Desperately foiling Susan... em, Bob.

Balthor Bob is foiling up!

This weekend these 6 will fall into my grubby mits

 

 

The rest..... One day:
Abhorrent OverlordCrypt Ghast
Nantuko Husk
Disciple of Bolas
Massacre Wurm
Shriekmaw
Grotesque Hybrid
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Mogis's Marauder
Fleshbag Marauder
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Withered Wretch

Liliana of the Dark Realms 


Exquisite Blood

Exsanguinate
Beacon of Unrest

Coldsteel Heart Twilight's Call
Phyrexian Arena
Phyrexian Altar
 
Mimic Vat
Living Death
Demonic Tutor

Pristine Talisman Fellwar Stone
Oblivion Stone  
Temple of the False God
Deserted Temple

Artifacts in Balthor

Someone in my playgroup recently mentioned to me that I have a couple of funky artifacts in my Balthor deck and that, frankly, they both sucked.

He was only half right.

My Balthor deck gets added to and subtracted from pretty often so any given section is never nailed down. I get to make hard choices (If I add a Lake of the Dead, how many basic Swamps should I be running for it to be a hit every time?) and easy choices (Is Soulless One still worth it?*)


One of the places where I do the most tinkering is the artifact section. As my deck is a top-down, flavour-driven Zombie deck (rather than a "best of Black" with some zombies thrown in) I get to make choices based on whether a Door of Destinies should really be present in a Zombie scene. Since posting my last defined list back in January** I've completely overhauled the Artifacts section.

Things like Sensei's Divining Top are, flavourfully, very easy cuts to make because Zombies just aren't known for their divining or the ability to spin a top for that matter. Gameplay-wise this is a huge cut that, along with Vampiric Tutor, as effected my deck's ability to be consistent. Following on theme, that's an acceptable thing to happen though: zombies aren't always a full-on hoard from turn 2 or 3. It also forces me to play the deck differently as I'm not always going to the same outs. If this means that I'm losing more than usual, that's fine too.

Of the original list, only 3 cards have survived the cuts up to now: Lightning Greaves, Expedition Map & Skullclamp. All the boosts, exile abilities and recurring tricks have been cut and boosts have been taken care of by the full compliment of 4 lords available to Mono-B.

In their place, I have added in a couple of artifacts to help load the graveyards. A couple allow me to live the dream of a huge turn 3-4 zombie army but the statistical changes of that are ridiculously low. Here's the combo:

If you play a Mesmeric Orb and follow up with a Basalt Monolith, you can mill your entire deck just by tapping and untapping the Monolith. If you're lucky enough to have a Songs of the Damned or a Crypt of Agadeem (and the mana to use it, of course) you have enough mana to loop your Balthor to raise the Zombie Army you've always dreamed of. Of course, later in the game this is still a valid play allowing for the need to work around graveyard hates as that would seriously crimp your style.

In the meantime Mesmeric Orb is a huge pain in the rear for a lot of decks, not everyone wants to mill for 4-6 every turn.

The other artifacts I've added are Sol Ring, Charmed Pendant (an extremely dubious mana accellerant), Oblivion Stone/Nev's Disk (some necessary protection), and a Memory Jar. The Jar allows for some silly end of turn armies that you wouldn't otherwise be able to accellerate into.

Despite these additions, even more space is needed for the Grimoire of the Dead so I'll have to go back into the tank for that.

Space must be found

So, to sum up: Yes, Charmed Pendant sucks.

____________________________________________________________

* Sadly, no. He's the muscle who's become just too vanilla. We now have cheaper and better options. Goodbye, Soulless One, you are now "Friendless One".

** Coat of Arms, Door of Destinies, Brittle Effigy, Expedition Map, Sensei's Divining Top, Nim Death-Mantle, Skullclamp, Lightning Greaves

[CommanderCast Crossover] Grimgrin v Thrax : Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun

November is Crossover Month at Commandercast. Overlord Andy ordered his legion of writers to get out there onto the blogosphere, siteosphere and any other kind of -sphere they could find. Their mission: Spread the CommanderCast Word and send back writers to do the heavy lifting for them whilst they are chilling out as honoured guests on blogs such as The Crazy 99. My own Commander legionaire is Maxwell "Max" Kautsch, usually responsible for the Peasant Rebellion articles on the Commander mothership. 

