[Deck] ZC-Zombie/Clerics

[n00bas4urus_r3x]

My friend requisted his deck list be posted on the source for further development, so here goes. This is the list he top eighted with at Shinders last weekend, with 73 players present.

Zombie Clerics:

4 Dark Ritual
4 Rotlung Reanimator
4 Dark Supplicant
4 Cabal Archon
4 Order of the Ebon Hand
4 Unearth
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Scion of Darkness
3 Shepard of Rot
4 Withered Wretch
20 Swamp

Sideboard
4 Pithing Needle
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Engineered Plague
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Perish
1 Dread of Night

Playing the deck is fairly straight forward:

Dark Ritual-mono black mana excel, powers out first turn supplicants and another cleric.
Rotlung Reanimator-Fantastic synergy with Supplicant, a power house of the deck.
Dark Supplicant-Gets out scion and thats about all.
Cabal Archon-Another powerr house. late and mid game, this guy is a gem, and you can often win with him, and power through locks.
Order of the Ebon Hand-A good cleric for the deck, first strike is very hot.
Unearth-This is amazing in hte deck. After you Supplicant, you can grab an Archon or a Rotlung that you saced to keep the beats going.
Duress-Disruption
Hymn to Tourach-disruption again
Scion of Darkness-The beat stick. When he hits the board, it gets painful.
Shepard of Rot-Shepard is nice after you sac 3 clerics witha Rotlung out, dealing four a turn.
Withered Wretch-Gro and thresh tech.

Typically, you play out your clerics, grab Scion, and bash for a lot with Rotlung tokens and the Scion. This is straight beat down, with a little hand disruption to give a better match up to combo. Generally, you're willing to trade, becasue most of the time you'll be getting a new guy off of a Rotlung.

[Rastadon]

Cabal Therapy. You've got creatures, a lot of them and it's got synergy with Rotlung. 4x 'em.

I'd try to find a spot for Jitte. From what I hear, it's kind of good.

[Cavius The Great]

I think that any mono-colored deck, especially black ones, should be running 4 Wasteland. The tempo boost is Ha-mazing. I also think you should up your land count to 22.

P.S. @ Rastadon - Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies. ;)

[Bane of the Living]

Take out Unearth for Aether Vial.

There are 24 creatures in the deck. 4 Therapies and 4 Vials will go a long way.

[SillyMetalGAT]

Im surprised to see no Unholy Grotto in this deck... But yeah, Vial would be REALLY good for this deck.

[Angel of Despair]

I played around with a deck that was a lot like this. I played Confidant in it though. Maybe you could make room for him. It looks pretty good though, especially if you put the Vial in. Uncounterable creatures are pretty tech from what I hear. Jitte is pretty awesome too. I ran that over vial, but I also had less creatures.

[scrumdogg]

The deck doesn't need Vial, but I do wonder why the Unearths (good card btw) aren't a permanent version? Oath of Ghouls or Oversold Cemetary? Same thing with the Unholy Grottos, as maybe a 2 of, recursion puts the deck up at least half a tier & means that when you sac to avoid an STP or with damage on the stack you get another chance to play those things :) 4x Cabal Therapy + 4x Hymn + recurring zombie/clerics could push this sucker into Tier 1.5 or better.... Gratz on the finish anyway, what gave you problems in the tourney itself? What difficulties in general have you noticed while playing the deck?

[Angel of Despair]

The deck doesn't need Vial, but I do wonder why the Unearths (good card btw) aren't a permanent version? Oath of Ghouls or Oversold Cemetary? Same thing with the Unholy Grottos, as maybe a 2 of, recursion puts the deck up at least half a tier & means that when you sac to avoid an STP or with damage on the stack you get another chance to play those things :) 4x Cabal Therapy + 4x Hymn + recurring zombie/clerics could push this sucker into Tier 1.5 or better.... Gratz on the finish anyway, what gave you problems in the tourney itself? What difficulties in general have you noticed while playing the deck?

Thanks Al! here's a link to my deck. Carrion Feeder is the man! I think he will be good with Dark Suplicant, or better than... forgive me, but I don't know how to put a proper link in... http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showt...ght=DeadRising

[n00bas4urus_r3x]

this is my buddie's deck, so i dont know all the ins and outs of it, but ive played against it and with it a lot. it seems to me, that although therapy would really fit, what is to be cut? duress is usually a hit against every deck, and hymn is amazing. screwing with the creature base can mess up consistancy, so maybe unearth should be cut. the discard is mostly in just to slow your opponent for the first couple of turns while you get set up, so maybe therapy would be a better board card. solidarity and other combo decks are mediocre match ups, and the extra discard would be solid, especially when you know what you have to hit. As for vial, i really dont think that it would add that much to the deck. Rarely do you ever find yourself mana screwed, and more often then naught you find yourself empty handed. As for jitte, although it is uber in its own right, the deck doesnt need it. i think jitte would improve the deck late game, but this thing steam rolls early on, and jitte just isnt needed.

As for match ups, from what i gathered about my friend's play testing, the deck is fairly good against most top tier 1.5 decks. THe only it had in the tournement were to solidarity and angel stompy, and with chalice in the SB, the solidarity match up would be improved some. the loss to angle stompy came from a mana screw, and then god draws from AS the next game.

Grave yard recursion tomorrow, sleepy time now

[Eldariel]

Unearth is definately a must, since it recurs the deck's MVP, Rotlung. Shepherd does decently at dealing damage, but I wonder if there weren't a better option in terms of creature combat. On the other hand, it seems like the only other 2-caster black Cleric with an ass of 2 is Disciple of Malice, which is horrible.

Reanimate is an interesting option,it can get back cycled Scion in addition to reanimating your Rotlungs and Cabal Archons. Chrome Mox could be useful, as the deck only has 4 1-drop creatures and 4 Rituals, giving it some more can never hurt. SB Dystopia?

