[Deck] Zombardment

[Zupponn]

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.

http://www.poxpulse.com/images/large/corpse_a_pult_270x310.jpg
ZOMBARDMENT
Here's his list:

Zombies by Sam Black Top 16 SCG Open 3-25-2012 (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=45087)
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 (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpatl12/welcome#0)
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.

[Michael Keller]

It's a solid list...

You lost me there.

[Zupponn]

You lost me there.

You disagree?

[Michael Keller]

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.

[Poron]

Deadapult in place of Goblin Bombardment

[Barook]

Deadapult in place of Goblin Bombardment
More expensive, less color-flexible, only limited to Zombies.

[The_Firemind]

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.

[TsumiBand]

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.

[Kich867]

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.

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.

[caiomarcos]

You should look better through threads:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23316-Deck-Living-Dead-Girl

[TsumiBand]

You should look better through threads:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23316-Deck-Living-Dead-Girl

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.

[Zupponn]

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.

Yes, Scavenging Ooze is a pain, but boarding in Deathmarks helps a lot. Also, I've played against the deck with Dragon Stompy and found that Blood Moon can be pretty brutal too.

[Qweerios]

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.

[ReAnimator]

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/showthread.php?23052-Br-Zombie-Aggro-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.

[Honoluluicecaps]

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?

[civet five]

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:)

[DireLemming]

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.
Well, there is Reassembling Skeleton and potentially Nether Traitor, although the latter is a bit awkward.

[boneclub24]

Yes, Scavenging Ooze is a pain, but boarding in Deathmarks helps a lot. Also, I've played against the deck with Dragon Stompy and found that Blood Moon can be pretty brutal too.

What deck isn't turn 1 blood moon the nuts against?

[Barook]

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

Looks pretty sexy.

How about throwing in 2 Lilliana of the Veil here? She should also have amazing synergy with Squee to grind your opponent further down.

[boneclub24]

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.

Have you maybe thought of trying out Buried Alive? In my casual games it's always the nuts with Bloodghast lol

[Zupponn]

What deck isn't turn 1 blood moon the nuts against?

Goblins?:laugh:

[Elbeano]

I can't for the life of me remember where I read it, but there is always Diregraf Captain + Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler for the accidental kill. Though I think at that point you're basically playing something different all together.

[Justin]

Nearly three months later, I thought this thread deserved a bump. Sam Black is doing great with this deck so far in Atlanta. They'll be doing a "deck tech" on this deck later today on the mothership.

Edit: Here is a link to the deck tech: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpatl12/welcome#5

[Darkenslight]

Nearly three months later, I thought this thread deserved a bump. Sam Black is doing great with this deck so far in Atlanta. They'll be doing a "deck tech" on this deck later today on the mothership.

Edit: Here is a link to the deck tech: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpatl12/welcome#5

Major props to Black for taking it to a big GP. What is he now? 10-1 (probably better)

[boneclub24]

Black's new list is way more streamlined now.

[Justin]

Major props to Black for taking it to a big GP. What is he now? 10-1 (probably better)

He made top eight and lost to Can Thresh in the quarters.

[1maarten1]

What are your guys thoughts on dropping white, and adding more liliana's and maybe dark confident/dark ritual? Seems like it would be more explosive and confident/liliana are cards that most decks just have to have an answer to or they will lose a lot.

Also: Darkblast is just insane, though it might be just for the sideboard tho.

[Kich867]

What are your guys thoughts on dropping white, and adding more liliana's and maybe dark confident/dark ritual? Seems like it would be more explosive and confident/liliana are cards that most decks just have to have an answer to or they will lose a lot.

Also: Darkblast is just insane, though it might be just for the sideboard tho.

Dark confidant opens you up to hate that you otherwise wouldn't be, and being explosive over being consistent seems to be counter intuitive to the deck.

Losing white loses you Tidehollow Sculler and lingering souls, two very important cards to the deck operating smoothly. As well as good sideboarding options.

[Mirrislegend]

When I played a deck like this in Modern, Liliana was amazing. Not sure if it's fast enough for this deck.

I'm SO happy to see that Faithless Looting is in the list. It was an all-star in Modern, and I bet it's nuts here

[rufus]

I can't for the life of me remember where I read it, but there is always Diregraf Captain + Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler for the accidental kill. Though I think at that point you're basically playing something different all together.
People talk about it here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23140-Tomb-Raider-%28B-u-Gravecrawler-Combo%29

[bganns]

Hey guy's i'm playing a round this list, so far is going pretty well what you guys think? any ideia? the sb is giving me a little headache rs.

Lands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badlands
4 Marsh Flats
3 Swamp
3 Scrubland
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Creatures
4 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Geralf's Messenger

Spells
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lingering Souls
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Goblin Bombardment
3 Path to Exile
2 Geth's Verdict
2 Bitterblossom
1 Diabolic Intent

Sideboard
1 Geth's Verdict
2 Pithing Needle
3 Disenchant
2 Vindicate
2 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Perish

[Zupponn]

Updated the OP with Black's GP Atlanta decklist and wrote some stuff after it too, but it's late and I'm tired and I'm not really sure if much of what I wrote made any sense.:smile:

Anyways, the new changes make the deck look much better in my opinion, and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

[trivial_matters]

I wonder if Viscera Seer could find a place in Black's list.

[Barook]

Is there any kind of tournament report from Black yet? I'm kinda interested on his thoughts after the tournament since he already said himself that there's probably still much room for improvement.

E.g. the lack of blockers, combined with lack of MD removal outside of Goblin Bombardment, currently seems a bit supoptimal. Mongoose pretty much ruined him in the quarterfinals. I would love to know what speaks against Liliana.

[civet five]

search on the council under "rogue" will get several zombardment decks in europe over the last month or two.

At least 1 opted for Br without White and went 4 Smother 4 Lightning Bolt to overcome the issue with removal: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8343&iddeck=60792

Some lists have opted for a single Unholy Grotto (better than Volrath's Stronghold, unless you're running a lot of non-zombies).

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8566&iddeck=62492
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8504&iddeck=61994
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8234&iddeck=60040

[Barook]

search on the council under "rogue" will get several zombardment decks in europe over the last month or two.

At least 1 opted for Br without White and went 4 Smother 4 Lightning Bolt to overcome the issue with removal: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8343&iddeck=60792

Some lists have opted for a single Unholy Grotto (better than Volrath's Stronghold, unless you're running a lot of non-zombies).

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8566&iddeck=62492
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8504&iddeck=61994
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8234&iddeck=60040
White would also give you access to StP/PtE. I think that might be an option to consider, aside from Liliana having synergies with the deck and being able to get rid of untargetable creatures.

Edit: Diabolic Intent looks like interesting tech for the deck. The main question is if it's too slow for it.

[Zupponn]

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 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Tragic Slip
2 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Marsh Flats
4 Arid Mesa
2 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Verdant Catacombs

Here's the maindeck that I've been testing right now. Added a Plains and a Mountain to prevent Wastelands and Blood Moons from easily preventing access to a color. Also have been trying Inquisition because I really don't want to spend money on Thoughtseize. The deck feels a lot more solid than it did a while back.

Also, don't forget that Innocent Blood is pretty decent removal for this deck.

[Moondancerbb]

Sam Black Hit 22nd with it at the latest Star city the deck has insane synergy. Assuming you dont die on turn one to a belcher this deck just shreds combo. Was playing against sneak and show and by turn two i had cabal therapied twice and thoughtsiezed.

[Infinitium]

Dark confidant opens you up to hate that you otherwise wouldn't be, and being explosive over being consistent seems to be counter intuitive to the deck.

Key concepts bolded for emphasis - this deck is a dog to graveyard hate, and Dark Confidant makes it more consistent independent of said graveyard. I suppose there's also the comedy Engineered Plague on Z situations as well but let's stick to the basics for brevity.

I mean really now, it has some very cute synergies that a lot of people thought of the moment AR was spoiled and all, but not running Bob as an automatic 4-of in a aggressive deck running black curving out at what, 3 tops? What?

[Amon Amarth]

Key concepts bolded for emphasis - this deck is a dog to graveyard hate, and Dark Confidant makes it more consistent independent of said graveyard. I suppose there's also the comedy Engineered Plague on Z situations as well but let's stick to the basics for brevity.

I mean really now, it has some very cute synergies that a lot of people thought of the moment AR was spoiled and all, but not running Bob as an automatic 4-of in a aggressive deck running black curving out at what, 3 tops? What?

I haven't tested this deck yet but the only GY hate that seems problematic is a LotV opening or Grafdigger's Cage. The first is uncommon and both can be answered in the SB. You can just slow roll Crypt/Relic.

[berry]

You do not run Confidant as an out to GY hate. You put it in vs decks that run little to no removal, because it is the only card in the deck that is actually vulnerable (OK, plow is good, this is why you run feeder/seer) to removal.

Also, the deck being a dog to GY hate is just wrong.

[Mirrislegend]

Have people been working on optimizing the SB? I understand that Black said he wants to keep the whole deck as invulnerable to standard hate as possible, but SB should probably contain appropriate answers to the worst MUs, plain and simple.

SB:
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Dark Confidant
3 Innocent Blood
2 Perish
1 Virtue's Ruin
3 Hymn to Tourach

Surgical is GY and Combo hate. Confidant is combo and maybe control hate. Innocent Blood is especially for Sneak and Show, but can also hit creature slim decks (RUG). Perish hits Maverick, but also RUG if necessary. Virtue's Ruin hits Maverick. Hymn is for combo and control.

[plimplam]

Why is surgical over extirpate?

[Vilhis]

Hymn is for combo and control.


There is 11 Discardspells maindeck allready, so you really don't need more.

Innocent blood is something I have been considering also, but I pretty much like the SB as it is.

[Mirrislegend]

Hah, I'm an idiot. Yea, don't need discard in the SB.

And yes, it should be Extirpate, my bad.

So something like:
3 Dark Confidant
3 Innocent Blood
2 Perish
1 Virtue's Ruin
3 Extirpate
2 Disenchant
1 Vindicate

If the current SB suffices, could you explain how it works out so well?

[berry]

Extirpate is miles better when it's more common you want to extract from Reanimator than Dredge.

In what way is Bob control OR combo-hate? Against combo you want discardspells (hint, we have it) and a fast clock (hey, we have that too!), not CA in the long run. Control decks run shitloads of removal so I don't see how Bob does not just die there? Maybe if they're the deck packing 4 Innocent Bloods instead of Ghastly Demise.

Oh, and also, your signature is huuuuuge man...

[plimplam]

Same version of GP Atlanta -1 tragic slip +1 tidehollow

What do you guys think about this side?

3 disenchant
1 surgical
2 extirpate
2 perish
1 virtue's ruin
2 confidant
2 pithing needle
2 path to exile

[Deck Dont Matter]

SB I have been testing
1x Vindicate
2x Disenchant
2x Perish
2x Pithing Needle
2x Dark Confidant
2x Urborg Justice
1x Go for the Throat
3x Surgical/extripate combination (currently 2x extripate/1x surgical)

Needle continues to be the flex spot but getting solid results with Urborg justice. Very surprised on how much it can blow out Maverick, junk, and elves and even reanimator.

[Tacosnape]

Why would you run Surgical OR Extirpate over Faerie Macabre, which is free, uncounterable, and in a pinch can be hardcast to beat face, pump a Carrion Feeder, or ping via Bombardment?

[Deck Dont Matter]

Farie might be a good idea....Maybe a combo of that and extripate...hmmmm

[Tacosnape]

Combo nothing. Extirpate is complete and utter trash against Reanimator. Extirpate is complete and utter trash period.

If you're relying on Extirpate to stop a reanimation spell, you're going to have to keep a black source open from the very beginning of the game until you kill them. This means you're losing one mana per turn you could be using to kill your opponent.

Go do this. Go start goldfishing hands where you always start with an Extirpate and your first turn is Black source, go, and see how long it takes you to kill your opponent with this deck. My bet is that your average goldfish is around turn 7-8 - Plenty of time for Reanimator to assemble multiple combos or find a Show and Tell. Now, maybe your discard and clocks get you there and maybe they don't.

But now go goldfish the exact same things, but making the Extirpate a Macabre, so you can do it while tapping out to disrupt/kill your opponent. I'm willing to bet that your clock increases by an average of 2 turns.

Do you know why Force of Will and Daze dominate this format? Because they work when your lands are all tapped.

Macabre is this to Graveyard hate, only it's nonconditional and it's uncounterable outside of Stifle (Or Needle can shut it off). If it's in your hand, you get to stop one graveyard-related shenanigan, for zero mana, for free, period.

[Amon Amarth]

I've never considered Faerie Macabre. It does have quite a few advantages over Extraction. Hm.

[plimplam]

Bit extraction/extirpate are also there againste uw miracles, sneack attak..

[Deck Dont Matter]

Did testing against the yard decks.
Update
Still no main deck changes...Running the GP Atlanta 60 (why change what is so solid)

SB
1x Vindicate
2x Disenchant
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Perish
2x Urborg Justice
2x Dark Confidant
1x Go for the Throat
1x Flex spot...(probably Virtue's Ruin if I can get one)

[Mirrislegend]

Urborg Punishment looks insanely good. Worth going up to 3, just to auto beat creature decks?

[Honoluluicecaps]

For SB discussion, I've liked running at least 3, if not 4, Dark Confidants. Black said that it was the card he boarded in the most during the GP, but it's much better for game 2 than game 1 since your opponent is likely to take out a significant amount (if not all) of their removal suite.

[trivial_matters]

Something worth remembering: If you sacrifice Tidehollow Sculler to Carrion Feeder or Golbin Bombardment when he comes into play with his first triggered ability on the stack, his second ability resolves before the first. What this means is that you permanently exile a card from the opponent's hand.

This probably isn't too useful but might come up after a Cabal Therapy or Thoughtseize where you know your opponent has removal but you really want to exile another card with Sculler.

[Technics]

I've used the OP decklist but cut 4 souls, and 3 scullers for 4 Vengevine, and 3 Fecundity. Fecundity is nuts with grave digger and bloodghast. It lets your litterally burry your opponent in card advantage. With a Feeder out, it's B: Draw a card (and gravecrawler) or Whenever you play a land, draw a card. Just NUTS!

[Deck Dont Matter]

Respond to Technics:
So I'm assuming that you cut scrubs for Bayou as well? Love to see that list. Also SB.
you lose Disenchant? you just change for Naturalize and change Vindicate to something else.

Update to SB after more testing for me:
3x Dark Confidant
1x Vindicate
3x Urborg Justice
2x Disenchant
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Perish

[Mirrislegend]

I played a VV deck like Technics mentioned in Modern. It was awesome. Something to consider is Birds of Paradise (if it can be fit in), as it provides another way to trigger VV (bloodghast citp triggers don't trigger VV) and keep your complicated mana base afloat.

[Deck Dont Matter]

Built up a GRB version and got some great testing results across the board.
3x Blood Artist
4x Bloodghast
4x Carrion Feeder
4x Gravecrawler
4x Vengevine

2x BitterBlossom
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Faithless Looting
3x Goblin Bombardment
3x Fecundity
4x Thoughtseize
1x Tragic Slip

4x Bayou
3x Badland
2x Swamp
1x Undiscovered Paradise
3x Marsh Flats
3x Bloodstained Mire
4x Verdant Catacombs


SB
3x Urborg Justice
2x Dark Confidant
2x Perish
2x Naturalize
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Tsunami


Just where I'm at in testing. FB always help.

[Mirrislegend]

You need Birds of Paradise, the way you built it: 20 lands, ten of which are fetches, will not get you reliably to 3 or 4 mana usually needed to activate VV.

[Deck Dont Matter]

Will go more testing today but even against RUG Delve I have no issue...plus this deck doesn't plan to cast VV....bet to faithless it to the yard and cast two 1 drops to get them in play.

[Mirrislegend]

Will go more testing today but even against RUG Delve I have no issue...plus this deck doesn't plan to cast VV....bet to faithless it to the yard and cast two 1 drops to get them in play.

Yes, I know, that's what I'm saying. With only 8x 1 cmc creatures, you won't reliably be able to pay only two mana to trigger VVs in the graveyard. Chances are, you'll have to cast a one drop and a two drop, or maybe even a two and a two drop. You need more mana than you already have. Also, having so few zombies in the deck can neuter Gravecrawler easily. And you're short on ways to discard Vengevine

[Deck Dont Matter]

Just saying...I can easliy therapy myself...

[Mirrislegend]

Just saying...I can easliy therapy myself...

In modern, I played 4x Faithless Looting, 4x Zombie Infestation, and 4x Liliana of the Veil, would have never consider less pitch outlets.

[Deck Dont Matter]

will do moretesting this evening and let you all know where I'm at.

