Grixis Reanimator — Modern Strategy Guide

Archetype Overview

Grixis Reanimator is a graveyard deck that wins like a tempo deck. It fills its own graveyard with cheap card selection, puts an eight-mana Archon of Cruelty onto the battlefield on turn two or three, and wraps that plan in hand disruption, cheap interaction, and threats that are strong even when nothing gets reanimated. The list below took Top 4 at IQ Arzúa - Piknitas Modern on 2026-10-03, piloted by adrian mejuto.

The Core Plan

1. Bin a fatty. Faithless Looting is the primary discard outlet. It draws two and discards two for one red mana, and its flashback means it does the job twice. Psychic Frog discards at instant speed with no mana required. Thought Scour, Prismari Charm's surveil mode, and the surveil lands (Undercity Sewers, Raucous Theater) dig and dump cards without costing you a turn.
2. Bring it back. Persist returns any nonlegendary creature card for two mana. On Archon of Cruelty, that's a 5/5 flier on turn two that has already made your opponent sacrifice a creature, discard a card, and lose 3 life while you draw and gain 3. Emperor of Bones is the second route: its combat trigger exiles Archon of Cruelty from your graveyard, then {1}{B} to Adapt puts the Archon onto the battlefield with haste. It triggers on entering and again on attacking before you sacrifice it at end step. That's two full Archon triggers from four total mana across two turns.
3. Keep it there. Thoughtseize strips the answer before you commit. Spell Pierce counters noncreature removal or a sweeper unless they pay. Fatal Push clears blockers and early pressure. This shell lets you go off into a known hand instead of hoping.

Why This Plan Is Strong

The enablers are also threats. Most reanimator decks run filler: cards that only exist to put a creature in the graveyard. Here, the discard outlet is Psychic Frog, a two-drop that grows, draws cards, and can fly by exiling three cards from your graveyard. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer pressures from turn one, makes Treasure to accelerate, and steals cards. When your opponent kills these, you lose tempo, not your combo.

Your reanimation spells have more than one target. Unearth can't touch the Archon since its mana value is 8, but it returns Psychic Frog, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Emperor of Bones, and, most importantly, Abhorrent Oculus. Oculus's six-card exile is an additional cost to cast it. When Unearth puts it onto the battlefield, you skip that cost and get a 5/5 flier for one mana. Persist on Oculus gives you a 4/4 flier. When Unearth has no target, it cycles for {2}, so it's rarely dead.

Abhorrent Oculus is the release valve. Graveyard decks tend to flood their own yard with cards they can't use. Oculus turns that excess into a hard-cast 5/5 flier for three mana. Every opposing upkeep, its manifest dread trigger gives you a 2/2 body and puts another card in your graveyard, which can be an Archon for next turn.

Your opponent can't answer only one axis. They have to deal with combat pressure from Ragavan and Frog, an instant-speed reanimation threat, and an eight-mana flier on turn two, all while discard is taking their answers. Graveyard hate alone doesn't stop Oculus being hard-cast or Frog beating down. Creature removal alone doesn't stop Archon, because the enter trigger has already done its damage.

Card Roles at a Glance

Emperor of Bones does extra work. Its combat trigger can exile a card from any graveyard, which makes it light graveyard hate in the main deck. If it exiles an opposing creature card, it can put that creature onto the battlefield for you.

The Mana

Eighteen lands support a curve that is almost entirely one and two mana. The fetchlands find whichever shockland or basic you need, thin toward your threats, and enable revolt on Fatal Push. Red is the thinnest color. Your red sources are Blood Crypt, Steam Vents, and Raucous Theater, reachable through Bloodstained Mire and Scalding Tarn. Prioritize finding red early when your hand depends on Faithless Looting or Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. The deck pays a lot of life to fetches, shocks, and Thoughtseize. Archon's lifegain covers most of it, but against aggressive decks, fetch for tapped surveil lands or basics when you can afford to.

Where It Struggles

• Dedicated graveyard hate. Instant-speed exile in response to Persist, or a permanent that stops cards from reaching graveyards, cuts off your best plan. You still have the fair game, but you lose your highest-impact draws.
• Dead Archons. With four copies, you will draw Archon with no outlet sometimes. Keep hands that can discard it, and treat Psychic Frog as your safety net.
• Countermagic on reanimation spells. Spell Pierce protects your own noncreature spells, but an opponent holding up a counter for Persist forces you to bait with threats first.

The sideboard targets these weak points. Mystical Dispute fights blue counterspell decks. Consign to Memory counters triggered abilities and colorless spells. Cling to Dust, Surgical Extraction, and Dauthi Voidwalker fight opposing graveyard strategies. Pyroclasm answers go-wide aggro. Meltdown attacks artifact-based decks.

Who Should Play It

Pick this deck if you like decks where every decision matters. You'll make constant small choices:

• Whether to loot away a land or a spell.
• Whether to save graveyard cards for Oculus or for Frog's flying.
• Whether to Thoughtseize first or Persist immediately.
• Whether to hold Spell Pierce or tap out for pressure.

Mulligan decisions are critical, and graveyard-management mistakes cost games.

Players coming from tempo or midrange decks will find the fair half familiar. Combo players will appreciate a fast kill that doesn't fold to one piece of interaction. If you want to play the same game every round on autopilot, look elsewhere.

At roughly $532, it isn't a budget deck. A lot of that cost is shared Modern staples like fetchlands, shocklands, Thoughtseize, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, so the investment carries over to other Grixis or Rakdos decks if you move on.

Core Strategy & Game Plan

Grixis Reanimator runs two game plans in one 60-card shell. The first is unfair: put Archon of Cruelty into your graveyard and return it to the battlefield for two mana or less. The second is fair: a cheap, disruptive tempo deck built around Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, and Abhorrent Oculus that can win on its own when the Archon plan gets hated out. Winning with this list means knowing which plan you are on each turn and never letting one undercut the other.

How the Deck Wins

The primary kill is a resolved Archon of Cruelty on turn two or three. Every time it enters or attacks, your opponent sacrifices a creature or planeswalker of their choice, discards a card, and loses 3 life, while you draw a card and gain 3 life. One trigger is strong. Two or three in a row usually end the game, because your opponent is losing board, hand, and life all at once while you refill. A Persisted Archon is a 5/5 flier that repeats the trigger on every attack, so the clock is short and the opponent's outs shrink each turn.

The secondary kill is plain flying damage. Abhorrent Oculus is a 5/5 flier for three mana that manifests dread at the start of each opponent's upkeep, so it adds bodies and fills your graveyard every turn cycle. Psychic Frog grows, draws, and gains flying. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer produces mana and card advantage from the first swing. Against opponents who keep the graveyard clean, these threats are how you close.

Posture: Proactive First, Interaction as Protection

This is a proactive deck. Your interaction exists to make your threats stick, not to grind. Thoughtseize is the most important card in your opening hand after the combo itself. Use it to strip the instant-speed answer that would blank your reanimation spell, then fire with full information. Spell Pierce protects your sorcery-speed turn from opposing noncreature counterspells and removal. Fatal Push clears blockers and early threats, and revolt turns on easily here because you play nine fetchlands and Ragavan Treasures.

Prismari Charm fits both modes. Surveil 2 and draw digs for Archon or a reanimation spell. The 1-damage mode handles small creatures. The bounce mode removes a problem permanent at instant speed. Decide which mode you need based on whether your graveyard already holds a target. If it doesn't, surveil.

The Engine

The engine has two halves: getting a big creature into the graveyard, and getting it back out.

Enablers:

• Faithless Looting is the cleanest turn-one setup. Draw two, discard Archon and anything else. The flashback gives you a second dig later.
• Psychic Frog is a free, instant-speed discard outlet. You can bin Archon in response to removal on the Frog or at the end of your opponent's turn.
• Thought Scour mills you for two and replaces itself. Target yourself unless you have a specific reason to mill the opponent.
• Undercity Sewers and Raucous Theater each surveil 1 when they enter, which gives you a free look and a free bin.
• Oculus's manifest dread puts a card into your graveyard every opponent upkeep, which supports a second reanimation later.

Reanimation:

Two interactions matter most. First, Unearth and Persist both put Abhorrent Oculus onto the battlefield without casting it. That skips the exile-six cost entirely. A discarded Oculus plus a one-mana Unearth gives you a turn-two 5/5 flier with an empty graveyard. Second, Emperor of Bones exiles at the beginning of combat. Let the trigger resolve on your Archon, then activate adapt for {1}{B} in that same step. Archon enters with haste, triggers on entry, and triggers again when you attack. That is two full Archon triggers for four total mana, spread across one or two turns.

