Undead Alchemist
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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
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Undead Alchemist

Creature — Zombie

If a Zombie you control would deal combat damage to a player, instead that player mills that many cards. (They put that many cards from the top of their library into their graveyard.)

Whenever an opponent's creature card is milled, exile that card and create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

DreadKhan on Grimgrin - Needs your Help

2 months ago

When I was testing out your deck, I definitely noticed mana issues, you probably want a mix of a couple more lands and some mana rocks. There is the odd mana dork you could use, none generally as good as a Green one. I always like Dreamscape Artist in a Dimir deck that makes use of the graveyard, it's actual Harrow so the lands are entering untapped, making the ramp a bit better than it might usually be. With a 5 mana Commander I think I would run Sol Ring, especially without Green, there is also Talisman of Dominance and Dimir Signet that are solid. A really solid 3 mana rock is Skyclave Relic, it can be a 3 drop or a big (and versatile) efficient 6 drop. Not sure if you need all of those, but I think you want some of those ramp options. TBH, you might also lower your average Mana Value, you're well over 3, which might be a tad high for 33 lands in a reasonably competitive deck. A couple handy utility lands that are nice with Voltron decks include Witch's Clinic, Shizo, Death's Storehouse, and Tyrite Sanctum. Sanctum is a bit weird, but getting Indestructible on your Commander will probably feel pretty good. There are also some MDFCs that aren't bad in Black, you could replace one of your 2 mana Black removal creature removal with Hagra Mauling  Flip, risking 4 mana to remove something (with no restriction though) is harsh, but it's also a land which feels incredible in a lower land count deck. I hear Malakir Rebirth  Flip is also very good, especially with a Voltron Commander.

I also noticed that the deck seemed to not excel at clearing the board of threats/problems, this can include combo pieces or Voltron creatures. From a competitive standpoint, if you expect to play against decks that are 7s or above you probably want at least a couple more solid counters, it's hard to know which to run because actual Counterspell costs UU, which is hard to hold up obviously, but Swan Song and Negate might not be versatile enough, but I think any or all of those would make the deck more functional. Niche removal like Ravenform, Resculpt and Feed the Swarm are also worth a look, you never know when you'll need to tutor up an answer for either of those types, and being able to hit a creature is also useful, fwiw Black isn't great at exiling creatures. I see you only have 1 Planeswalker in here, have you thought about Liliana, Death's Majesty? She's got some synergy with Zombies for sure, and offers a potential wipe.

A tutor that might fit in here that you're not running is Final Parting, which is clunky at 5 mana but it also offers a two for 1 tutor, so even if it's a lot of mana it does a lot of work. I'm not sure how many cards you're that desperate to get into the graveyard, but Final Parting finds 2 of 3 pieces for Gravecrawler combos in my Meren deck, very handy if I have one in hand already.

Pretty tough finding stuff that sticks out for being suboptimal in this list! Here are a few I suspect could be upgraded: Reassembling Skeleton is a Skeleton. The recursion aspect is not particularly good at 2 mana for a non-Zombie body, with a max of one on board at a time. Undead Alchemist might do something sometimes, but I feel like it's a bad interaction with a lot of your deck, it's terrible with Living Death type stuff obviously, and if someone is close to death, this gives them way more life. Call to the Grave seems potentially iffy, you run some very good non-Zombies, and you can't sac a token instead to it, it eats only non-Zombies. Kindred Discovery seems questionable potentially, it negatively interacts with any combo that uses a zombie entering or dying repeatedly since you have to draw, this can also make you unable to swing with a huge zombie army, which seems agonizing without at least throwing in something like Capsize. More curious than certain, but do you often have 1 toughness things to work with Skullclamp? Any Zombie at 1 toughness is buffed by your lords, and the tokens you make are 2/2s iirc? If you ask me, unless you have a source of 1 toughness bodies I'm missing, you could instead run Mask of Griselbrand, it can draw cards too (sometimes way more), both require a sac outlet, and it offers real utility in combo by offering evasion and lifelink. I would run any of the removal I mentioned over Doom Blade and Go for the Throat, I feel like the versatility and some offering exile has an edge. For Tragic Slip, do you get stuck without a sac outlet very often, this seems like an unnecessary complication to have on your removal, but at least it can hit Indestructibles? IMHO if you can afford it run Deadly Rollick, this will also exile stuff without as harsh a requirement (I'd rather have the downside of 4 mana vs removing only x/1s).

