I know you said Oath is a curve clogger, but I feel vessel is the real blocker. In the early game, it eats 2 turns, in the mid-late game, it's 3 mana (which it's definitely better to be Oath). It's just kind of a clunky card unless you've committed to a very high permanent count and you don't have any non-permanents you aren't willing to just toss into the GY.
Exactly, I've seen 1 spoiled card so far that I think will get added to my deck, and the one mentioned above isn't one of them. This list is all self reviving zombies. They don't really need help coming back.
Ok so full spoiler is up and the deck can benefit from a few of them. I really wish they gave us more creature with the same effect than just Haunted Dead(Which is very nice for the effect of getting two bodies) and Advanced Stitchwing(Gawd end its misery for it is so bad). But I really am liking the decks interaction with Emerge creatures, Elder Deep-Fiend and Wretched Gryff, also Distended Mindbender. The emerge would be perfect with our zombies since we cast them for almost no mana to then sac them in a stall to pay almost nothing for emerge.
Other options: Olivia's Dragoon: Free outlet to get the zombies in the grave Cryptbreaker: Is a nice discard outlet, but I fear we can't push to max potential since our return zombies come back tapped Collective Brutality: Nice Discard outlet and a nice effects to benefit Wharf Infiltrator: Gives me idea with all the creatures we discard through out a game
With Advanced Stitchwing, I'll be dropping Ghoulsteed and likely dropping black almost altogether, keeping it only for Prized Amalgams.
I love love love Elder Deep-Fiend for this deck. I especially like the fact that it lets me use Kolizek's Return (or whatever it's called) as a sweeper.
Here's a list I put together. I don't like the Stitchwing's much, too much discard needed for them to be worth the cost IMO. Instead, I focus on a resilient go-wide strategy.
It's also fairly rough, and has no sideboard (but would probably include stuff like Transgress the Mind). There's probably a few flex slots there, like Turn Aside or Cemetery Recruitment, which could just be sideboard cards.
Also people seem to have forgotten about Risen Executioner. He's not the worst lord ever printed.
Karloski, your deck belongs in the B/x Zombies thread. This thread is focus on the discard-to-revive zombies, and you have none.
As for your list, it looks like you'll be relying heavily on Relentless Dead. What happens in the deck if you don't draw one or if you lose multiples to Declaration in Stone?
Karloski, your deck belongs in the B/x Zombies thread. This thread is focus on the discard-to-revive zombies, and you have none.
As for your list, it looks like you'll be relying heavily on Relentless Dead. What happens in the deck if you don't draw one or if you lose multiples to Declaration in Stone?
Ah, apologies. I did look - just not hard enough apparently :P.
Plus, because Cryptbreaker always us to go wide so seemlessly, it makes our Risen Executioners even better. If we don't draw Cryptbreaker, we might get Diregraf Colossus which, in this deck, is fine to cast as a vanilla 2/2 because it will help us go wide.
The problem I actually see with the deck is sweepers. But again with Cryptbreaker and spells like Cemetery Recruitment, the deck has some resiliency to these as well.
Edit: Just re-read your question. Yes the deck is quite weak to Declaration in Stone :P. But eh, I built it on a premise (abusing Cryptbreaker) and quite like the general feel of the that deck. Cryptbreaker can still help a little against Declaration in Stone thanks to its card draw, but it is quite a beating, yeah.
Don't get me wrong. I like Risen Executioner. His recursion is so expensive though. I've never been able to revive him in heavy creature decks though. It always seems there's more creatures in my GY than mana on the board.
I have built a Risen Executioner deck (actually 2, one mono black and the other UB). I used zombie tokens and no other creatures (the UB one had Prized Amalgam as well). They're around somewhere on this site. I think on the B/x Zombies thread and on a Rise from the Tides thread on the budget forum, i think.
Timeos, If you want to update my list, I'm going almost entirely UR now, keeping only the smallest splash of black for Prized Amalgams. As promised, I've added in Elder Deep-Fiend and Kozilek's Return. It's nice that Advanced Stitchwing came out and made it so I don't have to lean so heavily on black primarily to keep my discard-to-revive zombie count up with Ghoulsteed. It's also nice that it's an all around better creature. I also found room for some more card draw.
So, I love the cards ENM added to the main deck. There's a lot more power, better sweepers, even more card draw. Take Inventory is just great. It works as early discard fodder for the zombies only to be a more power topdeck in the late game. It's such a cheap card, that I am perfectly fine sliding a sorcery in the deck.
