Do you like big creatures? I know I do! They tend to be way too costly most of the time, though. That's where Reanimation decks come in! You know, the ones where you get to put your favorite big creatures into your graveyard and then get them on the battlefield for a much more affordable rate. It's a fun way to play across various Constructed formats and even is a popular Vintage Cube archetype as well!

I personally have had a decent amount of experience with this archetype in the past. Back when I played Legacy actively, my best friend I hung out with all the time played it and I'd get to experience it firsthand. It would frequently be something I drafted in various Cubes as well. More importantly is how much I've enjoyed it in Commander! I've played many different Reanimator decks in Commander and over the last few years, you've likely even seen me talk about some of them!

One of the big drawbacks when it comes to many Reanimator decks, though, is the barrier to entry on some of the more well known spells for them. Cards like Animate Dead, Necromancy, and even just plain old Reanimate can get pretty pricey! That's to say nothing about some Reserved List cards like Shallow Grave or Corpse Dance either. I don't know about you, but I'm certainly not made of the money it takes to put that whole package in my decks.

This made me want to do a whole in-depth write-up about budget alternatives for your Reanimator decks that you might want to build. That way players all over could discover awesome cards to enable this strategy without breaking the bank. What I found, though, was that many great cards were already pretty heavily utilized in Commander and/or were made so readily available recently that it was able to expose a whole host of new players to these cards. Things like Victimize, Karmic Guide, and Patriarch's Bidding. Many others like Persist, The Cauldron of Eternity, and Liliana, Death's Majesty are either quite recent or see tons of reprints. Even beloved Reanimation Commander Meren of Clan Nel Toth fits into the budget category well!

Because of that, I instead decided to focus on some more specific cards that either once saw play but have fallen off over the years or else are just downright obscure. There's some cool cards here, and some that may surprise you. We'll start off with some of the more potentially familiar ones and get into some that are just plain weird. Let's exhume-a-zoom-zoom!

Doomed Necromancer and Apprentice Necromancer

I'm putting these both together because of just how similar they are. They're both cheap creatures that have one-shot reanimation effects. Both are extremely straight-forward and show up in a reasonable number of decks, albeit less frequently than your usual suspects when it comes to Reanimator decks. For what they do, though, they're excellent and are also dirt cheap. Yes, you have keep them on the board for a turn before they can do anything, but hey, I think it's worth it as a great budget option until you can afford something a little pricier!

Beacon of Unrest

There was once a time when just about every Black deck I could think of was running this card. That was over a decade ago in the PreDH era, though, and this is now. We're quite a ways off from that bygone time and Beacon of Unrest barely gets any love in Commander. That feels somewhat surprising to me, but I imagine it's because most people think of it as a five-mana Zombify more than anything, which is honestly a bit of a fair assessment. After all, I am approaching this from a Reanimation angle!

There's a little more to the card that makes it more attractive, however. For one, the card goes right back into your deck when you cast it. Now, in a 100-card singleton format, that's not terribly exciting, but it does allow the possibility to get it more than once in a game. Much more enticing, however, is the ability to get an artifact instead of a creature. This is especially great as you can get someone's big artifact on your board right after someone in the pod blows it up. It's a fairly versatile card and even at 5 mana, it's well worth the price in my book!

Nezumi Graverobber

Similar to Beacon of Unrest, I used to see Nezumi Graverobber all over the place. It was great because it worked well on two fronts: first as graveyard hate and then as a strong reanimation tool. The problem I think most people see with it these days is mainly that it can be difficult to exile away a player's entire graveyard and get this to flip. There's probably some merit to that, however, I'd bet there's usually one player at the table who won't be filling their graveyard like crazy that can enable an easy flip. Even then, sometimes you don't want to flip it due to a lack of mana to utilize the reanimation effect, and instead you might want to go after the players who are filling up their graveyards to stop whatever shenanigans they might be getting up to. Even if you never flip it, odds are good that you'll have other reanimation spells to back it up. There's lots of versatile utility in this one and I definitely think more people in Commander's modern era should give it a shot!

Body Snatcher

Of all the cards on this list, I'd say Body Snatcher is one of the more likely ones for you to have run into within the last year thanks to its reprint in Dominaria Remastered. You'd think so, at least, but when I looked it up on EDHREC it only shows up in 5306 decks - a mere fraction of the potential lists that could be running it! That seems almost criminal to me, especially now that the card is much more readily available.

