Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

[pzbw7z]

I think we can seriously consider playing Feral Ghoul. It easily goes infinite and kills our opponents with infinite rad counters.

- Phyrexian Altar + Crawler
- Lili + Ashnod Altar + Automaton
- Haakon + Ashnod + Automaton
- Haakon + Phyrexian Altar + 1 mana knight
- Lili + Crawler + Phyrexian Altar
- Etc.

In fact there is a lot of « accidental » potential kill with Feral Ghoul. It allows us to spread the possibilities of going infinite. And a 2/2 growing menace body is not so bad by itself regarding our strategy. It help us achieve victory if other combo pieces are exiled.

Did you try the card ?

And more questioning regarding Grim Servant. It's not the bomb I think it was. The problem is the mana value and the devotion. Our deck is mostly a graveyard deck and we have more scenario where our devotion will be 0 or close to 0. Meaning that this 4 mana tutor is pretty useless by itself. After play testing it, it's not an all star. The best plays I had with it were when I was able to reanimate it with Reanimate or Animate Dead, so my devotion was between 1 and 4. I need more testing to be fixed on its fate.

Anyone else tested it ?

Plan on testing it this Thursday for commander night. At worse it comes in and can tutor Gravecrawler, skullclamp, reconnaissance, swords or reanimate since it counts itself for 1.
Best case it can go get an altar, mass reanimation spell, etc.

If it can get Phyrexian Altar with reasonable reliability then I think that's enough. It will be able to get anything with a mass reanimation spell, so I think it has excellent potential. I'm not ditching Sidisi, Undead Vizier for it, but I'm definitely making room for it.

Feral Ghoul is certainly yet another way to abuse Gravecrawler or Haakon, Stromgald Scourge et. al., but I'm not sure we need another way. If it were one or even two mana value I'd be more interested. Maybe if I ever get tired of some the current ways of abusing these reanimation effects I'll give Ghoul a try.

[Reya]

I forgot the existence of Sidisi, Undead Vizier😆 So, yeah, why playing Grim Servant when we have a better version ? Sidisi is expensive but again, an easy single reanimation target.

And I get your point on Feral Ghoul. Do we really want another way to go infinite ? Probably more support of our core strategy is better.

[pzbw7z]

The most absurd line I've ever stumbled upon is Liliana, Untouched by Death, Rooftop Storm and Sidisi, Undead Vizier.

[Rframpt]

The most absurd line I've ever stumbled upon is Liliana, Untouched by Death, Rooftop Storm and Sidisi, Undead Vizier.

I do remember fondly the days I played Gisa and Geralf. Havengul Lich + Rooftop storm + Sidisi, Undead Vizier did make short work of anyone. Demonic tutoring for one generic mana was so sick back in the 2016 when I was getting started building decks more from scratch and starting to build my collection.

[pokken]

The difference between Grim Servant and sidisi is one mana and not having to sacrifice, so it makes loops with Living Death easier to get started. You can grim for Phyrexian Altar then sac your board, living death and get Repository Skaab or another mass reanimate spell and go off for three less mana up front (since you get to sac grim servant twice for mana vs Sidisi zero times (and it's a mana cheaper)

Personally I would never play sidisi over grim. Worst case scenario you get vampiric tutor and it's roughly parity :D

[Zed117]

The most absurd line I've ever stumbled upon is Liliana, Untouched by Death, Rooftop Storm and Sidisi, Undead Vizier.

I do remember fondly the days I played Gisa and Geralf. Havengul Lich + Rooftop storm + Sidisi, Undead Vizier did make short work of anyone. Demonic tutoring for one generic mana was so sick back in the 2016 when I was getting started building decks more from scratch and starting to build my collection.

Havengul lich, rooftop and Ashnods altar was a fun combo for me in my dimir zombies.


I think for my Varania I prefer grim servant to Sidisi. I don't run rooftop storm or any ramp in my deck so I can't abuse Sidisi as much here.

