With the release of Varina, Lich Queen, this deck finally has a proper Zombie general at the helm.
Coming up with something non-artifact centered in Esper was difficult; eventually I will give in and just make an Esper artifact deck with Sydri, Galvanic Genius or Sharuum the Hegemon at the helm, but today is not that day. After the release of Amonkhet and zombies moving into white, it made sense to me to finally build a Zombie tribal deck.
I chose Oloro as my commander so that I wouldn’t have to worry about running as many card draw spells in the maindeck. The general plan is to run normal black recursion spells and let that and Oloro’s ability become my mid-to-late game card advantage strategy. My runners-up to lead the deck were Zur the Enchanter and Ertai the Corrupted, both of which ended up missing the final cut of the deck but may make an appearance at some point.
Right now, it’s a work in progress. I’m wondering if I need to add permission, add more recursion, add more removal, etc., but I won’t really know for sure until I start playing the deck and find out. Honestly, I had trouble just getting the deck down to 100 cards to begin playing…
Special thanks to everyone who responded to this thread and helped me pick my commander. Going into this, I figured Zur the Enchanter or Merieke Ri Berit would be best, but the input from that thread made me seriously consider both Oloro and Ertai as a possibility.
-1 Boneknitter - I'm not that hard up for 2-drops and this is a pretty bad tribal payoff card
-1 Metallic Mimic - Fine card that misses out on some of the Zombie synergies plus its a non-bo with Mikaeus
-1 Adaptive Automaton - Another card that misses out on some Zombie synergies
-1 Havengul Runebinder - Hard to cast with UU in the casting cost, plus it affects both the recursion engines and Mikaeus
-1 Endless Ranks of the Dead - This card is terrible
+1 Sign in Blood - The deck needed a little nudge in the card advantage department
+1 Night's Whisper - Ditto
+1 Oversold Cemetery - A perfectly in-theme long-term recursion engine to help offset losses due to board wipes
+1 Burnished Hart - With the addition of cemetery and the need to fix my mana, this made sense to add
+1 Necrotic Sliver - Another catch-all removal spell that can be recurred
9/2/2017:
-1 Flooded Strand, +1 Sunken Ruins - I meant to only include fetches that could get Swamps, so Flooded Strand seemed like a natural card to pull for Ruins. I wanted Sunken Ruins in the deck to help with the double blue on the next card.
-1 Phyrexian Arena, +1 Kindred Discovery - Trading a slow card advantage source for a potentially busted one.
-1 Burnished Hart, +1 Herald's Horn - So I screwed up with the original build when I forgot to add in a basic Island and Plains to fetch with Burnished Hart, so I decided to pull Hart instead of adding lands that don't tap for black. Herald's Horn is essentially a colorless mana source for over half the non-land cards as well as a source of CA.
-1 Swamp, +1 Heirloom Blade - I decided to shave a land in exchange for The Blade, which should be excellent in this deck (especially when I get something like Unholy Grotto running.
-1 Gravecrawler, +1 Vindictive Lich - I wanted to upgrade Gravecrawler and Lich seems like a fantastic Zombie add.
-1 Swamp, +1 Phyrexian Tower - I wanted to add a sac outlet and this made it over High Market
Right now, the deck is almost mono-black, with only 5 cards that touch white and 7 cards that touch blue. For the most part, this is fine with me given how mono-black the Zombie tribe feels.
And because the deck is Zombie Tribal themed, there are a lot of Esper cards that we simply don’t have room for (although I’m not really high on cards like Esper Charm or Dromar's Charm anyway). I’m also running close to nothing that would combo with Oloro (Archangel of Thune, Drogskol Reaver, Well of Lost Dreams, etc.).
One of the fun things about the deck is that it has so many Lords (i.e. cards that give all Zombies +1/+1) in the deck. All of that combos very well with the various Zombie token makers to produce some frighteningly large armies without committing too many creatures to the board (at least, not too many relative to what most tribal decks would have to put out). Zombies also have lots of in-theme cards for recursion, removal, and card draw so I'm not having to branch out of the Zombie theme very often to get what the deck wants/needs.
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to try to play a lot with this, Derevi, Vorel, and Progenitus to try and get those decks off the ground. It should be interesting, but in the meantime I'm very open to suggestions. Thanks.
-1 Boneknitter - I'm not that hard up for 2-drops and this is a pretty bad tribal payoff card
-1 Metallic Mimic - Fine card that misses out on some of the Zombie synergies plus its a non-bo with Mikaeus
-1 Adaptive Automaton - Another card that misses out on some Zombie synergies
-1 Havengul Runebinder - Hard to cast with UU in the casting cost, plus it affects both the recursion engines and Mikaeus
-1 Endless Ranks of the Dead - This card is terrible
+1 Sign in Blood - The deck needed a little nudge in the card advantage department
+1 Night's Whisper - Ditto
+1 Oversold Cemetery - A perfectly in-theme long-term recursion engine to help offset losses due to board wipes
+1 Burnished Hart - With the addition of cemetery and the need to fix my mana, this made sense to add
+1 Necrotic Sliver - Another catch-all removal spell that can be recurred
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
I've got 17 cards that make Zombie tokens, but it doesn't make sense to put in something that synergizes only with the tokens and not the rest of the deck. I think I might consider Temmet if he was a Zombie, but not as-is. And Annointed Procession is a good card, but I think I would need way more token production to make it worth it (for example, my Rhys token deck has 30 cards that make tokens including the commander, so Procession is well worth it there).
So we have another set with Zombies galore in Hour of Devastation, so we have a few cards worth looking at:
Accursed Horde - I understand why it only works on attacking Zombies and not all the time, but that may make it just bad enough to not make the deck. Dunes of the Dead - If I was running Dust Bowl, Death Cloud, and some of the Pox variants, I would strongly consider this. Grind//Dust - I'm not tossing around a lot of -1/-1 counters (with Dark Salvation being the exception), but being able to exile up to two creatures for 6 total mana seems like it should be worth it. Ifnir Deadlands - Another way to get -1/-1 counters on a creature for Grind/Dust, but its potentially a solid card to include with little opportunity cost due to it being a land. Mummy Paramount - I can see this being larger than 2/2 on pretty much every turn, with getting it pumped up to impressive power not out of the question due to Lords and token-creation. The Scarab God - 100% inclusion. Unconventional Tactics - If I was running more discard outlets like Zombie Infestation then I would definitely run this, but as the deck stands right now I don't think I can justify including it. Unraveling Mummy - I really like the card, but the abilities are so expensive to use and again only work on attacking Zombies. Its kind of a bummer, but I don't think I can include this.
After all that, and comparing all the possibilities with what I was already running, I ended up only going +1 The Scarab God, -1 Army of the Damned. AotD is a great card, but I'm not getting to 8-10 mana very often and I hate that the stupid zombies ETB tapped.
-1 Flooded Strand, +1 Sunken Ruins - I meant to only include fetches that could get Swamps, so Flooded Strand seemed like a natural card to pull for Ruins. I wanted Sunken Ruins in the deck to help with the double blue on the next card.
-1 Phyrexian Arena, +1 Kindred Discovery - Trading a slow card advantage source for a potentially busted one.
-1 Burnished Hart, +1 Herald's Horn - So I screwed up with the original build when I forgot to add in a basic Island and Plains to fetch with Burnished Hart, so I decided to pull Hart instead of adding lands that don't tap for black. Herald's Horn is essentially a colorless mana source for over half the non-land cards as well as a source of CA.
-1 Swamp, +1 Heirloom Blade - I decided to shave a land in exchange for The Blade, which should be excellent in this deck (especially when I get something like Unholy Grotto running.
