Hi everyone. As the title says, this is my first deck submission. It's very much a work in progress. I wanted to create a deck surrounding Grimgrin, Corpse-Born after I opened him in a box, that could also be a zombie tribal.
I had to begin by thinking of ways to activate Grimgrin's abilities. The first is by swarming the field with cheap zombie tokens to be used as sacrificial fodder to Grimgrin. The second is by using Ghoulcaller's Chant to pick up any dead or sacrificed zombies back out of my graveyard (tokens excepted, obviously). Then I wondered how I could take advantage of sacrificing a good zombie card to Grimgrin. At first I had considered Grimoire of the Dead but Mimic Vat seemed like a good late-game solution.
Undead Alchemist with Trepanation Blade, Nephalia Drownyard, Dream Twist. With the Alchemist out, these 3 effects mill the opponent and produce zombie tokens for you. Increase the power of your favourite zombie using Trepanation Blade while exiling all the creatures they mill and turning them into your own zombie horde.
Grave Titan, Grimgrin, Corpse-Born and Mimic Vat. Sacrifice Grave Titan to Grimgrin to power him up, copy him with Mimic Vat, and watch the insanity as the titan is copied every turn for just 3 mana, producing 4 zombies every turn as he hits the battlefield and attacks. He can always be brought back to your hand using Ghoulcaller's Chant.
Resurrect 2 of your zombies with Ghoulcaller's Chant, or exile creatures out of your opponent's graveyard with Cemetery Reaper to be used against them.
Want to finish the opponent off if milling isn't working? Sacrifice Undead Alchemist to Grimgrin and begin walloping.
From the single playtest I've done, the one thing I lack complete control over is how much milling I'm actually doing to the opponent. Against Wolf Run Ramp, I managed to mill and exile their Viridian Emissarys and a Wurmcoil Engine, so I'm enjoying the milling effects. Once I get a horde of zombies on the field, I will want to remove Undead Alchemist so the zombies do some actual damage. For that, I was thinking of either Unsummon or Silent Departure.
Unsummon is nice because of it's instant speed, but Silent Departure jives better with a self-mill strategy and can be cast twice (albeit, for quite an expensive flashback cost), but can only be cast at sorcery speed. So I'm leaning towards Unsummon, but don't know where to put it.
Unsummon would also work nicely with Unbreathing Horde. If Unbreathing Horde takes damage (or comes onto the field early) and becomes flimsy, simply unsummon and re-cast to come in at full strength (and hopefully a whole lot bigger late-game).
Looking for comments and suggestions, and maybe some help tweaking the numbers on how many of each card I'm running.
My Commanders:
:symg::symu::symb: The Mimeoplasm
:symg::symu::symb: Damia, Sage of Stone
:symr::symg::symw: Mayael the Anima
:symw::symu::symb: Sharuum the Hegemon
:symg::symu: Prime Speaker Zegana
:symb::symr: Olivia Voldaren
:symu::symb: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
:symr::symw: Tajic, Blade of the Legion Geth, Lord of the Vault
The first thing I'd consider would be some graveyard hate. With the amount of graveyard shenanigans going on in standard right now, you may be doing you opponent a favor by milling them, and although undead alchemist exiling all their creatures definitely helps with that, I would probably want 3-4 Nihil Spellbombs as well. On the other hand, decks like that are only going to make your job easier. Also, Jace, memory adept is a must for a mill deck in standard, if your using undead alchemist for milling, his 0: effectively deals 10 damage to your opponent. Other than that, the deck looks fun, although if you have a whole horde of zombies form the alchemist, why would you need to remove him? I'd just stay on the mill plan in that case, it will probably be faster at that point.
i had created a deck similar to this. it had the capability of milling a great deal(one game milled 30 cards, my opponet used elixer of immortality) then milled for 40 winning. but it was way to slow. you can create a b/u zombie beat down deck with twice the number of tokens 10 times the speed and 20 times the lethality, and still have grim grin. just letting you know my experience with it. if it works for you then definte kudos are in order
Had a game with this last night and milled my opponent 37 in one turn, producing 15 more zombie tokens.
Some problems I've found with this deck while playtesting:
It has zero protection against flyers, so a white deck with angels or spirit tokens would eat me alive while all I'm able to do is create more zombies. I need a way to reliably remove Undead Alchemist from the field to let my zombies do actual damage, because the milling just isn't fast enough.
I'm thinking of adding either some Stitched Drakes, or some more control spells. Altar's Reap might work nicely as well.
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My Commanders:
:symg::symu::symb: The Mimeoplasm
:symg::symu::symb: Damia, Sage of Stone
:symr::symg::symw: Mayael the Anima
:symw::symu::symb: Sharuum the Hegemon
:symg::symu: Prime Speaker Zegana
:symb::symr: Olivia Voldaren
:symu::symb: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
:symr::symw: Tajic, Blade of the Legion Geth, Lord of the Vault
My Commanders:
:symg::symu::symb: The Mimeoplasm
:symg::symu::symb: Damia, Sage of Stone
:symr::symg::symw: Mayael the Anima
:symw::symu::symb: Sharuum the Hegemon
:symg::symu: Prime Speaker Zegana
:symb::symr: Olivia Voldaren
:symu::symb: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
:symr::symw: Tajic, Blade of the Legion Geth, Lord of the Vault
I was kicking an idea similar to this But more of a self-mill to maximize Unbreathing Horde and use Skaab Ruinator out of the graveyard, Also have Laboratory Maniac as a back up. But right now it is to unfocused.
