this horde is actually a bit of a beast. we never noticed it before, but one of the few things that allows the survivors to survive the onslaught was essentially intense-lifegain and graveyard resources. being able to recur whatever we've lost to the yard/using their citp abilities really helps. and since the horde doesn't have in-built graveyard hate, and having JUST spotted a zombie-imitation of bojuka bog, agent of erebos goes straight in!
anyways, having ran it once, the agent didnt make any significant contributions to the game; although we can see it being quite painful against a self-mill kinda strategy. so far, it doesn't seem like the horde needs any more graveyard hate triggers from enchantments.
we might also need to tone the horde down at some point, since it's actually quite a beating every time we try it out (even on normal mode).
So I've been a player since revised era, but stopped between mercedian masks and just recently come back for innistrad. We generally have pretty untuned edh decks to power up against the horde, so we wouldn't really hold up against most of the other hordes here (barring possibly the [HTML=http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=537316]kobold horde[/HTML]).
So this is the current decklist of my original zombie-horror-death-themed-horde (and apologies to the purists who don't believe in spirit and skeleton tokens. I just can't seem to find more).
I've also nicked some brilliant ideas from other horde decks and they are as follows:
The survivors (the players) start the game with 3 turns (not drawing a card for the first one), and start at 100 life, minus 20 per player beyond one.
The Horde starts with a d6 set aside, with the '1' faced up. This is the wave-strength indicator.
During the horde's turn, flip cards from the top of the horde library until a number of non-token cards are revealed equal to the number indicated on the wave-strength indicator-dice.
Whenever the horde draws cards, the horde resolves all cards in its hand as soon as possible, in the order in which the cards were drawn.
All creatures in the horde have haste, and all non-lord zombies must attack each turn if possible.
If there are two or more zombie lords in play, only the lord with the most recent timestamp doesn't attack. All other lords must attack with the horde (in other words, there is only one 'lord' position, which is taken over by the most recent lord coming into play).
Whenever a endless ranks of the dead is shown or milled, change the wave-strength indicator up by one.
The survivors may choose to attack into the horde OR burn the bodies, if they so choose (within one turn, the survivors attack either the horde or burn bodies, not both).
When the survivors attack into the horde, mill one card from the top of the library into the graveyard per two damage dealt, rounded down.
When the survivors burn the bodies, remove one card at random from the horde's graveyard from the game.
When an effect in game creates tokens, these are not considered to be creature cards (so they disappear when killed or bounced) but creature tokens that started in the deck do count as creature cards.
Whenever the horde gains life, instead shuffle one token at random from the horde's graveyard and the horde gains 1 buffer life for each two life the horde gains, rounded up.
If the survivors damage the horde when the horde has any form of buffer life, the buffer life takes the damage first before burning the bodies or milling the horde.
For example, the horde gains 7 life. Instead, shuffle 4 random tokens back into the library from the horde graveyard, and the zombie horde gains 4 buffer life. Then, the survivors send out draco to burn zombie bodies. Draco removes the 4 buffer life, and then burn 5 bodies at random.
The survivors win if the horde runs out of cards in the library AND out of zombie creatures in play at any time.
I think thats about it for the rules. But there are some specific card rules which are a bit wonky and probably needs work on:
Grimoire of the dead: instead of discarding a card, the horde just mills the top of the horde deck, limited to one time per turn, every turn. When it hits three counters, it instantly activates the second ability.
living end: Since I can't afford another living death, i had to use this. When living end is suspended, in the upkeep of the horde's turn, roll a d6, and remove that many time counters on it. I had to do it this way to keep the game more random, and to stop the players from trying to benefit from it too much.
army of the damned: After it is cast, suspend it with 10 counters. During each upkeep of the horde, roll a d6, and remove that many counters from it. When it hits 0 counters, it is resolved.
BFM (left and right): Whenever any side of the BFM is drawn by the horde, set it aside. When the horde draws the second side of BFM, it is instantly resolved and cast. If either side of the BFM is milled when there is one side of the BFM set aside, put both sides in the graveyard. If either side is affected by an ability, it also affects the other (so if gravedigger finds BFM left, it finds BFM right too).
