Unfortunately havn't had much time to really test the deck out. Have played a few games but mostly ended up just playing the beatdown using the usual assortment of Finks and Rhino / Wilt-Leaf.
Will try and test the deck out some more, but at the moment i'm busy getting some experience with Hardened Scales Affinity.
Edit:In response to thnkr: I think your running a few cards mainboard that should really be moved to the sideboard e.g. Anafenza the foremost. She's a value card but doesn't do enough to warrant space in the core deck. Same with Orzhov Pontiff andf Linvala, these cards are too situational for the mainboard.
Overall 1 - 2
Whilst I'd much rather have won more, I think I got pretty unlucky in terms of match-ups and how some of the match-ups play out.
UR Through the Breach 1 - 2
Well when I first saw Emrakul off of my Hedron Crab trigger I was feeling pretty goddam shi-tty. First game didn't draw an extraction so that was that.
Game 2 - get to keep a one lander with two traps and a Surgical extraction, double trap first turn into extraction sets the tone for the rest of the game leading to an easy win.
Game 3 - Keep a hand with two extractions and other filler. Early on play a Surgical on Through the Breach, gets countered . Later manage to play the second Surgical on Emrakul leaving me feeling pretty confident, however I don't draw any gas for the rest of the game and bolted-Snapcaster-bolted to death. Lame.
KCI 2 - 0
First time playing against KCI, turned out to be a walk in the park. Both games play Surgical onto his KCI, quick mill for the rest of the game.
Grixis Shadow 0 -2
Last match I was playing my friend, which leaves me pretty salty with the result.
Game 1 - Surgical onto his Shadow, later he delves for double angler. Starting to really regret how mill stocks the opponents graveyards... I have Bridge on my Shelldock isle, which I play with lethal damage on the board, get's countered.
Game 2 - He plays two shadows early after taking himself to 8, I hold up an Echoing Truth for his turn. Play Echoing Truth... gets countered. Later I draw bridge with just enough cards in hand so he can't swing, play bridge.. get's countered. F*ck my life
I'm still pretty confident this is a good deck though, if I change anything it will be to bring in 4 Leylines of the Void for the sideboard since I really need a way to prevent graveyard decks from stomping me. I already bought a lot of cards recently though so my wallet needs time to recover.
Hey, yeah that's a good call on the plague belcher, I'll admit I'm still figuring out how to play the deck.
You're probably right about the blasting station but those games where I have out Blasting Station, Wayward Servant, and Gravecrawler are just so satisfying... Honestly though I very rarely want to see a second vial, especially a third so I think your right about that.
I think i'm going to bring in 2 Path / 2 Push. I havn't really had any problem getting white mana unless I've been blood mooned, and I'd like a way to remove big fattys / creatures with annoying death effects.
As to relic, I just picked whichever sideboard games were lying nearby, I'll see if I can find my spellbombs.
All in all, since the idea of playing zombies was one of the reasons I started playing magic I'm pretty happy with the deck... It's all about the flavour!
Edit: Since I shamelessly copied your sideboard also, for what match-ups do you bring Kalitas in for? Red heavy decks? Grindy match-ups?
Ok, so against my better judgement I decided to buy the cards I need to make a zombie deck. In this I mostly just copied Dejadal's deck, since he seems to know what he's about.
I'm not playing any control mainboard atm because I just want to see how the zombies holdup without it, but most likely will bring in 3-4 kill spells later on.
Since I only play paper I've only got some limited experience with the deck so far. Played my friend yesterday who was trying to run some Dragon-based jank. Deck held up really well, but then I think that might be function of his deck being ***** so....
Later played against red prison and taxes, zombies did ok I guess. Anger of the Gods is just bad for us.
The main problems were
1. Zombies have powerful synergy but are pretty weak stand-alone cards. Lots of cool interactions between Gravecrawler, Wayward Servant, Diregraf Collosus etc. but by themselves pretty much do nothing.
2. Decks with a lot of removal are pretty sucky, which I guess I expected. Gravecrawler can help us recover a little
3. Blood moon can really shut us down unless we have a vial out, I'm thinking I wouldn't mind a few more fetches to help get those basics out easier.
What I'd really like is an easier sac outlet for zombies, like Affinity has in Arcbound Ravager. Being able to avoid Path and other exile based spells would be nice, plus being able to choose when to kill a Relentless Dead to bring back Tidehollow Sculler or something would be nice.
