reya

good point, i thought maelstrom angel was only working with permanents - my bad

how do you intend to play maelstorm archangel on turn 1 without dark ritual? seems to be that you'll need at least 2 black mana for Entomb and Reanimate
what do you need red for? the game is decided either way long before you've got the mana to play decree of annihilation, so there's just crimson wisps and i'm not really sure that's worth splashing red, especially as you can't use it on turn 1 anyway (where it would have the biggest impact) as you either don't have a creature or you dont have red mana on turn 1
similarly to decree of annihilation i doubt that army of the damned can play a significant role in here, as the game will already be won or lost by the time you've got 8 mana available

the way it looks now i might actually drop duress

added Wheel of Torture, Stitch Together, Volrath's Stronghold and Haunted Crossroads, i think that's quite a good compromise between being prepared for creature destruction/counters and still not drawing too many useless cards vs other decks

thanks for this very constructive and detailled feedback,

you're definitely right about living death/buried alive and also about the jin-gitaxias alternative which i was indeed thinking about but decided against it as it wouldve just been an entirely different deck. i think i will drop them as it's just too risky to accidentally boost your opponent by reanimating their discarded creatures

dash hopes was in fact only a placeholder as it doesnt really do what it's supposed to do as you've already explained. dark ritual was primarily in here to get out the locust miser asap, which have quite a notable effect on all opponents, though i might just drop them for more lands after having read your considerations
Duress isn't in here to reduce the opponents' hand size (as that would make the hand size reductions useless for at least one turn) but to protect gnat and locust miser. i don't aim to trade cards here but to get rid of counters and creature destruction spells. it's not ideal, as you might very well waste them in a moment where your opponent doesnt have any of those spells but i havent had any better idea yet how to protect your essencial creatures

finally, i very much like the idea of global hand size related damage. however, it'd take quite long to actually reduce the hand size to 3 or less, so unless they're playing tons of spells early on (in which case they dont even care about the hand size reduction in the first place) it'll take a long time till those cards you've mentioned would actually start hurting them :/

i had no idea treefolk can be that powerful. and it's an image i cant get out of my head to be overrun by trees ;)

what do you need the rampant growth for? i'd assume you'd be more concerned about draw than mana, especially as you've already got the llanowar elves

i once made a bear tribal myself, which is also playing with the threshhold technique a lot:
http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=228624

however, what you might think about is Doubling Chant as it turned out to be an awesome finisher in my deck and has nothing to do with threshhold ;)

yeah especially in combination with It that Betrays you'd definitely go for Sheoldred instead of reya

that looks pretty annoying indeed! though i'm not sure whether you'd ever get there in this deck as that'd require 8 blue mana in total ... i'll definitely think about it

to be honest i'm not really sure about the buried alive / living death thing, i've just added it because Locust Miser seemed pretty expensive to play, i'll run some tests to see whether it works as there is indeed the risk of reanimating a lot of creatures for your opponents that they've discarded
i surely could add other reanimation targets but that's not the purpose of the deck

looks indeed really good. though i wouldnt get rid of Jin-Gitaxias as he is probably the best reanimator target ever in my mind (apart from Iona perhaps)... if he doesnt get killed right away you've won as you will draw 8 cards each round and discard all creatures directly as it's in your discard phase when you draw them and probably even more important your opponent's always have only 1 spell they can play limiting their options that much that they might as well forfeit if they cant kill him

i'm also a huge fan of Victimize, though you dont see it that often in reanimator decks. i forgot about your tokens which you can indeed sac for victimize

the gift ungiven unburial rites combo sounds really nice, the only disadvantage is that it requires 5 lands which is huge compared to an Entomb/Reanimate or even Buried Alive/Animate Dead - so there is the potential that you draw one or two gifts ungiven and / or unburial rites in the beginning that you cannot use for the first 8 turns or so

