When a new premier set comes out, it’s very common for a handful of archetypes to get some neat upgrades. With the release of Duskmourn, Azorius Mentor in Standard got a lot of help thanks to Abhorrent Oculus. Similarly, Boros Heroic in Pioneer got a very unique build-around piece in Leyline of Resonance.
Every now and again, though, a premier set is powerful enough to give rise to an entirely new shell even outside of Standard. This happens to be the case with the emergence of Mardu Reanimator in Pioneer. This deck is wild, featuring four new Duskmourn cards that give the deck legs. In fact, this strategy managed to win a recent Magic Online Pioneer Challenge, showcasing its power. This deck’s gameplan is very unique for the format, so it’s cool to see it succeed.
Reanimation Station
- Mana Value: 6BBB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Stats: 9/9
- MTG Sets: Duskmourn
- Card Text: Flying, Lifelink. Ward—Sacrifice three nonland permanents. If a card you didn’t control would be put into an opponent’s graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead. During your turn, you may play cards exiled with Valgavoth. If you cast a spell this way, pay life equal to its mana value rather than pay its mana cost.
Pioneer has been around for many years at this point, and for most of its existence, we have not had a dedicated Reanimator deck. In order for a Reanimator strategy to work, you need a high density of discard outlets, huge haymakers, and ways to resurrect them. Luckily, Duskmourn brought us tools for all three categories.
In the discard outlet section, Fear of Missing Out is a perfect inclusion. It’s a solid card on its own, especially when you get Delirium rolling. Above all, it fills a similar role to Raffine’s Informant out of Abzan Greasefang as a way to discard something huge and buy you time to bring it back.
Speaking of fatties, Valgavoth, Terror Eater is now the best of the best in that department. As a huge threat with Flying and Lifelink, this card is impossible to race. Thanks to its outrageous Ward ability, it’s also nearly impossible to remove with traditional kill spells.
Finally, we have our reanimation tools. A full playset of Rite of the Moth makes an appearance, along with a few copies of Valgavoth’s Faithful. What makes these cards so strong, especially Rite of the Moth, is that they allow you to bring back a threat for only four mana. The difference between four and five mana is huge in a format as fast as Pioneer. Rite of the Moth even has the added bonus of letting you return something else from your graveyard to play via Flashback. This can be very helpful against decks with Counterspells.
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Supporting Cast
- Mana Value: B
- Rarity: Uncommon
- MTG Sets: Aether Revolt, Double Masters
- Card Text: Destroy target creature if it has converted mana cost 2 or less. Revolt– Destroy that creature if it has converted mana cost 4 or less instead if a permanent you controlled left the battlefield this turn.
The rest of the deck is made up of cards that help you achieve your goals as consistently as possible. Both Bloodtithe Harvester and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker serve as ways to discard big bombs while simultaneously clogging up the ground with creatures. Bitter Triumph works double duty as a discard outlet and a removal spell. As important as it is to set up your Reanimator shenanigans, its equally as important to make sure you survive long enough to maximize all your cards.
As such, Fatal Push and Thoughtseize are still excellent cards to have access to. Fatal Push prevents you from getting completely run over by red aggro decks, while Thoughtseize can clear a path for your reanimation package by stripping the opponent of counter magic, graveyard hate, and more.
This brings us to the last few creatures in the deck. Titan of Industry and Atraxa, Grand Unifier act as supplemental giants alongside Valgavoth. In Pioneer, you don’t have a card like Entomb, so you really do need to run a lot of creatures worth resurrecting.
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Strengths and Weaknesses
- Mana Value: WU
- Rarity: Uncommon
- MTG Sets: Murders at Karlov Manor
- Card Text: Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3. If that spell is countered this way, exile it instead of putting it into its owner’s graveyard.
At the end of the day, this deck’s elite finish in a major Pioneer event is quite noteworthy. Mardu Reanimator may be a strange choice, but it attacks a lot of the top decks in the Pioneer metagame very well. For instance, as long as you can keep Rakdos aggro players a bit off-balance with your removal, your huge, life-gaining monstrosities are bound to win you the game.
The reality is, most decks are not equipped with the tools necessary to beat Valgavoth once it hits the board. Izzet Phoenix has access to Spell Pierce, but not much else in game one that can halt a turn four Rite of the Moth. Even Abzan Greasefang can have issues, since Valgavoth completely brick walls a Parhelion II attack.
The two biggest areas of weakness this deck can have are to graveyard hate and Counterspells. Thoughtseize obviously helps take away some problematic cards from the opponent, but once something like Unlicensed Hearse hits the table, things get a lot harder. Meanwhile, Azorius control plays a wide variety of Counterspells that can be tough to navigate through. No More Lies is a perfect answer to Rite of the Moth, exiling it so you can’t even flash it back.
Even countering your discard outlets and stranding you with Vagavoths in hand can be problematic. The good news is that there aren’t a ton of Counterspell-heavy decks and pieces of graveyard hate running around at the moment. As such, it makes sense why this Reanimator deck was able to exploit the metagame so well. The deck hasn’t made much noise beyond a couple strong performances yet, so it’ll be cool to see if it picks up steam in the coming weeks.
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