Many thanks for the feedback Razka! I'm not sure if Dark Ritual is legal in standard so unfortunately I won't be able to use them
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I really like this zombie build! I think you have a nice selection of removal spells and oblivion rings to deal with threats. However, my only concern is you 19 lands that you're running. Personally, I think you're going to struggle to get the 2 black swamps for highborn Ghoul or 3 black swamps for Geralf's Messenger in the early stages of the game as your mana base is so varied. You're also splashing blue for Diregraf captain and white for oblivion rings and Vault of the Archangel. It looks fantastic... but I'm just worried that you'll have mana problems and won't be able to cast the spells that you want to unless you get lucky in your initial 7 card draw. Perhaps some "Cavern of Souls" could fix your blue/black land problem whereby you could run out all blue lands and replace them with Cavern of Souls to cast your blue Diregraf captains. I have a similar zombie deck that's also similar to yours: http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=367625
Thrun is legendary, so cloning he effectively kills him as you can't have 2 identical legendary creatures on the battlefield. Hexproof is irrelevant when it comes to cloning as clone cards don't target
Many thanks for the comment Razka ! I absolutely agree with your recommendation!! I do think that I have too many creatures here so need to drop a few. A full playset of Knight of glory is absolutely needed as well as including sublime Archangel. As for Condemn, I'll have to find a suitable replacement as I'd like to keep the deck standard I believe Condemn is M11. Perhaps 4 more Tragic slips. Thank you again for your critisims. I'll update this list once I've obtained the cards and made the necessary adjustments. :)
I've been playing around with trying to perfect the perfect mill deck for last couple of weeks and this particular build (which I had myself) didn't fare well against fast decks. Critisism about the following build are: - Too many cards that throw away your opponents card for every island you tap. I.e. the sands of delirium and Increasing Confusion both do the same thing and in reality, you will never have enough mana available to use these cards effectively. - Not enough creatures to use as defense as well as trying to mill your opponent. You end up on the back burn the whole time as your opponent has too much of a tempo advantage over you - Too few land. Trying to get enough land to get Jace out can be tricky when you're only running 20 land. I'd recommend 22 land - Dream Twist can be replaced with shriekhorn and still achieves the same effect of milling the opponent for 6 cards. Shriekhorn is much cheaper to cost and saves you 2 mana overall. In conclusion, I had to scrap this build as it repeatedly failed against most decks time upon time upon time. My problem was that I was trying to mill my opponent through casting "mill your opponent cards" (ie. Target opponent mills x cards). What I believe you need is a different way to indirectly mill your opponent such as "When I draw x cards, my opponent throws away x (or 2x or even 3x) amount of cards". What makes this possible is through the use of the following enchantment: Jace's Erasure. Another card that goes hand in hand with Jace's Erasure is Jace's Archivist. I strongly believe that by Playing sets of the following 3 cards in your decks, that it will become a serious mill deck: 1) Jace's Archivist 2) Jace's Erasure 3) Jace, Memory adept. However, you still have a problem with defense. You don't have enough creatures to defend yourself whilst you're trying to mill your opponent. Trying to cast Dissipate and keeping your mana free is hard as you need to get the right balance of putting creatures out and also milling your opponent. A nice way to deal with your opponents "threats" is to bounce them back to his hand via unsummon/vapor snag and then to mill them out of his hand, straight to the graveyard via Jace's Archivists ability!!! To fix this problem, I highly recommend running 2 copies of undead Alchemist. Everytime your opponent mills a creature card from his library into his graveyard, you get a free 2/2 zombie!!!! Imagine activating Jace's +0 ability and milling 10 cards. Within a short amount of time, you'll have a massive army of zombies (assuming your opponent's playing a creature heavy deck). I'd also strongly scrapping alot of cards that mill your opponent, and put in more cards that allow you to draw cards e.g. Ponder. Make your opponent throw away cards everytime you draw a card ! That's the key to a successful mill deck. Not "throw away cards" as this will take too long and you'll be long dead before your opponent is near to drawing his last card. And lastly, the only person who's at the heart of your milling engine is Jace himself. He's the only one that can throw away 10 of your opponents card at one time. You need a backup plan - ie. Swords of Body and Mind. These can mill your opponent too for 10 cards as well as create a wolf defender for you. For the swords, I'd strongly recommend running in some flyers as these will at least get through via evasion. So, in