There should be a reanimator deck but it's not as well-supported as I hoped. It simply doesn't come together as often as I would like.
There are 2 cheap reanimation spells, two more expensive ones. But even if you do get a bunch of those spells, it seems the threat gets answered and you lose. So perhaps I need another cheap spell too, but it's not the only issue.
I actually feel Angel of Serenity is the kind of card I want for my reanimator decks. It feels real in a way other threats aren't.
Well, I can help you with that! As it stands, the two big issues seem to be that reanimator decks can't come together often enough and that even when they do come together, the threats are easily answered. There are ways to combat both of these issues,
Part 1: Reanimation Density
The first thing I would do is think about is density of effects. We want our reanimator decks to be able to do their thing relatively often, or else the opportunity cost of being reanimator is too high. 4 reanimation spells (or 5, if you include
The Eldest Reborn) just isn't enough to reliably enable the deck.
If you look at reanimator decks from Constructed, they tend to run 12-ish reanimation effects (or during
Innistrad Standard, 4 copies of
Unburial Rites and 7 ways to get mill them!). In a 40-card Cube deck, that would mean running approximately 8 reanimation spells to reach the proper density and level of consistency of the contructed analogue. That's a lot to try to fit into a single deck, let alone a single cube! Luckily, there are a couple things we can do to work around this.
We're going to run with the assumption that all of our reanimation is going to cost between 3 and 5 mana, with the majority of these effects costing 5. This is important because the legacy decklist I linked above is trying to reanimate as early as possible in an unfair environment, whereas this deck is going to be trying to combo off a little slower in a fairer setting. This means that we can probably get away with running more like 6-ish reanimation spells, since games are inherintly going to be lasting a little longer than in constructed.
Part 2: Picking the Right Reanimation
I like most of the Reanimation effects you have chosen so far.
Necromancy is great for it's fast (but not unfair) rate,
Dread Return and
Unburial Rites can both be used twice, and
Living Death can let you bring an entire board into play in addition to being a cool build-around in it's own right. However, there are two cards I don't like. First is
Animate Dead. That card is very polarizing and can be hard to beat if someone is going all-in on discard to reanimation curves. The play patterns of
Animate Dead effectively lead players into really boring situations where games are decided based on whether or not one player has a
Go for the Throat. As such, I would actually reccomend cutting
Animate Dead. The other card I would reccomend cutting is
The Eldest Reborn. While this card is better in non-reanimation strategies, the fact is, reanimator players are probably going to be using this card as a 5th reanimation spell reasonably often. Even though
The Eldest Reborn's first two chapters are pretty good for some controlling strategies, the fact is, other cards can do everything this card can do at better rates and in more interesting fashions. While it is a good card for conserving space, you don't need it here.
This leaves us with
Necromancy,
Dread Return, and
Unburial Rites, plus or minus
Living Death depending upon how you wish to categorize that card. This means we want another 2-3 reanimation spells, preferrably ones that can be used multiple times. There are a few options to consider. The first is
Beacon of Unrest. This card is nice because it never squanders itself- if it resolves, it goes back into your deck, meaning you can draw it again later. This means that
Beacon of Unrest never truly goes away, allowing to effectively increase the the deck's number of un-drawn reanimation spells even after it has already been used. The next good option is
Bond of Revival. This card helps to ensure the thing you reanimated gets to attack at least once. The addition of haste fades removal from players who are tapped out or sorcery-speed removal for a turn. The other premium option I want to touch on is
Incarnation Technique. While this card's "made for multiplayer" wording is less than ideal, the rest of it's abilities are awesome. It enables itself through milling, meaning that you can usually get a target no matter what. It can also copy itself, letting you get two creatures out of one reanimation spell. Because of the way the Demonstrate mechanic is worded, your new creatures come into play after whatever the opponent brings back if you chose to copy. This means that they can't kill your reanimator target with a sneaky
Shriekmaw.
Incarnation Technique is definitely a strong option for reanimation.
If you want other options, the generic 4-mana reanimation spells can fill the gaps pretty well. I would look to
Zombify,
Vigor Mortis, and
Makeshift Mannequin as potential inclusions.
Makeshift Mannequin is especially nice because it is an instant.
Part 3: Better Targets
Now we come to what appears to have originally spawned your exploration into improving reanimation. When I'm looking at reanimation targets, I'm looking for three things:
1. Immediate Impact. Does this card do something immediately when it comes into play? Does it fail to complete that goal if it dies to removal?
