If Korlash is about to die you can sac him to get a bunch of extra damage off, but he isnt a zombie :/
I had not thought about Blood-Chin Fanatic as an option. While useful specifically with Korlash, I don't think there are enough warriors for me to include it into the deck. Rite of Consumption performs a similar function and can target any of my creatures. In my soon to be built Zurgo Helmsmasher tribal warriors deck, the orc is an auto include. However for decks that are designed with a heavy focus on Korlash, I would imagine it would be a worth inclusion for the ability to play, sac, and replay and sac as needed to drop the table, especially with all of the mana you'll have available. Great suggestion rshizz, thanks!
With only one reliable way to fetch up the powerhouse artifact that is Trading Post (see Sidisi, Undead Vizier), the wellspring only acts as a 2 mana cantrip most of the time and doesn't do anything else. I could always add a tutor effect to fetch it up, but at this time I still prefer my decks to have as few non-land tutor effects as possible to reduce "same game" consistency. Sword of the Animist is yet another equipment to add to Korlash's arsenal to make him bigger while also increasing the P/T boosts of Lashwrithe, Nightmare Lash, and Strata Scythe. The nice thing about the sword is that it triggers on the declare attackers step and not on combat damage, which means the land comes in before damage is dealt to get that extra damage in.
It might seem strange swapping out a mythic for a common, but Eldrazi Monument wants to be in a dedicated token deck and this deck's token production is more incidental than intentional. Also being an artifact it is easily removed. It combos nicely with Tombstone Stairwell and a fully stocked graveyard, but in reality the deck doesn't need that many zombies to take over a game. Dark Dabbling doesn't need an entirely stocked graveyard for it to work and at worst it saves an important creature and cantrips. Korlash has built in regeneration, but stopping some boardwipes that aren't Wrath of God/Black Sun's Zenith and the like for three mana and drawing a card seems like a really good deal. You can also save an opponent's creature while regenerating yours if you feel like playing politics.
I did pick up a copy of Dark Petition, so if I feel like Sidisi just isn't enough tutor power for me it may find it's way into the deck. Liliana, Heretical Healer also didn't make the cut because she is definitely geared toward graveyard based strategy.
Lashwrithe and Corrupt could be fun for a Mono-B deck. I would also recommend running Ghoulcaller Gisa, and turn your Grave Titan into 10 total zombies (4 from ETB and attacks, 6 from the sacrifice).
Thank you for the suggestions Inchtall. Both Lashwrithe and Corrupt were already in the deck, but Ghoulcaller Gisa was not which was a huge oversight for her interaction with Korlash.
Here the recent changes I've made to the deck:
Expedition Map for Mycosynth Wellspring. Both put lands into your hand, but there are other ways to find basics in the deck. The Map finds Urborg/Coffers and whatever else I need.
Liliana of the Dark Realms for Liliana's Reaver. Same CMC, easy swap. Reaver is more suited toward an aggressive discard/reanimator strategy but, while it is a zombie, could be put to better use elsewhere. LotDR finds swamps and can give a creature a lash effect or shrink an opponent's creature. Speaking of making creature's bigger...
Rite of Consumption for Geth, Lord of the Vault. Geth will get sent to my mill deck for better use. Rite of Consumption can give us back some much needed life while taking a good chunk of damage out of an opponent.
Ghoulcaller Gisa for Obelisk of Urd. While Obelisk has the chance to be free, most of the time it's overkill if I happen to have a few lords or a Dragon Throne at the ready. Obelisk and Gisa go well together, so it may find it's way back into the deck eventually. Gisa goes so well with lash effects, including Korlash himself, that it was a mistake to not include her in the deck in the first place. Thanks again Inchtall.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier for Walking Atlas. Terrain Generator works just fine, and now that I can search it up with Map I won't have to worry about drawing the Atlas late game with nothing to do. Sidisi will do wonders here, being able to tutor up whatever I may need, even swamps. Of course, she'll also be relevant on the field being a zombie and having inherent deathtouch.
