I'm confused about the lack of Strangleroot Geist. Isn't he a brick house in this archetype?
The first issue is the double GG. Next there are so many other two drops that are options in this deck. Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and Sakura-Tribe Elder. The last issue is that Kitchen Finks is a better choice with his life gain of 4 overall. Helping you recover from Fetch Lands and Shock Lands better.
I've been trying to explain to people for 4 months now that she isn't really that great of a fit for the deck. I usually run 3-4 Garruk and 1-2 Lilliana Vess. I think people get confused as to how good Vess is in the deck. If you Cloud with Vess on the board you are going to win. I have never in over 500 games lost when I had this happen. Seriously the only thing they can do is play lands if you Cloud right. Then it's +1 till Ultimate. Not that it needs to go that long. Most of the time a Village just beats them to death.
I'm glad that another player is enjoying a deck that I have enjoyed for years.
I haven't tried Vess. I should. Turn 3 Wildspeaker, Turn 4 Vess, turn 5 Cloud...
Garruk over Lilliana. All the way. Hes a win condition mixed with Deathcould. First effect so I can super Death Cloud everything then next turn start making 3/3s for the win. Doesn't get much better than that. Most of the time I cast Lilliana is when I need a creature sacked off my opponents field leaving here at 1 point. There are times I just wish she was a Go for the Throat.
I will do a better list of match ups next time. And Eternal Witness was ok, but I was never really excited to see her in a draw and when I did draw her I would normally just get back a Inquisition of Kozilek or Duress. As for Grim Backwoods, I had a good time with this card. I didn't use it's effect every game, but I did use it quite a few times to sac a targeted creature, a Kitchen Finks or a chump blocker. The draws helped everytime I used the card. I think its got a permanent on of spot in my Rock.
This is a deck I ran a few weeks ago for my FNMs First Modern format. Taking first out of 28 players. I using Antonino De Rosa's Rock as a basis. I don't have Thoughtseize's or Damnation's so I played around using them.
I ended the day I went Undefeated. Four rounds swiss, 3 sweeps, one 2-1 to a Smallpox deck. Top 8 all sweeps except a 2-1 to Jund Deck that used Faithless Looting, unearth creatures, and Chandra's Phoenix's.
The only side boarding I had to do most of the night was 2-3 Black Sun's Zenith for Creature based Aggro decks.
Ok so I was going threw a friends cards that he hasn't touched since Pokemon was cool. And going threw it I found a couple cards that I thought where from Beta, but after looking closely at them I seen the Illus. Copyright was wrong.
The cards have Black boarders, no symbols and the same Copyright Print style as 4th and 5th edition and a copy wright date of 1994.
I looked around and I can't find what set these would have been from. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Hey Guys, I'm new to this forum, but not new to Magic. I played magic for a few years. I quit right before I joined the Army and almost 6 years later I'm getting out and starting again. Wish me Luck.
[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
(RIP)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, 70/30
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
This match up is in your favor. Our opponents can give us our Griselbrand for Free. Watch out because they often pack graveyard hate in there main board in the form of Jund Charm and Faerie Macabre.
70/30
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
The first issue is the double GG. Next there are so many other two drops that are options in this deck. Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and Sakura-Tribe Elder. The last issue is that Kitchen Finks is a better choice with his life gain of 4 overall. Helping you recover from Fetch Lands and Shock Lands better.
Oh and I seen quite a few guy here talk about Rock Loam and I found this the other day and I wanted to share. There are quite a few Rock Loams in there.
http://wrongwaygoback.com/wrongwaygoback/2012/02/09/modern-rock-loam-deathcloud-harvest/
I haven't tried Vess. I should. Turn 3 Wildspeaker, Turn 4 Vess, turn 5 Cloud...
2x Eternal Witness
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Kitchen Finks
1x Golgari Rot Farm
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Twilight Mire
3x Treetop Village
1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Woodland Cemetery
4x Swamp
3x Forest
1x Grim Backwoods
2x Liliana of the Veil
3x Death Cloud
3x Putrefy
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Duress
2x Despise
2x Doom Blade
I ended the day I went Undefeated. Four rounds swiss, 3 sweeps, one 2-1 to a Smallpox deck. Top 8 all sweeps except a 2-1 to Jund Deck that used Faithless Looting, unearth creatures, and Chandra's Phoenix's.
The only side boarding I had to do most of the night was 2-3 Black Sun's Zenith for Creature based Aggro decks.
There are a few cards I am thinking about trying out soon.
I'm thinking -2 Eternal Witness, -3 Putrefy, -2 Doom Blade, -1 Death Cloud.
+4 Dark Confidant, +3 Tragic Slips +1 Black Sun's Zenith
(I still need to pick up bobs)
I want to try Tragic Slips, I think there is a lot of synergy with Sakura-Tribe Elder, and Kitchen Finks. Any thoughts?
No, sorry the names elude me right now. I will find out this week. Also they were in another language. Not sure the language.
The cards have Black boarders, no symbols and the same Copyright Print style as 4th and 5th edition and a copy wright date of 1994.
I looked around and I can't find what set these would have been from. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
EDIT* Cards are in another language.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/599726-griselbrand-reanimator
[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:
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 Shamandeck with discard and removal(RIP)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, 70/30
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
This match up is in your favor. Our opponents can give us our Griselbrand for Free. Watch out because they often pack graveyard hate in there main board in the form of Jund Charm and Faerie Macabre.
70/30
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
6. Media Resources
Grixis Reanimator Deck Tech