The second coming of Entomb! I've never liked Buried Alive, but I'm pretty stoked for this. Entomb is the most important card for a reanimator deck IMO because it turns the reanimator combo from a 3 card combo (discard outlet / creature payoff / reanimation spell) to a two card combo. If you're looking for additional reanimator support, this should be an easy slam dunk. Also like Entomb and unlike Buried Alive, this hits any card type, so this also plays well with things like Life from the Loam / Snapcaster Mage.
I’d be pretty happy with any 2 of:
Extra mana
Nonlegendary
Sorcery
All 3 together is kind of rough, though if you support reanimator I think you are still kind of obligated to play this.
As a supplementary card, this is way closer to Entomb than other supplemental cards are to their primary version (Oath of Druids / Selvala's Stampede, Sneak Attack / Through the Breach / etc).
- 2 mana and sorcery speed isn't a big deal. 2 mana is still really cheap and Demonic Tutor does fine as a 1B sorcery.
- Not hitting legendary creatures definitely is a big deal since it misses two top tier targets: Griselbrand and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. That being said, the only other real misses are Dragonlord Atarka / Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and Emrakul the Promised End, so this is far from a dealbreaker.
This card is making me think about how much worse Entomb could be and still be cubeable. I can swallow the extra mana cost and the sorcery speed, but the nonlegendary clause is the nail in the coffin for me. A lot of the best reanimation targets in the cube are legendary, and not being able to hit them makes this card so much less desirable than Entomb. Entomb itself is already a fairly narrow card, and Unmarked Grave only fits in an even smaller subset of decks.
The non legendary clause is just massive for my list. You still get the titans, craterhoof, and Sundering but missing on the Eldrazi and especially griselbrand is huge. Our most successful reanimator decks are shallow grave style decks and this is so much worse in that style of deck. I think it misses but if our target mix goes away from Eldrazi it probably will make it's way into contention.
This card is making me think about how much worse Entomb could be and still be cubeable. I can swallow the extra mana cost and the sorcery speed, but the nonlegendary clause is the nail in the coffin for me. A lot of the best reanimation targets in the cube are legendary, and not being able to hit them makes this card so much less desirable than Entomb. Entomb itself is already a fairly narrow card, and Unmarked Grave only fits in an even smaller subset of decks.
I've played Entomb in decks with Bloodghast and Life from the Loam where i turn 1 Entomb, turn 2 ghast/ dread. I have my reservations about this card too. I don't think I need another entomb variant for my reanimator decks.
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Not be able to grab the big legendary boys is unfortunate, but it can grab other cards that haven't been mentioned in this thread like Hornet Queen, Woodfall Primus, Consecrated Sphinx, and that C21 Artifact dude who's name escapes me.
I've played Entomb in decks with Bloodghast and Life from the Loam where i turn 1 Entomb, turn 2 ghast/ dread. I have my reservations about this card too. I don't think I need another entomb variant for my reanimator decks.
You may not want another entomb variant for your decks, but unless you're drafting the whole cube every time, I think it's worth having redundant effects in the cube so there's a better chance you see one in a draft.
I think I might try this over Oona's Prowler. Prowler is still a good aggressive threat but it's primary inclusionw as always discard outlet support for reanimator.
Missing legends is too steep a drawback I think. Makes it only work in a subset of reanimator decks.
If it didn’t have that drawback I’d snap include it.
Man I honestly hate this card it feels so watered down, but Entomb is legitimately broken so honestly this might still be really good in reanimateor decks. Cut would probably be Oona's Prowler for us, just a bummer that this misses (imo) by far the two best fatties in cube in Griselbrand and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.
Could be a Sneak Attack vs Through the Breach situation where the prior is literally a hundred times better than the latter, but its so broken regardless that the "bad" version is still really goddamn good. Card is at least worth the test I think
Most of the spell synergies are still there for this card too, like this is still searchable off of Spellseeker and Mystical Tutor and can be both doubled up out of nowhere with a flipped Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and can still be flashbacked on curve with a Snapcaster Mage on turn 4 to set up a big Living Death on turn 5, however this can notably not be copied on curve and not on turn 4 eot with a Lutri, the Spellchaser which is super rough.
It gets about half of the usual suspect reanimator targets, so it's probably worth at least a test. Pretty much none of the common inclusions in green for the archetype are viable targets.
It gets about half of the usual suspect reanimator targets, so it's probably worth at least a test. Pretty much none of the common inclusions in green for the archetype are viable targets.
