Shelley's Zombo Paradise

Commander / EDH Combo Dredge Reanimator Tribal UB (Dimir) Zombie

herpdederp92

Creature (29)

• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Bloodthrone Vampire
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Corpse Connoisseur
• 1x Diregraf Captain
• 1x Diregraf Colossus
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x Forgotten Creation
• 1x Golgari Thug
• 1x Graveborn Muse
• 1x Gravecrawler
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
• 1x Havengul Lich
• 1x Kederekt Leviathan
• 1x Mnemonic Wall
• 1x Necroplasm
• 1x Phyrexian Delver
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer
• 1x Plague Belcher
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Stinkweed Imp
• 1x Stitcher's Supplier
• 1x Undead Augur
• 1x Vengeful Dead
• 1x Viscera Seer

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Rooftop Storm

Land (37)

• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Darkwater Catacombs
• 1x Dimir Guildgate
• 1x Dismal Backwater
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 7x Island
• 1x Jwar Isle Refuge
• 1x Submerged Boneyard
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 14x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Vivid Marsh

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Aid the Fallen
• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Final Parting
• 1x Increasing Ambition
• 1x Living Death
• 1x The Elderspell
• 1x Zombie Apocalypse

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Liliana, Death's Majesty
• 1x Liliana, Untouched By Death

Commander (1)

Instant (12)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Countersquall
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Dissipate
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Mausoleum Secrets
• 1x Negate
• 1x Psychic Strike
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Swan Song

Artifact (9)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Mana Geode
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spectral Searchlight

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Maybeboard

Creature (14)

• 1x Apprentice Necromancer
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Body Double
• 1x Corpse Harvester
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Dreamborn Muse
• 1x Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1x Lord of the Undead
• 1x Ornithopter
• 1x Prized Amalgam
• 1x Relentless Dead
• 1x Sadistic Hypnotist
• 1x The Scarab God

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Devastation Tide
• 1x Kindred Dominance
• 1x Necromantic Selection
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Rite of Replication

Artifact (3)

• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Talisman of Dominance

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Ashiok, Dream Render

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Arcane Adaptation
• 1x Black Market
• 1x Endless Ranks of the Dead
• 1x Open the Graves

Land (4)

• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Watery Grave

Instant (2)

• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Hinder

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Hello! I'm a longtime casual commander player, and I've been messing around building a Zombie Combo (Zombo?) deck out of spare cards I had sitting around. Like the creatures inside it, this deck is an unfinished experiment made from bits and pieces, so suggestions are appreciated!

Why Zombies? Why Gisa? Why Geralf? Why me? Show

So first of all, I have a confession: this is my only truly tribal deck. I don't know what I have against building tribal commander decks. Maybe I'm addicted to combos; maybe I'm just allergic to Kaalia of the Vast . But probably it's because I've watched too many friends gush over their "incredible" hydra or vampire or dragon tribal decks... and then use a Crucible of Fire as an excuse to play Covetous Dragon and Rimescale Dragon and other dreadful creatures that just turn sideways and take up space.

Look, I understand that anthems exist and that they frequently appear on tribal lords. After all, Murkfiend Liege costs so much more mana than Merfolk Mistbinder that it's GOT to be more efficient to just run creatures with scales, tails, and fish breath. But don't complain at me when your jank tribal deck of vanilla merfolk and pump spells falls apart after a single Wrath of God .

Gahhhh, got that out of my system. So, why do I feel differently about my jank tribal deck of zombies?

I suppose it's that more than other tribes, zombies are combo tribal. Or at least zombies have functional reprints of common combo staples. Compare Blood Artist to Diregraf Captain , compare Karmic Guide to Phyrexian Delver , compare Living Death to Zombie Apocalypse . Lots of tribes have unique mechanics associated with them: treefolk are basically walls , dragons breathe fire ( lots of fire ), and zombies embody the heart and soul of mill and dredge and all sorts of nastiness you see ruining Modern and Legacy.

So essentially, this deck is only tribal as a secondary consideration. First and foremost, this is a Dimir dredge combo deck with plenty of control and interactivity that happens to be running mostly zombies because zombies happen to do dredgey comboey things in mostly Dimir colors. I was initially running Frankenstein's Misspelled Monster in the command zone because... he's a bigass threatening Zombie, I guess. After some testing, however, I've found Mary Shelley and Victor Frankenstein to be much more rewarding. They function at Karador's power level of reanimation, while also granting some immediate card advantage a la self-mill. The consistency Shelley and Frankenstein provide is just too good to pass up.

