[EDH / Commander] Varina, Lich Queen Zombies

[Damian Nocturne]

Varina, Lich Queen Zombies

Zombie tribal.
Few combos, possible mill or going very wide.

Mana base needs some work.
Suggestions welcomed:

[Ylhyssia]

Right off the bat you don't have neeaaaarly enough lands.

Your average CMC is 3.54, you should never go under 36 lands with this average CMC, maybe even 37.

All my decks are under 3 average cmc and only one of them runs 35 lands, all the others run 36. With your current manabase you'll be missing land drops like crazy, and your deck will most likely be way too slow.

I'd also work on reducing your curve, if I were you. I personally like to keep my average cmc as close to 3 as possible (and even under, if I can) to ensure my deck will be fast enough, and to ensure I have enough 1-3 CMC cards to reliably always play a card on turns 1-3.

Obvious stuff you're missing, at first glance:

Sol Ring
Dimir Signet
Azorius Signet (instead of the 2 lockets).
If you'd like other cheap mana rocks, Prismatic Lens, Fellwar Stone and Mind Stone are all 2 CMC, and would be better than manalith (I'd almost suggest you add all of them, since you have no access to Ramp due to playing an Esper deck, running more mana rocks is usually recommended so you can have some type of acceleration).
For more draw, Ponder and Preordain are usually staples.
Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares for removal.
Counterspell, Swan Song and Arcane Denial for cheaper counters.

Things I'd personally cut:

Greed (I personally prefer Arguel's Blood Fast, personally, as it comes into play earlier, this would reduce your curve and would give you a draw on turn 3 potentially, instead of turn 5).
Cruel Revival, Devious Cover-Up and Killing Glare all seem rather expensive. My personal removal choices would be Hero's Downfall, Anguished Unmaking, and you're also missing the obvious Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile as stated above, which again would massively reduce your curve.

Otherwise it also seems like most of your reanimation brings your cards back to your hand, which means not only will you have to spend mana to use those reanimation spells, you'll also have to cast your creatures again. Finding cards that bring creatures back to the battlefield would most likely help this deck be faster as well.

[Judaspriester]

Ylhyssia already mentioned some important points, so I'm just writing some additions:
Another good (and cheap) counterspell is  Split Decision. Its a little dependant on the playgroup, but usually you get the spell countered (especially at win conditions) or you can grap some value.

For removal I love Curtains' Call. At the first look it raises your manacurve, but since the effective cmc goes down with the number of players, you can remove 2 creatures for just 3 mana in a 4 player game.

Then, what about Diabolic Tutor? Its expensive manawise, but very afordable and allows you to grap any card.

If you want to go wide, Bident of Thassa could help to get some card draw.  Wayward Servant and Throne of the God-Pharaoh could also be interesting if you want to go wide.

If you really want to play Phylactery Lich, you should have some indestructible artifacts.  Darksteel Citadel, Darksteel Ingot would be the obvious choices here. Darksteel Relic would also work, but I don't think its worth adding.

This reminds me to another very good card: Darksteel Mutation. If used on a opponents commander or other key creature, this card can hurt some decks way more than just removing it, since they have to exile their own creature or need some enchantment removal (non existent for Red and Black, blue could just bounce to get rid of it).

[Mmtkbb_30]

I agree with Ylhyssia, your curve is way high. From what I’ve learned playing Varina, she wants cheap spells and zombies for the most part that can take advantage of her discard ability.  Save the higher cost spells for finishers like rise of the dark realms. You can check out my Varina deck. It functions pretty well. Some things I’m even thinking about doing is pulling unearth for enlightened tutor, and moan of the unhallowed for well of lost dreams to try and take advantage of her life gain ability as well.

[Damian Nocturne]

Thank you all for the feedback, this is my first commander deck I've made from scratch.

Once payday rolls in I was gonna add in cards such as sol ring. I've played this deck a few times it is very slow compared to everyone else in my playgroup, then again most of theirs are pre cons but upgraded/refined.
I'm still trying to get a grasp on how to use Varina properly. Most of the cards I've put together were just what was laying about.

The more I look at this deck I wonder if I should drop down to Dimir colours(with something like Gisa and Geralf) than Esper though most of the likes of enchantment removal is in white, which is quite big in some of my playgroups decks.

Thank you again for the feedback Ylhyssia, Judaspriester, Mmtkbb_30 it's really helped me seeing where I can improve as I'm not a big commander builder.

[Judaspriester]

You're welcome.

Btw, if you want to invest a little more money in your deck, you could also improve your land base. Cut the tap lands and replace them with check lands (Glacial Fortress, Drowned Catacomb, Isolated Chapel) and battle lands (Prairie Stream, Sunken Hollow). That should already speed up the deck, since you have a lesser amount of lands that enter tapped.
Painlands (Adarkar Wastes, Underground River and Caves of Koilos) would also be a budget option, but I personally don't like them that much.

Oh, I've just noticed that your deck lacks a cheap and important land: Command Tower.

[Ylhyssia]

Welcome, I'm always happy to help

I've played this deck a few times it is very slow compared to everyone else in my playgroup, then again most of theirs are pre cons but upgraded/refined.

