I feel like the deck is pretty good--it wins most of the games in my (admittedly limited) circle of MTG friends, but it's lacking....something. When it fails, it fails hard. It can sometimes build real slow, and suffers a problem where all my cards are on the table and I might not be able to do anything for several rounds while I draw useless cards one-at-a-time.
I think it's biggest problem may just be a lack of focus, but I'm not sure how to pare it down or what to add to it to get that.
The biggest problems are actually a) not enough lands for the deck size and b) too many cards. The number of lands you currently have in the deck is sufficient for a 60 card deck, but not a 74 card deck. So the first thing you should do is cut 14 nonland cards (or 13 nonland cards and a land, if you keep the Darksteel Ingots as acceleration).
Let's see what you can easily get rid of:
-2 Psychic Spiral - You are not planning to win with mill, and mill is a strategy you either go full in or leave alone. And a mix of strategies is almost never a good idea, even if they somewhat overlap. And milling doesn't overlap much with anything.
-1 Netcaster Spider - You plan on playing zombies, so a green spider really doesn't fit. As a splash it is too small and impactless. Black has tons of answers to flyers in its own flyers and innumerable removal spells. And with as little colorfixing that you have, this spider could be sitting dead in your hand for a long time, and won't do much even if you get it out eventualy.
-1 Darksteel Citadel - This land only produces colorless mana, and you have no use for that in your deck. And unless land destruction is rampant in your meta, being indestructible will also have no impact. If it had some useful utility, just producing colorless would be fine, but as it is, it only weakens your ability to produce black, which may sometimes make you unable to play your cards. If anything, add a few blue producing lands to help with the blue splash of Diregraf Captain. Blue does have a couple other zombies you may want to play, especially flying ones. (Edit: Oh, I see, Phylactery Lich. Nevermind then, the Citadel is a reasonable choice then.)
-2 Demon's Horn - Pure lifegain is bad, because it only patches up wounds but doesn't stop the cause of the bleeding. You are basically spending a card on a band aid, while your opponent spends all his cards on knives. It's not hard to guess who comes out on top. If you want lifegain, and you may, get it as an additional effect. Black has tons of removal spells, tat also gain you life. Black has also a lot of cards that drain life from your opponent, getting him closer to zero while bringing you back up. Your Gray Merchant of Asphodel is a good example of good lifegain. You should get more of that card if at all possible.
-1 Unholy Strength - Auras really need to pack a punch in order to e playable in contsructed, because of their inherrent risk of card disadvantage (your opponent kills the enchanted creature and kills the aura for free, making you lose 2 cards). Unholy Strength does not bring enough to warrant a card slot.
So that's 7 easy cuts. The next round of cuts will hurt more namely getting rid of potentially useful nonzombies. You want a zombie deck, so play as many zombies as you can fit:
-1 Typhoid Rats - A 1/1 deathtoucher makes for a a useful wall, but so does a horde of smaller zombies.
-1 Paragon of Open Graves - If you lack good zombie lords, this could stay, but overall, it's too small, too costly, and i's not a zombie.
-2 Tenacious Dead - Another small nonzombie, and you have to pay the mana right away to get it back. If you want to recur creatures, black has a multitude of more genral effects. A zombie deck would want Ghoulcaller's Chant, for example, if it wants to resurrect its creatures. Or Death Denied. A zombie deck ususally has no business to recur a 1/1 skeleton.
-1 Archetype of Finality - Too costly for a measly 2/3, even if it grants all your creatures deathtouch, and your deck should not be afraid of deathtouch either. Add more deathtouch zombies if you want that ability. More Diregraf Captains would be a good choice.
-2 Tormented Soul - Again too small and not a zombie. It basically pings the oppnent each turn. If you want unbloackable creatures, a couple copies of Rogue's Passage will do the trick if you can't get through otherwise.
So that's another 7 cards, which should get you to 60. The deck will already play a lot better than before. Of course, you also want to play more playsets of your best cards, while recducing the number of 1-ofs to increase consistency. It's still all over the place, but except the fact, that you want a zombie deck, we have little to go on. So what cards in the deck would you want to play more of to be the core of the deck? The rest of the eck should really just enchance those as much as possible, or provide decent answers for problems you expect to face.
What I can see most clearly is that I need more at least one and probably three more Gempalm Polluter. I could probably also do with, as you said, two more Diregraf Captain. I'm not sure if Undead Warchief is worth getting a full set, but I could probably do with one more.
I need fliers, that's for sure. It's why I have the Cobbled Wings. I know there are some flying blue zombies, but I'm not a huge fan of the peeling mechanic they use--unless I throw more graveyard return in, of course.