[Deck Dont Matter]

Personal note from Starcitygames in Buffalo. went 2-3 over 5 rounds.
Lost round 1 to goblins.
-He HAD 4X gravedigger cages and pyrokinesis in his board...boooo

Win Round 2 vs. Tezzeret u/b control with main deck yard hate.

win round 3 vs. U/R sleigh

Loss round 4 vs RUG Delver
came up a turn short as he top deck the bolt for the win.

loss round 5 vs Esper Stoneblade


Well it was good experience but the shift to excessive yard hate right now hurt the most. once cage resolves the deck turns into a really weak beatdown deck it seems.

[Xargoth]

I ended 5-3 at SCG Buffalo, (5-1 after round 6) I intend to write a report in the near future.

My list was this

4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
4 Tidehollow sculler
4 Blood Artist

4 Faithless Looting
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize

3 Goblin Bombardment
2 Bitterblossom

and the usual lands

Sideboard:
3 Disenchant
2 Urborg Justice
2 Path to Exile
2 Dark Confidant
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Extirpate
1 Darkblast

Beat Belcher, Merfolk, Reanimator, RUG Delver, and Goblins.
Lost to UR Delver, RUG Delver, and Miracles,

[Hardcore]

Well it was good experience but the shift to excessive yard hate right now hurt the most. once cage resolves the deck turns into a really weak beatdown deck it seems.

Well, it IS a sort of combo deck. This make it vulnerable to disruption. By comparison my own zombiepox use crawlers and ghasts too, but their recursion ability serve no other function than making them the strongest type of creatures for my deck. To me StP is a major nuisance, since it remove as threat from play and undermine my tempo, but extirpate only make me shrug indifferently.

[berry]

I ended 5-3 at SCG Buffalo, (5-1 after round 6) I intend to write a report in the near future.

My list was this

4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
4 Tidehollow sculler
4 Blood Artist

4 Faithless Looting
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize

3 Goblin Bombardment
2 Bitterblossom

and the usual lands

Sideboard:
3 Disenchant
2 Urborg Justice
2 Path to Exile
2 Dark Confidant
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Extirpate
1 Darkblast

Beat Belcher, Merfolk, Reanimator, RUG Delver, and Goblins.
Lost to UR Delver, RUG Delver, and Miracles,

Guessing you just missed to list Lingering Souls?

[Xargoth]

Correct!

4 lingering souls, somehow missed that.

Also, probably not going to write a report at this point. It's been more than a week, and I don't really much from my matches anymore.

[berry]

How did the deck feel?

I recently slewed it up IRL for the first time and went 2-2 at our local weekly legacy-tournament, but I great misplayed vs some Esper-version and lost 1-0 where it could at least have been a draw, and my pox-opponent mised his 1-off Tombstalker when I was about to win (he actually told me about it later, tilt).

Deck felt supersolid and resilient actually, played Sam Blacks 60 +:

2 Urborg Justice
3 Disenchant
1 Vindicate
2 Dark Confidant
2 Extirpate
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
1 Go for the Throat

Obviously not the optimal 15 but still waiting for Perishes to land in the mail. :)

[plimplam]

It feels sweet. Why is not the deck in Established? I think some 50+ player tournaments some SCG and one top 8 in a GP are good arguments for it.

[uncletiggy]

@ deck don't matter this is where I stand right now on a green splash if it helps at all but I'm thinking of switching to the more discard version and less aggro...

4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Vengevine
4 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Putrid Imp
1 Viscera Seer

4 Faithless Looting
2 Buried Alive
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Raven's Crime
2 Darkblast
2 Goblin Bombardment
1 Life from the Loam

20 lands

Sb
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Raven's Crime
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Tragic Slip
2 Virtue's Ruin


The deck is a blast to play there are so many little synergy's that build card advantage and it's nut draws can be epic but I don't think it's as viable as raw discard

[Zupponn]

I really haven't been happy with the green splash right now. Sure, it looks awesome on paper, but it seems like it has consistency issues.

[uncletiggy]

agreed, but loam + raven's crime is boss thinking of leaving loam in and removing everything else I'm excited to start testing teysa when my order comes in does anyone have anything to report about him?

[Pastorofmuppets]

More expensive, less color-flexible, only limited to Zombies.

Not to mention, you can't use Gravecrawler for as many Lava Darts as you can afford, instead it's some horrid burn spell that costs 2 mana for 2 damage.

[uncletiggy]

On Monday hopefully I'll be getting a delivery and begin testing this:

3 Blood Artist
4 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
3 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Viscera Seer

1 Buried Alive
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Darkblast
4 Faithless Looting
2 Goblin Bombardment
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Life from the Loam
4 Lingering Souls
1 Raven's Crime

SIDEBOARD
1 Bitterblossom
1 Buried Alive
1 Deathmark
2 Disenchant
1 Life from the Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Pithing Needle
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Tragic Slip
2 Perish


Call me crazy but I'm considering cutting red and going -4 faithless looting -2 goblin bombardment +2 darkblast +1 LftL +1 buried ruin +1 Blasting Station +1 tragic slip. Red is not used in the sideboard and faithless looting is really only a graveyard enabler the darkblast actually interacts with your opponent directly gives you more resources in exchange for speed of dig, life from the loam reloads bloodghast triggers and dig's out tool box lands, it's just an idea I know faithless looting is a cornerstone and somewhat inspirational to the design but I find myself valuing the current copy's of loam and darkblast over looting when they come up and often find myself wanting to see darkblast early in a lot of matchups. The change would probably lead to a lot of tweaking but I feel like it's a route that need's exploring.

[Infinitium]

Pretty sure you want Entomb to tutor for your 1-ofs instead of running additional copies.

[uncletiggy]

The thought never crossed my mind and I have access to them could probably find room for three. I like it.

[Zupponn]

Oooo... Teysa looks interesting... must playtest.

[1337erhosen]

So from what little I've played with this deck so far I'd say I'm most underwhelmed with Blood Artist. How have your experiences been with that card? I just keep wishing he was a Zombie or sac outlet. Any other options people have tried?

[Jabari]

Teysa looks super sexy, can someone give an update on how she plays?

[Zupponn]

Teysa looks super sexy, can someone give an update on how she plays?

From the limited playtesting that I've done with her, she does so much for the deck. Late Carrion Feeders have evasion, Tidehollow Scullers can be sacced instantly for a spirit and the best of its effects, Teysa works as removal, Lingering Souls works as removal, Bitterblossom and a sac outlet becomes insane. The synergy that Teysa provides is almost unbeatable. I've been trying taking out the Blood Artists for Teysas and am not sure if I'll ever look back.

[gpowerone]

Tried this out tonight with 4 Mutavaults in the main over Carrion Feeders. Worked very nicely.

[uncletiggy]

carrion feeder is an essential sac outlet that could never be replaced by a noncolor producing man land regardless of whether its a zombie or not. I'd only play mutavault in living dead girl variants with LftL and as a one of...

on that note tho the decks run similar engines to accomplish different goals using many of the same cards and I'm torn between the two if I play living dead girl, which is getting some love from ravinca, I can field dead guy ale as well but zombardment bastardizes both of them card wise, and cuts me out a contender locally.

[1337erhosen]

Agree with tiggy. You definitely can't replace Carrion Feeder. He's an essential part to the deck's engine and does things that mutavault cannot. As for Teysa, I think Blood Artist does a much better job of breaking creature standoffs than she does. Artist also allows you to gain life against RUG and storm, which is relevant in both match-ups.

[metamet]

Caleb posted this list today (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-giddy-season/):



Jund Zombies

3 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Swamp
3 Badlands
3 Blood Artist
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Carrion Feeder
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Dark Confidant
1 Tragic Slip
2 Goblin Bombardment
1 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting


"This deck is good. I don’t mean the archetype, as Sam already proved that in GP Atlanta, but rather this version (which I’m considering for the Invitational). Lotleth adds a few turn-four kills to the deck and more reach in the form of trample. Regenerate: B is important, because opponents can’t Wasteland your Bayou to keep you off it. The more I play with this Troll, the more I realize how powerful it is. Don’t underestimate it!"

[lithiux]

I've been thinking about putting this deck together after I got steamrolled by it at SCG St Louis this summer. I had no idea what was going on and then I was dead. There is one card that intrigues me to add.

What are your thoughts on Goblin Sharpshooter? It seems like it would be good. Can kill your dudes if there isn't a carrion feeder or goblin bombardment for some reason. Beats Elves straight up. Defense against empty the warrens. Do you think it has a place in the SB or maybe the MD?

[uncletiggy]

goblin sharpshooter is an off color 3 drop that comes down too late to affect/effect(?) any match that value could be gained from it with no ramp and no way to tutor for it even one slot anywhere in the 75 will never hold value. No matter how you build it, red is a splash color for an enabler and a finisher not removal, mass or spot. The deck is fundamentally B/G or B/W with red holding 6-8 slots solely based on the sheer efficiency of those cards and not because they couldn't be duplicated without splashing. Barring sideboard options i do not believe red has much more to offer the deck for now.


which leads me to squee... I don't like him, have not tested him, or loltroll/slitherhead for that matter, so the jury is out on them but my original brew months ago was jund so it's full circle when I finish exploring teysa a bit more, going to up her count to two.

Anyone test with sorin in their list as a one of or in the board for control?

[gpowerone]

My list:

4x Gravecrawler
4x Bloodghast
4x Lingering Souls
4x Faithless Looting
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Tidehollow Sculler
3x Goblin Bombardment
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Zealous Persecution
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Umezawa's Jitte

2x Mox Diamond
4x Scrubland
4x Badlands
1x Plateau
4x Marsh Flats
3x Arid Mesa
4x Mutavault
1x Mountain
1x Swamp
1x Plains

Disagree on the Carrion Feeder. The deck still has sac outlets in the form of Goblin Bombardment and Cabal Therapy. Plus, oftentimes your line is to aggro out, and Carrion Feeder is strictly worse when it comes to that. I've found that you often don't want to waste turns recurring Gravecrawler just to pump it.

I do think Carrion Feeder is better if you're running Blood Artist, but I've playtested Blood Artist and it is not so good because it's kind of dead without a sac combo.

Mutavault helps you against EE, Jace, and sometimes Terminus (if they miracle it with the Mutavault unactivated)/board wipe effects. It protects you against aggro-control strategies and is better at building an aggressive board when you want to aggro out.

All I can say is - I've tested it and it's a strong - if you haven't then you should at least give it a shot.

I also give a nod to Lightning Bolt over Plow. This is because this deck is an aggro deck and not a combo deck (and I think the versions that try to be often lose to graveyard hate because of it). If you come out strong with a hand that's like "diamond, loot, pitch bloodghast, lingering souls, land drop, recur bloodghast" - you're on an aggro line of play. You can easily get 5-10 damage in with early gravecrawlers and bloodghasts before decks like stoneblade or miracles get online.

Faithless Looting is this deck's version of Brainstorm - you're never unhappy to see one.

[1337erhosen]

Played Sam Black's 75 at a twelve man local event today.

Went 3-1 beating Miracles, Mono-Green Aggro, and Hypergenesis. Only loss was to Junk. Overall I'm very happy with his list and will continue to test the deck. Still no idea why this deck isn't getting the attention it deserves

[1337erhosen]

So Sam Black got 9th at the invitational with basically the same list he used at the GP. That further cements in my mind that what he's doing is correct, so I'll stick to testing that list. Also, someone got 24th at the open with a Geralf's Messenger list. Still wondering why no one is testing/developing this deck in this thread. Also not satisfied with Teysa.

[Kanti]

The deck does look pretty strong. Token decks in general, I think, have a lot to offer any format as swarming the board with critters has always been strong, especially when combined with some finisher like Bombardment.

I do feel that 20 lands is too few for the deck though. I always get mana screwed.

[sco0ter]

Caleb posted this list today (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-giddy-season/):



Jund Zombies

4 Lotleth Troll
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob


I've played a deck with 4 Zombie Infestation + 4 Squee Goblin Nabob and it has always been good. Now with Lotleth Troll Squee even becomes better.

Having two good (zombie-themed) 2-drops as discard outlet makes me think, if it makes sense to merge this deck with a Madness deck!?

Cards like the following, seem incredible valuable and synergistic:


Nightshade Assassin
Big Game Hunter
Tortured Existence
Vengevine
Gravecrawler
Goblin Bombardment
Bloodghast


Maybe even Grave Scrabbler is worth some consideration.

What do you think?

[Hanni]

I've spent the last few days trying to work on a decklist. I really like the Squee's in Caleb's list. The concept looks very promising to me. I'm not sold on some of his choices, and I will definitely be making a crossbreed with my thread (meaning Vengevines), but I'm liking Caleb's direction. Looting + Squee is a nice draw engine and Squee has great synergy with Troll. I think Zombie Infestation makes perfect sense as another way to abuse Squee, while having great synergy with Gravecrawler. My list is currently running 4 Squees. I still have some other details I am hammering out; so I don't have a completed list to post just yet, but I will post it once I finish

I love the deck idea guys, so keep the ideas rolling... this thread has been very helpful.

[feline]

Recent performances of this deck:
Sam Black (311 Players)
9th place at a StarCityGames.com Invitational tournament in Atlanta, Georgia, United States on 2012-September-23
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=49551

Ken Adams (351 Players)
27th place at a StarCityGames.com Legacy Open tournament in Atlanta, Georgia, United States on 2012-September-23
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=49686

Jaberwocki
8th place (353 players) 2012 Legacy MOCS 2012-August-17
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8921&iddeck=65182

Iván De Castro
2nd place (111 players) 8º Torneo Lliga Catalana Legacy Castelldefels 2012-August-11
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8886&iddeck=64926

Samuel Black
22nd place (223 players) at a StarCityGames.com Legacy Open tournament in St. Louis, Missouri, United States on 2012-July-15
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=47832

[trivial_matters]

I played Sam Black's list from the Invitational and had some amusing games against Omniscience. He beat me 2-1 but, but each time he dropped Emrakul the annihilator trigger was causing him problems because he was low on life and I had a Blood Artist and other creatures in play to sacrifice. It was quite hilarious and the last game ended with him at 1 life.

I feel Zombardment uses Cabal Therapy better than any other deck at the moment (including Nic Fit) and there are really lots of cool plays to pull off. It's really fun playing the deck and the surprise factor is also not to be underestimated.

[ThomasDowd]

I think developing for this deck is hard due to balance of discard outlets and sacrifice outlets and which way you want to go, especially now with the troll. weighing and splitting these engines will be especially important, also the number of zombies you have to support gravecrawler.

From my limited time at looking at lists you are sort of an aggro/combo deck. with blood artist and bombardment you have a very powerful source of sac outlet damage that allows you to just kill people on the spot and turn :b: into a permanent drain life effect

with troll you are kind of all your eggs in one basket, and him getting swords'd is no fun (discard does not protect from top decks) and regeneration is not that relevant these days considering the way things die. I think the way to go is to streamline for ultimate mana efficiency with either free or dudes who cost 2 or less and only things that are absolutely necessary at 3 or more(oring/ other effects).

This is all theory though, I have no time playtesting any of these lists. i personally think grinding out with a ton of little dudes that are more or less ready to die with sac outlets is better than making one giant guy who gets plowed or pathed.

If I get badlands, scrublands and bayous, I may investigate further but without the mana and having storm and rug as my primary decks this is on the backburner for me.

[Hanni]

If I get badlands, scrublands and bayous, I may investigate further but without the mana and having storm and rug as my primary decks this is on the backburner for me.

That's why it's best to do your playtesting on a medium like MWS before actually committing to buying the cards. Random opponent's may play bad/play bad decks, but there's a thread in the Community forum for other Sourcers looking for playtest partners.


I think developing for this deck is hard due to balance of discard outlets and sacrifice outlets and which way you want to go, especially now with the troll. weighing and splitting these engines will be especially important, also the number of zombies you have to support gravecrawler.

Agreed. There are so many different directions that this sort of deck can go in, and it gets extremely complicated trying to make deck building decisions. I can literally list off about 50 cards I'd like to play, or that are at least have synergy in some way.

I'm sure that after a very long and extended period of time playtesting different things, the are only a few optimal ways to build the deck. By optimal, I mean the best balance of power/efficiency/effectiveness/etc.

I've tinkered with this idea for a while now, starting from the time Survival got banned. I'm still not close to having found an 'optimal' list, but I know it will get there at some point, especially when there are alot of other people working on the deck too.

[uncletiggy]

I'm curious how those people using squee feel about basking rootwalla I have yet to make the switch and am stubborn on the concept of immediate effect versus long term so any feed back from those who have used both would be interesting?

[kortero]

Hello,

I've tried various configurations of the Jund Zombies deck and found out during my limited playtesting that the less I change cards from the original build with white the better it works. Sam Black really did an awesome job designing and finetuning "The Walking Dead".

