Ok, so I just got done testing (the mono-black deck I posted earlier) with my friend. I have a lot of thoughts and suggestions, so here goes.
First things first: if any of you were in doubt, zombies are definitely good and competitively viable. I had my own reservations prior to actual testing, but it held up well vs. W/B tokens and I have every expectation that it'll continue to do well vs. other decks.
Secondly: Ghoulcaller's Chant is the MOST IMPORTANT CARD IN THE DECK. Again, for those of you in the back of the theater: Ghoulcaller's Chant is the MOST IMPORTANT CARD in a mono-black zombie deck. I *cannot* stress this enough. Out of every single card in the deck, there is nothing that I wanted more to see in my hand at all times. 4 of these is not enough. I was running 3 at first, until I realized that every. Single. Time. that I drew one, it got played. And anytime I didn't get one, I desperately wanted it and wished it could replace something else in my hand.
Black Cat is a must-have as well. This is another one I was initially skeptical about, but it is absolutely a great card in the 2-cmc slot. Reasons: My opponent rarely, if ever, wanted to risk the discard effect, so it was basically free damage for me. It gets buffed by the Cemetery Reaper. You can bring it back and wreak havoc with it via Ghoulcaller's Chant. You can sack it via Altar's Reap if it's not going to get through, and draw 2 while making your opponent discard 1. It's useful, trust me. I was running 3 but for the next round of testing I'm upgrading this to a 4-of without hesitation.
Smallpox was a core element to this deck. I loved the idea of it causing a tempo disruption for my opponent and how it didn't really affect zombies that much since we have so much recursion to begin with. But... after testing, I'm taking it out and replacing it with a creature, probably Highborn Ghoul, though that's still up in the air. Reasons: the tempo disruption it causes your opponent applies to you as well, unfortunately. I did win off the back of Smallpox a few times, but I ended up screwing myself over with it an equal number of times and losing games.
Distress. Added in as a 4-of in place of Tragic Slip, which may have been a mistake since I needed creature destruction more than discard. I really liked having the extra discard; it meshed well with the rest of the deck and helped pave the way for my zombies to home in on a win. In retrospect, I think 4 is too many, so I'll probably make it a 3-of. But definitely playable.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: I really like Mikaeus and wanted so badly to be able to use him. I drew him in several times in our first few games... He never got played, was dead weight in my hand, and was quickly dumped for bigger and better things.
Lashwrithe and Sword of War and Peace: Useless, don't play equipment. Every game that I won was accomplished without the need for equipment. Every time I drew them (before I took them out) I wished they were something else. Kills tempo and wastes time. Don't bother with 'em.
Phyrexian Obliterator: Only managed to resolve this a couple of times, and in those cases I probably would have won even without them. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to say that I'm still undecided on these guys. They're obviously useful, but I think 3 is possibly too many. Might drop to 2-of, but will need further testing with more control-oriented decks before deciding.
Altar's Reap: Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to test with these after all, but I do actually think they will be useful and I'm going to add some in for the next go-around. I realize that everyone is butting heads over this card, so I'm here to tell you that it *is* useful. Keep in mind that I was only testing vs. my friend's W/B tokens deck, so this is possibly an uninformed opinion. But from the games we played, I can tell you that both he and I would go through our hands insanely quickly, and in many games it came down to who top-decked the best card first. One game, after 3 consecutive turns of nothing happening (land, land, get poked in the face for 1 by Doomed Traveler, etc etc), I top-decked yet another land, and he drew Hero of Bladehold. I scooped. In my opinion, Altar's Reap should be played to help maintain some number of cards in hand. You can sack a Geralf's Messenger to activate undying and to do another 2 damage via its ETB effect. You can sack a Black Cat for the discard effect to your opponent. You can sack a Gravecrawler and then replay it from the graveyard. As has been previously stated, you can sack something that's being targeted by removal and then get not only your 2 cards from the reap, but also get the creature back via Ghoulcaller's Chant. You want to know how many times I lost in part because one of my bombs (Reaper, Messenger, Obliterator) got O-Ringed? Well, I didn't have any Altar's Reap. But if I did, then instead of getting exiled and staying out of play permanently, said creature would have gone to my graveyard instead and I would have been able to get it back out. What do zombies do best? They don't stay dead.
