MTG Salvation

www.quietspeculation.com/2011/09/horde-magic-a-new-way-to-play-magic-and-survive-zombie-invasions/

Heard about this earlier today. It's an alternate Commander game made to simulate a zombie apocalypse. Players play against a "horde" deck in the role of survivors. It's quite interesting!

Anyone wanna try this on Cockatrice sometime? I'm working on a Horde deck to run it with.

EDIT: A ban list is being worked out! This is by no means official. Here's what we got so far. Fee free to add suggestions!

Basically, the criteria for the Survivor's banlist is that any card which makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Horde to win gets cut. So things like No Mercy/Dread or Aurification, which disable attackers after one attack connects, or Aether Flash, which kills a lot of the deck's threats before they become threats.

As for the horde, any card which would be extremely unfair in the Horde's favor makes the cut. So far, I can only think of one card that qualifies.

Actually, I don't think anybody plays the Horde deck But it still looks awesome, I might try to organize this with my playgroup

I misspoke, and corrected my wording accordingly. But in Cockatrice, somebody has to flip cards over. So somebody has to play gamemaster.

it would be cool if in a regular edh game (as in free for all), there was also a horde on the side. say, in this version, the horde can't lose (just shuffle grave int o deck every time deck runs out), and it attacks a random player by die roll each round. just another cool variant to consider.

This seems like it could be lots of fun. Unless one of the survivors is running an infinite combo or something that would take the challenge out of the game.

Interesting idea. I'm going to have to build a horde deck now.

Just tried a couple of 1v1 games on cockatrice, using my RW Jor Kadeen deck and a slightly modfied horde deck. Didn't scale the horde deck down 'cause I'm lazy.

It gets crazy pretty fast. Since every zombie has to swing every turn and they have haste, you definitely feel the pressure early on. There are turns where the horde deck flips over 3 zombie tokens + some other dude in a row, and it gets a little nasty. I threw in a single copy of Death Pit Offering in the Horde deck, and the moment the Horde deck "drew" it or an undead warchief, it really put me up against the wall. Staring at multiple 4/4's with haste is No Joke. I was using Walking Corpse/Scathe Zombies as the standard zombie tokens and Quest for the Gravelord as the 5/5 zombie giant token.

I found it really fun, despite getting creamed both times. That's what I get for not scaling the deck, though.

Quite frankly this isn't hard enough, I'm trying to build a really nasty horde now. Anyone have super mean ideas?

I really like this idea, but it can use some fine-tuning. What happens if a survivor plays a planeswalker? Will the zombies be forced to attack it, or will they ignore it completely? Also, what happens if a survivor gets Trepanation Blade? Is that GG for the horde or will a rule be implemented saying that the horde can't be milled except via combat damage?

Edit: @Bulbasaurus Rex- I was thinking about running maybe 80ish tokens and allow the survivors only a 1-2 turn head-start.

Quote from Bulbasaurus Rex

Quite frankly this isn't hard enough, I'm trying to build a really nasty horde now. Anyone have super mean ideas?

As many pump effects as possible. A couple of Eldrazi Monuments should also be quite handy. Things like Cover of Darkness put a *very* fast clock on the survivors.

"Splashing" into other colors can also be neat. Red gives us Lightning Reaver and Shambling Remains, while green gives us Vulturous Zombie, Overrun and Triumph of the Hordes.

99 tokens, 1 eldrazi monument.

Quote from kwiznek

99 tokens, 1 eldrazi monument.

Kinda kills the point of it all, don't you think?

Nice. I like this idea. Can totally imagine the WTF moments in my playgroup should this happen ahahahah!

Ima trying to get people on Cockatrice to play this atm

totally doing this with my friends at my LGS

oh yea this zombie list the posted is kinda crappy, 3 control decks can handle it way to easily. i advise increacing power level a bit if ur in a super competivive enviroment

Building one now. Trying to decide on how DB to make it. Should I run every "Lord" that I can find? Wht about Zombie Master while not a zombie, he is another lord... and makes your horde almost unkillable. Found a Sutured Ghoul seems kinda bomb to me, and a Pyrrhic Revival.

Horde 1.0

Link in the OP leads to a 404 error page. I can make some guesses as to the format based on the name and the posts so far, but could someone post a more thorough description since the site seems to be down?

Quote from Lithl

Link in the OP leads to a 404 error page. I can make some guesses as to the format based on the name and the posts so far, but could someone post a more thorough description since the site seems to be down?

You take this deck similar to the one posted above as the zombie horde. You get 3 turns to setup your defense before the horde begins. Then you alternate allies to horde 1:1 turns. The horde is 100 cards for 4 players 75 for 3 50 for 2 and 25 I believe for 1 player. You and your allies get 20 life a piece. The horde has infinite mana. The horde flips cards until a non token card is flipped then that card is played with the tokens. Zombies have haste and attack all players each turn. The horde's life total is the cards in its library. So if you hit it for 20 you mill 20 cards. Your goal is to survive.

So does Elesh Norn just wreck the tokens?

I use the 55-5 Token set up, and I've included some "boss" cards for the deck. The drawbacks on Skaab Ruinator and Phage are ignored, but phage does NOT have haste. The weakest zombie (smallest combination of P/T) is always sacced to Eldrazi Monument, and Skaab Ruinator is never cast from the GY.

That seem pretty nice. With the new card from Innistrad. I didn't have access to the site because he is crash so I didn't know the exact rule they say.

But I think a free for all game with the Zombie deck can be really Chaotic and fun. The zombie deck cannot die. It's shuffle is library when he run out of cards. With this type of game the hug deck will be happy because now you can really help you opponents without giving him so much board advantage. In exchange your opponent will try to save you from the zombie deck.

Nice idea for more fun and challenge in a game. Strategie change and game aren't the same. Nice idea guys.

Quote from Stranger

I was using Walking Corpse/Scathe Zombies as the standard zombie tokens and Quest for the Gravelord as the 5/5 zombie giant token.XD

I've been using Nercosavant as the 5/5s. It's got the right P/T and it's a giant!

Does anyone think that the horde using Grave Pact is too egregiously unfair to the survivors?

Quote from GG Crono

I've been using Nercosavant as the 5/5s. It's got the right P/T and it's a giant!

Does anyone think that the horde using Grave Pact is too egregiously unfair to the survivors?

Hm, hadn't thought of Necrosavant. Will change the list!

And no, I think it's pretty fair for the Horde to have Grave Pact. Just limit it to one copy, though.

I like the idea of running Endless Whispers in the Horde deck to simulate the whole "If you die, you're coming over to our side!" trope of zombies. Since the Horde can't really decide anything, it'd be a one-sided enchantment, which is even better...

Eldrazi Monument seems a bit too much. I am using Noxious Ghoul and Syphon Flesh. Smallpox is pretty good.