Zombie combos. Zombos? Show

No joke, the inspiration for this deck mostly came from a Gravecrawler that I tried in other reanimator decks but ultimately discarded for a simple reason: I couldn't keep a Zombie in play consistently to keep recasting the Crawler. Well, we've got plenty of zombies now, so let's see what Gravecrawler can do when we ask it nicely:

Rooftop Storm + Gravecrawler makes a creature that can be cast from graveyard for free any number of times. We then spend zero mana casting either of our primary sac outlets: Grimgrin, Corpse-Born and Carrion Feeder . Subsequently, we doodle around killing off Gravecrawler to make said sac outlet (ahem) swole. Like, infinite +1/+1 counters swole.

We've got plenty of other sac outlets to infinitely chain as well: Ashnod's Altar floats infinite colorless mana, Viscera Seer scries any card to top a la Vampiric Tutor , and Bloodthrone Vampire gets really big for a turn. (Still looking for a spare copy of Phyrexian Altar to make things really degenerate, since it goes infinite with Gravecrawler by itself.)

While looping Gravecrawler between death and undeath, we can trigger several effects to instakill our opponents. Our three tribal drain dorks - Plague Belcher , Vengeful Dead , and Diregraf Captain - generate infinite life loss; meanwhile, Diregraf Colossus spits out infinite 2/2 tokens, which is less impressive but still usually lethal. Undead Augur is also notable here, since he lets us dig through our deck to look for wincons.

Liliana, Untouched By Death is our other Rooftop Storm enabler. Liliana's first two abilities are great, but it's the -3 that stands out here, since it turns ALL of our zombies into Gravecrawlers. Paired with Rooftop Storm , we can instantly drain our opponents to death by recasting a drain dork or Gray Merchant of Asphodel , and we can freely tutor combo cards with Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Corpse Connoisseur .

Now, Rooftop Storm is neat and all, but it's also the most vulnerable card in our deck. We've got zero tools to reanimate enchantments, so if it gets countered or milled, there's no way to get it back. So what can the deck do with creatures alone?

Pitiless Plunderer is a crucial combo piece on a creature body; he's not a zombie but that's okay, because he converts any sac outlet into a Phyrexian Altar , letting us loop Gravecrawler infinitely. In a similar vein, Plunderer works with Liliana, Untouched By Death to let us loop Carrion Feeder and Stitcher's Supplier in place of Gravecrawler.

Havengul Lich is the linchpin to enable combos without Gravecrawler. Lich's reanimations cost 1 mana each, so typically we need some combination of Pitiless Plunderer , Ashnod's Altar , and Diregraf Colossus to set him off. An example combo would be Havengul Lich + Pitiless Plunderer + Diregraf Colossus + Carrion Feeder , which instakills via any drain dork.

And finally, I'd just like to point out the existence of Gray Merchant of Asphodel . Besides aggro, Gary the Zombie is our deck's primary kill switch, since he lets us Exsanguinate our opponents repeatedly. Can't figure out how to set off a combo? Just slap down Gary and hope for the best. Also, he's adorable.

Dredge, self-mill, and sold-out cemeteries Show

This deck's primary strategy for getting value is to grab massive amounts of card advantage by treating our graveyard as a second hand and dumping cards into that second hand rapidly. You have a Bojuka Bog ? You are now our sworn enemy.

First of all, we're playing most of the dredge that we can reasonably play:

Golgari Thug Probably the best of these cards

Stinkweed Imp

Necroplasm

Dakmor Salvage

The main problem is that dredge has to replace a card draw, which means that we've gotta start drawing more than one card a turn to ever get lands and other spells into our hand. Here's how we get to that point:

Forgotten Creation Creation's repeated wheel also lets us discard to grave rapidly. Two birds, one stone?

Graveborn Muse Like Phyrexian Arena, but on steroids

Undead Augur Repeatable and abusable via aristocrat things

Skullclamp No comment?

Decree of Pain Who cares if we kill off five of our own creatures? We'll get 'em back, but our opponents can't say the same.