Emperor's exile can target any graveyard. When you have no target of your own, use it to strip a key card from your opponent's yard. If you exile Archon with Emperor before adapting, it is no longer in your graveyard, so opposing graveyard removal can't touch it. Only removal on Emperor strands it.

Unearth also cycles for {2}. When it has no good target, cycle it rather than holding a dead card.

Managing the Graveyard as a Resource

Three cards compete for your graveyard: Oculus exiles six, Frog exiles three for flying, and Looting's flashback exiles itself. Every exile choice should follow one rule: never exile a live reanimation target. Keep Archon, and keep Oculus if you hold Unearth or Persist. Exile spent spells, extra lands, and fetchlands first.

Whether you hard-cast Oculus early depends on what's in your hand. Cast it if you hold no reanimation spell. Hold off if casting it would force you to exile Archon or leave you unable to support a Persist next turn.

The Ideal Game, Turn by Turn

1. Turn 1: Lead with Faithless Looting if you have Archon or Oculus to bin and a reanimation spell to follow. Otherwise, lead with Thoughtseize to clear the way, or Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer when the opponent's board is empty and you want the Treasure. If you play a surveil land, use it to bin a threat.
2. Turn 2: Persist the Archon. Your opponent sacrifices their only creature, discards, and drops to 17, while you draw and go to 23. If Oculus is your binned threat, Unearth it and keep a mana up for Spell Pierce or Fatal Push. With no reanimation spell available, deploy Psychic Frog or Emperor of Bones and keep discarding.
3. Turn 3: Attack with Archon for another trigger. Use the spare mana on Thoughtseize, a second threat, or held-up interaction. On the Emperor line, this is the turn to exile and adapt. A Ragavan Treasure lets you cast and adapt Emperor in the same turn.
4. Turn 4 onward: Your opponent is usually facing an empty board, few or no cards in hand, and a low life total. Deploy fair threats to diversify your clock, and protect them with Pierce and Push. Don't overextend into a sweeper if you are already winning.

When Plan A Gets Answered

If your graveyard is exiled or locked down, stop forcing reanimation and pivot. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, and a hard-cast Abhorrent Oculus make a real clock backed by discard and cheap removal. In that mode, Frog's discard outlet becomes a card-quality tool. Pitch excess lands and dead reanimation spells to grow it. The deck's resilience comes from switching to this mode quickly.

Card Choices & Breakdown

The Payload: Reanimation Targets

4x Archon of Cruelty is the reason the deck exists. Nobody hard-casts an eight-drop here. You put it in the graveyard and cheat it out. The enter trigger alone is brutal: your opponent sacrifices a creature or planeswalker, discards a card, and loses 3 life, while you draw a card and gain 3. Every attack repeats the whole package. You run the full four because you need one in the yard early. You also want redundancy when the first copy gets exiled or you have to pitch two to a single Faithless Looting.

4x Abhorrent Oculus is the second threat, and it is just as important. Hard-cast, it costs three mana plus six cards exiled from your graveyard. That is realistic by turn three in a deck with nine fetchlands, Thought Scour, and Looting. The interaction that matters: Persist and Unearth put Oculus onto the battlefield without casting it, so you skip the exile cost entirely. Once it lands, each opponent upkeep manifests dread. You get a 2/2 body, and the other card goes to your graveyard, which feeds your next reanimation or Frog activation. When you exile six to cast it, protect any Archon of Cruelty in the yard. The cost lets you choose what to exile, so choose carefully.

The Reanimation Suite

4x Persist is your main reanimation spell. It returns any nonlegendary creature, so it hits Archon (as a 5/5 that still gets every trigger), Oculus, Frog, and Emperor. It cannot return Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Turn-two Persist on a binned Archon is the fastest kill the deck has, and you want maximum density on it.

3x Unearth only reaches mana value 3 or less. That means Oculus, Psychic Frog, Emperor of Bones, and Ragavan, but never Archon. It sits at three rather than four because it is the weaker reanimation spell. It is a one-mana way to deploy Oculus without exiling six cards, and it gets back a Frog or Ragavan after removal. When you have no target, cycling for {2} keeps it from rotting in hand. Four copies would push you toward draws full of narrow sorceries.

2x Emperor of Bones is the flexible piece. At the beginning of combat on your turn, it exiles a card from any graveyard. Exile your own Archon, activate adapt for {1}{B}, and the +1/+1 counters put Archon onto the battlefield with haste. It enters (trigger), attacks (trigger), and gets sacrificed at end step. The finality counter means it is gone for good, so you trade your Archon for two triggers. Emperor can also take a creature from your opponent's graveyard, and its exile trigger doubles as repeatable graveyard hate against opposing yard decks. It stays at two because the line is slow, mana-hungry, and temporary. Adapt does nothing once Emperor already has +1/+1 counters, so it usually fires only once.

Enablers: Filling the Graveyard

4x Faithless Looting is the cleanest way to bin an Archon on turn one. It also digs for Persist, and flashback gives you a second loot later. It costs you a card, which matters less when the card you discard is the threat.

4x Psychic Frog is both an enabler and a threat. "Discard a card: put a +1/+1 counter" is an instant-speed discard outlet. You can pitch Archon at the end of your opponent's turn, or in response to discard. On defense, Frog grows into a large blocker. On offense, it draws cards on connect. Its flying ability exiles three graveyard cards, which competes with Oculus for the same resource, so ration it. Four copies, because a two-mana card that does three jobs is never a cut.

2x Thought Scour is instant-speed self-mill that replaces itself. It is a two-of because milling is random. It fuels Oculus reliably but finds Archon only sometimes, unlike Looting or Frog where you choose the discard. The two Undercity Sewers and one Raucous Theater surveil 1 on entry. That turns a mandatory tapped land into a small dig for Archon or a free card in the yard.

Disruption and Pressure

4x Thoughtseize clears the path. Take the graveyard hate, the counterspell, or the removal spell that answers your reanimated threat. It also shows you the safe turn to go off. The 2 life matters less in a deck where Archon gains 3 per trigger.

4x Fatal Push is cheap removal that the mana base supercharges. Cracking a fetchland satisfies revolt, so Push routinely kills creatures up to mana value 4. Nine fetches make that the normal case, not the exception.

3x Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer punishes slow starts. On connect, you get Treasure, which ramps you into Persist plus another spell, and you get to cast the opponent's exiled card. Three copies because it is legendary, so drawing two is awkward. It also competes with Thoughtseize and Push for turn-one mana, and Persist cannot rebuy it. Dash keeps it useful late, when a hasty attack for a Treasure and a stolen card is still worth {1}{R}.

2x Spell Pierce is cheap protection for your key turn. It counters a removal spell, a graveyard-hate spell, or an opposing combo piece, at the cost of one blue mana. It sits at two because it gets worse as the game goes long and your opponent can pay {2}.

2x Prismari Charm is the utility slot, with three modes:

• Surveil 2 and draw: digs for and bins Archon at instant speed.
• 1 damage to each of one or two targets: kills x/1 creatures, sometimes two at once.
• Bounce: answers any problem nonland permanent temporarily.

It is a two-of because it is a little worse than a dedicated card in each role, but it is never dead.

The Mana Base

Eighteen lands, nine of them fetches. The fetches are not just about color. Each one puts a card in your graveyard toward Oculus, and each one turns on revolt for Push. Every non-fetch land except the basic Island has the Swamp type: Watery Grave, Undercity Sewers, Blood Crypt, Raucous Theater, and the basic Swamp. That means Marsh Flats and Bloodstained Mire always find something useful. Red is the thinnest color, coming from Blood Crypt, Steam Vents, and Raucous Theater. Prioritize a red source when you hold Looting or Ragavan in your opener. Fetch the basics against land-destruction or nonbasic-punishing effects. Otherwise take shocks early for tempo, and save the surveil lands for turns where entering tapped costs you nothing.

Sideboard

The usual cuts when boarding: trim Spell Pierce against creature decks, trim Fatal Push against creatureless combo, and shave Unearth when you expect Thoughtseize-heavy opponents to strip your small creatures anyway. Keep all eight payload creatures and all four Persist in every matchup. They are the deck.

