It’s not “Hoof there it is”.
It’s not “Reanimator”.
It’s REANICRATER!
… Which is basically a less efficient version of the Hoof / Reanimator decks all squashed into one.
I played this deck the past two weeks to a 3-1 and 4-0-1 (win!) record. Now that it’s had its FNM victory, I can safely retire it to the annals of history, never to be played again. I don’t think this deck is as good as either Reanimator or Hoof, as it lacks the consistency that both of those decks share. I can safely say that this report will be more on what went wrong in the deck building process than how it actually won games, as in a competitive field it would not have gone the distance as my Bant and Naya decks did.
Sometimes I like to try and “recreate the wheel” when it wasn’t broken in the first place just to add a little personality to my decks. There is always conflict in me to either:
a) Play the best deck.
b) Play something that I design myself.
So I end up going with:
c) Take a good deck and modify it to my tastes!
In the case of my Bant and Naya decks, the tweaks worked out. In the case of Reanicrater, they did not.
TO CREATE VS. TO COPY
One of the things I struggle with is the concept that most times decks become successful because people who are better players than myself invest lots and lots of time into refining them, play testing them, and finding that perfect 75. I normally whip up a homebrew the day of a tournament and just hope it works out, relying on my play skills to make up for poor card decisions. I think the pros have taken the whole “get creatures into the graveyard / play fatties” concept to its uppermost echelon, and that any modifications made to their lists just result in suboptimal choices at this point.
I’m going to link to a few of the successful lists first, then post mine:
Brad Nelson’s “Hoof there it is” Deck:
Brad Nelson’s deck uses fast ramping creatures to power out Craterhoof Behemoth, and finds them with cards like “Tracker’s Instincts” (4x). It doesn’t matter that his deck has 15 accelerators (including Deathrite Shaman) because they end up amazing for him once he hits a Craterhoof. They all add to the +1/+1 count and overrun for the win, So it’s OK that Hoof is really all he’s got as a fatty because that’s what he’s aiming to hit.
Kenji Tsumura’s “Reanimator” Deck:
Kenji on the other hand has both Angel of Serenity AND Craterhoof Behemoth in his deck, and looks a lot more like I tried to make mine. If I were to play this type of deck again, I’d probably use a list much more similar to his. It has midrange elements to it like REstoration Angel, Centaur Healer and Thragtusk, which give him some game against the fast aggressive decks in the format, and let him just play out “good creatures” until he’s able to reanimate (or hard cast) a Craterhoof or Angel and win the game on the spot.
Both of these decks have focus on doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Mine is a mix that loses its consistency in the hopes of doing something great. Here it is:
CARL SZALICH’S REANI-CRATER DECK
SPELLS (18)
4x Grisly Salvage
4x Mulch
2x Tracker’s Instincts
4x Lingering Souls
4x Unburial Rites
CREATURES (19)
3x Avacyn’s Pilgrim
2x Arbor Elf
4x Somberwald Sage
4x Thragtusk
2x Angel of Serenity
1x Griselbrand
3x Craterhoof Behemoth
LANDS (23)
4x Temple Garden
4x Sunpetal Grove
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Woodland Cemetery
2x Hallowed Fountain
2x Isolated Chapel
3x Forest
SIDEBOARD (15)
4x Centaur Healer
4x Restoration Angel
2x Ray of Revelation
3x Deathrite Shaman
1x Angel of Serenity
1x Griselbrand
MODS MODS MODS
Now I’m not going to say that this deck is terrible, clearly its record over two tournaments of 7-1-1 is a testament to its raw power and ability to win games. It was just too “clunky” a lot of the time. It didn’t ramp when it was supposed to (note that it only has 5x 1 drop accelerators + the Somberwald Sages). Its ratio of Unburial Rites vs. Cards that put things in the graveyard was off. It really only had Thragtusk main to combat ANY aggressive strategy without pulling off the god hand T4 kill. All in all, I never had the feeling like I was ever “in control” of games. It felt more like I was always having to backpedal and just hope that the right sequence of cards would magically appear in my hand through the 10 sources of deck manipulation I main. Every game I boarded out some of my spells and added Restoration Angel, and since I was boarding out graveyard interaction, it blanked the Deathrite Shamans in my board… they never came in once. So even the sideboard was a mess that I hadn’t thought through.
Were I to play it again I would make the following changes main:
-1 Griselbrand / +1 Angel of Serenity
-1 Unburial Rites / +1 Arbor Elf
-1 Grisly Salvage -1 Mulch / +2 Restoration Angel
-2 Somberwald Sage / +2 Centaur Healer
MATCHUPS / SIDEBOARDING STRATEGIES
I’m not sure where that would leave the sideboard, but it would have to be completely reworked as it really wasn’t that great to begin with. I found the only things I was really doing were boarding out Griselbrand, a Behemoth, a Rites and a few of my dig spells to board into 4x Restoration Angel + 4x Centaur Healers all the time. That was my whole strategy it seemed… shore up on the aggro matches because G1 was always just “pray to get lucky and block their stuff until I resolve a fatty”.
So since the board was terrible, I really don’t have any other advice to offer. That’s a big reason why I feel that the main deck changes are so crucial. They give you the best buddies of Resto Angel + Thrag + Healer again and make the deck more capable of holding its own without having to rely on any kind of “combo” to ensure victory. Now you can just grind out like a midrange deck and pull off an “ooops, I win” out of nowhere!
SUM IT UP!
I like how the deck has the capability to do 364 damage all at once (swung for that in G3 vs. my round 1 opponent last Friday!), and playing powerful creatures always feels good. I think that in its newest form it would play a much smoother G1 and actually allow you have a coherent sideboard. You don’t need a ton of cute tricks when your deck is streamlined and focused and just has a “backup plan” instead of trying to go all in on a longshot, which is what it was doing previously.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY:
This holiday season think about what you’ve already got, and not what you hope to receive. If you’re healthy and have a roof over your head, you’re already in a better place than many other people. That new WII or Playstation game doesn’t mean as much as having family and friends who love and support you, as without them, where would the joy of the Christmas season come from anyways?
Merry Christmas everyone!
Carl Szalich
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