I really want zombies to be a nice archetype in standard but I have tried all kind of builds but zombies are steamrolled by other decks like White Weenies and RDW and I always feel they are lacking something. They are slow to be an aggro deck.
2. We don't have a good beater for two mana, people are using Walking Corpse but I miss something like Putrid Leech
3. We don't have evasion, is incredible but we even don't have a good zombie with fear, or at least a card to make them more offensive like Death Baron
I think we will have to wait till Dark Ascension to see if zombies can get their missing piece.
Zombies are just not viable until we see what will come out next set. I took mono-black zombies to FNM about 3 weeks straight hoping it would work, but it just can't stand up to anything really. Now I'm using a re-animator type deck using Zombie Infestation,Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and Unburial Rites, etc. Has worked well.
This deck has had alot of success in various forms at FNM. It is very fun to play. It is forever evolving. Biggest problem has been fast Heartless Summoning decks.
In your guys opinion wich of these is the best choice for a game winning creature Skaab ruinator, grimgrin corpseborn, geth lord of the vault,or grave titan
This is a zombie deck i've been playing around with. Skirsdag High Priest has been pretty easy to proc thanks to Altar's Reap. All you really need is a single Parallel Lives out and things get really out of hand quickly.
I'd just like to point out that Unbreathing Horde is a great answer against boardwipes. They cast DoJ/Slag/etc, kill all creatures, and you immediately answer with a x/x bomb for 3cmc. Pretty nice deal.
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Standard
Mid-range 'Merica UWR
LOL Zombies GB
Wurmz Ramp GW
Nim deathmantle makes zombies btw. It also helps against board wipes, is a solid turn 2 drop, and can steal opposing fatties in conjunction with doomblade/GftT.
Nim deathmantle makes zombies btw. It also helps against board wipes, is a solid turn 2 drop, and can steal opposing fatties in conjunction with doomblade/GftT.
Nim Deathmantle > Walking Courpse
Thoughts?
An artifact that needs a body going in the gy and can't be activated til turn 4 better than a second turn 2/2 body?... Ehh, that's reaching a bit..... And it doesn't even work if you're milling guys into your gy either, they have to have died from the battlefield and gone to the gy. For a zombie swarm deck I'd stick with the Corpse. Maybe go with the Deathmantle if you're making a more controlish type deck, I guess? Even then, it's very conditional (you have to do it AS they're dying, not when they're in the gy), and rather mana-intensive. Unless part of your game-plan is that you're killing off your own guys, or wiping, and want to bounce a creature back even bigger and meaner than before...
Though, you could wipe, return one with the mantle, then re-equip it to something else before the "as it's going to the graveyard" effect ends. And keep doing that until you tap out. Though, I'm not sure how that works, or even if you're allowed to do something like that.
Edit: Turns out you CAN do the above til you tap out. That's not too bad.
And you can't steal any opposing anything. It's creatures going into YOUR graveyard, not you're opponent's.
Also, once you re-equip the Mantle to another creature, the creature it was previously attached to is no longer a zombie/black/has intimidate.
I agree with most of what you said but i don't think walking corpse are too bad but i hope we get something better in the next set also i agree a bout phyrexian crusader i feel its amazing card if the opponent is running red or white but other wise its sort of lackluster.
also in everyone opinion what is the best color combo for zombies because Ive only tested mono black and BG zombies and I'm curious about blue.
because i feel like stitched drake and skaab ruinator is something that would make zombies a lot better if we can find a consistent way to get them out without dwindling our resources to bad,
I didn't realize how amazing forbidden alchemy is in this deck if u get a ghoul callers chant and drop 2 zombies with it you get good hand advantage, it helps make unbreathing horde bigger, it adds targets for ghoul raiser, drops pharoahs to grave and provides targets for cementary reaper and helps summon stitched drake
-------------------------------------------------- Card description
Diregraf ghoul: 1 drop should be ran in 4
cemetery reaper: the lord always ran in 4
reasembling skeleton: just good for the morbid aspect of the deck, and a decent T2 drop
unbreathing horde: decent defender and good with cemetery reaper but not a major necessity
ghoulraiser: A good card to retrieve and decent drop, maybe bump to 2?
phyrexian crusader: I like it for sideboard protection and 2nd win condition if needed
skirsdag high priest: a good token guy with morbid and a decent turn 2 drop
Altars reap: draw power triggers morbid
caravan vigil: mana ramp
moan of the unhallowed: token generator
geths verdict: removal
parallel lives token spammer
army of the damned: deadly i win card get on field with parallel lives= win
wring flesh: gonna take out for removal
rampant growth: mana ramp
-------------------------------- Deck ideas
The idea is to spam tokens with parallel lives and the token generators, my problem is this is a late game deck and so i am looking for good mana ramping to speed up the deck and i could use more 1 drops i am thinking Typoid ratsbirds of paradise or llanowar elfs
I was thinking of Skirsdag High Priest over the skeletons however i like the combo Skeleton-alters reap (then possibly draw into a caravan vigil)
I was thinking cultivate and another rampant growth to aid in thinning the deck and getting land
Bloodgift demon was something i was thinking of including to improve draw power.