K's Return is the same way. If I don't need an early baby sweeper, it can be happily pitched to revive a zombie. Then when EDF hits the field, I get a powerful (and free) 5 colorless damage sweeper to wash away the threats.
And the really really great part, post K's Return coming out of the GY, I can be looking at starting my turn with that 5/6 Eldrazi in play, plus however many Geralf's Masterpieces I happen to have on the board too. Post sweep with 12+ damage on the board, opponent's should scoop.
I'm not exactly sure where I'm wanting to go with the sideboard. Welcome to the Fold or Malevolent Whispers both seem like fun tricks to bring out of the sideboard. A card I'm big on, but I haven't seen anyone else playing with is Blessed Reincarnation. This card is great against GW Token and Control decks. I can definitely see using this on Gideon only to see them fish up a Hangarback Walker, and then getting to do it again on another powerful creature with hopefully similar results. It could be a for 1 card. In really light control decks, it could honestly remove their only finishers.
Other than that, I'd probably add in a couple of more K's Returns.
Oh, and Summary Dismissal. This is going to be a big card since it completely counters Eldrazi creatures and their when cast effects.
@Ronnie your deck has been updated. Have you tested with Haunted Dead as it is two bodies for one and only costs the same as Stitchwing Skaab just black. You have an interesting point about Blessed Reincarnation as a sideboard card as it does work against the current meta pretty well. But I wonder if it isn't played due to the same reason as Reality Shift wasn't played, from fear over the value that is possible. Summary Dismissal on the other hand will be quite lovely against all the craziness that is probably going to occur with the eldrazi decks.
@Varkung Nantuko Husk is very plausible since we love the grave and despise exile.
I absolutely considered Haunted Dead when I was thinking about adding EMN to the deck. I think if you're staying in black, that's a great creature to put in. He gums up the ground while creating a flying attacker. I could see him in a build that goes heavy into discard-to-revive zombies and really overwhelming the opponent. I decided I really wanted to commit more to blue/red for more consistency.
I don't know what kinda creatures/decks were in standard with Reality Shift since I only just came back to Standard, and Magic in general, with SOI. I do know that it feels like a good card against GW token and a bunch of other decks.
I really like the mono-blue variant and am thinking about how to improve it with only modest additonal investment. First impressions:
1. It's land base seems very thin at only 21 lands; is this really enough lands? If not, what would you cut to add more?
2. How useful would Drownyard Temple (4) or Geier Reach Sanitarium (2) be? The former seems like a pure improvement if the land base is larger; the later could give an emergency discard outlet when needed.
3. I'm still pondering Chilling Grasp and Welcome to the Fold. The former seems useful against the new horrors and the later against things like the new Thalia. esp since the right looter can accelerate the later to instant speed.
4. Both Salvage Drone and 1 or 2 Elder Deep-fiend are attractive. The former accelerates against weenies and the second can break stalls. I don't know what to put them in place of; perhaps sideboard?
I think mono-blue could work. I think it slows the deck down considerably though. Off the top of my head, the blue cards that allow us to reliably discard a zombie to the GY are 3 cmc. Catalog and Artificer's Epiphany come to mind. I suppose you could get lucky with something like Pieces of the Puzzle and hopefully get a GY in the yard.
I really wish Welcome to the Fold would work for the deck, but it's really mana intensive. If you're lucky enough to discard it to Stitchwing Skaab, then it's toughness plus 4, so 7 mana to steal a x/3. That's A very high mana cost for a creature you can just block and kill. For bigger creatures you can't block and kill, then we're talking double digit mana. OOF.
1. It's land base seems very thin at only 21 lands; is this really enough lands? If not, what would you cut to add more?
Definitely with so much card draw and filtering your going to have up to ten lands before the end of the game. In my experience I have always hit my land drops every turn. I had more lands and it just put more land in my grave. You could add two more, but no more than that.
Quote from Borachon »
2. How useful would Drownyard Temple (4) or Geier Reach Sanitarium (2) be? The former seems like a pure improvement if the land base is larger; the later could give an emergency discard outlet when needed.
Drownyard Temple is okay, but honestly you never care if you discard an island as you probably have a lot either in hand or just a Catalog away. Now the Sanitarium could become very useful to help filter even more and madness more so you could drop a couple of islands for it.