A zombie token generator I like is Moan of the Unhallowed. In a slower deck, and yours seems like that, it's 4 zombie tokens in a single card. 7 mana for the flashback may seems a lot, but you'll frequently have that if your games go long. I myself have built a deck around zombie tokens some years back. Anbd while most of the token generation got cut in the end, Moan stayed. Though the real token power for my deck comes from Cloudstone Curio combined with Grave Titan and a full set of Evil Twins. Clone types are quite useful in doubling up on your cards (like more Diregraf Captains, like my deck likes to do) and getting answers to your opponent's, since most of the opponent's creatures can be answered by having those very creatures oneself. Clones also work well with other ETB trigger creatures, like that Gray Merchant of Asphodel (the cloned Merchant copies the mana cost as well, so you'll drain for at least 4 life, 2 black from the original and 2 black from the copy).
Zombie Infestation needs to be built around. Because discarding two cards for a single 2/2 token is a harsh cost, the deck needs to provide those cards through some means. I've seen comboish approches like Verdant Eidolon an co discards in heavy multicolor decks. I've seen mass reanimation ala Death Denied to fuel this card, or just heavy card draw. Point is, you don't have that fuel in the deck, so this enchantment doesn't do nearly as much as it could and should to warrant a slot in the deck. Madness cards are also a way to make this card more worthwhile.
My personal experience with Endless Ranks of the Dead is, that it is too slow, and when it works, I wouldn't have needed it anyway. The card is what's called a win-more. I like the concept, but I have never been able to make it work or worthwhile in a deck.
My own deck doesn't run Undead Warchiefs, mainly because it actually has few zombie creature cards. I agree, that you probably don't need many of those, if at all.
1 life for 1 card is an extremely good deal, that black offers with many cards. There is no need to offset that life loss, it's almost always insignificant. Consider the cards you get offset enough. You don't have to win the game with as much life as possible. A win at 1 life is the same as a win at 20 or 200 or 2000000. And I'd run a full set each of Sign in Blood and all its brethren before I'd even start considering Curiosity. Getting the cards right away is so much better than gambling on getting more out of creature that has to deal damage. Chances are, that creature dies before it even gets you as many cards, because the aura makes it a prime target. And then there's the issue of getting the creature to deal damage in the first place.
Here are some cards in your deck, that you could cut to make some room for new additions:
Walking Corpse - It's a black bear (a 2/2 for 2 mana in black), but offers nothing besides being a zombie. Most 2/1s and other 2/2s for that cost are way more beneficial.
Cobbled Wings - A repeatable way to grant flying is useful, but it still costs a card slot. Maybe don't cut it right away, but keep an eye on this card's performance.
Black Oak of Odunos - You want to attack and this creature can't. And with zombie tokens, you block with tokens not walls. Zombies are expendable, tokens even more so.
Servant of Tymaret - It's mostly a 1/3 regenerator, the life drain is minimal and won't come to pass many times or in larger quantities.
I'd like to make room for some Siren of the Silent Song--it seems to be about the best flying zombie at that cost. I do have a couple Dimir Guildgates I can throw in to help with the blue. Siren of the Silent Song is a discard ability, which isn't great for my deck, but they come into play without being tapped, they're flying is permanent and at least they have *some* triggered ability. My next thought is Crow of Dark Tidings, which could be really useful if I get that creature return into my deck.
I think, at this point, you should post a new list as it differs quite a lot already from the one in the top.
Also, I may be misreading that, but it sounds like you are adding a lot of cards again for the ones I proposed to cut. Those cuts were meant to be permanent to get the deck size down to 60. 60 is where you want the deck to be and stay.
This comes to 60 cards before land. I excised all the ones you reccomended, then switched things around with what was left--making sure it keep it under 60 cards total.
Also, you are absolutely right. For some reason my brain conflated those permanent size-reducing cut suggestions with the point where I am at now of switching cards around within that 60 card limit.
Um, 60 is with lands, not without. So with 24 lands, you have room for only 36 other cards. And you want 24 lands in the deck, maybe nly 23, but not less.
Also, a good deck runs many of the same card, not lots of different ones. There is the rule of nine as a starting point for building a deck, meaning that you run 9 different cards with 4 copies each, and add 24 lands for the first draft of the deck. And usually, at least in my experience, you should not run more than 12-14 or so different cards in a deck, plus lands. Many different cards make for more diversity, yes, but it also makes for a less powerful deck, cause it's less focussed.
Hello Katarack21, although I am new here I hope to be able to help you with your deck. Looking at your list, I can distinguish 3 big problems.
