If a Survivor draws a card that could universally destroy the Horde deck, or is deemed "too powerful" by the concensus of the Survivors, they may exile that card and draw a new card.
Horde:
Reveals and Play: Starting on the 3rd turn, the Horde will reveal cards.
The Horde gets one reveal per two players in the game, rounded up.
The horde starts at 0 reveals. Every 3 turns, they add a reveal, with the maximum reveals equal to the number of opposing players.
The Horde reveals all cards during the drawstep.
During the Main Step, the Horde will play all non token cards in the order drawn. Then the Horde plays all tokens.
Additional Draws:
If the Horde would draw a card for any reason, it reveals the top card of its library. It plays that card the next time it is able to.
Attack:
The Horde has haste.
The Horde attacks every turn. This is not 'if able.' If something prevents the Horde from attacking, instead it doesn't.
Lifegain:
If the Horde would gain life, instead it takes the bottom X cards of its graveyard and places them on the bottom of the library in a random order.
Choices:
If a player casts a spell that requires the Horde make a choice, the best choice available for the Horde is made (consensus of the players).
Phthisis targets the largest opposing creature (P+T).
Reanimation spells the Horde controls only resurrects creatures, not tokens.
Saving Grace.
I needed to steal an All is Dust for another list, so I grabbed cards and started looking for a Zombie-related card to replace it with. I found Angel of Glory's Rise, and thought it hilarious.
If the Angel is revealed, a random player gains control of it (Or the one with the least creatures).
If the Angel would leave play, or be placed into the graveyard of the Horde deck, it is exiled instead.
This list of rules is of course simply a starting point. Rules may be modified based on the number of players, the strength of the decks facing the Horde, etc. Typically, it is the number of reveals and speed of reveals that is modified.
I have found that Life Gain, especially Lifelink is extremely strong against the Horde. I have considered rules such that players simply cannot gain life, to having the damage dealt to the Horde Deck be a replacement effect, so that Lifelink would not work on the Horde Deck, but would be fine vs. tokens.
Currently, the deck is mono-black, to remain thematic. I have however, considered adding cards like Everlasting Torment, as they remain quite good and thematic.
Counterspells can also be very strong against the Horde deck, so I'm not quite sure how to rule on those yet. I may make it where each counterspell is a Spellshift effect, and the zombies get to warp into another spell instead, or something like that.
Also, during a recent Face The Hydra encounter, one player (who has never played vs Horde, and explained Horde as a comparison to Hydra), suggested the idea that each player have individual life, with a "last one standing" is the "winner." After all, in a Zombie Apocalypse... No one survives.
After having played version 1 a bit, and playing a multiplayer game for version 2, I have decided upon the rules of combat this Horde will engage in.
Quote from Horde Rules »
Survivors:
Survivor life: 20 + 10 per additional player.
Survivor grace period: 3 turns.
First Turn Draw: no.
Horde:
Reveals and Play: Starting on the 3rd turn, the Horde will reveal cards.
The Horde gets one reveal per two players in the game, rounded up.
The Horde reveals all cards during the drawstep.
During the Main Step, the Horde will play all non token cards in theorder drawn. Then the Horde plays all tokens.
Additional Draws:
If the Horde would draw a card for any reason, it reveals the top card of its library. It plays that card the next time it is able to.
Attack:
The Horde has haste.
The Horde attacks every turn. This is not 'if able.' If something prevents the Horde from attacking, instead it doesn't.
Lifegain:
If the Horde would gain life, instead it takes the bottom X cards of its graveyard and places them on the bottom of the library in a random order.
Choices:
If a player casts a spell that requires the Horde make a choice, the best choice available for the Horde is made (consensus of the players).
Improved the card pool a bit. I hope to also up the card count to 200 (keeping the token: card ratios as they are) but until then I've opted to spice up the current deck.
In light of Halloween today, I had decided to build a Zombie Horde deck to play at my LGS this week. Since the deck is new, I haven't the foggiest idea of it's power level, and hope to have fun finding out this week.
A few thoughts about the deck:
1) Less Cards, More tokens - This is one way I had considered beefing up the typical Horde Deck. I like it when stuff happens, so flipping over more stuff is more fun for me. To that end, my horde sports a 65-35 split. This means close to 2 tokens every turn. I feel this will achieve a more 'Horde' feel.
2) More pump - this is to give the feeling over the Horde getting stronger over time. My meta also sports a fair amount of removal options, so hopefully this adds a challenge.
3) Mass Discard - My meta (actually, me) heavily favors card draw; we haven't really played the theme of mass discard yet, so I'm hoping this will eliminate a number of answers.
So... a bit of playtesting 1v1 (I didn't expect to win, but...).
I decide to start off with my Cromat deck. Not a brutal powerhouse, but not a slump either. It has an aggressive curve, and a decent amount of card draw to keep its game going.
My opening hand doesn't look bad. For three turns to set up, shadowmage infiltratorcan give me a zombie chumper, and skullclamp ensures I can trade creatures and still keep up the pressure, Spawning Pool gives me a continuous blocker; looks not too bad.
