Mono-Black Reanimator Guide

Hey everyone, Muxus here! Thought I’d write a primer on Timeless Mono Black Reanimator after the most recent Necropotence restriction. I aimed to make it digestible for newer players. The deck is still one of the best decks in the format, losing surprisingly little despite its best card being restricted. This list is essentially the same as pre-restriction, swapping 3x Sacrifice for the three copies of Necropotence. This aims to be a general guide of how the deck works and the functionality of the cards. 

If people are interested/I have time, I could write another article on its place in the metagame and notes for different match-ups. 

Card Choices

Main Deck

• Dark Ritual - the archetype’s namesake is obviously extremely powerful and the main build around. Dark ritual is at its strongest with three drops like Necropotence, Necrodominance, and Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. It’s also one of the best cards to draw into with Necro and key when storming out with Beseech the Mirror.

   

• Necropotence - The strongest standalone payoff for fast mana. Necropotence easily draws upwards of 20 cards in a game and essentially lets you start turn two with a fresh opening hand you selected from 10-15 cards.

   

• Necrodominance - Necropotence at home is still very powerful. The differently worded graveyard hate turns off Entomb, forcing you to win with Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, or Beseech the Mirror. Keep in mind that it doesn’t exile cards that were there when it entered, so if you Entomb before playing Necrodominance, drawing into Reanimate is live. In a similar vein, it’s also possible to bargain your Necrodominance with Beseech the Mirror to re-enable Entomb. Since bargain is part of the cost, you can even Entomb with your Beseech the Mirror still on the stack, letting you tutor for Reanimate.

   

• Demonic tutor - An extremely flexible way to find the cards you need. You won’t be playing more than one copy since it’s restricted, but it’s one of your best cards when you draw it. Keeping it in the form of a demonic tutor can be useful if you don’t yet know what card you need. For this reason, it’s particularly good at discard-proofing your hand post necro, assuming you have the extra mana to cast it.

   

• Grief - Maybe the most powerful piece of interaction in the format. Grief gives you crucial protection for your combo by discarding counterspells, removal, hate pieces, or parts of the opponent's proactive plan, all for the low, low cost of exiling a card that you probably didn’t need anyway, or you can replace it with Necropotence or Necrodominance. Grief also enables Sacrifice, which makes it an important piece of the fast mana package.

   

• Entomb + Reanimate - The most efficient and one of the most instantly game-winning combos in the format. This combo does have some downsides, as being reliant on the graveyard means a nombo with Necrodominance and enabling opposing graveyard hate. Reanimate costing life also means that it can be weak to aggressive starts from the opponent, and turning off if you pay too much life to Necropotence. These inconveniences pale in comparison to raw efficiency and power. Reanimate is also a powerful tool in scrappy games, together with Grief.

   

• Atraxa, Grand Unifier – By far the best reanimation target for a deck like this. The natural diversity in card types in the deck means that a resolved Atraxa, Grand Unifier almost always leads to another payoff cast the same turn. The huge 7/7 lifelink is also unbeatable for a lot of decks, and gains life, letting you Reanimate again or Necro into more action. Keep in mind that Sacrifice + Reanimate lets you trigger the etb again if you have the life to spare, essentially guaranteeing lethal through Tendrils of Agony.

   

• Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord + Saint Elenda - A slightly slower but more resilient combo compared to Entomb + Reanimate – Not costing life is very important as it lets you easily go off after necroing below 8 life. Most fair decks not named Energy have huge troubles dealing with the lifegain, big board presence, and interactive ETB trigger it offers. On their own, Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord can gain life with the + in a pinch or bait out counterspells from the opponent – they don’t know whether you have Saint Elenda in hand or not. On its own Saint Elenda gives you another reanimation target, if you draw into the Atraxa, Grand Unifier or can be put into opposing Show And Tells, letting you blow up their Omniscience, just keep in mind that the card Saint Elenda conjures doesn’t ignore timing restrictions, so you can’t Faith’s Fetter’s their Atraxa, Grand Unifier for free, and will have to cast it for it’s mana cost on your turn.

   

• Sacrifice – An even more powerful Dark Ritual when paired with Grief, and mostly guarantees a storm win if found off Atraxa, Grand Unifier. Sometimes awkward but consistent enough to be worth running, and it is a big part of our turn-one odds after Necropotence got restricted. The real downside with dependency on Grief is in sideboarding. The sideboard is, for this reason, mapped to have 8+ sideboard cards for Energy and Bx Scam, where Grief is bad, and you want to board it out.

