Dear Ultimate Guard, I was promised the anti-Rest-In-Peace feature for my card sleeves and yet my cards still end up in the graveyard. I think my card sleeves are defective. Please send the anti-rest-in-peace and doubly Endurance protected card sleeves next time, thank you!
Thank you for this episode!! Always enjoy hearing Joey giddy with delight about all the silly synergies and things you can do with the graveyard (yes, it is infectious. You win! XD) If I were to give a tip of my own, it would be to look outside of commanders that directly mention the graveyard as inspiration for your deck. My pet deck, Aminatou, the Fateshifter, is a big creature reanimator deck. It utilizes her first 2 abilities to fill, bring back and abuse the etb of not just creatures, but permanents in your graveyard. It can attack from many angles, is EXTREMELY resilient and dare I say almost too synergistic. While Esper has a good foundation, there are plenty of other color combos I’m sure you can explore like the Shorikai Reanimator deck mentioned! Either way, thank you both for sharing your passions. I’ll make sure to watch the other episodes to maybe get some more deck ideas 🤔 (better stop now I can and WILL go on about my deck for the next 30-minutes XD).
I first introduced to Commander by building my Life Gain deck but Alesha who smiles at death introduced me to the graveyard strategy and made me intrigued. Because of this, I eventually picked up the Mirko precon and am keeping it intact for lower power pods or playing against new players. Mirko is a different graveyard strat then Alesha and I am finding it fun to learn a new aspect of renimator.
@@EDHRECast And considering mirko modified or a deck led by him is so strong, I didn't want to ruin the fun for folks who or learning EDH or don't have optimized decks. I like Mirko out of the box despite the set not being great.
Cards like footbottom feast and if I’m in white, cards that give “you” hexproof or shroud are amazing graveyard protection! Most tend to target a player!
I was waiting for this episode years since I started playing. I dare to say Joey´s entusiasm about graveyards fuiled my passion to build these decks. These decks has so many way you can play them. From my beloved Karador to my Sidisi each of them has different ways to fill up the graveyard and utilize it. I love to be a center of attention and do big things and nothing screams more "look at me" than graveyard bigger than your library thats ready to be unleashed. I always played 50+ creatures in a deck and was very dedicated to the theme. But recently I stared playing new Winter, Cynical opportunist which finaly gave me the reason to play more spells and boi that deck slaps, you must try it! I cannot stop talking about it. It remineds me of you when you could not stop telling how you love your baby Lasagna. I realy love the sidequest of making delirium every turn and making my graveyard into fuel that burds my opponents. Love the video I was "dying" to hear more in-depth about how you brew your graveyard decks. Thanks man :)
The Desert Bloom precon got me to think of the graveyard as a resource, with popping lands in and out. I've been playing the Death Toll precon and it's a hoot. I just got the Slimer/Ghostbusters Secret Lair cards as a gift and now I want to make a Slimer/Mimeoplasm deck. I will definitely check out Joey's deck list!
regarding a sideboard of 34 cards for your oldest deck - My Kynaios and Tiro deck was the first, and it's been fluctuating since the dawn of time. Love being able to take the deck in so many directions
Joey's final words are very true. I never liked playing voltron style decks until I found the ones that fit me - Pako/Haldan and Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher. So if you think there's a strategy you would never play, stay open minded because the right flavor might come along and change your mind.
@26:12 100% agree. If you want the Ogre Battledriver effect, Enduring Courage is a strict upgrade because they have to exile it, or remove it twice to get rid of the effect.
What a perfectly-timed video. I'm getting back into graveyard stuff, next two decks are a Sultai list headed by Glarb, Calamity's Augur, who lets me surveil just by tapping it, and Jund list that's headed by Winter, Misanthropic Guide. Such powerful engines in the command zone
I took apart and then rebuilt a Syr Konrad deck that was "explosive" but I kept milling things like Mesmeric Orb and Morality Shift and getting sad. Now I have a deck with 55 creatures (with 37 lands) 😅, and my ramp, removal, draw etc is basically creature's abilities. I would LOVE to share my deck with Joey for constructive (and within budget) criticism.
I had a funny thought for Phelia, Exuberant Shepard, and Icatian Javlineers. Icatian throws the stick, and Phelia is supposed to fetch it, but Corgis are sassy, so the human has to leave and pick up the stick again. 😅 anyways great video! ❤
This was a fun episode! I love graveyard shenanigans, but I think I actually lean more towards the tool box style of Meren, Karador, Muldrotha, with the ability to Reanimate big bombs as an alternative/end game option then it being the focused. Funny enough Chainer is the one I'm most excited to build right now, but he has a lot of ways to cheat big creatures into play, and anything that isn't' cast from you hand gets hastes which is awesome! Henzie is another on my list to try and a lot of his deck lists have gy backup spells like Reanimate, Victimize, etc. GY tool box and Aristocrat are easily my favourite play styles, and there are so many fun ways to build them. great stuff!
I enjoy necromancy a lot, but I try to theme my reanimator targets rather than bringing back just 'good-stuff' which makes it even more interesting to me.
I try to brew in targets that are more synergistic pieces rather than powerhouse pieces. My Meren deck for instance is full of aristocrats targets like Avenger of Zendikar for token generation, Syr Konrad the Grim as a "does everything" card (mana sink, graveyard filler and damage), and Drivnod Carnage Dominus for making all my payoffs twice as powerful.
I reflect this sentiment a lot in my decks. For example, I want to run Mutants in Mothman, but there aren't a lot of good mutants, really. So I found Master Biomancer, a card that not only helps that issue, but also spreads counters around for my decks strategy. I prefer to build my decks for synergy and theme over power or even efficiency sometimes. The deck I'm most proud of in this aspect is my "upgraded" Clue Precon.
