I was looking at Ad Nauseam, but my concern is that it would just be a worse storm deck. I haven't looked at any Death's Shadow decks yet but I'll take a look. Thanks
I have played Magic on and off since Conflux, but have never played competitively before. With Dominaria and MtG Arena I've been having a ton of fun and am thinking about really getting into it, and Modern seems like the most popular format around me. Looking at all the decks is a bit overwhelming, and I have no idea what's good right now either, so here I am!
Cards you already own
I have one each of the grixis fetches and shocks from Commander, but for the most part I would sell off anything I got worth any value.
Colors you like to play
Black has always been a favorite of mine, but I'm not too attached to anything.
Style you like to play (control, combo, aggro, midrange, tempo, ramp, rogue)
Control and combo. The flashier and bigger it is the better. I enjoy outplaying my opponent in games. The higher the skill ceiling on a deck the better.
Level you want to play at, or aim to build up to (causal, fmn, ptq)
I'll be starting with FNM style tournaments, but if I can do well I'll be looking to go to bigger events eventually.
Exactly 51/100 of the cards are foiled in my Lord of Tresserhorn deck currently, but only two more that are big money to go (Demonic tutor and Scalding Tarn). It has 9 cards in it that can't be foiled, and I plan on having those altered eventually.
Coffin Queen and Bone Dancer are on my buy list right now! Thank you. Dread Slaver, Geth and Lim-Dûl the Necromancer I've tried to have in though, the problem being mana cost. Lim-Dûl was actually my first commander for this deck and I wasn't able to cast him till turn 7 or 8. I'm trying to make this a quick aggo/control zombie deck. Fleshbag Marauder is definitely a good idea, I'm sure I can find room.
I actually own Grave Betrayal, Call to the Grave, Living Death and Cruel Revival. I'll mix them in and see how it goes. I'm mainly worried about mana costs, that's the only thing that was holding me back from using these cards. Tombstone Stairwell is a VERY interesting card that I will buy.
EDIT: Question about Tombstone Stairwell: If you have no cards in your graveyard, doesn't it backfire? Tokens DO go to the graveyard correct?
Keep in mind, this isn't standard. A high mana curve doesn't make the deck bad, unless everyone in your local area is playing super SUPER aggro decks. Also, Fleshbag + Mikeaus + Grave Pact = Fun times ensuing. Especially if you can get him back with things like Lord of the Undead.
As for your question on the stairwell: No, it doesn't backfire. It won't be incredibly useful, but tokens do not go to the graveyard. I killed someone with it early when I only had 1 creature in graveyard. They had about 10, and after they swung, my Vengeful Dead killed them due to 10 zombies dieing at end of turn.
Other cards that may be of use to you are Call to the Grave, Endless Ranks of the Dead, Grave Betrayal, Tombstone Stairwell, Cruel Revival, Living Death (this is another way to get rid of Avacyn, and if there's a noxious ghoul in your grave when you cast it, you'll usually be the only one with creatures left). There are some more, but I don't have all that much time to list them all. If you want to view my decklist it's here, but seeing as some of the cards are outside your colors, they won't be of use to you.
I'm thinking I should put either Sensei's Divining Topp or Skullclamp, as well as Rhystic study into this deck. The card advantage from the top or clamp is something I just don't have right now, as well as the fact that they'd be the only one drops in the deck. I really like the Spelljack in this deck, but it's so expensive on blue, and not on theme with the rest of the deck, so it may be cut. Other than the Spelljack I'm not really sure what else to cut. Anybody have any suggestions?
I like playing decks with a theme made around the general, I only have one deck (out of seven) where this isn't the case.
I REFUSE to play cards just because they're good. I still don't have a Sorin Markov in my vampire deck, because even though he'd be on theme, I HATE the card. Cards like him ruin the fun when they're used against me, so I don't use them against other people.
Similarly, I don't really do infinite combos. My blue deck wins through infinite combo, but it's a five card combo. That's not exactly easy to construct.
I'm currently at $1,100 (prices calculated with StarCity, so they're on the higher side) with my Lord of Tresserhorn deck, the most expensive cards being the three duals as well as foil Polluted Delta and foil Bloodstained Mire. I'm working on foiling the whole thing out (and getting the cards I can't get foiled altered) but it'll be another thousand or so before I pull that off.
I came pretty close to building a Tresserhorn deck. I kind of looked at it as more of a control deck with voltron elements. I put in creatures that can self resurrect as a means to keep my defense up while I set up a kill shot via Tresserhorn.
To accomplish this, I put in Squee, Goblin Nabob, Nether Traitor, Reassembling Skeleton, Gravecrawler and Bloodghast. Doing this allowed a lot of synergy within the deck. Allow you to combo cards like Gravepact with Skullclamp, or use cards like Arena to slow down possible threats that were going to beat your face. It also make River Kelpie extremely useful for some card advantage. I know you wanna keep more with the zombie theme, but with your general out and playing Call to the Grave you can keep the board clear and just start voltron swinging for the fences. The way I look at it, if you're going to sac due to your general, might as well run a package that makes the sac advantageous for you.
And if you're looking to utilize blue and need card draw, might I suggest only the most powerful draw effect in the game? Rhystic Study Yes it's annoying, yes people don't like it, tough cookies, though. You run blue, this should always be an auto include.
