Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Why Varina?
Why not Varina?
Alternate Commander Options
Deck History
Decklist
Card Choices
Strategy
Starting Hand
Reactive vs Proactive Play
Stages of the Game
Advanced Synergies
Credit & Thanks
Changelog

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Introduction

I've had a more or less zombie tribal build of some description for the last 3-4 years under various generals. I've tried Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Gisa and Geralf, and Thraximundar. None of them really suited what I wanted in a zombie commander, so when Varina, Lich Queen was spoiled I was very excited. In fact, she's the only commander from 2018 precons that I had any interest in building.

Building the deck has been really rewarding, for a few reasons. Firstly, there's been a lot of discussion on my threads, and it's been really nice to see some love for one of my favourite recent commanders and discuss with like-minded crafters. Secondly, it's been a real deck building challenge - the deck needs a few areas to be well managed, and part of the challenge of building and piloting is knowing how much to squeeze into the deck and how to make it work in real time.

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Why play Varina?

There are now quite a few zombie commanders available, but Varina is my commander of choice. There's a few more involved reasons for this, but most of what's great about the list boils down to 'Esper zombies' and the positives below:

You'll like playing this deck if...

You want a commander with a lot of variety in strategies
You like Esper colours and the control and removal elements that come with it.
You like being able to change your plan to suit the board state.
You like a deck that's resilient and can dig itself out of a losing situation.
You have an affinity for the undead.

In terms of what makes Varina unique as a commander, there's a little more to it than 'Esper Zombies'. Varina has a lot of scope for inventive building. While I love playing and tuning my build, I wouldn't at all say it's THE definitive Varina build; Varina is capable of piloting a lot of different archetypes with a lot of variation, and that's part of what makes her a blast to play.

Let's break Varina down and see what she gives us:

for a 4/4 Zombie Wizard.

No additional combat keywords. While that's not exciting, in essence, it's a reasonable price for a well balanced commander. 4/4 means she trades well enough in combat where needed, which is fine, and she's not initially expensive to cast, which is great.

Whenever you attack with one or more Zombies, draw that many cards, then discard that many cards. You gain that much life.

So, there's a lot going on there. This one ability does so much and there's a lot of variables to toy around with. It's worth mentioning right out the gate that none of the zombies you attack with need to connect for this ability - it triggers on attack. What happens then? Firstly, there's an obvious zombie affinity, which gives you the ability to build strictly zombie tribal, or a dedicated swarm build. Secondly, you have looting, which gives you the option to build around draw effects, discard effects, reanimation, even miracle with specific cards to help you along. Thirdly you have life gain. Leaning into this gives you pretty much one thing, life gain strategies. That's not reductive at all though, as there's plenty of scope for this to be a strong strategy capable of pillow forting, combo wins and strong plays.

, Exile two cards from your graveyard: Create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

Alright, so exile can be scary, especially in this format, where a game can grind out a long time. That being said, this is still a strong ability, and it has its place as a versatile tool at your disposal. Firstly, it's instant speed. Everything is better at instant speed. Secondly, Varina's first ability and it's discard theme will ensure that if or when you use her second ability you're exiling things that you're comfortable exiling. That's an extra attacker for your next turn at the end of the turn cycle, which gives you one more token to lean into Varina's first ability for . Her abilities are really just very well blended, and fit each other very well.

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Why not play Varina?

There's a lot of words above bigging this girl up. Clearly, I'm a fan. That being said, there's some weaknesses that deserve mention. They play at least some part in the way the deck is built and the way I play it, so we should be aware of what we're dealing with:

You won't like playing this deck if...

Mana - Esper doesn't have a plethora of options for ramp, colour fixing or mana burst. This is something we really, really need to take into account in building ANY list with Varina at the helm.
Flying - zombies typically don't. It's a general weakness of the deck, although there's not a ton of 'all-flying' decks about, so it won't come up a ton, but this deck won't generally fare well against say, dragons, demons or angels. We do run a lot of removal though, which mitigates this weakness to some extent.
Grave hate - there are a few things we need to keep an eye on here, as most iterations of a Varina build will at any time have at least some key pieces in the graveyard. Mostly, I think it's worth mitigating this by not putting ALL of your eggs in one basket, but regardless it's something that can set us back, especially with heavy reanimation themes.

So now we know primarily what we're dealing with in terms of the good and the bad. There's also plenty of other options for commanders that can do similar things to Varina, so let's run over options for similar commanders.

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Alternate Commanders

This deck covers a fairly wide variety of options - it's a zombie deck, a reanimation deck, a control deck, an Esper deck. There's a lot of alternates that could potentially be suitable commanders otherwise for some of these points:

Alternate Zombie Commanders

Gisa and Geralf - Very much more of a casual or a jank combo build, I used to run these guys myself. Fun, but I found the deck didn't really want to go the same way I did.
The Scarab God - Really strong in the command zone, he makes a great control commander for tribal zombies.
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born - I love this guy, he's a beast. Suits a voltron-esque attrition build, he can wreck face very nicely.
Balthor the Defiled - Mass reanimation on your general is no joke. I feel like the trigger is dangerously broad, reanimating colour instead of creature type, but nonetheless he seems really strong from the command zone.
Ghoulcaller Gisa - She's very strong, but she's also much more of a swarm commander than this deck. You're looking at a higher curve, sacrificing creatures for tokens and swarming the board to win.
Sedris, the Traitor King - Grixis is fun to play, and unearth is a strong ability. This guy needs some pretty specific tools to make creatures stick past the unearth ability, but can be a pretty strong choice.
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - Mill zombies is a strong choice. Resource denial for your opponents, an army for you. A very different build, but strong nonetheless.

Alternate Esper Commanders

Aminatou, the Fateshifter - She's a strong choice, does pretty well in cEDH circles, and can be a pretty decent option. A very different build, you're looking at blink.dec here for combo potential.
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - Everyone's favourite control commander...What? Shut up, you know you love him. He's griefy, and he can drag a game out like nobody's business. Probably as close as it otherwise gets to our grind/midrange build, but he comes with a reputation for unpleasant, laborious games.
Zur the Enchanter - Man, Esper has a penchant for painful commanders. Zur is really, really good. Obviously, it's a VERY different deck than what we're playing here. He can be very competitive, but he draws a ton of hate. I hate him myself, there I said it. Not because of how good he is, but because the enchantment tutor trigger takes SO freaking long every damn time.

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Deck History

This deck has a reasonably short history, given that the commander has been in print around 12 months. That being said, it's quickly become one of my favourite decks to play. Partly that's because I've finally found a zombie commander that gives me the play experience I want, partly because it's a reasonably effective deck, and partly because it challenges me to pilot well - my decks very rarely go 'all in' on any particular strategy because I like to be able to change tack if or when I run into troubles, and this deck is no exception.

In terms of playtesting, changes and strategy, this deck is one I've discussed more than almost any other deck I've built. It's been a joy to converse about, and I for one have got lots out of it (I'm hoping the readers have too); because Varina doesn't lend herself to one particular avenue of brewing, I've made it clear how I intend to maintain my list (it's in the title - mostly midrange), but I've also made it clear I'm very happy to discuss other ways to build her. So if you're interested but want to build in a different direction to what you see here, feel free to contribute - I will go over some obvious exclusions and different strategies later (there are some suggestions for inclusions in the card choices section under 'Alternate Builds'), but I'm not going to go over these too deeply - I can't fall down every rabbit hole I see, but I can help you to!

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Deck List

Varina's Esper Zombie Horde

Approximate Total Cost:

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Card Choices

As I've mentioned above, there are a LOT of possible inclusions for a Varina list. What you'll see below is merely a portion of what could be in the list. That being said, every list is a rolling list of cuts and additions, so I will be doing my best moving forward to keep a log of what has been included as well as what is currently in here. Some of this will be in the changelog, but if you want an assessment of a card I've cut, with reasons for its initial inclusion, you will find them here - the name and card tag will be struck through to indicate it's lack of current inclusion.

