EDIT - one week after i posted this, Britain's most successful hedge fund manager Michael Platt has taken a 6.5% stake
tl;dr
At-NAV new SPAC with world-leading expertise in online gambling. Worth a bet on potential to be next DKNG on the hype train
   
+++++++
Hi all - have had a lot of great tips from this sub. Hopefully this pays some of you back. I have been watching and researching this since 23 December when it first filed S1, awaiting the units to be listed - they are available today trading as ADERU
Positions - 500 units @ 10.42 to start. Will be monitoring and building position below $15, especially if attention starts to build ahead of units and warrants splitting and shares coming available to Robinhood.
(My other SPAC positions are OPEN, IPO-E-F, PSTH, FUSE, PIPP, ACTC, CCIV and DMYD, 100 to 1000 shares each mostly around NAV and numerous warrants and options around these.)
As ever, this is not investment advice and do your own research
+++++++
   
26 Capital Acquisition Corp or ADER
is a 240m SPAC with usual terms - 10$ units, 1/2 warrants. Seeking a merger in "gaming and gaming technology, branded consumer, lodging and entertainment, and Internet commerce sectors".
I think this is highly worth a play on the online gambling hype if you can get in at near NAV, based entirely on the management which is unbeatable in its knowledge of the gambling industry
   
CEO Jason Ader
has held director level positions at Las Vegas Sands Corp. ($42bn one of biggest casino groups in world), IGT (£3.72bn multinational gambling firm specialised in software and slot machines) and Playtech (£1.4bn multinational gambling software firm)
Before starting his own fund in 2013 he was regularly ranked Wall Street's top analyst on the gambling and leisure sector
His fund, Spring Owl Capital, is a small activist fund focused on gambling and leisure. They are probably most famous for ousting the CEO of Viacom in 2016 and a crusade against Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer in 2015.
Ader knows the gambling - and online gambling - industry inside out. He drove bWin to a £1.1bn takeover by gambling giant GVC (now Entain) in 2016, and has been driving similar change and demands for improvement at board level at Playtech
The fund mostly manages money for a select group of wealthy families, which could be a positive sign for the SPAC (although I don't know how much skin in the SPAC the fund has, if any)
Here is a video of Ader from November talking about how he's excited about SPACs. He talks about how he has been advising certain States about legalising sports betting and how to maximise value and liquidity by linking up with European companies in the space (Playtech e.g.??).
Ader is extremely bullish on US legalising online casino and more sports betting options, accelerated by need for revenue because of pandemic
   
Rafi Ashkenazi
One of the most highly respected names in the online gambling world, including COO and CEO positions at major online gambling firms such as Playtech and Stars Group (a world leader in online poker and casino). At Stars he led the $4.7bn takeover of Sky Betting to create the world's largest publicly listed online betting firm in 2018. Most recently he led the £10bn merger between Flutter (biggest gambling company in world by revenue, market cap £26bn), and Stars Group (Ader also involved). Also has connections into the booming Israel tech space which is interesting
   
Joseph Kaminkow
Special Advisor to the Chief Product Officer at Aristocrat, a leading gambling software provider and games publisher, previously Vice President of Game Design at Zynga Inc. This guy is a former video game / pinball designer who is credited with revolutionising the slots industry after moving into gambling software from video games in 1999. Regarded as a "legend" and "hall of famer" in this niche. At Zynga he designed so-called 'social casino games' which don't involve real-money gambling but are otherwise basically gambling apps (revenue from microtransactions etc). 130 patents on gambling/gaming design inventions
   
Greg Lyss
This is a very interesting but extremely low profile person. He was Bill Ackman a.k.a SPACman's right hand man at Gotham Capital. Ackman respected him so much that when Ackman set up a personal hedge fund to invest the Ackman family's money, he put Lyss in charge of it. To repeat - Bill Ackman thinks this guy is such a good investor and trustworthy that he put him in charge of investing his family's money. Don't know anything more about him, but I like this association with Ackman, which suggests to me some integrity around management of this SPAC, especially as the gambling world can be very murky.
The other member of the team is the CFO of SpringOwl with 20+ years' hedge fund experience and not notable (although clearly competent)
   
Thesis / potential targets
Based on the above experience and many public comments by Ader over the past year, I would be very surprised if ADER is not looking to merge with an online gambling technology provider / existing online betting website / social casino app / possibly a supporting technology provider
They are activist inventors, and specifically say in the IPO prospectus that they could look for businesses that can benefit from turnaround or are not being run well. I speculate that their deep knowledge of the European / global online gambling industry means they have a target in mind that they think would benefit from their expertise and US liberalisation of gambling legislation.
   
