Br Zombie Aggro Recursion

[ReAnimator]

So i wanted to play around with some of the new cards and wanted to see what i could do with them. This is in no way polished or finalized but i have run it a few times and there are some things it does really well, and some great synergies. I think there is some potential here for a fun and somewhat competitive deck that i wouldn't be embarrassed to jam in a local tournament, also BRAINS!.

So here is my initial list, and i'll follow with a few potential ideas and thoughts about card choices after. I love recursion and beat down so that is really what i wanted to do with this list. This list is a lot faster and resilient than it looks on paper, it's easy enough to kill people on turn 4 with this and it doesn't mind going into the late game either as there are a lot of things it can do going long.

4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
3 Rotting Rats
4 Geralf's Messenger
2 Abyssal Persecutor
3 Shriekmaw

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Goblin Bombardment

4 Dark Ritual
4 Badlands
8 Black Fetch Lands
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Phyrexian Tower
4 Swamp

SB (still rough)
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Withered Wretch
4 Ingot Chewer
2 Dystopia
3 Red Elemental Blast

This deck has quite a few nice synergies, it can be really aggressive and burn people out quite easily, the obvious combo of Bombardment with bloodghasts and Gravecrawler is nice, but don't underestimate the Carrion Feeder, it's really really easy to just spend a turn getting that guy up to a 6/6 or bigger and just smashing face. There aren't' any wastelands in here which may look odd for an aggro control list, the rational being that you really have good uses for all your mana every turn and with the casting costs of some of your creatures you really don't want to stumble on colourless mana, the phyrexian tower might get the cut, but i want to try out one.

Some odd looking card choices:
Shriekmaw: this could be terminate, the new tragic slip, GFTT, or any other removal around, i went with maw's cause they combo well with Feeder and Bombardment, also they can kill an Emerakul. It's possible that this is the wrong choice and it should be something instant speed, but there are a few upsides to this guy so i'm going to test him more and see if he is a liability or not. Hard casting him isn't out of the question either with the rituals in here.

Rotting Rats: These guys have very little draw back for you in here with all the grave recursion guys, and they add to your disruption suite and to your zombie count (which isn't actually all that high). Maybe something a little more aggressive would be better or withered wretches to disrupt in a different way. They have played out better than i thought they would, it's really easy to reduce someone to playing off the top with a rat and a therapy. They may get cut going forward but they do have a lot of synergy and have been decent. It's possible just living with a lower zombie count and going with hymns is better.

Abyssal Persecutor: I'm going with persecutors over Obliterators cause of the extra point of power, maybe that's wrong. There is a lot of direct damage in here and with things like bombardment every extra point counts, it's possible that having a big fatty isn't necessary at all, maybe something like Anathemancer should get in here instead, but i like the persecutor and getting a quick one off a Dark Rit is always good.

Goblin Bombardment: It may look weird to have four of this over the fourth bolt, but the reason being that you really want that permanent sac outlet on the table, it turns every spare mana or extra fetch land into damage in here, and you don't want your first one countered or discarded only to be digging for another. You can pitch extras to Rats, and there are matches where you really really want to get one down ASAP as the gravecrawler machine gun will just kill certain strategies.

There are a lot of cards i want to try out that i'll have to test. Lilliana looks pretty spicy here, but i don't know how many 3 drops i can realistically squeeze in here, and there are matches where i could see her being meh, obviously she's stronger than rotting rats, but the rats being 2 drop zombies is relevant for a lot of reasons. Hymn is always a consideration for any mostly black deck, i just felt that the targeted discard would be more relevant here, maybe that's wrong. Maybe i have too much creature removal in here and should just be playing more discard. Smallpox warrants some consideration but with no other LD and with wanting a bunch of mana in play i don't think it will work out, i think i would include liliana before pox.


The sideboard is rough and i'm open to suggestions, obviously people are going to bring in grave hate against this, and i don't know what the best plan to mitigate that is, sure i can ignore it to some extent and just beat down, but it does cripple some of your reach, artifact and spell hate are obviously way easier to deal with than a leyline, but i don't see a lot of people rocking leylines at the moment.
The ingot chewers seem reasonable, they have that extra creature synergy like shriekmaw, and only costing 1 mana is nice.
I sort of want to run some contamination's in here, but they make me more vulnerable to grave hate in post board games so it's probably not happening, bloodmoon isn't where i want to be eithe

[Barook]

Since you're going sacrifice-happy, how about a green splash for Fecundity?

I don't know if it's really worth to splash for, but on the paper, it looks extremely synergestic with your game plan.

[TsumiBand]

I kind of want Goblin Bombardment to be Reckless Abandon, since you can only do it twice per Undying guy at most and even stuff like Bloodghast, you probably just want bang for your buck instead of being recursive and slow?

[ReAnimator]

Since you're going sacrifice-happy, how about a green splash for Fecundity?

I don't know if it's really worth to splash for, but on the paper, it looks extremely synergestic with your game plan.

Fecundity is super fun times, but i'm not sure if there is enough pay off to use that card advantage, if i'm shooting down their stuff they are drawing cards too which isn't exciting. The other thing is there is already a lot of CA in this list just with the recursion so i'm not sure drawing cards is what i want to do. Green would give you a solution to leylines which is nice but i don't know if i want anything in the maindeck and to sacrifice the manabase.



