Instead of my usual fare of a long rambling mess of text, I decided that this week I wanted to try my hand at a long rambling mess of video. With G/B/W Reanimator continuing to put up strong results all over the place, I wanted to play the deck against some of the most popular decks in the field and show how I feel those matchups should be played and, maybe more importantly, how I feel one should sideboard in them.
I get asked frequently how to sideboard with G/B/W Reanimator. It’s one of the most important things to know about any deck, but it is especially important with this one. G/B/W Reanimator is extremely customizable, and how you sideboard can radically affect how well you perform. For example, before Dragon’s Maze when The Aristocrats was a problem matchup for the deck, Chris VanMeter and I spent a few hours one night testing the matchup and coming up with a sideboard plan for it. Those few hours turned the matchup from a nightmare into one where we actually felt favored.
G/B/W Reanimator has the tools to really fight any deck, but it’s not possible within the confines of 75 cards to have the optimal configuration against every single deck. Therefore, it’s important to really put a lot of effort into determining what the most important matchups are and having sideboard cards that are versatile enough to be useful in a variety of matchups.
That takes time, effort, and practice. It’s not always possible to intuitively know what cards will be good and bad in a matchup without taking the time to actually try them out. For example, I thought Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice might be really good against The Aristocrats when CVM and I had that testing session, but after a few games we realized that it actually didn’t do what we wanted. Likewise, I thought Thragtusk was mediocre against them because it didn’t actually attack or block profitably through most of their creatures. As it turned out, Thragtusk became significantly better in post-board games because in those games we now had access to more removal spells to really force him through the Boros Reckoners and Falkenrath Aristocrats.
We wouldn’t have known that if we just went off of our "gut" feeling. That could easily have resulted in a loss in our next tournament where we sideboarded incorrectly or placed value on the wrong cards in the matchup.
Speaking of which, the metagame has started to radically shift, and as a result G/B/W Reanimator has to put emphasis on a different set of cards than before. Aggression is the name of the game right now, and it’s important to have the right combination of cards to be able to handle these aggressive decks in game 1. I’ve made a number of changes to my G/B/W Reanimator list in an attempt to fight the current metagame.
Here’s what I’m currently working on and the decklist I used for the following videos:
Creatures (23)
- 1 Acidic Slime
- 4 Arbor Elf
- 2 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
- 3 Restoration Angel
- 4 Thragtusk
- 3 Angel of Serenity
- 2 Voice of Resurgence
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (23)
Spells (12)
Todd Anderson told me how he’d been playing Voice of Resurgence in the maindeck of his G/B/W Reanimator list, and I actually agree with that decision right now. Voice is very strong against the aggressive lists and just a powerful card in general.
As much as I love giving people the old slippery handshake with a pair of Acidic Slimes, now is not the time to Slime. I left one in the maindeck for matchups where you really need the effect since it is a searchable target with Garruk Relentless, but I moved the others to the sideboard to provide myself with a much stronger game 1 against aggressive decks. I’m back up to four Thragtusks, and I don’t foresee myself dipping below four unless the metagame shifts back to the midrange and control decks of yesteryear.
Likewise, Sin Collector hit the bench. Sin Collector continues to be a key role-player, but this time he is going to be performing that role outside of the starting lineup. Sin Collector collects a whole lot of getting his ass whooped when you’re playing against something like Naya Blitz. The decks he naturally preys on, such as Esper Control and U/W/R, are severely dwindling in popularity and so is his maindeck viability.
Gaze of Granite was a card I wanted to try out for maximum blowouts against Bant Hexproof. It’s always worthwhile in testing to try out new cards and ideas just to see if they have merit. If they don’t, you’ve lost nothing, but if they do, then you’ve gained a new tool. Unfortunately, I don’t think Gaze is really where I want to be and likely won’t be playing it again, but it was definitely worth the try.
Bant Hexproof
+2 Voice of Resurgence
+2 Abrupt Decay
+2 Gaze of Granite
+1 Acidic Slime
+1 Fiend Hunter
-2 Garruk Relentless
-1 Mulch
-1 Unburial Rites
-3 Angel of Serenity
-1 Sever the Bloodline
Alternate SB plan to try out:
+2 Abrupt Decay
+2 Gaze of Granite
+1 Acidic Slime
+1 Fiend Hunter
+2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
-2 Garruk Relentless
-2 Voice of Resurgence
-3 Angel of Serenity
-1 Sever the Bloodline
Jund
-2 Voice of Resurgence
-2 Fiend Hunter
+2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
+1 Acidic Slime
+1 Sever the Bloodline
Naya Blitz
-1 Acidic Slime
-1 Angel of Serenity
-1 Unburial Rites
-1 Mulch
-2 Garruk Relentless
+2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Fiend Hunter
+2 Voice of Resurgence
+1 Sever the Bloodline
U/W/R
The sideboard plan drastically changes based on the composition of the U/W/R list. Against the list that won last weekend in Dallas, I would do the following:
-1 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
-2 Fiend Hunter
-1 Sever the Bloodline
-2 Thragtusk
-3 Angel of Serenity
+2 Voice of Resurgence
+2 Sin Collector
+2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
+3 Acidic Slime
Against the more aggressive Geist version, I would check out the sideboard plan and explanation I gave a couple weeks ago in my Versus video against U/W/R.
The Aristocrats
-2 Arbor Elf
-2 Voice of Resurgence
-1 Acidic Slime
-2 Garruk Relentless
+2 Sin Collector
+1 Fiend Hunter
+1 Sever the Bloodline
+1 Gaze of Granite / Arbor Elf
+2 Abrupt Decay
G/B/W Reanimator
One of the matchups I wanted to play was the mirror match. Unfortunately, due to card availability and timing restrictions I wasn’t able to put together a second copy of the deck, and we ended up just skipping this video to focus on the others instead.
If we had played it, here is how I would have sideboarded:
-2 Voice of Resurgence
-4 Thragtusk
-1 Angel of Serenity
+1 Sever the Bloodline
+1 Fiend Hunter
+3 Acidic Slime
+2 Abrupt Decay
The key is to stifle their mana production. Garruk Relentless, Abrupt Decay, and Fiend Hunter handle the one-drops, and Acidic Slime, Restoration Angel, and Unburial Rites fight their actual lands. One sideboard change that may turn heads is adding the second Abrupt Decay and trimming one Angel of Serenity. So often games in the mirror match end with one player just getting Slimed out, and it’s worth having more early answers to help prevent that or set yourself up to be the first to do it. Angels often just rot in hand.
As I mentioned above, I don’t think I will be playing Gaze of Granite again and the list can definitely still use some fine-tuning, but overall I like the direction it’s going based on how aggressive the current format is. Naya Blitz, Naya Humans, Naya Aggro, R/G Aggro, G/R Aggro, Jund Aggro—the format is currently being defined by R/G/x decks, and I wouldn’t touch G/B/W Reanimator without a proper plan for beating them.
Hopefully this article and these videos were informative. Please let me know in the comments if you liked this format, if you want to see it again, and if there is anything I can improve on if I do it again.
Thanks for reading watching,
Brian Braun-Duin
@BraunDuinIt on Twitter
BBD on Magic Online