Greetings! Welcome to the list I have been playing for a couple of months now with maybe a 50% win rate, there was another deck here on Curiosa with the same idea I have not been able to find since. If you know the deck I speak of please link it so I can payu homage!
A big change recently is that I cut from the deck. The idea came from earlier iterations when we played more s which honestly I feel like something this deck really wants. The board presence and being a magic in the cemetary should be excellent.
The plan is to somehow get a sticky:ish/large creature in the early game and then rinse and repeat. The deck is extremely soft to cemetary hate, even more so than most archimagos. Should look into playing and .
Something that you need to plan around is that there is always, always, removal for the first threat you present. Be mindful of earthquake and poison nova as they will try to get value, split your minions up even more than you are used to so they really only have one choice.
targets:
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Raise dead
Garbage (most likely) from your opponents graveyard and your cool stuff.
Kythera mechanism fixes this problem, however I including the Amulet felt like it didn't do enough and diluted the deck somewhat. Also an early Raise dead via is better imo.
Mulligans
I find it quite tricky to mulligan with this deck, the trick is looking at the 6 cards in hand and figuring out which route in the deck you want to go.
Route 0:
If you have the mix in the opener try to get either a vampire/gall + tower and popoff t2 or go into the reanimator route
Route 1: Reanimate with spells
Mill sources , ,
Reanimation method , , ,
If you have one of , aggressively mulligan for anything that puts a minion into the cemetary, ideally
On the other hand if you have the mill, either in sites or rats, yout best bet is in the spellbook and you want to spend yout mulligan there. (6/60 reanimation spells in the spellbook but only 2/30 (4/60) in the atlas)
Obviosly the crossing comes with the possiblity of punting immediatly and unless you have at least one mill source in hand you should probably put it back especially against fire/air decks.
If you have and a big thing I would try to mulligan for a reanimation method (shocker!) and here I am unsure what the best way to go is. I would guess that it is trying to get a reanimate site and then draw from the spellbook to work 2 angles.
Route 2: The tower of Babel
When I find in the opening 6 I tend to mulligans aggressively for a Base to build the tower and get a free Daperyll, note that you need the threshold erven when you cast spells for free. It is very rare that you end up here but it feels even more powerful than the reanimate routes since you are only developing normally
Route 3: Landmass + mill
is a really good card, especially against pathfinders which are really good at applying preassure against out life total. If you manage to landmass via & a tower early and then do it again you really mess with most decks and soon enough you will be able to just hard cast the big things in the deck. Just remember to not overcomit and keep , , , and when positioning your minions.
The summary is that and is really what you want to see (sometimes the princess needs to go if the other stuff is is a reanimation site + mill) as they allow you to drop a or onto the opponents backline and win.
Below follow the thought process for the cards included
Hate against other cemetary focused decks and the ability of removing the small minions from one cemetary. Very jealous of redmane hyena, have currently cut it, probably a mistake but I felt like I mostly had 1-2 minions that I wanted to get rid of and if you are able I believe the beetle needs to eat 3 cards.
Enablers
Arguably the most important part of the deck, fills the graveyard and findable of off both tutors
Clairvoyant and Sisters of Avalon
These two fall into the same category in my head even though they are good in very different circumstances
Merlin
Is mostly here because he is fun. The ability of just looking is also very potent when you have a rat and a draw spell in hand and are unsure what to do first.
Big guys
Vampires
carionetting one of these bad boys t2 or t3 usually means that they either spend 2 cards on your minion or you get to be in the driver's seat for the next couple of turns.
Mephistopheles
Have not had much luck with reanimating this guy and the situations where he would have popped off have either been games that are already won or it wouldn't really have made a difference.
Draconian Bonekite
The removal on a stick usually scare folks quite a bit and it hits like a truck
Doom
Unkillable big guy that ideally kills them dead or at least all of their minions
Lord of the void
Landing this eldritch being on the field somewhere between t2 and t4 means that you have won the game. Leave him in the void and let him do his thing and sooner or later you will get something that can finish the job
Conqueror worm
Big guy that also threatens their mana
Nightmare
Getting this guy out while they dont have a 2x2 site formation means that something is always going to get banished in the void or pushed away from your sites. Couple this with attacking for 7 each turn and this nightmare might just be yout opponent's final dream.
Young master Damion
Getting 3 bodies early, two of which cannot be killed before their master, means that thir single target removal spell doesn't do much
Assorted Animals -> rats
Blink -> card draw and pushing your sites based threats to unexpected locations. Important to remember that you can always just cycle it by teleporting yourself to the site you already occpuy.
Common sense -> utility and rats
Disenchant -> Common sense target
Border militia : a minion that buys time and does not muck up the cemetary. Also bodies for Dhol Chants. There are very credible arguments to cut or go up to 4 of this card. I think I lean more towards cutting this and Dhol Chants in order to get 1 falling star and some cheap removal into the deck
Bury: Common sense
Carrionette -
Landmass: With all the genesis effects we have in our atlas being able to fill the cemetary for another reanimation spell and getting the aforementioned sites into play seems like a good idea
Murder of crows; Got tilted one game and included it, should be something else
Chaos twister: Fun removal
Raise dead -
Whirling blades: Feels wrong to play air and leave home without the blades that whirl
Kythera Mechanism: Fixes raise dead
mix aer: Dark ritual is a good card when trying to do unfair things
toolbox: Unsure if this is a toolbox deck. Just felt wrong to not have toolbox -> zap as an option
MAybeboard
Desecrate: There are a couple of annoying sites that would have been awesome to get rid off. Having a conqueror worm hit them for 8 is also quite the bonus
One card must go
Collection
zap - finish it
unravel - Have the disenchant in the main so having an answer to opposing vampires felt nice
fade, I like that it says draw a card - a bit complicated to setup though
teleportation, I mean the one that teleports anything a diagonal step. Stealing a ring seems like good fun
murder of crows - Small stuff
lightning bolt - Aino
Ghoul x4