I kind of want Goblin Bombardment to be Reckless Abandon, since you can only do it twice per Undying guy at most and even stuff like Bloodghast, you probably just want bang for your buck instead of being recursive and slow?

I think bombardment has a lot more value, being able to spread out the damage over turns and to different targets. Also if you are up against any creature based deck getting gravecrawler and bombardment is just game over, like vs maverick, you can shoot down anything but knight. Even against batterskulls all you need is 4 mana to keep it in check, for the rest of the game.
I think if you wanted just a one shot you might as well just play chain lightnings, cause they don't have a drawback. Sorcery speed also doesn't impress me out of abandon.

[Darkenslight]

I see no Volrath's Stronghold or Unholy Grotto. This is wrong.

[ReAnimator]

I see no Volrath's Stronghold or Unholy Grotto. This is wrong.

Your probably right, for the shriekmaw interaction alone, and i should cut the tower for a stronghold. I really don't think i can support more than 1 or 2 colourless lands in here just cause i really want to hit the 2 drop 3 drops that are all black mana. The other solution would be to run the full set of urborgs but that seems risky without poxes.

[rufus]

I was looking at something along a similar theme, and Ashen Ghoul seemed like a decent possibility as did Zombie Infestation. Smallpox is another way to abuse the recursion effect. Carnival of Souls is also potentially cute.

[Finn]

ReAnimator, I have been thinking of this also. There seems to be a lot of room for innovation thanks to Gravecrawler. Some thoughts:

Going way back, Veteran's Voice may be pretty good on a Carrion Feeder. You just have to tap the Gravecrawler before you sacrifice it. On turn 3, you can attack with a 13/9 Carrion Feeder by spending BBB. EDIT: I think I misremembered Veteran's Voice. Scratch that.

If that sounds too comboriffic, you could simply replace Goblin Bombardment with Blasting Station to end a commitment to red. How important is burn?

[ReAnimator]

The two big problems with blasting station that i see are that 1 it costs more mana, and 2 it's a lot more restrictive to use. If you are in combat and bash in with a bunch of bloodghasts and gravecrawlers, and they block a bunch you don't really get any value out of your station, it leaves you way more open to getting your recursive guys swords as well.
I don't know if red is the optimal splash, but i think it's better than anything else just cause of bombardment.

If i were to try this out in modern i'd definitely go with blasting station but without cabal therapy i doubt this would have any legs in that format. I could run mindslash there but it's probably just way to pricey and still worse than lilly.

[neoryujin]

Turn into combo deck:
Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler (with another zombie on board) + any spell with storm = good game

Add the usual Gamble, Intuition (fetch 3 Gravecrawler), Force of Will (for combo protection) etc. into the pot. (I don't have to tell you guys how to build a combo deck, right :wink: ? )

Too bad Skullclamp is banned in Legacy...

[Anee]

Turn into combo deck:
Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler (with another zombie on board) + any spell with storm = good game

It can even be simpler than that, i.e.:

Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler + Diregraf Captain = 3 card combo > 4 card combo = gg

In addition, if you keep the aggro flavor, Diregraf Captain isn't a dead card in your hand when the other combo pieces are missing.

[Barook]

It can even be simpler than that, i.e.:

Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler + Diregraf Captain = 3 card combo > 4 card combo = gg

In addition, if you keep the aggro flavor, Diregraf Captain isn't a dead card in your hand when the other combo pieces are missing.
Sounds interesting, especially considering Diabolic Intent is basically a Demonic Tutor in this deck.

Entomb might also be an interesting tutor option, although more limited - and too much reliance on the GY hurts.

[ReAnimator]

I'm aware of the infinite combos, that doesnt' mean they aren't awful.
I really don't want to touch that in here, as Phyrexian Alter does STONE NOTHING in this deck except when you assemble voltron. I'd much rather have decent synergies and cards that are independently useful.
If you want to build an awful 3 or 4 card combo deck be my guest but that's not what i want to be doing in here i see zero incentives to do so. If you added the combo you'd have to add a bunch of other support cards too. Why would you want to play this combo over any of the 2 card combos in the meta? how would it make the deck better? it makes no sense to play those cards.

I want to be a fast beatdown deck with good disruption, some reach to close out the game, good synergies, and a decent long game strategy if the game gets taken into the deep water.

I also don't want to go into 3 colours if i don't have to, the new UB lord is cool but i don't think he is powerful enough, and if i add blue where do i stop adding blue cards? brainstorm daze ponder? where is the room? I suppose if there was something super amazing in a third colour i could be persuaded but i haven't found anything yet.

1 card i've been contemplating is Mutavault, as it works well with the grave crawler if you dont' have a zombie, but again it hurts that it's a colourless land.

Any ideas about what is an optimal sideboard or at least things i should consider for this meta? There is a big legacy tournament coming up in my area in a few weeks and i'm probably going to rumble this regardless of whether or not it is polished, it's just too fun.

[neoryujin]

Granted, it's your deck, so if you want it to be aggro and not combo, it's your choice. (Our inner Johnys were just thinking out loud, as we read that you're using Gravecrawler :smile:)

That doesn't mean that the combo couldn't become aggro, though. And even if a card seems awful for a certain archetype by itself (i.e. Phyrexian Altar), but if it has so much potential to become a centerpiece of a deck, then it might be too unfortunate to ignore.

