Supernatural Stamina seems like it might be a weaker version of Undying Evil since evil gives it the boost of a permanent +1/+1 but idk. Maybe you prefer the +2 of Stamina for pushing for game type purposes?

Yeah, I just liked the +2, figured it might be able to let me say "gotcha" to someone who thought they were out of lethal range. Idk if that situation comes up very often though, do you think Undying Evil is better?

Undying Evil is marginally better because the boost/pump is permanent.

The other plus side is that if your creature is say . . .hit by Disfigure and you Undying Evil it; it will return untapped unlike Stamina.

I would swap out a few lands for Dark Ritual, 48% of your cards are one drops, so you could probably have about 4 effective power turn one, and less dead draws in the late game

I just personally don't think Dark Ritual fits that well in this deck; I'd rather play fewer one-drops in the early game and have more mana in the later game to chain Gempalm Polluters with Ghoulcaller's Chant and Ghoulraiser than the opposite. Also, the deck is way less than 48% one drops :P

idk though, ill try it out and see if it's any better. Maybe play a couple if I don't like all four. Thanks for suggesting it :)

looks really similar to a deck that Jake Stiles piloted in his playing pauper series.

Zombies

a more aggressive version of Wail of the Nim would be Dry Spell cheaper and i doubt this deck cares about the regenerate clause

Actually, I included Wail of the Nim over something like Dry Spell because of the regenerate part... there are a lot of 1/1's, so I thought it would be kind of detrimental to kill them off like that, and maintaining a big board state is necessary for Gempalm Polluter and Shepherd of Rot to be as effective as possible. But idk, I'll try it.

I can see your logic, I guess when I think zombies I think of disposable creatures but i get that this decks still needs to swarm the board. Wail could be the right call

I think Soul Reap could be good in here. Also, although not a zombie, Smolder Initiate could be quite good in this build.

Hm, maybe. As for Smolder Initiate, I don't think it's worth playing any creatures that aren't zombies in the deck, and I'm pretty sure its ability is too slow to make up for the drop in consistency in the Shepherd of Rot/Gempalm Polluter gameplan. thx for commenting tho.

Suicide is never the answer. Except for WWII. That was a pretty good answer.

I like Supernatural Stamina better than Undying Evil because it means you get to sacrifice the creature several times.

Well, once a creature dies and comes back to life, it doesn't actually come back as the same creature (i.e. the creature that gained the "When this creature dies, return it to the battlefield" ability), it comes in as it would if you played it. So while it would be nice, you wouldn't be able to infinitely loop with it. I was actually recently thinking of replacing the Supernatural Staminas with more targeted removal since this deck needs to be fairly interactive in order to stay alive... if you draw a hand full of 1/1s and no payoff normal aggro decks tend to just run you over.

I love Ghoulcaller's Chant, I think it's a highly-underrated card in pauper. I know that Nameless Inversion gives you the potential for amazing control recursion, but I think that moving it to the sideboard and replacing it mainboard with Victim of Night or Snuff Out fits better into what you need to compliment your aggro deck. Direct removal via Victim of Night and snuff out will kill a wider range of threats and/or blockers than Nameless Inversion. If after round one you can see that most of their creatures will die to nameless inversion (or they're running black creatures), then you can swap it in safely.

I also love Gempalm Polluter, but I'm not sure that you want a full 4 (maybe 3 instead), since getting 2 in hand any time other than late game will probably mean that you've lost your opportunity to overwhelm them with aggro.

Shepherd of Rot is a really good way to push for the end of the game, but like gempalm it subtracts from your aggro tempo, and does it's own thing. Gempalm should stay mainboard because it will be good near the end/late game regardless since it also draws you a card, but Shepard of Rot is more situational. I think that it could play a key role in the deck as a sideboard against matchups that find a way to consistently fog you or beat you in terms of the combat field.

Sylvok Lifestaff is a great card for stamina, but I'm not sure that it fits here specifically. I think that if you want a lifegain card in your sideboard for games that drag on, or for decks that can stall our your aggro, Gray Merchant of Asphodel is your best bet.

And as always, Gurmag Angler is a frustratingly good card, and it's even a zombie too! It might be a good finisher with 2 copies. It might seem counter intuitive to eat your graveyard instead of potentially recurring it, but Gurmag is so strong it's worth it. Also, if your opponent sides in graveyard hate to remove your graveyard, Gurmag laughs at them and eats it first.

It might be worth consider 2-3 Costly Plunder either sideboard or mainboard, because like your Carrion Feeder, it allows you to get value from a creature that your opponent is about to kill/control, or one of the creatures you can no longer afford to pay life for. Plus it's always nice to have more sacrifice triggers for Festering Mummy.

Thx a lot for the feedback! I like the suggestion to play more unconditional removal maindeck, but the thing I've realized with Snuff Out as well as Vendetta is that sometimes the life is too much to pay. I've played a lot of games with this deck that have come down to a matter of a few life points between winning and losing because of the 'suicide' zombies in the deck, and I think there may be too high of a chance of killing myself early. I try to maintain a 1:2 ratio of damage to myself and the opponent in the cards (with a few cards like Piranha Marsh to break the symmetry a bit) and Snuff/Vendetta might mess that up. I'll try out Victim of Night in main though.