I've had best success with the following build:

3 Swamp
3 Badlands
3 Bayou
1 Undiscovered Paradise
11 Black fetches

4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
2 Basking Rootwalla
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Bloodghast
3 Blood Artist
3 Vengevine

4 Faithless Looting
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Goblin Bombardment

Summary of the changes:

-4 Tidehollow Sculler
-4 Lingering Souls
-1 Tragic Slip
(-3 Scrubland)

+4 Lotleth Troll
+3 Vengevine
+2 Basking Rootwalla
(+3 Bayou)

The way I see it:
White build is more controlling whereas green gives a bit more explosiveness to the deck in the form of Vengevine and better creatures overall (Lotleth Troll). I don't know if the tradeoff is worth it, but the green build certainly feels more fun. I've tried going deep with Vengevines (3-4 Putrid Imp, 4 Basking Rootwalla) and various other cards (Fauna Shaman, Grisly Salvage to name a few), but as said already in the beginning of this post, the interactions in the original build are just so awesome that I don't really want to mess with them. With green in the deck, this deck is still capable of grinding out opponents with recurring creatures + Goblin Bombardment and/or Blood Artist while having the option of a fast nutdraw with Lotleth Troll + Basking Rootwalla while binning few Vengevines or Bloodghasts.

Try it out and tell me how it works for you.

[Alexeezay]

kortero, I basically came to the same results & will probably do a tournament report after saturday with the jund build. But I would definitely play the full 4 Vengevines & cut a Blood Artist or Rootwalla. Also, I would keep in 1-2 Tragic Slips to have minimal removal but I'm not sure yet what to cut

[rei4u2005]

@Alexeezay
How the result going ? Is is good to add vengevine and basking rootwala ?

[Cellar Door]

Has anyone considered Grisly Salvage as a compliment to Faithless Looting?

Grisly Salvage, being an instant, can allow for some major EOT graveyard loading.

[rei4u2005]

4th place at a StarCityGames.com Legacy Open tournament in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States on 2012-10-28

Maindeck:

Artifact Creatures
4 Tidehollow Sculler

Creatures
4 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Gravecrawler

Enchantments
3 Goblin Bombardment

Instants
1 Abrupt Decay

Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lingering Souls
4 Thoughtseize

Basic Lands
2 Swamp

Lands
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Marsh Flats
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scrubland
1 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:
1 Meekstone
1 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Dark Confidant
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Darkblast
2 Disenchant
1 Zealous Persecution
2 Perish

Lost to Countertop Miracle Deck as expected because the nature of this deck

[Ashen]

Greetings to The Source community !

I've been lurking around this great forum (actually it's absolutely best) for about a year.
I'm awfully sorry for my poor English (it's not my native language) in advance ... and for quite a lengthy post.

First of all, I want to share my list of this great deck - Zombardment:

Maindeck (61 cards):
Creatures (22)
3 Deathrite Shaman
4 Gravecrawler
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
3 Lotleth Troll
Enchantments (5)
3 Goblin Bombardment
2 Zombie Infestation
Instants (2)
2 Abrupt Decay
Sorceries (12)
4 Faithless Looting
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
Lands(20)
1 Swamp
4 Bayou
3 Badlands
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats

Some words about unusual card-choices:
1) [CARDS]Deathrite Shaman allows for some early acceleration, mid-to-late game reach and can chump-block t1 Goblin Lackey, trade with Bob etc. Also, it's a real magnet for StP and other removal.
2) Squee helps us to constantly feed the Trolls, can be discarded for Faithless Looting, Zombie Infestation and can serve as both Bombardment fodder and chump-blocker during late-game.
3) Infestation is great at utilizing Squees (and other useless cards), helps to recur Gravecrawlers and provide constant fodder for Bombardment, as well as chump-blockers.

So, let's move on to the harder part. Do i need removal in this deck ? As you can see, currently i use only 2 Abrupt Decay. I tried Tragic Slip and Darkblast (which actually proved to be really good in this deck).

Thoughts and suggestions are really appreciated. As well as constructive criticism of my build.

Now, you're gonna be really scared by some SB-choices:
Sideboard (15 cards):

3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Naturalize
3 Big Game Hunter
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Engineered Plague
2 Nihil Spellbomb

Big Game Hunter is a real star here - we can fetch him to Looting, Troll, Infestation and he can get rid of Emrakul, Griselbrand, big KotR, Tarmo, Batterskull and many others.
Engineered Plague is for Goblin MU, which is quite common in my meta.
The rest is for problematic combo and control match-ups.

Thanks for reading this wall of text and i really hope for some discussion and feedback. Feel free to ask questions !
Best regards, A. Shen.

[Jabari]

First and foremost, I have not played or tested this deck but I intend to invest in some version of it (Sorry A. Shen no feedback for you here only questions). I think I'd like to play a Lotleth version of the deck with a core that looks something like this:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Bloodghast
4 Gravecrawler
4 Lotleth Troll

2 Liliana of the Veil

4 Cabal Therapy

The big question is - What is a better splash color, red or white?

Pros of Red: Goblin Bombardment, faithless looting, and Squee, Goblin Nabob - allows for more reach and excellent card advantage.
Cons of Red: More all in on the graveyard than I might like to be.

Pros of White: Lingering Souls, Tidehollow Sculler, Teysa Orzhov Scion, Sorin Lord of Innistrad, Vindicate - with the full 4 Deathrite Shaman the opportunity to cast more 3 and 4 drops seems likely. Sorin would be awesome for the emblem making the Gravecrawlers and Bloodghasts present a much faster clock.
Cons of White: Lack of card advantage (may be able to solve with Bob/Grisly Salvage though), higher curve makes hitting land drops and accel more important. Another problem is the lack of sac outlets. Lotleth effectively replaces Carrion Feeder in the list, also no bombardment severely reduces the utility of the 'Crawlers and 'Ghasts.

What do you all think? In your experience what colors have performed best?

[uncletiggy]

What you have is the core to a living dead girl build focused on control go red you want the filter from faithless looting and the sideboard options, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say you don't want bombardment in your build tho, you're going to want more answers and less engines to make full use of four shamans. squee is a must as is carrion feeder. Even if you go white still play squee...

[Koby]

I've been on that same train of thought today too regarding BG base for Zombies. I am trying with a red splash for Faithless Looting and Vengevine to go big/fast, and Goblin Bombardment to provide reach. Deck kinda builds itself at this point.

[Jabari]

I just saw a post in another forum regarding the troll which was very enlightening.

Once you pitch a bloodghast or a gravecrawler to troll those creatures are never coming back to your hand. You can effectively expect to pitch maybe 2 creatures to the troll, 3 if you're lucky. This also makes it harder to discard creatures when using faithless resulting in potential play mistakes. Most importantly, the more convincing point made against the troll in favor of Carrion feeder, troll does not react favorably in the face of removal i.e. terminus, swords, PtE. With Carrion feeder you're able to sac your crawlers and ghasts in response to a terminus saving most of your army, troll doesn't give you that option.

The point falls flat IMO regarding PtE and Swords because nobody is going to point those at a Gravecrawler when there is an active Lotleth Troll. The point regarding the UW miracles MU on the other hand is very valid. The MU seems to suffer a great deal from the switch.

Regarding Squee - I don't know that it's really worth it in a Junk build. It literally only feeds Lotleth Troll at which point flexibility wins out over synergy IMO. Why play 1-2 Squee when the slot could be Tidehollow Sculler, Abrupt Decay, or any other number of cards that are good without a Troll in play?

EDIT: Also assuming the same core I mentioned above, what is better for the manabase 1 Unholy Grotto or 1 Volrath's Stronghold?

[Ashen]

Once again sorry for my bad English and hello everyone!

To Jabari
1.
The big question is - What is a better splash color, red or white?
I'd definitely vote for Red color. The main reasons (which you already pointed out) are:
- It gives us great reach mid-to-late game via Goblin Bombardment (for example, i won 2 games in a row against UBw Tezzeret with Ensnaring Bridge on-line);
- It gives us ability to kill those pesky little creatures with certain forms of evasion (Delver of Secrets, Mother of Runes, Dark Confidant etc.);
- Allows for CA and filtering via Faithless Looting (I consider it advantage because we can discard Squees, thus loosing no cards at all);
- Red splash also allows for some SB options like Ancient Grudge, Pyrokinesis, Shattering Spree etc.

If you still decide to go white, i highly advice using Dark Confidant, because this deck REALLY needs gas. Grisly Salvage is a total crap IMO (in this deck of course). Tried it for about 10-20 games and it was always a bad card to draw.

2. Some thoughts about your card-choices:
- In my opinion, Lotleth Troll by no means can replace Carrion Feeder. Feeder let you grow a really big body via recurring Gravecrawlers (much faster than you'll do Troll + Squee shenanigans), saves your zombies from opponent's removal (especially useful against Swords to Plowshares, which can really hurt us removing Bloodghast and/or Gravecrawlers - and believe me - they WILL target Gravecrawlers with StP).
- Haven't tested Lili actually, but it feels like it belongs to control-decks, rather than Zombardment. Usually we don't have problems with opposing creatures simply because we can either outrace them or shoot 'em down with Bombardment. Almost every core build of Zombardment have at least 8-12 outs of discarding (counting Faithless Looting flashback) - so, her 1st ability is also quite useless IMO.
- In my build posted above, i use Zombie Infestation to help utilize Squees without Troll on the battlefield. Also, making a zombie token after Terminus and recur gravecrawlers is also a blast against Miracles. If you decide to play Squee - play 4 of them, otherwise (if you only have 1-2 free slots to spare) i'd go for Sculler/removal/discard.
- If you decide to play Bob - use Volrath's, otherwise - go for Grotto.

Hope that helped !

To Koby

I tried playing Vengevines, and while it's undoubtedly much more explosive, it's also much less consistent. Plus, it's also really difficult to find slots to put Veng into.

[Koby]

This might be the wrong thread for it entirely, but I was thinking something along these lines:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Grave Crawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
3 Lotleth Troll

4 Faithless Looting
3 Goblin Bombardment
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy

21-2 lands

SB would consist of Abrupt Decays, Yard hate, more removal for actual creature decks, and possibly Liliana. I do think Zombie Infestation is funny, but the 2:1 is a bit too much for this deck that can't recoup cards in hand.

[mishrazz]

Hi. I won a local Legacy tournament with this build.



3 Blood Artist
4 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Bitterblossom
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
3 Goblin Bombardment
4 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Tragic Slip
3 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Scrubland
3 Swamp

Sideboard:
1 Dark Confidant
1 Darkblast
2 Disenchant
1 Go for the Throat
1 Path to Exile
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Perish
1 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Extirpate
1 Vindicate


Eva Green w/Dark Depths 1 -1. Draw
I played 1 -1 against BG Eva Green w/Dark Depths in the first round. It was a grindy game, and i made a couple of play mistakes that costed me that first game.
Lingering Souls was really good in this match-up, and Blood Artist as well. He kept destroying my bombardments with Abrupt Decay. Game 2 i had 2 Blood Artist out, with a bombardment, but no dudes to sac. I was down to 3-4 life.. then top decked a Gravecrawler and shot him for 15.

UW Miracles 1 -2 .
Next round i played against UW Miracles. A hard match-up indeed. I took the first game with 2 fast grave crawlers.
Next two games he keep plowing my zombies, and re-casting plow with Snapcaster. He seals the deal with Batterskull, Clique, and angels.
In this match up it is important not to overextend into their terminus. Use your discard well, and try to resolve a Bombardment. That way you dont loose your guys to StP, and you sac tokens while blocking batterskull.. keeping them of life gain.

Omnitell 2 -0
Good match up. Your discard is house. And your clock is fast enough. They keep looking for answers, but your Tidehollow Scullers and Cabal Therapys will keep them off combo pieces. Watch out for Leyline of Sanctity post board.

UR Delver 2 -1
Really close race. Flipped delvers will do plenty damage along with burn spells. Their counterspells are not that great against you. Darkblast was fantastic in this match. It took out Grim Lavamancers and Delvers (flipped or not) a resolved blood artist will also win you the game.

with only 7 points i barely managed to sneak into top 4. thanks to many other matches going to draw. (some people played high tide and landstill)

Semi finals UW Miracles 2 - 1
I met the same UW miracles deck. And he took the first game with some fast angels.
The next two games are mine. I play aggressive to force him on defensive play. Last match he resolves batterskull, i disenchant, and he returns it to hand in response. I have a cabal therapy in the yard, forcing him to discard it. He makes 4 angels, but my bitterblossom and lingering souls token keep them off while shooting with bombardment.
Their conterbalance is not doing much in this match-up. Nor does Jace. Their removal is good against you because it's permanent, so try to find a sac outlet.
Batterskull is also a real pain, along with Engineered Explosives.

Finals Show and tell w/Sneak Attack 2 - 0
He mulls to 4 and get screwed first game.
Next i drop a turn one Pithing Needle naming Sneak Attack. I play discard and he reveals Sneak attack and Emrakul in hand.
Same as with Omnitell. Discard is great in this match-up, and i side in Extirpate and extraction to remove the combo pieces.

I see many people trying to tweak the Sam Black list, but i belive the list is pretty much optimal with very little room for change. I would maybe swith places between the MD Tragic Slip and Darkblast. Because the dredge ability on Darkblast was awsome in the deck. But i guess it's a meta call. The deck is really fun to play, and i will recommend it to others :)

[DYman]

I found this forum back in September, really enjoyed the all the research people have put into Sam Black's Zombardment deck. I was so intrigued that i eventually built one myself, except as a casual player, i did not invest in the original dual-lands (ie badlands scrublands). However, by replacing them with shocklands, i find that my life drops too fast, and i do more harm to myself than otherwise. So, my question is:

1. Can this deck be played with shocklands?
2. Due to the fact that i play shocklands, which is more ideal, 8 or 11 fetchlands?

Here's a decklist:

2 Innocent blood
3 Blood Artist
4 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
3 Goblin Bombardment
3 Lingering Souls
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Tragic Slip
3 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Godless Shrine
3 Swamp

Sideboard:

1 Darkblast
2 Disenchant
1 Go for the Throat
1 Path to Exile
1 meekstone
1 Perish
2 Pithing Needle
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Extirpate
2 oblivion ring


Footnote: I feel like adding a 4th goblin bombardment is a viable option, since I don't draw it as often as i'd like to. Also, is 2x zombie infestation to replace 2x bitterblossom worth considering?

[mishrazz]

@DYman

Yes, the deck can be played with shocklands, BUT you must expect to take 4 - 8 extra damage each turn as result.
You want to tap out for Lingering Souls and Faithless Looting flashbacks, in addition to re-casting crawlers a lot.
If you have much combo and control in your meta, you can get away with the shocklands, if you have a fair amount of
aggro (..Maverick, RUG, Merfolk ++) you will be punished, and likely loose some matches due to the lands.

11 fetches for sure. Too good with bloodghast, and thinning out the deck.

I would never switch out Bitterblossom for Zombie Infestation. But thats just me. I find it waaaay to good in the control match-up.
It's seriously good against UW Miracles.

Conserning the 4th, Bombardment, i find it unnecessary with a full set. Find them with looting, and if you are afraid it will be countered
in the control match-up.. wait for a discard spell to clear way.

[DYman]

@DYman

Yes, the deck can be played with shocklands, BUT you must expect to take 4 - 8 extra damage each turn as result.
You want to tap out for Lingering Souls and Faithless Looting flashbacks, in addition to re-casting crawlers a lot.
If you have much combo and control in your meta, you can get away with the shocklands, if you have a fair amount of
aggro (..Maverick, RUG, Merfolk ++) you will be punished, and likely loose some matches due to the lands.

11 fetches for sure. Too good with bloodghast, and thinning out the deck.

I would never switch out Bitterblossom for Zombie Infestation. But thats just me. I find it waaaay to good in the control match-up.
It's seriously good against UW Miracles.

Conserning the 4th, Bombardment, i find it unnecessary with a full set. Find them with looting, and if you are afraid it will be countered
in the control match-up.. wait for a discard spell to clear way.

My meta has more aggro builds than control, which is probably why im having such a hard time seeing this deck shine. All kinds of tribal, Aftifact, Bant, zoo, MBC, red-deck-wins are common in my meta. The only success i've had is with tribal soldier. Like u said, i have to be prepared to take some extra damage, but its more like 8-10 extra. With so little time on my clock, u can see why i couldn't use bitterblossom. And why i am considering dropping the fetchland count

Any suggestions to tweak this deck to handle more aggro/tribal situations? Much appreciated.