With Gisa in the mix, I also picked up a copy of Trailblazer. Filth is already in the deck, and a little redundency is well warranted in EDH. I prefer Trailblazer over something like Zombie Master, which affects all zombies on the field. Since there are other tribal zombie decks at my LGS, I'd rather not help them out. Being able to get in some unblockable damage with any large creature will help close out games, but currently I have no idea what to take out for it. Unblockable damage also leads me to...
Almost a Quietus Spike on a stick! It costs 5 but being able to get in with Swampwalk could make this guy an all star. Again, same as above not sure what I would take out for this.
Love the deck, I'm in the process of buildling a similar casual deck with Thassa as the general. Per your $30 or less statement, and you did mention you wanted to stick to theme I have the following suggestions:
Prophet of Kruphix, while it is absolutely bonkers and a huge hate magnet, wouldn't do anything too broken aside from the off chance you can Blue Sun's Zenith someone to death, or tap down the whole board with Icy Blast. However you're already doing the latter with cards like Lorthos, the Tidemaker, Shipbreaker Kraken, and Breaching Leviathan so it's actually not too oppressive here. At about $1.50 you can't go wrong. I may be stretching the theme here, but Kruphix is your general, so followers right?
Teferi's Veil is a super cheap inclusion ($0.25) that saves you from opposing board wipes.
Surestrike Trident (($0.25) is nautical themed and allows you to skip the combat phase and go straight for the face.
Since you were so kind as to reply to my Korlash deck, I figured I would return the favor! I've played Grimgrin for just short of 3 years and while I'm no means an expert on any particular build, I recommend the following cards if you're looking to speed up the deck:
Coalition Relic, can get you a turn 4 Grimgrin or any other 5 drop you need. I would drop Mistvein Borderpost for it because it sets you back a land drop. Mind Stone or Commander's Sphere can be brought in while swapping Dimir Signet out. Stone and Sphere offer you additional card draw when you don't need the mana anymore. Drawing the Signet late game always feels like a dead draw, and even though you have your wizard draw engines I am a firm believer that you can never have too much draw in a 99 card highlander deck.
This may be a personal preference of mine, but I would suggest increasing your land count to at least 37. Some of your win conditions, namely Enter the Infinite, are expensive to cast, and ensuring you have a land drop almost every single turn will help you close out games more often and sometimes faster. Halimar Depths and Temple of Deceit can help move around cards and are relevant in almost all points of the game. Temple of the False God and Dimir Aqueduct are decent accelerating lands you may want to consider.
I'd also suggest that since you are playing Dimir, it may be a good idea to play at least a couple more counterspells to protect your investments, especially in a mostly-permanent based strategy that doesn't include Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves. Dimir Charm does a great job of counting other game enders like Genesis Wave, Insurrection, and the like. The other modes aren't too terrible, even the third mode can screw with someone's Vampiric Tutor. Turn Aside is a personal favorite of mine, because it's cheap and well suited to protect your investments.
I like what you've done with the deck. Zombie Wizard is my favorite creature type combination, but the thought never occured to me to combine the two. How has Dire Undercurrents performed for you? If it hasn't been performing to your expectations, I'd recommend Dictate of Erebos instead as another functional copy of Grave Pact.
Cards I am NOT interested in adding: Mikaeus, the Unhallowed not worth the $ to purchase one in my opinion, maybe one day I'll trade for him. He goes well in nearly every black deck and happens to be a zombie, but the deck is functioning perfectly fine with him. Phyrexian Arena is in the same boat, and the deck seems to have enough draw power in it already.
To piggyback on Nakhla's comment, I'm running Wrath of God (FTV art), Heliod's Pilgrim, Elspeth, Sun's Champion and to a lesser extent Godsend, Dictate of Heliod, as well as the spear in my own Heliod deck. It's based around Heliod's story on Theros, with some extra Helios themed cards. There are some bad cards thrown in the mix, but I'm all for theme and any good/synergistic cards that are found along the way are just bonuses. Getting to use cards that wouldn't otherwise normally see play is one of the many reasons why I love EDH.
