Zombie eat your brains..
I'll begin with my all time favorite deck, Zombies:
3x Blood Artist
4x Diregraf Ghoul
4x Falkenrath Aristocrat
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Gravecrawler
2x Hellrider
4x Knight of Infamy
4x Rakdos Cackler
Spells (8):
3x Searing Spear
2x Tragic Slip
1x Flames of the Firebrand
2x Pillar of Flame
Lands (23):
7x Swamp
4x Blood Crypt
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Dragonskull Summit
4x Rakdos Guildgate
Sideboard (15):
3x Deathrite Shaman
3x Vampire Nighthawk
3x Rakdos Charm
1x Tragic Slip
2x Appetite for Brains
1x Flames of the Firebrand
2x Mark of Mutiny
This little beauty here took me to my first Top 8 at a Star City Games Invitational Qualifier in Jacksonville, Fl. My list is very similar to most of the Rakdos decks running around at that tournament except for the Blood Artist in my main board. The idea of the deck is to curve out very aggressively by having a 1 mana spell on turn 1, 2 1 drop spells (removal or creatures) on turn 2, a turn 3 Geralf's Messenger or Blood Artist, and finally followed by a turn 4 Hellrider or Falkenrath Aristocrat as finishers. This list was designed to punish opponents who kept bad hands or opponents playing slow decks at the tournament. What I really liked about the deck was its ability to play defensively as well by slowly dwindling my opponent's life total with Blood Artist as my creatures died.
While the main deck is very straightforward, sideboarding for this deck can be a little tricky. As the aggressor you want to avoid boarding out your threats since you need them to apply pressure; this is especially true against Midrange and Control decks. Against these decks, this was my plan:
-4 Rakdos Cackler
-2 Pillar of Flame
-1 Flames of the Firebrand
and add
+3 Deathrite Shaman
+2 Appetite for Brains
and some assortment of the following depending on the matchup:
+2 Mark of Mutiny
+3 Vampire Nighthawk
+3 Rakdos Charm
The goal in those matchups is to lay down enough pressure on the board while simultaneously disrupting their late game with Appetite for Brains and Deathrite Shaman. Against other Aggro decks like RDW or the Mirror, I board like this:
-3 Geralf's Messengers
-2 Rakdos Cackler
for..
+3 Vampire Nighthawk
+1 Flames of the Firebrand
+1 Tragic Slip
Since Geralf's Messenger enters the battlefield tapped, it can be very hindering in the heavy creature races. With this list, I only lost two matches that day; one loss in Round 4 against a G/B Aggro deck (similar to Brian Kibler's list) and against R/W/U Flash Control which dominated me post-board because of Izzet Staticaster.
Why play Aggro?
1) The deck plays itself:
Although this topic is heavily debated among the groups of people I play with, I agree with it completely. It's not a bad thing though. In an aggressive deck like Zomies, your goal is to count to 20. Sometimes the math gets a little tricky against Sphinx's Revelation or Thragtusks running around, so sometimes you have to get cute by sacrificing your creatures to get in those Blood Artist triggers; nothing really changes beyond that though. Your overall game plan is to get in as much damage as quickly as possible.
2) Exhaustion:
At Coolstuff Games a couple weeks ago with David, I let him use my Modern Affinity deck and I tried out his Kiki-Pod deck. As we went through a bunch of games, we started talking about how to play the decks in a tournament setting. David said something that really sunk in: 'After about 5 rounds of play with Kiki-Pod, I was exhausted from the amount of thinking I had to do.' This stunned me. I usually get bored while playing against a Control deck because of how much time plays usually tend to take. I hadn't thought that the amount of time figuring out how to get out of a situation or what spells to counter would be so taxing after 8 rounds of play. Kudos to anyone who can do that, but I think I'll pass...
Gatecrash Standard
As far as zombies go for post-Gatecrash Standard, I'm pretty sure the B/R version of my Zombie deck is going to be really, really bad. I've been looking into building an Esper (B/W/U) list that runs Diregraf Captain, Blood Artist, Falkenrath Noble, and sacrifice outlets like Bloodthrone Vampire and Cartel Aristocrat, but it seems really slow on paper. Grixis (B/U/R), Oros (B/W/R) or Jund (G/B/R) might be a better way to go.
The 'best' aggro deck to come out of Standard is either going to be Naya (G/W/R) or Boros (R/W). I've proxied up this list and gold fished it to some really strong damage outputs by turn 3. Here's the list I've been playing with:
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Boros Elite
4x Lightning Mauler
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3x Knight of Glory
2x Fiend Hunter
4x Silverblade Paladin
4x Hellrider
Spells (9):
3x Searing Spear
2x Pillar of Flame
4x Boros Charm
Lands (22):
4x Sacred Foundry
4x Clifftop Retreat
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Mountain
5x Plains
1x Slayers' Stronghold
I've gold fished around a billion games with this list and found the most ideal opening to be:
Turn 1: Boros Elite
Turn 2: two one drop creatures (ideally two Boros Elite)
Turn 3: Swing for 9 damage and cast Boros Charm.
Turn 4+: Burn them out with burn spells and more creatures.
I'm not too sure if this list is going to be as good as I'm hyping it up to be, but I'll definitely be trying it out once Gatecrash releases.
Random Nonsense
I'd like to end this article by thanking David Jetha, Stephen Poindexter, and Javier Remy for all considering and asking me to become one of the administrators of Casual Net. While it may not seem like it most of the time, I take this responsibility very seriously and am very appreciative for the support you all give.
I'd also like to take the opportunity to say that writing these articles are very enjoyable and I'd love to do more. Let me know topics or decks you'd want me to talk about and I'll try to answer them when I can. While most of my writing is opinion based, it's very refreshing to research these ideas and get my thoughts down on writing. Feel free to contact me on Facebook as well with any questions or comments you might have!
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-Robert Williams
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