Current Inclusions

Creatures

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Carrion Feeder - There's a lot more to this guy than meets the eye. It's well costed, it's a free, instant sacrifice outlet, and it can get big. Sure, it can't block, but it hits your curve nicely.
Cryptbreaker - Another (very) well costed zombie. The first ability is relatively helpful from time to time, mostly when you have excess in hand or want to set your yard up for a mass reanimation spell. The token enters tapped, so using this outside of your turn is ideal. The second ability is the real value though. Tapping down zombies for draw repeatedly is great value. The way it's worded too, you can tap down zombies for this right away, ignoring summoning sickness - including Cryptbreaker itself.
Foulmire Knight - The only real sure shot adventure inclusion here. Both the adventure and creature are relevant as either an efficient rattlesnake zombie, or an instant speed draw. I can also recur the adventure more easily here than elsewhere, with Lord of the Undead and Volrath's Stronghold
Gravecrawler - Well costed, iconic, great value. Gravecrawler is the source of many infinite combos, although I don't overly pursue that here. It's excellent to swing with early, keeps coming back, and can be sacrificed for value where needed.
Apprentice Necromancer - A cheap zombie mostly, but also gives us our first reanimation option. Mostly, this choice is a balance between maintaining a solid curve and giving myself options to bring back pieces I need as I can.
Binding Mummy - Again, this one hits our curve. Its effect is excellent too, though, and has some nice instant speed applications to just make things a little easier on you. It'll help make combat favourable, it'll deprive your opponents of rocks, artifact creatures and control pieces, and if you can make a zombie outside your turn it'll do it at instant speed.
Corpse Knight - The first part of our aristocrat zombie package. It's cheap, and it hits our opponents every time a creature enters the battlefield on our side of it. We can make that happen lots.
Relentless Dead - Valuezombie.com. For the low low price of bb you get a 2/2 with combat evasion that can bring itself and a pal back from the grave. His abilities do end up costing a little, but the value regardless is undeniable, and the price is so, so right.
Shepherd of Rot - Heavy bludgeoning of life totals across the board is the name of the game here. Use with caution, it hits you too.
Undead Augur - This guy is very abusable. With sacrifice outlets we're great, and with Varina gaining us life here and there we ought to be fine with the life loss. Drops before Varina, which is really important.
Wayward Servant - One of my favourite cards in the deck. With it's 'enters the battlefield' clause instead of cast it counts tokens too. If it doesn't end the game for you it'll keep the game going with life gain.
Withered Wretch - a mono black swiss army knife on a zombie. It's cheap, it's grave hate, what's not to love?
Cemetery Reaper - The first of our 'lords'. This one comes with it's own grave hate too, but it's a little more pricey than the Wretch. Regardless, the buff is nice and adds up well.
Death Baron - Lord #2. Deathtouch is honestly a great addition, it radically changes how combat looks once you have it in play.
Diregraf Captain - Part lord, part aristocrat, it does neither excellently, but both sufficiently. The buff is fine, the bleeder effect only hits one opponent, and doesn't include itself. That's fine though, it's excellent value for the cost.
Diregraf Colossus - More value for cheap. Colossus needs playing into a little, but does well when you do. Generally it does best dropping either after Varina so that you can get some pieces in the graveyard for its pump, or prior to some of the lower curve zombies.
Liliana's Standard Bearer - The value on this card is frankly just nuts. Drop it after a board wipe at instant speed and draw a swathe, or sacrifice your horde to dig for an answer. This is just crazy good.
Lord of the Accursed - Another lord, another cheap drop. The second ability hits every zombie on the battlefield, so there's times it could be used politically.
Lord of the Undead - Another lord. Grabbing creatures from graveyard to hand isn't as wild as direct to battlefield, but for 3 mana I'm not complaining.
Midnight Reaper - Part of our draw suite. Again, very absuable with a sacrifice outlet, and life loss again mitigated to some degree by Varina. Not quite as specific in it's usage as Undead Augur in that it won't count tokens or itself, but still valuable.
Plague Belcher - Definitely our weirdest aristocrat. There's a lot on the card. 3 for a 5/4 with menace is great. The -1/-1 counters are slightly detrimental but we have enough pieces we can turn it into value with - at the very worst, put them on itself or on Carrion Feeder to cancel out some +1/+1 counters. The bleeder effect doesn't count itself, but it does hit every opponent, which is great.
Zombie Master - Daddy lord. No P/T buff, but swampwalk makes it a deadly combat threat, especially with our Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. The regenerate is nice, but generally a little mana intensive.
Agent of Erebos - One of our control pieces, it's nice to be able to reanimate for further triggers. Given that some of our game-ending reanimation spells are global, it's nice to be able to make these favour us a little more than anyone else, and this fellow does his part. That art is sweet too, I've always loved it.
Graveborn Muse - This is one of our heavy draw pieces. Clearly, one to keep an eye on as it can bludgeon the crap out of your life total. Often it'll get targeted before your life total gets too low, but it's probably wise to have a way to remove it close to hand otherwise.
Undead Warchief - The biggest pump we have on a lord, and comes with cost reduction too. The casting cost is a little higher than ideal, but that balances out over time.
Vengeful Dead - Our most expensive aristocrat. I know others have questioned it's place, but to me it earns it. It counts zombies across the board, not just yours, and it hits every opponent. Best friends with Tombstone Stairwell.
Archfiend of Ifnir - Yes, it's not a zombie, no I don't care. It synergises so well with Varina's discard trigger to keep the board empty that it totally deserves a place. It's devastatingly good, trust and believe.
Bone Miser - A little steep to cast, but the value from this guy is just nuts. Plays really well with our commander, Zombie Infestation and some of our draw filter like Ancient Excavation. It's worth noting that Varina's discard trigger happens in combat phase, so any you generate with Miser through her trigger will leave your pool at end of phase. So, be mindful of that.
Corpse Harvester - A little slow, but a great utility/soft tutor inclusion. It can pick up our shocks, our bicycle land, and it's yet another card that's just a little bit stupendous with Gravecrawler,
God-Eternal Oketra - We're getting to the high end of the curve here. A 3/6 double striker is nice, and so is the cast trigger. It's sort of on the edge of whether it provides enough value to justify a place, but the tokens are big, and they're vigilant, and the God itself is remarkably persistent, so I consider it worth the place for now.
God-Eternal Bontu - Reprocess on a 5/6 menacing creature. That's a pretty decent ETB ability, and we can use this for a huge card advantage, a whole lot of dying triggers, and to get rid of potentially dangerous permanents (Kindred Discovery is a bit much with Tombstone Stairwell in play). is pretty versatile.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel - Gary the iconic. What needs to be said here? It's a tri-colour deck, sure, but if you look at the colour chart for the deck you'll notice that a whopping 67% of the colour symbols that appear in the deck are black. Gary is awesome, immediate value.
Havengul Lich - Our second reanimator. It...costs a lot, I won't lie, and that's definitely counts against it. What keeps it in the deck is its ability to reanimate anything, and share its activated abilities. This lets you essentially use an opponent's graveyard against them. It's a meta call whether it's worth the slot or not, but it's pretty versatile.
Noxious Ghoul - Removal on a creature. Doesn't just count our zombies either. Dropped at the right time, or coming into play from a mass reanimation spell, it's pretty devastating.
Phyrexian Delver - Nice, simple reanimation with a tied in life loss. 2 for 1 bodies is good value, and we're not overly worried about the life loss in general, we can get that back.
The Scarab God - Again, not a zombie, again, don't care. This guy's upkeep ability is crazy good. The grave hate/reanimation is great too, and similar to Havengul Lich can be used as control. He's also well costed and hard to get rid of, which is cool.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier - Great value in a build that runs tokens. Sidisi is a rattlesnake in battle as well as a hard tutor. There's no hard and fast rule as to what you're grabbing, but the fact that you can is crazy good.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - We all knew it was coming. Mike is remarkable value, and can go infinite relatively easily. I'm not aware of anywhere in the deck that it does (maybe Mike, Plague Belcher, Gravecrawler and a sac outlet, but that's janky enough to look the other way), but what he does do for us here as a main purpose is give us resilience of board state. It's important to know, too, in case of wipes, his trigger goes on the stack upon his death too - this makes Living Death just....nasty.

Artifacts

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Sol Ring - I guess it goes in most decks, so probably doesn't need a ton of discussion. Honestly, Varina needs a quick start and the ratio of mana available/mana you need to use in a turn is pretty lean, so I'll take it.
Talisman of Dominance/Talisman of Hierarchy - They come down early, they colour fix. Given that most of the deck is black with splashes there's probably no need for the Azorius iteration.
Dimir Signet/Orzhov Signet - See above - same basic explanation.
Arcane Signet - This is the new staple rock. Enters untapped, gives us immediate colour fixing. It's a no brainer.
Ashnod's Altar - The iconic, instant speed, value-laden sacrifice outlet. Optimally, this could or should be Phyrexian Altar, due to colour demands (see above). The reason I run Ashnod's is it doesn't go infinite. Phyrexian most certainly would, and I just don't find that interesting. Your milage may vary, and I don't judge, so if you want to run Phyrexian go right on ahead.
Alhammarret's Archive - Does nothing on it's own, and for that reason I deliberated a long time before adding it. Once you've got some momentum though, it'll basically double said momentum. It's pretty great value to be honest.
Eldrazi Monument - Kind of our last zombie lord. It's SO ridiculously easy to keep it in play with Gravecrawler, Relentless Dead or just token fodder, and it ends games easy.