[mishrazz]

My meta has more aggro builds than control, which is probably why im having such a hard time seeing this deck shine. All kinds of tribal, Aftifact, Bant, zoo, MBC, red-deck-wins are common in my meta. The only success i've had is with tribal soldier. Like u said, i have to be prepared to take some extra damage, but its more like 8-10 extra. With so little time on my clock, u can see why i couldn't use bitterblossom. And why i am considering dropping the fetchland count

Any suggestions to tweak this deck to handle more aggro/tribal situations? Much appreciated.

Sounds like Zombardment is having a hard time in that meta. You could probably grind out all these decks if you can stay alive long enough.
Some lifegain/removal could possibly help you on the way. Cut one Bitterblossom for the 4th. Blood artist maybe, and you could add Lightning Helix
or Tendrils of Corruption

In the SB you could try Ensnaring Brigde for Meekstone, and Firespout for Go for the Throat ?

[Voltaic]

Hi there. Despite lurking here on the source just about every day for the last 2 years, my last post was in early 2011 from an SCG Open in LA.

Now, with the approaching SCG Vegas open, and my time starting to free itself up, I've been kicking back into Legacy-gear.

A little background: I've been playing since Alpha, always stuck to Control or Combo decks since. I played "The Deck" forever. During Urza's block, High Tide instantly-shifted into being my favorite combo deck of all time. I've played RUG Tempo/Thresh since Time-Spiral block... And here I am now in Zombardment.

I'm not sure why. I feel like this is a great Combo/Aggro deck. Most of the time, it feels like you just go straight aggro, crashing into your opponent's face (especially with the build I'm currently using). Sometimes you combo out with Blood Artist/Bombardment/Gravecrawler blowing things up. Sometimes I guess you just kill all their threats and hit for 2 every game.

Here's what I'm on right now:


Lands: 20
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Undiscovered Paradise
3 City of Brass
3 Bayou
2 Badlands
1 Scrubland
2 Swamp

Creatures: 27
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
3 Blood Artist
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine

Spells: 13
3 Goblin Bombardment
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting

Sideboard:
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
3 Nature's Claim


For the moment, I'm going with a Green-based list. The explosive interaction of Vengevine is just too good to pass up right now. While I'm usually a fan of building up an unbeatable board, sometimes you just want to Turn 1 Looting, Turn 2 Beat for 8.

The sideboard is a bit of a mess. After playtesting a LOT, I felt like the biggest holes come from Combo decks (which I previously wouldn't have thought, with 6{10} Hand Disruption maindeck) and splash-hate from other, more scary decks in the format (Dredge: I'm looking at you.) I've had a lot of problems vs Black Hand disruption and Stoneforge mystic, so I'm hoping the sideboard pulls through there. I also haven't played a single game vs Miracles yet. I think I was wrong, and might re-tool the board a bit.

I wanted to playtest in a more serious environment, so I found a weekend tournament, drove a few hours, took this list.

Round 1: ANT 2-0
- Game 1, I got an early Thoughtseize + Therapy to strip his hand down. I applied a bunch of pressure with early 1 Vengevine + 2 Bloodghasts. He went for it at 3 life and fizzled out, because he couldn't Adnaus.
- I brought in Thalia and Extraction, hoping to delay his plan long enough. I took out Bombardments (They're pretty weak unless you're within spitting distance) and 3 trolls (Too slow to get moving).
- Game 2, I bought in Thalia and Extraction. Turn 1 Deathrite, He Pondered (Shuffling). Turn 2 Looting (Dump 2 Vengevines), Gravecrawler, Carrion Feeder, swing for 8 putting him at 11, He cracked a fetch (him at 10!) Pondered (Keep) and played land. Turn 3 Flashback Looting (Dump 2 Bloodghasts), Swing with all.

Round 2: BUG 1-2
- Game 1, I did Turn 1 Deathrite. He thoughtseized away my Looting. My turn 2 I seized him, Therapy, Gravecrawler, Therapy and left him with a ponder, stifle, land in hand. From there I went into the beatdowns with a flashback looting on 3 into a Bloodghast and eventually a vengevine and carrion feeder to seal the game.
- I don't remember what I boarded against him. I the only thing brought in was the Decays, although now that I think about it, Thalia and Darkblast should have come in as well. That was dumb. Note to self.
- Game 2, He Turn 1 seized, Turn 2 Hymn, Turn 3 Brainstorm Confidant-ed me right out of the game. It wasn't even close. Any creature I managed to land got decimated early.
- Game 3, For some reason I stupidly ran into a Daze, and his Goyf + Confidant went the distance when all I drew were Blood Artists to chump block.

Round 3: Maverick 2-0
- Game 1, I nut drew into Turn 1 Looting (Dump Vengevine, Gravecrawler), Turn 2 Crawler Crawler, Turn 3 Bombardment.
- I brought in Decays, Needles, Darkblast and 1 Extraction. I took out Seizes, 1 Therapy, and the Trolls. I felt I had a better shot at playing a more controlling game, and Hand disruption never really seems to do enough against maverick.
- Game 2, I opened pretty slow with a Deathrite shaman (off a City). He wasted the city (which I was rather amused by). Turn 2 I played a looting off Deathrite, trying to dig into some kind of action (I kept a 4 lander). Pitched a Ghast and a Fetch. Played a Badlands into Gravecrawler, said go. He played Fetch -> Dual -> Zenith for 0 for Arbor. I swung with Crawler and Ghast, played Bombardment (thanking him for his donation of mana), shot the Arbor using Bloodghast. Played a fetch. Shot him with Ghast. Fetched. Played Carrion Feeder. He played a Stoneforge fetching Jitte. On my turn, I swung, he didn't block. I used Crawler twice to shoot Stoneforge, therapied away the Jitte, then the Knight he had in hand. Smooth sailing after that as he topdecked nothing of relevance.

Round 4: RUG Delver 2-0
- For some reason, I didn't take notes for this match. I remember walking away from this match at about the 12 minute mark thinking "Yep. Positive matchup. No doubt about it." but that's it.

Round 5: ANT 2-1
- Game 1, Turn 1 he went Fetch, Ponder, I went Deathrite. He did Turn 2 Ponder, Probe (heavy sigh). Turn 2 Troll, Pitch Ghast, Ghast, Vine. Play land, Gravecrawler. Swing 4. He played a Land on turn 3, passed turn announcing proudly "I win next turn!" My Turn 3: (Look at bombardment I just drew). Swing 10, Bombardment for 3.
- Same sideboard as before.
- Game 2, Turn 1 Fetch, Ritual, Ritual, Petal, Crack petal for Rite, Rite, Adnaus. Yay fun game!
- Game 3, Turn 1 Deathrite. His turn was Fetch/Ponder. Turn 2 Looting (Ghast, Vine). Looting (Vine, Vine), Land, Surgical Ponder (hitting a ponder from his hand). His turn 2 was Probe Probe (both paid by Mana). My turn 3 was Crawler, Crawler, Attack with 3 Vines, Bombard with Vine/Vine/Vine/Ghast/Crawler/Crawler/Deathrite. Explosions are good.

Top8:
RUG Delver 2-1
- Game 1 was a long game. My early Crawlers and Feeder got him down to 8. He stabilized with a pair of Goyfs. A Flipped delver started beatings. I drew blood artist, he chuckled. I followed with the bombardment in hand. He pierced, tapping me out. I sacced the 2 crawlers I had to kill delver. He forced a chump with 1 of my 2 Lotleth trolls (Which were doing Heavy duty this game, regenerating and eating stifles from his hand). Blood artist pulled me back into the game, and I likely could not have won without them.
- Sideboard: 2 Thalia, 3 Decay, Darkblast in. 1 Troll, 2 Bombardment, 1 Looting, 2 Thoughtseize out.
- Game 2, He landed Delver, Flip Delver, Delver Brainstorm. Dazed and Forced my turn 1 and 2 plays. By the time I got to interact, I was at 5. I decayed a Delver, but he swung and Fire'd me.
- Game 3, I played Deathrite, He insta-bolted on his Turn 1. I played Thalia. He mumbled something about lucksacks. He paid 2 for a Ponder, kept cards on top. My turn 3 I played Crawler and Bloodghast. His turn was "Flip over my bolt, and bolt Thalia in the eye.", passed turn. I played another Thalia. He scooped. Okie dokie.

Top4:
High Tide 2-0
- Game 1, I Turn 1 Thoughtseized, and was unhappy to take the Tide (but happy that he only had 2 land). He pondered, shuffled. I Turn 2 Therapied Brainstorm and hit 1 in hand, plus the 1 he had apparently just drawn. Played Gravecrawler, Flashed Therapy back to get the Merchant Scroll. He played Land, Preordain (Send both to bottom), go. Turn 3 I played crawler, crawler (from grave), Deathrite. He pondered, shuffled, passed. Turn 4 I swung for 4, exiled the Tide, played Lotleth Troll. His turn 4 was Draw-Go. Turn 5 play Vengevine, swung for 10. He drew his card and scooped.
- Sideboard: 3 Thalia, 3 Surgical. Out: 4 Troll, 2 Bombardment
- Game 2, He pondered, shuffled, and moaned. I Looted dropping a vine and a land. He played a land, preordained sending both to bottom, and passed. I played a Double-Carrion Feeder, swing for 4. He drew, brainstormed, pondered, shuffled, passed (missed land drop). I played Gravecrawler + Blood Artist, swung for 6. He drew his card, played Tide, played Snap on my Vengevine. I responded by Surgicaling his Tide, He forced. I sacrificed the vine to my Crawler. He attempted to untap his lands, and I had to inform him that we weren't doing business that way. He sighed and scooped them up.

Finals:
ANT - 0-0-1
Same guy as Round 1. We split, since first was a Trop, and Second was a Bayou. He said he really needed the Bayou and offered to give me the trop. Not gonna turn that down!

Overall: 6-1-1 (13-4-1) record.

The metagame was 5 RUG, 2 Maverick, 4 ANT, 1 Tide, 2 BUG, 1 Dredge, 2 Goblins, 1 Elves, 1 Miracles, and 3 decks I couldn't get a look at (22 people total).

I obviously got quite a bit of explosive draws, which is why I felt like playing the green version was the best. This coming weekend there's a pair of tournaments and a GPT I'd like to go with. I'll probably play the BRw version in at least one of the smaller tournaments, but I think i'm playing the Jund version in the GPT.

[DYman]

Sounds like Zombardment is having a hard time in that meta. You could probably grind out all these decks if you can stay alive long enough.
Some lifegain/removal could possibly help you on the way. Cut one Bitterblossom for the 4th. Blood artist maybe, and you could add Lightning Helix
or Tendrils of Corruption

In the SB you could try Ensnaring Brigde for Meekstone, and Firespout for Go for the Throat ?

Ooh, interesting. Ensnaring bridge definitely helped, esp with surgical extraction/ extirpate/ pithing needle to stop the anti-artifact cards. But not drawing it in 3-4 turns is a HUGE disadvantage against aggro decks.

As for removal, i decided to add lightning bolt to replace innocent blood. It's still hard for me because of my shocklands. I decided to go with 8 fetchlands to reduce the pain.

For now, it does seem going green ( vengevine, Deathrite shaman, loltroll) is remarkably powerful. I've only playtested it on cockatrice, so I dont know how it really fares in my local meta ( mostly aggro). Black hand disruption still is a major problem, but then, it always is for any deck. Waiting for February for the next set of Ravnica, hoping to see what Orzhov have up their sleeves.

Any pro tips for a player struggling to cope in a aggro meta with zombardment?

[Jabari]

I played in a 33 man GPT event Sunday at Knightware in LA so I'll post a quick report here. First and foremost my list:

[cards]
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion

4 Lingering Souls
4 Faithless Looting
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abupt Decay

4 Goblin Bombardment
1 Bitterblossom

2 Lilliana of the Veil

1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Badlands
4 Scrublands
2 Bayou
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Swamp

SB:
2 Ray of Revelation
3 Faerie macabre
2 Pithing Needle
2 Humility
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Urborg Justice
1 Contamination
1 Abrupt Decay
[cards]

Reasoning for card choices:

Why no carrion feeder/blood artist?

The cards are standalone terrible, I would rather play cards that are guaranteed to have an effect on the board rather than multiple potential dead draws if I'm behind. In order to mitigate the loss of the extra sac outlets I do go for the 4th Bombardment. I like seeing at least 2 a game, because in the off chance they remove one I like a backup, it also can be looted away for more action if one sticks. The no block clause mixed with the lack of trample on the part of carrion feeder make it very weak in my opinion. In the off chance you get to attack into an empty board then go nuts, but by the time you're pumping your feeder to a scary size it either has a giant chump target painted on it or it's win more. Blood artist is just crap, play deathrite shaman like a real wizard and move on.

Why the green splash?

It's awesome that's why. Deathrite is insane, if it lives game 1 - BIG if - it probably won't live game 2. The card can potentially win games by it self against slower draws from an opponent. Against better draws it changes math a ton as well as easing the pressure on our strained manabase. Abrupt decay greatly helps the miracle MU, and I think 3 was the right number. 4 is too many potential dead slots yet 2 isn't enough to shore up the MU's where you are weak to creatures. Decay is basically a dead draw against combo which is why I would never play 4 MD, in the off chance they play an early LED or Top you can still hit one. I'll reiterate though it's a dead draw in those MU's. Abrupt Decay is honestly the greatest reason for the splash as it does so much work in so many random situations.

Was Teysa ever good?

Surprisingly yes. She provided extra soul fodder for bombardment, removal when possible, and an extra blocker in a deck that has none. I didn't get to test her as much as I would have liked, but I whenever I saw her I never felt like she was a dead draw. She has great lategame applications as well as speeds up the midgame by increasing the clock. I definitely wouldn't play her in a build with Blood Artist/Feeder though.

On to the report - I didn't take notes but I'll hit the major themes of the deck/highlight my greatest errors. Also I don't remember much of SB'ing, suffice it to say I boarded in anti creature cards against creature decks, contamination against control/omnishow, and others where obvious.

RD 1 Against Aluren

Game 1: He wins the roll and choose to play. He plays a tapped land that sacs for GG and I'm clueless as to what he's playing. I loot turn 1 and pass. He then casts a turn 2 Coiling Oracle and I understand the gameplan. Turn 2 I cast a sculler and steal his aluren then pass turn. He casts a harpy bouncing his oracle then recasts oracle. I sculler again stealing a card. The game plays out fairly simply as I strip his hand and he fails to find an aluren, I just beat down with zombies for the win. I did see him play some storm creature with haste this game that gets +1/+1 counters for each storm minus itself, interesting card, I wouldn't necessarily MD it though.

Game 2: He's on the play, cards are played until he EOT's Intuition for Aluren, he then lands Aluren his turn. He attempts to go off casting Coiling oracle then a cavern harpy, in response I ray of revelation the Aluren with flashback mana up. He responds by playing out his hand and casting Tendrils of Agony for 14. I go to 3 and he still has 2 harpies out while I have only a bombardment and a zombie. My turn I sac crawler to hit one harpy, he bounces. I cast lingering souls, sac to hit harpy, he bounces. Cast therapy and flashback to empty his hand so now we both have nothing but I have a souls in the graveyard. Next turn I flashback and go on the attack. This continues while he draws land and I draw zombies, eventually I get the game. Me 3 life, him 34 life, grinded it out. I did almost punt by saccing a bloodghast, to which he was able to respond by extirpating my vampires. I then cast a crawler for the win but I almost cost myself the game.

Lesson learned: Don't sac for value post board unless you absolutely have to, or know for a fact they don't have the Surgical. Creatures on board are better than creatures in the yard if gravehate is present (maybe obvious to everyone else but still important shift to recognize between G1 and G2/G3)

2-0
*At the end of the round he tells me he's been playing Aluren for years but the build he played that day was his newest version.

1-0

Round 2 Mono Black Discard

He got the bye round 1 so I don't know how good his deck is or have any clue what he's playing.

Game 1: He casts a turn 1 quest for the nihil stone and I'm thinking sweet I can handle pox no problem. Turns out I can't handle it as easy as I thought. He's playing functionally 8 copies of hymn to tourach and I'm finding it hard to make land drops and still meet my color requirements. In this match I often felt the need for duals that didn't include black IE 1 Savannah or 1 Plateu, definitely worth considering in the future against waste heavy decks. Eventually the game plays out to where I sandbag enough lands and lillianas so that his quests and Racks never trigger resulting in me bombarding him for the win (his ensnaring bridge slowed me down so that I could only bolt him once a turn with a gravecrawler). In fairness if he drew a single IOK or Durress I would have been dead on the spot with his board position but he proceeded to draw more racks and no discard spells.

Game 2: I don't remember this game well, I know he had out a turn one quest or rack. After that I was able to strip most of his hand with Therapies and he proceeded not to draw much action. It's a shame he didn't get to play out his deck as intended cause it seemed like a spicy brew, with the right numbers it looked like it could be a lot of fun (for the player not the opponent of course :) haha).

