pie chart

AETHERIC SWARM - Vial Zombie Tribal [MID]

Modern Aggro Combo Competitive Counters Creature Cheat Mono-Black Sacrifice Suicide Black Tokens Zombie

zAzen7977

Upvote 0
0

Creature (33)

Land (19)

Sorcery (4)

Artifact (4)

Sideboard

Sorcery (8)

Artifact (4)

Instant (3)

Maybeboard

Creature (21)

Sorcery (8)

Land (2)

Instant (10)

Artifact (3)

Top Rank: #7 on T/O - thanks for reading!

GREETINGS! Primer is outdated!

Behold my experimental Mono-Black Zombie build, featuring three awesome new cards from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt - Champion of the Perished, Eaten Alive, and Tainted Adversary.

CARD CHOICES

Aether Vials enable me to increase my zombie-summoning potential while running fewer lands.

Champion of the Perished has the potential to grow extremely large as I build my horde. Since I run several zombies that can’t block, Champion takes on a defensive role.

Gravecrawler can be sacrificed repeatedly with Carrion Feeder to repeatedly trigger Champion of the Perished, Plague Belcher, and Undead Augur.

Cryptbreaker transforms cards in hand into zombie tokens and provides instant speed card draw by tapping zombies (mostly on the opponent’s turn).

If I use a Vial to sneak Tainted Adversary on to the battlefield without spending mana, I can use all of my resources to pay for the Adversary’s pseudo-kicker cost. The decaying zombie tokens pump up Champion of the Perished and are fodder for sacrifice effects like Eaten Alive, Plague Belcher, and Undead Augur.

Undead Augur is my primary card-drawing engine. However, I need to monitor Augurs closely because too many death triggers can kill me. If I have more than one on the battlefield, I can sac one to a Feeder to prevent excess life-loss.

Plague Belcher is extremely useful because it 1) has a big 5/4 body with menace, 2) drains the opponent of life with every zombie kill, 3) enables death triggers with -1/-1 counters (for Undead Augur), and 4) combos with Geralf's Messenger. If I target Messenger for Belcher’s -1/-1 counters, the Messenger dies and it’s Undying ability is neutralized, allowing me to return it to the battlefield counter-less.

Death Baron and Lord of the Accursed provide support. The Baron grants deathtouch and the Lord grants menace, and together they help the horde penetrate the opponent's defenses.

Eaten Alive is an extremely thematic removal spell that outright exiles any creature or Planeswalker for a single mana. Its drawback is its sorcery speed. I need to test the card to see how it plays, but the idea is that it will help me enable death triggers while simultaneously exiling a wide range of threats.

Unearth allows me to recycle zombies with enter-the-battlefield triggers like Tainted Adversary or Geralf's Messenger. I can sack Messenger twice with Carrion Feeder or another sack effect, then bring it back with Unearth and repeat the process, draining 8 life from the opponent. I can also cycle Unearth when I need to draw a card.

The land base is lean and primarily consists of Swamps. I run a lone Cabal Coffers to generate lots of mana for Tainted Adversary or Crawler sacrifice loops. Cavern of Souls provides counterspell protection. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth turns my Non-Swamps into Swamps so I can take advantage of Coffers.

LETHAL COMBO

This optimal scenario assumes I am able to play 1 Swamp per turn.

I must play Aether Vial on turn 1, followed by Carrion Feeder on turn 2. Next comes Geralf's Messenger on turn 3 (opponent loses 2 life).

Then on turn 4, I use Vial to cheat-in Plague Belcher, targeting Messenger with the -1/-1 counters, killing it (opponent loses 1 life with Belcher). Messenger returns with no counters (opponent loses more 2 life - 5 total so far).

I then hard-cast another Belcher targeting Messenger (2 life loss from Belchers and 2 more when Messenger returns - 9 total).

I then sac Messenger to Feeder and again when it returns with undying (2 life loss from Belchers, 2 more when Messenger returns, 2 more from Belchers - 15 total).

I can then cast Unearth to return Messenger to play (2 life loss). I then sac Messenger to Feeder and again when it returns with undying (2 life loss from Belchers, 2 more when Messenger returns, 2 more from Belchers - 23 total).

Finally, I sacrifice Carrion Feeder to itself (2 life loss from Belchers).

In total I have drained 25 life from the opponent by the end of my fourth turn. This may be a lucky draw, but other card combinations allow for similar turn 5 or 6 victories, all without ever having to attack.

SIDEBOARD

The sideboard is a work in progress.

I want to make this deck as competitive as possible. Any comments or suggestions are welcome!

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

Revision 7 See all

(2 years ago)

+1 Cryptbreaker main
-1 Geralf's Messenger main
+4 Headless Rider main
+1 Relentless Dead main
+1 Swamp main
+1 Undead Augur main
-1 Unearth main