Enchantments

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Graf Harvest - Dirt cheap combat modifier. Gives you a token if needed, but otherwise it's a set and forget for swinging.
Mystic Remora - Cheap, easy draw. This gives you advantage at more or less any point in the game, and it's easy enough to just not pay the upkeep once you have what you want. We can get it back if needed with Hall of Heliod's Generosity.
Reconnaissance[/card] - This gets us a Varina trigger without having to swing unfavourably. It's also a really strong defense for any beaters coming our way, as it works at instant speed at a princely cost of .
[card]Zombie Infestation - Instant speed token generator for cheap, and a graveyard filler into the bargain for mass reanimation. It seems like a losing enterprise, but it's pretty handy. Got an overfull grip? Toss some stuff. Someone casts Wheel of Fortune? Discard to 0 for zombies and draw to 7 again.
Phyrexian Arena - This is the best STAPLE draw we can get. It'd be great to get Necropotence in here, but it's so anti-synergistic with the deck it would wreck us. Arena is solid, reliable, and cheap.
Smothering Tithe - Superbly good ramp, this fixes our colours and gives us burst when needed. Unlike Black Market, if it gets destroyed we keep the ramp regardless.
Teferi's Ageless Insight - Our second, cheaper version of Alhammarret's Archive. We get the better side of it too, the draw is why we're on it anyway.
Tombstone Stairwell - I'll give you a moment to read it. And another moment to parse what it means. Up to speed? No? Ok, so on every players turn each player puts into play a 2/2 zombie for each creature in their graveyard. They have haste, they die at end of turn, rinse and repeat. If you're paying attention, you should know just how disgustingly, grotesquely good this card is. It turns our bleeder zombies into haemorrhage zombies. It can skyrocket your life with Wayward Servant, it gives you huge Varina triggers for nothing at all, but most of the time it will end the game right away. I don't I've ever once had it resolve and had to pay for the upkeep, the game just ends before I get a chance.
Kindred Discovery - Tribal draw on steroids. This single card will show us more of our deck than any other. It's expensive (financially and to cast), but in every sense it's worth it. That being said, because the draw is non-conditional, it's really important to be careful with this. From personal experience, DO NOT HAVE THIS AND TOMBSTONE STAIRWELL out at the same time. Not unless you run Laboratory Maniac as a win condition anyway.

Instants

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Read the Runes - Scalable draw, but also, a discard and/or sacrifice outlet too. This is really valuable when you're at risk of decking yourself with Kindred Discovery or pinging yourself with Undead Augur.
Swords to Plowshares - Simple, cheap, instant speed exile. None better.
Arcane Denial - One of our two counters present. We've got a lot of removal onboard, but some spells just need to not resolve, and I don't mind giving up some draw for that to happen. We draw too, and it's colour light.
Counterspell - As above. It's colour intensive, but it's unconditional and that's perfect.
Cyclonic Rift - What's there left to say about this card? If it resolves you're likely to be in great shape afterwards.
Anguished Unmaking - Instant speed 'any permanent' exile. The life loss is insignificant for us, so this is great spot removal.
Generous Gift - Beast Within for white. I can deal with a 3/3 token. It's great in green, and great here too.
Ancient Excavation - Like a wheel effect but different - it's instant, it's just for us, and it lets us be more selective about what hits our graveyard, which is perfect.
Mirrorweave - There's a few legends that will be missed by this, but generally it can warp the board pretty nicely. Turning a whole lot of swinging creatures into mere Carrion Feeders, or our board into Death Barons, Bone Misers or Diregraf Colossuses is no joke.
Return to Dust - Exile one or two artifacts or enchantments, whatever suits. Great utility at a good cost.
True Love's Kiss - I've talked about this card a few times. I think it's, in some ways, more sure value than Return to Dust with it's unconditional draw. There are times where Dust is being played for one particular piece - and I might hit two pieces, but it's just because I can. Why make enemies? Why not draw instead?

Sorceries

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Dance of the Manse - Our deck drops a lot of things into the yard, which means from time to time our rocks bite the dust, making it hard to colour fix, or meaning we miss out on our Eldrazi Monument, Kindred Dominance or Mystic Remora. Well, here's the fix. It scales to our board, picks up multiple pieces, and in the current setup won't ever result in them being animated, which is sold as an upside, but really, we don't want that.
Winds of Abandon - White's answer to Cyclonic Rift. A very different, and potentially dangerous, wipe, but potentially a huge change in momentum when cast. I like that it can scale to fit the occasion, too.
Citywide Bust - Most of our creatures are pretty close to the ground, so this is a nice cheap board wipe. Mostly I'm not overly worried about my creatures dying regardless, but if I can avoid it why not? This could easily be Retribution of the Meek or Toxic Deluge if you have a copy.
Supreme Verdict - A board wipe with no possibility of nopes. It's colour intensive, but it's a definitive answer to the board state, so it's perfect.
Living Death - Guys, I'm gonna level with you. This is my favourite card of all time. It's in my top 2 list with Collective Voyage (that card is nuts). I have like half a dozen copies, and it's perfect here. It answers a board state regardless of protection, hexproof or indestructibility, and gives us an army back. Hopefully with some tasty ETB triggers like Noxious Ghoul or Gray Merchant of Asphodel, but we can settle for Corpse Knight and Wayward Servant too.
Patriarch's Bidding - Our second mass reanimator. It's a little too universal to just throw it out anywhere, but if you use it well it will end games with alacrity.
Austere Command - Modal removal in extremis. Every single mode I've found useful in the past, and you get two when you cast it. Such a useful card.
Zombie Apocalypse - Our third mass reanimator. Mostly, the destroy all humans clause won't do a damn thing, but you never know, there's a lot of hatebears out there.
Kindred Dominance - I mean, like, you guys know which creature type to choose right?
Peer into the Abyss - Drawing half of our deck is astronomically good, and it means we can sculpt the board state to suit us. It gives us options to choose our undead aristocrats in case of a wipe, access to our lords, wipes and control as needed. Also, with things like Zombie Infestation we can spam tokens, Archfiend of Ifnir gives us complete board annihilation, and Bone Miser gives us whatever resource we need. Also worth noting that we need not target ourselves with this. If someone copies or steals your Alhammarret's Archive or Teferi's Care, give them the gift of plenty.

Planeswalkers

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Liliana, Untouched by Death - The most thematically appropriate Lili. I include her purely because of her utility. All of her abilities are relevant to us, and all of them can be used straight away. I don't have a lot of support to reuse walkers, so there's not a huge point in more than one or two as utility. She does a great job for versatility.

Lands

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Command Tower - Enters untapped and gives us whatever we like. Perfect.
Arcane Sanctum - As above, but enters tapped. Not perfect, but good enough.
Path of Ancestry - Enters tapped, but gives us any Esper colour, and when we use it on a zombie or a wizard it scrys for us. Surprisingly valuable.
Unclaimed Territory - Enters untapped, gives either colorless, or any colour for a creature type of your choice. Choose your creature type carefully.
Fetid Pools - Enters tapped, but colour fixes or cycles. Relevant to our mana base and Archfiend of Ifnir.
Prairie Stream, Sunken Hollow - So long as you run basics they stand a good chance of entering untapped. Given how much black there is in the deck there's not really a huge point in including Prairie Stream.
Hallowed Fountain, Godless Shrine, Watery Grave - Pretty obvious why they're here.
Choked Estuary, Port Town - These usually enters untapped, it's an easy clause to meet.
Glacial Fortress, Isolated Chapel - As above, easy clause to meet. Glacial Fortress should likely be Drowned Catacomb, it's one of those cards I've just missed a copy of.
Fetid Heath - Nice, easy fixing in a deck that splashes heavy colours is worth a place.
Exotic Orchard - We run two of the most popular colours in the format in and , so this is perfect.
High Market/Phyrexian Tower - Instant speed sacrifice outlets on lands. Tower is clearly preferential, but when something has to go, it has to go.
Bojuka Bog - Pretty obvious why it's here - to make our mass reanimation a little more one-sided.
Geier Reach Sanitarium - It's a great flavour point, and it gives us early draw and selective discard.
Hall of Heliod's Generosity - Some of our enchantments are pretty high quality, and two of them have upkeeps. Being able to recur them is handy and easy.
Mystic Sanctuary - One of our weakest points in the deck is lack of instant/sorcery recursion. There aren't no options - Possessed Skaab and Dralnu, Lich Lord exist, but neither is at a cost I like, and neither one allows me to abuse them. Yes, I'm greedy. So, for now, this is the best I can do. I can pick up crucial pieces here and there, although again, it's not perfect. Then again, at a cost of nothing, I'm more happy with it than running a zombie for the same effect at a much higher cost.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - This card, by rights, shouldn't be in a shard deck. Thing is though, a lot of our inclusions are either entirely or splash . So this will pretty reliably give us a good chunk of mana. It'll never be exponential like you might see in a green deck, but it will do enough to keep us flush, which is something this deck can really use.
Unholy Grotto - Another form of recursion, albeit a little slower than ideal. It's not the worst thing in the world considering we can draw swathes of cards per turn, and it's very well costed.
Vault of the Archangel - The ability might look expensive, but it pays some serious dividends. I've been convinced since running it in Ghave, Guru of Spores a few years back.
Volrath's Stronghold - Saves your best thing from grave hate, or just gives you a little slower recursion.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - Fixes our colours, and ends the game with Zombie Master.