1) Ader believes the listing of UK-listed gambling companies in US is immediately big in terms of market cap because of the premium on online gambling stocks in US. He has pitched DraftKings to takeover Playtech and called on Playtech to spin off non-core business. This makes me wonder if he would spin off some element of Playtech to list in US to cash in on gambling hype.
This might be Finalto.com / TradeTech which is an online financial platform owned by Playtech. Playtech has been trying to sell this for 200 - 240m since August so it fits. This company provides liquidity and trading to brokerages and runs markets.com a trading site. I wouldn't be that excited although apparently the business has been booming during COVID and there could be a decent pop just on fintech hype.
   
2) This could be a 'picks and shovel' type data/B2B betting software play a la DMYD, or something like e.g. Israel based CRM software Optimove which works with some of biggest online gambling cos and has links to Ashkenazi. This would be interesting but probably not a huge pop
   
3) Possibly - given Ader's links to Sands - an online gambling tie-up with one of the big Vegas casinos who are desperate to get into the online betting space (see MGM's attempt to buy Entain for $8bn last week). Interestingly, Sands' owner Sheldon Adelson, previously a major opponent of online betting, has just died. Ader predicted a few months ago that Sands would be moving in this direction.

“There’s no stopping online gaming,” Ader said [before Adelson's death]. “(Las Vegas Sands’) initiatives to stop online gaming, at this stage, are largely historic. There hasn’t been a lot of spending recently to do that, especially post-pandemic.”
“I think the company will see the value created by DraftKings and FanDuel and Penn (National) Gaming and others. They’re not foolish,” Ader added. source

   
4) Ader is very confident that Macau will legalise online gambling in next year or two. Sands is big in Macau, the biggest gambling market in the world. A SaaS-type product positioned to capitalise on Asian gambling would be MASSIVE - at present however, China's attitude to gambling and local regulations mean this is unlikely
   
5) I also wonder if they might try to take legitimate one of the offshore bookmakers with big customer databases and brand recognition but which have been grey-area/illegal under US gaming legislation. For example, Five Dimes recently announced a settlement with the FBI to attempt to transition into newly legalised US markets. This might have the most hype potential
   
Potential upside
This is entirely a play on management experience and the meme factor / hype around online gambling in the US. I think if they pick a good target - which given their experience and connections seems likely - and get the right publicity and attention from retail investors looking for the next DKNG this could easily 3x and maybe 5-6x if on DKNG-type hype levels.
There is currently little spotlight on this and it is a good time to get in at NAV
   
Potential Downside

• Ader has been vocal that he thinks US online betting is overvalued and in a bubble - why is he starting his own SPAC in the space then? Does he just want to cash in while the hype is at all-time high or does he have a legitimate business goal?
  
• If he just wants to dump a part of Playtech which he does not like onto retail investors, this is a bad deal.
  
• Other targets could be e.g. hotel industry or other leisure sector which would be zero sexiness to retail. Given Ashkenazi and Kaminkow's background this seems unlikely though
  
• Usual SPAC caveats apply about potential difficulty finding a target, locking up your money for unspecified period of time, and the fact I may have completely misread the potential and my above thesis might be totally wrong
  

