Agent of Erebos
:
Agent of Erebos is a very strong gravehate card. Despite having only two other enchantments in the deck, and those being ones you rarely want to just play for a yard exile, the reccurability and effectiveness of Agent is incredible. This card is one of your silver bullets, and when you want to see it, you are incredibly happy to see it. When you aren't in a game with other graveyard decks, at worst its a 2/2 and a zombie, which is better than most other Graveyard hate cards in that situation.
Animate Dead
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Animate Dead is an incredible starter for plays. It costs only 2 mana, and can get anything back, not only your creatures. Despite that, most of the time you will be using it to reccur a zombie cheaply and effectively, and is one of the best cards in the deck.
Apprentice Necromancer
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Apprentice Necromancer upon first glance is perfect for the deck. Its a Zombie, it reanimates things, it sacrifices instead of exiling. Despite all those upsides, the card is slow. Needing to survive a turn without haste granting equipment is a significant speed bump, and one that makes the card not godly. Despite that, the card is an incredible engine if you can get it going, allowing for instant speed reanimate to disrupt plays on other players turns.
Ashnod's Altar
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Ashnod's Altar, oh how I wish I drew you more. A very strong sac outlet, the Altar can accelerate plays, act as an extender, and dodges removal. Having this card out means you're often limited only by how much black mana you can make, with generic costs not an issue. One word of warning though: Don't sac your whole board for one play, as if another player has any kind of disruption, you've lost your whole board.
Buried Alive
:
It's
Entomb
, but for 3 cards! This card is crazy. The ability to put any three creatures from your deck into your graveyard with one card can not be overstated, and the ability to grab multiple silver bullets at once is sweet. Don't get too greedy with it though: putting all your eggs in one basket leaves you vunerable to grave hate. My normal choices are Vengeful Pharoh, an engine card, and a silver bullet, although sometimes I'll grab a two card pair such as Noxious Ghoul + Prized Amalgam when the situation calls for it. I strongly recomend not dumping Sidisi unless you have a way to reanimate her immediately: losing her stops your combo potential heavily.
Carrion Feeder
:
Carrion Feeder is a cheap, effective sac outlet. He lets you dodge exile removal, get dies triggers, and just do all the sac outlet things. Thats it. The card serves one purpose, and it does it well.
Codex Shredder
:
Did you know that Codex Shredder is the cheapest way in UB to get back an enchantment from your graveyard? Well now you do. This card provides minor value, getting cards into your yard, and countering tutors to the top and scry, while also being a way to get back Rooftop Storm. Its not a great card, but its the best card for the job.
Command Tower
:
It's a commander deck, I don't need to explain this.
Compulsive Research
:
A way to dig for cards, and set up your graveyard. One important note is that if you want you can discard a land and another card, if you want something in your yard but don't want to discard two non-lands.
Corpse Augur
:
This is one of the best engine cards in the deck. You're regularly drawing 3+ cards off him, and resolving the effect more than once puts you miles ahead. This card is a win con on its own, and should be treated as one. Don't let it get exiled if you can avoid it.
Corpse Connoisseur
:
It's an Entomb! On a stick! That can bring itself back!
All memes aside, the card is a nice tutor, and being able to Unearth it matters. Its slow though, and doesn't do anything else, but its still a fine card.
Corpse Harvester
:
Slow but powerful, this card takes a while to get going, but once you resolve it more than once, you've got multiple tutors for any zombie, and the mana to help play them with. Feed this guy, and reap the harvest. Just don't expect it to win games on its own.
Counterspell
:
Counterspell is just good cheap disruption. It can protect your combos, or interrupt other people's plays. Its solid.
Crux of Fate
:
Its a board wipe. I don't own Damnation. If I did, I'd play it over this. But this is still a great card.
Crypt of Agadeem
:
More often than you'd think, this card is a swamp that enters tapped. Around 70% of the time though, it will start making 2+ mana late games, and sometimes you have the games where its making 10+ mana and you're able to play everything. This card is nuts, don't underestimate it.
Cryptbreaker
:
It's a discard outlet, a token maker, and a draw engine, all in a single cheap card. This card, while not Corpse Augur strong, is one of your best engine cards, and you're never sad to see it. If it didn't have the token making ability, it'd still be one of the best cards in the deck, and the tokens are just extra. Be happy when you see this guy.