@@chasm9557 I really like Masacre Girl as a reanimation target, not only because every reanimation spell becomes a boardwhipe in a pinch, but because Living Death means everythings just dies right again giving you a gazzillion death triggers
The spells vs creature dichotomy is so grueling. I feel like I’m a recovering spellslinger turned necromancer and specifically a Golgari player. Green and black have such amazing instants and sorceries but I love finding a spell that’s just also slapped on a creature. Best of both worlds
Heya Joey I just wanted to say I appreciate you. I had never built a reanimator/graveyard deck before, but when the MH3 Goyfs precon came out I wanted it (because GOYFS) and I found a lot of your content really helpful when it came to upgrading the deck. Just seeing stuff you've done on gameplay episodes, spell combos you've described on the podcast, things like that. Really helped me wrap my head around the strategy (I'm not even gonna lie, I usually play Matt Morgan decks. not to say I copy his decks, but like, everything I build comes out very similar to stuff that Matt plays. a lot of tokens, attacking, etc.) so anything that wasn't "make tokens, attack with tokens" was kinda foreign to me, I had no idea what to do. But I really wanted to make the Goyfs deck sing, and I found a lot of your advice from the years really helpful in exploring and learning that process. Thanks Joey!
This was a great episode. I’ve been building a Sefris looter deck, which has gone through so many iterations before now. I am struggling to find the balance between backup reanimators and protection to avoid needing said backups reanimators.
I have/had many similar decks with Joey (Syr Konrad, Baba Lysaga, Titania and my ultimate fav and 1st deck, Meren) and even ended up building an Oskar, Rubish Reclaimer based on his Vohar deck. To me graveyard decks are the most fun to play, so it's nice to see this kind of content from someone that has a very similar building philosophy to mine
Definitely noticed the ratio differences in my own deck building. I’ve been trying to brew both Chainer, Nightmare Adept and Rona, Herald of Invasion Reanimator decks. Rona looks similar to Joey’s Vohar deck, using very little ramp and card draw while focusing on having a bunch of guys and reanimation. Ended up building Chainer the same way and it completely flopped. In reviewing it, Chainer wants early game creatures you can recast with fewer big reanimation targets and spells as he lets you recast a guy each turn while filling the yard, so the big guys go from being your general strategy to your dedicated finishers.
When you talked about red, i immediately thought about Henzie. I ended up dismantling Toolbox Meren and combining her core with Henzie's Jund Them down!
A fun deck to try is vega from kaldhiem. It's fun to use disturb,flashback,aftermath,and escape mechanics. If u want to include more of a headache like me,include foretell,suspend,plot,and other cast from exile effects. It's a blast to play cause it always plays differently and still hits all the synergies. I call mine " from somewhere"
32:00 I understand the sentiment so much. Whenever cards come out that care about whether they are tapped or untapped at specific times like the survivor mechanic, or that care about the number 3, I get super psyched. And it's for the stupidest stuff, which is what makes it so fun!
One of my favorite decks I ever built was a selesnya aristocrats Saffi Eriksdotter deck inspired by return to the ranks and I’d highly recommend to people who want a high-powered non-black sacrifice deck
Very nice episode! As a fellow necromancer, I have to agree that the ratios highly depend on the choice of your commander. While my Scion of the Ur-Dragon mass reanimator gets away with only 8 card velocity and 11 reanimation effects due Scion beeing a swiss army knife in the command zone, but really depends on ramp in the early game. My Imotekh the Stormlord deck on the other hand needs a bit more support with 24 card velocity and 16 reanimation spells.
@@pierre-lucboucher3222 @pierre-lucboucher3222 Sure, you can find the decklist here or on archidekt (same user): My manabase and ramp package got a bit more expensive over the years, but the deck also works perfectly fine with budget options and a bigger focus on basic land ramp. I included quite a detailed primer about the card choices, gameplan and the most noteworthy reanimation piles. In the end the dragons themselves are of course highly customizable, depending on what you already own or have fun playing / reanimating. Let me know if you have any questions 😊
@@pierre-lucboucher3222 Sure you can find the list both on archidekt and moxfield, I have the same username there as well ("Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Mass reanimator"). Sadly youtube keeps deleting my comment if I include the link..... I also included quite a detailed primer about the gameplan, card choices and the most noteworthy reanimation piles. Over the years my mana base and ramp package got a bit more expensive, but the deck also performs well with budget options and more basic land ramp. Same is true for some of the dragons as well, you can easily customize according to what you already own or enjoy reanimating. Let me know if you have any questions 😊
@@pierre-lucboucher3222 Sure you can find the list both on archidekt and moxfield, I have the same name there as well ("Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Mass reanimator"). Sadly youtube keeps deleting my comment if I include the link..... I also included quite a detailed primer about the gameplan, card choices and the most noteworthy reanimation piles. Over the years the deck got a bit more expensive, but it also performs well with a budget landbase, more basic land ramp and whatever dragon you enjoy playing most for reanimation targets. Let me know if you have any questions 😊
Y’all did red dirty when talking about its reanimation capabilities. Feldon of the third path - my absolute favorite commander. Red also has lots of trash for treasure effects like goblin welder that make graveyard shenanigans with big artifacts super fun
I play spot removal. Enchantment and artifact removal enough to help the table. I like to make deals with the graveyard guys. “Let me swing at you with 4 1/1s and I’ll draw 4 cards THEN I’ll remove that leyline of the void for you.” I’m playing green and blue often. White thrown in or red. I don’t struggle for removal. Also I made a deal with a guy using fleet swallower. Milled half his library so he could living death and kill a problem player then I cyclonic rifted and set us on equal footing lol it is great when you work with the graveyard guys.
I'm thinking about making a reanimator deck in orzhov, dimir, rakdos, and golgari. And then doing the same for aristocrats. I can have 4 reanimator and 4 aristocrats decks, right?
i have 2 graveyard decks, rakdos chainer and vohar. Chainer has been my favorite deck for years, but recently i built my vohar deck to try a more classic reanimator style and i absolutly love it.
One of the first decks I built is Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord with a dredge engine. I converted it from the Golgari Guild Kit, if that's what they were called. I love turning a Mortivore or Nighthowler directly into a win. Beware of bog.