Notable Exclusions

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Firstly, here's what I choose not to run, for whatever reason:

Phyrexian Altar - It's seriously good, but it combos too easily here. I have a copy, but it won't get a space here purely by choice.
Rooftop Storm - The flavour is real, and it's a strong effect. Why not run it? Well, it's expensive, and all it does is either combo or bite removal. It's nice to have the game on easy mode, but I've just found it boring, in all honesty.
Endless Ranks of the Dead - It's so, so, interminably slow. Honestly, it's just a bad card, and if it were going to fit anywhere it'd be here. It's got great flavour and great art, but it just doesn't deserve a spot.
Dreadhorde Invasion - I have run it in the past, and it was ok. It really just didn't add enough in any metric to justify a slot.
Lich Lord of Unx - This guy could be awesome. The reason I don't run him is that his second ability is expensive in both cost and colour density, whereas my current aristocrats are all passive. Purely driven by the lands here, as this machine is often pretty lean.
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born - I actually have a super gorgeous foiled up Innistrad original. I haven't found a reasonable use for him here yet, but he may hit the deck at some point.
Anointed Procession - If you're running down the dedicated swarm route, this is worth picking up. Because I'm not all in on that, there's a lot of times it'll be redundant.
Vanquisher's Banner - Compared to my other draw options at the same CMC point, this just doesn't do enough.
Balthor the Defiled - His exile clause makes me think twice about adding him. The reanimation is great though, so he may warrant testing into the future.

Other than these, there's a lot in the current list that can be swapped out. The removal and control I run can absolutely be switched out for functionally similar pieces or superior - my decks generally operate on a budget, so what I have is based on what I can optimally afford or feasibly source. If you have availability above this, don't feel that my deck is canon by any stretch - it's purely a guide to getting optimal leverage from Varina.

Secondly, here's my wants list:

Something to recur instants and sorceries. I'm not sure what that looks like at present. Ideally it'd be an on-tribe ETB trigger creature, but I'd look for other options if they suit. Currently what's available is Possessed Skaab and Dralnu, Lich Lord. Frankly, they both have downsides big enough to not be ideal here.

Alternate Build Options

Alternate Builds

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I'm not going to go over every possible card to be included ever in any possible variation of a Varina deck, but given the scope with which Varina can be built, it's worth going over some possible inclusions for variant archetypes from my list. Here's what I'd look at for possible inclusion in some variations - bear in mind that these lists are not exhaustive, nor are they intended to be. These are elements you could look at including for a smattering of the below archetypes, or you could go deeper than what's here too.

Stax

Contamination - With Gravecrawler you can lock the mana up for good.
Grave Pact/Dictate of Erebos - Strong attrition options.
Attrition - More of the same, but targeted.
Oppression - It's gross, but we can play from the yard.
Null Rod/Stony Silence - most of our artifacts aren't activated, although you'd probably want an optimal manabase to mitigate this.
Solemnity/Decree of Silence - Lock people out of the game entirely.

Combo

Rooftop Storm - I don't see any other use for this other than janky combo.
Phyrexian Altar - This'll go infinite (mana) with Gravecrawler in an instant.
Geralf's Messenger - If you can loop it, you can kill people with it.
Triskelion/Walking Ballista - Obvious Mike/Trike includes.
Laboratory Maniac/Jace, Wielder of Mysteries - I've never really pushed the limits of decking myself here, but it's totally possible.
Bitter Ordeal - You could make lots of stuff die, so benefit from it.
Aetherflux Reservoir - Death laser is nuts, and especially good in a deck that gains life.
Bolas's Citadel - As above, we probably have the life gain to make this gross. Add Sensei's Divining Top for Ascendant mode.
Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood - Obvious combo material. Doesn't make it any less worth including.

Lifegain

Soul's Attendant/Soul Warden/Suture Priest - I feel like these could be pretty gross if you're leaning into this.
Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord - I used to run him, and the lifelink is pretty great.
Aetherflux Reservoir - Your obvious win condition.
Test of Endurance/Felidar Sovereign - Your less obvious? They're ok I guess. Lifegain is kind of janky for a theme anyway, so you'd probably just roll with it.
Well of Lost Dreams - Cool card, almost makes the cut in my deck, but mana is lean.
Pontiff of Blight - Make everything hurt.
Vizkopa Guildmage - This guy is kind of a hidden gem. He's surprisingly savage, and could do great things, especially if you're gaining wads and wads of life.
Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood - We've all seen it before, it's pretty obvious, but if you're going for life gain, it's probably worth including them.

Miracle

Library of Leng - Before there was 'no maximum hand size', this was your tech. The discard clause makes this a shoe in for miracle.dec
Temporal Mastery/Terminus - obviously.
Approach of the Second Sun - This is your win condition. Varina will dig you to it on the second cast no problems.
Sensei's Divining Top - Obviously.
Mystical Tutor - See above.
God-Eternal Kefnet - This guy is super strong. He'd make a great addition to a miracle Esper build.
Dralnu, Lich Lord - Repeatable Snapcaster Mage that's on tribe, although I guess there's no reason not to run both.

Mill

Undead Alchemist - This would be your key piece, ideally.
Mesmeric Orb - And this grossness would help.
Altar of the Brood - It's already part of at least a couple of combos in Aminatou builds, this could be really strong in a mill deck here.
Memory Erosion and Sphinx's Tutelage variants - For obvious reasons.
Laboratory Maniac - This would be your back up win condition.
Necromancer's Covenant - A bit janky, but it'd do some work maybe.
Mass reanimation - You'd probably want these variants as auxillary weaponry.

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Strategy

In playtesting, the deck sort of has a momentum to it. So long as you have your colours and some juice in your hand you're ok, and you can make sure you keep the momentum going. It's fairly rare there's not a good time to swing with something, and it's easy enough to keep advantage heading your way. Every swing gives us the opportunity to draw into some level of advantage and puts us a little further away from defeat. And that's sort of how we play - we survive and keep fighting until the pieces come together. Often I take a lot of heat in early stages, so keeping a hand with early drops is advisable, but once I've got some momentum going it's hard to keep me down.

All this being said, it's important to choose your spells carefully. We're running a fairly lean engine and won't generally have a huge surplus of spare mana unless things go exceptionally well. It can happen, but it's rare enough to not plan around. So with this in mind, we're more or less never going to look at playing our hand out and entering topdeck mode. We're looking at making optimal plays, maximising our advantage as cheaply as we can and incrementally advancing our game. This also gives us valuable options for Varina's trigger. It's important to note that while she does draw you cards, she makes you discard as many, so keeping cards in hand is important. It's part of why she's worked so well with a midrange strategy - we play optimally, swing to sculpt our hand, and set ourselves up with options. If we vomit our hand on to the board, we're really just filling our yard sub-optimally and keeping nothing back for answers.

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Reactive vs Proactive Play

I wanted to talk about this a little purely because it pertains to the way this deck plays in general. There's specific things we need to play around with the deck; Varina's ability needs us to attack, and sculpts our hand and graveyard accordingly. So, ideally, we want to be hitting some low cost zombies early as well as some colour fixing (either in lands or rocks) and aiming to cast Varina early, so that we can pick up some momentum and make an impact on the board and aim to win.

That being said, there's a vast canvas beyond the specific aim of 'get Varina on board and swing with cheap zombies'. A lot of it is going to depend on what you have in hand, how optimally you can achieve that primary goal, and what specific win conditions you're aiming for, if any. A lot of my success with this particular list comes from assessment of the board, my game state, and resolving some queries:

How close am I to a win? What do I need to get there?
What poses a threat to me? Right now and into the long term?
How bold can I be without becoming a target?
How will the characters at the table with me impact plays?

Going over all of the above could take pages and pages, which I won't do, but it is worth addressing briefly. I've found these to be valuable questions in general, but specifically with this deck; in at least the early stages of the game the deck can be a little fragile, so if things don't go to plan for whatever reason it can be a real bummer to dig in and get back up the ladder. So I've made a habit of making sure I'm not digging out of a hole. And that's where reactive plays and proactive plays come in.

Essentially, this is the difference between committing to the board/going for gold/putting it all on black/putting all of your eggs in one basket, and being cautious and planning around some disruption. There's a valid reason to consider this with Varina too; in a vacuum, if you play your hand out to the battlefield with nothing held back, you're operating at a disadvantage. This is because every time you attack, you're seeing X cards (great!) and you're discarding all of said cards (not so great). So, given that playing Varina optimally requires us to hold some cards back from the field, it stands to reason we make sure that our hand has answers, haymakers, contingency plans and such.

