decklist along with two other creatures instead of the combo currently there (although your suggested combo is so good). Any ideas for an It That Betrays? I liked pulling out the ITB with a Brawn in the graveyard. Every time I was able to get him out, things ended badly for my opponent, and fast! Once he was able to attack, it was usually two turns to kill him. Your combo is a one turn kill though. Hmmm...
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Assuming you have a necromancy from your current list and the animate dead, the deck is only about 40 bucks--most of your price comes from Beseech the Queen, at 3 dollars a shot. Another poster awhile back said it was a fairly common deck archetype, but I liked it because it was cheap and ruthless--you win instantly. It folds to graveyard hate, but that's a common weakness in the archetype. The nice thing about the deck is you are getting cards like dark ritual, duress, hymm, and even beseech that could be used in a variety of decks, though I admit beseech sees very little play to my knowledge, outside of EDH.
You could change the creatures you find with buried alive--so sub out the phrexians, trisks, and oozes and have your own creature package including It that Betrays. He's a solid creature if you get him out early enough and they don't have a swords to plowshares or something.
It is really easy to find really powerful creatures to run with but they are usually really costly and ultimately, you only need one to animate, so alot of the buried alive potential is wasted. If you want cute you could do Soulflayer and Chromanticore along with something like Silumgar, the Drifting Death, to give yourself a super creature. You might want something with indestructible though.
If I was looking for more awesome guys to reanimate, I'd look at Griselbrand but he's around 15 to buy. Iona, Shield of Emeria is again amazing but cost a fortune to buy. Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur around 7 but that's still alot. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is great against tokens, but nearly 30. All let you have a tool box of great guys to choose from. The cost is probably too much for you, but I can't know without actually knowing your budget.
Sphinx of the Steel Wind is about the best guy I can think of on a budget. Blazing Archon is alot like him but not as good unless your opponents use swarms of creatures. Empyrial Archangel is really powerful for about 3 dollars. These guys are cheaper but still effective.
Ultimately, I don't think either is as effective as winning instantly. The real exception is Griselbrand because even if they destroy your graveyard somehow, if you get power him out with rituals or what not, you can pretty much draw 7 cards and overwhelm them with card advantage. While even someone as cool as it that betrays can be killed for little profit with a card like swords to plowshares. Powering him out that way also gives you an out against hate cards like rest in peace or scavenging ooze.
I hate to again push you toward mono black, but green adds very little...blue is another story but blue is an expensive color to play. Both in terms of getting the lands to support it and cards like Force of Will--basically sticking to one color seems better and force of will is by no means a budget card. If you really want to spend a bit more, I'd rather suggest you get a set of thoughtseize to replace your dureses then spend your budget on lands.
You are right about the creature combo that you suggested. It's pretty awesome, and as awesome as the It That Betrays is, I can't think of a better combo using it.
So my budget, to elaborate, is not completely tiny. Right now, I have about $20 in Puca Points that I can use towards stuff as well as a Remand that I can use to trade with. This is for big cards. Smaller cards that may cost like $2-$3 I will either just buy, or trade for. So I could probably buy an Entomb or two, but I'm not sure that Entombs would be worthwhile for this specific deck as those 3 creatures need to be in the graveyard for this combo to work. I could grab a Thoughtseize and remove one Duress. Maybe as I trade enough on Puca, I can keep adding in a Thoughtseize and taking out a Duress.
I really like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. I think it would be great for multiplayer, if I ever decide to try this deck in that environment. I could also sideboard another combo of creatures, or just entombs and 3 big guys if I want to switch it up. For example, if I ever buy Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, I could sideboard it for when I play token decks along with two other things.
For now though, I think I'm going to grab the cards I'm missing for this deck and just put it together! I can then also just re-create my original Deathfed deck and have another deck to use!
Thanks so much for this deck idea, I really like it. If you think of other improvements that I could make to this, I could work towards that as I trade more cards and get more points to buy more cards!
I really appreciate your thoughtful and in-depth post! Thanks for helping a newbie!
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Also another quick question about Phyrexian Devourer. According to card text, you put +x/+x counters where x is casting cost. But gatherer oracle text says you put +1/+1 counters on it equal to casting cost. Did they update the card text? I'm guessing Gatherer oracle text is right?
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The oracle text is right...it just didn't make alot of sense to make counters that had variable value. It would be a nightmare to track.
I think Entomb is better than buried alive when animating a large creature, but this deck requires buried alive as you correctly deduced.
As i mentioned before, Griselbrand lets you get around some types of graveyard hate and honestly, a dark ritual/entomb/exhume opening lets you put any creature in your deck into play on turn 1....Grisel lets you immediately draw 7-14 cards so you can do it again next turn if your opponent somehow answers Grisel.
This deck folds to a turn 2 rest in peace and some other types of graveyard hate, so it is important to hit them with heavy discard to give yourself enough time to win. It is a very all in against such hate spells. Thoughtseize is nice because it lets you get any card that might hurt you...most are non creatures, but a few guys like Deathrite Shaman, Scavenging Ooze, and other hate bearing creatures can ruin your plan, so thoughtseize is better. After all, 2 life matters little for you since you win instantly. The other card that tends to ruin your day is something like Leyline of Sanctity...if you can't target the enemy player, you are reduced to using the attack step to swing into them with a really big ooze.