-1 Gravecrawler, +1 Vindictive Lich - I wanted to upgrade Gravecrawler and Lich seems like a fantastic Zombie add.
-1 Swamp, +1 Phyrexian Tower - I wanted to add a sac outlet and this made it over High Market
EDIT:
I haven't updated a few decks on here in a while, so I thought I would go through and see what changes I've made and/or should make.
With no Zombies in either Ixalan or Rivals of Ixalan, I pretty much skipped most of the creatures. There were some interesting cards to look at, especially ones that had tribal synergies.
Ixalan Pillar of Origins - So I'm not running Azorius Signet because it can't make black mana, but another potential mana rock that can make any color I need has some potential. Right now I'm running a 35 creature - 29 non-creature split, so it can only be used to cast 54% of my spells. I think that if the creature count goes up then this will potentially see some time in the deck.
Unclaimed Territory - Similar issue to Pillar of Origins, but the fact that it can tap for colorless to help cast non-Zombie cards makes it more appealing. I think I want to potentially take out Vault of Archangel to put this in to at least try it out; it's not like I'm activating Vault all that often and I don't want to dilute the number of Swamps in the deck any further.
Vanquisher's Banner - This seems like a shoe-in as long as the 5-mana CMC isn't an issue.
Rivals of Ixalan Twilight Prophet - This is one of those cards that I see becoming a potential staple in any deck that can reasonably expect to hit 10 or more permanents (which is probably a majority of decks out there in multiplayer circles). I'm being really picky with what card draw I run here given that I have some of the best available options.
Only one interesting card in Dominaria for this deck; Josu Vess, Lich Knight. It's an efficient Zombie on his own, but the real payoff is paying 10 mana for this and getting 8 tokens as well. I think I need to squeeze another land into the deck and pull a few 5-drops (where I have a glut), but if I'm going to play such a high curve I need to tweak a few things.
With the release of C18 I have never been more excited about my Esper Zombie deck. It gives me a chance to put in a real Zombie general at the helm and add a few cards that seem pretty sweet really. I also needed to address one of main concerns with the deck; too many cards at 4-5 mana and not enough ways to get to 9-10 mana to start casting two a turn. I needed to start looking for some cheaper ways to accomplish some things in the deck while still keeping all the sweet Zombie cards that I wanted to play.
Battlebond
Sadly, there is nothing really worth talking about in Battlebond. Morphic Pool and Sea of Clouds are probably good enough to go into most builds, but I really didn't see the need to add them here.
M19 Graveyard Marshall - This is a pretty good card that has some interesting implications for the rest of the deck. This deck want to recur creatures from it's graveyard, not exile them. Cemetery Reaper and The Scarab God get a pass because they have other zombie-centric abilities and I generally don't activate their other abilities. At that point, Graveyard Marshall become just a 3/2 for BB. Liliana, Untouched by Death - A really nice add to the Zombie tribal arsenal. Open the Graves - I was really torn about this one. On the one hand, it is perfect anti-Wrath tech or in combination with a sac outlet, but on the other hand it is a 5-mana "do nothing". I decided to pull Obelisk of Urd as I felt I had to pull another "do nothing" card and something that is higher up on the mana curve. So far, the card has been pretty good. Stitcher's Supplier - I like this card in theory as cards in my graveyard are typically more valuable than cards in my library. I wish I had more use for the 1/1 body other than being a beater, but looking to make the deck cheaper it made sense to give this a solid tryout.
C18 Varina, Lich Queen - Varina is going to be my new commander. The card filtering is going to be amazing in that it will feed all sorts of recursion shenanigans, plus the creation of Zombies doesn't require exiling creatures from my graveyard. This will end up being a huge upgrade over Oloro in my opinion and this is definitely a card I've been personally looking forward to seeing printed.
I am trying to figure out Varina myself. In still not sure if the best route it a bunch of acctual zombie creatures or more instant and sorcery zombie tokens makers/removal spells that will become zombie through Varina's ability. It sounds good on paper but because the graveyard is a finite resource maybe that is not the best idea.
I really like your build and the one I'm working on is more of the same. I think these may be good for you.
Myriad Landscape: You have a bunch of swamps and this is just a ramp spell that takes up a land slot. Crypt of Agadeem You have mostly black creatures so this seems like good ramp.
Radiant Destiny one of the better anthems you can use thanks to white. Maybe replace Executioner because it costs more? Gissa's Bidding I think I saw you took this card out but was that for when the deck was Oloro? It just seems good with Varina cuz of Madness. It seems like an upgrade from Moan of the Unhallowed because I'm not sure when there is ever time I want to pay 7 Mana for 2 2/2s
I am very curious. When you cast the big reanimator sprlls like Apocalypse, Death and Bidding how can you win on the spot. The only things that standout are Wayward Servant and Gary Merchant. Is there anything else I'm missing? If there really isn't anything else maybe some tutors? Final Parting seems like a good way to ensure something good in the grave and get you closer to coffers/urborg. I do not play with these cards myself but I am strongly considering Filth along with Parting to have an instant way to Swampwalk my whole team. It is also a very easy decision to discard with Varina.
I am trying to figure out Varina myself. In still not sure if the best route it a bunch of actual zombie creatures or more instant and sorcery zombie tokens makers/removal spells that will become zombie through Varina's ability. It sounds good on paper but because the graveyard is a finite resource maybe that is not the best idea.
Crypt of Agadeem You have mostly black creatures so this seems like good ramp.
I should probably take another look at Crypt, but I don't think it would make the cut. My experience with it is that it is great in the late game, but otherwise kinda meh. For a deck that has early-mid game mana needs, I'm not sure that this is the answer.
Radiant Destiny one of the better anthems you can use thanks to white. Maybe replace Executioner because it costs more?
I don't think I would cut any of the creature Lords, especially not for a card that only gets you +1/+1. It's not recurrable, can't attack, doesn't trigger any of the Zombie synergies, etc. If a card is a "do-nothing" (a term I use for anything that is there purely for synergy), then it needs to have a much higher impact on the board. I guess I'm not nearly as high on cards that are "just an Anthem" as other people.
Gisa's Bidding I think I saw you took this card out but was that for when the deck was Oloro? It just seems good with Varina cuz of Madness. It seems like an upgrade from Moan of the Unhallowed because I'm not sure when there is ever time I want to pay 7 Mana for 2 2/2s
This is a good observation and it makes a lot of sense. I will definitely make this switch.
I am very curious. When you cast the big reanimator sprlls like Apocalypse, Death and Bidding how can you win on the spot. The only things that standout are Wayward Servant and Gary Merchant. Is there anything else I'm missing? If there really isn't anything else maybe some tutors? Final Parting seems like a good way to ensure something good in the grave and get you closer to coffers/urborg. I do not play with these cards myself but I am strongly considering Filth along with Parting to have an instant way to Swampwalk my whole team. It is also a very easy decision to discard with Varina.
Filth is interesting; I currently use Zombie Master to give my Zombies Swampwalk or Lord of the Accursed to give the team Menace and one or the other usually works fine depending on what my opponents are playing. Zombie Master is also good against non-black players with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play giving them Swamps for my Zombies to walk on... perhaps that means that Filth should probably be in the deck.
Thanks for the suggestions. My current dilemmas with the deck are a) that I have a glut of cards at 5 mana (17) and higher (~8) and not enough cards at 3 mana and under (~25), b) I'd like to fit in another land, c)I'd like to add another draw spell (probably Painful Truths), and d) I think Stitcher's Supplier and Graveyard Marshal need to come into the deck. So I know that I need to cut four 5+ drops but I really don't want to cut anything.... I think I'm just kind of waiting for something to piss me off so that I can pull it.