There's no hard and fast rule to this, which is why you could spend pages writing about it. Suffice to say, this discussion does apply to this build, and it's worth considering in terms of the way you play. Granted, with more of a focus on things like stax or combo you need to less, if those aren't your jam you need to be looking into this as an area to work on. All of this aside, there's benefits to being able to switch between being reactive and proactive too; it means that you'll almost certainly have mana untapped for answers when you need them, it means that you will look less of a threat (while almost certainly being more of one), it means you're able to answer threats easily, and it means that when you have everything you need to win, it's more likely to stick.

The other way in which this benefits us is that our zombies are versatile and can easily play well into a conservative approach. They're not much on their own, in all fairness, but they are more than the sum of their parts once combined. Say we're stocking our graveyard for mass reanimation, and someone targets us with Bojuka Bog. If we've gone all in on this, we're stuck rebuilding from square one. If we've held something back, we might well have in multiples to put zombies on the board in response by exiling cards for ourselves, or mana to trigger either or both Relentless Dead's abilities. Or, we might have lords or beaters in hand to play out and go for a more straightforward plan swinging into combat - we might even have something like Graf Harvest, Lord of the Accursed, Eldrazi Monument or Zombie Master/Urborg to make combat favourable. And if we do, we can restock our hand with optimal cards with Varina. The beauty is that this same scenario works perfectly well in reverse, too - say we're swinging for a standard win with combat damage and Varina advantage. Someone wipes the board with say Toxic Deluge. We've now got even more options than we started with - we can mass reanimate, get some aristocrat triggers and ETB triggers. Or if we're lucky we can play Tombstone Stairwell and swing regardless, or combine it with an aristocrat, or combat modifier.

The upshot is it's worth taking into account being versatile in terms of the way you play. Going all in on any strategy inevitably comes with a certain degree of risk, and to be fair, so does not going far enough in your strategies. Essentially, the deck is capable of changing strategy, and it's worth bearing this in mind and rolling with it as needed.

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Starting Hands

With our sweet new deck list functionality here (thanks Feyd) this is something you can toy around with for yourself, of course, but it's good to get an idea of what you should keep and what you shouldn't, and what's in between.

Sample Hand 1

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Turn one Sol Ring? Sign me up. This hand gets your commander in play turn 3 most likely. It also gives you mass reanimation for late game and some draw rattlesnake with Midnight Reaper; either your board expands or your opponents blow it up and you draw tons. Either way you're casting Living Death mid game to a really favourable board from Varina's looting or a wipe. Easy, easy keep.

Sample Hand 2

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This is a testing hand. Part of me wants to keep it, because Mike and Plague Belcher is tough to get past. But there's not enough acceleration to get these both in play quick enough, and not enough to drop Smothering Tithe early either. Really depends how brave you are with your topdeck.

Sample Hand 3

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Another turn one ring. Where are these hands when I actually play? All of that aside, we don't have colours to play our early drop here, so I'd likely mull this. Or, if you do keep it, you play control - you have enough to keep the board quiet until you have resources to make an impact, with Generous Gift and Austere Command, so using them reactively isn't the worst idea.

Sample Hand 4

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You want your land drops, but damn, this one is a bit much. Zombie Master on its own isn't all that exciting, and Zombie Apocalypse isn't really all that exciting until mid to late game, so I'd mull this one confidently.

Sample Hand 5

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This is reasonable to keep. You definitely drop Glacial Fortress turn one as you can't play anything anyway, drop a Swamp turn two into Apprentice Necromancer. Then you drop your Death Baron or Midnight Reaper, cast Varina turn 4 and you've got potentially a nice early reanimate with Apprentice Necromancer and potentially 2 draw triggers from Reaper. It's a nice early boost that could see you in a decent place early.

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Stages of the Game

Early Game

Our optimal scenario is seeing Varina drop early - realistically, this ought to be turn 3 or 4, but it totally can happen turn 2 as well. So we want to see specific things in hand. Our dream hand consists of 2-3 lands, 2 cheap (1 or 2 mana) zombies, a rock, and one or two pieces of disruption. There's a good chance you may not get that, but so long as you're heading towards early board presence bare minimum, with a standard of Varina in play early, you're fine. Don't be afraid to swing if the opportunity arises, but make sure your zombies survive to use with Varina's ability.

Ultimately, my early game is fairly quiet. I'm assessing the board, what tempos and personalities I'm playing against and what pieces might ultimately pose a threat. I'm also swinging with zombies - carefully prior to Varina's entrance, with impunity afterwards. This ought to give us a little momentum to get things rolling, and also give us some options for an avenue to use to win.

Mid Game

This is going to look different every game, as it's really dependent on what Varina draws you into. Essentially this is the point where you decide what your primary path to victory is, based on your existing hand and what you can dig into.

Ideally, because the discard part of her ability is mandatory, my first strategy to aim for is reanimation. With three large spells and several smaller that can achieve this as well as 7-8 bleeder zombies, it's a fair bet that this can get us most of the way there. It's the easiest way to win because we just need to cast our spell and have it resolve. It also takes some set up, so it's a slightly slow strategy, and it can easily telegraph unless you're careful. If for whatever reason this isn't feasible, we have combat, and we have 'the grind'.

Combat should be easy enough. We have plenty of size buffs, a reasonable degree of evasion and protection, and a great suite of board wipes which we can often use to treat our boardstate favourably.

Late Game - 'The Grind'

Ultimately, all things going well, once we've resolved a mass reanimation spell or Tombstone Stairwell with even one bleeder on board, the game is going to end really quickly. This could happen at any time, and it's relatively easy to make it happen in somewhat early turns.

Late game for us is when we've had a decent fight and have had to keep our place in the game against a relative degree of disruption. This is where we play reactively and conservatively, and it's what we save our removal for. It's where we get our value from Zombie Infestation, Varina's second ability, cast triggers from Diregraf Colossus and God-Eternal Oketra, and stay relevant while doing our best to minimise damage to our pieces. At this point in the game, redundancy is our friend. All our relevant strategies to win we have several iterations of - we have plenty of lords, aristocrats and reanimation, and our extra pieces are designed to keep us in the game; Varina can keep drawing us into answers, Mystic Remora keeps our grip full too, Smothering Tithe keeps our colours and mana numbers high, and we have several pieces we can use to eke advantage out of what would otherwise be a losing situation.

At this point if we haven't won as of yet combat is our likely win condition, which is just fine. We have a few ways of making tokens at instant speeds, we have a resilient army, and if our stuff does die in combat we still kill our opponents, just by inches with aristocrats instead of feet with attackers.

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Advanced Strategy/Synergies

It should be no surprise that Varina is in colours that can combo out quite easily. I've chosen not to follow this through, although I am aware that there are synergies that can be abused pretty heavily here, and many that will go infinite. When these come up, I usually ignore them, but there's no reason to follow suit if your stance on combo varies from mine. I'm happy to go over some of the options available in the thread to follow, too (see above for some of the options you have in alternate builds). It just isn't my play style to play competitive combo, but that's entirely a self imposed regulation, and you need not feel bad for leaning into that area, each deck is different and it's your prerogative to build what you enjoy

My strategy is to leverage my most powerful synergies without going fully infinite or comboing. There's plenty here, and dropping the right spell at the right time while building momentum will allow us to do plenty and stay relevant. Usually I try to maintain a fairly low profile early and build some momentum while I dig for my clutch cards. That's part of why I've chosen the cards I've chosen - all of my draw is pretty burst related, so that I can discard for value and reanimation, and dig deep. There are specific cards in the deck that fit well together, so depending what we have in hand, we're digging for reasonably specific things to pair up or work those synergies.

What follows below is a non-exhaustive description of some of the stronger synergies on offer here and how they get us ahead:

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Aristocrats

The Aristocrat Suite

Each of these relatively cheap creatures gives us a way to slowly eke away at life totals. We don't specifically swarm, but there are some really great cards to pair up with these. Tombstone Stairwell is unbearably, incredibly good at this. Every single turn (not just every turn of yours, every turn), you get a zombie with haste for each creature in your yard. Wayward Servant can bleed people out for that, and gain you some life. Then they die at end of turn. Any of the others here can make use of that - specifically, Vengeful Dead will hurt your opponents for every single zombie that dies this way, not just yours. From time to time Living Death, Patriarch's Bidding and Zombie Apocalypse can chime in too.

