Old School MTG: Mono-Black Yawgmoth Reanimator (Revisited)

Back from the dead, baby!

It's time to reanimate some robots. Pray to the old gods.

I built the first version of this deck last year. This version has some tweaks, including some Workshops I picked up at the end of last year in a huge trade. This is part of my project to build one artifacts-focused deck in each color this year.

In my old notes, I expressed concerns about Su-Chi. But I wanted to see one get sacrificed to a Priest and turn into 8 mana! I'm still waiting for that to actually happen in a game. Soon. Icy Manipulator is the MVP, for sure. Jalum Tome is great. The deck is mana heavy, probably too mana heavy. The little book helps fix draws by throwing away extra mana sources and can fill up the 'yard early for reanimation targets.

There's too much focus on producing mana and not enough focus on payoffs to soak up all that mana. It could handle another little book and another Colossus, at least. Maybe go down one Su-Chi and well, I'm not sure what else. Start cutting colorless lands? That doesn't feel right, but there's only 11 black mana sources including the Mox already. In the few games I've played with it, I've been stuck with no access to black mana. I see other decks playing fewer colored mana sources and I'm not sure how they get away with it, especially in a 4x Strip Mine format.

There are a lot of neat tricks I haven't been able to pull off with this deck yet. Taking counters off Triskelion and/or Tetravus, then saccing it to Priest to cast another threat seems powerful. Looping Animate Dead with the Skull is cool. Lots of crazy stuff I can do with that. Tapping a Basalt Monolith for 3 colorless, then saccing it to Priest for 3 black to cast a 6 drop sounds good. Attacking with a Colossus, then saccing it to Priest later to fuel a huge Drain Life is a dream play. Bonus if I can renanimate it after!

I played some games against Ben with his Ernhamgeddon deck via webcam, proper Old School matches, at least as proper as can be when we aren't face-to-face.

I also played a few games against the family. These were multiplayer games against modern decks. At one point, I had access to 24 mana and nothing to do with it! I need to cram in more little books. My Colossus got hit with a Luminous Bonds immediately in the picture below and I couldn't find a Priest for a long time to make good use of it. I was forced to reanimate a small white flier just to put up a blocker! Sad face.

The soulless black eyes of that cat doll are staring me down. I'm starting to question my own sanity. Well played.