GoldenAgeBatman on Your Cheap Obscure Overperformers?

2 months ago

Undead Alchemist in Varina, Lich Queen has been phenomenal, especially against other creature heavy decks. Archfiend of Ifnir and Zombie Infestation are also a wonderful combo to destroy an opponent's board while building up your own.

MistaMint on Filthy wHorrors

3 months ago

cptinsaneoman Thanks :)

The true advantage of Undead Alchemist is the quantity over quality approach along with locking down graveyards from reanimator abilities. Same idea as Nautiloid Ship, it may seem counterintuitive to remove things from opponents graveyards but sometimes that hurts them most. Ideally you'd never have him out at the same time as your commander as well.

Don't forget there's also the play that when your opponent decides not to block your zombies because it's just mill damage, if you have enough you can kill your own Alchemist before damage to turn it all back into health damage.

cptinsaneoman on Filthy wHorrors

4 months ago

I've been looking into doing something with this precon since I saw it pop up, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I do enjoy mill decks, but I think you've got two competing things going on here: Captain N'ghathrod makes your horrors mill stuff, and then you can steal creatures that hit graveyards. However, Undead Alchemist does the same thing with your zombies, but then exiles those creatures to go wide with zombie tokens - when this happens, you won't be able to steal any of them with Captain N'ghathrod.

I suppose if you just pick which direction you want to go, based on your first few turns and card draw, it doesn't really matter. You just won't be able to make use of your commander much if Undead Alchemist is the way you roll that game.

Neat deck either way.

pkbabyboi on The Inevitable is Here.

4 months ago

What about an Undead Alchemist

parksplace on Fun opponent mill deck

4 months ago

Bruvac the Grandiloquent + Persistent Petitioners Also works great. Undead Alchemist can also provide you blockers when you mill opponents creatures.

acredia on Zombie Draw Mill Combo Deck

5 months ago

Dread Summons+Undead Alchemist+Altar of the Brood

multimedia on Rotcleaver’s Revenge

7 months ago

Hey, well done so far upgrading the precon, nice Phyrexian Altar.

Some cards from the precon to consider adding:

Talisman of Dominance ETB untapped to make either color. Another mana rock upgrade is Dimir Signet replacing Charcoal Diamond. Dreadhorde Invasion is a repeatable source of Zombie and Eternal Skylord is a much worse Hordewing Skaab. Curse of the Restless Dead is a more reliable repeatable source of Zombies than Undead Alchemist.

Pact of the Serpent is powerful tribal card for Zombies. Battle at the Bridge needs lots more artifacts to be playable. Zombie Apocalypse is powerful tribal card for Zombies especially when your Commander sacs Zombies to draw. Patriarch's Bidding is another mass reanimation tribal Zombie card. Dread Summons needs a ton of mana paid into it to be decent since you have no control over milling your own or opponent creatures.

Gisa and Geralf can be repeatable cast of Zombies from your graveyard which can do more than Ebondeath, Dracolich. Feed the Swarm is helpful to have enchantment removal in Dimir. Liliana, Death's Majesty can be repeatable Zombies and her other abilities are good too. She does more than Liliana's Mastery, but honestly you don't need either one of these cards since there's better five drops here or could add.

The more basic Islands you can replace with Dimir dual lands the better the manabase will be because black mana is much important than blue. Lots of basic Islands makes it more difficult to cast heavy black spells. Tainted Isle and Choked Estuary are playable lands in the precon that care about Swamps and you have a lot of Swamps.

Good luck with your deck.

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