If you want to someday convert to a non budget reanimator, you can learn alot in the legacy thread.
Basically, the deck I am suggesting lets you get your feet wet with reanimator and you can see if you enjoy it or not.
Alright thanks for clearing that up. I wish there was an updated text version of the card.
What I'm going to work towards is getting a couple of Thoughtseize first and then maybe some Entombs. I might end up making it 4x Thoughtseize and 3x Duress and take out the 3x Hymn To Tourach. That way I can always pick exactly what I want my opponent to toss. After that I'll start grabbing some of those other big creatures like the Jin, Iona and Elesh for the sideboard. Probably a Grisel as well.
Thanks for the Reanimator thread link as well! I'm definitely building this. Really appreciate all the help!
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The nice thing about Hymm it can hit lands since its random discard and you 2 for 1 them. It's certainly isn't as precise as the 1 mana spells, but it is powerful in its own right. I used to loathe it when I started playing magic...dark ritual, hypnotic specter and then turn 2 hymn for a loss of 3 cards at random. I used to always lose lands and it was painful.
Happy to help and good luck with your brewing. I have to admit as a budget player myself, I've slowly build into decks. I highly suggest you look at Spooky's thread for ideas...he lists dozens upon dozens of budget and rogue decks and that's a great springboard for figuring out what you want to do. His general advice is great too--building your decks around the most powerful cards you already own for example. It seems like common sense but how uncommon that can be.
Funny you say that because I've been against a friend who more or less does the Hypnotic Specter and Hymn to me all the time and it's so aggravating haha.
I'll definitely look up Spooky's thread!
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Yeah, in alot of ways I am glad they want away from random discard. He'd usually use other irritating cards like sinkhole and icequake. Thankfully rain of tears hadn't been printed yet. Being unable to cast much really wasn't a ton of fun on the receiving end.
Here's a link to Spooky's thread Thread. Ultimately, I think he's right in alot of ways...often times it is better to build a rogue deck than play with imperfect cards of an established deck. Most legacy decks only play cards from 1 to 3 casting cost...with the 4 casting cost ones being stuff like Jace. If you can make a deck work that uses powerful cards people aren't expecting to see, then you can sometimes best decks that aren't prepared for them. (That's the basic premise of nic fit actually.)
One nice thing about the deck that we are talking about, it its alot like a deck called the gate or pox. But instead of using an instant combo to win, it plays more discard like smallpox. The gate uses powerful creatures like Gatekeeper of Malakir and vampire nighthawk to gain value if I recall. They might use innocent blood. So if you don't like the combo elements of it, you can build up to another deck. If you were really casual you could use diabolic tutor over Beseech the Queen....it slows you down often a full turn, but it shaves the 42 dollar deck to about 30...assuming again you own zero of the cards.
I like mono black quite a bit because you can avoid buying expensive lands to fix your mana base--even fetchlands can be 7 dollars each now at their cheapest moment--also mostly basics limits mana denial from wasteland. The key spells are all very cheap in comparison to blue. Like even a play set of thoughtseizes might run you 80 dollars...not a small amount by any means, but a place set of Force of Will might cost you 400 dollars. Plus duress is a passable option for nothing or Inquisition of Kozilek is yet another cheap option compared to thoughseize at least. White can interact with death and taxes, but it requires a very strict mana base of Kakaras, wasteland, and ports to deny the enemy mana, so the budget aspect isn't as present. Mono red decks either like goblins---and requiring ports and wastelands like death and taxes or like Burn...and actually burn is a great deck in terms of budget in alot of ways. It just tries to cast any 7 spells and do enough damage to win. I can't think of any super competitive mono green decks (vaguely remember one trying winter orb). But without discard, counter magic, or some type of taxing effect, you have to rely on pure speed to win against "unfair" combo decks. Black is unique that even duress and hymns are enough to give you a fighting chance at executing your game plan all for a pauper's budget. A monoblack deck is a great entry level deck. Discard tends to make for bad top decks at the end of the game, but that being said, often times just getting to the end game is the challenge. IF you lose on turn 3 or 4, then late game topdecks are the least of your worries.
All that being said, I really like the combo version of the deck I presented you because it is fast and efficient for using buried alive. Its simple and ruthless--not unstoppable enough to be a tier 1 deck by any means, but certainly capable of winning.
Anyway, I am probably rambling at this point, so proxy the deck up, play a few games, and see if you like it or not.
Yeah definitely. I played the guy using the deck configuration above. And because the deck has 3 colors and was generally slow, it got even slower after he made me random discard stuff and that eventually won him the game in one way. The other times he did not hit me with discard, my deck obliterated his as soon as the It That Betrays came out.
