Budget Kenrith Reaimator + Gates

Hey everybody, hope you're doing well this Sunday. Yesterday's Budget Golos Gates deck got me pretty excited, I liked how many cards it could draw and the scrappy nature of the games. But I was going all in on Gates, with some pretty weak cards in there just to put every gate card I could in the deck. Today, we're looking at another version of the Budget Gates archetype, this time with a slightly less budget commander in our Mythic King Kenrith. This card can win the game on its own with enough mana, as you might've seen in my combo decks with him, but this time we're working on his last ability to get back some big scary creatures to beat our opponents faces in!

This deck is one that can be extremely improved by a lot of rares and mythics, if you can afford. I won't post upgrade recommendation notes here because I feel like it would be a very different deck with enough cards, but I will do a writeup for that list eventually. If you've already crafted Golos, Tireless Pilgrim then ABSOLUTELY put him in the deck in place of one of our looter creatures, and the same goes for Chromatic Lantern replacing Mana Geode. If you want to upgrade it on your own, just focus on adding powerful creatures to reanimate like Agent of Treachery over huge planeswalkers. 

Gates Package:

We're running the Gates package as well, minus a few of the more underperforming cards. Gateway Sneak is still a pretty good value threat, and Gatebreaker Ram can get in for powerful beats. Gates Ablaze is still possibly 11 damage to all creatures, and Guild Summit is the consistent draw engine for he deck. Gatekeeper Gargoyle is a decent reanimation target, but it's one of the first to go when upgrading the deck for a better bomb to bring back. Gate Colossus is a huge threat that can just keep coming back, and Archway Angel can give us extreme lifegain value if we keep returning her from our graveyard.

Ramp:

This deck's ramp package gets significantly improved with more rares, but it's got a decent amount of consistency to it. Paradise Druid and Leyline Prowler can tap for any color, and so can Arcane Signet and Mana Geode. Circuitous Route gives us acces to more lands to use Kenrith with, and more Gates for our synergies. Mulligan for these and Guild Summit early as often as possible. Finally, one cheeky Wilderness Reclamation is in the deck to make maximum use of our commander's abilities, be it to reanimate, draw cards, or gain life.

Draw & Discard:

This deck is working on a few different angles, making a full self-mill strategy pretty dicey. Instead, we're looking to strategically place cards from our hand or the top of our deck into the graveyard while drawing more cards in order to continually gain value while working towards our reanimation gameplan. We run Discovery // Dispersal for its flexibility and surveil ability, while Thrill of Possibilty lets us discard a bomb at instant speed to set up a surprise reanimation while drawing two cards. Senate Guildmage and Erratic Visionary both tap to loot, while being decent against some aggressive strategies, and Improbable Alliance lets us get flying pressure for all this card draw ability, as well as being a loot engine itself (though and expensive one). Tomebound Lich is a decent blocker that allows us to loot every turn, and Merchant of the Vale makes great use of all the mana we can generate. Finally, Chemister's Insight lets us draw a good deal of cards, while letting us pitch a big creature for its jump-start.

Reanimate:

The reanimation spells in this deck are a little lacking, but our commander makes up for that. We run Blood for Bones, Bond of Revival, and Cauldron's Gift as ways to bring back any of our big bombs back, including our commander if necessary. If you have The Cauldron of Eternity, it could possibly replace all three. As reanimation targets we're looking at some janky stuff, but we're going to try to get tricky with it. Sunder Shaman can't be double-blocked and can do some damage if he connects after being given haste and trample by Kenrith. Frilled Mystic can be a cheeky counterspell that makes good use of our Wilderness Reclamation and can be brought back at instant speed with Kenrith for uncounterable counterspells. Scholar of the Ages lets us keep recurring any of the spells we want from our deck, to always have access to ways to reanimate, and Meteor Golem is the target we want to bring back the most often to nuke everything our opponent has.

Removal:

We run a little light on removal, and this is probably the part of the deck that could use most work with the upgrade. We run Angrath's Rampage to deal with planeswalkers mostly, and Mortify for creatures and enchantments giving us trouble. We run Price of Fame for its efficiency and surveil ability, as well as the aforementioned Gates Ablaze as our singular sweeper.

Lands:

Rugged Highland

The idea with the lands is the same as yesterday's deck. We're looking to cheese it with Field of the Dead and a bunch of different dual lands. Replace these with whatever shock lands and temples you want.