Examples:

- Khabal Ghoul (Also a zombie. I might spell it wrong though, because of the "à") + Gravecrawler/Phyrexian Altar. It costs one black mana and one end of turn to become a ~/~, as many times as you repeat the said combo. Even without the altar, but with Carrion Feeder instead, both Khabal Ghoul & Carrion Feeder will become as big as how much black mana you pay to re-cast Gravecrawler. (play Carrion Feeder first and Gravecrawler last, in case they try to Sword to Plowshares your Gravecrawler)

- Carnival of Souls + Gravecrawler/Phyrexian Altar is basically a black Channel, I think we could think of some ways to use that much mana (and storm counters), right? (Tendrils of Agony, anyone? Even if you only have 5 life left, repeating the combo 4 times to cast Tendrils means 10 lifegain for you and 10 lifelost to your opp. Which aggro deck doesn't appreciate this?)

- And Diregraf Captain is quite powerful enough, the lesson from the banning of Disciple of the Vault in Affinity (in its Standard & Extended glory) should have taught us that. Aggro is not defined by combat damage alone. Perhaps even Sheperd of Rot can deal the finishing damage.

And do we normally blindly put forceofwill brainstorm daze ponder in every blue deck? I'd do that only if it helps me to reach the goal faster. For example, if the deck centerpiece is definitely Gravecrawler, then we'd perhaps want to fetch three of them via Intuition. (which brings them to an awkward position of having to both remove the Gravecrawlers in your graveyard and on your hand)

As for the other blue cards, I have to check their sinergy with the deck first, before blindly maindecking them.

EDIT: I might still want to at least sideboard Force of Will, though, due to the existence of Grafdigger's Cage.

Like said, it's your deck, and so in the end, it falls to your decision.

[Finn]

I dunno man. Considering that Diregraf Captain is both a combo enabler and a right spiffy Zombie lord all on its own. It is hard for opponents to sideboard against a deck that is both a real aggro deck and also a real combo deck with real disruption. Those are some really creative ideas you are dismissing. After all, good decks play good cards, or so they say. Why not Blue?


4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
4 Diregraf Captain
4 Delver of Secrets

1 Blasting Station
1 Phyrexian Altar

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Diabolic Intent
1 Entomb
4 Thoughtseize
3 Go for the Throat
1 Doom Blade

4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
4 Island


There. A nice, typical Legacy shell to start from. Totally untested, but it will certainly be decent just because it is formulaic.

[ReAnimator]

Ok agreed dismissing blue is wrong, and the captain is pretty sweet, certainly better than vengeful dead! not that that was a real option.

Even if we are on captain i don't think that gives us many incentives to really be on altar as well. If i did want to go with captain i would want a lot more zombie incentives than the 12 in your list Finn, that just isn't enough pay off i think you would want a bunch of brain eaters. Without going infinite the captain is just fine as a burn spell, but i don't know if he's actually better than bombardment. Bombardment, can totally destroy maverick, stoneforge UW and delver decks, captain not pumping or interacting with bloodghast is a bit of a drawback unfortunately. I totally like the card but i'm not sold on his applications here.

Blue just for intuition why not just stay black and run burried alive or entomb? if you go that route you are just running a less good version of reanimator or ooze combo if you are all in on tutors, and you are running support spells that don't help your primary game plan and also opening yourself up to more grave disruption.
I could certainly see a couple of tutors just as extra card advantage and gas but i'm not sure it's necessary. If i go with a couple entombs is it worth going for a few silver bullets? is there anything worth running? darkblast is pretty unnecessary.

@neoryujin
your ideas are certainly creative, but again why would i want to jam a bunch of narrow and useless cards like carnival of souls plus a storm card just to have a combo with no support in an aggro deck? Like why not play painter or helm line or sneak and tell or anything else that is just a better combo and better on their own?

Also your comment about non combat damage winning games is sort of nonsensical considering i have Bombardment, Bolt, and Messenger that all don't use the combat step that is like half the point of this deck is that it can beat down hard and burn people out. What are you implying here with this statement?

[CleverPetriDish]

Finn's list does not have enough zombies in it. I know because I just tested it a bunch of times. Even so, I just ordered my four Gravecrawlers. I beat up UR Delver, Elves, and my friend's u-w control.

You guys are on to something here.

[Barook]

Finn's list, while unoptimized, certainly looks interesting.

Although the disruption suit could be improved. Not running Cabal Therapy in this kind of deck sounds like a crime. Depending on the blue count, FoW might also be an option.


Finn's list does not have enough zombies in it. I know because I just tested it a bunch of times. Even so, I just ordered my four Gravecrawlers. I beat up UR Delver, Elves, and my friend's u-w control.

You guys are on to something here.
What would you suggest?

[neoryujin]

Intuition vs Buried Alive:
- instant vs sorcery
- buried alive paints a target to your graveyard, intuition paints two targets (your graveyard and the gravecrawler on your hand. If you're going the combo road, you actually only need one gravecrawler to do the job, so separating them in two zones makes them more difficult to disrupt)
- intuition can be fetched to force of will

As to my comment: "Aggro is not defined only by combat damage", I was refering to the Captain's easily ignored power-level of his last ability. I was illustrating the example with disciple of the vault, since back on those days, it was common that affinity only needed to do more than half of the needed damage, and just sacrifice everything to Arcbound Ravager to finish it, thanks to Disciple of the Vault. This was not due to combat damage (it wasn't even direct damage, it was losing life, same as the Captain)

As to your comment : "Why don't you play [insert a competitive deck of your choice here, to silence other opinion] instead?"