Reanimation

The Reanimation Suite

These are our big movers. We've got some great spot reanimation in Apprentice Necromancer, The Scarab God and our persistent friends Relentless Dead and Gravecrawler. These can help us maintain some board presence until we can establish dominance. The bigger sorcery spells we have here are often strong, game ending spells, and if timed right they can turn the tide for us or end the game on the spot. They'll get us ETB triggers, such as Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Noxious Ghoul, Wayward Servant, and so forth. Often this will give us a big life boost, and obviously a big board presence. Unfortunately none of these are instantaneous, so we do still need to be able to hammer the advantage home in whatever context suits best.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

So, we all know about Mike and his pals, Trike Tyson and Ballista Flockhart. Trike isn't here, and we're slim on unlimited sacrifice outlets anyway. That's not what we're aiming for. He's here to keep our board presence, mostly. That being said, he is still capable of allowing some really strong interactions:

Recovery from our own board wipes (his ability goes on the stack when he dies regardless)
A rugged bleeder cycle with Wayward Servant and pals
Another one with Plague Belcher and Gravecrawler, for as much b as you have spare

Again, it would be easy enough to make these combo material in a number of ways. That's not what I'm going for, but don't let it stop you - most of these interactions would go infinite with Rooftop Storm or Phyrexian Altar/Ashnod's Altar. He's also going to be an immediate target regardless, so it's really important to make sure you cast him when it's worth casting him. Casting him to an empty board and passing turn is a bad idea and won't get you far at all. He's best cheated into play considering his CMC, but that can telegraph a little. Ideally, however it's managed, we want to drop him into an existing board with some interactive components already in place - Eldrazi Monument, Carrion Feeder, whatever you can find, Mike is the last piece you want to cast before you leverage him for profit.

Predictably, too, Mike is the wellspring of the only infinite combo I'm currently aware of in the list, briefly mentioned above:

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed in play, plus one other zombie, and a free sac outlet (Carrion Feeder). Cast Plague Belcher, choose to put -1/-1 counters on 'the other zombie' and one on Plague Belcher. Sacrifice both, both return, deal 1 damage to each opponent, rinse and repeat. Additionally, you will either get a nominally large Carrion Feeder, but that's neither here nor there, because ultimately the game will end.

I know I've said above that I don't combo - I look the other way for this one purely because with 4 pieces required and plenty of ways to interact with it, it's janky enough to flop, and difficult enough to actually assemble.

Removal

We run an ample suite here, lots of standard wipes. And mostly we're not afraid of them, either. Having an aristocrat on board totally changes how things look post-wipe. We've got bounce in the ubiquitous Cyclonic Rift, wipes that will leave us better off with Citywide Bust and Austere Command, exile effects with Return to Dust, Anguished Unmaking and Utter End. We're also running removal with extra effects to keep our board state up with Living Death (my favourite card ever). However, we also have a couple of other really effective tricks up our sleeve.

Archfiend of Ifnir
He's not a zombie. He is, however, absolutely devastating. Combine him with Varina's attack trigger, Windfall, or any of the other loot effects we have, and we can literally flatten the rest of the board, with permanence. As a plus, he will kill indestructibles, too. He also cycles if needed.

Noxious Ghoul
While not quite as strong due to the impermanent nature of his effect, with Tombstone Stairwell, Diregraf Colossus and God-Eternal Oketra it can wreck a board state too. Devastating coming into play from a Living Death resolution as well.

Spot Removal/Wipes

There's a lot of options in terms of non-permanent spells here. A fairly ample suite, in fact. We have exile, we have non-creature removal, we have board wipes in various shapes and forms.

In terms of how these are used, don't be afraid of your board wipes. We can rebuild well past them - very well in some cases. Spot removal is a little more tricky, as there are only so many pieces and they should be used sparingly. You don't need to remove every piece of tech that gets dropped, just the stuff that heavily impacts us or the stuff that allows someone else to win.

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Credit & Thanks

There's a lot of work that goes into pulling all of this information together, but I've never had a decklist thread that's had the sort of traffic that this one has. It's at the same time humbling and also a really great resource for myself and others. So, this primer is my way of giving back to the readers and contributors of this thread. There are and have been many, both here and on mtgsalvation prior to my departure there.

So, thanks to all of the regular contributors of the thread in both places - TearsofTomorrow, blinx28, supersprite, Hawk, WizardMN, yeti069, seraphym, Kelzam, Outcryqq, Egbert82. Anyone I've missed, thank you nonetheless for your contribution. While I'm happy to have such traffic around one of my threads regardless, it's the discussion between us all that leads to a good understanding of building and piloting a decklist, and it's what makes all of this worthwhile.

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Changelog

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12/11/18

In
Zombie Infestation
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
Unearth
Brainstorm
Forbidden Alchemy
Buried Alive
Coalition Relic
Azorius Signet
Forbid
Rewind

Out
Necromancer's Stockpile
Grotesque Hybrid
Rite of Replication
Treasure Hunt
Equipoise
Door of Destinies
Dimir Signet
Orzhov Signet
Faith's Reward
Fleshbag Marauder

15/11/18
In:
Havengul Lich
Shadows of the Past

Out:
Gempalm Polluter
Loyal Subordinate

4/12/18

In
Chromatic Lantern
Mind's Eye
Mystic Remora
Necromancer's Stockpile
Black Market
Open the Graves
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
Withered Wretch
Citywide Bust
Supreme Verdict
Austere Command

Out
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Azorius Signet
Zombie Infestation
Call to the Grave
Kindred Discovery
Brainstorm
Entreat the Dead
Aminatou's Augury
Unbreathing Horde
Aven Wind Guide
Gisa and Geralf
Josu Vess, Lich Knight

12/12/18
In: Fellwar Stone

Out: Thran Dynamo

19/12/18
In:
Phyrexian Arena
Festering Mummy

Out:
Forbidden Alchemy
Phyrexian Delver

31/12/18
In:
Library of Leng
Relentless Dead
Solemnity

Out:
Thassa, God of the Sea
Fact or Fiction
Shadows of the Past

4/3/19
In
Port Town
Choked Estuary
Liliana, Untouched by Death

Out
Azorius Chancery
Dimir Aqueduct
Buried Alive

15/4/19
In:

Out:
Rewind
Utter End
Orzhov Basilica
Plains

23/4/19
In:
Ghoulcaller Gisa
Plains
Island
Tainted Field

Out:
Endless Ranks of the Dead
Swamp (3)

26/4/19
In:
Exotic Orchard
Arcane Sanctum
Path of Ancestry
Isolated Chapel
Notion Rain
Frantic Search
Utter End
Nim Deathmantle
Smothering Tithe
Kindred Discovery

Out:
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Cabal Coffers
Concealed Courtyard
Reliquary Tower
Silence the Believers
Mind's Eye
Expedition Map
Library of Leng
Unearth

7/5/19
In
Thespian's Stage
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Unclaimed Territory
Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord
Putrid Imp
Zombie Master
God-Eternal Oketra
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Dreadhorde Invasion
Read the Runes
Whispering Madness

Out
Tainted Field
Caves of Koilos
Swamp
Ajani's Welcome
Chromatic Lantern
Festering Mummy
Binding Mummy
Liliana, Heretical Healer
Liliana's Reaver
Frantic Search
Notion Rain

13/5/19
In:
Despark
Soul Diviner
Command the Dreadhorde

Out:
Fellwar Stone
Swiftfoot Boots
Corpse Connoisseur

7/6/19
In
Zombie Infestation
Azorius Signet
Dimir Signet
Orzhov Signet
Windfall
Lazotep Reaver
Graveborn Muse
Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Out
Dreadhorde Invasion
Necromancer's Stockpile
Open the Graves
Black Market
Putrid Imp
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
Skullclamp
Nim Deathmantle

24/6/19
In:
Talisman of Dominance
Generous Gift
Undead Augur

Out:
Azorius Signet
Vindicate
Lazotep Reaver

26/6/19
In:
Zombie Apocalypse
Patriarch's Bidding

Out:
Command the Dreadhorde
Noosegraf Mob

3/7/19
In:
Glacial Fortress
Hall of Heliod's Generosity
Talisman of Hierarchy
Alhammarret's Archive
Infernal Darkness
Beacon of Unrest
Agent of Erebos

Out:
Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord
Aminatou, the Fateshifter
Read the Runes
Forgotten Creation
Ghoulcaller Gisa
Thespian's Stage
Island

9/9/19
In:
Corpse Harvester
Phyrexian Delver

Out:
Havengul Lich
Phyrexian Arena

4/10/19
In:
Foulmire Knight
True Love's Kiss
Mystic Sanctuary

Out:
Phyrexian Delver
Return to Dust
Swamp

4/11/19
In:
Godless Shrine
Hallowed Fountain
Prairie Stream
Bone Miser
Dance of the Manse
Mirrorweave
Reconnaissance

Out:
Port Town
Choked Estuary
Mystic Sanctuary
Corpse Harvester
Foulmire Knight
Ashnod's Altar
Graf Harvest

3/2/2020
In:
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Out:
Volrath's Stronghold

30/4/2020
In:
Winds of Abandon

Out:
Citywide Bust

3/8/20
In:
Liliana's Standard Bearer
Teferi's Ageless Insight
Read the Runes
Peer into the Abyss

Out:
Tolarian Winds
Kindred Dominance
Dance of the Manse
Binding Mummy

7/9/2020
In:
Return to Dust
True Love's Kiss

Out:
Reconnaissance
The Scarab God

25/9/2020
In:
Undead Warchief
Unholy Grotto

Out:
Cemetery Reaper
Geier Reach Sanitarium

17/11/2020
In
God-Eternal Bontu
Phyrexian Tower
High Market
Fetid Heath

Out
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POL33TMAN · Post by **POL33TMAN** » 1 year ago

Thanks for bringing your list over to mtgnexus! I have been following your Varina thread on salvation for some time and have found the discussion valuable to building my own Varina deck!

