Ghoulcaller Gisa is a heck of card and too much fun in casual games. I would only run a single copy but I would run one.
Altar's Reap is indeed a good casual card but if you were so inclined I might -3 of them +2 Vampiric Rites +1 any other card...^? Vampiric Rites has the word Vampire in it but you also have some other out of flavor cards so remember that.
I'm definitly going to put some victim of the night for flavor.
I'm also going to try Gisa as a remplacement for Liliana or Titan.
On the other hand, I'm not a fan of Vampiric rites : basicaly, it's 3 mana + 1life for one card at sorcery speed (the first time at least) vs. 2mana for 2 cards at instant speed. I may give it a try but I'm pretty sure I won't like it, particulary against the human deck which is very aggressive.
I also don't understand why I should get rid of the cabal coffers? They are great at producing lots of mana in order to cast Titan, monument or merchant. Urborg is your insurance in case of multiple and that does not happened often. I use to run nykthos, but cabal coffers are better (no legendary, makes more mana and is independent of your board : you can cast your fatty even if it's empty).
The thing is, the Human deck is better. Way faster and creature can grow pretty big. You have to "steal" the victory by making smart moves into a merchant or a Monument to alpha strike in the air.
If you want to make those 2 decks more evenly matched Lifebane Zombie could be considered. You might also add zombies with protection from white like Phyrexian Crusader, Stillmoon Cavalier or Stromgald Crusader, but if the white deck has no answers for them I don't think this will make games more enjoyable.
For removal I personally like Dismember and mass removal like Damnation (or Mutilate if you want to save money) seems to hurt the Human deck much more than yours. If the Human deck is too fast for you maybe Fatal Push or Innocent Blood can help. Also I think there couldn't be a better matchup than this one for Zombie Apocalypse.
This is my take on zombie madness, I've had good results with it and can have some very explosive beginnings with the help of dark ritual, but you really want to finish games early with this one:
plz help, almost competitive. kinda mimics goblins with vial, only a lil more control-ish with some extra discard slots rather than a bunch of haste goblins that draws goblins (jealous). thanks in advance
I think I personally wouldn't splash another color if it only adds 4 cards. If you want to play Tidehollow Sculler, you could consider adding cards like Swords to Plowshares and Vindicate. In that case I would recommend playing 22-23 lands and more fetchlands instead of cards like Urbord, Tomb of Yawgmoth. If you play more fetchlands Sensei's Divining Top gets better.
Cards I would remove are Nameless Inversion and Lord of the Undead. I started my zombie deck with both of those cards as well, but in my experience Nameless Inversion is too situational and Lord of the Undead is too fragile. For a 1BB creature it's too easily traded with another card that costs less without ever getting to use it's ability.
Instead I would recommend Phyrexian Crusader. A 2/2 creature for 1BB seems a little weak, but First Strike and Infect means it gives most opposing creatures 2 -1/-1 counters before they get the chance to do their damage and Protection from 2 colors makes it incredibly hard to get rid of.
Furthermore there are some great black cards I can't use in my zombie deck because of my multicolor-creature manabase like Hymn to Tourach and Liliana of the Veil.
Do you want to play legacy or something more casual? And do you want to have a single player oriented deck or do you play more multiplayer games? In casual games cards like Cemetery Recruitment and Liliana, the Last Hope seem like a lot of fun.
Nice list, but wow, that looks a bit stronger than casual.
Thanks! Relentless Dead made the deck a lot better.
I think it's fun to play against aggro and control and even to some extent in multiplayer,
but too slow and not enough disruptive versus combo, hence casual.
If you can get 3 lands in play at turn 3 (or maybe turn 4) you have enough to play either 3 Shard Volleys or a Shard Volley and a Fireblast. Things start to get problematic if you manage to draw 2 Fireblasts, but that is also problematic if you don't play Shard Volley. Still Fireblast is so good I want to play 4 of them.