I think you know why. Because even though we don't know for sure, we felt this pull from the card or the idea that compels us to try it. It may go well, or it might not, but considering the joy of exploring new possibilities, does it really matter "if it loses to Reanimator/TES/Thopter combo/...?"

Would you also prefer most comments to your thread to be "Why don't you play Zoo/Maverick/Team America/New Horizons/... instead?"

[ReAnimator]

Intuition vs Buried Alive:
- instant vs sorcery
- buried alive paints a target to your graveyard, intuition paints two targets (your graveyard and the gravecrawler on your hand. If you're going the combo road, you actually only need one gravecrawler to do the job, so separating them in two zones makes them more difficult to disrupt)
- intuition can be fetched to force of will

As to my comment: "Aggro is not defined only by combat damage", I was refering to the Captain's easily ignored power-level of his last ability. I was illustrating the example with disciple of the vault, since back on those days, it was common that affinity only needed to do more than half of the needed damage, and just sacrifice everything to Arcbound Ravager to finish it, thanks to Disciple of the Vault. This was not due to combat damage (it wasn't even direct damage, it was losing life, same as the Captain)

As to your comment : "Why don't you play [insert a competitive deck of your choice here, to silence other opinion] instead?"

I think you know why. Because even though we don't know for sure, we felt this pull from the card or the idea that compels us to try it. It may go well, or it might not, but considering the joy of exploring new possibilities, does it really matter "if it loses to Reanimator/TES/Thopter combo/...?"

Would you also prefer most comments to your thread to be "Why don't you play Zoo/Maverick/Team America/New Horizons/... instead?"

I don't think we are seeing eye to eye on our comments to each other.

Here is the thing, there are multiple 2 card combos in this format. Suggesting that i play a 3+ card combo where some of the individual pieces have zero utility or use out side of the combo isn't useful discussion it's casual land. If each piece is good on it's own and works well in a combo then i would be all for it, but making suggestions like running tendrils in an aggro list or carnival of souls, isn't useful discussion it's just nonsense.
There are multiple combos that can be played with gravecrawler, but all of them are 3+ cards, and would need support cards like card drawing and tutoring to even be considered, i personally don't think that's the best way to build around a 2/1 for 1. Until then i'm trying to make a disruptive aggro deck with late game staying power. Maybe that's stupid of me. My position is that there is zero incentive of running a combo version of a gravecrawler deck, feel free to prove me wrong but carnival of souls isn't going to sway me.

Your whole tone is pretty condescending. Giving me a history lesson on ravager affinity? explaining why an instant is better than a sorcery? come on guy.


Would you also prefer most comments to your thread to be "Why don't you play Zoo/Maverick/Team America/New Horizons/... instead?"
As for why i don't play aggro deck X instead, unlike playing a bad combo compared to a good one i think this has legitimate reasons to be played instead of zoo or maverick, mainly black for discard, and having a repeatable damage source to over power other creature decks. I'm not saying this is better than those decks by any means but the reasons for running a deck like this are valid if you want a way to interact with combo and control decks more. Saying this is straight inferior to TA or the Gate would be a valid criticism as those are disruptive black based decks, i think this could have strengths that those decks don't provide and i'm willing to explore that, maybe this will prove to just be inferior and i'll abandon it but for now i'm willing to try it out.

[bruizar]

Looking at this list, I believe that a well-placed spellsnare on goblin bombardment is a problem. This is probably a pretty bad suggestion, but maybe you can 'up' bombardment count by using Pandemonium.

[Melman]

Just some real quick input. I didn't realize this thread existed, but figured I'd give you guys another perspective. Since the spoiling of Gravecrawler and Diregraf, I've been testing with friends, and have come up with a list that seems to be pretty solid. It's been performing well enough in my test group to warrant some tourny appearences soon, and maybe some results, which may get this (or a somewhat similar) archtype some needed attention from people with more time to pour in to this than me. My current (non-optimized) list:


// Lands
3 [U] Scrubland
4 [R] Underground Sea
3 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
3 [JGC] Polluted Delta
1 [JGC] Bloodstained Mire
7 [MBS] Swamp (2)

// Creatures
4 [DKA] Gravecrawler
4 [FNM] Tidehollow Sculler
4 [DKA] Diregraf Captain
3 [SC] Carrion Feeder
3 [ZEN] Bloodghast
3 [8E] Lord of the Undead
2 [CMD] Fleshbag Marauder

// Spells
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [BRB] Swords to Plowshares
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [M12] Smallpox

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CMD] Fleshbag Marauder
SB: 4 [FNM] Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 3 [M11] Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 [MBS] Go for the Throat
SB: 2 [AP] Vindicate


The SB is definitely jankety. I realize that the source dreads lists with little explanation, but I think most choices here are fairly self explanatory, and I don't want to write up this big primer before posting some results, because otherwise no one takes you seriously. This list relies less on jankety combos and instead wraps them in to a list with solid threats and answers, with some "ugh wtf that's not fair" moments when you pump your feeder 5 times in a turn for a couple mana. EDIT: Just to make it clear, a main point of this is there's not a single card in the list that's dead on its own, which is generally a good thing, unless you're building pure combo, which I don't think is the route we want to go here.

