All those ping-effect creatures make me think of an Aristocrats-Zombie-Crossover Deck with Return to the Ranks and/or Rally the Ancestors. Carrion Feeder as our only sacrifice outlet may be not enough though so something like Cartel Aristocrat may be needed as the only non-zombie...
Is it worse than Dredge? Probably yes. Is the lord-heavy version worse than humans, spirits and merfolk? Probably also yes... Feeder and Augur are a nice boost to removal resilience and CA, but I think what zombies really need is either a faster clock with 2cmc lords like merfolk or more disruption like spirits and humans (Tidehollow Sculler is a good start, but not enough). However, I doubt Wizards are going to print such creatures, since zombies was and always will be a graveyard based tribe, I mean that is the whole idea about zombies, right?
I think the B/W is the way to go for zombies. Tidehollow Sculler and Wayward Servant are critical. Way to ping the opponent, gain life, and take care of threats.
I brewed a lot of BW Zombie Vial lists in the past because Tidehollow Sculler is my all time favourite card, but as much as I hate to say it, I think BW is simply too fair and too slow to be even remotely competitive. With the new cards from MH1 I will test a UB list which should be more explosive with a lot of graveyard shenanigans:
Sideboard will load up on stuff to beat unfair combo decks like Thoughtseize, Countersquall, etc. and maybe board out some graveyard dependant stuff games 2 and 3 for more lords like Death Baron in creature matchups.
Let me ask you some more questions about the decks though.
In BW Control, what do you think about Liliana of the Veil? Do you think she fits in? If no, why does she fit in Tokens so much better?
Also, like Gazpoole stated above, how much of an impact do the mainboard wraths have in your opinion? How many times are they actually game deciding?
Lili is rarely played in the BW Control list because the deck has a really high curve with 10 or more 4+cmc cards, so you absolutley have to hit your first 4-5 landdrops and you usually don't want to discard any of the planeswalkers or wraths. However, I play 2 Lilis in my sideboard for matchups where my opponent doesn't play to the board and/or holds a lot of cards in hand. In midrange decks like Jund and Abzan Lili works better in the maindeck as these decks don't need a lot of lands and play the topdeck-game much better. I never played her in Tokens, so I have no experience to share here.
Against most creature decks, Wrath of God/Damnation/Day of Judgment are the cards I'm always happy to see. It is the deck's way to produce card advantage and create a window for Gideons to attack before the opponent can recover; so yes they are very crucial to the deck. Of course there are matchups where wrath effects are dead, but as long as the meta stays creature heavy, I'm willing to accept this.
I have switched from Tokens to BW Control about half a year ago so I can give some insight on both archetypes.
First of all, both have a terrible combo matchup, as neither Tokens nor Planeswalkers make for a fast clock. Gideon of the Trials can steal some games against something like Ad Nauseum or Lantern with his Emblem (and he is great against Burn), but if Tokens gets the right mix between tokens and anthem effects, their clock is slightly faster I have to say.
Against creature decks, in my experience the BW Control list is a little more favoured than Tokens. Even with anthems the tokens get outclassed really fast by delve threats or humans or Hollow Ones, etc. A curve like Wall of Omens into a Gideon into a wrath deals conveniently with most aggro and midrange strategies and allows for faster pressure afterwards with a 4/4 or 5/5 Gideon.
Both archetypes grind well and have decent control matchups. In the end, I feel like both decks are somewhere in low Tier 2 with Tokens having a little more linear playstyle. The biggest upside and also the reason I switched to BW control is that it minimizes draws that do nothing on their own. Intangible Virtue or a Sorin on a board with no tokens feels really bad. Finally, in my list I play some number of Wall of Omens and Night's Whisper to smooth out draws and have a better chance to draw sideboard cards.
Which decks does SFM benefit most? Two-colored (or mono-colored in the case of D&T), non-red, fair decks. It lines up well against the hyperaggro decks that rule the roost without coming anywhere near to invalidating them. Again, I freely admit to bias here. I play UW control and also have been working on brewing and testing the best shell for Orzhov Stoneblade in Modern, in order to be ready when her (hopefully inevitable) unban takes place.