By turn three, my board looks like this:
I normally try not to overextend with rav bounces, but in this situation, I don't expect any issues.
The Horde's first play:
And it goes quickly downhill from there. The Zombie Giant was joined by a sibling by the time I got my spawning pool online. Shadowmage milled out a small pox, but then had to trade for a zombie when I realized I couldn't go on the offensive. Phyrexian Rebirth cleaned up the two giants and a zombie, giving me a 3/3 to eat zombies with, but what comes out but another Giant... and a Bad Moon. I toss the clamp on and trade it for a zombie, while my spawning pool chumps a giant. Cromat joins the fray, I debate leaving regen mana open, and opt instead for a Clout of the Dominus (New addition!) He eats a giant as a Call to the grave hits (ouch). Cromat gets eaten, I drop... something that doesn't matter, because I also apparently ran into shuffling issues.
Cromat may have an aggressive curve, but its for dropping cheap, effective beaters that draw me cards. Not dealing with 2 6/6 and 5 3/3 Hasty things of doom while I lose a creature every turn.
We ran the Horde deck (v.1) for 4 games that first week:
Game one: 3 players, 3 turns, single draw.
Despite opening with a painful [c]Smallpox[c], the Zombies had a poor showing, flipping relatively few tokens. We won.
Game two: 4 players, 3 turns, single draw.
We had another player walk into the store, and introduced them to the Horde format, and started off. The Zombies had a better showing, dropping occasional threats, and a decent number of zombies, but with 4 sets of weapons against them, even Call to the Grave didn't phase us much. We lost very little life, and then some Sword of Light and Shadows and Loxes stabilized us above our starting life as we obliterated the Zombies.
Game 3: 4 player, 3 turn, ramping Draws.
Obviously the issue was that the players had too many resources compared to the zombies. Various ideas were pitched to improve the Zombie's odds. 1) starting on turn 2. Some concern was given over an early smallpox here. 2) Ramping Draws, The zombie deck would get an extra reveal every 3 turns. 3) Multiple draws off the go. We went with ramping reveals, and the game went underway. With 4 players, the first 6 turns went quickly. Temporal Extortion forced a hard choice of 26 life or an extra turn, but we decided to allow the extra turn and ended up chumping a bit and taking 17 damage (I think I forgot to increment the turn count, which would have mattered with the ramping draws, but not by much). In the end, the zombies got one double draw as we fell upon them for the kill.
Game 4: 5 player, 3 turn, ramping draw (2 turns).
We decided to up it even more, making it so that after the 3 turn grace period, the zombies would ramp up even faster. The inclusion of a fifth set of guns more than compensated for this though, and we won handily again.
Overall, it was distracting, amusing, fun, but not very challenging. A few cuts were in order.
The allstar for the zombies was easily Small pox. I think I will need to obtain some real Poxes for increasing the deck size.
-Wail of the Nim - this did not behave as I'd hoped. I had hoped that even 1 damage would offset some blocking decisions (that 2/3 doesn't look so good blocking the 2/2 token anymore), and that a regen shield on the zombies would provided for massing of the horde. Sadly, the 1 damage rarely ever had an effect, and since I play the spells before the tokens, new tokens didn't have a regen.
-Cairn Wanderer - the number of relevant abilities he got was: none.
-Ankh of Mishra - while amusing at punishing ramp, it really didn't do very much.
+Noxious Ghoul - He's been dying to get in, and the only reason he didn't initially was that I couldn't find him. I found him, and he's happy. The deck needed more wraths.
+Vengeful Dead - Now you take pain from killing them too, and it ramps up the more players there are. There are concerns online for him being a quick kill, but I'm ok with that. There's enough spot removal/first strike that you should be able to take him out quickly.
+Forsaken wastes - Pain that increases based on the number of players, shuts down life gain, and punishes for removal. This is an allstar now.
+ others.
This week, we only got one game in, and we reverted to the one draw to see how crazy the deck had gotten.
We started with 20 life + 10 per extra player in a 5 person game (60 life). We won at 9 life, but we took a last hit to eliminate the zombie deck, and then slaughter them when they attacked. (they had a gravepact out). While the ending was a bit close, I never felt really threatened. An early Forsaken Wastes was actually quite brutal as it eliminated our loxes from being effective, and took out 20-25 life of us on its own, as apparently nobody could find enchantment removal to save our lives. A vengeful Dead gave us a few problems, but Brigid first struck it to oblivion, and then annihilated the token army (there was some concern of her as a general, but she is removabe so it was allowed). A spawnwrithe to my right accounted for a large portion of the zombie deck.
