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ACME_Myst
02-07-2008, 09:28 AM
I figured I might as well submit it. If for some reason this isn't allowed because the deck was previously posted in the N&D section, feel free to remove it. I just took the primer I posted there, because really nothing has changed since then.

Wild Zombies, historically
About 9 months ago, I already posted a primer about this deck, though that version is very much outdated.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

lolosoon
02-07-2008, 05:03 PM
Ahhh Wild Zombies... Love this deck.

But, seriously : Loam + Cycling~ & Fetch~ Lands + Red Mana...

...and no Crusher ?!? Have you tested and dismissed him ?! Why ?

Also, Wild Zombies seems less Wild with only 2 Mongrels. I agree the 2cc Slot is crowded and that Goyf is great and all, but with the engine packed, a 5+/5+ Mongrel is almost guaranteed, and is bigger than Goyf. (Well, in my current testing with AggroLoam, it is. And I don't have recurring Nabobs.)

I only see 3 MD Duress and SB Chalices. With the Token Engine, couldn't some cabal therapies find their way in and greatly help your awful combo matchup ?! Unless AggroLoam, you can easily abuse the flashback option with expandable Therapy fodder.

Still, it's great to see this beast lurking around. Keep up the good work !

ACME_Myst
02-07-2008, 05:52 PM
No, in all honesty Crusher wasn't tested. However, if you adjust the deck to fit him in, you're probably better off just playing straight AggroLoam. That deck was designed to abuse him (or the other way around, now I think of it), this deck was not.

Mongrel isn't really better than Goyf, since it requires your engine to be active, while Goyf does not.

About the Therapy's: Sure, only please tell me what to cut.. Seriously though, I've said it before and I'll say it again: If your meta is combo heavy, just play another deck. When you add more combo hate, your going to cut into one of two things:

- Creatures / Engine
- Removal

If you cut the first, you probably won't be able to set a relevant clock anymore, and then die while your opponent recovers. If you cut the latter, you start dying to other decks that you now have a fantastic matchup against.

Michael Keller
02-07-2008, 06:30 PM
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.

I wouldn't be so sure about this. Trading creatures turn one with a Lackey isn't necessarily having an "answer", because it is denying you offense and defense. Plus, if I dropped a Lackey turn one and someone traded it with a Mongoose, that's seems quite all right to me. I don't like 3/3 un-targetable creatures I can't cycle and hit. I can see you having a better selection of cards against Goblins, but you or your teammates obviously haven't played any real solid Goblin players with solid Goblin decks yet because I tested this match and in ten games on MWS I went 6-4 with Goblins against it. You have to essentially dump your hand to Infestation in order to gain any sort of advantage and, even then, your still denying yourself any answers in the hand because you're discarding them. I think it's a solid deck, otherwise. I'm working on something similar myself.

I just think it's moderately humorous how every single deck in the NaD forum and here thinks they have a really great match against Goblins when ultimately in a major tournament it's always the Goblin player who does well.

And I don't play Goblins.

ACME_Myst
02-07-2008, 06:42 PM
You are correct. All the testing results are unreliable because we just made them up. We also have no idea what we are talking about when we say we have been working on it for about a year. /sarcasm

Seriously though, in a vacuum you are correct. Trading mongoose with lackey is good for the Goblins player. It gets worse however, when the next turn I drop Infestation and the Goblins player can't connect anything anymore, while I use my removal to get rid of annoying things, and Goyfs stomp him to death.

Also, please don't say things like


you or your teammates obviously haven't played any real solid Goblin players with solid Goblin decks

Since I find that pretty offensive. Borderline flaming, actually.

[Edit]
You ninja-editted, apparently. I'll just add that it would be a little close minded to assume NO decks in this forum have a good matchup against goblins, simply because they all claim they do.

Michael Keller
02-07-2008, 06:45 PM
You are correct. All the testing results are unreliable because we just made them up. We also have no idea what we are talking about when we say we have been working on it for about a year. /sarcasm

Seriously though, in a vacuum you are correct. Trading mongoose with lackey is good for the Goblins player. It gets worse however, when the next turn I drop Infestation and the Goblins player can't connect anything anymore, while I use my removal to get rid of annoying things, and Goyfs stomp him to death.

Also, please don't say things like



Since I find that pretty offensive. Borderline flaming, actually.


