Nantuko Husk over Rotting Rats is a good idea, thanks for the suggestion. Blasting Station is nice & I could see in working it certain situations. Plague Belcher is interesting, a friend also recommended it to me. Doesn't quite fill the sac outlet role but killing a creature would be a bonus for me, 5/4 with menace is sweet, plus you get a pseudo-Zulaport Cutthroat effect...what's not to like?
Heretical Healer could be worth testing. I don't think she's really where you want to be, but she could be a good tool for grindy games. Deaths Majesty has been tempting for the SB too but 5 mana is a lot and she's probably not necessary.
I personally don't think Amalgam is worth it. Not a lot of good ways to abuse him and adding another color for a 3 mana 3/3 with no abilities doesn't seem great. You would for sure have to cut Mutavault if you went that route, and you'd need to be prepared to take more damage from your mana base. Yeah Binding Mummy is reeeeeally good against other creature decks. Can use it defensively to tap down attackers with Vial/Cryptbreaker, but he really gets nuts when paired with Diregraf Colossus to tap down blockers.
Yeah my Vial counters usually depends on my hand, board state, and what I know or suspect about my opponent's hand. If I have a Plague Belcher in hand I'll almost always Vial up to 3, unless I have a line like: hard cast Belcher to kill Relentless Dead, pay B to return to hand, Vial Relentless back in. But even then sometimes it's better to Vial up to 3. Belcher is just so good off of Vial. The absolute dream is to have 2 vials so you don't have to pick 2 or 3, but that's rare obviously.
Well some of the obvious ones are like Belcher to kill Gravecrawler post combat and re-cast, especially with Wayward Servant or Diregraf Colossus or something out. There's just sooo much synergy in this deck. I find new lines every time I bring it out.
It's slow, but once you get the ball rolling you have so much inevitability. A lot of wins come from getting in a few early attacks with Gravecrawler and then grinding out board stalls. Stalls are very good for us, because our ETB/'dies' triggers will get the job done without having to open ourselves up.
So I fired up my version of your list last night for the first time against some friends, went 1-2 which is fine - I'm still learning the deck.
I have your exact manabase but -1 Swamp +1 Mutavault
Mainboard I have your list but:
+2 Prized Amalgam (was thinking recursion from yard, and Cavern also lets me cast it from hand)
+1 Binding Mummy
+1 Colossus
+1 Path to Exile
-1 Cryptbreaker
-2 Death Baron (stoked he's getting a reprint - he's my only proxy at the moment til Core 19 comes out)
-1 Wayward Servant
-1 Altar's Reap
I don't have my sideboard set up properly yet, it had a couple extra paths, Lili, Brutality, but missing Fragmentize, Worship, and Anguished Unmaking which I think will be essential. So post board games weren't as good as they could've been.
I won against BW Tokens, it's grindy enough that we can get into our gameplan. It got to decently late game, and I landed a Blasting Station with a Wayward and Binding on board and 4 black mana, with Crawler in the yard. He had 4 tokens form Lingering Souls and Bitterblossom that were pumped with Sorin (+1/+0 and lifelink), and an Intangible Virtue (all +1/+1), with 9 life. Blasting stations to the face, tapping his blockers (lifelink being the relevant part) and threw down Gravecrawler machine gun to swing for the win - felt so good. He beat me game 2 with a T2 and T3 Bitterblossom which felt hard to deal with. He wouldn't bother chumping, just build up a board, drop Sorin or Intangible Virtue, and then swing at me hard in the air.
I lost to Bant Spirits (1-2, very tight games, since it's tough for him to interact with us being mostly creatures instead of spells), but having flyers was once again a big advantage for him. I also lost to Burn, once again 1-2, which was a lot better than I thought I'd do. The game I won, he made a misplay Searing Blaze on my Belcher, not realizing it wouldn't die. He followed it up with a bold, but I won with 2 life left - game deciding mistake for him.
I definitely agree with you about Amalgam, he's coming out. There was no reliable way to get him into the yard, and not enough recursion once he did. I was debating trying to jam some Bloodghasts in, but that dilutes our zombies and then the deck becomes more 1 and 2-ofs. There's better cards already in my deck that could use more copies instead of Amalgam. I had also contemplated a fun-of Mesmeric Orb (Mill is my main deck) to try and help this strategy - putting Crawlers and Amalgams in my yard, but I think then we just become a bad Dredge deck.