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Welcome to the third annual Golden Cube Awards where we go back and take a look at what the cube highlights were in 2019, aka the best year for cube since 1993!
Here’s the list of 58 new cards that survived my cube through 2019: https://i.imgur.com/6FKozCv.png
SPICIEST CARD
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
While many Aristocrat type cards have been in and out of my cube over the years, Yawgmoth can single-handedly give any BX token deck a strong Aristocrat subtheme. What makes Yawgmoth powerful is having an ability as a free sacrifice outlet that serves as combined pseudo versions of Skullclamp and Goblin Bombardment. While being a sacrifice outlet is Yawgmoth’s primary ability, the real spice comes from the Lord of Waste being the best (and probably only) proliferate engine for cube, which compliments his first ability so well and makes planeswalkers even more deadly.
Urza, Lord High Artificer
Another strong artifacts matters payoff. In my experience, you really don’t need to be a dedicated artifact deck for Urza to tick, just a couple of mana rocks lying around and some creatures / planeswalkers that produce artifacts like Pia and Kiran Nalaar / Karn, Scion of Urza. Being able to create a creature that can immediately tap for mana is subtly powerful, especially in blue with its 1-cmc cantrips or counterspells if you have another spare mana open. In a dedicated artifact deck, the golem can get really big really fast since its power and toughness scales and isn’t just locked in when it first ETBs. Functioning as a second Tolarian Academy is what makes Urza a powerful engine. Combined with his last ability, Urza is able to fully utilize the artifact deck’s critical mass of mana rocks and turn them into sheer value every turn.
MOST OVERRATED CARD
Serra, the Benevolent
Serra is essentially everything I wanted Gisela, the Broken Blade / Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath to be: a solid 4 mana Baneslayer Angel variant that can do other things on the side. While Serra is an extremely solid card in its own right, I do think she was overrated in the beginning due to her very fast and non-interactable ultimate. After cubing with her for the better part of the year, I’d say over 90% of the time she’s using her -3 immediately while not even thinking about the ultimate. In the times where you do use her +2 right away, you’ve probably already won the game regardless. While some people fear her for being oppressive, in my experience / other people’s experiences that I’ve heard from, 4-cmc Elspeth / Gideon have lead to much more oppressive game states simply by just generating value every turn / being faster clocks overall.
Urza, Lord High Artificer
I’ve seen some very polarizing opinions of Urza from “meh” to “would P1P1 over Jace, the Mind Sculptor.” This is to be expected since Urza has a very “low floor / extremely high ceiling” power band. To me, the true merit of a card is its average case scenario, and I think Urza has a pretty solid ACS since it at least passes the Vindicate test. In terms of artifact deck enabler / payoffs in blue, I would probably put Urza at #3 at the highest after Tinker / Tolarian Academy. Although Urza is more versatile than the other two, it’s nowhere near as versatile as JTMS, especially as a P1P1. I can see myself picking Urza over JTMS if I’m already in the artifact deck, but I’d rather take JTMS in every other scenario.
BEST ART
Liliana, Dreadhorde General (JP promo)
Full Art
For those of you who don’t know, Yoshitaka Amano was the head artistic designer for Final Fantasy 1 through 6, and is probably my favorite artist of all time. Growing up as a huge Final Fantasy nerd, Yoshitaka Amano doing work for Magic was a huge crossover for me (same with the War of the Spark trailer playing a Linkin Park cover of “In the End). Amano’s rendition of Liliana in his signature style is simply breathtaking from the fluid colors, a violet dress to die for, and the floating skulls around her. I currently see a foil version of this card priced at $950 on TCGPlayer, does any card printed this year come remotely close to that price tag?
(side note: Final Fantasy VI is the best Final Fantasy, don’t @ me).
Embereth Shieldbreaker (ELD Showcase)
Full Art
Of all the cards this year, the Showcase version of Embereth Shieldbreaker was the most evocative to me because I’ve never seen a Magic card look quite like this. I can’t put my finger on what kind of style the art is in (my guess is some sort of old chinese painting style), somebody who knows their art styles please enlighten me.
BEST NEW MECHANIC
Adventures
While Surveil was a great mechanic from last year, the Surveil cards themselves weren’t too hot. Fortunately, this is not the case for adventures, which is probably the best mechanic we’ve seen in years in terms of flavor, function, and aesthetics. Essentially a split card / flashback hybrid stapled to a creature, adventures are extremely versatile and have near-infinite design space. The Showcase series is with both the alternate arts and the awesome card frames, which are very reminiscent of the old card frame / double-faced cards from Ixalan. I really hope we see new adventures sometime in the future since the versatility / re-usability of them is perfect for cube.
Static / triggered abilities on planeswalkers
While static / triggered abilities on planeswalkers technically aren’t new (Garruk Relentless / X planeswalker as your commander technically count), the WAR planeswalkers are the first ones that act like enchantments with their static / triggered abilities. While this has lead to some serious problems in constructed (T3feri / Karn / Narset), none are too oppressive in cube besides specific matchups / scenarios. This opens up a lot more design in planeswalkers, so hopefully we’ll see more of these and less generic Jace, Unraveler of Secrets / Gideon, Ally of Zendikar type planeswalkers.