Unless I'm missing something doesn't this hit all of the common green fatties?
The non-legendary clause eliminates too many critical reanimator targets (listed below) in my cube for this to be viable. Without that clause, I would absolutely play this and Oona's Prowler would probably be my cut as well.
The part that's frustrating right now is what I refer to as the Goryo's Vengeance <-> Unmarked Grave - They both feel too narrow because they're missing half of the creature requirements.
I would love to cube with Goryo's Vengeance to provide redundancy for the Instant speed reanimation, but not being able to hit stuff like Primeval Titan, Inferno Titan, Grave Titan, Archon of Cruelty is problematic.
I would love to cube Unmarked grave, but its missing Elesh Norn/ Griselbrand might be too much of a drawback.
I've cube entomb in decks with Echo of Eons, bloodghast and Life from the loam. Not being able to loam/ return bloodghast on turn 2 is the most problematic part for me.
If this was 1 CMC, I prob would be happily playing this.
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The part that's frustrating right now is what I refer to as the Goryo's Vengeance <-> Unmarked Grave - They both feel too narrow because they're missing half of the creature requirements.
Unmarked Grave is NOWHERE near as narrow as Goryo's Vengeance. It is much, much closer to being as narrow as Entomb than it is Goryo's Vengeance:
- There are much more non-legendary fatties than legendary ones
- Unmarked Grave is a tutor and isn't just restricted to targeting what's in your graveyard
Unmarked Grave has been doing well for me in my list. Entomb is generally the most important card in a reanimator list, and this is playing out pretty much exactly how I expected it to: a strong supplement role player for a specific archetype. I always wanted a second Entomb variant, and this fit the bill quite nicely for me, especially since Archon of Cruelty was printed in the same set.
The part that's frustrating right now is what I refer to as the Goryo's Vengeance <-> Unmarked Grave - They both feel too narrow because they're missing half of the creature requirements.
Unmarked Grave is NOWHERE near as narrow as Goryo's Vengeance. It is much, much closer to being as narrow as Entomb than it is Goryo's Vengeance:
- There are much more non-legendary fatties than legendary ones
- Unmarked Grave is a tutor and isn't just restricted to targeting what's in your graveyard
Unmarked Grave has been doing well for me in my list. Entomb is generally the most important card in a reanimator list, and this is playing out pretty much exactly how I expected it to: a strong supplement role player for a specific archetype. I always wanted a second Entomb variant, and this fit the bill quite nicely for me, especially since Archon of Cruelty was printed in the same set.
I agree with this.
Also the legendary part of Goryo’s is not the entire problem. It’s the combination of legendary plus Shallow Grave effect. Shallow Grave already gives you a more narrow subset of creatures to hit, and adding legendary makes it way too restrictive. For example, you can’t do much with Shallow Grave’ing an Iona.
I've been playing with Unmarked Grave ever since it was released and think it's been extremely misunderstood / underrated. IMO it's the best support card that reanimator has gotten since actual Entomb.
- People's initial reaction to only getting non-legendary creatures is massively overblown. That's like complaining about Tinker / Natural Order only hitting artifact / green creatures respectively, or Channel (generally) only working for colorless creatures. There was too much focus on what it doesn't hit and not what it actually CAN hit. Generally when I cast Entomb, I'm going for two things: the silver bullet to my opponent's strategy (most options which are non-legendary), or just default to Archon of Cruelty, which is generally the safest super fattie to go to since its floor is so damn good.
- I don't get the complaints about this being two mana seeing how this can still set up a turn 3 play. Again, Tinker / Natural Order are usually turn 3 plays at the earliest (barring Moxen), and nobody complains about those being too slow / expensive. Demonic Tutor is a 1B sorcery and nobody ever complains about that. I'm not saying this is Demonic Tutor, but Entomb is the #1 card I'm tutoring for in a reanimator deck, and this just cuts out the middleman.
- I'd much rather have this in my reanimator deck over any discard outlet as long as I have at least 2 hits that I can tutor for. Putrid Imp / Oona's Prowler / etc are so much worse in non Recurring Nightmare shells because it's so much more reliable to tutor for something than discard it from your hand.
Oona's Prowlers Flying + Power has been absolutely insane.
I find slots are so tight these days that I opted for Bone Shards as its good removal for tempo decks (Cruise/ Young/ Land Tax etc.) that can afford to discard the card, Aristocrats style decks and definitely reanimator.
Tainted Indulgence is honestly just borderline, playable in just Storm/ Reanimator really ...
