So me and my friends came up with the concept of making a Haunted Dollhouse/Creepy House deck recently as they were basically 1v3'ing my Mishra Bomb deck (which is basically some shenanigans around Stuffy dolls, Blasphemous acts and Booby Traps) and while building the actual deck, I came up with the idea behind this Horde Deck.
It is more of a story telling adventure than actually fighting off your survival. So the narrative goes like this:
Intro An evil Mastermind has been controlling the plane of Setasara for a few decades now, terrorizing the plane, forcing the dwellers to live in constant fear and in the recent months, a group of Vanquishers, hunters specialized in hunting down Vampires, Zombies and other creatures of the Night started pinpointing the location of the hiding spot of the current evil overlord of the plane. And this is where you, the planeswalkers, come in this story. You are to enter this evil overlord's lair and stop his army and potentially put an end to his reign of terror over the plane.
The Entrance is here In front of you stands the entrance to the Castle, decrepit looking and seemingly abandoned. No wonder it took years for it to be found. As you focus on the details of the house, you notice a distortion in your vision and a faint magic aura emanating from somewhere around here. As you and your allies approach the front gate, the shadowy anti-magic field starts appearing in your sight. You know exactly what will happen if you touch or try to affect the field: A quick and painful burst through your body with no result on the field. Your only chance would be to find a breach in the field. Which the Vanquishers have already found while they were scouting the area. At the back of the field, a hole in the shield leads directly into the cemetery, where most of the corpses required for the creation of undeads are kept. It's an easy way in... But your team fears a trap...
The Graveyard surrounds the back As your small team enters the disruption in the field, the hole quickly closes in front of your Vanquisher guide, leaving your troop the only one capable of reaching the house. With no way of leaving until the wall disappears. As your team assess the situation, a mob of zombies starts to rise from the grave, wanting to mess you up. You just entered the domain of this house and hell already breaks loose.
Underneath this part of the deck, a fearful opponent is found.
The retreat to the Mansion As you keep fighting, the horde of zombies keeps getting back up, their creator still up and running. Seeing no end to this, you decide to make a run for the door, a few meters away. As your team starts running, a wail is heard in your back as a lich, the source of the undeads, joins the mob of living corpses that follows you through the haunted ground and into the house. You will have to find a way to deal with all this before it piles up with whatever you will find in the vast house. In the mean time, you will have to keep moving or you might get cornered. At least it will take a moment for whatever is creeping in the mansion to find you. Boss:Havengul Lich (Only Havengul Lich is flipped this turn.)
The creeping contraptions show their noggin. As the body of the Lich falls to the ground and the undeads starts thinning out, you take some time to look at your surroundings. All around you are littered gratuitous amounts of different baubles, contraptions, dolls and other kind of robotic automatons. As the creepy environment sinks into your bones, you notice a faint humming sound... As if something a small creature was flying somewhere in the area... This might not end well.
Once the last bauble contraption is revealed, the door to the lab is found.
The Lab is buzzing with activity As you open the door, you find yourself bathed in the sight of a lab buzzing with various pitches of humming. In the back of the room, a tall figure turns around toward you. The phyrexian artificer looks at your small team, surprised such a small group made it this far into his lair. From his hand flies up a drone similar to those roaming in the house, with the unstable flight of an unattuned robot. A small turn of a compression screw later, the hornet finally launches properly, as the artificer prepares to defeat your group. Boss:Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Take a breath, only two cards are drawn this turn. But you might get unlucky.)
The Final Fight has started With the power of the artificer floating around, the various replicas of contraptions you have already destroyed starts glowing with force as various bits and pieces in the lab replicate exactly more of the nefarious contraptions and monstrosities. And you can already bet that he has more tricks up his sleeves waiting for you to discover them.
Once the bottom of the deck is reached and Mishra is killed, the Final Card is played at the beginning of the next turn.
As the artificer falls to the ground, the only thing left for your team to do. But it quickly shows that turning your back from the body of the artificer was an error. As you look back in his direction, you notice the lack of a body on the floor. You quickly find the artificer on one of the railings ornating the sides of the room, a powerstone in his hand.
