B/w Undead Guy

[gamegeek2]

This is a deck a guy at my local store (Phil Sagnay) has been working on for some time. It's evolved from a tribal Zombies deck into the streamlined, Deadguy Ale-reminiscent machine it is today. It's extremely disruptive, attacking the opponent from many different angles.

From the most recent Dream Wizards Legacy tournament.

2nd: Philip Sagnay - B/W Undeadguy

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scrubland
1 Bayou
3 Swamp
1 Leechridden Swamp
4 Wasteland

4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
4 Sarcomancy
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Vindicate
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Snuff Out
1 Stillmoon Cavalier
1 Profane Command
1 Swords to Plowshares

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Krosan Grip
3 CoP Red
2 Pithing Needle
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Swords to Plowshares


Card explanations

Sarcomancy - Though the Zombies theme has significant decreased, Sarcomancy remains the aggressive core of the deck, serving as an aggressive 1-drop that comes off a Dark Ritual.

Tidehollow Sculler - Left over from older tribal versions of the deck, it seves as additional disruption, as well as being a Zombie for Sarcomancy.

Dark Ritual, Dark Confidant, Sinkhole, Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach - Standard Sui Black cards.

Swords to Plowshare - Superior removal spell.

Snuff Out - Black removal of choice, allows this deck to keep its massive tempo going.

Vindicate - Kills anything. I heard that was good.

Stillmoon Cavalier - A Zombie, can hold off Tombstalker and other problematic black creatures, and dodges the majority of removal.

Profane Command - Run as a 1-2 of. Strong and versatile card, but a bit slow and clunky.

Umezawa's Jitte - Amazing card, definitely underplayed. Ace against so many decks.

The manabase is fairly straightforward, featuring Wasteland and a solid fetchland base, with green for K-Grips out of the board. Though I'm certainly surprised that he added the green splash without adding Goyf.

--- Sideboard ---

Diabolic Edict - Fairly standard black SB card.

Leyline of the Void - GY hate, mainly for Ichorid.

Krosan Grip - The ubiquitous Legacy sideboard card.

Swords to Plowshares - More removal.

CoP Red - For Goblins, Burn, and Aggro Loam

Pithing Needle - Mainly for Top, though a strong card in general.

Engineered Plague - Not in Phil's list, but these are a strong card as well, I might want them over CoP Red

[Shtriga]

How about some nantuko shades? The deck seems lacking in significant threats. Either that or tombstalker/jotun grunt/phyrexian negator/tarmogoyf (given a couple more bayous)

[heroicraptor]

Leechridden Swamp seems... crappy.

[Forbiddian]

Hmm, your card explanations really fail to address how you arrived at the numbers that you did.

Like: Why 1 Swords to Plowshares and 2 Snuff Out? The explanations tersely just say, "Standard Selection." Yes, they're standard... as 4-ofs. Obviously you worked on the deck and thought about it, but it seems like an interesting choice.



But my biggest question is: You splash green for sideboarded Krosan Grips. You don't even run Tombstalker. Why not either 1) Maindeck Tarmogoyf, maybe adding an extra Bayou or two (cutting that awful swamp) or 2) cut green entirely and just run Seal of Cleansing/Disenchant?

[gamegeek2]

I didn't arrive at the numbers/card explanations. THIS IS NOT MY DECK.

If I were to build it from the ground up, I would personally put in 4 Goyfs. Because Goyf is the best creature of all time. I'll probably suggest that to him, actually.

[raharu]

I didn't arrive at the numbers/card explanations. THIS IS NOT MY DECK.

If I were to build it from the ground up, I would personally put in 4 Goyfs. Because Goyf is the best creature of all time. I'll probably suggest that to him, actually.
o_O

You mean you haven't suggested 'Goyf already?

[gamegeek2]

I didn't see the green splash until later on in the tournament. I highly recommend Goyf for this deck.

[snorlaxcom]

I have received countless suggestions of sir goyf, but the deck performs fine without him(as you can see). Sarcomancy in the early turns is rarely countered as blue is more concerned to save the counters for the ld, a potential goyf, or bob instead. Sarcomancy also helps set off the "crappy" leechridden swamp, which won me a couple of games in the tourney actually. I like having swords, but the free spells are devastating with more ld and after baiting counters. Testing resulted in 2 snuffout and one swords(the numbers worked out that way so deal with it). I see the bayou worth it for the Krosan grip because it kills top/counterbalance, which is annoying when I'm trying to blow lands, and useful against survival.

Why don't I run tombstalker? I really like him but flipping for eight on bob is unattractive and has been more than fatal in testing. I like being able to cast creatures every turn or every other turn, but tombstalker eats up too much of the grave to keep chugging them out.

Why don't I run shade? Dunno. I had one slot left and really like stillmoon's immunity to most of the removal in the format. I'm most likely going to add some shades because they are indeed made of awesome.

I played this deck in last month's legacy tourney and ran top, so I'm thinking of using tops again, though it slows down my aggro a bit and of course the results were much better without top(I still would like to use the tombstalker though). Any and all suggestions are welcome.

[Unknown2]

21 land:

3 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scrubland
3 Bayou
3 Swamp
4 Wasteland

39 spells:
4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
3 Nantuko Shade
4 Dark Confidant
4 Mesmeric Fiend (Yes, Tidehallow is better, but this can be used with hymn to tourach and it's easier to cast a lot of the time.)
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Tarmogoyf

[Forbiddian]

I have received countless suggestions of sir goyf, but the deck performs fine without him(as you can see). Sarcomancy in the early turns is rarely countered as blue is more concerned to save the counters for the ld, a potential goyf, or bob instead. Sarcomancy also helps set off the "crappy" leechridden swamp, which won me a couple of games in the tourney actually. I like having swords, but the free spells are devastating with more ld and after baiting counters. Testing resulted in 2 snuffout and one swords(the numbers worked out that way so deal with it). I see the bayou worth it for the Krosan grip because it kills top/counterbalance, which is annoying when I'm trying to blow lands, and useful against survival.

