By Edward “TemporalEddy” Nurse
Reanimator in Aus 7PH
Different flavours of strategy focused around putting gigantic, expensive creatures into play far too quickly through unfair means have existed in 7PH since its conception. This is likely due to the Reanimator deck’s high power level, simplicity of gameplay, relatively inexpensive shell and 8-point potential, and the fact that it feels GREAT to watch opponents rapidly realise that they cannot beat the buff idiots you ‘cheated’ into play.
Previous versions have included Rakdos Turbo-Reanimator, Grixis Reanimator and Sultai Reanimator which all have serviceable midrange plans. Gorgeous Reanimator seeks to exploit Worldgorger Dragon and similar cards for a combo-kill, in conjunction with an effect like Animate Dead.
With the recent pointing of Mental Misstep, the stage has been set for best friends Entomb and Reanimate to shine brighter than ever before. Lukewarm off of my semi-finals finish at The Mana Clash and missing top 4 on breakers at The Mana Clash Teams event, I wanted to write a piece focused on a potentially under-appreciated variant of the Reanimator shell.
Symmetry and Asymmetry
I am a big believer that some of the most powerful things that a player can do in a match of Magic involve identifying symmetrical effects and making those effects asymmetrical. While a simple concept, turning such asymmetries into game wins can be quite complicated as you are often required to warp your decision-making to leverage an advantage.
Examples of notable cards from across history that demonstrate the power of asymmetry include Winter Orb, Blood Moon, Show and Tell, Wrath of God, Burning Inquiry, and Liliana of the Veil.
While each of these cards literally affect both players in exactly the same ways, you are at a significant advantage over your opponents when playing them for two key reasons.
1) You are the one registering the card, meaning you are able to maximise or mitigate its impact upon your game plan during deckbuilding
2) You are the one playing the card, meaning you are able to maximise or mitigate its impact upon your game plan during gameplay.
By way of an example, I can actively choose to keep my [Wrath of God] deck creatureless, so I do not care at what point a Wrath occurs, or choose to keep my important creatures in hand until after I deploy the Wrath to sweep my opponent’s team.
To put things into simple terms, if I know in advance that a symmetrical effect is likely to influence a game of Magic in some way, I can likely make it benefit me to a far greater degree than my opponent can.
With the power of asymmetry in mind, allow me to introduce to you my favourite Magic card of all time.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” – George Orwell
Oath of Druids is a symmetrical effect in that both you and your opponent get to put some creatures into play. However, it shines a blaring spotlight onto just how “more equal” some creatures can be than the rest.
By means of an example, Burnout Bashtronaut, Blisterpod, and Spectrum Sentinel are all actual creatures that my opponents have flipped into off of an Oath trigger during competitive gameplay.
“Well what have you flipped into instead?” I hear you ask. Without further ado, allow me to introduce the current line-up.
https://moxfield.com/decks/rq72d_I2-U-7HoqPNkqHiQ
The Headliners
Atraxa, Grand Unifier is the GOAT.
She is all-upside in that she quickly ends the game through evasive attacks while simultaneously preventing losses by presenting a large blocker with Lifelink.
She will also find you some combination of cards that results in another creature cheated into play. As an example, the deck plays enough Reanimate effects that if your opponent manages to kill her, she will promptly return to the battlefield and grant another new hand. This built-in redundancy makes her incredibly powerful against opponents attempting to drain your resources and play a longer game.
Notably, she does not have any protection from removal which leaves her vulnerable to exile-based interaction and Karakas, though you do still get to draw into another spin in the latter case.
Assuming you tap out to resolve her, Atraxa also cannot interfere with kills from dedicated combo decks such as Storm, Thoracle, and Lands. Despite these factors, she is the best Reanimation target ever printed and I will die on this hill.
Tip: If you Entomb without knowledge of what your opponent is playing, you should probably choose Atraxa.
Valgavoth, Terror Eater sits comfortably in second place.
He has a meaningful point of differentiation from Atraxa with his unmatched Ward ability that often equates to Hexproof. Even if your opponent can pay the Ward cost, their game plan will likely be severely hindered.
He also has nine Lifelinking power. Nine! This means that if Valgavoth does not win you the game then he is almost certainly going to buy you enough time to find another creature to do so.
