Reanimator Commander: Discard Your Bombs, Bring Them Back Bigger

Reanimator is the shortcut archetype of Commander: instead of paying full price to cast your biggest threats, you discard them into the graveyard for pennies and bring them back with a spell that costs a fraction of their mana value. A ten-mana monster can hit the battlefield on turn three if you have the right pieces. Few strategies feel as explosive, and few punish a stumble as hard.

What Makes a Good Reanimator Deck?

A good Reanimator deck needs three things: a way to get big creatures into the graveyard cheaply, efficient reanimation spells to bring them back, and payoffs worth reanimating in the first place. Miss any one of the three and the deck stalls — discard spells with nothing worth reanimating, or reanimation spells with an empty graveyard, both do nothing.

Self-Mill and Discard Outlets

These cards fill your graveyard with targets. Some of the best in Commander:

• Entomb: Search your library for a card and put it into your graveyard. The most efficient tutor-to-graveyard effect in the format.
• Buried Alive: Search your library for three creature cards and put them into your graveyard, setting up multiple reanimation targets at once.
• Stitcher's Supplier: Mill four cards when it enters or dies, filling your graveyard as an incidental value creature.
• Faithless Looting: Draw two cards, then discard two cards, letting you pitch your best reanimation target on your own terms.

Reanimation Spells

These are the payoff spells that bring your graveyard threats back to the battlefield:

• Reanimate: Return a creature card from a graveyard to the battlefield, paying life equal to its mana value. The cheapest and fastest reanimation spell available.
• Animate Dead: Return a creature card from a graveyard to the battlefield under your control, attached as an Aura. Slightly slower than Reanimate but sticks around as a permanent.
• Exhume: Each player returns a creature card from their graveyard to the battlefield. Symmetrical, but usually favors whoever has the better target.
• Victimize: Sacrifice a creature, then return two creature cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. Combines a sacrifice outlet with a two-for-one reanimation.

Worthy Reanimation Targets

Not every big creature is worth reanimating. Look for creatures with an immediate, game-warping effect the moment they hit the battlefield:

• Sheoldred, the Apocalypse: Punishes every card your opponents draw and rewards every card you draw — a two-sided clock that ends games on its own.
• Archon of Cruelty: Forces a discard, a sacrifice, and a life loss the instant it enters, turning one reanimation into three separate blowouts.
• Razaketh, the Foulblooded: Lets you sacrifice creatures to tutor for anything in your deck, converting a reanimated body into whatever answer you need next.
• Grave Titan: Comes with two 2/2 Zombie tokens attached, giving you an instant board presence beyond just the Titan itself.

Best Reanimator Commanders

Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Meren turns every creature death into recursion value, letting you loop your reanimation targets back to the graveyard and out again each turn. She rewards a sacrifice-heavy Reanimator shell more than almost any other commander.

Karador, Ghost Chieftain

Karador lets you cast any card from your graveyard as long as your creatures outnumber the cards in hand, turning your graveyard into a second hand full of reanimation targets and answers.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier

Sidisi tutors for any card straight into your graveyard when she attacks unblocked, functioning as a repeatable Entomb that finds exactly the reanimation target — or reanimation spell — you need that turn.

Building a Reanimator Deck

Here's a step-by-step guide to building a Reanimator deck:

1. Choose your commander: Pick one that supports the graveyard plan. Meren, Karador, and Sidisi are strong starting points.
2. Add discard and self-mill: Run 8-10 ways to put creatures into your graveyard. Include Entomb, Buried Alive, and Faithless Looting.
3. Add reanimation spells: Run 6-10 reanimation spells. Include Reanimate, Animate Dead, and Exhume.
4. Add worthy targets: Run 8-12 big creatures with strong enter-the-battlefield or static effects. Sheoldred, Archon of Cruelty, and Grave Titan are premium picks.
5. Add protection: Run a handful of counterspells or hexproof effects to protect your reanimated threat from immediate removal.
6. Add ramp and card draw: Run 8-10 sources of each to keep the engine running if your first reanimation gets answered.
7. Test and iterate: Play your deck and track which discard-to-reanimate lines actually come together. Cut clunky pieces and add more efficient ones.

Checking Your Reanimator Deck with Rate My Decks

When you analyze your deck with Rate My Decks, we detect combo indicators and tutor density, both of which spike in a well-built Reanimator shell. If your deck is light on discard outlets relative to its reanimation spells, or missing enough worthy targets to make those spells matter, we'll flag it as a weakness and suggest specific additions.