I would take out gravedigger, and I would think about cards like Patriarch's Bidding. This card will let you revive any zombie's you've lost up to this point.
Noxious Ghoul would be awesome for this deck. His ability stacks. Each Noxious Ghoul in play gives all non-Zombies -1/-1 until end of turn whenever a Zombie enters the battlefield. This includes the Ghouls. This means that when you use your Covenant and/or Bidding, you will give your opponents creatures some huge -/- counter, normally like -10/-10. This pretty much makes it a board wipe, except for your creatures, which are now lifelink, deathtouch, ridiculous killing machines.
Okay, for some reasoning behind it. Land-wise, the tainted isles and fields are very helpful for mana-fixing. I wanted 3 islands as well, to ensure that Traumatize would not get screwed. 9 swamps, to ensure you get one, and 1 plains, for good measure.
Enchantments were fairly simple.... I gave you 3 of the two main parts to your deck, and 3 Call to the Graves, since they fit this deck so well.
Instants and Sorceries- Dark Ritual is a must, since the mana costs of your big spells are so high. Hopefully, they will help you get out of some tight situations. 2 Diabolic tutors are the only reason I could justify leaving Covenant and Traumatize as 3-ofs, being the main component of your deck. However, with the 2 tutors, you should be able to fix those problems. If not, add either more tutors or more covenants/traumatizes. Patriarch's Bidding works later-game for you, in that after you empty their graveyard, you can also empty yours, and wipe their field if comboed with Noxious Ghoul.
Creatures- Festering Goblin- Cheap, puts lots of things in the graveyard, and can kill weenies when it dies. Great card. If you are facing more control, Carrion Feeder will work better, in that you can sacrifice your own creatures in response to them being targeted, say by path to exile ;). Stillmoon Cavalier is anti flying, can have first strike, and can firebreath for a heavy cost. A savior if you face lots of cards that are flying or 6/1 type things, as you can just pay 1 or 2 and block to kill them. Combined with the next guy, Death Baron, he is a great defender. Death Baron is +1/+1 to all, AND deathtouch, which makes enemies think twice about attacking you, knowing everything will die. Cemetary Reaper and Lord of the Undead are both there to empty your own graveyard, and be the awesome Lord Zombies we know they can be. Noxious Ghouls is a surprisingly good late-game control mechanism. When you land him on the 'field, everything that's a 1/1 dies. If you land another, they stack and everything gets -2/-2. This can also swing combat wildly in your favor. Play two festering goblins after that, and everything gets -4/-4. Pretty disgusting. Combos with Bidding, as I said before, to wipe the opponent's field.
Mana Curve
1- Festering Goblin, Dark Ritual
2-Diabolic Tutor
3-Cemetary Reaper, Lord of the Undead, Stillmoon Cavalier, Death Baron
4-
5-Noxious Ghoul, Traumatize, Patriarch's Bidding, Call to the Grave
6-Necromancer's Covenant
Still not great, but there are 26 cards you can play off of 3 mana, which isn't bad at all. Zombie decks seem to really enjoy 3 mana... past that, is all the goodies. at 5 and 6 mana, everything you cast will be hated, and is a win-con.
Other interesting cards: Hide/Seek Batwing Brume: nice to strike some damage to opponent Necromancer's Covenant: nice if you face alot of creatures, or if YOU run alot of creatures and target yourself to fill out your board with creatures. Honor of the Pure: zombie's pump as 2nd drop Silence/Orim's Chant: stalls combo, or leave you to another round of beating Disenchant / Abolish: enchantment/artifact hate, if not running Vidicate / Mortify
Not accomplishing Traumatize / Covenant, but that's a really slow "combo", also you must guarantee your opponent has alot of creatures on his deck, cause then all your work and time will result only into 2-3 creatures out.
@Mike: Covenant just dislikes Cemetery Reaper, they work on two different ways. Reanimation (Bidding/Ghoul) and Covenant also don't like each other (you might be forced to target yourself, so one will be a dead card). Dark Ritual is not nice when playing white cards altogether. Call of the Grave is a really slow removal, pack normal ones, and 4-of (you can even pack white ones, HORRAY!). Traumatize and Covenant must be 2-ofs, since they cost too much (will take a long time to cast, so stuck cards into your hand, and once cast you can face a single Daze, and ruin your day, so you must be able to play while you fill both cards conditions). In fact, i'd drop traumatize, and just let Covenant there, since even if you can't hit a sweet graveyard, you can give Lifelink to your critters.
@ LAM: take a look on Zombie's Defiled build on the first page. It's a reanimation build.
Other interesting cards: Hide/Seek Batwing Brume: nice to strike some damage to opponent Necromancer's Covenant: nice if you face alot of creatures, or if YOU run alot of creatures and target yourself to fill out your board with creatures. Honor of the Pure: zombie's pump as 2nd drop Silence/Orim's Chant: stalls combo, or leave you to another round of beating Disenchant / Abolish: enchantment/artifact hate, if not running Vidicate / Mortify
Not accomplishing Traumatize / Covenant, but that's a really slow "combo", also you must guarantee your opponent has alot of creatures on his deck, cause then all your work and time will result only into 2-3 creatures out.
@Mike: Covenant just dislikes Cemetery Reaper, they work on two different ways. Reanimation (Bidding/Ghoul) and Covenant also don't like each other (you might be forced to target yourself, so one will be a dead card). Dark Ritual is not nice when playing white cards altogether. Call of the Grave is a really slow removal, pack normal ones, and 4-of (you can even pack white ones, HORRAY!). Traumatize and Covenant must be 2-ofs, since they cost too much (will take a long time to cast, so stuck cards into your hand, and once cast you can face a single Daze, and ruin your day, so you must be able to play while you fill both cards conditions). In fact, i'd drop traumatize, and just let Covenant there, since even if you can't hit a sweet graveyard, you can give Lifelink to your critters.
@ LAM: take a look on Zombie's Defiled build on the first page. It's a reanimation build.
I know it's a really slow combo, but he wanted to use it. This IS casual, so I tried to help him as much as I could, knowing that the combo would be slower than you'd want. Other than that, what you are saying all makes sense. You have to admit, that, versus an elf deck or something, you could really kick ass with that combo. I don't know what his meta is, but I face those, and also Burn decks, and decks with 4-8 creatures. In those cases, I would at least sideboard out that combo for something else.