Binding mummy was good on the offense, but not as good on the defense since you can't tap things down outside of Vial. I think I'll do like you with 1 in the main and maybe 1 or 2 more in the board.
Cryptbreaker seemed good to have as a 1-drop, which is pretty essential here to have the right curve.
I think we need something to slow down faster decks like burn. I put some IoK in my board which is good to slow the game down a bit, but maybe some more earlier game life gain - Timely Reinforcements perhaps? Any other thoughts for the aggro decks?
Otherwise, I'm stoked on the deck and stoked to try it out. Your list definitely looks like you've tested and come to the same conclusions I have here! Thanks for the inspiration!!!
Glad you're enjoying the deck! I'll be going back to it this Friday after taking a few weeks off.
Yeah the Death Baron promo is beautiful, I definitely wanna sell off my copies and replace them with those.
I actually made a few changes to the list. I replaced Path with Dismember. I cut Worship from the SB, it just doesn't work all that well in this deck. I went up to a 4th Baron in the main, mainly to fight Merfolk which was previously a really good matchup, but is now very bad thanks to Trickster. I'm also running an Engineered Explosives in the SB (deals with annoying things like Merfolk lords, spreading seas, intangible virtue, bitterblossom, etc. cleans up tokens for 2 mana)
Yeah Burn is tough. Plenty winnable if they don't have Searing Blood, but almost impossible if they do. I've considered Mark of Asylum for this, because unboltable Sculler is pretty good and there's plenty of Jeskai in my meta. It's not really necessary against Jeskai, but it's decent. I think Collective Brutality is the best bet against Burn. Wayward Servant really helps here too, I recommend the full playset. He's also pretty much our only shot at beating decks like Storm and Ad Nauseam
If you have more fast creature decks in your meta than I do, main board Binding Mummy seems good and so does more Fatal Push. Damnation isn't terrible either. Timely is worth it testing if your meta calls for it, but I wouldn't run it in mine right now. Settle the Wreckage and/or Blessed Alliance may be worth looking into as well.
I really prefer thoughtseize to Inquisition. Worse against Burn, but wayyyy better against everything else.
Also, Cryptbreaker tokens can trigger Binding Mummy at instant speed to tap down attackers if you don't have a Vial sometimes Cryptbreaker is just a crummy 1 mana 1/1, but I'd never dream of packing less than 3 in the main (though I do board a copy or two out in some matchups)
Yeah Fragmentize has been fantastic, but Disenchant is probably fine.
Thanks for the tips! Why Dismember over Path? I like that it pretty cleanly answers everything, but Dismember is also decent. Are you aware of any zombies that come in and either ping creatures or the like (-1/-1 counters, or -X/-X until end of turn type thing)? Dark Salvation is great but unless it's at least 3 mana, it's usually just a Disfigure early game.
I also prefer Thoughtseize, but I had IoKs in my binder so they got thrown into my haphazard sideboard haha. I also chucked some little Thalias in there, which might also be good against burn. It seemed like a pretty painful matchup regardless, made me realize that we don't really have much play against them. Though his Eidolon damaged him way more than it damaged me, Aether Vial for the win there. I feel like we don't want to divert from our creature beats plan too much, not sure what the answer would be. Anything we can get directed at our board instead of our face seems to be the best option. Thoughts on Leyline of Sanctity?
I'm going to try out a couple Smuggler's Copter in place of my Amalgams I think. Have you tried them out? Any thoughts?
What matchups would you want to bring Liliana in for? It seems like we can grind pretty well, which is what Lili excels at. I'd almost rather have a Last Hope instead of the Veil to give us some threats back.
What didn't you like about Worship? I'd guess maybe our guys aren't resilient enough to removal?
I just really wanted to cut down on non-creature white spells so I could fetch basic swamp more often. Plus there's lots of blood moon in my meta and I can't always fetch Plains first. Dismember kills Stormbreath Dragon (at least 4 Ponza players and 1 Skred player at my LGS)
There are some ping/sweep Zombies but I don't think any of them are modern legal besides Festering Goblin and Skirk Ridge Exhumer (which makes Festering Goblin tokens)
I really love Dark Salvation. The best part is that it's never dead, and against other creature decks it can be an absolute bomb in board stalls. Cast for X=2 to kill their best blocker with Binding Mummies or Wayward Servants on board, swing for lethal
Kambal and Kalitas are pretty good if you expect to fight Burn, and both have utility in other matchups.
