Rank Reanimator

This is the main thing that I've been playing ever since Vara was unnerfed in January. This list put two of us in the top 10 on ladder in January and had a 3/5 conversion rate for making T64 in the February ECQ (going T8, T16, T64). In other words the deck has been very good for us, though if the deck becomes popular then it is vulnerable to cards like Vanquisher's Blade.

Some miscellaneous notes on playing the deck:

1) The powerbase looks atrocious at first, but it really isn't bad. The deck only needs PS influence from its opening hand to be functional, since that suffices for everything other than Grasping and hardcast Vara, and you draw enough cards that you almost always have the influence for those by the time you are ready to play them. Don't be fooled by the Azindels and Privileges - you never hardcast Azindel and very rarely hardcast Privilege (and usually only late in the game).

2) Keep/redraw is interesting with this deck: you need to redraw any hand that doesn't have PS influence (or S influence + merchant, since you have a banner in the market), but after that there are two main things you are looking for:

a) Something to play on turn 2 (Suffocate counts); if the hand is otherwise good and you are on the play then waiting until turn 3 is acceptable.
b) Something that gives access to additional cards from your deck: this means Sporefolk, Privilege, Cartographer, Strategize, Herald's Song, Observer. Contracts and Crests also help a bit. Basically you need to start churning through your deck, making sure you hit power drops while also stocking your void.

You should keep most hands with PS influence over going to 6 cards, since being down a card is not great with all the Cartographer/Song effects. It's also worth noting that having the actual reanimation cards (Grasping/Vara/Azindel) in your opening hand is not very important, though having an Azindel to discard can be nice.

3) A couple notes on comboing off: the most common setup is Vara -> Azindel -> BSH + merchant/Sporefolk/Delinquent, which is usually plenty to win (you get several threats, lots of blockers, some life, a card from their deck, and additional value from whatever else you brought back). Sometimes you have extra Azindels or Varas and can put even more stuff into play, though against Harsh Rule decks you sometimes want to be a bit cautious about giving voidbound to too many cards. There are also a lot of matchups where you don't need to have the full Vara+Azindel+BSH package to win - sometimes Azindel is enough (especially if you have several other units to attack with that turn), or Vara + BSH is pretty good at surviving against aggro.

4) There are some strange interactions when comboing off that are good to know. First, if you have Vara, Azindel, Delinquent, and some other shadow unit in your void, as well as a shadow unit in hand that you want to reanimate (e.g. a second Azindel or a BSH), then you can do Vara -> Azindel -> Delinquent, then discard the unit in hand to Delinquent and immediately reanimate it with the second Vara trigger from Azindel. Sporefolk works a little differently: if you have Vara, 2 Azindels, and Sporefolk in your void then you can do Vara -> Azindel -> Sporefolk -> Azindel and then anything discarded by the Sporefolk is eligible to be reanimated by the triggers from the second Azindel.

5) You usually want to hardcast BSHs rather than discarding them; the exception is if you need one for T5 Grasping against aggro. You also want to be careful about discarding Varas in slower matchups, since sometimes they Sabotage your Grasping or try to hold up Kaleb's Choice or Display of Instinct, and in those spots you often end up wanting to hardcast Vara.

6) Similarly, you don't always want to get Grasping with a merchant as soon as possible. Unless you expect to play Grasping in the next turn or two, it's usually better to wait on the merchant. Sometimes you need to get a removal spell for a unit with Vanquisher's Blade or Burglarize for Gavel, sometimes you need to get a banner to keep hitting power drops, and sometimes you just draw Grasping naturally or decide you want to hardcast Vara instead anyway. In addition, getting Grasping exposes it to Sabotage; against Tomb decks I usually wait to give them the opportunity to Tomb me before getting Grasping.

7) As with any deck with Privilege of Rank and a low J sigil count, you want to use Strategize to put J sigils back into your deck whenever possible (unless you need the extra power). That said, usually you aren't too sad if your third Privilege of Rank fails to find J sigils if that means that you already drew four cards for free that game.

8) The matchups with this deck are generally very good if your opponents don't have many void hate cards. Decks with 4 Vanquisher's Blades maindeck are the worst, especially if they have Tavrod to help find them or are placing the blades on aegis units. Gavel from the market is also unpleasant, but at least you have an answer in your market and they only have the one Gavel.

In the absence of serious void hate, this deck is extremely favored against FTP and moderately favored against FJS. Most aggro matchups (skycrag/HH/praxis) are also favorable since your 1/2s and 1/3s and 2/1s are good at buying time to get Grasping or BSH, though rakano is unfavorable because they often kill you in the air and sometimes have Vanquisher's Blades too. Combrei Chains is a bit unfavorable (they often go bigger than you do and Telut matches up well against Azindel, though sometimes you steal games by Burglarizing their Chains), but stonescar grenadins is close to a bye and you are good against Kennadins too.

I expect that this deck will remain at least playable regardless, but it will definitely get worse if Vanquisher's Blade decks become more popular or if more FJS decks add Gavel to their market.