Cemetary Reaper, Lord of the Undead, Bidding, and Covenant all are reanimators, of sorts. I know Cemetary won't work great with the others, he isn't a team player. However, he was only meant for your graveyard, whereas Covenant was meant for the opposing graveyard. If you don't think that that's a good option, something like Fleshbag Marauder might work better.
@Hated Asylum: Thanks for the input. You guessed correctly that the decks I typically face are creature heavy and that Traumatize/Necromancer's Covenant is slow to fire. However, these players tend to focus their decks on aggro and card control, usually forcing me to discard while I watch a 16/16 shrouded monster munch on my creatures. Typically, I use a black/blue to tackle these challenges, and with that I have a pretty good record.
My zombie deck, named Boned by one of my fellow players for how it decimated her entire deck, plan, and game, is going to be meant mainly for high creature or multiplayer games. So far, the way Mike's suggestion looks, it stands a really great chance at being a feared deck again.
Though I asked Mike to help me with a deck idea based around Traumatize and Necromancer's covenant, those cards are by no means needed to win the game. I think he saw that when he drafted his suggestion and instead gave me a deck that will keep enemy aggro at bay while I'm left to peck at them and gain the mana I need for that combo. It also seems that this deck can be used to simply overrun opponents who rely on the Exalted or tribal bonuses to win, which happens to be my standard opponent type.
All in all I am quite excited to give his deck a shot tonight. Depending on how it fares, I'll make adjustments and eventually post the results.
Edit: The original plan for my zombie deck was the classic idea of a zombie horde. Like the better zombie movies, it'd start with one or two zombies, but then they'd get in a good bite, and that'd make more zombies. Eventually, the main character has to deal with the horrific fact that his once good friends are now descending down on him friending for his flesh. So, mechanically, it was supposed to be similar that. One or two zombies, opponent attacks, loses his creature, I pull another zombie out of his grave. The deck accomplished this, but was very very slow at it. I saw some builds here that did similar things and I might give them a shot, or if you like you can take the cards I posted try to arrange a deck in that fashion that might be faster. However, Mike's idea just seems to tasty to pass up for now.
I know it's a really slow combo, but he wanted to use it. This IS casual, so I tried to help him as much as I could, knowing that the combo would be slower than you'd want. Other than that, what you are saying all makes sense. You have to admit, that, versus an elf deck or something, you could really kick ass with that combo. I don't know what his meta is, but I face those, and also Burn decks, and decks with 4-8 creatures. In those cases, I would at least sideboard out that combo for something else.
Indeed he wanted that combo, and you were right trying to put it together. But even in casual, i like to help dudes to improve their lists to at least have a chance (losing is not cool even in casual...:)).
Ok i admit, this deck don't have a minor chance vs a regular built elf deck. The deck is not even able to kill their creatures and put them into grave, relying in a lonely 5th turn card to try to kill 1 creature, when Elves are an infest deck producing tokns of tokens...They can unleash a good game around turn 3-5, where you start casting your cards.
So, before turn 3, you mostly do nothing, just ocasionally when you draw some of your first drops.
You can't even defend yourself if you get rushed, since there is not mass removal, nor even spot removal...just let they do what they want.
When you first drop your Lord, you'll be force to chomp block or die. Kithkin, Elves, Gobbos, Soldiers, Merfolks...all those ones get big pretty fast.
There are some misconcepts, like in a deck where you start casting creatures on 3rd turn, and that by 5th, with most likely have 2 creatures out, so at most 2 creatures on grave, what is the point of a 5th turn Patriarch's Bidding? Taking those 2 creatures back? If you have at least a discard outlet to fill your grave, or any dredge card for the same function...why is it there?
Another point is, why, if you can't put him turn 1-2 into play, is Noxious Ghoul in the deck? By turn 6, there are HIGH chances of creatures out that don't die to a -1/-1 or -2/-2, specially tribal decks with lords.
As a mentioned in some place (can't remeber where), packing up 12-16 Lords (more than 8 mostly) is usually a bad idea, specially when they come on the same cmc drop.
Elves pack 4 (Perfect and maybe the new one on it's place)
Goblins pack 4 (Goblin Warchief, and maybe adding the new one)
Merfolks pack 8 (but LoA comes on turn2, and Reejerey 3)
And that has a deep reason: Lords need creatures to command, so a Lord without cards to carry it's benefits casted early on, are not much relevant cards, since none of them effects itself.
So you get 2 choices: makes a faster deck, or control early game.
The funniest side of controlling early game is, It's completely into your strategy. Ex: let'em cast any creature they want, wait for a 2-4 creatures out, and Infest (or similar effects). They will have wasted 4 cards, 4 whole turns, and you will have only spent 1 card, also you'll find a grave full of goodies, without any unnecessary blue splash for traumatize.
Other point you must check is conflicting interactions, like i've mentioned on the preview post.
Look that i'm not bashing your build, i'm trying to help you and EnixLHQ to realize some important points when you try to build a deck. All players start at the game with a love for lords and beefs. At my start, i always thought that would be AWSOME if i can set a deck with Craw Wurm, Shambling Strider, Scaled Wurm (that was my beloved deck when i started, wanted to bash with them). I thought: "well, not fast cards, but when i drop'em, then they'll have to deal with or die", but i figured out that i couldn't win vs a fast discard deck, or a WW deck from my friends of my playgroup (we were 3 players by that time). Couldn't understand the reason, but just couldn't win with my fatties (just in random games).
If all decks you face starts to play around 4-5th turn, it's ok to start at the same point, but if any one of them start to play turn 1, then you prepare yourself to that matchup.
Always thinking: how do i deal with: aggro decks? enchantments/artifacts? counter barriers? combo decks?. You can't let go and put cards that seems nice but has no role in the deck, or deal with some threats your deck can face.
The Primal Rule of Magic is, HAVE FUN, so if the deck fits the average play of the other decks in your playgroup, that's fine and you should play it. But don't be mistaken, if you get loosing games in a roll, your interest for this game will fall apart, 'cause nobody likes to play games that they suck! (even if they don't, but just don't have a refined deckbuilding skill yet), and then you lose all the fun.
