Reanimator and Stax
Deck Help forum
Posted on Aug. 16, 2013, 12:21 p.m. by Demyx
I have two Commander decks that I would greatly appreciate some critique on, as well as any suggestions. Thanks guys!
Reanimator: Teneb's: The Walking Dead
Creature sac control/stax: Savra, Queen of Sacrifice
Also, I have a question. When I search for decks with my commanders, my decks never show up, even after deckcycling and when I search by score.
Do your own decks just not turn up when you search?
My commander used to be Karador, Ghost Chieftain and I would use Birthing Pod on him (he'd come in cheap and still count as 8 CMC) to get out various 9 cost creatures, which was fun, but he didn't fit my deck as well as Teneb does. I still rarely play my Commander, but when I do, he's better. I like Commander decks that don't rely on the Commander much and can function perfectly well without them.
My deck has a decent amount of board wipes, but focuses more on creating a solid board that locks other people down, and then beating them down.
I agree with not using creatures dependent on the graveyard. However, Lord of Extinction isn't dependent solely on my graveyard. He's the only one that's purely beatdown and doesn't affect the board in some way. My philosophy is that if you have a creature in EDH that's solely for the purpose of beatdown, it had better be dang good at its job, and Lord of Extinction is exactly that, Sewer Nemesis and (recently added, still testing him) Splinterfright are also incuded because they continue to fill my graveyard. My graveyard is always fairly full so each of those creatures is pretty big a majority of the time,
Be sure to give a +1 to either of those decks if you like them. :) I'll be sure to check yours out soon,
August 16, 2013 2:42 p.m.
I think that Karador, Ghost Chieftain is more guaranteed to pull things out of your graveyard (and do it for free) compared to Teneb, the Harvester . The Ghost Chieftain is also far easier to re-cast (but only if you have a fairly full graveyard). Teneb relies on you to keep the air clear of blockers and costs mana to use its reanimate ability - and its ability can still be shut down by something as simple as a fog.
If I had decided to go with a graveyard themed deck that wanted a full graveyard with Jarad's Orders , Reanimate , and Lord of Extinction - I would definitely go with Karador. But my meta is quite disruptive. I can guarantee you that the minute they even get the slightest idea that I might show up with a reanimator deck, there will be nothing but graveyard hate in my face from all sides. This would shut down Karador and the style deck he fits with.
I still like the idea of reanimator but I wanted to pull things out of any graveyard and fill all those graveyards up. There are many graveyard hate cards out there, but only a select few of them get rid of all graveyards which is what is needed to stop the deck I made. I included plenty of enchantment removal ETB creatures that I could use when either reanimating them or just when casting them (in case that one enchantment that removes graveyards hits the board). With all that disruption coming from me then, it becomes easier for Teneb to get through with damage after a partial boardwipe or target removal (or forced sacrifice with few choices) effect. Even if someone manages to sustain a flying blocker, most likely at least one person in a multi-player game will be open for me to use Teneb's ability.
I do have a few other things that pull things out of graveyards in case something happens to my commander, but I probably do build decks that are a bit overly dependent on the commander - I do try to protect the commander as well (some way or another: here it is with enchantment removal, reanimation, ramp, and creature removal in case he gets stolen). But, yeah, that is a weakness probably with my approach.
I think your approach is fine and has powerful synergy. In a meta that isn't quite as likely as mine to specifically build against you, it would probably be fine. But I have another person I play with a lot and we duel each other a lot and I know - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that if I made a reanimator deck that depended on the graveyard, it would just get shut down. I don't think my way is necessarily better than yours in general, but I think it is a better choice for my situation.
August 16, 2013 3:03 p.m.
Yeah, I definitely agree. In my meta, this deck is very powerful, and yours would be slightly less so.
In your meta, my deck would do next to nothing unless I got lucky, I'm sure.
Thanks for the comments!
August 16, 2013 5:21 p.m.
Anyone else have any suggestions or critique? Any comments are greatly appreciated!
guessling says... #2
The one time I checked for decks that were similar to mine to reference them for comparison (not because I used any of them as a starting deck list - it's just that if anyone chooses Teneb, the Harvester as a commander, obviously reanimator is a likely theme and go from there), I did see my own decks on the list. But I was surprised at how few decks I found and felt certain I was missing a large number of decks by searching that way.
When I double-checked names just recently to make sure that I wasn't accidentally using the same names as another deck (as it so happened, I was in two cases), I also saw my decks on the list.
I did add your Teneb deck to my list of similar decks for comparing - but I hadn't seen yours before making mine and don't think the decks are alltogether that similar, really. They are both Teneb reanimator EDH decks but beyond that, we took pretty different approaches to it.
Here is mine: Weeds Always Grow Back (Teneb EDH M14 revamp)
I took a heavy board-wipey approach, avoided certain staples like Reanimate for reasons described in the deck description, took a birthing pod approach (which is why I had originally cited the two I had cited which are both a little bit more similar to my appraoch than yours), and also avoided certain cards that depend on the graveyard too much in general (i.e. creatures whose P/T depend on creatures in the graveyard or enchantments that depend on having something in my own graveyard etc.).
August 16, 2013 12:45 p.m.