I call this Zombie "Ramp" because much like how green decks use cheap one drops to get their mana base out quickly, i use cheap one or even two drops to get my creature base out early.
I have been working on this deck for a few months and this current iteration has been giving me consistent results both online and IRL.
Because of this, my "Justifications" section will be lengthy. The TL;DR is as follows:
Strategy one: Cast at least one zombie or beat stick every turn, and beat them early, and often.
Strategy two: Sweep/kill my own board to deal damage if board has gone Cold War
Strategy three: if Strategy two fails, repeat strategy three with GY recursion
Problem decks: Token ramp, Resto angel, W/R exile decks that use heavy amounts of O-ring, Red sun zenith and pillar of flame
Suggestions and critiques are welcome!
Justifications:
Diregraf Ghoul/Gravecrawler/Geralf's Messenger: these are the back bone of the deck. and opening hand with a few of these and some more to follow spell a swift victory most of the time
Diregraf Captain: Pumps zombies, gives you a scary blocker in case of emergencies, and gives your deck some reach with his on-death trigger. Gets really scary when you have two out, a few zombies and a board sweep in hand.
Highborn ghoul: Gives some evasion, and it's a zombie so it brings out gravecrawlers. Sided out when against black and or artifact creature heavy decks.
Crypt Creeper: more zombies, pumped by captain, GY hate on a stick, and can force trigger morbid if i need to Tragic Slip something
Skinrender: Kill spell and a zombie all in one, plus being a 3/3 to start means it gets really big with one or two Diregraf captains out. Only 2 are ran, at most, because of his cost and because you don wanna play him against an opponent with no creatures out. He is sided out against creature lite decks.
Ghoulraiser: A utility/beater. He is gives the deck reachagainst decks that try to counter your combies, or keep your board clear. The "random" portion of his ability isn't as bad in practice as you might think. usually, you will have only one or two zombies in the GY when you cast him. usually it's a captain that the opponent killed, or a Diregraf Ghoul/highborn ghoul so you should be able to play both the raiser and the raised card in the same turn. One is sided out if space is needed for a hate card like nihil spellbomb.
Side note: this card took the place of card advantage cards like ponder, ghoulcaller's chant, and altar's reap. These have worked more consistently because i only ran those other cards because i wanted more zombies, but there was always a chance you'll just draw lands or kill spells. Usually, the cards i was hoping to draw again were in the GY already. Also, in regards to Ghoulcaller's chant, the body that Ghoulraiser provides has been the difference between winning next turn or losing next turn.
Phantasmal image: Utility creature. Used often to copy a Messenger, and/or to deal with hexproof legendaries like Thrun or Geist of Saint Traft. only two are ran because of my small source of blue mana.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: If the game has gone on this long, he will ensure it won't continue much longer if unanswered. Giving undying to a Crypt creeper with a Captain out means 2 point of free damage and two instances of GY hate. The extra pump is also excellent for your every single one of your other cards. Phantasmal image now has undying no matter what it copies (unless it's human). Mikeaus is, reluctantly, sided out against super fast decks where i have very little chance to get him off, like token generation decks.
Demonlord of Ashmouth: A somewhat risky card (which is why i only run one), but much like Mikaeus, if unanswered, he will end the game fast. He is also a great removal magnet, and he combos well with messenger or a P. Image that copied a messenger. He is also used on a grave crawler for obvious reasons. Sided out if he is obviously too dam risky to run against certain decks like ones that sweep the field often.
Removal package: Black suns are the main removal here. Sweeps don't hurt me that much because of the messengers, crawlers and ghoulraisers. Aslo, the counters mean that if it didnt kill the biggest threat, it weakened him down to a more manageable size to either be blocked, or Tragic slipped.
Go for the Throat is my go-to spot removal. Sided out against artifact creature heavy decks or against pro-black heavy decks, for the doomblades, and disperses respectively.
Tragic slip: awesome card. can shoot most flyers out of the sky, non-damage removal for Phyrexian Obliterators, and it's morbid trigger and be forced with the use of demonlord, crypt creepers and through combat if necessary.