I'll definitely be looking into building some more fast and cheap decks just to try out mechanics etc and see what I enjoy. But as far as the deck you listed further up, I already know I like it haha. I haven't proxied it yet but I really love the mechanic and combo behind it. I've already started buying the cards for it. I figure, if for some reason I don't end up liking it, the cards are all mostly still usable in black. I definitely want some kind of reanimate deck. So the cards will still be useful! Inquisition of Kozilek would be a good sideboard option for me too. Instead of the Duress or in some combination with the Duress. I might grab some of those as well. I feel like, as you mentioned, the Duress and Hymn could give me a good chance against stronger decks even if I don't have Force of Will. My friend has a tier 1 reanimate with the Force of Wills, some dual lands and whatnot and he thinks this deck could easily stand a chance against his with the right hand. So I'm excited to try it!
So yeah thanks again for everything! I will report back after I build this and try it against his as well as other decks a few times!
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I think with enough discard of your own, you do stand a chance against him as well. Discard is a terrible choice for a deck with force of will...do they counter it and lose card advantage with force of will's second cost or do you get the chance to take their discard best cards?
I admit I like the combo alot because it avoids the attack step (unless they get hexproof from a leyline, but at least you can still swing in for the win). It makes me feel like all three creatures are useful with buried alive too--its not just a bad entomb, you are getting useful stuff for your mana. The tutors gives you consistency and the discard gives you time. All in all, I wish you the best of luck against your friend and beyond. I like how the deck curves at 3 mana too at least with spells you'd actually ever cast. I admit the turn 2 wins are unlikely (especially if your friend plays black or blue), but they can happen against other generic decks sometimes especially if you are playing more casually. I just think its a pretty winning tactic to hammer them with discard and then launch your combo out. The worst thing about the deck is it folds to graveyard hate, but that's true to most any reanimate deck.
Yeah I think the discard should balance out the fact that I have no counters! Now all that's left is for me to actually play test it haha.
Innocent Blood is another solid card! Thanks for the rec. I'm going to grab 4 of those too and sideboard them.
I have another question for you. If, at some point, I end up putting blue into this deck too, would Remand be a useful card in this deck? I have a remand from a dual deck that I bought and I was going to try and trade it for a Thoughseize. That way I am one step closer to my Thoughtseize playset. But if Remand would be a card I'd need later on, maybe I will hang onto it and get the Thoughseize in other ways. What do you think?
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I know Remand is a big card for modern, but less so for Legacy. Daze and Force of Will are much more important. I'd even play Swan Song before it. I mean giving them a random 2/2 is fine if you can combo out and kill them the next turn.
I started looking at the list I'd posted again and for some reason I suggested 4 oozes. I don't actually think you want more than 2. The second copy of each of the combo creatures is just in case draw the first naturally. In that slot you can put something else, either more search or discard.
I did wonder why there were 4 Oozes instead of 2. I'll add a 4th Hymn and maybe proxy in a thoughtseize and see how that plays! Or maybe an Innocent Blood, or just another scary creature in case somehow both my combo creature things get stopped.
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I think the list can certainly still be tweaked. For example, if we are afraid of drawing our combo pieces, adding in putrid imp is tempting. So if we draw a trisk or devourer, we can still buried alive and get imp in place of the non ooze combo piece. Then the ooze when animated can get access to the imp's activated ability, letting you discard the combo piece(s) and then combo off as normal since the ooze will suddenly gain the other power.
Now, I don't know if this actually worth doing. We'd gain 1 extra slot in the deck (assuming we keep two oozes since he's still the key guy to reanimate). But we'd lose resilience against scavenging ooze or deathrite shaman and some other types of graveyard hate.
It also might be worth just having an imp in a free slot in addition to the extra copies.
I also did end up playtesting this against a variety of decks this weekend that my friend owns. It did really well most times which was nice! When I did lose though, twice though I just conceded because I ended up having both my oozes removed from my library as part of a "remove three creatures from library" card. So without Oozes, the deck was pretty much dead. The other time I lost, I played against a reanimate deck and he played an Animate Dead on my own, freshly buried Ooze which was unfortunate and funny at the same time.
I'm playing another friend tonight that has a few Ebony Charms in his deck. The problem again would be if he managed to remove my 3 combo creatures from the graveyard. So to combat this, I'm thinking of adding two more big creatures that would not require a combo to work. For instance, an It That Betrays and an Iona, Shield of Emeria. This would give me more of a chance if both my combo opportunities are unavailable. At least I'll be able to reanimate something else and won't have to concede.
In the 10+ games I played, Duress hardly showed up which was unfortunate because there were so many times I wish I could have made someone throw a card away. I did get Hyms a lot though, and the random discard was sometimes exactly what I needed, sometimes totally useless. So for the sake of consistency I might replace 4 of those with 4 Thoughtseize, or something similar when I can afford them. I did add an extra land in there, but I may not need it. And to accommodate the 4 Thoughtseize, I would have to also remove two Duress. I may remove two other cards instead of two Duress, but right now I'm not sure what I would take out. So this is what I'm currently thinking of for how I would put this together, let me know your thoughts!
I am glad the deck played well for you. I always chuckle when my friend drops a dual land and I realize my entire deck was under half the price of his first land.
