RTR Prerelease will be this weekend and will be legal on the Release Party scheduled on the first Friday of October. I hope you all will have fun on your respective events. Going back on topic, here is another expected deck to become popular on the post-rotation of Standard format. It’s the Zombies aggro.

The first version I will discuss is the Golgari build of the deck. Here is my proposed list:

Lands
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Woodland Cemetery
2 Cavern of Souls
12 Swamp
1 Golgari Guildgate

Creatures
4 Gravecrawler
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Geralf’s Messenger
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Blood Artist
4 Dreg Mangler

Spells
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Tragic Slip
2 Ultimate Price
3 Sign in Blood
2 Garruk Relentless

The new cards are the hyped (as usual) troll, Dreg Mangler, removal spell Ultimate Price and of course, Overgrown Tomb. In addition, I’ve added a singleton Golgari Guildgate to help improve mana fixing. As you will notice, the list didn’t change much from the current U/B version. We just lost Geth’s verdict, Fume Spitter and Mortarpod, which lessen the removals.

With 24 critters, the deck focuses on a more aggressive start and less gameplan on the late game, aside from the two Garruk Relentless which I think can serve multiple purposes. Zombies has been very resilient against removals, and with the loss of Celestial Purge, I am pretty sure they will top the rank of Aggro in post RTR Standard.

The Sideboard

Here is my planned sideboard:

4 Duress
1 Golgari Charm
3 Knight of Infamy
2 Naturalize
2 Thragtusk
1 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Tribute to Hunger

Here is a summary of the in and outs versus various deck strategies:

Vs Control

+4 Duress, +1 Golgary Charm, +3 Knight of Infamy, +2 Thragtusk
-4 Blood Artist, -4 Tragic Slip, -1 Ultimate Price, -1 Sign in Blood

Vs Green White based Aggro

+3 Knight of Infamy, +2 Thragtusk, +1 Golgari Charm
-2 Blood Artist, -4 Dreg Mangler,

Vs Mirror

+1 Tormod’s Crypt, +2 Thragtusk, +1 Golgari Charm
-2 Liliana of the Veil, -1 Dreg Mangler, -1 Diregraf Ghoul

Vs other random Aggro

+ 1 Golgari Charm, +2 Thragtusk
-1 Blood Artist, -1 Dreg Mangler, -1 Ultimate Price

Let me know your sideboard plan on this deck archetype. Hit the comments below.

Zombies are already gaining popularity in Magic-League tournaments and soon enough it will be once RTR hit the stores.

Thanks for reading and until the next post!