[Standard] Blue-Black Zombies

[Occultist]

  Tell you what, I'm going to work on building a U/B Zombie deck as well. I'm going to personally play a version of it myself the next time I go to an FNM Tournament and I'll show you that U/B Zombies is a deck to be feared. This I promise you.

I'll be very interested to read about it in detail...

Hi there.

first of all, i'm not a experimented MTG player, i've been playing since last year, so keep that in mind before you consider what i'm going to say.

I posted a very similar deck some days ago, i brought that deck into a FNM and the main issue of my version (http://deck.tk/4EqA7Eus) was that the mechanic was terribly slow for working and very, VERY mana hungry, but, beside that, some things were really interesting to consider, like:

- You ALWAYS want Stichwing Skaab on your graveyard. 3-1 flying creature for 2 mana was OK, but bringing Amalgam back every single time was interesting.

- Nagging Thoughts and Sinister Concoction was a fine way to put zombies (Specially Amalgam and Stichwing Skaab) on my graveyard in my early stage. You don't want them on your hand forever and wait for Liliana's +2 was terribly slow. (Nagging with Liliana +2 was interesting also)

- The early i got Forgotten Creation on play, the better Diregraf Colossus became.

- In my online version i don't have her, but on FNM i tried Sidisi, Undead Vizier over Geralf's Masterpiece and she was just awesome against something really strong and frequent on my local meta and so hard to manage to my UB before her: Reality Smasher. And against RG Ramp, Vizier stops WorldBreaker, Reality Smasher and let you find on time your Infinite Obliteration for Ulamog.

- Nantuko and Relentless Dead worked awesome on my opponent's final step, by sacrificing Relentless on Nantuko's ability and returning him to my hand and any zombie to my battlefield with Amalgams together. (I played FNM with 2 nantuko and 2 Forgotten Creation).

I win just 1 game, Draw 1 and lose 2 (1-2 on the score), and the main thing to improve to the next FNM is to fill my graveyard quickly, and for that, i will try Sultai (i know you don't want to go 3 colors, but this changes seems to improve my main detected weakness, maybe they will make sense to you too), with this modifications:

- 4 Gather the pack over 4 Nagging thoughts. (i've been testing this and it rocks. Best scenarios are Diregraf Colossus 4/4 or 5/5 on turn 3 or Stichwing Skaab + 1 or 2 amalgams on battlefield on turn 3)
- 2 Forgotten Creation away for 2 Mindwrack Demon (yeah, is not a zombie, but helps you to fill your graveyard and is a real threat on your battlefield, mainly because it survives languish, kills Gideon, survives first Avacyn and with the new strategy, delirium is easy to get)
- I'll use 3 Lilianas instead of 4, and i will go with 1 Kiora. She does exactly what you need on this strategy and she is even able to untap your Stitchwings returned from your graveyard and make them cost only 1 mana.
- Take away Risen executioner and go with full playset of Stichwing Skaab.
- 2 Nantuko Husk over 2 Forgotten Creation.
- 2 Main Languish, or 1 main and 2 sideboard. (It seems it hurts you a lot, but the fact is that you have a really nice comeback strategy, and i wasn't able to fill my battlefield better than humans or CoCo's decks. I brought 1 on my SB on FNM and cleaning the field was easier to recover for my than my opponents).
- Take Sinister Concoction away and add a third Grasp of Darkness and 1 Evolutionary Leap (relentless dead with this? Yes, please!).

I'll post my new version soon, maybe it will help you and naturally, any advice would be nice in return

See you.

You seem to be struggling over making this deck actually work. I'd very much like to see this deck making it into competitive status - FNM will do. Your ideas are also interesting but I can't resolve a deck that makes all of this work, personally. I have to ditch stuff to put something working in and the deck ends up lacking again...
Please do post if you come up with something that pulls off wins at FNM...(I'm more interested in sticking to just U/B, though)

[G. Moto]

   @Dave274, Thank you for your support buddy it's really appreciated what you are doing. When you get the deck uploaded on this site I'd also like to take a look at it.