Its possible that eight three-mana search spells are too many, but honestly, they make your deck super consistent since you can find buried alive or necromancy. Essentially that gives you 12 cards that can find/are buried alive and 13 cards for an animate spell. Animate dead is actually the weakest one since it can be hit with something like krosan grasp. In theory you could run reanimate in its place...yes it hurts you, but if you are fast enough, it doesn't usually matter and its a core card for real re-animator. Since our deck is a bit slower, I was cautious about suggesting it since burn might be able to kill you, though at least the ooze half the mana otherwise.
I don't think replacing hymn for thoughtseize is a bad call at all since thoughtseize comes down on turn 1 and lets you choose the card. I was just careful about suggesting 80 dollars in thoughtseize in a budget forum. Since the games are so fast, maybe Inquisition of Kozilek is worth a slot. I mean in just about every case, you can make them discard whatever you need to and its about 1/4 to 1/3 the price of thoughtseize. I'd say IoK is probably better than duress to take out a turn 1 creature. I pushed hymn because it still is powerful for its price. Even at 20-24 dollars for a play set of IoK is alot for some players. Of the initial deck cost, those 4 cards would be over half the total cost! Discard is usually a weaker top deck but the goal is for the game to go on such a short time, that it isn't an issue.
The ebony charm is a fluke card--I can't say I've ever seen one actually play it. It completely ruins your deck but since your deck is rogue, you'll never have to worry about it in a tournament. As for the kitchen table--well your only real option is tons of discard--basically see the paragraph above. In theory you could animate Trisk and try to get there, but I admit that's pretty weak. Iona is an amazing creature if you happen to have a copy and she can something shut entire decks down by blanking their removal color. Again Griselbrand is another great choice since even if he's removed you can draw 7+ cards in response and find more gas too keep going. You could probably check the real thread and see what creatures they are running as well. I'd guess they'd be things that have game breaking effects (like Iona), an enter that battlefield ability, or again Grisel.
If you are worried about activate creatures that hose the graveyard, then pithing needle is an amazing pickup. It basically counters their ability to wipe your graveyard out with cards like ooze or deathrite and can even stop planeswalkers. I know I've mentioned innocent blood as well, which is a great card against other re-animator decks or decks that cheat big guys into play. Both probably should be in the sideboard unless you expect a meta of alot of hate.
If I had to be terrified of a card, it would be Grafdigger's Cage. Essentially your deck has no outs but to hard cast its creatures. If drawn in an opening hand, it can come down on the first turn too. Rest in Peace is an equally scary card. Honestly, besides discard, there's not really an answer in black, which is why blue is included in the real version of the deck. That being said, sometimes green can be splashed for abrupt decay. Decay basically hits any card in play that might be ruining your day. Like thoughtseize, it is a stable card for any color that can play it. The drawbacks of course are you need overgrown tomb (or bayous) and eventually the black green fetchlands (which should hopefully be rerpinted in the new set in September at least). On top of that, now you have to worry about mana denial from wasteland (if it ruins rampant in your meta since your deck has non basics in it.
These are things you might want to do someday if you really enjoy the deck.
You might want to look at dredge decks as well. They are a different kind of reanimator style deck.
Yeah, it's definitely nice to have a fun, strong deck that didn't cost me an arm and a leg to build!
I did playtest it a couple of times last night against the friend that has the Ebony Charms in his deck. I agree that they are rare cards to see in a deck, but my meta seems to have a decent amount of graveyard hate and 3 creature exile cards for some reason haha. I managed to win 2 out of 4 times, but the two losses were completely my fault and no fault of the deck. I could have easily finished those games off, but I did some stupid things. But anyway, the subs I ended up doing were taking out two Dimirs and adding in two proxied big creatures to test with (Grisel and Betrays). Removed the 4 Hymns and proxied in Thoughtseize. So I left the 8 discard cards in there and thinned out the tutors a tiny bit. Seemed to work well! So eventually as I upgrade the deck, I'll try and get Thoughtseize in there, and maybe after that replace the Duress with Inquisition. For now I'll continue to use Hymn and Duress, and run all 8 tutors until I can afford the two other big creatures.
I've picked up one Innocent blood and 4x Imps through a trade for my sideboard as well. I'll look into Pithing Needle too. My friend also gave me an Entomb haha. Even though it isn't a playset, it might be worth a slot once in a while especially since I can then do the bury and reanimate for one big guy all with just 3 mana.
I might consider adding blue into my deck at some point. I would never buy FoWs though, but maybe it is still worth it to add blue. For now I like the fact that it is monoblack. I think I'll play it as mono black for a good while before I think about blue in it. But yeah all in all, this deck is great fun!
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I've been playing Magic for the past couple of months. I bought a Deathfed deck and had a lot of fun trying to make it stronger. Eventually I ended up removing like 90% of the cards and turning it into a unique (maybe not all that great) reanimate deck.
I don't play competitively, and my budget is not large. At the most I'd like to not spend more than $15 on a card, and those cards would be few and far between.
