Full disclosure, I haven't done as much testing or game play as I like. Work, kids, summertime, weekend vacations, date nights with the wife. Just not a lot of time to play. In my limited testing there are some things that are pretty clear. Flying is killer, especially against planeswalker decks. This deck does pretty well against decks that lean hard on planeswalkers, so it will do well against Super Friends and less well, but still favorable against GW Tokens.
In general, it's good against control decks. If those decks exile creatures, obviously it's less good, but I typically have very little trouble with control decks.
Fast aggro decks are a real problem. The humans deck variants are real trouble for this list. Siding in sweepers and removal helps, but you have to be sure to side out Fevered Visions. The deck is much harder to pilot without Fevered Visions. I've considered adding in some more 1 sided card draw to the sideboard, but I haven't done it, nor have I had time to test it if I had done it.
This is what I'm thinking currently. The options I'm considering for card draw (to side in vs aggro when siding out Fevered Visions) are in the maybeboard. There are some earlier-game options (Catalog, Drag Under) and some later-game options (Pore Over the Pages, Coastal Discovery). Take Inventory is looking very appealing to me. It's 2 mana for 1 draw (typical value of card draw) that keeps getting more valuable with each one you cast. I also really like the interaction between awakening Coastal Discovery and Wandering Fumarole late game. Having a 5/8 or an 8/5 for 4 mana late game (plus a 4/4 at all times for blocking tokens and small creatures) seems very nice, but I wonder if it would fit in this deck. Catalog and Pore Over the Pages both give us another discard outlet in addition to card draw. The downside to these, though, is that all but Catalog are sorceries, which kinda goes against the idea of this deck.
I was going to include Evolving Wilds, but I really don't want more than 4 ETB tapped lands.
Also, do you think 2 copies of Kozilek's Return is enough, or would you go with 3? For the rest of the sideboard I'm thinking of having a little more removal (or maybe Dispel), but I can't seem to think of any other good sideboard cards having not tested this yet.
That's almost exactly what I was thinking I'd build.
I'd probably go with only 2 Wandering Fumarole to limit the ETB tapped lands, but go up more for more mana fixing. Since I'll be going down to 2 colors, that gives a lot more flexibility with the lands. I'll be playing around with other lands in this deck. Blighted Cataract, Drownyard Temple, Sea Gate Wreckage, and a couple of others from ENM that piqued my interests. For card draw, there was another instant speed card draw that caught my eye. I don't recall the name of it either though, lol. I think it was 5 mana....
I'm considering a lot of different directions with this list post-ENM. The one that comes to my head the most is playing a full set of sweepers and relies on recovering better than my opponents, so probably 4 K-Returns. I can see that working fairly well to keep aggro decks honest while using the natural resiliency of revivable zombies to muscle past control decks. At least that's what's rolling around in my head now. who knows tomorrow lol. I do feel since these zombies can be played as if they have flash, it makes a shell that can go in a lot of different directions.
Was it Fortune's Favor? Cause looking at this card again, it looks like it fits right in with this deck. If you can figure out what your opponent is thinking when they separate the cards it could be really really good (and let's be honest, many people at FNMs are easier to read than a newspaper).
Or maybe it was Scour the Laboratory? Delirium won't happen often for this deck, but even at 6 mana it's not bad, and when delirium does happen it's just gravy.
EDIT: On second thought, delirium wouldn't ever happen if we're siding this in in place of Fevered Visions. There are better options in this case.
Geier Reach Sanitarium looks like it would be a good 2-of against aggro decks. They empty their hand, we get to loot and discard the top card of their library.
EDIT 2: Okay, here's what I'm thinking for mono-white humans and other aggro decks. With delirium Scour the Laboratory is by far the best card draw at instant speed we have, 4 mana to draw 3 (net 2 cards in hand). Even at 6 mana it's usable, just not ideal. So what about siding out -4 Fevered Visions and -4 Negate, and siding in +4 Scour the Laboratory and +4 Dampening Pulse? We will almost always have 3/4s of delirium with an instant, creature, and land in the yard. I'm just wondering where we could get 3-4 more enchantment or artifact cards, cause the 4 Dampening Pulses is too few. I'm also interested in Spiteful Motives. It has flash, which we like, and the first strike, on top of +3 power, will let our Amalgams handle any single creature a humans deck throws at us (minus Gideon or a very beefed up Lieutenant).
I'm still going back and forth on this sideboard. And again, I haven't played the deck yet, so this is all just theorycrafting, and I don't honestly know how good I actually am at that, haha.
It was Scour the Laboratory, and you're right, the deck is super unlikely to hit Delirium. I decided to go with Take Inventory. It's good discard fodder in the early game and strong/cheap draw in the late game. Plus it can help smooth out early land. I also built to where I think I'll be when EMN drops.