One card that has actually impressed me was Cryptbreaker, I remember playing some zombies thing ages ago and being unimpressed with this card, but 90% of the time I'm getting at least one card draw from this guy, and often 2 or 3.
So I finally got round to sleeving up and getting some games in with a hardened affinity build.
I originally had 2 Voltaic Servant but I'm pretty certain that card is trash, too slow and does very little without steel overseer.
I havn't received my Thrones of Geth yet so i'm not sure how they will fare without trying to max sacc value through Sparring Construct.
I was pretty impressed with animation module, has some nice synergy with ravager, chucking out servos which can be sacced to boost up the counters.
I was wondering though if it stacks with itself? For example I have two Animation Modules out and let's say Arcbound Worker enters the battlefield, can I pay 1 cmc and get two servos? Or would I pay 2 cmc, one for each animation module?
I pretty copied fncmtg's sideboard because I have all these GW cards sitting around since I deconstructed my boggles deck, although I'm really not sure it's worth it. White can bring us Dromoka's Command and some other white cards but it might be simpler to just go straight up green to make matches against Blood Moon and multiple Path's a bit easier.
One card I wasn't that impressed with was fraying sanity and I am thinking I am going to take it out. I know it can be bonkers but from my games that I have played, it was always too late for it to be a late hit card. I have been tossing around the idea of maniac scribe but i thought mind funeral is a bigger hit. If I have played more creature heavy decks then I think it would be more needed.
I agree with you on Fraying Sanity. If it were only two mana it would be amazing, but at 3 it hits the board too late. If you draw it your asking yourself to hold up on Archive trap and other mills spells to maximize it's effect, this means you might be missing good opportunities for archive trap or you simply die before you can get all your mill spells out. Visions of beyond depends on you stacking their graveyard ASAP, which means its a tempo non-bo with Fraying Sanity.
Personally I'm not a big fan of mind funeral either, whilst Manic Scribe is not an amazing card it does usually buy you time against creature decks. I've had far too many terrible hits off of Mind Funeral to play with it, one time I managed to hit 4 lands in a row... never again!
At 3 mana it also makes it hard to hold up control spells like Fatal Push.
I've played with Trap-makers snare and personally i'm not a fan. Since I rely on Field of Ruin (which should absolutely be a 4 of btw, I've gone off Ghost Quarter as the drawback of land loss is pretty significant, also if your opponent knows your playing Mill they will simply choose not to fetch a basic) to force those archive trap hits, it means I would need 4 lands on the turn I wanted to combo with it, once again I much prefer to run a low to the ground deck to generate better consistency.
Have been playing around with this old school affinity build. Overall I'd say it's actually not that bad, it might not be as resilient as a normal affinity build but it's a lot of fun to play. I especially love being able to play out no-land hands and actually win.
The basic idea being to vomit cards onto the battlefield as quickly as possible then pump them with contested war zone, either going over the opponent with flying or just going wider. Can establish a clock really quickly, but is lacking the back-up plans of regular affinity (such as Inkmoth nexus or Etched Champion).
Bomat Courier seems pretty important, its stops you running out of gas and provides a way of recovering from sweepers etc, assuming you can hold up a mana for it.
I think I'll try taking this to my local FNM and see how it does
Do you guys have any insights on a returning Bogles player? There are some decks in the meta I'm unfamiliar with. I read Hollow One is a pretty sasfe matchup for us, but how about Humans and Death's Shadow?
In what cases should I mulligan untill the Sideboard cards show up?
Personally I think the most important decision is whether you run Leylines main or sideboard. I used to run them main but found I was siding them out for most of my match-ups so moved them into the sideboard, this means I have less space there for other stuff but can probably run a faster clock first game. Depends on what you think the meta will be like.
Suited up some slippery boys for FNM, ran Leylines in the sideboard in trying to guess my local Meta
Went 2 - 1 overall:
vs Shadow 2 - 0
Pretty straightforward, first game got thought seized for my hexproof creature, drew one on turn three and started slamming enchantments, opponent conceded after I got daybreak going.
Second game brought in leylines, landing a creature with double ethereal armour and that was that
vs Eldrazi Taxes 1 - 2
Tough matchup, opponent seemed to get Thalia on turn two every game which really screwed me up. Followed up with Thought-knots and Reality smashers...
eh... even when I had the removal its costing my too much to play it and the tempo loss means I get my face smashed.
vs Jeskai Control 2 - 1
First game ran fairly straightforward, just suited up and stomped.