What I would like is for some help on tuning what I've put together especially with mana and also to make it a little more efficient. Here is the decklist:
1x Avatar of Woe
2x Birds of Paradise
1x Brawn
1x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dimir Infiltrator
4x Drift of Phantasms
2x Eternal Witness
1x It That Betrays
1x Wonder
2x Woodfall Primus
2x Gnaw to the Bone
4x Negate
Sorceries(6):
4x Buried Alive
2x Unearth
Enchantments(6):
4x Animate Dead
2x Necromancy
Lands(23):
1x Breeding Pool
5x Forest
1x Hinterland Harbor
5x Island
1x Polluted Delta
9x Swamp
1x Watery Grave
So some of the mechanics that I thought about while building this:
-Dimir Infiltrators and Drift of Phantasms as Tutors, or in a pinch, defenders. Drawbacks being mana color combinations needed to play.
-Tutor out Buried Alive and/or Animate Dead/Necromancy when possible if not already in hand.
-Buried alive to put in It That Betrays, Brawn, Woodfall Primus the first time. Woodfall Primus, Avatar of Woe, Wonder the second time if needed.
-Woodfall Primus can also be flash reanimated with Necromancy on opponent's turn, so it comes back with persist on my turn with no tapped lands.
-If I need graveyard cards, I can play Eternal Witness if I have it. If EW is in the graveyard and I have an Unearth, I can EW back from the graveyard to play and one card back to my hand for one black.
-Gnaw to the bone if I've taken a lot of damage early on while setting up combos.
Major drawbacks I've noticed in the ~15 games I've played:
-Slow. If hand isn't optimal, it could take 4-5 turns to have things reanimated while I have nothing on the board due to lack of mana while I tutor, bury alive etc. Wish I could afford Entombs.
-Mana screw due to badly constructed mana base/too many colors in deck.
-Possibly not enough counter.
I want to try and keep this deck at least slightly different from most of the reanimate decks out there if possible!
If anyone has thoughts or improvements, I'd love to hear them! Thanks in advance!
Infect
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Grixis Shadow
Jekai Nahiri
Naya Burn
8-Whack
I don't think Green adds much to your deck--it makes your mana base shaky. Blue is not in alot better of a place. What does Blue add besides a couple of negates? I think both are just hurting your game plan.
I really think Entomb is necessary to play really competitively but if you want to go more casual which is why it demands the big price tag. If you are dead set on on using buried alive, I'd probably build something like this.
4 Beseech the Queen
4 Buried Alive
4 dark ritual
4 Dimir Machinations
4 duress
4 exhume
3 hymn to tourach
1 necromancy
4 necrotic ooze
2 Phyrexian Devourer
2 Triskelion
20 swamps
An ideal hand would be dark ritual into buried alive, dropping Necrotic Ooze, Trikselion, and Phyrexian devourer into the Graveyard. Turn 2, you cast animate or exhume to animate the ooze, who gains the powers of Trisk and Devourer. You then you turn over cards into your deck and ping your opponent to death.
in a slower hand you might first turn duress, second turn hymm, and then third turn tutor for buried alive or necromancy with dimir machinations/beseech the queen and finally fourth turn animate/ exhume/animate just like you did in the first game.
I'll admit this is a different deck than what you really had in mind since it plays more like combo, but you have strong early discard and you can avoid buying price tag heavy creatures.
Most reanimate decks run Griselbrand and Entomb and other really pricy cards. Grisel lets you replenish your hand, but such cards are so expensive I fear we'll exceed your budget. The best thing about a single color is you don't need to buy fetchlands or even shocks. Again, dropping two colors makes a really different deck...less about swinging for the win and more about comboing out, but avoiding the attack step lets you get those juicy turn 2 wins.
I really appreciate your help! I'm trying to come up with a way to include the It That Betrays into your decklist along with two other creatures instead of the combo currently there (although your suggested combo is so good). Any ideas for an It That Betrays? I liked pulling out the ITB with a Brawn in the graveyard. Every time I was able to get him out, things ended badly for my opponent, and fast! Once he was able to attack, it was usually two turns to kill him. Your combo is a one turn kill though. Hmmm...
Infect
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Grixis Shadow
Jekai Nahiri
Naya Burn
8-Whack
You could change the creatures you find with buried alive--so sub out the phrexians, trisks, and oozes and have your own creature package including It that Betrays. He's a solid creature if you get him out early enough and they don't have a swords to plowshares or something.
It is really easy to find really powerful creatures to run with but they are usually really costly and ultimately, you only need one to animate, so alot of the buried alive potential is wasted. If you want cute you could do Soulflayer and Chromanticore along with something like Silumgar, the Drifting Death, to give yourself a super creature. You might want something with indestructible though.
If I was looking for more awesome guys to reanimate, I'd look at Griselbrand but he's around 15 to buy. Iona, Shield of Emeria is again amazing but cost a fortune to buy. Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur around 7 but that's still alot. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is great against tokens, but nearly 30. All let you have a tool box of great guys to choose from. The cost is probably too much for you, but I can't know without actually knowing your budget.
Sphinx of the Steel Wind is about the best guy I can think of on a budget. Blazing Archon is alot like him but not as good unless your opponents use swarms of creatures. Empyrial Archangel is really powerful for about 3 dollars. These guys are cheaper but still effective.
Ultimately, I don't think either is as effective as winning instantly. The real exception is Griselbrand because even if they destroy your graveyard somehow, if you get power him out with rituals or what not, you can pretty much draw 7 cards and overwhelm them with card advantage. While even someone as cool as it that betrays can be killed for little profit with a card like swords to plowshares. Powering him out that way also gives you an out against hate cards like rest in peace or scavenging ooze.
