Remember Mono-Black Zombies in Standard?

It's not often a tribal deck wins a Pro Tour, but Zombies was a very special and powerful deck while it was legal in Standard. With amazing card advantage from Cryptbreaker, board presence in Diregraf Colossus, and removal in Dark Salvation, along the ability to win fast when needed or go long, Zombies was an awesome deck. However it has been just below the bar in older formats.

Remember Four-Color Rally?

Far and away the best deck during its time in Standard, Four Color Rally got to play many of the best cards in the format in a mostly fair value deck that could easily win via traditional means, but had the backup plan of bringing back your entire graveyard and killing your opponent with Nantuko Husk and Zulaport Cutthroat. This double threat was incredibly hard to fight on both axis.

Now you get to play both at the same time in Pioneer!

Time Stamps:

Match 1 - 00:05:34

Match 2 - 00:39:11

Match 3 - 01:01:30

Match 4 - 01:12:41

Match 5 - 01:40:55

Zombie Rally | Pioneer | Emma Handy

• Creatures (25)
• 2 Nantuko Husk
• 3 Foulmire Knight
• 4 Corpse Knight
• 4 Cryptbreaker
• 4 Diregraf Colossus
• 4 Stitcher's Supplier
• 4 Wayward Servant

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Liliana, Untouched by Death

• Instants (5)
• 2 Rally the Ancestors
• 3 Fatal Push

• Sorceries (6)
• 2 Dark Salvation
• 4 Return to the Ranks

• Lands (22)
• 6 Swamp
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 3 Isolated Chapel
• 4 Caves of Koilos
• 4 Concealed Courtyard
• 4 Godless Shrine

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Murderous Rider
• 2 Ashiok, Dream Render
• 2 Fragmentize
• 3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 2 Lifebane Zombie
• 4 Thoughtseize

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This is a deck that Emma Handy, no stranger to Rally the Ancestors, has been working on for a while, and when I saw the list I knew I had to try it.

While our control matchup needs some work, we were able to cruise through our other matchups with relative ease. It's not hard to see how great the double threat is of a good zombie plan coupled with a combo finish, and Return to the Ranks really shined as a pure value card at times. Graveyard hate isn't omnipresent right now, and we're perfectly capable of beating it anyway as we saw. However Liliana and Nantuko Husk didn't really impress, so I'd love to see those Murderous Riders and maybe some Kalitas in the main deck to make room for more of an anti control plan in the sideboard.

Rally the Ancestors was such a good card in Standard it is surprising it hadn't found it's way in Pioneer yet, but this deck feels like it's definitely on the right path. Plus you get to play Cryptbreaker again!