[pzbw7z]

The difference between Grim Servant and sidisi is one mana and not having to sacrifice, so it makes loops with Living Death easier to get started. You can grim for Phyrexian Altar then sac your board, living death and get Repository Skaab or another mass reanimate spell and go off for three less mana up front (since you get to sac grim servant twice for mana vs Sidisi zero times (and it's a mana cheaper)

Personally I would never play sidisi over grim. Worst case scenario you get vampiric tutor and it's roughly parity :D

Sidisi, Undead Vizier doesn't need a sacrifice outlet or Devotion. Late game, with no board state, Sidisi can tutor for Living Death or Zombie Apocalypse and come back with the rest of the crew and tutor again whereas Grim Servant could tutor for a one-drop.

Without Rooftop Storm and Liliana, Untouched by Death, the advantages may lie in Grim's favor, but with those added in, there's no contest.

[pokken]

Sidisi for living death is a ten mana play. It's fine but awkward and slow.

If we're not mana constrained all kinds of stuff is good like Rooftop Storm.

Varina → grim for Gravecrawler and turn six the game ends vs Sidisi and you're down two bodies is kinda the benchmark play that sets the cards apart.

YMMV whatever I'm probably not playing either but grim is going to be better for most builds imho.

[ApeFrogga]

Heyho guys, gals and nb's. Was busy the last few months with adult stuff, but had the oppurtinity last week to playtest a few new cards. Here is the List.
In two of the three games I played last week I had the chance to play "Lifetime" Pass Holder, in one game I had the chance to trigger him 4 times (3 in the same turn and once in another turn) with Kiddie Coaster, Balloon Stand, Information Booth, and Merry-Go-Round. The value was decent , rolled a 3 and 6 once and missed once. The other game was too short to have any conclusion (ended on turn 5).
Beseech the Mirror outperformed Pyre of Heroes by a huge margin, my go to tutor targets are Balthor the Defiled, Graveborn Muse, Sevinne's Reclamation. Thank you yeti1069 for your advice!!
Have yet to draw or play Mikaeus, the Unhallowed to get a feeling for it's floor, but am hopefull.
I'm considering to take out Liliana, Untouched by Death for Grim Servant, she lately feels like her value lines are not worth it....
Repository Skaab, Wake the Dead work great together(as expected) and as individual cards.

What is your guys experience wiht Archghoul of Thraben ? Do you prefer to keep the zombies in your hand or mill them?

[pokken]

I'm considering to take out Liliana, Untouched by Death for Grim Servant, she lately feels like her value lines are not worth it....

Yeah, I think Liliana, Untouched by Death is not good as a value card. Its only real lines are going off when you get some way to make a ton of mana and a sac outlet. You'd usually be better off with another mass reanimation spell for value, or a mass draw spell (e.g. Kindred Discovery )

What is your guys experience wiht Archghoul of Thraben ? Do you prefer to keep the zombies in your hand or mill them?

I didn't play it, but I looked at it a lot and just didn't view it as strong enough for 3 mana. We don't really want to put our non-zombies in the graveyard and our hit rate even in a stacked deck is 1/3 or so. So drawing 1/3 of a card when a zombie dies is not great.

As an infinite combo outlet it's better, since altar+gravecrawler+archghoul makes infinite mill and you can draw Corpse Knight or whatever off it, or even just flashback Dread Return for free to get Rot Hulk or something if you're mana constrained.

As value I think it's not worth it.

[Reya]

Try to keep Liliana in. She is realy strong to unlock infinite combo. We have so much synergies with her. Personnaly, I run Cabal Ritual and Songs of the dead to have access to strong mana burst allowing to take full advantaga of Lili. But it's not mandatory in order to go infinite with her, there is plenty of others lines availables.

[ApeFrogga]

Yeah, I think Liliana, Untouched by Death is not good as a value card. Its only real lines are going off when you get some way to make a ton of mana and a sac outlet. You'd usually be better off with another mass reanimation spell for value, or a mass draw spell (e.g. Kindred Discovery )

I was considering to change it for Grim Servant as it can search for exctly those kind of value cards or do yout think it is better to just add another value card? I don't like Kindred Discovery...

I didn't play it, but I looked at it a lot and just didn't view it as strong enough for 3 mana. We don't really want to put our non-zombies in the graveyard and our hit rate even in a stacked deck is 1/3 or so. So drawing 1/3 of a card when a zombie dies is not great.

As an infinite combo outlet it's better, since altar+gravecrawler+archghoul makes infinite mill and you can draw Corpse Knight or whatever off it, or even just flashback Dread Return for free to get Rot Hulk or something if you're mana constrained.

