Varina, Lich Queen

[WizardMN]

Yeah, I agree with that. We can usually either race or reset so it isn't as big a deal. Titania certainly got a lot more use out of it than Jhoira but even then I had answers for their army. It was also interesting that their zombies ended up killing their own creatures thanks to Noxious Ghoul. Certainly a small price to pay but still interesting.

And the fact that our mana base doesn't support a colorless land very well is part of the reason I don't run Field in this deck.

Also, as an addendum to the game above: I had split off my deck Online so I could keep track of some of the more recent changes in case I wanted to revert them (mainly the Insight addition) and the game I played was accidentally played with the "old" version of the deck. It is why Counterspell was still there which also meant I didn't have Insight or the 1 mana draw spells. Not really a major difference but I didn't like the inconsistency of "I cut Counterspell" followed up by "and I saw Counterspell" so I wanted to comment on it.

[WizardMN]

Here are my thoughts on the cards from Modern Horizons 2:

Black Cards

Discerning Taste - There are a couple good things about this card. It lets us see 4 cards to dig for an answer, it fills the yard with creatures (hopefully) which then sets up some future recursion, and it gains us life (again, hopefully). I don't think this is an auto-include by any means but I think there are some lines this enables that other cards don't. 3 mana is a lot for what basically amounts to a cantrip even if it does let us select our card out of 4. I will probably still try it somewhere to see what it can offer.

Feast of Sanity - This could be a reasonable card to get some more mileage out of the discards from Varina. And if it cost less, I might even be more open to giving it a shot. But 4 mana is a tough spot in this deck and the effect probably isn't quite worth it. I think I will pass on it here.

Nested Shambler - This is a 1 drop Zombie that replaces itself which isn't the worst thing. It doesn't have a ton of utility beyond that though and the tokens don't really play well with the rest of the deck. It does offer some blockers but I am not sure how much they would matter. My guess is that on average we could expect 2-3 tokens from this and I don't think that is quite worth it.

Vile Entomber - I can see the appeal of a card like this, and I might slot it in to try it out, but I don't think it is quite good enough. 4 mana, as mentioned above, is already a tough spot for this deck and I am not sure that it is really needed anyway. It does help set up recursion later which is good so I am willing to try it out just to see how good it ends up being.

Multicolor Cards

Dihada's Ploy - I am not really sure this deck wants this but it seems like it would work well with Varina's trigger while also allowing us to fill the yard a little and filter our hand. I might give it a try to see what happens but I don't really expect it to do a lot even if we can gain a fair amount of life off of it.

Lazotep Chancellor - I think if this gave us Zombie tokens for each trigger it might be worth adding it in for some additional bodies on the field. But creating one token and then just buffing that token isn't quite as enticing. I think this is an easy pass for this deck.

Master of Death - At its worst, this basically a Phyrexian Arena (when coupled with Varina's trigger) and I don't think that would be enough to warrant its inclusion. But I do think its ETB trigger to Surveil can be useful to fill the yard or set up future draws. It isn't perfect by any means but there are some uses to the card where I think it can be good to have. I am willing to try it out anyway to see what it can do.

[Falkenbach]

Have you considered adding Damn ? Its a boardwipe and if only one creature is bothersome, it is target removal. (Only downside is the two white pips)

[WizardMN]

I should have mentioned it in my summary above but: no, I don't think I am going to add it. I think it is a better Damnation but I am not running Damnation in the deck. Toxic Deluge is still better, Winds of Abandon and Cyclonic Rift are one-sided, and Living Death can act as a wrath when needed. I think if I was running Damnation or Wrath of God then it would easily slot in for one of those but I haven't felt the need for increasing my Wrath count. Since I don't feel I need the additional wrath, and the target creature "mode" is middling (thanks to being a Sorcery) it is not a card I want to add.

Any deck where I am/was running Damnation I am switching over to Damn though. It is just that this deck isn't one of them.

[yeti1069]

How has Akroma's Will performed for you?

