Standard Rotation in Magic: the Gathering is only a couple weeks away, and with preview season for Innistrad: Midnight Hunt in full swing, we’re getting some sense of what deck archetypes are getting support. We know that there’s various tribal support coming in Innistrad from Werewolves, to Vampires, to Humans. But one of the tribes getting great support in the set is Zombies. Today we’ll look at some cards to consider for your zombie decks in new standard.
Existing Cards
There’s a decent number of zombies cards in current standard, so let’s look at options there first.
Wight Ebondeath Dracolich
Of the zombie cards that we have right now, I’d look to these 6 to start as our base.
Shambling Ghast
Shambling Ghast
When this creature dies, choose one —
• Target creature an opponent controls gets -1/-1 until end of turn.
• Create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.")
has proven to be an all star in Standard 2022, as it offers some very versatile death trigger effects.
Dungeon Crawler
Dungeon Crawler
This creature enters tapped.
Whenever you complete a dungeon, you may return this card from your graveyard to your hand.
is our modern day
Dread Wanderer
Dread Wanderer
This creature enters tapped.
{2}{B}: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate only as a sorcery and only if you have one or fewer cards in hand.
almost.
Wight
Wight
This creature enters tapped.
Life Drain — Whenever a creature dealt damage by this creature this turn dies, create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token and exile that card.
has a good stat block for a 2 drop, and is a great blocker that can help generate more zombie tokens for us.
Post early game, we have
Acererak, the Archlich
Acererak, the Archlich
When Acererak enters, if you haven't completed Tomb of Annihilation, return Acererak to its owner's hand and venture into the dungeon.
Whenever Acererak attacks, for each opponent, you create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token unless that player sacrifices a creature of their choice.
, which is a lot of stats for 3 mana. We do definitely want to try and complete the Tomb of Annihilation as we get a 4/4 token and get to keep Acererak around. On 4, we have a lord in
Death-Priest of Myrkul
Death-Priest of Myrkul
Skeletons, Vampires, and Zombies you control get +1/+1.
At the beginning of your end step, if a creature died this turn, you may pay {1}. If you do, create a 1/1 black Skeleton creature token.
, and while 4 mana is a lot for this effect, we do get the ability to generate some Skeleton tokens to help with refilling our board. Lastly we have
Ebondeath, Dracolich
Ebondeath, Dracolich
Flash
Flying
Ebondeath enters tapped.
You may cast this card from your graveyard if a creature not named Ebondeath, Dracolich died this turn.
which could be our big bad boss monster. We don’t want to invest too heavily into the existing creature base as I believe that the support in Innistrad will ultimately become a lot of the meat of our deck.
Innistrad Cards
Our new cards that we have are really quite something.
Champion of the Perished
Champion of the Perished
Whenever another Zombie you control enters, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.
is our best early game creature, as we can buff it up pretty quickly with our other 1 drop creatures. Next up was another card that was previewed earlier this week, Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nepahlia. Jadar is a consistent way for us to generate Zombie tokens, to help buff our Champion, but also to put pressure on our opponent.
Our newest creature previewed,
Tainted Adversary
Tainted Adversary
Deathtouch
When this creature enters, you may pay {2}{B} any number of times. When you pay this cost one or more times, put that many +1/+1 counters on this creature, then create twice that many 2/2 black Zombie creature tokens with decayed. (A creature with decayed can't block. When it attacks, sacrifice it at end of combat.)
is a really great early game blocker, but also can be an incredible late game bomb. Even if we can pay the Pseudo-Multikicker cost twice, we generate 4 zombie tokens. We also get a half lord in
Bladestitched Skaab
Bladestitched Skaab
Other Zombies you control get +1/+0.
. This does mean we have to go into blue, which could be of benefit to us for other reasons.
Other Support Cards
Innistrad: Midnight Hunt gives us one of the best 2 mana removal spells in black ever printed.
Infernal Grasp
Infernal Grasp
Destroy target creature. You lose 2 life.
is unconditional creature removal at the cost of only a couple life. If we end up going into Blue, we also can try and play
Narfi, Betrayer King
Narfi, Betrayer King
Other snow and Zombie creatures you control get +1/+1.
{S}{S}{S}: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. ({S} can be paid with one mana from a snow source.)
as another lord that can be recurred very easily. If we’re playing snow lands we can also look to implement some other zombie synergies from Kaldheim.
READ MORE: MTG Standard Rotation Guide 2021
Zombies is a fan favorite tribe and looks to be getting some really solid support. I’d expect that the cards we have aren’t the only ones coming, so this deck could change and get even better. Definitely keep this on your radar for when the set drops!
Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is the first of two new Innistrad sets coming to Magic: the Gathering. It’s being released in tabletop on September 24th, 2021, and online on September 17th, 2021. Previews start on September 2nd, 2021. Be sure to check out our Preview Gallery to stay up to date with all the new previews. You can also preorder Innistrad: Midnight Hunt product here.