As value I think it's not worth it.

I never had the opportunity to go infinite with the archghoul, but felt the mill was nice, what kind of 3cmc or 2cmc zombie would you slot in instead? I was considering to put in Nantuko Husk back in so i have even more sac outlets.

[pokken]

I will say this as a person who was very dubious about kindred. It is the absolute nuts. Every Varina deck should run it imho. No matter how low to the ground. The ability to turn your yard into cards with Varina alone is just absurdly good.

(I wrote about this a little earlier in the thread too I think but...)

The sequencing advantages from Kindred are just too good. You can build your board then cast it and go off. You can cast it then rebuild. You can cast it then cast Varina and start making zombies. It's good at every single stage of the game and it's a great topdeck. There are very few cards like it.

And the icing on the cake is it's an infintie combo outlet with Gravecrawler and Phyrexian Altar.

it's as close to an autoinclude as we get :D

--
Re 2-3 cmc slot
These slots are def not the same. Should aim for roughly twice as many 2 drops as 3 imho.

At 2 I run binding mummy corpse knight Lazotep chancellor razorlash undead augur relentless dead tainted adversary and wayward servant.

If not comboing I would cut the drain guys entirely, and lazotep only with zombie infestation combo I think.

At 3 I run two sac outlet guys (one will be the new treasure one) , Haakon, standard bearer, murderous rider, master of death and plague belcher.

Liliana's Standard Bearer has a non deterministic combo with Haakon and ashnods altar that I like a lot (see the math on it earlier in this thread I think by searching for Haakon). Basically you can go off and draw most of your deck pretty easily.

Plague Belcher is there for me because I like to go for nondeterministic kills with aristocrats but that's a me thing. It happens a decent amount. Two drain guys and a gray merchant or something can often just kill.

I could see slotting archghoul in for belcher if you are not as in on the aristocrats lines and aiming more for combos.

[Reya]

I agree on Kindred. I often just tutor for it and it wins me the game. Absolute bomb. Try it, love it.

[pzbw7z]

The post MH3 revision got a try out tonight; the only MH3 card that saw play was Warren Soultrader but I also got to play the newly added Mausoleum Secrets. The latter was not included before because it couldn't get Phyrexian Altar, but with Soultrader, it can now get any of the combo pieces for a typical machine gun combo, provided the aristocrat is Wayward Servant.

So, I actually did use Mausoleum Secrets, but not to get Soultrader; I got Gravecrawler with it, then sacrificed the 'Crawler to use Diabolic Intent to get Wayward Servant. The next turn I played Rooftop Storm, dropped Sidisi, Undead Vizier exploiting herself to get Warren Soultrader, dropped Soultrader and Servant and machine gunned the table.

The silly bit is, I still had Beseech the Queen in hand. It's all about tutor density, my friends.

This was about as fast as I've ever won with Varina, even during her short tryhard period. I hit Sol Ring and Arcane Signet to power out the Rooftop. It didn't qualify as turbo, but it was satisfyingly quick.

And, most importantly, I finally remembered to shout excitedly "It's alive! it's alive!" with each creature I put down during the Storm!

[ApeFrogga]

Try to keep Liliana in. She is realy strong to unlock infinite combo. We have so much synergies with her. Personnaly, I run Cabal Ritual and Songs of the dead to have access to strong mana burst allowing to take full advantaga of Lili. But it's not mandatory in order to go infinite with her, there is plenty of others lines availables.

I am reevaluating all my 3+cmc cards recently and trying to increase the overall floor, so that the deck can work occasionally without varina or infinite combos. Burst mana is more of a ceiling card, don't want dilute my deck with more of that.

[ApeFrogga]

I will say this as a person who was very dubious about kindred. It is the absolute nuts. Every Varina deck should run it imho. No matter how low to the ground. The ability to turn your yard into cards with Varina alone is just absurdly good.

(I wrote about this a little earlier in the thread too I think but...)

The sequencing advantages from Kindred are just too good. You can build your board then cast it and go off. You can cast it then rebuild. You can cast it then cast Varina and start making zombies. It's good at every single stage of the game and it's a great topdeck. There are very few cards like it.