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Oona's Prowlers Flying + Power has been absolutely insane.
Insane is not a word I'd use to describe Oona's Prowler (or any discard outlet on a creature). It's a fine card, but it's not consistently get turn 3 Archon of Cruelty insane. In terms of reanimation support spells, Unmarked Grave >>> commonly cubed things like Oona's Prowler / Collective Brutality, IMO. Entomb effects >>> discard outlets in reanimator due to it turning what's usually an A + B + C combo into an A + B combo.
Oath / Reanimator hybrids are also a lot easier to pull off now. I used to always say that it was the most difficult deck to build in my cube because a lot of discard outlets were creatures that didn't play well with Oath of Druids, but things like Unmarked Grave / Occult Epiphany / Cathartic Pyre / etc have made it much more do-able.
Here's a recent 3-0 Flash Oath Reanimator Cheaty Face Combo deck I played last week. The reanimator package would've been extremely questionable without Unmarked Grave.
Tainted Indulgence is honestly just borderline, playable in just Storm/ Reanimator really ...
I've always wanted an instant speed Strategic Planning / Ransack the Lab, but this is just better in terms of binning specific cards. I've recently doubled down on delve and other similar critical mass graveyard stuff and it's massively over performed my initial expectations. Control really values the instant speed, card filtering, and fueling the graveyard for things like Treasure Cruise / Murktide Regent. Things like Tainted Indulgence / Faithful Mending help a lot in fueling this push. Reanimator / graveyard critical mass has been thriving a lot in my cube and one of my players recently said this in our Online Cube Drafts Discord server:
The second coming of Entomb! I've never liked Buried Alive, but I'm pretty stoked for this. Entomb is the most important card for a reanimator deck IMO because it turns the reanimator combo from a 3 card combo (discard outlet / creature payoff / reanimation spell) to a two card combo. If you're looking for additional reanimator support, this should be an easy slam dunk. Also like Entomb and unlike Buried Alive, this hits any card type, so this also plays well with things like Life from the Loam / Snapcaster Mage.
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Extra mana
Nonlegendary
Sorcery
All 3 together is kind of rough, though if you support reanimator I think you are still kind of obligated to play this.
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As a supplementary card, this is way closer to Entomb than other supplemental cards are to their primary version (Oath of Druids / Selvala's Stampede, Sneak Attack / Through the Breach / etc).
- 2 mana and sorcery speed isn't a big deal. 2 mana is still really cheap and Demonic Tutor does fine as a 1B sorcery.
- Not hitting legendary creatures definitely is a big deal since it misses two top tier targets: Griselbrand and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. That being said, the only other real misses are Dragonlord Atarka / Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and Emrakul the Promised End, so this is far from a dealbreaker.
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I've played Entomb in decks with Bloodghast and Life from the Loam where i turn 1 Entomb, turn 2 ghast/ dread. I have my reservations about this card too. I don't think I need another entomb variant for my reanimator decks.
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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
You may not want another entomb variant for your decks, but unless you're drafting the whole cube every time, I think it's worth having redundant effects in the cube so there's a better chance you see one in a draft.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
I am a bit worried that this will make reanimator too consistent at my power level but will have to test to see. My priary reanimator targets outside of griselbrand and emrakul, the promised end are sundering titan, triplicate titan, woodfall primus, and myr battlesphere so the legendary clause isn't too detrimental for targets within my cube.
If it didn’t have that drawback I’d snap include it.
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Could be a Sneak Attack vs Through the Breach situation where the prior is literally a hundred times better than the latter, but its so broken regardless that the "bad" version is still really goddamn good. Card is at least worth the test I think
Most of the spell synergies are still there for this card too, like this is still searchable off of Spellseeker and Mystical Tutor and can be both doubled up out of nowhere with a flipped Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and can still be flashbacked on curve with a Snapcaster Mage on turn 4 to set up a big Living Death on turn 5, however this can notably not be copied on curve and not on turn 4 eot with a Lutri, the Spellchaser which is super rough.
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Unless I'm missing something doesn't this hit all of the common green fatties?
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Emrakul, the Promised End, Dragonlord Atarka, Griselbrand, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.
I would love to cube with Goryo's Vengeance to provide redundancy for the Instant speed reanimation, but not being able to hit stuff like Primeval Titan, Inferno Titan, Grave Titan, Archon of Cruelty is problematic.
I would love to cube Unmarked grave, but its missing Elesh Norn/ Griselbrand might be too much of a drawback.