I have tried playing a third Anurid in place of a Gempalm Polluter and it worked fine, but there wasn't a noticeable difference in performance. While testing with all 4, the issue of "too many" never really came up outside of niche scenarios where I flooded out and didn't have much board presence; and even then it helped draw some action so it was still useful. In the end I think it comes down to personal preference, and I like having the potential to chain them together and such (there's some sentimental value too <3).

I disagree with you on this point. Shepherd of Rot is a key part of the deck, and it's one of the cards I based the deck off of. Without it, the deck becomes exponentially less powerful, partly because it's a really good card and partly because I tried to fit in as many 1 mana zombies as I could in order to power up Shepherd of Rot and Gempalm Polluter and they themselves aren't very powerful on their own. And what do you mean by situational? The only situation you'd want to be in while playing this deck is in the process of lowering your opponent's life total (which Shepherd excels at), and if the game were to go late and the opponent wasn't on the verge of death the deck has an extremely low chance of winning in the first place (if it gets to that point I generally just concede) so I feel that "it isn't good in the late game" isn't a valid argument. You also say that it subtracts from the deck's aggro-tempo; how so? It's essentially a [weird] 2-mana lord with the downside of not being able to do damage the turn it comes down, but with the upside of being able to deal chunks of damage through blockers. Sure, without other creatures out, it's just a 2 mana 1/1 (<-- is this what situational refers to?), but with even 1 other it's acceptable and with more it's insane. It's a lousy topdeck for sure, but so is almost every other card in the deck; the key is synergy and high damage output. After all, the deck doesn't need to do well in the late game, it needs to win early, and Shepherd helps tremendously in that regard.

Of course, I could also get rid of it and play more Anurids and removal and stuff to bolster the midrange plan, but by then it would be a different deck.

Lifestaff has done really well in testing. It gives a creature +1 attack (every point counts) and with Carrion Feeder it's easily possible to gain a lot of life at once. I have considered Gary, and the biggest concern is whether I'd be able to cast it in time in the aggro matchup. I think Sylvok Lifestaff is the better choice in general, but feel free to persuade me. Also, I don't really get why you'd want a lifegain card for games that drag on; could you explain that to me? Are you talking about the midrange matchup or something? Is there a deck I don't know about?

I've tried Gurmag Angler in the past, but I think I got a ridiculously unlucky streak with it getting stuck in hand and cut it out of frustration lol. Would the Ghoulraiser slots be a good place to try it out?

Hm, Costly Plunder could be good in the control matchup. What would you suggest I cut for it?

Yeah, I figured Snuff Out might be too much life to spare. Spinning Darkness is another card that you could run to let you control their creatures while saving your mana for tempo/aggro (and it also gains you life which is great), but it works against your recursion, doesn't let you select which cards you're removing (like Gurmag), and might not be available in the early game when you need it to get enemy creatures our of the way for your attackers. Victim of Night is probably still your best bet.

The way that I was reading your deck when I first looked at it, especially with Carnophage and Sangrophage, was a deck that heavily relies on overwhelmingly fast aggro to get in most of it's damage. As I'm looking at it again, I can see that with Shepherd of Rot and Gempalm Polluter you have enough of an engine that your aggro can stall our completely and you'll be ok. I saw Shepherd of Rot as taking up a slot that could help your aggro succeed, and was only useful against Fog mechanics, but I see now that it can work with simultaneous aggro because you run enough enemy-specific lifeloss that you don't need to worry about your own life that much.

I would 100% recommend Gurmag Angler. This card is so good that I find it boring, and almost don't like putting it in my deck since it is EVERYWHERE in pauper (I never play delver for the same reason). I don't think I'm ever disappointed when I draw a Gurmag in my zombies deck. One of the things that's so great about Gurmag is that it's a more flexible card than it seems at first. You choose how many and what kind of cards to exile for it. You can easily pay most of it's mana cost (5-7ish) in the late game if you're trying to preserve your graveyard. At the same time, if your opponent has got a Relic of Progenitus on the board, you can exile what's left of your graveyard to pay for Gurmag as part of it's cost, and they can't respond to that. In your case, I would definitely only run 2, and I think you're right that they would be best in the Ghoulraiser slot, since both cards are better a little bit later in the game. Also, in regards to mid/late game, if your board is mostly intact then I presume that you're winning or at least doing ok. But if your opponent has killed a lot of you creatures and wiped your board, then you're in trouble. Of these two situations, Gurmag helps you when you're losing, and probably isn't needed if you're winning. Ghoulraiser can tend to be better when you have less zombies in your graveyard, since you know what you'll be getting, but if your board is wiped and your graveyard full, Ghoulraiser is potentially less good. Ghoulraiser works really well with Gempalm in the midgame, but I don't think that it will allow you to make a comeback that you might need in the late game like a Gurmag could.

I'm not completely sure what I would cut to put in Costly Plunder, but since it's a card gain mechanic you might cut one each of Gempalm and Ghoulcaller's Chant (to fit in 2) so you don't end up with too many non-zombies in your deck.

