Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

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Reya
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Post by Reya » 2 years ago

Very disapointed with those zombies honestly... what a waste of a potential good addition to our deck! They are all too clunky, too slow or too expensive to cast.

The only one I consider playing is Hordewing Skaab: finaly a lord giving flying to our board. It could take the place of Archfiend of Ifnir, no board wipe our opponent but you can swing easier.

I hope the spoiler is not over !

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Nimbaway
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Post by Nimbaway » 2 years ago

Reya wrote:
2 years ago
The only one I consider playing is Hordewing Skaab: finaly a lord giving flying to our board. It could take the place of Archfiend of Ifnir, no board wipe our opponent but you can swing easier.
I'd consider Wonder over Hordewing Skaab, it's not that hard to get Wonder into the graveyard and its fairly well protected there. If something kills the Skaab during combat then suddenly all your zombies are back on the ground and that could cost you some zombies that you had hoped to keep around.

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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Crowded Crypt I think could be solid. Three-mana rocks aren't great for Varina, but more ramp is nice, and it has the potential to make a tonne of zombies in the lategame. I see it as a black Midnight Clock.

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Post by Kvothe » 2 years ago

Nothing of interest to me, besides the commander we already knew.

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Post by yeti1069 » 2 years ago

Oof! Those are all so costly!

Ravenous Rotbelly I would consider. A 3x Fleshbag Marauder is pretty good, although...5 mana. Why do they all cost 5?!

Hordewing Skaab I also like. Yeah, it's more fragile than Wonder, but it's a zombie and has a looting effect similar to Varina's that also plays nicely with TAI. The deck also is rather weak to flyers in general, so getting some flying in here would be good. Again...5 mana makes it a tough include.

Empty the Laboratory I'm definitely going to run! That's such a powerful effect! Lowest power is 3 mana and sac a creature to get a random zombie into play. If we have a token or Grave crawler to sac that's a fairly solid card. If we have mana to spare and some creatures we don't care about for an X of 4 or more, this is going to be a lot of value.

The others are absolute garbage. Cleaver could be interesting, but we only really have a couple zombies worth copying like that (Gary being my top pick), but it's so slow. Tomb Tyrant seems like a card they were determined to neuter. Tap with a cost, random reanimate, AND a gating restriction on whether the ability can be used at all? Seems really unnecessary. Kind of surprised that it doesn't also only work at sorcery speed.

Largely disappointing, yeah.

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Post by yeti1069 » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
Crowded Crypt I think could be solid. Three-mana rocks aren't great for Varina, but more ramp is nice, and it has the potential to make a tonne of zombies in the lategame. I see it as a black Midnight Clock.
Midnight Clock is a mana rock that automatically gives you a new hand of 7 cards (and shuffles your graveyard) for no additional investment or effort in 3 turn cycles. You can also pay spare open mana into it in increments of 3 to hasten the process. That's MILES ahead of a rock you have to spend 6 mana on after it has accumulated charges to get...a bunch of tokens that can't block and can only attack once. Sure, there's some value in them ETB, or dying, but there are better token producers for that cost.


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Eburon
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Post by Eburon » 2 years ago

I personally like Cleaver Skaab. Being able to copy some of our zombies is a great effect to have. It is slow, but reasonably costed at 3U.

Crowded Crypt is a mana rock with upside, which may be worth considering.

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Post by ChocoDude » 2 years ago

I agree with @RedCheese the only two cards I like are Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver and Empty the Laboratory. They actually excite me. The others...meh... And I also agree that Wonder is easier to work with than Hordewing Skaab and costs nothing. The filter is nice, but still 5 mana.
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Post by Falkenbach » 2 years ago

Eburon wrote:
2 years ago
I personally like Cleaver Skaab. Being able to copy some of our zombies is a great effect to have. It is slow, but reasonably costed at 3U.

Crowded Crypt is a mana rock with upside, which may be worth considering.
yeah but then you could also be considering Reflections of Littjara ?

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Post by yeti1069 » 2 years ago

Falkenbach wrote:
2 years ago
Eburon wrote:
2 years ago
I personally like Cleaver Skaab. Being able to copy some of our zombies is a great effect to have. It is slow, but reasonably costed at 3U.

Crowded Crypt is a mana rock with upside, which may be worth considering.
yeah but then you could also be considering Reflections of Littjara ?
Reflections I was excited about initially for this deck, but since it's a cast trigger it doesn't do anything with our reanimation plan.

Cleaver I think would look better in a slower/less aggressive deck. When we want to be attacking most turns, holding a guy back with mana open can slow things down. The guy is also better at instant speed. If it didn't have to be a zombie I'd be excited about it for my Marchesa deck.

