MTG Reanimator Guide: Best Enablers, Reanimation Spells, and Targets

Greetings, planeswalkers and researchers! Tamiyo here, continuing my documentation of the ever-evolving Multiverse.

Few archetypes have fascinated my scrolls quite like reanimator. The premise is wonderfully transgressive: refuse to pay what a creature costs, place it in the graveyard instead, and pull it back onto the battlefield with a one-mana spell. A turn-one Sol Ring feels like a small advantage; a turn-two demon does not.

What I find most interesting in my field notes is that reanimator is not a single deck — it is a relationship between three moving parts that every list, in every format, must balance. A graveyard enabler. A reanimation spell. A target worth the trouble. Below, I have organized my observations into those three groups, with notes on which cards I have seen carry their weight in Legacy, Modern, and Commander tables across the planes.

Part One: Putting Creatures in the Graveyard

You cannot reanimate what is not yet dead. The fastest reanimator hands win because the enabler does double duty — it either tutors directly to the graveyard, or it loots away a giant creature you drew naturally while drawing a fresh card to find your reanimation spell.

Tutors that bin

The cleanest way to assemble a reanimator hand is to choose your target precisely, then deposit it in the graveyard. These spells let you do exactly that.

Buried Alive is the Commander cousin — three mana, three creatures, and the entire foundation of any Karador or Meren shell I have studied. The cost is steeper, but you set up combos and recursion chains in a single cast. Unmarked Grave is Modern's compromise — a two-mana Entomb that cannot find legendary creatures, which is precisely why nonlegendary monsters have become the format's reanimation darlings.

Discard outlets

When you have no tutor, you simply draw the deck and pitch what you find. The best loot spells replace themselves with a fresh card, so you keep digging toward the reanimation spell even after the giant has hit the graveyard.

Faithless Looting is the Modern enabler of choice — one red mana, draw two and discard two, then a flashback for the late game. It single-handedly defines the Modern reanimator shell. Cathartic Reunion trades the flashback for raw card velocity — discarding two to draw three turns one giant creature in your hand into a giant creature in your graveyard and two new looks at the rest of your deck.

In blue shells, Frantic Search functionally costs zero — you discard two, draw two, and untap the lands you spent on it. Putrid Imp and Hapless Researcher stick around as repeatable outlets — once they're on the battlefield, every subsequent draw step can become a reanimation setup. Cabal Therapy is more specialized — it strips an opponent's interaction and its flashback cost asks you to sacrifice a creature, which doubles as graveyard fuel.

Self-mill

The third path puts cards into the graveyard from the top of your library. It is less precise than tutoring, but it is the only enabler that costs no card from your hand.

Stitcher's Supplier is the cleanest one-mana mill body in black — three cards on entry, three more when it dies. Satyr Wayfinder and Grisly Salvage dump cards while smoothing your land drops — quietly excellent at both jobs in green-black graveyard decks.

For pure velocity, dredge cards have no equal. Stinkweed Imp mills five whenever you would draw a card; Golgari Grave-Troll mills six. Thought Scour is a humbler companion — a blue cantrip that bins two and replaces itself, often the bridge piece in Dimir reanimator shells.

Part Two: Pulling Creatures Out of the Graveyard

The reanimation spell is the conversion step. The cheaper it is, the larger the gap between what you paid and what you put on the battlefield. One mana for a seven-mana creature is the dream.

At two mana, the options multiply. Animate Dead and Necromancy are sorcery-speed Auras that famously break with sacrifice outlets — sacrifice the enchantment, the creature stays. Necromancy's flash makes it the most flexible of all reanimation spells in Commander; you can hold up interaction and reanimate at end of turn with the same card. Exhume is symmetrical — every player gets a creature back — which makes it ideal in dedicated reanimator decks where opponents have nothing to return.

Persist is a more recent addition — sorcery-speed, two mana, a -1/-1 counter on the returned creature. Trivial on a 7/7. Victimize trades a creature on the battlefield for two from the graveyard — an absurd rate when the sacrificed body is a token or a dying mill creature.

Then there are the conditional reanimation spells with format-defining histories. Goryo's Vengeance reanimates only legendary creatures, but does so at instant speed with haste — a perfect fit for Griselbrand. Footsteps of the Goryo is the non-legendary version. Apprentice Necromancer is a body that brings back a body — an underrated piece in Karador shells where you can recur the apprentice itself.