Quote from Borachon »
3. I'm still pondering Crushing Grasp and Welcome to the Fold. The former seems useful against the new horrors and the later against things like the new Thalia. esp since the right looter can accelerate the later to instant speed.
Do you mean Crush of Tentacles? But yes I have been contemplating Engulf the Shore and Crush, but I don't want to return all our Zombies, but it would push us more midrange where the deck does belong. Its something to play around with. As for Welcome to the Fold honestly it is a good side board against the human and Collected Company decks as their creatures are mostly within the non-madness range of the card.
Quote from Borachon »
4. Both Salvage Drone or 1 or 2 Elder Deep-fiend are attractive. The former accelerates against weenies and the second can break stalls. I don't know what to put them in place of; perhaps sideboard?
Salvage Drone I'm not to crazy about as it is a 1 toughness creature with only Ingest and a loot. But the deck could use a 1-drop, but I feel it should be something more like Spontaneous Mutation that takes a big advantage from how full our graveyard gets over the game, or Clutch of Currents for the tempo. These stick to the game plan of delay to a later game. Elder Deep-Fiend is a great addition to this deck as it is gonna benefit with its emerge making it cost only two blue or maybe just 3. Plus with the land drops hitting frequently enough you can just cast it outright so it does fit in this deck no problem. Honestly I would drop the Masterpiece for it as with the Mono-blue build you do draw a lot of cards and Masterpiece just gets hindered by the fat hands the deck gives.
On another note:
An additional win con for the deck that can be shifted in would be Rise from the Tides which is great with all the Instant and Sorcerys.
If you want zombie tokens, and I'm not sure you do lol, I'd go with From Under the Floorboards over Rise from the Tides. They both bring tokens into play tapped, but thanks to madness Floorboards can be done EOT.
f you're lucky enough to discard it to Stitchwing Skaab, then it's toughness plus 4, so 7 mana to steal a x/3. That's A very high mana cost for a creature you can just block and kill. For bigger creatures you can't block and kill, then we're talking double digit mana. OOF.
It's 7 mana to steal an x/3 *and* summon a tapped 3/1 flyer at instant speed. Done carefully after attackers are declared, this can make a vast swing in game state. That said, it is very situational, which is why I'm still inclined to view it as sideboard material.
Drownyard Temple is okay, but honestly you never care if you discard an island as you probably have a lot either in hand or just a Catalog away.
Being able to pull the drownyard out of the graveyard and play a land in a single turn is decent, though, especially for slower blue decks. I agree that it's only okay, but since it's a mono-color deck, there's no reason I can see not to do it.
I actually meant Chilling Grasp. Looking at more EMN cards, Wharf Infiltrator probably makes a faster creature-heavy blue build doable. That way you can build either creature-heavy or a spell-heavy blue deck, maybe with the sideboard adjusting between the two. Here's a sketch at a creature-heavy one with a sideboard to angle it more toward spells. It opts for Pore over the Pages for more efficient drawing, and has 10 Zombies, 10 Madness, and 14 discard sources, not counting the Sanitarium or the Deep-fiends:
In general, I think exclusively blue is a bad way to go for the deck. Prized Amalgam is such a strong card in the deck since it just gives extra value for revivals. Paying 1U-3U and getting 2-5 creatures with 3+ power in play is insane. I'm not gonna say I think you need to add black mana to support them, but they definitely belong in the deck.
Specifically, and I haven't looked through all of the blue cards, mono-blue seems so slow. In the core UB deck, you can reliably dump zombies in the GY and have them ready to revive for turn 3 with cards like Heir of Falkenrath (flip) and Pale Rider of Trostad. I felt that was too slow and went with red which let's me be ready to bring back Stitchwing Skaab on turn 2. Mono blue, without Nagging Thoughts, you don't get a reliable discard early on at all. If you do cast an early Nagging Thoughts, then you haven't cast an early creature, letting other creature heavy decks get ahead of you in board position.
Finally, from playing this deck for a while, I can say unequivocally you need draw cards that add to the hand. 2 Pore over the Pages isn't enough to keep feeding cards to the "discard multiple cards to revive" engine. Cards like Catalog, Nagging Thoughts and Artificer's Epiphany are good for filtering the deck and getting zombies in the yard, but they don't add cards to the hand. In each case your hand size is the same as when you cast the card. Nagging Thoughts: Play a card, Get a card, Net change 0. Catalog/Artificer's: Play a card, draw 2, discard a card, Net change 0. If you have a zombie in the yard and you're waiting to revive a zombie, having to wait multiple turns will feel like an eternity. The deck desperately wants cards flowing into the hand so they can be discarded out for more zombie pressure.