The whole "juggling card types" is one of the main reasons I struggle with the idea of building spellslinger. There are so many cool creatures, and even enchantments, for spellslinger decks, but if I use too many of them I won't have enough spells! Mathing the correct amount of each is hard. The other reason is that spellslinger is kinda weird if you're like me and want to build tribal all the time. We've got wizards and otters, but then you're passing on many of the cool creatures, like Young Pyromancer. And that damned Bria is expensive.
funny part of about my red/white reanimator deck is it sort of leverages all the white ramp and ends up hard casting some of the bombs. and then reanimating them for cheaper later. makes it relatively resilient
The resilience of reanimator is something people often overlook. Yeah it's great to cheat out bombs, but there's a whole lot to be said for having your yard be a second hand.
One of my bucket list commander decks is an Enchantress Aristocrats deck. The deck would care about sacrificing enchantments rather than creatures. I think it's probably doable now, but I've wanted it ever since Aphemia the Cacophony in TBD.
I’m theorycrafting a budget aristocrats deck with a Lurrus companion and an enchantment subtheme, but it’s probably not functional to lean too much harder into that space yet. It’s a fascinating idea though.
@@fangornfan Between Narci from last year’s Commander Legends precon and all the bargain and enchantment tokens in Eldraine, I think it’s doable. Not good, but doable. Brewing Lurrus is one of my favorite things to do. Haven’t built the deck yet, but I keep thinking about it. Enjoy!
I have a pretty good mix of sacrificing enchantments and milling in my Anikthea deck. I really love it! I went with the approach of leaning into the fact that the enchantments are brought back as Zombies and built it kinda like a zombie tribal deck, but a lot of my zombies are just Anthem enchantments.
Sleeves and deckboxes won't stop Reanimation effects in game, but they will prevent the need to reanimate anything out of game by taping it back together
In defense of Karador, he gives you immediacy, get your 5 creatures in the grave, cast him for 3, and you're off to the races, which allows you to hand pick a smaller group of your favorite Reanimator spells allowing you to run even more fun stuff to reanimate which helps with the whole problem of payoffs vs enablers because you have that enabler in the command zone
chishiro, cauldron of souls, a gruul twist on necromancy more your not aloud to die and spirit binding then reanimation. you do have some of that in auras and green.
I use Meren, i like play a lot of fleshbag marauder effects and then use effects like sepulchral primordial for reanimate and kills my opponent with his own creatures.
If Joey wants to try a reanimator deck with red in it, there is Ayara, Widow of the Realm from March of the Machine. I built that as a reanimator deck and it can be quite fun
As a Necromancer myself, i fully support this podcast That being said, i think you undersold Chainer, Nightmare Adept usefullness. he does not cheat CMC, but he does solve the problem of the big guys stuck in your hand, plus it gives everything you reanimate Haste. you still need to run more eficient reanimators but he is great at filling your graveyard. also Doomed Necromancer and Aprentice Necromancer work wonders with Chainer.
Joey, I was curious which multi card type cards from duskmourn made the cut for baba lasagna. As a fellow baba player, I've been looking to modify! Thx in advance!
Red is probably the best to bring back artifacts. And it has allso the ping dmg of craetures that entring the battelfield. So a black/red artifact reanimator thats pings could be something. Need a comander.
I have three graveyard decks: one is my Shirei, shizo's caretaker, another is the new love Zoraline, and the last is my mycotyrant deck. First one really hasnt changed much from what it originally looked like besides a few minor upgrades; just a ton of low power creatures that do somethkng when they die but its not... powerful effects? Like a treasure or a scry or a card draw is meh... unless you can keep doing it over and over. Zoraline im still struggling with because... bats are difficult 😂. The mycotyrant deck is shifting because of a couple of duskmourn cards. But the mycotyrant is just descending until i hit gaea's blessing then start again. I learned the hard way it doesnt like a whole lot, or even an okay amount, of non permanent cards so i swapped out for creatures, artifacts, enchantments. And it does much better now. Still trying to get things running as smooth as i can with it... I do suppose my Shattergang Brothers deck is also a graveyard deck, cause persist creatures or cards that return to your hand or deck when they get saced, but i focus on sacrificing tokens in that so... *shrug* And sevris of the hidden ways is dungeon crawling to reanimate.
I am still struggling trying to make an aristocrat deck. I started with teysa double death triggers, and then moved to the new devil with sac outlets on it and can recure everything in a graveyard with blood tokens. I don't know the ratios to use for sac outlets, payoff, and blood for the blood gods, one time spells for recursion, consistent recursion. How many bodies should I have that have on death triggers (afterlife, draw a card). And so on
I'm looking at making a mono-black reanimator deck. But I'm not sure if I am 100% going to love the deck. What are some generic reanimator cards I should get so that I can recycle some of the cards for another deck should I decide to take the deck apart?
Enduring Innocence and Vitality are AMAZING in a Go-Shintai deck. Especially one focusing on tokens. He can bring them back over and over. Anyone know of that Council of Four token effect but as an enchantment?