This looks like a cool build. It's been a while since the last post, have there been any updates since? I have a couple of thoughts on your inclusions:
I don't see Gravecrawler in here. Is there a reason for that? Don't have a copy? It's a solid inclusion for an easy zombie attack trigger or sac fodder - absolute gravy with Skullclamp too. In that vein, I recommend Carrion Feeder too - without being a disgustingly combo ready sac outlet it still provides instant speed sacrifice for death triggers.
How has Ghoulcaller Gisa worked out for you? I took my copy out of a build I pulled apart recently, and was thinking my Varina build could be the place for it. My deck isn't much for swarm though, so I wasn't totally sure.
Are you finding decent value from Gisa and Geralf? I used to run them as commander, and as much as I wanted them to work out well, they really didn't pop that much. I think they work well if you're busting out big threats every turn and making strong explosive plays around them, but they didn't do much for my low costed zombies.
How kind is Graveborn Muse to you? She seems like an auto-include here, but I left her out of my list on account of her absolutely bludgeoning my life total. I prefer to run her in a build with a few zombies, but when you have an entire horde she can really cut into your clock, and I find with this commander my life total gets chipped away reasonably quick. I currently run Midnight Reaper as a reasonable option for draw with a little less risk.
I noticed a few of your removal spells are a little on the high-costed side - Dregs of Sorrow, Zombie Apocalypse and Dark Salvation particularly. I have a couple of direct recommendations there, and one indirect - Retribution of the Meek and Citywide Bust mostly will keep your horde unscathed and clean house for you. Retribution is a bit costly to pick up these days, so I run the latter.
The other removal I run is Archfiend of Ifnir. He's in that tricky 5 CMC slot, but he's totally worth it. Because Varina's trigger causes discard anyway, you build an army, cast Archfiend, swing, and pre-combat the board just clears. He really is devastatingly good. I run a couple of other discard outlets with Forgotten Creation, Necromancer's Stockpile and Geier Reach Sanitarium, but he's worth considering nonetheless.
You mentioned in the spoilers thread that your 5CMC spot is causing some wonkiness with your curve. I can see a couple of cards around that area that might be worth considering dropping - Vengeful Pharaoh seems really conditional (as well as B heavy), Gempalm Polluter is a pretty conditional life drain too. Lastly, how often are you getting Josu Vess, Lich Knight's kicker cost to work out? It's a lot of mana to pay, and the only way to get his pals is to hardcast him, which seems rough - I don't know about you, but my list is lean for mana quite often.
The deck looks really cool. I've really enjoyed playing Varina so far, hope it's going well for you too.
This looks like a cool build. It's been a while since the last post, have there been any updates since? I have a couple of thoughts on your inclusions:
There have been some minor tweaks, but with the release of War of the Spark I'm going to do some overhauling. I haven't exactly figured out what I'm going to do, but there are some fundamental structural problems with my current build that I've been wanting to fix and it comes down to sacrificing a few sacred cows to do so.
I don't see Gravecrawler in here. Is there a reason for that? Don't have a copy? It's a solid inclusion for an easy zombie attack trigger or sac fodder - absolute gravy with Skullclamp too. In that vein, I recommend Carrion Feeder too - without being a disgustingly combo ready sac outlet it still provides instant speed sacrifice for death triggers.
I used to run Gravecrawler, but I really wasn't running much that synergized with it, so I eventually pulled it to run Vindictive Lich. I think its fine, but it was just so underwhelming when I played it that I was actively looking for a reason to pull it after a while. With that said, this all occurred before Varina was printed, and the synergy with Varina makes this much more appealing. I should reconsider it.
How has Ghoulcaller Gisa worked out for you? I took my copy out of a build I pulled apart recently, and was thinking my Varina build could be the place for it. My deck isn't much for swarm though, so I wasn't totally sure.
I'm a fan of Ghoulcaller Gisa in that it is one of the best sac outlets that generate more creature power than you put into it; it acts a lot like Krenko, Mob Boss in a Goblin deck and it helps feed recursion engines and allows you to minimally commit cards to the board and still generate a massive creature presence given enough time. If your meta supports more grindy games, then Gisa can be an all-star.
Are you finding decent value from Gisa and Geralf? I used to run them as commander, and as much as I wanted them to work out well, they really didn't pop that much. I think they work well if you're busting out big threats every turn and making strong explosive plays around them, but they didn't do much for my low costed zombies.
They are an invaluable source of card advantage in the deck and one of the better creatures to play post-Wrath. I highly recommend them.
How kind is Graveborn Muse to you? She seems like an auto-include here, but I left her out of my list on account of her absolutely bludgeoning my life total. I prefer to run her in a build with a few zombies, but when you have an entire horde she can really cut into your clock, and I find with this commander my life total gets chipped away reasonably quick. I currently run Midnight Reaper as a reasonable option for draw with a little less risk.
I've grown to be less of a fan. I usually wait to someone Wraths the board to play it, but the deck has gotten to the point where its not really a necessity anymore. The only caveat I would give you is that if your meta is full of graveyard hate then they can shut down a lot of CA engines in the deck, so in that case I would try and balance draw effects and graveyard recursion effects.
I noticed a few of your removal spells are a little on the high-costed side - Dregs of Sorrow, Zombie Apocalypse and Dark Salvation particularly. I have a couple of direct recommendations there, and one indirect - Retribution of the Meek and Citywide Bust mostly will keep your horde unscathed and clean house for you. Retribution is a bit costly to pick up these days, so I run the latter.
X4B is just one of my pet favorite cards; but I like running it in places where I don't want to Wrath the board but I need to remove multiple creatures. As it stands, I think I'm better off playing more threats and forcing others to Wrath than worrying about mass creature kill on my end. This is probably one of those sacred cows that need to go on the grill... Zombie Apocalypse isn't really a removal spell in this deck; its all about the mass reanimation. Dark Salvation was s surprise all-star removal spell. I highly recommend it.
The other removal I run is Archfiend of Ifnir. He's in that tricky 5 CMC slot, but he's totally worth it. Because Varina's trigger causes discard anyway, you build an army, cast Archfiend, swing, and pre-combat the board just clears. He really is devastatingly good. I run a couple of other discard outlets with Forgotten Creation, Necromancer's Stockpile and Geier Reach Sanitarium, but he's worth considering nonetheless.
I like the idea of running Archfiend of Ifnir. I hadn't really gone back and looked at things that might synergize well with Varina other than whether they advanced the Zombie theme or not, but this is totally better than Dregs or any other Wrath effect. I also like the idea of Necromancer's Stockpile and Geier Reach Sanitarium.
You mentioned in the spoilers thread that your 5CMC spot is causing some wonkiness with your curve. I can see a couple of cards around that area that might be worth considering dropping - Vengeful Pharaoh seems really conditional (as well as B heavy), Gempalm Polluter is a pretty conditional life drain too. Lastly, how often are you getting Josu Vess, Lich Knight's kicker cost to work out? It's a lot of mana to pay, and the only way to get his pals is to hardcast him, which seems rough - I don't know about you, but my list is lean for mana quite often.
Vengeful Pharaoh hardly ever gets played; he gets discarded to Varina and kills anything that dares attack me. Gempalm Polluter also never gets played; he gets cycled for 2 mana and gets recurred. Josu Vess, Lich Knight is okay. At 4 mana he's fine, and in a game that drags out he comes back and is a one-man army one you get to 10 mana. I guess a lot depends on your meta, but if games last enough turns then Josu Vess is pretty good.
The deck looks really cool. I've really enjoyed playing Varina so far, hope it's going well for you too.