Revised Decklist, which is obviously subject to a great deal of change:
Is Sorin's Thirst a worthwhile SB card against aggro? Im thinking i want to try and slot some in against red or possibly white(would replace geth's verdict mainboard i suppose).
It's essentially a 2 point swing + light removal, which is pretty significant.
I feel like it's wasted space next to Tragic Slip, but I'll give it a whirl later tonight and see what's what. A friend and I are going to proxy up this evening and test some post-rotation goodness. I fell in love with the mono-black Zombie/Pox deck someone linked to yesterday (from the WotC forums); I've made a few small changes to it, but by and large the deck is essentially the same. Obviously this is very preliminary, but here's what I'll be testing with:
The equips are an either/or thing. I'd like to test both and see which I prefer. There are obvious pros and cons to both.
Other spells I plan on trying, if only to appease my curiosity and see how they gel:
- Black Sun's Zenith or Ratchet Bomb, vs. Tokens
- Sorin's Thirst
- Distress
- That other 2-drop zombie from DKA that I can't remember the name of. People seem to have fixated on that one, but the reason I'm testing with Black Cat is because I love the discard effect too much. I think it jives really well with Smallpox and Distress.
- Go For the Throat / Doom Blade
- Altar's Reap. Obviously this one is a big point of contention for a lot of people, so I'm going to just try it out and see for myself.
I'll update with the testing results either later tonight or sometime in the morning.
Hmm thats an interesting application. If the deck continues to use more undying creatures i would definately think that the card could have some merit.
With only Geralf's Messenger though, i feel like Tragic Slip is a more reliable 1cc removal spell.
I don't think that would work. Unless I'm misunderstanding, then casting Virulent Wound on a Geralf's Messenger (or any creature with undying) that already has a +1/+1 counter on it would still result in that creature dying if it goes to the graveyard a second time.
Undying specifies that the creature comes back if it doesn't have any +1/+1 counters on it; Virulent Wound doesn't actually remove the counter, it just adds -1/-1 which negates the +1/+1 rather than removing the counter altogether.
Something like Hex Parasite, though, would be able to eat the counter and keep the creature from going splat.
First things first: if any of you were in doubt, zombies are definitely good and competitively viable. I had my own reservations prior to actual testing, but it held up well vs. W/B tokens and I have every expectation that it'll continue to do well vs. other decks.
Secondly: Ghoulcaller's Chant is the MOST IMPORTANT CARD IN THE DECK. Again, for those of you in the back of the theater: Ghoulcaller's Chant is the MOST IMPORTANT CARD in a mono-black zombie deck. I *cannot* stress this enough. Out of every single card in the deck, there is nothing that I wanted more to see in my hand at all times. 4 of these is not enough. I was running 3 at first, until I realized that every. Single. Time. that I drew one, it got played. And anytime I didn't get one, I desperately wanted it and wished it could replace something else in my hand.
Black Cat is a must-have as well. This is another one I was initially skeptical about, but it is absolutely a great card in the 2-cmc slot. Reasons: My opponent rarely, if ever, wanted to risk the discard effect, so it was basically free damage for me. It gets buffed by the Cemetery Reaper. You can bring it back and wreak havoc with it via Ghoulcaller's Chant. You can sack it via Altar's Reap if it's not going to get through, and draw 2 while making your opponent discard 1. It's useful, trust me. I was running 3 but for the next round of testing I'm upgrading this to a 4-of without hesitation.
Smallpox was a core element to this deck. I loved the idea of it causing a tempo disruption for my opponent and how it didn't really affect zombies that much since we have so much recursion to begin with. But... after testing, I'm taking it out and replacing it with a creature, probably Highborn Ghoul, though that's still up in the air. Reasons: the tempo disruption it causes your opponent applies to you as well, unfortunately. I did win off the back of Smallpox a few times, but I ended up screwing myself over with it an equal number of times and losing games.
Distress. Added in as a 4-of in place of Tragic Slip, which may have been a mistake since I needed creature destruction more than discard. I really liked having the extra discard; it meshed well with the rest of the deck and helped pave the way for my zombies to home in on a win. In retrospect, I think 4 is too many, so I'll probably make it a 3-of. But definitely playable.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: I really like Mikaeus and wanted so badly to be able to use him. I drew him in several times in our first few games... He never got played, was dead weight in my hand, and was quickly dumped for bigger and better things.