[ReAnimator]

snip

Thats a sweet looking list! sculler is definitely awesome.
I don't have time to go more in depth at the moment but off the top of my head, i would think you want some number of cabal therapies in here, and also probably a couple of urborgs. Being able to save your fetch lands with urborg to maximize your bloodghasts is really good. Thanks for sharing, i think you and i have the same sort of vision, a solid deck without any dead situational cards.

[Melman]

Urborg is definitely a possibility. I'm not sure its minimal interaction with niche cases involving a single three-of in my deck is quite worth the extra nonbasic, but I am already playing so many of them that maybe it's irrelevant. I don't want bloodmoon/PoP/etc to hurt more than it already does though. Who knows, its at least worth thinking about.

I don't think Therapy is any better than thoughtseize or smallpox in the MD, which are really the only spots it could fill, because otherwise it would be instead of a threat, which this deck needs a decent density of. You'll see it's in the SB for when fleshbags/swords/whatever are bad (combo mainly), and siding it in means thoughtseize/therapy/sculler/kindasmallpox which can wreck any deck that doesn't like discard. I did test it a little in the main, and found it to be better in the SB, but I could be wrong.

[Barook]

How about Liliana of the Veil? Her discard is somewhat synergestic with recurring critters you draw.

[Heresia]

And Phylactery Lich? A 5/5 zombie for 3 indestructible in a mono black zombies.

[Melman]

Lich needs artifacts, which I don't play.

Lilianna is a really solid card. It's definitely a control card, and would shift things more in the control-esque direction. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I do think that if we wanted to make her good / significant in the deck, there would be some other tuning involved. Maybe an alternate more control-y list is worth looking at. This list wants to be faster than Lilianna would help with, I think. Kinda like why reanimator doesn't play jace, although not quite that extreme obviously.

[Darkenslight]

Lich needs artifacts, which I don't play.

Lilianna is a really solid card. It's definitely a control card, and would shift things more in the control-esque direction. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I do think that if we wanted to make her good / significant in the deck, there would be some other tuning involved. Maybe an alternate more control-y list is worth looking at. This list wants to be faster than Lilianna would help with, I think. Kinda like why reanimator doesn't play jace, although not quite that extreme obviously.

Bridge from Below?

For example:

4 Swamp
2 Island
6 Fetch
4 Underground Sea
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Unholy Grotto

4 Bridge From Below
4 Gravecrawler
4 Diregraf Captain
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Undead Gladiator
3 Gempalm Polluter
3 Carrion Feeder

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress

As a potential list: the Diregraf Captain is there for a combo kill with Gravecrawler and Phyrexian Altar.

For a red splash, remove the Captains for Fling and the Undead Gladiators for Lightning Bolt or Terminate, and change the relevant lands.

[Barook]

@Darkenslight: Wouldn't Putrid Imp and Zombie Infestation be better discard outlets?

I also think that Death Baron is a better lord than Cemetery Reaper.

[Darkenslight]

@Darkenslight: Wouldn't Putrid Imp and Zombie Infestation be better discard outlets?

I also think that Death Baron is a better lord than Cemetery Reaper.

I get your point re: Putrid Imp, but ZI doesn't play well with Bridge. Death Baron, or even Lord of the Unread, would workik the place of Reaper.

[Melman]

Real quick update:
More testing, resulting in a little tuning. Current changes:
-3 Lord of the Undead, +1 Swamp & carrion feeder & Scrubland
-1 swamp, +1 fetch
Deck was a little mana hungry, and the strength of all the inherent combos in the deck means you definitely need 4 feeders/ghasts.

Only archtype that's really been giving me any trouble at all is for some reason goblins, because their CA just overpowers me, my "you sac a creature" just eats matrons and lategame lackeys and so it doesn't get the dudes that matter, and I can't race them. Might make room for E. Plague in the SB, but I'm not sure that's the most powerful hate out there.

[zabuza]

You can use grave pact (which seems great with all the sacrifice effects the deck plays, gangrenous zombies can kill a table full of goblins oreven plague as you said before.

I have my own version of the deck which I´m playing since the first card of dark ascension was spoiled and the only deck that give me problems is burn (is a 55-45 match).

Anyways I´m looking for something to fill the side against grave-hate (because cage is going to be in every deck and tormods, trps, leylines and reliq are not good against this kinf of deck).

ah, geralf messenger is really good in a deck like this one. For BBB you are giving your carrion feeder a bonus, dealing 4 damage to the oppnent and puttinga 4/3 creature into play. Not bad at all.

[neoryujin]

Bridge from Below?

For example:

4 Swamp
2 Island
6 Fetch
4 Underground Sea
2 Phyrexian Tower
2 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Unholy Grotto

4 Bridge From Below
4 Gravecrawler
4 Diregraf Captain
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Cemetery Reaper
4 Undead Gladiator
3 Gempalm Polluter
3 Carrion Feeder

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress

As a potential list: the Diregraf Captain is there for a combo kill with Gravecrawler and Phyrexian Altar.

For a red splash, remove the Captains for Fling and the Undead Gladiators for Lightning Bolt or Terminate, and change the relevant lands.