Joey, each episode I watch/listen to, the more I think we have similar origin stories! 😂 First pack was Darksteel, my first custom homebrewed edh deck was Mimeoplasm in 2013, and I swear, Living Death does nothing wrong haha. Real talk, do you recall when BUG color fixing lands were so hard to find in 2012-2016, that “tainted” lands were perfectly acceptable, even exciting to run??? (Also, currently using your Mimeoplasm build as a framework to reinvigorate my current build. Might I suggest the new-lamog from MH3? Saw you didn’t have it in the 99. It’s really really funny when you pitch MulTargle for counters and have a 35/35, annihilator 28 ulamog for a commander lol)
@@EDHRECast my buddy ended up gifting me a regular printing when the set dropped, as he then traded for a fancy art version. It was a kind gesture, and I’ve managed to Frankenstein it together once (but of course it ate a Swords). My question here is how do you handle the operation costs and inevitably of folks having removal once your death machine has been assembled? I used to run Gaea’s Revenge for the Haste and baked in non-green protection, but it’s getting more difficult to keep the boy alive after he gets off the operating table 😢
22:17 thinking about reanimation as essentially ramp because you're cheating on mana costs is the most girl math thing I've heard in relation to commander, and I'm *absolutely* here for it 🤣🤣
Is there a list of everything that will count as a type for baba? I didnt think equipment would count so i guess im confused. List them and tell me like im 5😂
It's basically all the things Tarmogoyf cares about. Currently the types are creature, land, artifact, enchantment, instant, sorcery, planeswalker, battle, and kindred. Anything after the dash on the card's type line box is a subtype (equipment, aura, elf, etc) and other things like Basic and Snow are Supertypes. mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Card_type
graveyard centric decks depend entirely on the mercy of the other players. if everyone includes tormods crypt, bojuka bog, rest in piece etc. they only need 2-3 options per deck your entire deck is forever useless. unless you play some combo-shennanigans in which case: how much of a graveyard deck are you really? and I get it, recurring fleshbag marauder every turn coupled with a gravepact ist equally obnoxious. but a "fair" graveyard deck has no chance in a meta where they decided to actually do something against it. and if they don't do anything you are walking a fine line between opressive value and an actually fair game experience. most of the time you're most likely playing worse cards than your opponents just to keep the game fair. And the thing is, the counterplay to graveyard is just shutting it down entirely. And many many people lack the restraint to not do that, if they have the choice. Take for example Scavenging Ooze. The Ooze player will never ever in their life not activate ooze in reaction to your reanimate. It doesn't matter if you were to reanimate something like blight steel colossus or farhaven elf. They will just do it for the value it brings to them. Which leads to an escalation where you make sure they can't do that or at least would have to be fast. So you never just cast Reanimate on Farhaven Elf, you cast it on blightsteel colossus. And you don't cast it on blightsteel colossus turn 15 but turn 1 or 2.
the fact that you have to kill enduring creatures twice make them really booring. cause that's a powercreep im not fine with. those cards force me to play exile removal, and i dont want to lose diversity by being forced to play more staples.
Playing fair is for losers. That's what I learned after years of Yu-Gi-Oh. And that's what immediately attracted me to Graveyard decks, outside of just the prior YGO experience. Whatever rules the game has set in place for playing cards, the best thing you can almost always do is find every way you can break and cheat those rules, because that's how you win. The thing I've found about playing graveyards and the way I've learned to play around some of their worst weaknesses is that they require a degree of discipline. When you're on your grind, it's easy to start over-committing to the GY in dumping more than you have reanimation for or just trying to go in with all of your junk out at once. That's when grave-hate hurts the most. Your reanimation has to come in waves, commit only as much as you need to force the Bojuka Bog out, then move to the next wave. Ony after the shields are well and truly down or if you can guarantee the lethal, that's when you bet it all on black. A long gameplan is built in to the archetype itself, you just gotta make sure it doesn't get swept from under your feet. That's unless you play Dredge, but when you do that, you recognize that you're all-in on riding this rollercoaster, whether that be to victory or your own grave. It's also important to recognise that all grave decks aren't the same and the distinction is very important. My Meren deck has taught me that over the years. When I first put it together, it was off the scraps of a Dredge deck and it took no time to figure out that those pieces did not belong there. An occasional Underrealm Lich or Grisly Salvage here and there doesn't hurt, but you wanna be alot more focused with that deck, or at least the way I've built it. Targeted dumping, making sure the right cards are going in there is much more important than the sheer volume of stuff flooding in. Even between reanimator decks, whether you're doing more of a recycling aristocrat strategy or big reanimations can split the difference. I tried to play both sides with Meren, but ultimately I needed smaller guys much more than big idiots.
Dear Ultimate Guard, I was promised the anti-Rest-In-Peace feature for my card sleeves and yet my cards still end up in the graveyard. I think my card sleeves are defective. Please send the anti-rest-in-peace and doubly Endurance protected card sleeves next time, thank you!
That's unacceptable, and we'll bring this up to them ASAP.
@EDHRECast Will you bring it up to them in a board meeting or a cardboard meeting?
YOOOOOOOOOO I GOT THE CHALLENGE THE STATS PICK! WOOOOO!
Thank you for this episode!! Always enjoy hearing Joey giddy with delight about all the silly synergies and things you can do with the graveyard (yes, it is infectious. You win! XD)
If I were to give a tip of my own, it would be to look outside of commanders that directly mention the graveyard as inspiration for your deck. My pet deck, Aminatou, the Fateshifter, is a big creature reanimator deck. It utilizes her first 2 abilities to fill, bring back and abuse the etb of not just creatures, but permanents in your graveyard. It can attack from many angles, is EXTREMELY resilient and dare I say almost too synergistic. While Esper has a good foundation, there are plenty of other color combos I’m sure you can explore like the Shorikai Reanimator deck mentioned!
Either way, thank you both for sharing your passions. I’ll make sure to watch the other episodes to maybe get some more deck ideas 🤔 (better stop now I can and WILL go on about my deck for the next 30-minutes XD).
I first introduced to Commander by building my Life Gain deck but Alesha who smiles at death introduced me to the graveyard strategy and made me intrigued. Because of this, I eventually picked up the Mirko precon and am keeping it intact for lower power pods or playing against new players.
Mirko is a different graveyard strat then Alesha and I am finding it fun to learn a new aspect of renimator.
That's an excellent idea for keeping a deck's power in check for playing against newer people.
@@EDHRECast And considering mirko modified or a deck led by him is so strong, I didn't want to ruin the fun for folks who or learning EDH or don't have optimized decks. I like Mirko out of the box despite the set not being great.
Mimeoplasm was my gateway to both commander and graveyarding. Upgrading that precon over to self mill led me to Sidisi, and I found my home.
Cards like footbottom feast and if I’m in white, cards that give “you” hexproof or shroud are amazing graveyard protection! Most tend to target a player!
