Sultai Zombies

Commander / EDH* BUG (Sultai) Combo GWUB Tribal Zombie

CraigleRock

Creature (36)

• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Cryptbreaker *f-pre*
• 1x Gravecrawler
• 1x Relentless Dead *f-pre*
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Undead Augur
• 1x Cemetery Reaper
• 1x Death Baron
• 1x Diregraf Captain
• 1x Diregraf Colossus
• 1x Liliana's Standard Bearer
• 1x Lord of the Accursed
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Plague Belcher
• 1x Agent of Erebos
• 1x Fallen Shinobi
• 1x Forgotten Creation *f-pre*
• 1x Gisa and Geralf
• 1x Grave Defiler
• 1x Graveborn Muse
• 1x Storrev, Devkarin Lich *f-pre*
• 1x Undead Warchief
• 1x Vengeful Dead
• 1x Wonder
• 1x Corpse Harvester
• 1x God-Eternal Bontu *f-pre*
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
• 1x Noxious Ghoul
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x The Scarab God
• 1x Underrealm Lich
• 1x Gravespawn Sovereign
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Molderhulk

Land (36)

• 1x Castle Locthwain
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 1x Field of the Dead
• 1x Forest
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x Island
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Memorial to Folly
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Nephalia Drownyard
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Unclaimed Territory
• 1x Unholy Grotto
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Zagoth Triome *f-pre*

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Liliana, Untouched By Death
• 1x Liliana, Dreadhorde General *f-pre*

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Rooftop Storm

Commander (1)

Sorcery (11)

• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Finale of Eternity
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Patriarch's Bidding
• 1x Zombie Apocalypse
• 1x Find / Finality

Artifact (9)

• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Bontu's Monument
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Coat of Arms

Instant (4)

• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Mausoleum Secrets

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Maybeboard

Instant (2)

• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Swan Song

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work in progress the card choices have yet to be updated since switching from Esper to Sultai

Introduction

My first commander deck, progressed from bouncing back and forth between U/B Commanders (Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Gisa and Geralf, The Scarab God) to Esper with Varina, Lich Queen, to what is now my take on Sultai Zombies with Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. As somewhat of a Sultai aficionado, this was sort of a long time coming.

Card Choices

Combo Pieces

Some combination of the following cards set up the deck's main combo

Main Combo Cards:

• Gravecrawler - Probably my favourite card of all time, a 2/1 for one normally isn't worth a second thought in commander, but that line in it's text box that says we can cast it from our graveyard opens the door for all sorts of synergies and combos.

• Rooftop Storm - any time a card says you can do something(s) for free, it's just asking to be broken, and Rooftop Storm is no different. Being able to cast zombies for the low, low cost of free is insane value, but it also paints a bright red target on our backs. Normally we want to hold off on casting it until we can win with it on the spot, but sometimes you just gotta play it, empty your hand on to the battlefield, and hope for the best.

Sac Outlets:

• Phyrexian Altar and Ashnod's Altar - Sac outlets and ramp spells bundled up in one! Phyrexian Altar's ability to create coloured mana allows it to stand in for Rooftop Storm in the main combo, however having Rooftop Storm with either altar provides infinite mana.

• Carrion Feeder - as a 1cmc sac outlet, not only does it enable our combo, but also grows arbitrarily large. Talk about cost efficiency!

• Grimgrin, Corpse-Born - A bit costly for a sac outlet, but being a zombie makes it free with Rooftop Storm, and it's ability to be used and reused as removal, in addition to growing arbitrarily large makes Grimgrin worth the inclusion.

Combo Finishers:

• Wayward Servant - Drains the life from our opponents. When comboing off, the life gain is mostly irrelevant, but played on turn two gains a handful or two of life, which is not nothing considering a lot of the repeatable card draw in the deck comes at the cost of life.

• Diregraf Captain - slightly worse than the rest of our 'kill cards' in this section, as it targets an opponent rather than hitting them all, but as said with the Wayward Servant above, when comboing off it's an irrelevant distinction. Pulls double duty by acting as a lord for the rest of our zombies.

• Plague Belcher and Vengeful Dead - No funny business, just gets the opponents dead.

• Bontu's Monument - See Wayward Servant above. Also acts as pseudo ramp spell by reducing the cost of our black creatures (which is essentially all of them).

Recursion

Ways to get either bring one thing back, or bring everything back.

Single Target Reanimation:

• Unholy Grotto - Works nicely with Varina, Lich Queen's looting ability, as well as any other card draw in our deck.

• Ghoulcaller's Chant - 99% of the time this is getting us two zombies back for the low low cost of one black mana.

• Relentless Dead - We essentially get to cast a zombie from our graveyard again once this relentless dead. If we have an extra black mana, we get to bring Relentless dead back to do it all over again! Works really well with sac outlets, and with menace it can get in a couple chip shots in the early game.

• Oversold Cemetery - Once we fill up our graveyard (which isn't hard to do), This buys back one zombie (or well, any creature. Not an entirely irrelevant distinction) per turn.

• Gisa and Geralf - See Oversold Cemetery above, minus the need to fill up our graveyard, and helps fill it with zombies to bring back.

• Liliana, Death's Majesty - Makes Zombies while milling cards, brings zombies back from the graveyard, and if she sticks around long enough, becomes a Plague Wind! There's nothing not to like here.

• Gravespawn Sovereign - We aren't going very deep with Varina, Lich Queen's Token synergy, so the asking cost of having four other zombies in play could be a bit high. but once we're there, the value is great. Works nicely with Rooftop Storm when we're not winning on the spot with it.

Mass Reanimation:

• Liliana, Untouched By Death - her +1 does a little bit to fill our graveyard and her -2 is a bit of conditional removal. The big draw to this iteration of Liliana though, is that -3 ability. The dream is to play her alongside Rooftop Storm, but even with it, this Liliana still brings great value to the table.

• Living Death - This card is symmetrical, meaning everyone gets to do this, not just us. But we're banking on the fact that we'll gain the most out of it by actively filling our graveyard, and with a sac outlet, we get to dump our board into the yard first.

• Patriarch's Bidding - see Living Death Above. This card is more often the safer one to cast, as even if we're playing against other tribal decks, few have the graveyard filling power that zombie decks do, and if our opponents aren't playing a tribe of their own, this card becomes incredibly one sided.

• Command the Dreadhorde - Between Varina, Lich Queen's ability to gain life, along side the fact that in commander we start with 40 life, the downside of paying life per target. The additional upsides of grabbing planeswalkers, as well as grabbing things from opponent's graveyards as well makes this card all the more interesting.

• Zombie Apocalypse - Easily our most risk adverse mass reanimation. Bring all our stuff back, while sometimes getting that extra value by destroying all humans

Honourable Mention:

• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - While not strictly speaking a 'reanimation' spell, the fact that he brings every (non-token) creature we control that dies without a 1/1 counter on it back with undying is a strong effect, letting us double down on a lot of our triggers when we don't have the tools to go infinite with them.

Card Draw and Tutors

Cards that draw (haha, get it?) us closer to our endgame.

Tutors:

• Vampiric Tutor - This does it all, from finding a Sol Ring in the early turns to get our wheels turning, to finding whichever piece of the puzzle we're missing later in the game. Putting the card on top of the library rather than into our hand is a slight draw back, but one that's easily over looked for the versatility it gives. Also, did I mention this is instant speed?

• Diabolic Intent - This is a Demonic Tutor that we can't cast on turn two most of the time, but later on in the game the requirement to sac a creature is pretty negligible, and can even provide minor upside!

• Mausoleum Secrets - The big drawback here is we can only find black cards with this, which excludes two of our biggest combo pieces in Rooftop Storm and Phyrexian Altar. There's also a smaller drawback of requiring undergrowth to be able to find something, but putting creatures into our graveyard is something we do really well, and the rest of our combo pieces are still black.

• Sidisi, Undead Vizier - She's essentially a Demonic Tutor that comes attatched to a 4/6 body with death touch. We typically want to sacrifice her to her own exploit ability for two reasons though. One: putting her in the graveyard means we get to reanimate her through various means, and tutor for more cards! and two: the TL;DR here is the wording on exploit is weird. By sacrificing Sidisi to her own ability, our opponents can't respond by killing Sidisi to prevent the tutor effect from happening, where as if we sacrifice another creature, an opponent may kill Sidisi in response to stop us from searching our library.

• Corpse Harvester - this is our slowest tutor effect, but it does what it does really well. Not only do we get whatever zombie we want, but it also brings along a swamp with it as well! Note that doesn't say "basic swamp" either, meaning in those weird games where we're missing one of our colours, we get to go find a Godless Shrine or a Watery Grave to fix our mana.

Card Draw:

• Cryptbreaker - For one CMC this card brings a lot to the table. Early on we discard cards to make tokens, which later on we get to start tapping to draw cards.

• Necromancer's Stockpile - this card sort of has both of Crypt Breaker's abilities wrapped into one (note that if we want the token we HAVE to discard a creature). It costs a little more, but it's also a harder to deal with than a creature is.

• Undead Augur - great in combat, even better with a sac outlet, and better still if we add Gravecrawler to that mix. Love that it doesn't include the non-token clause we see on a lot of similar cards.

• Midnight Reaper - See Undead Augur above. Unfortunately does not include token creatures, but still great value that we can't pass up.

• Graveborn Muse - Draws a lot of cards. Even with no other zombies on the battlefield, it's worst case scenario is it's a Phyrexian Arena attatched to the body of a Hill Giant, which is still a pretty darn high bar. Be careful, as with big board states the life loss will add up fast.

• Forgotten Creation - Very similar to Graveborn Muse above. Getting a free Windfall effect every upkeep is great. Filling our graveyard and drawing cards are both things Varina loves doing. also, a 3/3 with skulk can be surprisingly relevant, as things get tend to get really big very fast in commander.

• Grave Defiler - As a single use the effect here isn't incredibly exciting, but the more we bring this one back, the card advantage doesn't take long to add up.

• God-Eternal Bontu - Turns anything we no longer need into more cards. Generously comes on a 5/6 body with menace and built in protection from removal - including exile effects!

• Alhammarret's Archive - Turns every card drawn after our first one each turn into two cards. This effect is great enough with the rest of our card drawing effects here, but very notably it synergizes amazingly with Varina, Lich Queen, turning each attacking zombie from looting on attack to Cataloging! Doubling the life gain is also not nothing, as there a handful of cards in the deck that use our life total as a resource.

• Liliana, Dreadhorde General - The static ability alone makes her an already amazing card. Not only does it not include the non-token clause this effect commonly has, but it also doesn't lose life like it's Cryptbreaker, Undead Augur, and Midnight Reaper counterparts! She protects herself by making 2/2 tokens, and while it's not the most efficient removal, we can't complain too much about it, since in in your typical four player game it's essentially getting a six for zero, since we get to draw cards for the two creatures we have to sacrifice. If she ever lives long enough to ultimate, it's probably a game we're already winning anyways, but it is a game winning ultimate should we ever get to that point.

Board Control

Cards that help us live long enough to see our game plan through.

Removal:

• Vindicate - Nothing fancy here, get's any one problematic thing out of the way.

• Anguished Unmaking - Unlike Vindicate, this doesn't hit lands (which, aside from the odd corner case, won't matter), and costs us three life. To make up for these drawbacks, it's a stronger effect (exiling vs destroying) and we can do it at instant speed.

• atrition - Doom Blade alone normally wouldn't be worth consideration, but the fact that we get to do this over and over again means it makes the cut. This isn't listed with our sac outlets in the combo pieces section because the activation cost means we aren't going infinite with it.

Board Wipe:

• Damnation - Again, nothing fancy here. Destroys everyone's creatures.

• Archfiend of Ifnir - This card bends a little off theme, but it's included based solely on it's power along side Varina, Lich Queen. Giving -1/-1 counters to everyone else's creatures for each zombie we attack with ranges from making blocking a little more difficult for our opponents, to being a straight up Plague Wind for us, and whatever doesn't die stays permanently shrunk!

• Noxious Ghoul - Similar effect as Archfiend of Ifnir above, we just go about getting it a different way. It's floor is a five mana investment that gives everything -1/-1 until EOT. This isn't overly exciting, but it does still deal with mana dorks and some random tokens. It starts to look better if we can follow it up with another zombie or two, but where Noxious Ghoul really shines is it helps protect us from the symmetrical effect of Living Death and Patriarch's Bidding. Sure, our opponents will also get to bring things back, but when their board immediately gets -5/-5, a situation where we already should be standing to benefit the most from gets even better.

Supporting Cast

Good ol' miscellaneous value. This section could essentially be divided into two subsections: Lords and everything else. While I believe the primary path to victory is a combo finish, often times in order to set that up we need to take advantage of Varina, Lich Queen's ability to loot (and gain life) when zombies attack. Between the pump effects, and pseudo evasion (deathtouch, menace), the lords help make sure our zombies stick around to attack again and again.

• Shepherd of Rot - If we're not going infinite with rooftop storm, we can only ping our opponents so many times off of our sac triggers. Shepherd of Rot helps whittle everyone down so that we may not have to go infinite. Be careful, this also hurts us just as much. Also sometimes relevant: this count's everyone's zombies, not just our own.

• Etchings of the Chosen - A lord effect, and for one colourless mana, we can sacrifice a zombie to protect another one.

• Cemetery Reaper - A lord effect, also brings a bit of graveyard hate to the table.

• Death Baron - A lord effect that gives our horde deathtouch. Zombies are generally small creatures that get outclassed pretty quickly - especially in commander. Giving everything deathtouch can make attacks and/or blocks hard on our opponents.

• Lord of the Accursed - A lord effect that gives our horde a form of evasion.

• Diregraf Colossus - At it's worst it's a 3cmc 2/2 that brings along an extra 2/2 zombie every time we cast a zombie. often times it does that on a much bigger body.

• Agent of Erebos - A touch of graveyard hate. we have a handful of enchantments to trigger this a couple times, alongside just recuring the agent it self if needed.

• Undead Warchief - A super lord effect for our zombies that also acts as a pseudo ramp spell by making our zombies cheaper to cast.

• Wonder - Another card that sort of veers off theme a bit, but the ability to give our side of the board is pretty big game when we have to fall back on a good ol' fashion beat down plan. It's more of an enchantment that sits in the graveyard to give value, in the vein of Bridge from Below.

• Fallen Shinobi - Presumably, we'll have enough zombies, or some one won't have enough blockers that this guy should always be able to get in with his ninjitsu ability. Thankfully, the way Shinobi is worded, even just hitting two lands will still generate some value.

• God-Eternal Oketra - See Diregraf Colossus above. Comes on a fixed body at a higher cost, but the zombies she creates are also twice as big, and have vigilance.

• Coat of Arms - What a weird card. Pumps our zombies to crazy heights, but also doesn't take much for it to benefit our opponents either. Even if our opponents aren't playing any tribal decks, there are a lot of common creature types (ie mana elves, humans, wizards, etc) that are just going to casually be on the board to benefit from this.

• Gray Merchant of Asphodel - aka Gary. Drain our opponents for a lot of life, and gain our selves even more - which as mentioned before, isn't completely irrelevant. If he's coming back with one of our mass reanimation spells, that's usually enough to win on the spot.

Mana

How we cast our spells (when not doing it for free).

Mana Rocks:

• Sol Ring - What deck is complete with out a Sol Ring?

• Dimir Signet, Orzhov Signet, and Azorius Signet - Straight forward. Even the Azorious one, which is essentially fixing for a double splash, feels too good to leave out.

• Commander's Sphere - Fixes for all of our colours in the early game, and can be cashed in any time we like for another card off the top.

Ramp Lands:

• Crypt of Agadeem - Rewards us with lots of mana for doing things we already want to be doing in the first place.

• Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - Turns a big board state into a big chunk of mana. A little less reliable than Crypt of Agadeem above, as it is a lot harder to keep a board full of creatures than it is to keep a graveyard full of them.

• Phyrexian Tower - Sac outlet in our mana base! That alone almost makes it worth playing. The ramp is just a sweet bonus.

Utility Lands:

• Cephalid Coliseum - Hitting Threshold shouldn't be a problem, and this helps fuel our graveyard shenanigans.

• Nephalia Drownyard - We're often always doing something with our mana, but when we aren't this helps us fill the graveyard up a little bit.

• Reliquary Tower - Not the flashiest effect, but a welcome one.

• Field of the Dead - Again, not an incredibly flashy effect, but for a low opportunity cost we get a little value out of our late game land drops.

• Westvale Abbey   - Turns extra creatures into a massive indestructible demon. Less something we are aiming to do and more of something the deck can sometimes do when the opportunity arises.

• Silent Clearing - A little insurance against flooding, turning a spare land into a card off the top late in the game.

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Date added	8 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 54 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.64
Tokens	Copy Clone, Zombie 2/2 B