Bridge from Bellow + Liliana / Cabal Therapy is a good synergy, perhaps with a little help from Careful Study (since the list splashed blue) or Faithless Looting (for red splash), you'll have more discard outlets to make it more likely to happen (and to dig deeper for the combo pieces). Even sacrificing Gravecrawler three times while having Bridge in the graveyard would bring 3x 2/2 Zombie tokens. At the very least, that'd be enough chump blockers for Goyf & co, not to mention the power boost from Diregraf Captain (& its second ability). With Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar (and Bridge from Bellow in the graveyard), you'll go infinite with Zombie tokens.

Your combo with Deathgreeter (in another thread) might also be considerable (sadly he's not a zombie...)

I am not sure about Undead Gladiator, though.

EDIT:
- @bruizar: Pandemonium is a good idea. Pandemonium + Gravecrawler + Carrion Feeder reads: B: deals two damage to target creature / player, put a +1/+1 counter on Carrion Feeder. (which make Carrion Feeder harder to kill with opposing creature's Pandemonium trigger)
- Rooftop Storm does a similar effect like Phyrexian Altar, though it cost twice as much mana, but allows for an infinite combo with Gravecrawler + Carrion Feeder (extra plus with Khabal Ghoul).

[ReAnimator]

So despite just about everyone in here wanting me to abandon my original concept, of having an aggressive aggro control deck with a lot of reach, and some long game, I'm still going to rock this thing on the weekend at a big legacy tournament. I want to fit in a couple of Withered Wretches into the main deck, as that not only frees up some sideboard room but it adds a little extra aggression and disruption, helping me contain some GY strategies and helping deal with big green creatures like Knight and Goyf. I really don't want to splash a third colour as i don't think there is a lot of space and i haven't really found anything that i really want from the other options other than enchantment removal, white seems the most appealing to me as i would get scullers and vindicates.


4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
2 Rotting Rats
2 Withered Wretch
4 Geralf's Messenger
2 Abyssal Persecutor
3 Shriekmaw

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Goblin Bombardment

4 Dark Ritual
4 Badlands
8 Black Fetch Lands
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Swamp

This is very close to the first list i posted, and it's 61 cards so i'll have to cut something, and i'm not sure what it should be.
19 land and 4 rituals is quite a bit of mana for a deck with a low curve like this, however extra mana is put to good use in here with crawlers and bloodghasts, i'm not sure how great Rituals are in here but it doesn't seem right to be cutting one of those.
Other options are the 4th bombardment or a bolt or shriekmaw. I could also move a persecutor to the board but that doesn't seem right.

I still haven't figured out the sideboard either.

SB
4 Leyline of the Void
2 empty slots
4 Ingot Chewer
2 Perish
3 Red Elemental Blast

I'm tempted to put in a couple of noxious revivals to help dodge Surgicals, but i don't know if that is what i want to be doing, i don't think i want to be reactive like that. I'm not sure if perish is the right thing in here over Distopia, but i could see having problems with Goose and Goyfs and want a sweeper. I thought about Jitte, but i don't think it does enough for me, it sort of competes with the bombardment as far as the pinging and extra damage go.
I was thinking a Lilliana would be fine, she kills a lot of things and is pretty synergistic. Maybe i just want 2 of those? they can help vs control and some aggro matchups.

Anyone have any ideas what my board would be missing or could want?

[Greenpoe]

I think Putrid Imp with the Bloodghasts and all could be pretty good. Turn 1 Putrid Imp, turn 2, discard a bunch of Ghasts/Gravecrawlers, turn 3 swing! Maybe Bad Moon and Bitterblossom would be playable good at that point.

[ReAnimator]

I think Putrid Imp with the Bloodghasts and all could be pretty good. Turn 1 Putrid Imp, turn 2, discard a bunch of Ghasts/Gravecrawlers, turn 3 swing! Maybe Bad Moon and Bitterblossom would be playable good at that point.

I like PImp quite a bit but i don't think he does enough in here. Discarding a bunch of one and two mana guys just doesn't have the same value as discarding a vengevine or a reanimator target, he's great in your oppener if you have some graveyard dudes, but he doesn't really have any utility after turn one and two. .
I think if i went with Bad Moon i'd want to focus a lot more on just straight beating down and run a ton more of the 2/2's for B. It's certainly possible it could do some work in here but i think disrupting them and just beating down is better than having a slot that just helps you beat faster, at least in here. I do have a set of Foil Bad Moons so that is sort of intriguing .

I like Bitterblossom a lot and maybe it would be good in the board, especially vs grave hate in game 2's to give me another avenue to attack that is hard to stop. I'm not sure i'd want it main, cause i can see it being pretty slow in a lot of matchups and lifeloss can be relevant.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Finn]

So I have been tooling around with my Gravecrawlers, and this is where I am at.

4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
4 Diregraf Captain
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Anathemancer
1 Grave Defiler

1 Nameless Inversion
3 Entomb
3 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm

4 Unholy Grotto
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp

The large number of cute cards was slowing me down, so I went back to the drawing board and found a way to make the deck with stock. Grave Defiler is iffy. There my also be room for an Intuition or two, but that will really slow the deck down. It is already not as fast as it could be. But with Entomb and/or Unholy Grotto, you have the potential to swap into control mode at will. The mana base seems a bit weak, but more lands seems like a mistake. The deck could be made into a Diabolic Intent version (over Entombs), which could free up some design space with lands when you reduce the number of Unholy Grottos, since Diabolic Intent can fetch one. But that is a slower deck.