All that said, I don't think mono blue can't work, but just like every version of this deck, you have to find the right mix of early reliable discard, card draw and revive zombies. I think that holds true regardless of which colors are chosen.
I'm curious how effective Wharf Infiltrator is for performing something of the role of the effect of Prized Amalgam in a mono-blue deck. Unlike Amalgam, it can't recurse indefinitely, but it does provide extra filtering, too. The problem is that it's more mana-intensive. Adding Prized Amalgam to a mono-blue mana base is an interesting idea, too. Just one Amalgam adds a lot of value to every graveyard pull.
I completely see your point about Pore over Pages and not having enough card draw. I'll try a full set of Take Inventory, probably cutting down to two Nagging Thoughts given the potential filtering from drones and infiltrators.
Finally, I just need to finish putting this together and play with this and the original more spell-heavy version to refine the overall strategy. It's blue so it's almost certainly going to be slower than other variants; getting the balance right to (try and) make that work well will be interesting. Thanks for all of the suggestions.
So Wharf Infiltrator as a replacement for Prized in mono-blue is a good idea since we do miss the power Prized puts on the field. It has a card filtering and is good in multiples. Not bad. I would drop 2 Catalog for it.
Take Inventory is a definite help to almost all version of the deck as it is a good discard target and it will refill your hand in a pinch. I've drawn up to the 4 cards off of one and it fills good. My main problem is always hindering the Masterpiece as by the time I'm ready to cast it it only comes out as a 3/3 flier. Thus why I ended up cutting it. I might like the one copy, but otherwise it just hindered my hand. I would keep the 4 Nagging Thoughts and 4 Take Inventory as they are the decks early game plays really in mono-blue.
Also in mono-blue I'm going to switch the Artificer's Epiphany to 4 and Catalog to 2 since Declaration in stone gives an Artifact token which with Epiphany you essentially lost one creature to draw three cards.
Just jumping into the conversation after seeing discussion around Wharf Infiltrator/Prized Amalgam so I apologize if the deck below is not the direction you're heading
I was reading TCGPlayer the other day and spotted an article on the atypical decks to come from the new set. Here's Yoshio Miyake's "UR Madness" Zombie deck:
It runs a playset of Prized Amalgam without any black sources. Its essentially just fuel for discard in this deck so you can usually have a decent card to pitch to Wharf Infiltrator or Tormenting Voice.
I originally thought it was crazy to run 4-of a completely dead card in the deck but it runs pretty well. It can play at almost instant speed with all the back-from-the-graveyard Skaabs (though I found you usually want to play them at full cost early in the game so you aren't empty handed the rest of the matchup).
I'm not sure I like Nahiri's Wrath (maybe I just haven't figured out how to play it properly) but it does give you a great way to take out multiple creatures/planeswalkers. The deck doesn't need too many lands in play so if we start to flood out we can just hold on to them and possibly pitch them all with a Geralf's Masterpiece for a big sweeper. Yes, its effective but I just feel like emptying my hand to clear the board just leaves me in a spot where I don't have a great follow-up play. Masterpiece benefits from us being Hellbent but if the opponent has a quick answer for it we can be left struggling.
Hmmm interesting build. I can see where he is going with it, but I have a feeling I would want to replace Jace with Bedlam Reveler as it refills your hand and can be cheaper to cast with 19 spells in the deck but also a nice thing to pitch for Nahiri's Wrath. 8 damage to a single creature or pitch some land and that is a board wipe is some cases. I dunno might be too drastic of a change.
It definitely loves the mid-game, which is where the deck belongs. Burn for the early game and creatures for the mid game. I hate that there is only four madness targets out of all the cards. Looks good though. So have you tested it out?
I didn't think of Bedlam Reveler -- could be a pretty good replacement for Jace to get that extra draw.
I have, but only a few games with it. Obviously the best start you want is T2 Infiltrator, T3 attack then pitch an Amalgam for the 3/2 Eldrazi. The Infiltrator start can get stopped early if an opponent plays a T2 JVP or 1/x creature (but nowadays we usually only see T2 Sylvan Advocate/Duskwatch Recruiter/etc.) The 3/2 is great against holding off an early Advocate/Recruiter if it does come down and no skin off our back if it trades.
