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I like the fact that you think of a way of delaying your opponent until you get your main strategy online but you're going to have a hard time winning if your opponent is prepared to deal with graveyard based decks (if he plays graveyard removal for instance) or if he runs counterspells. All it takes is one or two counterspells countering an Entomb or an Avatar and you'll be dead before you ever get anything ressurected. I know this because at tournaments reanimator decks are always the easiest archetype to beat.

You have a few options however to make your plan work better

- overwhelm them with speed. You say this used to be an oldschool deck, well the oldschool way is T1 Dark Ritual followed by Avatar of Discord or Entomb + Animate dead or something simular. This is not a consistent strategy but its good and will win a fair portion of the games. We used to play buried alive which is obviously very strong with Dark Ritual.
Cards like entomb and Buried alive have the additional benefit that you don't have to play a lot of fatties as you can tutor for them and as such toolbox your creatures. This is good because it opens room for other better cards. Fatties in your deck or in your hand are not good cards, they are only good on the battlefield.

- Faithless Looting is probably the best spell in your colors, play it. It both digs for cards you need and gets fatties in the yard. Cards like this one should be your way to break through your opponents defensive strategy. If he counters one of your key cards (you're a combo deck so countermagic is very effective against you) you need to find the next key card to attack again as fast as possible. Other options may be Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, maybe even Gamble although it's only good if you have either a lot of cards in your hand or non and in that case it's only good to get a creature in the graveyard.

- start with an aggro strategy and use reanimation as backup. This puts pressure on your opponent and gives you a more consistent way to win. If your aggro plan fails hit him with your reanimation plan.

- I don't get your recurring Nightmare plan. Vexing Devil is obviously a bad target because people will just pay 4 lives. Avatar of Discord is an aggro creature and not something you want to sacrifice. Keldon Champion is to slow. So I just don't get what you intend to do with Recurring Nightmare. You play 3 of them so it must be a main strategy.

What would be great would be playing 3-4 Bloodghast and Burried Alive. With Burried Alive you can get 3 bloodghasts in the yard which is a good strategy if you can do it turn 1 (Dark Ritual) and even if you can't do it turn 1 those bloodghasts are awesome Recurring Nightmare engines.

Here's a quick remake

4 Faithless looting
4 Entomb
4 Buried Alive
4 Dark Ritual

3 Recurring Nightmare

4 Animate Dead
1 Exhume

4 Bloodghast
3 Avatar of Discord

2 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Inkwell Leviathan
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Yosei, the Morning Star


4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Graven Cairns
6 Mountain
7 Swamp


PS: you can go Griselbrand instead of Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur but he's expensive right now. You could also drop 1 Buried Alive for 1 Wheel of Fortune. Don't forget that you can use Entomb to get Faithless Looting in the graveyard if you need to tutor a way to get creatures from your hand into the graveyard.

Thanks for the reply. I am going to take a little time to re-read your post a few times. Here is the quick reply

I want this deck to be fast and aggro, but I like the ability to bounce cards. The recurring works great with the kokusho, the keldon and the demigod. I can also bounce the discord out of the graveyard if I have heavy hitters in my hand. Also I like bouncing the vex devil for burn. Like I said it is still a work in progress but I agree with you, graveyard hate and counter are gonna mess me up.

first of bounce is a term used when returning cards from the battelfield to its owers hand. Getting cards from the yard to the field is called ressurection/recursion.

I fully understand the use of Recurring Nightmare but the problem is that you need a creature to sacrifice and your deck has difficulty getting creatures on the field. Once your big guns are online sacking them to recurring nightmare is just win more (= you are already winning so you don't need recurring nightmare at that point)

If you reccur Vexing Devil from the yard chances are people will not pay the 4 life and let you have him. On the other hand if you try to cast Vexing Devil because you need a creature to sacrifice to recurring nightmare people will pay the 4 life. He will always do the opposite of what you need him to do.

Keldon Champion doesn't have that downside but he's a really weak creature for 4 mana and casting him as a recurring nightmare target is to slow. It's better to take Keldon Marauders, they give you an extra turn to cast recurring nightmare, they only cost 2, they have a better body (3/3) and they do 2 damage instead of 3 which is still fine.

Here's a Demigod version, it's explosive but not all that consistent I think, also I'm not really sold on the Demigod, he's just not that strong compared to other stuff you can pull.

4 Buried Alive
4 Dark Ritual
3 Seething Song

3 Animate Dead
3 Recurring Nightmare

4 Faithles Loothing

2 Avatar of Discord
2 Keldon Marauders
2 Hellspark Elemental
3 Bloodghast
4 Demigod of Revenge

1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Rune-Scarred Demon

4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Graven Cairns
6 Mountain
7 Swamp

Thanks again for the quick replies and the tune up on terminology.

"- start with an aggro strategy and use reanimation as backup. This puts pressure on your opponent and gives you a more consistent way to win. If your aggro plan fails hit him with your reanimation plan."

This hit the nail on the head, this deck used to be a dragon deck that played with the multi color dragons and their reanimations. A few backlash and royal assassins/sorceress queen kept people busy and Lots of Bladewings and volcanics flying around. What I liked was more the fast pull of a 4/4 or 5/5 Flyer but not really the need for heavy reanimation. I do love using the reanimation to take other players cards and make the game more creative.

Vexing Devil is nice because it is super aggro and for 1 mana it is either a nice creature or a nice burn. Sure they choose but either way its all good.

