MTG Horde of Zombies

Hey all,

   I figured it would be fun to share my plans for my new relatively casual deck.  While looking at the the list of cards in Shards a few cards kept striking me as really fun, Death Baron and Lich Lord of Unx.  The first gives all of your zombies +1/+1 and death touch.  The other generates zombies, does a little direct damage and mills the opponent a little.  Neither of these cards are likely to be the corner stone of a highly competitive deck, but they sure are fun and deserved to be played!  I've decided to stick to type 2 with this deck, but I'll discuss what I might change if I was looking at extended or vintage.  I'll also talk a little about multiplayer options I've considered.  It is a long read.

   First off the deck:

4 Lord of the Undead
4 Lich Lord of Unx
4 Death Baron
4 Grixis Grimblade
4 Skeletal Changeling
4 Zombie Outlander / Vedalken Ghoul / Dregscape Zombie

4 Profane Command
2 Liliana Ves
4 Nameless Inversion
2 Thornbite Staff

4 Underground River
4 Sunken Ruins
4 Reflecting Pool
Islands and Swamps

  A keen observer will notice that the mana base is disgustingly expensive, that profane command isn't exactly cheap, and that Lilliana is just plain dirty.  In my defense all of these cards were already in my collection, the deck would run just fine with Shards tap lands, border posts, and basic lands (perhaps better when we take Grixis Grimblade into account).  If you were looking to make something similar on a budget just get the Shards Tritap (excellent and cheap), and a few blue / black border posts.

  First up is the nobility of the Zombie World and the core of the deck.  Lord of the Undead, Lich Lord of Unx, and Death Baron. 

   The Lord of the Undead is an anthem effect and allows you to take zombies out of your graveyard.  This is a must have for a zombie deck in my opinion, your zombies are not individually very good and you need to be able to recover from losing your zombie nobility.  If you have a Lord of the Undead in play and a Nameless Inversion in hand most decks will be stalled until they draw creature removal.  Your lord of the undead will have a huge target on its head, but such is the high profile life of the upper crust of zombie society.  The name of the game here is card advantage, if Lord of the undead gets to activate even once he has justified his presence.

   Lich lord of Unx is a zombie generator, direct damage, and decking milling.  The lich lord is the original reason why I started looking at a zombie deck and the reason why I decided to make it a black / blue zombie deck.  Why he isn't as good as the other two Zombie Lords he is a heck of a lot of fun and flexible.  Looking at our mana curve is pretty much stops at 3 mana with the exception of Lillianan and profane command.  The lich lord gives us something efficient to do with our left over mana.  Like the Lord of the undead he is a card advantage engine, if a somewhat more modest one.  I suspect that the lich lord will often times deliver the final blow.

   The Death Baron is another anthem effect and gives deathtouch to all other zombies, meaning everything in the deck!  Attacking or blocking suddenly becomes a very risky proposition when your opponent can generage an endless stream of 2/2 death touchers.  The death baron like the Lord of the Undead will be a lightning rod for removal, assuming there isn't already a lord of the undead in play!  The best part about the zombie nobility is that they are not Legends, you can have as many of them as you want out and they all buff each other!  Which is a good thing since Jund Charm, Volcanic Fallout, etc are so popular.

    Next up is the peasantry of the zombie world; Grixis Grimblade, Zombie Outlander, and Skeletal Changeling.

    The Grixis Grimblade is perhaps the most efficeint zombie in the game in terms of casting cost to stats.  There are even enough multicolored creatures that he will probably get his free death touch pretty early.  Really there because he is a 2/1 zombie for 2, with the added benefit of becoming disgusting when another multicolored zombie hits play.

    The Zombie Outlander is not a great zombie.  It helps with several problems I expected to see, but isn't outstanding.  He is a 2/2 for 2 and has protection from most efficient Naya and Bant creatures (take that Rhox warmonk!).  Vedalken Ghoul and Dregscape Zombie are audtioning for the part.  Vedalken Ghoul starts to get interesting when he starts getting beefed up by the various lords.  Dregscape is nice because of the unearth ability, with a death baron out he is quite efficient.

   Skeletal Changeling is an honorary Zombie.  On his own he can act as a speed bump to help deal with faster decks.  His real reason for being in the deck is his excellent synergy with Death Baron.  Regeneration + Deathtouch is a good enough combination to justify bringing the Skeletal Changeling.

   Next up are the spells of Zombie kind.

   Profane Command is just an efficient spell.  It can secure a win by giving all of your zombies fear, it can just straight up direct damage your opponent, it can kill a creature, it can bring a Lord of the Undead back into play for more shinanigans.  Once you have 5 or so mana this card will never be dead.  Profane command is just a natural fit for this deck.