I was thinking ambush viper for a little more fun
---------------------------------------------------------
If i can get up to about 6 land i generally can get started pretty good, cemetery reaper thins out the grave nicely but im thinking i should take 1 out for a walking corpse or a green mana ramper thoughts?
I was also thinking of going 3 inkmoth nexus and 2 more crusaders so i could at least have a 2nd win condition with infect
is liliana of the veil necessary? i can see her comboing by discarding a creature for cemetery reaper but if i have 3 i would rather use it on a token generator or rampert growth or something
Well, I don't think it is a problem with the deckbuilders that a tribal black deck isn't getting results. We just got out of a heavy artifact block, and zombies rarely popped up. Aside from that, name me a few predominant black creature cards that are legal in standard. Here is a list of those under 6cmc
Bloodline Keeper - Not your tribe, but I'd consider running him. Cemetery Reaper - The relevant and cheap lord. +1 for zombies. Necrotic Ooze - Combo card not meant for a zombie tribal deck Olivia Voldaren - Not your tribe and dual colors, but same as bloodline. Phyrexian Crusader - Unless monoblack infect zombies has anything over regular monoblack-infect, you can't run this guy Phyrexian Obliterator - Yeah I wish. Vault Skirge - I'm starting to get desperate.
These are good reliable black cards. 1 of which is a zombie, who arguably isn't good because there are no other good zombies to fill out a curve in a non-controlling deck.
Guess how many zombies under 5cmc there are. 15. Including every unplayable one. 4 of them have infect. There are 36 humans under 5cmc, and a good chunk of those are not only extremely playable, they are "build-around" good, and they are found at every slot on the curve. A Human deck would outright laugh at you if you told them to put a vanilla 2/2 for 2 at that slot.
Don't beat yourself over trying to build this deck. It's like trying to finish a puzzle when your dog ate most of the pieces, and he isn't going to crap them out til February.
is there a primer or something that shows Green and black zombie tokens? I like the idea of using parallel lives and things like moan of the unhallowed and endless ranks of the dead? I like darknessapproaches idea on ramping to thin the deck and make plays faster since the main idea is spamming tokens and all the high cards are expensive ._. would primeval titan work here? or would i still be better with grave titan?
Well, I don't think it is a problem with the deckbuilders that a tribal black deck isn't getting results. We just got out of a heavy artifact block, and zombies rarely popped up. Aside from that, name me a few predominant black creature cards that are legal in standard. Here is a list of those under 6cmc
Bloodline Keeper - Not your tribe, but I'd consider running him. Cemetery Reaper - The relevant and cheap lord. +1 for zombies. Necrotic Ooze - Combo card not meant for a zombie tribal deck Olivia Voldaren - Not your tribe and dual colors, but same as bloodline. Phyrexian Crusader - Unless monoblack infect zombies has anything over regular monoblack-infect, you can't run this guy Phyrexian Obliterator - Yeah I wish. Vault Skirge - I'm starting to get desperate.
These are good reliable black cards. 1 of which is a zombie, who arguably isn't good because there are no other good zombies to fill out a curve in a non-controlling deck.
Guess how many zombies under 5cmc there are. 15. Including every unplayable one. 4 of them have infect. There are 36 humans under 5cmc, and a good chunk of those are not only extremely playable, they are "build-around" good, and they are found at every slot on the curve. A Human deck would outright laugh at you if you told them to put a vanilla 2/2 for 2 at that slot.
Don't beat yourself over trying to build this deck. It's like trying to finish a puzzle when your dog ate most of the pieces, and he isn't going to crap them out til February.
That puzzle will be a lot easier to finish in February if we start putting the pieces together right now.