[Dave274]

@GMoto: You're welcome buddy, this is what i'll bring into FNM this week. I'll test it this days and try to fix the best i can before that, but it would be nice to have some opinions first  

http://deck.tk/4GZz1S2p

@Occultist: Yeah, the lack of a nice 1 drop hurts a lot to this idea, and find and actual improve is difficult. I like this deck idea and i will keep on trying to find a best way to handle it. Meanwhile, check my list above, maybe something good could be gotten of that

[Occultist]

I'm still kinda working on this particular deck (see link above).
I'm thinking that following those that cry "U/B Zombies should be flooding with Creatures and you should just use 10 spells and 22 Lands" are speaking out of their...well, you know They're probably playing a very different deck and/or colors and have a pretty vague (and wrong idea) about how to implement a somewhat competitive version of U/B Zombies.
I like to use 24 Lands, because you either have to self mill at some point, get over dual color filtering and, most importantly, use some mana intensive recipe by mid to late game. Missing early land drops would also hurt too much to the consistent pressure factor this deck idea relies on...
Yeah, I definitely DON'T think viable U/B Zombies is an aggro deck at all. And Zombies are NOT Goblins...And that being said, you have to support the going wide or recurring or demonizing (or combo) plan to victory, by playing a relevant amount of non-creature spells. So I'm thinking of going the 50-50 route, with a little edge for Creatures.

I was also thinking to try maindecking the Gravepurge + Liliana's Indignation combo (2+2 ?), which seems a good idea, given you actually don't mind filling up the Graveyard with this deck...
Do you think it's too situational or lacking in a big way to even consider for competitive (FNM)?

I'm also playing a 4x counters in Sideboard. Do you think it would be a good idea to mainboard them, since there is a lot of stinky White removal and Planeswalkers play going on?
I'm currently using 4x Negate, because removal (of any color, but mostly White Exile shit) and Planeswalkers are natural enemies to this deck. But I wouldn't mind to shut down an Archangel Avacyn while still having options against removal...So I was also considering getting rid of 4x Negate s and adding 4x Clash of Wills...The format is pretty curvy atm, so I would be practically countering everything for 2 or 3 mana, which I can somehow afford by the way the deck works...(or not...)

I would appreciate your opinion on the above...

Edit : Scrap the Indignation thing. I adjusted the whole deck so it can be lower curve and more pressing.

[Occultist]

I recently made changes to include new and convenient EMN stuff and tuned the deck to be somewhat more aggressive. It feels a little strange to me, because I'm not used to such creature counts, but I see that's the general idea going on for the specific deck archetype over the net. And I hear it has worked for similar decks in the past too...

You can check ->here<- and share your thoughts.

[Dave274]

I've been trying UB now , with all the new stuffs from EMN, that is god damn awesome, but i'm trying something that has worked a LOT better than i thought, making really scary my turn four and taking advantage of some i found was annoying at the first sight: overpopulation of 3 cmc.

23 lands (4 sunk, 4 Choked, 2 Geier Reach Sanitarium, 1 Westvale Abbey, 11 Swamps and 1 Island).

26 creatures:

4 Cryptbreaker
4 Relentless Dead
4 Diregraf Colossus
4 Prized Amalgam
2 Nantuko Husk
4 Gisa And Geralf
4 DISTENDED MINDBENDER

11 Spells:
4 Compelling deterrence
3 Liliana, The Last Hope
2 Dark Salvation
2 Graf Harvest (Or 1 Graf Harvest and 1 Behind the Scenes, i'm not sure yet).

Here's the thing: 10 creatures with cmc 3 means 10 chances of getting a Distended Mindbender on turn 4 for 4 cmc (Emerge Cost is 5BB), and taking away 2 cards of your choice from your opponent's hand and put a 5/5 body after that is just awesome.

The deck has got a nice curve now and compelling deterrence has become a real thing, considering Ormendahl, Emerge, Demonic Pact, Meld and PW's.

I'm not sure yet about the enchantments, because Graf Harvest makes your zombies an unstoppable army, but Behind the Scenes under certain circumstances makes your army unblockable and i've found a little trick there, not that easy to play but well, you decide: If Behind the Scenes is in play, you may give Liliana's +1 to YOUR OWN Nantuko Husk, turning it into a 0/1 creature WITH SKULK, because of the enchantment. Well, the rest is self explanatory .   

I'm still working on my sideboard. Advanced Stitchwing works fine, Fleshbag Marauder works better for me from the sideboard, given the amount of token decks around, negate is a must, at least 2 of them, so is Infinite Obliteration (2). I have one Sidisi, Undead Vizier too, considering she stops Reality Smasher and WorldBreaker just fine and let me find Obliteration quickly and even 2 Languish, considering that your comeback is way more efficient than CoCo decks, but well, i can't figure how the meta will change, so this is an open debate.