[WizardMN]

I have used it once (maybe twice) and it was good. I am not entirely sure if it was needed but it can be an excellent way to end the game or even just stay in the game (thanks to Lifelink). It is one of those cards that isn't needed often but is rarely a dead card and when it is needed, is really needed. I haven't been sad to have added it but I also haven't gotten to use it a lot either. If I get on a kick of playing more again (likely once MH2 prices come down for Magic Online) I will play some more and try to offer a better review.

[WizardMN]

Now that the holiday is over and the sets have been fully spoiled, here are my thoughts on the Adventures of the Forgetten Realms, and associated Commander, cards that are being released.

Black Cards

Acererak the Archlich - This seems like it could be good, but that is a lot of mana to complete the necessary dungeon to be able to get to the trigger. There are some combo potentials with Rooftop Storm (or anything with infinite mana) and either of the other two dungeons since the combo would rely on just completing those two dungeons over and over again. But this list doesn't run Storm and this card seems very poor outside of combo.

The Book of Vile Darkness - There isn't a consistent way to lose life on our own turn and the acivated ability is pretty much worthless since I don't want to include those cards so this is an easy pass.

Ebondeath, Dracolich - This ends up just being a big beater which isn't enough for the deck.

Shambling Ghast - This is an interesting option, though one I think isn't quite there. It does offer a form of ramp when dying, or removal for smaller creatures, and it is a 1 mana zombie which this deck doesn't have much of. I do think it would be too hard to really make use out of the card multiple times but I do like the design.

Wight - This really ends up not being that great. Entering tapped is a big enough deal in general though it could be worked around. But its ability to replace itself (since it is almost certainly going to die if it does actually get to kill something) just isn't likely to be useful. Either it gets blocked by something bigger and just dies or it dies and we get a Zombie out of it and neither are great option. The grave hate part isn't really relevant either.

EDIT (added based on comment below): Wand of Orcus - Equipment remain in a tricky spot for this deck. I have gone through a few equipment, like Umezawa's Jitte and Sword of the Animist, where the sequencing can sometimes be troublesome. And for those the mana investment is relatively acceptable. However, 6 mana, over the course of 2 turns, is a lot for a deck like this. My guess is that most of the time the sequencing ends up with zombie on turn 2, this on turn 3, Varina on turn 4, and equip on turn 5 (maybe with another 1 or 2 drop zombie). This means that Varina's trigger only sees 2 zombies attacking. But, this also means that if Varina is the one that hits, we get 4 more zombies which seems very much worth the wait. Later in the game it can help push through a couple more points of damage (maybe) but is more likely to be blocked as the game goes on. This is my main concern: it seems great early on but once the game has continued on for a while, I don't think it will connect quite as often which means the main benefit is granting deathtouch. And I am not sure if it is worth it just for that. I suppose, at worst, it could be seen as a Lure or Provoke type effect when it basically needs to be blocked which means the opponent's creature is going to die.

To be fair, that evaluation is somewhat reductive in nature and I do believe it is worth at least trying out somewhere in the deck. The ceiling isn't super high (most of our stuff is quite small) and our attackers are more likely to die than not meaning we don't get the trigger, but for the times we can connect it really helps swarm the board. I am pretty sure at least one (if not all) of my recent additions will become busts so I will probably slot this in for one of those at that time.

[WizardMN]

Since I am a couple sets behind, I figured I could finally update my list. These changes are *all* very speculative since there have been no real outstanding cards released recently so I thought I could use this opportunity to try a couple different things.

7/15/2021

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

CUTS

1 Binding Mummy

1 Zombie Infestation

1 Mana Crypt

1 Sol Ring

ADDS

1 Vile Entomber

1 Dihada's Ploy

1 Master of Death

1 Silversmote Ghoul

Approximate Total Cost:

I know I mentioned how little I was impressed with Binding Mummy so I thought I would cut it here to temporarily make room. Infestation is the same. Mana Crypt and Sol Ring are a bit more experimental and came about from comments in @toctheyounger's thread as well as some thoughts I have been having lately on these cards in particular. They don't really do a lot for Varina since she only has one generic mana requirement (for the first cast anyway) and not many cards need more than 2 generic mana as it is. Importantly, this affects the "ramp" package by, effectively, removing it. I still have Sevinne's Reclamation but that is pretty much it. If nothing else, this might help prove the need for ramp in this deck as I have been thinking that ramp isn't as important as ensuring land drops for this deck as the latter with wraths is often enough to keep up.