Footbottom Feast has to be one of the most casually gross cards in Magic 🤣
I was waiting for this episode years since I started playing. I dare to say Joey´s entusiasm about graveyards fuiled my passion to build these decks. These decks has so many way you can play them. From my beloved Karador to my Sidisi each of them has different ways to fill up the graveyard and utilize it. I love to be a center of attention and do big things and nothing screams more "look at me" than graveyard bigger than your library thats ready to be unleashed.
I always played 50+ creatures in a deck and was very dedicated to the theme. But recently I stared playing new Winter, Cynical opportunist which finaly gave me the reason to play more spells and boi that deck slaps, you must try it! I cannot stop talking about it. It remineds me of you when you could not stop telling how you love your baby Lasagna. I realy love the sidequest of making delirium every turn and making my graveyard into fuel that burds my opponents.
Love the video I was "dying" to hear more in-depth about how you brew your graveyard decks. Thanks man :)
The Desert Bloom precon got me to think of the graveyard as a resource, with popping lands in and out. I've been playing the Death Toll precon and it's a hoot. I just got the Slimer/Ghostbusters Secret Lair cards as a gift and now I want to make a Slimer/Mimeoplasm deck. I will definitely check out Joey's deck list!
The Desert Bloom deck makes for an interesting variant on graveyard decks for sure.
regarding a sideboard of 34 cards for your oldest deck - My Kynaios and Tiro deck was the first, and it's been fluctuating since the dawn of time. Love being able to take the deck in so many directions
Joey's final words are very true. I never liked playing voltron style decks until I found the ones that fit me - Pako/Haldan and Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher. So if you think there's a strategy you would never play, stay open minded because the right flavor might come along and change your mind.
Never send a spell to do a creature's job
That's exactly what my grandpa always said.
@26:12 100% agree. If you want the Ogre Battledriver effect, Enduring Courage is a strict upgrade because they have to exile it, or remove it twice to get rid of the effect.
Shows how great that entire cycle is that Enduring Courage might be the worst of the five and it's still great.
What a perfectly-timed video. I'm getting back into graveyard stuff, next two decks are a Sultai list headed by Glarb, Calamity's Augur, who lets me surveil just by tapping it, and Jund list that's headed by Winter, Misanthropic Guide. Such powerful engines in the command zone
We'd also like to say we timed it to line up clos to Halloween but that was just dumb luck 😄
@@EDHRECast I will believe it because it's better if that was the case hell yeah bruther
18:45 Gaea's Blessing: It self-Endurance, i.e. it shuffle ALL of your graveyard back into the deck it has been, basically, milled. That's nice :D
I took apart and then rebuilt a Syr Konrad deck that was "explosive" but I kept milling things like Mesmeric Orb and Morality Shift and getting sad. Now I have a deck with 55 creatures (with 37 lands) 😅, and my ramp, removal, draw etc is basically creature's abilities. I would LOVE to share my deck with Joey for constructive (and within budget) criticism.
Link the list below!
I had a funny thought for Phelia, Exuberant Shepard, and Icatian Javlineers. Icatian throws the stick, and Phelia is supposed to fetch it, but Corgis are sassy, so the human has to leave and pick up the stick again. 😅 anyways great video! ❤
This was a fun episode! I love graveyard shenanigans, but I think I actually lean more towards the tool box style of Meren, Karador, Muldrotha, with the ability to Reanimate big bombs as an alternative/end game option then it being the focused.
Funny enough Chainer is the one I'm most excited to build right now, but he has a lot of ways to cheat big creatures into play, and anything that isn't' cast from you hand gets hastes which is awesome! Henzie is another on my list to try and a lot of his deck lists have gy backup spells like Reanimate, Victimize, etc.
GY tool box and Aristocrat are easily my favourite play styles, and there are so many fun ways to build them. great stuff!
I enjoy necromancy a lot, but I try to theme my reanimator targets rather than bringing back just 'good-stuff' which makes it even more interesting to me.
I try to brew in targets that are more synergistic pieces rather than powerhouse pieces. My Meren deck for instance is full of aristocrats targets like Avenger of Zendikar for token generation, Syr Konrad the Grim as a "does everything" card (mana sink, graveyard filler and damage), and Drivnod Carnage Dominus for making all my payoffs twice as powerful.
I reflect this sentiment a lot in my decks. For example, I want to run Mutants in Mothman, but there aren't a lot of good mutants, really. So I found Master Biomancer, a card that not only helps that issue, but also spreads counters around for my decks strategy.
I prefer to build my decks for synergy and theme over power or even efficiency sometimes. The deck I'm most proud of in this aspect is my "upgraded" Clue Precon.
@@chasm9557 I really like Masacre Girl as a reanimation target, not only because every reanimation spell becomes a boardwhipe in a pinch, but because Living Death means everythings just dies right again giving you a gazzillion death triggers
You def pay a bit of a price mana-wise in going the less evil route reanimating in white.
@EDHRECast True. The most interesting version of this I've seen is Promise of Tomorrow. It's also risky though.
The spells vs creature dichotomy is so grueling. I feel like I’m a recovering spellslinger turned necromancer and specifically a Golgari player. Green and black have such amazing instants and sorceries but I love finding a spell that’s just also slapped on a creature. Best of both worlds
Heya Joey I just wanted to say I appreciate you. I had never built a reanimator/graveyard deck before, but when the MH3 Goyfs precon came out I wanted it (because GOYFS) and I found a lot of your content really helpful when it came to upgrading the deck. Just seeing stuff you've done on gameplay episodes, spell combos you've described on the podcast, things like that. Really helped me wrap my head around the strategy (I'm not even gonna lie, I usually play Matt Morgan decks. not to say I copy his decks, but like, everything I build comes out very similar to stuff that Matt plays. a lot of tokens, attacking, etc.) so anything that wasn't "make tokens, attack with tokens" was kinda foreign to me, I had no idea what to do. But I really wanted to make the Goyfs deck sing, and I found a lot of your advice from the years really helpful in exploring and learning that process. Thanks Joey!