The Decklist

This is the 75 that took Top 4 at IQ Arzúa - Piknitas Modern on October 3, 2026. Expect to pay about $532 at TCGplayer market prices. The tables below separate the locked-in core from the slots you can tune for your local field.

Main Deck: Creatures (17)

Main Deck: Spells (25)

Main Deck: Lands (18)

Sideboard (15)

Mana Base Notes

• Red is thin by design. Only three lands produce red: Blood Crypt, Steam Vents, and Raucous Theater. Bloodstained Mire and Scalding Tarn can find all three, and Polluted Delta finds all three as well. When you have Faithless Looting or Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer in your opening hand, use your first fetch to get red.
• Black is the deepest color. Seven lands produce black. Persist, Fatal Push, and Thoughtseize almost never run into color problems.
• Blue is in the middle. Six lands produce blue. Psychic Frog on turn two needs Watery Grave or Undercity Sewers played the turn before, so plan your first land drop with that in mind.
• Watch your life total. Between fetches, shocklands, and Thoughtseize, you can easily drop low against aggro. Get a basic in that matchup, and remember that Archon of Cruelty triggers gain back 3 life each time.

Tuning Priorities

1. Against a slower field, cut one Unearth and one Undercity Sewers. Add the fourth Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and an untapped land to keep pressure on.
2. Against an aggro-heavy field, cut Spell Pierce from the main deck. Add a third Prismari Charm, and consider moving Pyroclasm copies up from the sideboard.
3. Against a graveyard-heavy field, run Dauthi Voidwalker and Cling to Dust together. Cut Meltdown to make room for a second Surgical Extraction.
4. Don't change the eight graveyard enablers or the four Persist. The deck needs that density to win games quickly.

Mulligan Guide

The deck has two engines: a reanimation plan that can land a turn-two Archon of Cruelty, and a fair tempo plan built on Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, and cheap interaction. A keepable hand executes one of them on time. A hand that does neither goes back, no matter how strong the individual cards look.

What Makes a Keepable Hand

Check every seven against three requirements.

• Two lands that cast your spells. The list runs only 18 lands. Every fetch can find a red source, but only three red-producing lands exist (Blood Crypt, Steam Vents, Raucous Theater). If your hand has Faithless Looting or Prismari Charm, confirm you can actually make red.
• An enabler. These get creatures into the graveyard: Faithless Looting, Psychic Frog (discard to pump), Prismari Charm (surveil 2), Thought Scour, and the surveil lands. Looting and Frog are the premium ones because you choose what to discard. Thought Scour and surveil are random and only dig one or two cards deep.
• A payoff or a fair plan. Payoffs are Persist, Unearth, and Emperor of Bones with a target. A fair plan is two or more of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, and Spell Pierce.

Remember that Abhorrent Oculus is a reanimation target, not just a cast-from-hand threat. Unearth and Persist put it onto the battlefield without casting it, so its six-card exile cost never applies. A hand with Oculus, Faithless Looting, and Unearth is a real turn-two 5/5 flier. Don't count Oculus as dead just because your graveyard is empty.

Example Hands

Hand 1: Polluted Delta, Watery Grave, Faithless Looting, Archon of Cruelty, Persist, Thoughtseize, Psychic Frog

Verdict: Snap keep. On turn one, fetch Blood Crypt and cast Looting, discarding Archon plus the weakest card you drew. On turn two, play Watery Grave and cast Persist for a 5/5 flying Archon that makes your opponent sacrifice, discard, and lose 3. If you suspect a counterspell, lead with Thoughtseize instead and Persist a turn later. Frog backs up both lines as a second discard outlet.

Hand 2: Archon of Cruelty, Archon of Cruelty, Persist, Persist, Unearth, Island, Swamp

Verdict: Mulligan. Four payoffs and zero enablers. You have no red for Looting, no Frog, and no way to bin an Archon except waiting turns to discard down to hand size. Unearth can't return Archon, and cycling it for {2} is a slow dig. This is the classic trap hand. Payoff density means nothing without the engine.

Hand 3: Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, Spell Pierce, Scalding Tarn, Undercity Sewers

Verdict: Keep. There's no reanimation here, and you don't need it. Turn-one Ragavan or Thoughtseize into turn-two Frog is a strong fair start with interaction behind it. Frog also turns any Archon you draw into a reanimation setup by discarding it. Fetch for red with Tarn so you can cast Ragavan, and play Sewers when tempo matters least. This hand is better on the play, but you keep it on either side.

Hand 4: Emperor of Bones, Faithless Looting, Archon of Cruelty, Blood Crypt, Polluted Delta, Spell Pierce, Thoughtseize

Verdict: Keep. This is a slower kill, but a resilient one. Loot Archon away on turn one and cast Emperor on turn two. On turn three, Emperor's combat trigger exiles the Archon. Then pay {1}{B} to adapt, which puts Archon onto the battlefield with haste for an attack trigger on top of the enter trigger. It's sacrificed at end step, but two Archon triggers usually decide the game. Spell Pierce and Thoughtseize protect the setup, and the hand functions on two lands.

Hand 5: Thought Scour, Unearth, Fatal Push, Persist, Marsh Flats, Watery Grave, Bloodstained Mire

Verdict: Keep on the draw, lean mulligan on the play. The mana is fine, but your only creature-binning card is Thought Scour, which mills two random cards. You're relying on draws or the mill to find a target. The extra card on the draw gives you enough looks to justify it. On the play against a fast deck, ship it for a six that actually does something.

Hand 6: Polluted Delta, Marsh Flats, Watery Grave, Swamp, Island, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push

Verdict: Mulligan. Five lands, two one-for-ones, and no threat. This deck wins by deploying pressure early, and this hand gives you nothing to deploy.

On the Play vs. On the Draw

On the play, speed is the point. A turn-two Archon on the play often ends the game before the opponent develops. Keep hands that threaten that line or open with Ragavan. Be stricter with hands like Hand 5 that need draws to function.

On the draw, the extra card makes thinner hands viable. Two-landers with an enabler get better, and hands that need one more piece become keeps. Weigh Fatal Push and cheap interaction more heavily on the draw. Your opponent's turn-one or turn-two threat is already coming, and you need to survive to your Archon turn.

Matchup Adjustments

• Fast aggro: Prioritize Push and early blockers. A reanimated Archon is also your best stabilizer, because the sacrifice, drain, and lifegain swing the race hard. Ship hands that do nothing until turn three. Post-board, Pyroclasm makes slow-but-interactive hands keepable against go-wide starts.
• Combo: Disruption plus a clock beats raw speed. Thoughtseize and Spell Pierce make a hand far more keepable here. A greedy reanimation hand with no interaction is a coin flip against a deck that ignores your board.
• Counterspell-heavy control: Value hands with Thoughtseize to clear the way, and with Emperor of Bones, which offers a line that doesn't cast the reanimated creature. After sideboarding, Mystical Dispute is a strong reason to keep a hand that's otherwise borderline.
• Opponents with graveyard hate after sideboarding: This is where you lean hardest on the fair plan. Hands like Hand 3 go up in value, and all-in reanimation hands go down. Thoughtseize doubles as a way to strip the hate card before you commit.

Going to Six and Below

Under the London mulligan, you see seven and bottom one card. When choosing what to bottom, keep lands until you have two. Then keep an enabler over a second payoff. Bottom redundant copies of Persist or Unearth before Looting or Frog. A six-card hand with Looting, a payoff, a target, and two lands is a fine keep. A five-card hand should prioritize the fair plan, because Ragavan, Frog, and interaction degrade more gracefully than a combo that needs every piece.

Sequencing & Key Lines

Turn 1: What to Lead With

Your turn-one play sets up the whole game. Use this priority order:

1. Faithless Looting with Archon of Cruelty in hand and Persist to follow. This is the fastest line in the deck, and it puts a 5/5 flier with an ETB trigger on board turn two. Lead with it unless you have a specific reason not to.
2. Thoughtseize when you can win on turn two or three and the opponent is likely holding interaction. Against blue decks, or in post-board games where graveyard hate is guaranteed, clearing the answer first beats going fast into a counter.
3. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer on the play when your hand has no turn-one setup. The Treasure also gives you an extra red source, and this list is thin on red.
4. A tapped surveil land (Undercity Sewers, Raucous Theater) when you have no one-mana play. Surveil 1 on turn one costs you nothing and can bin an Archon off the top.