Reducing your curve, adding more mana rocks, ramp, and draw will make this deck go a lot faster. Also if you can get zombies on the board really fast (which is why 1-3 drops are important), you can start using varina on turn 3-4 to start digging through your deck and sending stuff to your graveyard.

I'm still trying to get a grasp on how to use Varina properly.

Varina isn't easy to pilot, far from it, but she's extremely rewarding, and can be played in multiple ways. You can use her discard ability to send creatures to the graveyard if you want to make a reanimation deck, or you can use her discard ability to your advantage (Archfiend of Ifnir, Library of Leng) or she can be built as a zombie token deck pretty effectively due to her 2nd ability. She can simply be used as a kind of toolbox commander as well, where you use her ability to discard cards that aren't really useful right now, and go get more useful stuff by digging, and simply use the cards in your yard to make zombies; your graveyard then becomes fuel for your commander. She can also be built as a combo deck from what I've seen (Gravecrawler, Nim Deathmantle, etc.).

[Damian Nocturne]

You're welcome.

Btw, if you want to invest a little more money in your deck, you could also improve your land base. Cut the tap lands and replace them with check lands (Glacial Fortress, Drowned Catacomb, Isolated Chapel) and battle lands (Prairie Stream, Sunken Hollow). That should already speed up the deck, since you have a lesser amount of lands that enter tapped.
Painlands (Adarkar Wastes, Underground River and Caves of Koilos) would also be a budget option, but I personally don't like them that much.

Oh, I've just noticed that your deck lacks a cheap and important land: Command Tower.

I've got a few of them but they're in other decks, though I am looking to get more such cards.
Thought maybe risking Cabal Stronghold because the black mana is quite a lot.

[Damian Nocturne]

Welcome, I'm always happy to help

I've played this deck a few times it is very slow compared to everyone else in my playgroup, then again most of theirs are pre cons but upgraded/refined.

Reducing your curve, adding more mana rocks, ramp, and draw will make this deck go a lot faster. Also if you can get zombies on the board really fast (which is why 1-3 drops are important), you can start using varina on turn 3-4 to start digging through your deck and sending stuff to your graveyard.

I'm still trying to get a grasp on how to use Varina properly.

Varina isn't easy to pilot, far from it, but she's extremely rewarding, and can be played in multiple ways. You can use her discard ability to send creatures to the graveyard if you want to make a reanimation deck, or you can use her discard ability to your advantage (Archfiend of Ifnir, Library of Leng) or she can be built as a zombie token deck pretty effectively due to her 2nd ability. She can simply be used as a kind of toolbox commander as well, where you use her ability to discard cards that aren't really useful right now, and go get more useful stuff by digging, and simply use the cards in your yard to make zombies; your graveyard then becomes fuel for your commander. She can also be built as a combo deck from what I've seen (Gravecrawler, Nim Deathmantle, etc.).

My idea was roughly reanimation and token maker if there was graveyard hate.
I'm more of a mill/combo player so trying to use the graveyard as an another resource is something I'm trying to get better at.
Aminatou, the Fateshifter is the other commander deck I use and find that easier to pilot as I've made that into blink-combo nonsense.

I think I need to refine and focus on a theme instead of just putting things in because they're zombies, might have to take Varina back to drawing board and remake.

[Soren841]

If it's removal you need, bounce spells are always good. Chain of Vapor and Cyclonic Rift especially. You've also got Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift in your colors

[Judaspriester]

I've got a few of them but they're in other decks, though I am looking to get more such cards.
Thought maybe risking Cabal Stronghold because the black mana is quite a lot.

Keep in mind, that you need 5 basic swamps on the battlefield to get some value out of Cabal Stronghold. With "just" 18 in deck and no land ramp, I dont think its a good deal (just checked: ~2% chance to draw the stronghold + 5 swamps until turn 10).
But speaking about this great amount of swamps, Tainted Field and Tainted Isle could be interesting for colorfixing.

@Soren I agree with you, but I think at least Cyclonic Rift is way out of budget. Just checked on Cardmarket, ~12€ for Cyclonic. Thats ~1/2 of the current deck price.

[Soren841]

The deck is $50. Cyclonic Rift is not $25. You can get a Near Mint Japanese Rift for $16 on TCGPlayer

[Judaspriester]

The deck is $50. Cyclonic Rift is not $25. You can get a Near Mint Japanese Rift for $16 on TCGPlayer

Well, I've checked the european prices. Here it shows Miracle Games (a german shop) and Card Market (marketplace). For me it says ~50€ worth at Miracle, or ~7€ at Card Market (assuming the cheapest available cards). From my experience the real deck price is approximately in the middle of those 2 prices, or in our case ~28€.
Okay, 12€ (average Card Market price) isn't the half of the deck price, but its still a very expensive card compared to the deck price.

[Soren841]

Still doesn't make Rift expensive it makes the deck cheap, which makes sense if he built it from cards he had lying around.

[Damian Nocturne]

Chain of Vapor and Cyclonic Rift are something I might look at adding. Though Pongify and Rapid Hybridization I'm unsure of in my playgroup but might be a good swap than killing glare.

Thank you!