Thanks. I liked playing Zombie tribal and the fact that there are so many cool Zombies that do interesting things makes the deck play out a little differently every time. The printing of Varina has definitely made this a much more fun deck to play. I'm looking forward to "fixing" the deck and eliminating the little sources of frustration that the mana curve has caused, and I'm definitely looking forward to playing some of the new cards like Liliana, Dreadhorde General, God-Eternal Oketra, and God-Eternal Bontu (which of course, are 5-6 mana cards so I may end up right back where I started.... grrr)
I used to run Gravecrawler, but I really wasn't running much that synergized with it, so I eventually pulled it to run Vindictive Lich. I think its fine, but it was just so underwhelming when I played it that I was actively looking for a reason to pull it after a while. With that said, this all occurred before Varina was printed, and the synergy with Varina makes this much more appealing. I should reconsider it.
I'm a fan of Ghoulcaller Gisa in that it is one of the best sac outlets that generate more creature power than you put into it; it acts a lot like Krenko, Mob Boss in a Goblin deck and it helps feed recursion engines and allows you to minimally commit cards to the board and still generate a massive creature presence given enough time. If your meta supports more grindy games, then Gisa can be an all-star.
Thanks for this feedback, I'm going to have to find some space to give her a go. She's a much better token generator than Endless Ranks of the Dead, so maybe I should cut that.
I like the idea of running Archfiend of Ifnir. I hadn't really gone back and looked at things that might synergize well with Varina other than whether they advanced the Zombie theme or not, but this is totally better than Dregs or any other Wrath effect. I also like the idea of Necromancer's Stockpile and Geier Reach Sanitarium.
Believe me, you won't regret Archfiend. It's absolutely savage, and I love that it ignores indestructible, so literally nothing is safe. I'd maybe just look at a little more looting to lean into that theme - Sanitarium and Stockpile are good for that, Cryptbreaker has the Stockpile effect attached too. I've also been wondering about finding room for Windfall, and I run Ancient Excavation as a unilateral wheel.
The cards I'm looking at cutting in the 5+ mana range are thing like Necromancer's Covenant, From Under the Floorboards, Stir the Sands, Army of the Damned, Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, and the aforementioned Dregs of Sorrow. I'm also going to probably cut Moan of the Unhallowed and Graveborn Muse from the 4-slot. I think that cutting the non-creature spells that make Zombie tokens and don't do anything else need to go as they don't have any synergy with the mass-reanimation spells, and I can get cheaper and better by sticking with creatures.
I agree with these assessments; Covenant I've looked at but damn it's not cheap. Sidisi is kind of wasted when you can dig so deep with Varina anyway, Graveborn is slightly suicidal, and Grimgrin is fairly slow. Floorboards and your other token spells are sort of underwhelming; it's something I've gone back and forth on in my build, that I have no way of reclaiming spent instants, sorceries or non-creature permanents from my yard. I've tossed up adding Possessed Skaab for this effect, as I can blink it with Aminatou, the Fateshifter, but it's still expensive and the exile is precarious. At any rate, that's my problem, not yours. I'd strongly suggest instead of spells to make tokens, find yourself a copy of Tombstone Stairwell and windmill slam that ***** in here. It's crazy good. With one of the zombie aristocrats in play you can bleed 20-30 life from the board in a single turn cycle. It takes a proper read, but it makes zombies every turn, not just every one of your turns. With Stairwell and Wayward Servant in play you can put yourself so far ahead it's stupid. Noosegraf Mob has been really good in that respect too - it's a cute little reactive combo with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, but generally it gives great value anyway.
As far as new adds, this set is really exciting for my build as much as yours. The God-Eternals could all fit in theoretically - Kefnet more in a Miracle Build, but Bontu and Oketra both look crazy good for a tribal build. I'm less excited than you about Liliana, Dreadhorde General, purely for her CMC. I sort of like Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord actually. Well costed reanimation and lifelink in one card isn't bad at all. The most recent spoil, Command the Dreadhorde looks pretty cool too. We've got the lifegain to support it, so it becomes sort of a pick-and-choose Rise of the Dark Realms mini. Could be fun.
I noticed that you weren't running Rooftop Storm. Any reason for that? Yes, it's 6 mana, but once you cast it, you get to dump the rest of the zombies from your hand into play. It also synergizes fantastically with Havenghoul Lich.
Are you intentionally avoiding infinite combos here?
I've found Gravecrawler to be really excellent, even outside of comboing off for a few reasons: you want early drops to attack the turn you drop Varina, you don't mind discarding it to Varina since you can easily re-cast it after combat, saving other cards in your hand, and it can make for some crazy turns with a free sac outlet in play. On the last, even without going infinite, you could spend a turn sacrificing and casting it to trigger your various drain effects on zombies entering or dying, possibly also creating a bunch of tokens if you have Colossus or Open the Graves in play. With Kindred in play, this also reads pay B: draw a card.
I definitely found that anything costing more than 6 wasn't worth playing, including Josu (cast with kicker once normally, and once with Rooftop Storm out, which was great, but hasn't happened again) and Army of the Damned (cast only once).
I've been a huge fan of Graveborn Muse. Worst case, I've sacrificed it before my turn to avoid the trigger, but with the little incidental lifegain from Varina, Wayward Servant, and Bontu's Monument (in my build), I've normally had the life available to make it work.
I also included Phyrexian Altar in my list since it's a solid sac outlet, can be mana acceleration and color fixing when needed, and goes infinite with a few cards in the deck without really being a dead slot. My goal hasn't been to combo off, usually. I generally play it as an aggressive zombie horde deck that sometimes can just win out of nowhere thanks to all the draw going on.
My most frequent tutor target is Noxious Ghoul or a mass reanimate spell, since nothing feels as good as Patriarch's Bidding our a bunch of zombies along with Noxious to kill everything my opponents' returned. Because of this, I've stayed away from playing non-zombies (not to mention that 2 of the 3 reanimation spells we run won't bring them back). I had had The Scarab God in for a while, but found that I very rarely cast him, and never activated his ability, although his passive was useful in one game.
I'm excited for the new Oketra, and may include Open the Graves if I can figure out what to drop for it. I also want to try out a couple of the cheaper zombies that come with Amass for two early bodies.
I noticed that you weren't running Rooftop Storm. Any reason for that? Yes, it's 6 mana, but once you cast it, you get to dump the rest of the zombies from your hand into play. It also synergizes fantastically with Havenghoul Lich.
To be honest, Rooftop Storm just seemed 'too cute' to be a real card for this deck, but it seems like more than a few people think very highly of it. I'm seriously considering adding it in.
Are you intentionally avoiding infinite combos here?
Yes.
I've found Gravecrawler to be really excellent, even outside of comboing off for a few reasons: you want early drops to attack the turn you drop Varina, you don't mind discarding it to Varina since you can easily re-cast it after combat, saving other cards in your hand, and it can make for some crazy turns with a free sac outlet in play. On the last, even without going infinite, you could spend a turn sacrificing and casting it to trigger your various drain effects on zombies entering or dying, possibly also creating a bunch of tokens if you have Colossus or Open the Graves in play. With Kindred in play, this also reads pay B: draw a card.
Gravecrawler is going to be added back into the deck as I agree with both you and toctheyounger77 on this one.
I definitely found that anything costing more than 6 wasn't worth playing, including Josu (cast with kicker once normally, and once with Rooftop Storm out, which was great, but hasn't happened again) and Army of the Damned (cast only once).
