Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

[xStrafeWraithx]

Hey all! So first off I'd like to say I'm really enjoying the lower CMC of the deck, and with that in mind I know it isn't a zombie but would dark confidant have a place on the list potentially? And to a greater extent, for the more combo oriented list would Ad Naus lines as well? My goal's always been to make the deck as powerful as possible but still retain its "zombieness" quality and not just become esper good stuff lol.

[toctheyounger]

Hey all! So first off I'd like to say I'm really enjoying the lower CMC of the deck, and with that in mind I know it isn't a zombie but would dark confidant have a place on the list potentially? And to a greater extent, for the more combo oriented list would Ad Naus lines as well? My goal's always been to make the deck as powerful as possible but still retain its "zombieness" quality and not just become esper good stuff lol.

I think of the two Ad Nauseam probably fits better. It's a very strong draw engine that would probably put in a ton of work here. Plus, Varina gaining us some life back gives us a really good insurance package for it. I could see that being a decent add for sure, and with drawing us over hand limit it gives us a good way to naturally fill our yard and stop at our mass reanimate for a solid swing. I'd be on board to try it out, honestly.

Dark Confidant I think I compare to Phyrexian Arena. It's cheap, efficient draw but it's very slow in a deck that can often just do better. On a personal note I don't like the price either, but that's neither here nor there, I don't think it does enough here.

[xStrafeWraithx]

Not sure what happened to the other reply, but it definitely had some good points! But yeah, I'm not looking to it into a CEDH deck just a "high power" tribal deck. Otherwise I'd just run tynma and something else. But yeah Ad Naus could lead to some explosive plays, I'll try it out, hell I mean we could even run teferi's protection/angels grace if you wanted to.

And regarding Dark confidant that makes perfect sense, being a modern staple will do that, and it probably isn't worth the cost for the deck lol but as always thanks for your input guys!

[toctheyounger]

Not sure what happened to the other reply, but it definitely had some good points! But yeah, I'm not looking to it into a CEDH deck just a "high power" tribal deck. Otherwise I'd just run tynma and something else. But yeah Ad Naus could lead to some explosive plays, I'll try it out, hell I mean we could even run teferi's protection/angels grace if you wanted to.

And regarding Dark confidant that makes perfect sense, being a modern staple will do that, and it probably isn't worth the cost for the deck lol but as always thanks for your input guys!

Yeah I don't think Varina is anything more than fringe playable for cedh anyway. I know Raffine, Scheming Seer is in there now with Razakats lines, but I think this shell would probably struggle. There's probably some more efficient lines you could go with that would make it work, but being on tribal means splitting hairs and that possibly gets into territory where you're spreading your build in too many directions.

At any rate, yeah, I like the idea of Ad Nauseam here, it seems a good inclusion for a low CMC list. I'd say Protection and Grace are probably meta-dependent, though I like Grace more, purely because it can be used with a bit more flexibility to hose someone else's win as well as maximise your own play.

[pzbw7z]

The things that make Ad Nauseam work well in Prosper are the presence of rituals and cheap win-cons. This is pretty much the same story for Bolas's Citadel and Peer into the Abyss.

CEDH Esper decks seem to rely on Doomsday piles with Thassa's Oracle or Laboratory Maniac. I'm not sure we could call a deck a Zombie deck if the primary win-con weren't Zombie based.

If one wanted to play a fringe-cEDH Zombie, deck, one would likely need the fast mana, rituals and the enablers I've mentioned. Zombie win-cons could be assembled by massive self-mill (Morality Shift ??? ) with mass reanimation including Gray Merchant of Asphodel or one of the classic Zombie sac strategies in addition to the turbo Ad Naus, Citadel or PitA lines.

Intuition could be an important piece as it can produce a win-con - or at least most of one - ASAP.

I'm not aware of a Treasure strategy that would work for Zombies, so rituals and fast mana are probably required. Rain of Filth could be a thing.

Esper allows things like Silence and similar effects which are awesome for Doomsday decks. I haven't taken the time to work out a pile that would win, but Varina's looting ability can crack the pile. Bolas's Citadel can always churn through the pile as well.

Yawgmoth's Will might do the business with enough self-mill. I'm not aware of an Esper strategy that mills like some of the Underworld Breach lines I've seen, so it would have to be mid-range or something crazy like Morality Shift. Winning through Yawg Win or Sevinne's Reclamation after Morality Shift would make for a story for the ages, I must say!

