Land count is still the same, I like 19 with 3 opals. I have not had it come up yet where I cannot play Tezz and that causes me to take dmg due to bridge. I have had to mill it off the top when I only have 3 mana, but the ability to buy it back late game with codex and just end the game is still nice.
I played three or four matches lost all of them not even close, and determined it is a fundamentally flawed match up.
CoCo has been a bye, so I didn't mind losing Pyroclasm there and vs affinity, I may need it, but I am looking for another option because I would rather not stretch the mana that much. I did not play against much affinity lately, and I expect it to be on the downswing after crushing the GP but it may be the opposite predicting people is hard.
As of now I added a one of Maelstrom Pulse over the capsule/bomb and a Nihil Spellbomb.
I brought Lilly in vs Twin, Grixis of all flavors, Tron of all flavors, boggles, anything control.
I found getting to four wasn't difficult. Plan A was bridge and tezzeret was just the follow up to it. I never felt rushed to get into to play.
Also I am testing a Druidic Satchel right now in a list that just swaps my Trinket Mages for Infernal Tutors, and have been fairly impressed, the ability to continue to play land in a low resource late game scenario is nice, as well as getting out of bolt range.
Hello, so I am Ztrman, I have been playing Lantern on MTGO and have 8-2 record in prelims for Modern festival, 4-1 in PTQ prelims and 5-2 in the PTQ. Someone posted my list above:
I don't remember what I beat but I lost to nut draw vengeance and GR tron Karn, Liberated turn 3 two games in a row. I don't think this deck has the tools to beat the later, but the former I have made some massive improvements for since the event. However I wanted to post to explain my card choices
I started with the GP list and made some massive changes here are the major ones:
+2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. I wanted the ability to end games quickly without playing a card just as a win-con Tezzeret assembles locks quicker and creates blockers while we wait to find bridge. While also providing the ability to kill people in two turns.
+3 Trinket Mage, Find lock pieces quicker as well as the narrow hate cards like Grafdigger's Cage as well as being a blocker to help agaisnt aggro decks
+1 Grafdigger's Cage see above, does amazing work vs snap decks, Goryo decks, and Coco decks. Easily won me half my grixis games.
+1 Aether Spellbomb + +1 Executioner's Capsule, Trinket targets for interaction, both were awful and have been cut. HIGHLY RECOMMEND AGAINST
+2 Thoughtseize over Duress, I like having the versatility even at the cost of life.
-2 Surgical Extraction, I hate maindecking this card, it is obviously amazing when it works, but too often does nothing.
-3 Gitaxian Probe, Not a fan of cycle peek at the cost of life often. I just don't see why we are interested in this. I would rather have more discard or more land. I added one land because I cut all three probes.
-2 Pyrite Spellbomb this is actually the most baffling to me. I have no clue why we would be on the four color plan. Pyroclasm does not help us that much against affinity, which is the only match up I think it shines in for us. In my experience we crush Coco decks into the ground, and Pyrite Spellbomb is beyond slow and do-nothingey
I made massive mana changes going from GBur to BUG. Overall i have been happy with the Urborg and the Nephalia.
Boardwise, burn is unwinnable quit pretending it isn't -4 Sun Droplet
Affinity is rough and I need a solution for it, Hurkyl's Recall is not the solution. Their ability to circumvent bridge with Arcbound Ravenger and Cranial Plating with 0/X's is annoying as hell. I would not run Hukyl's Recall going forward.
Liliana's were early game threats and pressure vs control decks and functioned wonderfully, highly recommend.
That is the gist of my experience, I am testing a lot for the Festival on Sunday, and am trying cards like Infernal Tutor.
WHAT: Modern SilverBlack Unleashed Tournament
WHERE: /join SilverBlack
WHEN: Games start at 3:00pm EST (20:00 UTC). You can pre-reg any time before at Gatherling.com. If you need help pm me or ask someone the day of the event before the event begins. You must be present at 3:00pm EST otherwise you will be dropped from the event. Also, you must have entered your decklist to receive a Round 1 pairing. Failure to enter a decklist will result in your being dropped from the event.