I had some bad luck games with Sylvok Lifestaff a while back when I had it as a sideboard, so I could just be biased. If it's working for you, then definitely keep it. Especially if you add Costly Plunder to your mainboard.

I'm not sure why you have one each of Bojuka Bog and Vile Rebirth in your sideboard, since I feel like only one of each wouldn't be enough to deal with whatever they are there for. I think most decks that get heavy value from graveyard recursion are going to be slow enough that you want to kill them before they can use it rather than trying to deny it. Especially with Bojuka, if you're only going to run one, you could just stick it in mainboard and take our a swamp.

I was going to mention Dash Hopes as a potential for a 2 of for your sideboard, but I see you're already considering it. Also what I said in my last comment about moving Nameless Inversion to the sideboard might be better served in putting in Soul Reap instead, since it serves mostly the same purpose and it's value is super high. I still think Victim of Night is the better mainboard alternative, and I wouldn't touch your Geth's Verdict mainboard since they fit into your deck mechanics so well AND deal with Hexproof creatures.

Spinning Darkness seems ok, I'll try it out sometime.

Yeah, I've seen Gurmag Angler take over games in Delver decks before. I'll test it when I have time.

Oh idk why I have the 1 Vile Rebirth either, but the thing I was worried about with main deck Bojuka Bogs is that with the Piranha Marshes there'll be too many taplands. I was considering playing Sunscorched Desert in place of Piranha Marsh to make room for 2 Bojuka Bogs in the main, but with all the BB cards I might end up with some color problems if I play all four... Now that I think about it, playing 2 Sunscorched Desert, 2 Piranha Marsh, and 2 Bojuka Bog might work out, what do you think?

I've been trying to find an excuse to put Dash Hopes in somewhere but I can't really seem to find one since it isn't a surefire way to increase my chances of winning certain matchups like Duress is. What would it be good against? And while we're talking about sb cards, do you think the Supernatural Staminas in the sideboard are worth playing over something like Soul Reap or Dash Hopes? Thanks for the help!

Less than one third of the total non-land cards in your mainboard deck could make use of colorless mana, so I would stay far away from Sunscorched Desert. I think that you need to pay attention to how important mana curve and speed is while playtesting, and see if you can afford in most games to play a Bojuka Bog or Piranha Marsh in your first 3 turns, which will happen fairly often. I think that you should ignore Bojuka Bog or any other form of graveyard removal, since I think that the large majority of decks that use their graveyard will be too slow against you to get to use it, or if the game goes on that long you might have already lost (since it would be against something like Tron or heavy control). I think that keeping 2-4 Piranha Marsh mainboard is the best idea. If you are finding a number of matchups against decks that use graveyards and you are losing, then consider putting in 1-2 Bojuka Mainboard and running only 2-3 Piranha Marsh.

I hate to dash your hope here (heh), but Dash Hopes is not a good card. I really, sincerely wish it was, since I find it so cool. There is always a chance that your deck is the specific instance where it will shine, but I wouldn't bank on that without extensive playtesting. Duress is %100 your best card against control. Soul Reap seems like it has really strong potential, and you could run it sideboard instead of the Bojuka/Vile Rebirth/Victim of Night.

I think that Supernatural Stamina is a phenomenal sideboard card to use against heavy aggro decks that will be attacking into you with lots of creatures. I think it works particularly well with Maggot Carrier and Festering Mummy, allowing them to potentially trade up into a better creature AND get their ETB/death effect a 2nd time. I also think that running 2 is a good number, because it will probably only come up once, which catches them off guard, and then they will try to play around it for the rest of the match even when you don't draw it.

Also it just occurred to me that if you decide to put in any Costly Plunder, you could run 4 Vault of Whispers and take out 4 swamps, and that would give you an alternative to sacrificing creatures when you cast it, particularly better in the late game. I would do this in my own zombie deck too, but I run things like Corrupt, so I'm not sure it would work for me.

Hm, I see. I think I'll keep the Bogs at the back of my mind for now. Fortunately I don't think I'll have to worry about playing against Tron or mono B Control since none of my friends are likely to go that route in terms of deck choices, but they might get something like Reanimator so once I do buy this deck I'll get some Bogs just in case. I'll try Vault of Whispers/Costly Plunder out in testing, too.

Hi I am new to pauper and was just browsing decks as i am building a pauper zombies deck. I'm not saying i know anything about the format and not trying to be insulting but does this deck do really badly against burn?

Zombie tribal that does self-damage typically does poorly against burn. Sometimes you just have to accept a bad matchup, and unfortunately burn is popular right now.

^^ what kingr8 said. If you are particularly interested in Zombies you could try a Mono Black Devotion list to make use of Gray Merchant of Asphodel and play some Sovereign's Bite / Corrupt for extra life gain.

Yeah I know the players that i will be playing and both like burn so I think I will lean towards the devotion deck (I also love Gary :) ). Would you guys run Sovereigns bite main board or just side it in against burn?

If you know you're playing against Burn might as well mainboard it. Maybe Duress too.