Budget Reanimator: Keeping Creature Revival Cheap

Budget Reanimator takes the Reanimator archetype and brings its price down to a more reasonable level. Reanimator lists can be quite costly, as some of the best staples and cards for it can fetch a higher price tag. Luckily, Reanimator has been a strategy for years, so you have plenty of budget options to replace the more expensive ones. As with all budget decks, they aren’t going to be as strong as their unrestricted counterparts, but that doesn’t make them bad. You aren’t going to be succeeding in the higher level brackets, but in Bracket Three and below, they’re right at home.

Budget Reanimator Staples

Reanimator is one of Magic’s oldest archetypes. So, Budget Reanimator is much easier to build compared to other archetypes that have effects locked behind more expensive cards. There are two main things you have to do in Reanimator, gets creatures in the graveyard and pull them back out.

Reanimation

In normal Reanimator lists, you have cards like Reanimate, Necromancy, and Animate Dead. These cards are all powerful, but they also possess a higher price tag that is a turn-off for those who don’t want to spend a ton of money on their decks.

You have multiple options that won’t cost you over a dollar. Dread Return lets you put any creature from your graveyard to the battlefield. You can flash it back with ease if you have creatures you don’t mind sacrificing as well. This is very useful as it may wind up getting milled to the graveyard. Likewise, Unburial Rites is the same, though the flashback cost is cheaper and doesn’t require creatures to be sacrificed. Using Victimize lets you turn one creature into two for just three mana.

There is also a common theme in Reanimator of spells that only cost one mana. The trade-off is that they can only reanimate cards of a lower mana value. These include the cards Helping Hand and Unearth. You aren’t going to find use for them in every deck. However, if you’re playing a low mana curve budget Reanimator build, they’re fantastic.

Graveyard Setup

While reanimation spells are important, you also need ways to get those cards into the graveyard. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck without creatures in the graveyard to bring back. Luckily for you, Budget Reanimator gets to run all the best ones since these are usually cheap.

Faithless Looting is one of the best cards to do so. It lets you dig through your deck to find either creatures to discard or reanimation spells to stay in your hand. With flashback as well, you get to use it twice. You can dump three creatures into the graveyard at the same time with Buried Alive. With Chainer, Nightmare Adept you can put a card into your graveyard, and it’ll give your reanimated creatures haste as a passive ability. This is fantastic for creatures that have attack triggers, since you can trigger them right away.

Self-Mill

Cards that self-mill are another important part of the Reanimator strategy. This provides a consistent stream of cards going to the graveyard. While you may mill some reanimation cards, you’re more likely to hit creature spells. And even then, there are ways to get reanimation spells out from the graveyard, so this shouldn’t be a concern for you.

Skull Prophet acts as either a mana dork, or a way to mill two cards every turn (or any time it’s untapped). You can utilize Sidisi, Brood Tyrant‘s effect to set up your graveyard, and get rewarded with 2/2 tokens whenever creatures get put into the graveyard (which is great with Dread Return). With Ripples of Undeath on the battlefield, you get to mill three cards every time your main phase comes around. If you mill a card you need in your hand, you can pay mana and life to get it back so you don’t lose access to it.

Graveyard Recovery

With Reanimator, you may find yourself milling cards you want in your hand. So, you want ways to play cards out of your graveyard to keep them active. Eternal Witness can put any card from your graveyard to your hand if you just need one vital card. Six lets you play nonland permanents from your graveyard, thanks to giving them retrace. Likewise, Muldrotha, the Gravetide lets you play one land and cast a permanent spell of each type each turn. Conduit of Worlds lets you play lands from your graveyard, and cast a nonland permanent from it by tapping the artifact.

Reanimation Targets

Reanimation targets are where the biggest disparity between budget and not comes into play. Sheoldred, Whispering One, Consecrated Sphinx, and Etali, Primal Conqueror are all great options, but also have a high price tag.

Ghalta and Mavren can create either a ton of tokens, or one giant token when it attacks, which can cause a snowball in the right build. Beledros Witherbloom makes mana generation easy so long as you have life to pay (especially since you only need to use the effect once more often than not). Since you cast so many spells, Hullbreaker Horror is a fantastic tempo card that can keep bouncing spells and permanents. Archon of Cruelty is a Modern staple, and makes for a great budget reanimation target as well.

Budget Reanimator Commanders

There are a lot of different budget Reanimator commanders out there. As with just about every commander, you can keep them cheap by opting to play weaker cards and focusing more on synergy with your commander itself. This article will go over a small handful of options with sample decklists, all of which are under $100.

Terra, Herald of Hope

Terra, Herald of Hope is an easy budget Reanimator deck to build since it comes as a precon. All you need to do is move some cards around, and you have a solid deck based on reanimating creatures with mana value of three or less. This enables the use of Helping Hand and Unearth to reanimate more creatures than just those brought back by your commander.

