After rotation there seem to be no good gravehate in standard, and no 4cc mass-removal (we just lost Languish). This seems to be the perfect environment for UB zombies decks to run rampant. Here is an example of a post-rotation Zombies decklist:
It seems to be almost impossible for control/midrange decks like BW to beat this list. It has everything to make the midrange player cringe: flash creatures aggro, stable recursion, efficient discard, cheap counterspells, powerful late game, efficient removal, etc. The worst of all, there seem to be no good sideboard options against the deck.
So, I would like to pose a question:
how one's going to beat zombies in current standard (aside from trivial "burn to the face" plan)?
How does negate beat it?
I'm going for a mix of Kalitas and flaying tendrils.
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If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
I actually think it will have a rough time against aggressive aggro decks that will pop up noe that coc isn't stonewaling them. There are still a lot of road blocks for aggro, but they got some very powerful cards.
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All 8 of these are not great for facing current Meta.
They are all 3 drops which are a step slow against aggro and can't deal with a thopter.
Some things that worked better: Harsh Scrutiny Lets you attack their hand on T1 and creatures are more important than instant/soceries right now. Rush of Vitality Lets you win a battle and the life gain can be huge. Murder Instant speed removal against vehicles flaying tendrils helps clear board.
To really stop it, your opponent needs something like Kalitas , and you need answers for him.
Voldaren Pariah is a solid shot as a pseudo 5 drop (as you can cast it with madness fairly easy with, or turn 3 from a copter looting).
With Kalitas in play its a blowout that opponents wont recover from easily.
Mindwrack Demon helps as a big flyer that stops anything and fuels your graveyard.
----
The deck works fairly well as an almost mono-black deck.
Splashing for more blue, adding Elder Deep-Fiend works well too (but at that point you look at a Grixis Emerge deck, which uses the basic engine of zombie-combos too, simply because its that efficient, but then is even more reliant on the graveyard engines).
After rotation there seem to be no good gravehate in standard, and no 4cc mass-removal (we just lost Languish). This seems to be the perfect environment for UB zombies decks to run rampant. Here is an example of a post-rotation Zombies decklist:
2 Submerged Boneyard
4 Sunken Hollow
4 Choked Estuary
2 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Island
10 Swamp
Creatures:
3 Cryptbreaker
4 Haunted Dead
2 Diregraf Colossus
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Relentless Dead
2 Distended Mindbender
3 Voldaren Pariah/Abolisher of Bloodlines
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
3 Collective Brutality
3 Dark Salvation
2 Ruinous Path
4 Grasp of Darkness
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Distended Mindbender
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Negate
3 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Transgress the Mind
3 Lost Legacy
1 Revolutionary Rebuff
It seems to be almost impossible for control/midrange decks like BW to beat this list. It has everything to make the midrange player cringe: flash creatures aggro, stable recursion, efficient discard, cheap counterspells, powerful late game, efficient removal, etc. The worst of all, there seem to be no good sideboard options against the deck.
So, I would like to pose a question:
how one's going to beat zombies in current standard (aside from trivial "burn to the face" plan)?
I'm going for a mix of Kalitas and flaying tendrils.
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
The vulnerability to fast decks is partially a spells issue.
All 8 of these are not great for facing current Meta.
They are all 3 drops which are a step slow against aggro and can't deal with a thopter.
Some things that worked better:
Harsh Scrutiny Lets you attack their hand on T1 and creatures are more important than instant/soceries right now.
Rush of Vitality Lets you win a battle and the life gain can be huge.
Murder Instant speed removal against vehicles
flaying tendrils helps clear board.
The zombie-combo of :
Cryptbreaker
Haunted Dead
Prized Amalgam
plus
Smuggler's Copter
Scrapheap Scrounger
Is a pretty solid engine.
To really stop it, your opponent needs something like Kalitas , and you need answers for him.
Voldaren Pariah is a solid shot as a pseudo 5 drop (as you can cast it with madness fairly easy with, or turn 3 from a copter looting).
With Kalitas in play its a blowout that opponents wont recover from easily.
Mindwrack Demon helps as a big flyer that stops anything and fuels your graveyard.
----
The deck works fairly well as an almost mono-black deck.
Splashing for more blue, adding Elder Deep-Fiend works well too (but at that point you look at a Grixis Emerge deck, which uses the basic engine of zombie-combos too, simply because its that efficient, but then is even more reliant on the graveyard engines).
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