Welcome Max!

Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun

For Crossover month, Owen and I planned to look at the state of tribal Zombies in Commander now that we have Grimgrin, Corpse-Born in our lives.  I was going to try to make a case for why you might play Zombie tribal with Grimmy rather than the defending multicolor Zombie champ, Thraximundar.  So I started with Cassidy’s sweet “Grimgrin’s Zompocalypse” build and make it a little less Zombie-heavy and a little more combo/control oriented. I’ve always loved Cloudstone Curio and couldn’t resist pairing that with Rooftop Storm.

Although the deck experienced some success, mostly on the back of Curio/Rooftop Storm/Grixis Slavedriver with a Vengeful Dead and Grimgrin on the field, the biggest issue the deck faced was classic B/U: no artifact or enchantment removal.  Even the best of the bounce spells (Venser, Shaper Savant/Cryptic Command) and colourless removal (Oblivion Stone/Karn Liberated) did not seem to be cutting it often enough, leaving me wanting for the red in Thrax’s color identity.  My inclination to just Thrax it up myself was bolstered by discussions on the intertrons resulting in the general consensus that Thrax is still the better Zombie general.  After all, Thrax has haste, a shroud-proof sac ability, and red means MUCH better artifact hate than what a B/U deck offers.  I’m not saying Zombie tribal with Grimgrin can’t be good; I mean, Cassidy’s awesome Future Sight/Rooftop Storm/Gravebane Zombie combo is easier to get into play because a U/B deck makes UUU more efficiently than a U/B/R one.  And his build seems amazing.  But as Cassidy himself mentions in the comments of that article, any truly desirable card in that deck, including Grimgrin, could just as easily be played in a Thrax build.  Yup, Owen, you were right.  :)

So the question is, if Grimgrin isn’t optimal to lead your Zombie army, and if it’s doubtful he can unseat Wrexial, the Risen Deep as a better general for a traditional B/U control build, does Grimgrin really have a place in Commander other than as an auto-include in a Thrax Zombie tribal deck?  

First, let’s remind ourselves why the two cards inspire comparisons.  This is the entirety of the rules text on Thraximundar, a 6/6 for 7:

Haste
Whenever Thraximundar attacks, defending player sacrifices a creature.
Whenever a player sacrifices a creature, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Thraximundar.

This is the third clause of rules text on Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, a 5/5 for 5:

Whenever Grimgrin attacks, destroy target creature defending player controls, then put a +1/+1 counter on Grimgrin.

Both cards cause opponents to lose creatures when they attack, and both get bigger for each creature that hits the yard.  This means that the decks are likely to share cards that derive a benefit from creatures dying.  Skullclamp, Grave Pact, Butcher of Malakir, Mimic Vat, and Nim Deathmantle would be probable includes in either.  Grimgrin’s ability only results in destroying a creature if it is successfully targeted, which makes the ability vulnerable in a format rife with Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots, while Thrax’s triggers a sacrifice that doesn’t care about targeting (although Grimgrin has the advantage against a token deck because he can snipe).  Grimgrin is cheaper, but ordinarily can’t swing until turn 6, where haste lets Thrax swing only a turn later.  Given Thrax is not disrupted by something as common as Greaves, along with haste and access to red, I would agree that the fight goes to Thrax.

Except that we forgot to mention the first and second clauses of Grimgrin’s rules text:

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born enters the battlefield tapped and doesn't untap during your untap step.
Sacrifice another creature: Untap Grimgrin and put a +1/+1 counter on it.

The knee-jerk reaction is to view these mostly as drawbacks.  Yes, it is generally disadvantageous for a creature to enter the battlefield tapped.  Yes, you are potentially looking at card disadvantage if you have to sacrifice one of your own creatures before Grimgrin can even attack.  Yes, it’s too bad Grimgrin can’t sacrifice himself to prevent himself from getting tucked.  What I find interesting about Grimgrin is not only that he first swings as a 7/7 and effectively gets two more +1/+1 tokens for each subsequent attack, but also that he is the only general in print who can control when he untaps.  