Count your red sources before you crack a fetch. Only Blood Crypt, Steam Vents, and Raucous Theater produce red, and the Theater enters tapped. If you fetch Blood Crypt for a turn-one Looting, it also covers the {B} for next turn's Persist, so any second land works. If you take Steam Vents instead, you need a black source on turn two.

The Three Core Lines

Line A: Looting into Persist. Turn one, Faithless Looting and discard Archon of Cruelty. Turn two, Persist it back. It enters as a 5/5 because of the -1/-1 counter, and the ETB makes them sacrifice a creature, discard, and lose 3 while you draw and gain 3. Every attack repeats the trigger. If Archon dies, it goes back to your graveyard, so your next Persist gets it again.

Line B: Unearth on Oculus. Unearth only hits mana value 3 or less, so it can never return Archon. It returns Abhorrent Oculus, and because Oculus is being put onto the battlefield rather than cast, you skip the six-card exile cost entirely. Turn one, Looting away Oculus. Turn two, Unearth plus Thoughtseize or a second one-drop. A 5/5 flier that manifests dread every opposing upkeep is very hard for midrange decks to answer on turn two. Persist also works on Oculus as a 4/4 when that's your only reanimation spell.

Line C: Emperor of Bones. Emperor of Bones triggers at the beginning of combat on your turn, so summoning sickness doesn't matter. Cast it precombat on turn two and it exiles Archon from your graveyard that same turn. On turn three, pay {1}{B} to adapt. Archon enters with haste, triggers on entering, attacks, and triggers again. That is two sacrifices, two discards, and 6 life drained before damage, and you still have a land free for Fatal Push or Spell Pierce.

The cost is that Archon carries a finality counter and gets sacrificed at end step, so it is exiled for good. Spend an Archon this way when the double trigger wins the game or breaks their board. Don't do it when Persist would keep it permanently.

Branch Point: Persist or Emperor

If you do go the Emperor route into open mana, activate adapt when they're tapped out or right after they've spent removal on something else. The exiled card stays linked to Emperor across turns, so you can wait. Adapting on their turn gets you only the ETB trigger, because Archon is sacrificed at their end step. That trade is still worth it to strip a card at instant speed before they can use it.

Playing Around Graveyard Hate

The main thing opponents use to beat this deck is exiling your graveyard, so cut down how long Archon sits in it:

• Discard and reanimate in the same turn when you can afford it. Turn three with Faithless Looting plus Persist leaves them only the window while Persist is on the stack. Turn one Looting into turn-two Persist gives them a full turn cycle. Against decks with sorcery-speed or permanent-based hate, the extra turn of safety is usually worth more than the turn of speed.
• Psychic Frog is your instant-speed discard outlet. Hold Archon in hand, then discard it in your own main phase right before casting Persist, so it only touches the graveyard for one stack window.
• Thoughtseize can target you. Self-Thoughtseize discards exactly the Archon you choose for {B}. It's a clean enabler when you have no Looting, but it spends your disruption.
• Keep Spell Pierce up on the reanimation turn when the format's hate comes as instants. Persist plus Pierce is a three-land turn, so take it on turn three over a naked Persist into open blue mana.
• Bait with the lesser target. With both Oculus and Archon in the yard, cast Unearth on Oculus first. If they spend their exile effect on it, Persist on Archon resolves cleanly.
• Prismari Charm's bounce mode can return a graveyard-hate permanent to hand. Do it the turn you go off, not earlier, or they just replay it.

Graveyard Budgeting

Three things draw on your graveyard: hardcasting Abhorrent Oculus (exile six), Psychic Frog's flying (exile three), and the cards you actually want to reanimate. Never exile your reanimation targets to pay a cost. Exile spent cards first: flashed-back Lootings, used Thought Scours, resolved Thoughtseizes. Keep an unflashed Faithless Looting unless it's the last card you can exile, because exiling it gives up {2}{R} of card selection later. If Oculus is in hand with a thin yard, hold it and take the Unearth line instead.

Small Edges

• Hold fetchlands for revolt. An uncracked fetch turns Fatal Push into a kill spell for anything at mana value 4 or less at instant speed. Ragavan's Treasure also enables revolt when you sacrifice it.
• Surveil before you shuffle, never after. If a surveil land puts a card you want on top, don't crack a fetch afterward. Crack fetches first, then surveil.
• Cast Thought Scour and Prismari Charm's surveil mode at the end of the opponent's turn. You see more cards before committing your turn, and sorcery-speed hate gets fewer chances at what you bin.
• Cycle Unearth when it has no target. It can't hit Archon, so with only Archon in the yard, {2} to dig toward Persist beats holding a dead card.
• Use Emperor of Bones on their graveyard when you don't need it for yours. It can exile a creature they want to recur, or take one of their creatures for a hasty attack.
• Abhorrent Oculus's manifest dread feeds Persist. Each opposing upkeep, it looks at two cards and bins one. If Archon shows up, bin it and keep the other face down.
• Watch your life total. Shocks, fetches, and Thoughtseize add up fast against aggro. Fetch a basic Swamp or Island over shocking when the shock isn't needed for your next play. Archon's lifegain only arrives once it's on the battlefield.

Matchup Matrix

Small-Creature Aggro and Go-Wide

Favored. Archon of Cruelty is close to unbeatable here. Every trigger takes a creature, takes a card, and swings six life, three off them and three onto you. Aggro decks can't race that once it lands on turn two or three. Your job is to get there at a healthy life total.

What decides it: how much life you spend early. Fetches, shocks, and Thoughtseize all cost life, and against creature decks that adds up fast. Fetch for basics when you can and shock only when the mana demands it.

Plan: Use Fatal Push on whatever threatens to snowball. Your fetchlands turn on revolt, so plan land drops around the Push. Main-deck Prismari Charm picks off two X/1s at instant speed. After sideboarding, bring in Pyroclasm. It also kills your own Psychic Frog, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, and Emperor of Bones, but it leaves Abhorrent Oculus and a reanimated Archon of Cruelty alive. The ideal sequence is to sweep, then reanimate. Thoughtseize is the first card to trim, since its life cost is real against this strategy and its target is just another cheap creature.

Burn and Reach-Heavy Aggro

Even. The three life from each Archon of Cruelty trigger matters, but burn doesn't care about the sacrifice half, and every shock and Thoughtseize puts you closer to lethal.

What decides it: whether you hit an Archon trigger before they hit their reach. One trigger usually isn't enough. You want an attack trigger as well.

Plan: Play your lands untapped only when necessary. Undercity Sewers and Raucous Theater cost tempo but not life, and that trade favors you here. Spell Pierce is excellent against their burn spells, so keep it in. Cut Thoughtseize heavily. If they're on blue, Mystical Dispute comes in.

Fair Midrange with Graveyard Hate

Even to slightly unfavored. This is the matchup that tests your deck most. Discard strips your reanimation spells, removal handles the fair threats, and post-board hate turns off Persist and Unearth.

What decides it: how well your non-graveyard threats hold up. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, and a hard-cast Abhorrent Oculus all win games without the reanimation package. Oculus does need six cards in your yard to cast, though, so it's weak once your graveyard is being exiled.

Plan: Play it as a midrange mirror where your top end happens to be cheap. Use Thoughtseize on their hate piece rather than their best threat when you have a reanimation line ready. Prismari Charm can bounce a hate permanent at instant speed, so pass with it open and respond after they've committed. Bring in Consign to Memory to counter triggered graveyard-exile effects. Add Dauthi Voidwalker as an extra threat that doesn't depend on your yard and that stops their graveyard value too. Trim Persist and Thought Scour, because they're the cards most likely to be dead.

Counterspell Control

Even. Persist and Unearth are sorceries, so a single counter answers them. Emperor of Bones solves part of that problem. It exiles a creature card with its combat trigger and returns it through an activated ability, so a counterspell that only hits spells can't stop it. An Emperor that has exiled Archon of Cruelty gives you a hasty Archon with both its enter and attack triggers.

What decides it: whether you can force through one reanimation, or keep Emperor alive long enough to activate.

Plan: Lead with cheap threats that demand an answer: Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, and Emperor. Use Thoughtseize to clear the way on the turn you go for it. Your Spell Pierce protects your own sorceries. After sideboarding, add all four Mystical Dispute and the Dauthi Voidwalker pair. Cut Fatal Push down to match their creature count.