Closing thoughts: 1) Each extra player brings more creatures to block with, more creatures to attack with, and more draws each turn. I think the correct way to tune the zombie deck is to compensate for that: I am moving to 1 draw per 2 players, rounded up. If you have 4 players, the Zombies get 2 reveals, 5 players, 3 reveals, and so on. 2) I like the starting life towards the end, 20 per player seems too high, but 20 and then +10 each seems fair. This does increase the advantage to having more players, but there are effects in the zombie deck that buff it for extra players as well. Starting life: 20 + 10/extra player. 3) 100 cards seemed too low the first week of playing the deck, it was too easy to end the Horde in 5-6 turns. I am in the process of upping the count to 200, but the deck is simply being fixed until I get the tokens to do it. Horde Size: 200. 4) Token:Spell Ratio. I liked my 65:35 ratio quite a bit. It means on average we should have about 2 tokens per turn, but turns into (occasionally 0) 0-5 per turn, and severely reduces the chances at having 0 tokens spawn. I think it's a good mix. Ratio: 65:35.
You can't run any chaff in my experience if you want to succeed against 3 or more people.
I like your 65 zombie count and more giants, I do the same. I do think you need a way to take out enchantments once they stabilise, like All of Dust, however out of theme.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
I have recently purchased Army and Endless Ranks, and I hope they arrive with the tokens, this will let me up the count to 200 rather quickly. In the meantime, I hope that the extra reveals based on players will make the Horde more challenging. I also think that some of the multi-player effects, such as Syphon Mind should be especially more devastating with more survivors.
I'm trying to not run anything as chaff, are there any cards you see that feel to be weaker than others?
[CARD]
All is Dust[/CARD] is another card I am trying to obtain, for this as well as EDH in general. It's so useful in many circumstances.
Thanks for the input!
Edit: updated OP with the rules of play for the Horde. I think that this set of rules should make the Horde scale better to a multiplayer game. If needed to keep up with ramp, incremental draws can be added later.
Lower the Bad Moon count, believe me it is worse than an actual creature a lot of time, I'd say you have altogether too many anthems. I guess Noxious Ghoul is good, I'm just surprised that you lack Grave Titan and other more traditional lords for a more consistent deck.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
interesting. I ran them on the initial fear that most lords would be worthless, since they exclude themselves from their own effect, and would die on the first attack, giving their effect only once.
Enchantments tend to be harder to deal with, so progressive waves would be bigger and would stack up a bit better against creatures buffs the survivors got. The tradeoff being that they can't be reanimated.
A lot of cards I'm missing is actually from a dry spell of playing during that time. I actually have no Damnations, no Grave Titans, no All is Dust, etc. I'm working on fixing that situation, but slowly. I do like the inclusion of Grave Titan though, I think he's making high priority on my list.
Noxious Ghoul is an absolute powerhouse, I am afraid he might be too strong. This is probably due to the fact that I play that non tokens get played first. He can often be a one sided wrath because of this. Even with only 2 tokens spawning (the average) That's -3/-3 to all of the Survivor's creatures. If he comes back in a mass rez? I think that'll be a serious hit for the survivors.
I have considered some of the other lords, notably Zombie Master. While he'll die on his own pretty fast, having a wave of unblockable, unkillable zombies for a turn seems rather nice. Especially since I pulled the Cover of Darknesses.
I'll keep a careful eye on the Bad moons, and see how much value they really add, especially as I up the deck to 200 cards. I do want to up my creature count in the deck though, to make the mass revival spells stronger. The issue is that if I raise it too high, a late rez in the 200 version could be a straight up blow-out for the allies.
Another plus for the lords would be running Dawn of the Dead. While it exiles them later, excluding them from later mass rezzes, getting a strong zombie back every turn could prove to be very painful, giving the Horde deck some extra card advantage.
We found the deck to be weak when you have 4 players. Turns where you only flip one card and no zombies is basiclly a time walk for us. So what we did to change it up is no matter what the horde deck always flips 1 card + 1 for every person playing. So if you have 4 people playing the deck will always flip at least 5 cards a turn. If the deck hits a non-token card in the 5 cards then you stop at card 5. If it hits 5 tokens then you keep going until you hit a non-token card.
We cast each card as it is flipped. This can end up with some fun situations like this: 1 token, Damnation (give a chance if anyone wants to counter), Damnation resolves, then the deck flips a Grave Titan and 2 Tokens. By doing this it gave us more of a challenge and made board wipes from the deck more fun.
So my question is how much life does the Horde deck begin with? It seems as though the Horde will die very fast if it's at a low life total from the start with everyone gunning it down. Does it also get the bonus for each additional player?
Edit - Sorry for the necro. Didn't realize how old it was with the forum shift.
With Army of the Damned I suggested the idea of doing a suspend type effect for the flash back.
so Army of the Damned has 10 counters on it, at the beginning of the players upkeep remove X counters from Army of the Damned where X is the number of players. If Army of the Damned is reduced to 0 or less counters the flashback resolves on the hordes next upkeep.
It's only gone off a few times, and its terrifying! But i think this adds a zombie apocalypse feel to the deck!
I would say immediately suspend Army of the Damned once it is cast the first time with 10 suspend counters on it (equal to its flashback cost). Then remove a counter on every person's upkeep, the survivors and the horde. Once the final counter comes off, cast it again. This should give it a more-true Horde feel, you never know when more zombies will approach.