Hello some of you may know me from when I hosted legacy silverblack or from me playing in Standard silverblack, Modern SB, Legacy SB, and Heirloom events. I personally greatly miss modern silerblack events and still having the ability to host events on silverblack I figured I would use that to start a free tournament series. However I also want to try an experiment with ban lists and format development. We will begin the season with only skullclamp on the ban list. Yes, I do realize that leaves a lot of really powerful cards, but every season the ban list will be updated and refined (5 weeks). The updates will be primarily a judgement call on my part but I will most certianly listen to any input or thoughts. Because I have been unable to get in contact with Naibock about sponsorship for now it will be unsponsored because of that there is no prize support outside of me actually giving occasional goodies out. However, if anyone wishes to donate, I can make it such that there will be prizes either event or season based.
Rules:
Decks must be at least 60 cards with an optional 15 card sideboard. All commons and uncommons from 8th Edition / Mirrodin forward are legal with the exception of those on the ban list, note this is a unique banlist not the modern one. If your deck contains illegal cards in the first round you will receive a match loss and be allowed to replace the illegal cards with basic lands for the following rounds. If illegal cards are found to be in your deck in the following rounds you may be dropped or allowed to continue per the host's discretion. Gatherling validates decks so make sure it doesn't show any errors after you enter your deck and you should be good to go.
The following cards are banned:
- Skullclamp
All Timeshifted cards are not legal because no common/uncommon printing exists in a modern legal set except for Dragon Whelp.
Cost and Prizes:
This is a free to enter tournament.
Prizes consist of nothing for now sadly
I will however do my best to provide door prizes and an end of the season prize (5 events).
Event Details
Event will be three-four rounds of swiss.
Matches are set to Legacy (due to banlist differences), best 2/3, and should be labeled SilverBlack Round X.
They should also be set to 30 minutes per player per match and watchable.
All matches should take place in the Casual Play > Anything Goes room.
If a player doesn't join and start the match within 10 minutes of the pairing announcement, the player is awarded a match loss. The player failing to join their match will also be dropped from the tournament unless they contact the host stating intentions to continue.
Intentional draws are not allowed.
The deck you start the tournament with is the deck you play the whole tournament with. No editing your deck between rounds.
All results and drops should be reported to your player control panel in gatherling.
Season Points
Season points are awarded as follows:
1 Points for participating (requires decklist be posted and at least 1 round played)
3 Points for each match win
1 Point for each match loss
If you have any questions just ask. Otherwise get your decks ready, grab some friends, and show up!
Depending on interest this could start as soon as two weeks from now the 24th of February
Here is the situation:
3 player multiplayer game
Player A casts 3 of player B's creatures with Havengul Lich
Player A stole 1 of player C's creatures with blatant thievery
Player A dies
What happens to Player B and C's creatures?
Post the accepted list (if there is one) for Griselooze and I will playtest with it and add my thoughts on it to the primer.
I will be putting up videos of a couple dailies after Christmas with an all-in version and may test some other versions.
[1] Overview:
The true spawn of the deck came from the printing of Griselbrand which lead to discussions in legacy for months if the format could withstand the printing of yawgmoth's bargain on a 7/7 flying lifelink body. In modern though it has not cause near is many waves, however it does have it's home in the Goryo/Breach combo deck. The basic premise of the deck is to discard Griselbrand or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn then reanimate either of them (shuffle trigger on the stack for Emrakul with Goryo's Vengeance. After that the decks begin to diverge into a couple different camps with varying degrees of comboing to controlling. If all out combo is the goal it is one of the few decks in modern that can kill on t1 or t2, with t3-t4 being the reliable ones.
[2] Card Choices, and builds:
The core of the deck is:
Bare minimum the core takes up around 40 cards.
There are three primary and distinct versions of the deck BR Traditional, BRUg reanimator, and BR All-in.
Let's begin with the Traditional BR version by Kahleya
Kahyela, or Stealthpants on Twith, has by far the most experience of any person I know with the deck so his version should be considered a go to. He very actively steers clear of the two cards that define the all-in list, Simian Spirit Guide and Fury of the Hordes. He lists his reasons for both.