I tried Copter a long time ago when Sculler was our only white card, but I don't like how vulnerable it makes us to artifact hate. We already have 8 artifacts mainboard, adding more makes common cards like Kolaghan's Command, By Force, Abrade, Shattering Spree, etc much better against us.
I bring Lili in against Combo and Control.
The problem is that the decks who can't really deal with Worship (Eldrazi), we already beat the living piss out of anyways. And the degenerate decks we really need it against can remove it too easily (Storm with Wipe Clean/Unsubstantiate, Ad Naus with Echoing Truth, Dredge can kill us with Collective Brutality or Conflagrate our board, Merfolk can kill us with Vapor Snag or remove it with Echoing Truth or counter it, Affinity can just kill us with Inkmoth, etc)
I like your deck, and since I've always wanted a modern zombie deck that has half a chance I might try and suit up the cards for it.
Have you ever tried LotH? She would seem like a nice fit, except I imagine you want to avoid filling up on non-zombie spells.
How about Nantuko Husk ? I'm imagining you can sac lots of cheap zombies if the opponent decides not to block.
Also, I love the soft combo of Blasting Station + Gravecrawler + Wayward Servant / Plague Belcher, how come it's only a one-of in the deck, instead of 2 or 3?
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Lili Last Hope is a great card, and definitely worth running in the side if you're facing a lot of decks it's relevant against. I don't particularly care about X/1's. I suppose shrinking a bigger blocker is pretty decent for some pseudo-evasion though. Obviously her -2 and ult are both great. But overall, Lili of the Veil is more impactful in the matchups I want her for (combo and Control. Lots of Jeskai control in my meta.
Nantuko Husk is just so much weaker than our other 3 drops. Sure in magical Christmas land he's alright, but there's a lot of times we're topdecking on an empty board and threat density is important. Belcher is a 3 mana 3/2 menace on an empty board, which isn't fantastic but it's better than a 3 mana 2/2.
Blasting Station as a 1 of is for a lot of the same reasons. It's got some great synergies, but alone it's a 3 mana do nothing artifact. We play a little slower more interactive game, but at the end of the day this is still an aggro deck and threat density is important
Yeah I'm testing it out as a meta call for now. Sometimes it's hard to get non creature White mana. I don't think I've gotten any real games in with dismember yet so if it doesn't work out I'll switch back.
And yeah I've been thinking about dropping a creature to run another removal spell but I'm a little hesitant to do that. In most of my games, I'm the beat down and topdecking removal spells against UWx really sucks
Also I switched Altar's Reap to Costly Plunder, it's just strictly better because you can get some value out of an unneeded Vial.
Edit:
Pretty mediocre tonight
Got absolutely destroyed by multiple spreading seas both games from Merfolk round one.
Wins over UR Wizards and Jund.
Went to turns on a really close game 3 with Esper Thopter Sword/Gifts in round 3. He had a better record and I was mostly interested in playing EDH so I conceded
Graveyard Marshall is the only one that looks interesting to me. 3/2 for 2 is above curve and the ability doesn't require tapping which makes it a good topdeck if you end up going late as it avoids summoning sick and provides a Mana sink.
I think you have to be pretty deep on the zombie-matters theme to make it work though because I don't think those points alone are enough. The only other way it seems ok is if you want to stick to mono black, as there aren't many good 2 drops when you move away from a splash.
She may not end up being good enough to play, but she impacts the game in a drastically different way than Dark Salvation. The comparison between the two is very superficial. I’d for sure test her out.
I like that new Lili as a 1 or 2-of at most. Her + ability is great! Putting more Zombies in the yard and draining our opponent for two seems good. Shame she's 4 CMC instead of 3, but it puts her top end for us, so max 2-of. I plan to test her out at some point.
4 card combo with the new Lili Ult, Memnite/Ornithopter or other 0-drop, Ashes of the Fallen, and Blasting Station, not that we'd actually wanna try it, but I loved the Gravecrawler machine gun last time I played
I just think it fits the same role as Relentless Dead but worse
Edit: referring to Graveyard Marshall here
Yea, I agree, it's not on par with Relentless Dead. But even Relentless Dead you would rather play on 3 in order to be able to use it's ability, so 2 drops are always on my mind for mono black.