Combo and Big Mana

Even. Your disruption suite is solid against them: Thoughtseize, Spell Pierce, and the discard from Archon of Cruelty. The Archon's sacrifice half does less against creature-light combo, but discard plus a six-point life swing still pressures them hard.

What decides it: pairing disruption with a fast clock. Discard alone loses to a deck that simply redraws its pieces.

Plan: Keep hands that pair interaction with an early reanimation. Consign to Memory answers colorless spells and key triggered abilities, so bring it in against any strategy built on either. Add Mystical Dispute if they're blue. Cut Fatal Push if they have few creatures.

Artifact-Based Decks

Even. Artifact creatures are fine targets for Fatal Push and the Archon's sacrifice, but artifact-heavy boards can go wide faster than one trigger per turn can keep up with.

What decides it: resolving Meltdown at the right X. It's scalable, so cast it on the turn that clears the most mana value they've committed.

Plan: Bring in both copies of Meltdown. It also destroys your own Treasures from Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, so spend those first. Keep the full set of Fatal Push. Cut Thought Scour or a Spell Pierce, depending on how many key noncreature spells they play.

Opposing Graveyard Decks

Even. Both decks race to use their graveyard first. You have a built-in edge, because Emperor of Bones exiles a card from any graveyard every combat. It shrinks their resources while setting up yours.

What decides it: whose hate lands first, and whether yours stays on the board.

Plan: Dauthi Voidwalker is the best card here. It only exiles cards going to an opponent's graveyard, so your own plan is untouched, and you can sacrifice it to cast one of their exiled cards. Bring in Surgical Extraction to cut off a key piece permanently. Add Cling to Dust as instant-speed exile, keeping in mind that its escape cost competes with Abhorrent Oculus for your graveyard. Thought Scour can target them in a pinch, but only to set up a Surgical Extraction, not otherwise. Trim Spell Pierce if their deck is mostly creatures.

Sideboard / Tech Guide

This 15 covers four jobs: beating opposing graveyard decks, fighting counterspells, punishing low-toughness and artifact strategies, and keeping your own engine alive through hate. The main deck already carries a lot of interaction, so most plans swap a few low-impact slots rather than rebuilding the deck. Your default cuts are Spell Pierce, Thought Scour, Prismari Charm, and Fatal Push. The core of Archon of Cruelty, Abhorrent Oculus, Persist, and Faithless Looting almost never leaves.

Opposing Graveyard Decks

In: 2 Dauthi Voidwalker, 2 Cling to Dust, 1 Surgical Extraction
Out: 2 Spell Pierce, 2 Thought Scour, 1 Prismari Charm

Dauthi Voidwalker is the best card in your 15 here. It only affects opponents' graveyards, so your own engine runs normally while their discards, self-mill, and dead creatures go to exile instead. It also pairs well with Archon of Cruelty. With Voidwalker out, the creature they sacrifice and the card they discard both get void counters. You can then sacrifice Voidwalker to play the best of them for free.

Hold Cling to Dust for the moment they commit. Exiling the target in response to their reanimation spell leaves the spell with nothing to return. Be careful with its escape cost. Exiling five other cards from your graveyard competes directly with Abhorrent Oculus and Psychic Frog, so only escape it when you aren't planning an Oculus soon.

Keep Emperor of Bones in. Its combat trigger is repeatable graveyard hate, and it can turn their best creature into your hasty attacker. Keep Fatal Push in if their deck is creature-based. If they win mostly through spells, trade Push for the third Prismari Charm instead.

Blue Control and Counterspell Decks

In: 4 Mystical Dispute, 2 Dauthi Voidwalker
Out: 4 Fatal Push, 1 Prismari Charm, 1 Thought Scour

Your game-winning turn is usually a single two-mana sorcery, either Persist or Unearth. Against blue decks, the game is about forcing that spell to resolve. Mystical Dispute costs one mana when it targets a blue spell. That lets you cast reanimation plus backup on the same turn, which is the whole point of the card.

Dauthi Voidwalker gives you a threat that ignores the graveyard entirely. Shadow means it is effectively unblockable. It also exiles every spell they cast, so you can later sacrifice it and cast their best counterspell or removal for free.

If their deck uses cheap creatures for tempo rather than pure card advantage, keep 2 Fatal Push and cut Spell Pierce instead. Pierce is weak against opponents who can leave two extra mana open.

Go-Wide and Low-Toughness Aggro

In: 2 Pyroclasm
Out: 2 Spell Pierce

Pyroclasm deals 2 to every creature, so your big threats survive it. Abhorrent Oculus is a 5/5, Archon of Cruelty is a 6/6, and a Persisted Archon is still a 5/5. The cards it does kill on your side are Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Emperor of Bones, unpumped Psychic Frog, and the 2/2s from Oculus's manifest dread.

Sequence around that:

• Cast Pyroclasm the turn before you reanimate, or right after a fatty lands.
• Before casting it, discard one card to Frog. As a 2/3, Frog survives the sweep, and the discarded card fuels your graveyard.

Spell Pierce does almost nothing against creature decks, so it is the obvious cut. Against especially fast starts, also consider trimming a Thoughtseize for a Surgical Extraction or holding the slot for Push redundancy. Paying 2 life to take one cheap creature is a poor trade when they're racing you.

Artifact Strategies

In: 2 Meltdown, 2 Consign to Memory
Out: 2 Thought Scour, 2 Thoughtseize

Meltdown scales with X, so you can set it to wipe the cheap artifacts without overpaying. It also destroys your own Treasure tokens from Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Spend those Treasures before you cast it, or ideally use one to help pay for it.

Consign to Memory counters colorless spells and triggered abilities. Replicate lets you answer several things in a single turn when you have spare mana.

Thoughtseize comes out because trading a card and 2 life for one cheap artifact is a bad exchange against a low-curve deck. Spell Pierce stays because noncreature artifacts are legal targets.

Combo

In: 1 Surgical Extraction, plus 4 Mystical Dispute or 2 Consign to Memory
Out: Fatal Push (as many as you bring in), 1 Prismari Charm

Which counter package you bring depends on how their combo works:

• Combo built on spells: bring Mystical Dispute, which counters anything unless they pay 3.
• Combo built on triggered abilities or colorless pieces: bring Consign to Memory, which stops the payoff for a single blue mana.

Surgical Extraction costs zero mana if you pay 2 life. Use it to strip every copy of a key piece once one hits the graveyard, from discard or from your Thoughtseize.

Only cut all four Fatal Push if their combo doesn't involve creatures. If it does, cut Thought Scour first.

Playing Through Graveyard Hate

After game one, assume everyone brings hate. Don't overcorrect by gutting the engine. Instead:

• Answer the hate directly. Consign to Memory counters colorless hate artifacts and triggered exile effects, including the trigger itself if the permanent already resolved. Prismari Charm's bounce mode removes a hate permanent at instant speed. Do it in response to an activation, or right before you go off.
• Take it preemptively. Thoughtseize goes up in value against decks that board in hate. Take the hate piece over a threat when you're the one combo-ing.
• Lean on threats that ignore the graveyard. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, and Dauthi Voidwalker can carry games on their own. Against opponents with lots of dedicated hate, trimming 1 Persist and 1 Faithless Looting for 2 Dauthi Voidwalker turns you into a fairer midrange deck. That shift alone can blank half their sideboard.
• Don't fill the yard early. Against instant-speed exile effects, hold your loot and self-mill until the turn you can reanimate. Dumping your graveyard on turn two just invites a blowout.

Adjusting the 15 for Your Field

The configuration above hedges across several kinds of opponents. Shift it based on what you expect to face:

• Graveyard-heavy field: go to 3 Cling to Dust and consider a second Surgical Extraction. Trim Meltdown first.
• Blue-heavy field: keep all 4 Mystical Dispute. Shave a Pyroclasm for the third Dauthi Voidwalker.
• Aggro-heavy field: keep both Pyroclasm. Consider cutting a Thoughtseize from the main deck for the third Prismari Charm, since its ping mode kills two X/1s and doesn't cost life.
• Artifact-heavy field: go to 3 Meltdown and trim Mystical Dispute to 3.

