kmk888

One mana to protect a creature I've been building up Auras on. I'm not convinced that I should have it in there though. What I should really have is a spell pierce, but whatever.

I will consider Heliod, and thanks for the comment!

Deathbringer Liege is a good fit.

I don't know if you mean point discard or forced discard in general. For more point discard (where you choose the card, like Thoughtseize) the second best card in modern is probably Inquisition of Kozilek. For just general forced discard, I would recommend Blightning and Rakdos's Return. Also good are Distress, Duress, and Wrench Mind. For this deck, something like Rotting Rats could also be good. But that option is a little slower. It's up to you.

I guess we are going about this different ways. My thoughts on the Auramancer, Soul Tithe, and Stab Wound all differ from yours because I see a lot of your enchantments and/or creatures going to the graveyard all the time. In competitive play that's pretty much the way it's going to work out. And in that type of situation you want to win attrition wars with two-for-ones, which are guaranteed by Auramancer.

Yo if you think Agent of the Fates is removal bait how exactly do you rationalize Fabled Hero? That one's even worse

I do not think you should run Angel or Eviction to be honest. But if you insist upon running one, go for eviction. It hits things with hexproof, the exile is permanent, and it's more versatile.

Hero of Iroas and Nyxborn Shielmate are both really excellent cards for this shell. And yes, those two you mentioned would be good things to sub out for them. Spirit of the Labyrinth is really good too.

I may make a version of this deck to illustrate the engine I am thinking of better. I will cite your deck.

You have nothing to hit creatures with a -/- effect besides Blightcaster, which means you are restricting yourself to sniping things with 2 toughness. However, if you put in Stab Wound you could hit much bigger game. Another couple of cards that would be really fantastic in this deck are 4 Auramancer and 4 Soul Tithe. I would also completely give up on the heroic subtheme, it seems like it distracts from your current deck and is not being used to its fullest potential anyways. The problem with Fabled Hero is that it turns into a game where the opponent is running removal and you only have one thing worth removing but you keep slapping enchantments on it without protecting it. It leads to blowouts. I would favor a more controlling enchantment shell. Like only creatures that net you value even if they die, since your best bet is to play attrition with the enemy anyways. Like run maybe 12-16 card-advantage weenie creatures that you can attack with only once you have control of the board. Like 4 Auramancer, 4 Blightcaster, maybe 4 Sin Collector/Lifebane Zombie.

Although I will say that if you're determined to run the heroic, you can't do any better than Agent of the Fates. Imagine it combined with Ethereal Armor...

Well if the 5/5 tramplers don't serve you well enough, I suppose you can just offer your enemy a peace joint.

Ghost Council is too hard to cast, the deck is focused towards red mana. However you could almost rationalize it if Whip of Erebos made it in this. (They combine to form an undying Obzedat)

because it serves as a dead draw in this deck. 1 copy *might* be okay in the sideboard, but that's it. Elixir is hugely overplayed... The only reason it should be in your deck is if you are going so far for the long game you see yourself consistently playing more than 53 turns.

A draw is better (barely) than losing. They shouldn't scoop.

not the last time that's going to happen. Master of Cruelties says hello. Oh and btw if they said their life total was a trillion, it would take you 40 turns to win with Malignus. Master is much more efficient, and in standard too!

The title says standard.

I don't really understand the thought process behind Burning Tree Emissary and Dragon Egg, I think you have enough defenders that you don't need either. However, two things that could replace these cards and vastly increase the competitive viability of this deck would be the new Garruk and/or Domri Rade. Both of these would be good for drawing you your defenders, with Garruk letting you drop Worldspine even quicker and Domri letting you have a little bit of point removal without losing defender slots.

Why does this have issues? Like the reason this deck got top 8 is because it's really good... It's a burn deck. The only reason it uses any creatures at all is because they have haste and one of them is recursive. The reason it plays tap lands is because this deck needs to get a full compliment of 23 lands to make sure it draws enough to get to 5ish without missing a drop, but it never wants more than that. The most critical thing in this kind of burn deck is drawing a critical mass of burn spells (=20 damage). So the Scry 1 is actually more valuable than the tempo loss. Especially because what you do is drop the tap lands last, when you can make use of the earlier lands to burn the opponent without losing tempo, and you scry away other lands. It basically is the same as drawing another burn spell.

I like the Fleecemane Lion and Loxodon Smiter together with tokens, it ensures that you don't get wrecked by a well placed Ratchet Bomb. So nice job there. But how did you miss Selesnya Charm? That seems like one of the first things to put in this deck. At least 2 would be good, it deals with the gods/obzedat and can play token duty. I also really dislike wake the reflections, particularly because even though it's efficient, you can't play it on turn one and it's useless without a token. Even if it's only dead maybe 20% of the time I don't like it. But I do like turn one plays. Have you thought about Elvish Mystic, Experiment One, or Dryad Militant?

i just realized the best thing you could have in here would be 4 rune-scarred demon

She is mostly good for her -3 ability. Think of her as a card that the opponent has to lose creatures to trade with and if they leave her alone she will destroy a nonland permanent every 3 to 4 turns. She is best against monoblack and U/W control, in my opinion. In this deck, I think she would be good.

Although Brood is not necessarily a bad idea, Gravecrawler is actually one of the biggest reasons this deck hit it big and debatably the most important card in the deck. Upping the stupidly recursive creature count from 4 (Bloodghast) to 8 was what pushed this deck to a competitive level, in my opinion. The obvious power of the card is impossible to miss; It's fodder for Cabal Therapy/Faithless Lootings/Goblin Bombardment alike with the assurance that by simply topdecking a zombie you can just cast it again later, and it's a good old aggressive 2/1 for 1. The card is frankly absurd.

Although the point you make of not being able to use it to its full effect does come up sometimes. Some players choose a more zombie-heavy shell for this reason, making use of Geralf's Messenger or even Lotleth Troll/Zombie Infestation to ensure that they can recast that crawler for days

Punishing Burnwillows is certainly an interesting idea in this deck, but the top end right now pretty consistently is using activated abilities, recasting gravecrawler, or flashbacking spells, so I'm not convinced that there is room.

Magma Jet and Doom Blade are the only suspicious looking cards to me. Magma Jet might be okay if you use it mostly for the scry, but two damage is a little underwhelming in this standard. Doom Blade is a really hard sell for me outside of the sideboard because of the prevalence of monoblack and even monoblue (Nightveil Specter). However there is an easy replacement! Abrupt Decay is at its best in this standard due to U/W strategies making so much use of Detention Sphere. I would fit it in like so: -3 Doom Blade -1 Putrefy +4 Abrupt Decay. Depending on how important the scry off of Magma Jet is, you may want to swap it for Devour Flesh, or keep it.

3 Vraska and 4 Mistcutter Hydra would be excellent for the sideboard. They might even find a slot in the main, but that list looks pretty tight to me. Not sure what I would take out.

Really good deck man, keep it up!

Why the cremate? Just a cantrip? Also I'm not sure whether you have enough artifacts, but you may find Myr Retriever to be a good addition.

I'm not saying that your deviations don't make it original, I just think that it is similar enough to this: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/24929_Updating-Legacy-Zombies.html
that you should at least give him some credit in the deck description.