And we've got cards designed to mill ourselves directly:

Stitcher's Supplier , one of the best dorks to repeatedly kill and reanimate with our commander.

Gisa and Geralf themselves, of course. Plus both walkers:

Liliana, Death's Majesty both self-mills and reanimates, which is quite nice.

Liliana, Untouched By Death pitches a few cards to grave every turn before she sets off the Zombie Apocalypse.

How to Resurrect the Dead in Seven Easy Steps Show

It would be a shame if we milled half our deck out and couldn't play any of the cards. In addition to Shelley and Frankenstein , we've got a wide selection of strategies to dig up things we've milled:

Phyrexian Delver Ersatz zombie Karmic Guide lets us chain G&G's reanimate into non-zombies as well.

Havengul Lich Sure, lemme just pay 1 for that.

Archaeomancer to recur instants and sorceries, because we've got a lot of those.

Mnemonic Wall as another Archaeomancer. I really, really wish there was a zombie that did this effect.

Dread Return is an excellent fit for this deck. Not only can we flash it back after milling, but it's also just a nifty reanimation spell.

Increasing Ambition has flashback as well.

Corpse Connoisseur is an Entomb on a Zombie stick, and he helpfully has unearth to dig himself out of grave if needed.

Kederekt Leviathan is a boardwipe with unearth. Not a zombie, a little expensive, but a nice emergency button to have available.

Liliana, Death's Majesty is primarily in the deck for her -3. While her tokens are nice, her ability to repeatedly reanimate stuff justifies her inclusion.

Aid the Fallen is our token tool for reviving dead Lilianas. Decent value and very flavorful.

Living Death because of COURSE Living Death.

Zombie Apocalypse because of COURSE Zombie Apocalypse. In fact, there's even a nice little bit of flavor where Apocalypse kills off our commander... Did the monsters just overthrow their creator?

Control and interactive gameplay Show

Like I said at the start, this is no simple "anthem 'em up and aggro 'em down" decklist. Our tribe doesn't stay dead very long, so we're wiping the field given any excuse:

Cyclonic Rift

Crux of Fate

Decree of Pain

Kederekt Leviathan

Living Death fills the role of both a boardwipe and a mass resurrection. Cast on sight.

And we've got plenty of spot removal spells:

Go for the Throat

Reality Shift

The Elderspell Hey, don't yell at me, this is the only deck where I play planeswalkers seriously.

Ravenous Chupacabra Why is Chupacabra not a zombie? It should absolutely have been a zombie.

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born because everyone loves Murder on a stick. Delightful.

Fleshbag Marauder is a reusable edict-on-a-zombie. Loop it with Havengul Lich or Shelley and Frankenstein for maximum edification. Or is that edictification? Do I go to pun jail now?

And we're running plenty of countermagic, since we combo out fast and hard and want to fight over the stack:

Countersquall which can be tutored with Mausoleum Secrets in extreme emergencies.

Psychic Strike ditto

Negate

Counterspell

Arcane Denial

Disallow

Dissipate

Swan Song

Ramp and tutors and BRAAAAAAAAAINS Show

Ya have to hand it to zombies, they've got plenty of brains. Given the color shard, it's not surprising that zombies give us excellent options for tutoring our deck.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier is the all-star as a reusable Diabolic Tutor on a zombie stick.

Rune-Scarred Demon is less zombie than Sidisi but just as much tutor.

Corpse Connoisseur Because entombing Gravecrawler is just like tutoring it

Mausoleum Secrets Instant tutor whose flexibility scales with our graveyard's size.

Final Parting For maximum efficiency, grab Gravecrawler and Rooftop Storm, I guess?

Increasing Ambition no comment

Ramping and increasing our mana pool primarily happens via Sol Ring and its ilk, but I'd like to point out a couple of outliers:

Solemn Simulacrum The Sad Robot always works well to staple some extra ramp onto non-green decks, but he's much better in reanimator.

Crypt of Agadeem generates big bursts of black mana once our graveyard starts to get ridiculous.

And finally, Reliquary Tower is NOT in this deck. Why? If we're drawing enough cards a turn to over-max our hand, we want to start dredging as well, and the easiest way is to just discard dredge cards to hand size.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 26 - 0 Rares 27 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.40
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Manifest 2/2 C, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B