So i guess the major advice is: build decks that looks cool for you, but always try to give it make it strong enough to at least win from time to time.
Don't get angry with me or my words, from the deep of my heart, i'm trying to help you to have nice decks that allows you to have ALOT OF FUN, improving your love for Zombies, and for that, it's necessary to raise the win chances of the deck, 'cause as i said, a losing sequence might break the magic of the game.
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Well, Friday has come and gone and I've played a handful of hands with this new deck. I can sum up the experience in two words: Glorious death.
My record is 4-1 so far and the fear factor is in full effect. I played in a 5-way, 4-way, and 3 1-on-1's, losing only on one 1-on-1 match due to pulling all my mana cards with no swamps, so only colorless. I'll fix that.
I played against a mono-blue merfolk contol deck, a white/black pacify removal deck, mono-black removal discard deck, a sliver deck, and a mono-blue counterspell deck. All of their efforts in contolling me only gave me more ammo to unleash on them later.
I saw the potential dead zone with no 2 mana cards, but making sure I mulliganed to get at least one mana and a Dark Ritual often allowed me to play a turn 3 card on turn 2, thus keeping the pressure on.
The combo of Traumatize and Necromancer's Covenant became an option, not a necessity, which is a very good thing. In fact, pulling out the combo is more of a game ender when I'm done toting or feel that my life is too low. But, as long as I play fairly aggresively and with some forethought, this deck has a surprising amount of versatility.
I am very very pleased with this deck. The carrion feeder ability to sac a creature targeted for pacifism or exile is a must, and the sheer amount of horror that the Patriarch's Bidding brings (after the false relief the players get from calling their creature back, makes for a perfect game for me.
My only change I foresee making is removing the island and plains cards to prevent myself from drawing the Tainted cards with no swamps to make them useful. Diabolic Tutor should help in that area.
My opponents were so devastated they refused to name my deck. Well, name it anything I could say in front of the family, anyway. Reaper might fit. Might go with ROFLMFAO (roffel mef ow), though, since that's what I did when I WTFPWND everyone at once.
I'll take suggestions.
Thank you again, Mike. The deck is awesome.
Now, on to killing the best green decks I can find.
The following is an idea I had using Deadapult and Grave Pact as win conditions and plenty of zombies who enjoy dieing (or zombies who enjoy killing off others).
Festering Goblin seems to be the only Zombie that truly enjoys being sacked. Dregscape is fun because his Unearth cost is so low, so he can come back for another hit and then a sac. Carrion Feeder enjoys sacrificing my other Zombies.
Shambling Remains is my only red Zombie, and he's a pretty good beater, with Unearth which is a plus in this deck. Fleshbag Maurader is an experimental choice, and he should be great with Grave Pact out. The Lord pumps up the zombies of course, but he also offers the recursion I need because my cards will be heading to the grave like crazy.
Undead Warchief speeds up all of my cards, and the only guys he can't help are the 1cmc (but he still offers them a boost). Vengeful Dead is just meant to ping my opponents (I hope he will be deadly with Deadapult).
Grave Pact is meant to act as removal, and I hope it will be efficient. Deadapult is going to be a Win Condition late in the game, and I hope to just sac tons of guys, and bring back the others with Unearth for a second sac.
Dark Ritual speeds up everything except for Deadapult in some situations.
Now that the Rant is over, just wondering if this seems too unreliable, I need more Recursion, or my mana is too off base.
I was thinking of adding Grixis Slavedriver, but he seemed too costly. If there are any other Unearthing Black or Red Zombies, tell me.
Well, Friday has come and gone and I've played a handful of hands with this new deck. I can sum up the experience in two words: Glorious death.
My record is 4-1 so far and the fear factor is in full effect. I played in a 5-way, 4-way, and 3 1-on-1's, losing only on one 1-on-1 match due to pulling all my mana cards with no swamps, so only colorless. I'll fix that.
I played against a mono-blue merfolk contol deck, a white/black pacify removal deck, mono-black removal discard deck, a sliver deck, and a mono-blue counterspell deck. All of their efforts in contolling me only gave me more ammo to unleash on them later.
I saw the potential dead zone with no 2 mana cards, but making sure I mulliganed to get at least one mana and a Dark Ritual often allowed me to play a turn 3 card on turn 2, thus keeping the pressure on.
The combo of Traumatize and Necromancer's Covenant became an option, not a necessity, which is a very good thing. In fact, pulling out the combo is more of a game ender when I'm done toting or feel that my life is too low. But, as long as I play fairly aggresively and with some forethought, this deck has a surprising amount of versatility.
I am very very pleased with this deck. The carrion feeder ability to sac a creature targeted for pacifism or exile is a must, and the sheer amount of horror that the Patriarch's Bidding brings (after the false relief the players get from calling their creature back, makes for a perfect game for me.
My only change I foresee making is removing the island and plains cards to prevent myself from drawing the Tainted cards with no swamps to make them useful. Diabolic Tutor should help in that area.
My opponents were so devastated they refused to name my deck. Well, name it anything I could say in front of the family, anyway. Reaper might fit. Might go with ROFLMFAO (roffel mef ow), though, since that's what I did when I WTFPWND everyone at once.
I'll take suggestions.
Thank you again, Mike. The deck is awesome.
Now, on to killing the best green decks I can find.
Glad it worked for you! If it's working and you're having fun, then it's the way to go!
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Glad it worked for you! If it's working and you're having fun, then it's the way to go!
Halted Asylum- You put a LOT of thought into your decks, and making them work. I can really appreciate it, and I know that your advice is good. However, I don't think that our playing groups match, as you hinted earlier. For me, if I play multiplayer, then it turns into a Cold War, unless I am the one to piss people off and break the stalemate. I can tell from your advice about facing elves or some other type thing that when you play, you could be pretty much dead by turn 4-5. While this is true for me as well sometimes, it is not always the case. My friends enjoy pulling off strange combos as much as the next guy, so we might all be doing game-ending things like that.
Thanks again for looking at the deck idea I made. I think the critique was spot on, and that the early game was definitely the weakness.
Lam, I am not good when it comes to making decisions on what cards to take out of a deck, but just as input, if your deck focuses on mostly recursion, Corpse Connoisseur would be great in your deck.