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plaganegra
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Post by plaganegra » 2 years ago

So disappointed. More options that compete for overcrowded slots - not what I had in mind!
That's all I really wwould consider, but mostly just Wilhelt actually.
Still no sign of Geralf...

Crowded Crypt has huge upside in any token deck or artistocrats deck. Great card actually. Maybe not in Varina though lol.
Zombies ate my brains.
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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

plaganegra wrote:
2 years ago
So disappointed. More options that compete for overcrowded slots - not what I had in mind!
That's all I really wwould consider, but mostly just Wilhelt actually.
Still no sign of Geralf...

Crowded Crypt has huge upside in any token deck or artistocrats deck. Great card actually. Maybe not in Varina though lol.
Yeah seems we're all on the same page here. There's some neat stuff for actual effects, but the casting costs are rough. I'm on the same three here, with possibly Empty the Laboratory being my lowest consideration. Crowded Crypt I quite like, it's a black Midnight Clock, and I think there's enough sac outlets here and there among builds it'll do just fine. It actually works quite well with Ashnod's Altar, which will help you pay the ability cost anyway. And Living Death....sweet zombie jesus....and of course obligatory 'very close to combo' with altars and Gravecrawler. I'm sure it'd just take a nudge. Honestly it even just works very well with the decayed mechanic, Tombstone Stairwell, wipes. I think it could add some real resilience to our board presence, and lead to some blowouts.

Curse of the Restless Dead actually isn't bad either to be fair. I think the play is to cast it on yourself as early as possible and just get value from hitting your land drops a la Field of the Dead. I think it competes with Ghoulish Procession though, and if it can be made to work (I think it can and will be keeping eyes out for how often I can trigger deaths in a turn cycle next few games) procession gives us more bodies in play with greater efficacy (by the time your turn comes around they're good to swing).

Anyway I think it's a tough one right? We're in a similar boat to Edgar Markov - I bought that precon, and most of the existing architecture in his most competitive form was not prepackaged. It had to be added from the dross of sets of yore, the cheapest, filthiest peasant vampires ever printed. We're in a tight spot here, where we want cheap, but we want good too, and that's something that's tough to create fairly. Comparatively, Edgar didn't and still doesn't care - he'll take and work with cheap, dross crap, as long as he can cast it for 1. And cheap is tough to do with commander products too; that's how mistakes happen, like Hullbreacher and Dockside Extortionist. So this product didn't surprise me at all, really. With these, there's a case for adding a ton of efficient rocks in and raising the curve a little for better efficiency of costs at a higher CMC, but I think as splashy as that could be it's probably less efficient and less resilient. There's also a case for changing commanders to Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver and I probably can't fault anyone for doing that. Personally my pick is still Varina, Lich Queen purely because making the change means a)dropping a lot of control and removal options and b) losing some very powerful draw from the command zone.

Remember we've got another set coming up in....probably less time than you'd think these days....Geralf will show. We've yet to see Thalia, Odric, Sorin, Ulrich (boo), and sign of the remnants of Bruna and Gisela, Emrakul the moon.....patience is the way of the zen master. There's more walkers to come too with Kaya being on the plane in the latest cards. Plus some of the content creators are speculating more of the praetors are about. I don't know that there's enough story in it to squeeze them in, but you never know.

As an aside, and no shade towards anyone here, but it kind of annoys me that The Command Zone get the exclusive spoilers over and above other commander creators. They're great production value and deep in contract with Hasbro, but it'd be nice to see some other creators get a little bit of love from the Mothership. There's plenty of EDH specific creators out there, and frankly I think a lot of their content stands above what JLK and Jimmy Wong put out from an academic standpoint at least, I'd take Nitpicking Nerds or IHYD, or the Prof any day (although to be fair the Prof is probably too outspoken for daddy Hasbro to really want to throw him a bone - but that's what makes him so awesome).
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Reya
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Post by Reya » 2 years ago

I always consider that Mana rocks costing 3 are awfuly slow. I never play them in any deck :) (Especialy with a 4 mana commander, it's even worst).

I see your arguments against the 5 mana flying lord. I think I will pass on it... Archfiend wrecks faces every day, don't need to fly, just kill everything.

Well, what a disapointment to be honest, we got only two cards that we can seriously include: Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver and Bladestitched Skaab.

And a %$#% of semi-garbage to garbage zombies.

See you next set !

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RedCheese
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Post by RedCheese » 2 years ago

Most hyped set of the year for our Queen...and what a disapointment

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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Guys, Crimson Vow is right around the corner. And there's a wedding in it. Nothing bad can come from a wedding with allusions to the color red in the name right?

