Dawn of the Dead in Chicago: Zombies eat brains, split Lotus

[Tha Gunslinga]

I will admit, his ability is situationally kickass, however, it's also shit against a whole bunch of decks

Name them.  I can think of FCG.  That's IT.

[edit]: Vs Oath you can take their Blessing and their dudes if they hit the yard.  It's not amazing vs Oath, but it's definitely decent.

[Polynomial P]

Oath too, but he is good against 3 of the 4 decks you listed as in your meta.

[PucktheCat]

Cutting Wretch seems wrong.  I can only speak from the Gifts perspective, because that is where I have tested the deck, but I have found the weakest cards to be the Werebears.  They don't disrupt and they don't get large until you get Bazaar or Infestation going, at which point you should already be in decent position.  I can see that they might be good in other matchups though.

If you decide you need to improve the combo matchup I would at least consider finding space for the fourth Null Rod in the main.  It's bad to concede the first game to combo and rely entirely on your sideboard because combo can pull out a stupid hand and win a game no matter what you do.

[exit music]

Re: re: Withered Wretch

I never ever said this was a bad card, or a bad card for the deck - make sure you keep in mind that I'm arguing making a cut to keep the deck at 60 cards as opposed to 61. I'm not saying that he's useless all the time; he is definitely a game-breaker in a whole bunch of matches in very specific circumstances.

What I am saying is that Withered Wretch's disruption is not always useful, and not useful enough that it justifies pushing the deck over 60 cards. If you guys really want to put yourself at a mathematical disadvantage by running more cards than you have to, go ahead, but I'm happy with only 2 Wretches for the reasons that I have illustrated in my previous two posts.

[Polynomial P]

I think Puck is right...the 61st card is werebear. He is a great beater and the production of mana is not irrelevent, but other cards in the deck do better things. If I am going to cut a card it would be him. Thanks leo...I will at least test it out with only 2 bears.

[Gabethebabe]

How many decks are more scared of Werebear then they are of Kataki?

Kataki fits the disruption plan of the deck. While Werebear gives you mana (and this deck can run with few) and beats, but zombies do that equally good and eat brains on top of that.

Yes, their moxes can self support themselves or be sacced to save key artifacts, but in any case, they don´t provide mana. The extra tempo you win because of that might just be the window you need.

Sure, if you face decks like Goblins or other aggro, bears are better. But if you face Slaver, Gifts, Oath, Shops, in any of these matchups I´d prefer drop a quick Kataki.

[vroman]

re sacred ground:
Life from the Loam is powerful against stax, but it cant win the battle on its own. Lifeloam will match pace with an enemy crucible, but LftL can not race smoky, even if stax player doesnt have a crucible. this deck cant pump out permanents (w/o zombie infest obv) like stax can, and an unaswered smokestack will beat any non-workshop deck.
sacred ground is a very cheap and effective way to turn off the core of stax decks, plus protects land drops from other decks packing waste/strip for whatever reason. if your lifeloam isnt concerned w continually replaying wasted lands (thanks to s-ground), then you are free to build up mana, or go on the offensive w your own strips.

re storm combo:
Id keep orims chant. they are unexpected and underplayed bomb against yawgwill and/or storm. plus it time walks at instant speed for 1 mana. in many ways better than stifle. test more against combo, and make sure you know how and when to use o-chant perfectly. w duress and nrod, should be able to handle any but luckiest combo match

re werebear vs kataki:
repeatable green mana is vital for lifeloam recursion. Emerald is best mox in the deck. werebear isnt exactly spectacular acceleration, but it is dependable source, and w threshold, its dificult to remove (7 cards in yard very easy to achieve between bazaar and/or dredge). 4/4 for 2 is certainly not a bad deal. no other deck can so cheaply, quickly and consistently mill up its yard to flip the bear.
kataki on the other hand
-legendary (rare, but existent drawback)
-small toughness, easy to kill
-functions like an inefficient mox monkey against non-shop
-is ignored by welder/academy in shop
I vote werebear.

re cutting 61st card:
Id rather cut 1 withered retch just bc its double color cost. also 1 dblast main over aura shards. dblast fuels dredging, even if enemy has no 1 toughness targets. aurashards requires you to cast it, and then cast or create, two more creatures before shards pays for itself in card advantage.

re sideboard:
2 chains
2 oxidize
2 seed innocence
2 wretch
3 ray revelation
4 orim chant

[benthetenor]

I honestly think that the 61st card is Imperial Seal. The deck already has 3 tutors (and only a handful of cards that want to be tutored for) not to mention a robust draw engine that's already enough to supplement the Dark Confidants. That may not be correct given that it's Bazaar #8, but if you have to cut a card, that'd be what I'd pick.