I decided to go with main deck K's Return because recurring creatures are, by nature, strong against control, so I figured maindeck help against agro is the way to go. Besides, if I'm playing against a midrange list or something like that, I can easily dump it in the gy as early discard fodder, and be ready to flash in a EDF for a good size sweep. I also like that when I flash him in, I likely won't have to decide between tapping down lands or creatures. Most of the creatures will be dead and I can cut my opponent's available mana by a significant amount.
I also decided to put more card draw in the main deck just to keep my hand flush with cards so I don't have to wait to get my zombies back.
I'm a little uncomfy with how low I've taken the discard to revive zombie count and discard outlets (9 and 8, respectively). It's a sizeable drop from the 10/10 I think the deck needs to work as intended. HOPEFULLY, the extra card draw helps to smooth that out.
I hadn't thought about using Take Inventory as discard fodder and only casting it after 1 or 2 were already in the graveyard. That's an excellent idea. It makes the card much more appealing.
And part of me REALLY likes Wharf Infiltrator, but I'm just not sure how good it'll be in practice. If we can hit our opponent with it (not too difficult if we aren't against an aggro deck), then we get a discard outlet (while also replacing that card in hand) and whenever we discard a creature card (for any reason, which is super important), we get a 3/2 body for 2 mana. I would really like to make that creature work somehow.
If you really like Wharf Infiltrator, you could put him in the place of Ravenous Bloodseeker in my list. I'm gonna stick with the bloodseeker though since his discard is free and immediate which can enable more madness. I have very few madness cards in the list, but I might add to the sideboard.
Here's what I've settled on for now, barring actual testing. The sideboard is still a bit of a mess, but I need to play the deck at FNM a few times before I can really know what I need in my sideboard. I've got the Ravenous Bloodseekers in my sideboard for when my opponent has a consistent number of 1 power creatures, and Dragonlord's Prerogative to side in in place of Fevered Visions. It gives the best late game card draw value at instant speed I can find, and I've got Take Inventory in the mainboard already. I have Radiant Flames instead of Kozilek's Return because I already have them and can't afford K-Return. I'll miss out on the 5 damage board sweeper when casting Elder Deep-Fiend, but it'll have to do for now. I may shove Choked Estuary in my land base so I have access to black mana for Radiant Flames, but we'll see. I'd probably be better off in saving that money for K-Return when I'm able.
I'm not entirely sure where exactly to go with the sideboard. I feel like 2 more K-returns to get up to the full 4 for the aggro matchup. I kinda want to put Welcome to the Fold or Malevolent Whispers just to really mess with my opponents. A card I also like is Blessed Reincarnation. So far, I haven't seen anyone using this card, but it seems like a great card to use against GW Token. You can use it against Gideon or Avacyn or even Ormendahl, Profane Prince. To round it out, it'll likely be Compelling Deterrence and maybe some more counter power. I'm really thinking Summary Dismissal is going to be a big blue card considering how it's the perfect answer to Eldrazi's "when cast" effects.
I haven't posted on this list in more than 2 months, but I haven't given up on it either. I've been tweaking and playing, and I've actually been having good results. Such good results that I've found that the Elder Deep-Fiend/Kozilek's Return combo can be moved to the sideboard, which pushes the main deck back into budget range! The deck doesn't get much of anything from Kaladesh, but it also doesn't lose much from rotation, so we're still in business. The fast lands will be the most expensive main deck cards, but like I'm sure I've said before, Lands are a worthwhile investment for the budget player.
This build is more stable/consistent than others I've put together. Having 12 discard sources, 10 self-revivers and 15 sources that draw/dig to help the revival engine get online quickly makes the deck much harder to deal with. Also getting to have fast lands instead of ETB tapped lands, in the early turns, adds to the speed of the deck.
The main decks that this list has problems with are the fastest of the weenie aggro decks. It's not impossible. You can get a draw that gets you started earlier, and trade your zombies with their creatures until you've stabilized and taken over the board position, but it's not a favorable match up. It gets much better post side though. Bringing in a sweeper helps a lot. I have EDF/K's Return. It'll probably take something else if you're looking to stay budget. Maybe Nahiri's Wrath?
Against control decks, this list feels like it has the upper hand. The creatures are just so resilient. It's very one sided. One card that can be an issue is Liliana, the Last Hope. She can just be tough especially early on when you have a Stitchwing Skaab as your attacker. Bringing in 2 Masterpieces from the side seems to fix that issue though.
Summary Dismissal is great against opposing Eldrazi and their 'when cast' effects. It'll be the best 4 mana you've ever spent.
On a final note, having Prized Amalgam but no way to cast them hasn't seemed to affect the deck very much at all. They're great discard fodder to enable zombie self-revive, especially since they come back when you do that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
In general, it's good against control decks. If those decks exile creatures, obviously it's less good, but I typically have very little trouble with control decks.