2. Protection. If this card doesn't do anything immediately, can it protect itself?
3. Appeal to Other Archetypes. Do other decks want to play this card? Can this card ever be reasonably cast by those decks? Would I want to hard cast it if I had to?
If it doesn't have an immediate impact, can't protect itself, and doesn't appeal to other archetypes, don't play it.
So what does that mean for picking targets? Well first, I would definitely try to go for cards with more impactful enters the battlefield abilities. I've tested
Bogardan Hellkite in the past. It is way to expensive to ever cast and is a C-tier reanimation target at best. You're right to cut it.
Ashen Rider is a great upgrade to
Angel of Despair.
Thorn Mammoth is fine, I would keep it as it is a nice tie-in with ramp. It does fail to kill something if it is killed with instant speed removal, but I feel the combination of immediate impact when it doesn't die to
Doom Blade and the Ramp support make it worth it's slot. I think
Woodfall Primus is a good card to have in addition to
Thorn Mammoth. Primus is cool because because it has Persist, meaning it takes several removal spells to wipe it off the map.
I would suggest trying a couple of other new cards as well.
Massacre Wurm can wipe out a board of small things and provides a huge body after the fact.
Chancellor of the Annex is nice as it slows down the opponent's game plan when drawn early and has a little built-in protection with it's Mana Tithe ability.
Terastodon is cute as a way to kill opposing Planeswakers, Mana Screw an opponent, or convert Useless Lands into Board Presence.
Dragonlord Atarka is a more powerful version of
Bogardan Hellkite, except there are decks that can actually cast her.
Sphinx of the Steel Wind is cute, and it doesn't die to most
Shatter effects. Finally, I think the new
Velomachus Lorehold from Strixhaven could be good enough to warrant inclusion as a Reanimator target. He can actually start a reanimation chain, which is really cool!
Don't worry about spreadsheet equality! Reanimator targets are rarely going to be the same color as the deck they are supposed to be played in, so if you choose a card like
Dragonlord Atarka as one of your targets, you don't need to cut a Gruul card to play it.
If reanimating still proves to be weak after these changes, you could try going all the way up to
Griselbrand and similar high-impact cards. These ones will be a little bit closer to "oops, I win," though, so it would be wise to avoid them until you've exausted other options.
Part 4: Expand into White?
There's another way you can hit the proper densities of reanimation effects without having to shove a ton of reanimation spells into black: expand into White! There are actually a number of White reanimation spells that are about on-par with some of the medium-quality black reanimation that we would expect to see in a fair cube. For example, white has access to:
As you can see, White actually has a fair amount of Reanimation it can play. While it doesn't have as many ways to dump things into the graveyard as Black does, it still has a premium effect or two.
Seasoned Hallowblade is one of the best ways to get creatures from a hand into a graveyard! But the Hallowblade doesn't have to do it alone- it can get support from other colors, too!
The nice thing about expanding reanimation into White is that it lets you make "reanimation" into a specific two-color archetype as opposed to just being Black and whatever other color the drafter can scrounge. You can deepen the pool of support for reanimation without having to commit huge amounts of slots from a single color. It also lets you play 8 reanimation spells easily: 4 in Black, 4 in White, and
Unburial Rites actually brings you to nine! Finally, expanding reanimation to White also allows your drafters the ability to create some cool "emergent" decks. I don't think anyone expects that they could end up reasonably playing Boros, Selesnya, or Azorius reanimator when they sit down for a draft. Adding support to reanimation to White gives your drafters the ability to draft a cool new archetype and create memorable gameplay experiences. It's a win-win for everyone!
Part 5: Bits and Bobs
There were a couple of smaller things I noticed when looking at your list which would help reanimator, but didn't deserve their own full sections. First, I would Highly reccomend adding some addition Rummaging and Looting effects to the cube. For Blue, I would try to implement a
Thirst effect or some similar way of drawing then discarding. For Black, I would try to find extra free discard outlets such as
Putrid Imp or
Olivia's Dragoon, as well as some more self mill effects. For Red,
Merchant of the Vale and
Cathartic Reunion would be great additions (they also support madness!). In green, I would find space for
Noose Constrictor and some additional self-mill "cantrips" such as
Winding Way. I would also cut back on White's broken removal such as
Path to Exile and
Swords to Plowshares in favor of more
Pacifism and
Oblivion Ring type effects. Even if you want your format to be high powered, the
Swords effects are really punishing to any deck trying to play creatures that cost more than 3 mana to cast. They are especially bad for reanimator, who's entire gameplan revolves around getting some massive creature into play through a complex web of spells.
Hopefully this helps!
-GT