I know this is probably no but has anyone actually tested skaab Goliath it doesn't look like that bad of a card i mean its a 6/9 trample and a 7/10 with cemetery reaper out and by 6 mana you would most likely have two creatures in the grave and one of the issue Ive noticed the deck having sometimes seems to be getting damage through so....thoughts
Ive been testing and thinking and maybe the best way to go about this is a more control based route utilizing self mill and recursion in search for answers we could use forbidden alchemy and armored skaab to mill and search for answers and then use ghoul raiser and ghoul callers chant to return the things we need from the grave primarily using ghoul raiser for zombies and chant to grab a milled grave titan preferably. I feel this would also make skaab ruinator more playable only as one of i don't know why but i feel like if we could get this out without it cluttering the hand it will help a lot cus with reaper out its a 6/7 flyer which is really good and it doesnt matter if we mill it cus we can cast it from the grave. I don't know ill try to test and see how things go.
zombies aren't control oriented, they're too slow for aggro but they usually have a tendency to hang around (like zombies do) so they work better in a tempo strategy.
happily we have Diregraf Ghoul and one lord already rolling (Reaper) and zombies haven't been given a lord yet. He'll likely be blue or black, either is good.
We have a strong finisher in GrimGrin, we have 8 dual lands, and 8 tempo removal cards: Vapor Snag and Geth's Verdict.
that's about 22-23 cards available already that we want in the deck. What we're missing is a 2 drop (if its a lord then thatd be sick), another good 3 drop and a 4 drop. Unbreathing Horde doesn't work without a 2 drop that doesn't suck.
some better removal options might be decent as well.
we have Skaab Ruinator to finish games with but he dies to doomblade which makes him sort of unreliable, more so than GrimGrin.
we also have Liliana as a good way to screw with our opponent and give us removal if we want to use her.
Snapcaster isnt a zombie but he can be made into a zombie via Reaper, thus he's relevant.
Phyrexian Crusader can slaughter red decks by himself, so he may be a sideboard option if RDW becomes stronger.
The vamps have their own decks and control decks running the stronger ones, we dont need them.
This deck may find a good place in standard if the pieces are printed and not lamed down. We can only hope and wait til February
EDIT: Wow forgot about Skinrender at the 4 slot. He's pretty solid with Reaper in play, I guess all we need is that extra lord
Well, Adaptive Automaton can be a Zombie lord, and a zombie to boot! But sadly that only works on the battlefield, so you'll never be able to nab it with Ghoulraiser and Ghoulcaller's Chant isn't as awesome when just fetching him. But if you find you really need more lords...
but the condition is too high, i mean if you get a 5/5 taht negates poison/lifelink/deathtouch and can chumblock endlessly if you give it +1/+1 for 3 mana... i'm in!
the problem that i see with the deck is that the first turns are very weak in an aggro based metagame, you need o play more aggresively and this decks fails at that, the only thing that you can expect is to play a bit controllish in the opening and chumblock a lot, but if a mirran crusader/hexproof badass shows up things get really ugly.
i like the zombie infestation sinergy with paraho and unbrathing horde, it helps quite a lot when you want to get a t3 resilient 4/4 for 3 mana
I really sympathize with the call for a strong zombie two-drop. It seems like white humans have a full lineup (grand abolisher, elite inquisitor, puresteel paladin) but zombies aren't really a tribe yet.
Building a zombie deck with self-milling in mind, and if it feels right milling my opponent for tons of tokens! I want as many zombies in the grave as I can to make ruinator, cemetery, and unbreathing viable early drops. negate is for sweepers and protection for book of the dead. Spell bomb is SD for blue delver and similar decks.
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Zombies are just not viable until we see what will come out next set. I took mono-black zombies to FNM about 3 weeks straight hoping it would work, but it just can't stand up to anything really. Now I'm using a re-animator type deck using Zombie Infestation,Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and Unburial Rites, etc. Has worked well.
BRBurning CaressRB
UWGuilty DollWU
3 Armored Skaab
2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
Artifacts: 3
3 Tumble Magnet
Spells: 28
3 Zombie Infestation
3 Unburial Rites
3 Despise
3 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Mana Leak
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Ponder
2 Think Twice
2 Day of Judgment
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Go for the Throat
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Glacial Fortress
7 Swamp
4 Plains
2 Islands
2 Torpor Orb
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Deathmark
2 Celestial Purge
2 Paraselene
2 Tribute to Hunger
1 Laboratory Maniac
This deck has had alot of success in various forms at FNM. It is very fun to play. It is forever evolving. Biggest problem has been fast Heartless Summoning decks.
BRBurning CaressRB
UWGuilty DollWU
2 Woodland Cemetery
9 Forest
24 Lands
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Skirsdag High Priest
4 Unbreathing Horde
4 Walking Corpse
4 Parallel Lives
4 Altar's Reap
4 Moan of the Unhallowed
4 Endless Ranks of the Dead
Mid-range 'Merica UWR
LOL Zombies GB
Wurmz Ramp GW
Nim Deathmantle > Walking Courpse
Thoughts?