for your first deck this looks really good, though there are some things you can certainly improve,
just a couple of thoughts:
a) you need some discard - both to get rid of creatures stuck on your hand as well as to get rid of counters and creature destruction spells of your opponent, there's no better way to achieve the first than putrid imp (which you may already have as this deck looks as if it's based on 2 sets of graveborn!?), a cheap option for the latter would be Duress, a more expensive alternative Thoughtseize (or, as you're playing blue, you could just add counters)
b) there's no need for 4 sheoldreds, firstly she's legendary which means as soon as you got one out drawing one of the others will be really annoying and secondly: even though she looks great, you don't (really) need her to win as a reanimator deck usually wins with one or two creatures and hence it is usually more useful to go directly for the game winning creatures rather than sheoldred first and the others thereafter
c) Rune-Scarred Demon kinda has the same problem as Sheoldred, he doesnt help that much on his own, sure he has an awesome tutoring sideeffect... but you could just put a creature in this spot that actually wins you the game
d) as i prefer mono black reanimation decks personally, i have no experience with Gifts Ungiven, though it looks to me as if you can only use it for either 4 creatures (which will result in 2 of them being stuck on your hand which is another reason for Putrid Imp) or 4 reanimation spells but not both as that would result in 2 creatures on your hand and 2 reanimation spells in your graveyard... as you will usually have enough spells it's presumably primarily for creatures... so basically a more expensive Buried Alive that is not even as effective (unless you've got a way to discard the 2 creatures directly and thereby getting 4 instead of 3 creatures in your graveyard)... so to sum up i would consider dropping the Gifts Ungiven and adding 2 more Buried Alive instead (which you might already have if you've actually got two sets of graveborn)
e) you could also consider dropping white alltogether as you dont really need timely reinforcements (because by the time you'd need it you should've already won) and if you feel like you need day of judgment you could exchange it with Damnation (though you wouldnt have the flashback option on unburial rites then, which seems like the only real advantage white is offering in here)
f) Dread Return is just too expensive as there are a lot of reanimation spells for 3 mana or less and given the fact that you dont have any weenie creatures you will never sacrifice three creatures deliberately... potential replacements are Exhume, Victimize (only, if at all, in case you add 4 putrid imps), Dance of the Dead or Necromancy - oh and you should add a 4th animate dead, because it's just an awesome spell (unless you add a lot of creatures with protection from black)
g) finally let's talk about reanimation targets: It that betrays is awesome (though 4 might be a little too much, but that's really up to you) and so is blazing archon, but you might want to add other creatures that can either protect you in other regards than blazing archon or just win you the game asap: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (who can be better than Blazing Archon because some weenie/horde decks can even hurt you pretty badly without attacking you, e.g. by sacrifing creatures or spells with a amount of damage in relation to the number of creatures they have) and Spirit of the Hearth coming to mind when thinking about protection, Iona, Shield of Emeria and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur come to mind when thinking about game-ending fattys... finally you should have some creatures that are hard to kill as it's quite annoying to see someone kill your It that Betrays with a simple Go for the Throat... for that purpose you might want to add one or two Inkwell Leviathans

i hope those tips can help a little or at least give you some inspiration for future alterations; i've got quite a couple of reanimator decks that you might want to check out for further ideas

because it can target the opponent's graveyard ;) though so can Animate Dead which is only 2 mana instead of 5 and ridiculously cheap atm due to Graveborn

if you truely want to distract your opponent i would recommend Ashnod's Coupon rather than lands ;)

quite a nice idea, haven't thought of that before

what are you using Nightcreep for?

for your first reanimation deck this looks really good! there are things you can improve, e.g. exchanging Zombify and Dread Return with cheaper reanimation spells such as Reanimate, additional exhumes, victimize, dance of the dead or necromancy - but as i said: generally this looks really good

there's only one thing i don't understand: what is Despise for? usually people run discard such as Thoughseize, Cabal Therapy or Duress to get rid of opponent's counters but with Despise you will usually force him to discard a creature. though even if he casts it you should usually not have to much trouble dealing with it and if you enable him to discard it, Exhume is ... well not as awesome as otherwise and of all your reanimation spells only animate dead could be used to "steal" this creature. so to sum up: is there any special reason why you're running Despise? especially given that you've already got 2 royal assassins and 4 go for the throat in here :)

as far as multiplayer is concerned i love Exsanguinate as it's so flexible and it's only 1 more expensive than blood tithe

finally decided to create an entirely new deck based on Phage and Leveler:
http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=260790

though i've decided to add him to my U/R donate deck as he's just awesome with Bazaar Trader! thanks again for the idea