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Tokens
Legality
| Format | Legality |
| 1v1 Commander | Legal |
| Archenemy | Legal |
| Canadian Highlander | Legal |
| Casual | Legal |
| Commander / EDH | Legal |
| Commander: Rule 0 | Legal |
| Custom | Legal |
| Duel Commander | Legal |
| Highlander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Leviathan | Legal |
| Limited | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Premodern | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Sarcomancy
Enchantment
When Sarcomancy enters the battlefield, put a 2/2 black Zombie creature token onto the battlefield.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are no Zombies on the battlefield, Sarcomancy deals 1 damage to you.
Balaam__ on
Death's shadow Life drain
3 years ago
Sarcomancy seems the most sketchy thing here to me. I get that you want to siphon off some of your life total to make Death's Shadow activate, but once the enchantment hits play you’ll have little control over pinging yourself to death, should anything interfere with your ability to have a zombie on field. Just a little bit of spot removal could land you in a world of hurt, particularly if you aren’t drawing lands due to low land counts.
The rest of your self destructive cards are all under your control. If it isn’t profitable at the moment, simply don’t play them. And when you do, it’s a once-and-done affair.
I’d swap out all four Sarcomancy’s and two of the Infernal Contracts for 6 more lands, preferably fetchlands if it’s within your budget. That’ll keep your ping counts roughly the same with the added benefit of thinning your deck in the process for more consistent draws from that point on. Take all this with a grain of NaCl, as I have not played a Death’s Shadow build as of yet. That’s just an observation from a distance. It’s your deck, assemble it however you like.
Topherito on
Kaalia The Killer
3 years ago
Hey Bad_Dog, I had a question regarding a recent combo I stumbled upon with Sarcomancy and wanted to see your thoughts. Given if you are running Worldgorger Dragon in the decklist still and if you are limited on mana. I think you could use Sarcomancy with Razaketh, the Foulblooded to create an infinite tutor loop similar to the Rune-Scarred Demon and Worldgorger Dragon but in a quicker sense just using the Kuldotha Rebirth token sac loop, wherein you would only need the 3 tokens to set everything up, searching for Entomb, Dance of the Dead, and a mana outlet or Sarcomancy pending on having one of the other 3 in hand already, and flash in Bogardan Hellkite to finish things up, once the infinite loop starts.
MollyMab on
ZOMBIESSSSS (Modern)
6 years ago
So first of all, you aren't running enough creatures. 12 is less than what a midrange deck like Jund runs. You need to hit the critical mass to make your lords good and stuff. Even with Sarco and Salvation it is only 17 which is way too low.
Secondly Sarcomancy and Herald's Horn haven't been put in any modern legal sets so you can't get those.
Really I think zombies benefits from Cryptbreaker, Gravecrawler and Dread Wanderer not to be running them. Dread Wanderer at least lets you restart your board with Gravecrawler.
Diregraf Colossus is probably too slow. It just eats a path, and when you play in on turn 3 it will be a 2/2 ideally. Door of Destiny also fails by the same hurdle. Obelisk of Urd doesn't shore up any match up, and the time spent tapping out for it is generally equal to 1 attack which you could of made if you didn't tap out for it. Endless Ranks requires a board to be decent and doesn't shore up any of the decks issues.
As for lords, Lord of the Accursed is your best bet in mono black. Gravecrawler/Dread return themselves. Relentless Dead returns everything else. Lord lets you force through damage a lot better. Cemetery Reaper is also worth a consideration as it eats graveyard stuff to turn off reanimator style decks, while also making 3/3 tokens.
Damnation could go in the sideboard, as mainboard you want everything to feed into your beat down plan.
Sign in Blood is probably OK, but consider adding Smuggler's Copter, as a psudo haste for zombies, as well as letting you go through your deck quicker and you can always discard the returnable stuff.
Liliana's Reaver fails the bolt test and isn't that good really for a 4 drop that needs to connect. Lingering Souls sees too much play as well. Plague Belcher might be a better option. a 5/4 menace if you let, say, gravecrawler eat the -1/-1 counters and it makes board wipes and removal painful.
xyr0s on
ZOMBIESSSSS (Modern)
6 years ago
Sarcomancy is not modern-legal.
Other than that, I think your deck is a bit too cute on synergies, and a bit too little direct face-melting. In particular you have 8 supporting artifacts and 3 enchantments, that doesn't do anything on their own. Door of Destinies sticks out as the worst of them, due to its casting cost - it acquires counters when you play a creature of the chosen type, but by the time you have door in play, you've already played most of your hand. Besides, playing something that doesn't impact the board state in turn 4, is not what you'd want to do in most games of modern.
I suggest going up to 4 Gravecrawler, and at least 3 Geralf's Messenger. Fleshbag Marauder isn't bad either, and I belive Smallpox could be a pretty good support card, since your deck is good at getting something out of the graveyard.