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

Thanks for following! I've found it a blast to play and brew, so I'm happy to continue the discussion here. I can't say all of the ideas have come from me, but the brainstorming in the thread on salvation was really invaluable to me in managing my list too, so I appreciate the discussion

Noir · Post by **Noir** » 1 year ago

Another fan of yours here! Thanks for bringing this over as I'm slowly building my own as well. Looking forward for more from you in the future

TearsOfTomorrow · Post by **TearsOfTomorrow** » 1 year ago

Glad to see you port this on the new forum! I'm still testing all the stuff we discussed back on Salvation, I'll get back when I got something new to recommend.

Oh actually there is on thing: for a full-on "make an army of zombie tokens" build, do you think Yawgmoth, Thran Physician could be useful?

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I feel like I’m just advocating the conversation, purely because I’m no pro, but that’s still a good thing. Discussion leads to discovery leads to progress, so I’m very happy to see people keen to continue the discussion

[mention]TearsOfTomorrow[/mention] - I think there’s a pretty good chance Yawgmoth could do great things in a dedicated swarm build. With the right setup it’d be like running Yawgmoth’s Bargain and still getting a draw step. In a way I think it would be a shame to not use his third ability overly, but it’s pretty obscure outside of superfriends, so what are you gonna do?

All this being said I definitely won’t be running him myself. Partly because I don’t swarm all that heavily, but also because I couldn’t resist the allure of Phyrexia - I’m building a list with the Lord of the Wastes at the helm presently

TearsOfTomorrow · Post by **TearsOfTomorrow** » 1 year ago

toctheyounger wrote: ↑
1 year ago
I’m building a list with the Lord of the Wastes at the helm presently

When you do that, start a topic about it. I too am dying to explore Yawgmoth's potential in EDH, so I'd be very happy to have about him the same kind of conversation we're having about Varina

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

TearsOfTomorrow wrote: ↑
1 year ago

toctheyounger wrote: ↑
1 year ago
I’m building a list with the Lord of the Wastes at the helm presently
When you do that, start a topic about it. I too am dying to explore Yawgmoth's potential in EDH, so I'd be very happy to have about him the same kind of conversation we're having about Varina

Oh I definitely will. I’ve explored other lists already - namely darrenhabib’s from Salvation. It’s a cool idea, but I’m probably going to go at least a little lighter on walkers. Some of them will be crucial - Liliana, Dreadhorde General and Liliana of the Dark Realms are too good not to include, likewise with her Origins flip walker. Otherwise I’m looking at big mana for explosive x-spell wins as my primary win condition. We’ll see how it plays out.

blinx28 · Post by **blinx28** » 1 year ago

We think Tomebound Lich is a little weak here right? Good body, comes down on curve, and does a small filter, however doesnt synergize well with our other zombies.

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

Tomebound Lich could do ok. I think my major issue with it is that it competes with our tribal lords for a spot, and they're going to be hard to justify cutting. The filtering is ok, and it's kind of a rattlesnake, so it's not an immediate 'nah', but.....the spots are tight, you know?

jcm3 · Post by **jcm3** » 1 year ago

Hey, big fan of the list, it gave me some great ideas, thanks. How do you feel about field of the dead?

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

jcm3 wrote: ↑
1 year ago
Hey, big fan of the list, it gave me some great ideas, thanks. How do you feel about field of the dead?

Thank you very much, I'm glad you're enjoying it. Feel free to feed back what works and doesn't for you, I'm always glad to hear. I haven't managed to squeeze in a game in a little while, so feedback is appreciated.

Field of the Dead. I think it's a double-edged sword to some degree. In itself as a mana producer it's a little disappointing it enters tapped and only produces colorless. The tokens are good value, and I think there's ways you could get decent leverage from them, but I think it would require significant usage of fetch lands, duals, shocks and so forth for it to really earn it's keep. I run enough variation for it trigger here and there, but I don't think it would be a stalwart token engine in my list. That's purely on the basis that, as of my last play, I struggle to hit more than one land per turn, and predominantly my extra mana comes from rocks. On that basis, for the trigger to do any work at all it has to come down post turn 7 (conditional on having at least some of my colour fixers and one each of my basics, bare minimum) and I have to have land drops in hand too. That last point isn't unreasonable, but I think the 7 different land names makes it a bridge too far to see any reasonable work out of it. So, mid game, we might get one or two tokens from it, early game it puts us back a turn on early zombie drops and doesn't colour fix, and late game we probably won't get enough value from it either. I like the idea, but it just seems a bit too niche to want to compromise my colours for.

Wedjat · Post by **Wedjat** » 1 year ago

Hi, new poster and first post also!

I created an account here to specifically tell you... good job! List looks super solid and kind of similar to mine.

Have you thought about including countermagic? I know you had a lengthy conversation on another forum, but didn't have time to scour all 9+ pages yet. I ask this because my list also fiddles with some amount of control, but I feel it might be slow, almost too slow by trying to do too many things at once.

Also, did not spot Anointed Procession in there

. If you hover more over aristocrats, this card is monstruous in the amount of tokens you can spit out,

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

Wedjat wrote: ↑
1 year ago
Hi, new poster and first post also!

I created an account here to specifically tell you... good job! List looks super solid and kind of similar to mine.

Have you thought about including countermagic? I know you had a lengthy conversation on another forum, but didn't have time to scour all 9+ pages yet. I ask this because my list also fiddles with some amount of control, but I feel it might be slow, almost too slow by trying to do too many things at once.

Also, did not spot Anointed Procession in there . If you hover more over aristocrats, this card is monstruous in the amount of tokens you can spit out,

I'm honored to have your first post on my list, thanks a lot! I hope it's informative, but I also want it to be a place we can all discuss different strategies back and forth, because there's definitely no 'solved list' for Varina. She's remarkably versatile and that means there's a myriad of possible inclusions for her lists.

I did at one point have a small counter suite in the list, most notably Forbid was pulling some nice weight. What I found often though was that holding up mana was becoming something I couldn't do - or I'd be doing it to the detriment of my own plays. I've thought about adding some back in, even if it's just Forbid and the OG Counterspell. The issue is that I'm sort of at the point where it's hard to justify cuts. It's a nice place to have the deck, but it makes changes hard. I think there's justification for one or two for resilience though.

Anointed Processionis a solid add in the right list and I won't say I haven't tossed it up, I definitely have. My concern in including it is that I don't run a critical mass of token producers. The most efficient are Tombstone Stairwell, God-Eternal Oketraand Diregraf Colossus, but outside of these there really isn't a ton of swarm to exploit. I'm open for convincing, but my concern is that it's a 4-drop that does nothing in and of itself. By all means though, if you think it'll be a good inclusion feel free to try and sell me on the idea.

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

So had my first playtest in a little while today. Played against Sliver Queen, Aminatou, the Fateshifter and Zacama, Primal Calamity. Clearly the underdog.

Had a fairly slow start in terms of getting bodies in play, but had some draw going with Mystic Remora, and the board got blown up repeatedly over the course of about 5-6 turns mid-game. Sliver got demoralised with this and swept. Eventually I dropped Sidisi, Undead Vizier to pick up Wayward Servant and cast it as well as Tombstone Stairwell. Had about a turn of this in play before it got nuked, then Zacama got cast again with a ton of mana in play. He then basically just took apart my board, with my hand relatively small at that point.

Ultimately a very grindy game, and pretty frustrating - I'm not a huge fan of Zacama, I think it's kinda gross, being absolutely honest, usually all the Zacama player needs to do is resolve the card with enough lands in play to win. However, there's still a couple of points to take from the game.

Soul Diviner is really just a little bit niche to be super valuable. It'll likely be the swap once I pick up a Corpse Knight.
I probably need a slightly higher creature count. There's a few lords left to pick up in Undead Warchief, Lord of the Undead, Risen Executioner and maybe Corpse Harvester, it's probably just a case of picking them up for the right price, as Warchief and Lord are pretty costly due to scarce printing.
There's probably a place here for some counter magic. I found Forbid fairly handy when I ran it, although I can't see any reason not to just run Counterspell either. I don't have the income for anything super expensive, so if I add something it will be the pretty standard counters.

Post by **WizardMN** » 1 year ago

I agree with Soul Diviner and I think Corpse Knight is a much better card. I am looking at cutting Soul Diviner as well and the Knight seems like a good swap. I might try that as well.