SLEEPER OF THE YEAR
Plague Engineer
I did not have a lot of expectations for Plague Engineer, but it was probably the card that surprised me the most this year. It’s a very surgical answer to a lot of boardstates, and there are over 75 creatures in my cube that have X-1 toughness plus at least 39 cards that generate 1/1s (some overlap with the X-1 toughness creatures). What I liked most about Plague Engineer is that it’s one-sided, meaning it gives creature based decks a way to clear up messy boardstates without damaging your own board state. It also gives creature based tutors like Survival of the Fittest / Fauna Shaman a new tool in their utility belt, which is always appreciated in toolkit type creature decks.
Blast Zone
Blast Zone is a pretty subtle card. Not being able to hit tokens sucks, but being a land that can be played in any deck is huge. It has game against any deck, from sweeping up Savannah Lions / 2-cmc mana rocks to just being able to nuke anything if the game goes long enough. Being able to put multiple counters per turn is very nice, this is definitely my favorite scaleable colorless sweeper after Engineered Explosives.
BUDGET CARD OF THE YEAR
Deep Forest Hermit
A better in most non-Recurring Nightmare / Reveillark scenarios than its reserved list cousin. At the time of writing this, Deep Forest Hermit is currently 29 cents while Deranged Hermit is $13.25. A shoe-in for cubes of any size / price, Deep Forest Hermit definitely gives you the most bang for your buck compared to any other cube card printed this year.
Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
The only Goblin Rabblemaster / Hanweir Garrison variant that is currently under $1. Some people will argue it’s the best Rabble / Garrison variant, and I definitely have it in my top 3 after Rabble / Garrison themselves. While Krenko is no slouch by himself, he becomes an absolute monster if you’re able to pump him up with Elspeth / Jitte or something.
WORST SET
Ravnica Allegiance
I’m not counting Commander 2019 since it has few actual cards and is more multiplayer focused. Ravnica Allegiance actually isn’t too bad, since 3-5 solid cube cards is pretty average. Unfortunately, it was released the same year as War of the Spark / Modern Horizons / Throne of Eldraine, so really most sets could’ve taken RNA’s slot this year and automatically have been worst set just by default.
BEST CARD DESIGN
Wrenn and Six
While Legacy players may not exactly agree with this assessment, Wrenn and Six is the most interesting Gruul card that doesn’t have a mana cost of 2RG. Two mana planeswalkers have always been difficult to design, but Wrenn and Six knocks it out of the park with its subtle, but powerful abilities. Anything that can loop Strip Mine / Wasteland / fetchlands is always strong, especially since we just got two new ones this year. Being able to pick off 1/1s and planeswalkers at 1 loyalty is also nice. While Wrenn and Six is not for every deck, it is a strong value engine in decks that can support it. My advice on lands matters type cards like Crucible / Loam / W6 is to not build around them, but put them into already powerful decks that can support them.
Charming Prince
I’ve always had a soft spot for Lone Missionary, but Charming Prince just blows it out of the water. Like Knight of Autumn, it will always have at least one relevant mode for any board state, and is ripe for abuse / enables abuse with its blink ability. While I’m not a big fan of blink as an archetype, blink cards that are good by themselves like Restoration Angel / Flickerwisp / Parallax Wave / and now Charming Prince. I view blink more as a subtheme / random value in creature-based midrange decks packing plenty of creatures with ETB triggers. Also, Scry 2 is premium in white, which traditionally has the least amount of card draw / library manipulation.
Fun fact: this was my runner-up for budget card of the year until I remembered that Deep Forest Hermit is dirt cheap.
WORST CARD DESIGN
Questing Beast
This also doubles as ugliest card of the year for both its art and text box. What makes me the most sad about Questing Beast isn’t the random keyword soup / crazy amount of abilities to remember, but the fact that a Baneslayer Angel type card NEEDS to be this pushed in this day and age to compete in a Mulldrifter world.
Oko, Thief of Crowns
I actually really like Oko’s design / abilities, but its numbers are all sorts of wrong and it’s a complete embarrassment to R&D that it was released the way it was. The fact that Fry, a sideboard card meant to zap blue / white planeswalkers couldn’t kill this 3-cmc asshole of a card is a massive fail. Oko should’ve been at least 2UG, or should’ve done something like nerf its starting loyalty / loyalty gain, not be able to turn your own things into 3/3s or something.
BEST SET OVERALL
Modern Horizons
In terms of cube, Modern Horizons is probably the best set since Alpha. At the time of writing this, I am currently running 10 cards from WAR, 14 cards from ELD, and 24 cards from MH1 (and I’m not even running any snow cards). WAR and ELD would have easily been best set of the year if printed during any other year. While those sets may have had bigger impacts and more bannings in constructed formats, Modern Horizons has definitely had the bigger impact on cube. Being a supplemental set that doesn’t have to worry about ruining Standard always make for good cube sets, especially if they’re not gimmicky towards multiplayer or something. What makes Modern Horizons such a standout set is that it contained both quality and quantity with homerun hits like Hexdrinker / Deep Forest Hermit / Prismatic Vista and two great cycles with Horizon lands / finished set of talismans.
TOP 5 CARDS OVERALL
Hexdrinker
To me, Hexdrinker represents a lot of things:

• Color shifting True-Name Nemesis to its correct color (the best answer to a mistake is another mistake)
  
• The rise of green’s constructed dominance in 2019 while providing plenty of awesome cube cards like Hexdrinker / Deep Forest Hermit / Questing Beast / Biogenic Ooze / etc
  
• A proper mana sink in green that is strong at any stage of the game
  
• A strong level up card that’s able to defend itself from potential blowouts with protection from instants
  
• Synergy with anything involving being a creature / green / 2 power or less / etc
  
• Pretty much the perfect card with zero drawback, aside being a snake that blocks Ophiomancer
  

Oko, Thief of Crowns
The cube community has been wishing for a great Simic card for years, therefore I think we should take the credit for Oko being so damn busted. Probably the strongest planeswalker ever printed and giving Dack Fayden a run for his money as the greatest thief in the multiverse, there isn’t a single constructed format that Stupid Sexy Oko hasn’t dominated. Currently banned in Standard / Pioneer / Historic / Brawl / and probably some other Arena only formats that nobody probably plays. Being green means it’s very easy to drop on turn 2 and he’s near impossible to kill on curve without direct removal, and he can just kill you with an army of 3/3 elks of doom. Oko is a complete house in cube and joins the ranks of Dack Fayden / Fractured Identity in the pantheon of gold cards that aren’t too crazy to P1P1 because they’re so damn busted.
Prismatic Vista
Definitely the most playable card printed over the past couple of years, I still can’t believe we’ve gone for so many years without this card existing. I value Prismatic Vista over any other fetchland early in the draft due to its versatility, where the OG fetches gain more value once your color identity is more solid / accumulate fetchable dual lands. Will definitely be in cubes until the end of time.
Deep Forest Hermit
Deranged Hermit has always been a powerhouse, and Deep Forest Hermit is just better overall barring recursion shenanigans. That being said, I’m a strong advocate of playing both Hermits regardless of cube size. Who runs the world? Squirrels!
Gideon Blackblade
I gave this Gideon a good amount of flack for being the least versatile white planeswalker. While that remains to be true, he’s VERY good at being aggressive and is probably the card I’ve groaned at the most this year when cast against me. Although every Gideon can turn into a creature, it usually doesn’t do so every turn where being a dude is Blackblade’s main focus. What puts it over the top for me is its high starting loyalty count for a 3-cmc walker on top of being an insane stat monster.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Depending on how you want to look at it, 2019 was probably simultaneously the best and worst year for not just cube, but Magic overall. WOTC really pushed the power level of so many cards, especially cheap planeswalkers, and I don’t think we’ve seen this many bans / restrictions in a single year.
In terms of Cube, I’m concerned about the power creep of cheap planeswalkers and how the removal for them has not kept up. While R&D has kept planeswalker removal to a minimum over the years so that they’re not so easily dealt with, I feel like this has to change if they’re going to push cheap planeswalkers this hard. Given the abundance of good 3-cmc planeswalkers, 2 new Rabblemaster / Hanweir Garrison variants / Hexdrinker / etc, the card two cards that I’ve seen gain a lot of value this year are Abrupt Decay and Vraska, Golgari Queen. With that being said, here’s the #1 card on my 2020 cube wishlist:
Smother 2.0
1B
Instant
Destroy target creature or planeswalker with converted mana cost 3 or less.
“Stupid sexy Oko!”
Flexible 2-cmc removal such as Abrade / Assassin’s Trophy have been great, but I want more. Smother 2.0 definitely isn’t unreasonable given the current state of Magic, especially if Oko continues to be legal in Modern / Legacy / Vintage.
Here’s another card that I wouldn’t mind seeing sometime in the future:
Green Revoker
1G Creature - Not a snake
As Green Revoker enters the battlefield, name a non-land card.
Activated abilities of sources with the chosen name can’t be activated.
2/2
2/2 might be pushing it, but a man can dream. Not even sure if this card would be green. It might be more white or Selesnya, but White already has plenty of planeswalker removal. Also, Collector Ouphe exists, and that’s what I based this card off of alongside Phyrexian Revoker.
Let me know what your insert category here of 2019 were! Also, feel free to join the Online Cube Drafts Discord Group to discuss all things Cube plus use Xmage to host tournaments to draft / play with our own cubes! With the holidays being over soon, the next couple weeks is usually one of the best times of the year to draft since people have more time off.
https://discord.gg/wRVzHQR
Happy Holidays! See ya’ll next decade ;)