Thank you! Glad it helped 🤓🫶
This was a great episode. I’ve been building a Sefris looter deck, which has gone through so many iterations before now. I am struggling to find the balance between backup reanimators and protection to avoid needing said backups reanimators.
TBH the biggest challenge w graveyard decks often is finding the balance between all the moving parts.
Listening to this while sleeving up mt Duskmourn Winter precon - which is a graveyard deck!
I have/had many similar decks with Joey (Syr Konrad, Baba Lysaga, Titania and my ultimate fav and 1st deck, Meren) and even ended up building an Oskar, Rubish Reclaimer based on his Vohar deck. To me graveyard decks are the most fun to play, so it's nice to see this kind of content from someone that has a very similar building philosophy to mine
They're fun but also have a surprising diversity of play so you can run multiple different variants and not feel like it's the same deck.
Definitely noticed the ratio differences in my own deck building. I’ve been trying to brew both Chainer, Nightmare Adept and Rona, Herald of Invasion Reanimator decks. Rona looks similar to Joey’s Vohar deck, using very little ramp and card draw while focusing on having a bunch of guys and reanimation. Ended up building Chainer the same way and it completely flopped. In reviewing it, Chainer wants early game creatures you can recast with fewer big reanimation targets and spells as he lets you recast a guy each turn while filling the yard, so the big guys go from being your general strategy to your dedicated finishers.
17:30 what on earth is that render of Syr Konrad? Why does he have a gold lantern and cape and a different face?? I'm going crazy!
I think its a tribute to Joey. They put his face on Konrad.
@@kjellegilhustad2095 I love that, I was just beyond perplexed by it
When you talked about red, i immediately thought about Henzie. I ended up dismantling Toolbox Meren and combining her core with Henzie's Jund Them down!
Been waiting for this one for a long time. Thank you Joey!
A fun deck to try is vega from kaldhiem. It's fun to use disturb,flashback,aftermath,and escape mechanics. If u want to include more of a headache like me,include foretell,suspend,plot,and other cast from exile effects. It's a blast to play cause it always plays differently and still hits all the synergies. I call mine " from somewhere"
Hey my suggestion for a Joey reanimator strat video from Matts strat video was actually answered! Nice.
Recurring nightmare was my 1st experience with graveyard treachery. Ended up being a Sneak attack guy myself but maximum respect!
32:00 I understand the sentiment so much. Whenever cards come out that care about whether they are tapped or untapped at specific times like the survivor mechanic, or that care about the number 3, I get super psyched. And it's for the stupidest stuff, which is what makes it so fun!
The stupidest stuff is often the best stuff for sure.
One of my favorite decks I ever built was a selesnya aristocrats Saffi Eriksdotter deck inspired by return to the ranks and I’d highly recommend to people who want a high-powered non-black sacrifice deck
sweet! My favorite deck is a self mill Sivriss graveyard deck
Self mill opens up sooooo many options.
As a fellow necromancer, who also transformed his Meren deck into a Baba deck, I love this episode!
Very nice episode!
As a fellow necromancer, I have to agree that the ratios highly depend on the choice of your commander.
While my Scion of the Ur-Dragon mass reanimator gets away with only 8 card velocity and 11 reanimation effects due Scion beeing a swiss army knife in the command zone, but really depends on ramp in the early game.
My Imotekh the Stormlord deck on the other hand needs a bit more support with 24 card velocity and 16 reanimation spells.
Do you happen to have a decklist on scion? I'd love to see it!
@@pierre-lucboucher3222 @pierre-lucboucher3222 Sure, you can find the decklist here or on archidekt (same user):
My manabase and ramp package got a bit more expensive over the years, but the deck also works perfectly fine with budget options and a bigger focus on basic land ramp.
I included quite a detailed primer about the card choices, gameplan and the most noteworthy reanimation piles. In the end the dragons themselves are of course highly customizable, depending on what you already own or have fun playing / reanimating.
Let me know if you have any questions 😊
@@pierre-lucboucher3222 Sure you can find the list both on archidekt and moxfield, I have the same username there as well ("Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Mass reanimator"). Sadly youtube keeps deleting my comment if I include the link.....
I also included quite a detailed primer about the gameplan, card choices and the most noteworthy reanimation piles.
Over the years my mana base and ramp package got a bit more expensive, but the deck also performs well with budget options and more basic land ramp. Same is true for some of the dragons as well, you can easily customize according to what you already own or enjoy reanimating.
Let me know if you have any questions 😊
@@pierre-lucboucher3222 Sure you can find the list both on archidekt and moxfield, I have the same name there as well ("Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Mass reanimator"). Sadly youtube keeps deleting my comment if I include the link.....
I also included quite a detailed primer about the gameplan, card choices and the most noteworthy reanimation piles.
Over the years the deck got a bit more expensive, but it also performs well with a budget landbase, more basic land ramp and whatever dragon you enjoy playing most for reanimation targets.
Let me know if you have any questions 😊
Y’all did red dirty when talking about its reanimation capabilities. Feldon of the third path - my absolute favorite commander. Red also has lots of trash for treasure effects like goblin welder that make graveyard shenanigans with big artifacts super fun
Red's grave options are limited, but it does have some fun ones we missed.
Yeah red is great at reanimating Artifacts specifically.
Or in feldons case, making copies of creatures in the graveyards that are now artifacts.
I play spot removal. Enchantment and artifact removal enough to help the table. I like to make deals with the graveyard guys. “Let me swing at you with 4 1/1s and I’ll draw 4 cards THEN I’ll remove that leyline of the void for you.” I’m playing green and blue often. White thrown in or red. I don’t struggle for removal. Also I made a deal with a guy using fleet swallower. Milled half his library so he could living death and kill a problem player then I cyclonic rifted and set us on equal footing lol it is great when you work with the graveyard guys.
I'm thinking about making a reanimator deck in orzhov, dimir, rakdos, and golgari. And then doing the same for aristocrats. I can have 4 reanimator and 4 aristocrats decks, right?
i have 2 graveyard decks, rakdos chainer and vohar. Chainer has been my favorite deck for years, but recently i built my vohar deck to try a more classic reanimator style and i absolutly love it.