For the adds, I am not exactly enamored with any of them. I mentioned the first 3 above where they have uses but they are, at best, on the line. Master of Death, for example, really probably isn't that great but I wanted to give it a fair shake.

The one really worth talking about is Silversmote Ghoul. As I stated in toc's thread, I don't think this card is nearly enough to be here but it isn't hard to test things so I might as well give this a go and see what it does. I am still convinced it will be terrible but this offers a bit more evidence (more anecdotal but something) to show one way or the other what it can actually do in the deck.

[pokken]

I think sol ring/crypt become much worse without signets so I can definitely see this. Your deck has a TON of pips.

I'd definitely stick to playing Expedition Map though, Nykthos is great in this deck.

[WizardMN]

That was my thought too. Map is slowly growing on me as Nykthos has resulted in quite a few blowouts so having that additional method of getting to it is nice.

[Nimbaway]

I noticed that you didn't include two cards released in the commander sets Death Tyrant and Wand of Orcus, and was curious to your opinion on them. Personally I am likely to give the Wand a test, mostly because it can force some action in board stalls and am curious to see how willing people are to allow us to have zombie tokens. Generally we are attacking anyways so to me worth a shot. Tyrant I'm just less sure on, when reading it the ability could do fun stuff but I feel it's mostly thinking in magical chrismasland. Like it's going to do far less than we want, I could be wrong on that, but the high mana cost and it not being a zombie has me hesitant.

[WizardMN]

I have stopped talking about cards that I feel are clearly outside the realm of being included which is why those two were not talked about. Sometimes though, that desire to limit the cards I discuss is an overstep and I miss some cards. Death Tyrant was ignored because it is not a Zombie and my deck doesn't include anything that isn't a zombie. If Death Tyrant was a zombie, the mana cost certainly would give me pause, but there would be a legitimate consideration to including it. Sure, 5 mana is a lot but being able to replace every zombie that dies with another zombie is powerful. Especially, and importantly, because it works with tokens so it continues to work with the Zombies it creates which is somewhat rare (most effects like this seem to not want to let the card work with the tokens it creates). Working on the opponent's blockers that die is just icing on the cake.

Wand of Orcus however is one I should have talked about and I will probably add this evaluation to my post above (more for my sake than anything else). Equipment remain in a tricky spot for this deck. I have gone through a few equipment, like Umezawa's Jitte and Sword of the Animist, where the sequencing can sometimes be troublesome. And for those the mana investment is relatively acceptable. However, 6 mana, over the course of 2 turns, is a lot for a deck like this. My guess is that most of the time the sequencing ends up with zombie on turn 2, this on turn 3, Varina on turn 4, and equip on turn 5 (maybe with another 1 or 2 drop zombie). This means that Varina's trigger only sees 2 zombies attacking. But, this also means that if Varina is the one that hits, we get 4 more zombies which seems very much worth the wait. Later in the game it can help push through a couple more points of damage (maybe) but is more likely to be blocked as the game goes on. This is my main concern: it seems great early on but once the game has continued on for a while, I don't think it will connect quite as often which means the main benefit is granting deathtouch. And I am not sure if it is worth it just for that. I suppose, at worst, it could be seen as a Lure or Provoke type effect when it basically needs to be blocked which means the opponent's creature is going to die.

To be fair, that evaluation is somewhat reductive in nature and I do believe it is worth at least trying out somewhere in the deck. The ceiling isn't super high (most of our stuff is quite small) and our attackers are more likely to die than not meaning we don't get the trigger, but for the times we can connect it really helps swarm the board. I am pretty sure at least one (if not all) of my recent additions will become busts so I will probably slot this in for one of those at that time.