The thing with Lilly is that her + doesn't really do anything; It's much worse than "Draw a card" because a lot of the time it's going to whiff and in sideboard games she doesn't really add any resilience to anti-grave strategies or any new angles of attack due to not having an ultimate. The -2 ability is ok, but it's not always going to be removal unless the board is really gummed up. I think the -3 is decent as, but probably not until the turn you untap with it and not always. I just feel like a planeswalker with a really mediocre plus ability and no real ultimate at 4cmc is just not where zombies wants to be. It seems like Lilly last hope fills a similar role but costs a mana less and can win the game on her own.
Ok, so against my better judgement I decided to buy the cards I need to make a zombie deck. In this I mostly just copied Dejadal's deck, since he seems to know what he's about.
I'm not playing any control mainboard atm because I just want to see how the zombies holdup without it, but most likely will bring in 3-4 kill spells later on.
Since I only play paper I've only got some limited experience with the deck so far. Played my friend yesterday who was trying to run some Dragon-based jank. Deck held up really well, but then I think that might be function of his deck being ***** so....
Later played against red prison and taxes, zombies did ok I guess. Anger of the Gods is just bad for us.
The main problems were
1. Zombies have powerful synergy but are pretty weak stand-alone cards. Lots of cool interactions between Gravecrawler, Wayward Servant, Diregraf Collosus etc. but by themselves pretty much do nothing.
2. Decks with a lot of removal are pretty sucky, which I guess I expected. Gravecrawler can help us recover a little
3. Blood moon can really shut us down unless we have a vial out, I'm thinking I wouldn't mind a few more fetches to help get those basics out easier.
What I'd really like is an easier sac outlet for zombies, like Affinity has in Arcbound Ravager. Being able to avoid Path and other exile based spells would be nice, plus being able to choose when to kill a Relentless Dead to bring back Tidehollow Sculler or something would be nice.
One card that has actually impressed me was Cryptbreaker, I remember playing some zombies thing ages ago and being unimpressed with this card, but 90% of the time I'm getting at least one card draw from this guy, and often 2 or 3.
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Yeah Anger sucks, but if they don't see one we poop all over that RW prison deck.
And yeah I assume you'll beat your friends dragon deck just about every time. Any creature deck that's not super fast is good for us(Eldrazi mainly, humans are surprisingly pretty even feeling).
Fighting the decks with a lot of removal is all about learning how to sequence your drops in a way that really sucks for them. Sometimes they're just gonna have multiple paths and snaps, which sucks, but UWx is still an even MU imo.
And yeah agree on the sac outlet. I would kill for Carrion Feeder.
Cryptbreaker is an absolute house against anything other than Burn, aggro, storm, etc.
Save your plague belchers with Vial on 3 for those instant speed sac effects. Plague Belcher from Vial is one of the most powerful interactions this deck has. Blank a path, make a Wrath cost a bunch of life (typically lethal), kill Relentless Dead for shenanigans, kill Geralf's Messenger, or reset Undying. And you get a 5/4 Menace with a nice extra triggered ability. Just nuts.
I'd also really consider replacing your second blasting station with a Costly Plunder. Gives you another instant speed way to activate those effects and draw 2 cards
Yeah blood moon is pretty rough, but playing more Fetches Taxes our life total as well and we usually don't have the speed to make up for it
Why Relic over Spellbomb?
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Just hoping to get some feedback on a mono black Zombie-heavy deck I've been working on for fun. Suggestions appreciated, thanks!
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/07-06-18-paint-it-black/?cb=1528399766
A non-creature option can be Blasting Station which is good with Gravecrawler.
Plague Belcher can also be pretty good here.
4x Thoughtseize
4x Fatal Push
4x Gravecrawler
2x Dread Wanderer
2x Butcher Ghoul
3x Blood Artist
3x Zulaport Cutthroat
4x Relentless Dead
4x Geralf's Messenger
3x Viscera Seer
2x Blasting Station
1x Bontu the Glorified
2x Plague Belcher
4x Marsh Flats
18x Swamp
So I fired up my version of your list last night for the first time against some friends, went 1-2 which is fine - I'm still learning the deck.
