Standard Brew: Zombies
- Thread starter Encaen
- Start date
Interesting deck, though I'm not a huge fan of Highborn Ghoul and I think you could probably get something better for a 2-drop. Intimidate just never does it for me.
I do like the white splash though.
I do like the white splash though.
Q:
You have eight cards in hand during your opponent's second Main Phase. At what point during who's turn do you have to discard down to seven cards?
A:
At the end of your end step.
You have eight cards in hand during your opponent's second Main Phase. At what point during who's turn do you have to discard down to seven cards?
A:
At the end of your end step.
My twists are that my zombie deck isn't all zombies, and that sometimes you need a touch of blue for a Havengul lich. Or in my case a bit more than a touch when you reanimate your opponent's sliver queen. Of course, I play a bit more bounce and discard too.
A friend of mine is actually running mono-black aggro at FNMs, and he's running mostly Zombies due to their great costs and effects. He was running Porcelain Legionnaires, but having to pay 2 life to cast them was making it harder to win some games.
I believe the decklist goes something like this:
The numbers might be a little off, but that's the basic gist of it. There are quite a few BU control decks that feature zombies, but no mono-black aside from my friend. In fact, me and my friend are the only ones running mono-colored decks at all (I'm trying out a RDW variant; 1-4-0 so far, not off to a stellar start).
Last week, my friend lost in the first round of the Top 8 to a BU Zombie control deck running Diregraf Captain, where the real game winner was that loss of life.
I believe the decklist goes something like this:
4x Gravecrawler
4x Diregraf Ghoul
4x Blood Seeker (replacing the Porcelain Legionnaires)
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Phyrexian Obliterator
4x Distress
2x Doom Blade
2x Go for the Throat
4x Black Sun's Zenith
4x Geth's Verdict
2x Liliana of the Veil (one of which I pulled during a draft)
22 Swamp
4x Diregraf Ghoul
4x Blood Seeker (replacing the Porcelain Legionnaires)
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Phyrexian Obliterator
4x Distress
2x Doom Blade
2x Go for the Throat
4x Black Sun's Zenith
4x Geth's Verdict
2x Liliana of the Veil (one of which I pulled during a draft)
22 Swamp
The numbers might be a little off, but that's the basic gist of it. There are quite a few BU control decks that feature zombies, but no mono-black aside from my friend. In fact, me and my friend are the only ones running mono-colored decks at all (I'm trying out a RDW variant; 1-4-0 so far, not off to a stellar start).
Last week, my friend lost in the first round of the Top 8 to a BU Zombie control deck running Diregraf Captain, where the real game winner was that loss of life.
I guess I'm just a purist who likes his zombie decks mono-black (plus I like all creatures to be zombies, but even blue zombies feel weird). But yeah, fliers are the big enemies there.
Given that Zombies just won a Grand Prix tournament (and $3500 cash prize), I strongly believe they are already "a stand-out competitive force" in Standard. It's also worth noting that it splashes blue, instead of white (Decklist [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gplil12/welcome#0]).
I have to ask, why would you splash white for control instead of splashing blue for more aggro? Zombies already exists as a tribe that wants to win by turn 4 or 5, and splashing for O-Ring moves that win back a turn or two, and gives the opponent more time to answer the creatures or fly over for the win. I freely admit that Black cannot deal with artifacts, enchantments, or fliers, especially in standard, but in a strongly aggro build, the opponent is at half their life total before any relevant artifacts, enchantments, or fliers are on the table.
If you're really having trouble with fliers, Skirsdag High Priest [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230794] answers them rather effectively. I know it's not a zombie, but Black has an excellent ability to activate morbid. If the creature kill suite isn't enough, suddenly spitting out a 5/5 flier tends to tilt the balance in your favor.
I have to ask, why would you splash white for control instead of splashing blue for more aggro? Zombies already exists as a tribe that wants to win by turn 4 or 5, and splashing for O-Ring moves that win back a turn or two, and gives the opponent more time to answer the creatures or fly over for the win. I freely admit that Black cannot deal with artifacts, enchantments, or fliers, especially in standard, but in a strongly aggro build, the opponent is at half their life total before any relevant artifacts, enchantments, or fliers are on the table.