The first of them, is that you are including some non-zombie creatures like Netcaster Spider or Vampire Nighthawk. That's really bad, because you are loosing redundancy and this makes some cards like Undead Warchief or Gempalm Polluter not as good as they should be. The second problem, is that you are adding cards for other strategies, like mill in the case of Psychic Spiral, or self-mill (typical of madness and dredge decks) in the case of Zombie Infestation. In MTG, decks must have a clear thematic, and from there incorporate all viable strategies or plans to reach the victory.
And the third problem, is that if you want to splash more colors, then you should fix your mana base. Because I don't think that only 3 copies of Darksteel Ingot are enought for that purpose.
Since I don't know if you have a budget for your deck, I'm going to show you some lists to let you take some ideas or create new ones. Here they are:
Do note, that those two example decks are very greedy on their lands, and probably would benefit quite a lot from running 2-3 more each. As this thread is about your deck, I will not go into discussing those two at length, but they are certainly not the best decks possible, but may be fun to play.
The key word for any deck is consistency. Once you pick a theme(what you want the deck to do) be sure to have multiples of one card instead of a bunch of singletons. here is my list as an example
My deck is a variant of the basic "Rot" deck. My main goal is to rapidly drain the life of both players and basically kill my opponent before I kill myself. Tribal decks are fun but they usually have a niche or core focus(goblins like making tokens and blowing themselves up, clerics support each other, etc)zombies have a few more options but that is where the trap is. picking one or two mechanics that work together and building a focused deck around them rather than having one deck do everything. self mill and reanimation is fun as a deck but if you want to run lords then that is one of the things you may want to go all in on. whatever you decide to do it is your personal preference at the end of the day.
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3 Dark Salvation
2 Psychic Spiral
1 Netcaster Spider
3 Black Cat
1 Zombie Infestation
1 Murder
2 Diregraf Captain
1 Undead Warchief
1 Endless Ranks of the Dead
1 Typhoid Rats
3 Darksteel Ingot
1 Paragon of Open Graves
2 Gravepurge
1 Darksteel Citadel
2 Tenacious Dead
2 Phylactery Lich
1 Asphyxiate
1 Servant of Tymaret
1 Black Oak of Odunos
2 Grave Betrayal
1 Sign in Blood
1 Agent of Erebos
1 Archetype of Finality
2 Tormented Soul
2 Demon's Horn
1 Highborn Ghoul
2 Cobbled Wings
1 Lord of the Undead
1 Walking Corpse
1 Cairn Wanderer
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Unholy Strength
1 Soulless One
1 Gempalm Polluter
I feel like the deck is pretty good--it wins most of the games in my (admittedly limited) circle of MTG friends, but it's lacking....something. When it fails, it fails hard. It can sometimes build real slow, and suffers a problem where all my cards are on the table and I might not be able to do anything for several rounds while I draw useless cards one-at-a-time.
I think it's biggest problem may just be a lack of focus, but I'm not sure how to pare it down or what to add to it to get that.
Let's see what you can easily get rid of:
-2 Psychic Spiral - You are not planning to win with mill, and mill is a strategy you either go full in or leave alone. And a mix of strategies is almost never a good idea, even if they somewhat overlap. And milling doesn't overlap much with anything.
-1 Netcaster Spider - You plan on playing zombies, so a green spider really doesn't fit. As a splash it is too small and impactless. Black has tons of answers to flyers in its own flyers and innumerable removal spells. And with as little colorfixing that you have, this spider could be sitting dead in your hand for a long time, and won't do much even if you get it out eventualy.
-1 Darksteel Citadel - This land only produces colorless mana, and you have no use for that in your deck. And unless land destruction is rampant in your meta, being indestructible will also have no impact. If it had some useful utility, just producing colorless would be fine, but as it is, it only weakens your ability to produce black, which may sometimes make you unable to play your cards. If anything, add a few blue producing lands to help with the blue splash of Diregraf Captain. Blue does have a couple other zombies you may want to play, especially flying ones. (Edit: Oh, I see, Phylactery Lich. Nevermind then, the Citadel is a reasonable choice then.)
-2 Demon's Horn - Pure lifegain is bad, because it only patches up wounds but doesn't stop the cause of the bleeding. You are basically spending a card on a band aid, while your opponent spends all his cards on knives. It's not hard to guess who comes out on top. If you want lifegain, and you may, get it as an additional effect. Black has tons of removal spells, tat also gain you life. Black has also a lot of cards that drain life from your opponent, getting him closer to zero while bringing you back up. Your Gray Merchant of Asphodel is a good example of good lifegain. You should get more of that card if at all possible.
