If you like cheating "bombs" into play, like Griselbrand & Iona, Shield of Emeria way before they could ever typically hardcasted, then putting them into the Graveyard & Reanimate'ing them into play as early as the first turns of the game, then a strategy focused on rising stuff from the grave, this long time deck that has been around for format that is Legacy, might also be a deck for you.
1) Playing Reanimator
2) Successful decklists & trends
3) Card Choices
3a) Maindeck
3b) Sideboard
4) Price Guide
5) Awesome Links
6) 20 match ups
1) Playing Reanimator:
Your goal will be to take down the opponent in a combo style deck that tries to cheat a bomb into play from the graveyard by Reanimateing it, then swinging at the opponent to take their life total down to zero, as a general description, that is about as basic as it gets, more specifically however...
Starting hand First you will want to look for these key cards:
~Animate Dead, Reanimate or Exhume as "reanimation."
~Entomb, or Careful Study + a "bomb", like Griselbrand as "an enabler."
~Force of Will, Daze or Thoughtseize as "protection"
~And of course, mana as in Island Swamp Polluted Delta Underground Sea.
Turn 1 If you have discard like Thoughtseize in hand, use it on them to see their hand, take out a key spell if it's problematic for you going off, like opposing discard or counterspells. If you don't have the discard, then your next card to look for will be Entomb or Careful Study with a "bomb" in hand (Big creature to reanimate), if you have that, you can Entomb at the end of their turn, yes it is instant speed! Your other way to go off will be to ditch a creature to the graveyard with Careful Study so it can be Reanimated afterward. The 3rd option for your turn 1 play will be Ponder, if you know what you're playing against & you know they are more likely to have disruption, sometimes it can be more beneficial to use draw first in an attempt to get more disruption of your own in an attempt to prevent them from countering your combo when you try to ditch something to the graveyard & reanimate it. Your other option will be access to another mana from Lotus Petal, if you get lucky enough to have a Reanimate in hand, because your other enablers are 1 converted mana cost (Careful Study & Entomb) you may even be able to "go off" on turn 1, which is more explosive than most decks can deal with. These will be most of your turn 1 plays.
~A note about Entomb it gets any card from your deck to the graveyard, the key cards to remember that you will be going for are creatures that are extremely powerful, examples of most recent trends:
Griselbrand 7/7 Lifelink, pay 7 life, draw 7 cards, flying, lifelink. (The primary target, go to "bomb" that is good against all strategies because of it's massive card draw alone, on top of being a 7/7 threat, & a lifelinker against aggro as well.)
Iona, Shield of Emeria 7/7 Flying, As Iona, Shield of Emeria enters the battlefield, choose a color. / Your opponents can't cast spells of the chosen color. (Especially effective against combo & control decks, cut combo off from ever doing anything, or cut control out of their main color so they can't deal with your 7/7 flyer properly.)
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 4/7 Vigilance, Other creatures you control get +2/+2, Creatures your opponents control get -2/-2. (A primary target against creature based decks, whether it's traditional aggro, tribal, or even combo type creature based decks like dredge & elves.)
Tidespout Tyrant 5/5 Flying, Whenever you play a spell, return target permanent to its owners hand. (Can answer any problematic permanent in play, & can even give you a tempo edge when you're ahead by bouncing the opponents lands back to their hand, stalling them out from ever doing anything relevant since they keep getting stuck on low mana.)
Turn 2 Will primarily be spent more on the second half of your combo, since the converted mana cost of most spells, or the mana curve of Reanimator is ridiculously cheap, nearly everything costing 1 & 2 to cast, you can easily "go off" on your turn 2 consistently uninterrupted, & even with Force of Will free to cast, or a previous turn Thoughtseize you can be aggressive enough to even go off through an opposing Counterspell when you have back up that is your own counters. The key cards to look for after "setting up" (as in, getting a creature to the graveyard through Entomb or Careful Study) will then be to cast Animate Dead Reanimate Exhume. These will get your creature out of the graveyard, & depending on your match up, when it resolves, you will have a very good chance of having the win at that point, all it takes after you Reanimate, is to just make the win "offical" by taking your opponents life total from 20 to 0.
