MTG Salvation

The Image of the Walking dead is (or was before twilight-mania struck) well known in pop culture. The details are sketchy, some lumber slowly but menicingly towards you, others shamble at break neck speeds to feast on your fleshy bits. Zombies... From the classic George A Romero films to the 28 days later, these things have inspired many creative people from different mediums. I, having finished reading the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks and having a long lasting love of the undead (in terms of fictional literature) really have always enjoyed Zombies as a tribe in MtG.

In magic they have been well known for being one of the most synergystic tribes around (in my opinion second to the cursed creation known as slivers). The number of "Lords" is high, the tribe as a whole is incredibly resillient, and most of them don't mind several trips to the graveyard from nearly any zone! Its been my goal to design another zombie EDH deck for a while now. The first one was nice (teneb the harvester) but showed alot of signs of neophite commander design and it was always frustrating that the general played no part in the deck itself and most of the zombie legends lacked inspiration towards the goal of an actual zombie deck. Sure there were good ones (Geth, Glissa, Korlash) but they often required specific build arounds that often left very little room to play around with a tribal theme. Hearing that some enemy legends were going to be printed in the commander precons reinspired me, and having seen Skullbriar, the Walking Grave my brain shot into over drive!

The Ultimate Goal of the deck is to recreate the feelings we associate with zombie survival in my opponents. I want the deck to come off aggressively, as an homage to the fact that typically by the time you find out your in a Zombie Survival Tale its almost always too late to prepare for it. I want opponents to feel as if they are never safe, like at any minute zombies could just start piling on the table with blinding speeds threatening to overwhelm them. I want the opponent to feel as if he has to sacrifice more than me when playing this deck, as a nod to wasting ammo against empty shells. Luckily my love of 2/2 black zombie tokens lend alot to this. It would also be nice to recreate the crushing weight of inevitability. Most importantly however, I want my opponents to have fun playing against the deck as well.


The General...
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, has the potential to be still an incredibly powerful general of that there is no doubt, but i still opt for skullbriar because he's just so aggressive and Jarad himself can come down late game unsuspecting and steal a game out of nowhere... particularly if Skullb has been putting in some work.

Innistrad and Return to Ravnica has given me a few new toys to test out and Suggestions are more than welcome. Instead of creating a new thread i just decided to update this one.

Very sexy list I have to say. I'm a big sucker for thematic and super flavorful decks.

Onto your list, I was pretty surprised not to see Escaped Null make the cut of creatures. The lifelink on him definitely helps out, especially when he gets blocked.

Also, for lands, may I suggest Lake of the Dead?

I love it! In my sig I also have my deck that looks like it's supposed to do more or less the same thing (from a flavor perspective). The one card that this deck would absolutely love is Tombstone Stairwell. I talk about why I love it a bit more in my list, but it's just such a chaotic and fun card that makes the zombie hoards go into feeding frenzy mode! And with Grave Pact, it kills everything but the Zombie tokens every turn... not just on yours.

Edit: Of course if you go with Stairwell, you would want to take out Zombie Master If you do that, then maybe taking out Primal Rage for Morality Shift. But then again, this would make it more like mine and it feels a lot different than mine, so I don't know.

@Komrad Korlash - Escaped null was kind of ignored for the most part. 4cmc for a 1/2 with lifelink that most likely wouldn't ever be blocked didn't seem to inspiring to me, but now that you point him out to me I could see maybe running him. Lake of the Dead would be a definite include if i can get my hands on one. The ramp would be fairly nice and when combined with life from the loam wouldn't be too painful in the long run. Super early Lurking Predators could be fun.

