Care and Feeding of: Zombies!

Reaganstorme

Welcome back to another episode of "Care and Feeding of", your favourite realm's premier interactive (un)reality program!

Tonight's focus is ZOMBIES!

Whilst many would say that Liliana is the Queen of the shambling hordes, Planeswalkers across the multiverse use these past-their-expiry bodies as cannon fodder and building blocks as they battle for Nodes of Power and other such prizes.

So lets begin disecting these putrefying and plagued former persons!

I'm not having much luck with finding a deck configuration i like to use zombies in a way that performs consistently. Currently, seven Planeswalkers can use zombies: Jace, Tez, and Kiora in Blue, Lili and Ob in mono-Black, and Sarkhan and Sorin as dual colored Black. Kalitas opens up the White Planeswalkers, but they can't get access to any other zombie themed card so aren't really an option, are they?

Kalitas + Relentless Undead seems quite slow to get going with no tutoring unless you use Sarkhan and Magmatic Insight.
Drana's Chosen is quite expensive but you won't get the best out of her unless you can consistently pop her activation gems.
Diregraff Colossus and Prized Amalgam are both bugged, reducing DC's effectiveness due to not buffing correctly, and causing PA to freeze games on resurrection. POST 1.7 - These two cards have both been fixed and are much more fun to play.
Sarkhan can munch on zombies like Relentless Undead, Prized Amalgam (if you're willing to take a risk), or the many tokens zombies available, and poop out Dragons in exchange if you're willing to wait a few turns.

So tell me, fellow MtGPQ players, about your zombie decks and the Planeswalkers who use and abuse them.

newbee1kenobi

sarkan, harness the storm + behold the beyond + from under the floodboard

Shadow-Mage

I PREFER Liliana for her third ability plus zombie cycling. Once it starts it can be monstrous.

I like the combo of Diregraf Colossus followed by undead servant. Then you follow with Revenant. For this combo with Liliana you would replace undead servant and continue to trade one for the other buffing the Colossus.

The 3rd ability would drop and you speed cycle for massive growth. Throw in a shamble back for a speed summon and a little extra discard for your opponent and you will have a massive zombie pile shortly.

To boost into this combo you may want to throw in some mana generators.

Hope this helps you figure something out. Could also throw in Drana's Chosen for zombie generation.

Chiron

I tried to leave a few replacement options if you are missing something, but heres my zombie deck that only dies to bad coding. I have had diregraf over 30 power and

Lilliana deck:
Creatures
Diagraff Colossus
Prized Amalgram
Dranas Chosen
Kalitas, traitor of Ghet (Relentless dead or Drana)

Spells
From under the floorboard's
To the slaughter (Unholy hunger)
Behold the beyond

Supports
Drownyard Temple (Corrupted Grafstone or Shrine of forsaken Gods)

Last two are Synergy pairs
Mirror pool (nothing is very expensive, so not really needed) + Remorseless punishment
Or
Creeping dead + any resurrect card ( Dark Perdition or Ever After)
___________________________

The key to this deck is to intelligently discard. You WANT to discard prized amalgram and Dranas Chosen. If you get behold the beyond, put it above floorboards and discarders. As a last resort, you can use lilly''s first ability, and toss two creatures to the bottom of your hand. Then save up for her 3rd ability and auto win.

Here's a fun cascade that you can do with no mythics. If you have DC and PA on the board, plus a third, then you can try to cast zombies from Drana or floorboards, and replace PA. the zombie buffs DC, then triggers your PA to resurrect, buffing DC again! This repeats for each zombie! I replaced a 6/6 PA (3 casts) with 3 zombies from floorboards, which resulted in +24/24 to DC. like I said, auto win.

Because of all the discarding and low mana cards, I prefer Drownyard Temple over shrine of the forsaken gods or any other mana buffing support. Cast it once, and then just discard any following draws. Landfalls are just so common.

Hope this helps!

KroNoS

gosh i have all the zombie cards EXCEPT for Diregraff Colossus and the all-important from under the floorboards.

=(

Ciotog

I have a Liliana deck that uses Zombies that I enjoy quite a bit.

