[Standard] Budget Mono Black Zombies

[ComingUpCway84]

Budget Mono Black Zombies

My take on an aggressive Mono black budget deck for Amonkhet Standard. The deck isn't fully optimized- the omission of Relentless Dead (a necessary evil, considering the ludicrous amount of money a playset costs now) takes away some of the natural resilience that other zombie decks have going for them. However, Metallic Mimic isn't a bad replacement, and probably the best part of this deck is that it can be customized into any of the other zombie decks running around with relative ease, just by switching out some playsets here and there. It's a reasonably competitive and really fun deck to play, and if you're looking for a decent budget build I'd highly recommend it!

[G. Moto]

 Honestly the deck isn't bad, it seems basic as a springboard for designing other zombie decks. But the one thing I don't think should be in this deck is the scrapheap scrounger. Reason being is because it takes away from that valuable resource that is your graveyard instead of adding resilience to your graveyard play. Like if you had diregraf colossus then you'd have a zombie token engine if you combo it with dread wanderer as an example.

[ComingUpCway84]

Much obliged, and yeah, this is basically the cheapest, most bare-bones Zombie deck you could probably build in the current meta, but it allows you to branch off into just about any other Zombie strategy you want without too much effort. But I'd have to disagree about Scrapheap Scrounger, namely because this deck honestly doesn't care as much about the graveyard as other Zombie decks do. If I lose a Cryptbreaker, or a Plague Belcher- two cards that are absolute removal magnets- the deck has no way of recurring them (barring two sideboard slots). Scrapheap Scrounger is a two drop that lets me swing for at least 5 on turn three, and gives the deck some of the resiliency it's sorely lacking without Relentless Dead, letting me actually recover from a Sweltering Suns rather than scoop to it. Honestly, if I were to replace anything with Diregraf Colossus it'd probably be a couple of Metallic Mimics- which is actually worth a try, as the Mimics are great, but they're the worst lord effect in the deck.

[ComingUpCway84]

Also, Diregraf doesn't actually work with Dread Wanderer. Diregraf triggers on casting, but the Wanderer is just returned to play with it's ability.

[G. Moto]

  So why not consider adding graf harvest. It's a 1 drop that gives all your zombies MENACE. Also you can still exile creatures from your grave if you want but it gives you a strong board state AND it gives you a Zombie token where (if you have the lord of the accursed and the metal artifact creature) then your 2/2 creature token turns into a 4/4 Zombie. Any thoughts?

[ComingUpCway84]

I could maybe see that working? I don't know, Graf Harvest is cheap, but it's also terrible in multiples. I agree that Menace is powerful, and might give my zombies an edge against other, more expensive decks; but Lord of the Accursed does the same thing. I could maybe see myself swapping it in as a 1-of in exchange for one of my Scroungers.

[G. Moto]

Thank you for the heads up on dread wanderer, so it wouldn't trigger diregraf colossus but it WOULD trigger wayward servant. That's good to know. Also going back to the graf harvest; even though lord of the accursed does the same thing, not many people run enchantment destruction. That in itself could serve as an advantage to you because a creature body is easier to destroy then a spell people wouldn't expect.