Reality Fracture Uncommon Creates Powerful Planeswalker-Reanimating Deck

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 Triumph As an additional cost to cast this spell, discard a card or pay 3 life.
Destroy target creature or planeswalker. and Seasoned Cryomancer Seasoned Cryomancer When this creature enters, draw two cards, then discard two cards. When you discard one or more nonland cards this way, tap up to that many target creatures and put a stun counter on each of them.
{3}{U}{U}, Exile this card from your graveyard: Draw two cards. discard your reanimation targets while slowing early pressure.

By running red, you also get access to Ashling, Rekindled Ashling, Rekindled Whenever this creature enters or transforms into Ashling, Rekindled, you may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
At the beginning of your first main phase, you may pay {U}. If you do, transform Ashling. , another way to get your Planeswalkers into the graveyard. Ashling also generates a burst of mana when it transforms, letting you cast Rewrite Regrets Rewrite Regrets Return target creature or planeswalker card with mana value 6 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Empower Jace 2. (Put two loyalty counters on a Jace token you control. If you don't control one, first create a blue Jace planeswalker token with "[−1]: Surveil 1" and "[−3]: Draw a card.") on turn three!

Unlike most Reanimator decks, your haymaker of choice is Ajani Unrelenting Ajani Unrelenting Whenever you activate a loyalty ability, create a 2/2 colorless Wizard Soldier creature token named Cadet.
+1: Creatures you control get +1/+0 and gain haste until end of turn.
−2: Discard your hand, then draw a card for each creature you control.
−3: Ajani deals 4 damage to each creature except for tokens you control. , 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 The Theorist, Jace Beleren At the beginning of each opponent's draw step, you draw a card.
+1: Create a 1/1 blue Illusion creature token.
−2: For each opponent, return up to one target artifact or creature that player controls to its owner's hand.
−6: Draw three cards. Then put X +1/+1 counters on each creature you control, where X is the number of cards in your hand. without it getting attacked down.

With Jace’s static ability, Seasoned Cryomancer’s graveyard activation, and Quantum Riddler Quantum Riddler Flying
When this creature enters, draw a card.
As long as you have one or fewer cards in hand, if you would draw one or more cards, you draw that many cards plus one instead.
Warp {1}{U} , you should have no problem dominating the card-advantage battle. With plenty of resources, Ajani or Thor, God of Thunder Thor, God of Thunder Flying
When Thor enters, exile target Equipment, instant, or sorcery card from your graveyard. Until the end of your next turn, you may play that card.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, Thor deals damage equal to that spell's mana value to any target. should help you close out the game.

An Intriguing Take on Reanimator

Given how popular Dimir Reanimator with Superior Spider-Man Superior Spider-Man Mind Swap — You may have Superior Spider-Man enter as a copy of any creature card in a graveyard, except his name is Superior Spider-Man and he's a 4/4 Spider Human Hero in addition to his other types. When you do, exile that card. 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 Enlightened Confidant Lifelink
At the beginning of your end step, if you gained life this turn, surveil 1. If you put a card with mana value less than or equal to the amount of life you gained this turn into your graveyard this way, put that card into your hand. and Moseo, Vein’s New Dawn all at once. Your opponent can rebuild with Case of the Uneaten Feast Case of the Uneaten Feast Whenever 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 Peace When 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 Uldaros Theorix Flying
When Uldaros Theorix enters, if you cast him, exile up to one target nonland card of each card type from your graveyard. Copy those cards. You may cast any number of spells with total mana value 6 or less from among the copies without paying their mana costs. (Permanent spells cast this way become tokens.) 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 Cavern of Souls As this land enters, choose a creature type.
{T}: Add {C}.
{T}: Add one mana of any color. Spend this mana only to cast a creature spell of the chosen type, and that spell can't be countered. , 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 Clarion Conqueror Flying
Activated abilities of artifacts, creatures, and planeswalkers can't be activated. , 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.

Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our brand new MTG Rocks Podcast!