4-0

2-0

Round 3 Maverick

I saw him playing for fun between rounds so I knew he was on Maverick. He had expressed that he was new to the deck, and having played Maverick for over 2 years I felt a sort of comraderie with the gentlemen. I offered up the information that I was on Zombies to which he replied he had considered building the deck. Very cool guy, I offered to show him my deck after the round so he could have a look.

Game 1: I honestly don't remember much, I know at the we got to a board state where he had an active ooze but I had so many attackers I was able to alpha and sac to bombardment for exactsies.

Game 2: He lands a turn 2 Ooze but I answer immediately with an abrupt decay. I pithing needle his Kotr before he can activate and waste me out of the game. He then tries beating down, I accept the race seeing that I have a one turn advantage on him. Just when I think I'm gonna need 2 turns to kill I topdeck the Zealous Persecution. The board is a tapped Kotr, untapped Noble, against 2 gravecrawlers and 2 spirit tokens and 1 bloodghast...

Now I don't claim to be particularly good at Magic, but this was exceptionally bad...

Declare attack phase, swing with attackers, he blocks noble to ghast - then I cast Zealous - nowhere in that whole procession did I think "oh wait, if I cast this now I win, or now, or now"

... I'm bad at magic.

Either way I won the game.

6-0

3-0

There are 3 rounds left now and I only need 1 win to be guaranteed a spot in top 8 which means I'm guaranteed at least 1 dual land. In my next post I'll show how all my luck disappeared and my bad play actually lost me matches I should have won.

EDIT:

So the last 3 rounds

Round 4 against Omni Show

I'm playing against my friend, we both know each other's decklist so the MU hinges on me making good therapy decisions and him not being able to dig out of them.

Game 1 He wins, Griselbrand eats me but he can't draw too much due to a Bombardment threatening lethal, he just wins in the air when I fail to find a lingering souls and he has infinite cards.
Game 2 He drops 2x Leyline of Sanctity turn 0 but I have a Ray of Revelation in hand so I'm down but not out. However I am out after I fail to topdeck a green source and never get to tear apart his hand, instead casting Tidehollow scullers like grizzly bears.

Round 5 against Show - Hivemind

Game 1 I grind him out with some strong hand disruption and zombies

Game 2 Turn 0 Leyline again, blanks my therapy plus 2 sculler draw. I never find any hate and proceed to cast more grizzly bears before dying to 2 Pact of the Titan triggers

Game 3 Another turn 0 Leyline, I have more discard in hand, fail to find hate, but more importantly I still punted. He has 7 cards in hand and he probably has the combo for next turn. I have a Contamination in hand a Gravecrawler in the yard and bombardment plus dorks on field. I also have sculler in hand. I think he has countermagic so I lead off with Tidehollow thinking I can wait a turn on contamination in the hopes that he counters the tidehollow to reduce my clock and prevent any gravecrawler machine guns. I should have just gone balls to the wall and cast the contamination. He combos next turn, I lose, I ask if he has the countermagic and he doesn't. I easily could have won with a one sided armageddon but I suck at Magic.

Round 6 Burn

I know he's on burn, he knows I'm on Zombies cause we sat next to each other round 1. I tell him I think he's favored, though really it depends on whether I make good calls with therapy.

Game 1 I make bad calls with therapy and he wins. There was one point I was at 4 and he has 1 card in hand. I have a Shaman plus random dork in play, I EOT activate he in response Fireblasts. Theoretically I could have waited but I thought it was more important to be aggressive with life gain in the hopes that he didn't have the blast, trying to move myself out of lethal range. I probably should have just waited one more turn though to activate shaman in response in the hopes he doesn't find another burn spell.

Game 2 He looks at his hand not too excited and I'm thinking he has Lava Spike, I contemplate a blind therapy naming lava spike turn 2, I go for bombardment instead. His turn 2 he casts double lava spike... I lost shortly thereafter from some price of progress and flame rifts.

Everyone I lost to Top 8'd so kudos to them, seriously though they played really well and we had some great games. I'm glad they got to move on, bummed I wasn't there with them.

[Voltaic]

So I went to check the SCG App this afternoon during a break in my programming time, and saw this gem from Sam Black:


How can I even show up with a graveyard-based attrition strategy in a format where a full half of the decks in the last Top 8 (at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open: Baltimore) had an average of 3.5 Deathrite Shamans? And it's not like these players were wrong to have them—the card is amazing, so it's not going anywhere.

...

I'm not saying I've lost all hope. I'll probably try it, but I think it's time I start preparing for the worst.

What if Zombies really isn't viable with that guy everywhere? What do I play then?

Looks like he's temporarily tossing the deck on the back seat, until the damage assessment comes in.

Maybe I just haven't played against enough BUG decks? I have run into the deck a bit, but it's one of the few matchups where we already had a problem, and Deathrite just makes a bad matchup even worse.

If you extend Sam's concerns out to the Top16... you only add 1 additional deck (Jund) with 4 Deathrites. Realistically, in the top 16, there were 18 Deathrite shamans present, spread into 5 decks. 31% Chance that you run into a deck with Deathrite in it, in that top 16. Is that something we worry about?

I'm still planning on running some iteration of this deck in Vegas. Last SCG Vegas, everyone I talked to was talking about playing against Combo decks and Delver decks all day, which we walk all over.

Anyone else have insight?

[HammerAndSickled]

^Maybe the solution is to run more removal?

[Jabari]

^ This, plus I would advocate the inclusion of the 4th Bombardment. It's the best sac outlet available to us and can answer a shaman before it gets active. Although a live shaman is tough to play around it's not impossible, I think it just might take more skill to pilot in the future. Much in the same way dredge players have had to learn to play through the hate. More MD token generators would probably be better though i.e. Bitterblossom. Coupled with a Bombardment there should be less reliance on the zombies.

Also if anyone is playing Lilliana I would advise cutting her. Feeding the graveyard against shaman seems like a poor strategy and against a deck like BUG they're going to have natural card advantage thanks to brainstorms making Lilly activations harder on ourselves than on our opponents.

[Hanni]

^Maybe the solution is to run more removal?

Or the solution could be to go a more combo-oriented approach, and simply race the graveyard hate... and/or have backup plans in the sideboard (like NO/Prog, Jitte, etc).

I'm digging the SI approach posted in another N&D thread, that tries to go more broken with rituals and 0cc creatures, accelerating out multiple Vengevines on turns 1-2, with increased consistency. Races graveyard hate, beats fair strategies like Maverick, and has a very solid backup plan against blue-based decks with its aggro plan (in comparison to straight combo approaches like SI or Belcher). Seems solid in theory, at least. I still need to develop the idea further, and then sufficiently test it.

[Voltaic]

Hey again everyone. So I've spent the last few weeks going to tournaments, tweaking the deck, figuring out what I like and dislike.

I ended up sticking with my green list, but changing it a bit.


3 Bayou
2 Badlands
1 Scrubland
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise
3 City of Brass

3 Goblin Bombardment
2 Bitterblossom
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize

4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
4 Carrion Feeder
3 Blood Artist
3 Deathrite Shaman

--- Sideboard ---
3 Disenchant
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

There are some problems with the maindeck. There's no answers to some things, and it's really really painful, as evidenced by at least 1 round in this report.

I decided after playing with the Basic-White version that I really loved Bitterblossom. It tends to win you games that you probably shouldn't win otherwise.
Lotleth troll seemed like it was underperforming a bit, so I decided to cut it. I cut back on 1 Deathrite, a decision I do not regret in the slightest.

The biggest problem was, I decided I needed a little bit of maindeck removal besides the Bombardment. There are too many times where an early stoneforge, elf, planeswalker, anything will get down before you are ready to deal out the pain. Bolt seemed like a good way to bridge the gap between "Useful to kill things" and "Useful to kill people".

This is the list I used here in Vegas at the SCG Open. I was hoping to catch people mostly by suprise. None of the Vegas locals, except for my playgroup, really know what the deck is or how to fight it. I was hoping to catch a few opponents off guard.

I don't have perfect notes, so I'm trying to remember what I can, but it might be a little light on details.

Round 1: Vale with Merfolk 2-0 in Games, 1-0 Overall
He won the roll, went Island-Cursecatcher go. I smiled. I do love eating fishes.
Fetched for a Basic swamp. He said "Whoa." I played Gravecrawler. "I have no idea what you're playing." Mission accomplished.
From there the game played out fast. He played an Adept revealing a Lord. I thoughtseized, stripped out the lord. Swung for 2 (no blocks), played Feeder. He played a Standstill. I broke the standstill with a Looting, pitched 2 vengevines. Feeder/Crawlered the Vengevines out. He stared in disbelief. Next game.

- Game 2 started the same way, Island, Catcher. Swamp Crawler. He went for Vial. I went for Thalia. "Why her? She blocks all day." He played an Adept revealing another Catcher. I played Bombardment. At one point he played double lord and Attacked. I bolted a lord, decayed another lord, crushed his team, and got the scoop. The only actual damage I took this game was from City of brass. I ended the game at 11. Gravecrawlers and Bombardment are sick.

Round 2: Trevor with Black Maverick 2-0 in Games, 2-0 Overall
These were intense games. He went Plains - Mom, so I immediately put him on Maverick. I started with a Thoughtseize, and stripped away his Jitte (Also revealing 2 Knight, a Seize, a Stoneforge, and a Fetch).
He played Fetch (into Bayou), I panicked a second hoping he wouldn't thoughtseize me... And decided to Stoneforge into Batterskull. I promptly Therapied away the Knights, played a Crawler, Flashed back to get the Batterskull. He beat down a few turns, until I got Carrion Feeder/Blood Artist online, and chipped away at him every turn for the win.

Game 2 was Turn 1 Deathrite, Turn 2 Looting pitch Bloodghast and Vine, Play Feeder, Deathrite, Swing for 4. Turn 3 Bombardment, Crawler, Fetch, Win game. At the end, the opponent said "I love Vengevines, and your deck looks like fun." Woo!

Round 3: Weston with Hive and Tell 1-2 in Games, 2-1 Overall
This dude was really quiet. I tried to talk to him, he was just stonefaced. I won't lie: I smiled a little bit when he lost in the finals.
Game 1 He played Island go. I fetched and played Crawler. He played Brainstorm, played a fetch, fetched, said go. I swung for 2, played something in consequential, he untapped, played a land, Showed in an Emrakul. I scoopified.

I boarded in Thalias, Surgicals, Needles. He Turn 0'd White Leyline. Ruh Roh. I Turn 1 Gravecrawlered. He island-goed. I turn 2'd Crawler + Artist (forced). He Turn 2'd City. I turn 3'd Bitterblossom (trying to get some permanents out there!), he EOT Intuitioned for SnT, I surgicalled. He passed turn. I got looting for Vengevine, Vengevine, killed him.

I re-boarded for the Disenchants. I started on the beatdown plan with Crawler and a Blossom. I ripped his hand apart with Seizes and Therapies. There was a key turn where I only had 3 damage on board, he was at 11, and had 1 Unknown in his hand. I lootinged and had to decide between hard casting a Vengevine to try and kill him off, or keeping the Therapy so I could Blind cast it, then recast and reduce my pressure per turn to 2. I chose the Vengevine path. He got rewarded when he picked up the card off his deck, slapped it on the table and Show and Telled an Emrakul, and proceeded to be gloating about it. Fair game here folks.

Round 4: Spencer with Merfolk 2-1 in Games, 3-1 Overall
In contrast to my previous opponent, Spencer talks. A Lot. He has a Blog. He's from Utah. He apparently doesn't sleep much. He was gonna play Turbo Fog in standard but couldn't get the cards. He's got a million stories. Oh my god.
I played him in Standard yesterday, where several of his stories revolved around playing Merfolk. 2+2=4.
Game 1, He played fishes, he rolled over me from lack of pressure

Game 2, We had a pretty pivotal turn where I Thoughtseized, took a Lord and saw an Image, another Lord and Daze in his hand. I Therapied targeting him, he responded with Vial, I bolted the Adept, he declined to throw his image down from vial. Therapy resolved and I got the Lord (3CC Lord). He drew for the turn, Played Image and Declared "Thalia". I rewinded and Shot him with Bombardment, sacrificing Thalia.. He didn't name a new creature and binned the Image. And then I went on to beat him senseless with Blood Artist.

Game 3, Vengevines win.

Round 5: Aaron with Energy Field Combo 1-2 in Games, 3-2 Overall
I tilted hard after this match. Game 1, he assembled Rest in Peace + Energy Field by Turn 3. I have no maindeck disruption for it. I didn't want to waste the time to let him get to the win, and see more of my stuff.
Game 2, I drew all the removal (Decays and Disenchants) and no hand disruption, to slowly win the game.
Game 3, I drew 41 cards from my deck, while only seeing 1 Disenchant, no Hand Disruption, no sideboard cards at all.

Round 6: Kyrie with Belcher 2-1 in Games, 4-2 Overall
Game 1 She won the roll. Mulled to 6. Kept. Passed turn. I thoughtseized, got rid of a Chrome Mox. She drew, passed. I played Crawler Crawler. She Drew, Probed, Cycled Wraith, passed turn.
I kept enforcing the beatdown. She lost.

Game 2, She made 12 Goblins on the Play. I didn't bother to take a turn.

Game 3, I seized, she drew a card, I played Thalia. She stared at it. She read it. She attempted to play land grant. I gave her the Nuh-uh. I played Crawler, Ghast, Vengevine.

Did I mention she didn't sideboard at all? Yeah.

Round 7: Scott with Jund 1-2 in Games, 4-3 Overall
The only thing that stands out about this match is my horrible punts, whereupon I continue to take damage from Goyfs, thinking that the 1 damage from my Fairie tokens would somehow help me, instead of letting them absorb 3 damage a turn.... Followed shortly by Double-Bolt to my head, dead to Blossom on my upkeep.

Round 8: Nich with PSI 2-1 in Games, 5-3 Overall
He went first. Land grant. I see Contracts and Rituals. I smile giddily as I write down his hand. I'm not happy because I'm going to win... Oh no, I'm happy because SI players are few and far between. We chatted a bit after he won on 2 with Belcher and I looked through his deck, commenting on my old PSI list compared to his. I think there's a comment on him in the SI Thread about how they hate his deck, and he made the wrong choices. Meh.

Game 2, I thoughtseized, saw plenty of Double ups. He took his turn, land granting, playing a Ritual, Contracting.
I took the next turn as an opportunity to therapy away all the Petals and a Ritual. He attempted to go off. I took 5 from Belcher. And then we went to Game 3.

Game 3, I landed Seized, Thalia'd, Therapied, Therapied, Won the game.

---

Overall good information and learning experience, that you can't get at Smaller Local tournaments. Round 5 was the proof to me that Decays need to go main. We need mainboard answers to some of the random things that would wreck us: Blood moon, Chalice, Energy Field, Rest in Peace.

In the end, I got 32nd place, and was happy to have gotten paid to play in the tournament. Sad I couldn't have done better, but eh. Much better knowledge for next time.

[Greenpoe]

Ground Seal was suggested in the Nic Fit thread, but I think it'd be a good addition for you guys in either MD/SB to invalidate GY hate/Shaman. It also fights Snapcaster Mage, Reanimator, and some other stuff (Dredge Return, Eternal Witness, Loam, Sword of Light/Shadow etc.).

[Lord Gibbo]

I went to a tournament yesterday with a list very similar to the sam black's one.
The only difference was -1 Feeder -1 tragic slip +2 Decay.
I closed 3-3 because of my unexperiece with this particular deck.
The first impression is that Carrion Feeder is very useless... I didn't like it at all... Probably I can't see his real potential in this deck...
I'm going to try with a 3rd Decay MD (I found it very usefull and always sided in the 3rd in G2 and G3) and 2 Geralaf's messenger or Liliana of the Veil.

What do you all think?

Edit: And Sam Black reach the final in the SGC Opening!:eek:

[jhhdk]

Unsure where to post. Not sure what officially sets Living Dead Girl and Zombardment apart.

In lists running some mix of Squee, Goblin Nabob and Krovikan Horror, what do you think about making room for Chains of Mephistopheles, Anvil of Bogardan and some number of Diabolic Intent.

I've been trying to find a deck to fit this combo into, seems like Zombardment has some synergy with some of the cards.

[lordofthepit]

Edit: And Sam Black reach the final in the SGC Opening!:eek:

New tech: 1-of Leyline of the Void in the sideboard. Open with it in both your post-boarded games without mulliganing. Foolproof!

[Zupponn]

And that 1-of Tragic Slip remains consistent.:laugh:

[Realize]

This thread has gotten pretty out of date, which is a shame because this is a legit deck. As a disclaimer, I don;t own this deck in real life. I'm on a tight budget so I have to assemble decks slowly. I'm about $400 away (curse the fact that I bought dual lands last summer instead of zen fetches) and that saving has been put on hiatus as I polish my modern deck for PTQs.