Game two I foolishly decided to remove my control, only to stare into a spellskite turn two... Feels bad man
Game three went long, brought the removal back in, had to mulligan a bit which left me slow out of the gate. Manage to path his spellskite early on, but left low on auras / cards. Eventually get him to ten, he has all his mana up so I know he's planning something, let's me swing and take him to 3 then plays Supreme Verdict on his turn taking all my guys out. Luckily I had decided to leave an un-cracked fetch up, crack it during his end-step for dryad arbour, then enchant dryad with the rancor that came back to my hand and swing for the win.
I like your deck, and since I've always wanted a modern zombie deck that has half a chance I might try and suit up the cards for it.
Have you ever tried LotH? She would seem like a nice fit, except I imagine you want to avoid filling up on non-zombie spells.
How about Nantuko Husk ? I'm imagining you can sac lots of cheap zombies if the opponent decides not to block.
Also, I love the soft combo of Blasting Station + Gravecrawler + Wayward Servant / Plague Belcher, how come it's only a one-of in the deck, instead of 2 or 3?
How do you guys feel about the cards coming from M19?
Runic Armasaur 1GG
Creature - Dinosaur
Whenever an opponent activates an ability from a creature or a land that is not a mana ability, you may draw a card.
"The most sacred places in the Sun Empire are protected by something more than prayers"
2/5
2 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
Creatures (29)
1 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
1 Archangel of Thune
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fairgrounds Warden
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
2 Siege Rhino
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Spike Feeder
1 Viscera Seer
4 Voice of Resurgence
2 Wilt-Leaf Liege
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Path to Exile
Sorcery (5)
4 Eldritch Evolution
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Quasali Pridemage
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Tocatli Honor Guard
1 Worship
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Thoughtseize
Just posting an update to keep this thread alive. Made some small changes to the deck to try and enable some incidental infinite life combos using Viscera Seer, Kitchen Finks, Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit, and Archangel Of Thune.
Unfortunately havn't had much time to really test the deck out. Have played a few games but mostly ended up just playing the beatdown using the usual assortment of Finks and Rhino / Wilt-Leaf.
Will try and test the deck out some more, but at the moment i'm busy getting some experience with Hardened Scales Affinity.
Edit: In response to thnkr: I think your running a few cards mainboard that should really be moved to the sideboard e.g. Anafenza the foremost. She's a value card but doesn't do enough to warrant space in the core deck. Same with Orzhov Pontiff andf Linvala, these cards are too situational for the mainboard.
4 Field of Ruin
4 Flooded Strand
3 Ipnu Rivulet
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Shelldock Isle
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
Creatures (8)
4 Hedron Crab
4 Manic Scribe
2 Search for Azcanta
Artifacts (7)
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mesmeric Orb
Instant (15)
4 Archive Trap
1 Crypt Incursion
3 Fatal Push
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Visions of Beyond
Sorcery (6)
2 Collective Brutality
4 Glimpse the Unthinkable
2 Profane Memento
2 Crypt Incursion
2 Echoing Truth
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Ravenous Trap
1 Spell Pierce
2 Damnation
1 Set Adrift
2 Damping Sphere
Tournament Report
Overall 1 - 2
Whilst I'd much rather have won more, I think I got pretty unlucky in terms of match-ups and how some of the match-ups play out.
UR Through the Breach 1 - 2
Well when I first saw Emrakul off of my Hedron Crab trigger I was feeling pretty goddam shi-tty. First game didn't draw an extraction so that was that.
Game 2 - get to keep a one lander with two traps and a Surgical extraction, double trap first turn into extraction sets the tone for the rest of the game leading to an easy win.
Game 3 - Keep a hand with two extractions and other filler. Early on play a Surgical on Through the Breach, gets countered
KCI 2 - 0
First time playing against KCI, turned out to be a walk in the park. Both games play Surgical onto his KCI, quick mill for the rest of the game.
Grixis Shadow 0 -2
Last match I was playing my friend, which leaves me pretty salty with the result.
Game 1 - Surgical onto his Shadow, later he delves for double angler. Starting to really regret how mill stocks the opponents graveyards... I have Bridge on my Shelldock isle, which I play with lethal damage on the board, get's countered.
Game 2 - He plays two shadows early after taking himself to 8, I hold up an Echoing Truth for his turn. Play Echoing Truth... gets countered. Later I draw bridge with just enough cards in hand so he can't swing, play bridge.. get's countered. F*ck my life
I'm still pretty confident this is a good deck though, if I change anything it will be to bring in 4 Leylines of the Void for the sideboard since I really need a way to prevent graveyard decks from stomping me. I already bought a lot of cards recently though so my wallet needs time to recover.