I hate to again push you toward mono black, but green adds very little...blue is another story but blue is an expensive color to play. Both in terms of getting the lands to support it and cards like Force of Will--basically sticking to one color seems better and force of will is by no means a budget card. If you really want to spend a bit more, I'd rather suggest you get a set of thoughtseize to replace your dureses then spend your budget on lands.
So my budget, to elaborate, is not completely tiny. Right now, I have about $20 in Puca Points that I can use towards stuff as well as a Remand that I can use to trade with. This is for big cards. Smaller cards that may cost like $2-$3 I will either just buy, or trade for. So I could probably buy an Entomb or two, but I'm not sure that Entombs would be worthwhile for this specific deck as those 3 creatures need to be in the graveyard for this combo to work. I could grab a Thoughtseize and remove one Duress. Maybe as I trade enough on Puca, I can keep adding in a Thoughtseize and taking out a Duress.
I really like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. I think it would be great for multiplayer, if I ever decide to try this deck in that environment. I could also sideboard another combo of creatures, or just entombs and 3 big guys if I want to switch it up. For example, if I ever buy Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, I could sideboard it for when I play token decks along with two other things.
For now though, I think I'm going to grab the cards I'm missing for this deck and just put it together! I can then also just re-create my original Deathfed deck and have another deck to use!
Thanks so much for this deck idea, I really like it. If you think of other improvements that I could make to this, I could work towards that as I trade more cards and get more points to buy more cards!
I really appreciate your thoughtful and in-depth post! Thanks for helping a newbie!
Infect
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Grixis Shadow
Jekai Nahiri
Naya Burn
8-Whack
Infect
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I think Entomb is better than buried alive when animating a large creature, but this deck requires buried alive as you correctly deduced.
As i mentioned before, Griselbrand lets you get around some types of graveyard hate and honestly, a dark ritual/entomb/exhume opening lets you put any creature in your deck into play on turn 1....Grisel lets you immediately draw 7-14 cards so you can do it again next turn if your opponent somehow answers Grisel.
This deck folds to a turn 2 rest in peace and some other types of graveyard hate, so it is important to hit them with heavy discard to give yourself enough time to win. It is a very all in against such hate spells. Thoughtseize is nice because it lets you get any card that might hurt you...most are non creatures, but a few guys like Deathrite Shaman, Scavenging Ooze, and other hate bearing creatures can ruin your plan, so thoughtseize is better. After all, 2 life matters little for you since you win instantly. The other card that tends to ruin your day is something like Leyline of Sanctity...if you can't target the enemy player, you are reduced to using the attack step to swing into them with a really big ooze.
If you want to someday convert to a non budget reanimator, you can learn alot in the legacy thread.
Basically, the deck I am suggesting lets you get your feet wet with reanimator and you can see if you enjoy it or not.
What I'm going to work towards is getting a couple of Thoughtseize first and then maybe some Entombs. I might end up making it 4x Thoughtseize and 3x Duress and take out the 3x Hymn To Tourach. That way I can always pick exactly what I want my opponent to toss. After that I'll start grabbing some of those other big creatures like the Jin, Iona and Elesh for the sideboard. Probably a Grisel as well.
Thanks for the Reanimator thread link as well! I'm definitely building this. Really appreciate all the help!
Infect
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8-Whack
Happy to help and good luck with your brewing. I have to admit as a budget player myself, I've slowly build into decks. I highly suggest you look at Spooky's thread for ideas...he lists dozens upon dozens of budget and rogue decks and that's a great springboard for figuring out what you want to do. His general advice is great too--building your decks around the most powerful cards you already own for example. It seems like common sense but how uncommon that can be.
I'll definitely look up Spooky's thread!
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Here's a link to Spooky's thread Thread. Ultimately, I think he's right in alot of ways...often times it is better to build a rogue deck than play with imperfect cards of an established deck. Most legacy decks only play cards from 1 to 3 casting cost...with the 4 casting cost ones being stuff like Jace. If you can make a deck work that uses powerful cards people aren't expecting to see, then you can sometimes best decks that aren't prepared for them. (That's the basic premise of nic fit actually.)
One nice thing about the deck that we are talking about, it its alot like a deck called the gate or pox. But instead of using an instant combo to win, it plays more discard like smallpox. The gate uses powerful creatures like Gatekeeper of Malakir and vampire nighthawk to gain value if I recall. They might use innocent blood. So if you don't like the combo elements of it, you can build up to another deck. If you were really casual you could use diabolic tutor over Beseech the Queen....it slows you down often a full turn, but it shaves the 42 dollar deck to about 30...assuming again you own zero of the cards.