For not running SSG he states:
Simian Spirit Guide can interact with your opponent in 3 ways. It can speed you up a turn (great) be a 2/2 for 3 (terrible) or be a dead card in your hand instead of a Lightning Bolt. (bad) This card is not helpful 2/3 of the time.
For not running FotH:
FotH is a "win more" card. If you attack with an 8 mana mythic on turn 2 or Emrakul on turn 3, you don't need another card to make that better. FotH in your opening hand is basically a 6 card hand. If you draw it early it sits in your hand not being a Lightning Bolt. If you're attacking with Griselbrand and they have Path to Exile, you're in even worse shape than you would otherwise be because the card is dead again.
His list and version provides the most consistent and resilient version able to withstand disruption and interaction game 1. However it will be much slower than a more all-in version.
This is my current version with a very experimental sideboard. The main deck is basically the opposite of Kahyela's. I'd argue that ssg is essential to getting under the interaction and disruption of the opponents, and FotH allows us to reanimate and end the game outright. Sideboard differences are meta calls
Todd Anderson piloted this list to a top 16 finish at GP Kansas City. By playing blue and splashing green out of the board the deck gained a lot of options at the cost of mana consistency and blood moon out of the board. However you gain a second careful study effect in izzet charm which also has two other very relevant and useful modes and a single see beyond which for the life of me I can't quite figure out, I suppose sometimes you just have to draw 2. Green out of the board is huge though, the previous two versions have no answers to enchantment based graveyard removal *cough* rest in peace *cough* While the deck can still win through the Through the Breach, decks that tend to play Rest in peace also tend to be aggressive enough to be scary, D+T and Boggles in particular.
4. How to Play the deck:
Let's divide this into the four types of combos and a fifth not so combo-like finish:
1. Goryo's Vengeance target Griselbrand
In the non-FotH version you will generally draw 7-14 cards depending on how the hand looks after 7. The goal is to assemble another go off the turn after.
However in the FotH version you will draw the maximum number of cards that doesn't put you in immediate burn range. In other words don't go to 3 when your opponent has a red mana up. After drawing a ridiculous number of cards pay the alternate cast on FotH and draw another 7 cards. Now an awkward thing may occur, you don't find a FotH. If you are running SSGs you can use it to cast a looting to draw two more. The other thing to remember is lets say your opponent cracked a fetch and took a shock, so they are at 17. Two hits with Griselbrand plus a SSG bolt is 20.
2. Goryo's Vengeance target Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
This combo is a little tricky, most would call you a liar when you tell them that your deck reanimates Emrakul. However Emrakul is no Blightsteel Colossus, it goes into the graveyard and puts a trigger on the stack to shuffle the entire graveyard back into the deck, in response you cast Goryo and target Emrakul getting a nice 15 point, Annihilator 6 swing. However as those who have seen the clip from GP Strasbourg, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-Twz77o0p8) 15 does not equal 20. So how do we deal the last 5 points? Luckily most will deal somewhere between 2-3 to themselves so that leaves 2-3 damage for us to do. Lightning bolt fits this role perfectly the other options are simply comboing again and going on the beats plan with the old over costed bear of simian spirit guide,
3. Through the Breach put into play Griselbrand
In this case we need quite a bit more mana, which leaves us with our two ramp spells pentad prism and simian spirit guide to rushes us into the combo faster.
Once Griselbrand is in play the wincon is the same.
4. Same as 2+3
5. Cast Griselbrand
In the all out combo version or URBg version you can cast Griselbrand far ahead of the curve
T3: Griselbrand requires T2 Pentad Prism into 3xSSG. The chances of this are ridiculous so let us discuss something more reasonable
T4: T2 Pentad T3 Pentad T4 cast Griselbrand assuming you hit all your land drops.
This plan is difficult, rare, and vulnerable, but sometimes you just got to do what you got to do.
4: Match-up Analysis
Jund/Ajundi/Junk/Any other 4x deathrite shaman deck with discard and removal Deathrite Shaman, let us pause here and contemplate what this card does to us. It ramps them, steals our creatures, and steals our flashbacks on looting. These are painful and terrible effects for us, so lets just kill it with whatever we got. Izzet Charm, Lightning Bolt, and Lightning Axe all answer it. I would never contemplate a removal spell in the deck that doesn't kill this annoying little guy.