I have your exact manabase but -1 Swamp +1 Mutavault
Mainboard I have your list but:
+2 Prized Amalgam (was thinking recursion from yard, and Cavern also lets me cast it from hand)
+1 Binding Mummy
+1 Colossus
+1 Path to Exile
-1 Cryptbreaker
-2 Death Baron (stoked he's getting a reprint - he's my only proxy at the moment til Core 19 comes out)
-1 Wayward Servant
-1 Altar's Reap
I don't have my sideboard set up properly yet, it had a couple extra paths, Lili, Brutality, but missing Fragmentize, Worship, and Anguished Unmaking which I think will be essential. So post board games weren't as good as they could've been.
I won against BW Tokens, it's grindy enough that we can get into our gameplan. It got to decently late game, and I landed a Blasting Station with a Wayward and Binding on board and 4 black mana, with Crawler in the yard. He had 4 tokens form Lingering Souls and Bitterblossom that were pumped with Sorin (+1/+0 and lifelink), and an Intangible Virtue (all +1/+1), with 9 life. Blasting stations to the face, tapping his blockers (lifelink being the relevant part) and threw down Gravecrawler machine gun to swing for the win - felt so good. He beat me game 2 with a T2 and T3 Bitterblossom which felt hard to deal with. He wouldn't bother chumping, just build up a board, drop Sorin or Intangible Virtue, and then swing at me hard in the air.
I lost to Bant Spirits (1-2, very tight games, since it's tough for him to interact with us being mostly creatures instead of spells), but having flyers was once again a big advantage for him. I also lost to Burn, once again 1-2, which was a lot better than I thought I'd do. The game I won, he made a misplay Searing Blaze on my Belcher, not realizing it wouldn't die. He followed it up with a bold, but I won with 2 life left - game deciding mistake for him.
I definitely agree with you about Amalgam, he's coming out. There was no reliable way to get him into the yard, and not enough recursion once he did. I was debating trying to jam some Bloodghasts in, but that dilutes our zombies and then the deck becomes more 1 and 2-ofs. There's better cards already in my deck that could use more copies instead of Amalgam. I had also contemplated a fun-of Mesmeric Orb (Mill is my main deck) to try and help this strategy - putting Crawlers and Amalgams in my yard, but I think then we just become a bad Dredge deck.
Binding mummy was good on the offense, but not as good on the defense since you can't tap things down outside of Vial. I think I'll do like you with 1 in the main and maybe 1 or 2 more in the board.
Cryptbreaker seemed good to have as a 1-drop, which is pretty essential here to have the right curve.
I think we need something to slow down faster decks like burn. I put some IoK in my board which is good to slow the game down a bit, but maybe some more earlier game life gain - Timely Reinforcements perhaps? Any other thoughts for the aggro decks?
Otherwise, I'm stoked on the deck and stoked to try it out. Your list definitely looks like you've tested and come to the same conclusions I have here! Thanks for the inspiration!!!
Yeah the Death Baron promo is beautiful, I definitely wanna sell off my copies and replace them with those.
I actually made a few changes to the list. I replaced Path with Dismember. I cut Worship from the SB, it just doesn't work all that well in this deck. I went up to a 4th Baron in the main, mainly to fight Merfolk which was previously a really good matchup, but is now very bad thanks to Trickster. I'm also running an Engineered Explosives in the SB (deals with annoying things like Merfolk lords, spreading seas, intangible virtue, bitterblossom, etc. cleans up tokens for 2 mana)
Yeah Burn is tough. Plenty winnable if they don't have Searing Blood, but almost impossible if they do. I've considered Mark of Asylum for this, because unboltable Sculler is pretty good and there's plenty of Jeskai in my meta. It's not really necessary against Jeskai, but it's decent. I think Collective Brutality is the best bet against Burn. Wayward Servant really helps here too, I recommend the full playset. He's also pretty much our only shot at beating decks like Storm and Ad Nauseam
If you have more fast creature decks in your meta than I do, main board Binding Mummy seems good and so does more Fatal Push. Damnation isn't terrible either. Timely is worth it testing if your meta calls for it, but I wouldn't run it in mine right now. Settle the Wreckage and/or Blessed Alliance may be worth looking into as well.
I really prefer thoughtseize to Inquisition. Worse against Burn, but wayyyy better against everything else.
Also, Cryptbreaker tokens can trigger Binding Mummy at instant speed to tap down attackers if you don't have a Vial sometimes Cryptbreaker is just a crummy 1 mana 1/1, but I'd never dream of packing less than 3 in the main (though I do board a copy or two out in some matchups)
Yeah Fragmentize has been fantastic, but Disenchant is probably fine.