   Lilliana Ves is mostly here for flavor.  He is a Necromancer and a damn good one.  She combos well with the Lich Lord of Unx, and helps grab mid / late game answers out of the deck like Profane command.  At the very least she is another source of card advantage.  Her ultimate ability works quite well with the theme of the deck and particularly well with the Lich Lord of Unx.  If a stalemate occurs Lillana will get you out of it.

   Nameless Inversion is a very very handy spell.  It can be removal, it can boost the damage of our zombies (if there are two or more lords in play).  It kills indesructible creatures, and it will bring creatures down to size for zombies.  More importantly out of every removal spell in the game this is the only one that you can get back with Lord of the Undead as it is a changeling.

   The thornbite staff is the zombie machinegun.  It allows an equiped creature to tap to deal 1 damage to another creature.  When a creature goes to the graveyard it allows the equiped creature to untap.  With Death Baron in play this essentially means that you'll kill every creature owned by your opponents barring removal of their own or protection from black.  More might be better to ensure that the combo happens.  If the Death Baron doesn't stay in play you can equip it to a Grimblade and go to town.

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    Honorable mentions include Jhessian Zombies, Phage the Untouchable, and Soul Manipulation.  Jhessian Zombies are horrible as creatures but great as mana fixing.  With Lord of the Undead you can keep fetching mana to help fuel your Lich Lord of Unx.  Phage the Untouchable is a nice fluffy zombie 'General' or 'King'.  She also represents a serious late game threat and an excellent target for the Thornbite staff.  Soul Manipulation is just a really efficient and fluffy black / blue spell that could easily fit in the deck.  The black manland is generally awful, but still benefits from the Death Baron boost (if not the boost from the Lord of the Undead).

     I also considered doing a Red / Black Zombie deck taking advantage of Anthemancer, and Lightning Reaver.  This would probably make the deck much more competitive, but I already had a very efficient Black / Blue land base and almost no Black / Red land.  Goblin Outlander is a much better zombie than the Zombie Outlander is, white is just a better color to have protection from.

    If I was going to gear the deck for multiplayer I would consider doing the following.  Add Gravepact maybe swapping it in for Lilliana Ves, planeswalkers don't last long in multiplayer and the card advantage from Gravepact in multiplayer is astounding.  Sticking with Black / Blue you could add a Puppet Conjourer to really get some mileage out of Gravepact. Going with the Red/Black deck is an even better idea, the Lightning Reaver is a BEAST in multiplayer (there will be somebody without black / artifact creatures).  I would probably take out the Zombie Outlander and replace it with the lightning reaver.

   A pie in the sky option for type 2 that I had to skip was Stillmoon Cavalier.  Almost single handed screws over several competive decks, and has protection from almost every creature in Conflux and Alara Reborn.  It solves the major weaknesses of this deck which is flying creatures and removal.  It combos well with Death Baron.  Stillmoon Cavalier is the super zombie of choice and its price tag reflects this.

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   Moving out of type 2 your options open up a great deal when designing a Zombie deck.  There are a ton of excellent zombies out there, but i'll mention a few that stand out to me. 

   First up is the classic Zombie Master, don't let the card fool you he has been errata'd to be a zombie, which means that he gets the boosts from the other other lords.  It also means that unless your opponent is using Wrath of God or RFG abilities they will be forced to kill your Zombie Master first.  Don't get me wrong, Zombie Master is far from great but he offers some resilience to your zombie lords and gives everybody swamp walk (which is nice with a Zombie Scout).  Plus he is a classic!

   Zombie Warchief.  This is the zombie that I wish was still in Type 2.  The casting cost reduction combos well with the Lord of Undeaths ability, and the boost he provides is significant.  The trick would be deciding what to take out, sadly the Lich Lord of Unx is the price canidate.

   Stromgald Crusader is the Stillmoons little cousin.  He is still great, much better than any of the 2 casting cost choices already in the deck.

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   For pure fluff reasons you might actually want to run the deck as a Grixis deck and include a few of the crazy Shards block legendary zombies as well as the Prince of Thralls.  Why?  Because it is fun to lay down your huge super scary Zombie assassin legend, or Zombie king, etc.  Prince of Thralls is another interesting multiplayer card, but you might want to bring some counter support for him.  He might as well have the text 'the next removal spell played by any opponent must target prince of thralls'.  In mutliplayer you'll also have a better chance of casting your huge legends since counters will be spread thin and you'll typically be low on the list of threats.