After deathrite, Jund is as usual a pile of disruption and removal which we can blank many of by playing things unkillable with bolts and unstealable with Inquisition of Kozilek. The matchup like all jund match ups is somewhere between 40/60 and 60/40
I give it in our favor, 60/40.
Twin
This is a miserable matchup in every conceivable way , they have counterspells to disrupt us, their twin targets tap Emrakul and Griselbrand making them unable to attack, and they have their own quick combo finish. The faster you are the better versus twin, they will win the long game everytime
30-70
Affinity
This is a fun matchup, they have 0 interaction game one and we are onpar with them in speed. However our clock involves gaining life and blowing up their permanents. Game 1 is a definite coinflip and game 2 and 3 are who has the greater hate contest
50/50?
RG Tron
Interesting matchup that I have not tested enough to say but in theory they have exactly three cards that matter Karn Liberated, Oblivion Stone, and Relic of Progenitus. Karn is too slow 95% of the time, O stone is slow as well, and relic can be played around with multiple reanimator spells and through the breach.
60/40
Merfolk
Demons and Spaghetti > fishes, their minor suite of disruption is not near enough to stop us from just killing them. Remember both of our spells are instants, utilize their end step, it is your friend.
70/30
Melira Pod and Kiki Pod
Another laughable match up, they do not run enough disruption and they are not fast enough to stop us from overwhelming them.
70/30
UWR Control
Their disruption is decent and you can't just pay life willy nilling vs their burn and path can be a pain vs. Griselbrand but drawing 14 vs. a control deck is pretty good. Remember here the same lesson as with Merfolk, our reanimation spells are instants so they can be done on our opponents end steps.
50/50
Scapeshift
Again follow all previous advice on counters, but remember vs scapeshift try to stay above 18 and remember how scapeshift works.
55/45
Living End
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, I like our opponents giving us free Griselbrand. Their disruption is not enough. We are faster. We are bigger. We are stronger.
80/20
5. Tournament Results
Top 16 Grand Prix Kansas City: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpkc13/welcome
Infi number of 3-1s and 4-0s by Kahayel http://www.mtgo-stats.com/decks/player/Kahleya
6. Other Resources
Gerry Tompson's take on the deck: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/24524_Modern-Reanimator.html
Twitch Archive of Kahleya: http://www.twitch.tv/stealthpants
No discussion of Hero of Bladehold is painful. The card is ridiculously powerful and closes out a game insanely fast particularly in combination with lingering souls
Blood Seeker, I remember playing against this innocuous little guy back during the previous standard. Has anyone considered him having a role in the Bx Zombie decks particularly Br. I see him as a delayed bolt possibly more in certain matchups. I think he has the potential to get in more damage than Highborn Ghoul particularly with cards like Blade Splicer being such a force in the meta.
I guess I am not that excited about Thargtusk because I am already playing two main deck Huntmaster of the Fells and he has been an all-star especially with my two of vault of the archangel.
With Ground Seal, Tormod's Crypt, and even Mark of Mutiny is the traditional frites plan still viable?
It seems all of the hate being printed at many different angles makes it harder and harder to reanimate and keep the threat.
I run straight up four Craterhoofs. I have never reanimate or hard cast it and lost the game. The math behind it is really just insane. My friend was at 2 life turn four against Boros humans who was tapped out with all his creatures tapped. All my friend had was 4 land, 2 lingering souls tokens, and an avacyn's pilgrim on the field. He reanimates craterhoof behemothand wins.
Craterhoof is good in almost every match:
UW Control: Haste creature against their primarily sorcery speed removal
UB Control: Haste beater that if you do manage to have a board generally is game over
Aggro Decks: Allows you to have a combo like plan where you can simply steal games.
I honestly can't think of a match up where Craterhoof isn't as good as Elesh-Norn or better.
I've been liking Supreme Inquisitor as the meanest win con ever.
