While Modern has always contained an extremely wide variety of different decks and archetypes, one thing it has always lacked is a true Reanimator deck.

While there have been more combo-oriented Goryo's Vengeance decks, the basic strategy of "put a large creature in graveyard" and "bring back said creature very quickly" has never translated to Modern because the cards were never there. Entomb comes in just a bit before the cutoff for Modern, while supremely undercosted reanimation spells like Reanimate and Animate Dead are relics of Magic's history.

No more!

While not quite Entomb and Reanimate, both Unmarked Grave and Persist enter the format as a duo made for each other, while also designed very well around avoiding the obvious reanimation target in Griselbrand.

All that we need is a good plan B...

Time Stamps:

Match 1 - 00:04:35

Match 2 - 00:22:49

Match 3 - 00:38:46

Match 4 - 00:56:41

Match 5 - 01:16:26

Cabal Reanimator | Modern | Jim Davis

• Creatures (7)
• 1 Ashen Rider
• 1 Grave Titan
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Sundering Titan
• 3 Archon of Cruelty

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Liliana of the Veil

• Instants (2)
• 2 Fatal Push

• Sorceries (25)
• 1 Unburial Rites
• 2 Bone Shards
• 2 Collective Brutality
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Persist
• 4 Profane Tutor
• 4 Thoughtseize
• 4 Unmarked Grave

• Enchantments (1)
• 1 Phyrexian Arena

• Lands (23)
• 6 Swamp
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 3 Polluted Delta
• 4 Cabal Coffers
• 4 Marsh Flats
• 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
• 1 Engineered Explosives
• 1 It That Betrays
• 2 Vindicate
• 2 Plague Engineer
• 1 Fatal Push
• 2 Timely Reinforcements
• 2 Stony Silence
• 2 Nihil Spellbomb
• 1 Castle Locthwain

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Well, aside from a slight bathroom mishap, that was a very solid run!

Having a good plan B is so important for any graveyard deck, as the power level of graveyard hate in Modern is very powerful. I tried out a fairer Esper build in my Ten New Brews from last week, but the fair gameplan just wasn't robust enough to be relevant.

As such, I mentioned I was interested in testing out a Mono Black Cabal Coffers/Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth plan to just cast the boom booms as most of them were Black anyway. As we saw in the matches, this worked out quite well in any slower, more interactive matchup. The opportunity cost is fairly low, while the payoff is quite high. Hardcasting Archon of Cruelty isn't crazy when you've slowed the game down with a bunch of discard, while having a main plan of putting it into play on turn two or three is also awesome.

Perhaps the most surprising card that I just kept adding more of was Profane Tutor. Most of the "no mana cost" suspend cards are used in more combo like ways, but suspending Profane Tutor on turn two after a discard spell was phenomenal. By the time turn four rolls around you've got a pretty good idea of what you want, be it the missing piece between Unmarked Grave and Persist or Cabal Coffers and Urborg. Having all your mana available the turn you cast it as well is great as you can complete a full reanimation or interact as needed. It also allows for some nice silver bullets.

This deck reminded me a lot of old school Extended Magic and was a blast to play!