I can't remember if it was SAUS9001 or another member, but someone had suggested adding swamps to the deck to scale up the horde. I figured this was a great idea, but i instead tied it to endless ranks of the dead, just 'cuz it seemed to flavour-fit, its quite scary having 3 or 4 in play at the same time, and it does actually scale quite well (possibly too well, since 7 cards of ~150 happens quite a bit, meaning the survivors would want to try to mill these out).
And a quick word on kjeldoran dead, zombie outlander and haunted ghoul: these guys were first added in because i was running low on zombies to fit in. But then after playing it a few times, it became pretty awesome, as the horde gains a lot of randomness in its flips. For example, the survivors are clinging on after a flashbacked army of the damned and a grave defiler, just to flip into a..... haunted ghoul! its this weird 'whew' (or possibly anti-climatic) moment that makes the survivors think they had just hit a time walk.
questionable cards though, are oath of ghouls, breaking point, spiteful visions and necromancer's covenant.
Its not that they are bad, per se, but at least breaking point and spiteful visions aren't very on-theme (but i like how they work).
Oath of ghouls can be very irritating (especially if the survivors know that 2 of the cards in the horde graveyard are BFM), but if the survivors spends a few attacks to thin the graveyard, the survivors might start getting some space to use it to their own ends. Never happened yet though. Necromancer's covenant is and has always been a bit of a strange one. I really like that it can remove a survivor's graveyard (it targets randomly), but at times it can be really disheartening (though i suppose that is the point). One somewhat memorable [read: scarring] moment of this horde was with 2 endless ranks of the dead, the domri rade emblem, flipped into a necromancer's covenant. needless to say 35 or so zombie tokens that double-struck, trampled, hexproofed, and now with lifelink. Brilliant.
So yea, not sure if i should take out the covenant or change something else.
Added an Angel of Glory's Rise, just because the horde is simply too hard otherwise. its been a while since we've felt like we were even close to winning, and its becoming a bit of a downer. I took a page from my werewolves horde (where i added a Slayer of the Wicked in the deck as a 'werewolf village defector' to help the survivors), and added something that helps the survivors against the horde.
With over 66% tokens, the endless ranks as wave buffers, the half damage to the horde, and the horde gets life buffer points and cards too, this deck seems brutal to fight against. Like this seems pretty intense, I think this would be pretty strong and would win alot against my current playtesters.
As for on theme, it might seem a bit off if you did just a straight zombie horde, but with the red elements in there you can flavor it to a Cinder Necromancer archenemy-esc fellow here to mess up the Commanders' day. Throw in Skull Rends, they're a hoot.
The BFM is a cute addition and I think there is number error on the life bend rule part.
I think its a strong list, definitely post more developments or stories on it.
yea so after a few more playtests, it seems to me that this was pretty tough.
actually, i had a few copies of skull rends in there before instead of some of the zombie chumps, but it always weighted the game waaaay too far against the survivors. Unlike some of the other lists i've seen here that sport plague wind and decree of pain, i figured that not having one-sided board wipes makes this horde pretty weak. But that was definitely not the case!
So in one of the later playtests, i removed the extra-flips effect added by the revealed endless ranks of the dead, and started a 2 survivor game starting at 200 life instead, and we won (barely, after sitting on single digit life, and winning with an alpha-strike followed by a disk), due to an amazingly good (and with extra cloned copies) lord of the void (which exiles 7 cards from the library and mills), and the fact that one of the 2 survivors was a dedicated wrexial-mill deck (wrexial was useless though, no decent targets). We also made a rule during the game that for the sake of mind grind, tokens counted as lands.
At the moment though, the list is probably going to stick around more or less as it is (barring someone else suggesting something brilliant i could add), but adjusting the rules to make sense and work better.
A horrible hordes horde would be pretty epic. Having said that though, it'd probably need special rules like all creatures able to block horrible hordes must do so (otherwise it's rampage wouldn't be effective at all).