Hmmm.  For starters, Paradise Mantle on Grimmy results in a de facto Phyrexian Altar, a card with a track record of Commander viability.  After some Gathering, a deck started to come together; it just didn’t involve Zombies.  So rather than bore you with a Grimgrin Zombie tribal deck when you should just read Cassidy’s article or pull out your Thraximundar, I bring you Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun.

The deck really only needs three things to fire away, given adequate mana: Grimgrin (the gun), some tokens (ammunition), and Surestrike Trident (the pain).  The Trident got some love when infect came out, for obvious reasons, but otherwise doesn’t seem to show up a whole lot.  In addition to targeting your opponents, it gives the equipped creature first strike, which seems relevant for a general who can destroy creatures only if he risks a trip to the red zone.  But how about that second ability with a pumpable general?  

Turns out, the Trident and Grimgrin happily provide the deck’s win condition without ever getting near the red zone as long as Grimgrin isn’t summoning sick and there are enough creatures to sacrifice.  A couple of “shots” is usually all it takes, depending on how long Grimgrin has been allowed to accumulate counters or if the deck is in position to make him infinitely large (and no, you can’t use the Trident to inflict general damage).  

So how do we get there?  The Trident costs 4 to equip, a relatively expensive thing to do at sorcery speed, so land fetchers like Wayfarer’s Bauble and Pilgrim’s Eye, along with and mana rocks and Tezzeret the Seeker, help out a lot.  Ashnod’s Altar is great with tokens, and even better with Nim Deathmantle and an ETB token generating creature.  Paradise Mantle can come in handy, too, and you can of course search it out with the ubiquitous Trinket Mage.  Obviously the Mantle turns any old creature into a BOP, which is good, but the fun begins when it’s equipped to Grimgrin.  When Grimgrin is wearing the Mantle, sacrifice a token to untap Grimgrin and give him a +1/+1 counter.  He taps for mana, sac another creature, he untaps, gets another counter, and taps for another mana.  Rinse and repeat.

So, what if you resolve an Army of the Damned under these circumstances?  Means you get up to 13 sacrifice triggers, making Grimmy +1/+1 each time, while also making more than enough mana to tap him and unattach the Trident as many times as there are opponents.  And then you can look blankly at your opponents, channel your inner Brick Tamland, and say “I killed a guy with a trident.”  

Killing guys (or troublesome planewalkers, if need be) with a trident makes for good fun with Grimgrin’s untap mechanics, but are there alternative effects for his Gat?  Ultimately, only Banishing Knack makes the cut because it helps shore up the deck’s weaknesses against artifacts and enchantments.  Casting this at the end of someone’s turn yields a lot of targets (and yuks) for only 1 blue mana as long as Grimgrin is accompanied by some tokens on the field.  It is absolutely conceivable that you could bounce all your opponent’s non-land permanents right before your turn given enough tokens.

Which brings us to an obviously important component of a deck like this: where are we going to get the tokens to feed a hungry Grimmy, and overcome the “card disadvantage” otherwise inherent in his ability?  My personal favorite has always been creatures with ETB effects creating tokens, especially in black because of black’s ability to recur creatures and not much else.  Blue fails when it comes to generating tokens via creatures, both black and artifacts have some good choices:  

Grave Titan

Wurmcoil Engine

Marsh Flitter

Skeletal Vampire

Precursor Golem

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder

For once Oona, Queen of the Fae is less combo finisher and more token generator, and cards like Reassembling Skeleton add to the stable of token-generating creatures for our “fodder” suite.  I also included persist baddies Glen Elendra Archmage and Puppeteer Clique because they can trigger two sacrifices in a pinch, in addition to their killer abilities.  Army of the Damned and Rite of Replication make oodles of guys, and watch out for the old kicked Rite on Precursor Golem.  Otherwise, ETB creatures such as Mulldrifter, Trinket Mage and Snapcaster Mage make for palatable sacrifices.  And then there’s the Mimic Vat, a “good stuff” addition that happens to be quite on-theme.  