I'd really love some feedback on this idea. Maybe some of them could work for you too. Distended Mindbender is a thing, you'll see

[G. Moto]

   Though it may be true that Zombies are not Goblins, it does work in your favor that the new Eldritch Moon set has released some aggressive zombies. Also the support cards are really good. For example, Gavony unhallowed combo with indulgent aristocrat makes for a good sac engine. Especially if you add haunted dead to the mix. Sure you'll be discarding cards but you'll get two fresh new bodies to drop and it'll fill up your grave for Liliana's Elite (a personal favorite of mine). Also heavy straight from the deck mill can be brutal sometimes so maybe having Macabre waltz (because you can discard ANYTHING) and cemetery recruitment are valuable choices. Just some thoughts, if you're going to be playing the graveyard try and use it to its fullest, almost as if it's a second hand.

[Dave274]

I've got third on FNM and won a local tournament on thursday with the same people . Finally i'm getting closer to a competitive zombie brew. I check this video during the week ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3YvBkpzPEs )and took some ideas to improve my own, particulary trying Haunted Dead over Advanced Stitchwing and the results were nice.

This was my deck: 24 lands (4 sunken hollow, 4 choked estuary, 11 swamp, 1 island, 2 geier reach sanitarium, 2 westvale abbey)
Creatures: 28
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Relentless Dead
2 Wharf Infiltrator
3 Diregraf Colossus
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Distended Mindbender
4 Haunted Dead.
2 Gisa and Geralf
1 Paria Voldaren (not really as a creature, but it still counts).

Spells: 8
4 Sinister Concoction
2 Dark Salvation
2 Liliana, The Last Hope

SB:
2 Dragonlord Silumgar
3 Negate
2 Languish
2 Fleshbag Marauder
2 Ultimate Price
2 Compelling Deterrence.
2 Infinite Obliteration.

With Cryptbreaker, Wharf infiltrator, Geier Reach Sanitarium and Concoction i've 12 discard outlets to drop Haunted Dead and Amalgams to the GY.

Sinister concoction is able to do almost everything you need, letting me discard key GY pieces, mill for one and can be played far spell queller's radar on turn 1 or 2. So, Dromoka's command? if you ask for enchantment sac and creature fighting, i respond to you destroying your creature first. If you don't, i'll wait until your Queller catch my SB languish or until you drop new Thalia (this shit hurts, i couldn't responde soon and she made me play tapped for a long time, and that was the key to Bant Company didn't let me take his 2 lives away and won me that match, 1-0 final score and begging for the time limit to the referee on g2, just after me cleaning the board and returning my threats, taking him to 6 lives and having lethal with 2 amalgams, haunted dead and spirit token just waiting for my next turn, against a single defender selfless spirit... but i run out of time u.u).

WW was an easy match. 2-0. Liliana just destroys that, and i always was more efficient than WW to fill my board. G1 was i little difficult, but i stabilize when i was on 12 lives, and G2 was easier, lowering my curve without Mindbenders and including fleshbag, ultimate price and Deterrence. The Spirit Token from Haunted Dead as an instant untapped blocker was the key for G1, against Gryffs Boon.

2-0 over Sultai Control. Distended Mindbender and returning threats with Liliana and Haunted Dead+Amalgam after languish were the key on this. Same with Paria Voldaren, taking his few creatures away by sacrificing my tokens.

2-0 over a UB clues, but in this case, the first match, my opponent was kinda new on magic and his deck wasn't finished, so it doesn't count i guess.

I hope this helps, maybe other zombie lovers may found improvements on this. By now, i'm trying to get 2 Lilianas to replace Wharfs, but i'm not sure about that yet. Bye!

[Occultist]

Nice work there, Dave274! I don't know whether it's just your store, but you seem to be giving them a run for their money, alright
I'm trying to stick to my original Zombie driven idea and just made made some adjustments to suit up the mainboard against U/W critters. But the Distended Mindbender has almost sold me after your posts - haha

You can have a look ->here<- and drop some thoughts...

