Varina, Esper Zombie

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pzbw7z
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Post by pzbw7z » 2 years ago

The list (previous post) is needing an upgrade; the following are wanted: The question is; "What to cut?"

Tainted Field and Tainted Isle seem the best cuts - or the worst lands. It's not often I don't have a swamp handy, but it can happen.

Reflecting Pool honestly doesn't seem that necessary here since I have only two WW needs and no UU needs.

Swamp #2 seems the likeliest fourth cut, but that would leave only six basics. Is that enough to warrant using Land Tax?

Hallowed Fountain may be the next most logical cut, but it's pretty good and I don't want to reduce the fetchable Plains count.

Bojuka Bog is perhaps the worst land, but its ability can save and has saved the bacon so I am not going to cut it. :P

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ChocoDude
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Post by ChocoDude » 2 years ago

How about Sunken Hollow as cut option, since you only have 7 basic lands. It's not super likely that you'll have two on the board to bring it in untapped. Of course, having only 7 basics limits how much you can benefit from Land Tax. But, even if you ONLY drew 4-5 basics from Land Tax (because you played/fetched a few already) it's still worth the one white pip mana cost.

I get that Sunken Hollow is fetchable too, so there's that to consider.

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Post by pzbw7z » 2 years ago

ChocoDude wrote:
2 years ago
How about Sunken Hollow as cut option, since you only have 7 basic lands. It's not super likely that you'll have two on the board to bring it in untapped. Of course, having only 7 basics limits how much you can benefit from Land Tax. But, even if you ONLY drew 4-5 basics from Land Tax (because you played/fetched a few already) it's still worth the one white pip mana cost.

I get that Sunken Hollow is fetchable too, so there's that to consider.
Fetchability (is that a word?) is the main thing. With so many fetches, getting two basics into play isn't terribly difficult and one can sometimes tolerate a tap land. The Pathways are pretty good, but they might also be worth considering.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I am 100% on cut bojuka bog and tainted lands.

The more fetches you get the more basics you can run too so look to cut pathways and junk like that for a basic here or there too :)

I've got 10 basics and mana almost always works out, even without a full fetch suite (missing a scalding tarn I think)

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Post by pzbw7z » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
I am 100% on cut bojuka bog and tainted lands.

The more fetches you get the more basics you can run too so look to cut pathways and junk like that for a basic here or there too :)

I've got 10 basics and mana almost always works out, even without a full fetch suite (missing a scalding tarn I think)
Bojuka Bog is in for it's ability, and since it's uncounterable, it's about as good as it gets for that ability. I won't play permanent grave hate, but I want at least one one-shot affect of this type.

I think I agree with everything else. I'm still not sure I need Reflecting Pool and I'm not hot on Fabled Passage either, but I haven't really had any problems with the former and I don't recall the latter failing to provide an untapped land.

So maybe it's just the Tainted lands and the Pathways for now. Perhaps also Reflecting Pool and/or Fabled Passage for one or more Swamps (Snow Covered or not).

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Bojuka Bog enters the battlefield tapped and only makes one color of mana. just suck up losing to a graveyard sometimes, it almost surely costs you more games than it wins :)

Reflecting Pool is another easy cut, very risky.

I like Fabled Passage a lot with crucible, not so much without.

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Post by pzbw7z » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
I like Fabled Passage a lot with crucible, not so much without.
That makes good sense, especially with Field of the Dead.

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Post by Feyd_Ruin » 2 years ago

pzbw7z wrote:
2 years ago
The first page won't display anymore. . . go figure.
Fixed. Apologies.
(If anyone ever has this issue, please @ me.)
To the beaten, the broken, or the damned; the lost, and the wayward: wherever I may be, you will have a home.

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Post by pzbw7z » 2 years ago

Feyd_Ruin wrote:
2 years ago
pzbw7z wrote:
2 years ago
The first page won't display anymore. . . go figure.
Fixed. Apologies.
(If anyone ever has this issue, please @ me.)
Thanks. I had tried, unsuccessfully, to find a way to report it.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

The more I play, the more I think Land Tax and especially Tithe should be replace with card draw spells.

Am I wrong?

Along the same lines, I think some of my mana rocks could be replaced by card draw as well. Sol Ring and Arcane Signet are not going anywhere, but the Talismans seem expendable.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Tithe and land tax are card draw spells :) just insanely efficient ones.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago



Some polish for the mana base, some card draw and a combo enabler. Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and his Zombie Knight friends are jazzed about being buried alive!

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

So, Haakon, Stromgald Scourge isn't a secret Commander here - whatever that means, exactly - but he does enable some weird things. Nameless Inversion was a thing in Constructed decks when Modern was young - Darth Knights were never a big thing, but people at least talked about it :), but Crib Swap almost seems worth a try.

Am I crazy?

Consider that Haakon will be a frequent target of Buried Alive, so that slightly increases the odds he will show up. I would probably not tutor for Haakon any other way, so I'm probably still crazy, right?

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

It might be worth trying. :) maybe swap it in for swords or something.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

Varina finally pulled off a combo last night. After a board wipe and some self-mill and with Liliana, Untouched by Death in play, I dropped Rooftop Storm and proceeded to play eleven Zombies from the graveyard starting with Corpse Knight and including Carrion Feeder. Then I sacrificed and replayed Zombies until the table was dead.