I like the Demigods because I can just hard cast them late and bring war but they are easy to reanimate solo and not feel bad.

So the Keldon Champion...He used to be bone shredder, then ball lightning, then lava runner, then Skizzik, then I found the Keldon. The thing I like about him is that he has haste and swings for 3 but also throws a bolt. With terminate I would regularly cast on a clear board hit for 6 next turn animate dead him, hit for 5 and not care if he dies on either turn. With recurring it doesn't work as well unless i have another in the yard as well.

I am definitely realizing that I am a little too in love with the idea of recurring....with 3 in the deck I always end up with two stuck in my hand as well. I might just take them out all together...

As far as big monsters, I like the Sheoldred because it just does the work for me. I do wonder if I will ever be able to keep it alive long enough. It and terminates also lead to me getting to play Woes for 2 mana. I have been thinking of only playing one Sheoldred as Entomb will go get it. Also two in the yard just get in the way with the legend rule. Same goes for Kokusho but not as much. I also am not comfortable playing off color creatures and counting on reanimating since I cant hard cast. I play a lot of casual games and some can go long and hard casting can become inevitable.

So the my questions are: What 3 or 4 mana creature with speed replaces the Keldon?

What do you think about adding a few Ashenmoor Liege? Does it slow it down more than it helps?

For Faithles Loothing, do I really want more draw cards or should I just get the casting cost down on my creatures?


Thanks again for your help, I enjoy the game and have been searching though the MTG online database but I just can't seem to find the cards I feel I am looking for.

- I'm like you in the sense that I prefer to hardcast over recurring creatures and I like reccuring creatures as a mid game backup. The reason is that building a deck that hardcasts creatures is far easier and consistent then trying to build a balanced recursion deck.

The problem with your deck is mainly the colors, you cannot build a deck that casts big creatures on that mana base, not fast anyway.

when I take the best stuff from your deck to start a new deck from I would start with these cards:

Recurring Nightmare
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Sheoldred, Whispering One

A deck I like to play is :manab::manag: that mana ramps with creatures like

Sakura-Tribe Elder
Solemn Simulacrum
Wood Elves (which can fetch Overgrown Tomb or Bayou)

+ Cultivate/Kodama's Reach (for extra apell based mana acceleration)

Then once you got that covered I have a few strategies

Grave Pact : this is my main creature removal strategy and works well with Sakura-Tribe Elder and recurring Nightmare

Contamination : this is an alternative win and I usually only play 1, they don't see it comming and even if they do it's a pain in the ass.
Works well with Creakwood Liege or Deranged Hermit, Grave Titan, Avenger of Zendikar and recurring Nightmare on any of these

Acidic Slime : this is nasty, if you can accelerate your mana base and throw down this guy to hit the opponents manabase you'll increase your advantage + you have a deathtouch blocker which is nice. It's also nuts with Recurring Nightmare.

Eternal Witness: taking stuff back is good

Avenger of Zendikar : My main kill, I play 1 or 2

Tooth and Nail : if you accelerate fast this is an increadible tutor to turn the game around.

recurring Nightmare: works wonders with the come in play effects of most of my creatures.

Genesis Wave: something you probably want 1 of when you play lots of land acceleration.

If you need sweepers you can play Damation or Decree of Pain.

I usually play some stuff to draw new cards because you need to abuse all that land/mana you have. Harmonize is good but :manab::manag: have plenty of cards that draw cards.


I don't know if this is your thing but it's aggressive, it's very good at slowing down your opponent with early game blockers (Sakura/Solemn/Wood Elves) and it has multiple ways to win. It's also a pleasure to just overwhelm your opponent playing for instance a Avanger of Zendikar when they have 3 land :)
They see you comming but there is little they can do about it.

Some great utility creatures are

Rune-Scarred Demon : the big hard hitting tutor on a stick
Geth, Lord of the Vault: He's just rediculous
Pelakka Wurm: when you need life or just want to hit hard, great target for recurring nightmare
Rampaging Baloths: another nut card that gets out of hand fast
Terastodon: because sometimes you need to get rid of stuff
Duplicant: great spot removal


... many more

It's a decktype that can keep you going for a while

The only reason I add red to this type of deck is to add Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Anger, both do wonders for any deck and with cards like Cultivate and Kodama's Reach you can easily play them without a fancy mana base. Kiki-Jiki has become expensive though ever since the Modern format, it used to be 7$, I even gave away a few to friends. Now it's 30$ a card.

On the other hand if you are willing to invest some Survival of the Fittest is reasonably priced right now (under 30$, I even saw one on ebay for like 15$ which is absurt) because it's banned in legacy which probably won't be the case for ever. Vengevine is another great card that doesn't see much play anymore since Survival got banned a few years back and because of that it is now cheap. Green Sun's Zenith is also an increadibly good tutor that is cheap because it's banned in Modern (but not in legacy so it still sees A LOT of competitive play).

Thank you for offering up all these alternatives. I really appreciate all the time you are giving me one this deck. I have revamped it with some of your suggestions. I do not want to abandon the R/B as this deck is really just a fun deck that I like to play and is infamous in certain casual circles. Although the green makes it so much faster I just don't want to loose what I love about it...

Dropped: 4x Keldon Champion, 1x recurring, 2x Avtar of Woe

Added: 3x Faithless looting, 1x Rune-Scarred Demon, 3x Spike Jester