If you see my last post, I'm in the process of purging a lot of high CMC cards. Josu Vess, Lich Knight is probably going to stay in the deck; I like that he can be a 4/5 for 4 mana or a Cabal Coffers-fueled one-card army. Having some scalable payoffs like that is important.
I've been a huge fan of Graveborn Muse. Worst case, I've sacrificed it before my turn to avoid the trigger, but with the little incidental lifegain from Varina, Wayward Servant, and Bontu's Monument (in my build), I've normally had the life available to make it work.
Graveborn Muse is fine, but I've been wondering whether it is really necessary. The deck is now chock-full of CA engines, so I can be choosy about what I want to run. Perhaps if I added a few more sac outlets I would be less inclined to cut it. I'm still one fence about this one.
I also included Phyrexian Altar in my list since it's a solid sac outlet, can be mana acceleration and color fixing when needed, and goes infinite with a few cards in the deck without really being a dead slot. My goal hasn't been to combo off, usually. I generally play it as an aggressive zombie horde deck that sometimes can just win out of nowhere thanks to all the draw going on.
I love me some Phyrexian Altar, but I'm not really sold on that being a direction I want to go here.
My most frequent tutor target is Noxious Ghoul or a mass reanimate spell, since nothing feels as good as Patriarch's Bidding our a bunch of zombies along with Noxious to kill everything my opponents' returned. Because of this, I've stayed away from playing non-zombies (not to mention that 2 of the 3 reanimation spells we run won't bring them back). I had had The Scarab God in for a while, but found that I very rarely cast him, and never activated his ability, although his passive was useful in one game.
There are a few really good non-Zombie exceptions that are worth it to me. I'm particularly a fan of The Scarab God for both his upkeep trigger and the fact that his activated ability can hit opposing graveyards and help make sure my opponents get as little as possible from the Living Death effects.
I'm excited for the new Oketra, and may include Open the Graves if I can figure out what to drop for it. I also want to try out a couple of the cheaper zombies that come with Amass for two early bodies.
The cards that I think I'm going to try from War of the Spark are as follows: God-Eternal Oketra - This is a slam dunk that will likely require a few small tweaks to the mana that I'll be more than happy to make. Commence the Endgame - So I don't want to go too crazy with non-black Amass cards, but I like this one a lot (at least in principal; how it actually will play out I don't know) Dreadhorde Invasion - Yes, it's not Bitterblossom, but I feel that this card will fill a nice spot in the curve and can provide tons of value over the course of the game. Finale of Eternity - I like removal that gives me options to destroy multiple creatures without wholesale wrathing the board. God-Eternal Bontu - I want this for a couple of decks, and I think this card is awesome. Lazotep Reaver - I think that getting 2 bodies for only two mana makes this potentially the best Amass creature. Liliana, Dreadhorde General - I like the Liliana Planeswalkers that generate Zombie tokens, and this one seems fantastic (even for 6 mana). Vizier of the Scorpion, Aven Eternal, Eternal Skylord - My theory on Amass is that I'm going to get a token like 95% of the time as long as I don't overdo it, so evaluating these with the token makes them probably playable given the number of tribal synergies that I'm running. I also like that the Scorpion and Skylord also grant abilities to all Zombie tokens, so as long as I don't pull too much token production from the deck these become even more desirable. I think I'm going to want to try all 3 of these in addition to Lazotep Reaver and Commence the Endgame just to kinda see how it plays out.
With the release of Varina, Lich Queen, this deck finally has a proper Zombie general at the helm.
Coming up with something non-artifact centered in Esper was difficult; eventually I will give in and just make an Esper artifact deck with Sydri, Galvanic Genius or Sharuum the Hegemon at the helm, but today is not that day. After the release of Amonkhet and zombies moving into white, it made sense to me to finally build a Zombie tribal deck.
I chose Oloro as my commander so that I wouldn’t have to worry about running as many card draw spells in the maindeck. The general plan is to run normal black recursion spells and let that and Oloro’s ability become my mid-to-late game card advantage strategy. My runners-up to lead the deck were Zur the Enchanter and Ertai the Corrupted, both of which ended up missing the final cut of the deck but may make an appearance at some point.
Right now, it’s a work in progress. I’m wondering if I need to add permission, add more recursion, add more removal, etc., but I won’t really know for sure until I start playing the deck and find out. Honestly, I had trouble just getting the deck down to 100 cards to begin playing…
Special thanks to everyone who responded to this thread and helped me pick my commander. Going into this, I figured Zur the Enchanter or Merieke Ri Berit would be best, but the input from that thread made me seriously consider both Oloro and Ertai as a possibility.
Updated through Commander 2018 – 8/31/2018
1 Varina, Lich Queen
Creatures - 34
1 Cryptbreaker
1 Relentless Dead
1 Withered Wretch
1 Shepherd of Rot
1 Wayward Servant
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Plague Belcher
1 Zombie Master
1 Cemetery Reaper
1 Death Baron
1 Lord of the Accursed
1 Lord of the Undead
1 Diregraf Captain
1 Diregraf Colossus
1 Lich Lord of Unx
1 Risen Executioner
1 Undead Warchief
1 Gisa and Geralf
1 Vengeful Dead
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Josu Vess, Lich Knight
1 Vindictive Lich
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Noxious Ghoul
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Ghoulcaller Gisa
1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
1 Havengul Lich
1 The Scarab God
1 Gempalm Polluter
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Grave Titan
1 Overseer of the Damned
1 Oversold Cemetery
1 Call to the Grave
1 Liliana's Mastery
1 Open the Graves
1 Kindred Discovery
1 Necromancer's Covenant
Instant/Sorcery - 15
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Sign in Blood
1 Night's Whisper
1 Vindicate
1 Utter End
1 Moan of the Unhallowed
1 Syphon Flesh
1 From Under the Floorboards
1 Patriarch's Bidding
1 Living Death
1 Stir the Sands
1 Zombie Apocalypse
1 Dark Salvation
1 Dregs of Sorrow
1 Army of the Damned
Planeswalker - 2
1 Liliana, Death's Majesty
1 Liliana, Untouched by Death
Artifact – 7
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Dimir Signet
1 Heirloom Blade
1 Herald's Horn
1 Door of Destinies
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
1 Sunken Hollow
1 Command Tower
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Sunken Ruins
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Unholy Grotto
1 Mutavault
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Cabal Coffers
14 Swamp
6/11/2017
-1 Boneknitter - I'm not that hard up for 2-drops and this is a pretty bad tribal payoff card
-1 Metallic Mimic - Fine card that misses out on some of the Zombie synergies plus its a non-bo with Mikaeus
-1 Adaptive Automaton - Another card that misses out on some Zombie synergies
-1 Havengul Runebinder - Hard to cast with UU in the casting cost, plus it affects both the recursion engines and Mikaeus
-1 Endless Ranks of the Dead - This card is terrible
+1 Sign in Blood - The deck needed a little nudge in the card advantage department
+1 Night's Whisper - Ditto
+1 Oversold Cemetery - A perfectly in-theme long-term recursion engine to help offset losses due to board wipes
+1 Burnished Hart - With the addition of cemetery and the need to fix my mana, this made sense to add
+1 Necrotic Sliver - Another catch-all removal spell that can be recurred
7/20/2017:
+1 The Scarab God
-1 Army of the Damned
9/2/2017:
-1 Flooded Strand, +1 Sunken Ruins - I meant to only include fetches that could get Swamps, so Flooded Strand seemed like a natural card to pull for Ruins. I wanted Sunken Ruins in the deck to help with the double blue on the next card.
-1 Phyrexian Arena, +1 Kindred Discovery - Trading a slow card advantage source for a potentially busted one.