[Nimbaway]

It's understandable that choices have to be made on which cards to talk about, since there are just certain cards that simply aren't going to make the cut either way. Tyrant's ability itself looks great, since it triggers on all attacks where opponents choose to block. However, I feel that might also put a higher target on the Tyrant and recasting it for that cmc might end up being a waste in a deck that is already mana hungry.

For the wand, I feel the making a zombie part is just a situational upside and not one the card should be judged for. Deathtouch on the other hand can be useful, as it forces opponents to trade or take damage. While to me the optimal choice would be to trade, because you will do it eventually anyways, each time an opponent lets one of our zombies through it means we get to use it again for Varina triggers the next turn. Right now people will block our vanilla 2/2 zombie tokens without too much thought, giving them deathtouch makes blocking them seem less profitable. Though I do understand the worry about it being an equipment, even more so with the fact that the amount of artifacts in Varina has been growing lower and lower with moving away from mana rocks, so more removal left to deal with pieces like this. Death Baron obviously does more as a Lord and a zombie, but one interesting aspect of the wand is that it's an till end of turn effect so where removing the Baron during combat causes all the deathtouch to disappear, here removing the Wand in response won't stop you from swinging in with deathtouch.

In the end I think this is a card that could sit in people's flex slots, depending on their preferences.

[WizardMN]

The fact that it is until end of turn is actually a good point to make. If an opponent wants to remove the Wand, they can do so before attackers are declared but then we know our stuff won't have Deathtouch so we won't get blown out like we could with Death Baron. Same with the creature it is equipped to. And, of course, removing the creature it is equipped to gets rid of Deathtouch for the turn (if they do it before we attack or block), but we can always just equip it again so they lose removal and we lose a zombie and we likely come out ahead anyway. I think the potential of the card is reasonably high though I agree it is more of a flex slot type of card rather than an auto-include.

[LEH]

The upcoming Champion of the Perished seems great. Always good to have an additional 1 drop Zombie - especially one that has the potential to grow to be a real threat.

[WizardMN]

Finally got a game in online in quite a long time. I played against Nethroi, Apex of Death and Volo, Guide to Monsters. The fourth person dropped right away.

I started off with 5 lands in hand, an Undead Augur, and something else. I dropped the Augur turn 2 and Varina turn 4. Polukranos and Volo both spent the early game ramping. I just swung into Polukranos twice, though the second time was a misclick and I meant to attack Volo.

I was able to filter my lands away reasonably well and used Varina to get a zombie early on. At one point I had 4 zombies and a Bird token from Volo's Swan Song when they countered my Winds of Abandon that I got off Fact or Fiction. I knew they had 1 mana up and fully expected a counter but I wanted to try to force it through and I knew that I wouldn't actually be too hurt from them attacking me back.

With that board, I swung into Volo and cast Akroma's Will. I didn't actually do the math but I figured it would be close. I gained 25 life and they lost 25 life. But they were at 27 leaving them at 2. They then cast End-Raze Forerunners which Volo doubled so they were attacking me for 70 or so (if I counted right). I just cast Teferi's Protection and hoped they didn't have a free counterspell in hand since they only had 1 mana open. They didn't so I survived.

Nethroi had a Heroes' Bane which was now a 128/128 or something. They swung into Volo since I was still under the effect of Protection and gained a bunch of life. Next turn I swung at Volo again while they were at 7 and because I just wanted my stuff to die and I wanted to loot with Varina. I ended up getting Wayward Servant and Zombie Apocalypse as the most important cards. I discarded Servant and cast Apocalypse to kill Volo.