Fast aggro decks are a real problem. The humans deck variants are real trouble for this list. Siding in sweepers and removal helps, but you have to be sure to side out Fevered Visions. The deck is much harder to pilot without Fevered Visions. I've considered adding in some more 1 sided card draw to the sideboard, but I haven't done it, nor have I had time to test it if I had done it.
For EMN, I'm most likely going to drop black, except for Prized Amalgam. I'll replace Ghoulsteed with Advanced Stitchwing (link). I also intend to add main deck or sideboard Kozilek's Return and Elder Deep-Fiend for effective sweeping/control (and keeping with the instant/flash theme).
8 Island
7 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Wandering Fumarole
Spells
4 Broken Concentration
2 Compelling Deterrence
4 Fevered Visions
3 Lightning Axe
4 Negate
Creatures
3 Advanced Stichwing
2 Elder Deep-Fiend
3 Geralf's Masterpiece
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stitchwing Skaab
2 Kozilek's Return
1 Take Inventory
1 Pore Over the Pages
1 Drag Under
1 Coastal Discovery
1 Catalog
This is what I'm thinking currently. The options I'm considering for card draw (to side in vs aggro when siding out Fevered Visions) are in the maybeboard. There are some earlier-game options (Catalog, Drag Under) and some later-game options (Pore Over the Pages, Coastal Discovery). Take Inventory is looking very appealing to me. It's 2 mana for 1 draw (typical value of card draw) that keeps getting more valuable with each one you cast. I also really like the interaction between awakening Coastal Discovery and Wandering Fumarole late game. Having a 5/8 or an 8/5 for 4 mana late game (plus a 4/4 at all times for blocking tokens and small creatures) seems very nice, but I wonder if it would fit in this deck. Catalog and Pore Over the Pages both give us another discard outlet in addition to card draw. The downside to these, though, is that all but Catalog are sorceries, which kinda goes against the idea of this deck.
I was going to include Evolving Wilds, but I really don't want more than 4 ETB tapped lands.
Also, do you think 2 copies of Kozilek's Return is enough, or would you go with 3? For the rest of the sideboard I'm thinking of having a little more removal (or maybe Dispel), but I can't seem to think of any other good sideboard cards having not tested this yet.
I'd probably go with only 2 Wandering Fumarole to limit the ETB tapped lands, but go up more for more mana fixing. Since I'll be going down to 2 colors, that gives a lot more flexibility with the lands. I'll be playing around with other lands in this deck. Blighted Cataract, Drownyard Temple, Sea Gate Wreckage, and a couple of others from ENM that piqued my interests. For card draw, there was another instant speed card draw that caught my eye. I don't recall the name of it either though, lol. I think it was 5 mana....
I'm considering a lot of different directions with this list post-ENM. The one that comes to my head the most is playing a full set of sweepers and relies on recovering better than my opponents, so probably 4 K-Returns. I can see that working fairly well to keep aggro decks honest while using the natural resiliency of revivable zombies to muscle past control decks. At least that's what's rolling around in my head now. who knows tomorrow lol. I do feel since these zombies can be played as if they have flash, it makes a shell that can go in a lot of different directions.
Or maybe it was Scour the Laboratory? Delirium won't happen often for this deck, but even at 6 mana it's not bad, and when delirium does happen it's just gravy.
EDIT: On second thought, delirium wouldn't ever happen if we're siding this in in place of Fevered Visions. There are better options in this case.
Geier Reach Sanitarium looks like it would be a good 2-of against aggro decks. They empty their hand, we get to loot and discard the top card of their library.
EDIT 2: Okay, here's what I'm thinking for mono-white humans and other aggro decks. With delirium Scour the Laboratory is by far the best card draw at instant speed we have, 4 mana to draw 3 (net 2 cards in hand). Even at 6 mana it's usable, just not ideal. So what about siding out -4 Fevered Visions and -4 Negate, and siding in +4 Scour the Laboratory and +4 Dampening Pulse? We will almost always have 3/4s of delirium with an instant, creature, and land in the yard. I'm just wondering where we could get 3-4 more enchantment or artifact cards, cause the 4 Dampening Pulses is too few. I'm also interested in Spiteful Motives. It has flash, which we like, and the first strike, on top of +3 power, will let our Amalgams handle any single creature a humans deck throws at us (minus Gideon or a very beefed up Lieutenant).
I'm still going back and forth on this sideboard. And again, I haven't played the deck yet, so this is all just theorycrafting, and I don't honestly know how good I actually am at that, haha.