Just curious, what did you mean by a numbers error? you mean the horde shouldn't be able to gain buffer life? its not very common for the horde to gain life (since barring a radiated congregation, its just necromancer's covenant). On an average turn, i'd say that the horde has somewhere between 4-10 creatures, so somewhere between 8 to 30 lifelinked-lifegain. having to deal with 30 extra life is quite a big deal.
Though in hindsight, it was a huge pain keeping the numbers in check. Maybe i'll just leave it as the shuffling back in rule that everyone else has.
I am currently making/testing an interesting horde deck. I will post it later. One primary reason I don't like this format is because of the ABSURD amount of creatures in play at a time. I am really tired of flipping 5-10 cards every horde turn...
My goal is to change the focus to less total creatures but still a brutal difficulty. My "token" to spell ratio is only 100:75 so on any given flip I should only be seeing 2-4 cards.
I expect my latest shipment of cards to come tomorrow. I will post my list shortly and you guys can help me discuss it.
Also there are Swamps which add more turns to the horde. Also there are 6 plague winds, and several other sweepers for lots of resets.
Also we are counting all creatures as tokens. So there are 60 tokens and 40 cards including lords, grave titan, toxic nim, etc... So a common turn would be something like Token>Token>Fleshbag Marauder>Painful Quandry which is actually pretty sick...
Bascially I want blocking to be more interesting, instead of the players always scrambling for wrath-effects to clean up the 8+ tokens that vomit out every turn.
Like I said, I am onyl going to finish it tomorrow or so... I'll keep you updated.
I can't see that working... How can a Horde compete when 3 opponents are each dropping at least a permanent per turn? Maybe in a sort of Stax list, with lots of Kismet and Winter Orb. That would be pretty fun actually, if you get it to work.
its probably because we play with not so many cutthroat level decks, so generally, we dont actually win (but it can be pretty flavourful).
But yea, i think i need to throw in some all is dust to deal with stax (more so if at some point our meta becomes more cutthroat).
I've recently tried a different take on the horde rules, in terms of a free-for-all vs horde on the side. So basically, the horde takes a turn between each other player's turn. Quite brutal, but it makes for interesting gameplay. If an opponent is running low on defenders, I might choose to block in a way to keep as many zombies alive/take more damage than I normally would, thereby making the next player suffer more for it. The horde ends up developing a ridiculous board advantage really quick though, and the survivor's board wipes are usually the only times when zombies end up dying. Not sure if it went all that well, really.
Tried another run as a normal FFA plus horde, where the horde takes a turn after all other players. The zombies revealed are flipped into a number of teams equal to the number of survivors, and the zombies are always added in the same order. So for a 3 player game, turn 1 flips 4 zombies and a spiteful visions, team one would have 2 zombies, team two with 1 zombie and a spiteful visions, and team 3 with just 1 zombie. The next turn, the first flipped card goes into team 3 (since it was the next team to gain a card). Then, team one would attack the player with the turn marker, team two to the next player, and so on. At the end of the horde's turn, the turn marker moves one player. The teams are still on the same horde's battlefield.
This way seemed to work well, except that the player boasting wall of denial and fog bank really made life miserable for the next player.
Probably needs some tweaking. But I think this non-cooperative horde mode works pretty well. All the players can attack the horde, burn the bodies, or attack other players. A player wins by defeating the horde him/herself or by being the last man standing.
FFA sounds neat from a flavor standpoint (I believe another user did a thread about Human vs Human vs Horde as well). In a real apocalypse, the humans would have incentive to band together, but ultimately are looking out for their own survival as well.