An artifact that needs a body going in the gy and can't be activated til turn 4 better than a second turn 2/2 body?... Ehh, that's reaching a bit..... And it doesn't even work if you're milling guys into your gy either, they have to have died from the battlefield and gone to the gy. For a zombie swarm deck I'd stick with the Corpse. Maybe go with the Deathmantle if you're making a more controlish type deck, I guess? Even then, it's very conditional (you have to do it AS they're dying, not when they're in the gy), and rather mana-intensive. Unless part of your game-plan is that you're killing off your own guys, or wiping, and want to bounce a creature back even bigger and meaner than before...
Though, you could wipe, return one with the mantle, then re-equip it to something else before the "as it's going to the graveyard" effect ends. And keep doing that until you tap out. Though, I'm not sure how that works, or even if you're allowed to do something like that.
Edit: Turns out you CAN do the above til you tap out. That's not too bad.
And you can't steal any opposing anything. It's creatures going into YOUR graveyard, not you're opponent's.
Also, once you re-equip the Mantle to another creature, the creature it was previously attached to is no longer a zombie/black/has intimidate.
I guess I'd just stick with the Corpse.
Mid-range 'Merica UWR
LOL Zombies GB
Wurmz Ramp GW
also in everyone opinion what is the best color combo for zombies because Ive only tested mono black and BG zombies and I'm curious about blue.
because i feel like stitched drake and skaab ruinator is something that would make zombies a lot better if we can find a consistent way to get them out without dwindling our resources to bad,
--------------------------------------------
4 cemetery reaper
2 reassembling skeleton
1 unbreathing horde
1 ghoulraiser
1 phyrexian crusader
1 skirsdag high-priest
4 caravan vigil
3 moan of the unhallowed
2 geth's verdict
2 parallel lives
2 endless ranks of the dead
2 army of the damned
1 wring flesh
2 rampant growth
17 swamp
7 forest
--------------------------------------------------
Card description
Diregraf ghoul: 1 drop should be ran in 4
cemetery reaper: the lord always ran in 4
reasembling skeleton: just good for the morbid aspect of the deck, and a decent T2 drop
unbreathing horde: decent defender and good with cemetery reaper but not a major necessity
ghoulraiser: A good card to retrieve and decent drop, maybe bump to 2?
phyrexian crusader: I like it for sideboard protection and 2nd win condition if needed
skirsdag high priest: a good token guy with morbid and a decent turn 2 drop
Altars reap: draw power triggers morbid
caravan vigil: mana ramp
moan of the unhallowed: token generator
geths verdict: removal
parallel lives token spammer
army of the damned: deadly i win card get on field with parallel lives= win
wring flesh: gonna take out for removal
rampant growth: mana ramp
--------------------------------
Deck ideas
The idea is to spam tokens with parallel lives and the token generators, my problem is this is a late game deck and so i am looking for good mana ramping to speed up the deck and i could use more 1 drops i am thinking Typoid rats birds of paradise or llanowar elfs
I was thinking of Skirsdag High Priest over the skeletons however i like the combo Skeleton-alters reap (then possibly draw into a caravan vigil)
I was thinking cultivate and another rampant growth to aid in thinning the deck and getting land
Bloodgift demon was something i was thinking of including to improve draw power.
I was thinking ambush viper for a little more fun
---------------------------------------------------------
If i can get up to about 6 land i generally can get started pretty good, cemetery reaper thins out the grave nicely but im thinking i should take 1 out for a walking corpse or a green mana ramper thoughts?
I was also thinking of going 3 inkmoth nexus and 2 more crusaders so i could at least have a 2nd win condition with infect
How does would glissa the traitor work in a deck like this?
is liliana of the veil necessary? i can see her comboing by discarding a creature for cemetery reaper but if i have 3 i would rather use it on a token generator or rampert growth or something
trades
Bloodline Keeper - Not your tribe, but I'd consider running him.
Cemetery Reaper - The relevant and cheap lord. +1 for zombies.
Necrotic Ooze - Combo card not meant for a zombie tribal deck
Olivia Voldaren - Not your tribe and dual colors, but same as bloodline.
Phyrexian Crusader - Unless monoblack infect zombies has anything over regular monoblack-infect, you can't run this guy
Phyrexian Obliterator - Yeah I wish.
Vault Skirge - I'm starting to get desperate.
These are good reliable black cards. 1 of which is a zombie, who arguably isn't good because there are no other good zombies to fill out a curve in a non-controlling deck.
Guess how many zombies under 5cmc there are. 15. Including every unplayable one. 4 of them have infect. There are 36 humans under 5cmc, and a good chunk of those are not only extremely playable, they are "build-around" good, and they are found at every slot on the curve. A Human deck would outright laugh at you if you told them to put a vanilla 2/2 for 2 at that slot.