In theory, this shouldn't be a total gamebreaker. In a two-player match, the Survivor has another 5 turns to find an answer. In a five-player match, everyone has two turns for anyone to find an answer. If a counter is removed on everyone's upkeep, there comes a chance where the Army will appear during a Survivor's turn, forcing their hand in finding an answer.
(In reality, it's not too different from your suggestion Delirium422. I think yours might end up working better.)
I would say immediately suspend Army of the Damned once it is cast the first time with 10 suspend counters on it (equal to its flashback cost). Then remove a counter on every person's upkeep, the survivors and the horde. Once the final counter comes off, cast it again. This should give it a more-true Horde feel, you never know when more zombies will approach.
In theory, this shouldn't be a total gamebreaker. In a two-player match, the Survivor has another 5 turns to find an answer. In a five-player match, everyone has two turns for anyone to find an answer. If a counter is removed on everyone's upkeep, there comes a chance where the Army will appear during a Survivor's turn, forcing their hand in finding an answer.
(In reality, it's not too different from your suggestion Delirium422. I think yours might end up working better.)
I like the idea of the suspend counters. It might be more fun though if you were to say put 10 suspend counters on it and roll a d4 or d6 during the horde's turn and subtract the counters based upon that. It would make for a bit more of a surprise flashback as it could be a long time before it flashes back but it could be as few as two turns.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
So my question is how much life does the Horde deck begin with? It seems as though the Horde will die very fast if it's at a low life total from the start with everyone gunning it down. Does it also get the bonus for each additional player?
Edit - Sorry for the necro. Didn't realize how old it was with the forum shift.
Finally found the answer for this question. To anyone else who is curious, damage dealt to the Horde is in the form of milling. Once the Horde has no more library and no more creatures, the Horde loses.
In my horde house-rules, we have a rule that stops all zombie lords from attacking, but they have to block (randomly) if possible. This means that the survivors have a much bigger pressure to attack into the horde, and the lord's effects last longer.
In my horde though, we run 4 army of the damned, 3 tombstone stairwell and 10 endless ranks of the dead.
It really heightens the need for enchantment removal though. We made tombstone stairwell work as if all tokens counts as creature cards in the graveyard, and that for each cumulative upkeep, the horde rolls a d10, and if the roll is lower than the number of age counters, then the tombstone is sacced.
Haha cheers! Zombie horde is one of the main things in our playgroup here. It is one of those formats that reduces the amount of vindictiveness some people can get up to and so on.
In regards to the tombstone though, it becomes this new facet of the game that doesn't exist otherwise. In other words, it MIGHT blow itself up, so us the survivors might want to save that krosan grip for something else that might come up, but then again, it depends how insane the horde's graveyard looks (by midway through the game, we'd be up to about 100+ tokens popped into play).
Oh and i completely forgot. because i used to draft unglued, we had access to the famed 99/99 the-Biggest-Baddest-Nastiest-Scariest-Creature-You'll-Ever-See B.F.M. (Big Furry Monster) (i have NO idea how to link both sides properly) in the 200 or so horde. Our house rule is that if the zombie horde draws either half, it is kept on the horde's "hand" until the other half is found, then its cast.
Not sure if other horde players out there do weird stuff like that.
I figured it was about time to post my updated Horde List, since this post hasn't been updated in a year or so. Here are the current rules we use, that get tweaked from time to time.
Quote from Horde Rules »
Survivors:
Survivor life: 20 + 10 per additional player.
Survivor grace period: 3 turns.
First Turn Draw: no.
If a Survivor draws a card that could universally destroy the Horde deck, or is deemed "too powerful" by the concensus of the Survivors, they may exile that card and draw a new card.
Horde:
Reveals and Play: Starting on the 3rd turn, the Horde will reveal cards.
The Horde gets one reveal per two players in the game, rounded up.
The horde starts at 0 reveals. Every 3 turns, they add a reveal, with the maximum reveals equal to the number of opposing players.
The Horde reveals all cards during the drawstep.
During the Main Step, the Horde will play all non token cards in the order drawn. Then the Horde plays all tokens.
Additional Draws:
If the Horde would draw a card for any reason, it reveals the top card of its library. It plays that card the next time it is able to.
Attack:
The Horde has haste.
The Horde attacks every turn. This is not 'if able.' If something prevents the Horde from attacking, instead it doesn't.
Lifegain:
If the Horde would gain life, instead it takes the bottom X cards of its graveyard and places them on the bottom of the library in a random order.
Choices:
If a player casts a spell that requires the Horde make a choice, the best choice available for the Horde is made (consensus of the players).
Phthisis targets the largest opposing creature (P+T).
Reanimation spells the Horde controls only resurrects creatures, not tokens.
Saving Grace.
I needed to steal an All is Dust for another list, so I grabbed cards and started looking for a Zombie-related card to replace it with. I found Angel of Glory's Rise, and thought it hilarious.
If the Angel is revealed, a random player gains control of it (Or the one with the least creatures).
If the Angel would leave play, or be placed into the graveyard of the Horde deck, it is exiled instead.
This list of rules is of course simply a starting point. Rules may be modified based on the number of players, the strength of the decks facing the Horde, etc. Typically, it is the number of reveals and speed of reveals that is modified.