Creatures:
Prized Amalgam (almost always discarded with the 1st ability)
Diregraf Colossus
Smothering Abomination (great stalling creature that can block anything)

Spells:
Trangress the Mind
Grip of Desolation
Murderer's Axe
From under the Floorboards
To the Slaughter

Supports:
Tamiyo's Journal
Brain in a Jar

Thew deck has 2 paths depending on what is drawn first: Smothering Abomination or Diregraf Colossus. Either hide behind the abomination while building up a zombie hoard to unleash when it dies or just go with zombies for the start. I've had games where the turn after the abomination dies I play the Colossus and 3 from under the floorboards (which also brought out the Prized amalgam) to replace my 8/7 blocker with 3 decent to large creatures. The trick is to not get greedy and let the abomination win the game for you if it can.

Biffley-do

Though I'm new (one month playing), I recently got both Diregraf Colossus and Noosegraf Mob (6/6, 9 mana), which spews zombies when spells are cast.

My trouble was that you could only have 3 creatures active... I grabbed Bone Splinters (I don't have Grip of Desolation) to sacrifice my Ghoulcaller's Accomplice, Shamble Back, and now Ever After. All three help put zombies on the board regardless, but with the Noosegraf Mob, you get extra extra zombies. I also use Fleshbag Marauder to keep me at three but still have removal.

Last I'm using Ruthless Disposal, which sacrifices my first creature, discards a card, and gives 2 creatures -13/-13. It's usually discarded with Liliana: The Last Hope's first ability, but if something crazy pops up on the board, Ruthless Disposal kills it.

Mainloop25

Diregraf + Floorboards + Oath of Liliana = game over. I like to use Grotesque Mutation to regain life lost while setting that combo up.

Ciotog

With Sarkhan back (finally) I got to try out this deck and I'm quite happy with it. Harness the storm isn't necessary and could be swapped out for nearly anything and I think it would still work:

Creatures:
Prized Amalgam

Spells:
Transgress the Mind
Grip of Desolation
Through the Floorboards
Anguished Unmaking
Demolish

Supports:
Oath of Liliana
Graf Harvest
Tamiyo's Journal
Harness the Storm

If you get either OoL or GH+PA out you will have unlimited zombies to eat and **** out dragons. This doesn't make the biggest zombies but I've won plenty of QB's with it so far (not level 60 yet, only had enough runes to level him to 50 initially).

Jay MKM

I've had some pretty satisfying success with zombies as original Liliana. My current deck:

Creatures:
Noosegraf Mob
Diregraf Colossus

Spells:
Transgress the Mind
Grotesque Mutation
Read the Bones
Grip of Desolation*
Shamble Back**
Ever After

Supports:
Oath of Liliana
Graf Harvest

*Once I get To the Slaughter, I'll switch to that
**Yeah, I don't have From Under the Floorboards yet.

Build a big pile of zombie tokens. Make them unblockable and persistent after death. Stick a big defender at the bottom of your board. Read the Bones gives me some more consistency in case I don't get creatures early on, which is why it's in here instead of Altar's Reap. Ever After and Liliana's Raise Dead loyalty ability are both extremely helpful. It only really struggles against decks that can lay down a tremendous amount of Disable effects very quickly, but I don't think there's much shame in losing to Drowner of Hope.

Norksman

I've been having good success with my zombie deck. I use Ob because he's better than Lilly1 and I don't have Lilly2. I'd love to add a good creature destruction to it, but the good black ones still elude me

Creatures
Prized Amalgam (R)
Fleshbag Marauder (U)
Lashweed Lurker (U)
Priest of the Blood Rite (R)

Spells
Read the Bones (C)
From Under the Floorboards (R)
Alchemist's Vial (C)
Bone Splinters (C)

Support
Graf Harvest (U)
Drownyard Temple (R)

I have a couple of non-zombies in the deck, mostly because I lack better zombie cards to replace them. Lashweed is in there to take advantage of Emerge and add removal.
Priest of the Blood Rite has won me a lot of matches by itself when I've had it early. PA + Graf Harvest is essentially broken with the support is on the board. Bone Splinters and Fleshbag just help the harvest get running and extra removal. Read the Bones and Alchemists Vial both flow in to Ob's extra win condition as well as helping you out of tough spots when required as they're both low mana.