Don't beat yourself over trying to build this deck. It's like trying to finish a puzzle when your dog ate most of the pieces, and he isn't going to crap them out til February.
Parallel Lives Abuse
Zombie tokens in action
That puzzle will be a lot easier to finish in February if we start putting the pieces together right now.
11 Swamp
6 Island
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Ghoulraiser
2 Unbreathing Horde
4 Armored Skaab
3 Skinrender
2 Grave Titan
1 Skaab Ruinator
2 Geth's Verdict
2 Ghoulcaller's Chant
1 Endless Ranks of the Dead
4 Mana Leak
3 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Black Sun Zenith
happily we have Diregraf Ghoul and one lord already rolling (Reaper) and zombies haven't been given a lord yet. He'll likely be blue or black, either is good.
We have a strong finisher in GrimGrin, we have 8 dual lands, and 8 tempo removal cards: Vapor Snag and Geth's Verdict.
that's about 22-23 cards available already that we want in the deck. What we're missing is a 2 drop (if its a lord then thatd be sick), another good 3 drop and a 4 drop. Unbreathing Horde doesn't work without a 2 drop that doesn't suck.
some better removal options might be decent as well.
we have Skaab Ruinator to finish games with but he dies to doomblade which makes him sort of unreliable, more so than GrimGrin.
we also have Liliana as a good way to screw with our opponent and give us removal if we want to use her.
Snapcaster isnt a zombie but he can be made into a zombie via Reaper, thus he's relevant.
Phyrexian Crusader can slaughter red decks by himself, so he may be a sideboard option if RDW becomes stronger.
The vamps have their own decks and control decks running the stronger ones, we dont need them.
This deck may find a good place in standard if the pieces are printed and not lamed down. We can only hope and wait til February
EDIT: Wow forgot about Skinrender at the 4 slot. He's pretty solid with Reaper in play, I guess all we need is that extra lord
Parallel Lives Abuse
Zombie tokens in action
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Walking Corpse
3 Cemetery Reaper
3 Ghoulraiser
3 Phyrexian Crusader
3 Unbreathing Horde
2 Grave Titan
4 Doom Blade
3 Dismember
3 Endless Ranks of the Dead
2 Call to the Grave
Also, I'm not finding any Zombie lords, is there really not any?
Dear Optimists Pessimists and Realists,
While you were all arguing about the half glass of water... I drank it.
Sincerely,
The Opportunist
but the condition is too high, i mean if you get a 5/5 taht negates poison/lifelink/deathtouch and can chumblock endlessly if you give it +1/+1 for 3 mana... i'm in!
the problem that i see with the deck is that the first turns are very weak in an aggro based metagame, you need o play more aggresively and this decks fails at that, the only thing that you can expect is to play a bit controllish in the opening and chumblock a lot, but if a mirran crusader/hexproof badass shows up things get really ugly.
i like the zombie infestation sinergy with paraho and unbrathing horde, it helps quite a lot when you want to get a t3 resilient 4/4 for 3 mana
my list looks like this
21 swamp
2 ghost quarter
18 creatures
4 diregraf ghoul
4 cemetery reaper
3 unbrathing horde
3 skinrender
2 vengeful pharao
2 ghoulraiser
2 doomblade
2 go for the throat
2 victim of the night
2 geth's veredict
3 ghoulcaller's chant
3 despise
3 zombie infestation
2 Moan of the Unhallowed
2 surgical extraction
2 sever the bloodline
2 witchbane orb
2 phyrexian revoker
2 deathmark
3 distress
Chile!
Come oooooon, Dark Ascension
Endless ranks isnt to terrible it does take time yes but it has potential
For two droppers we dont have a decent one yet which sucks but for now im using skirsdag high priest :3
Parallel Lives Abuse
Zombie tokens in action
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
5 Island
4 Nephalia Drownyard
7 Swamp
Creatures
4 Armored Skaab
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Diregraf Ghoul
2 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
4 Skaab Ruinator
3 Unbreathing Horde
2 Undead Alchemist
3 Forbidden Alchemy
4 Ghoulcaller's Chant
2 Grimoire of the Dead
4 Negate
4 Doom Blade
1 Forbidden Alchemy
4 Go for the Throat
2 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Surgical Extraction
Building a zombie deck with self-milling in mind, and if it feels right milling my opponent for tons of tokens! I want as many zombies in the grave as I can to make ruinator, cemetery, and unbreathing viable early drops. negate is for sweepers and protection for book of the dead. Spell bomb is SD for blue delver and similar decks.