I've cube entomb in decks with Echo of Eons, bloodghast and Life from the loam. Not being able to loam/ return bloodghast on turn 2 is the most problematic part for me.
If this was 1 CMC, I prob would be happily playing this.
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
Unmarked Grave is NOWHERE near as narrow as Goryo's Vengeance. It is much, much closer to being as narrow as Entomb than it is Goryo's Vengeance:
- There are much more non-legendary fatties than legendary ones
- Unmarked Grave is a tutor and isn't just restricted to targeting what's in your graveyard
Unmarked Grave has been doing well for me in my list. Entomb is generally the most important card in a reanimator list, and this is playing out pretty much exactly how I expected it to: a strong supplement role player for a specific archetype. I always wanted a second Entomb variant, and this fit the bill quite nicely for me, especially since Archon of Cruelty was printed in the same set.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
I agree with this.
Also the legendary part of Goryo’s is not the entire problem. It’s the combination of legendary plus Shallow Grave effect. Shallow Grave already gives you a more narrow subset of creatures to hit, and adding legendary makes it way too restrictive. For example, you can’t do much with Shallow Grave’ing an Iona.
- People's initial reaction to only getting non-legendary creatures is massively overblown. That's like complaining about Tinker / Natural Order only hitting artifact / green creatures respectively, or Channel (generally) only working for colorless creatures. There was too much focus on what it doesn't hit and not what it actually CAN hit. Generally when I cast Entomb, I'm going for two things: the silver bullet to my opponent's strategy (most options which are non-legendary), or just default to Archon of Cruelty, which is generally the safest super fattie to go to since its floor is so damn good.
- I don't get the complaints about this being two mana seeing how this can still set up a turn 3 play. Again, Tinker / Natural Order are usually turn 3 plays at the earliest (barring Moxen), and nobody complains about those being too slow / expensive. Demonic Tutor is a 1B sorcery and nobody ever complains about that. I'm not saying this is Demonic Tutor, but Entomb is the #1 card I'm tutoring for in a reanimator deck, and this just cuts out the middleman.
- I'd much rather have this in my reanimator deck over any discard outlet as long as I have at least 2 hits that I can tutor for. Putrid Imp / Oona's Prowler / etc are so much worse in non Recurring Nightmare shells because it's so much more reliable to tutor for something than discard it from your hand.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
I find slots are so tight these days that I opted for Bone Shards as its good removal for tempo decks (Cruise/ Young/ Land Tax etc.) that can afford to discard the card, Aristocrats style decks and definitely reanimator.
Tainted Indulgence is honestly just borderline, playable in just Storm/ Reanimator really ...
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
Insane is not a word I'd use to describe Oona's Prowler (or any discard outlet on a creature). It's a fine card, but it's not consistently get turn 3 Archon of Cruelty insane. In terms of reanimation support spells, Unmarked Grave >>> commonly cubed things like Oona's Prowler / Collective Brutality, IMO. Entomb effects >>> discard outlets in reanimator due to it turning what's usually an A + B + C combo into an A + B combo.
Oath / Reanimator hybrids are also a lot easier to pull off now. I used to always say that it was the most difficult deck to build in my cube because a lot of discard outlets were creatures that didn't play well with Oath of Druids, but things like Unmarked Grave / Occult Epiphany / Cathartic Pyre / etc have made it much more do-able.
Here's a recent 3-0 Flash Oath Reanimator Cheaty Face Combo deck I played last week. The reanimator package would've been extremely questionable without Unmarked Grave.
I've always wanted an instant speed Strategic Planning / Ransack the Lab, but this is just better in terms of binning specific cards. I've recently doubled down on delve and other similar critical mass graveyard stuff and it's massively over performed my initial expectations. Control really values the instant speed, card filtering, and fueling the graveyard for things like Treasure Cruise / Murktide Regent. Things like Tainted Indulgence / Faithful Mending help a lot in fueling this push. Reanimator / graveyard critical mass has been thriving a lot in my cube and one of my players recently said this in our Online Cube Drafts Discord server:
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
I didn’t like them as much as steve_man did , but I strongly agree that they are good cards that aren’t receiving enough attention.
They’re more narrow than the default reanimation support that most lists run, but not by a large amount.
Less narrow than shallow grave for example.
If you have archon of cruelty as a payoff, they become ~tier 1 reanimation spells.
It’s generally not hard to get a variety of non-legendary payoffs. If > half your reanimation suite is non-legendary, that’s generally good enough.
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