Seantastic

my greatest advice to you would be that consistency is always favored over quantity. You need to figure out which creatures work the best with one another and the theme of the deck and narrow your creature base down to 3-4 of each of them to ensure your deck will perform as well as possible as often as possible. If you want to see a more consistent golgari deck, check out mine here:

http://www.mtgvault.com/seantastic/decks/over-the-counter/

My pleasure

I'd take out one or two spears and one dreadbore to put in 2 or 3 volleys, they're insanely useful to hit your opponent directly for 5 life

I'd say yes, or another 1-drop that's more powerful so you can deal out more early damage. You dwfinetly want 8+ 1drops to ensure you drop one each game consistently

It means my base creatures are zombies, such as: gravecrawler, diregraf ghoul, and geralfs messenger

Pretty neat. I myself used a zombie shell for my rakdos aggro and I feel its quite a bit quicker

Looks nasty. I'd say shave back on one vexing devil and take out your young wolf's because they don't really play into the whole scavenge idea too well (they tend to stay alive) and put in 3 Falkenrath Aristocrats to finish out your curve (because lets face it, you'll never actually be laying your Rampager's) because the Aristocrats provide 4 hasty damage in the air and are very difficult to remove. Plus, if you have Varolz out, then if you're looking at a bunch of opponent creatures on the ground you can sac yours to the Aristocrat and have fodder to scavenge on to the bloody lady to swing for more well-needed damage in the air!

Looks nice, I'd say drop one of each charm and add in warleader's helix, or at least sideboard it, the card is amazing at either creature control, burn, or just saving your but with the life so you have time to build up your creatures and swing lethal

I'd say given the colors, use turn/burn instead of searing spear. The value of the card will surprise you and is definitely worth the loss of one damage

Hmm, Civic Saber would be interesting. I initially passed over it because I considered it too slow but that was before I found the usefulness of madcap skills. The advantage of madcap is that it gives greater power and the multi-blocker effect, while the advantage of the Saber is that it can be used multiple times via re-equipping. I'd have to do some serious testing to figure out which is more valuable at the end, but I'm not sure I want to take out any more creatures to run them both.

As for the sideboard, I just returned to magic so my old, enormous card base is gone so I'm working with what I have. However I'd like to run three or four Skullcrack's against control and Thragtusk so they can't get their life back. Right now I have Killing Wave, which I used before because its really effective with blood artists out as it kind of creates a lose-lose scenario for your opponent when they either lose huge life to keep their creatures, or lose life when they sac them anyway. I have two Hellrider's in there already, as well as two Dreadbore's and two Zealous Conscripts which are incredibly useful, and finally a few Mutilate's as a reliable boardwipe. I think I'll post my sideboard now just to have it up

I totally agree with you guys, the sideboard will have golgari charms for boardwipes and rangers guile to protect the hydras. Depending on our local meta (if there's tons of control decks) said cards will most likely be mainboarded

My god people, so this guy got pissed at noobs building terrible decks and labeling them amazing - which we all do, don't lie to yourself - and he decided to write a guide to help them. To help THEM!

So this is a basic guide for an average performing deck. Obviously it doesn't pertain to ALL decks but it accomplishes its goal of relating to most decks for beginning players. So you may think your unique deck is good - which it probably is, no offense meant - and its different than what this guy says a good deck is. That doesn't mean you have to tear at his every word trying to poke holes in his theory. Let's face it, what he is saying is BASICALLY true and is a great starting point for NEW players. If it doesn't pertain to you than be on your way, no need to nag, sheesh.

Angus 02: I must say that this guide supplies a good outline for performing decks. I'd say its even a good idea to build each new deck this way and then adapt it to whatever strategy the deck uses, good job!

Hey me again, I thought I'd let you know I've constructed my own zombiepod using some of your ideas in this deck and I'd like to know what you think! I actually put in butcher ghouls so I needed less 2cmc spots for the same amount of podding and put in acidic slime for some mondo control.

Here's the decklist, I'd appreciate some feedback and thanks again:

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=356072

Thanks for the advice! What cards would you suggest? I have all those singletons in right now to support podding and to handle certain things, for example:

skinrender and perilous myr is for creature control
manic vandal and acidic slime is for artifact control
acidic slime is also for land and enchantment control
restoration angel is to blink a geralf's messenger and still have a creature to pod
zealous conscripts is for anything-control, mostly for enemy planeswalkers
and of course massacre wurm is for more board control and is pretty much a game ender in most circumstances

I might consider working another restoration angel in but otherwise i think these cards need to be in here to protect and further the deck, but let me know what you think

Here, you should check out my version of zombiepod and see what you think:

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=354845

I'd take out 2 fumespitters because you just won't be that hard up to keep your geralf's around, 2 captain's because you most likely will be podding to geralf's, 1 diregraf ghoul because that still leaves you with 7 one-drops for podding and you want more gravecrawlers anyway, and put in 2 killing waves because they work wonders with this kind of deck because you can kill whatever you want on your side to trigger your artists while pressuring your opponent to choose between loss of live and keeping creature or loss of life with no creature and opponent life gain, and then 3 creatures to pod up from your geralf's: i suggest skinrender for control at 4, then zealous conscripts to steal a potential planeswalker or shrine at 5, and i HIGHLY recommend massacre wurm at 6 because in this death-based deck it is an almost 100% game-ender.

My very awesome and completely boss ZOMBIEPOD, check it!!

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=354845

You can also use Corrosive Gale for spirit removal. Its cheap and very effective with the proper amount of mana dropped into it, plus it doesn't kill your creatures

Hey, I love the idea! I just found this deck and am planning on building it as soon as I get the cards. It has great synergy and I like that you've put Massacre Wurm in for a finisher because it fits the feel of the deck perfectly! btw, I also hate gloom surgeon, it can hurt you and your draws and there are much more useful 2 drops out there. One difference in this deck and the one I plan to build is that yours runs skinrenders, while the other runs Phyrexian metamorph. I personally would prefer the metamorphs in order to copy the messengers or blood artists, or even the wurm in the lategame, but I I do like the control skinrender gives the deck, I may need to play a singleton or sideboard them. I'd like to hear your input, and bravo, not too many bridge from the established "good" decks and try something they really like, like the color black :)

Nice deck! I'd suggest taking out the Falkenrath Nobles because the don't do much to boost your other creatures or to advance the game. Instead perhaps you could throw in some cheap creatures or probably some 1 drop burn cards to control the early game like pillar of flame. Also because the undying evil won't be very useful when your creatures most likely have 1/1 counters on them already, I'd take it out again for more control. Solid deck otherwise though