Baby Beats to Nephilim Nightmares

Recurring Nightmare illustration by Jeff Laubenstein

With many tight games, Justqroughsketch barely squeaked out a 3-0 victory this last week with a Reanimator deck. The deck tries to cheat a large threat into play as early as turn three, or will look to stall the board until it can find the pieces reanimate a little later.

Now let’s get into the deck tech.

Reanimation

Many reanimator decks expect to effectively win the game if they can cheat a creature into play. Nephilim Nightmare’s game-winning threats are Iona, Shield of Emeria and Griselbrand. Against many decks, but especially combo archetypes and midrange strategies, Iona is a lockout. Combo decks can no longer go off and the midrange decks tend to not have too much on the board just yet. Griselbrand shines brightest against aggressive strategies, as racing is no longer possible for them. The draw ability of Griselbrand also sets up for the next reanimation against control and midrange decks looking to remove it. Recurring Nightmare and Unburial Rites is how you look to reanimate, meaning that you’ll need plenty of creatures, and plenty of ways to get cards into your graveyard.

Self Discard

It’s a great thing that we have cards that do both! Lesser Masticore and Seasoned Pyromancer combo amazingly with Recurring Nightmare in this deck, as they pitch your reanimation target and are sticky creatures for the sacrifice cost. Keeping your spells as creature heavy as possible leads to Cabal Therapist which allows you to target yourself and discard a combo piece, or use as the fodder for Recurring Nightmare. Cabal Therapist really shined in sideboard matches though, where I could target my opponent that brought in multiple copies of Ravenous Trap.

Sideboarding

With Green being such a popular choice in the meta, Scavenging Ooze is probably the most terrifying card for this deck. Not only is it a disruption tool against the deck’s main plan, but Scooze becomes a life-gaining stonewall against the go-wide aggro backup plan. Phyrexian Revoker can give you just enough time to combo off, and can even be sacrificed to Recurring Nightmare if your opponent taps out of green mana. Extra removal in the sideboard helps. This deck is specifically running Terminate over the easier-to-cast Go for the Throat, because an opposing Revoker can be annoying. As a creature-based strategy, this deck is also weak to Oath of Druids. However, in sideboarded games you can play into the enchantment and end up stealing your opponent’s Blightsteel Colossus with Mark of Mutiny for a huge reversal.

Lesser Masticore

Persistent plays prove powerful as Lesser Masticore overperformed this week. Against aggressive decks, it works as a blocker twice, and can even start removing their cheap threats. Against control decks, it sticks around on the board. The card acts as a double-enabler for Recurring Nightmare, letting you curve into an Iona on turn three while playing around Ravenous Trap. With a lot of graveyard hate in the meta, it’s important to be resilient and/or quick— Lesser Masticore helps Nephilim Nightmares accomplish both and grasp a 3-0 victory.