I like the artifact based ideas that having been popping up. I think things like Akroma's Memorial may be too expensive to tap out for safely.
Is there any creature or thing that has "Tap add X to your mana pool where X is the number of cards in your hand?"
CoCo has been a bye, so I didn't mind losing Pyroclasm there and vs affinity, I may need it, but I am looking for another option because I would rather not stretch the mana that much. I did not play against much affinity lately, and I expect it to be on the downswing after crushing the GP but it may be the opposite predicting people is hard.
As of now I added a one of Maelstrom Pulse over the capsule/bomb and a Nihil Spellbomb.
I brought Lilly in vs Twin, Grixis of all flavors, Tron of all flavors, boggles, anything control.
I found getting to four wasn't difficult. Plan A was bridge and tezzeret was just the follow up to it. I never felt rushed to get into to play.
Also I am testing a Druidic Satchel right now in a list that just swaps my Trinket Mages for Infernal Tutors, and have been fairly impressed, the ability to continue to play land in a low resource late game scenario is nice, as well as getting out of bolt range.
2 Spellskite
3 Trinket Mage
4 Ancient Stirrings
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Darksteel Citadel
4 Codex Shredder
4 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Executioner's Capsule
4 Ghoulcaller's Bell
1 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Lantern of Insight
3 Mox Opal
1 Pithing Needle
2 Academy Ruins
3 Darkslick Shores
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Glimmervoid
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Nephalia Drownyard
1 Temple of Malady
1 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Spellskite
1 Pithing Needle
2 Duress
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Memoricide
3 Nature's Claim
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 Unravel the Aether
I don't remember what I beat but I lost to nut draw vengeance and GR tron Karn, Liberated turn 3 two games in a row. I don't think this deck has the tools to beat the later, but the former I have made some massive improvements for since the event. However I wanted to post to explain my card choices
I started with the GP list and made some massive changes here are the major ones:
+2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. I wanted the ability to end games quickly without playing a card just as a win-con Tezzeret assembles locks quicker and creates blockers while we wait to find bridge. While also providing the ability to kill people in two turns.
+3 Trinket Mage, Find lock pieces quicker as well as the narrow hate cards like Grafdigger's Cage as well as being a blocker to help agaisnt aggro decks
+1 Grafdigger's Cage see above, does amazing work vs snap decks, Goryo decks, and Coco decks. Easily won me half my grixis games.
+1 Aether Spellbomb + +1 Executioner's Capsule, Trinket targets for interaction, both were awful and have been cut. HIGHLY RECOMMEND AGAINST
+2 Thoughtseize over Duress, I like having the versatility even at the cost of life.
-2 Surgical Extraction, I hate maindecking this card, it is obviously amazing when it works, but too often does nothing.
-3 Gitaxian Probe, Not a fan of cycle peek at the cost of life often. I just don't see why we are interested in this. I would rather have more discard or more land. I added one land because I cut all three probes.
-2 Pyrite Spellbomb this is actually the most baffling to me. I have no clue why we would be on the four color plan. Pyroclasm does not help us that much against affinity, which is the only match up I think it shines in for us. In my experience we crush Coco decks into the ground, and Pyrite Spellbomb is beyond slow and do-nothingey
I made massive mana changes going from GBur to BUG. Overall i have been happy with the Urborg and the Nephalia.
Boardwise, burn is unwinnable quit pretending it isn't -4 Sun Droplet
Affinity is rough and I need a solution for it, Hurkyl's Recall is not the solution. Their ability to circumvent bridge with Arcbound Ravenger and Cranial Plating with 0/X's is annoying as hell. I would not run Hukyl's Recall going forward.
Liliana's were early game threats and pressure vs control decks and functioned wonderfully, highly recommend.
That is the gist of my experience, I am testing a lot for the Festival on Sunday, and am trying cards like Infernal Tutor.
WHERE: /join SilverBlack
WHEN: Games start at 3:00pm EST (20:00 UTC). You can pre-reg any time before at Gatherling.com. If you need help pm me or ask someone the day of the event before the event begins. You must be present at 3:00pm EST otherwise you will be dropped from the event. Also, you must have entered your decklist to receive a Round 1 pairing. Failure to enter a decklist will result in your being dropped from the event.
