Welcome back to Fighting the Format, the series in which I lay down the strategies of the best decks in the format moving into a given weekend – what they are, how they work, how they win, and – importantly – how to beat them.

Pro Tour Hour of Devastation has been and gone, and with it, a resurgence in a classic archetype: Red Deck Wins.

The traditional red deck has always followed a similar strategy – play cheap creatures and burn spells, and get your opponent dead before they’ve even had time to unroll their playmat. Much has been said about this particular incarnation dubbed Ramunap Red, including this article by my teammate Luke:

  http://articles.trolltradercards.com/2017/08/01/how-pv-won-the-pt/

Today, we’re not looking at red. Formats move quickly, and two weeks ago is yesterdays’ news; if I were playing an event this weekend, I’d be expecting to play against the decks that beat Red comfortably, and one of the big contenders in this manner was piloted to a top 8 finish at this very PT:

The Deck

Mono Black Zombies – Yusuku Sasabe, 8th Place at Pro Tour HOU July 28th-30th 2017

Tribal is as tribal does, and Zombies is a tribal deck with a capital T. It contains every playable card that references zombies in Standard, and then a few powerful sideboard options to round things out. So what makes the mindless menace so good?

How Does it Work?

Zombies plays creatures, draws a few cards, makes more creatures, then drops an anthem and shambles over until the sheer numbers and size of your board overwhelm the opponent. However, unlike many typical creature strategies and in-keeping with the source material, when you put a Zombie down it doesn’t stay down!

Relentless Dead is just as fearsome as its art suggests. As a 2/2 for BB with Menace, it’s a reasonable body for constructed and pretty good at attacking in the early game, but that’s not what it’s here for. When it dies, you can recur any of your game winning threats and bring back the Dead to your hand. The ability to recur itself in the early game is powerful, but if the game goes long and you have access to five or more mana, it’s devastating. On turn five and beyond, it’s effectively unblockable and makes every attack your opponent makes awful; just by chump blocking it gets you a two for one! Dead isn’t the only card that keeps your graveyard active, either:

Now this is efficient. A 2/1 for B with only a minor downside, the Wanderer is a Jackal that’s priced to move (albeit lazily and with a grumbling moan). 2/1s do have a nasty habit of trading off early, but that’s exactly what this little guy wants to do. Once you’ve finished deploying all your cards to the board, he rises from the grave to get stuck back in. Even so, a 2/1 is likely not all that impactful once you reach the late game. If only Zombies had a number of anthems to buff your guys up…  

Lord of the Accursed is the draft uncommon that no-one expected. The Lord has a middling body with a relevant ability – giving your team Menace once you’ve got ten or more creatures is basically game-over – but you’re mostly in the market for the buff he provides. The rate at which Zombies can spit out critters is frankly frightening, and Lord makes each individual 2/2 a real concern.

A problem with non-creature anthems (such as the eponymous Glorious Anthem) is that they don’t affect the board by themselves. Liliana’s Mastery solves this problem pretty neatly, as it comes with a pair of zombies to stock up your board. By itself, that’s 3BB for two 3/3 creatures; that’s on the verge of constructed playability to begin with, but when it’s effectively adding 10/10 worth of stats to the board? Verdurous Gearhulk should be ashamed.

Now for arguably the most important card in the deck:

Cryptbreaker does it all – he draws cards, makes guys, and even pokes in for damage when necessary. B for a 1/1 is certainly not impressive, but his abilities more than make up for his stature. By being able to create zombies and then self-synergising by drawing on the power of those corpses to get extra cards, Cryptbreaker is a one-zombie army and the absolute definition of a ‘must-kill’ for the opponent. A turn one Cryptbreaker that goes unanswered is likely to create two or more guys and draw three plus cards; for B, that seems like a good deal! On top of all of that, the fact it can discard your extra lands or dead removal spells means that even when it’s not technically drawing cards, it may as well be.

Diregraf Colossus is the engine that powers the endless ranks of dead. While Cryptbreaker keeps your hand stocked, Diregraf clogs up the board. A turn four Diregraf plus one drop is an immediate free card and minimum 4/4 worth of stats, and that’s the low end of what it can do. How about a three mana 10/10? Or a three drop that creates three 2/2s on your next turn? It’s borderline unfair how much value the Colossus brings to the table, and combined with the various synergies available, your opponent will find themselves on the wrong end of a burial pretty quickly.

Wait, is Kalitas a zombie? What’s he doing here? Oh, Red Deck Wins won the PT – gotya.

Kalitas may not be a zombie himself, but he does a good impression of one. By providing some life gain for the deck, he recoups the losses suffered by Cryptbreaker, and any damage you’ve taken while your army develops. He even feeds on your excess creatures to become a sizable threat by himself, and combined with the amount of removal you’re packing, he’ll be doing his best Colossus impression and making 2/2s for days. As a last little upside, he also prevents the opponents team from going to the grave – so long, Earthshaker Khenra! You too, opposing Relentless Dead!

Next up is the last zombie payoff card, and it’s a doozie:

Dark Salvation is a creature posing as a removal spell, or a removal spell posing as a creature – I can’t decide which. In a deck playing so many zombies, it’s basically a one mana removal spell with upside. In the early game, it allows double spell turns. In the late game, you can sink seven mana into it, kill your opponent’s best guy, then get 6/6 of stats for your trouble.