And the icing on the cake is it's an infintie combo outlet with Gravecrawler and Phyrexian Altar.

it's as close to an autoinclude as we get :D

I used to play it very early in the life of my varina deck but back then I had 8 fetches and alot of selfmill(wich I don't have in the deck right now), so the floor was as you describe it (empty board, no cards in hand), since than alot of thinks have changed, we have Razorlash Transmogrant , Retrofitted Transmogrant, Sevinne's Reclamation- maybe I should reconsider .

--

Re 2-3 cmc slot
These slots are def not the same. Should aim for roughly twice as many 2 drops as 3 imho.

At 2 I run binding mummy corpse knight Lazotep chancellor razorlash undead augur relentless dead tainted adversary and wayward servant.

If not comboing I would cut the drain guys entirely, and lazotep only with zombie infestation combo I think.

At 3 I run two sac outlet guys (one will be the new treasure one) , Haakon, standard bearer, murderous rider, master of death and plague belcher.

Liliana's Standard Bearer has a non deterministic combo with Haakon and ashnods altar that I like a lot (see the math on it earlier in this thread I think by searching for Haakon). Basically you can go off and draw most of your deck pretty easily.

Plague Belcher is there for me because I like to go for nondeterministic kills with aristocrats but that's a me thing. It happens a decent amount. Two drain guys and a gray merchant or something can often just kill.

I could see slotting archghoul in for belcher if you are not as in on the aristocrats lines and aiming more for combos.

This is my List

I play most of the cards you listed

[pokken]

This is my List (https://www.moxfield.com/decks/OWeHaDNad0KzJ40QGxZB2w)

I play most of the cards you listed

Wow you're possibly lower to the ground than me :D I like it.

I would recommend adding Universal Automaton and Ashnod's Altar if playing haakon I think. Tht's the only thing that jumps out at me.

Very nice list! One more card you might want to test is Springleaf Drum which I think is better than one of the completely donothing zombies (e.g. Dungeon Crawler).

[ApeFrogga]

This is my List (https://www.moxfield.com/decks/OWeHaDNad0KzJ40QGxZB2w)

I play most of the cards you listed

Wow you're possibly lower to the ground than me :D I like it.

I would recommend adding Universal Automaton and Ashnod's Altar if playing haakon I think. Tht's the only thing that jumps out at me.

Very nice list! One more card you might want to test is Springleaf Drum which I think is better than one of the completely donothing zombies (e.g. Dungeon Crawler).

Can you show me that non determinstic line you had in mind with haakon and ashnod's alter?(Am to stupid to find the search function )

Dungeon crawler is in the list because a few decks in my meta play initiate and venture stuff, but springleaf drum could be something, a few of my games fail because I'm missing a land or color for varina...

[pokken]

Can you show me that non determinstic line you had in mind with haakon and ashnod's alter?(Am to stupid to find the search function )

Say you have Haakon, Stromgald Scourge on board and Liliana's Standard Bearer in hand or bin, and X number of random creatures with an Ashnod's Altar;

Constrained by your B mana (so common with something like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Crypt of Agadeem) you can:

(costs on the left, remaining pool on the right)

Sacrifice X creatures for mana (let's call it Varina and 3 tokens for 8 mana -- note, you can then, if you like, make 4 more tokens from graveyard chaff if you wanna get crazy:)), then:
(2B) cast Liliana's Standard Bearer from the bin and sacrifice it for 2 mana (8, -B) while its trigger is on the stack, and draw 5 cards
(2B) cast SB again and sac it while its trigger is on the stack to draw 6 cards (8, -BB)
(2B) cast SB again, sac it while its trigger is on the stack to draw 7 cards (8, -BBB)

So you can see by the time you're investing say, 7-8 black mana you can be drawing your deck (5+6+7+8+9+10+11 == ~56)


--

The nice thing about this combo is that the interaction surface is pretty hard to intuit because LSB has flash, and how priority works. Once Ashnod's Altar hits the battlefield, they have to have removal for it or graveyard hate, or there's not much to do from keeping you from redeploying it.

Say you have haakon and LSB in bin and Ashnod's Altar in hand. you:
cast Ashnod's Altar
cast Haakon, Stromgald Scourge from the graveyard

And that's their window to interact; once Haakon resolves you have priority and can cast knights, and recast Haakon (with a -1 mana discount from Ashnod's Altar). They can't really interact with Liliana's Standard Bearer even with most counterspells because it just costs you B to go again.

