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Reanimator is one of Magic’s oldest archetypes. For the uninitiated, Reanimator decks are ones that dump permanents into the graveyard to then revive them with a spell to bring them back to the battlefield. Sometimes, you’re loading up with creatures to bring them all out. Other times, you are cheating out a big creature that will hugely impact the game. Regardless, you’re often playing with your graveyard like it’s your second hand. This Reanimator Showcase will show off six different Reanimator decks you can try out of varying playstyles.
New to the Reanimator archetype? Before you jump into our Reanimator Showcase, you can check out the overview of the Reanimator archetype as a whole.
Reanimator Showcase: Creature Reanimator
The most “traditional” way to play Reanimator is to reanimate creatures. These decks are ones that dump various creatures into the graveyard, then bring them out with a reanimator spell (or in some cases, with its commander). They can do some extra things too in order to make the reanimation easier. In some cases, there are also backup plans to help boost up the weaker aspects of Reanimator as well.
Henzie “Toolbox” Torre
When you blitz out a creature, it triggers an effect that makes it be sacrificed at the end step. However, you can stack it so a different sacrifice effect happens first to get value out of the card before it dies. The best effect is with Industrial Advancement, which can replace the creature with another one. Alternatively, you can sacrifice it to Riveteers Ascendancy to reanimate a creature from the graveyard. If you need ramp, Ziatora, the Incinerator has you covered.
The best creatures to blitz out are ones that have enter-the-battlefield triggers. Roxanne, Starfall Savant leaves you with a mana rock and can be removal for a low-toughness creature. Vaultborn Tyrant draws a card and gains life, while leaving behind a token copy of it when it dies. Blitzing is still casting, so Bringer of the Last Gift brings all your creatures from the graveyard onto the battlefield while sacrificing the rest.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. It’s a very creature-heavy deck, so it’s as pure Reanimator as it gets.
Commander
Creatures (37)
Sorceries (9)
Artifacts (10)
Enchantments (7)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$559.56
Nethroi, Apex of Death
With Nethroi, Apex of Death, it’s just as much of a Reanimator deck as it is a Mutate deck. The effect triggers every time it mutates, so you’re constantly mutating and bringing back a ton of creatures. You stack your graveyard with mill like Ripples of Undeath and Buried Alive to then bring them out with your commander.
The power of mutate stems from being able to constantly trigger them every time you mutate. For Commander, Gemrazer is one of the best, as there are a ton of artifacts and enchantments that get played that are ripe for removal. You can cheat out permanents with Auspicious Starrix. The more times the creature has mutated, the better. To help recover from any life loss, Insatiable Hemophage will progressively provide life gain.
For reanimation purposes, creatures with no base stats are the best, as they are essentially free to bring back with your commander. Faeburrow Elder is a useful mana dork, Old Stickfingers will likely have giant stats, and Polukranos, Unchained can keep being revived as it fights creatures to remove them from play.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. Mutate tends to draw removal frequently, but that doesn’t matter when Nethroi, Apex of Death can just bring them back.
Commander
Creatures (43)
Instants (7)
Sorceries (9)
Artifacts (6)
Lands (33)
100 Cards
$218.14
Reanimator Showcase: Noncreatures
Creatures aren’t the only thing that Reanimator decks can bring back from the graveyard. These two decks are ones that don’t reanimate creatures, but other kinds of permanents instead. However, they follow the same general game plan as Reanimator decks: milling cards to bring them back out through other means.
Anikthea, Hand of Erebos
Looking at Anikthea, Hand of Erebos, it’s clear the kind of permanents you’re reanimating: enchantments. Technically, you’re not bringing back the original, but instead, exiling the original to make a 3/3 copy of it. This helps to get around expensive mana costs on enchantments such as Sandwurm Convergence and Legion Loyalty.
The copies of your enchantments are token creatures, which let other cards make copies of them easily. Growing Ranks is one of the best, as it lets you keep making new copies of your enchantments (assuming they aren’t legendary). Sphere of Safety synergizes well since you’ll have so many enchantments, and if you create copies, that’s a double-up on its effect. With all your tokens, Second Harvest duplicates all of your token enchantments to flood the battlefield with more.
You can take advantage of plenty of powerful enchantment support. Since your enchantments are brought back as creatures, Yuna, Hope of Spira gives them useful keywords. You can create an extra copy of all your enchantments entering with Ondu Spiritdancer (though only once a turn). Every enchantment entering can be turned into stat boosts for all your creatures thanks to Boon of the Spirit Realm.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. Although the enchantment count may seem low, most of the creatures are enchantment creatures as well for enchantments to make up most of the deck.
Commander
Creatures (28)
Instants (6)
Sorceries (8)
Artifacts (7)
Enchantments (17)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$401.5
Teval, the Balanced Scale
Teval, the Balanced Scale cares about any cards leaving your graveyard. In the case of this build, it’s Land Reanimator. You don’t want to bring them all back out at once, but instead slowly, to keep triggering your commander to make Zombie tokens. You even have a sub-commander Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, though you need creature cards being milled to make tokens. It’s a bit slower, but Teval's Judgment has the same effect as your commander, but can also give card draw or ramp.