From the powerstone starts emanating an attraction field. From around the room, bits and pieces flies in his direction, sticking to his body, as his artificial skin start to rip, revealing the phyrexian metal and flesh composing his body, the various chunks compounding into his skeleton. Before anyone can react, his body has grown to a gigantic size, almost touching the high ceiling, his being turned into a giant mechanical titan. Final Boss:Phyrexian Colossus
From the powerstone starts emanating a low pitched sound as a multitude of vats break open around the room, their content flowing into the body of the artificer. As your group finally manage to stop his manege, his body has already grown multiple times in size, his skin now turned an oily black, large wings ripping out of his back. Final Boss:Devouring Strossus
From the powers starts emanating a powerful pulse, ripping apart every entity in the room, including the artificer's own body, the sole exception being the members of your group, your planeswalker spark protecting your corporal integrity. As the shredded matter converge toward the stone, you start to understand what is happening: A phyrexian's grand rebirth. Final Boss:Phyrexian Rebirth
Since I tried to remain in my narrative purpose, I included some cards that either require choices or could potientally insta-kill a group if not restricted so some ruling has to be added. In this section will also be explained how the deck works since the composition of the deck isn't exactly what you would expect from an Horde deck.
Deck Setup
Setting up the deck is made easier by using at least 3 different types of sleeves. 1 to 3 color of sleeves will be used to house the cards for each phase of the deck, leaving Havengul Lich, Mishra and the 3 possible endings unsleeved for the moment. The lich and Mishra are then slipped in 1 or 2 more color of sleeves. The 3 ending cards are added in a final color of sleeves, so there is no way to differentiate between them.
The different Tiers of the deck are then shuffled apart one from another, and are then stacked like so:
1. "The Graveyard" on the very top of the deck
2. Havengul Lich
3. "The Contraptions and Horrors" in the middle
4. Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
5. "The Lab" - Before shuffling, take out a Hornet card and place it on the top of this tier once you are done shuffling (This will ensure that the engage with Mishra starts with him revealing a hornet.)
6. 1 of the ending cards, chosen at random or by one of the player (preferably at random, so you can't prepare for the final perfectly.) The other 2 are set aside.
Additional Rules
Once a Boss is reached (Final or not), the horde cannot draw more cards this turn. At the beginning of the next draw step, that card is drawn, whether or not other cards are not above it.
Mishra, the Lich and the Final Card cannot be milled. A mill attempt stops on these cards.
The Final Card is not revealed and played until Mishra, Artificer Prodigy is killed.
Specific Card Rulings and Erratas
Boneknitter - Will regenerate EVERY other zombie once per turn.
Havengul Lich - Will resurrect 1 creature per turn per player. Destroy Grave Betrayal when Havengul Lich dies. Exile any first tier cards revived by the Lich when they leave play.
Crown of Doom - Will give the Crown of Doom to a random player.
Stuffy Doll - Does not attack with stuffy doll unless it has some attack value. Will always block the creature with the highest attack value that doesn't have trample. If every creatures have trample, it will block at random. At the end of the survivors turn, if it has done nothing since the beginning of the turn of the Horde, it will use its effect.
Jinxed Idol - Will always give the idol to the player with the lowest amount of creature and will only sac Hornets to it but will do it as soon as he obtains it.
Etherium Abomination - Will only Unearth after Mishra has been revealed but will automatically do so at the next upkeep of the horde afterward.
Jhoira's Toolbox - Will regenerate cards named Jhoira's Toolbox only once per turn but will attempt to regenerate other creatures every time required. (2 Jhoira's Toolbox will regenerate themselves and the other once each, making them regenerate 2 times per turn.) Removing the Jhoira's Toolbox will not cause it to use all it's regeneration it has available.
Mishra - Will always pull from the graveyard first with his ability. The Final Card remains at the bottom of the library at all time, even after a shuffle.
As far as the balancing goes, I haven't had the chance to try the list yet so I am not sure how hard or easy it is so I have no idea how fast/slow the deck should be with pulling out the cards. Since after all, with Mishra out, hitting a single string of 5 tokens would bring out a total of 10 tokens on the board, 5 from the deck, 5 from the grave.
looks VERY complicated but sounds really cool i think.
legion loyalist looks VERY out of place; torpor orb looks like it might be neutering a bit too much the horde's own deck.
also, you might wanna consider having a endless ranks of the dead in play as the zombie horde starts, for art's sake.
its nice seeing a horde deck amongst the massive onslaught from tiny leaders decklists on this forum! keep brewing, and let me know how it goes
I feel that between the 3 Deathgreeters, the Abattoir Ghouls, the Hag, the Gravecrawlers and the Lich, the Graveyard has already a lot of ways to virtually "increase" it's decksize for me to add endless ranks of the dead.