This type of deck isn't combo because there isn't any key spell that can be countered to stop it. If the opponent counters a burn spell we will simply cast another. All we need to do is cast 5-6 spells doing 3-4 damage, why not try to do it in 3 turns?
With Monastery Swiftspear added to our repertoire winning in 3 turns should be doable in quite some games, unless the opponent tries to win first, but for that we have Eidolon of the Great Revels and sideboard. If the opponent decides to interact with our game plan we trade 1 mana spells for 1+ mana spells and if they use fetch lands or Force of Wills our chances of winning increase even further.
In a vacuum cards like Reckless Abandon, Shard Volley and Vexing Devil may be underwhelming, but in this strategy I think they're good enough. At least I couldn't find better 1 mana alternatives.
Hello everyone, I've tried to make a burn deck with an as high as possible win chance in 3 turns, meaning as many as possible 1 mana spells complemented with some eidolon of the great revel's and some fireblasts.
2x Ancient Tomb
4x Ancient Ziggurat
2x Bojuka Bog
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Reflecting Pool
2x Unholy Grotto
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Wasteland
//Artifacts (8):
4x Æther Vial
4x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Gravecrawler
2x Relentless Dead
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Glissa, the Traitor
4x Phyrexian Crusader
4x Grave Defiler
3x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
3x Kraum, Ludevic's Opus
4x Chalice of the Void
1x Containment Priest
2x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Gilded Drake
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Flickerwisp
1x Reclamation Sage
2x Recruiter of the Guard
Edit: Liliana, Death's Majesty seems to be built for tribal zombies.
Another option could be playing equipments like Umezawa's Jitte or Sword of Light and Shadow.
For removal I personally like Dismember and mass removal like Damnation (or Mutilate if you want to save money) seems to hurt the Human deck much more than yours. If the Human deck is too fast for you maybe Fatal Push or Innocent Blood can help. Also I think there couldn't be a better matchup than this one for Zombie Apocalypse.
If you want card advantage cards like Cemetery Recruitment and Hymn to Tourach can really make a difference and of course Liliana of the Veil is a strong card for almost any black deck.
And then black has some nice enchantments like Phyrexian Arena, Recurring Nightmare and Grave Pact for longer casual games.
If you want to make the Human deck stronger, you could look at Death and Taxes (Legacy, http://www.mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=319&meta=39&f=LE) or Hatebear (Modern, http://www.mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=285&meta=51&f=MO) for inspiration.
Furthermore madness cards like Big Game Hunter, Voldaren Pariah, Asylum Visitor, Gorgon Recluse and Nightshade Assassin seem fun for casual games, although they're not zombies.
Grave Scrabbler is a zombie and From Under the Floorboards makes zombies.
4x Ancient Ziggurat
4x Bojuka Bog
4x Cavern of Souls
2x Maze of Ith
4x Reflecting Pool
2x Sea Gate Wreckage
2x Unholy Grotto
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
//Artifacts (8):
4x Æther Vial
4x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Gravecrawler
3x Relentless Dead
4x Tidehollow Sculler
3x Glissa, the Traitor
4x Phyrexian Crusader
4x Grave Defiler
3x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
3x Kraum, Ludevic's Opus
4x Ethersworn Canonist
4x Gilded Drake
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3x Reclamation Sage
Edit: -1 Maze of Ith, -1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, -1 Relentless Dead; +2 Sea Gate Wreckage, +1 Gravecrawler
Cards I would remove are Nameless Inversion and Lord of the Undead. I started my zombie deck with both of those cards as well, but in my experience Nameless Inversion is too situational and Lord of the Undead is too fragile. For a 1BB creature it's too easily traded with another card that costs less without ever getting to use it's ability.
Instead I would recommend Phyrexian Crusader. A 2/2 creature for 1BB seems a little weak, but First Strike and Infect means it gives most opposing creatures 2 -1/-1 counters before they get the chance to do their damage and Protection from 2 colors makes it incredibly hard to get rid of.
