The Best Reanimation Targets in the History of Magic: the Gathering (MTG) 

Whenever I see the old Nicol Bolas card art card I always think “all they had to do was leave him alone and let him read his books”

Colossal Dreadmaw

Surprised Seth didn’t mention the fact Atraxa pitches to virtually every free spell in magic which is one of the best things about it imo, especially compared to griselbrand which is mono black.

Spirit of the Night, Empyrial Archangel, and Serra's Emissary probably all deserve at least a shout-out.

I think the jump from Inkwell to Ionia marks a pretty huge change in Magic's competitive history, from when reanimator aimed to get a huge beater out to end the game as quick as possible, to when it aimed to get a 'win condition' that either locked the opponent out or just comboed off and won right there.

"Am I a joke to you?" - Spirit of the Night (aka Black Akroma), 1996

Forgot Emrakul, which is often reanimated with Goryo's Vengeance in Modern!

No love for Spirit of the night ? When mirage dropped he was the baddest monster on the block

At the same time Griselbrand came out, Craterhoof Behemoth was a popular reanimation target. Self milling a few Lingering Souls, Hoof, and an Unburial Rites with Grisly Salvage and Mulch was a deck I saw 4-5 times a week at FNM

Every time I see Inkwell Leviathan, I get nostalgia flashbacks to duels of the planeswalkers 2012 and 2013

"Need a Deep Spawn of your own?" Ooh Seth, you don't even know what you're doing to us...

Griselbrand: Pay life, get cards Atraxa: Get cards, swing in, get life

Phantom Nishoba and Rorix Bladewing also saw play in Extended Reanimator.

I love this style of video! Thanks Seth!

I'm thankful for Seth's Description of Iona's effect. I played against a Polymorph deck in the finals of FNM. Game2 Got a Malakir Bloodwitch out which stalemated his Iona and proceeded to wait until I could reanimate my Bloodghasts I discarded to handsize. Really satisfying 1st place match. Opened up a mind sculptor and immediately sold it for $120 P.s. he discarded his path to exiles as he forgot I can still reanimate bloodghasts under an Iona lock.

Goryobrand has been my favorite modern deck for, well, as long as it's existed. Even with the banning of faithless and spirit guide I kept trucking on with it. It might just be time to go for Atraxa.

Seth, Entomb was only in 2002. U couldn't use it in 1999 for Multani

Back in the day my brother would reanimate Polar Kraken

I wonder if the giant lobster creature that Gisa reanimated to fight phyrexians in the MOM Innistrad side story was a reference to Deep Spawn.

I used to see a lot of reanimator decks on arena play a handful of different targets not mentioned here - namely serra's emissary and scholar of the lost trove. Not saying they're better than grislebrand, but was surprised they didn't get a mention

Love the timeline videos! Keep it up seth!

Atraxa honeymoon period is over as far as legacy is concerned. Just looking at 10 lists I could not find a deck playing more atraxas than grisels. It seems to be a fairly consistent 1of. Some decks don't run it at all, some run 2. Despite pitching for FoW Atraxa can't match the speed of grisel. You can usually drop a few griefs/unmasks and petal/ritual into whatever else you want to reanimate on the same turn with grisel, whereas you can't really do that with Atraxa.

Kind of weird that Etali might end up eclipsing Atraxa in standard reanimator specifically.

Back around the time of Deep Spawn I liked Yawgmoth Demon which like Deep Spawn got better with Dance if the Dead covering it's drawback. Another fun thing to do in that era was play Fallen Angel then next turn cast Sengir Autocrat to make 4 creatures for the angel to sacrifice. Then reanimate it to get four more creatures and a 19 power Fallen Angel.

Crimson Hellkite was a unstoppable beast back in the day.

No mention of Chancellor of the Annex? That's about as iconic to Legacy Reanimator as Griselbrand for a long time

Kinda wild that ulamog's crusher and rust goliath in pauper are much more traditional "big beatsticks" than basically any of these.

Well that was a fun episode brother Set. 😊😊😊😊😊😊

(Re)animating a Deep Spawn was not popular. In my experience Spirit of the Night was the first viable reanimation target. Dance of the Dead made Spirit of the Night kill your opponent in 3 turns (flying haste 7 power). Turn 1 Ritual + Buried Alive and turn 2 Dance Spirit attack for 7. That was fast back then.

While it does have a small downside, I remember Devouring Strossus being a beast for it's time of release back in Invasion. 9/9 Flying Trample closes out games pretty fast if not dealt with. I had a friend at the time that would Sneak Attack and then Reanimate big threats.