Legion Loyalist do feel out of place, I agree. But I don't see how I can give the horde evasion while staying in Grixis colors and not adding any legendary (Because I could put Vela, but I don't know how I feel about the narrative at that point.)
And finally, Torpor orb stops only 2 cards in the horde's deck: It stops stuffy doll from targetting the survivors and it stops Reiver Demon (which is a shame).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks:
MODERN: RG Shamanism RG WUG Blades of the Avatars WUG
Yeah! Thanks to the beautiful Traproot, I now have a banner for the deck, which is now my link to this post in my sign.
Also, slight list update recently. The deck lost some strength but lost some price too. The tokens are less oppressive too but there is now blow outs in the tokens. (3 Myrs < 3 Hornets but 3 Hornets < 1 Wurm Lifelink)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks:
MODERN: RG Shamanism RG WUG Blades of the Avatars WUG
So me and my friends came up with the concept of making a Haunted Dollhouse/Creepy House deck recently as they were basically 1v3'ing my Mishra Bomb deck (which is basically some shenanigans around Stuffy dolls, Blasphemous acts and Booby Traps) and while building the actual deck, I came up with the idea behind this Horde Deck.
It is more of a story telling adventure than actually fighting off your survival. So the narrative goes like this:
Intro
An evil Mastermind has been controlling the plane of Setasara for a few decades now, terrorizing the plane, forcing the dwellers to live in constant fear and in the recent months, a group of Vanquishers, hunters specialized in hunting down Vampires, Zombies and other creatures of the Night started pinpointing the location of the hiding spot of the current evil overlord of the plane. And this is where you, the planeswalkers, come in this story. You are to enter this evil overlord's lair and stop his army and potentially put an end to his reign of terror over the plane.
The Entrance is here
In front of you stands the entrance to the Castle, decrepit looking and seemingly abandoned. No wonder it took years for it to be found. As you focus on the details of the house, you notice a distortion in your vision and a faint magic aura emanating from somewhere around here. As you and your allies approach the front gate, the shadowy anti-magic field starts appearing in your sight. You know exactly what will happen if you touch or try to affect the field: A quick and painful burst through your body with no result on the field. Your only chance would be to find a breach in the field. Which the Vanquishers have already found while they were scouting the area. At the back of the field, a hole in the shield leads directly into the cemetery, where most of the corpses required for the creation of undeads are kept. It's an easy way in... But your team fears a trap...
The Graveyard surrounds the back
As your small team enters the disruption in the field, the hole quickly closes in front of your Vanquisher guide, leaving your troop the only one capable of reaching the house. With no way of leaving until the wall disappears. As your team assess the situation, a mob of zombies starts to rise from the grave, wanting to mess you up. You just entered the domain of this house and hell already breaks loose.
3 Deathgreeter
4 Undead Servant
2 Abattoir Ghoul
1 Boneknitter
2 Brain Gorgers
1 Grave Betrayal
1 Grave Titan
1 Butcher Ghoul
1 Death Baron
2 Diregraf Captain
Underneath this part of the deck, a fearful opponent is found.
The retreat to the Mansion
As you keep fighting, the horde of zombies keeps getting back up, their creator still up and running. Seeing no end to this, you decide to make a run for the door, a few meters away. As your team starts running, a wail is heard in your back as a lich, the source of the undeads, joins the mob of living corpses that follows you through the haunted ground and into the house. You will have to find a way to deal with all this before it piles up with whatever you will find in the vast house. In the mean time, you will have to keep moving or you might get cornered. At least it will take a moment for whatever is creeping in the mansion to find you.
Boss:Havengul Lich (Only Havengul Lich is flipped this turn.)
The creeping contraptions show their noggin.
As the body of the Lich falls to the ground and the undeads starts thinning out, you take some time to look at your surroundings. All around you are littered gratuitous amounts of different baubles, contraptions, dolls and other kind of robotic automatons. As the creepy environment sinks into your bones, you notice a faint humming sound... As if something a small creature was flying somewhere in the area... This might not end well.