[LordHomerCat]

Werebears seemed like the weakest link to me as well.  If you are casting Life, its pretty rare to get your only Green source killed AND not have one in hand from Life-ing.  As long as you have a fetch or soemthing (which are mostly what youd be able to life back, along with Wastes), you can always just get another Bayou and Life back the one that got wasted, and never leave yourself locked out of Green.  Werebear is just a random beater, and he seems like a lot of the time, he's better as half a zombie (so that mana can be used to cast Life/Null Rod/Confidant/Wretch).

[NicolaeAlmighty]

Werebear is the fat of the deck... You guys are forgetting the one thing this deck redeems: the attack step! You CANNOT forget about it... Werebear is amazing.

What's the big dealio bout cutting a card anyways? So the deck can have a big perfect 6-0 next to its name? Let it go! There is such a minute statistical difference between 60 and 61 that we need not worry about it.

If there is something that wants to be suggested or changed about the contents of the deck itself, then by all means... But let's not bicker about the number of cards!

As for Orim's Chant, it's amazing! An instant speed Time Walk that has otherwise potential to be absolutely insane (take that Yawg WIll!)... Its the best combo hater the colors have to offer.

Imperial Seal gets mixed reviews. I love it to death, but Poly P had mixed results with it... I think the need to tutor out silver bullets or even the final nail in the coffin is definitely of the utmost importance

[benthetenor]

Absolutely. Werebear is 2 Zombies glued together, not 1/2 of a Zombie. He speeds up the clock all by himself, making the rest of the deck function as it should.

[PucktheCat]

Against Gifts (and by analogy, I would suppose combo) Werebear is just weak.  It doesn't affect the board at all until your opponent is at low life, and then they just win next turn.  Infestation isn't that good either, for that matter.  I can definately see how those cards could be necessary in other matchups though, especially against Stax, where free permanents and 4/4 beatsticks are pretty sick.

[Polynomial P]

If you want to play 60 cards drop Aura shards. It doesnt help you with chalice at 2 and you have to already be winning for it to be good (cards in hand, 3 mana including G and W, and zombie infestation out). It is the definition of a win more card. Werebear stays. Wretch stays. Imp seal is death at time, but it is good others. It stays.

[Revvik]

Werebear is the fat of the deck... You guys are forgetting the one thing this deck redeems: the attack step! You CANNOT forget about it... Werebear is amazing.

What's the big dealio bout cutting a card anyways? So the deck can have a big perfect 6-0 next to its name? Let it go! There is such a minute statistical difference between 60 and 61 that we need not worry about it.

If there is something that wants to be suggested or changed about the contents of the deck itself, then by all means... But let's not bicker about the number of cards!

As for Orim's Chant, it's amazing! An instant speed Time Walk that has otherwise potential to be absolutely insane (take that Yawg WIll!)... Its the best combo hater the colors have to offer.

Imperial Seal gets mixed reviews. I love it to death, but Poly P had mixed results with it... I think the need to tutor out silver bullets or even the final nail in the coffin is definitely of the utmost importance

Agreed.  You aren't trying to maximize your chances of landing Yawgmoth's Will or a tutor for it, or a first turn Tinker.  This is not saying that 65 cards is ok - there is definitely a limit to where you will no longer see what you're looking for.  This is coming, by the way, from someone who has never played a deck with more than 60 cards in it (Battle of Wits aside).
Repeat what Poly P said - drop Aura Shards if you're that against the prospect of a 61st card.  This is the only deck in which I would say do not cut Imperial Seal since it's probably going to find you one of your only ways to get rid of a Chalice of the Void set at two.
Do not cut Werebear, or you will have the same weakness as modern Fish decks - the inability to quickly finish off a subdued opponent.  The more turns they have to live, the more turns they have to find an answer or win on the spot.  All things aside, this deck is all about utilizing creatures to reduce the opponent's life total to zero.

[volkboys]

This deck seems pretty cool!

I think I'll try it to the next tournement on this week-end. May we could have some advices? Which one does Vroman and Team Ogre gave to you before the tourney?
I didn't play T1 since a while so I'm sorry if the following questions seems to be weird...

Choke seems to be a house against mana drain deck but I'm afraid to go into a drain and with a 3cc spell, it's almost game over.
Cabal Therapy isn't better than duress in this deck?

About the 61st card to cut, I think I'll cut Sundering Vitae but I'm still not sure.

Thank for the information

[Polynomial P]

In my opinion sundering vitae is very important to this deck. Chalice at 1 and chalice at 2 are easy for stax to pump out and they will chalice at 1 if they dont know what they are up against (especially ubastax). Sundering vitae gets around both of these problems.

Cabal therapy used to be in this deck (see NicolaeAlmighty's Waterbury list). The card was dropped because 1. You might not hit anything at all and 2. The creatures in this deck are so good that you do not want to be sacrificing them to flashback. We felt that the quality of duress is more important than the occasional quantity of disruption in Cabal therapy.