I like mono black quite a bit because you can avoid buying expensive lands to fix your mana base--even fetchlands can be 7 dollars each now at their cheapest moment--also mostly basics limits mana denial from wasteland. The key spells are all very cheap in comparison to blue. Like even a play set of thoughtseizes might run you 80 dollars...not a small amount by any means, but a place set of Force of Will might cost you 400 dollars. Plus duress is a passable option for nothing or Inquisition of Kozilek is yet another cheap option compared to thoughseize at least. White can interact with death and taxes, but it requires a very strict mana base of Kakaras, wasteland, and ports to deny the enemy mana, so the budget aspect isn't as present. Mono red decks either like goblins---and requiring ports and wastelands like death and taxes or like Burn...and actually burn is a great deck in terms of budget in alot of ways. It just tries to cast any 7 spells and do enough damage to win. I can't think of any super competitive mono green decks (vaguely remember one trying winter orb). But without discard, counter magic, or some type of taxing effect, you have to rely on pure speed to win against "unfair" combo decks. Black is unique that even duress and hymns are enough to give you a fighting chance at executing your game plan all for a pauper's budget. A monoblack deck is a great entry level deck. Discard tends to make for bad top decks at the end of the game, but that being said, often times just getting to the end game is the challenge. IF you lose on turn 3 or 4, then late game topdecks are the least of your worries.
All that being said, I really like the combo version of the deck I presented you because it is fast and efficient for using buried alive. Its simple and ruthless--not unstoppable enough to be a tier 1 deck by any means, but certainly capable of winning.
Anyway, I am probably rambling at this point, so proxy the deck up, play a few games, and see if you like it or not.
I'll definitely be looking into building some more fast and cheap decks just to try out mechanics etc and see what I enjoy. But as far as the deck you listed further up, I already know I like it haha. I haven't proxied it yet but I really love the mechanic and combo behind it. I've already started buying the cards for it. I figure, if for some reason I don't end up liking it, the cards are all mostly still usable in black. I definitely want some kind of reanimate deck. So the cards will still be useful! Inquisition of Kozilek would be a good sideboard option for me too. Instead of the Duress or in some combination with the Duress. I might grab some of those as well. I feel like, as you mentioned, the Duress and Hymn could give me a good chance against stronger decks even if I don't have Force of Will. My friend has a tier 1 reanimate with the Force of Wills, some dual lands and whatnot and he thinks this deck could easily stand a chance against his with the right hand. So I'm excited to try it!
So yeah thanks again for everything! I will report back after I build this and try it against his as well as other decks a few times!
Infect
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Naya Burn
8-Whack
I admit I like the combo alot because it avoids the attack step (unless they get hexproof from a leyline, but at least you can still swing in for the win). It makes me feel like all three creatures are useful with buried alive too--its not just a bad entomb, you are getting useful stuff for your mana. The tutors gives you consistency and the discard gives you time. All in all, I wish you the best of luck against your friend and beyond. I like how the deck curves at 3 mana too at least with spells you'd actually ever cast. I admit the turn 2 wins are unlikely (especially if your friend plays black or blue), but they can happen against other generic decks sometimes especially if you are playing more casually. I just think its a pretty winning tactic to hammer them with discard and then launch your combo out. The worst thing about the deck is it folds to graveyard hate, but that's true to most any reanimate deck.
If you see alot of scavenging ooze or deathrite shaman then maybe you should consider Innocent Blood as a sideboard card.
Innocent Blood is another solid card! Thanks for the rec. I'm going to grab 4 of those too and sideboard them.
I have another question for you. If, at some point, I end up putting blue into this deck too, would Remand be a useful card in this deck? I have a remand from a dual deck that I bought and I was going to try and trade it for a Thoughseize. That way I am one step closer to my Thoughtseize playset. But if Remand would be a card I'd need later on, maybe I will hang onto it and get the Thoughseize in other ways. What do you think?
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Jekai Nahiri
Naya Burn
8-Whack
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Now, I don't know if this actually worth doing. We'd gain 1 extra slot in the deck (assuming we keep two oozes since he's still the key guy to reanimate). But we'd lose resilience against scavenging ooze or deathrite shaman and some other types of graveyard hate.
It also might be worth just having an imp in a free slot in addition to the extra copies.
I also did end up playtesting this against a variety of decks this weekend that my friend owns. It did really well most times which was nice! When I did lose though, twice though I just conceded because I ended up having both my oozes removed from my library as part of a "remove three creatures from library" card. So without Oozes, the deck was pretty much dead. The other time I lost, I played against a reanimate deck and he played an Animate Dead on my own, freshly buried Ooze which was unfortunate and funny at the same time.
I'm playing another friend tonight that has a few Ebony Charms in his deck. The problem again would be if he managed to remove my 3 combo creatures from the graveyard. So to combat this, I'm thinking of adding two more big creatures that would not require a combo to work. For instance, an It That Betrays and an Iona, Shield of Emeria. This would give me more of a chance if both my combo opportunities are unavailable. At least I'll be able to reanimate something else and won't have to concede.
In the 10+ games I played, Duress hardly showed up which was unfortunate because there were so many times I wish I could have made someone throw a card away. I did get Hyms a lot though, and the random discard was sometimes exactly what I needed, sometimes totally useless. So for the sake of consistency I might replace 4 of those with 4 Thoughtseize, or something similar when I can afford them. I did add an extra land in there, but I may not need it. And to accommodate the 4 Thoughtseize, I would have to also remove two Duress. I may remove two other cards instead of two Duress, but right now I'm not sure what I would take out. So this is what I'm currently thinking of for how I would put this together, let me know your thoughts!
