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BURNING REANIMATOR!
"This is what would happened if a UB reanimator and a TES player did lines of cocaine through a rolled up Sire of Insanity, then started brewing decks." -NinjaWalrus88
"Its combo....with more combo. You think its reanimator....and then you are dead. That turn. Must try deck." -150Crawfish
"Just built it in mtgdeckbuilder. One or two mulligans, but more than a half dozen turn 1 or turn 2 wins. That's ridiculous." -Enderkr
"Tin Fins is a muscle car. Burning Reanimator is a monster truck." -InkmothNexus
"I've never been more excited about a Legacy deck. Like, ever." -Anthony Lowry Starcity Games
WHAT'S THE STORY ON THIS DECK??
Burning Reanimator is a combo deck that had a brief stint of popularity in 2014. It combines the core combo mechanics of Tin Fins, with the Burning Wish / LED tool set of TES, the speed of Belcher and the back up beat down of Reanimator. There is an excellent article by Anthony Lowry on Starcitygames from June of 2014 but outside of that there isn't a whole lot about it. I highly recommend checking out the article, it's a great read! You can find it here.
The basic function is that of traditional Reanimator, Tin Fins and/or Belcher but explodes with excessive speed, win cons, disruption, multiples of synergies, redundancy and a Burning Wish toolbox. The original deck is credited to Andrew Shrout whom may or may not have been the original creator. As you can see, the deck listed above has evolved but the following was his original list.
HOW DO I PLAY IT??
Burning Reanimator has multiple routes to victory. All of the following can be done turn one with the help of rituals and mana rocks. Here are some examples:
- Entomb + Exhume (or Reanimate or Unburial Rites) a Sire of Insanity and beat down your empty handed opponent.
- Entomb + Exhume (or Reanimate or Unburial Rites) Griselbrand in play draw 14 cards and storm combo your opponent using Burning Wish for Tendrils of Agony.
- Entomb + Exhume (or Reanimate or Unburial Rites) Griselbrand draw 14 cards reanimate Tidespout Tyrant and/or Sire of Insanity to protect each other and beat down the following turn.
- Simply combo out Belcher style with Burning Wish for Empty the Warrens and blast out 10-16 goblins without reanimating anything.
- Hard cast Sire of Insanity via Dark Ritual + Dark Ritual + Chrome Mox.
HOW DOES LION'S EYE DIAMOND WORK?
Many of you will already know this, but there are some people who might need a little explanation. LED synergizes insanely well with three of the main cards in this deck: Burning Wish, Exhume and Unburial Rites.
- To use LED with Burning Wish: Cast Wish putting it on the stack, crack LED in response discarding your hand thus adding 3 to your mana pool, then Wish resolves nabbing said card from your sideboard, use the mana from LED on whatever you Wished for.
- To use LED with Exhume: First cast Exhume putting it on the stack and then in response crack LED dumping your hand (with fatties in it) to the yard, finally choose which creature you want to animate. You won't always be able to use the mana you get off of LED but the point is to get your creature into the yard for you to Exhume. However, if Griselbrand is your Exhumed creature you can simply draw 7 and use that mana for whatever cards you drew with him.
- To use LED with Unburial Rites: Crack LED, dumping your hand putting fatties and Unburial Rites into the yard, use the mana on Unburial Rites' flashback cost animating the fatty you just pitched.
HOW DO I PLAY THE DECK?
Burning Reanimator is an easy deck to pick up, but difficult master. Piloting the deck with authority will not only require patience but practice. The first requirement is being able to recognize all of the hidden synergies.
- Don't forget that a hand with LED, a Fatty and an Unburial Rites equals a first turn fatty.
- Also, a hand with LED, a Fatty and an Exhume equals a first turn fatty (as long as you have some ramp to hard cast Exhume first which is mentioned in the "how do I use LED section").
- Use the card Anger! You most likely won't want to cast him or even draw him in your opening hand, if you do pitch him to the yard via Faithless Looting. If you did not draw him in your opening hand, he can almost guarantee your turn one win after you've drawn cards off of Griselbrand. Once you've drawn off of Griselbrand pitch him to Faithless or Entomb him to the yard and slap your opponent for a hasted 7 lifelink and draw another 7 cards. This will almost ensure you to get your storm count for your Tendrils of Agony kill.