I have found that Life Gain, especially Lifelink is extremely strong against the Horde. I have considered rules such that players simply cannot gain life, to having the damage dealt to the Horde Deck be a replacement effect, so that Lifelink would not work on the Horde Deck, but would be fine vs. tokens.
Currently, the deck is mono-black, to remain thematic. I have however, considered adding cards like Everlasting Torment, as they remain quite good and thematic.
Counterspells can also be very strong against the Horde deck, so I'm not quite sure how to rule on those yet. I may make it where each counterspell is a Spellshift effect, and the zombies get to warp into another spell instead, or something like that.
Also, during a recent Face The Hydra encounter, one player (who has never played vs Horde, and explained Horde as a comparison to Hydra), suggested the idea that each player have individual life, with a "last one standing" is the "winner." After all, in a Zombie Apocalypse... No one survives.
It initially got put in because I needed to steal an All is Dust for another deck, and it was the first "Zombie" Themed card I found. So far it's managed to be amusing everytime it makes an appearance, so it seems like an OK thing to me. If it ever gets old, it's a pretty easy card to cut.
The major card I feel I am missing right now from newer sets is Grave Betrayal.
have you thought about removing say 5 zombie giants and 5 zombie tokens for like 10 ghoultrees (and count them as tokens)? i mean it seems that this is one mean zombie-machine, so u might as well up the zombie token-power, right?
have you thought about removing say 5 zombie giants and 5 zombie tokens for like 10 ghoultrees (and count them as tokens)? i mean it seems that this is one mean zombie-machine, so u might as well up the zombie token-power, right?
It's certainly an interesting idea, I'll have to consider it. Right now the biggest issue I have is how much lifegain helps the survivors. I'm thinking of adding in some Everlasting Torments and Forsaken Wastes to combat it.
Also, I think I'd like to try out the Emblem path.
For reference, as a method to scale the Zombies as time goes on, you add some emblem cards in the deck for them, which they receive either by revealing into them, or (if you want to up the difficulty) also when you mill them out. This should let the Zombie deck bounce back quite a bit.
in my zombie horde, i use domri's emblem (hex proof, trample, haste, double strike, i think). that usually puts the players in their place!
i haven't really had a chance to try our hand with a life gain deck... no one here uses that as a strategy, it seems! i don't really see how it'd work against the horde though. a wave of 2 ghoultrees, 4 zombie giants and 7 zombie tokens with haste kinda multiplying turn after turn surely outraces an angelic chorus/congregation thing?
101 zombie - 2/2
20 zombie giant - 5/5
Creatures - 22
3 Death Baron
1 Dread Slaver
1 Ghoulraiser
4 Grave Titan
2 Maalfeld Twins
3 Noxious Ghoul
1 Soulless One
1 Undead Warchief
3 Vengeful Dead
3 Woebearer - returns randomly
Other Permanents - 18
3 Call to the Grave
1 Coat of Arms
1 Dawn of the Dead
1 Death Pit Offering
4 Endless Ranks of the Dead
2 Endless Whispers
2 Oppression
2 Gravepact
1 Subversion
1 Wound Reflection
3 All is Dust
3 Army of the Damned - flashback on next turn
4 Barter in Blood
4 Delerium Skeins
4 Patriarch's Bidding
2 Phtisis
5 Plague Wind
2 Shriveling Rot
4 Smallpox
4 Syphon Mind
1 Temporal Extortion
1 Zombie Apocalypse
The Savior - 1
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
The Damnation Continues - 1
1 Elixir of Immortality
------
HORDE
121 - 71
Currently, the deck is mono-black, to remain thematic. I have however, considered adding cards like Everlasting Torment, as they remain quite good and thematic.
Counterspells can also be very strong against the Horde deck, so I'm not quite sure how to rule on those yet. I may make it where each counterspell is a Spellshift effect, and the zombies get to warp into another spell instead, or something like that.
Also, during a recent Face The Hydra encounter, one player (who has never played vs Horde, and explained Horde as a comparison to Hydra), suggested the idea that each player have individual life, with a "last one standing" is the "winner." After all, in a Zombie Apocalypse... No one survives.
Another suggestion from long ago was to have themed decks to go against the Horde, suggesting specific classes for the players, such as having Kei Takahashi, Reveka, Wizard Savant, Tor Wauki, Tuknir Deathlock as the available leaders.
Also potentials: Bushi Tenderfoot, Isao, Enlightened Bushi, Cabal Patriarch, Brothers Yamazaki(x2)
Improved the card pool a bit. I hope to also up the card count to 200 (keeping the token: card ratios as they are) but until then I've opted to spice up the current deck.
50 zombie - 2/2
15 zombie giant - 5/5
Cards
Creatures - 13
3 Death Baron
1 Undead Warchief
3 Noxious Ghoul
4 Vengeful Dead
2 Soulless One
2 Delirium Skeins
2 Syphon Mind
1 Temporal Extortion
2 Plague Wind
1 Forsaken Wastes
2 Patriarch's Bidding
1 Living Death
1 Death Pit Offering
1 Coat of Arms
3 Bad Moon
1 Call to the Grave
1 Grave Pact
I still want to up the creature count.