I run the Mindslicer and Homura, Human Ascendant for something to sacrafice to the general. I don't want to include too many cards just for him though. Yeah, Rhystic Study could be quite helpful for the deck. Skullclamp wouldn't be bad for draw either, but the question is, what do you think is worth removing for them? Grimoire of the Dead would also become good with some card draw. I'm not running it now because each card I draw is usually the only one I get per turn, making having to discard it for promises of a better tomorrow when I have a big card saying "This makes me win really hard" on the field risky.
The Mimeoplasm is a fun general. I like Lord of Tresserhorn for flavor as general though. He is the Lord of my deck, ruling over the other zombies. I play a lot of decks just for flavor reasons (I have four/seven EDH decks as tribal), so having a zombie general is great. I also like the red, if for no other reason than Lightning Reaver. Just the other day I had him hit for over 80 damage total in a five player game. The extra little bit of removal doesn't hurt either.
As for blue spells, I'm not looking for more per say, but this deck does find itself in need of draw sometimes. I'm not sure that anything is worth cutting for a card like Forbidden Alchemy though. It's good, but compared to some of the current cards in here, or alternate choices (Blue Sun's Zenith, Mind Spring, etc) it just doesn't seem good enough. The biggest problem I always have is cutting cards. I can never seem to find any that are worth cutting, and it just gets harder as they keep releasing better zombies, things like draw slowly get dropped.
I have been wanting to build this guy for a long time. I was not going to play zombie tribal but focus more on the general. I know that's not what you are doing but I figured mentioning some of the things I was going to add might be helpful in some way. tainted strike, glistening oil, Mindslicer, stifle, trickbind, torpor orb, corrupted conscious, and consecrated sphinx. Not sure how much this plays into your theme but they work well with your general.
Yeah, most of those just seem to be to buff the general, which isn't the theme of the deck really. The Consecrated Sphinx might be worth picking up, but I honestly don't like devolving from the theme of Zombies too much, especially because I seem to destroy a lot of non-zombies relatively often.
Thanks for your input both of you though! If you have any more, or anyone else has some I'd love to hear it.
Cards you already own
I have one each of the grixis fetches and shocks from Commander, but for the most part I would sell off anything I got worth any value.
Colors you like to play
Black has always been a favorite of mine, but I'm not too attached to anything.
Style you like to play (control, combo, aggro, midrange, tempo, ramp, rogue)
Control and combo. The flashier and bigger it is the better. I enjoy outplaying my opponent in games. The higher the skill ceiling on a deck the better.
Level you want to play at, or aim to build up to (causal, fmn, ptq)
I'll be starting with FNM style tournaments, but if I can do well I'll be looking to go to bigger events eventually.
Keep in mind, this isn't standard. A high mana curve doesn't make the deck bad, unless everyone in your local area is playing super SUPER aggro decks. Also, Fleshbag + Mikeaus + Grave Pact = Fun times ensuing. Especially if you can get him back with things like Lord of the Undead.
As for your question on the stairwell: No, it doesn't backfire. It won't be incredibly useful, but tokens do not go to the graveyard. I killed someone with it early when I only had 1 creature in graveyard. They had about 10, and after they swung, my Vengeful Dead killed them due to 10 zombies dieing at end of turn.
Other cards that may be of use to you are Call to the Grave, Endless Ranks of the Dead, Grave Betrayal, Tombstone Stairwell, Cruel Revival, Living Death (this is another way to get rid of Avacyn, and if there's a noxious ghoul in your grave when you cast it, you'll usually be the only one with creatures left). There are some more, but I don't have all that much time to list them all. If you want to view my decklist it's here, but seeing as some of the cards are outside your colors, they won't be of use to you.
I REFUSE to play cards just because they're good. I still don't have a Sorin Markov in my vampire deck, because even though he'd be on theme, I HATE the card. Cards like him ruin the fun when they're used against me, so I don't use them against other people.
Similarly, I don't really do infinite combos. My blue deck wins through infinite combo, but it's a five card combo. That's not exactly easy to construct.
I run the Mindslicer and Homura, Human Ascendant for something to sacrafice to the general. I don't want to include too many cards just for him though. Yeah, Rhystic Study could be quite helpful for the deck. Skullclamp wouldn't be bad for draw either, but the question is, what do you think is worth removing for them? Grimoire of the Dead would also become good with some card draw. I'm not running it now because each card I draw is usually the only one I get per turn, making having to discard it for promises of a better tomorrow when I have a big card saying "This makes me win really hard" on the field risky.
The Mimeoplasm is a fun general. I like Lord of Tresserhorn for flavor as general though. He is the Lord of my deck, ruling over the other zombies. I play a lot of decks just for flavor reasons (I have four/seven EDH decks as tribal), so having a zombie general is great. I also like the red, if for no other reason than Lightning Reaver. Just the other day I had him hit for over 80 damage total in a five player game. The extra little bit of removal doesn't hurt either.
As for blue spells, I'm not looking for more per say, but this deck does find itself in need of draw sometimes. I'm not sure that anything is worth cutting for a card like Forbidden Alchemy though. It's good, but compared to some of the current cards in here, or alternate choices (Blue Sun's Zenith, Mind Spring, etc) it just doesn't seem good enough. The biggest problem I always have is cutting cards. I can never seem to find any that are worth cutting, and it just gets harder as they keep releasing better zombies, things like draw slowly get dropped.
Yeah, most of those just seem to be to buff the general, which isn't the theme of the deck really. The Consecrated Sphinx might be worth picking up, but I honestly don't like devolving from the theme of Zombies too much, especially because I seem to destroy a lot of non-zombies relatively often.
Thanks for your input both of you though! If you have any more, or anyone else has some I'd love to hear it.