The Reanimator Deck

The purpose of this deck is to discard monstrous creatures, then bring them into play from the graveyard for two mana. The chief cards of this kind of deck are Animate Dead and Dance of the Dead. With support cards that can help you discard your creatures without just waiting until you have 8 cards in your hand, these decks can be rather effective.

Cards that can help you discard your big creatures are Mind Bomb, Jalum Tome and Krovikan Sorcerer. All of these are useful because they do more than get your big creatures into the graveyard. The Mind Bomb will either force your opponent to discard or take damage. The Krovikan Sorcerer and the Jalum Tome will simultaneously put a big creature in the graveyard and give you a new card! How nice! Some favorite big creatures for these decks include Polar Kraken, Deep Spawn, and Leviathan.

This deck has it's natural enemies, of course. Among the enemies of this deck are: Tormod's Crypt, Swords to Plowshares and Disenchant. The first two, Tormod's Crypt and Swords to Plowshares, are enemies because they remove your creatures from the game, and make it impossible to get them back into play. Even the life-gaining benefit of the Swords to Plowshares doesn't help you when you can't damage your opponent. For that reason, I recommend adding Counterspells and Flash Counters.

Other cards that may be helpful in this deck include Twiddle (free untapping of any of the monsters), Strip Mine (get rid of that pesky Maze of Ith or Ice Floes), Norrits (untap your blue creatures), Homarid Spawning Bed (sacrifice one big creature to get a bunch of little creatures) and Meekstone. Believe it or not, Meekstone is mostly ignored by a lot of this deck. If you have to untap the monsters the honest way, some untap during upkeep. If you use Dance of the Dead, they untap during upkeep, too, ignoring the Meekstone. If you want to, you can cast Paralyze on your own creature, and be able to untap it for 4 mana. Paralyze also ignores Meekstone.

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