Next turn Nethroi attacked me with Heroes' Bane so I Pathed it. I did do it a little late as I wasn't thinking about The Ozolith they had on board so I ended up letting them get more counters than they should have. I wasn't too concerned as I had binned a Noxious Ghoul earlier on with Vile Entomber and of course when I went to reanimate everything again with Patriarch's Bidding, I realized right before I cast it that both of their creatures were zombies so my Ghoul wasn't going to do anything. So, I just sacrificed my board to see what I could draw off Augur and eventually got to a Nykthos Paragon and a Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Nykthos gave me enough mana to cast Epiphany at the Drownyard for 9 or 10 (I wanted to leave mana open for casting Bidding still) and just choked on splitting the piles. I put all my zombies in one pile and Twilight's Call in the other. That wasn't so bad. What was bad was putting other cards with Call. Call was clearly the most important card and they were smart not to give it to me. So I should have kept the Hour of Revelation with the zombies so I could just wrath with it and still get things back. And then I didn't have to worry about Ozolith.

But, Gray Merchant came along shortly after this mistake and I just cast it and sacrificed it and was able to get them down pretty low as well. They couldn't give their creature trample so I blocked and sacrificed the blocking creature so they gained no life off the Nethroi mutation that had all the counters. They scooped it up.

This game went almost exactly how I wanted it to go. Two mass reanimations and a few potshots early on for damage. Volo did get out of control and a wrath that resolved would have been nice but Varina kept my life high enough where I was able to work around it reasonably well anyway. And Teferi's Protection came in pretty clutch at the end. Though, assuming my math was correct, my Path in hand could have saved me too but might have allowed Nethroi to really pull further ahead as I wouldn't have been able to get rid of the Bane in that case.

Vile Entomber was decent but it is hard to sequence right. And 4 mana meant I couldn't use my Sevinne's Reclamation to really do some shenanigans with it. Master of Death made an appearance at the end and wasn't helpful. Silversmote Ghoul also did but I only had 20 cards left in my library and all my good zombies were already out so it didn't matter.

I had Phyrexian Delver come back twice and not return anything. Worse than that though is that is messes with stacking triggers online since I am forced to stack it last due to there not being a target for it. So, I have a stack of 10 triggers from something else that is all the same that would normally auto stack, but they won't since the Delver trigger is waiting. This, on its own, wouldn't lead me to cutting the card but it is an annoyance and I have already talked about cutting the card before since it doesn't do a lot. And we can see here that it truly didn't do a lot.

Nykthos was stellar and was the main reason I won when I did since it netted me 12 mana. I had Expedition Map early on but had to discard it to save other important cards. Otherwise, I probably could have done a lot more a lot earlier.

So, with Innistrad showing a couple decent zombies (nothing absolutely bonkers yet though) I will start looking into cuts to make. Silversmote Ghoul, Phyrexian Delver, Teferi's Ageless Insight, Search for Azcanta, Master of Death, and Heliod's Intervention are currently top of the list for potential cuts (not necessarily in that order). We will see how many cuts I actually need when the new set is fully spoiled but this should give me room for new toys to play with.

[toctheyounger]

Good to see you back in the mix, Wizard. Sounds like some great play from you here.

I generally agree with a lot of the cuts you've suggested here, I've had mixed experiences with Entomber and Master of Death has been fine but nothing stellar. I'm pleased to get some feedback about Azcanta too. It seemed like it'd be a perfect fit.

[WizardMN]

I do like Azcanta but it really just seems to end up being "at the beginning of your upkeep, Surveil" and "sometimes ramp by a land". I basically never activate the land side. Granted, even a slow ramp like this can be good but the impact of the card seems to end up being pretty low. I do like when I get it out early but too late and now even the ramp isn't even that exciting.

[toctheyounger]

I do like Azcanta but it really just seems to end up being "at the beginning of your upkeep, Surveil" and "sometimes ramp by a land". I basically never activate the land side. Granted, even a slow ramp like this can be good but the impact of the card seems to end up being pretty low. I do like when I get it out early but too late and now even the ramp isn't even that exciting.

Makes sense. If it isn't enough it isn't enough. I tend to think most of the filtering we need in this sort of deck is spell based with big swathes of cards. The smaller, more incremental effects just don't tend to add up quickly enough.

[WizardMN]

I got another game in. This time against Brago, King Eternal, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, and Garth One-Eye.

