Standard: Rakdos Reanimator (2025) - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Rakdos Reanimate, also known as Rakdos Reanimator or Rakdos Zombify, is a Midrange-Combo deck from the 2025 Standard season focused on the interplay of efficient discard outlets, such as Fear of Missing Out and Tersa Lightshatter to put Valgavoth, Terror Eater or Atraxa, Grand Unifier into the graveyard and bring it to the battlefield with Zombify, generating tons of value for a very low cost.

This strategy is complemented by a fair game plan enabled by creatures with discard effects, added to cheap removal, discard and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse as an efficient win condition — in this way, the archetype can attack on two fronts, advancing on the board while constantly threatening a potential combo that puts it far ahead in the game.

This list follows the pattern of the most used variants during the Tarkir: Dragonstorm season. The biggest addition, which revitalized the deck and put it back in the spotlight was Tersa Lightshatter, an aggressive three-mana drop whose ability allows discarding the necessary pieces to the graveyard while advancing board position, also allowing you to take useless cards from your hand searching for efficient answers for each matchup.

Maindeck

The reanimators and the heart of the deck.

Last season, Reanimator used The Cruelty of Gix and Virtue of Persistence to bring creatures back. Zombify is cheaper than both, though it lacks the versatility of its predecessors, and allows for more explosive early games with a Valgavoth, Terror Eater on the board as early as turn four — virtually winning the game against most opponents.

Valgavoth’s Faithful is easier to interact with and slower to cast than Zombify, but it offers versatility in being able to play it in the early turns to reanimate a creature later, in addition to being returned to the hand recurrently with Overlord of the Balemurk.

The payoffs.

Valgavoth, Terror Eater is the ideal target. Its body provides a two or three turn clock, protects itself in the best possible way, provides extra life against Aggro and generates value with every spell the opponent plays with it on the board.

Atraxa, Grand Unifier provides ample card advantage in the ETB with a decent body that is very capable of holding Aggro and winning games on its own, despite Screaming Nemesis being its biggest enemy.

Etali, Primal Conqueror is the least interesting of the cards we can reanimate because it relies heavily on the explosive potential of both decks to have a relevant impact. If it brings a Valgavoth with it, it wins the game — if it brings an Opt and a Duress, it does almost nothing. However, of all the cards we have, it is the easiest to cast from hand, making it very effective against Bounce and other decks with longer game plans.

The enablers.

Fear of Missing Out has a decent body for its cost, generates hand filtering if we don't have anything to discard and also guarantees extra combats if there are enough card types in the graveyard — It occurs in very rare cases, but it is a way to win games or generate extra value with Overlord of the Balemurk and Tersa Lightshatter.

The new creature from Tarkir, in fact, gives a bit of everything that Reanimator needs and is comparable to Fable of the Mirror-Breaker for the archetype's interests. The ability to exile cards randomly can be detrimental, but Tersa Lightshatter has enough cost, body and benefits to be a staple of this strategy moving forward

Overlord of the Balemurk doesn't discard cards from your hand, but instead mills them for a low cost. In addition, its 5/5 body and constant recursion effect offer breathing room in longer games, including the possibility of “closing the combo” every turn with Valgavoth's Faithful.

The interaction.

Torch the Tower has become the primary removal in Standard by dealing with Heartfire Hero and Mosswood Dreadknight without giving the opponent any benefits. We don't take advantage of its Bargain ability without sacrificing Fear of Missing Out or Overlord of the Balemurk, but it's common for the two damage for one mana to be enough to meet our needs.

Abrade and Brotherhood’s End as a 1-1 split in both the maindeck and sideboard provide a comprehensive answer against slightly larger creatures and as a counter to Cori-Steel Cutter, which has become a staple in the last few weeks. Both are excellent against go wide decks that run artifacts like Selesnya Cage as well.

Bitter Triumph doubles as a combo enabler and to deal with larger creatures or Planeswalkers, being the most efficient removal in our list, but at a relatively high cost.

Duress protects our combo or delays the opponent's plans by one turn. Furthermore, due to the nature of our strategy, it is natural that we need information about the resources in the opponent's hand to take the ideal stance in the match from Game 1.