Why don't I run tombstalker? I really like him but flipping for eight on bob is unattractive and has been more than fatal in testing. I like being able to cast creatures every turn or every other turn, but tombstalker eats up too much of the grave to keep chugging them out.

Why don't I run shade? Dunno. I had one slot left and really like stillmoon's immunity to most of the removal in the format. I'm most likely going to add some shades because they are indeed made of awesome.

I played this deck in last month's legacy tourney and ran top, so I'm thinking of using tops again, though it slows down my aggro a bit and of course the results were much better without top(I still would like to use the tombstalker though). Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Hmm, yes, yes. It seems once you place second in a tournament, you have a perfect list.

[snorlaxcom]

Hmm, yes, yes. It seems once you place second in a tournament, you have a perfect list.

Thanks for the suggestion?

I'm taking out needles and edict and definitely adding some engineered plagues to the side.

[gamegeek2]

Plagues are definitely a good idea. Merfolk, Goblins, Survival Elves... and seems like you could have a particular problem with Goblins.

Tombstalker is too risky because, as snorlax said, it's very lethal on bob flips. This deck does a lot of damage to itself already, given Sarcomancy, fetches, and Bob.

The Leechridden Swamp is actually some nice tech. Too bad it doesn't gain life - which is what this deck needs. Maybe more Jittes.

If you can fit Top in, I don't see any reason not to run Tombstalker.

[pi4meterftw]

I have received countless suggestions of sir goyf, but the deck performs fine without him(as you can see).

Lol.

Anyway, hopefully you grasp that if you model magic cards in the usual way, and if your goal is to win as maximize your modeled probability of winning, it is senseless to reference any level of "performance" to justify not adding a card. To be entirely concrete, one may have a card that is improvement for your deck, while your deck may still perform well.

In fact, I leave it to you to go through the motions to check that this is, in fact, the case in this situation.

[LegacyDan]

Thanks for the suggestion?

I'm taking out needles and edict and definitely adding some engineered plagues to the side.

Creatures:
4x Tidehollow Sculler
4x Dark Confidant
4x Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
4x Hypnotic Specter

Spells:
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Sinkhole
3x Vindicate
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Thoughtseize

Lands:
4x Wasteland
3x Bloodstained Mire
4x Scrubland
3x Polluted Delta
7x Swamps

Sideboard:
4x Engineered Plague
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Mortify
4x Pithing Needle

This is the current list I am running, which goes roughly 70/30. It seems similar to most B/w ___ Guy decks, but I run it without StP, which is perfectly fine with me (we also call it Moonshine, 'cause its more of a homemade version of deadguy's ale).

My sideboard is kinda iffy, but thats only because I play at moe than one shop. Now if I were to take it to a bigger tourney such as a GP (like I wanted to, but I had to play Death and Taxes since Moonshine wasn't complete) the sideboard would look a Lot better than it does at the moment.

[ZZZ]

I recently build a somewhat similar deck. I haven't had a chance to play it in a tournament yet but I have been very happy with the results in testing.
Here's the list:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Serra Avenger
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Tombstalker

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Thoughtseize
4 Vindicate
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Umezawa's Jitte

3 Bayou
3 Scrubland
4 Windswept Heath
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
2 Swamp
2 Plains

Vial + all the 2 drop creatures allow me to keep mana open to play discard / removal or a jitte in the same turn as I play a creature. I know 2 Tombstalker + 4 Confidant is a risk but I like them so far. If I would take the Tombstalkers out, I'd put in Sculler # 4 and Avenger #4; but I'm going to test some more with the Stalkers first.

Sideboard is still a work in process but looks something like this at the moment:
3 Choke
3 Gaddok Teeg
3 Engineered Plague
3 Pithing Needle
1 Jitte
2 Jotun Grunt (?)

[Calexbomb]

I think you guys all miss the point, Forbiddian, you attack his deck construction saying that his removal base is way off. I've been around for a lot of Phil's testing and I believe initially those were 4 ofs, then as testing went on, it seemed unnecessary because if he actually had to waste removal on something then there was something wrong. (note that the deck runs a lot of fast LD and disruption)

Green isnt even a splash in the deck, and I would almost say that making this a 3 colored deck would more than likely slow its purpose, furthermore, in the meta you expect a goyf and have side boarded and sometimes main decked hate for sir goyf. Logic would dictate if the goyf actually would slow the deck down any way, you don't run him. (you would have to change the mana base adding more G/B duals and opening yourself up to even more wasteland crucible action) The deck succeeds because by turn two he often has disrupted 2-3 cards from your hand and destroyed a land and has a 2/2 zombie slowly picking at your bones.

Bob flips a tombstalker, and you bite the dust. 'nuff said on that.

Guys, I think the magic community is wearing blinders sometimes, you guys seem to criticize a really good deck because the cards are out of the MUST HAVE 4 category for each color.

That's just my two cents

[Calexbomb]

sorry, but I forgot to mention the leechridden swamp, it can be fetched late game if someone tries to stall the deck out, a single sarcomancy unlocks it and it goes at you for 1 life every turn, sounds bad to you?

I see it in the same way that Spiketail Hatchling saw so much play in fish decks, If you need a win condition, why not have something that deals 1 damage that may be difficult to block in the format and has alternative uses (its a swamp....)

[gamegeek2]

Spiketail Hatchling can be countered, as well. The Leechridden Swamp is fetchable, uncounterable (except by Stifle on the fetch), and effective.