I start off with 3 lands: Vault of the Archangel and Urborg being two of them. Without Urborg, I would have had to throw this hand away. I didn't have much going on though but I did have Death Baron and Graveborn Muse which I figured I could use to get some more action.

I dropped Varina on turn 4 and then just swung a couple times with her and some of the zombies she created. I really leaned heavily on her this game as I pretty much only had Death Baron as my other non-token Zombie for quite a while.

Rashmi and Garth worked to keep Brago in check and Brago worked to keep Rashmi in check. At one point, I had 2 counterspells in hand and just let everything resolve as Rashmi and Brago were really going at it.

Rashmi pulled away in the middle of the game thanks to Wilderness Reclamation and Garth....well Garth's plays were kind of weird. They would activate him once (always casting Terror) and then clone him. I thought it was odd that they didn't at least activate the same Garth twice especially since Disenchant would have gone a long way to getting rid of Reclamation much sooner.

Eventually they timed out and/or disconnected though so we ended up with just 3 for the remainder of the game.

Rashmi ended up being the bigger threat so we tried to shut them down and I ended up killing them with Gray Merchant of Asphodel right after they had bounced everything. And from there I had a pretty good line to blow away the board with Hour of Revelation and then reanimate with Living Death. However, MODO bugged out when I killed Rashmi as their Zendikar Resurgent that Brago stole was left behind. This changed up the rest of the game considerably as they had double the mana compared to what they should have had. It is possible they still could have won but I was forced to change the way I wanted to sequence things since they were able to just flood the board with threats and Mana Drain and Teferi's Protection saved them. On that turn, they had enough mana anyway, but they wouldn't have had the board they had without Resurgent so I could have waited or done a few things differently.

In any case, the deck worked out pretty well. This game was a lot more on the side of staying inconspicuous so as not to draw attention to myself. I basically just let the other 3 players fight it out with taking my own shots as needed. Vault of the Archangel started the game in my opening hand and was never activated for anything other than mana. Master of Death showed up right at the end to let me Surveil but it really wasn't relevant. Vile Entomber ended up getting me Gravecrawler. I was going to get Gray Merchant but I ended up drawing it shortly after I got Entomber so it didn't matter. Which ended up being a good thing since I never got a mass reanimation off which would have left it stuck in the yard. Or, perhaps, that would have been better as Rashmi could have helped take out Brago. Who knows.

Phyrexian Delver ended up reanimating a couple creatures thanks to Lord of the Undead getting it back. But with Entomber and Lord I couldn't help but wonder if Balthor the Defiled would have been preferable there. I mentioned in Toc's thread that it being telegraphed is a problem but being able to sneak it out through counterspells and then activate it when I needed to has a certain appeal as well. It is much tougher to stop an activated ability after all. I might just straight swap that for Delver.

Otherwise, I didn't really see anything that ended up being a problem or less effective than I wanted. I am not totally sure I could have won if Brago didn't have Resurgent but I made a good effort either way.

[WizardMN]

Oh, and another note of something I thought of: I don't run Arcane Denial in this deck for some reason and I probably should. And I am starting to think that Mana Drain is the wrong call based almost entirely on the {UU} requirement. I had a situation in the game above where I didn't have the right mana to be able to cast Mana Drain and something else that was blue because I didn't have the right colors. I might add Arcane Denial as a replacement for Mana Drain and then potentially toss in Swan Song as well so I can better handle situations where I only have 1 mana open. It isn't the greatest but if I add it in as another option rather than including it as part of my main counter suite, it is justifiable. That is, if I don't have Swan Song in the slot it would be in, I wouldn't have a counter spell at all so it isn't like it would be taking up a slot that another counter would occupy.

[toctheyounger]

Swan Song has been pretty good for me. Theres definitely situations it doesn't cover and that can be frustrating but it doesn't get any cheaper. At least not without paying lots of IRL money. Even then I don't know that any of the forces or pacts are a lock in the deck anyway. Fierce Guardianship is different in that it literally would cost nothing most of the time, so thats probably the peak of whats available for Varina at present.