[volkboys]

I didn't thought about chalice of the void but that's true, I'll probably use it.

After playtests, I still feel unconfortable when I have both bazaar and zombie infestation in my opening and because I always hesite between which discard engine I'll use. I mean, dropping zombie is good but drawing will help me to find additionnals squee and lands. I still don't know if I have to go head and try to disrupt my opponent enough to beat him with zombie or if I have to draw like a beast to be able to creat more tokens later.

The 2cc cost make most of the decision hard to take. By exemple, if I open: dark confidant, bazaar, demonic tutor, fetch, zombie infestation, imperial seal and squee, this is a good hand but I don't know how to procede to maximaze the effects.
Play #1:  bazaar -) hope to find some others squee or life from the loam

Play #2 fetch for bayou (more green cards in the deck) -) imperial seal for mana ? for squee to accelerate the draw engine?

Play #3 fetch for bayou Go (hoping to draw mana)

From my playtests, I would say #2 for mana (black lotus)
Turn 2:
drop black lotus and bazaar, crack the lotus, tap bazaar, drop zombie + dark confidant (demonic could be an option but I almost never know what to search for).

Active the bazaar and pray to find something...

This play was easy but if I didn't have the lotus, I would probably choose to go for dark first, zombie on the next turn and demonic for squee? after.

I feel like a beginner to ask all those questions but I never played dredge deck and I still don't know if I have to play the role of the beater or the controller.

Thanks again for your help.

[Gabethebabe]

The 2cc cost make most of the decision hard to take. By exemple, if I open: dark confidant, bazaar, demonic tutor, fetch, zombie infestation, imperial seal and squee, this is a good hand but I don't know how to procede to maximaze the effects.

The correct play is Bazaar and activate it right away. If you draw crap, you discard it together with Squee. But maybe you find something useful. In the next turn you return Squee to your hand, drop Fetch, Seal for something and draw it immediately off bazaar.
Sealing turn 1 is BAD. If you do it like I propose, you have seen three cards more of your deck and you have seen turn 1 of your opponent. All vital info for determining what to seal for. And still you draw the sealed card in turn 2.

[Polynomial P]

I PMed volksboys about this, but it matters what you are playing against.

If you play this hand vs. combo you lose since you have no disruption.
If you play this hand vs. stax you lose if they have anything.
If you play this hand vs. Control, you have a chance if you imp seal for lotus. play infestation, then confidant.

If you dont know what you are playing against you mulligan. You have no good turn 1 play, a good turn 2 play only if you find a mox or lotus, and you have no disruption at all. In most circumstances this is a very weak hand and you will probalby lose. I hate to mulligan, but i think this hand has to go...it is too weak and too slow.

[warble]

Re: 61st card

Please don't advocate cutting a win condition for a 61 card deck.  If you can't cut a mana source, disruption, or draw card, you can't go down to 60 cards.  The reason for the 61st card (I posted a few thousand lines on this a while ago) is to increase the ability of a deck to win in the face of control, fast aggro, combo, etc.  There definitely arises a need for a 61st card in decks such as dragon, fish, fcg, dawn on the dead, and many budget decks.  The reason here is that so much needs to be accomplished that cannot be counterspelled.  The reason control slaver has resilience in the face of hate is that magical card combination called force of will/mana drain with enough draw power to see all 8 in a single game.  Decks that have a more "needy" draw engine (by this I mean include squee for that aspect) really are lacking for slots in the deck, so including an extra card in order to have enough win conditions (and werebear and withered wretch are the win conditions...despite any arguments to the contrary) is certainly justifiable especially if you have done the tuning.  As this deck has gone through hundreds of test games, it is up to the deck's designer and developers to tell us this information, and I would just accept it as fact before immediately jumping to the "let's cut one card that we think is weak" arguments.

[exit music]

Werebear and withered wretch are the win conditions...despite any arguments to the contrary

Actually, Zombie infestation and Werebear are the primary win conditions of the deck. Wretch's primary function is disruption. Obviously if he was meant as a primary win condition, he'd have to be better than a 2/2 for BB.

[2faces]

I've been playing this deck for a week or so now and I really love it. Great job, guys!

I only have one question, it's about sundering vitae. I know the card seems like the perfect artifact/enchantment destruction in this deck, but how often do you actually tap more than 1 creature to reduce the mana cost? seems to me like naturalize would be a better card to fill this position with.

[Polynomial P]

Naturalize, like the deck, scoops to Chalice @2. With Vitae, you have 1 out and 2x 1-mana tutors to find it. Oxidize has also been suggested, but Stax will Chalice @1 if they dont know what they are up against.

The only reason Vitae is in the deck is so you can win pre-board if Stax sets chalice @2.

I am glad you are enjoying the deck. Also, drop aura shards. Its a win-more card.