Additionally, casting your opponent’s spells for free closes the door very quickly on opponents who cannot immediately answer him, as chump blocking or casting cantrips allows you to solidify your lead.
Importantly, Valgavoth also interacts in a meaningful manner with the majority of the dedicated combo decks in the format as they typically rely upon their graveyards to some degree.
Tip: It is possible to wait for your opponent to fully pay the Ward cost to target Valgavoth before then choosing to counter their piece of interaction, resulting in a complete blowout.
Koma, World-Eater has such a high power and toughness that I was worried I would run out of fingers and toes (Humans just make it! Serpents are not so lucky).
He almost always present a two-turn clock on offense while leaving 12 power and toughness across four different bodies to block.
Ward 4 also means that he is protected from removal in shorter games, which most games are when he is in play.
These factors, combined with the unique immunity to Sanctifier En-Vec, make him a force of nature against opponents reliant upon White-based interaction. Keep in mind that Koma does very little to hinder the gameplans of dedicated combo decks or other opponents that do not rely on attacking you on the ground for lethal.
The Supporting Acts
I can understand if your gut reaction is to think that Archon of Cruelty is a bit of a non-bo with Oath of Druids as it kills their creatures allowing them to consistently flip on Upkeep. In this circumstance, you have an Archon in play. Trust me, you are going to be just fine.
This card is particularly powerful with Exhume and Show and Tell as it often further breaks the symmetry by killing whichever creature your opponent chooses with its Enters trigger.
As a non-Legendary creature that has an immediate impact upon the board, you should expect to reach for Archon when playing against decks with Karakas (just make sure that you Thoughtseize the Swords to Plowshares first).
While a resolved Iona, Shield of Emeria is very difficult for one or two-coloured decks to beat, she is actually in the maindeck to provide an additional answer to dedicated combo decks prior to access to the sideboard.
Storm and Thoracle often cannot win without access to Black or Blue (vibe it out, Black most likely). Flash without Blue, Reanimator without Black, and Nadu and Lands combos without Green all also struggle to beat the Angel.
If you find yourself on the spot to name a colour and are unsure of what would be best, I would advise you to choose the colour that they are most likely to remove your Iona with. Also, be quick to send her to the bench in games 2 and 3 if you identify the matchup to not be in her favour (e.g. Bots, Eldrazi, 4C Walks).
Tip: If you have an Iona enter play off of an Oath trigger, you choose a colour to lock out without your opponent having a window to respond.
It is so crazy to me that this is where we are at in 2025, but I think that Griselbrand is barely making the cut in Reanimator decks these days.
Don’t get me wrong, the card is going to win the game when you are not facing down much pressure as he kills quickly and will find enough resources to put another creature into play. However aggressive opponents can typically beat one roadblock, especially when it lacks any protection from interaction.
Tip: It is also very important that you keep an eye out for Orcish Bowmasters and Hullbreacher prior to activating his ability. There are other effects of this nature, but these two have Flash and are far less telegraphed.
If you ‘get got’, I recommend conceding immediately and denying your opponent the satisfaction that they deserve.
The Roadies
While the deck is not actively trying to cheat these cards into play often, they do fill important roles and have large bodies in a pinch.
Flipping into Troll of Khazad-dum off of an Oath trigger does feel very bad and I have lost a few games to exactly this sequence, I still believe it is worth the slot due to its powerful ability to fix colours while cycling into the graveyard in the early game.
The two tutors and other means of library manipulation make Metamorphosis Fanatic a semi-reliable reanimation effect, but firing off the natty Miracle sure does hit different.
Tip: Your opponents will really appreciate it if you make a loud explosion sound whenever you Miracle Metamorphosis Fanatic, regardless of whether you just openly tutored for it or not.
Why Oath vs other Reanimator variants?
The strength of Reanimator Oath is that you have a very powerful, very different Plan B in your deck that your opponents may not be able to account for when dedicating their resources to answering your Plan A of a conventional Reanimator strategy. I have had numerous opponents keep an average opening hand hoping to ride a Deathrite Shaman, Dauthi Voidwalker, Rest in Peace, or Ghost Vacuum to victory, only to find themselves devoid of all hope facing down an Atraxa off of an Oath trigger.