Anyway, apologies for preaching to the choir; I haven’t seen anyone here suggest that SFM should remain on the ban list. It’s just that the case for her release seems to grow stronger and stronger with each passing day.
I don't think there is any real argument left for SFM to stay on the ban list from a gameplay perspective. IMO the reason Wizards won't release her in the next couple ban/unban dates is that they want to grab some money off of it by printing it in a future set like they did with Jace. So no SFM for 2018 I think, although I would love to brew some Orzhov or Esper list, too!
I think if you are not playing Blue for Trophy Mage, then BW might be a better color combination for this style of deck. It offers great sword-carriers in the already mentioned Lingering Souls plus Bitterblossom, Dark Confidant and Mirran Crusader. With so many 1/1s, one could also think about a few copies of the much underestimated Smuggler's Copter. Furthermore, discard > counters IMO, at least in this midrange kind of deck with clunky sorcery speed stuff like swords.
Sooo I'm not sure where I'd post this, but this Thread seems pretty on-topic for this idea.
I'd like to see if there's a viable Build that would use the synergy between Karn, Scion of Urza and Tidehollow Sculler. Between Sculler, some vehicles like Looter Scooter or Heart, 3-drop Planeswalkers like Lili or Gid of the Trials, and also running the usual Lingering Souls and discard/removal package, that you'd have a fantastic disruption package with a really powerful grinding engine in Karn. Making a 4/4 or drawing you cards every few turns sounds incredibly powerful, and I feel like if I could figure out a truly nasty creature package to pair this idea with, it could have a lot of potential.
Any ideas?
Some food for thought: Tidehollow Sculler, Smuggler's Copter, Blade Splicer, Thraben Inspector. These are all reasonable midrange cards that are or produce artifacts. I think the problem is that Karn would be your only payoff card for the artifact theme and that alone doesn't make it worth it.
History of Benalia is also 'lol' worthy right now, but not $40 lol worthy.
I think you are looking at the pre-release version. Regular version is going for 15 dollars. I actually think the card has legs in a couple of builds both modern and standard, but it's not worth the 15. This is probably the first time since maybe gatecrash where the prices on just about everything is probably going to drop.
I'd be interested to pick up some copies in the near future for modern brewing. Where do you think its price will settle in the short term (next two month)? Also, in which kind of modern deck can you see it being played besides tier 4 knight-tribal?
I haven't playtested it yet. But the more and more I think about things. I think the new Karn is the card engine we want!
I'm not sure but isn't Ob Nixilis, Pyhrexian Arena, Night's Whisper and Arguels Blood Fast just better?
With Karn the opponent can decide with card you get and he sees both.
On the other side Karn has a high loyality and can produce tokens (which are not strong in our deck)
Also the 4 cmc slot is quite filled by wraths and other walkers
I agree. Karn's first two abilities are not that strong assuming it will take two activations before you get a card you actually want. Against grindy midrange and control matchups I would much rather draw any of the cards mentioned above. I am currently testing 2 Night's Whisper and 1 Phyrexian Arena (+3 Wall of Omens) as my draw engine. If the lifeloss is a problem, you probably do not want Karn in the given matchup either.
The only new card I will play for sure is Damping Sphere in my sideboard. Unfortunately I think every other card mentioned so far isn't quite there, either being too narrow or too low powerwise. I'm tempted to give History of Benalia a shot as a 2-off since it's a nice clock with Gideon, Ally of Zendikar for a potential 17 damage swing on turn 5, but most of the time, this will only be a dream scenario.
I have been playing with Smuggler's Copter alot in Deadguy Ale (BW Midrange) in conjunction with Dark Confidant, Tidehollow Sculler, Bloodghast, Lingering Souls and more discard outlets (Lili and Collective Brutality). I love this card as it provides a clock and gives card selection, traits the Orzhov colors really lack. I see a few problems running it in this deck though:
1. You need enough creatures to reliably crew it. In Deadguy Ale I had 15 sources that could do so on turn 3. Without a crew target, it's just a 2 mana do nothing, so you really want to avoid that. If you want to play it, I think adding something like Bitterblossom is mandatory.
