Burkek & KrazyCaley's Standard Analysis - Zombies and U/B Control

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burkek

11 March 2012

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Standard Analysis!

Normal text by burkek.

Italics indicate KrazyCaley

Zombies

This is actually a pretty scary deck. It can be run in mono black or blue-black variants, but the Blue Black versions generally do a bit better. This deck is very powerful because of a lot of synergies. With Diregraf Captain and Geralf's Messenger, life loss comes at a steady incremental rate and it will quickly put the opponent to 0.

So far I've not been particularly impressed with these decks as true standard contenders. They're simply not fast enough. If Day of Judgment kills your deck, you need it to run really, really fast, and while this deck IS pretty quick, it is by no means fast enough to kill you by turn 4. Most of its remotely threatening stuff only even shows up on turn 3. The best build I've seen of this deck runs some draw spells or counterspells using the blue, which reliably keeps the damage coming.

Card and Interaction Strengths

Geralf's Messenger - This card is powerful. 2 damage, 3 damage every time you let it attack, 2 damage when you kill it, 4 damage every time you let it attack after you kill it the first time… yeah lots of damage.

Excellent card; the heart of the deck. As burkek says, this thing outputs damage almost on its own. It also provides excellent Day of Judgment resistance (though it's usually the only thing in the deck that does). The only real problem here is that it costs BBB, which often somewhat tough to meet in the blue-black variant of this deck

Diregraft Captain - Diregraf captain pumps your zombies, and then forms a situation where the opponent takes damage just by killing your dudes. However, when combined with a combo such as Gravecrawler + Mortarpod it gets even better. The incremental, steady, and consistent stream of damage that this deck provides is really the win condition of this deck.

Another important card found in the blue-black version of the deck. It's a fine card, but like Geralf's Messenger, the fact that you have to wait until turn 3 to cast it makes the deck run a bit slower than it should, especially since this just flatly dies to Day of Judgment and other wrath effects.

Skirsdag High Priest - This card makes 5/5 flying demons. You are playing a deck that generally has ways to enable morbid almost every turn. This works out very well for you. In particular, look for Gravecrawler, Mortarpod, and Fume Spitter to enable morbid and then just go tap tap tap, and you are the proud owner of a new 5/5 flying dude that eats Insectile Aberration  ^Flips for breakfast.

A card that has been increasingly absent from zombie decks, I've noticed, perhaps because it's a bit difficult to get all the prerequisites out, but given how devastating the ability to produce 5/5s factory-style is, and given how easily this deck can trigger morbid, it's still hanging on in many decks.

Phantasmal Image and Phyrexian Metamorph - More Diregraf Captains and Geralf's Messengers? Yes please. Also, when you copy a creature with undying, when the clone dies, it comes back with a +1/+1 counters _and allows you to copy any creature on the board. It doesn’t have to come back as the same creature.

Diregraf Ghoul and Gravecrawler - It is just worth pointing out that this deck has 8 aggressive 1 mana 2/x creatures.

Diregraf Ghoul may as well be a 2/2 for 1 mana for all this deck cares. Gravecrawler is similar to Bloodghast in the way it actually performs, but unlike Bloodghast, a Day of Judgment will usually stop Gravecrawler in its tracks; Gravecrawler of course also remains vulnerable to exiling removal.

Phyrexian Obliterator / Lashwrithe / Liliana of the Veil / etc: Just scaring you with some other good cards this deck plays in some versions. Really, this is still a developing deck; there is lots of room for adjustment and improvement.

Mono-black versions of this deck would be remiss if they didn't run the incredible Phyrexian Obliterator, which basically demands non-damage removal by itself.

Weaknesses

The general weaknesses to this deck are board clears (one in particular), counter spells, and decks that are just flat out faster (cough Tempered Steel cough). I will highlight a couple particularly powerful cards below.

Black Sun's Zenith - Black Sun's Zenith has a certain interaction with undying. If a creature with undying dies due to 0 toughness from -1/-1 counters, it will not come back from undying. This makes it a very powerful choice against your Geralf's Messengers.

It is +1/+1 counters that undying checks for, so alas, this play doesn't quite work (although your Black Sun's Zenith WILL successfully kill for good a Geralf's Messenger that had a +1/+1 counter on it due to the way state-based actions work), but Black Sun's Zenith is still an excellent card against this deck, as is any wrath.

Mirran Crusader - Mirran Crusader has protection from black. Not too much else to say.

U/B Control

The new U/B Control deck is very stream lined and very powerful (See GP Baltimore ( http:// www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpbal12/welcome#0 ). Its main win condition is to mill its opponent out with Nephalia Drownyard and it does it very well. It just works, and its actually not as slow as you might think. It also does run some fatties, but really, most of the games it will just win by milling. Never having to tap out on your turn is a very powerful option to have.

Nephalia Drownyard is there to provide an interesting answer to other control decks, but usually I wouldn't say it's going to be the main win condition against any of the non-control decks in the meta. Rely on Nephalia Drownyard against that Vampire deck, for instance, and you'll be down to zero before you've milled half their deck. What U/B control is really trying to accomplish is being an anti-control control deck, and it excels in doing this very well; it succeeds in tournaments because so many professional players are running control decks right now.

Strengths

Nephalia Drownyard - Your main win condition. As soon as the U/B control player has 2 of these out, you are only a few turns away from losing. Also, milling yourself for profit with Snapcaster Mage and flashback is an option; generally do this earlier on so you can get more ways to answer their threats.

The main point of Nephalia Drownyard is that it provides an unkillable threat that other control decks basically can't answer (or at least not answer with any kind of efficiency), and which is activated at instant speed, allowing the U/B player to leave plenty of mana open on the enemy turn to deal with whatever they do.

Snapcaster Mage: It lets you recast all your instant/sorcery spells in your graveyard. In mirror matches, it is also a beater because they will have sided out almost all of their removal. But in general, just use it for a ton of profit with removal or draw spells as needed.

Drawing: Yeah, the advantage as drawing. Here is what I mean by this, Blue Sun's Zenith + Think twice + Forbidden Alchemy + Consecrated Sphinx. Notice, 2 of these have flashback, and also notice, your fatty itself draws you cards.

A deck that has little to cast on its own turn usually benefits enormously by having card advantage. Think Twice is a must-have for this deck because it, too, is at instant speed.

Removal: Yep, another generic term, but hey, what else do you call Ratchet Bomb + Curse of Death's Hold + Go for the Throat + Doom Blade + Tragic Slip + Black Sun's Zenith?

There are answers enough here for creatures, but note that if your opponent gets down a serious problem that isn't a creature, Ratchet Bomb is about the only response- another reason this deck really hates to be tapped out on its opponents' turns.

Fatties: You cannot choose a particular card for this, because it varies wildly based on whose list you look at. In general though, the options are Karn Liberated, Grave Titan, Consecrated Sphinx, Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip, Wurmcoil Engine, Sorin Markov, and Batterskull. Don’t expect to see more than 3 or 4 total.

Consecrated Sphinx is usual, since this deck really makes good use of card advantage, as before. After that you're likely to see Karn Liberated simply because he's harder to answer.

Counter spells: The pre-board choices are Mana Leak, Negate, and Dissipate. Pick your poison and then supplement it with Snapcaster Mage to make it impossible for your opponent to resolve anything relevant.

Counters are very important to this deck since that's what it essentially relies on to defeat all opposing control decks. Because it runs so much creature hate, it loves to make extensive use of Negate.

Weaknesses

I guess the biggest weaknesses to this deck are undying and decks that kill you before you can get board control ( cough Tempered Steel cough ).

Any solid aggro deck will have the advantage against this deck, and ones that make use of removal-resistant creatures even more so. RDW, the above zombie archetype, and especially mono-green undying should all reliably outperform this deck, which simply doesn't have ENOUGH creature answers to stop the relentless onslaught that these decks provide.

Geralf's Messenger + Strangleroot Geist - As far as undying creatures go, these are probably the two best. Both of these are hard to deal with and put you on a clock that your deck does not want to be on.

The end!

So that’s it for this standard analysis. Feel free to comment, agree, and disagree or whatever else you feel like in the comment area below. Also, suggestions into what you want to see for the next standard analysis are always welcome.