Nightmare, Victimize, Rescue and Exchange need some additional set-up in the form of having a creature on the battlefield. That makes them lower picks for fast dedicated reanimator decks that want to reanimate a fatty as quickly as possible. They are better in slower, value-oriented decks. Victimize comes with two additional restrictions, Rescue costs 5 mana and Exchange costs double black and prevents recursion, so they are both low on the list. Nightmare on the other hand is so brutally good that it gets first place, even though it hard to use for reanimation in the first few turns.
Beacon costs 5 mana, is a sorcery and costs double black, while giving very little upside. Most artifacts that you would want to reanimate are creatures anyway. It is mostly a worse Zombify, earning it a last place on my list.
Living Death is a bit of an oddball, but it is certainly very powerful and has lots of potential for insane swings.
Btw, I am running 01-12 in my 600 cards cube. Dedicated reanimator decks are popular and happen every other draft.
Beacon costs 5 mana, is a sorcery and costs double black, while giving very little upside. Most artifacts that you would want to reanimate are creatures anyway. It is mostly a worse Zombify, earning it a last place on my list.
Beacon hits both 'yards, making it a much better spell outside of dedicated reanimator builds. 4 is still better than 5, but they're closer than you suggest, IMO. But it doesn't matter much, all of them outside the top 10 are pretty bad.
Recurring Nightmare is phenomenal for encouraging reanimator, not only because it's very strong, but because it's stupidly fun. And whenever something is fun, it encourages players to go that route. Sure, other cards may be superior reanimation spells, but Recurring Nightmare causes players to think in new ways that other reanimator spells usually don't.
Makeshift Mannequin is really only in there for the interaction with Eldrazi. My group finds that fun. I used to run Corpse Dance and Shallow Grave, but I really wasn't a fan of the "top card in graveyard" wording.
I don't want to open a new thread for this, but I'm a bit surprised Dread Return isn't seeing too much play.
Its more or less a mainstay in cEDH to reanimate multiple creatures in BGx creature combo decks. Victimze has been a bit too restrictive for reanimator, but I'm wondering if Dread Return have enough teeth as both a 2nd tier reanimator spell + engine for creature combo decks.
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I'm a fan of The Cruelty of Gix in that slot. I like it more than Liliana Death Majesty, who I've played a lot with.
540-720 range, comparable in power to it's 5 cmc competition in reanimator. However, It's also totally playable as a generic good stuff card with a ramp element or reanimation backup. Reanimating from any graveyard is a big upside in those kind of decks.
From the catacombs has been interesting. Pretty meh in all-in reanimator, but sweet in some black decks that can get board advantage early and can keep the initaitive. Getting back a random value creature , taking the intitiative and having it in the graveyard to flash back is a strong play for 5 mana. Want more reps with it.
I'm a fan of The Cruelty of Gix in that slot. I like it more than Liliana Death Majesty, who I've played a lot with.
540-720 range, comparable in power to it's 5 cmc competition in reanimator. However, It's also totally playable as a generic good stuff card with a ramp element or reanimation backup. Reanimating from any graveyard is a big upside in those kind of decks.
From the catacombs has been interesting. Pretty meh in all-in reanimator, but sweet in some black decks that can get board advantage early and can keep the initaitive. Getting back a random value creature , taking the intitiative and having it in the graveyard to flash back is a strong play for 5 mana. Want more reps with it.
I like Cruelty too - It was very good during Arena drafts and I anticipate it might be a bit stronger in Vintage Cube with the acceleration.
The interesting thought I had was the reanimator archetype might be the ONLY combo archetype where we have so many good enablers between reanimation spells, discard outlets and fatties that we could list 3-5+ good options:
are all playable reanimator/ fatty cheat options. I also found that tutors, rituals/ acceleration, wheels etc. all work very well in the deck and I've found Reanimator storm, especially with Etali/ Griselbrand/ Atraxa/ Palinchron/ Astral Dragon has been a very consistent method to storm off. Heck, I've found some key cards to be best in a reanimator shell:
- Life from the Loam / Wheel of Fortune -> Help with Primary plan AND help to refund for Plan B
- Balance -> Helps to clear the board and act as a discard outlet without artifact based acceleration.
- Dark Ritual -> Accelerate a turn 5 Sneak Attack or turn 4 Necromancy (with discard) into turn 2-3 payoffs
Thus, I'm going to be testing a new theory in the next few drafts - I'm going to be adding 4+ reanimator spells to make reanimator the premium combo decks. This way archetypes such as Storm, Lands and Wheel could opt to play in a control shell OR a reanimator shell - Their primary deck would less often come together, however they would often have a very strong pivot option.
Persist and From the Catacombs are legitimately great. Although I'd argue that From the Catacombs is more of a midrange card than it is a pure reanimator card. Incarnation Technique is more of an all in 5-cmc combo card and is also awesome.
Thus, I'm going to be testing a new theory in the next few drafts - I'm going to be adding 4+ reanimator spells to make reanimator the premium combo decks. This way archetypes such as Storm, Lands and Wheel could opt to play in a control shell OR a reanimator shell - Their primary deck would less often come together, however they would often have a very strong pivot option.