    The final necessary component is cards that provide benefits when creatures go the the graveyard, all of which fit nicely in Thrax as discussed above.  The most important of those are of course Skullclamp and Gravepact.  The one card I really wanted to get in but couldn’t was Falkenrath Noble. Probably win-more, but you’d think it would have its moments in a deck where the general can sacrifice any other creature for free at instant speed.  

Otherwise, the deck’s choices were determined by its needs for card draw, control, and mana fixing/acceleration.  As you might expect, things like Consecrated Sphinx, Decree of Pain and Damnation made it. 

 Graveborn Muse has nice synergy with Grimgrin and what’s left of the Zombie flavor in Grave Titan, Nim Deathmantle and Army of the Damned.  Along with its ability to ramp, the aforementioned Ashnod’s Altar is one of a handful of sac outlets to help prevent Grimgrin from getting tucked; I also threw in High Market and Phyrexian Tower.   Other key lands include Coffers/Urborg for ramp, Academy Ruins, and Shizo, Death’s Storehouse to give Grimgrin evasion if he needs it.  Tolaria West searches out Pact of Negation, Maze of Ith or half of the Urborg/Coffers dream team.  

Finally, although the deck can’t deal with artifacts the way a red deck can, its ability to win without attacking allows for long range wins that may not require the same degree of removal as if the deck were forced to win with combat damage.  Even so, Kederekt Leviathan and Steel Hellkite join Karn to help with board control.  Life’s Finale rounds out the removal suite; love that card with Puppeteer Clique.

So maybe Grimgrin isn’t a better multicolored Zombie general than Thraximunder, but Cassidy showed he’s absolutely viable as the leader of a Zombie horde.  While my sub-Zombie theme failed as per Owen’s prediction, I have found that Grimgrin’s Gatling Gun v1.0 makes for fun games and a unique win condition.  I mean, if you don’t want to kill a guy with a trident....I don’t know what to tell you.

Deck list here:

Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
Skullclamp
Lightning Greaves
Sword of Light and Shadow
Surestrike Trident
Paradise Mantle
Nim Deathmantle
Swiftfoot Boots

Tezzeret the Seeker
Karn Liberated

Cryptic Command
Venser, Shaper Savant
Banishing Knack
Pact of Negation
Damnation
Decree of Pain
Life’s Finale
Steel Hellkite
Kederekt Leviathan
Nether Traitor
Bloodghast
Reassembling Skeleton
Marsh Flitter
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Precursor Golem
Wurmcoil Engine
Grave Titan
Myr Battlesphere
Skeletal Vampire
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Mimic Vat
Glen Elendra Archmage
Puppeteer Clique
Army of the Damned
Rite of Replication

Wayfarer's Bauble
Expedition Map
Armillary Sphere
Memory Jar
Coalition Relic
Darksteel Ingot
Thran Dynamo
Sol Ring
Grim Monolith
Gilded Lotus
Pilgrim's Eye
Solemn Simulacrum
Ashnod's Altar
Dimir Signet

Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Rune-Scarred Demon
Bribery
Sensei's Divining Top
Consecrated Sphinx
Mulldrifter
Snapcaster Mage
Trinket Mage
Graveborn Muse
Butcher of Malakir
Grave Pact

4x Island
6x Swamp
Maze of Ith
Dreadship Reef
Phyrexian Tower
Watery Grave
Underground Sea
Ancient Tomb
Academy Ruins
Jwar Isle Refuge
Polluted Delta
Tolaria West
Bojuka Bog
Halimar Depths
Temple of the False God
Dimir Aqueduct
High Market
Volrath's Stronghold
Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Creeping Tar Pit
Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Seat of the Synod
Vault of Whispers
Reflecting Pool
Darkwater Catacombs
Drowned Catacomb
Strip Mine
River of Tears
Cabal Coffers
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Buried Ruin

EDIT: Here's the otherside of the crossover article over on Commandercast. Enjoy!

An open letter from Bob to MaRo

666 Crumbling Remains

Somewhere beneath Innistrad

Residence of Mr. Balthor "Bob" Defiled, Esq.

Hey, Mark!!  How's it hanging?


