On 3-25-2012, Sam Black did what many of us could not. He managed to create a decent zombie list for Legacy and pilot it to a top 16 finish at a Star City Games Open. Since I was unable to find a thread for this deck on the forum, I took it upon myself to create one.
Here's his list:
ZOMBARDMENT
Zombies by Sam Black Top 16 SCG Open 3-25-2012
4x Bloodghast
4x Carrion Feeder
3x Geralf's Messenger
4x Gravecrawler
2x Rotting Rats
2x Tombstalker
2x Goblin Bombardment
1x Tragic Slip
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Faithless Looting
1x Gitaxian Probe
4x Hymn to Tourach
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
1x Thoughtseize
3x Swamp
2x Badlands
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Marsh Flats
1x Polluted Delta
2x Scrubland
1x Undiscovered Paradise
2x Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard:
3x Dark Confidant
1x Goblin Bombardment
1x Grave Pact
1x Darkblast
1x Disenchant
1x Geth's Verdict
1x Tragic Slip
3x Deathmark
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Thoughtseize
1x Vindicate
A good start for a zombies list, but it needed a little streamlining, and then
Zombies by Sam Black Top 8 GP Atlanta 7-1-2012
3 Blood Artist
4 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Bitterblossom
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
3 Goblin Bombardment
4 Lingering Souls
4 Thoughtseize
1 Tragic Slip
3 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scrubland
2 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard:
2 Dark Confidant
1 Darkblast
2 Disenchant
2 Go for the Throat
2 Perish
2 Pithing Needle
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Vindicate
Wow. A top 8 at a Grand Prix with this? That must mean that Black is on to something here...
Now lets look at some card choices and their purpose in the deck:
Looking at creatures, they all fit the sacrificial theme, whether they are the fodder (Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, Tidehollow Sculler) or that they benefit from the sacrifice (Carrion Feeder, Blood Artist). They all are aggressive cards, but Tidehollow Sculler can provide some added utility as well.
There is also a mini token theme going on here with Bitterblossom and Lingering Souls providing more sacrificial fodder as well as either additional blockers or attackers should the need arise.
Then we have the disruption including discard (Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize) and removal (Goblin Bombardment, Tragic Slip), all of which are good and solid choices in almost any meta.
Any time an aggressive deck has access to good, cheap card advantage, that deck gets a major boost and here is no different. Faithless Looting is amazing in this deck more often drawing you 2 cards and discarding 1 or 2 to be used later than just drawing and discarding.
The sideboard in this new version is still a little bit of a mess of proven decent sideboard cards. A mix of removal (Disenchant, Darkblast, Vindicate, Go for the Throat, Perish) plus Pithing Needle for activated abilities and Surgical Extraction for graveyard hate can go a long way in shoring up those odd matchups. The only oddball here is Dark Confidant, who seems out of place amongst the silver bullets. Maybe there's a matchup where the card advantage provided is incredibly important. I'm not really sure myself.
It's cool to see something fresh and exciting break the monotony of Legacy's big bad decks once in a while, and with a little support by players, this deck could turn out to be a real contender.
Last edited by Zupponn; 07-03-2012 at 02:31 AM.
With all due respect, you could hand Sam Black a deck with sixty Mountains in it and he'd still find a way to win.
Aside from that, it's a nifty idea for the current meta. But it still looks like a mess.
Deadapult in place of Goblin Bombardment
So I have a couple questions and theories after playing this list on moto.
1. Tombstalker is underwhelming when you play him and empty your yard of recurring stuff just to have it swords, pathed, or whatever. I have been running Lilianna of the Veil here and so far I like it.
2. I upped the Goblin Bombardment by 1.
3. I got rid of the random one of cards like tragic slip, and Gitaxian Probe for 4 innocent bloods and again the synergy seems good and has worked well for me.
4. I upped the land count to 20. This may be wrong but so far I am not disappointed.
These few changes have worked well for me so far and I have probably a 70% win ratio on moto with the build.
Now what I am wondering, and this may be very dumb, but out with the white and lingering souls and in with the green and vengevine? Seems synergistic with faithless looting and gravecrawler. Sideboard out with disenchant and in with krosan grip for the super annoying leyline hate. This is a totally untested theory right nowbut maybe good? Also second theory. What if we do something with dark ritual and buried alive. Obviously fun with vengevine and to a lesser degree bloodghast. Food for thought.
I like the Vengevine idea. It's probably super stupid, but I'd want to see something like
4 Bloodghast
4 Gravecrawler
4 Vengevine
4 Dark Ritual
4 Buried Alive
4 Life from the Loam
Something like this seems like it could really reliably cast/recur Vegevines/Gravecrawlers, and Loam would make Landfall almost impossible to fail at. You could be real dumb and play, like, Fecundity and just outdraw rrrthang. Or throw in a random copy of Noxious Ghoul and keep weenie rushes at bay by just repeatedly saccing a Gravecrawler to Feeder.
Even if that's horrible, Vengevine is still too good to pass on and this deck should definitely be thinking about something like Unholy Grotto or Volrath's Stronghold or something.
This seems like kind of a stupid thing to say. A deck is only as good as the cards in it, it's performance at an objective level is measurable only by composition. The player can only match the performance that the deck is actually capable of, never exceed it (otherwise the implication is that the cards can do something that they can't, which is impossible) so a skilled pilot will surely make the most out of the deck, saying that the only reason it did well is because the person playing it is good is kind of a misnomer. The deck is good enough to get there, if it wasn't, it wouldn't have made it.