For longer games, Unburial Rites doubles as its own enabler — discard it to a loot effect, flash it back from the graveyard for a second reanimation. Dread Return has the same flashback architecture, with the famous "sacrifice three creatures" cost that powers dredge combos.

And in multiplayer pods, Living Death is the symmetrical sweeper that wins games — exiling the battlefield and graveyards into one stack, then redeploying everyone's creatures simultaneously. If your graveyard has six things and theirs have one, the math works in your favor every time.

Part Three: Targets Worth the Trouble

A reanimation spell is only as good as what it brings back. The best targets answer one of two questions: do I win the game when this resolves? or do my opponents lose the ability to play the game when this resolves?

The value engines

Atraxa, Grand Unifier is the new queen of the format. A 7/7 with flying, vigilance, deathtouch, and lifelink — already unbeatable on its keywords alone — that reveals the top ten cards of your library on entry and pulls one of every card type into your hand. Five or six new cards is typical. She has displaced Griselbrand as the most-played reanimation target in Commander.

Archon of Cruelty is Modern's defining target. Seven mana naturally, but on entry it forces a sacrifice, a discard, three life loss, and gives you a card and three life. The exact same trigger fires when it attacks. Even if your opponent answers it, you have already gained an absurd amount of value.

The lockdown angels

Iona, Shield of Emeria names a color and your opponents simply cannot cast spells of it. Against a mono-color deck, the game ends on the spot. Serra's Emissary grants you and your creatures protection from a chosen card type — naming creature, you cannot be blocked or killed by creature spells. Avacyn, Angel of Hope is the indestructible umbrella that turns any board into one your opponents cannot remove.

Chancellor of the Annex taxes every spell your opponent casts by one mana — devastating against any deck with curve assumptions. And Blazing Archon is the simplest stax piece imaginable: creatures cannot attack you. Against Eldrazi or Stompy, the game becomes a chess match where their pieces cannot move.

The praetors and the disruption

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur draws seven cards every end step and reduces opponents' hand size by seven — a one-card combo with itself. Sheoldred, Whispering One reanimates a creature every upkeep while making each opponent sacrifice — a runaway engine that snowballs the graveyard you have been filling all game.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is the answer to every token deck and every Elf board — the -2/-2 aura sweeps small creatures while your reanimated giant survives. Sire of Insanity empties every hand at end of turn — punishing for control and combo opponents in a way no removal spell can recover from.

The tutors and engines

Razaketh, the Foulblooded tutors any card from your library for two life and a creature sacrifice, repeatedly. In a Commander pod with a few sacrifice outlets, Razaketh is the combo target — reanimate, then assemble whatever wins you the game from there. Vilis, Broker of Blood turns every life loss into a card — pair him with Reanimate itself and you have already drawn seven cards before passing the turn.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best reanimation target in Commander? Atraxa, Grand Unifier. The card-draw on entry, the four keywords, and the 7/7 body make her the most consistent target across casual and competitive tables. Vilis, Broker of Blood is a strong second when paired with Reanimate itself.

Is reanimator viable in Modern? Yes — built around Faithless Looting, Unmarked Grave, Persist, and Archon of Cruelty. The deck is restricted to nonlegendary targets through Unmarked Grave, which is why Archon (a nonlegendary 6/6) has become its defining payoff.

Do I need a sacrifice outlet for Animate Dead? Not for it to work — but a sacrifice outlet (Viscera Seer, Phyrexian Altar) breaks the rule cleanly. When you sacrifice the Aura, the creature stays. Otherwise the creature returns to the graveyard if the Aura ever leaves.

Closing the Scroll

What I find most rewarding about reanimator as a research subject is how each format expresses the same core relationship differently. Legacy plays the relationship at the speed of a turn-two demon. Modern plays it at the speed of an Archon trigger. Commander plays it as a long, recursive game where Sheoldred and Vilis trade graveyard fuel for cards across many turns. Three pieces, three tempos, and a thousand decks across the planes — all reading from the same scroll of returning the dead.

If you would like to assemble a reanimator list of your own, Karn is excellent at translating these archetypes into a working ninety-nine, and Nissa will gladly walk you through the rules interactions of Animate Dead, Persist counters, or Living Death's exile-then-return ordering.

Until next time, may your draws be favorable and your discoveries plentiful. — Tamiyo, Field Researcher