Other than that, Diabolic Intent doesn't look neccessary, nor Mortiphobia, as well as Zombie Master, Vampiric Tutor, or Sheperd of Rot.
Halted Asylum (and other zombie freaxx in here!), i could really use some of your help now
I've been playing around with a reanimation style-like deck, focusing on mass ress cards like Living Death, Balthor, Patriarch's Bidding etc etc... BUT i'm facing the ever-anoying issue: What cards to include/what cards not to?
As you can see, i am far above the 60 card line. I wanna get down to that line again - But i still wanna stay true to the style of the deck..
Edit: I dont wanna spend huge amounts of money on cards (5-8$ per card is my max), so All Hallow's Eve and Entomb are no-go's (unless i can find a good offer on eBay..)
@LAM: you can take a look into the Zombies Defiled deck, it's a reanimation oriented.
Noxious Ghoul is key when you reanimate
Balthor is the most solid way to reanimate
Twisted not just improve your swamp grabbing, but also is a solid reanimated creature
Soulless One gets pretty big in any occasion, since you'll fill your grave with cards.
Putrid Imp is the best discard outlet on Magic, and for our Luck, it's also a zombie, so you can discard all big stuff on your hand when you're about to reanimate
Zombie Infestation is a great discard outlet while creating zombie to stall the game.
You need removal, so i added Doom Blade in, but can be any other: Terror, Snuff Out...take your pick.
If any card is too expensive for you, i can try to find cheaper substitutes.
Hope being Helpful.
So far my progress with the deck is pretty solid, but there are some notable weaknesses.
First of all, if I don't pull a great starting hand, and my first mulligan doesn't give me any relief, the second or third mulligan is pretty much going to fail anyway, even with the great cards. I suspect this is true with all decks, since my blue/black suffers the same fate. Sometimes...you just don't get what you need.
Secondly, as long as I play a few steps ahead, elfball or other elf decks really don't give me much of an issue. What makes this a weakness, however, is that the only win option other than hands-down smart playing is the Traumatize/Necromancer's Covenant combo. Elf decks are notorious for being able to build an army from only 1 mana, and the ones I'm playing against are no exception. It's easy to get overwhelmed, and even if you manage to land Noxious Ghoul with a few other zombies, or fire Patriarch's Bidding after Noxious is in play or in your graveyard, what you really end up doing is giving your green opponent obscene amounts of life. At that point, you pretty much NEED Necromancer's Covenant just to give yourself lifelink and extend the game. Tough stuff. But, with careful planning and good anticipation of your opponents next few moves, that deck can fail before this zombie deck eventually.
I have a match with a mono-red direct damage deck coming up. I suspect I will have to be aggressive, ruthless with my advantages. Necromancer's Covenant might be a must, as from what I've seen that deck is capable of putting out over 40 damage over its course. Some via creatures that I will have to chew through first. Go zombies, go.
When you use Patriarch's Bidding, and you bring back everyone, and the enemy gets lots of -1/-1's, and health from the soul wardens, shouldn't you end up with a lot of creatures and them none? I mean, sure, they got a health advantage right there from the wardens, but shouldn't your newly-forged zombie army just go in and hit unblocked? Or are some surviving?
In the response stage after my main and before combat, this player has managed to hold off on spending all her mana and keeping a couple of buff cards ready. I do this, she responds by buffing her flyers for enough to hold through the storm. My attack phase was all except my Stillmoons (as well as all the zombies that just appeared from Patriarch, as I understood they would have summoning sickness), kept for blocking the flyers. She had enough life to just get through what I could attack her with. I didn't have Necromancer's Covenant, so no lifelink for me and my life was already low. I removed a good chunk of her life, but not all of it when it came to her turn. Her flyers were restored to full attack. Two had trample. It was enough, even after my flying block, to take me out. I didn't have the mana for a first strike, just enough to make them fly.
I'm not actually sure if that's possible. I don't think the spells were instant, so no interruption to my phase, and the killing of her creatures would have happened when the game checks the dirty status of her 0-or-less toughness creatures when priority shifted to her for a response step. But, that's after the fact now. Something to be clarified before next time.
Oh well. Still win more than lose.
I had a question about how to get some more mana, or more efficient mana, out of this deck.
The deck already has 4 Dark Rituals, which is great but my luck hasn't drawn more than one in a game. I added 2 more Diabolic Tutors in order to ensure that I'd get at least one during the game, but by the time I can spend the mana on the cards, they are used to search for a Noxious Ghoul or Patriarch's Bidding if I don't already have those.
The plains and islands first suggested didn't work out for me, so instead I replaced all of them with 4 Tainted Fields and 4 Drowned Catacombs. For the fields, as long as I have at least 1 swamp, I can make them tap for black or white. As for the catacombs, the presence of a swamp just determines if they come in tapped or not. Doing this has fixed the colorless issue.
However, I pretty much HAVE to draw at least one swamp and a Dark Ritual in order to be competitive against a green deck or anyone who is drawing well for mana. This is possible, but not always likely.
So, the question is this: Are there any cards that could help in early game to produce more mana? Particularly black?
I know there is Black Lotus, but good luck on me ever landing that card. Lotus Bloom would kick in on turn turn 4 at the earliest.
Black is not good at mana. Undead Warchief would be good for reducing cost, but by the time you have him out, it's already too late by the sounds of it.
I'm not an expert at this point, but splashing green may work (though good chance it won't), or maybe dropping a higher-cost creature for another 1-drop.
@LAM: i guess i wouldn't care about Lords on this specific deck. If you reanimate 1 Soulless One, 1 Twisted Abomination, 1 Noxious Ghoul and 1 Putrid Imp, you have a potencial 13 damage, if you managed more creatures on grave before Reanimating, then its 20 damage for sure. So the "power" of the lords are quite not necessary.
You can buy the Lords just because they rock on other builds, but on this one, you can save your money.
Gravestorm is a card that i fell in love either, specially vs decks where you can set their grave down with Entrails Fester and Withered Wretch, it produces a huge card advantage, but without that focus, it's a dead card most time, where you could have cast some threat.
Bidding is a costy version of Balthor. Despite 1 mana seems not much, you'll find yourself facing long turns in a roll without drawing a land. They have the same function, but Balthor is just faster, and if they deal with it, you can just reanimate with Exhume or Unholy Grotto it.