Mmmm not really. When you come out and just say things like, "...me and my teammates have yet to lose a single match to Goblins in a tournament", you are generalizing. And when you generalize your competition when creating a new deck, you are leaving yourself open for interpretation. And the way I see it (and tested it), your results are biased. Sorry, but that's just what I see. Opinion with valid testing is far from flaming. Give specific results and not generalized ones and then you can talk.

Plus you called your match against Goblins...a joke. I think some of the more seasoned Gob players on the board would take offense to that.

ACME_Myst
02-07-2008, 06:53 PM
I didn't generalize. I stated the fact that "me and my teammates have yet to lose a single match in a tournament to goblins".

About interpretation, here's what I see:

- When I say "me and my teammates", I obviously mean the 3 out of 4 who actually took the deck to a tournament (or multiple tournaments)

- When I say "goblins", I assume every Legacy player knows what I'm talking about. If I would mean "Goblin Balloon Brigade.dec", I'd say that instead.

- When I say "have yet to lose a single match", I assume you understand that we actually played against Goblins in a tournament setting. So I'm not saying "we haven't lost" as in "we haven't played against".

[Edit]
Ninja-editted again :p

What you're saying is that I can't call an extremely favorable matchup a joke? Like: TES vs "Thorn Elemental.dec" is a joke? Or in more competative terms: The preboard match of Ichorid.dec vs Anything-not-packing-MB-GY-hate.dec is a joke.

gosumog
02-08-2008, 10:45 AM
instead of 3 duress, 1 smother, 2 mongrel you can go (original post, i didnt read on before testing)

-2 duress
-1 smother

+2 thoughtsieze
+1 mongrel

adds another engine and thoughtseize keeps the removal solid, this also helps to dodge a cabal therapy from iggy pop or ichorid =), and if u side in more i can see this happening often enough to mention.

also, replacing 1 firestorm with a thoughtseize might be nice (firestorm hits aggro and some combo, thoughtseize hits control, combo, and aggro) the removal suite is enough to handle goblins, esp with an extra mongrel (he is also a replacement engine for that firestorm)

this deck has one huge prob... people pack graveyard hate main and side

Happy Gilmore
02-08-2008, 12:21 PM
In a deck running Genesis, how can Terminate be remotely better than Shriekmaw? Evasive threats that generate card advantage are good I hear, not to mention that they are rarely countered by counterbalance (which this deck has abolutely no hope of overcoming G1 btw).

ACME_Myst
02-08-2008, 01:02 PM
Instant speed and the fact that it hits much more creatures.

Good point on Counterbalance though. The fact that this deck dies to it preboard was, however, already stated in the OP.

You could consider running it over Smother, and maybe 1 Terminate, but I'm liking the versatility of Terminate better actually.

maatn
02-22-2008, 05:52 AM
Hi, I'm thinking of playing Wild Zombies! in an upcoming tournament soon.

In testing I'm having difficulties winning against Vail-Goblins. Also, against Dragon-stompy, chalice, trinisphere AND rakdos 'the double strike' dragon really hurt. And I’m not even mentioning the games that are lost due to Blood Moon and/or it’s Magus personification.

I must say I was really impressed by Firestorm eventually. As of now, I’m not so sure anymore. The big problem with Firestorm is the fact that you do need X targets in order to burn. So, with your opponent at 5 lives, you need 5 legal targets in order to burn him dead. (you can't target the same thing more than once according to oracle). In testing I found Sickening Dreams to be useful. It's basically just more creature removal against dragon-stompy, goblins, elves etc., but it's mass-removal. And, it’s easier to burn an opponent @5 lives FTW :)

Against combo I do think more disruption is required. Or better yet, another deck altogether :)
Playing land disruption might improve the scales in favour of Zombies however. I’m thinking of including 2 wastelands but that can’t be done without hurting the manabase…

About the sideboard: how do you use CotV without hurting your own team? What are your thoughts on adding Umezawa’s Jitte, or Sword of Fire and Ice? Both give your team more tempo and the other obvious advantages of the well-known Jitte and SoFI.

Finally, what are your thoughts on the goblin-matchup with Earwig Squad maindecked? Using lackey to put Warchief or Frogtosser Bannert in play, Earwig Squad can hit the table for it’s reduced prowl-cost of 1B on turn 2…The chances of lackey poking through are slim of course, but nevertheless Earwig Squad is bringing Jester’s Cap to the green men.

Last but not least: thanks a lot for sharing your list!