A seemingly early mistake I think I made was pitching and playing Stitchwings into and from the graveyard too soon. I agree with you -- instead of trying to fill the board early, I should've tried to play the mid-game with this list.
The only match-up I can really recall was against GB Delirium. Infiltrators can do well getting past their Grim Flayers and the 'pseudo-flash' of playing Stichwings from the grave helps get around Liliana's +1. Getting multiple Amalgams back into the game really weakens the effect of their 1-for-1 removal spells and Languish only takes them out temporarily. I believe I did get a bit stonewalled when I was up against a Game 2 Kalitas. Luckily I was able to get a Masterpiece online and could avoid the ground game.
I do remember playing someone with a JVP (why I mentioned it above) - maybe a Sultai build - but not much else about that particular game. I haven't played against any of the more menacing decks like Bant Company, White Weenie, or Spirits yet. I could see Reflector Mage not being great against Amalgam - we just use it for discard fodder again. Spell Queller could be decent against us but I think we have a lot of removal and we kind of get around him sometimes by playing from the graveyard rather than 'casting' creatures. Still, they have a lot of good threats.
I may dust this one off and try it a bit more. Hopefully I can give you a better rundown afterwards
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I know you said Oath is a curve clogger, but I feel vessel is the real blocker. In the early game, it eats 2 turns, in the mid-late game, it's 3 mana (which it's definitely better to be Oath). It's just kind of a clunky card unless you've committed to a very high permanent count and you don't have any non-permanents you aren't willing to just toss into the GY.
Other options:
Olivia's Dragoon: Free outlet to get the zombies in the grave
Cryptbreaker: Is a nice discard outlet, but I fear we can't push to max potential since our return zombies come back tapped
Collective Brutality: Nice Discard outlet and a nice effects to benefit
Wharf Infiltrator: Gives me idea with all the creatures we discard through out a game
Will return to talk more.
I love love love Elder Deep-Fiend for this deck. I especially like the fact that it lets me use Kolizek's Return (or whatever it's called) as a sweeper.
It's also fairly rough, and has no sideboard (but would probably include stuff like Transgress the Mind). There's probably a few flex slots there, like Turn Aside or Cemetery Recruitment, which could just be sideboard cards.
Also people seem to have forgotten about Risen Executioner. He's not the worst lord ever printed.
4x Cryptbreaker
4x Diregraf Colossus
4x Prized Amalgam
4x Relentless Dead
4x Risen Executioner
2x Cemetery Recruitment
4x Compelling Deterrence
4x Dark Salvation
2x Turn Aside
Planeswalkers:
2x Liliana, Heretical Healer
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
4x Island
4x Sunken Hollow
4x Choked Estuary
2x Drownyard Temple
2x Westvale Abbey
As for your list, it looks like you'll be relying heavily on Relentless Dead. What happens in the deck if you don't draw one or if you lose multiples to Declaration in Stone?
Ah, apologies. I did look - just not hard enough apparently :P.
Odd you say that, in my testing it did not rely on Relentless Dead at all. The engine comes from Cryptbreaker. You can use it to discard a Prized Amalgam or Risen Executioner to generate a zombie, with creatures in the yard that can be recurred. As Relentless Dead, Risen Executioner and Liliana, Heretical Healer all have some form of recursion, so utilizing Prized Amalgams ability isn't as isolated to Relentless Dead as you might think.
Plus, because Cryptbreaker always us to go wide so seemlessly, it makes our Risen Executioners even better. If we don't draw Cryptbreaker, we might get Diregraf Colossus which, in this deck, is fine to cast as a vanilla 2/2 because it will help us go wide.
The problem I actually see with the deck is sweepers. But again with Cryptbreaker and spells like Cemetery Recruitment, the deck has some resiliency to these as well.
Edit: Just re-read your question. Yes the deck is quite weak to Declaration in Stone :P. But eh, I built it on a premise (abusing Cryptbreaker) and quite like the general feel of the that deck. Cryptbreaker can still help a little against Declaration in Stone thanks to its card draw, but it is quite a beating, yeah.