So they can slow it down but once the engine's there it's going to keep happening until they kill Altar. So all you have to do is defend altar and your graveyard and you can keep on trucking.

--

As kind of a general commenton why Ashnod's Altar is so good:
1- it's an open sac outlet
2- Varina's ability costs 2

So that combination of factors reduces the interaction surface on a lot of combos/interactions, and makes it so you can do some crazy stuff.

Varina + altar + Skullclamp is the most compact way to just turn your graveyard into buttloads of cards.

So...play Ashnod's Altar and don't sandbag it imho, just run it out and use it as part of value engines

[ApeFrogga]

Can you show me that non determinstic line you had in mind with haakon and ashnod's alter?(Am to stupid to find the search function )

Say you have Haakon, Stromgald Scourge on board and Liliana's Standard Bearer in hand or bin, and X number of random creatures with an Ashnod's Altar;

Constrained by your B mana (so common with something like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Crypt of Agadeem) you can:

(costs on the left, remaining pool on the right)

Sacrifice X creatures for mana (let's call it Varina and 3 tokens for 8 mana -- note, you can then, if you like, make 4 more tokens from graveyard chaff if you wanna get crazy:)), then:
(2B) cast Liliana's Standard Bearer from the bin and sacrifice it for 2 mana (8, -B) while its trigger is on the stack, and draw 5 cards
(2B) cast SB again and sac it while its trigger is on the stack to draw 6 cards (8, -BB)
(2B) cast SB again, sac it while its trigger is on the stack to draw 7 cards (8, -BBB)

So you can see by the time you're investing say, 7-8 black mana you can be drawing your deck (5+6+7+8+9+10+11 == ~56)

saccing it with the trigger on the stack and casting it without resolving the etb changes the math in your example you would draw 11*7=77 cards
becaus its ability counts the die triggers as it resolves.

the numbers add up the way you describe it when you let every trigger resolve

you can generalize the math for that case:

a = Number of sacfodder before initiating the combo
a*= Number of sacfodder excluding varina before initiating the combo
b = Number of black mana available for casting Liliana's Standard Bearer
c = Number of times you can use varinas ability
a+b = n Or a*+c+b=n*
d= number of cards drawn = b*(n+a+1)*(1/2)
d*= Number of cards drawn with varina on board and using her ability = b*(n*+a*+c+1)*(1/2)

If d or d* is exactly your decksize and you can win from there even through interaction than it is deterministic.

If the difference between your decksize and d or d* is positiv - meaning you would draw too little cards but your decksize is exactly n*b or(n*)*b than it is determenistic in the same way as above, but this one works the way you described it.
--

The nice thing about this combo is that the interaction surface is pretty hard to intuit because LSB has flash, and how priority works. Once Ashnod's Altar hits the battlefield, they have to have removal for it or graveyard hate, or there's not much to do from keeping you from redeploying it.

Say you have haakon and LSB in bin and Ashnod's Altar in hand. you:
cast Ashnod's Altar
cast Haakon, Stromgald Scourge from the graveyard

And that's their window to interact; once Haakon resolves you have priority and can cast knights, and recast Haakon (with a -1 mana discount from Ashnod's Altar). They can't really interact with Liliana's Standard Bearer even with most counterspells because it just costs you B to go again.

So they can slow it down but once the engine's there it's going to keep happening until they kill Altar. So all you have to do is defend altar and your graveyard and you can keep on trucking.

can´t you respond to their attempts of removing altar or your graveyard by just keep gooing with the loop ofc unless they have split second?

--

As kind of a general commenton why Ashnod's Altar is so good:
1- it's an open sac outlet
2- Varina's ability costs 2

So that combination of factors reduces the interaction surface on a lot of combos/interactions, and makes it so you can do some crazy stuff.

Varina + altar + Skullclamp is the most compact way to just turn your graveyard into buttloads of cards.

So...play Ashnod's Altar and don't sandbag it imho, just run it out and use it as part of value engines

I have to agree with you on that - damn , how did I miss that ???

TY - now I have to think about what to take out for ashnod's , btw do you have lines that win the game when you have the hole deck in your hand and some generic mana?