Just looking at Intet's art, you can tell that she's regal, possesses strength in both body and mind, and she's rich! (see the jewelry). She's your stereotypical Hoarding Dragon style fantasy Dragon. If you want to focus on storing cards underneath her, scry and tutor effects work well with her. Don't forget other cards like the aformetnioned Atarka, World Render, Fireshrieker, and other double strike enablers, or extra combat phase enablers such as Scourge of the Throne/Hellkite Charger, World at War, and even Seize the Day if you want to lean a bit more on the voltron side. Also consider Alchemist's Refuge, Leyline of Anticipation, and Vedalken Orrery to help cast creature and sorcery speed spells on your opponents' turn (or just load up on instant spells if you'd like).
Since you will be paying U2 per trigger, you can get big spells on the cheap and generate card advantage. However, if you cram too many high CMC costs in the deck you'll often find yourself with nothing to do in the early stages of the game. I've played Intet off and on since I started EDH, and wanting to play huge spells like Enter the Infinite and Omniscience on the cheap often lead to top heavy builds. While it was a huge draw to the deck (no pun intended) it also hindered it's early game performance. Anything that has a CMC of 4 or more will generate advantage if you can cast it, so you don't always have to go big. Right now I have her heading a deck based around combat damage trigger cards, including herself and others like Bident of Thassa and Shaman of the Great Hunt.
Since it looks like you want to include a little dragonic subtheme, I would like to recommend Dragonlord's Prerogative as an uncounterable Opportunity of sorts. It's great in both flavor and function and has performed well for me. Good luck!
ETB creatures will almost always give you value, but DCD creatures have to make it to the attack step and often times deal damage to an opponent before granting an effect.
I do agree though that DCD creatures should probably be valued higher.
Perhaps it is a case of "Risk Vs Reward". You don't run much of a risk with casting an ETB creature to gain it's base value when in comparison to the DCD creature, which previously stated must wait before it's value can be reaped. The risk for DCD is higher but I suppose that doesn't necessarily make the reward greater; rather the value of that DCD effect has the potential to be multiplied depending on how long it lives in comparison to ETB effects.
For a while I have noticed a trend when it comes to creature cards in EDH. All too often a creature's value and playability is judged based on their Enters the Battlefield effect, or lack thereof. Gone is the time of Thorn Elemental and Blinding Angel entering the Red Zone to get in those last few points of damage (at least in my meta). I've also noticed that unless you are running a combo deck the majority of EDH decks secure their wins by knocking out their opponents' life totals to 0 via combat damage.
In my opinion, while some creatures with ETB effects can grant you the opportunity to get into the Red Zone, using creatures that are designed to shine in that zone are much more efficient at bringing you closer to victory and thus are of equal or higher value than ETB creatures. The issue with ETB creatures is that, while they can be abused by flicker and bounce spells, they are only valuable once without any help. Creatures that have "deals combat damage" (DCD) abilities increase in value as the game goes on. The more opportunity that a creature has to attack, the better that creature becomes. To sum it up, in a vacuum DCD creatures are more valuable when left alive for multiple turns when compared to ETB creatures.
So why aren't more people using creatures that actually deal damage instead of waiting for them to be blinked by Conjurer's Closet or Deadeye Navigator? The most common argument that I have witnessed is that ETB creatures provide immediate value upon cast, whereas other creatures must wait a turn before their value can be gained. While this isn't false the argument can be made that the value of ETB creatures decreases over time in comparison to DCD creatures. As a result, playgroups with faster metas may value ETB creatures higher than DCD creatures, and vice versa for slower metas. Of course, faster doesn't always mean a better or an underdeveloped playgroup, obligatory YMMV.
So what am I missing here? It may just be a personal preference of mine, or maybe that I just want DCD cretures to be better than they are. What are you thoughts on the above?