So, i'd keep the list that i shared with you before, but if you find any card doing pretty well for you, keep it, that's the secret, fitting your meta, cause i'll never know what kind of decks or pilots you face, so it'll be harder to me to help more than showing what card picks i believe would provide more profit. Also, some cards just gives us so much fun, that even not being the best choice, we must run them not matter what!
@All: trying to improve my photoshop skills, how did the first page art became? How's the first page layout? Any suggestion?. Update with some new cards, and soon i'll stick some other decks like Grixis Zombies and Burning Zombies (both refined and doing well on testings).
Hope being helpful.
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I've been thinking of making my foray into the zombie archtype for awhile but I have a distinct fondness for going slightly off the beaten path.
I want to base a deck around Dralnu's Crusade. Which leaves alot open really. What do you think would be the best means to go about such a deck? An army of interlocking goblin-zombie lords, or something a bit less obvious?
I'm a bit stymied for ideas but i'm loving the potential in the card.
The idea is to completely bypass the usual development curve, fill the graveyard and mass ressurect. (or failing that, just be extremely persistent and hard to keep down.) Precisely what I imagine Zombies would 'like' to do as a Tribe. ..right?
And pls know this is developed specifically for multiplayer games.
I like the concept, but I don't think you'll be able to get it off the ground easily. You have to stay alive for at least 5 rounds while tossing your zombies in the grave, hoping you don't get Patriarch's Bidding taken from your hand.
That being said, this looks extremely fun to try. Let's see, the Swampcycling for Twisted Abomination is awesome for this trick. 4 nasty zombies in the graveyard there. Discarding zombie cards for Putrid Raptor, another 4 in the graveyard, but it still takes 6CC to get it out... Oh, Living Death, nice one. Damnation when it's too late for Living Death.
As far as I can see you have the bases covered. Maybe add a few black cards to target yourself with like Hymn to Tourach, Blackmail, or Abandon Hope. Definitely going to raise an eyebrow when you play Blackmail on yourself, reveal three of your own cards and then trash one. They won't know what's happening.
Raptor actually costs to 'play'. Discarding a Zombie (free) flips him face-up. I don't think I've ever hardcasted him.
I could see my hand lining up just god-awesome or god-awful with this thing. (and yeah, cycling Aboms early is extremely helpful.) Hopefully multiplayer format might buy me some time until I can set up and draw into bombs. I'm trying this out tonight I think.
Also want to rebuild the Elf deck here lately. Probably posting something over there shortly.
The skele-bird should be replaced with Stillmoon Cavalier.
I would take out gravedigger, and I would think about cards like Patriarch's Bidding. This card will let you revive any zombie's you've lost up to this point.
Noxious Ghoul would be awesome for this deck. His ability stacks. Each Noxious Ghoul in play gives all non-Zombies -1/-1 until end of turn whenever a Zombie enters the battlefield. This includes the Ghouls. This means that when you use your Covenant and/or Bidding, you will give your opponents creatures some huge -/- counter, normally like -10/-10. This pretty much makes it a board wipe, except for your creatures, which are now lifelink, deathtouch, ridiculous killing machines.
WUB
Okay, for some reasoning behind it. Land-wise, the tainted isles and fields are very helpful for mana-fixing. I wanted 3 islands as well, to ensure that Traumatize would not get screwed. 9 swamps, to ensure you get one, and 1 plains, for good measure.
Enchantments were fairly simple.... I gave you 3 of the two main parts to your deck, and 3 Call to the Graves, since they fit this deck so well.
Instants and Sorceries- Dark Ritual is a must, since the mana costs of your big spells are so high. Hopefully, they will help you get out of some tight situations. 2 Diabolic tutors are the only reason I could justify leaving Covenant and Traumatize as 3-ofs, being the main component of your deck. However, with the 2 tutors, you should be able to fix those problems. If not, add either more tutors or more covenants/traumatizes. Patriarch's Bidding works later-game for you, in that after you empty their graveyard, you can also empty yours, and wipe their field if comboed with Noxious Ghoul.
Creatures- Festering Goblin- Cheap, puts lots of things in the graveyard, and can kill weenies when it dies. Great card. If you are facing more control, Carrion Feeder will work better, in that you can sacrifice your own creatures in response to them being targeted, say by path to exile ;). Stillmoon Cavalier is anti flying, can have first strike, and can firebreath for a heavy cost. A savior if you face lots of cards that are flying or 6/1 type things, as you can just pay 1 or 2 and block to kill them. Combined with the next guy, Death Baron, he is a great defender. Death Baron is +1/+1 to all, AND deathtouch, which makes enemies think twice about attacking you, knowing everything will die. Cemetary Reaper and Lord of the Undead are both there to empty your own graveyard, and be the awesome Lord Zombies we know they can be. Noxious Ghouls is a surprisingly good late-game control mechanism. When you land him on the 'field, everything that's a 1/1 dies. If you land another, they stack and everything gets -2/-2. This can also swing combat wildly in your favor. Play two festering goblins after that, and everything gets -4/-4. Pretty disgusting. Combos with Bidding, as I said before, to wipe the opponent's field.
Mana Curve
1- Festering Goblin, Dark Ritual
2-Diabolic Tutor
3-Cemetary Reaper, Lord of the Undead, Stillmoon Cavalier, Death Baron
4-
5-Noxious Ghoul, Traumatize, Patriarch's Bidding, Call to the Grave
6-Necromancer's Covenant
Still not great, but there are 26 cards you can play off of 3 mana, which isn't bad at all. Zombie decks seem to really enjoy 3 mana... past that, is all the goodies. at 5 and 6 mana, everything you cast will be hated, and is a win-con.
Hope this deck works....
04 Tidehollow Sculler
04 Putrid Warrior
04 Stromgald Crusader
04 Stillmoon Cavalier
04 Death Baron
04 Path to Exile
04 Gerrard's Verdict
04 Castigate
04 Zealous Persecution
04 Vindicate
Possible changes:
Vindicate: Unmake/Doom Blade/Mortify/Snuff Out/Smother
Castigate: Duress/Thoughtseize
Other interesting cards:
Hide/Seek
Batwing Brume: nice to strike some damage to opponent
Necromancer's Covenant: nice if you face alot of creatures, or if YOU run alot of creatures and target yourself to fill out your board with creatures.