[pokken]

You can't respond to continue the loop if they remove altar while lsb is on the stack is the main issue. Since once it's on the stack it's unavailable.

Their window to interact w altar is any time Haakon or lsb are on the stack but once Haakon resolves you can always get at least one lsb which is often backbreaking itself.

Also very good catch responding with another cast!! The reason I always did it my way was to preserve mana in case I found a wincon but since most win avenues only require a couple colored mana you could go until you have UWB available by recasting!

Once you draw ten cards the odds you hit a win outlet are pretty damn good hehe

--

Deck in hand with generic mana only is:
Play Phyrexian Altar then universal automaton and win.

I also have springleaf for getting another mana if needed.

Varina ability allows converting graveyard into colored mana with the new sac outlet zombie or phyrexian altar too ofc.

--

Another funny deck in hand line is to play Wayward Servant then pass then and discard to handsize then make like 40 zombies with Varina and ashnods :D

[ApeFrogga]

You can't respond to continue the loop if they remove altar while lsb is on the stack is the main issue. Since once it's on the stack it's unavailable.

Their window to interact w altar is any time Haakon or lsb are on the stack but once Haakon resolves you can always get at least one lsb which is often backbreaking itself.

you are right forgot about that

Deck in hand with generic mana only is:
Play Phyrexian Altar then universal automaton and win.

I also have springleaf for getting another mana if needed.

Varina ability allows converting graveyard into colored mana with the new sac outlet zombie or phyrexian altar too ofc.

another reason to put in springleaf and automaton

ty

[ApeFrogga]

I used to have some non deterministic lines with Bone Miser but am slowly moving away from that and in general am considering to take out said miser.
Warren Soultrader and Repository Skaab withWake the Dead opens up some nice loops as well and probably fits better for a low to the ground deck.

[Rframpt]

Can you show me that non determinstic line you had in mind with haakon and ashnod's alter?(Am to stupid to find the search function )

Say you have Haakon, Stromgald Scourge on board and Liliana's Standard Bearer in hand or bin, and X number of random creatures with an Ashnod's Altar;

Constrained by your B mana (so common with something like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Crypt of Agadeem) you can:

(costs on the left, remaining pool on the right)

Sacrifice X creatures for mana (let's call it Varina and 3 tokens for 8 mana -- note, you can then, if you like, make 4 more tokens from graveyard chaff if you wanna get crazy:)), then:
(2B) cast Liliana's Standard Bearer from the bin and sacrifice it for 2 mana (8, -B) while its trigger is on the stack, and draw 5 cards
(2B) cast SB again and sac it while its trigger is on the stack to draw 6 cards (8, -BB)
(2B) cast SB again, sac it while its trigger is on the stack to draw 7 cards (8, -BBB)

So you can see by the time you're investing say, 7-8 black mana you can be drawing your deck (5+6+7+8+9+10+11 == ~56)


--

The nice thing about this combo is that the interaction surface is pretty hard to intuit because LSB has flash, and how priority works. Once Ashnod's Altar hits the battlefield, they have to have removal for it or graveyard hate, or there's not much to do from keeping you from redeploying it.

Say you have haakon and LSB in bin and Ashnod's Altar in hand. you:
cast Ashnod's Altar
cast Haakon, Stromgald Scourge from the graveyard

And that's their window to interact; once Haakon resolves you have priority and can cast knights, and recast Haakon (with a -1 mana discount from Ashnod's Altar). They can't really interact with Liliana's Standard Bearer even with most counterspells because it just costs you B to go again.

So they can slow it down but once the engine's there it's going to keep happening until they kill Altar. So all you have to do is defend altar and your graveyard and you can keep on trucking.

--

As kind of a general commenton why Ashnod's Altar is so good:
1- it's an open sac outlet
2- Varina's ability costs 2

So that combination of factors reduces the interaction surface on a lot of combos/interactions, and makes it so you can do some crazy stuff.

Varina + altar + Skullclamp is the most compact way to just turn your graveyard into buttloads of cards.

So...play Ashnod's Altar and don't sandbag it imho, just run it out and use it as part of value engines

I was very confused as to why Liliana's Standard Bearer was so good as you claimed it to be but now I can finally see the lines and the insanity you can get up to. Yeah LSB gets to take the place of God-Eternal Bontu now.