Hello all!
This is my first time writting for this amazing Web about that incredible format. And first of all I would like to introduce myself a little.
My name is Yuse García, long time player and a former eternal formats aficionado. As time goes by, and responsabilities come to life, my will to keep updated with the waves of new product has decreased dramatically, and that brought me to community driven formats like this one or Premodern. I also am the host of Boldteammtg Youtube Channel and Boldcastmtg podcast, where you can find content about Classic Legacy and Premodern.
Today I am Here to tlak about the deck I played at the last meet-up hosted at Olympia Bar in BCN. Reanimator A.K.A. The Walking Tocinos.
Check the decklist at MTGDecks.net
This is the list I played at the tournament and I want to talk about some specific card choices here. But first of all, for all of you that don’t know it, let’s talk about the philosophy of the deck.
Reanimator is a long time existing, multiformat, combo deck base on the sinergy between sending big bodies to the graveyard and the ability to bring them to the battlefield for a significant lesser mana investment that the cost of the creature. It has seen play in multiple formats (Legacy, Extended, Modern…) with diferent color combinations and strategies, but today, as it has to be, we will talk about the Classic Legacy iteration.
Here, I am going to separate the deck in four categories plus the sideboard. Beginning with…
Manabase
Simple and smooth. 9 fetchlands including 4 Polluted Delta to search our 3 basics and 5 more split between Scalding Tarn and Verdant Catacombs to search one kind of basic or one of our 4 Underground Sea.
Enablers and cantrips
4 Entomb: To put in the graveyard the card we need.
4 Brainstorm ,4 Ponder, 4 Carefull Study: To search for the needed cards, being them more enablers or the pay-off. Especial mention to the studies that let us draw two cards and discard to cards from the hand, allowing us to discard a fatty stuck in our hands.
4 Reanimate, 4 Exhume, 2 Animate Dead: Our spells of Reanimation. The main goal of the deck is resolve one of this spells and bring back to life one of our creatures. All of them have ups and downs. Reanimate is cheaper at mana, but with a high cost of live. Animate Dead reduces the power of the creature, but it let us reanimate, pick up opponents creatures. Exhume reanimates an opponent’s creature, but it does not make target and can allow us to make some tricks with it on the stack. Them all shine better on different spots, but all of the mare needed. We play “only” ten because with all the cantrips it is reasonable to find them in a proper lapse of turns.
Defense
4 Force of Will, 4 Daze. Our free countermagic. It is appropiate that all of them are mana free to cast in order to combo the fastest way possible if needed.
4 Thoughtseize 1 Unmask: A layer of protection against our opponents and also and aditional way to discard a big body from our hand. I run an Unmask over a Duress due to this reason. Also it can be played without paying mana, which is not irrelevant.
Payoffs
Our wrestlers. The ones who are going to make the dirty work of winning the games for us. There are 6 of them, and only a copy of each. Because with the enablers we will be able to select wich one reanímate a fair amount of time.
Iona, Shield of Emeria
Incredible at handle monocolored strategies by herself. Also a Really good choice if the opponent’s removal is basically of one color (White for Swords to Plowshares i.e.)
Inkwell Leviathan
The perfect body to face an opponent full of Islands and without a fast clock. His shroud is worh mentioning because it makes it really hard to kill.
Empyrial Archangel
Another shroud fatty. This one also serves us soft protection Against the damage our opponent may try to make to us.
Blazing Archon
Simple and elegant. Creatures can’t attack you. Perfect against decks with lots of creatures but a lack of ways of killing opposing ones.
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
An updated Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Lots of abilities, protections and the ability to change a race in a game by itself.
Tidespout Tyrant
At first glance, it may seem the less valuable creature in the deck. And in some spots, it may be. But its ability to clean the board of permanents on the other side of the table, plus his natural resiliance against Karakas (it is non legendary) makes it a good one to round up our roaster of superstars.
As for the sideboard, I always say that it is really dependant on your gameplay in adition with the pairings you want to secure/expect to play against. For this tournament I wanted to have play against lots of grave hate and some responses to generic questions, so I included the Engineered Explosives to set the sunburst in one to destroy relics, and other things.
