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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Kilnmouth Reanimator
July 23, 2007

Hi BMoor!
My upcoming deck (I do not have all the cards right now) is based on fast,
firebreathing fatties. The alternative is using Chain Smog to boost my
backup spells.

4 Peat Bog
10 Swamp
3 Tainted Isle
3 Tainted Peak
4 Dark Ritual

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tarox Bladewing
4 Kokusho, the Evening Star
4 Kilnmoth Dragon
4 Bladewing the Risen
3 Dodecapod

4 Exhume
3 Chain Smog
3 Guerilla Tactics
3 Psychic Purge

The main tactic is to get Putrid Imp out an discarding early then using
exhume to pull Dragons out. The main strategy is to exhume a kilnmouth and
amplify it, which is giving you enormous control and very large chances of
winning. Tarox can use grandeur to make itself bigger. In the next turns if
my Dragons get killed, i just use more exhumes. Exhume is a great card i
think, and this card and the Imp are my main combo.

My alternative plan is to use Chain Smog, and if my opponent copies it, he
gets trouble with Dodecapod, Geurilla Tactics and Psychic Purge.

I can't find out how to tutor my Imp and Exhume, so Chain Smog is my backup.
Of course i can hardcast all of the spells, but at that moment, i've already
lost. at this moment, the deck is very expensive, and i think to exchange
Kokusho with some cheaper (cheaper price). I haven't tried out my deck yet,
so i don't know my weaknesses and strengths. I am sure you can make that
deck even better!? :)
- Peter, Copenhagen

You certainly seem confident in my abilities, Peter, and that's always good to hear!  Of course, most people I hear from seem pretty confident in my abilities.  I don't think I've ever gotten E-mail from someone who wasn't.  I suppose if a person wasn't confident in my abilities, they wouldn't bother E-mailing me.

But that's neither here nor there.  Can I make your deck better, Peter?  Yes, I believe I can.  After a thorough analysis of the decklist, all the symptoms point to an acute case of multiple strategy syndrome.

I've seen this before.  Two deck personalities inhabiting the same deck, fighting for supremacy.  Oftentimes, this disorder goes undiagnosed for several sets or even blocks if the two strategies share common traits or cards.  But fear not: I've dealt with this before, and I believe in your case we can coax the two strategies into reintegrating themselves and working together.  Oftentimes this results in the amputation of a good percentage of one, but the finished product will undoubtedly go on to lead a productive lifestyle and enjoy many savage beatings.

Now, if you'll look closely, you'll see what I mean.  Strategy One is putting large dragons in the graveyard via Putrid Imp and Exhuming them.  This seems to be the dominant strategy, and is the one we'll focus on.  Strategy Two is the use of Chain of Smog to trick the opponent into making you discard Dodecapod, Guerrilla Tactics, and Psychic Purge and suffering for it.  This strategy looks very clever and fun, but it lacks the power of the first and probably isn't viable: it couldn't stand up on it's own in a deck.  As much fun as it looks to be able to trick your opponent into giving you a free 5/5 and giving up 5 life, and as much as I respect you for actually finding a good use for these cards, I'm afraid to save this deck we need to remove some less functional parts.  Guerrilla Tactics, Dodecapod, and Psychic Purge all need to be, well, purged from the decklist.  This gives you more room for the primary strategy: that of reanimator. 

It also allows you to remove Tainted Isle, since you now have no purpose for blue mana.  In their place, I'd suggest another black/red nonbasic land, in case you decide to actually try and play one of your Dragons.  Rakdos Carnarium looks very good here, especially since you're only running 20 lands and a single Carnarium acts as two lands.

Now, back to the matter of reanimator: by removing the "anti-discard" cards, we've given you 9 empty slots.  Youll notice I didn't remove Chain of Smog.  Why not?  Because currently, you're using Putrid Imp to discard Dragons.  Did you ever think that if your opponent copies the Chain, you can discard your dragons that way?  This will help immensely, since you mentioned wishing you had a way to tutor for the Imp.  Go ahead and add a fourth Chain of Smog.  That brings you to 8 ways to discard a Dragon, 4 cards that bring a Dragon back, and 16 Dragons, plus 8 empty slots.  What can we put in those 8 slots?  My first impulse was to suggest more Dragons, because they're fun and everyone likes them.  But now that I see the numbers, 16 cards in your deck that you likely won't play from your hand looks a bit dodgy and only 4 cards to get said 16 into play looks worse.  I think those 8 slots, or at least 4 of them, are best suited for more graveyard resurrection spells.

When it comes to putting dead Dragons back on the battlefield, you have to think of the old standard Zombify.  So simple, yes?  I could just suggest 4 Zombify right here and now, and that'd be all you need.  But then I wouldn't get to throw around other cool ideas, and besides that you've still got 4 slots left, right?  Right.  So next on my list is a card that's-- you guessed it-- coming back in 10th Edition.  I'm excited for Magic Game Day, can you tell?  The card is Beacon of Unrest.  For one more mana than Zombify, you can put cards in other people's graveyards into play under YOUR control, put artifacts into play (under your control), and you get to shuffle Beacon of Unrest back into your deck when you're done!  Just think: you'll never run out of Beacons, because they'll always go right back into your deck!  Or, if that's too much mana for you, you could try paying in creatures.  Victimize will let you sacrifice, say, your Imp to get back TWO Dragons from your graveyard!  They come into play tapped, but that only matters to the hasty Tarox Bladewing.  And speaking of Tarox, I'd also like to bring Death Denied to your attention.  It brings cards back to your hand instead of putting them into play, but that works well for you, too.  After you've discarded all your Taroxes, you can use death Denied to get them back and discard them again.  In fact, you could use Tarox's Grandeur ability to discard three Taroxes, Death Denied them back, then discard them all again to make Tarox go from 4/3 to 8/7 to 16/15 to 32/31, and then to 64/63 to 128/127 to 256/255!  The odds of this happening are quite low of course, but Death Denied also works well with Kilnmouth Dragon, by putting all those Dragons where they can be revealed via Amplify.

I'd say filling those slots with 4 Zombify and 4 Death Denied would work for you very well.  But 4 Victimize and 4 Beacon of Unrest could be just as good.  Any combination of two will be just fine, giving you up to 12 ways to bring back any  one of your 16 Dragons.  And speaking of your Dragons, you said you wanted to trade in Kokusho for a cheaper Dragon, correct?  Well, you could hardly find a more expensive one short of Shichifujukin Dragon.  Personally, I recommend Vampiric Dragon.  It's big, it's black and red, and it pings and can get bigger.  You can also get copies of it for less than $5.00 each, compared to at least $9 a copy for Kokusho.  That's also why I wanted you to add the Rakdos Carnarium; so you could use the Vampiric Dragon's ability as well as Bladewing the Risen's.  Also, Vampiric Dragon isn't Legendary, so you can Exhume/ Zombify/ Victimize more than one.

Finally, let's finish up looking at your lands.  Peat Bog just isn't good.  It can come out, and the fourth Tainted Peak, the fourth Carnarium, and two more Swamps can come in.  That should tighten up your mana a decent amount, and that wraps up this fix.  If you still have trouble getting the cards you need, consider making room for either Diabolic Tutor or a good card draw engine like Phyrexian Arena.  Otherwise, may the Dragons rule over the skies of Copenhagen!

~BMoor