[cherub_daemon]

@Finn: A couple questions:

1) I realize that the thread has "Br" in the name, but how much does red really do in this deck? Bolt is dual purpose, to be sure, but you have other removal options in black, so it seems like it's mostly just a finisher. Anathemancer is also a finisher. I'm wondering if you would be better off reducing your red to one or two copies of Anathemancer and also reducing your commitment to red in the manabase. This might allow you to harden up the manabase without adding lands.

2) How many activations are you typically getting out of an Unholy Grotto? I'm wondering if the new card Ghoulcaller's Chant might be able to replace one or two copies. Also, it can probably replace Grave Defiler as a reload card.

[Finn]

Actually, there are so many cool lands I wanted to try that I ditched the red entirely. And I ditched Entomb for Diabolic Intent. I included a single Phyexian Altar as a search target and was thrilled every time I had it. The fact that Diregraf Captain enables the combo while also being an aggro card is pretty nifty. After some practice, here is a much better list.

4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Diregraf Captain
1 Fleshbag Marauder
4 Bloodghast
4 Diabolic Intent
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Doom Blade
2 Go for the Throat

4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Academy Ruins
2 Unholy Grotto
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

One of the cool things you can do is use fetch lands for mana until you get a Bloodghast on the field. Bloodghasts are surprisingly important all around in fact. You can power out an Altar and a Captain both on turn 4, but I don't even know how important that is. The deck goes aggro a lot. Carrion Feeders get huge fast. Having the two completely different wincons has been nothing short of fabulous. I just can't say if it is ultimately going to be competitive or not. In the absence of graveyard hate, it is hard to disrupt. The trick is going to be to make both avenues effective in the same deck.

[Hanni]

I'm really liking your idea, Finn. Looks alot more streamlined. Still some changes I would make, but overall it looks appealing. The single Altar with 4 Diabolic Intent is pretty genius. I still think the deck needs a slightly better aggro package, though. Not quite sure how good Rotting Giant or Wretched Anurid could be, but maybe toss in a couple Death Baron's or Geralf's Messenger's for some extra beatdown. Then again, I haven't playtested the deck, so I may be underestimating Carrion Feeder and Diregraf Captian + Gravecrawler as standalones.

[Oiolosse]

Without testing and just reading I would suggest Price of Progress for late game reach, it seems that it would fit in nicely.

[cherub_daemon]

After some practice, here is a much better list.

Indeed. Looks much tighter. Two questions:

1) Why run Ponder over Sensei's Divining Top? Being able to split up the ordering and the drawing would allow you to abuse your fetchlands more.

2) Your Zombie count seems kind of low. Has keeping one other Zombie for Gravecrawler been an issue? Given that the only artifact in the deck is Altar (maybe SDT, if you replace Ponder), Mutavault could replace Academy Ruins to give you an extra one that would dodge hate.

[Heresy]

List

Isn't Thoughtseize a bit suicidal with the majority of your creatures inapt to block? Inquisition of Kozilek is a painfree alternative.

[ReAnimator]

So i rumbled my list from above minus one persecutor to a mediocre finish after starting 3-0. I feel the deck has some chops and i'll continue to work on it and try it in other events. I feel like i got some extremely bad beats at a few key times more so than just bad variance (see below), so i definitely want to try it again. I never once wanted to turn into a combo deck this played out and seemed like a good aggro deck with a lot of reach, Messengers and bombardments can kill people really really quickly.

A few thoughts about the cards with what i was unhappy with and what i felt was lacking:

Dark Ritual, while this gave me some explosive starts, this wasn't really that incredible in here, having actual lands is of great benefit in here so i think i would cut the rituals and just run 2 more lands probably a swamp and an basic mountain. Rits hurt when you mulligan, and sometimes with the low mana curve here you just have a bunch of 1's and 2's that will come out in a timely fashion without the help of acceleration. They also make you less consistent and are generally bad top decks, where as lands aren't as much cause of Bloodghast and feeding gravecrawlers and fuelling wretches.

Persecutor, was just too expensive and matchup dependant. The only time i wanted a big beater that cost 4 was vs GWx and in that match up more removal also would have been fine. Or if they are on more of an LD plan with knights then 4cc is rough.

Rotting Rats were actually pretty decent if you open on a cabal therapy and follow it up with a rats and flashback it puts your opponent way down on cards. This is really strong against combo and control, but isn't that amazing vs creature based decks, so i'm thinking of going with Lillianas. Even though she doesn't help with your zombie count she is really good at helping control creatures while still having utility vs combo and control. My only worry is that i have 12 guys that say Cannot Block on them and 4 more that come in tapped so i'm a little worried that it will be hard to protect her.

I was mostly happy with the sideboard, i used all of the cards, i ran the following 15:
4 LLOTV
4 Ingot Chewer
3 REB
2 Perish
2 Bitterblossom

I feel the LLOTVoid are a little clunky and they chew up a lot of spots, i think i'd rather have spellbombs or surgicals, and maybe a 3rd wretch maindeck. Leyline isn't bad, but 4 slots is a lot and it's not the easiest to get to 4 mana to hard cast.