I'd argue that reanimator has probably been the most top tier combo deck in a lot of cubes since the printing of Atraxa + Etali and the resurgence of Flash last year. This has been true in my cube and there's been a lot of complaints about reanimator being too good in the MTGO Vintage cubes also. It's very easy to over support with how many enablers and payoffs it has while not having enough interaction against it. Last year I went pretty all in on reanimator to the point where I started having to cut extraneous super fatties and 2 reanimator spells. I ended up cutting Shallow Grave / Corpse Dance to both tone down reanimator and remove the graveyard matters aspect from my cube, which really isn't fun to track at all.
I'd argue that reanimator has probably been the most top tier combo deck in a lot of cubes since the printing of Atraxa + Etali and the resurgence of Flash last year. This has been true in my cube and there's been a lot of complaints about reanimator being too good in the MTGO Vintage cubes also. It's very easy to over support with how many enablers and payoffs it has while not having enough interaction against it.
I agree with this entirely. My intentions is that instead of having a single reanimator deck in a pod, we could have 2+ reanimator decks, with reasonable back plans. I've had this happen multiple times where we had a BR Reanimator deck, Grixis Control Reanimator and GB ramp-survival Reanimator. However, they decks didn't perform that well because they were competing for similar resources.
This is similar to a card like Armageddon - In theory, you CAN support this by having 4+ Moxen, 5+ Mana Rocks, Land Tax and getting the asymmetrical effect by accelerating and blowing up all the lands, but this almost never happens as the density of these cards are very low. Thus, this primarily becomes a tool for aggressive decks against slower strategies.
This is similar to how some cubes support White/ Red/ Aggro AND Black aggro while some cubes opt to support only White/ Red. Instead of having 1-2 aggressive strategies, you have 2-3+ aggressive strategies
This has been true in my cube and there's been a lot of complaints about reanimator being too good in the MTGO Vintage cubes also. It's very easy to over support with how many enablers and payoffs it has while not having enough interaction against it. Last year I went pretty all in on reanimator to the point where I started having to cut extraneous super fatties and 2 reanimator spells.
I've found Lands/ Storm are becoming more and more difficult to support/ justify - This might be the best option. My intentions is for this to self correct during the draft similar to how Blue is traditionally over drafted.
Furthermore, what I've found about reanimator decks is that a single reanimated fatty is almost never enough - It's able to generate often a 4 for 1 card advantage, but the opponent usually has answer for the first target. You need a second or even a third fatty to finish the job.
This is where my theory that if you have 2 reanimator decks in a pod, they are forced more or less to have either wheel, lands synergy or storm as their second target, which are often too weakly supported to win the game.
If reanimator is strong, I anticipate people to fight over the pieces very aggressively - This is what I've found is that reanimator has been one of my weakest performing archetypes, not because it's weak, but because i've seen 3+ players try to draft it.
There are two cards I would be watching very closely:
Lukka could be accelerated very quickly, especially with "Name Sticker" Goblin and could polymorph it into a Griselbrand/ Atraxa inside the deck, especially as storm decks traditionally have a low creature count regardless.
Cruelty of Gix could opt as a Demonic Tutor AND could help setup for a reanimation spell on the next turn.
They may be very expensive, but I could see them work very well.
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Level 1 Judge
02 Animate Dead
03 Reanimate
04 Necromancy
05 Exhume
06 Living Death
07 Dance of the Dead
08 Life // Death
09 Makeshift Mannequin
10 Diabolic Servitude
11 Victimize
12 Dread Return
13 Zombify
14 Beacon of Unrest
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My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
02 Animate Dead
03 Reanimate
04 Necromancy
05 Exhume
06 Life // Death
07 Living Death
08 Dance of the Dead
09 Makeshift Mannequin
10 Diabolic Servitude
11 Zombify
12 Dread Return
13 Victimize
14 Rescue from the Underworld
15 Vigor Mortis
16 Soul Exchange
17 Beacon of Unrest
Nightmare, Victimize, Rescue and Exchange need some additional set-up in the form of having a creature on the battlefield. That makes them lower picks for fast dedicated reanimator decks that want to reanimate a fatty as quickly as possible. They are better in slower, value-oriented decks. Victimize comes with two additional restrictions, Rescue costs 5 mana and Exchange costs double black and prevents recursion, so they are both low on the list. Nightmare on the other hand is so brutally good that it gets first place, even though it hard to use for reanimation in the first few turns.
Beacon costs 5 mana, is a sorcery and costs double black, while giving very little upside. Most artifacts that you would want to reanimate are creatures anyway. It is mostly a worse Zombify, earning it a last place on my list.
Living Death is a bit of an oddball, but it is certainly very powerful and has lots of potential for insane swings.
Btw, I am running 01-12 in my 600 cards cube. Dedicated reanimator decks are popular and happen every other draft.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
Beacon hits both 'yards, making it a much better spell outside of dedicated reanimator builds. 4 is still better than 5, but they're closer than you suggest, IMO. But it doesn't matter much, all of them outside the top 10 are pretty bad.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
This is a great list. How many do you need at 360, 540, 720?
