Much Abrew: I Reanimate Hilariously Janky '90s Creatures (Premodern)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! This week, we're heading to Premodern to play a deck that I think exemplifies how Magic has evolved over the years: Reanimator! When I think of modern Reanimator decks, the first things that come to mind are the absurd finishers, like Atraxa, Griselbrand, and Archon of Cruelty. Today's reanimation targets are so strong that they are likely to win you the game all by themselves super quickly if you can get them on the battlefield, but the reanimation spells themselves are pretty weak.
Back in the '90s, though, things were backwards. The '90s featured the best reanimation spells ever printed, with Reanimate still being the gold standard nearly 30 years later and cards like Animate Dead and Exhume being super above rate compared to modern reanimation. So, why isn't Reanimator breaking Premodern? Well, the creatures they printed back in the '90s sort of sucked, which means that rather than cheating a game-ending Griselbrand or Atraxa into play, our deck today is looking to reanimate things like Verdant Force, Symbiotic Wurm, and Multani, Maro-Sorcerer, a virtual who's who list of overcosted '90s jank! So, is Premodern Reanimator busted because the reanimation spells are good or horrible because the reanimation targets are so janky? Let's get to the video and find out!
Much Abrew: Premodern Reanimator
Discussion
- Record-wise, we finished our league 3-2 with the deck, which is a solid enough record, although the way the games played out was wild. Along with having some super-close games (which seems to be a hallmark of Premodern, at least for me), we had multiple games where we "did the thing" by reanimating something as early as Turn 1, only to find out that the creature we reanimated wasn't actually good enough to win the game, which is something that very rarely happens with more modern Reanimator decks.
- Our plan is pretty simple: we have three big finishers in our main deck that we are looking to get into the graveyard: Verdant Force, which makes a 1/1 token each upkeep to eventually overwhelm our opponent; Symbiotic Wurm, which gives us seven 1/1 tokens when it dies, making it one of our better reanimation targets against black removal (although it's pretty bad against Chain of Vapor and Swords to Plowshares); and Multani, Maro-Sorcerer, which has the upside of having shroud, making it our best reanimation target against targeted removal. But since its power and toughness are equal to the total number of cards in players' hands (and our deck tends to empty its hand pretty quickly), it sometimes isn't very big. And if we end up in a situation where both players are empty-handed, it dies to its own ability.
- As far as getting our finisher in the graveyard, we have a few weird plans. Putrid Imp is pretty straightforward, as a one-mana 1/1 that lets us discard a card to gain flying. Sickening Dreams is basically a hybrid discard outlet, burn spell, and sweeper. Beyond those, our best options are using Cabal Therapy on ourselves (naming whatever finisher we have in hand and want in the graveyard) or doing the old "Turn 1, skip my land drop, discard to hand size" trick if we are on the draw. I was shocked at how often we targeted ourselves with Cabal Therapy, but the plan actually sort of worked, despite the information disadvantage of letting our opponent see our entire hand.
- As far as reanimation, our deck has some of the more powerful spells in Magic's history, including Reanimate, Animate Dead, and Exhume. The last one might look weird since it's symmetrical, but we're generally looking to cast it so quickly that our opponent shouldn't have any creatures in their graveyard to reanimate, although it can get awkward in the late game in some matchups.
- The final piece of the puzzle is Dark Ritual, which allows us to reanimate something on Turn 1 by playing Dark Ritual to make three mana into either Cabal Therapy or Putrid Imp to discard a finisher, leaving us two mana left over to cast whatever reanimation spell we happen to have in hand. And then we cross our fingers and hope for the best.
- And that's essentially the deck, outside of Unmask for discard and Snuff Out for removal. Oh yeah, the deck's mana base is also just 14 Swamps, which means it is quite literally impossible for us to hard-cast our finishers.
- As I mentioned before, one of the most awkward (and interesting) parts of the deck is that reanimating one of our finishers isn't a guaranteed win, and honestly, I sort of loved it. Back before 2011 or 2012, Reanimator was actually an interesting archetype where you had to put thought into which creature you were looking to reanimate because some were much better than others, depending on the matchup and situation. Just look at our deck. If our opponent has Swords to Plowshares, we need Multani, Maro-Sorcerer, but if they have Diabolic Edict, we need Symbiotic Wurm. In recent years, Wizards has printed reanimation targets—first Griselbrand and then Atraxa, Grand Unifier (and perhaps Archon of Cruelty as well)—that are so good that they are the best thing you can reanimate in basically any matchup or situation. Whether your opponent has Swords or an Edict doesn't matter to Atraxa, Grand Unifier because even if it dies, you still drew a new hand, which you can use to win the game. As strange as it is to say because we were the ones playing the reanimation deck, having games where we Turn 1 reanimated something and still lost was actually a breath of fresh air.
- My biggest question about this deck is whether it needs to be mono-black. While the consistency is nice, both of our losses came to brutal enchantments (like Humility) that we simply couldn't deal with. If we could splash green or white, we could play answers like Naturalize or Disenchant, which might be worth the cost, even considering that the mana in Premodern isn't especially good.
- So, should you play Premodern Reanimator? I'm honestly not sure. If you like fast, explosive games, Reanimator seems solid, although the deck seems super-high risk and high reward. I could imagine hitting good matchups and cruising to a 5-0 finish, or hitting bad ones and finishing 0-5. It's that kind of deck. The idea of adding a second color is appealing to me, and there might be some options for customizing our finishers. (Akroma, Angel of Wrath seems interesting thanks to haste, and in creature-heavy metas, Visara the Dreadful might be better in the main deck than in the sideboard.) But as it sits, Premodern Reanimator felt like a fun, risky, and interesting deck rather than a broken one, and that's probably a healthy place for Reanimator to be!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
