Deck History #4 - Feln/JPS Reanimator

In every episode of my Eternal deck history video series I include a modern take on the historic archetype. Some of them will still be good while others will be in a much worse state thanks to nerfs or because they didn't receive enough support to keep up with powercreep compared to other decks.

This is the list for my fourth episode, JPS Reanimator. It includes some up-dates to the historic 2019 and 2020 version, but the core idea of discarding cards from your hand and deck in the first gew turns to then revive a Vara + something with a reanimation spell, in the best case on curve, stays the same.

That means your hand should have some power and ways to get to JPSS influence somewhat consistently, although if you already have Grasping you don't necessarily need justice and if you have a lot of self-mill effects you can also keep a hand without justice and speculate on milling a Privilege. You also want some early board presence and ways to set-up your void in your starting hand, the best cards for that are Darkwater Vines and Sporefolk. The win-condition is to revive something big with A life for a life or Grasping as early as possible. The best option is Vara + Azindel or, if you are massively behind, Vara + Animist, but just Azindel or Vara + anything else can be fine sometimes too.

If that win-condition doesn't sound convincing to you you're not wrong, it's not very good. Without Vara's old ability to create big reanimation chains a reanimation spell will rarely be enough to win a game on its own, which makes the deck much worse than it used to be. Add to that the high number of hate cards on ladder compared to the low amount of interaction that you can fit into this deck, it's basically only Marauder and market copies of Designs and Collapse, and you will end up with a very medicore deck. I'd give it a 3/10, which means it is somewhat functional and can give you some wins, but it will lose to itself and better decks way too often to be a good ladder deck.