However, I play this deck on Cockatrice very frequently and log detailed match results which I have posted on Salvation.

Sam black has since dropped tragic slip for Sword to Plowshares. He also said that reports of this decks destruction by DRS have been completely overblown. He recanted his statements that the deck was bad vs. BUG, because those statements were based on theory and weren't shown to be true after testing.

This deck is sweet because it's a non-blue aggro deck that can shred combo. Our discard gives us game against anything in the meta. We can quickly transition from an attrition deck to an aggro deck. We have turn 4 goldfish and are resistant to removal. My current list:


4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
4 Bloodghast
3 Badlands
4 Marsh Flats
3 Scrubland
2 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Faithless Looting
3 Goblin Bombardment
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Bayou
2 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 2 Perish
SB: 2 Zealous Persecution
SB: 2 Humility
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Oblivion Ring
SB: 1 Meekstone
SB: 1 Swords to Plowshares

[DYman]

This thread has gotten pretty out of date, which is a shame because this is a legit deck. As a disclaimer, I don;t own this deck in real life. I'm on a tight budget so I have to assemble decks slowly. I'm about $400 away (curse the fact that I bought dual lands last summer instead of zen fetches) and that saving has been put on hiatus as I polish my modern deck for PTQs.

However, I play this deck on Cockatrice very frequently and log detailed match results which I have posted on Salvation.

Sam black has since dropped tragic slip for Sword to Plowshares. He also said that reports of this decks destruction by DRS have been completely overblown. He recanted his statements that the deck was bad vs. BUG, because those statements were based on theory and weren't shown to be true after testing.

This deck is sweet because it's a non-blue aggro deck that can shred combo. Our discard gives us game against anything in the meta. We can quickly transition from an attrition deck to an aggro deck. We have turn 4 goldfish and are resistant to removal. My current list:


4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
4 Bloodghast
3 Badlands
4 Marsh Flats
3 Scrubland
2 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Faithless Looting
3 Goblin Bombardment
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Bayou
2 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 2 Perish
SB: 2 Zealous Persecution
SB: 2 Humility
SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Oblivion Ring
SB: 1 Meekstone
SB: 1 Swords to Plowshares

How does it fare against aggro decks like zoo, mythic bant, maverick, and the tribal duo (goblins and merfolk)?

[EdsonDettoni]

This thread has gotten pretty out of date, which is a shame because this is a legit deck. As a disclaimer, I don;t own this deck in real life. I'm on a tight budget so I have to assemble decks slowly. I'm about $400 away (curse the fact that I bought dual lands last summer instead of zen fetches) and that saving has been put on hiatus as I polish my modern deck for PTQs.

I Agree with realize. This deck is an oportunity to avoid annoying and boring tier decks, specially the islands.


To resume the subject, what do you think in add 2 Dangerous Wager?

[guybrush3]

sweet

[jhhdk]

Any thoughts on dragon maze impact? Zombie Confidant looks sweet.

[EdsonDettoni]

Any thoughts on dragon maze impact? Zombie Confidant looks sweet.


Wow. With that zombie (Blood Scrivener) the deck will be more consistent. And it can take 1 slot of Tidehollow Sculler, and make a more bombardment center deck.

http://magiccards.info/dgm/en/22.html

[Arsenal]

As someone who has played against Zombardment, what do you guys do against Grafdigger's Cage? I dropped one versus my Zombardment opponent and he pretty much was dead on my 1st turn.

[jhhdk]

Grafdiggers Cage is an excllent hoser against Zombardment but not much else. Only answer in typical lists is abrupt decay, which will often be too late.

Edit: Deleted non-sense i wrote.

[Zupponn]

Here's a maindeck I want to try out:

4x Gravecrawler
4x Bloodghast
3x Blood Scrivener
3x Tidehollow Sculler
2x Teysa, Orzhov Scion
4x Lingering Souls
4x Goblin Bombardment
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Faithless Looting
2x Bitterblossom
1x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1x Swords to Plowshares
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Arid Mesa
3x Marsh Flats
2x Badlands
2x Scrubland
2x Swamp
1x Plains
1x Mountain
1x Undiscovered Paradise

I've been doing a smattering of testing with Sorin recently and have been really liking him. I don't think he's more than a one-of, but he makes dudes forever and then makes your team hit harder, so he seems perfect for the deck.

[uncletiggy]

I feel like -1 scrivinger +1 sculler is a better place to start just a thought tho, sculler is mvp. I'd test with one bob in the board as well to start rather then the traditional two. It's be worth noting when either effect was more relevant and if scrivinger being a zombie was worth being less reliable.

[KazinMtg]

I feel like -1 scrivinger +1 sculler is a better place to start just a thought tho, sculler is mvp. I'd test with one bob in the board as well to start rather then the traditional two. It's be worth noting when either effect was more relevant and if scrivinger being a zombie was worth being less reliable.

Personally, I'm loving scrivener. With faithless looting you can often get 2 triggers per turn a couple times in a row, which sets you too far ahead for most decks to come back from. The fact that its a zombie just makes it perfect imo.

[Zupponn]

Personally, I'm loving scrivener. With faithless looting you can often get 2 triggers per turn a couple times in a row, which sets you too far ahead for most decks to come back from. The fact that its a zombie just makes it perfect imo.
Get 2 triggers? That would be with 2 Scriveners, right? Otherwise 1 Scrivener + Faithless Looting = 3 cards. Unless you mean Loot, play the remaining card, Flashback Loot or Draw 2, play both, then Loot?

[lukatron2]

4 Skirsdag High Priest seems like it would be really great in this deck

[thefreakaccident]

4 Skirsdag High Priest seems like it would be really great in this deck

It's actually straight godly.

[KazinMtg]

Get 2 triggers? That would be with 2 Scriveners, right? Otherwise 1 Scrivener + Faithless Looting = 3 cards. Unless you mean Loot, play the remaining card, Flashback Loot or Draw 2, play both, then Loot?

I meant have an empty hand, and draw for your turn. Topdeck the looting + something cheap (or a land) play your cheap spell, then loot and get 2 triggers in 1 turn.


4 Skirsdag High Priest seems like it would be really great in this deck

Now THAT is a great idea. I'm going to totally test that one.

[Mr. Froggy]

What are people's thoughts on the deck right now? I'm interested in building it, just because it's so different than the others out there. :)

[Mr. Froggy]

I built this deck on MTGO, and I find really cool. Turn 1 IoK, Turn 2 Cabal Therapy Flashback Cabal Therapy. GG?

[Zombie]

Until you stumble onto a Show and Tell player packing Leylines of Sanctity.

[Holly]

Played yesterday in a 54 people tournament with a kinda straight list.
20 lands (10 fetches, 2 swamps, 3 Scrubland, 3 Badland, 1 Bayou, 1 Undiscovered Paradise)
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
3 Carrion Feeder
1 Unearth
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Lingering Souls
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Goblin Bombardment
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Blood Artist
2 Thoughtseize
4 Faithless Looting
(Last minute call to cut 2 Thoughtseize in favor of 2 Blood Artists to test them.)

My sideboard was a mess..
3 Dark Confidant
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Disenchant
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Perish
1 Dark Blast
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Sword to Plowshares
1 Oblivion Ring


To the matches..all out of memory so it probably isn't quite correct but anyway..

M1 vs Junk
G1 He starts with a combination of Deathrite Shaman into Mother of Runes, Jitte, Ooze and I die horribly.
G2 I get him down, if I remember correctly with souls tokens..
G3 We hit each other, he with a Mirran Crusader, I with souls tokens. I'm on 4 with a board consisting off 1 Goblin Bombardment, 2 Souls Tokens and 1 Gravecrawler, he the named Mirran Crusader and 2 Mother of Runes.
I Ship the turn, sac the crawler in his upkeep to kill a Mother of Runes, he gives the crusader pro red.
I sac a token to kill his other mother, he protects itself with pro red. which won me the game since I now could block the crusader with the left token. My turn flashback souls, cast StP on his crusader, kill his mother and rode to victory.

1-0 (2-1)


M2 vs Miraclerip
G1 He starts off with RIP into Energy Field, I scoop.
G2 He has no chance since I rip his hand off with Therapy, Scullers and beat him down fast enough.
G3 Real grindy game, I discard a Counterbalance, he plays a RIP, I discard his single Helm of Obedience, he wraths me several times while I beat him down. He lands a counterbalance and beats me down with a Clique which is met with an Abrupt Decay (so I don't die) I rip of the other one to remove his counterbalance and get a confidant going which meets a stp. I get him on 2, he lands a Force Field. We go to time and he doesn't rip his last win condition (Angels) and neither do I rip Oblivion Ring/Disenchant for his Field to kill him (would've ripped it on my next turn =/).

1-0-1
(3-1-1)

M3 vs Punishing Maverick
G1 He gets Ooze online.. Kinght aswell, maybe a Jitte? Anyway I lose fast.
G2 gets grindy and I manage to win.
G3 He's a little flooded and I win.

2-0-1
(5-2-1)

M4 vs Burn
G1 I keep a hand with 3 lands (2 fetches 1 Paradise), 2 Gravecrawler & 1 Tidehollow Sculler. Starting with a crawler and getting hit by a bolt I know I'm up against burn. In my second turn I play the Paradise and play the Sculler, seeing Price of Progress which made me stay on 1 1/2 lands (mostly 1, sometimes if needed I played the Paradise) and beat him down with my 3 creatures (I only drew lands and 1 Bombardment).
I manage to race him barely.
G2 I keep a hand with Carrion Feeder, Gravecrawler, 3 lands and 2 Blood Artists.

3-0-1
(7-2-1)

M5 vs Merfolk
G1 He starts with a mulligan to 5 and I win easily.
G2 He surprises me with a Chalice on 1 and wins after quite a long game since hes missing his second Island forever while I drew nothing but lands.
G3 I start with double Deathrite Shaman and win the game while having 0 lands since he wasted 2.. I did drew some other lands but kept them in hand since I didn't need them for returning Bloodghasts.

4-0-1
(9-3-1)

M6 (finals) vs Punishing Jund
Ugly games..
I'll make it short.. I was flooded both games..(10 & 12 lands after seeing 18 respectively 22 cards). Saw 0 Lingering Souls, 0 Perish and G1 he had 3 Deathrite Shaman, G2 2 of them (first one ripped t1 after Therapy on named Shaman)..

4-1-1
(9-5-1)

Which led to place 6 for a Snapcaster Mage.
At least I had a ton of fun playing with the deck (out of the finals which was kinda depressing).

[Mr. Froggy]

Is it okay if I run IoK instead of Thoughtseize?

[Zupponn]

Is it okay if I run IoK instead of Thoughtseize?

Definitely. There are few things in legacy that you want to pick off that cost more than 3, and you can always therapy those things out of their hand. Also, I'm betting that there will be games that you play where that 2 life is relevant.

[Mr. Froggy]

That's exactly what I was thinking, too. :)

[Mr. Froggy]

How is Bitterblossom in the deck? Also, I want to try out the High Priest too, good move?

[JanoschEausH]

I think you can't effectively replace Thoughtseize with IoK. There are so many situations in which you really want to take that FoW or that Sneak Attack or that Griselbrand or that JTMS... Of course Cabal Therapy can mitigate here - but thats a 2 for 1 exchange. Especially against Sneak Attack or JTMS-decks you will later curse yourself for playing budget.

[Mr. Froggy]

It's not about budget really, since I play duals and what-not, it's more the life-loss I'm not so happy about...

[bruizar]

Is there a place for a young pyromancer?

[Mr. Froggy]

What do you mean by Young pyromancer?

[TorpidNinja]

What do you mean by Young pyromancer?

M14

Young Pyromancer 1R
Creature - Human Shaman
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, put a 1/1 red Elemental creature token onto the battlefield.
Immolation is the sincerest form of flattery.
2/1

[Zupponn]

It's probably at least worth testing, especially with all the flashback cards we run. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea though.

[Mr. Froggy]

I like that, infinite dudes :)

[civet five]

are there any cards, (most likely green) that give you creature tokens when you cast a creature spell? With or without Skirsdag High Priest, I'm trying to see how we can maximize the value of Gravecrawler+Black mana.

As an aside, this is the sort of deck that would have been incredibly fun and awesome with a Survival of the Fittest engine, as we would want to run most of these zombies and clerics as one-ofs and only have to run multiples to draw them out. #unbansurvival

EDIT: Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder. Costs 4B, so not really doable. At that point, Pandemonium is better.

[Poron]

Doubling Season

[civet five]

Doubling Season

Good catch, though I'll put that in the same category as Endrek as not playable.

I'm looking for something like Wirewood Hivemaster, but workable with our Gravecrawler recursion.

[jhhdk]

I'm looking for something like Wirewood Hivemaster, but workable with our Gravecrawler recursion.

Bridge from Below?

[civet five]

Bridge from Below?

Now that's interesting. Requires 4 Faithless Looting (or god forbid, having to therapy yourself) but that could get out of hand in a hurry

[Holly]

I'd never play this deck withouth 4 Faithless Looting anyway.
At it worst it filters useless lands later in the game, as it's best it reads:
R
Draw 2 cards, Add BBBB to your mana pool.

Anyway, I did consider Bridge but never tested it since it's useless on it's own.
You need to draw it, have a looting and your engine going otherwise it's pretty much dead.

[Mr. Froggy]

I'd never play this deck withouth 4 Faithless Looting anyway.
At it worst it filters useless lands later in the game, as it's best it reads:
R
Draw 2 cards, Add BBBB to your mana pool.

Anyway, I did consider Bridge but never tested it since it's useless on it's own.
You need to draw it, have a looting and your engine going otherwise it's pretty much dead.

My thoughts exactly.

[Holly]

If you want to get more value of your engine with Gravecrawler + black mana (isn't Bombardment allready enough?) outside of building your own fattie (Carrion Feeder) I'd probably stick with Blood Artist since it gives you a little more reach and the life gain isn't at it worst in a deck which mostly hasn't got any blockers.

[Mr. Froggy]

I love Blood Artist, it doubles our damage output, especially since our guys aren't the biggest hitters in the game.

[thunderpig]

are there any cards, (most likely green) that give you creature tokens when you cast a creature spell? With or without Skirsdag High Priest, I'm trying to see how we can maximize the value of Gravecrawler+Black mana.

As an aside, this is the sort of deck that would have been incredibly fun and awesome with a Survival of the Fittest engine, as we would want to run most of these zombies and clerics as one-ofs and only have to run multiples to draw them out. #unbansurvival

EDIT: Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder. Costs 4B, so not really doable. At that point, Pandemonium is better.

Genesis Chamber

This will even trigger off bloodghast returning to play from the landfall trigger.

[Zupponn]

I've been playing around with Diabolic Intent recently. So far, it seems really good as a one-of to fetch the right card when you need it.

[Mr. Froggy]

I played vs Sneak & Show on MTGO, and game 1 I lost to a Sneaked Emmy, but games 2&3 were way more in my favor.

I sided out:

-3 Bombardment
-1 Lingering Souls

I sided in:
+2 Krosan Grip
+2 Surgical Extraction

[Mr. Froggy]

I guess I'm the only one who plays this deck? :P

[Krimson Viper]

I guess I'm the only one who plays this deck? :P

No, but the pilots of this deck are few and far between. I've chosen this deck to be my premier deck for Legacy, and boy is this deck a challenge to pilot! I am not a high attendee of tournaments, but I show up here and there. I mostly play on kitchen table tops and the decks I pilot against are Esper Stoneblade and UR Delver. A budget Post deck is going to be joining the mix as well, but the cards are in the mail.

My deck
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Gravecrawler
3 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
4 Tidehollow Sculler

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
4 Faithless Looting
3 Goblin Bombardment
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Diabolic Intent
4 Lingering Souls

3 Badlands
3 Scrubland
2 Bayou
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
2 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise

1 Darkblast
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Perish
1 Humility
1 Meekstone
2 Pithing Needle
2 Dark Confidant
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

I have found that this deck has a terrible match against UR Delver and an even MU against Esper Stoneblade. RUG is about the same level. Shardless BUG seems a bit in their favor, and Jund with Punishing Fire is a beating.

Diabolic Intent is an experiment and I got the idea from here actually. I'm hiking the test goes well. As for Jitte, its there to help out with red decks. I think, for the SCG Open in December, I will remove it and find some opposing graveyard hate, but really might not even be a factor. From what I've seen, there are little to no graveyard strategy decks here in SF Bay Area. There is a Lands player and a Dredge player I know of in the area.

Please, any advice or comments are welcome!

[Mr. Froggy]

I hate the new MTGO interface...

I played vs sauceoftx, and I kept on punting because of it...