Honor of the Pure: zombie's pump as 2nd drop
Silence/Orim's Chant: stalls combo, or leave you to another round of beating
Disenchant / Abolish: enchantment/artifact hate, if not running Vidicate / Mortify
Not accomplishing Traumatize / Covenant, but that's a really slow "combo", also you must guarantee your opponent has alot of creatures on his deck, cause then all your work and time will result only into 2-3 creatures out.
@Mike: Covenant just dislikes Cemetery Reaper, they work on two different ways. Reanimation (Bidding/Ghoul) and Covenant also don't like each other (you might be forced to target yourself, so one will be a dead card). Dark Ritual is not nice when playing white cards altogether. Call of the Grave is a really slow removal, pack normal ones, and 4-of (you can even pack white ones, HORRAY!). Traumatize and Covenant must be 2-ofs, since they cost too much (will take a long time to cast, so stuck cards into your hand, and once cast you can face a single Daze, and ruin your day, so you must be able to play while you fill both cards conditions). In fact, i'd drop traumatize, and just let Covenant there, since even if you can't hit a sweet graveyard, you can give Lifelink to your critters.
@ LAM: take a look on Zombie's Defiled build on the first page. It's a reanimation build.
I know it's a really slow combo, but he wanted to use it. This IS casual, so I tried to help him as much as I could, knowing that the combo would be slower than you'd want. Other than that, what you are saying all makes sense. You have to admit, that, versus an elf deck or something, you could really kick ass with that combo. I don't know what his meta is, but I face those, and also Burn decks, and decks with 4-8 creatures. In those cases, I would at least sideboard out that combo for something else.
Cemetary Reaper, Lord of the Undead, Bidding, and Covenant all are reanimators, of sorts. I know Cemetary won't work great with the others, he isn't a team player. However, he was only meant for your graveyard, whereas Covenant was meant for the opposing graveyard. If you don't think that that's a good option, something like Fleshbag Marauder might work better.
My zombie deck, named Boned by one of my fellow players for how it decimated her entire deck, plan, and game, is going to be meant mainly for high creature or multiplayer games. So far, the way Mike's suggestion looks, it stands a really great chance at being a feared deck again.
Though I asked Mike to help me with a deck idea based around Traumatize and Necromancer's covenant, those cards are by no means needed to win the game. I think he saw that when he drafted his suggestion and instead gave me a deck that will keep enemy aggro at bay while I'm left to peck at them and gain the mana I need for that combo. It also seems that this deck can be used to simply overrun opponents who rely on the Exalted or tribal bonuses to win, which happens to be my standard opponent type.
All in all I am quite excited to give his deck a shot tonight. Depending on how it fares, I'll make adjustments and eventually post the results.
Edit: The original plan for my zombie deck was the classic idea of a zombie horde. Like the better zombie movies, it'd start with one or two zombies, but then they'd get in a good bite, and that'd make more zombies. Eventually, the main character has to deal with the horrific fact that his once good friends are now descending down on him friending for his flesh. So, mechanically, it was supposed to be similar that. One or two zombies, opponent attacks, loses his creature, I pull another zombie out of his grave. The deck accomplished this, but was very very slow at it. I saw some builds here that did similar things and I might give them a shot, or if you like you can take the cards I posted try to arrange a deck in that fashion that might be faster. However, Mike's idea just seems to tasty to pass up for now.
Indeed he wanted that combo, and you were right trying to put it together. But even in casual, i like to help dudes to improve their lists to at least have a chance (losing is not cool even in casual...:)).
Ok i admit, this deck don't have a minor chance vs a regular built elf deck. The deck is not even able to kill their creatures and put them into grave, relying in a lonely 5th turn card to try to kill 1 creature, when Elves are an infest deck producing tokns of tokens...They can unleash a good game around turn 3-5, where you start casting your cards.
Your deck curve is:
1cmc: 8 cards
2cmc: 0 cards
3cmc: 14 cards
4cmc: 3 cards
5cmc: 12 Cards
6cmc: 3 cards
So, before turn 3, you mostly do nothing, just ocasionally when you draw some of your first drops.
You can't even defend yourself if you get rushed, since there is not mass removal, nor even spot removal...just let they do what they want.
When you first drop your Lord, you'll be force to chomp block or die. Kithkin, Elves, Gobbos, Soldiers, Merfolks...all those ones get big pretty fast.
There are some misconcepts, like in a deck where you start casting creatures on 3rd turn, and that by 5th, with most likely have 2 creatures out, so at most 2 creatures on grave, what is the point of a 5th turn Patriarch's Bidding? Taking those 2 creatures back? If you have at least a discard outlet to fill your grave, or any dredge card for the same function...why is it there?
Another point is, why, if you can't put him turn 1-2 into play, is Noxious Ghoul in the deck? By turn 6, there are HIGH chances of creatures out that don't die to a -1/-1 or -2/-2, specially tribal decks with lords.
As a mentioned in some place (can't remeber where), packing up 12-16 Lords (more than 8 mostly) is usually a bad idea, specially when they come on the same cmc drop.
Elves pack 4 (Perfect and maybe the new one on it's place)
Goblins pack 4 (Goblin Warchief, and maybe adding the new one)
Merfolks pack 8 (but LoA comes on turn2, and Reejerey 3)
And that has a deep reason: Lords need creatures to command, so a Lord without cards to carry it's benefits casted early on, are not much relevant cards, since none of them effects itself.
So you get 2 choices: makes a faster deck, or control early game.
The funniest side of controlling early game is, It's completely into your strategy. Ex: let'em cast any creature they want, wait for a 2-4 creatures out, and Infest (or similar effects). They will have wasted 4 cards, 4 whole turns, and you will have only spent 1 card, also you'll find a grave full of goodies, without any unnecessary blue splash for traumatize.
Other point you must check is conflicting interactions, like i've mentioned on the preview post.
Look that i'm not bashing your build, i'm trying to help you and EnixLHQ to realize some important points when you try to build a deck. All players start at the game with a love for lords and beefs. At my start, i always thought that would be AWSOME if i can set a deck with Craw Wurm, Shambling Strider, Scaled Wurm (that was my beloved deck when i started, wanted to bash with them). I thought: "well, not fast cards, but when i drop'em, then they'll have to deal with or die", but i figured out that i couldn't win vs a fast discard deck, or a WW deck from my friends of my playgroup (we were 3 players by that time). Couldn't understand the reason, but just couldn't win with my fatties (just in random games).
