During
our Golden Gate event in March, we were given the opportunity to witness 31
players go head-to-head with 20 different decks and play-styles! We would like
to take this chance to go through some of the best and most popular decks in
our local area!
This
week, we will be featuring the Grixis Re-animator deck that was piloted by our
first place winner, Nico! This deck showcases some of the biggest and baddest
creatures in Standard, and a cheeky way to play them on the cheap!
While
most decks would prefer to run four copies of a card for the sake of
consistency, this deck takes on a different approach and runs a diverse
selection of creatures to answer the current volatile meta. This also helps to
diversify its threats and avoid cards
like Deadly Cover-Up removing all its finishers. The only cards that are
played with four copies each are Superior Spider-Man and Ashling,
Rekindled, which play a huge part in the re-animator engine, as well as Deceit
due to its versatility.
Superior
Spider-Man
is currently the best way to reanimate creatures in the current meta. Its
ability allows it to still trigger conditional “enter the battlefield” effects
such as with Deceit, where it can trigger both the bounce and hand
disruption effects when reanimated using Superior Spider-Man. When
paired with Ashling, Rekindled, if you are on curve, you would already
have at least one creature in your graveyard and enough mana to cast Superior
Spider-Man by turn 3. Ashling, Rekindled gives the edge this deck
needs to out-tempo other decks and get to the finishers as fast as possible.
This
is why the deck primarily runs Grixis colours, or blue, black and red. The blue
and black colours serve as archetypal reanimator colours, such as seen on Superior
Spider-Man, while the red colour gives it the aggressiveness it needs to
survive in the current fast-paced Standard meta. The blue colour also gives the
deck the discard engines it needs to put their big creatures into the graveyard.
Everything
else in the deck encompasses what every good re-animator deck has, including,
but not limited to, targets for reanimation and spot removals. Some of the
targets for reanimation in this deck include finishers like Valgavoth,
Terror Eater or Summon: Bahamut; reanimation targets that can
reanimate more targets such as Ardyn, the Usurper or Bringer of the
Last Gift; reanimation targets that are also good removal in Armaggon,
Future Shark or Harvester of Misery; and also utilities such as Quantum
Riddler for card draw or Overlord of the Balemurk to fill the
graveyard as well as North Wind Avatar to incorporate your sideboard
into your main-board. The deck also features draw and discard spells such as Winternight
Stories and Ill-Timed Explosion, as well as targeted removal such as
Requiting Hex, Bitter Triumph and Strategic Betrayal.
One
of the most interesting aspects of the current Standard is that sometimes the
sideboard can be indistinguishable from the main-board due to North Wind
Avatar. This deck utilises the strength of the card to search the sideboard
for answers. Since this deck’s strategy seems to be more tempo, it makes sense
to include North Wind Avatar in the main-board. When in a pinch, you can North
Wind Avatar a board-wipe and finisher in the form of Harvester of Misery.
If your opponent managed to remove all copies of Superior Spider-Man
from the game, you could still fish out Zombify. If you are playing
against control, you can also fish out Spider-Sense to protect your
board from your opponent. The sideboard also features some blue-black staples
such as more copies of Bitter Triumph and Strategic Betrayal, but
it also accounts for decks that have weak or few finishers with Deadly
Cover-Up. In a match
against more aggressive decks, the deck can also switch out a few cards and go
for a more mid-range play-style with Duress and Kaito, Bane of
Nightmares.
In
regards to these specific matchups, the deck works wonders against decks that
use Badgermole Cub, such as Simic Nature’s Rhythm and Mono-green
Landfall. The deck has plenty of boardwipes such as Bringer of the Last Gift,
Ill-Timed Explosion and Harvester
of Misery to check for any deck that dares to go wide in creatures. The
deck is also a powerhouse against other types of aggro decks, as it is possible
to swap out to a more tempo playstyle to deny your opponents any advantage.
Decks that require the graveyard such as Izzet Spellemental or mirror matches
are also accounted for with Strategic Betrayal. The one true weakness of
this deck is obviously graveyard hate. Which is why control decks may prove to
be the worst matchup as the longer a game goes on, the easier it is to remove a
player’s graveyard. If the deck cannot close out the game before Rest in
Peace hits the board, it would be almost impossible to recover.
It
will be hard to find any Standard deck without any form of graveyard hate even
if most of these will only be found in the sideboard. The best graveyard hate
pieces currently available in Standard include Soul-Guide Lantern and Rest
In Peace. Knowing that the biggest threat to reanimator decks is graveyard
removal, it does seem a bit risky to run so little artifact or enchantment
removal. By having only Deceit and Summon: Bahamut as your only
removal against these cards, it can be especially risky if they have more than
one way to remove the graveyard. Other similar decks tend to also play Marang
River Regent as it is another form of removal that can be used as card
draw.
Let's Hear what our Champion, Nico, has to say!
It
would be remiss of us to write an article about Nico’s deck without picking his
brain on the deck! So we asked him a few questions to gather his insight. Here
is an exclusive look into the brains behind the deck:
1.Why
did you choose to run a re-animator deck? Is there a specific reason or just
because you like the play-style?
I
just wanted to play something off-meta after playing mostly meta decks for most
of the RCQ Standard season. I’ve always enjoyed decks that "cheats"
win i.e. combo and stuff. - Nico -
2. What
were your thoughts when you built the deck? Is there a reason for why you chose
these specific creatures, or these specific colours?
I
got the initial deck list from another player actually (Quinton Lip) and then tweaked
it a bit after trying it. I was actually still trying it out during the Golden
Gate. So as an example, the single copy of Armaggon, Future Shark that I
played ended up being quite terrible throughout this event. - Nico -
3. What
was your game plan?
I
played the deck more like a mid-range control deck rather than trying to
reanimate as soon as I could. Just control the board and win with value. On
hindsight, there were a couple of games where I could have just won by
reanimating a Bringer of the Last Gift with Superior Spider Man
as soon as possible instead of trying to grind the win slowly but it's always
easier to analyse in hindsight and things are not so clear in the moment. - Nico -
In
conclusion, Nico’s deck proved to be very cohesive and has much more than just
strong finishers. It is filled with utility and showcases that any good deck
requires not just powerful cards but also a mastery of card advantage and
technique. Nico’s win was truly well deserved! With that, we hope that you can
take some of the tips and tricks to build your very own deck!
We
would like to take this chance to congratulate Nico once again for his win and
thank him for answering all our questions! Tune in again next week as we bring
you more articles!
Written By
- Rozenbeth Chin -