[Dave274]

AHAhahahaha there's always that chance where your deck is doing great just because no one sees it coming, i'm counting with this isn't that case. I'm just arriving from a local tournament and got third, losing 2-1 and winning 2-0, 2-0 , so maybe my deck consistancy is a real thing

I checked at your deck, i like it a lot, it seems more like a tempo deck than mine, so, considering that, maybe i would suggest two things:

Play 4 advanced stitchwing instead of 2, maybe cutting one Gisa and Geralf, or 2 compelling deterrence. Why? cause you have 8 ways to throw them into the GY (cryptbreaker and collective brutality) and i've noticed that they are a real thing when you cast them from your GY, specially when you discard amalgams to take them back, and sounds very possible on turn 3, considering a collective brutality or a token from cryptbreaker on turn 2.

And if you're considering distended mindbender, maybe you may check on elder deep-fiend instead, maybe 2 of them somehow, which you may cast on your turn 4 by sacrificing amalgam, diregraf or a returned stitchwing. This gets even better when you cast it on your opponent's upkeep with flash and tapping all his lands. That's just annoying, full tempo and seems to come along with your idea.

Thanks for your comment and GL with your brew too

[Occultist]

I was thinking over the idea for 4x Advanced Stitchwing, but I think the deck gets flawed if I use even fewer Spells. MAYBE, I should cut down the 2x Risen Executioner for 2x Advanced Stitchwing more, but I like the butcher in this deck too So, keep 2x Advanced and 2x Risen Executioner, as it is, or drop the lords and make it 4x Advanced Stitchwing total? Now that I think of it, wouldn't it be better to make it 2x Advanced Stitchwing and 2x Geralf's Masterpiece? They're same cmc and can be cast with the same ease with 3x Gisa and Geralf, afterall...

[Dave274]

The main issue with Geralf's Masterpiece is taking three cards from your hand to return. Yes, you may get a 7/7 flier and that sounds god damn good on paper, but I tested the four of the main returning threats and, in terms of impact on the table/winning matches, I would arrange them like this:

Haunted Dead -> Advanced Stitchwing -> Stitchwing Skaab -> Geralf's Masterpiece.
1B+2cards      -> 2U+2cards               -> 1U+2cards          -> 3U+3cards

Haunted dead give me 2 bodies, one of them flier and untapped for blocking. That's just crazy.
Adv stitchwing is a nice flier body, which does great against PW, but 3 cmc didn't offer me the versatility that I need on turn 4 and 5.
Skaab is great, i really like it, but in a stage where hangarback walker is still common, dying against a thopter hurts.
Geralf's Masterpiece is a solid end game piece, and I think it should be treated like that, bringing maybe one of it, but it doesn't offer the constant recursion that the others do.

I think the choice will depend on the deck's aim, and for me, Haunted Dead is what I need for sure, but not every zombie deck may be wanting the same I guess

[Occultist]

I'll have to agree to your assessment and probably gonna drop the Risen Executioners and make it 4x Advanced Stitchwing. I believe it curves really good and is more realistic to self-recur. Along with the multiple gy feeders, even from as soon as turn 2, it really makes sense and serves the tempo character of the deck. And I really wanted to make the fatty zombie lord work, but 4 mana, which can be more when Geralf and Gisa isn't around, hurts and it won't even block So...Geralf, probably, wins

[Dave274]

Yeah, maybe. But well, is getting harder to choose among such good options. I've one Risen Executioner, and the more I think of it the more I suspect it might play an interesting role against Bant Company, considering the most of that deck's creatures are x/3 and the matches i've lost against that deck were so tight, making new Thalia the key to stop the rush of zombies who weren't capable of trade one for one against reflector mage, advocate, blocking spell queller, displacer, transformed duskwatch or lambholt pacifist. I think i will make space for it, in my SB at least, and try again.

[Occultist]

Hmm... So, maybe I should keep the current deck list as it is, then...  But now that I think of it...if you exclude the ideal scenario where you manage to somehow set a board against U/W Spirit/Humans and THEN dropping the RIsen Executioner - which is not gonna happen much, just using the 4x Advanced Stitchwing for early gy fill and Prized Amalgams, while being able to self recur fairly easy is just better. Hell, the Risen Executioner can't deal with Thalia by himself, even when you manage to drop him early, which can be tough with his ability. And he can't even block... Whereas a single Advanced Stitchwing...even by turn 3...can thrash her single handed and without support. Damn... 4x Advanced Stitchwing does look sweeter and sweeter!

How about 1-2 Geier Reach Sanitarium, btw? In place of Blighted Fen or a Westvale Abbey?

Edit : Making more changes. Current version ->here<-.