Zombie Tempo Deck. The amount of creature and land tutoring keeps the deck very consistent. Needs a fair amount of playtesting to sharpen the Sideboard. The main nightmare matchup is graveyard hate. The current sideboard theme is if you cant beat'em, join'em. Remove their graveyard hate and continue the rampage.
Interactions:
Recurring Zombies with Mana Ramp and Card Advantage to trigger Vengevine and Bloodghast and allow Insidious Roots to go off.
Buried Alive to dump Vengevine or Bloodghast and the occasional Gravecrawler or Shambling Shell into the graveyard. Your choice depends on your opening hand. If I have the materials to enable Vengevine I'll dump those. Even if you only have one creature in hand, as long as it's a Zombie you can dump two Vengevines and a Gravecrawler and still pull off the combo. If I have Insidious Roots in hand with a sac outlet like I'll aim for Bloodghast.
Gravecrawler One of the best re-castable Zombies that not only enables Vengevine but also triggers Insidious Roots every time you cast it from the graveyard.
Slitherhead Is a nice low cost Zombie & Plant that enables Gravecrawler, and interacts well with Insidious Roots. It gets pumped by the +1/+1 counters from Insidious Roots if it's in play, and the Scavenge ability will trigger Insidious Roots from the graveyard.
Carrion Feeder Perfect one drop Zombie with an infinite sac outlet that lets you use all of your Bloodghasts in play for every landfall trigger. And gives you an easy way to cast two Gravecrawlers every turn.
Lotleth Troll Another Zombie that fits nicely in the curve and is a very useful discard engine for when Vengevine and Bloodghast end up in hand. Remember to discard your Gravecrawlers for the +1/+1 counter and then cast it from the graveyard. There's also some combat tricks you can pull off with this and Wight of the Reliquary if you have creatures in hand. Every creature discarded to Lotleth Troll for +1/+1 counters also pumps Wight of the Reliquary
Wight of the Reliquary Has potential to go up to a 3-of in this list. Being able to attack or block and still use the interactions with Bloodghast and other recurring Zombies lets you thin your deck and leaves you with a solid tempo lead. Try to kill off or sacrifice as many of your Bloodghasts as you can before activating. Tutoring for Golgari Rot Farm allows you to bounce other lands back to hand and re-use them for Bloodghast or surveil triggers with Underground Mortuary.
Relentless Dead Is your anti-removal Zombie. For one it can return itself, and offers an option to return your non-recurring Zombies like Carrion Feeder, Slitherhead, Lotleth Troll, and Wight of the Reliquary. The return effect also triggers Insidious Roots for each creature returned.
Shambling Shell is in here as a one-of for the times when you have the materials you need in the graveyard, but don't have a zombie in play, and need a Zombie in hand to get things going. Instead of relying on a draw of the top, you can dredge this instead and trigger Insidious Roots. It's also a Plant and will pump from Insidious Roots triggers. While in hand, you can also use your discard outlets like Lotleth Troll or It's own sac outlet if it's in play to respond to an upcoming card draw and dredge materials into your graveyard instead of drawing.
The Necrobloom is here as a one-of to boost the interactions with Insidious Roots. It gives us both Plant and Zombie tokens, lets us dredge fetchlands back for plenty of landfall triggers. There are 3 unique fetchlands and they have 4 targets to fetch coupled with Wight of the Reliquary tutoring for non-fetchable lands, hitting 7 unique lands is do-able.
Priest of Forgotten Gods Unfortunately not a Zombie, but a very useful engine piece that lets you mana ramp off your recurring creatures, while also shocking your opponent and removing their creatures and getting card advantage. When she sacs 2 Gravecrawlers, she makes the mana back to recast both! Her ability hits any number of target players, so at the cost of 2 life, you can target yourself to have the option to sacrifice a third creature.
Abrupt Decay Removal that can't be countered.
Assassin's Trophy Removal that hits any permanent.
Deadly Dispute A great tempo gain that makes good use of your recurring creatures to gain card advantage and mana ramp. Great response to your opponents attempts at removing your creatures.
Insidious Roots Goes wild in this deck and makes insanely good use of the graveyard shenanigans. It's going to be a crazy game if you can get it out turn 2. You get triggers off this for every individual creature that leaves the graveyard. Bloodghast and Vengevine may trigger all at once, but they resolve and leave the graveyard at different times. With the increasing power of the plant tokens you get from these triggers, it can get easy to forget, they each tap for mana as well!
The Lands are meticulously chosen to accomplish two criteria as best I can:
1. Always have and on board by turn two.
2. Allow for 3 untapped mana on turn 3 for Buried Alive.
If the Landbase fails there are some backup options that the deck affords. Dropping an early one cost creature followed by a turn two Deadly Dispute leaves you with card advantage to hit the third land drop, and a treasure token if you don't. A turn 1 Underground Mortuary (which is fetch-able) can surveil a Bloodghast into the graveyard for free turn 2 fodder after the landfall trigger. Turn 1 Underground Mortuary can also surveil a Vengevine into the graveyard, when followed up with two one drops on turn two, if you're on the play your opponent could be looking at two recurring creatures and a Vengevine with only one land to work with.