1 Crown of Doom
1 Rusted Relic
2 Stuffy Doll
1 Creepy Doll
1 Glaze Fiend
1 Etherium Abomination
2 Master of Etherium
1 Ward of Bones
1 Jinxed Idol
1 Gemini Engine
1 Torpor Orb
1 Viseling
1 Reiver Demon
1 Plague Wind
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Archetype of Aggression
1 Ankh of Mishra
1 Jhoira's Toolbox
10 Hornet
17 Myr 1/1
1 Wurm 3/3 deathtouch
1 Wurm 3/3 lifelink
4 Golem 3/3
Once the last bauble contraption is revealed, the door to the lab is found.
The Lab is buzzing with activity
As you open the door, you find yourself bathed in the sight of a lab buzzing with various pitches of humming. In the back of the room, a tall figure turns around toward you. The phyrexian artificer looks at your small team, surprised such a small group made it this far into his lair. From his hand flies up a drone similar to those roaming in the house, with the unstable flight of an unattuned robot. A small turn of a compression screw later, the hornet finally launches properly, as the artificer prepares to defeat your group.
Boss:Mishra, Artificer Prodigy (Take a breath, only two cards are drawn this turn. But you might get unlucky.)
The Final Fight has started
With the power of the artificer floating around, the various replicas of contraptions you have already destroyed starts glowing with force as various bits and pieces in the lab replicate exactly more of the nefarious contraptions and monstrosities. And you can already bet that he has more tricks up his sleeves waiting for you to discover them.
1 Wurm 3/3 deathtouch
1 Wurm 3/3 lifelink
8 Myr 1/1
1 Golem 9/9
4 Golem 3/3
1 Crumbling Colossus
3 Rusted Relic
1 Jinxed Idol
1 Glaze Fiend
1 Creepy Doll
2 Etherium Abomination
1 Master of Etherium
2 Stuffy Doll
2 Voodoo Doll
2 March of the Machines
1 Viseling
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Archetype of Imagination
1 Phyrexian Tyranny
1 Ankh of Mishra
1 Archetype of Finality
1 Jhoira's Toolbox
Once the bottom of the deck is reached and Mishra is killed, the Final Card is played at the beginning of the next turn.
Final Boss: Phyrexian Colossus
Final Boss: Devouring Strossus
Final Boss: Phyrexian Rebirth
Deck Setup
Setting up the deck is made easier by using at least 3 different types of sleeves. 1 to 3 color of sleeves will be used to house the cards for each phase of the deck, leaving Havengul Lich, Mishra and the 3 possible endings unsleeved for the moment. The lich and Mishra are then slipped in 1 or 2 more color of sleeves. The 3 ending cards are added in a final color of sleeves, so there is no way to differentiate between them.
The different Tiers of the deck are then shuffled apart one from another, and are then stacked like so:
1. "The Graveyard" on the very top of the deck
2. Havengul Lich
3. "The Contraptions and Horrors" in the middle
4. Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
5. "The Lab" - Before shuffling, take out a Hornet card and place it on the top of this tier once you are done shuffling (This will ensure that the engage with Mishra starts with him revealing a hornet.)
6. 1 of the ending cards, chosen at random or by one of the player (preferably at random, so you can't prepare for the final perfectly.) The other 2 are set aside.
Additional Rules
Once a Boss is reached (Final or not), the horde cannot draw more cards this turn. At the beginning of the next draw step, that card is drawn, whether or not other cards are not above it.
Mishra, the Lich and the Final Card cannot be milled. A mill attempt stops on these cards.
The Final Card is not revealed and played until Mishra, Artificer Prodigy is killed.
Specific Card Rulings and Erratas
Boneknitter - Will regenerate EVERY other zombie once per turn.
Havengul Lich - Will resurrect 1 creature per turn per player. Destroy Grave Betrayal when Havengul Lich dies. Exile any first tier cards revived by the Lich when they leave play.
Crown of Doom - Will give the Crown of Doom to a random player.
Stuffy Doll - Does not attack with stuffy doll unless it has some attack value. Will always block the creature with the highest attack value that doesn't have trample. If every creatures have trample, it will block at random. At the end of the survivors turn, if it has done nothing since the beginning of the turn of the Horde, it will use its effect.
Jinxed Idol - Will always give the idol to the player with the lowest amount of creature and will only sac Hornets to it but will do it as soon as he obtains it.
Etherium Abomination - Will only Unearth after Mishra has been revealed but will automatically do so at the next upkeep of the horde afterward.