Don't get me wrong. I like Risen Executioner. His recursion is so expensive though. I've never been able to revive him in heavy creature decks though. It always seems there's more creatures in my GY than mana on the board.
I have built a Risen Executioner deck (actually 2, one mono black and the other UB). I used zombie tokens and no other creatures (the UB one had Prized Amalgam as well). They're around somewhere on this site. I think on the B/x Zombies thread and on a Rise from the Tides thread on the budget forum, i think.
3 Advanced Stitchwing
2 Elder Deep-Fiend
2 Geralf's Masterpiece
3 Insolent Neonate
3 Prized Amalgam
2 Ravenous Bloodseeker
4 Stitchwing Skaab
2 Kozilek's Return
4 Take Inventory
Instants 9
4 Broken Concentration
3 Lightning Axe
2 Negate
Enchantments 3
3 Fevered Visions
2 Blighted Cataract
4 Choked Estuary
2 Foreboding Ruins
7 Island
4 Mountain
4 Wandering Fumarole
So, I love the cards ENM added to the main deck. There's a lot more power, better sweepers, even more card draw. Take Inventory is just great. It works as early discard fodder for the zombies only to be a more power topdeck in the late game. It's such a cheap card, that I am perfectly fine sliding a sorcery in the deck.
K's Return is the same way. If I don't need an early baby sweeper, it can be happily pitched to revive a zombie. Then when EDF hits the field, I get a powerful (and free) 5 colorless damage sweeper to wash away the threats.
And the really really great part, post K's Return coming out of the GY, I can be looking at starting my turn with that 5/6 Eldrazi in play, plus however many Geralf's Masterpieces I happen to have on the board too. Post sweep with 12+ damage on the board, opponent's should scoop.
I'm not exactly sure where I'm wanting to go with the sideboard. Welcome to the Fold or Malevolent Whispers both seem like fun tricks to bring out of the sideboard. A card I'm big on, but I haven't seen anyone else playing with is Blessed Reincarnation. This card is great against GW Token and Control decks. I can definitely see using this on Gideon only to see them fish up a Hangarback Walker, and then getting to do it again on another powerful creature with hopefully similar results. It could be a for 1 card. In really light control decks, it could honestly remove their only finishers.
Other than that, I'd probably add in a couple of more K's Returns.
Oh, and Summary Dismissal. This is going to be a big card since it completely counters Eldrazi creatures and their when cast effects.
@Varkung Nantuko Husk is very plausible since we love the grave and despise exile.
I don't know what kinda creatures/decks were in standard with Reality Shift since I only just came back to Standard, and Magic in general, with SOI. I do know that it feels like a good card against GW token and a bunch of other decks.
1. It's land base seems very thin at only 21 lands; is this really enough lands? If not, what would you cut to add more?
2. How useful would Drownyard Temple (4) or Geier Reach Sanitarium (2) be? The former seems like a pure improvement if the land base is larger; the later could give an emergency discard outlet when needed.
3. I'm still pondering Chilling Grasp and Welcome to the Fold. The former seems useful against the new horrors and the later against things like the new Thalia. esp since the right looter can accelerate the later to instant speed.
4. Both Salvage Drone and 1 or 2 Elder Deep-fiend are attractive. The former accelerates against weenies and the second can break stalls. I don't know what to put them in place of; perhaps sideboard?
I really wish Welcome to the Fold would work for the deck, but it's really mana intensive. If you're lucky enough to discard it to Stitchwing Skaab, then it's toughness plus 4, so 7 mana to steal a x/3. That's A very high mana cost for a creature you can just block and kill. For bigger creatures you can't block and kill, then we're talking double digit mana. OOF.
Edit - Pieces of the Puzzle should be Contingency Plan.
Definitely with so much card draw and filtering your going to have up to ten lands before the end of the game. In my experience I have always hit my land drops every turn. I had more lands and it just put more land in my grave. You could add two more, but no more than that.
Drownyard Temple is okay, but honestly you never care if you discard an island as you probably have a lot either in hand or just a Catalog away. Now the Sanitarium could become very useful to help filter even more and madness more so you could drop a couple of islands for it.
Do you mean Crush of Tentacles? But yes I have been contemplating Engulf the Shore and Crush, but I don't want to return all our Zombies, but it would push us more midrange where the deck does belong. Its something to play around with. As for Welcome to the Fold honestly it is a good side board against the human and Collected Company decks as their creatures are mostly within the non-madness range of the card.