I personally don't have the bandwidth to work out a near-cEDH list for Varina and I'm not sure I'm even sad about that. Casual, mid-range Varina is a hoot and suitable for most of the play I participate in. When it isn't, I've got Prosper for those occasions.

[toctheyounger]

The things that make Ad Nauseam work well in Prosper are the presence of rituals and cheap win-cons. This is pretty much the same story for Bolas's Citadel and Peer into the Abyss.

CEDH Esper decks seem to rely on Doomsday piles with Thassa's Oracle or Laboratory Maniac. I'm not sure we could call a deck a Zombie deck if the primary win-con weren't Zombie based.

If one wanted to play a fringe-cEDH Zombie, deck, one would likely need the fast mana, rituals and the enablers I've mentioned. Zombie win-cons could be assembled by massive self-mill (Morality Shift ??? ) with mass reanimation including Gray Merchant of Asphodel or one of the classic Zombie sac strategies in addition to the turbo Ad Naus, Citadel or PitA lines.

Intuition could be an important piece as it can produce a win-con - or at least most of one - ASAP.

I'm not aware of a Treasure strategy that would work for Zombies, so rituals and fast mana are probably required. Rain of Filth could be a thing.

Esper allows things like Silence and similar effects which are awesome for Doomsday decks. I haven't taken the time to work out a pile that would win, but Varina's looting ability can crack the pile. Bolas's Citadel can always churn through the pile as well.

Yawgmoth's Will might do the business with enough self-mill. I'm not aware of an Esper strategy that mills like some of the Underworld Breach lines I've seen, so it would have to be mid-range or something crazy like Morality Shift. Winning through Yawg Win or Sevinne's Reclamation after Morality Shift would make for a story for the ages, I must say!

I personally don't have the bandwidth to work out a near-cEDH list for Varina and I'm not sure I'm even sad about that. Casual, mid-range Varina is a hoot and suitable for most of the play I participate in. When it isn't, I've got Prosper for those occasions.

Totally get it, and I feel much the same. I think Varina is close to cedh viable, but maybe not quite there. I think the tribal bent spreads things just a touch too far to really make it work, and I'm not mad at that at all. Bringing the build into cedh would entail a huge overhaul of the removal, control, land base and...well, basically the bones of the deck I'd say. You'd want Boseiju, Who Shelters All to cover your mass reanimation and Silence effects for the same, and we'd probably be looking at a dedicated wincon with something like Oracle or similar to get us there. Maybe a Razaketh line could get you there, but either way it seems like a lot of work and it seems convoluted, where this build is simple, intuitive and effective for the power level it can cover. I like midrange with depth of synergy, and that's a great deal of why I like this deck. It takes some skill to pilot but its strong and resilient and fun in it's current state. Why fix what works?

All that said, with a lower curve I think Ad Nauseam could be justified in its own right anyway. There are now very few cards hitting above 4-5 in my build, so I think it'd be safe enough, and it would probably slot in quite intuitively. We've got altars and burst mana lands to fuel the cost, we don't need hand size modifiers because our graveyard is our hand, and the absolute floor for a bad Ad Naus pile is maybe fixing our lands or drawing into something like Kindred Discovery. Even on a medium pile we get critters to reanimate that might not win the game but set us up really well for dominant plays, and we can definitely cover the life loss to a pretty good degree.

I think I might do some goldfishing on it and see how it works out. It'd be easy enough to directly swap necroduality for it and just see what sort of piles I end up with in hand and what it costs me.

[xStrafeWraithx]

Definitely appreciating the feedback/ideas here. Yeah like I said I'm not looking for a full optimized esper cEDH build, basically I just want to take Varina and the zombie tribal aspect of it and go as far with that strategy as possible. Definitely have no problems with people preferring a more casual build it is tribal after all, but I feel like there's definitely potential in making powerful builds with this. As for fixing mana, I know they're on the pricey side but Ive been looking at city of brass, mana confluence, tarnished citadel, and Cephalid coliseum which I feel could come in handy with its ability and threshold isn't a problem in the deck and a few other pain lands to sort of capitalize further on the life gain aspect of our commander. Maybe ancient tomb too? But I really want to wait until that's inevitably reprinted and colorless mana in general in this deck kinda worries me slightly. But yeah, I'm definitely going to be looking after some of what was suggested and see what works. Also as a side note anyone else slightly disappointed we didn't get any new zombies in CL2?