Cyclonic Rift
:
I'm playing blue in commander, and I own a Cyclonic. Thats enough. This card is nuts, lets you basically get a turn of doing anything you want.
Dimir Aqueduct
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The extra mana cap this card provides is great, and its just a solid card.
Dimir Guildgate
:
Mana fixing. If you have better duals, play them. I don't, so I run this.
Dimir Signet
:
Mana ramp. Not many cards in the deck are ramp, but this is one of them, and its a great card. It just gives you more mana.
Diregraf Captain
:
This card is both a lord, and a finisher. Play it on curve to provide pressure, or play it when comboing off to just kill everyone else. The card isn't great at either job, but it does them both at once.
Diregraf Colossus
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Diregraf Colossus is a token maker. It gives you tokens to sacrifice, to attack with, to block with, to use abilities with, to trigger 'when a Zombie etb's' with. It creates so many tokens, and does so much. Its also sometimes a big colossus, but mostly its just a nuts token creator.
Dismal Backwater
:
Mana Fixing. Read Guildgate.
Dismiss
:
This card is much better at interuppting plays than at defending your own plays. Cantripping off your counterspell is insane though, and it gives you some much needed interaction.
Dread Return
:
The front side of this card isn't great. Its expensive, only hits your yard, and only gets one thing back. The back side is nuts. 0 mana, any creature in your yard, you keep what you get back, and it can be a sac outlet. This works amazingly with the token creators, and is an amazing mill. This card enables many of the smaller combo's in the deck, and is just a sweet card.
Evolving Wilds
:
Mana fixing. Its worse than the guildgate.
Fleshbag Marauder
:
Repeatable, non-targeting, non-destroying removal. Sometimes someone will have a token, but very rarely will no one be not losing a good creature from this. Its a really good engine card, and it gets around lightning greaves. Always keep this in mind when tutoring, and casting it from the yard feels amazing.
Frantic Search
:
This card is BUSTED. You get to dig into your deck, get cards into the yard, all for free. If you have aquaduct or crypts out, you go net positive in mana. Just be happy when you see this. A neat trick is searching this to turn colourless mana into coloured mana during combo's.
Ghastly Demise
:
Its a mediocre kill spell! It kills most non-black things, but the non-black really hurts. Its only one mana though, so its not bad.
Go for the Throat
:
It's a less mediocre kill spell! It kills things that aren't made of rocks, and even some things that are, if they're made of painted rocks. Its cheap, its versatile, its solid.
Graveborn Muse
:
This card is busted. It doesn't do anything unless it survives a cycle, but if it does you'll start snowballing. Watch out for this card killing you though. It can happen if you aren't careful. Be happy if you see this card, but its too slow to be worth searching.
Gravedigger
:
This card is only in the deck because its great for combo's. Its a brick, but worth it.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
:
This is a good win con. It very quickly kills people, and makes it hard for people to kill you. It does nothing else though.
Haunted Dead
:
This card is awful if you're casting it. Its mostly a discard outlet that provides an instant speed blocker. Discard it as a top priority.
Hero's Downfall
:
Its a kill spell that also makes Planeswalkers die. Its good.
High Market
:
Its a sacrifice outlet on a land. Thats good enough to be run. Costing a mana to sac something hurts, but its worth it sometimes.
Hostage Taker
:
One of the few non-Zombie creatures in the deck, this is one of the few ways to deal with artifacts, and it also deals with creatures and steals them, all in one card. Its just soo good. Play it whenever you feel like it, it doesn't need saving.
Lightning Greaves
:
Protect your good cards. Often these will go on Gisa and Geralf, but sometimes these will go on the muse or other good cards that need protecting. They're great.
Liliana, Heretical Healer
:
Combo enabler. It lets you extend plays so well, and the flipped walker can either just pop itself to get something back, or tick up and help remove cards from people's hand. Its good in so many ways. It needs other cards though.
Liliana, Untouched By Death
:
Goes infinite with Rooftop Storm. Thats the main usage of this card. Sometimes you'll play it otherwise. Its pretty good then too.
Liliana, Dreadhorde General
:
Testing her as a card draw engine, she's also useful as just removal or value.
Lim-Dul's Vault
:
Instant speed tutor to top of deck with upside. You don't always need to dig for 1 specific card, sometimes a 5 will be great, but its a tutor at instant speed.
Living Death
:
Board wipe that comes with massive amounts of etb triggers. This card is nuts. You'll often want to save it, although it will always do something great.