There are two cards that are very good for your commander: Tortured Existence and Phyrexian Reclamation. These let you always trigger your commander to make Zombies. It also triggers Insidious Roots. Then, you can reanimate expensive creatures with Reanimate and Victimize.
Of course, with Land Reanimator you need ways to bring lands out from the graveyard. Icetill Explorer lets you play extra lands while also milling cards to set up your graveyard. You can use Conduit of Worlds to play lands from graveyards, while also being able to cast a permanent from there. Mole Man, Moloid Master enables lands to be played from graveyards while also creating tokens that can mill when attacking.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. This Reanimator deck plays much more like a Midrange deck as opposed to traditional Reanimator.
Commander
Creatures (29)
Instants (7)
Sorceries (15)
Artifacts (8)
Enchantments (7)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$455.66
Reanimator Showcase: Alternate Reanimation
The last two decks in this Reanimator Showcase will look at two commanders that don’t reanimate through traditional means. Instead, the effects of these commanders bring out creatures while playing heavily into other archetypes. These two decks are hybrid Reanimator decks for those who don’t want to play a pure Reanimator deck, but a mix of two popular archetypes.
Sefris of the Hidden Ways
Sefris of the Hidden Ways is a deck that is a third Reanimator (though it is the main focus). The second third is a Venture deck, using cards such as Nadaar, Selfless Paladin to venture through the dungeon to reanimate creatures with your commander. And the last third is a cycling deck, utilizing cards like Eagles of the North to trigger your commander since a creature gets put into the graveyard when cycling. This enables you to venture on your opponents’ turns.
Of course, you want powerful creatures to reanimate to make venturing through the dungeon worth it. Toxrill, the Corrosive slowly but surely takes out your opponents’ creatures with -1/-1 counters. You can permanently bring down the stats of your opponents’ creatures with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. You can have an extra stream of reanimation with Sheoldred, Whispering One. Many creatures venture when they enter, so they are good reanimate targets as well.
There are multiple cards that provide extra value if you’ve completed a dungeon. Imoen, Mystic Trickster generates card advantage by drawing you two cards every end step. Rilsa Rael, Kingpin gives a big stat boost that makes it much harder to be destroyed in combat. If you have a turn you can cast two spells, Tomb of Horrors Adventurer lets you copy a spell twice, which can be a big swing in advantage.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. It has a nice balance of all three archetypes, making for a powerful deck that can blast through dungeons while reanimating powerful creatures.
Commander
Planeswalkers (1)
Creatures (39)
Instants (9)
Sorceries (5)
Artifacts (6)
Enchantments (5)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$444.05
Shilgengar, Sire of Famine
Shilgengar, Sire of Famine is a unique Reanimator commander in that it’s both an Aristocrat deck and an Angel deck too. Nearly the entire creature pool consists of Angels such as Angel of Indemnity and Lyra Dawnbringer. The deck can put Angels into the graveyard with Blood tokens, then reanimate them by sacrificing six Blood tokens to bring all your creatures back.
Your commander wants creatures to sacrifice, so the deck runs plenty of token generators so you can make a ton of Blood tokens. Cards such as Skrelv's Hive, Bitterblossom, and Court of Grace all create creatures at your upkeep, and Rabble Rousing can create a ton of tokens when you attack. These creatures aren’t used for anything but as blockers and as ways to make Blood tokens with Shilgengar, Sire of Famine.
Blood tokens are the key part of the deck. They both set up your graveyard by discarding the creatures you want to reanimate and are needed to actually reanimate them with Shilgengar, Sire of Famine. You want other ways to make Blood tokens aside from your commander. The easiest way is with Transmutation Font, as you only need to tap it to make a Blood token. You can turn creatures dying into Blood tokens with Moonstone Eulogist for your opponents, and Voldaren Bloodcaster for your own. The downside to the latter is that if it transforms, you lose access to it. Falkenrath Forebear can make Blood tokens whenever it deals combat damage, and thanks to flying, it’s easier to connect for damage.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. This is an Angel Tribal deck with a heavy emphasis on Reanimator to bring out the most expensive Angel cards.
Commander
Creatures (36)
Instants (8)
Artifacts (10)
Enchantments (10)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$442.9
Alternatively, if you want to play a more “pure” Tribal deck, you can check out our Tribal Showcase to see more Tribal decks without a Reanimator package.
In Conclusion
This Reanimator Showcase went through three different flavors of Reanimator. The best part about the Reanimator archetype is that there are so many ways to build it. And it’s not exclusive to just creatures either. You can reanimate enchantments, lands, and sometimes even instants and sorceries too. Reanimator decks are Midrange decks that have slow starts, but very explosive ends to close out games.
Regardless of what kind of Reanimator deck you play, nothing is more satisfying than having two hands. While it can be painful to go up against anyone running graveyard hate, it’s not overly common in Commander. So, odds are, you’ll likely be able to have your gameplay go uninterrupted short of a Bojuka Bog.
If you love the idea of Reanimator but don’t want to spend a ton of money, you can check out our overview of Budget Reanimator to see staple substitutes and some sample budget Reanimator Commander decks.