Sideboard Justifications:
Disperse: non-black removal for those Mirran crusaders and the like. also good tempo slow for Swords and Birthing pod decks
Nihil spellbomb: GY hate. nuff said
Ratchet bomb: another sweep that hits token decks the hardest which are one of the few decks faster than this one. Lingering souls are almost immune to spot removal, and the evasion is annoying so this is a necessary side.
Praetor's grasp: sided in against swords and other black decks. Most swords decks, in my experience, only run a couple, so there is a good chance i can steal one of them to slow them down, and then cast it when it wont slow down my deck too much.
Surgical Extracton: GY hate that i don't HAVE to spend mana on so it doesn't have to slow down my deck!
Doom Blade: sided in against artifact heavy decks for my Go for the throats.
Witchbane Orb: Two-fold purpose: stops those pesky curses tat some troll liek to play every so often, btu more often than not, i side this against mirrors to stop messenger ETB, and against burn that like to target me. Surprisingly useful in the latter two situations!
Cavern of souls: Two more are sided in against Swagcaster Mage and control decks
Common suggestions and why I don't use them:
Blood Artist: This deck used to have blood artists. It was a fine deck, and i used to run 4 of them and 4 of the captians. However, i slowly noticed that the BA slowed down the deck quite a bit. it was a turn that i want casting beat stick, and it wouldnt pull a gravecrawler back onto the field when it was the only creature i had. More often than not, a captain instead of a blood artist was a better play for my deck since the captain gives my deck reach AND beats, while the BA only gave my deck reach
I tried every permutation of BA and diregraf Cpatain in this deck: 4-4/3-4/4-3/4-2/2-4 and none were as consistent as what i have now (0-4). The lifegain is unnecessary if you beat down the opponent fast enough and that's just what the captains are doing. I do side in BA when playing multiplayer games for longevity!
Counterspells: I explained at the top of this page, but ill go more in depth here:
They slow down the deck.
They cause me to not follow Part A of strategy one (cast a zombie every turn), and the presence of double black and triple black costs in this deck means i cant afford to run so many blue cards that ill need islands.
Leaving mana open and hoping they cast just the spell i need to counter has, more often than not, slowed down this deck. I need my answers to problem spells to be able to take care of the threat when it shows itself and still be useful if the threat never does because it may never show itself.
Example one: Swords.
Worst-case scenario: Sword of Feast and Famine.
If i use counter spells to combat this sword, then i will need to slow zombie production once turn 3 hits to try to counter the casting of sword. This presents two problems:
1) if i don't have blue for the countespell, then i cant do anything and bluffing will only slow down the deck and the bluff could fail.
2) I have the counterspell and the UB dual land and a swamp open on the opponent's turn. At this early point in the game, this has cause me to not cast that highborn ghoul or that geralf's messenger or that gravecrawer or that diregraf captain becasue i wanna try to stop a sword. Again this onlly sowed down my deck and it is super suspicious if a zombie deck is leaving two mana open, one being blue. my plan is very obvious.
So what do i do against swords?
first i identified that the real threat of swords is not so much the sword itself, but the creature it's being attached to. More often than not, by the time they try to equip the sword (not cast it) i will have a removal spell ready to pop on the creature. Also, if i really wanted to, i could bluff like i have counterspells in my deck. if i REALLY wanted to try to not have them cast it past turn 3. The only time i should be scared of hem suprising me with casting and equiping the sword int he same turn is when they have 5 mana open and a creature out. However, usually by that time they should be on the defensive (considering that i didn't take a crappy opening hand), and i should have kept their board mostly clear with my removal package. A sword is easly a dead card if they cant seem to keep creatures out.
This is where my sideboard choices come in. Praetor's grasp allows me to steal their sword AND get rid of it all at the same time. This means that i dont need to hold onto Praetor's and leave mana open to try to counter a casting of swords. I can follow through with Strategy one (cast zombies every turn) then when i don't have any zombies to cast, i cast praetor's and steal a sword to then attach to a zombie in the next couple turns or so.
Disperse also answers swords. I can jsut bounce the sword when the creature swings then block said creature. This means that i will have locked up the opponent's mana if they wanna recast swords, AND i got rid of their creature.Also,there is a bigger window for disperse to be useful than a counterspell since i don't have to time it with them casting it. Essentially, i can proceed with strategy one, and then only bounce the sword when it's a threat.