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse complements the "fair" plan. Its ability punishes the opponent's draws in longer games against Control and Midrange and benefits from interactions with Fear of Missing Out and Tersa Lightshatter to recover the game's Tempo against Aggro.

In addition to the twelve-pack of untapped duals, we have Raucous Theater to increase the consistency of Blazemire Verge and also to remove creatures that we want to reanimate from the top, allowing us to start the combo setup from the first turn.

Demolition Field interacts with troublesome lands in the current Metagame, such as Fountainport or manlands.

Sideboard

Liliana of the Veil is our resource disruption in longer games against Midrange, Control and can also work in combo matchups. It is worth mentioning that we can use her to discard our reanimation targets, and the only reason she is not in the maindeck is because her sacrifice effect and discard are ill-positioned in the current metagame.

The extra Duress in the Sideboard ensures more consistency in interacting with opponents in less aggressive games. With the rise of Izzet Cutter, Jeskai Control and the permanence of Esper Bounce at the top of the Metagame, its importance in the format is so great that we could consider more copies in the Maindeck.

Preacher of the Schism is in an interesting spot in the current Metagame: it is a Midrange card which works excellently in attrition games, but its 2/4 body with Deathtouch is essential to hold Aggro games and also survives against most of the damage-based removals in the current Metagame, making it versatile in several games.

The extra copy of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse follows a similar logic and enters games where we have to be more careful with the combo plan, or where we can take advantage of the excess of answers that the opponent has to Zombify and pull a more fair and efficient plan with the Midrange lines.

Cut Down complements the list’s one-mana spot removals against Aggro. It can also occasionally come in against Dimir lists that have plenty of small creatures, to prevent Kaito, Bane of Nightmares from entering too early in the game.

Abrade and Brotherhood’s End complement each other as extra answers against creatures and also to deal with Cori-Steel Cutter in games against Prowess. Brotherhood’s End also works against Convoke and Esper Bounce games today, as players have been betting less on Optimistic Scavenger in favor of Sunpearl Kirin.

Pyroclasm complements the format’s cheap sweepers. In addition to games against Convoke or Tokens, it also works on the draw against Mice decks, where using it on the second turn negates the opponent's early advance in the first two turns. It's also a great way to deal with many tokens created by Stormchaser's Talent and Cori-Steel Cutter.

Ghost Vacuum slows down the plans of other archetypes that also rely on the graveyard, such as Jeskai Oculus and Azorius Omniscience, as well as mirroring Zombify. It can be used as an answer to Shiko, Paragon of the Way, but I don't like cards that are too conditional against Jeskai Control.

As a Combo-Midrange, it's important to understand what game plan you should follow in each game. In some cases, pulling a fair and efficient beatdown is more likely to work than going for a combo — usually games with a lot of interaction or where the opponent has an easy time interacting with the stack, the graveyard, or where the creatures we reanimate are quickly dealt with.

Games that are not interactive or where our opponent is faster than us favor the combo plan over the Midrange. In these cases, look for hands that can dig deep for Zombify and/or that have the right combination of enablers and payoffs to work.

The first few turns should be played with the goal of setting up the combo. Your opponent needs to react to it, and that's when we can set up our beatdown plan. If they can't, a Valgavoth, Terror Eater will end the game. Otherwise, you've set the stage long enough for Fear of Missing Out and Tersa Lightshatter to pull the clock, and the mix of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse accompanied by Overlord of the Balemurk will pull the value for you.

We need to be more reactive against Red Aggro and faster combos like Omniscience. Torch the Tower becomes the most important card for more aggressive lists, while Duress is the key to dealing with Omniscience. On the play, it is possible to force a “full combo” hand against these archetypes, but remember that even a missed land drop can end the game if we do not respond to the opponent's plays.

Mono Red Aggro

IN

OUT

Izzet Cutter

IN

OUT

Wait Bounce

IN

OUT

Domain Overlords

IN

OUT

Azorius Omniscience

IN

OUT

Jeskai Control

IN

OUT

That’s all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!