4 Beseech the Queen
4 Buried Alive
4 dark ritual
4 Dimir Machinations
2 duress
4 exhume
4 thoughtseize
1 necromancy
2 necrotic ooze
2 Phyrexian Devourer
2 Triskelion
2 Non combo big creatures
21 swamps
Infect
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Grixis Shadow
Jekai Nahiri
Naya Burn
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Its possible that eight three-mana search spells are too many, but honestly, they make your deck super consistent since you can find buried alive or necromancy. Essentially that gives you 12 cards that can find/are buried alive and 13 cards for an animate spell. Animate dead is actually the weakest one since it can be hit with something like krosan grasp. In theory you could run reanimate in its place...yes it hurts you, but if you are fast enough, it doesn't usually matter and its a core card for real re-animator. Since our deck is a bit slower, I was cautious about suggesting it since burn might be able to kill you, though at least the ooze half the mana otherwise.
I don't think replacing hymn for thoughtseize is a bad call at all since thoughtseize comes down on turn 1 and lets you choose the card. I was just careful about suggesting 80 dollars in thoughtseize in a budget forum. Since the games are so fast, maybe Inquisition of Kozilek is worth a slot. I mean in just about every case, you can make them discard whatever you need to and its about 1/4 to 1/3 the price of thoughtseize. I'd say IoK is probably better than duress to take out a turn 1 creature. I pushed hymn because it still is powerful for its price. Even at 20-24 dollars for a play set of IoK is alot for some players. Of the initial deck cost, those 4 cards would be over half the total cost! Discard is usually a weaker top deck but the goal is for the game to go on such a short time, that it isn't an issue.
The ebony charm is a fluke card--I can't say I've ever seen one actually play it. It completely ruins your deck but since your deck is rogue, you'll never have to worry about it in a tournament. As for the kitchen table--well your only real option is tons of discard--basically see the paragraph above. In theory you could animate Trisk and try to get there, but I admit that's pretty weak. Iona is an amazing creature if you happen to have a copy and she can something shut entire decks down by blanking their removal color. Again Griselbrand is another great choice since even if he's removed you can draw 7+ cards in response and find more gas too keep going. You could probably check the real thread and see what creatures they are running as well. I'd guess they'd be things that have game breaking effects (like Iona), an enter that battlefield ability, or again Grisel.
If you are worried about activate creatures that hose the graveyard, then pithing needle is an amazing pickup. It basically counters their ability to wipe your graveyard out with cards like ooze or deathrite and can even stop planeswalkers. I know I've mentioned innocent blood as well, which is a great card against other re-animator decks or decks that cheat big guys into play. Both probably should be in the sideboard unless you expect a meta of alot of hate.
If I had to be terrified of a card, it would be Grafdigger's Cage. Essentially your deck has no outs but to hard cast its creatures. If drawn in an opening hand, it can come down on the first turn too. Rest in Peace is an equally scary card. Honestly, besides discard, there's not really an answer in black, which is why blue is included in the real version of the deck. That being said, sometimes green can be splashed for abrupt decay. Decay basically hits any card in play that might be ruining your day. Like thoughtseize, it is a stable card for any color that can play it. The drawbacks of course are you need overgrown tomb (or bayous) and eventually the black green fetchlands (which should hopefully be rerpinted in the new set in September at least). On top of that, now you have to worry about mana denial from wasteland (if it ruins rampant in your meta since your deck has non basics in it.
These are things you might want to do someday if you really enjoy the deck.
You might want to look at dredge decks as well. They are a different kind of reanimator style deck.
I did playtest it a couple of times last night against the friend that has the Ebony Charms in his deck. I agree that they are rare cards to see in a deck, but my meta seems to have a decent amount of graveyard hate and 3 creature exile cards for some reason haha. I managed to win 2 out of 4 times, but the two losses were completely my fault and no fault of the deck. I could have easily finished those games off, but I did some stupid things. But anyway, the subs I ended up doing were taking out two Dimirs and adding in two proxied big creatures to test with (Grisel and Betrays). Removed the 4 Hymns and proxied in Thoughtseize. So I left the 8 discard cards in there and thinned out the tutors a tiny bit. Seemed to work well! So eventually as I upgrade the deck, I'll try and get Thoughtseize in there, and maybe after that replace the Duress with Inquisition. For now I'll continue to use Hymn and Duress, and run all 8 tutors until I can afford the two other big creatures.
I've picked up one Innocent blood and 4x Imps through a trade for my sideboard as well. I'll look into Pithing Needle too. My friend also gave me an Entomb haha. Even though it isn't a playset, it might be worth a slot once in a while especially since I can then do the bury and reanimate for one big guy all with just 3 mana.
I might consider adding blue into my deck at some point. I would never buy FoWs though, but maybe it is still worth it to add blue. For now I like the fact that it is monoblack. I think I'll play it as mono black for a good while before I think about blue in it. But yeah all in all, this deck is great fun!
Infect
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Grixis Shadow
Jekai Nahiri
Naya Burn
8-Whack