You're pretty good at dropping Magic bombshells, but I honestly never felt all that impacted. Sure, innovations would change things, and decks and colour trends come and go, but Zombies are, you know, hard to keep down.  There's almost (almost) always a Zombie in the set, sometimes there's even a non-Zombie that shares the love, (here's looking at you, Mr. G.T.!) and, even if we lose some pallor once in a while, it's never long until someone leaves a grave - or twenty - open by mistake, and we all come shambling out again.  Even the occasional Undead Slayer can't keep the vitally challenged from our un-lives for very long.  Hey, it's even a bit of a compliment that there's a dedicated hate card in an expansion with no particular Zombie theme; shows us you still care, you know?
 


Now, picture the scene a few months back, when you announced that you were coming to Innistrad to celebrate the classic "Horror Tropes".  We were all very happy: we gave the tombs, coffins and general underworld a bit of a dusting; got the spiders working on some killer cobwebs; wiped the oil and grease off the door-hinges and rattled a few tombstones.  You have to understand that there's a lot of expectation here.  We're going to see new faces, do new things, get out and shake it all about, and for a few expansions, feast on some brains. The vitally challenged are BACK, BABY!!  Right on!


 

So, spoiler season comes around and Noel goes first: BOOM!  Blue Zombies.  WOW!!  It's not like we've never had them before, (they are like the side of the family that doesn't get brought up much, except at Halloween when every-one's had much too much Alco-brains and that always ends up the same way: a 100-way game of "Which one is my Metatarsal") but, cool, this is a good thing, right? The scene has changed since Alara, Invasion and, eh, Homelands...



Anyway, a Rooftop Storm?  Frickin' AWE-SOME!! (though I failed to see the connection.)  It means we have to work with that arrogant ass (assin) Thraximundar instead of me, but I'll happily take one for the team if it gets people clamouring to actually become Zombies just to join in the fun!!  It's like we've become glamorous Vamps all of a sudden.


 
Then on September 5th, you drop the bomb.

I said that while I didn't mind having flesh golems, I still wanted the more traditional zombies. [snip]  The Dawn of the Dead zombies could stay in black where they've always been.  The Frankenstein's monsters / flesh golems, though, could play into a theme we wanted to explore in blue: the mad scientist.  Blue has always been about knowledge, so the idea of crazy men doing horrific experiments in a search for knowledge felt perfect for blue.

Ok, so far so good.

As this was top-down design, we also realized that the two types of Zombies wanted to play differently. For the black Zombies, I was interested in building a Zombie deck I'd never seen.  Magic has had a few Zombie decks over the years, but they tend to be fast and aggressive (more like what are sometimes called zoombies).  That's not how zombies work in an archetypal zombie apocalypse story.  Zombies, individually, are slow and not particularly hard to kill.

Woah!!  Wait, wut?  We've never been "fast".  Maybe a couple of guys got in close with some knights and horrors, but that's hardly representative of the entire Zombie Nation!

Scathe Zombies aren't scary, but how about thirteen Scathe Zombies?  How about twenty-six?  The "enter the battlefield tapped" text you'll see on a few of the Zombies is our attempt to convey the flavor of them being slow.

Enter.  The.  Battlefield.  Tapped.


What.  The.  Frick?


You take one of the two most debilitating come into play abilities in the history of competitive Magic, and you slap it on an entire type because you watched "Shaun of the Frickin' Dead" once too often?


Are you shitting me?


What's next? Merfolk getting "can't attack if opponent's don't control an Island"?  Kithkin get -1/-1?  Or wait, no, let's give "Ping" to elves because they have bows in Lord of the Rings!!!  It's not like the colour-pie matters any more anyway, eh?  Treefolk are physically rooted to the ground, even they don't have this new keyword: "Slow"!


 

Worse still, you run to twitter for some digital high-5s with the rest of the Anti-Zombie League over an 8-mana sorcery that does exactly nothing when it's played!!  Adding the "Slow" mechanic to Army of the Damned makes an already expensive card unplayable.  Who's going to "W00p!!" their top-decked, 8-mana sink "solution" if it's never a solution?

maro254 Mark Rosewater

I'm curious on everyone's thoughts on Army of the Damned. (I'm a longtime zombie fan if you were unaware.)

5 Sep Favorite Retweet Reply

Woah!!  Wait, wut?

(I'm a longtime zombie fan if you were unaware.)