If you're really having trouble with fliers, Skirsdag High Priest [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=230794] answers them rather effectively. I know it's not a zombie, but Black has an excellent ability to activate morbid. If the creature kill suite isn't enough, suddenly spitting out a 5/5 flier tends to tilt the balance in your favor.
I considered Black Cat [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=262862] for the extra disruption, but with Distress in there, I'd really rather get to choose what they discard. I admit that the 2-drops are a little lackluster at the moment, but I'm open to suggestions!KefkaCultist said:
As to the QotW, you're quite right. It happens after your End Step, specifically during your Cleanup Step. You are only required to discard down to your Maximum Hand Size during your own Cleanup Step.
402.2. Each player has a maximum hand size, which is normally seven cards. A player may have any number of cards in his or her hand, but as part of his or her cleanup step, the player must discard excess cards down to the maximum hand size.
I've not had much luck with Endless Ranks of the Dead [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=234430] as yet, but I'm just waiting to see a deck that can wield it effectively. What format are you going for here?RaikuFA said:
Hey, there's nothing wrong with that! Until recently, I was pretty reluctant to extend Zombies out of Black but, even with the influx of new Zombies, the options in Standard are limited in mono-Black builds so I figured I'd branch out and see what happened. I'm pretty pleased with the results so far.Crimson_Dragoon said:
I think blue is probably more optimal here. With only 16 zombies, gravecrawler isn't always going to be able to recur, and diregraf captain/havengul lich are too good to pass up on. The latter is especially good with Liliana, since in a pinch you can just discard a creature and recur it with the lich.
Your mana base is also more stable with blue (8 duals rather then 4) and you have access to counterspells for all-purpose "removal". Thing is, though, you shouldn't really be all that concerned about dealing with your opponent's threats with this deck... You should basically never run out of fuel, because they're going to run out of O-rings and Celestial Purges eventually. just bash until they die.
One last thing: I'm not sure I like Lingering souls here. It's an amazing card, to be sure, but it's not at it's best here because it doesn,t synergize with the rest of the deck. Against decks with tons of fliers (esper spirits, UW delver, that sort of thing) your fliers will just get eaten by their bigger fliers, and in decks without (basically everything else), you'd probably be better off with another ground guy that can help tilt the balance of the ground game in your favour (allowing tons of damage to go through rather then 2 a turn).
In any case, I still feel BW is an interesting color combo, and this is an interesting example. BW tokens is the deck Wizards has been puhsing the most, obviously, but it's nice to see something different.
Your mana base is also more stable with blue (8 duals rather then 4) and you have access to counterspells for all-purpose "removal". Thing is, though, you shouldn't really be all that concerned about dealing with your opponent's threats with this deck... You should basically never run out of fuel, because they're going to run out of O-rings and Celestial Purges eventually. just bash until they die.
One last thing: I'm not sure I like Lingering souls here. It's an amazing card, to be sure, but it's not at it's best here because it doesn,t synergize with the rest of the deck. Against decks with tons of fliers (esper spirits, UW delver, that sort of thing) your fliers will just get eaten by their bigger fliers, and in decks without (basically everything else), you'd probably be better off with another ground guy that can help tilt the balance of the ground game in your favour (allowing tons of damage to go through rather then 2 a turn).
In any case, I still feel BW is an interesting color combo, and this is an interesting example. BW tokens is the deck Wizards has been puhsing the most, obviously, but it's nice to see something different.
That's fantastic! I am pleased to see that Zombies are making their mark on the format!paronomasiac said:
As to the White, by the time I'm casting O-Rings with this deck, I've already got threats on the board, and I'm just looking for ways to punch extra damage through. Kill spells are great, but not universal, and O-Rings give me answers to things that mono-Black doesn't. I don't want to trade a Zombie for an Honor of the Pure'd Doomed Traveler as a matter of course. White may not be optimal, in general, but it seems to serve my purposes here pretty well.
I do like the Skirsdag High Priest option here. I've seen him used to pretty solid effect, and I may have to craft some sort of general horror themed deck for him to live in along with Phyrexian Obliterator [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=214386].
All fair points! As I mentioned above, I'm not convinced White is the perfect color for a splash, for all the reasons you mentioned, but it allows some flexibility that is not necessarily afforded to other colors. I've played with a few BW token builds as well, but I rather enjoyed the novelty of this.A. Smith said:
Well, in addition to the Zombie lords, I like Grave Defiler [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4450] can give you some much-needed card advantage!RaikuFA said:
I had a Zombie deck that I'd like to recreated. I based the idea around Lich Lord of Unx, so I had a good splash of blue. I never really got the deck up to snuff, but when it did get going or my opponents were having a bad game, it was pretty killer. Zombie army. I'd like to rebuild it, but have it a little more focussed. My problem is cards. I only have limited cards to choose from, so it's a bit of a barrier to an effective deck sometimes.
I only play casual though, so it's no biggie.
I only play casual though, so it's no biggie.
I admit that I love the splash of white to throw Vault of the Archangel [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=270938], and O-Ring is fantastic removal.Encaen said:
I would disagree that black kill spells aren't universal in Standard right now. Geth's Verdict [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=213799] takes care of anything you can't target.
Sure, running 20 creature kill in the main deck isn't feasible, but that's what the sideboard is for! =-D Of course, local metagame decisions always trump what's "better in a vacuum," and if there's just too many Tempered Steel and Humans/Spirit Tokens running around, then you need to be able to deal with enchantments.
Answer to the question is at the end of your next turn.
I have to go to class right now and I skimmed this, but as a standard deck I'm inclined to say that B/W wouldn't work just because of the lack of more than 4 B/W dual lands. The fact you're playing colorless lands (Vault) with Highborne Ghoul and Geralf's Messenger only makes it worse, you really need to land those on turn 2/3 consistently, and by playing plains and vaults you're not doing that. That's why most decks that do splash go blue, because they can play 4 catacombs and 4 darkslick shores and still have the perfect color mana (barring a 3x catacombs opening hand).
I have to go to class right now and I skimmed this, but as a standard deck I'm inclined to say that B/W wouldn't work just because of the lack of more than 4 B/W dual lands. The fact you're playing colorless lands (Vault) with Highborne Ghoul and Geralf's Messenger only makes it worse, you really need to land those on turn 2/3 consistently, and by playing plains and vaults you're not doing that. That's why most decks that do splash go blue, because they can play 4 catacombs and 4 darkslick shores and still have the perfect color mana (barring a 3x catacombs opening hand).
Oh, absolutely. I guess I'm just biased because my FNMs attract some legit pro players - one of them went to the world championships twice - and I don't have many occasions to play beyond that, so I'm used to a competitive mindset.Encaen said:
Not that I'm good at it, mind you. Hell, the only reason I do half-decently is that I netdeck all the things.
I guess what I'm saying is that I shouldn't have posted in the first place
The biggest problem with zombies is that they're too slow for true aggro, they don't have the sheer numbers of tokens and they have no true bomb to late game. They're annoying as shit, but ultimately a lot of standard decks are just going to walk over them.
Hell, my R/W Humans deck wouldn't fear them at all really without blue, and even then you'd have to keep wasting counters to cards I can win with or without.
Hell, my R/W Humans deck wouldn't fear them at all really without blue, and even then you'd have to keep wasting counters to cards I can win with or without.
Not technically true. There's a mono-black zombie druid which can, but the activation cost is in green. His colour is still black, though.Encaen said:
I like the look of the deck, but it's just a little to straight forward for me. I, for example, would be playing UB and turn those Gravecrawlers into Grimgrin food.
At the end of your end step.
Anyway, good article as always.
A good match for the Lich Lord is Undead Alchemist. They're brutal together.Zom-B said:
That's not actually correct. Color identity is defined by any mana symbols in the cost and the rules text. (And color identifiers and CDA's.) Quagmire Druid [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=27188]'s color identity is Black and Green. There is no card in all of M:TG which has a color identity of black that can target enchantments.SL33TBL1ND said:
Edit: Okay, that's not entirely accurate. Vampire Hexmage [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=192232] can target enchantments. The enchantment remains a permanent, but it definitely has its uses.