-1 Burnished Hart, +1 Herald's Horn - So I screwed up with the original build when I forgot to add in a basic Island and Plains to fetch with Burnished Hart, so I decided to pull Hart instead of adding lands that don't tap for black. Herald's Horn is essentially a colorless mana source for over half the non-land cards as well as a source of CA.
-1 Swamp, +1 Heirloom Blade - I decided to shave a land in exchange for The Blade, which should be excellent in this deck (especially when I get something like Unholy Grotto running.
-1 Gravecrawler, +1 Vindictive Lich - I wanted to upgrade Gravecrawler and Lich seems like a fantastic Zombie add.
-1 Swamp, +1 Phyrexian Tower - I wanted to add a sac outlet and this made it over High Market
5/2/2018
-1 Unbreathing Horde, +1 Josu Vess, Lich Knight
-1 Gisa's Bidding, +1 Vanquisher's Banner
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope, +1 Army of the Damned
8/31/2018
+1 Varina, Lich Queen, -1 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - Commander change
+1 Open the Graves, -1 Obelisk of Urd
+1 Liliana, Untouched by Death, -1 Noosegraf Mob
1 Liliana's Reaver
1 Eliminate the Competition
1 Coat of Arms
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Burnished Hart
Right now, the deck is almost mono-black, with only 5 cards that touch white and 7 cards that touch blue. For the most part, this is fine with me given how mono-black the Zombie tribe feels.
And because the deck is Zombie Tribal themed, there are a lot of Esper cards that we simply don’t have room for (although I’m not really high on cards like Esper Charm or Dromar's Charm anyway). I’m also running close to nothing that would combo with Oloro (Archangel of Thune, Drogskol Reaver, Well of Lost Dreams, etc.).
One of the fun things about the deck is that it has so many Lords (i.e. cards that give all Zombies +1/+1) in the deck. All of that combos very well with the various Zombie token makers to produce some frighteningly large armies without committing too many creatures to the board (at least, not too many relative to what most tribal decks would have to put out). Zombies also have lots of in-theme cards for recursion, removal, and card draw so I'm not having to branch out of the Zombie theme very often to get what the deck wants/needs.
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to try to play a lot with this, Derevi, Vorel, and Progenitus to try and get those decks off the ground. It should be interesting, but in the meantime I'm very open to suggestions. Thanks.
-1 Boneknitter - I'm not that hard up for 2-drops and this is a pretty bad tribal payoff card
-1 Metallic Mimic - Fine card that misses out on some of the Zombie synergies plus its a non-bo with Mikaeus
-1 Adaptive Automaton - Another card that misses out on some Zombie synergies
-1 Havengul Runebinder - Hard to cast with UU in the casting cost, plus it affects both the recursion engines and Mikaeus
-1 Endless Ranks of the Dead - This card is terrible
+1 Sign in Blood - The deck needed a little nudge in the card advantage department
+1 Night's Whisper - Ditto
+1 Oversold Cemetery - A perfectly in-theme long-term recursion engine to help offset losses due to board wipes
+1 Burnished Hart - With the addition of cemetery and the need to fix my mana, this made sense to add
+1 Necrotic Sliver - Another catch-all removal spell that can be recurred
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
I've got 17 cards that make Zombie tokens, but it doesn't make sense to put in something that synergizes only with the tokens and not the rest of the deck. I think I might consider Temmet if he was a Zombie, but not as-is. And Annointed Procession is a good card, but I think I would need way more token production to make it worth it (for example, my Rhys token deck has 30 cards that make tokens including the commander, so Procession is well worth it there).
Thanks for the suggestions.
Accursed Horde - I understand why it only works on attacking Zombies and not all the time, but that may make it just bad enough to not make the deck.
Dunes of the Dead - If I was running Dust Bowl, Death Cloud, and some of the Pox variants, I would strongly consider this.
Grind//Dust - I'm not tossing around a lot of -1/-1 counters (with Dark Salvation being the exception), but being able to exile up to two creatures for 6 total mana seems like it should be worth it.
Ifnir Deadlands - Another way to get -1/-1 counters on a creature for Grind/Dust, but its potentially a solid card to include with little opportunity cost due to it being a land.
Mummy Paramount - I can see this being larger than 2/2 on pretty much every turn, with getting it pumped up to impressive power not out of the question due to Lords and token-creation.
The Scarab God - 100% inclusion.
Unconventional Tactics - If I was running more discard outlets like Zombie Infestation then I would definitely run this, but as the deck stands right now I don't think I can justify including it.
Unraveling Mummy - I really like the card, but the abilities are so expensive to use and again only work on attacking Zombies. Its kind of a bummer, but I don't think I can include this.
After all that, and comparing all the possibilities with what I was already running, I ended up only going +1 The Scarab God, -1 Army of the Damned. AotD is a great card, but I'm not getting to 8-10 mana very often and I hate that the stupid zombies ETB tapped.
-1 Flooded Strand, +1 Sunken Ruins - I meant to only include fetches that could get Swamps, so Flooded Strand seemed like a natural card to pull for Ruins. I wanted Sunken Ruins in the deck to help with the double blue on the next card.
-1 Phyrexian Arena, +1 Kindred Discovery - Trading a slow card advantage source for a potentially busted one.
-1 Burnished Hart, +1 Herald's Horn - So I screwed up with the original build when I forgot to add in a basic Island and Plains to fetch with Burnished Hart, so I decided to pull Hart instead of adding lands that don't tap for black. Herald's Horn is essentially a colorless mana source for over half the non-land cards as well as a source of CA.
-1 Swamp, +1 Heirloom Blade - I decided to shave a land in exchange for The Blade, which should be excellent in this deck (especially when I get something like Unholy Grotto running.
-1 Gravecrawler, +1 Vindictive Lich - I wanted to upgrade Gravecrawler and Lich seems like a fantastic Zombie add.
-1 Swamp, +1 Phyrexian Tower - I wanted to add a sac outlet and this made it over High Market
EDIT:
I haven't updated a few decks on here in a while, so I thought I would go through and see what changes I've made and/or should make.
With no Zombies in either Ixalan or Rivals of Ixalan, I pretty much skipped most of the creatures. There were some interesting cards to look at, especially ones that had tribal synergies.
Ixalan
Pillar of Origins - So I'm not running Azorius Signet because it can't make black mana, but another potential mana rock that can make any color I need has some potential. Right now I'm running a 35 creature - 29 non-creature split, so it can only be used to cast 54% of my spells. I think that if the creature count goes up then this will potentially see some time in the deck.
Unclaimed Territory - Similar issue to Pillar of Origins, but the fact that it can tap for colorless to help cast non-Zombie cards makes it more appealing. I think I want to potentially take out Vault of Archangel to put this in to at least try it out; it's not like I'm activating Vault all that often and I don't want to dilute the number of Swamps in the deck any further.
Vanquisher's Banner - This seems like a shoe-in as long as the 5-mana CMC isn't an issue.
Rivals of Ixalan
Twilight Prophet - This is one of those cards that I see becoming a potential staple in any deck that can reasonably expect to hit 10 or more permanents (which is probably a majority of decks out there in multiplayer circles). I'm being really picky with what card draw I run here given that I have some of the best available options.
Vona's Hunger - This is a solid, solid removal spell. I need to look at how something like Dregs of Sorrow or Necrotic Sliver is serving the deck to find a spot for it.
Battlebond
Sadly, there is nothing really worth talking about in Battlebond. Morphic Pool and Sea of Clouds are probably good enough to go into most builds, but I really didn't see the need to add them here.