No Hornet Queen?

IIRC Fallen Empires has a 94 on it? Anyways, I use Breeding Pit to provide bodies so I can reanimate Ebon Praetor or Lord of the Pit, this lets me use Soul Exchange too, which gives +2/+2 if a sac a Thrull! Still not 2 turn clocks though.

Fun story: I started in 10th edition with the weird "Start Here" product. My first rare was Verdant Force.

You forgot Elesh Norn. I know it's mostly for stopping weenie decks and Infect, but it was a notable reanimator target.

As a 2003 reanimator player this video brought back memories of akroma stomping games❤

"I will reanimate my Kird Ape for value." As is tradition.

My favorite Reanimator Targets are card that themselves can reanimate I built a mono black Standard deck around it

It breaks my heart Serra Avatar gets shuffled back in.

I know it's not super broken, so most people won't care, but I think an overlooked target for reanimator is a card called Dusk Mangler. It can give a lot of value, being able to get all its upside with the down.

Honestly surprised you didn’t even mention both Phantom Nishoba and Serra Emissary

My first reanimator deck was Akroma and Life//Death and won me some fnms.

1993 did not understand its own metal correctly. Serendib Efreet, Serra Angel, and Shivan Dragon should have seen more play than Sengir Vampire. In OS they are valued now. Additionally Guardian Beast would have been worth it as a combo with Chaos Orb. Juzam Djinn has enough stats that it should be favored over Kird Ape. The truest explanation though is that Mana fixing that did not exactly involve artifacts was in a wierd place in 1993 because land destruction was able to hit the Duals with many kinds of wipes, so it made sense to stay close to your colors, and on top of all that Dark Ritual made more sense to play than Animate Dead for Lord of the Pit and Juzam Djinn. Reanimator decks were supposed to not be what they later became, and Alpha was correctly balanced to favor aggro in this regard. Discard outlets were basically nonexistent. They still had much better options than Kird Ape though and could have been using it on Sedge Troll or any 4/4 or higher. Balance was surprisingly effective at making Moxen more fair than it ever should have. What a Reanimator deck wants to be wasn't fully possible because Shivan Dragon needed continuous red so there wasn't anything to race to you couldn't just get to with Aggro though. Dark Ritual was so insane that the 2 black mana to play Animate Dead with were way better spent on 2 Dark Rit. Scrubland Scrubland 4xDark Rit and you have 10 mana to play 3 Hypnotic Spectre. That wouldn't even really be good enough compared to the opposing player playing Balance. And at least up to 1995 all Reanimation targets had to worry about Swords to Plowshares. The archetype had no real breathing room at first.

If moving things from the graveyard to the battlefield is the goal, then the coolest play is Goblin Welder + Mindslaver, IMO.

Teeka's Dragon

Surprised there was no mention of emmrakul for modern gyro vengeance

I am surprised you didn't say it is also a blue card for force with atraxa.

"Some players played Ashen Rider as a 'removal-y' reanimation target." There's this one guy named SaffronOlive who REALLY seemed to love playing that card 😂

You did Storm Crow a massive injustice by excluding it. It's still the #1 reanimator target to this day.

Shallow grave was mirage, which was after fallen empires. Like I started Ice age, and mirage and visions were two of my favorite sets.

I feel where Atraxa falls flat is not only do you have to run every card type in your deck you need to also hope a good variety of types shows up in the top 10 cards when she hits the battlefield. Griselbrand always gets you insane card advantage but atraxa is super hit or miss. Personally I would always lean to the reliability of Griselbrand over her. I also lile that Griselbrand is mono black meaning worse case you can play him on curve if the game goes long or your opponent has graveyard hate.

Grizz is still the #1 Reanimation target for a few decks. The most popular one being Tin Fins...a deck you know well. Most prefer Grizz still if the deck is Combo. Otherwise, Atraxa has taken over that spot nowadays for sure.

I think you should have given a mention to emrakul, even though you need to use instant speed reanimation like exhume, shallow grave, or goryos vengeance it still has seen play as a reanimation targte

1st time seeing Atraxa... Is tribal no longer a card type?

2:30 ayh-lin cornmer

2:07 but the Reserved List saved Magic the Gathering! If the Reserved list didn’t get made, there would be no Magic the Gathering…. So, is it better to have a Reserved List and have Magic the Gathering, or to have neither?! I am glad that Magic the Gathering exists, and we have the Reserved List to thank for that! Praise the Reserved List! The Reserved List is the savior of the game! Hooray for the Reserved List!!!!!

I think that the Eldrazi deserve an honorable mansion. those decks don't work quite the same but its all the same idea

is mana flare available on the other format apart from arena?

