Mary Shelley's Delight

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Combo Midrange Reanimator Sacrifice Tokens WUB (Esper) Zombie

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Creature (28)

• 1x Archghoul of Thraben
• 1x Ayara, First of Locthwain
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Corpse Knight
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Diregraf Captain
• 1x Diregraf Colossus
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x God-Eternal Bontu
• 1x Graveborn Muse
• 1x Gravecrawler
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Headless Rider
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Nantuko Husk
• 1x Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant
• 1x Overcharged Amalgam
• 1x Phyrexian Ghoul
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Plague Belcher
• 1x Repository Skaab
• 1x Shambling Ghast
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Stitcher's Supplier
• 1x The Scarab God
• 1x Undead Augur
• 1x Wayward Servant
• 1x Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Ghoulish Procession
• 1x Life Insurance
• 1x Necroduality
• 1x Rooftop Storm

Land (35)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 5x Island
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 3x Plains
• 1x Secluded Courtyard
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 9x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Unclaimed Territory
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Unholy Grotto
• 1x Vault of Champions
• 1x Watery Grave

Artifact (10)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Pyre of Heroes
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana, Untouched By Death

Commander (1)

Sorcery (11)

• 1x Damn
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Empty the Laboratory
• 1x Exhume
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Scheming Symmetry
• 1x Tragic Arrogance
• 1x Victimize
• 1x Zombie Apocalypse

Instant (9)

• 1x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Delay
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Void Rend

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Maybeboard

Creature (21)

• 1x Acererak the Archlich
• 1x Apprentice Necromancer
• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Cleaver Skaab
• 1x Corpse Connoisseur
• 1x Death Baron
• 1x Gisa and Geralf
• 1x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born *oversized*
• 1x Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
• 1x Havengul Lich
• 1x Master of Death
• 1x Murderous Rider
• 1x Phyrexian Delver
• 1x Possessed Skaab
• 1x Prized Amalgam
• 1x Ravenous Rotbelly
• 1x Skinrender
• 1x Soul Warden
• 1x Soul's Attendant
• 1x Vengeful Dead
• 1x Viscera Seer

Instant (9)

• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Countersquall
• 1x Despark
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Mausoleum Secrets
• 1x Negate
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Vanishing Verse

Land (6)

• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x River of Tears

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana, Death's Majesty

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Cleansing Nova
• 1x Dread Summons
• 1x Fumigate
• 1x Kaya's Wrath
• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x Obzedat's Aid
• 1x Patriarch's Bidding
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Artifact (4)

• 1x Blasting Station
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Robe of the Archmagi
• 1x Wand of Orcus

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Coastal Piracy
• 1x Endless Ranks of the Dead
• 1x Open the Graves

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Hello! I'm a longtime commander player and I decided I clearly didn't have enough graveyard combo decks. So here's Zombie Combo (Zombo?) with Mary Shelley, Zombie Queen in the command zone. Any suggestions are appreciated!

Why Zombie tribal? What makes Zombies special? Show

So first of all, I have a confession: even after years of playing commander, this is still my only true tribal deck. I don't know what I have against building tribal commander decks. Maybe I'm addicted to combos; maybe I'm just allergic to Kaalia of the Vast. But probably it's because I've watched too many friends gush over their "incredible" hydra or vampire or dragon tribal decks... and then use a Crucible of Fire as an excuse to play Covetous Dragon and Rimescale Dragon and other dreadful creatures that just turn sideways and take up space.

Nah. Let's be honest here. It's because I'm Johnny, Combo Player at heart.

Look, I understand that anthems exist and that they frequently appear on tribal lords. After all, Murkfiend Liege costs so much more mana than Merfolk Mistbinder that it's GOT to be more efficient to just run creatures with scales, tails, and fish breath. But don't complain at me when your jank tribal deck of vanilla merfolk and pump spells falls apart after a single Wrath of God.

OK, got that out of my system. So, why do I feel differently about my jank tribal deck of zombies?

I suppose it's that more than other tribes, zombies are combo tribal. Or at least zombies have functional reprints of common combo staples. Compare Blood Artist to Diregraf Captain, compare Karmic Guide to Phyrexian Delver, compare Living Death to Zombie Apocalypse. Lots of tribes have unique mechanics associated with them: treefolk are basically walls, dragons breathe fire ( lots of fire ), and zombies embody the heart and soul of mill and dredge and all sorts of nastiness you see ruining Modern and Legacy.

And just as importantly in my eyes, zombies barely flinch in the eyes of game states that make other tribal decks crumple. Sphere of Safety blocking your attacks? No problem, go onto an aristocrats plan and drain them to death. Wrath of God raining on your cemetery again and again? No problem, we'll just dig all the zombies up again next turn, and again the turn after that. Stax player telling you to Rest in Peace? Remind them that you can just keep turning your growing army of zombies sideways and practice permanent removal via player removal. As a zombie player, there's no such thing as overcommitting to the board; if you can't keep a critical mass of zombies in play, you end up with a critical mass of cards in the grave instead, and either works just as well.

So essentially, this deck is only tribal as a secondary consideration. (In fact, we're not even perfect: out of 28 creatures, 25 are zombies.) First and foremost, this is an Esper self-milling combo deck with plenty of control and interactivity that happens to be running mostly zombies because zombies in these colors do dredgey comboey things anyway. This deck has run multiple other commanders, notably Gisa and Geralf, but our current leading lady Varina, Lich Queen just provides too much value to pass up. She gets us tons of extra card selection every turn, she lets us discard combo creatures to entomb them for later reanimation, she exiles discarded junk like lands and spits out zombie tokens, she gains life, she's a reasonable 4/4 zombie for 4 mana... Such high value from the command zone.

Since I first wrote this primer, the zombie spotlight has shifted onto Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver as the premier zombie commander. While Wilhelt does a little better than Varina at raw card advantage (definitely one of Varina's weaknesses), I think the loss of white in the color pie does painful things for the deck. With white, we get to run some of the best removal in the format, we get lifegain stapled onto the commander (one of this deck's other weaknesses), and we get a couple of incredibly crucial value plays in Wayward Servant and Corpse Knight. I think with these things in mind, Varina outpaces Wilhelt in everything except token generation, something this deck is not tuned around anyway.

Gravecrawler, the King of Zombos Show

Is this a Gravecrawler deck? You bet it's a Gravecrawler deck! If you've seen Gravecrawler before, you know this unassuming 1-mana dude is very likely to be the star of the party whenever he shows up in a deck. Here's the basic breakdown of how the deck combos out once Gravecrawler reaches either our hand or the yard.

--Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler gets top marks for efficiency. Two cards and any zombie, and presto change-o, we've got a Gravecrawler that dies and recasts a billion times. (It's alive! It's dead. It's alive!)

--Pitiless Plunderer + sac outlet + Gravecrawler uses the pirate boi to convert any other sacrifice outlet into essentially a Phyrexian Altar. This combo is notable because it can be assembled using creatures only, so we can go nuts off a Living Death.

--Life Insurance + sac outlet + Gravecrawler works identically to the Plunderer line, except that since we're losing life fast we absolutely need to be draining our opponents on every hit.

--Rooftop Storm + sac outlet + Gravecrawler gets us there super efficiently and has plenty of side lines to get infinite zombies sans Crawler. The deck runs plenty of sac outlets, but Carrion Feeder, Nantuko Husk, and Phyrexian Ghoul are ideal here since they're all zombies that will cast for zero.

Now that we know our main combo engines, here's the sac outlets to set them off:

Phyrexian Altar (duh)

Altar of Dementia Noteworthy as an occasional win condition

Ashnod's Altar

Carrion Feeder The most optimal 1-mana dork in the deck

Phyrexian Ghoul

Nantuko Husk

And here are the buttons that the combos can press to instantly win the game:

Corpse Knight Instantly kill all opponents

Diregraf Captain Instakill

Plague Belcher Instakill

Wayward Servant Instakill

Ayara, First of Locthwain Instakill

Diregraf Colossus Backup wincon via infinite 2/2 zombie tokens, which we can pitch to Altar of Dementia for a mill instakill.

Undead Augur Draw cards to fish out one of the other wincons or a cheap tutor (we sacrifice the Undead Augur then combo out).

Midnight Reaper Draw cards to fish for other wincons.

Our notable backup combo engine is Liliana, Untouched By Death. Lily's -3 temporarily converts every Zombie card we own into a Gravecrawler, letting us create loops like Shambling Ghast + Phyrexian Altar or Gray Merchant of Asphodel + Rooftop Storm. This combo is much more fragile, since we have zero recursion for Lily if she mills or dies to removal, but the results can be incredibly impressive and degenerate. Plus, Gravecrawler is too darn well-known; players will hold open the Path to Exile for him, but ignore the cheeky backup wincon on board.

(Side note: If you're interested in building in other zombie combo lines, I'd advise staying away from Nim Deathmantle; weirdly, the sort of deck that makes Deathmantle-Ashnod's work smoothly is much more of a tokens-matter deck than a zombie tribal deck like this one. On the other hand, I've run Havengul Lich lines in this deck with some success. The Lich is more resilient due to being a creature we can reanimate, and he's also a much more useful tool on a blank board state. Ultimately, though, he needs cheerio creatures like Ornithopter and Cloud of Faeries to go really crazy.)

Of course, when all else fails, we're a creature deck. A big Living Death slaps down a Gray Merchant of Asphodel and a Wayward Servant to drain 20+ life from opponents, then we just swing out for lethal. While I've left out most of the zombie aggro cards, we're still running lots of big fatties like Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant, God-Eternal Bontu, and Diregraf Colossus, plus a Diregraf Captain to lord up all the random zombie tokens the deck unintentionally makes.

Ghouls' Night Out. Show

If there's anything zombie decks are famous for, it's swarms of neverending 2/2 tokens that wear down even the most resilient control decks. While that's not the primary focus here, we certainly get plenty of value for having some of said tokens floating around, so let's talk about what makes them:

Varina, Lich Queen obviously. Her active ability can easily yeet a couple of lands for a 2/2 every turn we keep open mana for control effects.

Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver Yon Backup Commander of Decay

Headless Rider

Diregraf Colossus

Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant Not his main thing but check out that spicy ETB trigger.

Cryptbreaker

Ghoulish Procession

It's also worth talking about Necroduality here, since the primary point of making a bunch of tokens is to aggro down opponents with combat damage and/or aristocrats triggers. Necroduality has a lot of potential to pump out a lot of attackers since we a) clone our token-makers, b) clone our payoffs like Diregraf Captain, and c) usually get all that value for free from a mass-reanimator spell.

Massive. Card. Advantage. Show

What really makes Zombies and Mary Shelley, Zombie Queen amazing is the ridiculous speed at which they allow us to dig through our deck. Shelley/Varina is the first part of the puzzle, letting us go to combat and loot a few cards before we commit to playing anything on our turn. But plenty of other cards in the deck contribute to digging and/or entombing combo pieces incredibly quickly, so here we go.

Raw card draw is our primary game plan; it's how we hit our land drops, and it's how we overmax our hand to discard zombies. Alongside Varina, we've got plenty of ways to accelerate our card draw:

Skullclamp

Cryptbreaker

Graveborn Muse Probably the best card draw engine in the deck, but 4 mana comes out pretty late

Midnight Reaper

Undead Augur

Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver

Ayara, First of Locthwain Off-tribe but Ayara does all the things we want to do in this deck

God-Eternal Bontu A splashier play if we've got tokens to pitch, but we'll happily sacrifice some lands on a combotastic turn.

And of course we play some spot tutors:

Scheming Symmetry

Diabolic Intent

Pyre of Heroes

Sidisi, Undead Vizier One badass zombie that we love to see hit the field 3 or 4 times a game.

But the real value of graveyard decks is that we can play a lot of semi-advantage engines like self-mill that would be way more "meh" if we didn't plan to dig creatures out of our yard later:

Stitcher's Supplier OP, 'nuff said.

Altar of Dementia Target self, always, unless winning the game

Liliana, Untouched By Death We play for the -3 but the +1 is also great value

Archghoul of Thraben If we whiff on zombies we at least mill cards for Varina to pitch

Empty the Laboratory A Genesis Wave-esque effect that lets us cheat out a TON of nontoken creatures

The Scarab God Scry 5? Sure.

Reanimator shenanigans Show

I mean, this section is pretty simple.

Since we rapidly churn creatures, instants, sorceries, and other such junk into our graveyard, it would be a shame if all those cards went to waste. We wouldn't want an errant Bojuka Bog to ruin our day, would we? So we play reanimator cards.

TONS of reanimator cards.

Reanimate

Exhume

Victimize

Animate Dead

Living Death

Zombie Apocalypse

Dread Return

Unholy Grotto

Repository Skaab

The Scarab God We'd prefer not to exile our creatures but in a pinch he'll work on an Overcharged Amalgam.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 38 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.83
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie 2/2 B w/ Decayed
Folders	1st Tries