A few thoughts about the deck:
1) Less Cards, More tokens - This is one way I had considered beefing up the typical Horde Deck. I like it when stuff happens, so flipping over more stuff is more fun for me. To that end, my horde sports a 65-35 split. This means close to 2 tokens every turn. I feel this will achieve a more 'Horde' feel.
2) More pump - this is to give the feeling over the Horde getting stronger over time. My meta also sports a fair amount of removal options, so hopefully this adds a challenge.
3) Mass Discard - My meta (actually, me) heavily favors card draw; we haven't really played the theme of mass discard yet, so I'm hoping this will eliminate a number of answers.
50 Zombie
15 Zombie Giant
5 Bad Moon
2 Death Baron
1 Undead Warchief
2 Patriarchs Bidding
1 Oversold Cemetery - treated as random
1 Living Death
1 Ghoul Raiser
2 Call to the Grave
1 Grave Pact
2 Oppression
1 Bottomless Pit
3 Smallpox
2 Delirium
2 Ankh of Mishra
2 Wail of the Nim
1 Phyrexian Arena
2 Cover of Darkness
2 Cairn Wanderer
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
I decide to start off with my Cromat deck. Not a brutal powerhouse, but not a slump either. It has an aggressive curve, and a decent amount of card draw to keep its game going.
My opening hand doesn't look bad. For three turns to set up, shadowmage infiltratorcan give me a zombie chumper, and skullclamp ensures I can trade creatures and still keep up the pressure, Spawning Pool gives me a continuous blocker; looks not too bad.
By turn three, my board looks like this:
I normally try not to overextend with rav bounces, but in this situation, I don't expect any issues.
The Horde's first play:
And it goes quickly downhill from there. The Zombie Giant was joined by a sibling by the time I got my spawning pool online. Shadowmage milled out a small pox, but then had to trade for a zombie when I realized I couldn't go on the offensive. Phyrexian Rebirth cleaned up the two giants and a zombie, giving me a 3/3 to eat zombies with, but what comes out but another Giant... and a Bad Moon. I toss the clamp on and trade it for a zombie, while my spawning pool chumps a giant. Cromat joins the fray, I debate leaving regen mana open, and opt instead for a Clout of the Dominus (New addition!) He eats a giant as a Call to the grave hits (ouch). Cromat gets eaten, I drop... something that doesn't matter, because I also apparently ran into shuffling issues.
Cromat may have an aggressive curve, but its for dropping cheap, effective beaters that draw me cards. Not dealing with 2 6/6 and 5 3/3 Hasty things of doom while I lose a creature every turn.
I look forward to trying this again... 4 player.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
We ran the Horde deck (v.1) for 4 games that first week:
Game one: 3 players, 3 turns, single draw.
Despite opening with a painful [c]Smallpox[c], the Zombies had a poor showing, flipping relatively few tokens. We won.
Game two: 4 players, 3 turns, single draw.
We had another player walk into the store, and introduced them to the Horde format, and started off. The Zombies had a better showing, dropping occasional threats, and a decent number of zombies, but with 4 sets of weapons against them, even Call to the Grave didn't phase us much. We lost very little life, and then some Sword of Light and Shadows and Loxes stabilized us above our starting life as we obliterated the Zombies.
Game 3: 4 player, 3 turn, ramping Draws.
Obviously the issue was that the players had too many resources compared to the zombies. Various ideas were pitched to improve the Zombie's odds. 1) starting on turn 2. Some concern was given over an early smallpox here. 2) Ramping Draws, The zombie deck would get an extra reveal every 3 turns. 3) Multiple draws off the go. We went with ramping reveals, and the game went underway. With 4 players, the first 6 turns went quickly. Temporal Extortion forced a hard choice of 26 life or an extra turn, but we decided to allow the extra turn and ended up chumping a bit and taking 17 damage (I think I forgot to increment the turn count, which would have mattered with the ramping draws, but not by much). In the end, the zombies got one double draw as we fell upon them for the kill.
Game 4: 5 player, 3 turn, ramping draw (2 turns).
We decided to up it even more, making it so that after the 3 turn grace period, the zombies would ramp up even faster. The inclusion of a fifth set of guns more than compensated for this though, and we won handily again.
Overall, it was distracting, amusing, fun, but not very challenging. A few cuts were in order.
The allstar for the zombies was easily Small pox. I think I will need to obtain some real Poxes for increasing the deck size.
-Wail of the Nim - this did not behave as I'd hoped. I had hoped that even 1 damage would offset some blocking decisions (that 2/3 doesn't look so good blocking the 2/2 token anymore), and that a regen shield on the zombies would provided for massing of the horde. Sadly, the 1 damage rarely ever had an effect, and since I play the spells before the tokens, new tokens didn't have a regen.
-Cairn Wanderer - the number of relevant abilities he got was: none.
-Ankh of Mishra - while amusing at punishing ramp, it really didn't do very much.