WryAssassin501 on
7 years ago
Seems like a good prototype, especially for it's low cost. It seems a bit split though between a re animator style deck and a swarm type. If you're going for reanimator, try looking into Dregscape Zombie and Ghoulraiser as budget options for Gravecrawler and Relentless Dead. If you want more of a swarm type, maybe look at Sarcomancy and Graf Harvest. As for what you have, Liliana's Elite is a little counter-intuitive for both kinds of deck. In reanimator, you (hopefully) wouldn't have many creatures in your graveyard, and with swarm, you'd be using tokens, which don't stay in the graveyard. I'd say the other card I'm not sure of is Highborn Ghoul. It depends on how many people in your playgroup play black, I guess, but between intimidate and menace, I'd go with menace. Still though, I like what you came up with, especially considering you had a pretty strict budget it seems. I hope my suggestions help, even if a little bit!
PookandPie on
7 years ago
So.... what kind of advice were you wanting? I have a fair amount of experience with Zombies for whatever it's worth (I've had a Zombie deck since I've begun playing Magic back in 2006 or so, and it's worked well enough without major overhauls since 2009). Zombies can do aggro, midrange, or even extend into combo, so I'll merely list off a grouping of cards so you can decide better in which path to go:
Grave Crawler is among your few options for 1 drop zombie that's worth anything. You have 1, but you should look into obtaining 3 more for a full set. Similarly, there's Sarcomancy and Diregraf Ghoul if you can't obtain more Gravecrawlers.
Gempalm Polluter is the best late-game two drop you could add to the deck. Yes, it's a 2 drop, you should never be casting it. Cycling it to make your opponents lose life is extremely good. Even better, you can return it to hand with things like Lord of the Undead to continue utilizing your reach on your opponents (perfect for breaking stalemates).
Lords- Lord of the Undead, mentioned above, Death Baron, Cemetery Reaper, Undead Warchief. Lord of the Undead enables shenanigans with Gempalm Polluter and Korlash, Heir to Blackblade (this lets you ramp out your lands extremely hard, making your Korlash on field gigantic and giving you plenty of mana to cast your Zombies with). Death Baron is just solid all around and is probably the best of the Zombie lords, while Cemetery Reaper isn't anywhere near as costly but is still very useful. Undead Warchief costs more than the others, but also provides twice the power buff and cheapens your other zombies- which is powerful as all hell. Zombie Master is another lord that can be included, and he's extremely powerful with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to make your whole Zombie army unblockable (also good for protecting your army against sweepers).
General advice: Get this down to 60 cards. Use 22-24 land, and drop a bunch of the chaff zombies.
If going for aggro, securing decent 1-2 drops is extremely important. Grave Crawler, Diregraf Ghoul, Highborn Ghoul, etc., will be the cards your opponents see and have to deal with the most. Diregraf Colossus could be fun in either the aggro or midrange ideas, and it's not too pricey, either.
If going for midrange, Undead Warchief is invaluable. A method of drawing or obtaining card advantage is also important in a midrange build- Grave Defiler and Graveborn Muse are pretty decent. Similarly, you can cantrip off of Gempalm Polluter to make people lose life while you continually draw more cards, but that requires an engine to bring it back to your hand (like Lord of the Undead). This also beats stalemate boardstates.
If you're doing a sacrifice combo kind of deck, Carrion Feeder is incredible, as is Living Death. Carrion Feeder works very well with multiples of Grave Crawler to beat a stalled game state. If you splash blue for Diregraf Captain, sac'ing and re-casting Gravecrawler can be a win condition.
Self mill isn't all that important when you could just cast Grave Defiler and put Zombies straight into your hand. Unholy Grotto is still a good card to run, same as Lord of the Undead if you want the recursion.
Midrange wants Cabal Coffers and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Aggro maybe just wants Nykthos.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel is fun in black-heavy decks, is a zombie, and is probably better than each other 5cmc+ zombie in this deck.
Hope this comment wasn't too long and you find something you like in it. Just remember: Keep yourself limited to 60 cards to maximize the consistency of your deck, and try to play with more 4 ofs and 3 ofs than 1x card slots.
Epicfuzz45 on
7 years ago
Carnophage seems mediocre since he doesn't do anything same w/ Diregraf Ghoul. Firedrinker Satyr can really back fire on you and is too mana intensive in a deck that already has a mana intensive ability on the commander. Rakdos Cackler is another low drop that doesn't do much in commander. You don't have enough cards to trigger heroic on Tormented Hero for it to be worth it to have him in the deck. Vampire Lacerator does nothing. Spike Jester does nothing. Sarcomancy seems mediocre, actually probably just hurts you more than anything. I think you shoul add more Act of Treason cards to the deck as a cheeky way to deal w/ your opponents creatures. This is commander, where is Sol Ring? I know Tymaret doesn't have any colorless mana in his cmc, but you still need to run it, probably Rakdos Signet too, this deck needs as much mana as it can get.