Quick Reference

Tech Choices & Variations

Grixis Reanimator has a fixed engine and a flexible shell. The non-negotiable core is the full set of Archon of Cruelty, Persist, Faithless Looting, Psychic Frog, Abhorrent Oculus, and Thoughtseize, plus the 18-land manabase that casts it all. Everything else is a dial you turn based on what your local field looks like. Every swap below stays inside this exact 75, so you can retune between events without buying anything new.

The Flex Slots

• 2x Spell Pierce: protection for Persist against noncreature interaction, and a cheap answer to opposing noncreature threats.
• 2x Prismari Charm: selection that fills the graveyard, with removal and bounce modes attached.
• 2x Thought Scour: the cheapest graveyard filler, and the easiest slot to cut.
• 2x Emperor of Bones: a second reanimation angle that doubles as graveyard interaction.
• 3x Unearth: a backup reanimation spell for the cheap half of the deck.
• 4x Fatal Push and 3x Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer: these counts move depending on how creature-heavy the room is.

Interaction Package: Pierce, Dispute, or Neither

Spell Pierce only counters noncreature spells, and only if your opponent can't pay {2}. It is strongest early, when it protects a turn-two Persist from an instant-speed answer or counters a key sorcery. It is weakest late, when the tax is easy to pay.

If your local field is heavy on blue decks, move one or two Mystical Dispute into the main deck over Spell Pierce. Against a blue spell, Dispute costs just {U} and taxes {3} instead of {2}. Unlike Pierce, it also hits creature spells. The trade-off is clear: against non-blue decks it costs {2}{U}, which is far too slow for this deck's tempo. Only make this swap if you expect to face blue in most rounds.

Against a room full of creature aggro, cut both Pierces entirely. Those slots are better spent on another removal effect or a third Prismari Charm.

Graveyard Fillers: Scour vs. Charm

Thought Scour is the most efficient enabler on the list. For {U} at instant speed, you mill two and replace the card. It can also target your opponent if you need to dig them toward a decking line or deny them a card. Its weakness is that it does nothing else.

A third Prismari Charm in place of a Thought Scour makes the deck more resilient. Surveil 2 plus a draw gives you real selection rather than blind milling. The damage mode kills one or two X/1s, and the bounce mode answers any nonland permanent. The costs are real, though. Charm needs both {U} and {R}, it costs two mana, and it blocks you from doubling up on a Faithless Looting turn as easily. Make this swap when your field is full of small creatures or problem permanents. Keep both Scours when your field is slower, because cheap velocity toward an early Persist matters most there.

Reanimation Density: Unearth vs. Emperor

These two cards cover different ground, so their ratio is worth thinking about.

• Unearth cannot return Archon of Cruelty because its mana value is too high. It can return Abhorrent Oculus, though, since that card's mana value is 3, and reanimating it skips the six-card exile cost entirely. It also brings back Psychic Frog, Emperor of Bones, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. Cycling {2} means it is never a dead draw.
• Emperor of Bones can deliver an Archon. At the beginning of combat on your turn, exile the Archon from your graveyard. Then pay {1}{B} to adapt, and the Archon enters hasty. That gives you an enter trigger, an attack trigger, and a sacrifice at end step. Emperor can also exile a creature card from your opponent's graveyard and borrow it. The drawback is speed. The line needs the Emperor to survive to your combat, plus spare mana.

Go to 3 Emperor / 2 Unearth when you expect grindy, interaction-heavy opponents or other graveyard decks. In those games, the repeatable exile effect and the second Archon delivery outweigh Unearth's speed. Go to 2 Emperor / 4 Unearth or keep the stock split when you expect fast fields. In those games, a one-mana Oculus is the line that matters, and a 2/2 that waits a turn to do anything is a liability.

Removal and Ragavan Counts

Fatal Push is excellent in this deck because the nine fetchlands turn on revolt almost whenever you need it. That lets Push reach mana value 4 threats. Against creature-light control or combo fields, though, a fourth Push is often dead. Trim to two or three and move those slots to Spell Pierce or Mystical Dispute.

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is legendary, so drawing two at once is redundant. Three copies balances early pressure against that risk. In a field that kills X/1s on sight, dropping to two is reasonable. Persist cannot target Ragavan, so it contributes nothing to the main engine.

Sideboard Cards Worth Considering Main

• Dauthi Voidwalker: its replacement effect only touches your opponent's graveyard, so it never interferes with your own engine. It's a fine main-deck card in a field full of graveyard decks, and its shadow evasion pressures any control opponent.
• Pyroclasm: only main-deck this against a swarm-heavy field. It kills your own Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Emperor of Bones, and manifest dread 2/2s. Psychic Frog can survive if you discard a card in response to grow it out of range. Abhorrent Oculus and Archon of Cruelty shrug it off, so cast it when your board is mostly big flyers.
• Cling to Dust: cheap graveyard hate that cantrips or gains life. Late in the game, it can be escaped using your own stocked graveyard. It's a reasonable main-deck card against graveyard-heavy fields, but competes with Abhorrent Oculus for the same exile resources.
• Mystical Dispute, Meltdown, Consign to Memory, Surgical Extraction: these are too narrow to main-deck unless you know exactly what's coming. Keep them in the sideboard. If you board in Meltdown, remember that X=0 still destroys your own Ragavan Treasures.

Manabase Tuning

Eighteen lands is the right count with four Faithless Looting, which turns extra lands into discard fodder. Don't go lower. The two enters-tapped lands, Undercity Sewers and Raucous Theater, are a tempo-versus-graveyard trade. Each one's surveil 1 can bin an Archon on turn one, but each one also makes a turn-two Persist harder to cast. Against fast aggro, consider swapping one Undercity Sewers for an untapped dual such as a second Steam Vents or Blood Crypt. Make sure your basic Swamp and Island stay fetchable if you expect opponents to attack nonbasic lands.

Tuning Cheat Sheet

Change no more than two or three main-deck slots for any single event. Every slot you move away from graveyard filling or reanimation makes the fast Archon less likely. That fast Archon is still the reason you registered the deck.

Budget Options

The estimated total is about $532, and most of that is not in the cards that make the deck work. Archon of Cruelty, Persist, Faithless Looting, Abhorrent Oculus, and Unearth are the engine, and the expensive slots sit around that engine. The fetchlands, the shocklands, Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, and Thoughtseize are the likely cost drivers. In the sideboard, Dauthi Voidwalker is the card most likely to push the price up. Cutting those slots lowers your power level. It does not change what the deck is trying to do.

Where the Money Probably Is

• Fetchlands: 4 Polluted Delta, 2 Bloodstained Mire, 2 Marsh Flats, 1 Scalding Tarn. That is nine multi-format staples, and they are almost certainly the biggest share of the total.
• Shocklands: 2 Watery Grave, 1 Blood Crypt, 1 Steam Vents.
• Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer: 3 copies of a card played across eternal formats.
• Thoughtseize: 4 copies of a format-spanning staple.
• Psychic Frog and Abhorrent Oculus: likely mid-tier in cost, but both are core to the list.

Non-Negotiables

Don't build this deck without these: 4 Archon of Cruelty, 4 Persist, 4 Faithless Looting, 4 Abhorrent Oculus, Unearth, and 4 Psychic Frog.

• Archon of Cruelty and Persist: Archon is the payoff and Persist is the turn-two delivery. Without both, you aren't playing Reanimator.
• Faithless Looting: This is how Archon gets into the graveyard.
• Abhorrent Oculus: It gives you a second threat axis that doesn't need Archon in the yard. It also doubles as an Unearth target, since Oculus is mana value 3.
• Psychic Frog: It discards Archons on demand and gives you a threat that doesn't care about reanimation.

If you have to compromise, compromise elsewhere.

Budget Swap 1: The Mana Base

The cheapest way to rebuild the mana is to lean on cards already in the list. Undercity Sewers and Raucous Theater each surveil 1 when they enter. That puts cards in your graveyard, which feeds the Abhorrent Oculus exile cost and the Psychic Frog flying cost. Max out both, then fill the rest with basics.

Here is what you give up, and it is a lot:

• Tempo. Eight lands that enter tapped is a real cost in a deck that wants to cast Faithless Looting on turn one and Persist on turn two. Sequence your tapped lands on turns where you weren't using all your mana anyway. On the draw, that often means turn one if your hand has no one-drop.
• Revolt on Fatal Push. Cracking a fetchland is the easiest way this deck turns on Revolt. Without fetches, Push is effectively a "mana value 2 or less" removal spell. Against midrange decks built on three- and four-drops, that is a meaningful downgrade.
• Free graveyard cards. Every fetch you crack is one more card toward the six you exile for Abhorrent Oculus. The surveil lands partially make up for this, but only when the top card is one you want to bin.
• Red consistency. The full build can fetch red from most of its land base. The budget build has a handful of red sources: Raucous Theater and basic Mountain. Expect more hands where Faithless Looting or Prismari Charm is stranded. Mulligan hands with no red source and Looting as the only discard outlet more aggressively.

