Esper Zombie Knights [Dominaria]

Arena* Knights WUB (Esper)

t4rt4n

Land (23)

• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 2x Desert of the Mindful
• 4x Forsaken Sanctuary
• 1x Meandering River
• 4x Plains
• 2x Shefet Dunes
• 1x Submerged Boneyard
• 8x Swamp

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Cast Out

Creature (16)

• 2x Angel of Sanctions
• 2x Josu Vess, Lich Knight
• 4x Knight of Grace
• 4x Knight of Malice
• 2x Kwende, Pride of Femeref
• 2x The Scarab God

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana, Death's Majesty

Artifact (5)

• 3x Heart of Kiran
• 2x Vanquisher's Banner

Instant (6)

• 2x Cast Down
• 4x Fatal Push

Sorcery (5)

• 3x Call the Cavalry
• 2x Soul Salvage

---

TAPPED OUT RECKONS THIS ISN'T MTGA LEGAL, I CAN PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT I HAVE BEEN USING THIS DECK FOR A LITTLE WHILE NOW.

This is my main deck that I've been using since coming back to MtG, thanks to getting into the Arena beta. It has gone through a lot of small changes over time to get to where it is now but I'll try to remember to include changes on here for you guys to see as I make them. Upcoming changes would be removing a copy of Call the Cavalry in exchange for another liliana, death's majesty when I get one and substituting Forsaken Sanctuary out for Concealed Courtyard in, as well as the rare Blue-White and Blue-Black dual lands when I get them. That's what my next wildcards will be spent on.

Because of all the 2 Toughness creatures and tokens, I used to worry about this deck being weak to Golden Demise (before I added the God and Liliana). Now it is just a nice way for our opponent to spend 3 mana without advancing their board while giving us nice targets for The Scarab God in a few turns time.

Creatures

Early Creatures

Our early creatures in this deck are Knight of Grace, Knight of Malice and Heart of Kiran. While Heart of Kiran isn't always a Creature, we will consider it to be one for the purposes of this description/guide.

Knight of Grace and Knight of Malice are great early cards for us to play as they are difficult to block or attack into because they have First Strike. If we manage to get one of each Knight into play by turn three then we are in a great spot because they buff each other up, making the other into a 3/2 instead. This means that we can no longer be attacked by a creature with less than 7 Toughness unless it has First Strike, Double Strike or Flying as we would just double block and kill it, losing nothing. However, depending on what colours you are playing against you might not want to play both knights.

Picking the Right Knight Show

If my opponent plays an early Submerged Boneyard, I know they will be playing Blue and Black cards. In that case, I would look to play my Knight of Grace since it is immune to their early removal spells like Fatal Push and Cast Down and will gain +1/+0 if they play any early creatures in that colour. This means I don't need to play Knight of Malice to get my buff. This is good as he isn't immune to the same removal and will likely be dealt with quickly.

NOTE: In this case, if I have more than one Knight of Malice in-hand it can be good to just throw one out and soak up a removal spell and cast the other one afterwards as liliana, death's majesty and The Scarab God have graveyard interactions that work well with the knight, turning him into a Zombie and also potentially a 5/4 creature with First Strike (or Double Strike, but we will get to that later).

Heart of Kiran is a good early drop to help defend against any early flying threats as its 4/4 Vigilance will be better than most fliers (honestly, most creatures) available this early on. It also gives us a way to attack in the air if they have some nice ground blockers. As if that wasn't enough of a reason to have it, it is also crewed by a single buffed Knight. Sweet.

Mid-Game Creatures

Towards the mid game we have options in the form of The Scarab God , Kwende, Pride of Femeref and Josu Vess, Lich Knight.

I tend to look at Josu Vess, Lich Knight as the most defensive of the three creature cards as his 4/5 body is bulky enough to block most creatures at this point as well as being hard to kill with spells (he would take two cards to burn out from Red and survives the 4 damage ping from Chandra and cant be Cast Down because of his Legendary status). With that said, he has to be careful around some of the White cards currently making the rounds, like Seal Away and Cast Out, but most importantly Ixalan's Binding. He is still a decent card offensively too though, as a 4 power card for 4 mana is pretty nice and his Menace ability just makes him more threatening. However, we should try to avoid making this play if we can as Josu Vess, Lich Knight is game-winning on its own if we manage to cast its kicker in the late game.

I view Kwende, Pride of Femeref as the more offensive of our three mid-game creature cards because of the combo potential with Knight of Grace and Knight of Malice as they now become 2/2 or 3/2 Double Strike creatures.

The Dream Show

If you reach your fifth turn's combat phase with a just a single copy of each of these three creatures on the field you threaten 16 damage against an empty board. This can be boosted to a huge 22 damage to the face if you haven't missed a land drop, one of them is Shefet Dunes and you have the double White mana needed to sacrifice it.

Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last while knows all about The Scarab God . Nice bulky 5/5 body that makes it a good attacker and blocker as well as resistant to burn spells and is also good against kill spells with a little line of text saying "When the Scarab God dies, return it to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step". This means that the only way to REALLY deal with this threat is to exile it. It also allows us to turn our dead Knight of Grace, Knight of Malice and Kwende, Pride of Femeref into terrifying 4/4 or 5/4 Zombie Knights with First/Double Strike, which then in turn trigger the God's ability to reduce our opponent's life on our upkeep step as well as letting us scry more and more to draw into our game ending Vess cards, Josu Vess, Lich Knight and liliana, death's majesty. Its worth noting that the active ability here can bring back a creature from EITHER graveyard, so if we just killed something really strong then we should go steal it.

Late-game Creatures

One we get into the late game, we have three main win conditions as far as attacking with or casting creatures is concerned. We have our reanimated Double Strike Zombie Knights which can be buffed even further with Vanquisher's Banner and Shefet Dunes. We still also have the option of Heart of Kiran and our previously unmentioned Angel of Sanctions to go over the top of any blockers they have on the ground. Finally we have the option of kicking Josu Vess, Lich Knight. If this resolves we pretty much win the game right then as it would take eighteen opposing creatures to block our nine new Zombie Knights. A lot of the time though we don't even get to the next combat step after casting because if we have The Scarab God on the field and even one Zombie we deal 10 damage to our opponent just by reaching our next upkeep. If they did somehow survive that, we also get to scry 10 before we draw which means we get to draw pretty much whatever we think will win us the game. RIP.

The Angel of Sanctions Show

While this is a creature card, I tend to treat it as removal and keep Angel of Sanctions back until I need to cast it to exile a single huge threat from our opponent. The reason for this is that a lot of the time they will look to destroy either it or a Cast Out that is removing such an important piece of their plan. The Angel of Sanctions has an advantage here though as unless it was exiled it can simply be brought back into play and target the same thing either by paying 5W to Embalm it, using the active ability on The Scarab God or using the -3 ability on Liliana, Death's Majesty. All of these options now make it a Zombie as well which means that it no longer gets destroyed if we manage to cast Liliana's ultimate, keeping its target exiled while we wipe our opponent's board.

Planeswalkers

Liliana, Death's Majesty

Our only Planeswalker in this deck is card: Liliana, Death's Mastery F. The majority of the time we will be looking to use Liliana's +1 ability to give ourselves an army of expendable 2/2 Zombies to play with or, once we have amassed a Zombie horde and enough loyalty to cast it, her -7 ability to destroy all of our opponent's creatures so that we can then attack them directly, usually for lethal. While the ability is good, I personally find that her -3 is situational and that some of the time it is simply better to use the active of The Scarab God instead.

Liliana or The Scarab God? Show

The decision to bring a creature back from the graveyard is always an easy one. Deciding how to reanimate it is less so. Its important to note that Liliana, Death's Majesty returns a card from our graveyard to the battlefield while The Scarab God exiles the target from either graveyard and then makes a 4/4 token of it. As tokens cease to exist instead of entering the graveyard when they die, this is an important distinction. It is also worth noting that Planeswalker abilities can only be activated at Sorcery speed while the God's ability is instant speed, allowing it to be used on the opponent's end step for a surprise attacker next turn.

When to use Liliana's -3 ability instead of the God's

• The creature's body is better than a 4/4, like Josu Vess, Lich Knight.
• The creature's ability is too important to have removed from the game if it is killed again, like Angel of Sanctions.
• The creature is The Scarab God and you don't have one in play.
• You REALLY need to save mana or have spent it all already.

When to use the God's ability instead of Liliana's

• Target creature is in your opponent's graveyard.
• It isn't your main step.
• Target creature is smaller than a 4/4 and benefits a lot from the boost in power, like Knight of Grace and Knight of Malice.
• As a combat trick to give your knights Double Strike by bringing back Kwende, Pride of Femeref after blockers but before damage.

Removal Spells

Will write this section in the next few days but it is pretty straightforward.

Other Stuff

Vanquisher's Banner

Vanquisher's Banner is our way of "permanently" buffing all of our dudes. We have two creature types to choose with this deck, depending on if we want to buff ourselves short term in which case we cast on turn 5, choosing "Knights" and buff our guys before the grave. This gives us a lot of early first/double strike damage and buffs our Vigilance 2/2 tokens but doesn't affect our Zombie tokens, God or Angels later on. The other option is to cast it and choose "Zombies", not immediately helping your early creatures but buffing EVERYTHING but Heart of Kiran later on (even the God, if he was put into play by Liliana). If you feel like being fancy, you can always target "Knights" early on, exile it with your own Angel of Sanctions before killing it with your own Cast Down to have it return to the battlefield. This should then allow you to reselect to "Zombies" when it enters again. Be careful with this play though, while I'm 99% sure it would work I've seen some weird stuff happen with Angel of Sanctions.

Soul Salvage

Sometimes you see both copies of Josu Vess, Lich Knight end up in the graveyard thanks to the +1 ability of Liliana, Death's Majesty. While this means we can play him for free, it also means we can never kick him for that huge effect. This card allows us to return him to our hand in the late game if this happens.

Call the Cavalry

Two 2/2 Vigilance tokens for 4 mana. Not all that bad since it gives you blockers, but also lets you tap both to crew Heart of Kiran to attack in the air and keep your First/Double Strike Knights as blockers if the board is stalling out mid game. If Vanquisher's Banner is set to "Knights", you can crew with a single token, which is even nicer.

Shefet Dunes

Mainly a just a source of mana, sometimes the sacrifice ability is game winning when combined with your Double Strike Knights, Menace Knights or Heart of Kiran and Angel of Sanctions. Just don't forget that it can only be cast at sorcery speed and that you need to Crew before you sacrifice the desert in order for Heart of Kiran to get the buff.

Desert of the Mindful

This deck needs very little Blue mana, so if you already have it by the time you get this card you can either cycle Desert of the Mindful to draw into something more useful or you can use it as a sacrifice target for an extra Shefet Dunes pump.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Arena legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 5 - 0 Rares 27 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.11
Tokens	Angel of Sanctions 3/4 W, Copy Clone, Knight 2/2 W w/ Vigilance, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Knight 2/2 B