MTG Salvation

Responding to another thread about vampires, one option for black is the tribal route. Of these, the best-supported is Zombies. There are a number of very good cards, many of which are widely played.



Not for the tighter, higher-power lists by any means. I think Call to the Grave is an excellent sideboard card against midrange creature decks, and can be powerful in other matchups as well--but only if players can draft enough zombies to make it relevant. Certain sacrifice combos with Gravecrawler can be cute, enjoyable, even powerful. This is where you probably want to start if you're adding Zombie tribal into your cube.

Obviously, my cube is Multiplayer, so I've not much idea how much these guys rock in 1vs1, but I have Death Baron, Undead Warchief and Noxious Ghoul as high picks. I suspect Death Baron makes it in most lists, but the other two might struggle outside of MP (especially Noxious).

Gravecrawler is a powerful and abusable threat, but only if its reanimaton ability is turned on with another zombie in play. This thread is for discussing cubeable zombies that incidentally enable this singleton one drop!

Diregraf Ghoul, Carnophage, Sarcomancy - Other black one drops. It's reasonable to assume that if your deck wants a 2/1 for B it will also want some 2/2s for B.

Putrid Imp - This reanimator enabler is likely too weak in comparison to the two power guys to make it in an aggro deck, but the synergies are still there. Can even get a free Jump out of the deal!

Graveborn Muse - Doesn't share Phyrexian Arena's immunity to most removal, but gets the possibility of explosive draws instead. Also is another payoff card for drafting all these zombies, which is important because otherwise what's the point

Skinrender - Likely worse than Murderous Redcap and slightly better than Nekrataal in a vacuum, a perfectly reasonable card in its own right

Grave Titan - This card doesn't care in the slightest about Gravecrawler, it's just in the cube making zombies anyway

Lotleth Troll, Dreg Mangler, Putrid Leech - The second two are best if g/b is supported as an aggro color, the Troll reminds me of the old Wild Mongrel/Basking Rootwalla play

Geralf's Messenger, Korlash, Hier to Blackblade - Messenger is one of the best rewards for going mono-black, if that archetype is supported. Korlash is less good but still cubeable

Zombie Cutthroat - Primarily included in cubes that like unpredictable morphs. Can randomly blow people out by blocking/attacking into small creatures while tapped out

Phyrexian Crusader - This card is in the modo cube for some reason. Spoilers - it is not nearly as threatening to white decks as Mirran Crusader is to black ones

Those are all the marginal to good Zombies I could think of, some more cards that actually benefit from stacking the tribe while still being playable otherwise would go a long way

Zombie Tribal threads merged.

Don't forget Mirror Entity.

And the best zombie: Mutavault. I'm satisfied with the number of Zombies I play right now and hardly wish to play subpar ones just to make Gravecrawler and Graveborn Muse better.

I actually think that Graveborn Muse is way passed her prime. I cut her not too long ago.

Your list doesn't seem to account for Sarcomancy and Mutavault Eidolon, two cards which would have a very high frequency if considered.

Quote from eidolon232

If you start including cards that that can be turned into zombies or produce zombies, there are also Grave Titan and to a lesser extend Nim Deathmantle + Zombie Infestation as card with relevance for cubing.

Well Grave Titan is naturally a Zombie so he is counted regardless. Deathmantle is fine, but it requires another card in play, whereas Sarcomancy and Mutavault are zombies on their own.

I play a good bunch of those zombies, but not gravecrawler. how many zombies are needed in a deck and in a cube to support running this card?

is a 2/1 for B can't block good enough on it's own?


edit:
i cut the black aggro 1 drops entirely, so is this still good enough on it's own?

Quote from mook1e

is a 2/1 for B can't block good enough on it's own?

Easily, yes. Drawback is almost nonexistent.

Quote from mook1e

is a 2/1 for B can't block good enough on it's own?

If you run black aggro it certainly is.

Cheers,
rant

Quote from xfollowthereaperx

I'm satisfied with the number of Zombies I play right now and hardly wish to play subpar ones just to make Gravecrawler and Graveborn Muse better.

Gravecrawler functions perfectly fine as a 2/1 beater, but his reanimation ability makes for some truly insane plays with skullclamp or braids or recurring nightmare. It invites a player to build around it, and it's disappointing to have a combo that only works when you also have grave titan out.

Even as a 2/1 beater, the ability to keep pressure on is helpful. Sarcomancy might be more useful for a black aggro deck than Vampire Lacerator, especially if you can incidentally get more zombies to turn the damage off. Similarly, I bet Graveborn Muse is much more impressive when it's reliably drawing two cards a turn.

The idea is to find all the cards like Skinrender - zombies that are perfectly serviceable or minor tweaks on other cards but enable the recursion of gravecrawler.

Quote from eidolon232

Grave Titan's creature type is Giant, not Zombie.

The hell? For some reason I thought he was a Zombie Giant... Well he does make zombies simply by coming into play I suppose.

Maybe I never played him in the right deck, but when I cubed with Cabal Interrogator, he felt really, really bad. Including him for Gravecrawler or because of Gravecrawler doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Is Plaguebearer good? 3 mana to kill 1-drops doesn't seem awful, but at 5 mana to kill 2-drops, he starts to feel weaker and weaker. I suppose he does kill tokens for B, which is certainly better in some cubes than others. Token thing considered, he's much more playable than I thought.

Plaguebearer is usually better than he looks, and he looks decent.