M19
Graveyard Marshall - This is a pretty good card that has some interesting implications for the rest of the deck. This deck want to recur creatures from it's graveyard, not exile them. Cemetery Reaper and The Scarab God get a pass because they have other zombie-centric abilities and I generally don't activate their other abilities. At that point, Graveyard Marshall become just a 3/2 for BB.
Liliana, Untouched by Death - A really nice add to the Zombie tribal arsenal.
Open the Graves - I was really torn about this one. On the one hand, it is perfect anti-Wrath tech or in combination with a sac outlet, but on the other hand it is a 5-mana "do nothing". I decided to pull Obelisk of Urd as I felt I had to pull another "do nothing" card and something that is higher up on the mana curve. So far, the card has been pretty good.
Stitcher's Supplier - I like this card in theory as cards in my graveyard are typically more valuable than cards in my library. I wish I had more use for the 1/1 body other than being a beater, but looking to make the deck cheaper it made sense to give this a solid tryout.
C18
Varina, Lich Queen - Varina is going to be my new commander. The card filtering is going to be amazing in that it will feed all sorts of recursion shenanigans, plus the creation of Zombies doesn't require exiling creatures from my graveyard. This will end up being a huge upgrade over Oloro in my opinion and this is definitely a card I've been personally looking forward to seeing printed.
With Varina at the helm, I decided to do the following:
+1 Varina, Lich Queen, -1 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - Commander change
+1 Open the Graves, -1 Obelisk of Urd
+1 Liliana, Untouched by Death, -1 Noosegraf Mob
I'm still looking at what else to possibly cut.
I really like your build and the one I'm working on is more of the same. I think these may be good for you.
Myriad Landscape: You have a bunch of swamps and this is just a ramp spell that takes up a land slot.
Crypt of Agadeem You have mostly black creatures so this seems like good ramp.
Radiant Destiny one of the better anthems you can use thanks to white. Maybe replace Executioner because it costs more?
Gissa's Bidding I think I saw you took this card out but was that for when the deck was Oloro? It just seems good with Varina cuz of Madness. It seems like an upgrade from Moan of the Unhallowed because I'm not sure when there is ever time I want to pay 7 Mana for 2 2/2s
I am very curious. When you cast the big reanimator sprlls like Apocalypse, Death and Bidding how can you win on the spot. The only things that standout are Wayward Servant and Gary Merchant. Is there anything else I'm missing? If there really isn't anything else maybe some tutors? Final Parting seems like a good way to ensure something good in the grave and get you closer to coffers/urborg. I do not play with these cards myself but I am strongly considering Filth along with Parting to have an instant way to Swampwalk my whole team. It is also a very easy decision to discard with Varina.
I gravitate towards creatures for anything that I can mostly because they are recurrable with Oversold Cemetery, Havengul Lich, Gisa and Geralf, Lord of the Undead etc., and they make cards like Patriarch's Bidding, Living Death, Door of Destinies etc. that much better. I think that some of the token generators are too good to pass up so they make the cut, but I'd rather have a Zombie creature to do the job if at all possible.
I always forget about Myriad Landscape. I should probably put this in for something like Vault of the Archangel. Thanks.
I should probably take another look at Crypt, but I don't think it would make the cut. My experience with it is that it is great in the late game, but otherwise kinda meh. For a deck that has early-mid game mana needs, I'm not sure that this is the answer.
I don't think I would cut any of the creature Lords, especially not for a card that only gets you +1/+1. It's not recurrable, can't attack, doesn't trigger any of the Zombie synergies, etc. If a card is a "do-nothing" (a term I use for anything that is there purely for synergy), then it needs to have a much higher impact on the board. I guess I'm not nearly as high on cards that are "just an Anthem" as other people.
This is a good observation and it makes a lot of sense. I will definitely make this switch.
Instant wins only happen through Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Wayward Servant, a few activations of Lich Lord of Unx, cycling a Gempalm Polluter, or if you have enough creatures in play to trigger Plague Belcher, Diregraf Captain, Vengeful Dead enough times to kill everyone (or afterward with a sac outlet like Grimgrin, Corpse-Born). Otherwise, I would need to wait to untap to either kill them with the upkeep trigger on The Scarab god, attack with the hordes, and/or activate Shepherd of Rot.
Filth is interesting; I currently use Zombie Master to give my Zombies Swampwalk or Lord of the Accursed to give the team Menace and one or the other usually works fine depending on what my opponents are playing. Zombie Master is also good against non-black players with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play giving them Swamps for my Zombies to walk on... perhaps that means that Filth should probably be in the deck.
Thanks for the suggestions. My current dilemmas with the deck are a) that I have a glut of cards at 5 mana (17) and higher (~8) and not enough cards at 3 mana and under (~25), b) I'd like to fit in another land, c)I'd like to add another draw spell (probably Painful Truths), and d) I think Stitcher's Supplier and Graveyard Marshal need to come into the deck. So I know that I need to cut four 5+ drops but I really don't want to cut anything.... I think I'm just kind of waiting for something to piss me off so that I can pull it.
The deck looks really cool. I've really enjoyed playing Varina so far, hope it's going well for you too.
There have been some minor tweaks, but with the release of War of the Spark I'm going to do some overhauling. I haven't exactly figured out what I'm going to do, but there are some fundamental structural problems with my current build that I've been wanting to fix and it comes down to sacrificing a few sacred cows to do so.
I used to run Gravecrawler, but I really wasn't running much that synergized with it, so I eventually pulled it to run Vindictive Lich. I think its fine, but it was just so underwhelming when I played it that I was actively looking for a reason to pull it after a while. With that said, this all occurred before Varina was printed, and the synergy with Varina makes this much more appealing. I should reconsider it.
I'm a fan of Ghoulcaller Gisa in that it is one of the best sac outlets that generate more creature power than you put into it; it acts a lot like Krenko, Mob Boss in a Goblin deck and it helps feed recursion engines and allows you to minimally commit cards to the board and still generate a massive creature presence given enough time. If your meta supports more grindy games, then Gisa can be an all-star.
They are an invaluable source of card advantage in the deck and one of the better creatures to play post-Wrath. I highly recommend them.
I've grown to be less of a fan. I usually wait to someone Wraths the board to play it, but the deck has gotten to the point where its not really a necessity anymore. The only caveat I would give you is that if your meta is full of graveyard hate then they can shut down a lot of CA engines in the deck, so in that case I would try and balance draw effects and graveyard recursion effects.
X4B is just one of my pet favorite cards; but I like running it in places where I don't want to Wrath the board but I need to remove multiple creatures. As it stands, I think I'm better off playing more threats and forcing others to Wrath than worrying about mass creature kill on my end. This is probably one of those sacred cows that need to go on the grill...
Zombie Apocalypse isn't really a removal spell in this deck; its all about the mass reanimation.
Dark Salvation was s surprise all-star removal spell. I highly recommend it.
I like the idea of running Archfiend of Ifnir. I hadn't really gone back and looked at things that might synergize well with Varina other than whether they advanced the Zombie theme or not, but this is totally better than Dregs or any other Wrath effect. I also like the idea of Necromancer's Stockpile and Geier Reach Sanitarium.
Vengeful Pharaoh hardly ever gets played; he gets discarded to Varina and kills anything that dares attack me.
Gempalm Polluter also never gets played; he gets cycled for 2 mana and gets recurred.
Josu Vess, Lich Knight is okay. At 4 mana he's fine, and in a game that drags out he comes back and is a one-man army one you get to 10 mana. I guess a lot depends on your meta, but if games last enough turns then Josu Vess is pretty good.
