Scathe Zombies

Creature — Zombie

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
Oldschool 93/94	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (5)

Omniscience_is_life on Mono White Ramp/Draw

3 years ago

plakjekaas they are percentages of all decks. But the very fact that no one would play any White draw spells if they didn't have to is a pretty good signifier that the color is struggling.

Read the Bones is in 12% of all decks, btw.

People shouldn't have to work harder, because that means you're playing poorer. Scathe Zombies is worse than Walking Corpse for the very reason that you have to "work harder" (pay more mana) to cast it.

The thing with those cards you mentioned that disrupt the land equilibrium is, from the top:

1. Path to Exile is not going to a smart cast in the early game most of the time, unless you're in cEDH (in which case you're not going to be playing Cartographer's Hawk )--so it doesn't really put you behind in lands in the time when you actually need to be ramping. Same with Winds of Abandon , if not more so.

2. Karoo is steadily falling out of favor in EDH, due to the vices of it entering tapped and making you vulnerable to being two-for-one'd with a Ghost Quarter or other.

3. Guildless Commons is colorless. Nothing uniquely White about that one.

4. Oath of Lieges is designed specifically as to have no one player be at a land disadvantage during their turn. Unless you flash in a Stoic Farmer with a Vedalken Orrery then you're going to have a hard time making that combo work.

And the issue with all those cards is there's an innate issue with giving lands to your opponent. The reason you're trying to ramp in the first place is that having lands in play is a powerful thing, especially when you have more than your opponent.

Spazik008 on Greatness at Any Cost

5 years ago

Yea I mean you're acting like I'm trying to play Legacy with Scathe Zombies and Hurloon Minotaur or High Tide with a bunch of Mountains for no reason. Because of one walker you think is weak and it's in an unusual color shard for control? Any 3 color midrange pile full of tier 1 cards has a decent chance, against any meta. I regularly win against Jund with this deck, if it were as bad as you say I would lose every time.

SplinterAlfanumerico on Zombies from around the house.

6 years ago

Walking Corpse is better than Scathe Zombies

TheRedMage on Pattern Recognition #8 - Bears

7 years ago

I think in your discussion of vanilla p/t you forget to mention a fairly important aspect - that being power creep.

Creatures are slowly becoming better and better as years go by. Alpha had Scathe Zombies and Gray Ogre, now we get Walking Corpse and Falkenrath Reaver. Does being an uncommon factor into the extra point of stats that Kalonian Tusker gets? Probably. But Tusker is also a much more recent card than either Elvish Warrior or Gnarled Mass, which explains why it's more pushed. A more apt comparison for Gnarled Mass would be Watchwolf - uncommon, from the same period, but also in two colors. Mass saw constructed play in its time if I recall correctly. These days even 3/3 for 2 is not good enough for standard without significant upside or good synergy.

Re: Rarity as a balancing factor. I think it's actually perfectly fine for rarity to to be used that way because it allows to point different cards at different formats. I agree with you that in a world in which people routinely use websites to acquire their cards rarity is a non-factor when it comes to constructed formats. That is fine. Maybe 5% or 10% of all cards in a format are intended for constructed play, and those that would completely warp a limited deck or be useless because o how much synergy they require should be put at rare or mythic which largely keeps them out of most drafts and sealed pools and keeps the limited environment balanced.

Basically I think the rarity symbol on a card is irrelevant unless you are viewing the card in the context of Limited play. And in draft, it makes perfect sense for uncommons to be a bit more pushed - it's a way to set the average power level of decks. Cards that are aimed at constructed play often have a power level that is problematic for limited, so putting them at rares or mythics make sense. You don't want every other draft deck to have a titan in it.

nobu_the_bard on Death be Damned.

8 years ago

This is pretty okay for a first deck. Just wanted to say. Usually you see a mess of 1x Scathe Zombies or some other pile of random single 5 cent commons. Consistency and dedication to the deck's objective are important.