[toctheyounger]

As for fixing mana, I know they're on the pricey side but Ive been looking at city of brass, mana confluence, tarnished citadel, and Cephalid coliseum which I feel could come in handy with its ability and threshold isn't a problem in the deck and a few other pain lands to sort of capitalize further on the life gain aspect of our commander. Maybe ancient tomb too? But I really want to wait until that's inevitably reprinted and colorless mana in general in this deck kinda worries me slightly. But yeah, I'm definitely going to be looking after some of what was suggested and see what works. Also as a side note anyone else slightly disappointed we didn't get any new zombies in CL2?

You don't really need to worry too much about colorless mana here, in my experience. Most of the creature spells we're looking to play are low curve enough that it's a single pip, or two, and something like Ancient Tomb is actually probably a bit detrimental in that instance. I definitely think you could spring for battle lands (Morphic Pool et al), pain lands Caves of Koilos et al, and things like Brass, Confluence and Reflecting seem like a reasonable leap to make if you have them. At that point you've got a pretty great land base for Field of the Dead and there's probably no huge reason not to run it. Other than that I don't know that there's a ton you want for big mana.....Lake of the Dead maybe? It's RL, so it isn't super cheap, but it's no cradle either, so it might be a consideration for some folk. It's definitely out of my price range at the minute, so it's a no from me, dawg, but it might be worth it for some. The land sac probably isn't anything too worrisome as it's not a must and a lot of folk are on Crucible anyway, but I've also found with a proactive boardstate, swinging every turn I've usually got excess lands to drop anyway.

I don't think there's any way we're going to rival the wheel spinning 'go off out of nowhere' type value of Prosper, but honestly not many decks can. Him being a treasure generator in the command zone is pretty monstrous. But I also don't think we need to be, I think we're fine as a midrange deck with value wins and incidental combos baked in. To do other than that seems a bit of a departure, and I'm of the opinion there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

Also, yes, very disappointed in Baldur's Gate, not just for this deck but for most of mine. It was clearly a draft-oriented set, and as such the power level generally isn't stellar, to the point I don't really think there's much to go over for this deck. There are some great cards in there, Archivist of Oghma being the pick of the bunch for me, but nothing that really seems like a lock here. In a monetary sense it's quite relieving to be honest.

[pzbw7z]

I remember playing Lake of the Dead and Necropotence in type two back in the day. Good times!

[toctheyounger]

I always wanted a Lake of the Dead, and Necropotence, the Ice Age version, is nostalgically one of my favorite card arts. I'll probably never own a Lake, but a fella can dream.

[xStrafeWraithx]

Yeah, I'm prioritizing the mana base, will be picking up the Morphic pool cycle, they're way too good! And you definitely have a point with field of the dead and lake, plus they're both great on theme lol. my question is do both have a place in the deck? I'm just wondering if there's a ratio of swamps to run in order to justify the inclusion of both of them. I suppose shocks and other lands work with lake too in pinch?
And man I wish necropotence wasn't such a nonbo with Varina's ability because I'd love to run it. I don't have high expectations with us being able to beat out something like prosper in value his mana making ability is simply too good, we're definitely strongest with using the draw/discard mechanic as our engine to cycle through our deck searching for our combos/value. So I completely agree with your take. Speaking of combos I really wish rooftop storm/ Acerek were more viable because I would love for that to be a Win con, but rooftop just seems to expensive even with fast man, idk.

But yeah, Baldur's Gate has disappointed me, there's a few gems and some interesting mechanics but nothing I can use in any of my current decks. I guess I can just recognize the fact this set isn't for me, but that's unfortunate since it's a CL set and this is the only format I'm really invested in atm.

[pokken]

Lake is a hard no. Field is probably worse than grotto in an optimized mana base that really only has room for one colorless land. I could see playing field if you are on crucible but otherwise no.

[pokken]

Oof new haunted one background is hard to pass up. Massive anthem and undying for the team. The templating is even nice where you can't be denied it once they let you turn sideways.

[pzbw7z]

Speaking of combos I really wish rooftop storm/ Acerek were more viable because I would love for that to be a Win con, but rooftop just seems to expensive even with fast man, idk.

The trouble with Rooftop Storm is it's difficult to recover from the graveyard. Expensive creatures are no big deal, one simply pitches them until it's time to reanimate them. Unless, of course, one is playing Ad Nauseam or Bolas's Citadel. There are bad cards that can retrieve enchantments to hand and there's Hall of Heliod's Generosity plus some cheap artifacts that can put a card back into the library. Ill-Gotten Gains could work but it requires something like Silence or something like Soul-Guide Lantern to make it safe to play.

