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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Casual deck " astral reanimator"
March 16, 2009

 Casual deck " astral reanimator"
 
 Hey I am Michael and I have  build a deck for my casual playgroup. Please note that when I say  casual it means that old cards are allowed and that we play because we enjoy it.

 Every dirty card is allowed we play to have fun not to bitch about  power cards, but we do love power. I have been balanced down to  nothing, felt the pure dread of mind twist and so on last Sunday I  shot an arbitrarily large hellbent demonfire in the head of my  opponent to see a misdirection!

 I typically play against decks like dragonstorm, goblins, zoo,  balancing act, planeswalker control and the occasional draw-go deck.

 As I am on a budget this of course brings some challenges as fighting  old tournament classics is no easy task and help would be appreciated.

 This is my deck:

4 Putrid Imp
3 tireless tribe
2 Undead Gladiator
2 Twisted Abomination

2 Petradon
2 Woodfall Primus
2 Kearvek the Merciless
2 Garza Zol, Plague Queen

4 Balance
4 Astral slide
4 Animate dead
4 Exhume
1 Necromancy
2 Tainted pact

4 Barren moor
4 Secluded Steppe
7 Swamp
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
5 Plains
1 Eiganjo Castle


 The basic strategy is reanimator. in best case I can get a discard
 outlet in T1 and begin to decimate my opponent from T2.
 My targets has to categories the ones with come into play abilities
 and ones that does nasty things in other ways right away.

 I don't want to play something and have it killed while doing nothing.
 The next part of the deck is astral slide which i can use to protect
 my creatures or get rid of my animate deads (so a random disenchant no
 longer kills them) it is also useful to abuse the coming into play
 abilities in the deck. third it can hide my guys from my balance or
 from an opponents pesky balancing act.

 Balance has many uses it can kill my opponts swarms and at the same
 time trow an animation target to the bin (if the are swarming odds are
 that they have less cards) and it can devastate a combo player by
 letting my discard outlets reduce my hand to a low no. and then quash
 their hand. its also good with slide as i can slide my big guy and
 balance my opponents army away and smilingly looking at my guy coming
 back.
 
 That said .. my single guy sometimes have to fight a lot of guys, and
 counters can be nasty as i have just a few win cards. against combo I
 am quite dependent on resolving a balance as my deck is not fast
 enough to race (though petradon and primus sometimes helps).
 disenchant effects can be nasty too.
 
 Any ideas for the deck? cards from all series are ok though the budget
 sets a limit. Buried alive and entomb are not there because they are
 too expensive
 
 thanx in advance
 
 - Michael
 _________________________________________________________________


When two classic strategies come together in one deck, it doesn't always work as well as it could since each strategy fights for cardslots in the deck. Astral Slide can do some crazy things if you let it, and reanimator has always been known for getting explosive power into play sooner than should be possible. Do these two goals sync up? Let's find out.

My first question is why Tireless Tribe and Putrid Imp are in this deck. My answer is that they were probably included as discard outlets and as early blockers against the aforementioned Zoo and swarm decks. That they'll do, but at the same time you'd probably want fewer creatures in play for when Balance hits. And when I see a B/W deck that needs discard outlets, my first instincts are Delirium Skeins and Peace of Mind. The Skeins will cripple everyone else's hands while letting you pitch three cards, and the Peace of Mind will let you convert every card you want to pitch into 3 life, which will also go a long way into letting you absorb some of the body blows your opponent wants to throw at you until Balance or Animate Dead shows up. Nihilistic Glee does something similar, but for more mana and less life, it also lets you ping at another player. It also has the advantage that when you run out of cards in hand, it turns into a card draw engine.

Your next move is that you seem to have neglected one of the classics of reanimation: Scion of Darkness. This Demon does everything you want to do: he cycles, puts himself in the graveyard, makes an excellent reanimation target, and then once he's out he'll make his own minions for you!

Which brings us into the cycling aspect of the deck. So you Astral Slide out your reanimated creatures to A) break their ties to Animate Dead, B) tuck them out of the way for when you Balance or when somebody tries to kill them, and C) to trigger comes into play abilities. Well, as far as C) goes, all I can think of is that you might want to try Child of Alara. Complete Board Wipe, and then your 6/6 trampler comes back. I also looked for some good cycling cards, and discovered Eternal Dragon. Thin your deck completely of Plains, and reanimate a 5/5 flyer. And, for those quick beater decks, look into Decree of Pain or Death Pulse as a cycle that kills a few stragglers. Infest can do a similar job for cheap, only without triggering the Slide. Pick whichever you feel is right for you.

So what do you pull out for all these goodies? Well, of the cards I see in this list, Necromancy and Tainted Pact stick out as being of least usefulness. If you want to go get cards out of your deck, there's much better ways to do it. You could go tutor, Demonic or Diabolic, and find the pieces you need, or you can go card draw, with old staples like Phyrexian Arena or Promise of Power. The Promise will give you nice, fat Demon to smash face with if needed, but the Arena will soften the blows by spreading them out over several turns, as well as not be affected by Balance. And as for Necromancy, well, you can break a creature's addiction to it with Astral Slide, but if the Slide and a card with cycling don't both show up, you may be in trouble. I'd recommend leaning less on Auras for your reanimation and more on cards like Zombify.

Then again, Undead Gladiator's ability to cycle and re-cycle provide you with a sustainable way to draw cards and trigger the Slide. Who knew Zombies were so eco-friendly?

Finally, I'd drop Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep and Eiganjo Castle. You have no red mana source beyond Shinka itself, and it can't tap for red the same turn you tap it for its ability. And Eiganjo Castle has limited usefulness. If you want a Kamigawa land to go with your Garza Zol, make it Shizo, Death's Storehouse. Fear? How do you not love that?

At any rate, if you can speed this deck up a bit, or add in some ways to hold off the faster swarm decks-- be it through life gain or through mass removal and board wipes like Infest-- you'll be able to pull offsome absolutely disgusting power plays with this deck. The trick is living that long.

Good luck!

~BMoor