I also prefer Thoughtseize, but I had IoKs in my binder so they got thrown into my haphazard sideboard haha. I also chucked some little Thalias in there, which might also be good against burn. It seemed like a pretty painful matchup regardless, made me realize that we don't really have much play against them. Though his Eidolon damaged him way more than it damaged me, Aether Vial for the win there. I feel like we don't want to divert from our creature beats plan too much, not sure what the answer would be. Anything we can get directed at our board instead of our face seems to be the best option. Thoughts on Leyline of Sanctity?
I'm going to try out a couple Smuggler's Copter in place of my Amalgams I think. Have you tried them out? Any thoughts?
What matchups would you want to bring Liliana in for? It seems like we can grind pretty well, which is what Lili excels at. I'd almost rather have a Last Hope instead of the Veil to give us some threats back.
What didn't you like about Worship? I'd guess maybe our guys aren't resilient enough to removal?
There are some ping/sweep Zombies but I don't think any of them are modern legal besides Festering Goblin and Skirk Ridge Exhumer (which makes Festering Goblin tokens)
I really love Dark Salvation. The best part is that it's never dead, and against other creature decks it can be an absolute bomb in board stalls. Cast for X=2 to kill their best blocker with Binding Mummies or Wayward Servants on board, swing for lethal
Kambal and Kalitas are pretty good if you expect to fight Burn, and both have utility in other matchups.
I tried Copter a long time ago when Sculler was our only white card, but I don't like how vulnerable it makes us to artifact hate. We already have 8 artifacts mainboard, adding more makes common cards like Kolaghan's Command, By Force, Abrade, Shattering Spree, etc much better against us.
I bring Lili in against Combo and Control.
The problem is that the decks who can't really deal with Worship (Eldrazi), we already beat the living piss out of anyways. And the degenerate decks we really need it against can remove it too easily (Storm with Wipe Clean/Unsubstantiate, Ad Naus with Echoing Truth, Dredge can kill us with Collective Brutality or Conflagrate our board, Merfolk can kill us with Vapor Snag or remove it with Echoing Truth or counter it, Affinity can just kill us with Inkmoth, etc)
Any thoughts?
Graveyard marshal
Stitchers supplier
Desecrated Tomb to take advantage of graveyard recursion. Thoughts?
Currently active
- Humans
- Evolve Zoo
I like your deck, and since I've always wanted a modern zombie deck that has half a chance I might try and suit up the cards for it.
Have you ever tried LotH? She would seem like a nice fit, except I imagine you want to avoid filling up on non-zombie spells.
How about Nantuko Husk ? I'm imagining you can sac lots of cheap zombies if the opponent decides not to block.
Also, I love the soft combo of Blasting Station + Gravecrawler + Wayward Servant / Plague Belcher, how come it's only a one-of in the deck, instead of 2 or 3?
Currently active
- Humans
- Evolve Zoo
Nantuko Husk is just so much weaker than our other 3 drops. Sure in magical Christmas land he's alright, but there's a lot of times we're topdecking on an empty board and threat density is important. Belcher is a 3 mana 3/2 menace on an empty board, which isn't fantastic but it's better than a 3 mana 2/2.
Blasting Station as a 1 of is for a lot of the same reasons. It's got some great synergies, but alone it's a 3 mana do nothing artifact. We play a little slower more interactive game, but at the end of the day this is still an aggro deck and threat density is important
I think you updated your list just now, how come your not running path? Is dismember really any better?
I would've thought a 2 - 2 split between path and push would fit quite nicely
edit: reading your previous posts, I'm guessing you want to reduce reliance on white mana?
Currently active
- Humans
- Evolve Zoo
And yeah I've been thinking about dropping a creature to run another removal spell but I'm a little hesitant to do that. In most of my games, I'm the beat down and topdecking removal spells against UWx really sucks
Also I switched Altar's Reap to Costly Plunder, it's just strictly better because you can get some value out of an unneeded Vial.
Edit:
Pretty mediocre tonight
Got absolutely destroyed by multiple spreading seas both games from Merfolk round one.
Wins over UR Wizards and Jund.