Well it's been almost a whole year since I've updated this decklist online and I have yet to see another Polukranos list posted under the database. I'm still playing the deck, so here's where I'm at now. I apologize in advance if these changes were already mentioned and/or documented:
I had not thought about Blood-Chin Fanatic as an option. While useful specifically with Korlash, I don't think there are enough warriors for me to include it into the deck. Rite of Consumption performs a similar function and can target any of my creatures. In my soon to be built Zurgo Helmsmasher tribal warriors deck, the orc is an auto include. However for decks that are designed with a heavy focus on Korlash, I would imagine it would be a worth inclusion for the ability to play, sac, and replay and sac as needed to drop the table, especially with all of the mana you'll have available. Great suggestion rshizz, thanks!
Ichor Wellspring out
Sword of the Animist in
With only one reliable way to fetch up the powerhouse artifact that is Trading Post (see Sidisi, Undead Vizier), the wellspring only acts as a 2 mana cantrip most of the time and doesn't do anything else. I could always add a tutor effect to fetch it up, but at this time I still prefer my decks to have as few non-land tutor effects as possible to reduce "same game" consistency. Sword of the Animist is yet another equipment to add to Korlash's arsenal to make him bigger while also increasing the P/T boosts of Lashwrithe, Nightmare Lash, and Strata Scythe. The nice thing about the sword is that it triggers on the declare attackers step and not on combat damage, which means the land comes in before damage is dealt to get that extra damage in.
Eldrazi Monument out
Dark Dabbling in
It might seem strange swapping out a mythic for a common, but Eldrazi Monument wants to be in a dedicated token deck and this deck's token production is more incidental than intentional. Also being an artifact it is easily removed. It combos nicely with Tombstone Stairwell and a fully stocked graveyard, but in reality the deck doesn't need that many zombies to take over a game. Dark Dabbling doesn't need an entirely stocked graveyard for it to work and at worst it saves an important creature and cantrips. Korlash has built in regeneration, but stopping some boardwipes that aren't Wrath of God/Black Sun's Zenith and the like for three mana and drawing a card seems like a really good deal. You can also save an opponent's creature while regenerating yours if you feel like playing politics.
I did pick up a copy of Dark Petition, so if I feel like Sidisi just isn't enough tutor power for me it may find it's way into the deck. Liliana, Heretical Healer also didn't make the cut because she is definitely geared toward graveyard based strategy.
Thank you for the suggestions Inchtall. Both Lashwrithe and Corrupt were already in the deck, but Ghoulcaller Gisa was not which was a huge oversight for her interaction with Korlash.
Here the recent changes I've made to the deck:
Expedition Map for Mycosynth Wellspring. Both put lands into your hand, but there are other ways to find basics in the deck. The Map finds Urborg/Coffers and whatever else I need.
Liliana of the Dark Realms for Liliana's Reaver. Same CMC, easy swap. Reaver is more suited toward an aggressive discard/reanimator strategy but, while it is a zombie, could be put to better use elsewhere. LotDR finds swamps and can give a creature a lash effect or shrink an opponent's creature. Speaking of making creature's bigger...
Rite of Consumption for Geth, Lord of the Vault. Geth will get sent to my mill deck for better use. Rite of Consumption can give us back some much needed life while taking a good chunk of damage out of an opponent.
Ghoulcaller Gisa for Obelisk of Urd. While Obelisk has the chance to be free, most of the time it's overkill if I happen to have a few lords or a Dragon Throne at the ready. Obelisk and Gisa go well together, so it may find it's way back into the deck eventually. Gisa goes so well with lash effects, including Korlash himself, that it was a mistake to not include her in the deck in the first place. Thanks again Inchtall.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier for Walking Atlas. Terrain Generator works just fine, and now that I can search it up with Map I won't have to worry about drawing the Atlas late game with nothing to do. Sidisi will do wonders here, being able to tutor up whatever I may need, even swamps. Of course, she'll also be relevant on the field being a zombie and having inherent deathtouch.