What makes it so cool to me is that it's both a pitch spell and a reanimation effect all in one. Basically, it's both setup and payoff all in one card. You simply play it and when you do, you send the biggest creature from your hand to the graveyard. Then you've got a 2/2 to do whatever with. Typically, opponents won't ever block or kill it, but again, you're a Black deck! Surely you have a way or two to kill this and get a little extra value out of the deal. When you do, you get that big creature right onto the board with no worries at all. You should definitely give it a try!

Champion of Stray Souls

Looking at this card, you might be wondering if this is a reanimation spell or a reanimation target. In truth, it's kind of both, especially since it can be more or less brought back from the graveyard on its own! The real appeal here, though, is how it plays once it's on the board. It's pricey both to put onto the battlefield and to activate its ability, but it's worth doing turn after turn where you can cycle through a bunch of creatures for huge value swings that can end games on the spot if done correctly. This could be by way of getting tons of ETB triggers, death triggers, or just swapping out your small creatures for your big ones. Born of the Gods may have been a rough set, but this one is definitely an underrated gem for casual decks the world over! And speaking of rough sets...

Obzedat's Aid

Oh Dragon's Maze, what an awful expansion you are. Well, in the general public perception that is. Weak cards, a glut of rough cycles like the cluestones, and more plagued this set. There's very little of actual value in it, and it's widely lambasted by the playerbase. However, I've always felt it to be somewhat of a goldmine in terms of cool Commander cards. Even if they're not top of the line for the format, there's a lot of great budget tools to work with in it. They're the kinds of cards that you'll spot when going through a binder and go, "Hey, that looks cool! Why don't I try that in a deck?"

Case in point here is Obzedat's Aid. The card had some decent hype behind it when the set came out among Commander players and you'd see it a pretty fair amount. As time has gone on, though, it's been largely forgotten about and shows up very little. That might be because it's in two colors and because it's a little pricier in terms of mana value, but getting back any permanent is a huge bargain. That means you could get not just a creature or even an artifact like Beacon of Unrest, but you can grab a big enchantment or planeswalker. Heck, if you felt so inclined, you could get back a powerful land or even a battle! It's a simple card, but a highly underrated one that I think deserves way more love than it gets!

Strands of Night

This was actually the card that got me wanting to write this article in the first place. I was going through Iand reorganizing my collection a little bit when I stumbled on a copy of this I've had sitting in my Weatherlight box for a while now. I haven't had a Reanimator deck to put it into for a bit, so there it's sat. Despite that, it always felt weird to me that I never hear more people talk about it. It's such a cool way to repeatedly reanimate your creatures with ease and best of all, it's something you can do at instant speed!

I'd guess that sacrificing two Swamps can feel like a big ask - especially for multicolored decks - and that's certainly fair. However for mono-color or two-color decks, it can be a fantastic inclusion. Many times you'll find yourself getting deep enough into games where dropping a few lands can be pretty trivial. It can even be offset if you run something like Crucible of Worlds or Ramunap Excavator, though that may make it feel a little less budget at that point. In a similar vein, utilizing Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth with this can really make it go a long way. At the end of the day, though, it's a cool, cheap budget friendly option that will almost certainly get you multiple creatures back for a solid rate.

Hymn of Rebirth

This one really stood out to me, mainly because it's such an oddball. I've seen White reanimation effects and while I haven't seen much outright Green ones, there's plenty of similar cards in the form of Regrowth. Seeing a Selesnya reanimation spell, though? That just feels weird! At 5 mana, it may be a bit harder to swallow compared to even mono-White cards like Late to Dinner and Breath of Life. However, what makes this so interesting is that it doesn't just give you the option to get back your own creatures. It actually allows you to hit your opponents' creatures as well! That's some solid versatility for such an unusual effect in this color pair, and even though it only has one printing, you can get it for about a quarter. Try it out for something a little different!

Reincarnation

Oh yeah, I saved the best for last! Reincarnation is so bizarre I had to include it here. While Green does get some reanimation effects from time to time, it's usually creatures bringing themselves back or else more along the lines of a Regrowth-style effect. Here it feels a bit strange getting a more proper reanimation spell - particularly when it involves a creature going to the graveyard. It's a very flavorful card, though a strange one mechanically, but that's what makes it fun to talk about!

There's pretty decent odds that if you're playing a Reanimator strategy, you're likely including some amount of sacrificing into your deck. This might be for small abilities or else sacrificing a creature to then reanimate it for a large ETB ability a la Avenger of Zendikar or Craterhoof Behemoth. I like the idea of sacrificing something small, or else trading with something in combat, only to then drop this prior to that creature dying. It's a neat trick - especially at instant speed. While the original Legends printing can be a little harder to come by, the sole reprint in Commander 2013 is quite affordable. Try it out and throw your playgroup for a loop as they run into this strange little card!

Paige Smith

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