I agree that the horde taking a turn after each survivor turn would be overpowered, but giving them their own turn in turn order is interesting. I think it would require a neater way of choosing whom to attack. The zombies tend to go after the easiest prey, but also to the most abundant food source, so would the horde attack the strongest or weakest board position?
just to update the new decklist. its pretty hardcore actually, but we're liking the challenge. occasionally it completely blows us out, but usually we just lose. to recap the rules for this horde, it goes:
Normal mode
players start with 3 free turns, skipping their first draw
players take turns simultaneously ala 2 headed giant
players start with 200 life minus 30 per player in the game, so in a 4 player game starts with 60 life.
during the horde's draw step, it keeps flipping until it reveals one non-token card per 2 players playing plus one per doom counter, rounded down.
the horde's non-token spell resolves first (can be countered), then all the tokens resolve (uncounterable)
the horde does not have haste unless specifically mentioned on an emblem or ability.
each 1 damage dealt to the horde mills 1 card instead, and if in the beginning of the horde's turn it has no cards in the library, the players win.
the horde's tokens always blocks 1v1 if able; starting with the largest attacking creature. if an ability such as goblin war drums is in effect, the horde can double up block. non-token creatures cannot block unless an ability forces them to.
during the horde's attack phase, all creatures without summoning sickness attacks if able.
When endless ranks of the dead is flipped, add a doom marker to indicate the number of endless ranks that have been revealed. this increases the number of non-token card flips the horde gets per turn. the doom counter cannot be removed. If an endless ranks would be milled, no doom counters are added.
hardcore mode
essentially the same rules, except that there are now 14 endless ranks of the dead in the deck, and the horde starts with one already in play, and all the random zombie chumps section is removed.
instead of damage being dealt in the form of milling the deck, damage is dealt in the form of exiling 2 cards per 1 damage dealt to the horde first. If the graveyard is empty, damage is then dealt in the form of mill.
we've never beaten the hardcore mode, but were close at least once, leading me to believe that it must be possible.
i'm a tiny bit tempted to put in a copy of erebos, JUST because it hoses life-gain. life-gain is one of the few strategies that actually work against the horde, up to an extent.
anyone have any suggestions on changes i could make?
edit: i know that breaking point seems a really weird addition, but the choice of having to take damage against wiping the board is pretty awesome. many situations, we'd wanna wipe the board, but it usually makes the horde come back even harder (since the tokens resolve after the spell), and sometimes, when we think we've stabilised, the 6 to the face is actually pretty hefty.
First in a very long time, but in reality, its been updated an age ago.. but i thought i'd chime in here anyways.
Basically, this horde plays just like the normal horde rules (Players start with 100 life together, shared turns, during the horde turn, they reveal until they hit a non-token card, then casts it, and all the rest of it).
The NEW rule goes like this:
Whenever a endless ranks of the dead comes up (milled, revealed, or otherwise), you take all the zombie tokens that are in the GY, and you shuffle them back into the deck.
The GY-burning rule (where players may assign damage to the horde as either a mill OR exiling cards from GY) only applies to non-zombie token cards.
We've found that it feels a lot better when the game starts slower and then ramps up as the game goes. So now, even in a 4 vs horde game, the game starts nice and slow-ish; the players have a chance to buildup a bit. But as the game goes on, about once per 4-6 turns, an endless ranks pops up, and then instead of like 4-ish tokens per horde turns, it becomes like 6-8 tokens. And then like 12 tokens. and so on.
Its really helped ramp up the horde well, and doesn't require any extra bookkeeping, such as the number of reveals (which i had previously) or things like that. Other horde builders, i'd highly recommend you guys test this, if you guys are interested in trying to solve the shift from early-mid-late game for the horde.
100 zombie token (2/2)
20 zombie giant token (5/5)
1 Domri Rade emblem
Lords 6
4 Diregraf Captain
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Zombie Master
Reanimators 10
4 Gravedigger
4 Ghoulraiser
1 Crypt Champion
1 Living death
graveyard hate 2
2 agent of erebos
Themed/Utility enchatments 5
1 Necromancer's Covenant
1 Call to the Grave
1 Oath of Ghouls
1 quest for the gravelord
1 Tombstone Stairwell
3 Grave Defiler
3 Army of the Damned
4 Zombie Apocalypse
1 Temporal Extortion
4 grave titan
Wipes 1
1 Breaking Point
Disruption/annoyance 7
2 Liliana's Reaver
1 Syphon Mind
2 Dread Slaver
1 Carnage Gladiator
1 Anathemancer
Random zombie chumps 8
1 Lord of Tresserhorn
1 Hunted Ghoul
1 Zombie Outlander
1 Tresserhorn Skyknight
1 Unbreathing Horde
1 B.F.M. (right)
1 B.F.M. (Left)
1 Kjeldoran Dead
7 endless ranks of the dead
Lucky angel for the survivors
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
this horde is actually a bit of a beast. we never noticed it before, but one of the few things that allows the survivors to survive the onslaught was essentially intense-lifegain and graveyard resources. being able to recur whatever we've lost to the yard/using their citp abilities really helps. and since the horde doesn't have in-built graveyard hate, and having JUST spotted a zombie-imitation of bojuka bog, agent of erebos goes straight in!