You're probably right about the blasting station but those games where I have out Blasting Station, Wayward Servant, and Gravecrawler are just so satisfying... Honestly though I very rarely want to see a second vial, especially a third so I think your right about that.
I think i'm going to bring in 2 Path / 2 Push. I havn't really had any problem getting white mana unless I've been blood mooned, and I'd like a way to remove big fattys / creatures with annoying death effects.
As to relic, I just picked whichever sideboard games were lying nearby, I'll see if I can find my spellbombs.
All in all, since the idea of playing zombies was one of the reasons I started playing magic I'm pretty happy with the deck... It's all about the flavour!
Edit: Since I shamelessly copied your sideboard also, for what match-ups do you bring Kalitas in for? Red heavy decks? Grindy match-ups?
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Concealed Courtyard
2 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
2 Mutavault
1 Plains
4 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Creature (33)
2 Binding Mummy
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Death Baron
2 Diregraf Colossus
2 Geralfs Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
3 Plague Belcher
4 Relentless Dead
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Wayward Servant
4 Aether Vial
2 Blasting Station
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Dismember
2 Fatal Push
3 Fragmentize
3 Thoughtseize
Ok, so against my better judgement I decided to buy the cards I need to make a zombie deck. In this I mostly just copied Dejadal's deck, since he seems to know what he's about.
I'm not playing any control mainboard atm because I just want to see how the zombies holdup without it, but most likely will bring in 3-4 kill spells later on.
Since I only play paper I've only got some limited experience with the deck so far. Played my friend yesterday who was trying to run some Dragon-based jank. Deck held up really well, but then I think that might be function of his deck being ***** so....
Later played against red prison and taxes, zombies did ok I guess. Anger of the Gods is just bad for us.
The main problems were
1. Zombies have powerful synergy but are pretty weak stand-alone cards. Lots of cool interactions between Gravecrawler, Wayward Servant, Diregraf Collosus etc. but by themselves pretty much do nothing.
2. Decks with a lot of removal are pretty sucky, which I guess I expected. Gravecrawler can help us recover a little
3. Blood moon can really shut us down unless we have a vial out, I'm thinking I wouldn't mind a few more fetches to help get those basics out easier.
What I'd really like is an easier sac outlet for zombies, like Affinity has in Arcbound Ravager. Being able to avoid Path and other exile based spells would be nice, plus being able to choose when to kill a Relentless Dead to bring back Tidehollow Sculler or something would be nice.
One card that has actually impressed me was Cryptbreaker, I remember playing some zombies thing ages ago and being unimpressed with this card, but 90% of the time I'm getting at least one card draw from this guy, and often 2 or 3.
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Darksteel Citadel
3 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
3 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Pendelhaven
2 Razorverge Thicket
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Hangarback Walker
2 Metallic Mimic
4 Steel Overseer
4 Walking Ballista
4 Hardened Scales
Artifact (11)
2 Animation Module
4 Mox Opal
2 Throne of Geth
3 Welding Jar
Sorcery (4)
4 Ancient Stirrings
So I finally got round to sleeving up and getting some games in with a hardened affinity build.
I originally had 2 Voltaic Servant but I'm pretty certain that card is trash, too slow and does very little without steel overseer.
I havn't received my Thrones of Geth yet so i'm not sure how they will fare without trying to max sacc value through Sparring Construct.
I was pretty impressed with animation module, has some nice synergy with ravager, chucking out servos which can be sacced to boost up the counters.
I was wondering though if it stacks with itself? For example I have two Animation Modules out and let's say Arcbound Worker enters the battlefield, can I pay 1 cmc and get two servos? Or would I pay 2 cmc, one for each animation module?
I pretty copied fncmtg's sideboard because I have all these GW cards sitting around since I deconstructed my boggles deck, although I'm really not sure it's worth it. White can bring us Dromoka's Command and some other white cards but it might be simpler to just go straight up green to make matches against Blood Moon and multiple Path's a bit easier.
I think your decklist is missing its artifacts... otherwise we run a pretty similar decklist.
I might try taking mine to FNM this week.
I agree with you on Fraying Sanity. If it were only two mana it would be amazing, but at 3 it hits the board too late. If you draw it your asking yourself to hold up on Archive trap and other mills spells to maximize it's effect, this means you might be missing good opportunities for archive trap or you simply die before you can get all your mill spells out. Visions of beyond depends on you stacking their graveyard ASAP, which means its a tempo non-bo with Fraying Sanity.