@Galspanic - Originally i did have the stairwell in the list (more 2/2 zombie tokens!) but I removed it because it seemed fairly clunky. Zombie master wasn't super synergistic with it, but I don't think it would have bothered me too much, I am running a subtheme of cards that help me exile creatures/cards from my opponents graveyards so living death's wont come back to curb stomp me. I went over your deck and it is a little different but not terribly so. I did go through your list and its a little different than mine, a bit more combo oriented but looks fun none the less. Somethings I inadvertantly missed:
Bojuko Bog
Miren the Moaning Well
High Market
Twisted Abomination
Crypt of Agadeem
The first three lands are definately being included, the abom i didn't really miss but wasn't sure about the add. Its cool to get the swamp cycle but 6 mana for a 5/3 just wasn't sure about its place. The Crypt looks nice specially considering all of my creatures are black, but how often would it work out in my deck list to being a positive gain in mana? Maybe pretty good, I do have a spare copy running around wouldn't hurt to toss it in.

Yeah, it's a combo deck that can fail pretty bad sometimes.

The Crypt of Agadeem is often times crap, but it still taps for B on its own. I have hit 20 mana on it before, but usually it's tap 2 and crypt for 4-6 mana. Nothing great, but it's better than T:B. The only reason I would not run it is because of the mana doubles that care about swamps.

I made a BG list with Glissa but walked away from that one pretty early on. Skullbriar definitely inspires me to go back and look at getting rid of Geth. I so rarely cast him because he doesn't fit the theme of the deck, but Skullbriar DOES feel like a typical dumb movie zombie.

I always liked the Gempalm Polluter + Unholy Grotto mini combo. You never know when a well timed Polluter would finish someone off. Carnophage is totally on theme, but maybe I'd replace it with the Polluter. Cycling to just draw a card seems decent too.

Seconded on adding Gempalm Polluter into your deck. Also, like the post above me, Carnophage could be swapped out for something like Infectious Horror. Hell, once the Commander decks come out next month, I might try to build a similar deck like this and scrap Sedris, seeing as I love zombies.

If you do add Gempalm then you definitely need the Stairwell. I have used the Grotto to put the Gempalm on top while the draw trigger was still on the stack, drew it, and killed 2 people (lose 28 life each) for BBBBB.

What about Soulless One?

Carnophage... man i love this guy. Even have the old friday night magic version of him. It would make me sad to remove him, though he and sangrophage would be the first ones on the chopping block. Gempalm polluter is a pretty powerful card as can be the Shepherd of Rot. Both considered but ultimately I didn't include them. Winning by "burning" people just doesn't feel on key for the design i'm going for. If the deck ends up needing more punch (just like triumph of the hordes) i'd be sure to include it. However its got a better chance of replacing sangrophage than carnophage.

A tiny bit of history our playgroup had another zombie deck previously which was Grixis with sedris leading the way and it ran ALOT of the more annoying aspects of zombie tribal. Gempalm polluter, infectious horror, shepherd of rot, maggot carrier and vengeful dead type stuff. It quickly earned a reputation for just being stupid annoying so it got hated out quite a bit simply so we didn't have to deal with it. The farther i can seperate myself from that image the more we will all enjoy our games as a whole. I also really hope that you guys know i'm greatful for your input and just because i'm not too keen on a particular idea doesn't mean its not helpful. Discussions on themed decks are always more entertaining because its not just an argument about which cards are better, but which cards are more flavorful, which can lead to far more interesting conversations.

Hmmm, as a last bit of suggestion, seeing as how you want to avoid the "burn" zombies, would you be open to reanimation effect cards? I see you already have Living Death but you might want to add in a couple more. Nothing screams "holy mother of god just die already" than a Grave Titan being brought back to life using Reanimate, or even better, Rise from the Grave.

EDIT: Didn't see you had some other reanimate effects, mainly looking over your enchantments. Sorry! However, one or two more reanimate cards couldn't hurt.

Some suggestions:

I second Lake of the Dead for both flavor and ramp.

Caged Sun for team pump and ramp.

Coat of Arms for massive zombie shenanigans.

Why not Buried Alive with all of the graveyard interactions. Speaking of gy interactions what about Life//Death?

For flavor and power I think more reanimation would be good: Animate Dead, Reanimate, Necromancy, etc. etc. A little used favorite of mine is Strands of Night. I don't know why I don't see more EDH lists running that.

Also more green ramp spells would probably make the deck more consistent even if they are not exactly on flavor.

Hi guys,
Went ahead and added in some more useful lands.