anyways, having ran it once, the agent didnt make any significant contributions to the game; although we can see it being quite painful against a self-mill kinda strategy. so far, it doesn't seem like the horde needs any more graveyard hate triggers from enchantments.
we might also need to tone the horde down at some point, since it's actually quite a beating every time we try it out (even on normal mode).
So this is the current decklist of my original zombie-horror-death-themed-horde (and apologies to the purists who don't believe in spirit and skeleton tokens. I just can't seem to find more).
14 zombie giant token (5/5)
2 skeleton token (1/1 regenerator)
5 zombie wizard token (1/1)
12 spirit token (1/1 flying)
1 Domri Rade emblem
Lords
4 Diregraf Captain
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Zombie Master
Reanimators
4 Gravedigger
1 Ghoulraiser
1 Crypt Champion
1 Living End
1 Necromancer's Covenant
1 Spiteful Visions
1 Call to the Grave
1 Oath of Ghouls
1 quest for the gravelord
7 Endless Ranks of the Dead
1 Tombstone Stairwell
Horde's wave-enablers
3 Grave Defiler
3 Army of the Damned
4 Zombie Apocalypse
1 Temporal Extortion
1 Grimoire of the Dead
Wipes
1 Breaking Point
1 Forced March
2 Liliana's Reaver
1 Syphon Mind
2 Dread Slaver
1 Carnage Gladiator
1 Anathemancer
Random zombie chumps
1 Lord of Tresserhorn
1 Hunted Ghoul
1 Zombie Outlander
2 Tresserhorn Skyknight
1 Unbreathing Horde
1 B.F.M. (right)
1 B.F.M. (Left)
1 Kjeldoran Dead
I'm not exactly a rich player, so I have trouble acquiring cards like Death baron, Cemetary Reaper, lord of the undead, damnation, decree of pain and undead warchief.
I've also nicked some brilliant ideas from other horde decks and they are as follows:
I think thats about it for the rules. But there are some specific card rules which are a bit wonky and probably needs work on:
Grimoire of the dead: instead of discarding a card, the horde just mills the top of the horde deck, limited to one time per turn, every turn. When it hits three counters, it instantly activates the second ability.
living end: Since I can't afford another living death, i had to use this. When living end is suspended, in the upkeep of the horde's turn, roll a d6, and remove that many time counters on it. I had to do it this way to keep the game more random, and to stop the players from trying to benefit from it too much.
Regenerators: They have a permanent regeneration shield. So zombie master, lord of tresserhorn and skeleton token are pretty annoying to deal with.
army of the damned: After it is cast, suspend it with 10 counters. During each upkeep of the horde, roll a d6, and remove that many counters from it. When it hits 0 counters, it is resolved.
BFM (left and right): Whenever any side of the BFM is drawn by the horde, set it aside. When the horde draws the second side of BFM, it is instantly resolved and cast. If either side of the BFM is milled when there is one side of the BFM set aside, put both sides in the graveyard. If either side is affected by an ability, it also affects the other (so if gravedigger finds BFM left, it finds BFM right too).
Anathemancer, Liliana's reaver and other cards that target: these targets are chosen randomly. I tried with both Anathemancer and Liliana's reaver to make it affect all survivors, but it was devastating every time (Anathemancer more than the any other).
