zombie death deck

[Revan]

Here's the last deck I'll bother you all with. It's basically a zombie deck. Please tell whatcha think.
Lands:
24 x Swamp

Creatures:
2 x Undead Warchief
4 x Twisted Abomination
2 x Barrow Ghoul
2 x Haunted Cadaver
2 x Dross Golem
2 x Dross Crocodile
3 x Vengeful Dead
2 x Gravedigger
1 x Nefashu
1 x Nim Abomination
1 x Woebearer
1 x Frightshroud Courier
1 x Sheperd of the Rot
1 x Dross Prowler
1 x Scathe Zombies
1 x Putrid Raptor
1 x Maggot Carrier

Instants:
3 x Swat
2 x Reaping the Graves
2 x Dark Banishing
1 x Spinning Darkness
1 x Dark Ritual

Sorcery:
1 x Syphon Soul
1 x Drain Life
1 x Soul Feast
1 x Vicious Hunger

Enchant Creature:
1 x Clutch of Undeath
2 x Lingering Death
1 x Unholy Strength

Enchantments:
1 x Underworld Dreams
1 x Call to the Grave
1 x Gloom

This is my 3rd and final deck. I've been getting beaten around so I've put all three, sorry. Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!

 

[Oversoul]

Again, too many cards...

And again, this deck has almost no focus...

There are obvious choices of cards that should be cut here. Gloom is only ever going to help you against decks with white cards. Against other decks it is a dead card. This is a bad thing.

Scathe Zombies are three mana for a 2/2 (no abilities). That totally sucks. There are better creatures.

Nothing in your deck (that I see) has synergy with Underworld Dreams, meaning that it has no place in your deck...

Cut some other bad cards, and be sure to add more copies of cards that are actually quite useful. Dark Ritual in particular, should be a four-of.

I don't remember what ALL of those cards do, at the moment. But testing the deck and seeing which cards are helping you, and which cards are not, will certainly give you a better idea of what to keep and what to throw out than you can get by my telling you things...

 

[Revan]

Again, too many cards...

And again, this deck has almost no focus...

There are obvious choices of cards that should be cut here. Gloom is only ever going to help you against decks with white cards. Against other decks it is a dead card. This is a bad thing.

Scathe Zombies are three mana for a 2/2 (no abilities). That totally sucks. There are better creatures.

Nothing in your deck (that I see) has synergy with Underworld Dreams, meaning that it has no place in your deck...

Cut some other bad cards, and be sure to add more copies of cards that are actually quite useful. Dark Ritual in particular, should be a four-of.

I don't remember what ALL of those cards do, at the moment. But testing the deck and seeing which cards are helping you, and which cards are not, will certainly give you a better idea of what to keep and what to throw out than you can get by my telling you things...

Thanks for the input. I'm finally realizing my decks should be 60-70 and no more. The reason for having only one or two of some cards is due to the fact that I don't have more of them and right now cant get them. Also Gloom is in there because the one person I play always uses white...so it's a nasty little suprise when I get it. I see what you mean though. If my deck is smaller I can get to these one or two cards easier...as far as the zombies..those unfortunately are all I have...literally. Soon I'll get more. Any ideas on ones to dump?

 

[orgg]

NO.

Your decks should be SIXTY cards-- no more, no less. 24 lands MINIMUM is typical as well, and if the deck has many things that are expensive, 25 or 26 is useful.

I put a carving knife on the most unfocused (but probably the most effective) deck, with reasoning for the cuts. Slim this deck to sixty cards WITHOUT TOUCHING YOUR LAND and it should work fairly well.

 

[jorael]

If I'm correct, you have 48 non-land cards in the deck. I agree with what the Orgg says: play a 60 card deck with 24 lands. That way you will be able to play your big spells (barring severe mana-screw). Now, that means that you'll have to drop 12 spells.

Don't drop all the cheap spells, nor all the big ones. Keep at least 20-24 creatures, in a zombie deck they are more important than the non-creature spells. Do drop the spells that aren't working out. Dross Golem is good, but it isn't a zombie. Do you think it is good enough to include? Look at all the enchantments, instants and sorceries you're using. What could you drop?

When I make a deck I start with gathering all the cards that seem good to include. I usually end up with enough choices for a 100 card deck Then I look at the cards and think about what cards I judge essential. Ev entually that means cutting a lot of cards I had chosen. For a zombie deck that would mean 20-24 zombies that I like for the deck and some other cards that are good with it (e.g. you call to the grave). Then I'd also make sure I have some creature kill (dark banishing, swat) and ways to return the zombies (reaping the graves).

Your deck is almost finished. You just need to cut all the non-essential cards.