Yeeaaaahh, we’ll just come back to that bit later.

 
The only saving grace is that you made Army of the Damned a Mythic, so, hopefully, the rarity value will keep it from ever getting played.  Looking at it from another angle: You sacrificed a Mythic slot for this...... >shudder<... and we really LOVE sacrificing things.  The other thing that got sacrificed is that awesome name!  Army of the DAMNED!!  I love it!!


What's that?  It's attached to the card that won't save me?  Hang on, I'm sure I've got a dead clown around here who'll do a frowny face for you.

Ok, ok, I get it: You want to make the set flavor-full.  That's cute and all, but this is a burning brand to all my brethren. Go screw with Vampires! You've got Day/Night now, right? Make them burst into flames every second turn.  Where's the "flavor" now?  I'm not really savouring it if it gives to everyone else but screws around with just one group. At least you're not printing more cards that hurt Zombies.....

 
.....Right?  Coz you're a "fan".

What’s surprising and, frankly stunningly obvious, is that you have yet to make any sort of mechanical reference to our dietary preference: munching on brains.  Unless....no, wait! Did you give the mono-blue Rare Zombie, Undead Alchemist, one of those “Frankenstein monsters”, the expressly very “black” zombie mechanic (according to your own criteria) of draining an opponent’s deck, their “brains”, as it were?  

What a shock!! Blue gets the black mechanic. What the hell is a Frankenstein Monster doing eating, or in any way encouraging others to eat, brains?



Hang on: What’s going on with those interloping, Mono-Blue zombies anyway?

1.) A mythic Mono-U Zombie, maybe a little under-costed.  Oh, and it flies too.
2.) A similiar, uncommon trampler.
3.) Another under-costed flier at common in the same vein. Cheap, flying and trampling for Zombies, eh?  


Number of Zombies in Gatherer: 240.
Number of Zombies with flying: 15
Number of Zombies with trample: 2
Blue gets 3 with these in a single set. I guess that's fair.

Rolls eyes.

4.) The aforementioned "Brain Eater".
5.) To accompany the “undercosted” theme, why not just go for “free”?  Oh, you did: Rooftop Storm!!


Seriously, why don’t you just copy and paste “F**k you, Mono-B Zombies!  And you COTB Tapped too! Ha-Ha!” into their flavor text?



Could this have been even more of a slap in the face if you had actually tried? (And, no, that’s not an invitation!)  But wait!

(I'm a longtime zombie fan if you were unaware.)

No, seriously, start supporting Elves or Merfolk.  “With friends like this”, and all that.


So, yeah, have your fun, your little laugh, but let's not make a habit of it, eh?  If this goes on, I’ll seriously have to think about being re-animated as a Demon or even >shudder< a Horror!!


And MaRo, when you're finally under my dominion, we can sit down and have a long talk about the flavour application of mechanics! 

Sincerely,

Rats and Reanimation: A Zombie PBP

After having Thada's butt swiftly kicked by Elves (along with that of Wrexial and Treva too) in a game that totalled a mere 40 minutes, I verbaled into Balthor's Zombie Legions (c) for what would hopefully be an equally swift second game as we had only 25 minutes on the clock.

My opener had 2 Swamps, Twisted Abomination, Reanimate, Grave Defiler, Lord of the Undead and Rotting Rats. I can cast everything in my hand but the Defiler off that hand and still have a potential 6/4 regenerator in play. I decided to keep.


Turn 1: Playing first, I drew Swamp, played Swamp and passed.


Turn 2: I drew Carrion Feeder, played Swamp and passed with the intention of going EOT: Swampcycling, untap Reanimate. Instead I Swampcycled and drew a Grave Titan in my draw step......... Hum.


Turn 3: Swamp, play Rotting Rats discarding Grave Titan. Play Reanimate targetting the Grave Titan and end the turn with the start of a small army.


Turn 4: Swamp, play Lord of the Undead, revenge attack Rys with the Titan, the 2/2 Rat and two 3/3 Zombies. He takes 14 on the chin. During his turn he Oblivion Rings the Grave Titan.


Turn 5: Swamp, Grave Defiler finding nothing. Meh. Send the team (without Lord) back into Rhys. He chumps two of the tokens and takes another 8, slipping to only 4 due to damage from the other 2 players.

