Wild zombies!

[Shabbaman]

I'm building decks out of the piles of cards I have, and one of my main goals is to build a zombie deck. Because of Carnophage and Sarcomancy, zombies are often associated with sui black. If you take that route you'd end up with a bad sui deck with 3 different Lords that just loses to goblins. There are some pretty good control cards in the zombie tribe though.

My first draft (well, second draft, the first draft had skullclamps, but I decided to keep it legacy legal):

4 Graveborn muse
4 Rotlung reanimator
4 withered wretch
1 Fleshbag marauder
3 Death baron
4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
1 cabal interrogator
1 lord of the undead
1 twisted abomination
1 balthor
4 carrion feeder


2 Jitte
4 dark ritual
4 Cabal therapy
4 aether vial
2 unholy grotto
1 leechridden swamp
15 swamp

Despite the rotlungs I think this doesn't really have a lot of recursion. So I wanted something with Haakon and knights, and then I got to something with madness cards for card advantage: Grave scrabbler is pretty good in recurring. So, Zombie infestation it is. Squee could be there.

2 Haakon
4 Undead gladiator
1 stillmoon cavalier
4 stromgald crusader
1 Fleshbag marauder
2 Grave scrabbler
3 Death baron
4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
1 lord of the undead
1 carrion feeder

2 jitte
4 Psychotic episode
4 Zombie infestation
4 Cabal therapy
4 aether vial
2 unholy grotto
1 Urborg
1 leechridden swamp
15 swamp

What do you think?

EDIT: OK, new decklist.

1 Haakon
4 Undead gladiator
4 carrion feeder
1 withered wretch
1 Twisted abomination
1 gempalm polluter
4 stromgald crusader
1 Fleshbag marauder
1 Grave scrabbler
4 Death baron
4 Tidehollow sculler
4 Shambling remains
1 lord of the undead

1 jitte
4 Cabal therapy
4 aether vial
2 unholy grotto
1 Badlands
1 Scrublands
4 Bloodstained mire
12 swamp

Carrion feeder is there to sacrifice the unearthed shamblings remains to, plus Tidehollow sculler shenanigans. The Twisted a-bomb and gempal will go if I (ever) get more jittes.

The rotlungs go into this list:

2 Scion of darkness
4 Cabal archon
4 Dark supplicant
1 Twisted abomination
4 Fleshbag marauder
4 doomed necromancer
4 rotlung reanimator
4 Shepherd of Rot
4 withered wretch

2 Living dead
4 Grave pact

2 unholy grotto
21 swamp

I'm going to try the Dark supplicant/Scion/necromancer setup. If I'm unhappy with it I think I'll go with V.D. and Tombstone stairwell instead.

 

[BigBlue]

My Zombie deck includes (I don't have it right here so I can't do a full decklist)

Tombstone Stairwell - makes lots of zombies every turn! (and kills them too!)
Vengeful Dead - see how it works well w/ the Stairwell!
Scavenging Ghoul is decent.

Other than that it includes ways to put things into graveyards and other "fun" zombies... If a person owned Kabal Ghouls... well, it'd get ugly fast, but I don't own any myself.

I use Zombie infestation in a buried alive deck w/ Nether Shadows et all.

EDIT - Also Noxious Ghoul - to kill off other creatures quickly.

And I found a thread to an earlier version of my deck here too... (from 2003 - Wowzers!)

http://www.casualplayers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11779

 

[Shabbaman]

Tombstone stairwell is nice, but it's also pretty slow. Good for multiplayer, but this time I want to build something for single player. Gibbering descent would be awesome in a madness/stairwell build though. But it's no zombie

 

[BigBlue]

Well, I only ever play MP... Well only did anyways, our playgroup shut down a long long time ago...

Now it's the one or two games w/ my sons every once in a while.

 

[Shabbaman]

Gibbering descent would be awesome in a madness/stairwell build though.

I figured out it's a real bombo.

When Ravnica was freshly released I had a zombie tribal deck on magic online. Twenty zombies, 4 of which where Shambling shell. Plus 4 Grave pacts and 4 Golgari germination. Unfortunately tribal pretty much sucks in the modern standard

 

[Shabbaman]

I think this thread could be merged with this. A little thread necromancy is appropriate

Anyway, for the deck with Korlash I decided to go with a pretty standard MBC lookalike:

4 hymn to tourach
4 duress
4 innocent Blood
2 smother
3 Staff of Domination
3 Damnation
3 tendrils of Corruption
1 profane command
2 Nevynirral's disk
1 haunting echoes
1 Grim harvest
4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
1 Undead gladiator
1 Helldozer
1 Fleshbag marauder

19 swamp
4 cabal Coffers
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Unholy Grotto

I think I'll go for a multiplayer deck with all the cycling zombies and Tombstone stairwell, perhaps Living death (because I have two...), Rotlung reanimator, Withered wretch and Doomed necromancer (to get the expensive zombies into play and/or to make tokens). Then a Pox deck with Haakon and friends, Zombie infestation and Squee. And finally a straight sui black deck with Aether vial, Carnophage, Sarcomancy and all the lords I can find.

Then I'll have 4 zombie decks, which should satisfy my zombie needs until eternity. Or I could split the cycling/tombstone deck and the rotlung deck into two, hm...

 

[BigBlue]

I was thinking about the stairwell deck, and I'm thinking it should have some Dredge stuff in it - like darkblast to get stuff into the gy faster when wanted...

 

[Shabbaman]

Dredge is good, but Darkblast, well, hm. It's okay against weenie hordes, but it doesn't dredge enough cards to make it worthwile. I think Stinkweed imp (blocks flyers = good) or Golgari grave-troll are more worthy. The troll fits the theme, although it's not a zombie. Shambling shell is, but it dredges for 3 (like darkblast). Pretty good together with Grave pact (or Savra).

It's also easy to splash green, with Riftstone portal for example. Or if you have duals, simply Twisted abomination.