Jhoira's Toolbox - Will regenerate cards named Jhoira's Toolbox only once per turn but will attempt to regenerate other creatures every time required. (2 Jhoira's Toolbox will regenerate themselves and the other once each, making them regenerate 2 times per turn.) Removing the Jhoira's Toolbox will not cause it to use all it's regeneration it has available.
Mishra - Will always pull from the graveyard first with his ability. The Final Card remains at the bottom of the library at all time, even after a shuffle.
3 Deathgreeter
4 Undead Servant
2 Abattoir Ghoul
1 Boneknitter
2 Brain Gorgers
1 Grave Betrayal
1 Grave Titan
1 Butcher Ghoul
1 Death Baron
2 Diregraf Captain
1 Crown of Doom
1 Rusted Relic
2 Stuffy Doll
1 Creepy Doll
1 Glaze Fiend
1 Etherium Abomination
2 Master of Etherium
1 Ward of Bones
1 Jinxed Idol
1 Gemini Engine
1 Torpor Orb
1 Viseling
1 Reiver Demon
1 Plague Wind
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Archetype of Aggression
1 Ankh of Mishra
1 Jhoira's Toolbox
10 Hornet
17 Myr 1/1
1 Wurm 3/3 deathtouch
1 Wurm 3/3 lifelink
4 Golem 3/3
1 Wurm 3/3 deathtouch
1 Wurm 3/3 lifelink
8 Myr 1/1
1 Golem 9/9
4 Golem 3/3
1 Crumbling Colossus
3 Rusted Relic
1 Jinxed Idol
1 Glaze Fiend
1 Creepy Doll
2 Etherium Abomination
1 Master of Etherium
2 Stuffy Doll
2 Voodoo Doll
2 March of the Machines
1 Viseling
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Archetype of Imagination
1 Phyrexian Tyranny
1 Ankh of Mishra
1 Archetype of Finality
1 Jhoira's Toolbox
1 Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
1 Phyrexian Colossus
1 Devouring Strossus
1 Phyrexian Rebirth
As far as the balancing goes, I haven't had the chance to try the list yet so I am not sure how hard or easy it is so I have no idea how fast/slow the deck should be with pulling out the cards. Since after all, with Mishra out, hitting a single string of 5 tokens would bring out a total of 10 tokens on the board, 5 from the deck, 5 from the grave.
MODERN:
RG Shamanism RG
WUG Blades of the Avatars WUG
LEGACY:
WUBRG Cascabalance WUBRG
Made by the amazing Traproot
"Some say the clockwork doesn't speak... I say they are deaf to it's voice." -Daeren, Artificer Druid.
Archester Revival (Custom Steampunk set)
legion loyalist looks VERY out of place; torpor orb looks like it might be neutering a bit too much the horde's own deck.
also, you might wanna consider having a endless ranks of the dead in play as the zombie horde starts, for art's sake.
its nice seeing a horde deck amongst the massive onslaught from tiny leaders decklists on this forum! keep brewing, and let me know how it goes
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I feel that between the 3 Deathgreeters, the Abattoir Ghouls, the Hag, the Gravecrawlers and the Lich, the Graveyard has already a lot of ways to virtually "increase" it's decksize for me to add endless ranks of the dead.
Legion Loyalist do feel out of place, I agree. But I don't see how I can give the horde evasion while staying in Grixis colors and not adding any legendary (Because I could put Vela, but I don't know how I feel about the narrative at that point.)
And finally, Torpor orb stops only 2 cards in the horde's deck: It stops stuffy doll from targetting the survivors and it stops Reiver Demon (which is a shame).
MODERN:
RG Shamanism RG
WUG Blades of the Avatars WUG
LEGACY:
WUBRG Cascabalance WUBRG
Made by the amazing Traproot
"Some say the clockwork doesn't speak... I say they are deaf to it's voice." -Daeren, Artificer Druid.
Archester Revival (Custom Steampunk set)
Also, slight list update recently. The deck lost some strength but lost some price too. The tokens are less oppressive too but there is now blow outs in the tokens. (3 Myrs < 3 Hornets but 3 Hornets < 1 Wurm Lifelink)
MODERN:
RG Shamanism RG
WUG Blades of the Avatars WUG
LEGACY:
WUBRG Cascabalance WUBRG
Made by the amazing Traproot
"Some say the clockwork doesn't speak... I say they are deaf to it's voice." -Daeren, Artificer Druid.
Archester Revival (Custom Steampunk set)