Possible additions:
Zombie Trailblazer
With Gisa in the mix, I also picked up a copy of Trailblazer. Filth is already in the deck, and a little redundency is well warranted in EDH. I prefer Trailblazer over something like Zombie Master, which affects all zombies on the field. Since there are other tribal zombie decks at my LGS, I'd rather not help them out. Being able to get in some unblockable damage with any large creature will help close out games, but currently I have no idea what to take out for it. Unblockable damage also leads me to...
Raving Dead
Almost a Quietus Spike on a stick! It costs 5 but being able to get in with Swampwalk could make this guy an all star. Again, same as above not sure what I would take out for this.
Prophet of Kruphix, while it is absolutely bonkers and a huge hate magnet, wouldn't do anything too broken aside from the off chance you can Blue Sun's Zenith someone to death, or tap down the whole board with Icy Blast. However you're already doing the latter with cards like Lorthos, the Tidemaker, Shipbreaker Kraken, and Breaching Leviathan so it's actually not too oppressive here. At about $1.50 you can't go wrong. I may be stretching the theme here, but Kruphix is your general, so followers right?
Teferi's Veil is a super cheap inclusion ($0.25) that saves you from opposing board wipes.
Surestrike Trident (($0.25) is nautical themed and allows you to skip the combat phase and go straight for the face.
Mystic Remora instead of Rhystic Study maybe? It has a fish on it.
You probably don't need it here, but I figure I would mention that Flood works well when paired with Archetype of Imagination.
EDIT: I also just noticed that Borrowing 100,000 Arrows has boats on it. Again, stretching the theme but it works well with your tapdown suite.
Coalition Relic, can get you a turn 4 Grimgrin or any other 5 drop you need. I would drop Mistvein Borderpost for it because it sets you back a land drop.
Mind Stone or Commander's Sphere can be brought in while swapping Dimir Signet out. Stone and Sphere offer you additional card draw when you don't need the mana anymore. Drawing the Signet late game always feels like a dead draw, and even though you have your wizard draw engines I am a firm believer that you can never have too much draw in a 99 card highlander deck.
This may be a personal preference of mine, but I would suggest increasing your land count to at least 37. Some of your win conditions, namely Enter the Infinite, are expensive to cast, and ensuring you have a land drop almost every single turn will help you close out games more often and sometimes faster. Halimar Depths and Temple of Deceit can help move around cards and are relevant in almost all points of the game. Temple of the False God and Dimir Aqueduct are decent accelerating lands you may want to consider.
I'd also suggest that since you are playing Dimir, it may be a good idea to play at least a couple more counterspells to protect your investments, especially in a mostly-permanent based strategy that doesn't include Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves. Dimir Charm does a great job of counting other game enders like Genesis Wave, Insurrection, and the like. The other modes aren't too terrible, even the third mode can screw with someone's Vampiric Tutor. Turn Aside is a personal favorite of mine, because it's cheap and well suited to protect your investments.
I like what you've done with the deck. Zombie Wizard is my favorite creature type combination, but the thought never occured to me to combine the two. How has Dire Undercurrents performed for you? If it hasn't been performing to your expectations, I'd recommend Dictate of Erebos instead as another functional copy of Grave Pact.
------------
4 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
Creatures
----------
1 Gravecrawler
2 Shepherd of Rot
2 Withered Wretch
3 Death Baron
3 Pilgrim's Eye
3 Cemetery Reaper
3 Junk Diver
3 Lord of the Undead
4 Undead Warchief
4 Vengeful Dead
4 Crypt Ghast
4 Skinrender
4 Graveborn Muse
4 Filth
4 Agent of Erebos
4 Risen Executioner
5 Ghoulcaller Gisa
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
5 Noxious Ghoul
5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
5 Vengeful Pharaoh
6 Gempalm Polluter
6 Helldozer
6 Grave Titan
----------
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Expedition Map
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Sword of the Animist
2 Journeyer's Kite
2 Swiftfoot Boots
3 Strata Scythe
3 Sword of Vengeance
3 Unstable Obelisk
4 Lashwrithe
4 Nightmare Lash
4 Dragon Throne of Tarkir
4 Trading Post
Enchantments
-------------
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
2 Necromancer's Stockpile
3 Hecatomb
4 Tombstone Stairwell
4 Endless Ranks of the Dead
Instants
---------
2 Imp's Mischief
2 Withering Boon
3 Dark Dabbling
3 Hero's Downfall
4 Snuff Out
4 Empty the Pits
4 Tendrils of Corruption
---------
2 Sign in Blood
2 Rite of Consumption
3 Read the Bones
4 Bitter Revelation
4 Mutilate
4 All Hallow's Eve
5 Corrupt
5 Beacon of Unrest
6 Life's Finale
6 Zombie Apocalypse
8 Army of the Damned
Planeswalkers
-------------
4 Liliana of the Dark Realms
Lands
------
32 Swamp
0 Terrain Generator
0 Cavern of Souls
0 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
0 Cabal Coffers
0 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
0 Unholy Grotto
The deck is by no means perfect, so if you have any suggestions they are welcome.