Lashwrithe and Sword of War and Peace: Useless, don't play equipment. Every game that I won was accomplished without the need for equipment. Every time I drew them (before I took them out) I wished they were something else. Kills tempo and wastes time. Don't bother with 'em.
Phyrexian Obliterator: Only managed to resolve this a couple of times, and in those cases I probably would have won even without them. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to say that I'm still undecided on these guys. They're obviously useful, but I think 3 is possibly too many. Might drop to 2-of, but will need further testing with more control-oriented decks before deciding.
Altar's Reap: Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to test with these after all, but I do actually think they will be useful and I'm going to add some in for the next go-around. I realize that everyone is butting heads over this card, so I'm here to tell you that it *is* useful. Keep in mind that I was only testing vs. my friend's W/B tokens deck, so this is possibly an uninformed opinion. But from the games we played, I can tell you that both he and I would go through our hands insanely quickly, and in many games it came down to who top-decked the best card first. One game, after 3 consecutive turns of nothing happening (land, land, get poked in the face for 1 by Doomed Traveler, etc etc), I top-decked yet another land, and he drew Hero of Bladehold. I scooped. In my opinion, Altar's Reap should be played to help maintain some number of cards in hand. You can sack a Geralf's Messenger to activate undying and to do another 2 damage via its ETB effect. You can sack a Black Cat for the discard effect to your opponent. You can sack a Gravecrawler and then replay it from the graveyard. As has been previously stated, you can sack something that's being targeted by removal and then get not only your 2 cards from the reap, but also get the creature back via Ghoulcaller's Chant. You want to know how many times I lost in part because one of my bombs (Reaper, Messenger, Obliterator) got O-Ringed? Well, I didn't have any Altar's Reap. But if I did, then instead of getting exiled and staying out of play permanently, said creature would have gone to my graveyard instead and I would have been able to get it back out. What do zombies do best? They don't stay dead.
Revised Decklist, which is obviously subject to a great deal of change:
22 Swamp
Creatures:
4 Gravecrawler
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Black Cat
2 Highborn Ghoul - still needs to be tested
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Geralf's Messenger
2 Phyrexian Obliterator
4 Ghoulcaller's Chant
4 Distress
3 Altar's Reap (as stated above, needs testing but is almost a lock at this point.)
3 Go For the Throat (or Geth's Verdict. Still undecided on this slot.)
I haven't put together a sideboard yet but will update further as I do more testing.
Hope this helps everyone, I had a lot of fun piloting this deck and I'm really stoked to be able to run with it once DKA is legal.
I feel like it's wasted space next to Tragic Slip, but I'll give it a whirl later tonight and see what's what. A friend and I are going to proxy up this evening and test some post-rotation goodness. I fell in love with the mono-black Zombie/Pox deck someone linked to yesterday (from the WotC forums); I've made a few small changes to it, but by and large the deck is essentially the same. Obviously this is very preliminary, but here's what I'll be testing with:
23 Swamp
Creatures
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Gravecrawler
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Geralf's Messenger
3 Black Cat
3 Phyrexian Obliterator
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
4 Smallpox
3 Ghoulcaller's Chant
3 Geth's Verdict
2 Tragic Slip
2 Lashwrithe
2 Sword of War and Peace
The equips are an either/or thing. I'd like to test both and see which I prefer. There are obvious pros and cons to both.
Other spells I plan on trying, if only to appease my curiosity and see how they gel:
- Black Sun's Zenith or Ratchet Bomb, vs. Tokens
- Sorin's Thirst
- Distress
- That other 2-drop zombie from DKA that I can't remember the name of. People seem to have fixated on that one, but the reason I'm testing with Black Cat is because I love the discard effect too much. I think it jives really well with Smallpox and Distress.
- Go For the Throat / Doom Blade
- Altar's Reap. Obviously this one is a big point of contention for a lot of people, so I'm going to just try it out and see for myself.
I'll update with the testing results either later tonight or sometime in the morning.
I don't think that would work. Unless I'm misunderstanding, then casting Virulent Wound on a Geralf's Messenger (or any creature with undying) that already has a +1/+1 counter on it would still result in that creature dying if it goes to the graveyard a second time.
Undying specifies that the creature comes back if it doesn't have any +1/+1 counters on it; Virulent Wound doesn't actually remove the counter, it just adds -1/-1 which negates the +1/+1 rather than removing the counter altogether.
Something like Hex Parasite, though, would be able to eat the counter and keep the creature from going splat.