Welcome to the society! Wilhelt is my main man, and one of the top 10 commanders in EDH. With the ability to make more bodies and draw you a card each turn, it's easy to see why he ranks so high. Zombies are my absolute favorite tribal, but for a long time zombies were't as fast as they needed to be in the format, until now! With the release of the Undead Unleashed pre con with the Midnight Hunt set we finally got not just a solid commander, but a foundation for a very fun zombie commander deck. I have spent the last year tuning and refining Wilhelt to go from a shambler to something far faster and more terrifying... Like a volatile from dying light at 2am. I am still not finished yet (I still need things like altars and rhystic study) but I wanted to finally bring the nearly finished product to paper, so to speak.
I want to give you all a brief rundown of some of the star players and combos of the deck, although to be clear, zombies are one of the most synergistic tribal in all of magic, each zombie is just as important to the strategy as a whole, and we could be here all day if I tried to explain every single interaction, so let me skip over some of the obvious ones like grimgrin, gravecrawler and rooftop storm and let me talk up some of the really cool and unique stuff I have personally played!
Let me start with my most recent interaction as of typing this, and that is Rooftop Storm and Havengul Lich. There are 2 forms of mass reanimation in the deck which can be recurred (which we will talk about in a minute) and that's Zombie Apocalypse and Patriarch's Bidding, and this can be considered a third option. How it works is you simply pay mana into Lich and because you can cast zombies for free, you get one zombie back per one mana you pay. Now the downside is it's a 2 card reanimation, but the positives are you are probably paying the same amount of mana to cast the same amount of zombies as you would with the other 2 reanimators, you can pay any mana for the ability, AND... You can cast cards from other graveyards, now the drawback on that is you yourself have to have the ability to produce the colors your opponents have, which you have ways of doing that, but if your opponents happen to have zombies in the graveyard, you can cast those for free as well!
I mentioned those spells can be recurred, and so can other instants and sorceries with our next gem... Repository Skaab! This common zombie is a freaking powerhouse, especially with your reanimator spells, because when you reanimate Repository Skaab you can exploit him immediately to grab your spell back! Also you will likely have a zombie that take advantage of death triggers in teh collection, so you immediately get even more benefits.
The other exploit powerhouse in the deck is Overcharged Amalgam. While we have other counter spells in the deck, Amalgam is one that can be brought back, especially if you have the Rooftop Storm/Havengul Lich combo in play, because at that point you can counter anything for 1 mana on anyone's turn, including most abilities. It's insane.
Let's talk about one of the few non zombies in the deck that recently came with Dominaria United: Braids, Arisen Nightmare. This and Wilhelt together are a lot of fun, although they will require a decent upkeep of non decayed tokens, however these two together net you a lot of benefits per turn, if you're in a pod of 4 you can get up to 4 cards (3 from opponents and one from wilhelt) and opponents taking 2 damage per turn, or people start sacrificing creatures.
Altar of Dementia + Undead Alchemist + Wilelt = A very fun way to mill out the table. It's technically not an infinite combo, this loop works better on creature heavy decks, but because Undead Alchemist makes 2/2 zombies from the Altar and sacrificing those zombies with Altar generates more 2/2 bodies with Wilhelt it is very unlikely you will fun out of fuel.
Can I take a moment to gush over Empty The Laboratory? Holy god, I have played this card almost every single game and almost every single game I have won because of it, usually putting around 5-6 mana into it to flip 6 zombies from the deck, and because every zombie is an important member of society, you won't be disappointed.
So, zombies have the potential to take awhile to go from shambling to running, which is why Propaganda is an amazing pillow fort card, it fits nice and snug into the deck and it has helped me so much with building a defense or even keeping my defense while I continue to build out my board state.
I could go on with how many amazing interactions this deck has, I have impressed not just friends but myself as well. It's defintely a deck you don't get tired of, not to mention the art is gorgeous. I will probably add in art recommendations at a later date, but for now I hope you enjoy the deck!
