TBC

This deck is a very simple and straightforward version of Reanimator which does not utilize Blue & mill effects. Instead it is RB deck with focus on loot effects that allow us to dig for both reanimation targets & reanimation spells. This way we increase consistency of the deck and we prevent accidental mill of combo pieces. Based on my experience it consistently achieves T5 reanimation with occasional T4 (due to inclusion of Rakdos Locket). Let me break down the basic parts of the deck.

Looting

Three cards that serve the same purpose in our deck - dump reanimation targets (or cards that are not required) into the graveyard while digging for lands, reanimator cards and disruption.

I see a lot of people using Honor the God-Pharaoh which has an added value in form of Amass 1. While Thrill's instant speed is not very relevant in our deck - it's 2CMC causes me to stick to it as it is our main way of digging ourself out of being stuck on 2 lands (which happens supprisingly often as we have 24 lands).

My personal star among these cards is Merchant of the Vale which gives us good T1 play (Haggle), 2/3 Body and lategame repeatable form of digging. All of them feel suprisingly good in this deck.

Reanimation Targets

Drakuseth is one of the main reasons to play reanimator this standard. He's our goal and priority as turn when Drakuseth attacks is usually devastating. Not only we (usually) hit opponent for 7-11 damage, we often clear his board.

Villis is an alternative to Drakuseth. While he is more often blocked by Flying creatures (he can be chumped by measily 1/1 Spirit) he offers an insane card advantage engine and he is larger than most of creatures played in current standard.

Agent is one of our ways of disrupting the enemy board. We can steal any permanents, giving us a way to deal with Planeswalkers, Artifacts and Enchantments. Not to mention opponent's largest creatures. I keep him in the deck even though we cannot hardcast him.

Massacre Girl is the most hard-castable reanimation target that we have. She's excellent way of dealing with go-wide strategies and being able to reanimate her over and over is our edge against aggro decks. But she shouldn't be underestimated as a creature as well as her Menace makes fighting her very tricky (especially when she's 5/5 after Cauldron's Gift).

One, additional reanimation target that I seriously consider is Rakdos, the Showstopper. He has certain benefits over other creatures currently played in the deck. While his boardwipe is very unreliable (and hits some of our creatures), he has large body with great evasion. Additionally, he is hard-castable.

Reanimators

Bond of Revival is the best "fair" (costing more than 3 mana) reanimation cards available. Slapping Haste on reanimated creature is a big deal. Reviving Drakuseth and instantly nuking the board is a feeling that caused me to play the deck. Insta-4 off.

Cauldron's Gift is fairly inferior in comparison. Its Adamant ability that mills us is not very relevant most of the time and you may sometimes actively avoid it - but it has its uses. I did happen to snatch some wins with no reanimation targets in graveyard by just fishing for them with Adamant cast of the card. +1/+1 counter is also fairly relevant, especially when reviving Agent of Treachery (pushing it to 3/4 allows it to trade with Bonecrusher Giant as an example).

Why no Blood for Bones? We do play suprisingly large amount of creatures that could serve as a fodder for it. We could play more (by swapping Epic Downfall for Murderous Rider and Thrill for Honor the God-Pharaos. Still, I do believe BfB is a card which fits into either:

• Reanimator which heavily abuses ETB effects (full playset of Agent of Treachery) and this deck should actually have blue mana sources as sooner or later our hand gets filled with Agents.
• Midrange'y reanimator with cards like Rankle that can be hardcasted with BfB as an added resilliency.

Since my version is neither of these, after some testing I have swapped BfB for Cauldron's Gift and never looked back.

Control

Based on my experience with the deck, one of the biggest mistakes one can do is try to squeeze in too much control into it. Reanimator is a combo in the end. It uses removal/disruption merely to survive till it combos out. So what we can use?

Epic Downfall is one of my pet cards ATM. While it is currently played in many sideboards I do run it maindeck. It's far easier to cast than Bedevil, doesn't loose you life like Murderous Rider and comes turn earlier than both of them. It also hits most of relevant targets. Rotting Regisaur, Midnight Reaper (no death trigger!), Questing Beast, all of the Cavaliers (again, no death trigger!).

I do still ponder whether I should swap it for Bedevil due to instant-speed cards that I play but at least for now I have never complained about it. What I can tell you is that if you face a lot of Flash decks, you do want to swap it for mix of Bedevil / Duress.

Mana

I did wrote mana as we do play a mana rock!

Reanimation is a very linear strategy. We do want to play our reanimation spell ASAP. And sometimes we may just not be fast enough. When I started to work on Reanimation strategies, I did try out Jund Reanimator which added mana dorks to accelerate and I did like some of the results (T4 Drakuseth >>>> T5 Drakuseth) but we don't benefit that much from 4 mana on turn3 while we did lost some of our consistency. Which is why I put up Rakdos deck and put Rakdos Locket which does exactly what we want - allow us to play our 5mana spells on T4.

I decided to not play Bloodfell Caves as our deck has suprisingly good curve which often gets screwed by tapland. We do need some color fixing hence Blood Crypt & Fabled Passage. But in the end we are not really greedy for colored mana.