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
One of my all time favorite spells.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Its more or less a mainstay in cEDH to reanimate multiple creatures in BGx creature combo decks. Victimze has been a bit too restrictive for reanimator, but I'm wondering if Dread Return have enough teeth as both a 2nd tier reanimator spell + engine for creature combo decks.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
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StaffMy High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
540-720 range, comparable in power to it's 5 cmc competition in reanimator. However, It's also totally playable as a generic good stuff card with a ramp element or reanimation backup. Reanimating from any graveyard is a big upside in those kind of decks.
From the catacombs has been interesting. Pretty meh in all-in reanimator, but sweet in some black decks that can get board advantage early and can keep the initaitive. Getting back a random value creature , taking the intitiative and having it in the graveyard to flash back is a strong play for 5 mana. Want more reps with it.
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I like Cruelty too - It was very good during Arena drafts and I anticipate it might be a bit stronger in Vintage Cube with the acceleration.
The interesting thought I had was the reanimator archetype might be the ONLY combo archetype where we have so many good enablers between reanimation spells, discard outlets and fatties that we could list 3-5+ good options:
I could see an argument where:
- Goryo's Vengance
- Persist
- The Cruelty of Gix
- Makeshift Mannequin
- From the Catacombs
- Quicksilver Amulet
are all playable reanimator/ fatty cheat options. I also found that tutors, rituals/ acceleration, wheels etc. all work very well in the deck and I've found Reanimator storm, especially with Etali/ Griselbrand/ Atraxa/ Palinchron/ Astral Dragon has been a very consistent method to storm off. Heck, I've found some key cards to be best in a reanimator shell:
- Life from the Loam / Wheel of Fortune -> Help with Primary plan AND help to refund for Plan B
- Balance -> Helps to clear the board and act as a discard outlet without artifact based acceleration.
- Dark Ritual -> Accelerate a turn 5 Sneak Attack or turn 4 Necromancy (with discard) into turn 2-3 payoffs
Thus, I'm going to be testing a new theory in the next few drafts - I'm going to be adding 4+ reanimator spells to make reanimator the premium combo decks. This way archetypes such as Storm, Lands and Wheel could opt to play in a control shell OR a reanimator shell - Their primary deck would less often come together, however they would often have a very strong pivot option.
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StaffPersist and From the Catacombs are legitimately great. Although I'd argue that From the Catacombs is more of a midrange card than it is a pure reanimator card. Incarnation Technique is more of an all in 5-cmc combo card and is also awesome.
I'd argue that reanimator has probably been the most top tier combo deck in a lot of cubes since the printing of Atraxa + Etali and the resurgence of Flash last year. This has been true in my cube and there's been a lot of complaints about reanimator being too good in the MTGO Vintage cubes also. It's very easy to over support with how many enablers and payoffs it has while not having enough interaction against it. Last year I went pretty all in on reanimator to the point where I started having to cut extraneous super fatties and 2 reanimator spells. I ended up cutting Shallow Grave / Corpse Dance to both tone down reanimator and remove the graveyard matters aspect from my cube, which really isn't fun to track at all.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
I agree with this entirely. My intentions is that instead of having a single reanimator deck in a pod, we could have 2+ reanimator decks, with reasonable back plans. I've had this happen multiple times where we had a BR Reanimator deck, Grixis Control Reanimator and GB ramp-survival Reanimator. However, they decks didn't perform that well because they were competing for similar resources.
This is similar to a card like Armageddon - In theory, you CAN support this by having 4+ Moxen, 5+ Mana Rocks, Land Tax and getting the asymmetrical effect by accelerating and blowing up all the lands, but this almost never happens as the density of these cards are very low. Thus, this primarily becomes a tool for aggressive decks against slower strategies.
This is similar to how some cubes support White/ Red/ Aggro AND Black aggro while some cubes opt to support only White/ Red. Instead of having 1-2 aggressive strategies, you have 2-3+ aggressive strategies
I've found Lands/ Storm are becoming more and more difficult to support/ justify - This might be the best option. My intentions is for this to self correct during the draft similar to how Blue is traditionally over drafted.
Furthermore, what I've found about reanimator decks is that a single reanimated fatty is almost never enough - It's able to generate often a 4 for 1 card advantage, but the opponent usually has answer for the first target. You need a second or even a third fatty to finish the job.
This is where my theory that if you have 2 reanimator decks in a pod, they are forced more or less to have either wheel, lands synergy or storm as their second target, which are often too weakly supported to win the game.
If reanimator is strong, I anticipate people to fight over the pieces very aggressively - This is what I've found is that reanimator has been one of my weakest performing archetypes, not because it's weak, but because i've seen 3+ players try to draft it.
There are two cards I would be watching very closely:
- Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast
- The Cruelty of Gix
Lukka could be accelerated very quickly, especially with "Name Sticker" Goblin and could polymorph it into a Griselbrand/ Atraxa inside the deck, especially as storm decks traditionally have a low creature count regardless.
Cruelty of Gix could opt as a Demonic Tutor AND could help setup for a reanimation spell on the next turn.
They may be very expensive, but I could see them work very well.