My latest deck is Glarb. Reanimator/Landfall hybrid that is very versatile. Thought of Joey while I built it.
One of the first decks I built is Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord with a dredge engine. I converted it from the Golgari Guild Kit, if that's what they were called. I love turning a Mortivore or Nighthowler directly into a win.
Beware of bog.
The whole "juggling card types" is one of the main reasons I struggle with the idea of building spellslinger. There are so many cool creatures, and even enchantments, for spellslinger decks, but if I use too many of them I won't have enough spells! Mathing the correct amount of each is hard.
The other reason is that spellslinger is kinda weird if you're like me and want to build tribal all the time. We've got wizards and otters, but then you're passing on many of the cool creatures, like Young Pyromancer. And that damned Bria is expensive.
funny part of about my red/white reanimator deck is it sort of leverages all the white ramp and ends up hard casting some of the bombs. and then reanimating them for cheaper later. makes it relatively resilient
The resilience of reanimator is something people often overlook. Yeah it's great to cheat out bombs, but there's a whole lot to be said for having your yard be a second hand.
One of my bucket list commander decks is an Enchantress Aristocrats deck. The deck would care about sacrificing enchantments rather than creatures. I think it's probably doable now, but I've wanted it ever since Aphemia the Cacophony in TBD.
I’m theorycrafting a budget aristocrats deck with a Lurrus companion and an enchantment subtheme, but it’s probably not functional to lean too much harder into that space yet. It’s a fascinating idea though.
@@fangornfan Between Narci from last year’s Commander Legends precon and all the bargain and enchantment tokens in Eldraine, I think it’s doable. Not good, but doable.
Brewing Lurrus is one of my favorite things to do. Haven’t built the deck yet, but I keep thinking about it. Enjoy!
I have a pretty good mix of sacrificing enchantments and milling in my Anikthea deck. I really love it! I went with the approach of leaning into the fact that the enchantments are brought back as Zombies and built it kinda like a zombie tribal deck, but a lot of my zombies are just Anthem enchantments.
Sleeves and deckboxes won't stop Reanimation effects in game, but they will prevent the need to reanimate anything out of game by taping it back together
In defense of Karador, he gives you immediacy, get your 5 creatures in the grave, cast him for 3, and you're off to the races, which allows you to hand pick a smaller group of your favorite Reanimator spells allowing you to run even more fun stuff to reanimate which helps with the whole problem of payoffs vs enablers because you have that enabler in the command zone
chishiro, cauldron of souls, a gruul twist on necromancy more your not aloud to die and spirit binding then reanimation. you do have some of that in auras and green.
My first commander ever was Skullbriar back in 2011 😎
Storm of Souls is hilarious in the new Arabella!
I use Meren, i like play a lot of fleshbag marauder effects and then use effects like sepulchral primordial for reanimate and kills my opponent with his own creatures.
Where there's a Meren there's usually a Fleshbag Marauder nearby, just waiting.
If Joey wants to try a reanimator deck with red in it, there is Ayara, Widow of the Realm from March of the Machine. I built that as a reanimator deck and it can be quite fun
As a Necromancer myself, i fully support this podcast
That being said, i think you undersold Chainer, Nightmare Adept usefullness. he does not cheat CMC, but he does solve the problem of the big guys stuck in your hand, plus it gives everything you reanimate Haste. you still need to run more eficient reanimators but he is great at filling your graveyard. also Doomed Necromancer and Aprentice Necromancer work wonders with Chainer.
Joey, I was curious which multi card type cards from duskmourn made the cut for baba lasagna. As a fellow baba player, I've been looking to modify! Thx in advance!
Joey do you have a winter, Cynical opportunist decklist?
Returning player to the game and i grabbed to this precon since the necromancy called to me.
Red is probably the best to bring back artifacts. And it has allso the ping dmg of craetures that entring the battelfield. So a black/red artifact reanimator thats pings could be something. Need a comander.
I have three graveyard decks: one is my Shirei, shizo's caretaker, another is the new love Zoraline, and the last is my mycotyrant deck. First one really hasnt changed much from what it originally looked like besides a few minor upgrades; just a ton of low power creatures that do somethkng when they die but its not... powerful effects? Like a treasure or a scry or a card draw is meh... unless you can keep doing it over and over.
Zoraline im still struggling with because... bats are difficult 😂.
The mycotyrant deck is shifting because of a couple of duskmourn cards. But the mycotyrant is just descending until i hit gaea's blessing then start again. I learned the hard way it doesnt like a whole lot, or even an okay amount, of non permanent cards so i swapped out for creatures, artifacts, enchantments. And it does much better now. Still trying to get things running as smooth as i can with it...
I do suppose my Shattergang Brothers deck is also a graveyard deck, cause persist creatures or cards that return to your hand or deck when they get saced, but i focus on sacrificing tokens in that so... *shrug*
And sevris of the hidden ways is dungeon crawling to reanimate.
Maybe I missed it, but I'm still waiting for the episode where Joey plays Black-less Grave Recursion.
I am still struggling trying to make an aristocrat deck. I started with teysa double death triggers, and then moved to the new devil with sac outlets on it and can recure everything in a graveyard with blood tokens. I don't know the ratios to use for sac outlets, payoff, and blood for the blood gods, one time spells for recursion, consistent recursion. How many bodies should I have that have on death triggers (afterlife, draw a card). And so on
(Dana here) It took me forever to figure it out too before things finally clicked with Jaheira/Agent of the Iron Throne. Just keep tinkering!
If there's anyone you're going to trust about graveyards, it's going to be Joey!
*grasp pearls* how could we not speak of the OG graveyard shenanigan deck, the rock and his millions. T_T
I'm looking at making a mono-black reanimator deck. But I'm not sure if I am 100% going to love the deck. What are some generic reanimator cards I should get so that I can recycle some of the cards for another deck should I decide to take the deck apart?
