We live in a Standard Valgavoth, Terror Eater, and Atraxa, Grand Unifier coexist, so of course graveyard junkies are going to reanimate them. While reanimating a huge threat faster than the opponent can respond is a tried-and-true Magic: the Gathering tradition, today's deck isn't focusing on that as much as you might think. Yes, the possibility of a turn four Valgavoth exists within this deck, but that's only one of many gameplans that we're going to use to move forward and climb the ladder. You could call this a midrange deck without lying, but reanimation is also a key element, so I'll stick to the reanimator label.
The Core Package
No reanimation deck can exist without ways to pull creatures out of the graveyard, and ways to fill the graveyard. Valgavoth's Faithful and Overlord of the Balemurk work in tandem because the Overlord fills the graveyard via mill and can bring the Valgavoth's Faithful back to hand if it's in the yard. A Valgavoth's Faithful in hand is incredibly valuable in this deck as it plays around soft counterspells and can be activated the moment you drop it, unlike similar cards like Doomed Necromancer or Soulcoil Viper.
You'll even notice that this deck is foregoing Zombify in favor of a playset of Valgavoth's Faithful. While this makes the turn-four dream less likely, the deck is far more consistent and opponents may sideboard in Negate to deal with a Zombify that just doesn't exist.
The Big Threats
We have two of the biggest, baddest angels and demons at our disposal right now, so we take advantage. At nine and seven mana respectively, these cards are pretty lousy in our opening hand without a way to discard them, but this deck is capable of ramping into them if the game goes long. Identifying what grave hate the opponent has and whether or not to discard them early is crucial to getting the best bang for your buck with these cards. If a turn one Ghost Vacuum shows up, maybe pay the life on Bitter Triumph rather than put Valgavoth in the graveyard and prioritize hitting your late game land drops more than you normally would.
The Mid Threats
The key to this deck's success is its ability to apply pressure without engaging with the graveyard at all. Obviously, we want to pull our huge monsters out of the bin, but Rest in Peace, Ghost Vacuum, Soulguide Lantern, and Leyline of the Void are all Standard legal, so the chances of our graveyard being cut off in games two and three are very high. If our opponent sideboards and mulligans specifically to hate the graveyard, we have other alternatives we can hard cast for value that they also have to answer. This one-two punch gives the deck far more sustainability in best-of-three and I'm having tremendous luck with it on the ladder.
Betor, Kin to All is a rock-solid five drop that feels good when cast directly from the hand, but is also a perfectly serviceable reanimation target if our mills don't pan out optimally. The same can be said for Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, which has been the gold standard for four-mana threats in multiple formats. These two also work well together as Betor will consistently draw additional cards as long as he's not alone on the battlefield, and Sheoldred will heal you for having drawn them.
This philosophy of having mid-level threats that consistently come back is what really unlocked the reanimator archetype in the current ladder, not only because we have these two, but the Overlord of the Balemurk itself is a 5/5 threat that draws cards, and Overlord of the Hauntwoods is also a must-answer threat that can ramp us into a hard-cast Atraxa or Valgavoth.
The Planeswalker Package
Flexibility in our threats is this deck's whole gimmick, and that doesn't stop with the creatures. We're running two planeswalkers that give us the utility we need while also having game-ending ultimates that need to be respected. Liliana of the Veil is key at stripping our opponent of resources and giving us a discard outlet. Wrenn and Realmbreaker are a bit different because she doesn't directly interact with our opponent's board at all and if we drop her right on three, can't put stats on the board to help in combat. She does mill us and helps us hit our land drops going deeper into the game, and provides a hasty 3/3 threat on turn four or later, though. She's also one of only two ways this deck can produce blue mana if hard casting Atraxa becomes necessary -- the other being Overlord of the Hauntwoods.
The Interaction Suite
Bitter Triumph is definitely better served in metas with powerful planeswalkers or midrange decks with heavy threats. In today's Cori-Steel Cutter and Stormchaser's Talent landscape, it doesn't line up as well as it used to, hence only being a two-of. That said, Haywire Mite is better than ever and could probably be upgraded to a four-of in the main deck. The fact that it exiles the target without exiling itself is huge as Overlord of the Balemurk can easily recur it. Heck, in some matchups, using a Valgavoth's Faithful to pull up a well-timed Haywire Mite is easily worth the steep mana investment. Up the Beanstalk or Unholy Annex just have to go at all costs sometimes.
Scavenger Regent is also a game-changer for us as it gives this deck a main-deck worthy sweeper that can also be a solid midrange threat the opponent has to answer. It also is immune to Duress and can be recurred with Overlord of the Balemurk.
I guess what I'm trying to say is Overlord of the Balemurk is amazing and people should be running it. Honestly, this card is just dreamy.
Conclusion
I've tried a lot of all-in reanimation decks in a variety of color combinations, and I keep coming back to green and black because of its resilience against grave hate and ramp to support the big creatures. This midrange reanimator approach feels very competitive and very solid on the ladder. At the time of writing, I have around a 75% win rate with this deck over 24 matches and was able to sneak into Mythic last month from Diamond 2 in around three hours.
If this type of deck is appealing to you, give this 75 a try. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Thank you for reading, and happy brewing!