Hello some of you may know me from when I hosted legacy silverblack or from me playing in Standard silverblack, Modern SB, Legacy SB, and Heirloom events. I personally greatly miss modern silerblack events and still having the ability to host events on silverblack I figured I would use that to start a free tournament series. However I also want to try an experiment with ban lists and format development. We will begin the season with only skullclamp on the ban list. Yes, I do realize that leaves a lot of really powerful cards, but every season the ban list will be updated and refined (5 weeks). The updates will be primarily a judgement call on my part but I will most certianly listen to any input or thoughts. Because I have been unable to get in contact with Naibock about sponsorship for now it will be unsponsored because of that there is no prize support outside of me actually giving occasional goodies out. However, if anyone wishes to donate, I can make it such that there will be prizes either event or season based.
Rules:
Decks must be at least 60 cards with an optional 15 card sideboard. All commons and uncommons from 8th Edition / Mirrodin forward are legal with the exception of those on the ban list, note this is a unique banlist not the modern one. If your deck contains illegal cards in the first round you will receive a match loss and be allowed to replace the illegal cards with basic lands for the following rounds. If illegal cards are found to be in your deck in the following rounds you may be dropped or allowed to continue per the host's discretion. Gatherling validates decks so make sure it doesn't show any errors after you enter your deck and you should be good to go.
The following cards are banned:
- Skullclamp
All Timeshifted cards are not legal because no common/uncommon printing exists in a modern legal set except for Dragon Whelp.
Cost and Prizes:
This is a free to enter tournament.
Prizes consist of nothing for now sadly
I will however do my best to provide door prizes and an end of the season prize (5 events).
Event Details
Event will be three-four rounds of swiss.
Matches are set to Legacy (due to banlist differences), best 2/3, and should be labeled SilverBlack Round X.
They should also be set to 30 minutes per player per match and watchable.
All matches should take place in the Casual Play > Anything Goes room.
If a player doesn't join and start the match within 10 minutes of the pairing announcement, the player is awarded a match loss. The player failing to join their match will also be dropped from the tournament unless they contact the host stating intentions to continue.
Intentional draws are not allowed.
The deck you start the tournament with is the deck you play the whole tournament with. No editing your deck between rounds.
All results and drops should be reported to your player control panel in gatherling.
Season Points
Season points are awarded as follows:
1 Points for participating (requires decklist be posted and at least 1 round played)
3 Points for each match win
1 Point for each match loss
If you have any questions just ask. Otherwise get your decks ready, grab some friends, and show up!
Depending on interest this could start as soon as two weeks from now the 24th of February
3 player multiplayer game
Player A casts 3 of player B's creatures with Havengul Lich
Player A stole 1 of player C's creatures with blatant thievery
Player A dies
What happens to Player B and C's creatures?
I will be putting up videos of a couple dailies after Christmas with an all-in version and may test some other versions.
The true spawn of the deck came from the printing of Griselbrand which lead to discussions in legacy for months if the format could withstand the printing of yawgmoth's bargain on a 7/7 flying lifelink body. In modern though it has not cause near is many waves, however it does have it's home in the Goryo/Breach combo deck. The basic premise of the deck is to discard Griselbrand or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn then reanimate either of them (shuffle trigger on the stack for Emrakul with Goryo's Vengeance. After that the decks begin to diverge into a couple different camps with varying degrees of comboing to controlling. If all out combo is the goal it is one of the few decks in modern that can kill on t1 or t2, with t3-t4 being the reliable ones.
[2] Card Choices, and builds:
The core of the deck is:
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Faithless Looting
Bare minimum the core takes up around 40 cards.
There are three primary and distinct versions of the deck BR Traditional, BRUg reanimator, and BR All-in.