Otherwise, I still find its a great deck. :)

If I hadn't punted (he was on Miracles), Cabal Therapy his Brainstorm into Surgical Extraction. :)

[Krimson Viper]

I hate the new MTGO interface...

I played vs sauceoftx, and I kept on punting because of it...

Otherwise, I still find its a great deck. :)

If I hadn't punted (he was on Miracles), Cabal Therapy his Brainstorm into Surgical Extraction. :)

Not a bad play, lol. Do you have trouble with that deck though? I have thought about running Gaddock for that deck.

[Mr. Froggy]

Not a bad play, lol. Do you have trouble with that deck though? I have thought about running Gaddock for that deck.

The thing is, I did do exactly that. I just didn't know that I had to remove them myself. ..

I thought of Teeg as well, since none of our cards are affected.

[Krimson Viper]

Gaddock like a solid answer to lots of things, including Storm which is another deadly MU for this deck. Probably a split of Thalia and Gaddock would be good?

[Mr. Froggy]

I like Teeg more than Thalia in the deck, I find we have too many non creature spells. Has it worked for you?

Also I've been thinking of cutting Blood Artist and trying out the SFM package. Thoughts?

[Krimson Viper]

I don't have any complaints against Thalia when I side her in against Esper and combo/Storm. Against Shardless BUG, she is absolutely terrible because that deck runs just about the same amount of creature and spell ratio as us, but because their creatures are better overall, we lose the race. I guess what we have to do is weigh what they each do and see if the aspects are worth it really.

Gaddock Teeg - Force of Will, Jace, Batterskull, Damnation, Supreme Verdict, Turn About, Time Spiral, Terminus, Ad Nauseam completely stops these, but ignores the early spells and is a dog in combat compared to Thalia.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - Dark Ritual, Brainstorm, PtE/StP, Bolt, Stifle, Ponder, LED, Lotus Petal, Jace, FoW, Supreme Verdict, Terminus, Ad Nauseam, Batterskull, High Tide, Damnation, Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse, Faithless Looting, Lingering Souls, Therapy, and Thoughtseize are all cards it effects and slows down the game and she is a bit better ok combat than Teeg is. What I think also helps out Thalia is that she kind of gives herself protection with first strike and harassing mana efficiency.

I think we are thinking a little too narrow and use some kind of combination between the 2 and test that out. Combo, especially High Tide are some of out worst MUs. Problem is, I feel like our SB is a little tight. :(

I finally got around to testing my one Diabolic Intent in a game. It was nice to search for an answer, but I fear it is a little slow. It felt like it is a late game only play.

What would you use the SFM for Jitte?

[Mr. Froggy]

I don't have any complaints against Thalia when I side her in against Esper and combo/Storm. Against Shardless BUG, she is absolutely terrible because that deck runs just about the same amount of creature and spell ratio as us, but because their creatures are better overall, we lose the race. I guess what we have to do is weigh what they each do and see if the aspects are worth it really.

Gaddock Teeg - Force of Will, Jace, Batterskull, Damnation, Supreme Verdict, Turn About, Time Spiral, Terminus, Ad Nauseam completely stops these, but ignores the early spells and is a dog in combat compared to Thalia.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - Dark Ritual, Brainstorm, PtE/StP, Bolt, Stifle, Ponder, LED, Lotus Petal, Jace, FoW, Supreme Verdict, Terminus, Ad Nauseam, Batterskull, High Tide, Damnation, Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse, Faithless Looting, Lingering Souls, Therapy, and Thoughtseize are all cards it effects and slows down the game and she is a bit better ok combat than Teeg is. What I think also helps out Thalia is that she kind of gives herself protection with first strike and harassing mana efficiency.

I think we are thinking a little too narrow and use some kind of combination between the 2 and test that out. Combo, especially High Tide are some of out worst MUs. Problem is, I feel like our SB is a little tight. :(

I finally got around to testing my one Diabolic Intent in a game. It was nice to search for an answer, but I fear it is a little slow. It felt like it is a late game only play.

What would you use the SFM for Jitte?

My reasoning for using SFM is sometimes I find we're missing a bit of oomph.. Unless we can get a huge Carrion Feeder, but most of our guys don't hit for much.

Also, I also find our SB extremely tight, its really hard to find to find space for anything.

BTW, here is my list:

Lands
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
2 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
2 Verdant Catacombs

Creatures
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Blood Artist

Other
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Goblin Bombardment
3 Lingering Souls
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Faithless Looting

SB
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Choke
1 Darkblast
1 Engineered Plague
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Krosan Grip
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Perish
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Zealous Persecution

I like where my list is going for now, but I have a love-hate relationship with Blood Artist. Sure it works, but only in specific circumstances. This is why I think I would benefit from using a SFM package, it would give my guys a much needed boost.

[Krimson Viper]

My deck went the more controlling route and cut Persecution. I just couldn't find the right time to use it, especially when,my creatures were outclassed a lot even if I casted it. I feel the same way about "oomph" when I'm sitting across a 'Goyf lol, but then I use Perish and just clear the way. I put Jitte into my side to help with my red MUs, which I found out my build falters to. I have been tempted to use a Jund color build for Vengevine, but I'm not paying that cash to a card that sees no other play lol.

[Mr. Froggy]

Mind sharing your list?

[Krimson Viper]

My regular Walking Dead list or the Jund colors? I haven't made a list for Jund yet and,my regular list is on the last page.

[Mr. Froggy]

My regular Walking Dead list or the Jund colors? I haven't made a list for Jund yet and,my regular list is on the last page.

Yeah, I meant your Jund colored one :P

[uncletiggy]

has anyone done any testing with blood scrivenger in the main I have two flex spots right now I can't decide between rotting rats, liliana, and him. this is my alternate choice for scg baltimore if the meta looks unfavorable for elves... for reference:

20 lands

4 Deathrite shaman
3 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Tidehollow Sculler

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Darkblast
4 Faithless Looting
3 Goblin Bombardment
3 Lingering Souls

SB:


rat's brings my zombie count to 13 and discard to 14

liliana brings my discard to 14 and improves removal plus fringe benifits versus a show and tell'd creature

scrivenger brings my zombie count to 13 and adds conditional late game (probably weakest choice)


past incarnations have seen: 2 bitterblossom / 1 teysa 1 mirrorwood entity / 2 abrupt decay

any help would be appreciated I'd like to stick with the original brew concept of a midranged deck that attemps to ignore spot removal with a positive combo matchup. Once I solidify the main deck I'd like to work on the sideboard I have one for now but I'd like to see a five card stoneforge package for decks that board heavily vs graveyard.

[Mr. Froggy]

has anyone done any testing with blood scrivenger in the main I have two flex spots right now I can't decide between rotting rats, liliana, and him. this is my alternate choice for scg baltimore if the meta looks unfavorable for elves... for reference:

20 lands

4 Deathrite shaman
3 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Tidehollow Sculler

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Darkblast
4 Faithless Looting
3 Goblin Bombardment
3 Lingering Souls

SB:


rat's brings my zombie count to 13 and discard to 14

liliana brings my discard to 14 and improves removal plus fringe benifits versus a show and tell'd creature

scrivenger brings my zombie count to 13 and adds conditional late game (probably weakest choice)


past incarnations have seen: 2 bitterblossom / 1 teysa 1 mirrorwood entity / 2 abrupt decay

any help would be appreciated I'd like to stick with the original brew concept of a midranged deck that attemps to ignore spot removal with a positive combo matchup. Once I solidify the main deck I'd like to work on the sideboard I have one for now but I'd like to see a five card stoneforge package for decks that board heavily vs graveyard.

I think you mean Mirror Entity?

Also I do agree on the SFM package, I think it would be beneficial to the deck if we ran it.

[igri_is_a_bk]

How come this thread isn't talking about Dark Prophecy?

[HPB_Eggo]

Triple black isn't always the easiest to reach, it's an Enchantment rather than a creature, it isn't a sack outlet, it ends up killing you nearly as fast as Bitterblossom...

It's obviously a great card if you can get around to using it and supporting the lifeloss, but the deck would require some major changes to be able to reliably do either.

[uncletiggy]

yes mirror entity sometimes the wee hours of the morning can be unforgiving which btw was as lack luster as teysa

[Mr. Froggy]

How come this thread isn't talking about Dark Prophecy?

BBB is tough on any manabase I find.. But I think I might want to try it out.

What would we cut for it?

[uncletiggy]

dark prophecy seems too cute and requires you to already have an engine in place it seems strictly worse then either dark confidant or phyrexian arena and neither see play md

[Mr. Froggy]

dark prophecy seems too cute and requires you to already have an engine in place it seems strictly worse then either dark confidant or phyrexian arena and neither see play md

I thought of that when I woke up this morning... I shouldn't post when I'm tirer... -_-

[mini1337s]

Currently testing this:
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant

3 Goblin Bombardment

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Unearth
4 Lingering Souls
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Thoughtseize

2 Abrupt Decay
4 Snuff Out
1 Dismember

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Badlands
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
3 City of Brass
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Polluted Delta

I've been happy with the results so far. Snuff Outs are there to deal with Tarmogoyf and SFM.

EDIT: Also this lol http://i.imgur.com/tqxmznn.png

[DYman]

Currently testing this:
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant

3 Goblin Bombardment

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Unearth
4 Lingering Souls
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Thoughtseize

2 Abrupt Decay
4 Snuff Out
1 Dismember

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Badlands
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
3 City of Brass
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Polluted Delta

I've been happy with the results so far. Snuff Outs are there to deal with Tarmogoyf and SFM.

EDIT: Also this lol http://i.imgur.com/tqxmznn.png

Nice pic, but how did u deal with the Annihilator 6?

[mini1337s]

Nice pic, but how did u deal with the Annihilator 6?
It's in the chat. Sac'd tokens and lands.

[uncletiggy]

Any thoughts on lifebane zombie? initially it feels like it belongs atleast as a one of vs maverick and anything running goyf, it could do work in a lot of matchups maybe not main deck but it might be a meta call?

[DYman]

Any thoughts on lifebane zombie? initially it feels like it belongs atleast as a one of vs maverick and anything running goyf, it could do work in a lot of matchups maybe not main deck but it might be a meta call?

Tidehollow Sculler is better i feel. Both cards get a look at the opponent's hand. You can exile cards with sculler if u sac it as it enters the battlefield. They're both not good blockers.

Intimidate sounds catchy, but 3/1 is easy enough to deal with. Sideboard's already too tight to fit loose ends. Maybe it might make a difference if it shows up, but then, it's not that big of a deal.

Unless you know something I don't?

[uncletiggy]

It smells like vendilion clique, thats all I know. It could have applications and be worth a misers in the 75 it is an evasive disruptive zombie after all. I don't think it competes with sculler more compliments it I could see it main deck even over a blood artist if anything.

[DYman]

Vendillion covers all colors though, so it would work even facing blue, red or black. blood artists are relevant if u play carrion feeders. u have to hardcast 3cmc, and in most games we see 3- 4 lands, so u might be tied up for mana early game/at a crucial point. But it's worth a shot, I'll test it and see if it fits

[Krimson Viper]

You couldn't reliably cast Clique. There are 5 sources for blue and I couldn't imagine a board state where you could muster double blue and it wasn't a win more situation.

^I'm stupid. Lifebane is a really bad version of Clique. No flash, conditional exile, and no flying. The benefits of him are not worth running him as well.

I do like Pyromancer. I'm thinking of trying him out, but I'm not sure what I would cut for him. I haven't thought it through thoroughly, but maybe Souls?

[DYman]

young pyromancer sounds exactly the same as lingering souls, except for a major difference: Faithless looting.

You would discard lingering but not so for pyromancer.

Advantage? it creates more bodies, and if u were only playing white for lingering souls, then the deck can cut off white to be black, green and red.

Disadvantages: lack of sync with faithless, the elementals dont fly

[SirTylerGalt]

young pyromancer sounds exactly the same as lingering souls, except for a major difference: Faithless looting.

You would discard lingering but not so for pyromancer.

Advantage? it creates more bodies, and if u were only playing white for lingering souls, then the deck can cut off white to be black, green and red.

Disadvantages: lack of sync with faithless, the elementals dont fly

It has some synergy with Faithless Looting: when you cast and flash back Faithless Looting with a Young Pyromancer in play, you get 2 free Elemental tokens :)

[DYman]

I havent playtested Young Pyromancer against many decks, but after a few kitchen top games with friends, it feels like a win-more card than a real game changer from lingering souls. The elementals are definitely much more in number than the flying Spirits, but the elementals have no evasion, and they just help as a blocker most of the time.

The problem with this deck is, it cant stay on the defense too long, else the opponent starts building up. sneaking a few points in, 4-6 hits from spirits doesnt sound much, but they are flying and it puts your opponent on the clock, maybe waste removals on the spirits. plus u could block flyers.

But let's not go for the strictly speaking argument. perhaps young pyromancer and lingering souls are two different sides of a coin, and it comes down to personal flavour. My preference goes to lingering, i feel it gives me more options and pressures the opponent better

[Krimson Viper]

I havent playtested Young Pyromancer against many decks, but after a few kitchen top games with friends, it feels like a win-more card than a real game changer from lingering souls. The elementals are definitely much more in number than the flying Spirits, but the elementals have no evasion, and they just help as a blocker most of the time.

The problem with this deck is, it cant stay on the defense too long, else the opponent starts building up. sneaking a few points in, 4-6 hits from spirits doesnt sound much, but they are flying and it puts your opponent on the clock, maybe waste removals on the spirits. plus u could block flyers.

But let's not go for the strictly speaking argument. perhaps young pyromancer and lingering souls are two different sides of a coin, and it comes down to personal flavour. My preference goes to lingering, i feel it gives me more options and pressures the opponent better

Pretty much. I'm thinking a deck with Young Pyromancer would require a little different build and Souls may not even be the card to replace for Pyro as the 2 have synergy with each other. I mean, why have 2 tokens when you can have 3? I haven't really been looking at this deck much as work and a little bit of a life change have taken over, but I think he is something that should be considered and dismissed only through testing. The testing that should be done are against the decks that we have trouble with first and then see how it does against our good MUs.

Also, you can't eliminate white by simply removing Souls. I can't tell you how much Sculler has helped me with sniping cards with Cabal or becoming an emergency blocker or last point of damage. Also exiling Emmy is nice.

[DYman]

The Scullers were 'A' class exilers for me, i sac it as it enters the battlefield to exile any card (from his hand) that could bounce from the graveyard.

But lately, my meta is filled with tribal and aggro weenies, and racing against them was hard for me. I had no choice but to cut off Scullers for bigger bodies, like putrid leech. I put in rotting rats to increase the zombie count and get discard, as well as graveyard plays. So the only cards being white were lingering souls.

This deck is hard to pilot, but rewarding when done right. More than anything, its not that the deck wins, its how it wins.

[Krimson Viper]

I think that's why I keep coming back to this deck;The challenge to win with it is so appealing to me that I just can't leave it. That and there's zombies, lol.

[uncletiggy]

I was offering up life bane mostly for a misers copy in the board to fight decks like maverick but obviously young pyromancer is all the buzz while not fitting in well with what the deck is trying to accoplish via machine gunning zombies and heavy hand disruption

[mrjumbo03]

New toy for this deck:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=145388&d=1378353740

[Gheizen64]

I think it's worth considering instead of blood artist if u run that

[uncletiggy]

Am I missing something or does liliana fit better in this shell then any other we get more value out of her +1 and md removal has always been my biggest gripe I feel like our combo matchups are already pretty strong minus reanimator aggro has always felt like the weakest our Ca hangs with control but repeating discard can only help there especially against miracles

Also what are thoughts on punishing fire for repeating removal we are already pushing into green for abrupt decay and to a lesser extent deathrite

[bizdoin]

for the green splash
http://mythicspoiler.com/ths/cards/reaperofthewild1.jpg

[uncletiggy]

I think if anywhere that card might find a home in nic fit its too high at cmc 4 doesn't win the game is not a zombie and doesn't disrupt the opponent if you want to scry viscera seerer is also a sac outlet and it doeant see play

[Gheizen64]

I don't know about this deck, but i've seen Tymaret played in some standard decklists (obviously proxied for testing) and he's really good. His red ability is mostly what made the difference there.

[MD.Ghost]

I am new to this deck and want to share my newest decklist:

1 Mutavault
3 Swamp
1 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Marsh Flats
1 Scrubland
1 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Bayou
1 Plateau

4 Bloodghast
4 Gravecrawler
1 Tymaret, the Murder King
3 Rotting Rats
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Carrion Feeder

1 Bridge from Below
2 Goblin Bombardment
3 Entomb
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lingering Souls
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Thoughtseize

SB: 1 Darkblast
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Fleshbag Marauder
SB: 1 Oblivion Ring
SB: 1 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Perish

I tried many variants (without Carrion Feeder, with Lotleth Troll as a discard outlet which can block and regen, with Vengeful Pharaoh as a Tutorremoval and Lategame Bomb etc.) in the last test week, so the current build and sideboard has still some flexslots. I think Carstens is right with his Theros Article (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/26966_Brewing-Ambrosia.html), Entomb deserves some Slots. Tutoring for Ghast, Cabal etc is really good. Also a single Bridge from Below is a good way to overwhelm your opponents with a real zombie horde (sick with any sac outlet, good against non exiling removal). The best thing is, that a Deathrite Shaman can´t remove it and you have another way to get also some defense if needed.