Mishra's Factory
:
Land. Dude. Legend (but not actually, don't cheat).
Its a land thats a dude that can block.
Murderous Cut
:
Kill spell. You'll often have fuel for this. Don't exile zombies. Its better to pay more mana than to loose resources.
Nantuko Husk
:
Sac outlet. Its like Carrion Feeder, but worse. It can also kill people. Carrion Feeder is nuts. This is also nuts.
Nevinyrral's Disk
:
Disk is near impossible to play through for other people. It also outs enchantments, which is near impossible in UB. Same with artifacts. Board Wipes are good.
Noosegraf Mob
:
Tokens tokens tokens. Thats it. This card makes soooo many tokens. Those tokens are good. Token Token Token. Be happy.
Noxious Ghoul
:
Repeatable board wipe. This card is really good, against basically every deck. Be careful of it killing Gisa and Geralf though. This is one of your best silver bullets.
Phyrexian Delver
:
It brings back other stuff with it. The life loss hurts, but its a nice value engine. It gives a extra sac food. Its nothing great, but its sweet in combo's.
Phyrexian Ghoul
:
Read Nantuko Husk's reasoning. This is exactly the same card.
Possessed Skaab
:
Brings so much stuff back. Just use it to get back good stuff. Be careful of the downside though, its one use only, which really hurts. Another great combo cards.
Prized Amalgam
:
This card is a lot worse than it seems. A random 3/3 tapped isn't great. Its good enough though, and with Noxious Ghoul its really good.
Relentless Dead
:
This guy floats so much he should fly. It just doesn't die. Ever. Keep mana up for this guy most of the time, but its not too bad if it dies without being used, you can always just cast it again. Also nice in Combo's.
Reliquary Tower
:
You draw enough cards sometimes for this to matter. Its a land. Just be happy if you draw it.
Rooftop Storm
:
This is the card that enables all your big combo's. It makes EVERY ZOMBIE FREE, even those you cast off Gisa and Geralf. This card WILL die before you get another turn with it, so hold it for winning. This is the best card in the deck.
Rune-Scarred Demon
:
This card is bad. Except when its busted. If you have a way to revive it, its nutty. It also works in combo's. Sometimes it'll brick you though.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
:
The second best card in the deck. Its a tutor, every single turn, that also synergises incredibly well with Rooftop Storm. I'll have a whole section below on Combo's, and the bulk of those are Rooftop + Sidisi + something else. Don't let this get exiled.
Sol Ring
:
Sol Ring.
Stronghold Assassin
:
Repeatable instant speed kill spells! Its really hard for a lot of decks to play through this. Keep it up if you can, it can just pop commanders on arrival, or just kill combo pieces. The card is insane.
Swan Song
:
This is the best of the counterspells for protecting your plays with, and also a really good disruption option. If you've played with it before, you'll know why its good.
Swiftfoot Boots
:
Refer to Lightning Greaves, except slightly worse.
Taigam's Scheming
:
This card is better than Contingency Plan, because it has a better name. The ability to fix your draws and get cards into the yard isn't bad. Its also cheap. This card is a lot better here than it is in limited.
Ugin, the Ineffable
:
UB enchantment removal!!!!!!! Also makes dudes but it's mainly being played as enchantment removal.
Undead Warchief
:
Lord that makes your stuff cheaper. Its fragile, but nice. Its solid, but sometimes it will just die.
Vanquisher's Banner
:
Slow but insane. If this survives a round, you'll just draw a bunch of cards. You have so many Zombies that this is drawing at least a card, often two, every turn. Don't name not Zombies.
Vengeful Pharaoh
:
This card is fine. It pops a thing after you take damage, and you get a brick next turn. No one actually attacks you while you have it though, so it never actually gives you the brick in actual play. This card is a top Entomb off Entomb effects.
Victimize
:
You get two things back. This card is the best reanimation card in the deck. It enables so many plays, and is just a generally good card. The sacrificing is an upside sometimes as well.
Vindictive Lich
:
This card is the second best engine in the deck, behind Corpse Augur. You can handloop people, kill people's boards, and burn people. It doesn't draw you cards, but it makes others lose so many cards that its really good. Also killing people with this is sweet.
Wretched Confluence
:
Kill 3 things, Draw 3 cards, Get 3 dudes back, or any combination of the 3. This card is just sheer value. Its expensive, but worth the mana.