Turn 3 & beyond This is where, unless you're being disrupted more than you can handle, you will likely start going for the kill, swinging with whatever creature you decided to reanimate from the graveyard to play. Usually if you're at this point, you basically have the game, it's just making it official by getting them for lethal so you can go to the next game. However, even in scenarios where they can answer your creature, you still have disruption back up in the form of counterspells, as well as the ability to draw into more business that will allow you to just Reanimate the creature a second time if it goes back to the graveyard because of your opponent. Often enough though, 1 Reanimation will be enough, as they will be doing everything they can to try and stop you, because that creature coming out will likely be the end of them very fast. The key things you have to look for just in case are removal that can still get at your creatures, as far as red/burn goes, that will almost never be enough to kill your creatures as they are just too high on their toughness ratio, after that, it will be sacrifice effects like Innocent Blood or Liliana of the Veil targeting you to sacrifice a creature, but luckily if that does happen to resolve past your counters, you can still just reanimate again, the same applies for "most" removal all the way to sweepers like Wrath of God. The one key type of removal you have to watch out for is removal, that doesn't put your creature back into the graveyard, mostly Swords to Plowshares as it is a Legacy staple in most decks with Plains, so if you see that color across from you, try to get something that can't be targeted by Swords like Iona, Shield of Emeria naming white. You can also get Griselbrand if you have enough life to just draw a bunch of cards off of it, so that if they try to swords it, you can draw into either a counterspell, or more business just to reanimate again, & having all those cards in hand means you'll be discarding, so it's even a discard outlet for your creatures in hand that you want to go to the graveyard.
The kill Whether you come out smoothly and take them from 20 to 0 with no problems, or you have to Exhume, then Reanimate & then Animate Dead again, if your threats keep coming out, you're still doing your job, and you will net the win, backed up by disruption that both helps you "combo off" in the early game, then protects your creature in play as it starts swinging, Reanimator is a very effective strategy in the format that is Legacy, having been around as a strategy for years, & still years to come.
Reanimator today:
Griselbrand: Another thing to note is an emphasis on Griselbrand, the power to be able to draw 7 cards, potentially combo off even more because you drew another Careful Study / Entomb & a Lotus Petal, then Exhume a second threat into play can really lock the game in your favor, most decks have a hard enough time dealing with a 7/7 flying lifelinker, but the ability for it through it's card draw, to allow you to cheat another bomb out into the battlefield when you draw 7+ cards, means you can pair Griselbrand up with something like Iona, Shield of Emeria to really cut them off can be devastating. If you can choose anything, because of the gamestate, to put into the graveyard (Usually Entomb) then get Griselbrand, it is the primary, go to Reanimation target. On top of possibly drawing more business, you'll also likely draw into more disruption to use on your opponent. There is also a synergy here with Tidespout Tyrant as drawing 7 cards, playing things like Lotus Petals & cheap converted mana cost spells can allow you to just bounce multiples of permanents back to your opponents hand, effectively locking them out of the game they're set so far back.
Deathrite Shaman: Well, just looking at results alone, since the inclusion of that card into the format, Reanimator has still been performing on a level enough to have success, even having many top 16/top 8 placings in the past few months. On top of that, Entomb is an instant, your deck is fast, & Deathrite Shaman needs a whole turn (Summoning Sickness) before it can even activate, on top of that, if they play it early enough, like their 1st turn, they might not even know you're on the Reanimate strategy & actually use it for mana the following turn, since many, many decks will do things like turn 1 Fetchland pass, or turn 1 Underground Sea Ponder. Deathrite Shaman is not a reason to put Reanimator on the shelf, & proof of that has been the decks continued performance since the printing of the card.
+Lotus Petal -Daze: Giving up Daze means you're losing some aspects of disruption to protect your setup, but in place of it, essentially, has been Lotus Petal as of recent, & if you're going to speed yourself up, then you don't need to rely as much on slowing the opponent down. Lotus Petal also gives you the possibility of turn 1 go off's, as well as using a Ponder turn 1, then turn 2 play a second land, play the Lotus Petal, Entomb or Careful Study, then cast a reanimation spell, whether it's 1 converted mana cost, or 2. On top of that, when you put a Griselbrand into play, any more Lotus Petal's you draw will allow you to cast more stuff from your hand right there -vs- waiting a whole turn to untap, giving your disruption in the form of things like Thoughtseize or further card draw like your cantrips, to dig deeper before you pass the turn at all, potentially taking sorcery speed removal out of your opponents hand, like Supreme Verdict or Liliana of the Veil as an example.
Show and Tell: Standard Sneak & Show / OmniTell decks have been abusing it for a while now, & since you are also cheating bombs into play, they will many times be in your hand, because most decks will never have an as relevant threat as you when a Show and Tell resolves, lists have already been running Show and Tell in the sideboard for the hate alone. Show and Tell also gives you an out when the creature just gets stuck in your hand & you just can't get to a Careful Study. Also with more recent trends, like Deathrite Shaman & Scavenging Ooze in the maindeck, it also helps deter against those strategies in main decks when you just Show and Tell your bomb into play from your hand.