This deck is part of my pauper dueling deck project. The goal or this project is to create decks that cover a variety to archetypes and play well against each other.
Reanimator is a combo deck with a lot of graveyard interaction and tries to cheat powerful things into play for a low cost. It is most similar to Reanimator, Dredge, and Show and Tell decks in other formats.
In order to quickly get cards into the graveyard, this deck uses Insolent Neonate, Faithless Looting, Tormenting Voice, and Lightning Axe.These cards also provide some additional utility like cycling through the deck, chump blocking, and creature removal.
The goal is to get
Ulamog's Crusher
into the graveyard and reanimate it with Exhume. If
Dragon Breath
is also in the graveyard, it will attach itself for free and give the creature haste. Ulamog's Crusher is the biggest creature in the format and forces the opponent to sacrifice two permanents of their choice when he attacks.
Stinkweed Imp has Dredge, which can help populate the graveyard. However, the flying and death-touch allow it to block the majority of creatures in the format and kill them immediately. Dredge means you can have it come back as many times as you need. At least until you run out of cards in your graveyard.
Gurmag Angler can take advantage of the populated graveyard to cheat a large creature into play for a mana or two. This works as an additional body and a backup plan if the deck doesn't come together. It can also be cheated in with Exhume in a pinch and
Dragon Breath
will still attach to it.
Duress can get removal, counterspells, or combo pieces from your opponent.
Chainer's Edict is strong against decks with few threats or against creatures that are difficult to remove.
The mana base provides lifegain with Bloodfell Caves and Radiant Fountain. It also has Bojuka Bog against other strategies that make use of the graveyard.
Rakdos Carnarium can be used to return a land to gain more life or replay Bojuka Bog for additional value.
Sideboard:
Anarchist
is very useful to get back additional copies of Exhume in decks with a lot of creature removal or hand disruption. Duress and Chainer's Edict can be used for additional interactivity with your opponent. Faithless Looting or Tormenting Voice can be returned for additional card draw or discard.
Chainer's Edict can be boarded in against decks with few threats that can be difficult to remove otherwise.
Electrickery is a very powerful sweeper to deal with token strategies, or any other deck that tries to go wide.
Evincar's Justice
is the best sweeper in the format. It works well with
Anarchist
if needed multiple times or until you have the 7 mana required to use the buyback ability. It doesn't kill either of your win conditions, but deals with most creatures in the format.
Last Rites
is one of the most broken cards in the sideboard. It's very strong against combo decks or decks that don't contain a lot of card draw, while also providing another discard outlet for you.
Lightning Axe is a card to bring in when playing against decks that play larger creatures that need to be dealt with. 5 damage will deal with most of the large relevant threats in pauper.
Pyroblast
gives this deck counterspells and target removal against blue decks that can be difficult matchups.
Syphon Life
is a life gaining spell for the heavy aggro match-ups and alternative win condition against slow control decks. The amount of card draw that this deck has allows for an alternative use the lands you draw. Putting more cards into the graveyard can also help fuel Gurmag Angler as there is no way to recur the lands.