- If it looks like you can't reanimate anything in your opening hand, look to see if you can skip "Reanimating" altogether by storming out a ton of goblins via Burning Wish and Empty the Warrens.
- If it looks like you can't reanimate anything in your opening hand, look to see if you can ramp into a turn one Sire of Insanity via mana rocks and rituals.
- Remember, Entomb can grab any card and put it in your graveyard! Don't forget that. If you have a dude in the yard but no "Reanimate" spells, use Entomb to tutor up an Unburial Rites and cast it from the yard.
- Take advantage of Faithless Looting! There are so many tricks with this card. Some will require being inventive. Pitching Unburial Rites to it is one of your go to's.
- Last but not least, remember that you can Thoughtseize yourself if you don't have a discard outlet for your dudes.
AM I TOAST IN THE CONTROL MATCH UP??
No, not at all. This deck is NOT a glass cannon. Aside from using Collective Brutality and Thoughtseize for nabbing counterspells out of your opponent's hand your alternative strategy is to hard cast your Unburial Rites, if they counter it cast it again from the graveyard pushing through their counters. Often your best bet is to combo out turn one before your opponent can set up their defense. Chancellor of the Annex is there to push through a turn one Force of Will. Often there is plenty of extra mana to help push through Daze but there is also Simian Spirit Guide to catch your opponent off guard.
FLEX SLOTS!
There are a few flex slots in the deck. You might want to up your number of Burning Wish to 3 however 4 is not recommended. Running 3 Burning Wish will help you with hands where you just want to storm combo out without reanimating anything however this comes at the cost of cutting something. If you want to go this route you might want to consider cutting an Unburial Rites as it can be tutored up with Entomb, however that decreases your chances of reanimating a creature when you have an opening hand with LED.
Faithless Looting is another flex slot. The deck does operate on 3 if you want to cut one for another Burning Wish.
Your choice of creatures. You might want to consider running Iona, Shield of Emeria or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or some other creature in place of Tidespout Tyrant. Just remember that legendary creatures can be bounced by an opponent's Karakas in the Death & Taxes match up etc..
It is not recommended cutting either Exhume or Reanimate. This has been tested. You must run 4 of each.
Collective Brutality and Thoughtseize. Collective Brutality is here, not only for looking at your opponents hand and effectively Duressing their counterspells but also for pitching dudes to the yard to later be reanimated. You can also pick off one of your biggest threats with CB, Deathrite Shaman. CB is a flex slot that can be interchanged with Thoughtseize.
Anger! This card is for giving Griselbrand haste after you Entomb it. It is severely missed if you choose to cut it. You can run the deck without it but it sincerely speeds up the clock and increases your chances of storm comboing your opponent. You may want to run the card Children of Korlis in this slot however you have limited access to white mana in which to cast it, however you can Entomb and then animate him with one of your spells.
SIDEBOARD
Most of the sideboard is a toolbox for Burning Wish that needs no explanation, however some of the spells are not.
Ancient Grudge. Ancient Grudge is a great name for a metal band but that's not important right now. This, being an instant is clearly not tutorable with Burning Wish. It is meant to be sideboarded into the main deck to to battle Chalice, note it can be tutored with Entomb and cast from the yard or otherwise drawn in your opening hand. You really don't want to go up against Chalice! Take note that Ancient Grudge's flashback cost is not affected by a Chalice set at 1, however Entombing it is.
Chancellor of the Annex. Side this in when going up against Force of Will. In fact you may want to run 2 on the side depending on your meta. Feel free to side out Anger for this slot.
Stronghold Gambit. This is here not only because it's searchable with Burning Wish but can be ran main deck when going up against creatureless decks. It acts as a Show and Tell alternative to cheat your dudes into play.
Cabal Therapy. Sure, use this against your opponent, but like Thoughtseize you can use it on yourself as a discard outlet for Griselbrand to get him in the yard.
Buried Alive. Don't have an Entomb? No problem!
The rest of the sideboard should be self explanatory! Enjoy!
Although we feel this deck is tuned please feel free and leave comments and suggestions!! THANK YOU!