I can't remember if it was SAUS9001 or another member, but someone had suggested adding swamps to the deck to scale up the horde. I figured this was a great idea, but i instead tied it to endless ranks of the dead, just 'cuz it seemed to flavour-fit, its quite scary having 3 or 4 in play at the same time, and it does actually scale quite well (possibly too well, since 7 cards of ~150 happens quite a bit, meaning the survivors would want to try to mill these out).
And a quick word on kjeldoran dead, zombie outlander and haunted ghoul: these guys were first added in because i was running low on zombies to fit in. But then after playing it a few times, it became pretty awesome, as the horde gains a lot of randomness in its flips. For example, the survivors are clinging on after a flashbacked army of the damned and a grave defiler, just to flip into a..... haunted ghoul! its this weird 'whew' (or possibly anti-climatic) moment that makes the survivors think they had just hit a time walk.
questionable cards though, are oath of ghouls, breaking point, spiteful visions and necromancer's covenant.
Its not that they are bad, per se, but at least breaking point and spiteful visions aren't very on-theme (but i like how they work).
Oath of ghouls can be very irritating (especially if the survivors know that 2 of the cards in the horde graveyard are BFM), but if the survivors spends a few attacks to thin the graveyard, the survivors might start getting some space to use it to their own ends. Never happened yet though.
Necromancer's covenant is and has always been a bit of a strange one. I really like that it can remove a survivor's graveyard (it targets randomly), but at times it can be really disheartening (though i suppose that is the point). One somewhat memorable [read: scarring] moment of this horde was with 2 endless ranks of the dead, the domri rade emblem, flipped into a necromancer's covenant. needless to say 35 or so zombie tokens that double-struck, trampled, hexproofed, and now with lifelink. Brilliant.
So yea, not sure if i should take out the covenant or change something else.
Added an Angel of Glory's Rise, just because the horde is simply too hard otherwise. its been a while since we've felt like we were even close to winning, and its becoming a bit of a downer. I took a page from my werewolves horde (where i added a Slayer of the Wicked in the deck as a 'werewolf village defector' to help the survivors), and added something that helps the survivors against the horde.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
As for on theme, it might seem a bit off if you did just a straight zombie horde, but with the red elements in there you can flavor it to a Cinder Necromancer archenemy-esc fellow here to mess up the Commanders' day. Throw in Skull Rends, they're a hoot.
The BFM is a cute addition and I think there is number error on the life bend rule part.
I think its a strong list, definitely post more developments or stories on it.
actually, i had a few copies of skull rends in there before instead of some of the zombie chumps, but it always weighted the game waaaay too far against the survivors. Unlike some of the other lists i've seen here that sport plague wind and decree of pain, i figured that not having one-sided board wipes makes this horde pretty weak. But that was definitely not the case!
So in one of the later playtests, i removed the extra-flips effect added by the revealed endless ranks of the dead, and started a 2 survivor game starting at 200 life instead, and we won (barely, after sitting on single digit life, and winning with an alpha-strike followed by a disk), due to an amazingly good (and with extra cloned copies) lord of the void (which exiles 7 cards from the library and mills), and the fact that one of the 2 survivors was a dedicated wrexial-mill deck (wrexial was useless though, no decent targets). We also made a rule during the game that for the sake of mind grind, tokens counted as lands.
At the moment though, the list is probably going to stick around more or less as it is (barring someone else suggesting something brilliant i could add), but adjusting the rules to make sense and work better.
A horrible hordes horde would be pretty epic. Having said that though, it'd probably need special rules like all creatures able to block horrible hordes must do so (otherwise it's rampage wouldn't be effective at all).
Just curious, what did you mean by a numbers error? you mean the horde shouldn't be able to gain buffer life? its not very common for the horde to gain life (since barring a radiated congregation, its just necromancer's covenant). On an average turn, i'd say that the horde has somewhere between 4-10 creatures, so somewhere between 8 to 30 lifelinked-lifegain. having to deal with 30 extra life is quite a big deal.