I've personally always preferred Bw Clerics for Benevolent Bodyguard, Weathered Wayfarer (good for getting the recursion-cards, and I guess, Maze of Ith) and some more options (Vindicate, etc.). Do you find you ever have trouble with SB Plagues or something? I mean, it looks like you basically need a Scion or Rotlung, if you plan on not getting boned by Plague.

[Goblin Snowman]

Reanimate is an interesting option,it can get back cycled Scion in addition to reanimating your Rotlungs and Cabal Archons. Chrome Mox could be useful, as the deck only has 4 1-drop creatures and 4 Rituals, giving it some more can never hurt. SB Dystopia?

I've personally always preferred Bw Clerics for Benevolent Bodyguard, Weathered Wayfarer (good for getting the recursion-cards, and I guess, Maze of Ith) and some more options (Vindicate, etc.). Do you find you ever have trouble with SB Plagues or something? I mean, it looks like you basically need a Scion or Rotlung, if you plan on not getting boned by Plague.

Not to mention Mom, True Believer, and Glowrider. What do they Plague, Clerics or Zombies?

[Cavius The Great]

The deck doesn't need Vial, but I do wonder why the Unearths (good card btw) aren't a permanent version? Oath of Ghouls or Oversold Cemetary? Same thing with the Unholy Grottos, as maybe a 2 of, recursion puts the deck up at least half a tier & means that when you sac to avoid an STP or with damage on the stack you get another chance to play those things :) 4x Cabal Therapy + 4x Hymn + recurring zombie/clerics could push this sucker into Tier 1.5 or better.... Gratz on the finish anyway, what gave you problems in the tourney itself? What difficulties in general have you noticed while playing the deck?

I agree Vial sucks. It's a waste of a slot IMO.

[Goblin Snowman]

it seems to me, that although therapy would really fit, what is to be cut? duress is usually a hit against every deck, and hymn is amazing.

Except Goblins, and Theropy can randomly smash Combo with a creatures. I'd run Theropy + Duress or Threopy + Hymn

screwing with the creature base can mess up consistancy, so maybe unearth should be cut. the discard is mostly in just to slow your opponent for the first couple of turns while you get set up, so maybe therapy would be a better board card.

Unearth is very solid, but I would like to see Reanimate tried in it's place, just for Scion and their creatures. With eight Discard, and a farily fst clock, Combo isn't that bad.

[scrumdogg]

Therapy + creatures (especially recurring creatures) + hymn > duress + hymn + creatures > just hymn + creatures. Therapy hits every matchup in the universe unless you are completely new to the format or just off the short bus. Duress, while a great sideboard card, is dead against Goblins (which are everywhere...). But without at least 8 discard effects or other serious disruption Game 1 vs combo is an autoloss. That seems to be unacceptable if people are to take this deck seriously. Again. no one has addressed the questions of why no Unholy Grotto & why 1 shot recursion as opposed to permanent recursion? I am interested in the opinion of those who play the deck or have tested it why these points would not upgarde the deck.

[Vardaman]

Actually, he could try out Duress + Cabal Therapy instead of Duress + Hymn. You'll hit pretty well with Therapy and it should help your curve out. You have a ton of two drops but maybe it's not a problem.

[scrumdogg]

The problem comes back to getting mximum disruption for value paid with a minimum amount of deadtime for the card. Goblins is popular for 3 main reasons A) wicked powerful - rampant cheating synergy combine with Turn 3 wins & redundancy & forgiveness of play mistakes B) easy to build (optimized lists & room for customization) & learn C) cheap to build (relatively) & playable in other formats with the core of the deck. Ergo, a card that is dead 87% of the time against one the best & most popular decks in the format seems like a bad maindeck choice. Also, comparing Duress & Hymn, I would rather hit 2 random cards out of their hand early than 1 choice (or lack of choice if it whiffs). The ability to randomly steal land/mana is huge, especially if you can back that up with pressure, which this deck does. Even mid-late game, when both become less than stellar against anything except combo, removing the 2 land they held in hand to bluff spells not only exposes their scheme, but denies them the resource. One further minor point, in the event of CotV, you are going to get hit for 1 a lot more often & a lot sooner than CotV: 2.

[Vardaman]

Duress is still fine against pretty much every other deck out there and it really helps your Therapy hits. It has the side benefit of helping out his curve.

I'm not denying that Hymn is amazing and randomly hitting their lands in hand is great, I'm just presenting another option.

[Bane of the Living]

One further minor point, in the event of CotV, you are going to get hit for 1 a lot more often & a lot sooner than CotV: 2.

Absolutely. Chalice is becoming more and more popular. I wouldnt run more than 12 1cc cards in a deck unless I was thresh. Chalice will get you, and mono black has no answer.

I actually won a game against Solidarity the other night after dropping CotV @ 1,2, and 3. A day or so before I won a game against deadguy with CotV @ 1 and 2. Best win condition ever.

[Citrus-God]

Absolutely. Chalice is becoming more and more popular. I wouldnt run more than 12 1cc cards in a deck unless I was thresh. Chalice will get you, and mono black has no answer.

I actually won a game against Solidarity the other night after dropping CotV @ 1,2, and 3. A day or so before I won a game against deadguy with CotV @ 1 and 2. Best win condition ever.

Jake gave me his latest list before he left the tournament. The Maindeck stayed the same, but he does have Chalices in the SB. I'm pretty sure he would side Unearth and Dark Supplicants out.

[valor]

Would I be completely off base suggesting Oath of Ghouls in this deck?
I was working on U/W/B aggro control deck involving Oath and when I saw this it seemed like another good place to make that card actually work.