How has Delay worked out? I'm quite keen to add a couple more options in counters, I'm tossing up this and Memory Lapse.

[WizardMN]

Delay has been really good. I had it in the last game which countered a Plasm Capture so that was nice. It did sort of make things tough with Wilderness Reclamation as that was something I really wanted gone so a tempo play with it wasn't going to be enough. But overall I have been pleased with it. I definitely prefer it over Memory Lapse. Yeah, it ruins their next draw but they still get that spell back next turn which isn't enough when you really need something gone.

[WizardMN]

Here is my review/evaluation of cards from Midnight Hunt:

White Cards

Fateful Absence - I like more ways to get rid of Planeswalkers but I think since this deck is more about the "swarm" mentality (more or less) I can use that to get rid of Walkers and because I also expect to Wrath somewhat often, I don't think going up on spot removal is needed. At best, I could try to figure out if this is better or worse than Path to Exile.

Vanquish the Horde - This is likely one of the best Wrath of God variants printed in a long time. It is going to be rare when this isn't cost for {WW} or even {1WW}. I think this goes in nearly every one of my white decks.

Blue Cards

Falcon Abomination - Getting 2 bodies is reasonable and having 1 Fly is good too since we don't really do much with fliers. But at 3 mana it is tough to slot in since the token doesn't stick around very long. This ends up being a pass.

Flip the Switch - Not bad but still higher on the curve than we want our counterspells.

Larder Zombie - I think without Defender this ends up being playable. The ability isn't all that good but a 1 drop Zombie that does "something" is hard to come by. Without being able to attack though means it is unplayable for us.

Memory Deluge - This is interesting. "Look at 4, take 2" or "Look at 7, Take 2" can be pretty helpful when trying to find the right card for the current situation. Even without Flashback, it is pretty close to a Fact or Fiction where we get to make our own equal piles. I think I like this better than Dihada's Ploy as 1 mana more means I look at 2 more cards and I get to keep both. 4 mana is high but might be reasonable for the effect.

Organ Hoarder - So close....If this was 3 mana I think I would play it. It draws a card and fills the yard which are both good but 4 mana is just a little too much I think for this deck.

Black Cards

Champion of the Perished - This deck really wants one drop zombies, as mentioned above, but also wants something relevant for the ability. We don't really care about making our zombies bigger except through lords so having this ability is nice, but just doesn't quite cut it.

Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia - If this was a Zombie I think I would be all over it. It generates one zombie per turn (potentially) and is only 2 mana. Since it is not a zombie though, it doesn't make the cut.

The Meathook Massacre - This is decent but I don't think it is good enough. Fairly often, we are likely going to want X to be at least 3 if we are using it as a wrath. And I don't use Aristocrat type cards in this build so I don't even like it for those effects either. While it likely fits other builds, I don't think it is right for mine.

Rotten Reunion - Grave Hate and token producer all in one. Decayed is really a detriment but I suppose this card wouldn't be as cheap if the tokens stuck around. I like the card as, effectively, it is a 1 drop zombie that also sometimes exiles a card

Siege Zombie - A 2-drop is nice and it is not a bad ability by any means. I don't think it is great either of course, but it is something. It can certainly work to get in some last minute life loss if needed. But since we want to be attacking fairly often, we shouldn't have that many untapped zombies. Maybe with Tombstone Stairwell and Zombie Infestation (of course, I don't run the latter) it could be decent enough but still seems middling.

Tainted Adversary - A 2/3 for 2 isn't bad at all. And being an ETB trigger is also pretty nice. Having to pay at least 3 for that trigger is less nice. 5 mana to get 7 power is a better rate than Grave Titan except the tokens won't stick around too long. I don't think there is a wrong answer on this one but it is a sort of "army in a can" that can be pretty helpful in the later game and even works well off reanimation. But I think I am going to pass on this for now with the possibility of revisiting it later.

Multicolor Cards

Bladestitched Skab - We just don't need more Lords. As it is, I have thought about cutting Lord of the Accursed as more cards come out so having one that is worse than most other lords means it isn't good enough.