+Noxious Ghoul - He's been dying to get in, and the only reason he didn't initially was that I couldn't find him. I found him, and he's happy. The deck needed more wraths.
+Vengeful Dead - Now you take pain from killing them too, and it ramps up the more players there are. There are concerns online for him being a quick kill, but I'm ok with that. There's enough spot removal/first strike that you should be able to take him out quickly.
+Forsaken wastes - Pain that increases based on the number of players, shuts down life gain, and punishes for removal. This is an allstar now.
+ others.
This week, we only got one game in, and we reverted to the one draw to see how crazy the deck had gotten.
We started with 20 life + 10 per extra player in a 5 person game (60 life). We won at 9 life, but we took a last hit to eliminate the zombie deck, and then slaughter them when they attacked. (they had a gravepact out). While the ending was a bit close, I never felt really threatened. An early Forsaken Wastes was actually quite brutal as it eliminated our loxes from being effective, and took out 20-25 life of us on its own, as apparently nobody could find enchantment removal to save our lives. A vengeful Dead gave us a few problems, but Brigid first struck it to oblivion, and then annihilated the token army (there was some concern of her as a general, but she is removabe so it was allowed). A spawnwrithe to my right accounted for a large portion of the zombie deck.
Closing thoughts:
1) Each extra player brings more creatures to block with, more creatures to attack with, and more draws each turn. I think the correct way to tune the zombie deck is to compensate for that: I am moving to 1 draw per 2 players, rounded up. If you have 4 players, the Zombies get 2 reveals, 5 players, 3 reveals, and so on.
2) I like the starting life towards the end, 20 per player seems too high, but 20 and then +10 each seems fair. This does increase the advantage to having more players, but there are effects in the zombie deck that buff it for extra players as well. Starting life: 20 + 10/extra player.
3) 100 cards seemed too low the first week of playing the deck, it was too easy to end the Horde in 5-6 turns. I am in the process of upping the count to 200, but the deck is simply being fixed until I get the tokens to do it. Horde Size: 200.
4) Token:Spell Ratio. I liked my 65:35 ratio quite a bit. It means on average we should have about 2 tokens per turn, but turns into (occasionally 0) 0-5 per turn, and severely reduces the chances at having 0 tokens spawn. I think it's a good mix. Ratio: 65:35.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
You can't run any chaff in my experience if you want to succeed against 3 or more people.
I like your 65 zombie count and more giants, I do the same. I do think you need a way to take out enchantments once they stabilise, like All of Dust, however out of theme.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
I'm trying to not run anything as chaff, are there any cards you see that feel to be weaker than others?
[CARD]
All is Dust[/CARD] is another card I am trying to obtain, for this as well as EDH in general. It's so useful in many circumstances.
Thanks for the input!
Edit: updated OP with the rules of play for the Horde. I think that this set of rules should make the Horde scale better to a multiplayer game. If needed to keep up with ramp, incremental draws can be added later.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
Enchantments tend to be harder to deal with, so progressive waves would be bigger and would stack up a bit better against creatures buffs the survivors got. The tradeoff being that they can't be reanimated.
A lot of cards I'm missing is actually from a dry spell of playing during that time. I actually have no Damnations, no Grave Titans, no All is Dust, etc. I'm working on fixing that situation, but slowly. I do like the inclusion of Grave Titan though, I think he's making high priority on my list.
Noxious Ghoul is an absolute powerhouse, I am afraid he might be too strong. This is probably due to the fact that I play that non tokens get played first. He can often be a one sided wrath because of this. Even with only 2 tokens spawning (the average) That's -3/-3 to all of the Survivor's creatures. If he comes back in a mass rez? I think that'll be a serious hit for the survivors.
I have considered some of the other lords, notably Zombie Master. While he'll die on his own pretty fast, having a wave of unblockable, unkillable zombies for a turn seems rather nice. Especially since I pulled the Cover of Darknesses.
I'll keep a careful eye on the Bad moons, and see how much value they really add, especially as I up the deck to 200 cards. I do want to up my creature count in the deck though, to make the mass revival spells stronger. The issue is that if I raise it too high, a late rez in the 200 version could be a straight up blow-out for the allies.
Another plus for the lords would be running Dawn of the Dead. While it exiles them later, excluding them from later mass rezzes, getting a strong zombie back every turn could prove to be very painful, giving the Horde deck some extra card advantage.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
We cast each card as it is flipped. This can end up with some fun situations like this: 1 token, Damnation (give a chance if anyone wants to counter), Damnation resolves, then the deck flips a Grave Titan and 2 Tokens. By doing this it gave us more of a challenge and made board wipes from the deck more fun.
Edit - Sorry for the necro. Didn't realize how old it was with the forum shift.
so Army of the Damned has 10 counters on it, at the beginning of the players upkeep remove X counters from Army of the Damned where X is the number of players. If Army of the Damned is reduced to 0 or less counters the flashback resolves on the hordes next upkeep.
It's only gone off a few times, and its terrifying! But i think this adds a zombie apocalypse feel to the deck!
What do you think?