Let's begin with the Traditional BR version by Kahleya
4 Blood Crypt
4 Marsh Flats
4 Mountain
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
5 Swamp
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
4 Faithless Looting
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Lightning Axe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Night's Whisper
2 Pentad Prism
4 Thoughtseize
4 Through the Breach
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Slagstorm
2 Slaughter Games
Kahyela, or Stealthpants on Twith, has by far the most experience of any person I know with the deck so his version should be considered a go to. He very actively steers clear of the two cards that define the all-in list, Simian Spirit Guide and Fury of the Hordes. He lists his reasons for both.
For not running SSG he states:
Simian Spirit Guide can interact with your opponent in 3 ways. It can speed you up a turn (great) be a 2/2 for 3 (terrible) or be a dead card in your hand instead of a Lightning Bolt. (bad) This card is not helpful 2/3 of the time.
For not running FotH:
FotH is a "win more" card. If you attack with an 8 mana mythic on turn 2 or Emrakul on turn 3, you don't need another card to make that better. FotH in your opening hand is basically a 6 card hand. If you draw it early it sits in your hand not being a Lightning Bolt. If you're attacking with Griselbrand and they have Path to Exile, you're in even worse shape than you would otherwise be because the card is dead again.
His list and version provides the most consistent and resilient version able to withstand disruption and interaction game 1. However it will be much slower than a more all-in version.
All-in Version:
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Faithless Looting
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Thoughtseize
3 Fury of the Horde
4 Pentad Prism
3 Lightning Axe
4 Night's Whisper
3 Graven Cairns
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Blood Crypt
4 Marsh Flats
1 Swamp
2 Mountain
This is my current version with a very experimental sideboard. The main deck is basically the opposite of Kahyela's. I'd argue that ssg is essential to getting under the interaction and disruption of the opponents, and FotH allows us to reanimate and end the game outright. Sideboard differences are meta calls
Third version, BRUg
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Gemstone Mine
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Darkslick Shores
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Faithless Looting
3 Thoughtseize
4 Izzet Charm
1 See Beyond
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Pentad Prism
4 Through the Breach
4 Fury of the Horde
1 Thoughtseize
3 Pyroclasm
3 Torpor Orb
2 Negate
2 Duress
Todd Anderson piloted this list to a top 16 finish at GP Kansas City. By playing blue and splashing green out of the board the deck gained a lot of options at the cost of mana consistency and blood moon out of the board. However you gain a second careful study effect in izzet charm which also has two other very relevant and useful modes and a single see beyond which for the life of me I can't quite figure out, I suppose sometimes you just have to draw 2. Green out of the board is huge though, the previous two versions have no answers to enchantment based graveyard removal *cough* rest in peace *cough* While the deck can still win through the Through the Breach, decks that tend to play Rest in peace also tend to be aggressive enough to be scary, D+T and Boggles in particular.
4. How to Play the deck:
Let's divide this into the four types of combos and a fifth not so combo-like finish:
1. Goryo's Vengeance target Griselbrand
In the non-FotH version you will generally draw 7-14 cards depending on how the hand looks after 7. The goal is to assemble another go off the turn after.
However in the FotH version you will draw the maximum number of cards that doesn't put you in immediate burn range. In other words don't go to 3 when your opponent has a red mana up. After drawing a ridiculous number of cards pay the alternate cast on FotH and draw another 7 cards. Now an awkward thing may occur, you don't find a FotH. If you are running SSGs you can use it to cast a looting to draw two more. The other thing to remember is lets say your opponent cracked a fetch and took a shock, so they are at 17. Two hits with Griselbrand plus a SSG bolt is 20.
2. Goryo's Vengeance target Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
This combo is a little tricky, most would call you a liar when you tell them that your deck reanimates Emrakul. However Emrakul is no Blightsteel Colossus, it goes into the graveyard and puts a trigger on the stack to shuffle the entire graveyard back into the deck, in response you cast Goryo and target Emrakul getting a nice 15 point, Annihilator 6 swing. However as those who have seen the clip from GP Strasbourg, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-Twz77o0p8) 15 does not equal 20. So how do we deal the last 5 points? Luckily most will deal somewhere between 2-3 to themselves so that leaves 2-3 damage for us to do. Lightning bolt fits this role perfectly the other options are simply comboing again and going on the beats plan with the old over costed bear of simian spirit guide,
3. Through the Breach put into play Griselbrand
In this case we need quite a bit more mana, which leaves us with our two ramp spells pentad prism and simian spirit guide to rushes us into the combo faster.
