Most card choices are relatively obvious, but let me go through them anyways!
Mainboard
SPELLS
Treasure Hunt
- Is our main combo card that (thanks to all but 6 cards in out deck being lands) draws us most of our deck to discard it to one of our win-cons.
Lightning Storm
- Our mainboard win-con lets us discard lands galore to hit lethal (usually) on turn 3 or 4. Always keep up a few extra lands, only discarding the minimum amount needed to kill, as your opponent can also redirect the spell back at you.... which is bad.
LANDS
Reliquary Tower
- This land is the most important land to play in the entire deck. Don't ever cast
Treasure Hunt
unless this land is on the battlefield or unless you haven't made you land drop this turn and expect a
Reliquary Tower
to pop up in the mass of cards you draw. Without a tower on the battlefield, at the end of your turn, you will discard all cards in your until you have 7 cards in hand (as per hand-size rules) and thus won't be able to shoot lightning for lethal.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
and
Nephalia Academy
- These are our protection cards. Since we don't have any other spells to use in order to interact with counter spells/discard we instead use these 2 lands so we don't lose our spells.
City of Brass
,
Mana Confluence
,
Crumbling Necropolis
,
Gemstone Mine
, Tendo Bridge,
Steam Vents
- All mana-fixing in out UR mainboard plan, these cards are rarely used outside of this deck (except
Steam Vents
, of course).
City of Brass
and
Mana Confluence
are functional reprints to us, and add 1 mana for 1 life.
Gemstone Mine
and Tendo Bridge both have limited uses, yet only spend 3 colored mana (at most!) for our combo.
Crumbling Necropolis
is a great T1 drop, as it works as a duel land for both pre and post sideboard plans, and if played T1 we don't care about it entering tapped.
Faerie Conclave
- Can block for us if we need to stall for the combo, and can finish off an opponent if we end up not drawing enough cards for lethal.
Gemstone Caverns
- Gives us a possible T2 combo win in dreamland, but will usually be used as more discard-fodder.
Island
and
Mountain
- Basic lands are good against
Ghost Quarter
,
Field of Ruin
, and
Path to Exile
and also mean that I don't have to find even MORE $10+ utility lands. I might swap out some
Island
s for some more interactive lands as I become more attuned to how this deck fits into my meta.
Ghost Quarter
- My single utility land that I added in an attempt to make this deck semi-interactive! Hopefully can smash a torn land every now and then, and possible emergency mana-fixing, maybe? I'll see how it goes, and add more or less during play testing.
Sideboard
SPELLS
Zombie Infestation
- The original namesake of "Zombie Hunt", we swap this in post-sideboard after the opponent has (hopefully) taken out their creature removal and added in cards that should protect against
Lightning Storm
(
Witchbane Orb
or Leyline of Sancity, for example).
Watery Grave
- Swaps out for
Steam Vents
, as post-sideboard we need black mana instead of red mana.
Contested War Zone
- Something I'm testing out, hopefully it makes it so I need less cards in hand to win. I'll report back about how that goes.
Swamp
- Like
Watery Grave
, we switch this out for
Mountain
s for our post-sideboard zombie plan.
Bojuka Bog
- My attempt at (more) interaction! Graveyard decks are everywhere, so this seems like the best non-spell card I can use against them. I might even make it mainboard, but that's a meta call.
Card Calls
NOTES
An important thing to remember is that most utility lands are either colorless or enter the battlefield tapped. This means, in order to pull of a T2/T3/T4 win, the utility land has to be played on T1 so we can untap on T2 with 2 mana. So, by adding more interaction to this deck, we risk that possibility of slowing our combo and putting ourself in even more risk than we were in before.
In addition, you probably notice a lack of fetch lands in this deck. This is mainly due to the fact that having fetch lands reduces our land count (which is directly related to how much damage we can do) and it doesn't hurt that excluding fetch lands helps our budget.
POSSIBLE INCULSIONS
Most cards no included are left out due to entering tapped or having (in my opinion) better alternatives already in my deck. Say this, I will not provide descriptions for the all of these cards.
Halimar Depths
- Scrys, but enters tapped.
Filter Lands- Mana-fixers, but might be too slow
More ManLands-
Faerie Conclave
seems to do it for us, but I'm always testing new cards. Main reason for no more manlands is that they all enter tapped.