Furthermore there are some great black cards I can't use in my zombie deck because of my multicolor-creature manabase like Hymn to Tourach and Liliana of the Veil.
Do you want to play legacy or something more casual? And do you want to have a single player oriented deck or do you play more multiplayer games? In casual games cards like Cemetery Recruitment and Liliana, the Last Hope seem like a lot of fun.
It's built for speed and I'm always looking for ways to improve.
19x Mountain
//Creatures (16):
4x Goblin Guide
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Vexing Devil
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Shard Volley
4x Fireblast
//Sorceries (14):
4x Chain Lightning
4x Lava Spike
2x Reckless Abandon
4x Rift Bolt
I think it's fun to play against aggro and control and even to some extent in multiplayer,
but too slow and not enough disruptive versus combo, hence casual.
Do you have any ideas about new decks with Relentless Dead?
4x Ancient Ziggurat
2x Bojuka Bog
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Maze of Ith
4x Reflecting Pool
2x Unholy Grotto
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
//Artifacts (10):
4x Æther Vial
4x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Sword of Feast and Famine
4x Gravecrawler
4x Relentless Dead
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Glissa, the Traitor
4x Phyrexian Crusader
4x Grave Defiler
3x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
2x Bojuka Bog
4x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Gilded Drake
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3x Reclamation Sage
2x Balduvian Fallen
4x Black Cat
2x Blood Scrivener
4x Bojuka Bog
2x Brainbite
2x Carrion Feeder
4x Cemetery Reaper
1x Chill of Foreboding
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Darkwater Catacombs
4x Diregraf Captain
2x Dralnu, Lich Lord
4x Drowned Catacomb
3x Déjà Vu
2x Glimpse the Unthinkable
4x Lich Lord of Unx
4x Siren of the Silent Song
2x Swamp
2x Zombie Apocalypse
This type of deck isn't combo because there isn't any key spell that can be countered to stop it. If the opponent counters a burn spell we will simply cast another. All we need to do is cast 5-6 spells doing 3-4 damage, why not try to do it in 3 turns?
With Monastery Swiftspear added to our repertoire winning in 3 turns should be doable in quite some games, unless the opponent tries to win first, but for that we have Eidolon of the Great Revels and sideboard. If the opponent decides to interact with our game plan we trade 1 mana spells for 1+ mana spells and if they use fetch lands or Force of Wills our chances of winning increase even further.
In a vacuum cards like Reckless Abandon, Shard Volley and Vexing Devil may be underwhelming, but in this strategy I think they're good enough. At least I couldn't find better 1 mana alternatives.
19x Mountain
//Creatures (16):
4x Goblin Guide
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Vexing Devil
4x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Shard Volley
4x Fireblast
//Sorceries (14):
4x Chain Lightning
4x Lava Spike
2x Reckless Abandon
4x Rift Bolt
4x Ancient Ziggurat
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Maze of Ith
4x Reflecting Pool
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2x Unholy Grotto
1x Urborg
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
//Artifacts (10):
4x Æther Vial
4x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Sword of Fire and Ice
4x Gravecrawler
4x Putrid Leech
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Glissa, the Traitor
4x Phyrexian Crusader
4x Grave Defiler
3x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
4x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Gilded Drake
2x Phyrexian Revoker
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3x Reclamation Sage
4x Ancient Ziggurat
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Maze of Ith
4x Reflecting Pool
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2x Unholy Grotto
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
//Artifacts (8):
4x Æther Vial
4x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Diregraf Ghoul
4x Gravecrawler
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Glissa, the Traitor
3x Phyrexian Crusader
4x Grave Defiler
3x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
//Instants (3):
3x Nameless Inversion
3x Engineered Explosives
3x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Gilded Drake
3x Phyrexian Revoker
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Thoughts?