Also, I played three more creatures to switch between main and side. An aditional Iona, just an all star. A single copy of Gilded Drake to steal some Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in case we face any deck with them, and one copy of Terastodon. A useful creature to destroy permanents on the other side of the table, or even in yours to speed up the clock. That terastodon should have been an Angel of Despair, in fact. But a really good friend of mine just gave me one copy of and old frame 30th aniversary Terastodon, and I had to play it.
At this point in our trip discovering Reanimator, I will be really interested on write about some changes I have made to the deck, the different iterations of it, what is bad, good, better or excellent… But I have to confess you something. I have only played this deck for the exact 7 rounds that the meet-up in Barcelona lasted. The list was stealed from MTGdecks.net, played by Nicolas Rupcic at a tournament in January at Argentina, and only made some swaps at the sideboard following the before mentioned expectations.
It is true that I have some experience playing the deck in the past days who we “recreate” (or reanimate), but 0 experience in Classic Legacy MTG. But if I play the deck again, I would like to play Hapless Researcher instead of Careful Study in order to have more creatures and to make more easy to assemble the “Exhume trick”. It has it’s props and cons, but overall it is at least something to test out. In the maindeck I don’t think I would change anything. I was really skeptical of not playing Lotus Petal in the deck, any number of them. But after my really short testing (Again, only 7 rounds) I found that they are not necessary. You prefer to sculpt your hand and combo at the right time with the right creature better than comboing faster and being more exposed.
Tournament Report
And for the tournament itself, I would like to share with you a full explanation play by play of the rounds. But there have passed several days and I didn’t take notes, so I better talk about the feelings on the matchups.
Round 1 – Against Lluís Cortes playing Junk
The Man, The creator. The mastermind behind the format and I face him at the very first round. No body said it would be easy. I win the first game reanimating fast a Iona and loose the next two games against his extirpates, relic of progenitus and my mulligans
Round 2 – Against Juan López Buzón playing Burn
This is one of the matchups where Iona shines the best, and she made the job both games. In the first one, if my rival had known better the format (he is an Old School player primarily) he could have won. I ended at 1 live and did not sacrificed a Mogg Fanatic with an Exhume on the stack.
Round 3 – Against Artur Sánchez AKA Papu playing Countertop
Nothing to say. Literaly. Well. I will say that Papu is an amazing player and better person. Something very common at this tournament, in fact. I have the video of the round if you want to analize how bad can I be.
Round 4 – Against Sergio Cortijo playing Countertop
Another great player and amazing human being. The games where very similar to the ones at the video of the round 3. Patience, protection, and a shroud fattie to get the job done.
I have a record of 3-1 and pass te cut to the Top 8 in the second seed only behind Lluís Cortés, Who has ended without a loss the swiss portion (3-1-1, non intentional draw)
Top 8 – Against Samuel López Checa playing Rgb Goblins
On the play, against a goblin aficionado (as anybody who knows me from premodern knows, I am as well) Time for Iona to shine another time. (As Britney Spears would say: “Hit me Iona one more time”).
I win 2-0 backed up with Iona in both games and playing around his only non red removal (Earwig Squad).
Top 4 – Against Albert Pajuelo playing Burn
Third monocolored deck of the day. Iona likes to see that. Video for the round, better than my poor words, as for the finals
Finals Against Alex Mateu playing New Horizons
Amazing player, great matches. If you think that I make some arguable plays in the first game, it is because I thought he was playing Countertop instead of New Horizons
Here it ends my review of the Reanimator Archetype and my experience playing it. If you have read so far, Thanks a lot for enjoying the format. I find it really fun, challenging and with a lot of nostalgia of past and simpler days.
Also, I want to apologize if my sentences are not clear at all or if there are lots of grammar errors, etc. English is not my first nor my second language. Sorry
With nothing more to say, if you want to comment somethimg about the format, the deck, PM or the new season of X-MEN’97 don’t doubt of reaching me at the channel of Youtbe where the videos are posted, or reaching @GarciaYuse at X (Tweeter) or Boldteam at discord.
Thanks for your time. Enjoy.
GOGOGO!