In one of my previous articles I went on to talk about what a devoted black player I am. On top of that I love zombies--I have since I was a kid. With all this being said, it was only a matter of time after being introduced to EDH for me to build a zombie tribal deck.

There were some decent options for the leader of these decaying, ravenous pests. I looked at Grimgrin, Corpse-Born, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, Sedris, the Traitor King, and even Dralnu, Lich Lord. These choices I felt were all good contenders to lead my undead army but I wanted to take it back to my roots, mono-black.

Balthor the Defiled would be my man...dwarf...zombie...whatever. His ability to place your graveyard back into play over and over again keeps the horde coming, board wipe after board wipe. Feast you eyes upon his army, in hopes they won't feast upon your eyes first.

So yes, if one of the players at the table jams something like Leyline of the Void, Planar Void, Rest in Peace or Grafdigger's Cage this deck isn't very fun or powerful. Like most of my EDH/Commander decks this is meant to be a fun and casual thing.

It can be very powerful though, so don't sell it short. Having an army of zombies with a lord effect from Death Baron, Lord of the Undead, or an artifact like Caged Sun or Gauntlet of Power, can be very hard to deal with. Fill up your graveyard with zombies, pop Balthor the Defiled and watch the fun start over, especially with a Gray Merchant of Asphodel triggering off all that devotion to back.

For a lot of my readers it may seem obvious why we're playing Snow-Covered Swamps but for those who are scratching their brain-pans here's why. Extraplanar Lens looks at the exact land imprinted, not just a Swamp, but a Snow-Covered Swamp. So it only doubles your mana, assuming no one else is playing snow-covered lands.

Like any good black deck there's a masochistic element in it. Graveborn Muse can just kill you from drawing a ton of cards. Luckily we have sac outlets to off our rotting muse if she starts getting out of control. Nightmare Incursion is the deck's best way to get rid of problematic elements in our opponent's libraries. The greedy player in me really wanted to run a Mirari To fork it along with a few other sorceries in the deck but I felt there wasn't enough to warrant it.

I know in my last article I mentioned writing my next article about a suggested general or a budget deck. I've been busy and life has been a bit chaotic, but no one gave me any suggestions! So I'll open up the comments for that again. If I don't get any takers I'll be following up next week with another EDH/Commander deck from my bag of tricks.

Until next time!!

Thanks for checking out my article!

x Julian Biondillo x
Julian, AKA hardcoreniceguy on Twitter
biondillodesign@gmail.com