Janky four-card combos are difficult to assemble and an occasional success doesn't necessarily justify their inclusion, but all of these cards are reasonable includes; Rooftop Storm is the most dubious just due to its high MV but it's powerful and Varina can always bin things that can't be cast in a timely manner.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

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.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago


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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

Tonight I finally got some game out of Tombstone Stairwell! The first game, it got destroyed by the next player in sequence - boo! The next game was a different story.

Another player had cast Primal Vigor before I played the Stairwell. I was making eight tokens for the first rotation. On my turn, I swung with the tokens and looted more Zombies. That time around, I was making sixteen. On my next turn, I used Beseech the Queen to get Corpse Knight and suddenly everyone thought it was time to go. 😀😃😄😁😆😅🤣😂

The hilarious part - though not really relevant to the game - was I had Champion of the Perished in play from the start. He had something like 148 counters when everyone figured the game was over.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

Morphic Pool in for Tainted Isle. Morphic Pool seems better here. The ability to make colorless mana could be useful in some decks, but not here; generic is just as good.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

The following is an extremely rough first draft of a try-hard level Varina deck. Comments are solicited. I won't add $200-plus cards to the list, but several would clearly belong and there's certainly no harm in talking about them!
Decklist

Commander


Planeswalkers


Enchantments

Approximate Total Cost:

Last edited by pzbw7z 1 year ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Only thing that immediately jumps out at me is I think the Rooftop Storm package is trash, and you should be running Thassa's Oracle package.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

pokken wrote:
1 year ago
Only thing that immediately jumps out at me is I think the Rooftop Storm package is trash, and you should be running Thassa's Oracle package.
The Storm-Ace combo is six-mana and two cards. It's probably the easiest thing to package into Doomsday. But you may still be right.

Thoracle just isn't a Zombie. I know, I should have specified that I want to keep it an actual Zombie deck. If I were going Thoracle, I'd play Tymna the Weaver and Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator.

Swapping Storm and Ace for Thoracle and Lab Man would make the deck better, but would also make it sort of irrelevant, if you know what I mean.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

Swapped in Changeling Outcast and Windfall for Containment Construct and Patriarch's Bidding.

Changeling is Haakon, Stromgald Scourge-friendly, Windfall will hopefully draw some cards.

The Construct is okay, but he didn't feel great and Bidding bit me in the butt last time. :)

Seriously, I think two mass-reanimation spells is sufficient, especially with several tutors on hand and I want the decl to slim down a little. I like Zombie Apocalypse better than Bidding even if it is one more mana.

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

pzbw7z wrote:
1 year ago
The following is an extremely rough first draft of a try-hard level Varina deck. Comments are solicited. I won't add $200-plus cards to the list, but several would clearly belong and there's certainly no harm in talking about them!
Tryhard Varina
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Decklist

Commander


Planeswalkers


Enchantments

Approximate Total Cost:

Intuition is probably wanted as is Entomb. Buried Alive feels good with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, but it may just be a budget replacement for Intuition. Haakon would probably be a bad include with Intuition in some circumstances.

Entomb is manageable, budget wise, Intuition maybe not. The ABUR duals are probably out of the question. Maybe a copy of Scrubland that's been rode hard and put up wet might be obtainable. :)

Another budget-fringe card is Fierce Guardianship. It's clearly indicated and it's not as expensive as Mana Crypt which I have penciled in even though I don't yet have a copy.

Some of the B power cards might not work; I honestly haven't given enough thought to Doomsday in particular. I think Ad Nauseam is probably good here and Peer into the Abyss seems as if it ought to work as well, within it's obvious limitations given it's high MV.

It's sad that Necropotence is such a non-bo, but it just is. :(

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Post by pzbw7z » 1 year ago

This is a small update to my fantasy Varina Zombie Try-Hard deck. Added is Necropotence, a non-bo with the casual mass-reanimation plan, but spot-on for the combo plan. Play Necropotence, pick up about 30 cards and pick seven good ones; win next turn. Who cares what's exiled!

There's still a bit of work to make this worth thinking about trying and it will never be competitive at a high level because it will remain a Zombie deck and not a Thoracle deck with a few Zombies added for some reason or another. If I wanted to play Thoracle, I suppose I'd get on the Blue Farm plan and do it right.

The creature count probably needs to be reduced; I set it at an arbitrary number to retain Tribal credibility. Tribal credibility is perhaps incompatible with competitiveness.

There also needs to be consideration given to what will really work with Doomsday given the shortage of pile crackers. The sensible thing to do is probably to give Varina the boot and sign on to Kraum, Ludevic's Opus and Tormod, the Desecrator and open up all of that yummy R goodness. Underworld Breach alone would probably be worth the price of admission.

Admittedly, much of that R goodstuff is not Zombie Tribal, but spells are spells and there seem to be more things in R that provide gas than in W. A degenerate off-Tribe plan would be Goblin Bombardment - such a terrible thought! It's about as bad as Thoracle.

Corpse Knight and Wayward Servant would be badly missed, there's no question; I can't think of a two-drop substitute. Still, with the density of tutors and draw I hope to achieve, there needn't be much if any redundancy for the aristocrat slot.
Decklist

Commander


Planeswalkers


Approximate Total Cost:


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