Bitterblossoms were great, boarding them in when people are boarding in grave hate, helped out a lot, they kept me fueled with creatures for all the tricks. Grave hate can shut off the efficacy of your bombardments and Bitter helps turn them back on.

Perish was good and it felt nice having a sweeper. I sort of want to try out attrition's though, maybe 1 main, as it would be pretty sweet with all the tricks in here and keep any GWx deck in check till they found a pridemage. It is however another 3 drop that is mana hungry, so maybe it's not the best idea and Lilly sort of fills that same slot.

On to the report!
I didn't take notes, and i have a pretty shitty memory so if i got anything wrong i apologize and will correct mistakes. Hopefully i get the jist of things mostly correct, i'm doing this more to illustrate how the deck plays out more so than trying to give a strict play by play.

Round 1 Vs RUG Delver
My opponent gets some delvers out but can't flip them so i manage to get a presence on the board and start counter attacking, he's a little short on land and a bombardment and shriekmaw take out a goyf and the delvers after therapies clear the way of stifles and counters.
Game 2 we both mull, my opponent stalls on lands a bit and i therapy away all of his action, he's left with a delver and a couple of lands, and the zombies come out and eat his brains.
1-0

Round 2 Vs UW Stoneforge
We both mull, me down to 5 however my opponent kept a sketchy 6 and never gets his lands online, he forces something but i just get in there with 2/1's and beat him down before he draws anything.
Game 2 we both mull again. He's stuck on just colourless sources again and when he finds some coloured mana he needs to spend his time setting up his next drops. After a therapy i know he has both an elspeth and a Jace, so i'm racing against him finding a 4th land. He's swords a few dudes to stem the bleeding but when jace comes down i'm still pressuring him to much and can burn him out with bombardment.
2-0

Round 3 Vs UW Stoneforge
I therapy early, and see some action including a Geist. I have a lot of creatures in hand that are going to resolve, so i don't flash back on geist. This was a mistake and it almost cost me the game, however i manage to pull it out by beating down hard and burning him out with a messenger and a sac outlet, while leaving a creature back to block on a key turn, if he'd drawn a STP or a jace to remove it i would have died, whew.
Game two I start on a grave crawler, bombardment and a messenger, i play conservatively as i assume he has surgicals, since he keeps looking at my bin, on turn 4 i've got 4 lands out one of which being a Volrath's stronghold. I see if i can bait him into the on board trick, i sac the crawler, replay it once sac it again and he stops me and goes for the surgical (paying black off of my urborg), i tap my lands and stronghold it, he doesn't know how surgical works and thinks it's like a Memoricide and he gets to name a card, a quick clarification from the judge goes my way, and i get the old one for zero, off on on the table trick. This takes a lot of wind out of his sails obviously and i'm able to just beat him down from there.

Round 4 Vs Bant.
This round is Vs Toor_ of Extra Normal magic video fame. He was my ride out for the tournament and i lent him a set of Natural Orders and a Tundra, but i really have no idea what sort of shell he is playing them in. Turns out to be a pretty spicy Bant list with all sorts of techy lands, and various good stuff. We got a feature match that is covered here:
http://coverage.manadeprived.com/?p=1291

TLDR: He has 2 maindeck oozes and a sword of feast and famine. ruh roh. The coverage missed some things but nothing really important, he mixes up our names at the end of the coverage but it's pretty easy to follow, Lucas goes on to Top 8.

Round 5 vs Bant
This version of bant was a lot more face smashy with Geists of st traft and such.
I mull to 6 again for the millionth time this tournament, really not liking the rituals at this point. I keep a 1 lander.
I ritual out a messenger, and i cabal therapy and flash it back turn 2, i follow this up with a grave crawler and just beat down, i never find a second land and he gets a couple of mindcensors into play, and has started racing back. I have a Bolt and a bombardment in hand. I finally find a second land but it's a fetch, my opponent is at 1 life but has stabilized the ground and will kill me in two turns in the air. I crack the fetch and look at the top 4 cause of mindcensor and of course whiff. So i die with 2 burn spells in hand my opponent at 1 life, all off a 1 lander. FML
I'm pretty frustrated after that game and i don't think i play the best in game 2. I think he had a fast start that i perished away but he lands a SOF&F and i never get a Chewer, can't really remember i was pretty tilted at this point.

Round 6 vs UWB Tezzeret
This was also covered as my opponent was on the bubble and everyone else could draw, also our decks were sweet.
http://coverage.manadeprived.com/?p=1299

The coverage guy got our names mixed up at the end again but it's obvious who had the ingot chewers.
So the frustrated beats keep coming, game three was the worst as he only has 1 white Leyline in his deck to tutor for and he opens on it in the third, and it totally saved his ass as i would have been able to deal even more than the 30 i already dealt to him that game. To say that not drawing 1 of 16 outs over the course of 5 turns was frustrating while being wrecked by an opening hand one of would be an understatement. Super close game.
The reason i didn't just scoop to my opponent while he still had a shot at top 8, was that if he made it in a friend of mine who i lent a RUG delver deck too, wouldn't have made it in, he ended up winning it all so good times, and my opponent for this round missed on breakers anyway.

So there you have it, it was a fun but frustrating tournament and i'm eager to try out the changes going forward, i like this deck and it felt competitive and did what it was supposed to do, which wasn't bad for a first run.