2. Copter can be bolted, pushed, pathed, etc...One of the strengths of BW control is its lack of creatures that are worth firing a spot removal for, so they usually become dead cards in our opponent's hand. Prepare for your Copter to die alot since it will probably the only real target (besides Path on Gideons).
3. Part of what makes Copter so good is the potential to abuse the looting effect by discarding cards like Lingering Souls and Bloodghast. If you only use it as a filter effect it's still reasonable, but it gets great if used as a card advantage tool. Also, it is quite common to discard some lands with Looter Scooter, so you should probably lower your curve a little if you want to play him.
This may sound discouraging but it certainly is worth testing, just adjust your deck a little and see how it goes!
Regarding splashes:
When you are considering a splash, always ask yourself if the additional options you gain really outweigh the disadvantages the splash comes with. You need more fetches and shocklands, consequently less basics and utility lands. This means the landbase is weaker to disruption like Blood Moon, Spreading Seas, Leonin Arbiter + Ghost Quarter, is less likely to disrupt our opponents lands via Field of Ruin and causes us to take more damage. Thus we lose percentage points against decks like Ponza, Blue Moon, Death n Taxes, Big Mana decks (Tron, Scapeshift/Titanshift) and super fast aggro like Burn and Affinity.
If I still were to splash a color it would be blue since it can offset the fundamental weakness of Orzhov decks, card selection and card draw. Serum Visions, Esper Charm, Search for Azcanta and Snapcaster Mage come to mind. Blue also provides sideboard answers to noncreature-combo decks in Geist of Saint Traft (fast and difficult to remove clock), Negate and Dispel (discard is useless against topdecks).
I need a playset for my casual/FNM Zombies deck. Any chance it goes down in price after the Bridge ban? Or should I just get them now?
Is it worse than Dredge? Probably yes. Is the lord-heavy version worse than humans, spirits and merfolk? Probably also yes... Feeder and Augur are a nice boost to removal resilience and CA, but I think what zombies really need is either a faster clock with 2cmc lords like merfolk or more disruption like spirits and humans (Tidehollow Sculler is a good start, but not enough). However, I doubt Wizards are going to print such creatures, since zombies was and always will be a graveyard based tribe, I mean that is the whole idea about zombies, right?
I brewed a lot of BW Zombie Vial lists in the past because Tidehollow Sculler is my all time favourite card, but as much as I hate to say it, I think BW is simply too fair and too slow to be even remotely competitive. With the new cards from MH1 I will test a UB list which should be more explosive with a lot of graveyard shenanigans:
4 Stitcher's Supplier
3 Carrion Feeder
4 Undead Augur
4 Diregraf Colossus
3 Diregraf Captain
3 Prized Amalgam
2 Gurmag Angler
3 Unearth
3 Fatal Push
2 Cast Down
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Watery Grave
4 Darkslick Shores
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Mutavault
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Swamp
2 Island
Sideboard will load up on stuff to beat unfair combo decks like Thoughtseize, Countersquall, etc. and maybe board out some graveyard dependant stuff games 2 and 3 for more lords like Death Baron in creature matchups.
Lili is rarely played in the BW Control list because the deck has a really high curve with 10 or more 4+cmc cards, so you absolutley have to hit your first 4-5 landdrops and you usually don't want to discard any of the planeswalkers or wraths. However, I play 2 Lilis in my sideboard for matchups where my opponent doesn't play to the board and/or holds a lot of cards in hand. In midrange decks like Jund and Abzan Lili works better in the maindeck as these decks don't need a lot of lands and play the topdeck-game much better. I never played her in Tokens, so I have no experience to share here.
Against most creature decks, Wrath of God/Damnation/Day of Judgment are the cards I'm always happy to see. It is the deck's way to produce card advantage and create a window for Gideons to attack before the opponent can recover; so yes they are very crucial to the deck. Of course there are matchups where wrath effects are dead, but as long as the meta stays creature heavy, I'm willing to accept this.