Reanimate
Victimize
Undying
scryfall search similar cards using the wording from these and you'll see the rest 😉
@@Z-S-Hyou can just use “oracletag:reanimate”
Entomb
Animate dead
Exhume
Im a big fan of tortured existence but not really a generic card
Enduring Innocence and Vitality are AMAZING in a Go-Shintai deck. Especially one focusing on tokens. He can bring them back over and over. Anyone know of that Council of Four token effect but as an enchantment?
47:06 Daretti Scrap Savant enters the chat...
31:32 am i mistaken or does Glimmerlight only make 2 Types? Artifact and Enchantment. Equipment isn't a supertype.
Joey, each episode I watch/listen to, the more I think we have similar origin stories! 😂
First pack was Darksteel, my first custom homebrewed edh deck was Mimeoplasm in 2013, and I swear, Living Death does nothing wrong haha.
Real talk, do you recall when BUG color fixing lands were so hard to find in 2012-2016, that “tainted” lands were perfectly acceptable, even exciting to run???
(Also, currently using your Mimeoplasm build as a framework to reinvigorate my current build. Might I suggest the new-lamog from MH3? Saw you didn’t have it in the 99. It’s really really funny when you pitch MulTargle for counters and have a 35/35, annihilator 28 ulamog for a commander lol)
Nice!
New-lamog is definitely gnarly. Will certainly consider running it in Mimeo (though finding one is half the struggle there!)
@@EDHRECast my buddy ended up gifting me a regular printing when the set dropped, as he then traded for a fancy art version. It was a kind gesture, and I’ve managed to Frankenstein it together once (but of course it ate a Swords).
My question here is how do you handle the operation costs and inevitably of folks having removal once your death machine has been assembled?
I used to run Gaea’s Revenge for the Haste and baked in non-green protection, but it’s getting more difficult to keep the boy alive after he gets off the operating table 😢
Dear joey, do you think you could try and build a reanimator deck with Tymaret the Murder King? Hes a super resilient sac outlet and very non assuming
DON'T SLEEP ON OLD STICKFINGERS!
No one mentioned "going bananas" and I am heartbroken 😆🍌
Red reanimation? Anyone here familiar with Feldon of the Third Path?
22:17 thinking about reanimation as essentially ramp because you're cheating on mana costs is the most girl math thing I've heard in relation to commander, and I'm *absolutely* here for it 🤣🤣
Is there a list of everything that will count as a type for baba? I didnt think equipment would count so i guess im confused. List them and tell me like im 5😂
It's basically all the things Tarmogoyf cares about. Currently the types are creature, land, artifact, enchantment, instant, sorcery, planeswalker, battle, and kindred. Anything after the dash on the card's type line box is a subtype (equipment, aura, elf, etc) and other things like Basic and Snow are Supertypes.
mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Card_type
let us leaf these puns behind us
graveyard centric decks depend entirely on the mercy of the other players. if everyone includes tormods crypt, bojuka bog, rest in piece etc. they only need 2-3 options per deck your entire deck is forever useless.
unless you play some combo-shennanigans in which case: how much of a graveyard deck are you really?
and I get it, recurring fleshbag marauder every turn coupled with a gravepact ist equally obnoxious. but a "fair" graveyard deck has no chance in a meta where they decided to actually do something against it. and if they don't do anything you are walking a fine line between opressive value and an actually fair game experience. most of the time you're most likely playing worse cards than your opponents just to keep the game fair.
And the thing is, the counterplay to graveyard is just shutting it down entirely. And many many people lack the restraint to not do that, if they have the choice. Take for example Scavenging Ooze. The Ooze player will never ever in their life not activate ooze in reaction to your reanimate. It doesn't matter if you were to reanimate something like blight steel colossus or farhaven elf. They will just do it for the value it brings to them. Which leads to an escalation where you make sure they can't do that or at least would have to be fast. So you never just cast Reanimate on Farhaven Elf, you cast it on blightsteel colossus. And you don't cast it on blightsteel colossus turn 15 but turn 1 or 2.
At last!
the fact that you have to kill enduring creatures twice make them really booring. cause that's a powercreep im not fine with.
those cards force me to play exile removal, and i dont want to lose diversity by being forced to play more staples.
Playing fair is for losers. That's what I learned after years of Yu-Gi-Oh. And that's what immediately attracted me to Graveyard decks, outside of just the prior YGO experience. Whatever rules the game has set in place for playing cards, the best thing you can almost always do is find every way you can break and cheat those rules, because that's how you win.
The thing I've found about playing graveyards and the way I've learned to play around some of their worst weaknesses is that they require a degree of discipline. When you're on your grind, it's easy to start over-committing to the GY in dumping more than you have reanimation for or just trying to go in with all of your junk out at once. That's when grave-hate hurts the most. Your reanimation has to come in waves, commit only as much as you need to force the Bojuka Bog out, then move to the next wave. Ony after the shields are well and truly down or if you can guarantee the lethal, that's when you bet it all on black. A long gameplan is built in to the archetype itself, you just gotta make sure it doesn't get swept from under your feet. That's unless you play Dredge, but when you do that, you recognize that you're all-in on riding this rollercoaster, whether that be to victory or your own grave.
It's also important to recognise that all grave decks aren't the same and the distinction is very important. My Meren deck has taught me that over the years. When I first put it together, it was off the scraps of a Dredge deck and it took no time to figure out that those pieces did not belong there. An occasional Underrealm Lich or Grisly Salvage here and there doesn't hurt, but you wanna be alot more focused with that deck, or at least the way I've built it. Targeted dumping, making sure the right cards are going in there is much more important than the sheer volume of stuff flooding in. Even between reanimator decks, whether you're doing more of a recycling aristocrat strategy or big reanimations can split the difference. I tried to play both sides with Meren, but ultimately I needed smaller guys much more than big idiots.
I agree playing fair is silly and thats why i play mld
stop wasting everyones time Joey, we don't care that it has flashback, and you fingering your GY is kinda creepy