[WizardMN]

I played a game against Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Tymna the Weaver and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces partners. The fourth player conceded very early on.

I started off with a few lands and Tithe which ensured I made my land drops early on. I got Lord of the Accursed and Gray Merchant of Asphodel down on turns 4 and 5. Varina came down on turn 6 to help me loot.

Both opponents had grave hate which hurt. It didn't severly hamper me but it made things a little tougher. Though, I never really got much to do anyway. I didn't have many Zombies I would have binned and I had Patriarch's Bidding since the beginning of the game but never had a good time to cast it.

I was just digging to deal with Avacyn as Tymna was getting stuck on lands. Avacyn was ramping pretty well with Keeper of the Accord to keep up with me plus they had some good mana rocks going on. Tymna got rid of Avacyn at one point but they got her back and then cast a Wrath so they were left with a board and we were not.

Tymna ended up scooping a couple turns later and I used Dihada's Ploy, Plumb the Forbidden and Varina to continue digging but I never got to Cyclonic Rift, Winds of Abandon, Toxic Deluge, or Living Death which all would have save me. Even Path or Swords would have saved me since I had an Hour of Revelation in hand but Avacyn was shutting that off.

I did see Living Death off Epiphany at the Drownyard but they rightly gave me the other pile. I tried to dig more with Painful Truths but that didn't get me anything (I would have needed to hit to a land and Deluge at that point). I conceded after since they had the win on board.

Basically, I got 0 removal this game which really showed how much we can be reliant on it. And the removal I did get didn't work through indestructible. I wouldn't even say this was a bad matchup or anything; I just drew the wrong half of my deck as I had quite a few outs. I had been hoping for Living Death earlier as well since that could have gotten me around Tymna's Grafdigger's Cage (though I still would have had to contend with Avacyn's Soul-Guide Lantern).

Dihada's Ploy being the new Memory Deluge might have helped as I could have cast it for both "modes" in the same turn. Granted, I would have been tapped out but seeing 11 cards to find some sort of answer would have been nice. I don't know. Dihada's Ploy did let me see 4 cards total at the expense of discarding 3 cards. Since I was looking for a specific card, discarding wasn't too relevant and may have been beneficial in any other case but it wasn't ideal here.

Master of Death made an appearance and was useless. Vile Entomber also showed up and did nothing. I think if I want Vile Entomber to work I need to go deeper into single target reanimation such as Animate Dead, Necromancy, or Dread Return. Reanimate might also make sense but the first two work with Sevinne's Reclamation better and the latter can be cast for "free" as needed. I don't know that I want to go that route just yet though. Maybe I should swap Vault of the Archangel for Volrath's Stronghold at least?

I wasn't too impressed with Dihada's Ploy nor did Ponder do much for me. Preordain and Brainstorm might be in the same boat though Brainstorm at least lets me keep all 3 cards if I want since I can put something else back on top that I don't need. I am starting to get down on Land Tax again as well since it just hasn't been doing much for me. I find that if I don't have it in my opening hand, I tend to discard it.

As has been discussed, Lord of the Accursed continues to be the worst lord in the deck. I got it down as my first creature and never wanted to activate it since I wanted to attack with it. Perhaps later game it makes sense, but the activated ability continues to go unused.

Teferi's Protection was useful as it allowed me to survive another turn to try to dig further. It didn't matter in the end but I still like having the silver bullet to keep me going for another turn at least.

Akroma's Will made a showing and actually could have killed one of the players if Avacyn hadn't wrathed the turn before I was going to use it. So, I am still liking the card and I ended up casting it just to get triggers from Varina without worrying about my board. Which still wasn't the worst use of it.

Overall, I was stil satisfied with the way the deck played. Sometimes we get beaten by our own draws and this I think was one of those times. I believe I have a lot of potential cuts in the deck with very few additions from Midnight Hunt but that just gives me a little more room to play around with different options here and there. Perhaps I might try some single target reanimation and see how that goes.