-1 Unholy Strength - Auras really need to pack a punch in order to e playable in contsructed, because of their inherrent risk of card disadvantage (your opponent kills the enchanted creature and kills the aura for free, making you lose 2 cards). Unholy Strength does not bring enough to warrant a card slot.
So that's 7 easy cuts. The next round of cuts will hurt more namely getting rid of potentially useful nonzombies. You want a zombie deck, so play as many zombies as you can fit:
-1 Typhoid Rats - A 1/1 deathtoucher makes for a a useful wall, but so does a horde of smaller zombies.
-1 Paragon of Open Graves - If you lack good zombie lords, this could stay, but overall, it's too small, too costly, and i's not a zombie.
-2 Tenacious Dead - Another small nonzombie, and you have to pay the mana right away to get it back. If you want to recur creatures, black has a multitude of more genral effects. A zombie deck would want Ghoulcaller's Chant, for example, if it wants to resurrect its creatures. Or Death Denied. A zombie deck ususally has no business to recur a 1/1 skeleton.
-1 Archetype of Finality - Too costly for a measly 2/3, even if it grants all your creatures deathtouch, and your deck should not be afraid of deathtouch either. Add more deathtouch zombies if you want that ability. More Diregraf Captains would be a good choice.
-2 Tormented Soul - Again too small and not a zombie. It basically pings the oppnent each turn. If you want unbloackable creatures, a couple copies of Rogue's Passage will do the trick if you can't get through otherwise.
So that's another 7 cards, which should get you to 60. The deck will already play a lot better than before. Of course, you also want to play more playsets of your best cards, while recducing the number of 1-ofs to increase consistency. It's still all over the place, but except the fact, that you want a zombie deck, we have little to go on. So what cards in the deck would you want to play more of to be the core of the deck? The rest of the eck should really just enchance those as much as possible, or provide decent answers for problems you expect to face.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
What I can see most clearly is that I need more at least one and probably three more Gempalm Polluter. I could probably also do with, as you said, two more Diregraf Captain. I'm not sure if Undead Warchief is worth getting a full set, but I could probably do with one more.
I need fliers, that's for sure. It's why I have the Cobbled Wings. I know there are some flying blue zombies, but I'm not a huge fan of the peeling mechanic they use--unless I throw more graveyard return in, of course.
I have the Demon's Horn to offset the Sign in Blood, but I was considering replacing that with Curiosity once I get the Relentless Dead. Of course, that comes with the aura problem you mentioned.
This deck began as zombie pump and zombie token generation. It's drifted from that, but I'd like to get back to that ideal once more.
Zombie Infestation needs to be built around. Because discarding two cards for a single 2/2 token is a harsh cost, the deck needs to provide those cards through some means. I've seen comboish approches like Verdant Eidolon an co discards in heavy multicolor decks. I've seen mass reanimation ala Death Denied to fuel this card, or just heavy card draw. Point is, you don't have that fuel in the deck, so this enchantment doesn't do nearly as much as it could and should to warrant a slot in the deck. Madness cards are also a way to make this card more worthwhile.
My personal experience with Endless Ranks of the Dead is, that it is too slow, and when it works, I wouldn't have needed it anyway. The card is what's called a win-more. I like the concept, but I have never been able to make it work or worthwhile in a deck.
My own deck doesn't run Undead Warchiefs, mainly because it actually has few zombie creature cards. I agree, that you probably don't need many of those, if at all.
1 life for 1 card is an extremely good deal, that black offers with many cards. There is no need to offset that life loss, it's almost always insignificant. Consider the cards you get offset enough. You don't have to win the game with as much life as possible. A win at 1 life is the same as a win at 20 or 200 or 2000000. And I'd run a full set each of Sign in Blood and all its brethren before I'd even start considering Curiosity. Getting the cards right away is so much better than gambling on getting more out of creature that has to deal damage. Chances are, that creature dies before it even gets you as many cards, because the aura makes it a prime target. And then there's the issue of getting the creature to deal damage in the first place.
Here are some cards in your deck, that you could cut to make some room for new additions:
Walking Corpse - It's a black bear (a 2/2 for 2 mana in black), but offers nothing besides being a zombie. Most 2/1s and other 2/2s for that cost are way more beneficial.
Cobbled Wings - A repeatable way to grant flying is useful, but it still costs a card slot. Maybe don't cut it right away, but keep an eye on this card's performance.
Black Oak of Odunos - You want to attack and this creature can't. And with zombie tokens, you block with tokens not walls. Zombies are expendable, tokens even more so.