While other Reanimator variants either forgo a Plan B entirely or rely on a midrange or alternative combo gameplan, I find these to be generally underwhelming. Further, if a deck’s Plan B loses to the same cards as its Plan A (e.g. graveyard interaction), then it is not differentiated enough to provide a meaningful pivot when games do not go to plan. Oath provides the uniquely powerful pivot the deck needs.
The Cost of Oath
As with all sworn commitments, playing Oath of Druids does come at a cost. Namely, there are significant restrictions placed upon card selection during deckbuilding as every creature you add to the deck that you do not actively want to flip into off of an Oath trigger dilutes your gameplan.
Sometimes this will not matter as you will flip into the big creatures anyway or flip into a subpar creature and then win the game the following turn on your next flip (because Oath is just that good). However, this will matter when staring down pressure from an opponent on an aggressive line or when your “bad hits” prevent you from flipping to Oath.
The specific opportunity cost is not playing Psychic Frog, Emperor of Bones, and Barrowgoyf. All of these are stand-alone, game-winning threats that meaningfully contribute to the deck’s Plan A. I have played many games with combinations of these cards still included in the list and found that they were more trouble than they were worth, however I think that diluting the deck to play some number of these three specifically is at least defensible.
The Rest
The remaining 52 cards in the maindeck are essentially selected to maximise chances of executing Plan A, the conventional Reanimator strategy, or the Plan B of cheating creatures into play without relying on the graveyard through Oath of Druids or Show and Tell. This means that cards broadly fall into one of a few categories (with a lot of overlap) which are broken down below.
Firstly, however, there is much to be said regarding the deck’s selection of pointed cards.
The Pointed Cards
Casting Vampiric Tutor equates to always drawing the best card in your deck next turn, the power level of which is fairly self-explanatory.
Most frequently this tutor enables you to find Oath or whatever the missing piece of an A+B reanimation plan. Alternative options include Metamorphosis Fanatic or silver-bullet sideboard cards in postboard games.
You can also use Vampiric Tutor or Worldly Tutor with a surveil land to make a ‘DIY Entomb’ through fancy sequencing. This involves playing or fetching a surveil land and then, holding priority on the surveil trigger, casting the tutor for whichever creature is best and putting that creature on top, and lastly allowing the surveil trigger to resolve and slamming the creature into your graveyard. Voila! Entomb!
I feel even more comfortable spending a full three points on Vampiric Tutor’s flexibility with the ubiquity of Mental Misstep drastically reduced.
Tip: Vampiric Tutor sometimes has to be used to find a missing land… especially Forbidden Orchard if you already have Oath of Druids.
Mystical Tutor is a far, far worse version of Vampiric Tutor that most often finds Entomb, Reanimate, Show and Tell, or sideboard cards. It is the weakest point in the list and I think that replacing it is very defensible, however I value its flexibility (perhaps too highly).
Reanimate is played in a large percentage of decks with access to black mana for a very good reason. It is almost always the best way to cheat a creature into play as the loss of life is easily offset by the lifelink effects of our game-ending monsters.
It is not an Aura either, a common card type across Reanimation effects that can be interacted with in order to subvert the Ward costs of Koma and Valgavoth.
Oko, Thief of Crowns provides an incredible amount of bang for buck given his low pricetag of only one point.
Not only is he a credible beatdown Plan C against control all by himself and being able to Elk your opponents’ permanents, Oko is also able to switch off most answers that your opponents will plan to bring in against your Plan A and Plan B for games 2 and 3. It is such a good, proactive sideboard card that I play it happily in the main.
Oath of Druids is a powerful and game warping card, however it is also very complicated. As reading the card does not always explain the card, understanding it perfectly to the degree that you can explain it to your opponents if necessary is the standard that you should hold yourself to.
Notably, in order to produce a trigger the active player must be able to target an opponent and the creature imbalance criteria between those two players must be met. If one of those two conditions are not true at the beginning of the active player’s upkeep, then Oath will not place a trigger onto the stack at all. Further, those two conditions must still be met when the Oath trigger resolves in order for the active player to have the option to flip cards. If either condition is no longer true as the Oath trigger resolves then it will ‘fizzle’, doing nothing. The final point to note is that flipping cards off of an Oath trigger is a ‘may’ ability, however if a player does choose to flip cards then they must put the creature that they reveal into play.
To ensure clarity, I have included some scenarios as examples below.