• High Market
  
• Bojuko Bog
  
• Crypt of Agadeem
  
• Lake of the dead

More sacrifice outlets are always welcome, the bog helps ensure that i'm the only one really utilizing Living Death recursion etc, Lake is pretty flavorful and crypt even if i'm breaking even is helping me filter green mana into black mana.

Recursion is important to my deck design and at this point the deck is primarily just in design mode so i can't know for sure but try to remember i'm packing quite a bit of recursion already.

• Volrath's Stronghold
  
• Unholy Grotto
  
• Gravedigger
  
• Lord of the Undead
  
• Dawn of the Dead
  
• Oversold Cemetery
  
• Living Death
  
• Regrowth
  
• Recollect

Might not seem like alot but its deceptively recursive. Volrath's Stronghold and Unholy Grotto are hard to get rid of with life from the loam running around, oversold and dawn of the dead can create a solid amount of recusion over time and any of the afformentioned in combination with gravedigger/lord of the undead can create solid amounts too. If I did want to add some more recursion one shot effects that can't be recurred very well themselves (i.e. Animate dead etc) probably wouldn't be up there. Beacon of Unrest and Twilight's Call are more likely additions.

If I were to add more green "ramp" spells my first add would be Realms Uncharted Which works very nicely with Life from the Loam and hit on a nice flavor point as the most likely place to run into zombies are "uncharted territories" lol. It was cut originally for expedition map which could be recurred with glissa.

Soulless One...

I don't know what to think about him. He's not bad, he's not good. Just felt blah to me. Does he get big? Can, but he's not an exciting specimen. Carnophage probably widley considered to be the lowest zombie on the totem pole right now is more exciting to me than him. He's a black hound of Konda!!! I would rather tutor/cast Korlash than soulless one and after a sweeper, soulless one is a 4 mana 1/1. Maybe if my quality of creatures ends up needing a boost he could see play but until then i think a large amount of my assaults will be on the back of several smaller creatures as opposed to one larger creature.

Bringing this back up, since now I really want to build a tribal theme similar to yours around this guy. What would you think about Nim Deathmantle? Granted, almost all of your creatures are already zombies, so the "creature is now a zombie" clause wouldn't have too much impact (save Grave Titan), but the few things I like about it is the +2/+2 bonus, intimidate (excellent evasion I believe with Urborg), and the best part: paying four mana to essentially save a card headed on the way to the graveyard from the battlefield equipped with the Deathmantle for free. It'd be an excellent way to keep triggering cards that have "enters the battlefield" clauses.

Just a thought.

Hrm... I hadn't really considered it. As you said all my creatures (save 1) are zombies already, between urburg, zombie master and zombie trailblazer i'm not really worried about evasion. I had never really considered the reanimation point might be worth looking into it.

Do you have a list I could take a gander at?

I'll have a post to link you, once I try my build (which is actually more themed to include skeletons and even Pestilence Demon) along with more reanimation like effects. It'll be posted in the next couple of days (and i'll post the link here).

crop rotation is off theme, but a nice inclusion.

Looks like this deck is getting a lot of new toys in Innistrad.

Quote from Aryakin

Bridge from Below - On the same train of thought this actually DOES do the above and WITH 2/2 zombie tokens to boot! Unfortunately is very tricky and often a one time ordeal (considering riftsweeper isn't magically a zombie elf ) It also requires alot of set up in that you have to have a discard outlet and it doesn't give you tokens to replace the other tokens.

With Leyline of the Void it becomes far less tricky, while ensuring you're the only one in the table tricking Death. Run more tutors/transmutable cards to ensure consistency.

I like the following Innistrad cards for this deck:

Diregraf Ghoul
Ghoulcaller's Chant
Moan of the Unhallowed
Endless Ranks of the Dead
Ghoulraiser

and maybe Army of the Damned

I think AofD might be too expensive mana-wise. But hitting it with a Doubling Season or a Parallel Lives out would be great.

Any of the above worth considering? And if so, what should be taken out to make room? Diregraf easily replaces Carnophage.

I've gone back and decided to try and breath some "un-life" back into this deck, let me know what you think