Hidetsugu and Kairi + Aminatou's Augury

No love for Spirit of the Night, the original Akroma? It was even in a 1998 World Championship Reccurring Nightmare deck. Huge snub my dude.

At one point Seth says "1999" with the graphic saying 1997 then later while talking about 1999 mentions Entomb that wasn't printed til 2001, wtf are you talking about? Also, how do you not mention Spirit of the Night?

God I miss the times when a Reanimator deck was also a "toolbox" deck, as you had many different creatures to reanimate depending on the situation.... ....and not just 4x the best creature or two.....

No mention of the first good reanimation with no upkeep or drawback? Spirit of the Night? Am I the only one that remembers this?

I still go for Sire of Insanity and Griselbrand.

Avatar of Might / Thorn Elemental way back when

Thorn elemental was played more than Multani at that time, no?

aw im feeling nostalgiC when i see the blasing arChon and shield of emeria. what happened to legaCy????

I think Razaketh deserves a spot, its the best target in cedh reanimation decks

You missed solar flare and 10 fins… angel of despair and emrakul respectively…

Iona's original text: Choose target player or players who showed up to play Magic. The chosen player or players are no longer allowed to play Magic. During your next Magic event, you may choose not to invite chosen player or players, as they probably won't bother playing with you again, anyways.

1996 Spirit of the Night from Mirage

Where is Storm Crow?

ya Polar Kraken is popular for this, my buddy likes it but I always liked Chromium.

pretty sure elesh norn is the most played reanimation target of all time, though only because griselband is banned in commander

Iona shield of emeria looks good.

HYPNOTIC SPECTER

I am absolutely appalled and disappointed that such a high profile mtg content source missed an entire era of magic, where reanimating a Colossal Dreadmaw would often force an opponent to concede on the spot, it was such an unhealthy time for the game and I'm glad we have perfectly reasonable things like Atraxa legal now

No mention of new Etali as an up an comer? That thing is broke.

RB atraxa reanimator is so fun to play

How could you not talk about Hypnox, Phantom Nishoba, Avatar of Woe, Visara; any of those had more history in reanimator decks than worldgouger dragon. Visara and Nishoba even appeared in world championship deck.

I used to play a very different kind of reanimator, just at the time Grislebrand came onto the scene. I would play a whole bunch of targets, basicaly I would have something that could answer any deck, weenies, elesh norn, mono coloured, iona, if I was unsure, inkwell, and I had all the asnwers in my sideboard, then came along gristlebrand, and I watched as everyone saw me entomb exhume and not get gristlebrand, be really confused, go to game two and my deck changed from mono black to black white. So much fun, and surprisingly successful.

My boi Phantom Nishoba...

I think Atraxa is now back to on par with griselbrand in legacy, if not slightly worse, and straight up just worse than Archon in modern. Hell, she's not even the best reanimate target in standard! She's REALLY strong, but at the end of the day, her etb really doesn't do enough to match those other two unless you build your deck incredibly unoptimally for a lot of formats. Her pitchability is really what is keeping her alove, but the second a strong five color creature worth reanimating shows up she'll lose that advantage too

Atraxa is almost certainly worse than Griselbrand in reanimator, at least in Legacy. It’s better sometimes but certainly not a clear step above.

Sweet Video:)

Unsurprisingly, the best reanimation targets have also generally been the best Oath of Druids and/or Tinker targets.

i hope ulamog and kozilek make the list--- now ill watch and find out

Oof... the power creep is real....

Sengir Vampire wouldn't make a good reanimation target. In those days the quick removal spells Lightning Bolt, Terror and for those in the know, Swords To Plowshares. None of those affect Sengir Vampire in a way where you could reanimate. There were also Psionic Blast, rarely played, and Fireball/Disintegrate but usually those were used to kill the controller of said creature. Back then there was a lot of multiplayer so you usually used Animate Dead in an open field and take another player's dead creature. And no one used their own Nicol Bolas as a reanimate target. What's the point of discarding and reanimating Nicol Bolas...when you have to pay upkeep right afterward. Old school reanimator usually revolved around combos like Bazaar Of Baghdad and All Hallows' Eve.

Think you missed spirit of the night

How is Emrakul, the Aeons Torn not on this list?

Did i miss Crosis?

What about etali?

u missed the strongest part of atraxa; u can pitch her to force.

Etali roars in dino

Shouldn’t the title be “best reanimatee”?

Odyssey was 2001 not '98

Penumbra worm

nanana ..

Wait... No agent of treachery?

Gary