Personally I'm not a big fan of mind funeral either, whilst Manic Scribe is not an amazing card it does usually buy you time against creature decks. I've had far too many terrible hits off of Mind Funeral to play with it, one time I managed to hit 4 lands in a row... never again!
At 3 mana it also makes it hard to hold up control spells like Fatal Push.
I've played with Trap-makers snare and personally i'm not a fan. Since I rely on Field of Ruin (which should absolutely be a 4 of btw, I've gone off Ghost Quarter as the drawback of land loss is pretty significant, also if your opponent knows your playing Mill they will simply choose not to fetch a basic) to force those archive trap hits, it means I would need 4 lands on the turn I wanted to combo with it, once again I much prefer to run a low to the ground deck to generate better consistency.
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
3 Contested War Zone
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 Mountain
Creatures
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Bomat Courier
4 Frogmite
4 Memnite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
4 Vault Skirge
4 Cranial Plating
4 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Welding Jar
Have been playing around with this old school affinity build. Overall I'd say it's actually not that bad, it might not be as resilient as a normal affinity build but it's a lot of fun to play. I especially love being able to play out no-land hands and actually win.
The basic idea being to vomit cards onto the battlefield as quickly as possible then pump them with contested war zone, either going over the opponent with flying or just going wider. Can establish a clock really quickly, but is lacking the back-up plans of regular affinity (such as Inkmoth nexus or Etched Champion).
Bomat Courier seems pretty important, its stops you running out of gas and provides a way of recovering from sweepers etc, assuming you can hold up a mana for it.
I think I'll try taking this to my local FNM and see how it does
Personally I think the most important decision is whether you run Leylines main or sideboard. I used to run them main but found I was siding them out for most of my match-ups so moved them into the sideboard, this means I have less space there for other stuff but can probably run a faster clock first game. Depends on what you think the meta will be like.
I think you updated your list just now, how come your not running path? Is dismember really any better?
I would've thought a 2 - 2 split between path and push would fit quite nicely
edit: reading your previous posts, I'm guessing you want to reduce reliance on white mana?
Went 2 - 1 overall:
vs Shadow 2 - 0
Pretty straightforward, first game got thought seized for my hexproof creature, drew one on turn three and started slamming enchantments, opponent conceded after I got daybreak going.
Second game brought in leylines, landing a creature with double ethereal armour and that was that
vs Eldrazi Taxes 1 - 2
Tough matchup, opponent seemed to get Thalia on turn two every game which really screwed me up. Followed up with Thought-knots and Reality smashers...
eh... even when I had the removal its costing my too much to play it and the tempo loss means I get my face smashed.
vs Jeskai Control 2 - 1
First game ran fairly straightforward, just suited up and stomped.
Game two I foolishly decided to remove my control, only to stare into a spellskite turn two... Feels bad man
Game three went long, brought the removal back in, had to mulligan a bit which left me slow out of the gate. Manage to path his spellskite early on, but left low on auras / cards. Eventually get him to ten, he has all his mana up so I know he's planning something, let's me swing and take him to 3 then plays Supreme Verdict on his turn taking all my guys out. Luckily I had decided to leave an un-cracked fetch up, crack it during his end-step for dryad arbour, then enchant dryad with the rancor that came back to my hand and swing for the win.
I like your deck, and since I've always wanted a modern zombie deck that has half a chance I might try and suit up the cards for it.
Have you ever tried LotH? She would seem like a nice fit, except I imagine you want to avoid filling up on non-zombie spells.
How about Nantuko Husk ? I'm imagining you can sac lots of cheap zombies if the opponent decides not to block.
Also, I love the soft combo of Blasting Station + Gravecrawler + Wayward Servant / Plague Belcher, how come it's only a one-of in the deck, instead of 2 or 3?
Runic Armasaur 1GG
Creature - Dinosaur
Whenever an opponent activates an ability from a creature or a land that is not a mana ability, you may draw a card.
"The most sacred places in the Sun Empire are protected by something more than prayers"
2/5
Might be a nice cascade hit...
Any thoughts?
Graveyard marshal
Stitchers supplier
Desecrated Tomb to take advantage of graveyard recursion. Thoughts?
Like from today's MTGO tournament
s_b_i_r_u (5th Place)
Modern PTQ #11434967 on 06/17/2018
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-ptq-2018-06-18
I've got the cards lying around and might try putting something together just for fun