conclusion I'd recommend running the following cards out: -3 Sands of Delirium -2 Increasing Confusion -2 Tormod's Crypt -4 Dream Twist -2 Archaeomancer (I was running him too - but found him too expensive and slowed the entire deck down) -4 Dissipate -1 Elixir of Immortality -2 Though Scour I'd recommend running the following cards in +4 Ponder +4 Jace's Archivist +4 Jace's Erasure +4 Vapor Snag (I'd recommend the full 8 bounce spells using everything you can get hold of from: vapor snag/unsummon/Silent departure) +2 Swords of Body and Mind +2 Mana Leak Please don't take my comments negatively. I know what I'm recommending is almost a complete rebuild of your deck, but trust me! I've had this build before. I've run it against loads of other decks and it doesn't quite manage to make it. It'll win occasionally... but it's just not good enough against most decks. I honestly believe that you need to change how you mill your opponent and the most effective way to do this is via the "Jace" cards. Mill your opponent via drawing cards... not via milling them directly. Please let me know how you get on. I'm a MASSIVE fan of mill decks. I've wasted countless hours researching the ultimate mill deck build and want this deck to work!! It'll never be a tournement winner, but against friendly games... you'll certainly have alot of fun!! Good luck
I think this is looking MUCH better!!!! 4 elves + 4 Birds + 3 rampant growths gives you 11 cards to ramp your mana base up to 6 to get Essence of the Wild out. Stick out Mimic Vat before hand for extra insurance as you said. I like the adjustments to your removal spells - 9 cards to deal with threats. The additional of Prey upon is a nice cheap option! I noticed you had removed the Avacyn's Pilgrim's. You could if you want to, remove 2 Llanowar Elves and replace with 2 Avacyn's Pilgrims so you have a mix of 4 ramp cards that produce both green and white mana. Not sure how badly you need white... but at least it's a bit more equal. Overall, I'm quite excited to play against this new variation as it's looking alot more sturdier than before!!
Loving this deck Jim !!! Although I think it needs one more Essence of the Wild to make it more successful. Switch out the Viridian Emissary's for some Avacyn's Pilgrims too. :)
Cheers for the comments NickBooth. You are 100% correct about Liliana and the bat. Both of these cards have been niggleling me for a while, so I'm glad someone else picked up on them and whether they're useless in this deck. I had a look at your R/B Vampire deck and I love the heartless summoning + arc trails that you're running. Your deck looks far superior ! Thanks a stack for the comments bro. Highly appreciated!
This is a very impressive deck!!!! /respect
Very nice!! I'm loving the heartless summoning and Swiftfoot boots. My only concern is the lack of 1 mana drops on turn 1 (i.e. Stromkirk Nobles). Seems a waste of a turn. :/
I'd forgotten about Black Sun Zenith. I run him in the side board for now whilst I work out what I would run out for him. Do you have any examples of tutoring/drawing cards? The only drawing card that springs to mind is solemn simulacrum (which I find too expensive for this deck - he works well in green).
This is a superb suggestion! Thank you for this tip. I think I will run out the Dead Weights and replace them with Virulent Wounds instead!!!
It's a pity your white deck isn't standard. I think my deck has superior card removal to yours as I can exile any of your threats whilst yours won't be able to deal with my fiend hunters / oblivion rings. My Gideon's lawkeeper can keep your army at bay whilst your Avacynian Priest both costs more and is useless against my army. Your Mana curve seems larger and you don't have any finishers (i.e Sun Titans) to clean up at later stages.
Many thanks for the feedback Here2Save. I've taken what you said into account and modified the deck quite a bit. Version 2.0 is now ready
Thanks for the feedback dude ! I've since modified the deck taking into account your feedback. I've removed Lightning bolt as it's no longer standard. Lava axe has been replaced with brimstone valley. Not so sure about Galvanic Blast as I don't have many artifacts. Thank you again for your comments :)
Really appreciate the comments and feedback dude !!!! I haven't given this deck much love lately as I've been busy rejigging all my other mono coloured decks to be standard. This contains a lot of zendicar and non-standard cards... so it does need a bit of love (although not technically legal at FNM). Thanks again for the feedback!! Your input is invaluable!
I'm a massive fan of red burn decks, as well as vampires. I'm loving the synergy in this deck!!
The new Innistrad Planeswalker: Liliana of the Veil would absolutely ROCK inside this deck. When you're super rich... buy 4 copies of her !! lol ;)
I'm really liking this deck's discard Theme ! The Megrim and Liliana's Caress work very well. If you could possibly double those 2 cards (so you have 4 of each), you'd make this deck even more deadly. I may have a spare Lillian's Grave at home lying about that I could send your way. I'll check.
This looks like a a great deck Dave !! I look forward to playing against it !!!
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