Servant of Tymaret - It's mostly a 1/3 regenerator, the life drain is minimal and won't come to pass many times or in larger quantities.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
If I replace the Tenacious Dead instead of pull it, then I'll remove 8 instead of 10 cards. Then add in two more Diregraf Captains, one more Undead Warchief and three more Gempalm Polluters, that leaves two more cards. Those would be the Cryptbreaker or Cemetery Reaper.
I'd like to make room for some Siren of the Silent Song--it seems to be about the best flying zombie at that cost. I do have a couple Dimir Guildgates I can throw in to help with the blue. Siren of the Silent Song is a discard ability, which isn't great for my deck, but they come into play without being tapped, they're flying is permanent and at least they have *some* triggered ability. My next thought is Crow of Dark Tidings, which could be really useful if I get that creature return into my deck.
Also, I may be misreading that, but it sounds like you are adding a lot of cards again for the ones I proposed to cut. Those cuts were meant to be permanent to get the deck size down to 60. 60 is where you want the deck to be and stay.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
2 Dark Salvation
2 Black Cat
1 Murder
4 Diregraf Captain
2 Darksteel Ingot
1 Darksteel Citadel
2 Relentless Dead
2 Phylactery Lich
1 Asphyxiate
2 Grave Betrayal
1 Sign in Blood
1 Highborn Ghoul
2 Cobbled Wings
1 Lord of the Undead
1 Cairn Wanderer
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Soulless One
2 Gempalm Polluter
2 Cemetery Reaper
1 Grave Titan
2 Crow of Dark Tidings
2 Undead Warchief
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Stitch Together
20 Swamp
This comes to 60 cards before land. I excised all the ones you reccomended, then switched things around with what was left--making sure it keep it under 60 cards total.
Also, you are absolutely right. For some reason my brain conflated those permanent size-reducing cut suggestions with the point where I am at now of switching cards around within that 60 card limit.
Also, a good deck runs many of the same card, not lots of different ones. There is the rule of nine as a starting point for building a deck, meaning that you run 9 different cards with 4 copies each, and add 24 lands for the first draft of the deck. And usually, at least in my experience, you should not run more than 12-14 or so different cards in a deck, plus lands. Many different cards make for more diversity, yes, but it also makes for a less powerful deck, cause it's less focussed.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
The first of them, is that you are including some non-zombie creatures like Netcaster Spider or Vampire Nighthawk. That's really bad, because you are loosing redundancy and this makes some cards like Undead Warchief or Gempalm Polluter not as good as they should be. The second problem, is that you are adding cards for other strategies, like mill in the case of Psychic Spiral, or self-mill (typical of madness and dredge decks) in the case of Zombie Infestation. In MTG, decks must have a clear thematic, and from there incorporate all viable strategies or plans to reach the victory.
And the third problem, is that if you want to splash more colors, then you should fix your mana base. Because I don't think that only 3 copies of Darksteel Ingot are enought for that purpose.
Since I don't know if you have a budget for your deck, I'm going to show you some lists to let you take some ideas or create new ones. Here they are:
2 Unholy Grotto
2 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Evolving Wilds
14 Swamp
Creatures(28)
4 Carrion Feeder
2 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Gravecrawler
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Stromgald Crusader
2 Cemetery Reaper
4 Diregraf Colossus
4 Grave Defiler
4 Dark Salvation
4 Nameless Inversion
2 Go for the Throat
2 Sudden Spoiling
4 Tainted Isle
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Island
8 Swamp
4 Screeching Skaab
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Grave Defiler
3 Haunted Dead
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Dark Salvation
4 Nameless Inversion
4 Never // Return
Well, I hope that my suggestions would help you to improve and have a lot of fun.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
4 Shepherd of Rot
4 Spiteful Returned
4 Maggot Carrier
4 Gempalm Polluter
4 Viscera Dragger
4 Bump in the Night
4 Sign in Blood
2 Consume Spirit
Instants
4 Geth's Verdict
4 Victim of Night
2 Kaervek's Spite
16 Swamp
4 Barren Moor
My deck is a variant of the basic "Rot" deck. My main goal is to rapidly drain the life of both players and basically kill my opponent before I kill myself. Tribal decks are fun but they usually have a niche or core focus(goblins like making tokens and blowing themselves up, clerics support each other, etc)zombies have a few more options but that is where the trap is. picking one or two mechanics that work together and building a focused deck around them rather than having one deck do everything. self mill and reanimation is fun as a deck but if you want to run lords then that is one of the things you may want to go all in on. whatever you decide to do it is your personal preference at the end of the day.