Monday, May 20, 2013

Reanimator Remix


Look at any of the last tournaments and you’ll see two words come up again and again, Reanimator and Jund. Both of these decks run similar colors, where the only difference is red and white, but why stop there? Why not make a deck that combines their colors into one beautiful concoction of a deck? The deck I’m speaking of is 4C Reanimator. I understand that Junk Reanimator is a solid deck and that it doesn’t need to be revamped, as it is doing well on its own, but that’s not what this article is about. It’s about making a deck that combines the power house of Reanimator with the scary cards that Jund colors can provide.
Let’s start off with the red cards that we would consider in the deck. In the mainboard we would have access to a turn one faithless looting, then we get all the pretty and scary creatures red can provide. The first obvious choice would be Gisela, since when she is paired with a resolved Craterhoof, will swing the game immediately in your favor. Following closely behind her big sister would be Aurelia, another big scary creature that buffs all the creatures you control with a second combat phase as well as having haste. Next up we could use one-of Sire of Insanity, just to make sure that we would never have any issues with a Control match-up again.
 
Finally, and I give this guy his own paragraph because I know I’ll get flak for even mentioning him and I want to defend him, the big boss Ruric Thar. Yes, I understand that we have a lot of non-creature spells sitting in our deck to be used, and that Ruric Thar will get in the way of us using said cards, but first think of what he brings to the table. Think of him as a Standstill, only instead of giving you card advantage he gives you life advantage. You run a one-of of him in your deck so that if the time were to arrive where you are sitting pretty at 25 life, and your opponent is sweating bullets hoping to wipe your field, you have the option of throwing Thar down and making the game state a matter of can-you-answer-this. Ruric Thar makes a great body that can both block and beat face, all with that six damage clause, what’s not to love?
 
Now for land we have the new addition of two utility lands that can push us the extra mile if need be. We have the good ole lucky Kessig Wolf Run waiting in the wings ready to be top-decked so you can pull the victory out from under your opponent, but also we have a not as well-known utility in the shape of Slayers’ Stronghold. If you make it to late enough game, and you have a card you want to reanimate when you’re at seven mana, and suddenly you have that card, only this time with haste and vigilance. Both of these lands have ways of making your top deck a victory steal, making nice additions to the deck.

Now that we’re done with the mainboard let’s look at that juicy sideboard. Sitting in the usual Junk Reanimator slots is Centaur Healer, Deathrite Shaman, Sepulchre Primordial, and Ray of Revelation. Although now they’re accompanied by the new addition of Burning Oil, Rolling Temblor, and Zealous Conscripts. The Oil and Temblor are ready to help you against Jund Midrange or any aggro deck. While Zealous is sitting there ready to steal a fatty during the mirror.
 
So in the end you can tell that adding that fourth color might actually be worth it after all. I play tested an old version of this deck at an FNM back when RtR was the only set released from Ravnica. I was able to go 4-1-1 going up against a control player two times, losing to a mono-red deck, and beating a ton of other decks. At the end of the night, even though it was only my first time playing Reanimator, I had only dropped three games, and I think the results speak for themselves.

           

          Land (23)


          Sorcery (15)


Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)