I play Rotting Rats instead of Sculler, because it is also a recurring creature, works well with an sac outlet, discard your also your own stuff (Ghast for free, Souls, Bridge etc.) and can block for one turn. Sculler dies to easy in the current meta full with removal heavy decks (if you count the fair ones) and combo can also use bounce/destroy (chain, decay etc.) to get any good card back. Rats working also if your opponent use leyline to prevent discard effects, so you still can get some cards.

Liliana - current version runs 2 (cut 1 Lingering), because she is very versatile and a permanet way to fight some creatures or discard every turn if your opponent plays combo or control.

Tymaret, the Murder King is nice, but only good if you have the entomb toolbox, because he is to manaintensive in multiplies and you rarely need him. But sometimes he can finish if a game goes long enough, sometimes you can use it to block with token against jitte/batterskull and sac it with him in the yard, sometimes you can save a bloodghast or crawler against white exile removal if you also sac it, sometimes he just only blocks some turns, sometimes he is a zombie to return your crawler to the field. Normally Goblin Bombardement is better, but you don´t need the enchantment in multiplies.

Current Manabase contains some budget lands (Blackcleave Cliffs) which works fine so far but can easly switch to Badlands or more Scrublands.

Deck works good so far, but is hard to master (normally i play elves, so i like interactive creature decks without blue). You need some nice sideboard weapons to fight different decks and maybe alternative win conditions if you cant use your graveyard (Confi, Bitterblossom, Planeswalker or even a big weird Beater like Desecration Demon which only fears Swords to Plowshards).

[HPB_Eggo]

I think you're missing a large part of the reason Sculler is so good - if you play him and then sacrifice him with his trigger on the stack, you can permanently exile cards, similar to playing Oblivion Ring and bouncing it with its ability on the stack in Death and Taxes.

It's really much better than Rotting Rats outside of a few odd edge cases.

[uncletiggy]

Agreed rotting rats is sculler 5-6 if at all. if you dropped white altogether then yea rat away but I would never cut the scullers altogether. Ill be testing my new list tonight on cockatrice tonight ill post some findings when I can get enough games in, I'm probably taking this or dead guy to dc in november so its crunch time

[Zombie]

How are Zombies' combo matchups? I have a local meta infested with combo, am a synergy nut, but combo mirrors are kind of boring. This deck seems to have a lot of fun things going for it, so I'm tempted to try.

[uncletiggy]

You have access to all the best combo hate post board and between ten and twelve discard effets preboard just lacking forces so as good as you want it to be honestly

[Holly]

Despite having a lot of discard and sideboard options like Canonist etc. the deck doesn't have a really strong combo matchup. If they're slower combo decks (ANT, High Tide, Doomsday and Show n Tell variants g1) you might have a chance and steal some games. Against fast combo.. get lucky or die.

Postboard.. well normally you can bring a lot of cards since so many of your maindeck is useless..
Fastcombo still owns you if you're not getting lucky. (+ TES has Silence to basicly timewalk you since all your disruption is sorcery speed (out of maybe 1-2 MBT)).
Show n Tell variants bring in Leyline, thus turning of up to 12 cards of your disruption suite.. then they laugh maniacly.
You still have a shot versus the slower ones..

But even if, lets say you're lucky to get to t4 against something like ANT. You probably played discard t1-t3 thus having no clock at all (mabye 1 Sculler) while they're playing their LED's out and have a graveyard full of rituals.. 1 Tutor/PIF and you're still dead. Despite all your afford.

So yeah..you can steal some games.. but to much has to work right to say it has a good combo matchup.

[MD.Ghost]

So yeah..you can steal some games.. but to much has to work right to say it has a good combo matchup.

I disagree, sure against Fast Combo (Belcher, Tin Fins, Ups all Spells, or even TES) you rarely get a 1st turn to cast a Discard Spell (because we can´t trust in the fear effect from force of will). But if a deck full with discard and a fast clock (if you want compare a single delver/goose to crawler, ghast action) and additional combo hate in sideboards (white for thalia, canonist, oring, leyline) isn't good enough against combo then something must be wrong. If the discussion goes in the direction that you need FoW against Fast Combo (Turn 1 Combo Decks) if you can´t start (if you have a turn, you can also start with Discard), then each blue player can remind enough situations were they haven´t a FoW in starting hand and also lose.

I think this deck is good enough prepared to fight combo decks. Sometimes the opponent has the nuts and you still lose, but this is also true with every blue based deck and a common Situation in Magic - sometimes Luck matters.

@LED vs Discard, sure most players lay out artefacts against our Discard based Disruption, but i would always put in some artefact hate (engineered explosives etc.) to catch off guarded TES/ANT Players.

@Rotting Rats vs Tidehollow Sculler, against Combo Rats aren´t so bad, because you always wan´t to start with 1st aimed discard (catch the best card), if your 2nd turn is Sculler or Rat you can one more card (have a combo players bad cards to discard g2?, i dont think so). The nice exile trick with sculler only works if you have an discard outlet before you can play the sculler, so you need a turn 1 carrion feeder (and haven´t cast a protective discard spell) or talking about a turn 3 play (which isnt so fast against combo), besides the situation T1 Deathrite (no discard) and 3 mana for a T2 play (more and more dreamland).

Exile a card with sculler against combo Game 2 isn't so good if you can´t sac the sculler (see above). Every Combo player will have sweepers (pyroclasm, massacre) or point removal (decay, chain) so it is easy to kill an early sculler. So i don't think Sculler is the best way for a disruptive creature. Rats are good enough in many ways against combo. T1 Therapy, T2 Rat and sac to Therapy can destroy many hands (and also can put ghast/crawler in the yard). If you can Sac the rat it is even better, because they came back one more time. Against creature based decks, a 2/2 blocker or attacker may be better in rare situations, but isn't save enough because the same decks will also bring enough removal, so you often board Sculler out. I think that Sculler is better against Graveyard based Decks (Dredge/Reanimator) because you don´t want that your opponent can profit from discard and Game 1 against Combo Decks, because the rarely can answer him without Sideboard Cards.

Remember that you also need W for Sculler so you must play a scrubland which can be an additional wasteland target and in my opponion the early turn plays are very crucial with this deck (one reason, because it is so hard to master). And you can trow it into faithless looting (or liliana, entomb, troll, if you play uncommon builds) and still profit.

[Holly]

Leyline is no real combo hate.. they go off, bounce it and kill you. It does nothing.
O-ring? Ok yeah.. You're 1off is combo hate vs Show n Tell decks, wont disagree..
Thalia.. yep works.. but I'm no fan of her in this deck since she bothers you aswell when 1/3 of your cards are non-creature non-lands..
Canonist.. yep she works. Won't disagree. 2-3 Minimum in the sideboard imho.

To the matter of fast clock.. this deck has none.
Yes it actually is possible to have a Carrion Feeder larger then Emrakul t5.. but come on if we're going to compare nut draws we're dead t1. anwyway.
This deck does not have a good clock. Never did, never intended to have.
I'm not saying that it's necessary to have Force of Will to stand a chance vs combo decks, but you have to attack different angles. Discard alone (even 12 cards) won't be enough..specially not if the do have leyline which turns off most of your hate.

I'm not even talking about nut-draws by our opponents.. just that we are actually the ones to have nut-draws to chacne a chance. what are you going to do if they open with a Leyline? Sure you can hope your 3/60 cards can destroy it (if it doesn't get countered) & have enough discard to help) or you can praise your 2-3 hatebears get there.. sure it can happen.. but I'll never call that a good matchup.

[Zombie]

I play Elves. A lot of my combo wins are discard => Thorn/Teeg => Beat with little men. It does work, and Zombies runs more discard than Elves do. You also have room for Liliana. Thalia/Thorn is a huge blowout. The key thing is that it slows down all of their setup work, and it slows down the process of finding an answer while your little men kick his ass. The idea is pretty much to be a prison deck like D&T.

[LeoCop 90]

Just saw this card : Contamination.

Could it be played in this deck ? with a gravecrawler and another zombie in play you lock the opponent out of the game. Also with bloodghast/undiscovered paradise.
I just wonder if it is really powerful or if too much things need to happen to make that work. Even in the worst cases it could buy some turns.

[Megadeus]

Just saw this card : Contamination.

Could it be played in this deck ? with a gravecrawler and another zombie in play you lock the opponent out of the game. Also with bloodghast/undiscovered paradise.
I just wonder if it is really powerful or if too much things need to happen to make that work. Even in the worst cases it could buy some turns.

The black blood moon that beats basics? I think it is solid

[uncletiggy]

Its certainly good but couldn't just be jammend in the list it'd need to be built around realitically its a turn four or five play you'd need an engine already in place to make it good and I'd imagine bitterblosson would be a must in the list.

[thefreakaccident]

Contamination needs a deck, I nominate this one, you are the guys to do it. Go make us proud.

And later, angry.

[Lord_of_Rivendell]

Has our deck had any showings of late? Any new showings from Sam Black? Any good showings from anyone other than Sam Black?

[thefreakaccident]

I think the deck is just underrepresented. I certainly don't have anybody playing it locally.

If you guys made contamination work, people might want to play it more. :)

[bizdoin]

hey
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/sok/24.jpg

[uncletiggy]

Super weak version of lingering souls without flying it requires an engine or unfavorable attacks

[kravkenov]

Did'nt read carefully the whole threat, but what do you think about Young Pyromancer instead of Deathrite Shaman?
Could be something like that :

Creature (20)
4x Bloodghast
4x Carrion Feeder
4x Young Pyromancer
4x Gravecrawler
4x Tidehollow Sculler

Enchantment (3)
3x Goblin Bombardment

Instant (1)
1x Abrupt Decay

Sorcery (16)
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Faithless Looting
4x Lingering Souls
4x Thoughtseize

+ Manabase

With all the recursive plan we have, do you give Pyromancer a try?

[atopebenidorm]

An Evolution of the deck with Liliana of the veil and punshing fire. I think is the correct way because Goblin bombardment is less efective with faithless looting than punishing fire, and Liliana add more answers Vs combo and control.


3 Carrion Feeder
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Deathrite Shaman

4 Punishing fire

2 Thoughtseize
3 Lingering souls
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting

4 Liliana of the veil

1 Swamp
1 Bayou
3 Scrubland
3 Badlands
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Bloodstainde mire
4 Marsh flats

[bizdoin]

i found this card..

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ps/59.jpg

[Holly]

So?
Its a worse Goblin Bombardment.
- CC3 instead of 2 (minor point)
- Costs mana to activate (hugh point)
- Zombies only (largest point).

[uncletiggy]

Cutting bombardment is wrong being able to sac your army for that last 4-5 points of dmg is huge using it as removal is a utility function and extra copys can be pitched just fine to lili you want all your lands to make black for crawer so the groves really hurt the mana base as well.

[kravkenov]

I really don't think cutting Goblin Bombardment is the right way to go.
There is too much synergies between Goblin Bombardment and the recursives creatures and Ligering Souls's token. Plus Punishing Fire need mana to burn, Goblin Bombardment don't.

Currently I'm trying to add Lotleth Troll and Vengevine to the mix.
It's very fun, but I can't yet say wich is more efficient :

Classic version
Creature (20)
4xBloodghast
4xCarrion Feeder
4xGravecrawler
4xTidehollow Sculler
4xDeathrite Shaman

Enchantment (3)
3xGoblin Bombardment

Instant (1)
1xAbrupt Decay

Sorcery (16)
4xCabal Therapy
4xFaithless Looting
4xLingering Souls
4xThoughtseize

20 Lands


Lotleth Troll - Vengevine version
Creature (18)
4xBloodghast
4xCarrion Feeder
4xGravecrawler
3xLotleth Troll
3xVengevine

Enchantment (3)
3xGoblin Bombardment

Instant (2)
2xAbrupt Decay

Sorcery (17)
2xBuried Alive
4xCabal Therapy
4xFaithless Looting
3xLingering Souls
4xThoughtseize

20 Lands

[uncletiggy]

Tou might find some help with lotleth troll if you search living dead girl you really want putrid imp and rootwalla to be able to bin and swing with the vines right away

[kravkenov]

After some more testing, Lotleth Troll just don't work with the deck.
Vengevine is painful to come back, it's way more efficient to stay on the classic version.

I don't know if the deck can reach one more level or if Sam Black already push it to its maximum.

[EdsonDettoni]

Hi, you all,

Have you seen this version of the deck? it is called "Black Day:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=12272&iddeck=89939

It combines Surgical Extraction and Chains of Mephistopheles.

What do you think about Burning Inquiry for the deck?

[uncletiggy]

I'm curious how necessary the chains were the deck seems sweet mesmeric orb is hot tech I love main deck surgical effects too I may have to play a little on cocatrice with it

[civet five]

Hi, you all,

Have you seen this version of the deck? it is called "Black Day:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=12272&iddeck=89939

It combines Surgical Extraction and Chains of Mephistopheles.

What do you think about Burning Inquiry for the deck?

Nice find with that. It looks really sweet and linear, and I love trying to make Chains a one-sided effect. Too bad a set of Chains will run you $700 or so; that's not really an investment I can justify making when I can buy 9 Jaces instead.

Mesmeric Orb might in fact work and I think its worth testing in its place. I'll give both a run and see how it works.

[Kap'n Cook]

So this is a version I've been messing around with takes its inspiration from three different places: the first being this actual zombies thread, the second being carsten kotters scg article on zombies, and a random short gravecrawler combo thread on here somewhere. I just can't really play any deck without some sort of combo and I wanted something beyond general gravecrawler synergy

Circus of Values:

4 Blood artist
4 gravecrawler
4 carrion feeder
4 bloodghast
1 tymaret, the murder king

4 flex slots? lightning bolt/thoughtseize/maybe more creatures?

4 entomb
4 cabal therapy
4 faithless looting
3 goblin bombardment
3 carnival of souls (wtf is this janky shit)
1 bridge from below
1 crippling fatigue


4 bloodstained mire
4 black fetch
2 mutavault
4 badlands
3 swamp
1 mountain
1 undiscovered paradise

Board
2 Chainz
13 other cards


So carnival seems so bad and terrible right? Sort of. Yes, it is dead on its own and you auto lose to empty the warrens. However, I like it because with a gravecrawler out, carrion feeder reads 'pay 1 life put a +1/+1 counter', bombardment reads 'pay 1 life, deal 1 damage' and either of those with a blood artist means infinite. Mutavault is there to become a zombie and you have the general entomb silver bullet package since you need gravecrawler. Any general thoughts?

[EdsonDettoni]

So this is a version I've been messing around with takes its inspiration from three different places: the first being this actual zombies thread, the second being carsten kotters scg article on zombies, and a random short gravecrawler combo thread on here somewhere. I just can't really play any deck without some sort of combo and I wanted something beyond general gravecrawler synergy


So carnival seems so bad and terrible right? Sort of. Yes, it is dead on its own and you auto lose to empty the warrens. However, I like it because with a gravecrawler out, carrion feeder reads 'pay 1 life put a +1/+1 counter', bombardment reads 'pay 1 life, deal 1 damage' and either of those with a blood artist means infinite. Mutavault is there to become a zombie and you have the general entomb silver bullet package since you need gravecrawler. Any general thoughts?

carnival of souls, what a nasty card in this combo!

[civet five]

carnival of souls, what a nasty card in this combo!

And no one cares that it's his birthday!

Yea with a way to get Carnival of Souls into play reliably, Blood Artist+Carnival is nasty

[helghast101]

Land: 20
2 Bayou
1 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scrubland
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
3 Swamp

Critters: 25
4 Carrion Feeder
1 Tymaret, the Murder King
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Lingering Souls

Control: 11
3 Goblin Bombardment
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy

Draw: 4
4 Faithless Looting

Side: 15
1 Disenchant
2 Perish
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Darkblast
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Meekstone
2 Choke

Any ideas for a blind meta for the board? Also I think someone needs to update the main board with a primer and what not so we can move this over to established.

[Krimson Viper]

What are some thoughts on using Gamble(can someone help me with card tags?)?

[Zupponn]

What are some thoughts on using Gamble(can someone help me with card tags?)?

I'd say it's a gamble.

Something like Diabolic Intent might be worth looking into as well.

Also, use .