I find that legacy in general has very well defined ideas as to what is considered good and things that fall outside that realm are considered bad: for example, creature enchantments vs equipment. Blouses took a card type that is largely considered bad and performed extremely well.
I feel that soon, synergy will overstep "goodstuff.dec", as it should shortly in legacy. This deck screams of synergy, it has multiple avenues to victory, the cards function well together, and it's threats, removal, and win-condition are all recurring which is exceedingly hard to deal with. A concern for sure is going to be Scavenging Ooze, which intelligent players will use to great effect against the deck, but it's something that can be overcome and handled.
You should look better through threads:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ving-Dead-Girl
"Want all, lose all."
Oh, good job me, I guessed at a deck that is already a deck. :/
Ironically, there is a modicum of posts representing what Goblin Bombardment could potentially do for the deck in the other thread, which seems to have gone entirely G/B at this point, which is sort of how I imagined it would eventually anyway, heh. The slight splash for Wonder makes a lot of sense though, and would obviate any real need for Bombardment tricks, or removal any better than, say, Liliana of the Veil. Actually, what would be superlulz and wouldn't involve any splashing would be just maindecking Urborg and playing a single copy of Filth, although I guess there are more Black creatures in the format than there are flyers.
Heres a "Zombardment" list I have been testing in alternance with Living Dead Girl. I had a deck file in cockatrice named Zombie Bombardment, so here it is:
Creatures (20)
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Diregraf Captain
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
Sorcery (8)
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
Enchantment (8)
4 Zombie Infestation
4 Goblin Bombardment
Lands (20)
4 Badlands
4 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
I tested Slavering Nulls instead of Geralf so far and Nulls just never connects. I am seriously considering Dreadwing too.
Do you know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and me.
Get it...? Ass, u, me?
... ffs I was trying to be funny...
Just to be a completionist here is the tread i had on this archetype from a month or so ago:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ggro-Recursion
I like the lingering souls splash in Sam Blacks list, and i'd probably run lilliana's for sure now, after some testing it was really good.
I was originally testing Sam Black's list and found some of the singletons/Tombstalker to be underwhelming. Also, I put more/better removal in than what was here previously (I know it's cute, but I don't like Tragic Slip at all), a suggestion I took up after Gerry T talked about it in the SCG email updates they spam you with.
FYI, I've been using Sam's list with the following changes:
-4 Hymn
-1 Thoughtseize
-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Tragic Slip
-2 Tombstalkers
+2 Lilliana of the Veil
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+2 Bitterblossom
+3 Innocent Blood
Bitterblossom is the card that I'm most unsure about (I can't figure out if I want to get rid of it or up the number to 3). It performs well in the control matchup, and it works as both a finisher/Bombardment Fodder, but I don't know if it's really what I'm looking for. Also, I can't figure out if I want to jam in another Bombardment with the added tokens of BB. Oh and there's always Jitte to consider too.
But yeah, thoughts on BB?
The iteration I sleeved up was your copy except -2 Lilis, + 2 Bitterblossom. I don't love Bitterblossom without Jitte or a Sword...too much time playing BW Stoneblade taught me the value of equipment, otherwise they're just chump blockers that *might* hit them for 1 with a bombardment. So I tried cutting it to 3 Bitterblossom, +1 Goblin Bombardment, and it was still a little hit or miss.
At the same time, I'm giving this a go that I like a little better conceptually that murdered Goblins and Maverick in g1 random testing, but it feels like it hurts our control matchups more.
-9
+2 Liliana
+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+3 Smother
+2 Rotlung Reanimator / Anathemancer
If only there was a way to fit Bridge from Below into the deck, you could have a monster token generator of Bombardment + Rotlungs + Bloodghast
EDIT: I tried Zombie Infestation, Festering Goblin, Tidehollow Sculler, Withered Wretch and Spectral Procession in the Rotlung/Anathemancer slots. All sounded like good ideas worth trying, and all were pretty terrible. I think I like Anathemancer and Tombstalker the most again.
1) I really wish there was another creature, Zombie or otherwise, that could "return to play" in the way that Gravecrawler and Bloodghast do. Nether Shadow isn't consistent enough in this regard ( and is only once per turn), and Ichorid eats all of your dudes in a bad way.
2) I keep wanting to play this deck like old UG Madness decks - that deck was super syngergistic but wasn't unfair: Intution for Roar of the Wurm+Wonder, or Madness out an Arrogant Wurm via Wild Mongrel or Merfolk Looter. We can do the same thing but Goblin Bombardment feels like the enabler - Drop a searchland, landfall in a bunch of ghasts, sac to deal damage, fetch, landfall them back again, attack, sac again. Or GB+Gravecrawler reads B: 1 damage to target creature or player. The problem is that in actual fair combat, our creatures don't feel as good as anyone else, and we end up losing those battles because we don't have nifty combat tricks or unfair monsters on turn2
@Qweerios - Squee+ZI really benefits from Intuition. That's such an old school Ancestral Recall play:)
Last edited by civet five; 04-04-2012 at 02:38 AM.
Have you maybe thought of trying out Buried Alive? In my casual games it's always the nuts with Bloodghast lol
"If you're playing Storm in Legacy, you need to believe that what your deck does is better than what their deck does."
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)