Highborn Ghoul

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Highborn Ghoul

Creature — Zombie

Intimidate (This creature can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or creatures that share a color with it.)

AbyssusDraconem on An Extreme Amount of Dead-ication

4 years ago

Highborn Ghoul and Graveyard Marshal would likely be good contributions so that you have more devotion to black. I'd recommend doing a 3 or 4 of Gray Merchant of Asphodel as you only have 2 right now, and it is an extremely impactful 5 drop. Personally, am not a fan of Tattered Mummy but those are just my thoughts.

hungry000 on An Extreme Amount of Dead-ication

4 years ago

Sorry to butt in, but for a low-to-the-ground aggro zombies deck I would keep Diregraf Ghoul in. 1 mana for a 2/2 is a good rate, you want low cost creatures to flood the board with, and it gets pumped by the zombie lords so it's still fine later in the game. Here are some specific suggestions for upgrades once you get a budget for them:

Doomed Dissenter / Blood Scrivener --> Gravecrawler ( Dread Wanderer for budget)

Diabolic Tutor / Read the Bones --> Cryptbreaker (card advantage that gets buffed and makes more creatures)

Tattered Mummy --> Graveyard Marshal

Liliana's Elite / Khenra Eternal --> Relentless Dead (4 Khenras or Highborn Ghoul are fine too)

Some other cards you could look at are Diregraf Colossus , Undead Warchief , and Dark Salvation (it's probably worth playing Salvation in place of Murder ). Also, as a general tip, tribal creature decks don't play many non-creatures--around 6 at the most. Cutting some of those spells in favor of more lords would increase the efficiency and power of your deck.

mal099 on Death in the Shadows

5 years ago

Wow, thanks for all the work you're putting into improving my deck, really appreciate it!

I haven't really seen those problems you had with Phyresis and Skittering Skirge , which might be due to different playstyles. This deck is made to be completely reckless, to win before the opponent can play removals, and it rewards a similarly reckless playstyle. So you're not supposed to play more than one creature unless there's nothing else to play, so the Skirge's negative ability or the different "life totals" tend to not be an issue. It can sometimes happen, but for Phyresis, I think the tradeoff is worth it, as you can generally win in just two attacks. I somewhat agree on the Skirge though, it is pretty much my least favorite card in the deck. I actually lost my first real game with this deck due to it, since it can be blocked. I like your point about having creatures with a different way of being hard to block, and will be replacing some of them with Highborn Ghoul . I don't like Guul Draz Vampire as it isn't unblockable early on, and Stronghold Confessor is easy to block later. They make more sense in your version of the deck of course, since you use instants and it doesn't hurt as much to switch from one to the other. Could benefit from equipments too, actually.

I considered sorceries/instants, but feel like they just reduce speed too much. Still, a few of them might work? I'm especially partial to Unnatural Endurance which you put in the Maybeboard, as it can additionally be used to save one of my creatures. The question is, is it better than Thrull Retainer ? I think it might be, but it's really close.

Vampire's Bite is also nice, but I think I really want to keep the number of sorceries/instants low. I do think your version of this deck is pretty nice, sacrificing some speed for long term viability, but it would probably benefit from keeping at least 50% of the buffs enchantments. It would also suffer against other very fast decks, so at least some defense would probably be good? Although the sideboard can still deal with that, without much change.

Another thing I'm considering is to put one more Gitaxian Probe in there, and even two Street Wraith . Basically enables me to take out some of the lesser cards, without costing Mana or taking up space in my hand. They cost life, of course... but I guess recklessly using life as a resource for tiny gains is just my playstyle. Might be a bad idea, but it's fun.

Darth_Savage on Zzzombieee

5 years ago

You have fallen into two traps which ensnare a lot of new players; first, rather than running 4x of a smaller pool of cards, you are running 1x of most, second, you have over 60 cards in your deck. Both of these factors effect the consistency of your deck, in a normal 60 card deck, running mostly 4x cards, there is around a 40% chance that you get a given card in your opening hand.

This is a more subtle issue, your mana-curve is weighted to 2 and 3 mana cards, normally you want this to be 1 and 2 mana cards. This gives you more options on turn 1 and turn 2 and then moving forward. Some 1 mana zombie related cards include Graf Harvest , Diregraf Ghoul , Ghoulcaller's Chant and more pricy options Gravecrawler / Cryptbreaker . All of these cards have value in a zombie deck, but you wouldn't necessarily put them all in the same deck.

Lastly is the issue of card selection. In some ways this relates to the previous point, but not entirely. Firstly, you have marked this deck as Modern, this is an established format, which has rules around the cards it can include, these cards; Dark Suspicions, Fog of Gnats, Nefashu are not Modern legal. Secondly, you have a number of vanilla creatures, these are creatures which don't have any keywords, creatures like Gutter Skulk will rarely appear in a constructed deck, since there are numerous (two examples Highborn Ghoul / Graveyard Marshal ) better options at the same mana cost.

I hope this is of help, Wizards of the Coast have many articles around deck construction, so it might be worthwhile for you to have a read, since they can go into more detail than I can on this forum.

LordBlackblade on Dawn of the Dead

5 years ago

Two things right off the bat:

  • You need to run more lands, 32 is way too few even for a mono-color deck. Bump it up to at least 36, personally I would run closer to 38.

  • You're running some creatures that just aren't that great in EDH, namely: Diregraf Ghoul, Highborn Ghoul, Order of Yawgmoth, Shambling Ghoul, and Walking Corpse. While cheap, they're mostly vanilla, low-power creatures which won't get you very far.

As far as upgrades go, some great cards that I didn't see on your list are: Cryptbreaker, Graveborn Muse, Lord of the Accursed, Plague Belcher, and Shepherd of Rot. These cards have more relevant abilities and are Zombie tribal staples.

Something else to consider is running the mono-black mana package since you are able. While not really a budget option, all mono-black decks can substantially benefit from its inclusion.

Lavidicus on Help me out? Mono-black Zombie

5 years ago

I need some help deciding to remove some cards to make it 100 cards commander legal, it’s 105 right now.

Throw me some ideas to add or replace cards too. Feel free to criticize me, tell me if there should be changes. First time really trying to put a deck together. I think I’m having mana and creature cost issues? I’m not sure? Thanks!

From Dust

cole20112 on The Deck Formerly Known as Grimgrin's Free Zombies

5 years ago

Some more suggestions I've found are Gravespawn Sovereign, Zombie Trailblazer, Plague Belcher, Noxious Ghoul, Zombie Master, Fleshbag Marauder, Cryptbreaker, Corpse Harvester, Corpse Connoisseur, Buried Alive, Noosegraf Mob, and Phyrexian Delver.

Every tribal deck that I build and that Ive seen others build typically have about 35-ish members of the tribe in the deck, so maybe cutting some of the 5 mana reanimation and other mediocre cards for more zombies would be wise.

Some suggestions to cut are Corpse Hauler, Divination, Necromantic Summons, Rise from the Grave, Sightless Ghoul, Butcher Ghoul, Highborn Ghoul, Skeletal Vampire (unless you're planning on running death baron then definitely keep him), Walking Corpse, Servant of Tymaret and Sidisi's Pet.

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