Seriously, there's more on the way. We've still got some stuff to tinker with even if there's no definite locks outside of Wilhelt. Honestly though, he's good enough that I'm not mad.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

yeti1069 wrote:
2 years ago
Curse of the Restless Dead targeting yourself is an interesting play. I like it!
Works with all of our pseudo ramp in Land Tax, Archaeomancer's Map and Sword of the Animist . I'm still unsure how much value is to be got from it but in most cases its going to be the right way to play the card I'd think.
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yeti1069
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Post by yeti1069 » 2 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
2 years ago
yeti1069 wrote:
2 years ago
Curse of the Restless Dead targeting yourself is an interesting play. I like it!
Works with all of our pseudo ramp in Land Tax, Archaeomancer's Map and Sword of the Animist . I'm still unsure how much value is to be got from it but in most cases its going to be the right way to play the card I'd think.
Unless there's some big mana green deck at the table, yeah.

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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

yeti1069 wrote:
2 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
2 years ago
yeti1069 wrote:
2 years ago
Curse of the Restless Dead targeting yourself is an interesting play. I like it!
Works with all of our pseudo ramp in Land Tax, Archaeomancer's Map and Sword of the Animist . I'm still unsure how much value is to be got from it but in most cases its going to be the right way to play the card I'd think.
Unless there's some big mana green deck at the table, yeah.
I might try and pick up a copy to give it a whirl. The cost is right for recursion too so it could put in work. You never know.
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plaganegra
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Post by plaganegra » 2 years ago

ChocoDude wrote:
2 years ago
I agree with @RedCheese the only two cards I like are Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver and Empty the Laboratory. They actually excite me. The others...meh... And I also agree that Wonder is easier to work with than Hordewing Skaab and costs nothing. The filter is nice, but still 5 mana.
I currently run both Wonder and Filth and cannot speak highly enough for their inclusion in a Varina deck.

Hordewing Skaab is one I was so disappointed in initially, but I am starting to see some value in it just for redundant evasion. I could see myself using this instead of filth at some point since I usually prefer flying over swampwalk anyway. Swampwalk is much harder to get evasion out of. The biggest problem is the 5cmc on the Skaab. I would have been much happier with a generic zombie that costs 3 and just gives flying to other zombies. The added text is just unimportant in Varina and I think whoever designed the card should have known that and tweaked the ability. But none of this matters, it is what it is.

Empty the laboratory is a pretty cool card for a zombie deck to have access to. Because of how it is worded you dont sacrifice the creatures unless the spell resolves, so you can't get blown out and will always hit paydirt.

Responding to the idea of including the new curse of the restless dead. I think Ghoulish Procession just outclasses much of the time. Both can be run side by side for lots of decayed zombies, however.
Last edited by plaganegra 2 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Also: Yawgmoth, Tinybones, Blim, Krenko, Kaalia, Beckett Brass, Chatterfang, Evelyn, Kodama-East, Kozilek, Breya, Morophon, U-Braids, Ashcoat.
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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Filth needs Urborg, but wins with it. I also run Expedition Map to set them up.

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plaganegra
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Post by plaganegra » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
Filth needs Urborg, but wins with it. I also run Expedition Map to set them up.
I think everyone should probably be running urborg regardless, but I run it as well. Swampwalk takes a lot more to get online than flying, for a slightly better payoff in most practical scenarios I have been in, personally. Flying is often unblockable for at least one opponent. I do like having both in the deck because sometimes more than one of my opponents have swamps anyway and then its pretty easy to win actually lol.

I think a lot of people like zombie master for the same reasons. I just use filth and skipped the lord though.
Zombies ate my brains.
My Varina Decklist
Also: Yawgmoth, Tinybones, Blim, Krenko, Kaalia, Beckett Brass, Chatterfang, Evelyn, Kodama-East, Kozilek, Breya, Morophon, U-Braids, Ashcoat.
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Reya
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Post by Reya » 2 years ago

Problem with Zombie master: opponents will sometimes benefit from it. I faced the situation where I almost died to tombstone stairwell cause of swamp walk given by zombie master.

I should try Wonder I think.

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Post by WWolfe » 2 years ago

I run both Filth and Zombie Master in my build but Zombie Master is on my possible cut list. I like Wonder and it's won me a fair share of games. I'm not sold on Hordewing Skaab. I like the ability but 5 mana, I just don't know. Not when I can get Wonder into the graveyard for free.

Filth and Wonder are two of only 4 non-zombie creatures that are in my deck.

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