Salvage Drone I'm not to crazy about as it is a 1 toughness creature with only Ingest and a loot. But the deck could use a 1-drop, but I feel it should be something more like Spontaneous Mutation that takes a big advantage from how full our graveyard gets over the game, or Clutch of Currents for the tempo. These stick to the game plan of delay to a later game. Elder Deep-Fiend is a great addition to this deck as it is gonna benefit with its emerge making it cost only two blue or maybe just 3. Plus with the land drops hitting frequently enough you can just cast it outright so it does fit in this deck no problem. Honestly I would drop the Masterpiece for it as with the Mono-blue build you do draw a lot of cards and Masterpiece just gets hindered by the fat hands the deck gives.
On another note:
An additional win con for the deck that can be shifted in would be Rise from the Tides which is great with all the Instant and Sorcerys.
I don't think it's what this deck wants, though.
It's 7 mana to steal an x/3 *and* summon a tapped 3/1 flyer at instant speed. Done carefully after attackers are declared, this can make a vast swing in game state. That said, it is very situational, which is why I'm still inclined to view it as sideboard material.
Being able to pull the drownyard out of the graveyard and play a land in a single turn is decent, though, especially for slower blue decks. I agree that it's only okay, but since it's a mono-color deck, there's no reason I can see not to do it.
I actually meant Chilling Grasp. Looking at more EMN cards, Wharf Infiltrator probably makes a faster creature-heavy blue build doable. That way you can build either creature-heavy or a spell-heavy blue deck, maybe with the sideboard adjusting between the two. Here's a sketch at a creature-heavy one with a sideboard to angle it more toward spells. It opts for Pore over the Pages for more efficient drawing, and has 10 Zombies, 10 Madness, and 14 discard sources, not counting the Sanitarium or the Deep-fiends:
4x Salvage Drone
4x Wharf Infiltrator
4x Stitchwing Skaab
3x Advanced Stitchwing
3x Geralf's Masterpiece
2x Elder Deep-fiend
Instants (12)
4x Catalog
3x Broken Concentration
3x Just the Wind
2x Unsubstantiate
4x Nagging Thoughts
2x Pore over the Pages
Lands (22)
2x Geier Reach Sanitarium
4x Drownyard Temple
16x Islands
2x Artificer's Epiphany
1x Broken Concentration
3x Displacement Wave
2x Spell Shrivel
1x Sphinx of the Final Word
3x Thing in the Ice
1x Unsubstantiate
2x Welcome to the Fold
Specifically, and I haven't looked through all of the blue cards, mono-blue seems so slow. In the core UB deck, you can reliably dump zombies in the GY and have them ready to revive for turn 3 with cards like Heir of Falkenrath (flip) and Pale Rider of Trostad. I felt that was too slow and went with red which let's me be ready to bring back Stitchwing Skaab on turn 2. Mono blue, without Nagging Thoughts, you don't get a reliable discard early on at all. If you do cast an early Nagging Thoughts, then you haven't cast an early creature, letting other creature heavy decks get ahead of you in board position.
Finally, from playing this deck for a while, I can say unequivocally you need draw cards that add to the hand. 2 Pore over the Pages isn't enough to keep feeding cards to the "discard multiple cards to revive" engine. Cards like Catalog, Nagging Thoughts and Artificer's Epiphany are good for filtering the deck and getting zombies in the yard, but they don't add cards to the hand. In each case your hand size is the same as when you cast the card. Nagging Thoughts: Play a card, Get a card, Net change 0. Catalog/Artificer's: Play a card, draw 2, discard a card, Net change 0. If you have a zombie in the yard and you're waiting to revive a zombie, having to wait multiple turns will feel like an eternity. The deck desperately wants cards flowing into the hand so they can be discarded out for more zombie pressure.
All that said, I don't think mono blue can't work, but just like every version of this deck, you have to find the right mix of early reliable discard, card draw and revive zombies. I think that holds true regardless of which colors are chosen.
I completely see your point about Pore over Pages and not having enough card draw. I'll try a full set of Take Inventory, probably cutting down to two Nagging Thoughts given the potential filtering from drones and infiltrators.
Finally, I just need to finish putting this together and play with this and the original more spell-heavy version to refine the overall strategy. It's blue so it's almost certainly going to be slower than other variants; getting the balance right to (try and) make that work well will be interesting. Thanks for all of the suggestions.