Scenario 1: The only non-active player has a Leyline of Sanctity in play at the start of the active player’s Upkeep. Oath will not place a trigger onto the stack.
Scenario 2: The only non-active player has an equal number of creatures in play as the active player at the start of the active player’s Upkeep. Oath will not place a trigger onto the stack. There is no opportunity to activate Forbidden Orchard (or do anything else) during Upkeep to get a trigger; this would need to be done during the prior End Step.
Scenario 3: The only non-active player casts Blossoming Calm in response to an Oath trigger during the active player’s Upkeep. The Oath trigger will ‘fizzle’ on resolution.
Scenario 4: The only non-active player kills one of their own creatures in response to an Oath trigger during the active player’s Upkeep, resulting in an equal number of creatures being in play between both players. The Oath trigger will ‘fizzle’ on resolution.
Scenario 5: The active player resolves an Oath trigger while both conditions are met. However, they know that there are no creatures remaining in their library. To avoid decking, they can elect to not flip any cards.
Scenario 6: The active player resolves an Oath trigger while both conditions are met and elects to flip cards, however they flip into a Phage the Untouchable. They are obliged to put it into play.
Set-up Cards
These cards do the legwork required to enable your cards that win the game to do their thing. This often involves digging through your deck for relevant pieces of Plan A or Plan B, discarding creatures to subsequently cheat into play, or both.
Entomb is the best of these and feels an awful lot like an instant Demonic Tutor, allowing you to search your deck for the best creature in the matchup and then put it right where you want it to be as a Reanimation target.
Cards that Win the Game
This category includes all of the cards that do the ‘cheating’ part of cheating a creature into play.
Note that you have to announce the target of each of your Reanimate effects when you put them onto the stack, except for Necromancy which only targets when its Enters trigger is placed onto the stack.
Exhume does not target at all so your choice is made upon resolution. This allows you to Exhume a creature through one instance of targeted graveyard exile effects such as Cling to Dust or Ghost Vacuum if you have two creatures as available options.
Show and Tell provides a meaningful point of differentiation in that it relies on the creature you are cheating into play being in your hand rather than the graveyard.
Interaction
These are the cards that clear the way to execute Plan A or Plan B.
Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize strip relevant cards from opponents’ hands.
Bone Shards and Bitter Triumph remove relevant creatures on the battlefield while also contributing meaningfully to Plan A.
Collective Brutality has never looked better as it can to do all of the above, dependent upon context.
Rounding the package out, Spell Pierce and Swan Song help to force through game-winning effects on the stack and Into the Flood Maw is the catch-all bounce spell of choice.
Tip: Keep in mind that forcing your opponent to have a Bird or Fish token can switch on an Oath of Druids for you.
Cantrips
These cards smooth the disjointed draws that the deck is vulnerable to by filling the voids of whatever is missing from your hand. This can include combo pieces, lands, requisite interaction, or important sideboard cards.
Lands and Acceleration
This category of cards is self-explanatory. I have received a lot of social heat for the very simple manabase that I choose to play and have had any number of ridiculous alternative lands suggested to ‘improve’ it.
To the haters I say that I am an acolyte of the ancient art of basically-never-mulliganing and if you wish to practice this highly advanced technique then a lot of your lands have to cast a lot of your spells. Otawara, Soaring City? Grow up.
Tip: Do not cut the Forbidden Orchard! It is best friends with Oath of Druids.
The Sideboard
I do not know whether Kyle Gibson coined the term “vibes-based sideboarding” in his recent article about Dimir Midrange or whether it existed prior to that, but boy oh boy does it perfectly encapsulate my approach to decision-making in a singleton format.
Remember that when sideboarding you are not trying to beat your opponent’s maindeck, but rather you have to proactively consider what they may be sideboarding in and be ready to beat that stuff too.
As such, I will generally remove anything that makes obvious sense to cut in the matchup and also trim on reanimation effects in order to answer my opponents’ predicted interaction and improve the quality of my own interaction.
Tip: If your opponent has no reason to suspect that you are playing the Oath variant of Reanimator after game 1 then that should probably become your Plan A until the jig is up.