Though in hindsight, it was a huge pain keeping the numbers in check. Maybe i'll just leave it as the shuffling back in rule that everyone else has.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I am currently making/testing an interesting horde deck. I will post it later. One primary reason I don't like this format is because of the ABSURD amount of creatures in play at a time. I am really tired of flipping 5-10 cards every horde turn...
My goal is to change the focus to less total creatures but still a brutal difficulty. My "token" to spell ratio is only 100:75 so on any given flip I should only be seeing 2-4 cards.
I expect my latest shipment of cards to come tomorrow. I will post my list shortly and you guys can help me discuss it.
Also there are Swamps which add more turns to the horde. Also there are 6 plague winds, and several other sweepers for lots of resets.
Also we are counting all creatures as tokens. So there are 60 tokens and 40 cards including lords, grave titan, toxic nim, etc... So a common turn would be something like Token>Token>Fleshbag Marauder>Painful Quandry which is actually pretty sick...
Bascially I want blocking to be more interesting, instead of the players always scrambling for wrath-effects to clean up the 8+ tokens that vomit out every turn.
Like I said, I am onyl going to finish it tomorrow or so... I'll keep you updated.
its probably because we play with not so many cutthroat level decks, so generally, we dont actually win (but it can be pretty flavourful).
But yea, i think i need to throw in some all is dust to deal with stax (more so if at some point our meta becomes more cutthroat).
but its a bit beyond my budget though!
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Tried another run as a normal FFA plus horde, where the horde takes a turn after all other players. The zombies revealed are flipped into a number of teams equal to the number of survivors, and the zombies are always added in the same order. So for a 3 player game, turn 1 flips 4 zombies and a spiteful visions, team one would have 2 zombies, team two with 1 zombie and a spiteful visions, and team 3 with just 1 zombie. The next turn, the first flipped card goes into team 3 (since it was the next team to gain a card). Then, team one would attack the player with the turn marker, team two to the next player, and so on. At the end of the horde's turn, the turn marker moves one player. The teams are still on the same horde's battlefield.
This way seemed to work well, except that the player boasting wall of denial and fog bank really made life miserable for the next player.
Probably needs some tweaking. But I think this non-cooperative horde mode works pretty well. All the players can attack the horde, burn the bodies, or attack other players. A player wins by defeating the horde him/herself or by being the last man standing.
Any thoughts?
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I agree that the horde taking a turn after each survivor turn would be overpowered, but giving them their own turn in turn order is interesting. I think it would require a neater way of choosing whom to attack. The zombies tend to go after the easiest prey, but also to the most abundant food source, so would the horde attack the strongest or weakest board position?
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
100 zombie token (2/2)
20 zombie giant token (5/5)
1 Domri Rade emblem
Lords 6
4 Diregraf Captain
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Zombie Master
Reanimators 10
4 Gravedigger
4 Ghoulraiser
1 Crypt Champion
1 Living death
Themed/Utility enchatments 5
1 Necromancer's Covenant
1 Call to the Grave
1 Oath of Ghouls
1 quest for the gravelord
1 Tombstone Stairwell
3 Grave Defiler
3 Army of the Damned
4 Zombie Apocalypse
1 Temporal Extortion
4 grave titan
Wipes 1
1 Breaking Point
Disruption/annoyance 7
2 Liliana's Reaver
1 Syphon Mind
2 Dread Slaver
1 Carnage Gladiator
1 Anathemancer
1 Lord of Tresserhorn
1 Hunted Ghoul
1 Zombie Outlander
1 Tresserhorn Skyknight
1 Unbreathing Horde
1 B.F.M. (right)
1 B.F.M. (Left)
1 Kjeldoran Dead
increasing horde-ness 7
7 endless ranks of the dead
just to update the new decklist. its pretty hardcore actually, but we're liking the challenge. occasionally it completely blows us out, but usually we just lose. to recap the rules for this horde, it goes:
Normal mode
players start with 3 free turns, skipping their first draw
players take turns simultaneously ala 2 headed giant
players start with 200 life minus 30 per player in the game, so in a 4 player game starts with 60 life.