   

• Beseech the Mirror / Tendrils of Agony – Extremely flexible and surprisingly efficient payoff. Beseech the Mirror can find Necropotence in the early game, Sorin to put Saint Elenda into play, Culling Ritual in post-board games to answer hatecards, Entomb, Reanimate, and Tendrils for the win. Reaching a lethal storm count is surprisingly easy with good play despite not really making any deckbuilding sacrifices outside of the one-off Tendrils of Agony. Beseech the Mirror casting Sorin, for free compared to tutoring for Saint Elenda, and then having to pay 3 to cast Sorin is the reason behind trimming more copies of Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, than Saint Elenda when you want to trim some of that package. 

Sideboard

• Culling Ritual – The most important sideboard card. It gives you an easily tutorable and efficient answer to cards like Disruptor Flute, Chalice of the Void, and boardstates from aggro decks. The mana it grants makes it very clean to tutor for with Beseech the Mirror and then follow it up with a payoff.

• Leyline of Sanctity – Super important for Mardu Energy and Grief decks. It can also make sense to board in against other decks with over 4 discard spells. Few decks leverage Leylines better than this one since you are weak to discard, mulliganing aggressively anyway, and only need a few cards to win
  . 
• Duress – Our tool against Force of Negation and, to a lesser extent, Commandeer. It can be devastating if you get Commandeered so plan accordingly. Duress is played over Thoughtseize as the 2 life is often relevant, and we usually want to target their noncreature spells anyway.
   
• March of Wretched Sorrow – A powerful tool against aggro decks. If you set a stop in your end step and draw down to 1 life, you get to sculpt an excellent hand and often end up with a higher life total than before by pitching the excess to March of Wretched Sorrow. Watch out for opposing removal spells on their own creatures to prevent you from gaining life.

• Prismatic Ending – This slot is for answering Deafening Silence, Chalice of the Void, Disruptor Flute, and, to a lesser extent, Static Prison and aggro creatures. It’s imperative to answer Deafening Silence on turn 1 against Energy, but cards like Fragment Reality get countered by Chalice of the Void, so Prismatic Ending is the only card that answers them both efficiently. As a bonus, it also hits a lot of other cards like Goblin Bombardment and Static Prison.

• Opposition Agent – Specifically for Show and Tell. Disrupts their mana, disables Waterlogged Teachings and Mystical Tutor, making it difficult for them to win in response to your trigger off Saint Elenda. Opposition Agent can also be useful in the mirror, giving you a Demonic Tutor if flashed in response to Beseech the Mirror or Entomb from the opponent. I’m not certain whether or not it’s correct to board in Opposition Agent against the mirror, but my instinct is that it’s too slow on the draw, and you just want to goldfish them on the play.

Cards that didn’t make the cut

• Vexing Bauble / Carpet of Flowers – In metas where blue tempo decks are popular, it can make sense to devote additional sideboard slots to it. Carpet of Flowers used to be the best card against blue, with the caveat of having to support it with green mana. Post necro-restriction, the deck went down 3 payoffs, so we became worse at using the additional mana Carpet of Flowers provides. Vexing Bauble is a colorless option that counters pitch-cast FoN and, most importantly, completely blanks Commandeer. As hate for the deck has decreased in popularity, Vexing Bauble loses some of its appeal vs blue decks that hate is in the form of Commandeer. I have tested it in the mirror and concluded that it’s pretty bad there. It is also a consideration for Show and Tell, but since they already play Veil of Summer, they are insulated against it on the combo turn. It would mostly be to counter Force of Negation and Commandeer. 

• Fragment Reality / Nature’s Claim – These are alternative answers to permanent hate. Fragment reality is mostly better than Prismatic Ending, outside of not answering Chalice of the Void. Both answer Deafening Silence about the same, and they both have their upsides versus Disruptor Flute. 2 mana is a lot less than 1, although giving them random one-drops can come up in a lot of situations. I feel they are also about the same at answering value creatures like Guide of Souls and Wary Zone Guard. If mono red prison / Chalice of the Void falls out of the meta, I’d give the edge to Fragment Reality, but for now, Prismatic Ending is the best option. 

Sideboard Guide

Note: This is a general guide for the Arena Ladder. Especially, which cards to trim depends a bit on their sideboard, so optimal sideboarding in open decklist events varies a bit.

Mirror

Mardu Energy

Show and Tell

Mono-Red Stompy

UBx Tempo

Bx Scam

Ruby Storm

Golgari Lands

Boros Energy