Personally, I still play Rooftop with no means of retrieval just because it's stupid powerful and SO much fun!

A little fast mana or a few rituals and a handful of tutors could make your combo work pretty easily, but one still needs to protect the combo somehow.

[toctheyounger]

Oof new haunted one background is hard to pass up. Massive anthem and undying for the team. The templating is even nice where you can't be denied it once they let you turn sideways.

It does seem pretty good. Having to attack with Varina to get the combat boost is a bit of a bummer, but it's fine, I think you're there for undying first and foremost.

That said, how valuable is undying to us really? We don't need it. It goes off with Putrid Goblin and doubles down on our mass reanimate, which isn't nothing, I don't know that it's a stone cold lock for the deck though. I guess bare minimum it gives us a bit more certainty around combat which is cool. You could even tank your attacks to get Varina triggers as you need and trigger undying to have blockers for the crackback.

Seems cool and could be worth it, I'm just coming off the back of having dropped Mike and most of my lords which make up most of what this card is anyway so I'm a little hesitant to boomerang back into either of those strategies right away.

edit: for what its worth I also agree about Lake. It's a hard card to play around and we don't have the redundancy in land recursion for it, nor a deep enough lean into black to justify it. I think it's probably one of the few burst mana lands we miss in the list short of, say, Serra's Sanctum but neither fit well and I think we're well served with what we have in Coffers, Crypt and Nykthos, there's no real need to go for more.

[pokken]

Getting a free attack at +2 with the entire team, then getting to reuse etbsfor everything that dies and a permanent anthem for them when they come back seems like a lot of text to me. You should basically always be able to swing out and set up a lot of double kill scenarios where you sac your entire undying board post combat and kill the table (eg gary or corpse knight type stuff).

It feels potentially really good. And you can set up two turn kills with a mass reanimation as well (swing out sac everything undying sac everything then mass reanimate and do it again next turn).

Gotta think on if I have slots for an enabler like that myself but I like it a lot more than something like rooftop or necrodiality or even rhystic study.

[toctheyounger]

Getting a free attack at +2 with the entire team, then getting to reuse etbsfor everything that dies and a permanent anthem for them when they come back seems like a lot of text to me. You should basically always be able to swing out and set up a lot of double kill scenarios where you sac your entire undying board post combat and kill the table (eg gary or corpse knight type stuff).

It feels potentially really good. And you can set up two turn kills with a mass reanimation as well (swing out sac everything undying sac everything then mass reanimate and do it again next turn).

Gotta think on if I have slots for an enabler like that myself but I like it a lot more than something like rooftop or necrodiality or even rhystic study.

Oh for sure. Don't get me wrong, I like the card. I don't like that it's that tied to our commander but I definitely still think it's worth a trial. Being half the price of Mike is strong, and while it's not quite Shared Animosity it's comparable in terms of forcing difficult combat decisions, which is really nice. I think it'd make a good swap for Necroduality in my list.

That said, I'm still in the space of not knowing where to make cuts otherwise. I've got LGS stuff to pick up with at least 2 fetches, Liliana, Untouched by Death and Stitcher's Supplier, as well as possibly Haakon, Stromgald Scourge which is sitting in the folder as a maybe.

[pzbw7z]

Once in a while, Varina reminds me why I love her! There was one such occasion tonight.

One turn before certain annihilation by a flying, indestructible, pumped Sliver horde with deathtouch and a few other abilities, one of my opponents cast Mana Short targeting me! He said he did it to provoke me into killing him; I told him I was going to kill him anyway but whatever. It did make me feel a little salty but it wouldn't really have affected the Slivers since they made mana and didn't really need to cast spells anyway.

So I'm setting there with a respectable six zombies, Phyrexian Altar and a bunch of tapped lands. I swing the six zombies to loot six cards and hit - wait for it! - Living Death! One of the cards I discarded from this pile was Vengeful Dead. I sac'ed all of the zombies in play - which included Wayward Servant and Gray Merchant of Asphodel - to pay for Living Death and to fuel it as well.

Eleven zombies came back making ten Wayward triggers and a solid twelve devotion for Gary. The attack had killed one player, Gary ended the Sliver guy, and some Vengeful triggers closed out the final opponent.

Nobody will be surprised to learn that Phyrexian Altar or Living Death are good, but it was still an epic sequence for the zombies.

[toctheyounger]

Thats a really nice little sequence there. You've gotta respect that the Varina shell is pretty well tuned these days, all it takes is hitting the right pieces and you're away.