Turn 6: Bury Alive for Noxious Ghoul, Death Baron and Vengeful Dead. I neglect to play the Carrion Feeder and it costs me a Grave Titan. When I kill Rhys his Oblivion Ring leaves play. In our playgroup we get back what's under Rings etc., a decision that Treva & Wrexial are now regretting. I get two more tokens but Treva sends it on a Path to Exile before I can profit any more.


Turn 7: Death Baron and attack to kill Wrexial. The Wrexial player has put a Quietus Spike on a Rotting Rats and attacked Treva the previous turn. This, along with my leftover attacks, leaves Treva very suceptible to having his brains eaten the following turn. His draw doesn't yield solutions and he splatters his brains over the canteen roof rather than join the shuffling legion.


Total game time: 15 Mins. Moral of the Story: Don't f%#k with dead people. Or Grave Titan on turn 3 is good.


Either one.

PS: I'm currently re-reading The Walking Dead. It's thrilling and sickening in equal parts. I don't remember thinking about the human condition this much when I read it the first time. Maybe I've matured. Maybe I'm secretly interested to see if I'd make it. And, just a tiny little bit, maybe I'm curious to see if I could do what needed to be done, if it really had to be done.

I'm pretty sure it's an accurate description of what people would be capable of given the lack of any social restraint. Chapeau bas!

Balthor Bob Listed

Wow, has it really been so long since I built my Balthor deck? I realised when I printed up my list of current decks that, while the generals may still be pretty up-to date, the contents surely weren't. I'm going to have to do an overhaul of all of them once I get the Mirrodin Besieged cards I'm interested in.

Munke has asked for a full list for my Balthor deck. I've done a flavour piece already which you can read through the link above. I must stress that this is one of my "fun" decks where the object is to lurch in with Zombies rather than a minor Zombie theme in an MBC deck. It also has a huge and obvious weakness to Tormod's Crypt & similiar which I've decided to just accept as a necessary evil. If you want to play a Balthor deck seriously, you'll need to address that.

Balthor, the Defiled

Land:
30 Swamps
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Cabal Coffers
Leechridden Swamp
Dakmor Salvage
Darksteel Citadel

Zombies:
Twisted Abomination
Geth
Corpse Connoisseur
Cairn Wanderer
Corpse Harvester
Noxious Ghoul
Vengeful Dead
Grave Defiler
Escaped Null
Graveborn Muse
Gravedigger
Soulless One
Undead Warchief
Viscera Dragger
Fleshbag Maurader
Death Baron
Lord of the Undead
Cemetary Reaper
Phyrexian Ghoul
Shepherd of Rot
Yixlid Jailer
Rotting Rats
Cabal Interrogator
Carion Feeder
Maggot Carrier

Non-Zombies:
Grave Titan
Puppeteer Clique
Thrashing Wumpus
Plague Spitter
Phyrexian Rager
Bloodghast
Nether Traitor
Reassembling Skeleton

Artifacts:
Coat of Arms
Door of Destinies
Brittle Effigy
Expedition Map
Sensei's Divining Top
Nim Death-Mantle
Skullclamp
Lightning Greaves

Enchantments:
Bloodchief Ascension
Zombie Infestation
Grave Pact
Bitterblossom
Infernal Genesis

Spells:
Damnation
Patriarch's Bidding
Living Death
Reanimate
Zombify
Beacon of Unrest
Stitch Together
Rise from the Grave
Cruel Revival
Buried Alive
Mutilate
Corrupt
Tendrils of Corruptions
Go for the Throat
Diabolic Edict
Sadistic Sacrement
Sign in Blood
Skeletal Scrying
Exsanguinate

So nothing special (in fact, it needs a lot of work!)

Notes to self: Skinrender is a Zombie.

Edit: I traded at the MBS pre-release for some cards and have switched out Infectious Horror, a Swamp, Quest for the Gravelord, Soul Burn and Terror for Go for the Throat, Damnation, Coat of Arms, Door of Destinies and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Skinrender will go in too, probably for a spell and I will be adding a Mimic Vat once I get my hands on a copy.