Of the 3 lords you mentioned, I really just didn't like Risen Executioner since it doesn't really do anything "special". as it is almost never worth it to actually cast from the grave. The other 2 are pretty good overall.

Corpse Harvester is good. I wouldn't say the deck absolutely needs it but it can do some good work with getting the right Zombie when you need it *and* getting a land.

My first tribal deck I built (Vampires) was Blue but I refused to play Counter Magic in it as I wanted to leave it as a blue deck that did't run counters. Since then, I think it is a mistake not to have something. I run Counterspell and Mana Drain in my Varina deck so I definitely didn't go overboard. Obviously the latter has some issues with budget, so I would think Forbid and Counterspell should definitely make the list. I might actually think about Forbid for my list as well. It is a bit tougher since you generally want to cast your stuff and keep up the pressure so I don't know that I would often have extra cards in hand (with Alhammarret's Archive on the board anyway) but even if you can't buy it back, it is still a somewhat cheap counterspell.

Arcane Denial is one I often like in 3 color decks like this (especially one that is not super heavy on blue) so that could be an option.

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

WizardMN wrote: ↑
1 year ago
I agree with Soul Diviner and I think Corpse Knight is a much better card. I am looking at cutting Soul Diviner as well and the Knight seems like a good swap. I might try that as well.

Of the 3 lords you mentioned, I really just didn't like Risen Executioner since it doesn't really do anything "special". as it is almost never worth it to actually cast from the grave. The other 2 are pretty good overall.

Corpse Harvester is good. I wouldn't say the deck absolutely needs it but it can do some good work with getting the right Zombie when you need it *and* getting a land.

My first tribal deck I built (Vampires) was Blue but I refused to play Counter Magic in it as I wanted to leave it as a blue deck that did't run counters. Since then, I think it is a mistake not to have something. I run Counterspell and Mana Drain in my Varina deck so I definitely didn't go overboard. Obviously the latter has some issues with budget, so I would think Forbid and Counterspell should definitely make the list. I might actually think about Forbid for my list as well. It is a bit tougher since you generally want to cast your stuff and keep up the pressure so I don't know that I would often have extra cards in hand (with Alhammarret's Archive on the board anyway) but even if you can't buy it back, it is still a somewhat cheap counterspell.

Arcane Denial is one I often like in 3 color decks like this (especially one that is not super heavy on blue) so that could be an option.

Blue vampires??? Must have been Garza Zol, Plague Queen.

Yeah, Knight for Diviner is a very easy swap. Diviner is kinda cool, but it's just become very corner case. I agree regarding Risen Executioner. Costing more to play from the yard is a losing curve, so it was only ever a very distant consideration. Warchief and Lord are decent but pricey, so I'll work on it long term I think.

Corpse Harvester I've wanted for a little while now. It's surprisingly hard to find a copy of - I think it's purely because it's in that weird space of being old and uncommon, and having only had the one reprint for a non-standard limited run set. It seems decent value though, so I'm quite keen to grab a copy if or when I can.

My only concern with Forbid is the buyback cost being pretty savage. The discard isn't the worst thing in the world, but it's not likely to be something you really abuse. Counterspell and Arcane Denial are solid, I like both, so they might be the way to go. The draw of including Forbid is being more likely to have an answer at any given point, but it's a definite case of diminishing returns.

Post by **WizardMN** » 1 year ago

It was indeed Garza

After thinking on it a bit more, I might put Arcane Denial a little higher than Forbid. The ability to more consistently cast it, only needing 2 mana vs 3 mana, and having it replace itself (though, they get 2 cards, but whatever) means it might be a bit better. My thought with Forbid is that it shouldn't be too hard to have 2 extra cards in hand. And, even paying the Buyback cost once is pretty good. But, I actually don't know that either of us has the necessary card draw *and* the desire to "hold back" to have two cards to want to discard.

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

WizardMN wrote: ↑
1 year ago
It was indeed Garza

After thinking on it a bit more, I might put Arcane Denial a little higher than Forbid. The ability to more consistently cast it, only needing 2 mana vs 3 mana, and having it replace itself (though, they get 2 cards, but whatever) means it might be a bit better. My thought with Forbid is that it shouldn't be too hard to have 2 extra cards in hand. And, even paying the Buyback cost once is pretty good. But, I actually don't know that either of us has the necessary card draw *and* the desire to "hold back" to have two cards to want to discard.

This is my issue with the card. It's reusable and that's cool, but it's going to eat into your advantage really quick. By comparison Denial almost immediately replaces itself, and is cheaper by CMC and colour density. Which is probably the more important thing to consider, really - I'm not sure about your build but mine is tight for mana turn to turn, so having the luxury of maybe not having to choose between holding back for permission and being able to advance my board state makes Denial more desirable to me.

POL33TMAN · Post by **POL33TMAN** » 1 year ago

I use Muddle the Mixture as one of my counter spell effects in my Varina deck. It is limited to countering only instants and sorceries however it doubles as a tutor for Cyclonic Rift.

Render Silent and Counterspell are my 2 other counter spell cards in the deck.

Let me know what you think?

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

I think the original is hard to go past as a catch all. It's an easy include. Render and muddle seem a little more meta-dependent. Like if you have spell slinger or storm decks in your meta Render is an easy add, likewise with Muddle too, probably. For myself I think the draw for me is something that's cheap, easy and efficient. Render could do cool things but I feel like the smart player would hold back once it's resolved and just play their stuff the next turn, thus rendering it's additional functionality a bit of a moot point.

POL33TMAN · Post by **POL33TMAN** » 1 year ago

Yeh the main reason for Render is because we have a Narset deck in our meta so it does well against the infinite turns etc.

toctheyounger · Post by **toctheyounger** » 1 year ago

POL33TMAN wrote: ↑
1 year ago
Yeh the main reason for Render is because we have a Narset deck in our meta so it does well against the infinite turns etc.

Damn, that's a tough meta. I back my decks but Narset isn't easy to go up against. I fully support any tricks you have to keep Narset down, especially if it's extra turns.dec. That deck is pretty obnoxious.

POL33TMAN · Post by **POL33TMAN** » 1 year ago

toctheyounger wrote: ↑
1 year ago
Damn, that's a tough meta. I back my decks but Narset isn't easy to go up against. I fully support any tricks you have to keep Narset down, especially if it's extra turns.dec. That deck is pretty obnoxious.

Sure is tough. We actually have a few issues in our playgroup at the moment with 'arms race' and this individual plays decks with infinite's (the rest of us don't or at least try not to).

POL33TMAN · Post by **POL33TMAN** » 1 year ago

[mention]toctheyounger[/mention] I wanted to ask if you have any issues with graveyard hate in the games that you have had so far? We have a bit of graveyard hate in out meta so it might have triggered me to add some protection into my deck against this.

I added Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to discard using Zombie Infestation in response to any graveyard hate (along with a second card of course), however I've only played 4 games with the deck thus far so haven't had the chance to use either cards of yet.

Primers	Non-Primers	Malazan Decks of the Fallen
W Bruna	UB Dralnu	UB High House Shadow
G Nissa	GB Glissa	rugb Raest
WUB Varina	B Yawgmoth	WUBRG T'iam
_	R Bronze Purphoros	_
_	UBR Vial/Kraum	_

Primers	Non-Primers	Malazan Decks of the Fallen
W Bruna	UB Dralnu	UB High House Shadow
G Nissa	GB Glissa	rugb Raest
WUB Varina	B Yawgmoth	WUBRG T'iam
_	R Bronze Purphoros	_
_	UBR Vial/Kraum	_

Primers	Non-Primers	Malazan Decks of the Fallen
W Bruna	UB Dralnu	UB High House Shadow
G Nissa	GB Glissa	rugb Raest
WUB Varina	B Yawgmoth	WUBRG T'iam
_	R Bronze Purphoros	_
_	UBR Vial/Kraum	_

Primers	Non-Primers	Malazan Decks of the Fallen
W Bruna	UB Dralnu	UB High House Shadow
G Nissa	GB Glissa	rugb Raest
WUB Varina	B Yawgmoth	WUBRG T'iam
_	R Bronze Purphoros	_
_	UBR Vial/Kraum	_

Primers	Non-Primers	Malazan Decks of the Fallen
W Bruna	UB Dralnu	UB High House Shadow
G Nissa	GB Glissa	rugb Raest
WUB Varina	B Yawgmoth	WUBRG T'iam
_	R Bronze Purphoros	_
_	UBR Vial/Kraum	_

Colors	Genera;	Colors	General
WBG	Karador, Ghost Chieftain primer	UW	Ephara, God of the Polis primer
BRG	Lord Windgrace	UB	Sygg, River Cutthroat
WR	Gisela, Blade of Goldnight	WUB	Varina, Lich Queen
WUR	Kykar, Wind's Fury

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