There are a lot of ways to consistently reanimate your creatures. Sun Titan essentially acts as a secondary commander in the deck. If Squall, SeeD Mercenary isn’t blocked and attacks alone, that’s two reanimation of permanents for the cost of one. Priest of Fell Rites can be used twice to reanimate a creature, and itself is a solid reanimation choice to chain into one of your bigger creatures.

You aren’t only going to reanimate cheap creatures. While they make up the majority of the deck, there are a few other ones with higher mana costs. Flayer of the Hatebound turns all your reanimated creatures into burn damage, and thanks to undying, makes it harder to permanently remove. If you get Sepulchral Primordial onto the battlefield, you can steal a creature out from all your opponents’ graveyards. Combustible Gearhulk will either give you card advantage or get you three cards milled into the graveyard to reanimate with your other spells.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. If you want a budget Reanimator deck, the Final Fantasy VI precon led by Terra, Herald of Hope is a great choice since it’s a rather cheap purchase. This list is an upgraded version of that precon.

Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist

Hashaton, Scarab's Fist is a unique Reanimator deck in that on top of traditional Reanimator plays, you’re also creating token copies of your best creatures. The idea is to discard powerful creatures, using your commander’s effect to make token copies of them, then use cards like Late to Dinner and Persist to reanimate the original card.

The most important cards in the deck are those that let you discard cards for free. Likeness Looter is one of these cards that also has the potential to become copies of cards in your graveyard permanently. Rona, Herald of Invasion can be used multiple times in a turn if you have legendary spells to cast. You can take advantage of Kitsa, Otterball Elite to either loot through your deck, or to copy a spell to double up on them (which can be useful for double reanimation plays).

There are some great creatures to get on the battlefield in Esper colors. You have a lot of creatures, so God-Eternal Oketra can create a ton of 4/4 Zombie tokens as you cast them. You make a ton of Zombie creature tokens, making The Scarab God one of the best creatures in the deck (and gives you another way to make cheap token copies of powerful creatures). Sire of Stagnation helps to provide you with draw power since lands are always entering the battlefield to keep your hand full.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck has a mix of reanimation through making creature tokens and traditional reanimation for the perfect balance of the two. You can save money on reanimation cards since your commander does it for you!

Karador, Ghost Chieftain

Karador, Ghost Chieftain is the most traditional Reanimator deck here. Although it has a high casting cost, it is very cheap once your graveyard is loaded with creatures. This discount can also help pay for the commander tax if it ever gets removed. It’s much more mill-heavy, using cards like Old Stickfingers and Grisly Salvage for ways to get a ton of creatures into your graveyard.

Since you will always have a ton of creatures in your graveyard, this makes it easy for you to prepare Grave Researcher, which gives you a copy of Reanimate to cast. Your commander lets you cast a creature card from your graveyard each turn, making Sakura-Tribe Elder great to ramp easily, and Saffi Eriksdotter a recurable way to keep a creature on the battlefield.

Since you’re often casting creatures from your graveyard, you have a few ways to make that cheaper. Gravebreaker Lamia puts a card into the graveyard and makes all cards being cast from there one less mana. Honest Rutstein can nab a creature from the graveyard, and discounts all your creature spells by one. You have Meren of Clan Nel Toth to assist in bringing creatures back for free, as your creatures are more likely to die in this build.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck is heavy in dumping creatures into your graveyard and bringing them back out either by casting them directly or with a reanimation spell.

Moseo, Vein’s New Dean

Moseo, Vein's New Dean is a hybrid commander that reanimates creatures through lifegain with its effect. You have passive lifegain through cards such as Pristine Talisman and Staff of the Death Magus to gain enough life to reanimate anything you want when your end step comes around.

This build of the deck plays a control-light strategy by utilizing cards that force all players to sacrifice a creature. So, cards like Accursed Marauder, Fleshbag Marauder, and Demon's Disciple all come out, sacrifice themselves, then are reanimated with Moseo, Vein's New Dean to make it happen all over again. Looping these on turns you don’t gain a ton of life is quite a good use of your effect to keep the battlefield clear.

For your bigger creatures, you have a selection of mass lifegian. Exsanguinate can gain you a ton of life even if X is low. At just two mana, that’s enough to reanimate just about any creature in your graveyard with your commander. Similarly, Blood Tithe gains you 9 life with one card. You also have another Exsanguinate copy thanks to Stensian Sanguinist. It’s easy to prepare it, so you have a recurrable way to cast it easily.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. It’s easier to stay in the game thanks to all the life you gain, and keep preasure on your opponents with a ton of reanimation.

In Conclusion

Reanimator is a very fun archetype with a ton of fun toys. A benefit of building a budget Reanimator deck is that it’s very easy to upgrade it. You can invest a low amount of money in a deck, and if you find yourself enjoying it, add in more expensive staples to make it stronger.

Reanimator decks can be very varied, and they don’t even need to just be reanimating creatures. It also blends well into other decks to make hybrid lists of multiple archetypes, budget or otherwise.