Cards I am considering:
Zombie Trailblazer
Raving Dead
Vendetta
Cards I am NOT interested in adding:
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed not worth the $ to purchase one in my opinion, maybe one day I'll trade for him. He goes well in nearly every black deck and happens to be a zombie, but the deck is functioning perfectly fine with him.
Phyrexian Arena is in the same boat, and the deck seems to have enough draw power in it already.
The only other "commander" card that I remember using is Desperate Gambit in my Maraxus of Keld deck.
Since you will be paying U2 per trigger, you can get big spells on the cheap and generate card advantage. However, if you cram too many high CMC costs in the deck you'll often find yourself with nothing to do in the early stages of the game. I've played Intet off and on since I started EDH, and wanting to play huge spells like Enter the Infinite and Omniscience on the cheap often lead to top heavy builds. While it was a huge draw to the deck (no pun intended) it also hindered it's early game performance. Anything that has a CMC of 4 or more will generate advantage if you can cast it, so you don't always have to go big. Right now I have her heading a deck based around combat damage trigger cards, including herself and others like Bident of Thassa and Shaman of the Great Hunt.
Since it looks like you want to include a little dragonic subtheme, I would like to recommend Dragonlord's Prerogative as an uncounterable Opportunity of sorts. It's great in both flavor and function and has performed well for me. Good luck!
Perhaps it is a case of "Risk Vs Reward". You don't run much of a risk with casting an ETB creature to gain it's base value when in comparison to the DCD creature, which previously stated must wait before it's value can be reaped. The risk for DCD is higher but I suppose that doesn't necessarily make the reward greater; rather the value of that DCD effect has the potential to be multiplied depending on how long it lives in comparison to ETB effects.
In my opinion, while some creatures with ETB effects can grant you the opportunity to get into the Red Zone, using creatures that are designed to shine in that zone are much more efficient at bringing you closer to victory and thus are of equal or higher value than ETB creatures. The issue with ETB creatures is that, while they can be abused by flicker and bounce spells, they are only valuable once without any help. Creatures that have "deals combat damage" (DCD) abilities increase in value as the game goes on. The more opportunity that a creature has to attack, the better that creature becomes. To sum it up, in a vacuum DCD creatures are more valuable when left alive for multiple turns when compared to ETB creatures.
So why aren't more people using creatures that actually deal damage instead of waiting for them to be blinked by Conjurer's Closet or Deadeye Navigator? The most common argument that I have witnessed is that ETB creatures provide immediate value upon cast, whereas other creatures must wait a turn before their value can be gained. While this isn't false the argument can be made that the value of ETB creatures decreases over time in comparison to DCD creatures. As a result, playgroups with faster metas may value ETB creatures higher than DCD creatures, and vice versa for slower metas. Of course, faster doesn't always mean a better or an underdeveloped playgroup, obligatory YMMV.
So what am I missing here? It may just be a personal preference of mine, or maybe that I just want DCD cretures to be better than they are. What are you thoughts on the above?
Out -
In -
I'll be updating the OP with these changes as well and reasons why each change was made.
Edit: Which I should be able to update as soon as the ban on "non latin unicode characters" has been lifted.