Grand Prix: Baltimore Top 4 with Zombies

+1 Nihil Spellbomb

The Full Review

Now, before I talk about the rest of the maindeck, I need to give credit where credit is due. This exact decklist was played by four people: Nate Chafe, David Heilker, Branch Statton, and me. The list was worked on by Nate Chafe and me. I sent my rough list to Nate on the Monday before the Grand Prix and spent about fifteen minutes convincing him Zombies weren’t just some silly theme deck. We bounced around a few ideas, and ultimately, we came up with our final list while pallin around the site on Friday. Oh, and Nate won the last trial with our list.

Gravecrawler and Diregraf Ghoul

These cards need almost as little explanation as the lands. A couple 2-power guys in the first two turns is a tall order for most decks to deal with while still keeping pace with your subsequent spells. Once in a while, you get lucky and get to have three of them by turn two; it only happened once the entire tournament for me, but boy, was it nice.

Fume Spitter

Fume Spitter was awesome all day long. He killed Delvers, Elves, Birds, Champion of the Parish, and more. He was involved the two times I activated the High Priest by providing morbid. Most of his uses are pretty straightforward, but one of the nicest uses was removing the +1/+1 counter on my Messengers before they died for the second time—so they could come back a third time!

Skirsdag High Priest

I’ve talked about this guy enough, but I will reiterate. If you expect a lot of mono-green aggro and Humans, you might consider keeping this guy around.

Phyrexian Obliterator

This guy is just-lights out for R/G aggro and Wolf Run Ramp. There is just no good way for them to answer him outside of Beast Within. He also happens to be among your best options against mono-red. Nate and I really wanted two in the maindeck because we knew R/G decks were going to be very popular, but we didn’t want to go overboard because the Obliterator also happens to be really bad against Humans and Delver because of Vapor Snag, Fiend Hunter, Oblivion Ring, Mana Leak, and other such cards that make paying 4 mana for some big idiot a losing proposition.

Geralf's Messenger

This guy is absolutely bonkers. Just bonkers. I’ve seen him compared to Kitchen Finks and Boggart Ram-Gang. But I never felt that I was cheating when casting those guys. But I did every single time I cast Geralf's Messenger. He interacts really well with Mortarpod, Fume Spitter, and Phantasmal Image. One really great interaction he has with Phantasmal Image is that after the Image copies him, if the Image dies, it comes back, and you can copy anything on the table and still get the +1/+1 counter.

Phantasmal Image

Unless you are brand new to Standard, you’ve seen how good Phantasmal Image is. His primary use in this deck is to copy Geralf's Messenger, and that’s what I did with him ninety percent of the time. I copied Diregraf Captain a few times, which also made for some good times.

Tragic Slip

I was pretty excited when I saw this card on the Dark Ascension spoiler. The feeling you get when you ice an Inferno Titan or an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is just so great. Killing a Delver is okay, too, I hear. It just does so much for so little. There was one memorable Game 1 during the tournament in which I had to mulligan to five. Over the course of the game, I killed the same Elesh Norn four times. Three of those times were with Tragic Slips. I went on to win that game and kill my opponent from 30 by chaining three Gravecrawlers.

Geth's Verdict

Geth's Verdict was one of the card’s I was the most skeptical about going into the event. We originally had four, and it was the go-to card when we needed to make room for something else. We couldn’t bring ourselves to cut it—we knew it was going to be awesome when used with Slip and Mortarpod. I’m glad we didn’t. It ended up being awesome; it killed Huntmasters (with the Wolf trigger on the stack), Titans, Thruns, Delvers, various Humans, Sphinxes, and more. I used it to make myself sac a Messenger when I had an opponent at 2 life. You can also target an opponent who has no creatures—he still loses 1 life! I killed two opponents that way.

Mortarpod

If Geralf's Messenger is the best card in the deck, Mortarpod is a close second. I can’t even think of all the awesome uses I had for this card throughout the weekend. It is just a very flexible card, and I would not even consider cutting one. You can machinegun out your opponent or his creatures with Gravecrawler. Mortarpod and Geralf's Messenger really pile on the damage.