during the horde's draw step, it keeps flipping until it reveals one non-token card per 2 players playing plus one per doom counter, rounded down.
the horde's non-token spell resolves first (can be countered), then all the tokens resolve (uncounterable)
the horde does not have haste unless specifically mentioned on an emblem or ability.
each 1 damage dealt to the horde mills 1 card instead, and if in the beginning of the horde's turn it has no cards in the library, the players win.
the horde's tokens always blocks 1v1 if able; starting with the largest attacking creature. if an ability such as goblin war drums is in effect, the horde can double up block. non-token creatures cannot block unless an ability forces them to.
during the horde's attack phase, all creatures without summoning sickness attacks if able.
When endless ranks of the dead is flipped, add a doom marker to indicate the number of endless ranks that have been revealed. this increases the number of non-token card flips the horde gets per turn. the doom counter cannot be removed. If an endless ranks would be milled, no doom counters are added.
hardcore mode
essentially the same rules, except that there are now 14 endless ranks of the dead in the deck, and the horde starts with one already in play, and all the random zombie chumps section is removed.
instead of damage being dealt in the form of milling the deck, damage is dealt in the form of exiling 2 cards per 1 damage dealt to the horde first. If the graveyard is empty, damage is then dealt in the form of mill.
we've never beaten the hardcore mode, but were close at least once, leading me to believe that it must be possible.
i'm a tiny bit tempted to put in a copy of erebos, JUST because it hoses life-gain. life-gain is one of the few strategies that actually work against the horde, up to an extent.
anyone have any suggestions on changes i could make?
edit: i know that breaking point seems a really weird addition, but the choice of having to take damage against wiping the board is pretty awesome. many situations, we'd wanna wipe the board, but it usually makes the horde come back even harder (since the tokens resolve after the spell), and sometimes, when we think we've stabilised, the 6 to the face is actually pretty hefty.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
100 zombie token (2/2)
20 zombie giant token (5/5)
Lords 6
4 Diregraf Captain
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Zombie Master
Reanimators 10
4 Gravedigger
4 Ghoulraiser
1 Crypt Champion
1 Living death
Themed/Utility enchatments 5
1 Necromancer's Covenant
1 Call to the Grave
1 Oath of Ghouls
1 quest for the gravelord
1 Tombstone Stairwell
3 Grave Defiler
3 Army of the Damned
4 Zombie Apocalypse
1 Temporal Extortion
4 grave titan
Disruption/annoyance 7
2 Liliana's Reaver
1 Syphon Mind
2 Dread Slaver
1 Carnage Gladiator
1 Anathemancer
1 Lord of Tresserhorn
1 Hunted Ghoul
1 Zombie Outlander
1 Unbreathing Horde
1 Kjeldoran Dead
increasing horde-ness 7
7 endless ranks of the dead
New update!
First in a very long time, but in reality, its been updated an age ago.. but i thought i'd chime in here anyways.
Basically, this horde plays just like the normal horde rules (Players start with 100 life together, shared turns, during the horde turn, they reveal until they hit a non-token card, then casts it, and all the rest of it).
The NEW rule goes like this:
Whenever a endless ranks of the dead comes up (milled, revealed, or otherwise), you take all the zombie tokens that are in the GY, and you shuffle them back into the deck.
The GY-burning rule (where players may assign damage to the horde as either a mill OR exiling cards from GY) only applies to non-zombie token cards.
We've found that it feels a lot better when the game starts slower and then ramps up as the game goes. So now, even in a 4 vs horde game, the game starts nice and slow-ish; the players have a chance to buildup a bit. But as the game goes on, about once per 4-6 turns, an endless ranks pops up, and then instead of like 4-ish tokens per horde turns, it becomes like 6-8 tokens. And then like 12 tokens. and so on.
Its really helped ramp up the horde well, and doesn't require any extra bookkeeping, such as the number of reveals (which i had previously) or things like that. Other horde builders, i'd highly recommend you guys test this, if you guys are interested in trying to solve the shift from early-mid-late game for the horde.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom