ACME_Myst
12-19-2007, 08:22 PM
About me
First off, let me tell you something about myself.
I’m a hardcore Magic player, and have been in the game for almost ten years now. In the last couple of years my level of play has gone up a lot, going from casual to, in my feeling, well above average tournament level. I spend many hours, nearly every day, thinking, reading, and playing Magic. I tell you this not to stroke my own ego, but rather because I want you to understand what kind of player I am, because of the following problem.
You see, unlike some respected members here on these boards, my name is not widely known. And therein lies a problem. Because, when an unknown player posts a new decklist, it is almost always met with lots of (negative) critique, suggestions that don’t work, and ultimately, the thread disappears somewhere to page 4 and beyond, never to be seen again.
When a known player however posts a list, it has a far better chance of being accepted by the community, and becoming an established deck.
The deck I’m going to talk about in this post is, if I may say so, a very good one. Therefore it would be a shame to see it fall off these boards, and not getting the attention I think it deserves. This is why I wrote this paragraph. I ask you to read this primer, ignoring the fact that you do not know me, and that I do not have 500+ posts on these boards. Give this deck a chance, and you will find that it is worth your time.
Wild Zombies, historically
There, with all that sentimental talk out of the way, lets get on with the deck itself. About 9 months ago, I already posted a primer about this deck, though that version is very much outdated. It can be found here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5409.
Let me copy-paste some history from the old thread:
The original version of the deck was an old (2001) extended build.
Some information about this deck can be found http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=GPLV01%5C792ymg .
In 2005, Andrew Oyen placed 1st at a Vintage tournament, winning a mox ruby. His report and decklist can be found http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10789.html .
Now, my team has spend the last 9 months perfecting and updating the list. What I’m going to show to you now is the result of nearly a year’s work of development. We believe this build to be very close to optimal.
The decklist
// Lands (22)
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
3 Bayou
2 Taiga
2 Badlands
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Barbarian Ring
4 Tranquil Thicket
// Beats (17)
4 Zombie Infestation
2 Wild Mongrel
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Nimble Mongoose
// Disruption (11)
3 Duress
4 Terminate
1 Smother
3 Firestorm
// Utility (10)
3 Life from the Loam
2 Anger
1 Genesis
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
// Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
Card explanations
Lands
This part is pretty straightforward. Duals and fetches, and some basics.
Tranquil Thicket for Loam draw engine, and Barbarian Ring for recurrable reach.
Beats
Here is what really makes this deck so powerful. Card by card:
- Zombie Infestation. The decks namesake, and completely broken if left unchecked. When the deck gets going, you make on average 3-4 hasted tokens a turn. This card can play the control role, chumpblocking Goyfs all day long, as well as the aggro mode.
- Wild Mongrel. Can grow very large with Loam and Squee. It’s also an impressive tag-team with the next card on the list:
- Tarmogoyf. We all know why this card is so good.
- Basking Rootwalla. Wild Mongrels and Zombie Infestations best friend.
- Nimble Mongoose. One of the best one drop creatures in the format.
Disruption
Notice that this package is very much focussed against creature heavy decks. If your meta consists of a crapton of combo, I suggest changing these slots, or better yet, find another deck to play.
- Duress. We are still unclear if Thoughtseize is the better choice, though we are sticking with Duress for now. Everybody knows the purpose of this card.
- Terminate + Smother. These hit probably over 90% of the creatures played in this format. Note the singleton Smother is not random, but rather functions as the 5th Terminate here. These cards are golden in most matchups, and we have considered upping the count to 6. The 5th Terminate (Smother), is however a meta slot. I do suggest not taking it out though, with all the Goyfs running around you will almost always have a target.
- Firestorm. In my opinion, one of the most underplayed cards in Legacy, though I can see that not many decks can support it. It’s one of the most powerfull cards in the deck, It functions as a sweeper that does damage to the dome, but can also be used as a finisher for 5+ damage in some situations.
Utility
This is pretty straightforward stuff, but I’ll explain it anyway.
- Life from the Loam. Makes landdrops, fills your hand for ZI / Mongrel, draws cards, and fills graveyard with goodies. Everything you want in a single card. Note that we only play 3, because testing showed that the fourth one was almost always redundant.
- Anger. This card is a beast. It speeds the deck up by at least 2 turns, and we would play more if it actually did something in multiples.
- Genesis. Gives the deck some extra late-game power, should it get to that. I’ve heard that recurring hasty Goyfs is pretty good. This is the second metagame slot in the deck.
- Squee, Goblin Nabob. This card basically does three things:
-It’s broken with Zombie Infestation and Mongrel.
-It’s redundant on Loam, in case either get’s Extirpated.
-It chumpblocks nearly every creature in the format, for all eternity.
I guess the flavor text on the Tenth edition one says it best.
Sideboard
Obviously, sideboards are never set in stone, but this is the one we are currently running for our meta. Leylines and Chalice are almost always in there though.
About the deck
The strong points
Well, first off, its a blast to play. Making a shitload of hasty zombie tokens each turn is just plain fun. Second, it has good matchups against some of the most played decks in the format, as I will explain later.
Also, the deck can play both control and aggro fairly well, although it’s of course better at the last one. Finally, it has immense threat diversity, meaning that a single (or even multiple) Extirpates or similiar effects do not harm this deck too much.
The weak points
Yes, of course there are downsides to this deck. I will eleborate more on these than on the strong points, since I feel the strong ones kind of speak for themselves.
First, the deck is, to an extent, graveyard based. This of course makes it vulnerable to some widely played cards like Extirpate, Leyline and Crypt. The good news is however, that like I said, Extirpate doesn’t hit the deck too hard. If they hit Loam, you still have Squee, and vice versa. If they hit Infestation, you still have Mongrel and Goyf.
Tormod’s Crypt isn’t that bad, since it only takes out Loam and Squee.
Leyline is the real bitch, although you still have your opponent’s graveyard to feed your Goyf on. Also, since this card is usually only encountered post-board, you probably (at least in game three) have Grips to get rid of it.
Second, as you may have noticed, the 2 CC slot is filled to the brim. The upside to this is that you can operate on little mana, and that you are very explosive. The downside however, is that you are vulnerable to popular cards like Spell Snare, Counterbalance, and Chalice @ 2.
Third, the best aggresive card in the deck is ZI. This gets hit by Pithing Needle, and other things like that. The good news is that you still have a lot of other beaters to back it up.
Finally, due to lack of counters and / or massive discard, this deck sucks against combo. It’s a tradeoff we had to make, so we suggest not running this deck in a field full of combo.
Matchups, the good, the bad, and the ugly
Here’s some global matchup statistics and explanations. We don’t have actual percentages, but you should get the general idea.
Goblins Extremely Favorable
Really, this matchup is a joke. If you read the reference to the old thread, you will see that it was posted there as unfavorable. This list does not suffer from the same problem. Unless they go completely broken, and you draw absolutely nothing, you win this.
On the draw, you have 10 answers to turn one Lackey. On the play, you have 25. That’s one of the upsides of having an overpopulated 2CC slot.
My teammates and I have yet to lose a single game in a tournament to Goblins.
Affinity Extremely Favorable
See goblins, except they can’t topdeck into Ringleader / SGC.
Burn Favorable
You should win this, if you don’t draw complete crap. Fetch basics to not suddenly die to PoP. Post board, bring in Chalice to set @ 1.
Pikula / Homebrew variants Favorable
This was the reason why this deck was developed in the first place, since our meta at the time was infested with Deadguy variants. It comes down to their discard being useless, their landdestruction being useless, and your creatures being bigger than theirs.
Note: Descendant variant Unfavorable
Though the last time I played against this variant was pre-Goyf, it was a bitch. You couldn’t race it’s lifegain, and Descendant was usually bigger than your creatures.
NQG variants Unfavorable – Favorable
This matchup really depends on the build. If they maindeck CounterTop, you’re probably screwed. If not, they probably sideboard it, so bring in Krosan Grips and Extirpate anyway. The matchup is definiatly winnable, but don’t keep a hand with only one threat. Also, hope they don’t draw the nuts. If they don’t, you should run enough threats and removal to win the attrition war.
Landstill Pretty much untested, but probably even – slightly favorable
The problem for them is that all your stuff keeps recurring. They can’t counter everything, all the time.
Lands! Unfavorable
Though winnable, you don’t like this matchup. Maze of Ith forces you to overextend into Tabernacle. Also, they can race. Postboard it gets better.
Other Loam variants About even.
Seriously, I hate Loam mirrors. They almost always go to time. The matchup itself is usually a coinflip.
Anything combo Extremely Unfavorable
Assuming they can win before turn 5, your pretty much dead, unless you draw the nuts and they are slow.
Stax variants Generally unfavorable, but depends on build
Though winnable, it isn’t a walk in the park. White Stax is bad, if they run Suppression Field main. Wildfire is definiatly winnable. It usually comes down to you getting down Zombie Infestation before they get down Smokestack. Maindeck you cannot beat Ensnaring Bridges, so that sucks (barring Ring recursion, but lets assume your opponent actually does anything in those ~7 turns you need to kill him)
Tournament results
Piloted by my teammates and me, this deck has made top8 in nearly every ~40 man and below tournament we attended.
A couple week ago, I missed top8 in the Dutch Legacy Champs (~125 players), when all I needed was one more turn, when my opponent topdecked what he needed, and I couldn’t find the removal I needed.
My results that day, out of 7 rounds of swiss, went like this:
4-0 first four rounds. Need to win one more to draw into top8.
Get paired with Loam mirror, go to time. 4-0-1.
Get paired against Ichorid. He annihalates me turn 2 in game 1. I board in Leylines, but he has Chain. Note that this was pre-Extirpate sideboard. 4-1-1.
I then lost the final round to a B/w/g Homebrew deck, in a very close 3 game match. Shit happens.
Something similiar happened about half a year ago, in what was also around a 120 player tournament. I steamroll my way through the early rounds, but the deck craps out on me in a very close, 3 game match for top8. That must be my thing or something ;) .
Final thoughts
After having spend more than 2000 words in this post, I feel like I have said what I wanted to say. Once more, I encourage you to try this out, you will not be disappointed. I hope you enjoyed reading through this primer, and found it interesting.
Thomas Krak
Team BackCorner
First off, let me tell you something about myself.
I’m a hardcore Magic player, and have been in the game for almost ten years now. In the last couple of years my level of play has gone up a lot, going from casual to, in my feeling, well above average tournament level. I spend many hours, nearly every day, thinking, reading, and playing Magic. I tell you this not to stroke my own ego, but rather because I want you to understand what kind of player I am, because of the following problem.
You see, unlike some respected members here on these boards, my name is not widely known. And therein lies a problem. Because, when an unknown player posts a new decklist, it is almost always met with lots of (negative) critique, suggestions that don’t work, and ultimately, the thread disappears somewhere to page 4 and beyond, never to be seen again.
When a known player however posts a list, it has a far better chance of being accepted by the community, and becoming an established deck.
The deck I’m going to talk about in this post is, if I may say so, a very good one. Therefore it would be a shame to see it fall off these boards, and not getting the attention I think it deserves. This is why I wrote this paragraph. I ask you to read this primer, ignoring the fact that you do not know me, and that I do not have 500+ posts on these boards. Give this deck a chance, and you will find that it is worth your time.
Wild Zombies, historically
There, with all that sentimental talk out of the way, lets get on with the deck itself. About 9 months ago, I already posted a primer about this deck, though that version is very much outdated. It can be found here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5409.
Let me copy-paste some history from the old thread:
The original version of the deck was an old (2001) extended build.
Some information about this deck can be found http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=GPLV01%5C792ymg .
In 2005, Andrew Oyen placed 1st at a Vintage tournament, winning a mox ruby. His report and decklist can be found http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10789.html .
Now, my team has spend the last 9 months perfecting and updating the list. What I’m going to show to you now is the result of nearly a year’s work of development. We believe this build to be very close to optimal.
The decklist
// Lands (22)
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
3 Bayou
2 Taiga
2 Badlands
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Barbarian Ring
4 Tranquil Thicket
// Beats (17)
4 Zombie Infestation
2 Wild Mongrel
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Nimble Mongoose
// Disruption (11)
3 Duress
4 Terminate
1 Smother
3 Firestorm
// Utility (10)
3 Life from the Loam
2 Anger
1 Genesis
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
// Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
Card explanations
Lands
This part is pretty straightforward. Duals and fetches, and some basics.
Tranquil Thicket for Loam draw engine, and Barbarian Ring for recurrable reach.
Beats
Here is what really makes this deck so powerful. Card by card:
- Zombie Infestation. The decks namesake, and completely broken if left unchecked. When the deck gets going, you make on average 3-4 hasted tokens a turn. This card can play the control role, chumpblocking Goyfs all day long, as well as the aggro mode.
- Wild Mongrel. Can grow very large with Loam and Squee. It’s also an impressive tag-team with the next card on the list:
- Tarmogoyf. We all know why this card is so good.
- Basking Rootwalla. Wild Mongrels and Zombie Infestations best friend.
- Nimble Mongoose. One of the best one drop creatures in the format.
Disruption
Notice that this package is very much focussed against creature heavy decks. If your meta consists of a crapton of combo, I suggest changing these slots, or better yet, find another deck to play.
- Duress. We are still unclear if Thoughtseize is the better choice, though we are sticking with Duress for now. Everybody knows the purpose of this card.
- Terminate + Smother. These hit probably over 90% of the creatures played in this format. Note the singleton Smother is not random, but rather functions as the 5th Terminate here. These cards are golden in most matchups, and we have considered upping the count to 6. The 5th Terminate (Smother), is however a meta slot. I do suggest not taking it out though, with all the Goyfs running around you will almost always have a target.
- Firestorm. In my opinion, one of the most underplayed cards in Legacy, though I can see that not many decks can support it. It’s one of the most powerfull cards in the deck, It functions as a sweeper that does damage to the dome, but can also be used as a finisher for 5+ damage in some situations.
Utility
This is pretty straightforward stuff, but I’ll explain it anyway.
- Life from the Loam. Makes landdrops, fills your hand for ZI / Mongrel, draws cards, and fills graveyard with goodies. Everything you want in a single card. Note that we only play 3, because testing showed that the fourth one was almost always redundant.
- Anger. This card is a beast. It speeds the deck up by at least 2 turns, and we would play more if it actually did something in multiples.
- Genesis. Gives the deck some extra late-game power, should it get to that. I’ve heard that recurring hasty Goyfs is pretty good. This is the second metagame slot in the deck.
- Squee, Goblin Nabob. This card basically does three things:
-It’s broken with Zombie Infestation and Mongrel.
-It’s redundant on Loam, in case either get’s Extirpated.
-It chumpblocks nearly every creature in the format, for all eternity.
I guess the flavor text on the Tenth edition one says it best.
Sideboard
Obviously, sideboards are never set in stone, but this is the one we are currently running for our meta. Leylines and Chalice are almost always in there though.
About the deck
The strong points
Well, first off, its a blast to play. Making a shitload of hasty zombie tokens each turn is just plain fun. Second, it has good matchups against some of the most played decks in the format, as I will explain later.
Also, the deck can play both control and aggro fairly well, although it’s of course better at the last one. Finally, it has immense threat diversity, meaning that a single (or even multiple) Extirpates or similiar effects do not harm this deck too much.
The weak points
Yes, of course there are downsides to this deck. I will eleborate more on these than on the strong points, since I feel the strong ones kind of speak for themselves.
First, the deck is, to an extent, graveyard based. This of course makes it vulnerable to some widely played cards like Extirpate, Leyline and Crypt. The good news is however, that like I said, Extirpate doesn’t hit the deck too hard. If they hit Loam, you still have Squee, and vice versa. If they hit Infestation, you still have Mongrel and Goyf.
Tormod’s Crypt isn’t that bad, since it only takes out Loam and Squee.
Leyline is the real bitch, although you still have your opponent’s graveyard to feed your Goyf on. Also, since this card is usually only encountered post-board, you probably (at least in game three) have Grips to get rid of it.
Second, as you may have noticed, the 2 CC slot is filled to the brim. The upside to this is that you can operate on little mana, and that you are very explosive. The downside however, is that you are vulnerable to popular cards like Spell Snare, Counterbalance, and Chalice @ 2.
Third, the best aggresive card in the deck is ZI. This gets hit by Pithing Needle, and other things like that. The good news is that you still have a lot of other beaters to back it up.
Finally, due to lack of counters and / or massive discard, this deck sucks against combo. It’s a tradeoff we had to make, so we suggest not running this deck in a field full of combo.
Matchups, the good, the bad, and the ugly
Here’s some global matchup statistics and explanations. We don’t have actual percentages, but you should get the general idea.
Goblins Extremely Favorable
Really, this matchup is a joke. If you read the reference to the old thread, you will see that it was posted there as unfavorable. This list does not suffer from the same problem. Unless they go completely broken, and you draw absolutely nothing, you win this.
On the draw, you have 10 answers to turn one Lackey. On the play, you have 25. That’s one of the upsides of having an overpopulated 2CC slot.
My teammates and I have yet to lose a single game in a tournament to Goblins.
Affinity Extremely Favorable
See goblins, except they can’t topdeck into Ringleader / SGC.
Burn Favorable
You should win this, if you don’t draw complete crap. Fetch basics to not suddenly die to PoP. Post board, bring in Chalice to set @ 1.
Pikula / Homebrew variants Favorable
This was the reason why this deck was developed in the first place, since our meta at the time was infested with Deadguy variants. It comes down to their discard being useless, their landdestruction being useless, and your creatures being bigger than theirs.
Note: Descendant variant Unfavorable
Though the last time I played against this variant was pre-Goyf, it was a bitch. You couldn’t race it’s lifegain, and Descendant was usually bigger than your creatures.
NQG variants Unfavorable – Favorable
This matchup really depends on the build. If they maindeck CounterTop, you’re probably screwed. If not, they probably sideboard it, so bring in Krosan Grips and Extirpate anyway. The matchup is definiatly winnable, but don’t keep a hand with only one threat. Also, hope they don’t draw the nuts. If they don’t, you should run enough threats and removal to win the attrition war.
Landstill Pretty much untested, but probably even – slightly favorable
The problem for them is that all your stuff keeps recurring. They can’t counter everything, all the time.
Lands! Unfavorable
Though winnable, you don’t like this matchup. Maze of Ith forces you to overextend into Tabernacle. Also, they can race. Postboard it gets better.
Other Loam variants About even.
Seriously, I hate Loam mirrors. They almost always go to time. The matchup itself is usually a coinflip.
Anything combo Extremely Unfavorable
Assuming they can win before turn 5, your pretty much dead, unless you draw the nuts and they are slow.
Stax variants Generally unfavorable, but depends on build
Though winnable, it isn’t a walk in the park. White Stax is bad, if they run Suppression Field main. Wildfire is definiatly winnable. It usually comes down to you getting down Zombie Infestation before they get down Smokestack. Maindeck you cannot beat Ensnaring Bridges, so that sucks (barring Ring recursion, but lets assume your opponent actually does anything in those ~7 turns you need to kill him)
Tournament results
Piloted by my teammates and me, this deck has made top8 in nearly every ~40 man and below tournament we attended.
A couple week ago, I missed top8 in the Dutch Legacy Champs (~125 players), when all I needed was one more turn, when my opponent topdecked what he needed, and I couldn’t find the removal I needed.
My results that day, out of 7 rounds of swiss, went like this:
4-0 first four rounds. Need to win one more to draw into top8.
Get paired with Loam mirror, go to time. 4-0-1.
Get paired against Ichorid. He annihalates me turn 2 in game 1. I board in Leylines, but he has Chain. Note that this was pre-Extirpate sideboard. 4-1-1.
I then lost the final round to a B/w/g Homebrew deck, in a very close 3 game match. Shit happens.
Something similiar happened about half a year ago, in what was also around a 120 player tournament. I steamroll my way through the early rounds, but the deck craps out on me in a very close, 3 game match for top8. That must be my thing or something ;) .
Final thoughts
After having spend more than 2000 words in this post, I feel like I have said what I wanted to say. Once more, I encourage you to try this out, you will not be disappointed. I hope you enjoyed reading through this primer, and found it interesting.
Thomas Krak
Team BackCorner