If all decks you face starts to play around 4-5th turn, it's ok to start at the same point, but if any one of them start to play turn 1, then you prepare yourself to that matchup.
Always thinking: how do i deal with: aggro decks? enchantments/artifacts? counter barriers? combo decks?. You can't let go and put cards that seems nice but has no role in the deck, or deal with some threats your deck can face.
The Primal Rule of Magic is, HAVE FUN, so if the deck fits the average play of the other decks in your playgroup, that's fine and you should play it. But don't be mistaken, if you get loosing games in a roll, your interest for this game will fall apart, 'cause nobody likes to play games that they suck! (even if they don't, but just don't have a refined deckbuilding skill yet), and then you lose all the fun.
So i guess the major advice is: build decks that looks cool for you, but always try to give it make it strong enough to at least win from time to time.
Don't get angry with me or my words, from the deep of my heart, i'm trying to help you to have nice decks that allows you to have ALOT OF FUN, improving your love for Zombies, and for that, it's necessary to raise the win chances of the deck, 'cause as i said, a losing sequence might break the magic of the game.
My record is 4-1 so far and the fear factor is in full effect. I played in a 5-way, 4-way, and 3 1-on-1's, losing only on one 1-on-1 match due to pulling all my mana cards with no swamps, so only colorless. I'll fix that.
I played against a mono-blue merfolk contol deck, a white/black pacify removal deck, mono-black removal discard deck, a sliver deck, and a mono-blue counterspell deck. All of their efforts in contolling me only gave me more ammo to unleash on them later.
I saw the potential dead zone with no 2 mana cards, but making sure I mulliganed to get at least one mana and a Dark Ritual often allowed me to play a turn 3 card on turn 2, thus keeping the pressure on.
The combo of Traumatize and Necromancer's Covenant became an option, not a necessity, which is a very good thing. In fact, pulling out the combo is more of a game ender when I'm done toting or feel that my life is too low. But, as long as I play fairly aggresively and with some forethought, this deck has a surprising amount of versatility.
I am very very pleased with this deck. The carrion feeder ability to sac a creature targeted for pacifism or exile is a must, and the sheer amount of horror that the Patriarch's Bidding brings (after the false relief the players get from calling their creature back, makes for a perfect game for me.
My only change I foresee making is removing the island and plains cards to prevent myself from drawing the Tainted cards with no swamps to make them useful. Diabolic Tutor should help in that area.
My opponents were so devastated they refused to name my deck. Well, name it anything I could say in front of the family, anyway. Reaper might fit. Might go with ROFLMFAO (roffel mef ow), though, since that's what I did when I WTFPWND everyone at once.
I'll take suggestions.
Thank you again, Mike. The deck is awesome.
Now, on to killing the best green decks I can find.
4 Festering Goblin
4 Dregscape Zombie
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Shambling Remains
3 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Lord of the Undead
3 Undead Warchief
3 Vengeful Dead
3 Grave Pact
4 Deadapult
3 Dark Ritual
Lands (22)
15 Swamp
4 Graven Cairns
3 Dragonskull Summit
Festering Goblin seems to be the only Zombie that truly enjoys being sacked. Dregscape is fun because his Unearth cost is so low, so he can come back for another hit and then a sac. Carrion Feeder enjoys sacrificing my other Zombies.
Shambling Remains is my only red Zombie, and he's a pretty good beater, with Unearth which is a plus in this deck. Fleshbag Maurader is an experimental choice, and he should be great with Grave Pact out. The Lord pumps up the zombies of course, but he also offers the recursion I need because my cards will be heading to the grave like crazy.
Undead Warchief speeds up all of my cards, and the only guys he can't help are the 1cmc (but he still offers them a boost). Vengeful Dead is just meant to ping my opponents (I hope he will be deadly with Deadapult).
Grave Pact is meant to act as removal, and I hope it will be efficient. Deadapult is going to be a Win Condition late in the game, and I hope to just sac tons of guys, and bring back the others with Unearth for a second sac.
Dark Ritual speeds up everything except for Deadapult in some situations.
Now that the Rant is over, just wondering if this seems too unreliable, I need more Recursion, or my mana is too off base.
I was thinking of adding Grixis Slavedriver, but he seemed too costly. If there are any other Unearthing Black or Red Zombies, tell me.
Glad it worked for you! If it's working and you're having fun, then it's the way to go!
Halted Asylum- You put a LOT of thought into your decks, and making them work. I can really appreciate it, and I know that your advice is good. However, I don't think that our playing groups match, as you hinted earlier. For me, if I play multiplayer, then it turns into a Cold War, unless I am the one to piss people off and break the stalemate. I can tell from your advice about facing elves or some other type thing that when you play, you could be pretty much dead by turn 4-5. While this is true for me as well sometimes, it is not always the case. My friends enjoy pulling off strange combos as much as the next guy, so we might all be doing game-ending things like that.
Thanks again for looking at the deck idea I made. I think the critique was spot on, and that the early game was definitely the weakness.
Other than that, Diabolic Intent doesn't look neccessary, nor Mortiphobia, as well as Zombie Master, Vampiric Tutor, or Sheperd of Rot.
But that's just my (uneducated) opinion.
@LAM: you can take a look into the Zombies Defiled deck, it's a reanimation oriented.
For your deck, i'd let it this way:
04 Dark Ritual
04 Duress
04 Doom Blade
03 Buried Alive
03 Zombie Infestation
02 Exhume
04 Putrid Imp
04 Soulless One
04 Twisted Abomination
04 Noxious Ghoul
04 Baltor the Defiled
02 Unholy Grotto
18 Swamp
Noxious Ghoul is key when you reanimate
Balthor is the most solid way to reanimate
Twisted not just improve your swamp grabbing, but also is a solid reanimated creature
Soulless One gets pretty big in any occasion, since you'll fill your grave with cards.
Putrid Imp is the best discard outlet on Magic, and for our Luck, it's also a zombie, so you can discard all big stuff on your hand when you're about to reanimate
Zombie Infestation is a great discard outlet while creating zombie to stall the game.
