Zombo Breaker

[FTW]

First, the decklist


//Creatures: 29
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Festering Goblin
4 Lotleth Troll
3 Bloodghast
4 Shambling Shell
4 Death Baron
2 Lord of the Undead

//Spells: 12
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Necromancer's Stockpile

//Lands: 19
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Dakmor Salvage
1 Unholy Grotto
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
3 Bayou
3 Swamp
1 Forest

//Sample sideboard:
4 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Withered Wretch
2 Lifebane Zombie
1 Fleshbag Marauder
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Umezawa's Jitte


This is a zombie aggro-combo deck. Your plan is to win by beatdown storming, though this is facilitated by degenerate combos and interactions.

The primary combo is Necromancer's Stockpile + Shambling Shell. The net result here is you can repeatedly pay 1B to dredge 3 and generate a 2/2 zombie token. Similar to Thopter-Sword, this should generate considerable endgame win potential. If you can assemble this combo, you have inevitability. The fact that much of your deck is still live from the graveyard means that the dredging generates incidental value too.

Other combos in the deck include:
-Carrion Feeder + Gravecrawler
-Lord of the Undead + Necromancer's Stockpile (2BB,T: draw a card and make a 3/3 zombie token)
-Lotleth Troll + pitchable creatures
-Death Baron (deathtouch) + recurring creatures/tokens/Festering Goblin
-Cabal Therapy + recurring creatures/tokens/Festering Goblin

Stockpile also just synergizes well with many of your zombie dorks, allowing you to dig a card deeper by making a token instead of a body. The lords obviously help advance the zombie aggro plan.

Post-board you can get rid of much of the graveyard dependence (e.g. Bloodghast) in favor of cards that are better in that matchup. They may be zombies too (Lifebane Zombie against G or W creatures, Stromgald Crusader against D&T and Blade decks, Fleshbag Marauder against decks that cheat out 1 fatty, Withered Wretch against GY decks, maybe splash for Tidehollow Sculler against combo/control, Blood Scrivener if you're emptying your hand too fast, etc.).

Any comments or suggestions? The idea is still in its infancy.

[FTW]

I just realized Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is, of course, a Zombie. This means you no longer need Bloodghasts as much and can run infinite Nameless Inversion.

Version 2 -- Haakon Zombos

//Zombies: 28
4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
3 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Death Baron
4 Shambling Shell
3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge

//Spells: 13
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Necromancer's Stockpile
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Nameless Inversion

//Lands: 19
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Unholy Grotto
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Swamp

//Sideboard:
2 Stromgald Crusader
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Thoughtseize
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Fleshbag Marauder
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Umezawa's Jitte


Incorporating Haakon+Nameless combo. Maybe this is too slow. Maybe Festering Goblin already adequately handles the X/1s. Just another possible direction to go.

[maharis]

Love the idea, but I don't know how you're ever able to get out in front of the tempo and combo decks in the format. There are a couple things that occur to me:

-Mox Diamond/Loam/Chalice on 1, maybe Smallpox as well and 2CMC hand disruption like hymn or Tidehollow Sculler
-4 Entomb, Dread Return, Elesh Norn/Iona, maybe Unburial Rites

What do you think about incorporating those packages? Discarding Gravecrawler to this thing seems sweet, but slow, and on its own it's a pure aggro/graveyard creature in a format where the most successful deck plays 4 terminus.

[rufus]

...

Any comments or suggestions? The idea is still in its infancy.

Necromancer's Stockpile seems quite slow by legacy standards. I think Zombie Infestation is going to make your aggro game plan much more explosive, is more reliable and will give you more flexibility in deck construction.

Contamination and Braids Cabal Minion/Smokestack have potential with recurring creatures.

[Zupponn]

I think some number of Darkblast could be good here.

Maybe even look into something like Tombstone Stairwell to make use of all the things that are going to be in the graveyard. I could see the Stairwell being brutal versus creature-light decks like Miracles.

[Pox22]

Gempalm Polluter + Unholy Grotto/Lord of the Undead = hard to counter life-loss that can end a game quickly. Not sure if that's good enough, but I remember that trick from Onslaught block and standard.