In theory, this shouldn't be a total gamebreaker. In a two-player match, the Survivor has another 5 turns to find an answer. In a five-player match, everyone has two turns for anyone to find an answer. If a counter is removed on everyone's upkeep, there comes a chance where the Army will appear during a Survivor's turn, forcing their hand in finding an answer.
(In reality, it's not too different from your suggestion Delirium422. I think yours might end up working better.)
I like the idea of the suspend counters. It might be more fun though if you were to say put 10 suspend counters on it and roll a d4 or d6 during the horde's turn and subtract the counters based upon that. It would make for a bit more of a surprise flashback as it could be a long time before it flashes back but it could be as few as two turns.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Finally found the answer for this question. To anyone else who is curious, damage dealt to the Horde is in the form of milling. Once the Horde has no more library and no more creatures, the Horde loses.
In my horde though, we run 4 army of the damned, 3 tombstone stairwell and 10 endless ranks of the dead.
It really heightens the need for enchantment removal though. We made tombstone stairwell work as if all tokens counts as creature cards in the graveyard, and that for each cumulative upkeep, the horde rolls a d10, and if the roll is lower than the number of age counters, then the tombstone is sacced.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
In regards to the tombstone though, it becomes this new facet of the game that doesn't exist otherwise. In other words, it MIGHT blow itself up, so us the survivors might want to save that krosan grip for something else that might come up, but then again, it depends how insane the horde's graveyard looks (by midway through the game, we'd be up to about 100+ tokens popped into play).
Oh and i completely forgot. because i used to draft unglued, we had access to the famed 99/99 the-Biggest-Baddest-Nastiest-Scariest-Creature-You'll-Ever-See B.F.M. (Big Furry Monster) (i have NO idea how to link both sides properly) in the 200 or so horde. Our house rule is that if the zombie horde draws either half, it is kept on the horde's "hand" until the other half is found, then its cast.
Not sure if other horde players out there do weird stuff like that.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
101 zombie - 2/2
20 zombie giant - 5/5
Creatures - 22
3 Death Baron
1 Dread Slaver
1 Ghoulraiser
4 Grave Titan
2 Maalfeld Twins
3 Noxious Ghoul
1 Soulless One
1 Undead Warchief
3 Vengeful Dead
3 Woebearer - returns randomly
Other Permanents - 18
3 Call to the Grave
1 Coat of Arms
1 Dawn of the Dead
1 Death Pit Offering
4 Endless Ranks of the Dead
2 Endless Whispers
2 Oppression
2 Gravepact
1 Subversion
1 Wound Reflection
3 All is Dust
3 Army of the Damned - flashback on next turn
4 Barter in Blood
4 Delerium Skeins
4 Patriarch's Bidding
2 Phtisis
5 Plague Wind
2 Shriveling Rot
4 Smallpox
4 Syphon Mind
1 Temporal Extortion
1 Zombie Apocalypse
The Savior - 1
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
The Damnation Continues - 1
1 Elixir of Immortality
------
HORDE
121 - 71
Currently, the deck is mono-black, to remain thematic. I have however, considered adding cards like Everlasting Torment, as they remain quite good and thematic.
Counterspells can also be very strong against the Horde deck, so I'm not quite sure how to rule on those yet. I may make it where each counterspell is a Spellshift effect, and the zombies get to warp into another spell instead, or something like that.
Also, during a recent Face The Hydra encounter, one player (who has never played vs Horde, and explained Horde as a comparison to Hydra), suggested the idea that each player have individual life, with a "last one standing" is the "winner." After all, in a Zombie Apocalypse... No one survives.
Another suggestion from long ago was to have themed decks to go against the Horde, suggesting specific classes for the players, such as having Kei Takahashi, Reveka, Wizard Savant, Tor Wauki, Tuknir Deathlock as the available leaders.
Also potentials: Bushi Tenderfoot, Isao, Enlightened Bushi, Cabal Patriarch, Brothers Yamazaki(x2)
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
It initially got put in because I needed to steal an All is Dust for another deck, and it was the first "Zombie" Themed card I found. So far it's managed to be amusing everytime it makes an appearance, so it seems like an OK thing to me. If it ever gets old, it's a pretty easy card to cut.
The major card I feel I am missing right now from newer sets is Grave Betrayal.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
It's certainly an interesting idea, I'll have to consider it. Right now the biggest issue I have is how much lifegain helps the survivors. I'm thinking of adding in some Everlasting Torments and Forsaken Wastes to combat it.
Also, I think I'd like to try out the Emblem path.
For reference, as a method to scale the Zombies as time goes on, you add some emblem cards in the deck for them, which they receive either by revealing into them, or (if you want to up the difficulty) also when you mill them out. This should let the Zombie deck bounce back quite a bit.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
i haven't really had a chance to try our hand with a life gain deck... no one here uses that as a strategy, it seems! i don't really see how it'd work against the horde though. a wave of 2 ghoultrees, 4 zombie giants and 7 zombie tokens with haste kinda multiplying turn after turn surely outraces an angelic chorus/congregation thing?
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom