griffstick: Yes, you can sacrifice Phyrexian Dreadnought before its ETB effect resolves, which would make it great in here. I hadn't thought of it! That's a great idea. Even if I don't have Gisa out but I've got Grave Pact and some other crap I don't care about, it's a great idea. Thanks! I'll have to shake out the couch for some loose change to get one.

I still may run Hunted Horror as well, however, as it is a fun card in multiplayer games for making allies, and in this build they almost always end up sacrificing the tokens anyway.

slovakattack: I've been wanting to add Phyrexian Obliterator, I just don't have one and have had other cards I wanted more when I had the resources to get one. He'll be in here down the road. It will be especially nice when I can have him out at the same time as It That Betrays.

Nice deck, +1 from me.

I totally used your deck as a shell for my own gisa EDH.

I was wondering can you use Odunos River Trawler with Deathrender, I guess you can stack the triggers in such a way that you can do both, but I could be wrong here.

obitus: Thanks! I'm glad you like the build.

You actually can't legally even include Odunos River Trawler in the deck because it has a white mana symbol in its rules text! But why are you running him in the first place? The only thing he does is bring an enchantment creature back to your hand. Are you running key enchantment creatures in your build?

I'll look at your build and see your take on things.

Ohh, wow. I did not see the white symbol there. That does not help at all then.

I thought if you can bring back an "enchantment creature" then you can either bring back any permanent that has enchantment, creature, or both. Does the permanent have to have both enchantment and creature in its type?

Really I am just messing around with reanimation, the deck resembles yours in terms of proportion (creature count, artifacts, lands, etc)...

I learned a lot from your comments and explanations, wish every deck did this.

You ever think about Everflowing Chalice? Its better than Jet Medallion in my opinion.

Jet Medallion cost to reduce blacks spells by . This does the same thing, except the trade off is you apply it to any spell once a turn. You may pay its multikicker more thane once.

obitus: Yeah, Odunos River Trawler only works on creatures that are also enchantments, such as Underworld Coinsmith. Now, if he worked on either, he'd be worth his weight in gold.

Everflowing Chalice is great, but I don't think it replaces Jet Medallion. It is only better than Jet Medallion if you plan on only playing one black spell per turn. If you've only got 1 charge counter on the chalice, that will net you an additional one mana per turn in a deck like this where you've got nothing to untap it. Whereas if you use Jet Medallion, if you cast three black spells in a turn, which is common here, then it's just effectively opened up three extra mana that turn.

That lets me cast, say, Grave Pact and Lord of the Undead all on turn 5, when normally I'd have to be on turn 7 to cast those both in the same turn, assuming I never missed a land drop. If I didn't have Jet Medallion and had Everflowing Chalice with one counter on it instead, then I'd have to choose one or the other.

TwoMagicDudes: Nice catch, I see your point of view. You also included the amount of times you would cast a spell. Which would net you three mana instead.

I was thinking of scenarios where you would put more than one charge counter on Everflowing Chalice.

So for the same example, we did not miss a land drop and its turn 4. I cast Everflowing Chalice and put two charge counters on it. Netting me two colorless on turn 5. Then I could still cast Grave Pact and Lord of the Undead on turn 5.

I will play test it and let you know how the deck turns out.

There's really no reason not to run both, especially if you are building on a budget. I am running Caged Sun and I find that, in most games, that in combination with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Cabal Coffers usually gets me way more mana than I can even spend on many turns by the time mid-game comes, and there's nothing in here you really need an early ramp for. On more than one occasion I have been able to Exsanguinate for more than 30 life to just end the game through ramp alone.

It really depends on what other rocks you are running. If you already have Sol Ring, then Everflowing Chalice is essentially going to be a 4-cost Sol Ring. If you are running Gilded Lotus, then its going to be a 6-cost Gilded Lotus that will only produce colorless mana. It has its uses, and works just fine when you don't have these cards in your deck, or haven't drawn them yet, and at two mana for 1 counter it's a perfectly great little rock.

I am taking your advice and running both. Your explanation was better than mine.

Hey if your gonna run Everflowing Chalice you should run Contagion Engine

@griffstick: If I had a counter theme, I would agree with you. Your right in the sense that they combo well together.

Contagion Engine is a board wipe against one opponent. It also proliferates everything with a counter including planswalkers. Its good in all decks

Call to the Grave Why is this not in this deck??? Also Endless Ranks of the Dead.

Saintcopy: Call to the Grave is not in here because I have a lot of creatures, including my commander, that aren't zombies. I've used Endless Ranks of the Dead in the past, but I find it is highly likely to get removed before I can benefit from it, and in mono-black, I don't really have ways of protecting it from destruction/exile. With Gisa at the helm, I can usually get zombie tokens faster anyway.

I think you should switch out Mortician Beetle with Phyrexian Dreadnought

Or Mindcrank for Phyrexian Dreadnought cause mindcrank just make people want to attack you only. It create alot of hate.

griffstick: Haha, yeah, I usually only drop Mindcrank on the same turn that I am going to cast Rise of the Dark Realms, because nobody is going to let that thing sit around for long. It's nice that it's only a 2-drop.

Shoutout to my old friend John from the coolest zombie deck on tappedout! He would have loved this, rest in peace swamplord!Thought id take a look at this again, and it hit me ! Thousand-Year Elixir !!This would be friggan awesome with your commander, and also with Hell's Caretaker and Avatar of Woe Thornbite Staff was an amazing idea, and I understand that it superceeds this, but I like having 1 backup for important ideas. B/c you already run Rise of the Dark Realms personally I would out the strategy of graverobbing one at a time for maybe just robbing all the graves at once later : )

Thornbite Staff + Visara the Dreadful

Fendorian: Thanks for the compliments and the feedback! Yes, Thousand-Year Elixir would be great in here.

griffstick: Good suggestion. I already have Avatar of Woe in here doing the same thing, but Visara would be great as well.

Have you seen Ghastly Conscription from Fate reforged?

Another card for your Swampwalk combo is Zombie Trailblazer

I see what you mean about Geth, Lord of the Vault, I really wanted him to work in the deck.

Thanks for all the work you did on this deck. I just got into EDH so I started with the Black 2014 deck... I can't in good conscience show up to EDH league night with a stock deck however. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with it until I came across this deck. I made a deck that fits my budget, and makes use of some cards I already had. I think I was able to include most of the relevant combos and interactions, a turn slower here and there and I chose not to go for the additional mill, but I think it retains the overall feel and flavor. As a nube to EDH there is more than enough to keep track of. If you have the time I'd love to hear what you think.

Zombies, more Zombies, and a few more Zombies