Take Inventory is a definite help to almost all version of the deck as it is a good discard target and it will refill your hand in a pinch. I've drawn up to the 4 cards off of one and it fills good. My main problem is always hindering the Masterpiece as by the time I'm ready to cast it it only comes out as a 3/3 flier. Thus why I ended up cutting it. I might like the one copy, but otherwise it just hindered my hand. I would keep the 4 Nagging Thoughts and 4 Take Inventory as they are the decks early game plays really in mono-blue.
Also in mono-blue I'm going to switch the Artificer's Epiphany to 4 and Catalog to 2 since Declaration in stone gives an Artifact token which with Epiphany you essentially lost one creature to draw three cards.
@Ronnie: Have you played with Emerge creature in your version of the deck? What is you opinion of Elder Deep-Fiend and Distended Mindbender?
Edit: Updated both Mono-blue and Grixis build
I was reading TCGPlayer the other day and spotted an article on the atypical decks to come from the new set. Here's Yoshio Miyake's "UR Madness" Zombie deck:
3 Geralf's Masterpiece
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stitchwing Skaab
4 Wharf Infiltrator
Planeswalkers (2):
2 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
Spells (19):
4 Fiery Impulse
4 Fiery Temper
4 Lightning Axe
3 Nahiri's Wrath
4 Tormenting Voice
2 Highland Lake
7 Island
7 Mountain
4 Shivan Reef
4 Wandering Fumarole
2 Catalog
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
2 Dual Shot
4 Galvanic Bombardment
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1 Nahiri's Wrath
2 Negate
It runs a playset of Prized Amalgam without any black sources. Its essentially just fuel for discard in this deck so you can usually have a decent card to pitch to Wharf Infiltrator or Tormenting Voice.
I originally thought it was crazy to run 4-of a completely dead card in the deck but it runs pretty well. It can play at almost instant speed with all the back-from-the-graveyard Skaabs (though I found you usually want to play them at full cost early in the game so you aren't empty handed the rest of the matchup).
I'm not sure I like Nahiri's Wrath (maybe I just haven't figured out how to play it properly) but it does give you a great way to take out multiple creatures/planeswalkers. The deck doesn't need too many lands in play so if we start to flood out we can just hold on to them and possibly pitch them all with a Geralf's Masterpiece for a big sweeper. Yes, its effective but I just feel like emptying my hand to clear the board just leaves me in a spot where I don't have a great follow-up play. Masterpiece benefits from us being Hellbent but if the opponent has a quick answer for it we can be left struggling.
It definitely loves the mid-game, which is where the deck belongs. Burn for the early game and creatures for the mid game. I hate that there is only four madness targets out of all the cards. Looks good though. So have you tested it out?
I have, but only a few games with it. Obviously the best start you want is T2 Infiltrator, T3 attack then pitch an Amalgam for the 3/2 Eldrazi. The Infiltrator start can get stopped early if an opponent plays a T2 JVP or 1/x creature (but nowadays we usually only see T2 Sylvan Advocate/Duskwatch Recruiter/etc.) The 3/2 is great against holding off an early Advocate/Recruiter if it does come down and no skin off our back if it trades.
A seemingly early mistake I think I made was pitching and playing Stitchwings into and from the graveyard too soon. I agree with you -- instead of trying to fill the board early, I should've tried to play the mid-game with this list.
The only match-up I can really recall was against GB Delirium. Infiltrators can do well getting past their Grim Flayers and the 'pseudo-flash' of playing Stichwings from the grave helps get around Liliana's +1. Getting multiple Amalgams back into the game really weakens the effect of their 1-for-1 removal spells and Languish only takes them out temporarily. I believe I did get a bit stonewalled when I was up against a Game 2 Kalitas. Luckily I was able to get a Masterpiece online and could avoid the ground game.
I do remember playing someone with a JVP (why I mentioned it above) - maybe a Sultai build - but not much else about that particular game. I haven't played against any of the more menacing decks like Bant Company, White Weenie, or Spirits yet. I could see Reflector Mage not being great against Amalgam - we just use it for discard fodder again. Spell Queller could be decent against us but I think we have a lot of removal and we kind of get around him sometimes by playing from the graveyard rather than 'casting' creatures. Still, they have a lot of good threats.
I may dust this one off and try it a bit more. Hopefully I can give you a better rundown afterwards