First of all, both have a terrible combo matchup, as neither Tokens nor Planeswalkers make for a fast clock. Gideon of the Trials can steal some games against something like Ad Nauseum or Lantern with his Emblem (and he is great against Burn), but if Tokens gets the right mix between tokens and anthem effects, their clock is slightly faster I have to say.
Against creature decks, in my experience the BW Control list is a little more favoured than Tokens. Even with anthems the tokens get outclassed really fast by delve threats or humans or Hollow Ones, etc. A curve like Wall of Omens into a Gideon into a wrath deals conveniently with most aggro and midrange strategies and allows for faster pressure afterwards with a 4/4 or 5/5 Gideon.
Both archetypes grind well and have decent control matchups. In the end, I feel like both decks are somewhere in low Tier 2 with Tokens having a little more linear playstyle. The biggest upside and also the reason I switched to BW control is that it minimizes draws that do nothing on their own. Intangible Virtue or a Sorin on a board with no tokens feels really bad. Finally, in my list I play some number of Wall of Omens and Night's Whisper to smooth out draws and have a better chance to draw sideboard cards.
Hope I could help a little @tarotplz
I don't think there is any real argument left for SFM to stay on the ban list from a gameplay perspective. IMO the reason Wizards won't release her in the next couple ban/unban dates is that they want to grab some money off of it by printing it in a future set like they did with Jace. So no SFM for 2018 I think, although I would love to brew some Orzhov or Esper list, too!
Some food for thought: Tidehollow Sculler, Smuggler's Copter, Blade Splicer, Thraben Inspector. These are all reasonable midrange cards that are or produce artifacts. I think the problem is that Karn would be your only payoff card for the artifact theme and that alone doesn't make it worth it.
I'd be interested to pick up some copies in the near future for modern brewing. Where do you think its price will settle in the short term (next two month)? Also, in which kind of modern deck can you see it being played besides tier 4 knight-tribal?
I agree. Karn's first two abilities are not that strong assuming it will take two activations before you get a card you actually want. Against grindy midrange and control matchups I would much rather draw any of the cards mentioned above. I am currently testing 2 Night's Whisper and 1 Phyrexian Arena (+3 Wall of Omens) as my draw engine. If the lifeloss is a problem, you probably do not want Karn in the given matchup either.
1. You need enough creatures to reliably crew it. In Deadguy Ale I had 15 sources that could do so on turn 3. Without a crew target, it's just a 2 mana do nothing, so you really want to avoid that. If you want to play it, I think adding something like Bitterblossom is mandatory.
2. Copter can be bolted, pushed, pathed, etc...One of the strengths of BW control is its lack of creatures that are worth firing a spot removal for, so they usually become dead cards in our opponent's hand. Prepare for your Copter to die alot since it will probably the only real target (besides Path on Gideons).
3. Part of what makes Copter so good is the potential to abuse the looting effect by discarding cards like Lingering Souls and Bloodghast. If you only use it as a filter effect it's still reasonable, but it gets great if used as a card advantage tool. Also, it is quite common to discard some lands with Looter Scooter, so you should probably lower your curve a little if you want to play him.
This may sound discouraging but it certainly is worth testing, just adjust your deck a little and see how it goes!
When you are considering a splash, always ask yourself if the additional options you gain really outweigh the disadvantages the splash comes with. You need more fetches and shocklands, consequently less basics and utility lands. This means the landbase is weaker to disruption like Blood Moon, Spreading Seas, Leonin Arbiter + Ghost Quarter, is less likely to disrupt our opponents lands via Field of Ruin and causes us to take more damage. Thus we lose percentage points against decks like Ponza, Blue Moon, Death n Taxes, Big Mana decks (Tron, Scapeshift/Titanshift) and super fast aggro like Burn and Affinity.
If I still were to splash a color it would be blue since it can offset the fundamental weakness of Orzhov decks, card selection and card draw. Serum Visions, Esper Charm, Search for Azcanta and Snapcaster Mage come to mind. Blue also provides sideboard answers to noncreature-combo decks in Geist of Saint Traft (fast and difficult to remove clock), Negate and Dispel (discard is useless against topdecks).