Budget Swap 2: Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

Ragavan is the cleanest single cut. Reanimator doesn't need it to function. It is a turn-one threat that taxes the opponent while you set up. Replace the three copies from the existing card pool:

• +1 Unearth: A fourth copy gives you more ways to return Abhorrent Oculus, Psychic Frog, or Emperor of Bones. Cycling means it is never fully dead.
• +1 Thought Scour: It is a one-mana cantrip that fills the yard for Oculus and Frog. It can also self-mill an Archon if you're lucky, although you can't rely on that.
• +1 Emperor of Bones: It is a two-drop that pressures the board and gives you an extra reanimation angle off any graveyard, including the opponent's.

What you lose is proactive turn-one pressure, Treasure acceleration toward Archon of Cruelty hardcasts, and the card advantage from casting the opponent's cards. You also lose the Fatal Push plus Ragavan turn-two line against creature decks. Against control and combo, the downgrade is noticeable, because Ragavan punishes slow starts. Against aggro, it barely matters, because Ragavan trades poorly with early blockers anyway.

Budget Swap 3: Trimming Thoughtseize

Don't cut all four. If you have to trim, go down to 2 Thoughtseize and add 1 Spell Pierce plus 1 Prismari Charm.

• What you give up: proactive disruption that strips the opponent's answer to Archon before you go for Persist, plus a full read on their hand that informs every later decision.
• What you get from Spell Pierce: reactive protection that only covers noncreature spells and can be paid through.
• What you get from Prismari Charm: flexibility rather than protection. It surveils 2 to bin an Archon, pings small creatures, or bounces a problem permanent.

This is the swap that costs you the most against combo, so treat it as the last cut you make, not the first.

Budget Sideboard

Dauthi Voidwalker is the sideboard card most likely to inflate the total. Replace the two copies with a third Cling to Dust and a second Surgical Extraction. Your graveyard-hate count stays the same, but you lose a creature that hates while it attacks. That matters in grindy matchups where Voidwalker doubles as a threat.

The rest of the board is the same in budget and full builds: Consign to Memory, Meltdown, Mystical Dispute, and Pyroclasm. Keep those as listed.

Upgrade Path

Buy in this order. Each step is ranked by how much win rate it adds per slot, not by price.

1. Thoughtseize back to four. Protecting the turn-two Archon is the deck's highest-leverage interaction. Get these first.
2. Polluted Delta ×4 and Watery Grave ×2. Blue-black is your most important color pair. Delta can fetch Watery Grave, Undercity Sewers, Island, or Swamp, so these immediately improve your untapped mana and turn Revolt back on.
3. The remaining shocks: Blood Crypt and Steam Vents. These fix red, the color the budget build struggles with most.
4. The remaining fetches: Bloodstained Mire, Marsh Flats, and Scalding Tarn. As you add each one, trim surveil lands and basics back toward the listed configuration. Raucous Theater and Undercity Sewers are fetchable thanks to their basic land types, so they stay useful at every stage.
5. Dauthi Voidwalker for the sideboard.
6. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer last. It is the most powerful single card on this list. It is also the one the deck's core plan needs least.

At every step, you're playing the same deck with the same lines. The budget version is slower and clunkier on mana, but it still threatens a turn-two Archon of Cruelty. That threat is what wins games.

Common Mistakes

1. Putting Archon in the Graveyard Before You Can Use It

The most expensive error with this deck is binning Archon of Cruelty a turn early. Looting it away at the end of your opponent's turn, or pitching it to Psychic Frog with no reanimation mana available, gives an opponent with graveyard hate a full turn cycle to answer it. Your reanimation spells are sorceries, so the Archon sits exposed until your main phase no matter what.

The fix: Discard Archon at the last possible moment. Psychic Frog's discard ability works at instant speed, so in your main phase with {1}{B} open, discard Archon and cast Persist immediately. The only window your opponent gets is with Persist on the stack. The same applies to Faithless Looting: cast it in your main phase with Persist mana still untapped, not as a turn-two durdle that leaves Archon stranded.

2. Eating Your Own Reanimation Targets

Four cards in this list exile from your graveyard: Abhorrent Oculus (six cards as an additional cost), Psychic Frog (three cards for flying), Emperor of Bones (one card each combat), and opposing hate. Players routinely exile an Archon to cast Oculus, or chew through their yard giving Frog flying, then find their Persist has nothing to hit.

The fix: Count your graveyard before every exile. Spend dead material first: used Thoughtseizes, Fatal Pushes, fetchlands, Unearths you won't need, extra lands. Keep Archon and any flashback-ready Faithless Looting until last. If casting Oculus requires exiling your only Archon and you hold Persist, ask whether you'd rather Persist the Archon this turn instead. Usually you would.

Related: when Abhorrent Oculus manifests dread and you see an Archon in the top two, put the Archon in the graveyard. A face-down 2/2 is far worse than a live Persist target.

3. Misreading What Each Reanimation Spell Can Hit

The two reanimation spells have different restrictions, and mixing them up at the table loses games.

• Unearth only returns creature cards with mana value 3 or less. It cannot return Archon of Cruelty. It can return Abhorrent Oculus, Psychic Frog, Emperor of Bones, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.
• Persist returns any nonlegendary creature card with a -1/-1 counter. It cannot return Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. A Persisted Archon is still a 5/5 flyer with every trigger intact. A Persisted Frog comes back as a 0/1, which is rarely worth the card.

The commonly missed line: Abhorrent Oculus's six-card exile is a cost to cast it. Unearth and Persist put it onto the battlefield without casting, so the cost never applies. An Oculus that got discarded or milled is a one-mana 5/5 flyer off Unearth. Don't reflexively cycle Unearth for {2} when an Oculus is already in your yard or likely to land there soon.

4. Botching the Emperor of Bones Sequence

Emperor of Bones works in two steps. At the beginning of combat on your turn, it exiles up to one target card from a graveyard. Then putting +1/+1 counters on it via its {1}{B} adapt ability brings back a creature card it exiled, with haste, to be sacrificed at the next end step. The errors:

• Tapping out precombat. If you spend your mana in main phase one, you can't adapt after the exile trigger resolves, and the creature can't attack this turn. Keep {1}{B} open going into combat.
• Adapting before anything is exiled. The counters arrive, nothing is linked to the Emperor, and you've wasted the activation.
• Forgetting it hits any graveyard. If your opponent's yard holds a strong creature, borrowing it with haste can be better than using your own resources. Against graveyard decks, the per-combat exile also works as slow, repeatable hate.
• Treating it as equivalent to Persist. An Archon off Emperor gets its enter trigger plus an attack trigger with haste, which is a huge swing, but it leaves at end step and is no longer in your yard for Persist. If you have Persist available and no immediate need for haste, the permanent Archon is usually the stronger play. Emperor shines when you need the double trigger now to close or stabilize.

5. Forcing the Combo Into a Prepared Opponent

This deck has a real fair game. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, and a hard-cast Abhorrent Oculus can win without an Archon ever touching the battlefield. Players who see their opponent leave up mana against a stocked graveyard, then jam Persist anyway, hand over the game.

The fix: When you know graveyard hate is present, lead with Thoughtseize to strip it or confirm it's gone. Use Spell Pierce cover where it applies, remembering it only counters noncreature spells. If the hate is a permanent already on the battlefield, Prismari Charm's bounce mode can clear the way for a turn if it's a nonland permanent. If none of that is available, beat down with the fair threats and make them keep the hate active while you pressure their life total.

6. Bleeding Out Against Aggro

Fetchlands, shocklands, and Thoughtseize add up fast. Fetching into an untapped shock, then Thoughtseizing, costs five life before your opponent has done anything. Against aggressive decks, that is often the difference between stabilizing with Archon and dying the turn before it lands.