 

[Limited]

Did someone say "cutting cards"?

24 x Swamp

Creatures (22):
4 x Undead Warchief
4 x Twisted Abomination
2 x Vengeful Dead
2 x Gravedigger
2 x Woebearer
4 x Putrid Raptor
4 x Withered Wretch

Instants (6):
2 x Swat
2 x Reaping the Graves
2 x Dark Banishing

Sorcery (6):
2 x Drain Life
4 x Vicious Hunger (* for Samurai of the pale curtain... *)

Enchantments (2):
2 x Call to the Grave

See how that is..

 

[Terentius]

...24 lands MINIMUM is typical as well, and if the deck has many things that are expensive, 25 or 26 is useful.

I can think of several ways where you can lower the land count and still have a more than efficient mana curve. Cabal Coffers, Dark Ritual, Undead Warchief, to name a few.

 

[jorael]

Cabal Coffers doesn't lower the neccesary swamps. It creates more black mana if you already have much swamps. You still need 4 additional swamps before it generates more than a normal swamp would. I'd only play the Cabal Coffers in a deck that has ways to use insane amounts of mana (Consume Spirit, Promise of Power) and still use 24 lands or even more.

Undead Warchief helps you to play your zombies that cost more than 4 (as you apparantly already have 4 mana, barring temporary manaboosts). But you'll still need 4 mana to play it. If you want 4 mana at turn 5-6 you have to play 24 lands at least. Otherwise the chances are big you'll have to wait much longer.

Dark Ritual gives you a tempo boost, but doesn't increase your mana development permanently. I prefer to play it in a aggresive deck that has it's mana curve top at about 4 mana. That way you can drop some lands for increase in tempo without running the risk of having too few lands during the mid/end game. If your deck has a lot of expensive spells, I'd go for a steady permanent mana development and use at least 24 lands.


The decks above have 4 landcyclers, but I'd still play 24 swamps. Zombies are great if you have enough mana and even your 8th land drop won't be useless, because a black zombie deck can use that mana very well.

 

[Oversoul]

As far as using 24 lands goes, I think it's a great place to start, but if you have altered your deck to the point where you mostly have cheap spells or are using mana acceleration or just find that you are drawing too many lands, then keep in mind that fewer lands might be quite practical. In casual decks, I tend to keep my land count at 22 or more if I am using two colors and at 24 if I use more colors (I've even used 25 in five-color decks). Decks that revolve around man-lands or dropping plenty of lands might want to go even higher. Mono-colored aggro decks can often get away with 20 or fewer lands, and certain types of combo decks might try even fewer.

In casual decks (I use the term here to exclude optimized tournament decks like 2-land Belcher), I have seen a combo deck that used 12 lands, although I think the guy increased the land-count to 14 after finding that he was mulliganing too much.

I have seen a guy use a Stompy deck with 10 lands (I've seen 9 lands in tournament Stompy decks).

I've seen decks that needed to be land-heavy, which used 28 or so lands (I think).

But as a rule of thumb, I use 18-20 lands in mono-colored aggro decks, 20-24 lands in mono-colored control decks, 22-24 lands in any two-colored deck, and 24 lands in decks with more colors than that. Aggro-control or prison decks can usually follow the same procedure as control when it comes to land count. Combo, in my experience, must almost always be determined on a case-by-case basis...

When building a new deck or cutting down an oversized deck (like here) I would think that the best place to start would be 24 lands. You're unlikely to want to go higher, and if going lower becomes desired, it's easy to cut a land or two for something else. If you start with only 20 lands though, and need more, it will be psychologically more difficult to cut spells than it will be to cut lands...

 

[Revan]

Will do, ty.

 

[Killer Joe]

NO.

Your decks should be SIXTY cards-- no more, no less. 24 lands MINIMUM is typical as well, and if the deck has many things that are expensive, 25 or 26 is useful.

I put a carving knife on the most unfocused (but probably the most effective) deck, with reasoning for the cuts. Slim this deck to sixty cards WITHOUT TOUCHING YOUR LAND and it should work fairly well.

Discipline x Infinity!

Actually I'm a 61 card man for "casual" decks and a 60 for other decks. In limited (sealed or draft) I'm a solid 40 card deck kind of guy.

 

[jorael]

This sidetrack discussion about land ratios is interesting and I wanted to add one more consideration:

Cards like Compulsion, x-spells/effects (fireball, flood), buyback and others benefit from 'extra' lands. With such cards I prefer a surplus of land to avoid mana-screw and because the lands will never be useless with such cards. And vice versa I prefer such cards because of the high amounts of lands I like to play

 

[Spiderman]

I just wanted to note that while I'm sure the land count discussion will ultimately be useful to Revan, it looks like he's starting out as his decks are still over 60 cards so the original suggestion of 24 is a good place to start for him. When he's able to get the money to get 4xcards to build a "specialized" or "focused" deck, he can start playing around with the land count.