I've got some upgrades to get in shortly before I get any play in myself, but very much looking forward to doing some fine tuning.

[pzbw7z]

In another game last night, I got to use Buried Alive for the first time. Since I already had Wayward Servant in play, I opted for Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, Foulmire Knight // Profane Insight and Liliana's Standard Bearer; normally I'd go for Corpse Knight instead of the latter.

Several thoughts come to mind from this experience: firstly, Intuition would be SO much better as @toctheyounger has rightly said. Maybe both is the right answer.

Another thought is that Sidisi, Undead Vizier would be an awesome choice for the third spot if I had more reanimation. Reanimate would be the ticket here; it would be well worth the life to be able to windmill slam Phyrexian Altar with Haakan and Foulmire in the house.

And lastly, even though I didn't find the Altar in time this game, it was still fun to get Haakan and two of his buddies into play so quickly!

[toctheyounger]

In another game last night, I got to use Buried Alive for the first time. Since I already had Wayward Servant in play, I opted for Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, Foulmire Knight // Profane Insight and Liliana's Standard Bearer; normally I'd go for Corpse Knight instead of the latter.

Several thoughts come to mind from this experience: firstly, Intuition would be SO much better as @toctheyounger has rightly said. Maybe both is the right answer.

Another thought is that Sidisi, Undead Vizier would be an awesome choice for the third spot if I had more reanimation. Reanimate would be the ticket here; it would be well worth the life to be able to windmill slam Phyrexian Altar with Haakan and Foulmire in the house.

And lastly, even though I didn't find the Altar in time this game, it was still fun to get Haakan and two of his buddies into play so quickly!

#unbangiftsungiven

I'm adding Liliana, Untouched by Death shortly, and I've been mulling over lines it gives me. The graveyard ability basically makes any one drop a limited Gravecrawler with burst mana or an infinite with Phyrexian Altar. I think it'll do pretty well. Shambling Ghast in particular will just go off with it and a sac outlet which is really nice.

I think I prefer it over Haakon for versatility, but if it plays out well, and it should, I'll probably think about finding room for Haakon too.

[pzbw7z]

Liliana, Untouched by Death is so much fun with Rooftop Storm, it shouldn't be forgotten. Any sac outlet and an aristocrat and it's game over.

I'm not sure I'd play either without the other, but there are other lines with Lily and some other uses for Rooftop, just nothing quite so spectacular as what they can do together.

[pzbw7z]

It's been discussed before, the topic of getting the higher-MV Enchantments back, and while it may not be worthwhile, this seems worth mentioning: Argivian Find. Notably, it works on Artifacts too.

[pokken]

Haakon giving you the intuition buried alive line of corpse knight, haakon and automaton with either altar is really gross

I played 3 varina games at commandfest. Won one out of three with an intuition haakon combo with ashnods altar in hand. The interesting thing is I had to win through rhystic studying my opponent into an answer. So I used the universal solvent corpse knight win and was able to pay rhystic study tax

The other two games were very close. One I slowplayed a sure combo on turn 4 because we had a guest who was whiny and two I died one turn before comboing with fg backup.

Deck is really solid. Always does stuff.

[Jwelou]

Hey guys, long time lurker of this thread. I've been playing Varina for a few years now, and this thread has been quite helpful in fine-tuning my deck. Just recently, I stumbled upon the 'group slug' discard/windfall strategy, and this is the direction I'd like to continue to take it. This deck is tuned for more competitive playgroups FYI:

https://scryfall.com/@Jwelou/decks/d43d ... l&with=usd

I used to play a lot more zombie cards (basically a pure tribal deck), but since she makes her own zombie tokens, I'm finding you only need a few zombies in the early game to get her engine online. So I cut some of the fluff to add in a bunch of fatties and more single-target reanimation. (I know some of you guys consider this a flavor-fail; please forgive me!)

The strategy is simple: play small zombies early game in anticipation of a turn 3 or 4 Varina, while attacking my opponents' hand sizes and discarding my fatties. (Creatures like Rotting Rats, Miasmic Mummy and Sibsig Icebreakers are brilliant because they contribute to all three strategies at once!) Then, once everyone is in topdeck mode, I can pull ahead slowly with my draw effects and swarm the board with Varina's token production ability.

I'm also playing the Narset/Notion Thief combo with Windfall effects, ripped from red wheel decks. There's also synergy there with Anvil of Bogardan.

Any thoughts? Any other cards I may have missed that contribute to the strategy? (Besides Chains of Mephistopheles; that one's still a bit above my budget. lol)