The fix: Against aggro, play Undercity Sewers and Raucous Theater tapped early when the tempo loss is cheap, fetch basics when you don't need the second color yet, and skip Thoughtseize unless a specific card must go. Each Archon trigger swings six life between players, so getting one trigger off at a healthy life total matters more than getting it off a turn early at a dangerous one.

7. Wasting Revolt on Fatal Push

Fatal Push only kills mana value 2 or less unless a permanent left the battlefield under your control this turn. Players crack fetchlands on autopilot during upkeep or on the opponent's turn, then can't reach a three- or four-drop on their own turn.

The fix: Hold your fetch until the turn you plan to Push, and crack it in that same turn. Other revolt enablers in this deck include sacrificing a Treasure from Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, and the end-step sacrifice of a creature returned by Emperor of Bones. After that sacrifice, you can Push a four-drop in the same end step.

8. Sideboarding Into Your Own Sweeper

Pyroclasm deals 2 damage to each creature, including yours. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Emperor of Bones die to it, and so does an unpumped Psychic Frog.

The fix: Cast Pyroclasm before deploying your small creatures, or with Frog out and a card to discard. You can respond to your own Pyroclasm by discarding to Frog for a +1/+1 counter, letting it survive as a 2/3. If you can pitch an Archon while doing it with Persist mana still open, even better.

Tournament Prep & Final Notes

What to Practice Before the Event

This deck rewards reps more than almost anything in Modern because the hardest decisions happen on turns one and two. Before you register, put in focused practice on these:

1. Goldfish the fast reanimation lines. Deal yourself opening sevens and find the quickest way to put Archon of Cruelty into play. A typical line is turn-one Faithless Looting discarding Archon, then turn-two Persist. Thought Scour targeting yourself, surveil from Undercity Sewers and Raucous Theater, and discarding to Psychic Frog all fill the graveyard too. Practice until you spot the fastest line in seconds, not minutes.
2. Practice graveyard budgeting. Your graveyard pays for several things. Abhorrent Oculus costs six cards to cast, Psychic Frog wants three at a time for flying, and Persist and Unearth need targets left in it. Run game states where you count it out loud: which cards stay as targets and which are fuel. Exiling the Archon you meant to Persist is a game-losing mistake.
3. Play the disruption-heavy hands too. Some games you won't reanimate early. You'll win through Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, Thoughtseize, and Fatal Push as a tempo deck. Make sure you can pilot the fair half of the deck, not only the combo half.
4. Rehearse post-sideboard configurations. Practice games where you've boarded in Dauthi Voidwalker, Pyroclasm, or Mystical Dispute. Your threat density and your graveyard needs change, and the deck plays differently.

Rules Interactions to Know Cold

Know these so well you never have to stop and reason them out mid-match:

• Abhorrent Oculus's exile cost only applies when you cast it. The text makes exiling six cards an additional cost to cast. If you return it with Persist or Unearth, you pay nothing extra. Unearth works because Oculus has mana value 3.
• Unearth has limits. It returns creatures with mana value 3 or less: Oculus, Psychic Frog, Emperor of Bones, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. It can never return Archon of Cruelty. When you have no target, cycling it for {2} is a real option.
• Persist cannot return Ragavan. It only targets nonlegendary creatures. A Persisted Archon is a 5/5 flyer that still gets its full enters trigger. A Persisted Frog comes back small, but you can offset the -1/-1 counter by discarding to it.
• Psychic Frog is a free discard outlet. "Discard a card" has no mana cost. You can pitch an Archon straight from your hand at instant speed and Persist it next turn, with no Faithless Looting needed.
• The Emperor of Bones line.
  • At the beginning of combat on your turn, Emperor's trigger exiles up to one card from any graveyard.
  • If that card is a creature, pay {1}{B} to adapt while you're still in the beginning of combat step. Putting the counters on returns the exiled creature with haste.
  • An Archon returned this way triggers on entering and again on attacking. That is two full drains in one turn.
  • The creature has a finality counter and is sacrificed at the next end step, so treat it as a one-turn burst.
  • Hold the {1}{B} going into combat. Emperor can also steal a creature from your opponent's graveyard.
• Revolt for Fatal Push is easy to turn on. Cracking a fetchland sacrifices a permanent you control. Sacrificing a Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer Treasure, or the end-step sacrifice of an Emperor creature, also counts. Crack fetches on the turn you need to Push a three- or four-drop, not before.
• Abhorrent Oculus triggers on your opponent's upkeep. Manifest dread puts one card face down as a 2/2 and the other into your graveyard. That fuels Persist and Frog. A face-down creature card can be turned face up for its mana cost, so a manifested Archon is a real (if expensive) threat.
• Spell Pierce only hits noncreature spells. Mystical Dispute costs just {U} against blue spells and {2}{U} against anything else.
• Sideboard notes:
  • Dauthi Voidwalker only exiles cards headed to your opponent's graveyard. It never fights your own plan.
  • Cling to Dust's escape exiles five of your cards, which competes with Oculus for fuel.
  • Pyroclasm kills your own Ragavan, Frog, and Emperor but leaves Oculus standing.
  • Consign to Memory counters triggered abilities, so it can answer opposing triggers.

Mana Base Homework

Eighteen lands, very few basics, and a lot of fetches. Know your fetch targets before the event:

• The only basics are one Island and one Swamp.
• Marsh Flats finds Swamps only. It can still get blue through Watery Grave or Undercity Sewers.
• Bloodstained Mire and Scalding Tarn have no basic Mountain to find. Red comes from Blood Crypt, Steam Vents, or Raucous Theater.
• Fetching a tapped surveil land on turn one is often right. It fills your graveyard, and this deck has few one-drops that demand untapped mana.

Life adds up fast. Fetches, shocks, and Thoughtseize all cost life. Against aggressive strategies, map out your life payments before the first land drop. Count on Archon of Cruelty's 3-point drain to get you back to safety, not on a healthy starting total.

Clock and Trigger Management

The deck isn't inherently slow, but it creates a lot of game actions. Shuffles, revealed hands, and multi-part triggers all take time. Keep things moving:

• Shuffle efficiently and announce fetch targets fast. Decide what you're fetching before you crack the land.
• Resolve Archon of Cruelty triggers in a consistent order. The opponent sacrifices, discards, and loses 3; then you draw and gain 3. Say it out loud every time so nothing gets skipped and no judge call eats your clock.
• Don't miss your own triggers. Two are easy to forget:
  • Emperor of Bones triggers at beginning of combat. Announce "beginning of combat" instead of jumping straight to attacks.
  • Abhorrent Oculus triggers on your opponent's upkeep. Remind them before they draw.
• Use a die for Frog counters and keep face-down manifests clearly separated from your other permanents.
• Don't over-tank Thoughtseize. Your priority is almost always whatever disrupts your plan, such as graveyard hate or interaction, or the card that beats you fastest. Commit to that heuristic and play quickly.

Event-Day Checklist

• Know your sideboard plans before round one so you aren't boarding from scratch under time pressure.
• Have an opening plan ready for opposing graveyard hate. Know which hands can win as a fair Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Psychic Frog deck.
• Bring counters, a die, and tokens for Treasures and face-down 2/2s.
• Budget roughly $532 at market prices if you're still filling out the list, and keep a backup plan for any missing piece.

Final Assessment

This list is a hybrid that punishes opponents who prepare for only one axis. Its reanimation suite comes in three forms:

• Four Persist for Archon.
• Three Unearth for Oculus.
• Two Emperor of Bones for a hasty Archon burst.

On top of that, it plays a real tempo shell of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Psychic Frog, Thoughtseize, and Fatal Push. Hate aimed only at the graveyard leaves you with a functional fair deck. Respect only the fair game, and an Archon arrives on turn two.

The weaknesses are real:

• Permanent graveyard hate squeezes several cards at once.
• The mana base demands careful sequencing.
• Your life total is a resource that aggressive opponents will happily exploit.

The sideboard addresses the clearest gaps. Mystical Dispute and Consign to Memory fight interaction, Pyroclasm handles go-wide starts, and Meltdown answers artifact strategies. The Top 4 finish at IQ Arzúa - Piknitas Modern shows the configuration can compete deep into an event.

The bottom line: this is a deck where preparation directly converts to wins. The pilot who has drilled the graveyard math, the Emperor timing, and the fetch sequencing will beat the pilot who simply sleeved it up. If you put in the reps, it's a strong choice for a competitive Modern event.

Source: tournament results. Decklist and placements as reported by the event organizer.