You need removal, so i added Doom Blade in, but can be any other: Terror, Snuff Out...take your pick.
If any card is too expensive for you, i can try to find cheaper substitutes.
Hope being Helpful.
So far my progress with the deck is pretty solid, but there are some notable weaknesses.
First of all, if I don't pull a great starting hand, and my first mulligan doesn't give me any relief, the second or third mulligan is pretty much going to fail anyway, even with the great cards. I suspect this is true with all decks, since my blue/black suffers the same fate. Sometimes...you just don't get what you need.
Secondly, as long as I play a few steps ahead, elfball or other elf decks really don't give me much of an issue. What makes this a weakness, however, is that the only win option other than hands-down smart playing is the Traumatize/Necromancer's Covenant combo. Elf decks are notorious for being able to build an army from only 1 mana, and the ones I'm playing against are no exception. It's easy to get overwhelmed, and even if you manage to land Noxious Ghoul with a few other zombies, or fire Patriarch's Bidding after Noxious is in play or in your graveyard, what you really end up doing is giving your green opponent obscene amounts of life. At that point, you pretty much NEED Necromancer's Covenant just to give yourself lifelink and extend the game. Tough stuff. But, with careful planning and good anticipation of your opponents next few moves, that deck can fail before this zombie deck eventually.
I have a match with a mono-red direct damage deck coming up. I suspect I will have to be aggressive, ruthless with my advantages. Necromancer's Covenant might be a must, as from what I've seen that deck is capable of putting out over 40 damage over its course. Some via creatures that I will have to chew through first. Go zombies, go.
I'm not actually sure if that's possible. I don't think the spells were instant, so no interruption to my phase, and the killing of her creatures would have happened when the game checks the dirty status of her 0-or-less toughness creatures when priority shifted to her for a response step. But, that's after the fact now. Something to be clarified before next time.
Oh well. Still win more than lose.
I had a question about how to get some more mana, or more efficient mana, out of this deck.
The deck already has 4 Dark Rituals, which is great but my luck hasn't drawn more than one in a game. I added 2 more Diabolic Tutors in order to ensure that I'd get at least one during the game, but by the time I can spend the mana on the cards, they are used to search for a Noxious Ghoul or Patriarch's Bidding if I don't already have those.
The plains and islands first suggested didn't work out for me, so instead I replaced all of them with 4 Tainted Fields and 4 Drowned Catacombs. For the fields, as long as I have at least 1 swamp, I can make them tap for black or white. As for the catacombs, the presence of a swamp just determines if they come in tapped or not. Doing this has fixed the colorless issue.
However, I pretty much HAVE to draw at least one swamp and a Dark Ritual in order to be competitive against a green deck or anyone who is drawing well for mana. This is possible, but not always likely.
So, the question is this: Are there any cards that could help in early game to produce more mana? Particularly black?
I know there is Black Lotus, but good luck on me ever landing that card. Lotus Bloom would kick in on turn turn 4 at the earliest.
Any ideas?
I'm not an expert at this point, but splashing green may work (though good chance it won't), or maybe dropping a higher-cost creature for another 1-drop.
You can buy the Lords just because they rock on other builds, but on this one, you can save your money.
Gravestorm is a card that i fell in love either, specially vs decks where you can set their grave down with Entrails Fester and Withered Wretch, it produces a huge card advantage, but without that focus, it's a dead card most time, where you could have cast some threat.
Bidding is a costy version of Balthor. Despite 1 mana seems not much, you'll find yourself facing long turns in a roll without drawing a land. They have the same function, but Balthor is just faster, and if they deal with it, you can just reanimate with Exhume or Unholy Grotto it.
So, i'd keep the list that i shared with you before, but if you find any card doing pretty well for you, keep it, that's the secret, fitting your meta, cause i'll never know what kind of decks or pilots you face, so it'll be harder to me to help more than showing what card picks i believe would provide more profit. Also, some cards just gives us so much fun, that even not being the best choice, we must run them not matter what!
@All: trying to improve my photoshop skills, how did the first page art became? How's the first page layout? Any suggestion?. Update with some new cards, and soon i'll stick some other decks like Grixis Zombies and Burning Zombies (both refined and doing well on testings).
Hope being helpful.
Oh, and i support the changes you want to do. It'll be nice for the deck.
I want to base a deck around Dralnu's Crusade. Which leaves alot open really. What do you think would be the best means to go about such a deck? An army of interlocking goblin-zombie lords, or something a bit less obvious?
I'm a bit stymied for ideas but i'm loving the potential in the card.
4 Lord of the Undead
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Undead Warchief
4 Noxious Ghoul
4 Soulless One
4 Twisted Abomination
4 Putrid Raptor
2 Living Death
2 Damnation
4 Unholy Grotto
2 Volrath's Stronghold
14 Swamps
This is what I want to build.. Combo Aggro.
The idea is to completely bypass the usual development curve, fill the graveyard and mass ressurect. (or failing that, just be extremely persistent and hard to keep down.) Precisely what I imagine Zombies would 'like' to do as a Tribe. ..right?
And pls know this is developed specifically for multiplayer games.
A little help?
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I like the concept, but I don't think you'll be able to get it off the ground easily. You have to stay alive for at least 5 rounds while tossing your zombies in the grave, hoping you don't get Patriarch's Bidding taken from your hand.
That being said, this looks extremely fun to try. Let's see, the Swampcycling for Twisted Abomination is awesome for this trick. 4 nasty zombies in the graveyard there. Discarding zombie cards for Putrid Raptor, another 4 in the graveyard, but it still takes 6CC to get it out... Oh, Living Death, nice one. Damnation when it's too late for Living Death.
As far as I can see you have the bases covered. Maybe add a few black cards to target yourself with like Hymn to Tourach, Blackmail, or Abandon Hope. Definitely going to raise an eyebrow when you play Blackmail on yourself, reveal three of your own cards and then trash one. They won't know what's happening.
I could see my hand lining up just god-awesome or god-awful with this thing. (and yeah, cycling Aboms early is extremely helpful.) Hopefully multiplayer format might buy me some time until I can set up and draw into bombs. I'm trying this out tonight I think.
Also want to rebuild the Elf deck here lately. Probably posting something over there shortly.
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