Boseiju, who Endures is a perfect proactive addition for games 2 and 3 as it removes non-creature permanents that opponents can be expected to sideboard in seeking to answer your gameplan with negligible downside. I exaggerate not when I say that I bring it in for 100% of my post-board games. Sometimes I replace the Island, especially on the draw, however in general I am comfortable with going up one land as games tend to slow down given that opponents have the opportunity to cut blank cards for more relevant interaction.
Assassin’s Trophy fills a similar role in that it is a catch-all and comes in very often when you are afraid of permanent-based interaction like Containment Priest, have something particular that you feel you need to kill like Dark Depths, or find that you have an extra card to cut.
Unsurprisingly, Blue Elemental Blast and Hydroblast are good against decks heavily reliant upon red cards such as Blood Moon variants, anyone playing Monastery Swiftspear, and followers of Muxus, Goblin Grandee.
Similarly, Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast shine against decks reliant upon blue threats and counterspell-based interaction for our gameplan, such as Psychic Frog, Back to Basics, and Counterspell.
Veil of Summer is our best reactive answer to hand disruption like Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach and blanks counterspell-based interaction.
The combination of Duress, Force of Negation, and Mindbreak Trap provide a balance of options along the spectrums of proactivity vs reactivity and broad applicability vs high specificity when considering answers to dedicated combo decks.
Duress also functions as a means to clear the way against counterspell-based interaction and you will certainly find Force of Negation in my deck for games on the draw against Chalice of the Void.
Leyline of the Void and Ghost Vacuum are highly efficient pieces of asymmetrical graveyard interaction for the mirror. I also bring Leyline in against other graveyard-reliant dedicated combo decks such as Storm and Underworld Breach variants.
I consider Consign to Memory, Null Rod, and Energy Flux to be the requisite nods to artifact-based combo decks.
Consign is also excellent against Eldrazi and Black Lotus combo decks, however, beware when getting greedy with intent to catch a Storm trigger as this is basically always unrealistic.
In the Eldrazi matchup Null Rod can be either the best or worst card in your deck dependent upon your opponent’s draw. As a rule of thumb, if I see a Candelabra of Tawnos then I will choose to bring the Rod, but always leave the Flux at home.
Summary
That sums up my labour of love article about Reanimator Oath. If you find yourself asking “Hey Eddy! I love the deck but am thinking about cutting something to add my favourite creature Terasto-” DO IT!! The deck is far from solved so feel free to make it your own. Winning with cards that make you happy is far more important than whatever I suppose might be most powerful.
For the achievement hunters among you I have included a Bingo Board below consisting of things that I have personally crossed off with the deck.
“Have you really done all of those stupid things?!”
F***in’ Oath.
Bingo Board
- Gift a Bird/Fish to trigger Oath
- Control all eight creatures simultaneously
- Win a game without cheating a creature into play
- Hardcast a Valgavoth
- Turn 1 blind surveil a creature, turn 2 Reanimate it
- Turn 1 Entomb + Reanimate on the play
- Resolve Iona vs a mono-coloured deck
- Show and Tell/Exhume Archon and kill their thing
- Blind miracle a Meta Fanatic (remember the explosion noise!)
- Oath trigger into a Troll and die on opponent’s next turn
- Vampiric Tutor for Orchard
- Thoughtseize yourself and win
- Lose a game to Starting Town entering tapped
- DIY Entomb
- Collective Brutality all three modes
- Lethal with Collective Brutality
- Lethal with Life/Death
- Index with Lim-Dûl’s Vault
- Muddle an opponent’s spell
- Meaningfully Flash a Necromancy
- Lethal with only Troll or Meta Fanatic
- Mystical for Vampiric
- BEB or Hydroblast a REB or Pyroblast (or vice versa)
- Channel Boseiju
- Die to Spirit Tokens from Orchard
Edward Nurse (he/him) started playing Magic by its actual rules in 2011 with the release of New Phyrexia after equipping a lot of Ornithopters to other creatures during primary school (because how else would that card work?!).
His greatest accolades include some middling tournament results from systems long since retired/forgotten, Mythic rank 82% on MTGA, and once attending the same house party as Jeremy Neeman, widely considered the best Australian magic player to ever sling a spell (the two of them did not speak).
His favourite format is Vintage Cube, however these days he spends most of his gameplay hours as a known Archenemy in his local EDH pod.
He has been a beloved member of various regions’ Magic communities and is too humble for his own good.
You can find him @TemporalEddy on most platforms.