I had to begin by thinking of ways to activate Grimgrin's abilities. The first is by swarming the field with cheap zombie tokens to be used as sacrificial fodder to Grimgrin. The second is by using Ghoulcaller's Chant to pick up any dead or sacrificed zombies back out of my graveyard (tokens excepted, obviously). Then I wondered how I could take advantage of sacrificing a good zombie card to Grimgrin. At first I had considered Grimoire of the Dead but Mimic Vat seemed like a good late-game solution.
4x Diregraf Ghoul
3x Cemetery Reaper
4x Undead Alchemist
2x Unbreathing Horde
2x Grave Titan
2x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
1x Mimic Vat
3x Trepanation Blade
Enchantments (2)
2x Endless Ranks of the Dead
Instant (9)
3x Doom Blade
3x Dream Twist
3x Forbidden Alchemy
4x Ghoulcaller's Chant
Land (24)
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Drowned Catacomb
4x Island
2x Nephalia Drownyard
10x Swamp
The Plan:
Zombie creators: Endless Ranks of the Dead, Cemetery Reaper, Undead Alchemist, Grave Titan, Mimic Vat.
Mill the opponent with: Dream Twist, Nephalia Drownyard, Undead Alchemist, Trepanation Blade.
Bombs: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Grave Titan.
Combos:
Endless Ranks of the Dead with Undead Alchemist and Grave Titan. With the above milling effects producing waves of zombies for you, Grave Titan and Endless Ranks will keep adding more every turn.
Grave Titan, Grimgrin, Corpse-Born and Mimic Vat. Sacrifice Grave Titan to Grimgrin to power him up, copy him with Mimic Vat, and watch the insanity as the titan is copied every turn for just 3 mana, producing 4 zombies every turn as he hits the battlefield and attacks. He can always be brought back to your hand using Ghoulcaller's Chant.
Resurrect 2 of your zombies with Ghoulcaller's Chant, or exile creatures out of your opponent's graveyard with Cemetery Reaper to be used against them.
Dig for the card you want with Forbidden Alchemy. Throw away zombie cards (or Dream Twist) this way and simply pick them up later with Ghoulcaller's Chant or pay the flashback cost.
Unbreathing Horde with basically everything else in this deck.
Want to finish the opponent off if milling isn't working? Sacrifice Undead Alchemist to Grimgrin and begin walloping.
From the single playtest I've done, the one thing I lack complete control over is how much milling I'm actually doing to the opponent. Against Wolf Run Ramp, I managed to mill and exile their Viridian Emissarys and a Wurmcoil Engine, so I'm enjoying the milling effects. Once I get a horde of zombies on the field, I will want to remove Undead Alchemist so the zombies do some actual damage. For that, I was thinking of either Unsummon or Silent Departure.
Unsummon is nice because of it's instant speed, but Silent Departure jives better with a self-mill strategy and can be cast twice (albeit, for quite an expensive flashback cost), but can only be cast at sorcery speed. So I'm leaning towards Unsummon, but don't know where to put it.
Unsummon would also work nicely with Unbreathing Horde. If Unbreathing Horde takes damage (or comes onto the field early) and becomes flimsy, simply unsummon and re-cast to come in at full strength (and hopefully a whole lot bigger late-game).
Looking for comments and suggestions, and maybe some help tweaking the numbers on how many of each card I'm running.
:symg::symu::symb: The Mimeoplasm
:symg::symu::symb: Damia, Sage of Stone
:symr::symg::symw: Mayael the Anima
:symw::symu::symb: Sharuum the Hegemon
:symg::symu: Prime Speaker Zegana
:symb::symr: Olivia Voldaren
:symu::symb: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
:symr::symw: Tajic, Blade of the Legion
Some problems I've found with this deck while playtesting:
It has zero protection against flyers, so a white deck with angels or spirit tokens would eat me alive while all I'm able to do is create more zombies. I need a way to reliably remove Undead Alchemist from the field to let my zombies do actual damage, because the milling just isn't fast enough.
I'm thinking of adding either some Stitched Drakes, or some more control spells. Altar's Reap might work nicely as well.
:symg::symu::symb: The Mimeoplasm
:symg::symu::symb: Damia, Sage of Stone
:symr::symg::symw: Mayael the Anima
:symw::symu::symb: Sharuum the Hegemon
:symg::symu: Prime Speaker Zegana
:symb::symr: Olivia Voldaren
:symu::symb: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
:symr::symw: Tajic, Blade of the Legion
3x Cemetery Reaper
4x Diregraf Ghoul
2x Grave Titan
1x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
3x Stitched Drake
2x Unbreathing Horde
3x Undead Alchemist
Enchantment (3)
3x Endless Ranks of the Dead
Sorcery (3)
3x Ghoulcaller's Chant
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Drowned Catacomb
6x Island
2x Nephalia Drownyard
8x Swamp
Instant (12)
4x Doom Blade
3x Dream Twist
2x Forbidden Alchemy
3x Unsummon
4x Go for the Throat
3x Nihil Spellbomb
Took out the Trepanation Blades and Mimic Vat and slid in some Stitched Drakes and Unsummons.
Still need to adjust the numbers.
:symg::symu::symb: The Mimeoplasm
:symg::symu::symb: Damia, Sage of Stone
:symr::symg::symw: Mayael the Anima
:symw::symu::symb: Sharuum the Hegemon
:symg::symu: Prime Speaker Zegana
:symb::symr: Olivia Voldaren
:symu::symb: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
:symr::symw: Tajic, Blade of the Legion