Once Griselbrand is in play the wincon is the same.
4. Same as 2+3
5. Cast Griselbrand
In the all out combo version or URBg version you can cast Griselbrand far ahead of the curve
T3: Griselbrand requires T2 Pentad Prism into 3xSSG. The chances of this are ridiculous so let us discuss something more reasonable
T4: T2 Pentad T3 Pentad T4 cast Griselbrand assuming you hit all your land drops.
This plan is difficult, rare, and vulnerable, but sometimes you just got to do what you got to do.
4: Match-up Analysis
Jund/Ajundi/Junk/Any other 4x deathrite shaman deck with discard and removal
Deathrite Shaman, let us pause here and contemplate what this card does to us. It ramps them, steals our creatures, and steals our flashbacks on looting. These are painful and terrible effects for us, so lets just kill it with whatever we got. Izzet Charm, Lightning Bolt, and Lightning Axe all answer it. I would never contemplate a removal spell in the deck that doesn't kill this annoying little guy.
After deathrite, Jund is as usual a pile of disruption and removal which we can blank many of by playing things unkillable with bolts and unstealable with Inquisition of Kozilek. The matchup like all jund match ups is somewhere between 40/60 and 60/40
I give it in our favor, 60/40.
Twin
This is a miserable matchup in every conceivable way , they have counterspells to disrupt us, their twin targets tap Emrakul and Griselbrand making them unable to attack, and they have their own quick combo finish. The faster you are the better versus twin, they will win the long game everytime
30-70
Affinity
This is a fun matchup, they have 0 interaction game one and we are onpar with them in speed. However our clock involves gaining life and blowing up their permanents. Game 1 is a definite coinflip and game 2 and 3 are who has the greater hate contest
50/50?
RG Tron
Interesting matchup that I have not tested enough to say but in theory they have exactly three cards that matter Karn Liberated, Oblivion Stone, and Relic of Progenitus. Karn is too slow 95% of the time, O stone is slow as well, and relic can be played around with multiple reanimator spells and through the breach.
60/40
Merfolk
Demons and Spaghetti > fishes, their minor suite of disruption is not near enough to stop us from just killing them. Remember both of our spells are instants, utilize their end step, it is your friend.
70/30
Melira Pod and Kiki Pod
Another laughable match up, they do not run enough disruption and they are not fast enough to stop us from overwhelming them.
70/30
UWR Control
Their disruption is decent and you can't just pay life willy nilling vs their burn and path can be a pain vs. Griselbrand but drawing 14 vs. a control deck is pretty good. Remember here the same lesson as with Merfolk, our reanimation spells are instants so they can be done on our opponents end steps.
50/50
Scapeshift
Again follow all previous advice on counters, but remember vs scapeshift try to stay above 18 and remember how scapeshift works.
55/45
Living End
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL, I like our opponents giving us free Griselbrand. Their disruption is not enough. We are faster. We are bigger. We are stronger.
80/20
5. Tournament Results
Top 16 Grand Prix Kansas City: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpkc13/welcome
Infi number of 3-1s and 4-0s by Kahayel
http://www.mtgo-stats.com/decks/player/Kahleya
6. Other Resources
Gerry Tompson's take on the deck: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/24524_Modern-Reanimator.html
Twitch Archive of Kahleya: http://www.twitch.tv/stealthpants
It seems all of the hate being printed at many different angles makes it harder and harder to reanimate and keep the threat.
Craterhoof is good in almost every match:
UW Control: Haste creature against their primarily sorcery speed removal
UB Control: Haste beater that if you do manage to have a board generally is game over
Aggro Decks: Allows you to have a combo like plan where you can simply steal games.
I honestly can't think of a match up where Craterhoof isn't as good as Elesh-Norn or better.
I like the artifact based ideas that having been popping up. I think things like Akroma's Memorial may be too expensive to tap out for safely.
Is there any creature or thing that has "Tap add X to your mana pool where X is the number of cards in your hand?"