The cards I'm looking at cutting in the 5+ mana range are thing like Necromancer's Covenant, From Under the Floorboards, Stir the Sands, Army of the Damned, Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, and the aforementioned Dregs of Sorrow. I'm also going to probably cut Moan of the Unhallowed and Graveborn Muse from the 4-slot. I think that cutting the non-creature spells that make Zombie tokens and don't do anything else need to go as they don't have any synergy with the mass-reanimation spells, and I can get cheaper and better by sticking with creatures.
Thanks. I liked playing Zombie tribal and the fact that there are so many cool Zombies that do interesting things makes the deck play out a little differently every time. The printing of Varina has definitely made this a much more fun deck to play. I'm looking forward to "fixing" the deck and eliminating the little sources of frustration that the mana curve has caused, and I'm definitely looking forward to playing some of the new cards like Liliana, Dreadhorde General, God-Eternal Oketra, and God-Eternal Bontu (which of course, are 5-6 mana cards so I may end up right back where I started.... grrr)
Yeah, Gravecrawler has been great for me. I run Corpse Connoisseur too, so I can get it in the yard pretty early. It's a nice place to put Plague Belcher's -1/-1 counters too, especially with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed in play. Pretty sure that goes infinite, actually.
Thanks for this feedback, I'm going to have to find some space to give her a go. She's a much better token generator than Endless Ranks of the Dead, so maybe I should cut that.
Believe me, you won't regret Archfiend. It's absolutely savage, and I love that it ignores indestructible, so literally nothing is safe. I'd maybe just look at a little more looting to lean into that theme - Sanitarium and Stockpile are good for that, Cryptbreaker has the Stockpile effect attached too. I've also been wondering about finding room for Windfall, and I run Ancient Excavation as a unilateral wheel.
I agree with these assessments; Covenant I've looked at but damn it's not cheap. Sidisi is kind of wasted when you can dig so deep with Varina anyway, Graveborn is slightly suicidal, and Grimgrin is fairly slow. Floorboards and your other token spells are sort of underwhelming; it's something I've gone back and forth on in my build, that I have no way of reclaiming spent instants, sorceries or non-creature permanents from my yard. I've tossed up adding Possessed Skaab for this effect, as I can blink it with Aminatou, the Fateshifter, but it's still expensive and the exile is precarious. At any rate, that's my problem, not yours. I'd strongly suggest instead of spells to make tokens, find yourself a copy of Tombstone Stairwell and windmill slam that ***** in here. It's crazy good. With one of the zombie aristocrats in play you can bleed 20-30 life from the board in a single turn cycle. It takes a proper read, but it makes zombies every turn, not just every one of your turns. With Stairwell and Wayward Servant in play you can put yourself so far ahead it's stupid. Noosegraf Mob has been really good in that respect too - it's a cute little reactive combo with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, but generally it gives great value anyway.
As far as new adds, this set is really exciting for my build as much as yours. The God-Eternals could all fit in theoretically - Kefnet more in a Miracle Build, but Bontu and Oketra both look crazy good for a tribal build. I'm less excited than you about Liliana, Dreadhorde General, purely for her CMC. I sort of like Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord actually. Well costed reanimation and lifelink in one card isn't bad at all. The most recent spoil, Command the Dreadhorde looks pretty cool too. We've got the lifegain to support it, so it becomes sort of a pick-and-choose Rise of the Dark Realms mini. Could be fun.
Are you intentionally avoiding infinite combos here?
I've found Gravecrawler to be really excellent, even outside of comboing off for a few reasons: you want early drops to attack the turn you drop Varina, you don't mind discarding it to Varina since you can easily re-cast it after combat, saving other cards in your hand, and it can make for some crazy turns with a free sac outlet in play. On the last, even without going infinite, you could spend a turn sacrificing and casting it to trigger your various drain effects on zombies entering or dying, possibly also creating a bunch of tokens if you have Colossus or Open the Graves in play. With Kindred in play, this also reads pay B: draw a card.
I definitely found that anything costing more than 6 wasn't worth playing, including Josu (cast with kicker once normally, and once with Rooftop Storm out, which was great, but hasn't happened again) and Army of the Damned (cast only once).
I've been a huge fan of Graveborn Muse. Worst case, I've sacrificed it before my turn to avoid the trigger, but with the little incidental lifegain from Varina, Wayward Servant, and Bontu's Monument (in my build), I've normally had the life available to make it work.
I also included Phyrexian Altar in my list since it's a solid sac outlet, can be mana acceleration and color fixing when needed, and goes infinite with a few cards in the deck without really being a dead slot. My goal hasn't been to combo off, usually. I generally play it as an aggressive zombie horde deck that sometimes can just win out of nowhere thanks to all the draw going on.
My most frequent tutor target is Noxious Ghoul or a mass reanimate spell, since nothing feels as good as Patriarch's Bidding our a bunch of zombies along with Noxious to kill everything my opponents' returned. Because of this, I've stayed away from playing non-zombies (not to mention that 2 of the 3 reanimation spells we run won't bring them back). I had had The Scarab God in for a while, but found that I very rarely cast him, and never activated his ability, although his passive was useful in one game.
I'm excited for the new Oketra, and may include Open the Graves if I can figure out what to drop for it. I also want to try out a couple of the cheaper zombies that come with Amass for two early bodies.
To be honest, Rooftop Storm just seemed 'too cute' to be a real card for this deck, but it seems like more than a few people think very highly of it. I'm seriously considering adding it in.
Yes.
Gravecrawler is going to be added back into the deck as I agree with both you and toctheyounger77 on this one.
If you see my last post, I'm in the process of purging a lot of high CMC cards. Josu Vess, Lich Knight is probably going to stay in the deck; I like that he can be a 4/5 for 4 mana or a Cabal Coffers-fueled one-card army. Having some scalable payoffs like that is important.
Graveborn Muse is fine, but I've been wondering whether it is really necessary. The deck is now chock-full of CA engines, so I can be choosy about what I want to run. Perhaps if I added a few more sac outlets I would be less inclined to cut it. I'm still one fence about this one.
I love me some Phyrexian Altar, but I'm not really sold on that being a direction I want to go here.
There are a few really good non-Zombie exceptions that are worth it to me. I'm particularly a fan of The Scarab God for both his upkeep trigger and the fact that his activated ability can hit opposing graveyards and help make sure my opponents get as little as possible from the Living Death effects.
The cards that I think I'm going to try from War of the Spark are as follows:
God-Eternal Oketra - This is a slam dunk that will likely require a few small tweaks to the mana that I'll be more than happy to make.
Commence the Endgame - So I don't want to go too crazy with non-black Amass cards, but I like this one a lot (at least in principal; how it actually will play out I don't know)
Dreadhorde Invasion - Yes, it's not Bitterblossom, but I feel that this card will fill a nice spot in the curve and can provide tons of value over the course of the game.
Finale of Eternity - I like removal that gives me options to destroy multiple creatures without wholesale wrathing the board.
God-Eternal Bontu - I want this for a couple of decks, and I think this card is awesome.
Lazotep Reaver - I think that getting 2 bodies for only two mana makes this potentially the best Amass creature.
Liliana, Dreadhorde General - I like the Liliana Planeswalkers that generate Zombie tokens, and this one seems fantastic (even for 6 mana).
Vizier of the Scorpion, Aven Eternal, Eternal Skylord - My theory on Amass is that I'm going to get a token like 95% of the time as long as I don't overdo it, so evaluating these with the token makes them probably playable given the number of tribal synergies that I'm running. I also like that the Scorpion and Skylord also grant abilities to all Zombie tokens, so as long as I don't pull too much token production from the deck these become even more desirable. I think I'm going to want to try all 3 of these in addition to Lazotep Reaver and Commence the Endgame just to kinda see how it plays out.