Went to turns on a really close game 3 with Esper Thopter Sword/Gifts in round 3. He had a better record and I was mostly interested in playing EDH so I conceded
I think you have to be pretty deep on the zombie-matters theme to make it work though because I don't think those points alone are enough. The only other way it seems ok is if you want to stick to mono black, as there aren't many good 2 drops when you move away from a splash.
Edit: referring to Graveyard Marshall here
4 card combo with the new Lili Ult, Memnite/Ornithopter or other 0-drop, Ashes of the Fallen, and Blasting Station, not that we'd actually wanna try it, but I loved the Gravecrawler machine gun last time I played
Yea, I agree, it's not on par with Relentless Dead. But even Relentless Dead you would rather play on 3 in order to be able to use it's ability, so 2 drops are always on my mind for mono black.
The thing with Lilly is that her + doesn't really do anything; It's much worse than "Draw a card" because a lot of the time it's going to whiff and in sideboard games she doesn't really add any resilience to anti-grave strategies or any new angles of attack due to not having an ultimate. The -2 ability is ok, but it's not always going to be removal unless the board is really gummed up. I think the -3 is decent as, but probably not until the turn you untap with it and not always. I just feel like a planeswalker with a really mediocre plus ability and no real ultimate at 4cmc is just not where zombies wants to be. It seems like Lilly last hope fills a similar role but costs a mana less and can win the game on her own.
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Concealed Courtyard
2 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
2 Mutavault
1 Plains
4 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Creature (33)
2 Binding Mummy
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Death Baron
2 Diregraf Colossus
2 Geralfs Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
3 Plague Belcher
4 Relentless Dead
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Wayward Servant
4 Aether Vial
2 Blasting Station
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Dismember
2 Fatal Push
3 Fragmentize
3 Thoughtseize
Ok, so against my better judgement I decided to buy the cards I need to make a zombie deck. In this I mostly just copied Dejadal's deck, since he seems to know what he's about.
I'm not playing any control mainboard atm because I just want to see how the zombies holdup without it, but most likely will bring in 3-4 kill spells later on.
Since I only play paper I've only got some limited experience with the deck so far. Played my friend yesterday who was trying to run some Dragon-based jank. Deck held up really well, but then I think that might be function of his deck being ***** so....
Later played against red prison and taxes, zombies did ok I guess. Anger of the Gods is just bad for us.
The main problems were
1. Zombies have powerful synergy but are pretty weak stand-alone cards. Lots of cool interactions between Gravecrawler, Wayward Servant, Diregraf Collosus etc. but by themselves pretty much do nothing.
2. Decks with a lot of removal are pretty sucky, which I guess I expected. Gravecrawler can help us recover a little
3. Blood moon can really shut us down unless we have a vial out, I'm thinking I wouldn't mind a few more fetches to help get those basics out easier.
What I'd really like is an easier sac outlet for zombies, like Affinity has in Arcbound Ravager. Being able to avoid Path and other exile based spells would be nice, plus being able to choose when to kill a Relentless Dead to bring back Tidehollow Sculler or something would be nice.
One card that has actually impressed me was Cryptbreaker, I remember playing some zombies thing ages ago and being unimpressed with this card, but 90% of the time I'm getting at least one card draw from this guy, and often 2 or 3.
Currently active
- Humans
- Evolve Zoo
And yeah I assume you'll beat your friends dragon deck just about every time. Any creature deck that's not super fast is good for us(Eldrazi mainly, humans are surprisingly pretty even feeling).
Fighting the decks with a lot of removal is all about learning how to sequence your drops in a way that really sucks for them. Sometimes they're just gonna have multiple paths and snaps, which sucks, but UWx is still an even MU imo.
And yeah agree on the sac outlet. I would kill for Carrion Feeder.
Cryptbreaker is an absolute house against anything other than Burn, aggro, storm, etc.
Save your plague belchers with Vial on 3 for those instant speed sac effects. Plague Belcher from Vial is one of the most powerful interactions this deck has. Blank a path, make a Wrath cost a bunch of life (typically lethal), kill Relentless Dead for shenanigans, kill Geralf's Messenger, or reset Undying. And you get a 5/4 Menace with a nice extra triggered ability. Just nuts.
I'd also really consider replacing your second blasting station with a Costly Plunder. Gives you another instant speed way to activate those effects and draw 2 cards
Yeah blood moon is pretty rough, but playing more Fetches Taxes our life total as well and we usually don't have the speed to make up for it
Why Relic over Spellbomb?