3 Advanced Stitchwing
2 Elder Deep-Fiend
2 Geralf's Masterpiece
3 Insolent Neonate
3 Prized Amalgam
2 Ravenous Bloodseeker
4 Stitchwing Skaab
2 Kozilek's Return
4 Take Inventory
Instants 9
4 Broken Concentration
3 Lightning Axe
2 Negate
Enchantments 3
3 Fevered Visions
2 Blighted Cataract
4 Choked Estuary
2 Foreboding Ruins
7 Island
4 Mountain
4 Wandering Fumarole
I decided to go with main deck K's Return because recurring creatures are, by nature, strong against control, so I figured maindeck help against agro is the way to go. Besides, if I'm playing against a midrange list or something like that, I can easily dump it in the gy as early discard fodder, and be ready to flash in a EDF for a good size sweep. I also like that when I flash him in, I likely won't have to decide between tapping down lands or creatures. Most of the creatures will be dead and I can cut my opponent's available mana by a significant amount.
I also decided to put more card draw in the main deck just to keep my hand flush with cards so I don't have to wait to get my zombies back.
I'm a little uncomfy with how low I've taken the discard to revive zombie count and discard outlets (9 and 8, respectively). It's a sizeable drop from the 10/10 I think the deck needs to work as intended. HOPEFULLY, the extra card draw helps to smooth that out.
And part of me REALLY likes Wharf Infiltrator, but I'm just not sure how good it'll be in practice. If we can hit our opponent with it (not too difficult if we aren't against an aggro deck), then we get a discard outlet (while also replacing that card in hand) and whenever we discard a creature card (for any reason, which is super important), we get a 3/2 body for 2 mana. I would really like to make that creature work somehow.
3 Blighted Cataract
7 Island
5 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Wandering Fumarole
Spells
4 Broken Concentration
3 Fevered Visions
3 Lightning Axe
4 Negate
4 Take Inventory
3 Advanced Stichwing
2 Elder Deep-Fiend
2 Geralf's Masterpiece
3 Insolent Neonate
3 Prized Amalgam
4 Stitchwing Skaab
2 Wharf Infiltrator
3 Radiant Flames
1 Geralf's Masterpiece
2 Ravenous Bloodseeker
2 Compelling Deterrence
1 Prized Amalgam
4 Dragonlord's Prerogative
2 Dampening Pulse
Here's what I've settled on for now, barring actual testing. The sideboard is still a bit of a mess, but I need to play the deck at FNM a few times before I can really know what I need in my sideboard. I've got the Ravenous Bloodseekers in my sideboard for when my opponent has a consistent number of 1 power creatures, and Dragonlord's Prerogative to side in in place of Fevered Visions. It gives the best late game card draw value at instant speed I can find, and I've got Take Inventory in the mainboard already. I have Radiant Flames instead of Kozilek's Return because I already have them and can't afford K-Return. I'll miss out on the 5 damage board sweeper when casting Elder Deep-Fiend, but it'll have to do for now. I may shove Choked Estuary in my land base so I have access to black mana for Radiant Flames, but we'll see. I'd probably be better off in saving that money for K-Return when I'm able.
4 Advanced Stitchwing
2 Geralf's Masterpiece
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stitchwing Skaab
Sorceries 8
4 Take Inventory
4 Cathartic Reunion
3 Broken Concentration
4 Lightning Axe
3 Negate
Enchantments 3
3 Fevered Visions
Lands 21
8 Island
7 Mountain
4 Spirebluff Canal
2 Wandering Fumarole
3 Compelling Deterrence
2 Elder Deep-Fiend
2 Fiery Temper
2 Geralf's Masterpiece
3 Kozilek's Return
3 Summary Dismissal
This build is more stable/consistent than others I've put together. Having 12 discard sources, 10 self-revivers and 15 sources that draw/dig to help the revival engine get online quickly makes the deck much harder to deal with. Also getting to have fast lands instead of ETB tapped lands, in the early turns, adds to the speed of the deck.
The main decks that this list has problems with are the fastest of the weenie aggro decks. It's not impossible. You can get a draw that gets you started earlier, and trade your zombies with their creatures until you've stabilized and taken over the board position, but it's not a favorable match up. It gets much better post side though. Bringing in a sweeper helps a lot. I have EDF/K's Return. It'll probably take something else if you're looking to stay budget. Maybe Nahiri's Wrath?
Against control decks, this list feels like it has the upper hand. The creatures are just so resilient. It's very one sided. One card that can be an issue is Liliana, the Last Hope. She can just be tough especially early on when you have a Stitchwing Skaab as your attacker. Bringing in 2 Masterpieces from the side seems to fix that issue though.
Summary Dismissal is great against opposing Eldrazi and their 'when cast' effects. It'll be the best 4 mana you've ever spent.
On a final note, having Prized Amalgam but no way to cast them hasn't seemed to affect the deck very much at all. They're great discard fodder to enable zombie self-revive, especially since they come back when you do that.