Sword of Feast and Famine

This card was our plan for the mirror. I would say it worked out well the one time I did play the mirror. It was actually just randomly good throughout the entire tournament. I actually sided it out against R/G because of Ancient Grudge and the potential to just be blown out by burn spells and tempo. This Sword could be War and Peace if you have a lot of Spirits and/or Humans in your area.

Darkslick Shores, Drowned Catacomb, and Fourteen Swamps

There’s nothing to say here other than that some people have advocated adding an Island or two. I would like more access to blue mana, but I am not willing to risk not being able to cast Messenger on turn three.

The Old Sideboard

I’m going to only briefly cover my sideboard because it’s not going to be too relevant in the coming weeks because of how fast the Standard metagame evolves these days.

Corrosive Gale

I didn’t cast this spell once in eighteen rounds. It was for Spirits, which is all I can really tell you. I was hesitant to lean on it anyway after talking to various ringers who were playing Spirits. They told me they would just be bringing in Hero of Bladehold for their Lingering Souls.

Phyrexian Obliterator, Distress, and Nihil Spellbomb

I’ve covered my reasoning behind these cards already, and it remains the same, though some numbers may not.

Swamp

This comes in with the two Obliterators.

Phyrexian Metamorph

I like this guy against ramp decks and the mirror. Nate and I kind of just used him as a flexible spot for when we had cards in the main we wanted to trim.

Cemetery Reaper

This guy was put in to have an extra lord and to control the graveyard in the mirror. He is also useful against Frites.

Sword of War and Peace

This is your plan against Humans and Spirits.

The New Sideboard

Okay, so I’ve covered the card choices for the maindeck. I want to touch on the sideboarding plan I will be using on Magic Online and whatever my next event is.

Here is my updated sideboard again.

”U/B Zombies Sideboard”

Sideboard (13)
1 Swamp
2 Phyrexian Obliterator
2 Go for the Throat
2 Sword of War and Peace
2 Culling Dais
1 Corrosive Gale
3 Nihil Spellbomb 2 Distress [/Sideboard]

Swamp, Distress, Phyrexian Obliterator, Nihil Spellbomb, Corrosive Gale, and Sword of War and Peace

These cards are all still in here for the original reasons. I want to talk about a few additions that I am really happy with.

Culling Dais

I am really excited about this card. First of all, just in a vacuum, it’s really sweet in this deck—sweet enough I might try it in the main eventually. Think about it: How cool is it with Gravecrawler and Geralf's Messenger? You’re able to generate value from your opponents’ removal . . . You can save your guys from Celestial Purge even! This card is going to be stock in Zombies. Mark my word.

Go for the Throat

This card has a lot of applications, but I’m running it for one specific reason: Grave Titan. That guy is a nightmare for the undead.

Sideboarding Strategies

Here’re the sideboarding plans that I’m using:

Wolf Run Ramp:

+1 Swamp

−2 Fume Spitter

−1 Nihil Spellbomb

−1 Mortarpod

−1 Geth's Verdict.

R/G aggro:

+1 Swamp

−2 Fume Spitter

−1 Nihil Spellbomb

−2 Geth's Verdict

Humans:

+2 Sword of War and Peace

−2 Phyrexian Obliterator

−1 Nihil Spellbomb

Delver:

+2 Sword of War and Peace

+1 Go for the Throat

−2 Phyrexian Obliterator

−1 Diregraf Captain

U/B control:

+1 Swamp

+1 Nihil Spellbomb

−2 Fume Spitter

−2 Mortarpod

−1 Tragic Slip

Spirits:

+2 Sword of War and Peace

+1 Corrosive Gale

Frites:

+3 Nihil Spellbomb

+1 Swamp

−2 Distress

−1 Mortarpod

Zombies

+3 Nihil Spellbomb

−2 Distress