As many Reanimator fans will know, cheating massive bombs into play early is incredibly powerful and exciting. But what if I told you a new Standard deck takes the Reanimator theme a step further by focusing on resurrecting Planeswalkers rather than creatures?
Thanks to a new, overlooked uncommon from Reality Fracture, it’s easier than ever to build a massive advantage.
Building Around Rewrite Regrets
As you might expect from a Reanimator deck, this Grixis shell that top 4’d a Standard Challenge is looking to spend the early turns fueling the graveyard. Both Bitter Triumph
Bitter TriumphAs an additional cost to cast this spell, discard a card or pay 3 life.
Destroy target creature or planeswalker. and Seasoned Cryomancer discard your reanimation targets while slowing early pressure.
By running red, you also get access to Ashling, Rekindled, another way to get your Planeswalkers into the graveyard. Ashling also generates a burst of mana when it transforms, letting you cast Rewrite Regrets on turn three!
Unlike most Reanimator decks, your haymaker of choice is Ajani Unrelenting, which plays a lot nastier than it looks. If you’ve ever had the misfortune of staring this Planeswalker down in Limited, you know how devastating its effects are.
Ajani not only serves as a board wipe, but also nets you tons of tokens to start applying pressure. Rewrite Regrets also creates a Jace Token when you use it, fixing your draws and letting Ajani make more tokens.
Obviously, if Ajani lives until your next turn, you’ll be off to the races. Even if it doesn’t, by clearing the battlefield, you can slam other ‘walkers like The Theorist, Jace Beleren without it getting attacked down.
With Jace’s static ability, Seasoned Cryomancer’s graveyard activation, and Quantum Riddler, you should have no problem dominating the card-advantage battle. With plenty of resources, Ajani or Thor, God of Thunder should help you close out the game.
An Intriguing Take on Reanimator
Given how popular Dimir Reanimator with Superior Spider-Man is in Standard, going in this direction may seem a bit strange. But once you consider the rest of the metagame and the massive target on Dimir’s back, it makes a lot of sense.
For example, Lifegain is one of the biggest players in the format, and just won the Arena Championship. For Dimir, which just reanimates a few big bodies, Lifegain’s go-wide plan is hard to combat, something that Ajani fixes.
Ajani’s board-wipe ability is huge, cleaning up cards like Enlightened Confidant and Moseo, Vein’s New Dawn all at once. Your opponent can rebuild with Case of the Uneaten Feast
Case of the Uneaten FeastWhenever a creature you control enters, you gain 1 life.
To solve — You've gained 5 or more life this turn. (If unsolved, solve at the beginning of your end step.)
Solved — Sacrifice this Case: Creature cards in your graveyard gain "You may cast this card from your graveyard" until end of turn., but another Ajani fixes this with ease.
It may sound strange, but graveyard hate doesn’t outright destroy this deck either, unlike most Reanimator strategies. Sure, Rewrite Regrets sucks against Rest in Peace
Rest in PeaceWhen this enchantment enters, exile all graveyards.
If a card or token would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead., but Ajani is still extremely powerful when cast normally.
Compare that to Uldaros Theorix out of Dimir, and the difference becomes clear. Even if you aren’t reanimating Uldaros, you need cards in your graveyard for it to do anything meaningful.
Of course, there are still plenty of downsides to going the planeswalker route. Unlike Superior Spider-Man, you can’t make Rewrite Regrets uncounterable with Cavern of Souls, leaving you more vulnerable in control matchups.
Ajani’s -3 ability also lines up very poorly against five-toughness creatures, which is bad into Izzet Spellementals and Boros Dragons. The Dragons deck even runs Clarion Conqueror, which shuts your Planeswalkers down.
With these tradeoffs in mind, it’s hard to say if this version of Grixis Reanimator will pick up steam. Still, this strong performance is noteworthy and could be worth tinkering with in the future.
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