Yeah, I get it. She has to go an entire turn around to profit. She's not Zur the Enchanter or Arcum Dagsson. I really want to play the deck anyway and have some fun building a zombie horde. This is obviously a casual commander, so I'd prefer to keep infinites out of it. So, I realize there is no Phyrexian Altar or Thornbite Staff. This is a rough draft, so any help would be appreciated. I think not being he strongest commander for most games with let her fly under the radar and steal some wins.
Have you thought about Lim-Dul, the Necromancer? Gets you more zombies whenever an opponent's creature dies and provides protection for any zombies you have.
I had it in there during my initial comb over. I took it out to try to keep the mana curve somewhat negligible.
But, I may remove Drakestown Forgotten for it. I never seem to want to see it. Even in late game.
I'd probably cut the Call to the Grave, because it's a fairly marginal effect in commander and it'll probably force you to sacrifice Gisa more often than not since you have very few non-zombies to sacrifice to it. I'd also cut the Obelisk of Urd and the Door of Destinies. You have plenty of anthems in the form of your various zombie lords that are much more efficient and come online faster. I'm also not a huge fan of Coat of Arms either because of how confusing it can get, but I see the power in making a very large army of very large zombies with Gisa. I think swapping Umbral Mantle for Rings of Brighthearth is a good choice just because the mantle is pretty bad unless you're doing an infinite combo, and the rings work to double-up all of your activated abilities without the baggage of the sorcery-speed equip. I also think it's fairly reasonable to include Thornbite Staff as long as you don't run Phyrexian Altar, since your ability to generate zombies will be limited to how much mana you have, and the base-case scenario is that you're sacrificing 2/2s to make 1 extra zombie per 1 black mana, which is a worse rate than casting Army of the Damned.
I'd at least try to make room for Endless Ranks of the Dead because free zombies are always good, Grafted Wargear because getting 3 more zombies out of any creature for free is incredible, Wall of Blood because it can easily jumpstart your zombie production, and Genju of the Fens because repeatedly turning your lategame swamps into a gazillion zombies sounds awesome.
Ran some more playtesting. I ended up taking out Call to the Grave and The Abyss. For reason stated and the hate they draw. They annoyed me, they annoyed my opponents, they drew attention and ultimately didn't do enough work to justify price tag. I'm hesitant to take out Obelisk of Urd and Door of Destinies though. Despite the amount of lords in the deck, either of these on the board seem to provide the exponential gain enough tip the scale toward alpha swing. Coat of Arms is a little dangerous with the even higher popularity swing of Slivers. But, still more than enough to justify a 99 spot.
Rings of Brighthearth was always finding a way in; I just needed to find out which cards weren't pulling weight so I knew what to take out for it. I also added Staff of Domination. Untaps my commander for 2nd use and draws cards without the typical black life loss. Great multi-use tool.
I already have a good amount of experience with Endless Ranks of the Dead actually. I have a copy in my Zombie Horde format deck. The whole point of the format is to flood the board with zombies obviously and despite that it just doesn't help out with that many zombies. The zombies are free and seem plentiful on the surface. But believe it or not, not worth a spot.
Grafted Wargear seems like a lot of value. I think I'll give it a go to see what it looks like in action. Wall of Blood isn't bad, but I don't like having to pay a life per zombie when I'm paying life for graveyard recursion, card draw and I'm already generating steady zombies (hopefully) Genju of the Fens seems awfully mana intensive even late game. But, if someone runs it, I'd like to hear how it plays.
Thank you very much for your feedback. Great suggestions.
1x Ghoulcaller Gisa
Creatures
1x Adaptive Automaton
1x Cemetery Reaper
1x Coffin Queen
1x Crypt Ghast
1x Death Baron
1x Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1x Filth
1x Fleshbag Marauder
1x Geth, Lord of the Vault
1x Grave Titan
1x Graveborn Muse
1x Gravecrawler
1x Gravespawn Sovereign
1x harvester of souls
1x Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
1x Lord of the Undead
1x Bloodgift Demon
1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1x Necrosavant
1x Nim Devourer
1x Noxious Ghoul
1x Phylactery Lich
1x Phyrexian Dreadnought
1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
1x Shepherd of Rot
1x Soulless One
1x Undead Warchief
1x Veilborn Ghoul
1x Vengeful Dead
1x Vengeful Pharaoh
1x Woebearer
1x Zombie Master
1x Liliana's Reaver
1x Corpse Harvester
1x Caged Sun
1x Coat of Arms
1x Door of Destinies
1x Eldrazi Monument
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Mimic Vat
1x Obelisk of Urd
1x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Thousand-Year Elixir
1x Staff of Domination
1x Rings of Brighthearth
Enchantments
1x Dawn of the Dead
1x Dictate of Erebos
1x Grave Pact
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Grave Betrayal
1x Contamination
Sorcery
1x Cruel Revival
1x Damnation
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Diabolic Revelation
1x In Garruk's Wake
1x Increasing Ambition
1x Syphon Flesh
1x Zombie Apocalypse
1x Corpse Dance
1x Hero's Downfall
Planeswalkers
1x Liliana of the Dark Realms
Lands
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Cabal Coffers
29x Swamp
1x Unholy Grotto
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Vesuva
1x Cavern of Souls
Updated 8/18/2014
IRL: Patron of the Moon
But, I may remove Drakestown Forgotten for it. I never seem to want to see it. Even in late game.
I'd at least try to make room for Endless Ranks of the Dead because free zombies are always good, Grafted Wargear because getting 3 more zombies out of any creature for free is incredible, Wall of Blood because it can easily jumpstart your zombie production, and Genju of the Fens because repeatedly turning your lategame swamps into a gazillion zombies sounds awesome.
Rings of Brighthearth was always finding a way in; I just needed to find out which cards weren't pulling weight so I knew what to take out for it. I also added Staff of Domination. Untaps my commander for 2nd use and draws cards without the typical black life loss. Great multi-use tool.
I already have a good amount of experience with Endless Ranks of the Dead actually. I have a copy in my Zombie Horde format deck. The whole point of the format is to flood the board with zombies obviously and despite that it just doesn't help out with that many zombies. The zombies are free and seem plentiful on the surface. But believe it or not, not worth a spot.
Grafted Wargear seems like a lot of value. I think I'll give it a go to see what it looks like in action. Wall of Blood isn't bad, but I don't like having to pay a life per zombie when I'm paying life for graveyard recursion, card draw and I'm already generating steady zombies (hopefully) Genju of the Fens seems awfully mana intensive even late game. But, if someone runs it, I'd like to hear how it plays.
Thank you very much for your feedback. Great suggestions.
MuzzioU XenagosGR NahiriW GitrogGB MarathGRW MarchesaUBR JenaraGUW KarlovBW TazriWUBRG
Retired: RakdosBR
MuzzioU XenagosGR NahiriW GitrogGB MarathGRW MarchesaUBR JenaraGUW KarlovBW TazriWUBRG
Retired: RakdosBR