System of the Downed

Modern Control Tribal Zombie

Doomz

Instant (7)

• 2x Hero's Downfall
• 3x Mana Leak
• 2x Victim of Night

Sorcery (6)

• 2x Duress
• 4x Serum Visions

Creature (24)

• 3x Death Baron
• 4x Diregraf Captain
• 2x Diregraf Colossus
• 4x Gravecrawler
• 2x Lich Lord of Unx
• 3x Phyrexian Crusader
• 2x Prized Amalgam
• 2x Relentless Dead
• 2x Undead Warchief

Land (23)

• 4x Drowned Catacomb
• 2x Island
• 2x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 2x Polluted Delta
• 3x Sunken Hollow
• 8x Swamp
• 2x Temple of Deceit

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Sideboard

Instant (5)

• 2x Dismember
• 1x Mana Leak
• 2x Victim of Night

Sorcery (3)

• 3x Infinite Obliteration

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Spreading Seas

Artifact (3)

• 3x Relic of Progenitus

Creature (2)

• 2x Lifebane Zombie

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Maybeboard

Instant (4)

• 4x Remand

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Thoughtseize

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Endless Ranks of the Dead

Artifact (1)

• 1x Aether Vial

Creature (4)

• 2x Lord of the Undead
• 2x Relentless Dead

Land (1)

• 1x Mutavault

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Shadows over Innistrad brought with it a few zombies that I had to start building with. Three of them specifically stood out to me and to many, Relentless Dead, Diregraf Colossus and Prized Amalgam. While not useful in playsets from my testing, they are all very powerful nonetheless.

This zombie deck is an Aggro-ish Control deck that runs many cheap Zombies with a mix of Disruption. This deck, while not perfect, nor is it very good, is a lot of fun with the interactions between all the zombies.

Mainboard Zombies

Death Baron: This Zombie Lord is almost a must-have in a Zombie Tribal Deck. Granting your whole army a buff and Deathtouch is extremely powerful and in most cases very hard to deal with.

Diregraf Captain: Another Zombie Lord. Although not as powerful as the others in this deck, there isn't much reason not to run it. It mainly discourages your opponent from dropping a board wipe.

Diregraf Colossus: This card is amazing, but not worth running a playset of. Diregraf Colossus depends on your graveyard to become giant, but can work without the graveyard by spawning more zombies on top of casting your zombies.

Gravecrawler: Another staple to any Zombie deck. It will always come back no matter how many times your opponent tries to stop it, unless it gets exiled.

Lich Lord of Unx : I only found this card recently, and I found it to be an amazing card for this deck. Lich Lord of Unx can be a potential win condition that rewards you for having a lot of zombies out.

Phyrexian Crusader : It is completely personal preference to run this card. Other than this card being really good, there isn't much interactions with this card and other zombies. It is protected from a lot of removal and can wear down creatures very quickly with a combination of First Strike, Infect and potentially Deathtouch granted by Death Baron.

Prized Amalgam: This card is quite interesting, as if anything is reanimated from your graveyard, Prized Amalgam comes with it.Since this card is quite situational, only two of them are being run.

Relentless Dead: This card is the main reason I decided to build this deck. I really tried hard to put a playset into this deck, but due to my budget and its ability not always being useful, I cut it to two. Nonetheless, it is able to recur itself while also reanimating another Zombie from your graveyard, which can also bring a Prized Amalgam with it.

Undead Warchief : I had been contemplating adding this card until I realised it was more powerful than I thought. Undead Warchief speeds up your game and adds a powerful buff to your zombie army.

Non-Creature Spells

Duress: I would be running Thoughtseize, but I don't have any, nor do I want to spend money for Thoughtseizes. Duress can disrupt combos early game or disrupt your opponent's game plan.

Hero's Downfall: Victim of Night can't remove everything. Hero's Downfall is useful for removing things Victim of Night can't remove.

Mana Leak: There would be other cards better suited to this card's place, but I'm running these for now since they can get the job done well; stopping or slowing down your opponent.

Serum Visions: This deck can be a bit slow to get your creatures. Serum Visions draws you a card and makes sure your next two draws aren't things you don't need.

Victim of Night: This can essentially be a two black mana removal spell, since Vampires, Werewolves, and Zombies aren't that common. They can pop up, however, which is why only two are run.

Sideboard

Dismember: This combined with your zombies, namely Phyrexian Crusader , easily wears down your opponent's creatures when they are running a few huge creatures.

Infinite Obliteration: If your opponent relies on certain creatures to win the game, such as Tarmogoyf or Voice of Resurgence, this card removes all copies of them from the deck, completely hindering your opponent's deck.

Lifebane Zombie: A lot of Green/White creature-based decks are running around. Lifebane Zombie can quite easily stop certain creatures from hitting the board. It is also a 3/1 intimidate on its own, which is quite powerful combined with your other zombies.

Mana Leak: The last Mana Leak is in the sideboard for decks that need mana and don't always have enough to spare to act against counter magic.

Relic of Progenitus: Mainly for any control deck running Snapcaster Mage, or reanimator strategies I've seen.

Spreading Seas: For decks that aren't blue, Spreading Seas is very difficult to deal with, since it limits what your opponent can do.

Victim of Night: The other two Victim of Night sit in sideboard for decks that don't have Vampires, Werewolves or Zombies, and are relatively based on key creatures.

Considered Cards

Aether Vial: There are reasons I want to run Aether Vial, but far more reasons not to run it. Firstly, it breaks my budget with it's $45 price that doesn't seem to be going down. Secondly, it doesn't do too well in this type of deck since this deck isn't always reliant on pumping creatures out. Although this card would be amazing, it wouldn't work too well.

Endless Ranks of the Dead: I still want to find a place for this card in the deck because of how powerful it is. I'll eventually add it, but for now, I don't know what to take.

Lord of the Undead : This is a card I am unsure of. It also buffing the opponent's zombies is something I want to avoid, but its abilities are powerful nonetheless.

Mutavault: This doesn't make it in for budget issues and that it can mana-screw the deck. This is only theoretical, but most of the spells in this deck require colour over generic mana, and Mutavault can't produce the mana I need.

Remand: I recently took these out of my deck. I will eventually replace Mana Leak for it once I get my playset of them.

Thoughtseize: This was explained before. I'm using Duress instead of Thoughtseize for budget issues only.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	7 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 0 Mythic Rares 29 - 5 Rares 12 - 5 Uncommons 7 - 5 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.32
Tokens	Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie Wizard 1/1 UB
Folders	Ideas, tribal