 

[Oversoul]

Well, you can cut a deck down to sixty cards while on a budget. That shouldn't be a problem. And like I said, I would make 24 lands the starting point...

 

[orgg]

The reason I emphasized the 60 cards/ 24+ land point is BECAUSE he's a beginner. He needs to know where to start with good deck construction habits before he branches off into goofy three-hundred-card mono blue decks. Once the basics are understood, they can be broken with reason-- reason founded on the basics. I wish someone would've taken a hard line with my sixteen or eighteen land in my sixty four card decks early on, or the twenty lands in a sixty card deck a few MONTHS later. As is, it took me YEARS to realize I truly was not playing enough land for my decks to run.

24 lands MINIMUM for average decks. Period.


...And Cabal Coffers isn't a land, nor is Dark Ritual-- Each affect how the game is played as spells do.

 

[Revan]

Thanks again for the replies on this deck. i cut it down and have 24 swamps now. However I am being demolished by a discard/artifact deck (black/white). Any ideas?

 

[Revan]

Here's what I've done with it. Some cards are here even though I know that I've ben advised against them...but I actually don't have much more to put in here. Any ideas/opinions are greatly appreciated though!!
Lands:
23x[card]Swamp[/card]

Creatures:
4 x [card]Twisted Abomination[/card]
3 x [card]Vengeful Dead[/card]
2 x [card]Undead Warchief[/card] I swear as soon as I get 2 more of these I'm dumping some "filler" zombies
2 x [card]haunted Cadaver[/card]
2 x [card]Dross Crocodile[/card]
2 x [card]Gravedigger[/card]
1 x [card]Sheperd of the Rot[/card]
1 x [card]Woebearer[/card]
1 x [card]Putrid Raptor[/card]
1 x [card]Nefashu[/card]
1 x [card]Nim Abomination[/card]
1 x [card]Nantuko husk[/card]
1 x [card]Dross Prowler[/card]

Instants:
3 x [card]Swat[/card]
2 x [card]Dark Banishing[/card] just in case
1 x [card]Spinning Darkness[/card]
1 x [card]Dark Ritual[/card]

Sorcery:
1 x [card]Drain Life[/card] would have 4 but do not have the cards or similar
1 x [card]Soul Feast[/card]
1 x [card]Vicious Hunger[/card]
1 x [card]Syphon Soul[/card]

Enchantments:
1 x [card]Clutch of Undeath[/card] thinking of 4 if I get them?
1 x [card]Call to the Grave[/card] 4 as well needed?
2 x [card]Lingering Death[/card]

The main objective is to stave off attacks long enough to start swarming with zombies.Thanks again for any thoughts.

 

[Oversoul]

1 x [card]Dark Ritual[/card]

If you don't have more of these, you might as well get them. They're useful in any black deck and one of the most useful cards ever, as well as being very common...

 

[Limited]

However I am being demolished by a discard/artifact deck (black/white).

Depends on what part of that deck is demolishing you. If he's packing four Hypnotic Specters, I would go for 4 Vicious Hunger and 4 Swat (dropping the Dark Banishings). If you just empty your hand too soon, replace the Syphon Soul with Syphon Mind. If he's using Disrupting Scepters, you gotta outrace him. Drop some of the higher casting cost zombies and focus on one and two drops..

So tell us some more! How many players to a game, what seems to destroy your deck? Which cards in particular "demolish" you?

 

[Revan]

Depends on what part of that deck is demolishing you. If he's packing four Hypnotic Specters, I would go for 4 Vicious Hunger and 4 Swat (dropping the Dark Banishings). If you just empty your hand too soon, replace the Syphon Soul with Syphon Mind. If he's using Disrupting Scepters, you gotta outrace him. Drop some of the higher casting cost zombies and focus on one and two drops..

So tell us some more! How many players to a game, what seems to destroy your deck? Which cards in particular "demolish" you?

He uses Merregrim? I think that is how it is spelled to make me pay two life for each discard. He uses a TON of discard cards and creatures with that ability. The other deck he's been doing pretty well with is a green/red land destruction. He uses thorn elementals and tons of equipment on that deck. Sorry I can't elucidate more on the specifics. Thanks again.

If you don't have more of these, you might as well get them. They're useful in any black deck and one of the most useful cards ever, as well as being very common...

Is it pretty rare or a chep one? Hoping for the latter,lol.