Notably, it has two targets on cast: which player will get zombies, and then which creature -X/-X. The number of zombies the targeted player controls determines the negative value, which allows for some cheeky plays. In the mirror match, your opponents’ turn one Cryptbreaker is about as good as they could hope for. Because of the templating, a turn one Salvation can target their Breaker and the opponent, and they’ll lose their guy!

Fatal Push backs up Salvation as the one mana removal of choice, and Grasp of Darkness rounds out the suite. There’s one thing in common between Salvation and Grasp – they both give -X/-X. Indestructibility is actually pretty destructible for Zombies. I’m looking at you, Hazoret the Fervent.

Finally, how do you cast these spells?

As a mono coloured and colour intensive deck, 19 Swamps are a must, and in a deck capable of generating so many bodies (dead or alive), Westvale Abbey is an auto-include. The new addition from HOU is the Ifnir Deadlands. For the low, low cost of a few points of life, your lands get to double as removal spells. If anything, I don’t think Yusuku went far enough; I’d have the fourth copy of Deadlands in this list faster than you can say ‘mana sink’!

The sideboard for this list is pretty streamlined. Transgress the Mind and Dispossess both disrupt opponents’ that aren’t heavily reliant on creatures, such as the various Torrential Gearhulk decks and the recent God-Pharoah’s Gift strategy. Scrapheap Scrounger and Liliana, the Last Hope both add more graveyard recursion to the deck (in case you felt it was somehow lacking). Liliana doubles as an X/1 remover, neatly taking care of creatures like Bomat Courier and Falkenrath Gorger. Skysovereign, Consul Flagship comes in when you just need a big flier to go over the top of your opponents’, and Never // Return provides a combo of efficient Planeswalker removal and graveyard disruption.

What is it’s Plan?

Zombies has one key plan – go wide. The aim is to develop the board every turn, generate extra cards and creatures, then once wide enough, buff everything up and start attacking. It plays much like the typical zombie movie: the cards are individually not that threatening, but given time their numbers will grow until they can’t be stopped!

As with my prior article in Fighting the Format, Zombies does have a backup plan – Abbey them out. Unlike UW Monument, however, it’s very much a backdoor plan in Zombies and not so much of a focus.

What Are its Strengths and Weaknesses?

The strength of Zombies is that the deck is very focused – it knows what it wants to do, and it has a bunch of good support to help it get there. That said, the key reasons it’s powerful follow:

Efficient

Zombies is a very, very efficient deck. With a low curve, cheap creatures, cheap removal and a ton of ways to use its mana, it’s pretty common for the Zombies deck to tap out every turn for some time, constantly generating additional resources while also interacting.

Resilient

Between creatures that come back from the grave, creatures that generate more creatures and extra cards from Cryptbreaker, Zombies is a highly resilient deck. Spot removal for your important cards hurts, but they’ll need a lot to keep you down!

Grindy

The Zombies deck is entirely about generating more resources and overwhelming your opponents. Every card works towards this aim; if your opponent is planning to strip you of your options with one for one trades, they are not going to succeed.

However, Zombies is not a deck without weaknesses. The key flaws with the deck follow:

Wraths

Ultimately, Zombies is a creature deck. In the main deck, every threat is a creature, and while Zombies can draw some extra cards and a few creatures can shamble back from the grave, Zombies do not like fire.

Seriously, Wraths

I cannot stress this point enough – numerous wrath effects are really, really hard for Zombies to beat.

Slow

While Zombies is a creature deck and can apply some early pressure, the first few turns are more about setting up than attacking – this gives the opponent time to enact their own plan, and if it goes bigger, Zombies will struggle to put the game away before the opposing plan is in motion.

So if your aim is to beat Zombies, keep in mind the below:

Play

Wraths! If you can keep Zombies off the board, you’ll have all the time in the world to enact your own plan. Note that damage-based wraths can fall off a bit in the late game, as their numerous buffs can put them out of range – still, Sweltering Suns, Hour of Devastation, Fumigate and especially Descend Upon the Sinful are all good choices.

Fliers. Zombies are pretty weak in the air, so with a bit of disruption, you can effectively race them. Archangel Avacyn and Glorybringer are both excellent options.

Exile removal. Magma Spray is at the forefront of this approach, taking out both Relentless Dead and Dread Wanderer, but Stasis Snare, Cast Out and Kalitas are fine too.

Planeswalkers. Paired with wraths, the Zombies deck does not have a great way to deal with walkers, especially in game 1. A quick Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Liliana, Death’s Majesty followed up with a wrath is probably lights out!

Do Not Play

Durdly ground creatures. Trying to fight Zombies on their own turf is not going to get you anywhere! Bristling Hydra, this is not the matchup for you.

Indestructible creatures and effects. Grasp and Salvation both neatly get around these, so trying to keep a Spell Queller in play with a Selfless Spirit or relying on your Rhonas, the Indomitable won’t end well.

Small creatures. Much like the kind of thing you’ll see in Ramunap Red, 2/1s for one trade with basically every creature in the Zombie deck, and often that creature won’t have cost Zombies a card. Zombies also goes so wide that the various ‘can’t block’ effects can be ineffective.

And that’s Zombies! Have I tempted you into a brain-fuelled frenzy, or are you gearing up to Rick Grimes your way through the ‘walkers’? Leave your questions or comments below, and as always, good luck!