U/B Zombie Swarm, now without mill (MTG)

[Willexia Rennar]

Inspired by something I was running in a recent Dark Ascension draft. At first I was impressed with how devastating the mill aspects of cards like Undead Alchemist and Nephalia Drownyard could be...but going from a 40-card draft format to 60-card standard really took that impressiveness away, so going back to old-school "Grrr! Arrgh!" slaughtering.

-CREATURES-
-24-
Diregraf Ghoul x4
Gravecrawler x4
Black Cat x4
Unbreathing Horde x3
Ghoulraiser x3
Nested Ghoul x2
Diregraf Captain x3

-SPELLCRAFT-
-14-
Mana Leak x3
Negate x3
Gitaxian Probe x4
Go For The Throat x4

-LANDS-
-22-
Island x3
Swamp x8
Drowned Catacombs x4
Darkslick Shores x4
Evolving Wilds x3

[Emrakul]

A few lists... Minus the mill, you can season to taste razz (Also including some of the red variants)

A Standard Magic deck, by Phillip Fortner
16th place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Birmingham, Alabama, United States on 2012-04-22
As reported at http://www.starcitygames.com/openseries
Click here to see a summary of all decks from Dark Ascension Standard
Maindeck:

Artifacts
3 Mortarpod

Creatures
1 Cemetery Reaper
2 Diregraf Captain
4 Diregraf Ghoul
2 Fume Spitter
4 Geralf's Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
4 Phantasmal Image
2 Phyrexian Obliterator
3 Skirsdag High Priest

Instants
3 Geth's Verdict
4 Tragic Slip

Planeswalkers
2 Liliana of the Veil

Basic Lands
14 Swamp

Lands
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb

Sideboard:
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Sylvok Lifestaff
3 Hex Parasite
2 Cemetery Reaper
1 Diregraf Captain
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Black Sun's Zenith







rtifacts
3 Mortarpod

Artifact Creatures
2 Phyrexian Metamorph

Creatures
4 Diregraf Ghoul
2 Fume Spitter
4 Geralf's Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
4 Highborn Ghoul
2 Phyrexian Obliterator

Instants
4 Brimstone Volley
2 Gut Shot
4 Incinerate
3 Tragic Slip

Basic Lands
14 Swamp

Lands
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Dragonskull Summit

Sideboard:
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Sylvok Lifestaff
2 Torch Fiend
2 Act of Aggression
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Corrosive Gale






A Standard Magic deck, by Joshua Wagener
1st place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Baltimore, Maryland, United States on 2012-03-25
As reported at http://starcitygames.com
Click here to see a summary of all decks from Dark Ascension Standard
Maindeck:

Artifacts
2 Mortarpod
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Sword of War and Peace

Artifact Creatures
1 Phyrexian Metamorph

Creatures
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Geralf's Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Phyrexian Obliterator

Instants
4 Geth's Verdict
4 Tragic Slip

Planeswalkers
1 Liliana of the Veil

Sorceries
4 Distress

Basic Lands
14 Swamp

Lands
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb

Sideboard:
2 Mimic Vat
1 Mortarpod
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Hex Parasite
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Dismember
2 Go for the Throat
1 Black Sun's Zenith






Hopefully this helps, if you want some idea on the cuts, cut the high end stuff like obliterator (its also not budget friendly so its a double cut lol) and stuff like Lili (if you don't already have them)

[Willexia Rennar]

Yeah, I went ahead and nixed the mill aspect of things...ended up not being as impressive as I initially felt.

[Emrakul]

Well you like the unexpected so I thought I'd give ya the brews and let you mess with em and come to your own conclusions. My friend was obsessed with making zombie mill work and he went thru iteration after iteration and Undead Alchemist just never performed well. Eventually the deck became very similar to the average placing lists. He'll still keep the mill elements in the board for decks lacking removal (but the majority of standard lists will either have plenty of removal or a 4/2 on 4 just doesn't stackup well against). I think the aggro take on it is great, and obliterator is a great answer to decks that damaged based removal (RDW and Wolfrun Ramp being the big targets there) but some people started to use Wrack with madness to blow out that (its freakin hilarious to watch). Anyway I like super aggro builds of zombies, 8 two powered one drops backed up by a little disruption and then some sick end game. Leak is losing some power with Cavern of souls but thats a great fixer for you as well.

[Willexia Rennar]

Yeah, if I go back to the mill aspects at all, it'll be using Cellar Door rather than Undead Alchemist.

One thing I'm looking at trying, though, is Cemetery Reaper. Turn opponent's dead monsters into Zombie tokens.

[Emrakul]

I haven't seen too many played. Its usually a 1 or 2 of, its not bad, just a little bit slow (and the other lord does a little bit more). There is some tension in the deck and some wiggle room as well so its worth testing. Cellar door is too awk tho. I've seen it miss more then hit and wasting mana to whiff is a bad idea.

[Snozberry Dreamsicle]

I was never too hot on mill. You figure with mill, it's sorta like the opponent is starting at 53 life and everything you can deal damage with can't kill their creatures.

I do totally dig the U/B zombies though! I'm running U/B zombies myself.

Here's what I got, it's nothing special since U/B zombies is kinda one of those "builds itself" kinda decks so they end up all kinda looking the same.

Creatures: 21
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Gravecrawler
4 Geralf's Messanger
4 Diregraf Captain
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Phantasmal Image

Spells: 15
4 Dismember
3 Go For The Throat
2 Doom Blade
2 Black Sun's Zenith
4 Mana Leak

Lands:
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
13 Swamps
3 Island

Sideboard:
4 Ratchet Bomb
4 Flashfreeze
4 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Barter In Blood
1 Black Sun's Zenith