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Pokies maker are recognized around the world by different names. In fact possibly you have actually heard a few of them and you just did not recognize that they describe the exact same game. Pokies are referred to as fruit machines, casino poker makers, or gaming machines Australia.
Pokies are wagering makers that have 3 or even more reels that spin whenever you push a switch or move an arm attached to the maker. The land-based pokies also have a coin detector which detects if a coin is inserted. When the coin is put the video game begins quickly. Pictures as well as signs on the screen begin to move up or down and afterwards unexpectedly quit. You win if the images match Complimentary Pokies
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Although with pokies you rely mainly on good luck, recognizing its ins as well as outs with the right approach surely helps in raising your chance of winning. If you are aiming at winning a great deal, it is best that you familiarize on your own with establishing reasonable money management and also techniques.
Let's discuss pokies myths. Perhaps you've heard the idea that if you keep playing on one certain equipment and invest a lot of cash there one way or another you will definitely win. Well, sorry to bring an end to your conviction yet this is most definitely not true! There are no premises that would support this concept. As an evidence, there are even instances when a player wins a prize after just two spins while others fail to win also after rotating the entire day. The real concept behind the pokies device is that it follows the complex theory of randomly generating numbers, and also each number stands for a certain combination of the reel.
So what's your best technique when playing pokies? To start with it is finance. Before playing, decide on how much you agree to spend. Have a certain bidding quantity and constantly, and also I mean constantly, adhere to it. Whether you win or lose do not differ your strategy. In cases when you happen to lose, do not try to maintain playing up until you win everything back since if you do, you obtain available to more losses. It is necessary that you preserve self control.
An additional equally crucial point to keep in mind is to kick back during the video game. Bear in mind, you are there for satisfaction. Once you obtain distressed, after that the major factor for having fun is lost. So, it is much better to quit, regroup, and play the next day. Try playing devices that provide totally free games, below you are under no pressure and hence you can invest a long time there till you obtain your cool back. You can not win or lose cash right here yet instead you can acquire more experience.
Australian Fruit Machine Or Pokies.
In the 1950s, an Australian company called Aristocrat established their very first one-armed bandit called the "Clubman." They modified it 2 years later on with a brand-new as well as better vending machine called the "Clubmaster." Nevertheless the first vending machine was originally created in the USA of America by a man named Charles Fey Free Pokies.
It wasn't until the 1900s when the slots lastly struck Australia. In 1956, the NSW Australian government legalized gaming machines in clubs.
The next few years provided nothing new in terms of the video game technology. They all had three spinning reels as well as either one, three or five lines. The rewards were by today's standards tiny and also the interactivity was limited to drawing the manage and also waiting for the reels to quit Australia.
It was not until the mid 1980's when the very first video ports rolled off the production lines and also were launched to the public. This was the most significant growth in video gaming given that Charles Fey had designed the very first video game. Not only did the video games have 5 reels but the likewise had many more lines as well as provided added means to win such as cost-free spin attributes as well as perk attributes.
Nowadays, you are likely to see these slot machines all over you enter Australia; from clubs to gambling establishments. They are just one of the most prominent types of betting and also enjoyment.
Pokies is a slang word in Australia for vending machine. There is no recorded day for when the term "Pokies" was first utilized in Australia. Individuals in Australia usually state points like "I'm off to the bar to play some pokies" or "I'm off to have a wager at the pokies."
Discover Pokies Online!
Pokies are frequently described as port video games. These games are tremendously prominent amongst casino players worldwide. It is mainly based upon the idea of sheer good luck and hence the requirements of winning or losing becomes uncertain. On the internet pokies are created according to the precise feel and look of land based casino sites. This game supplies hard competitors to all its gamers. Pokies online includes functions such as multi line bets, reward function games, particular gambling functions and lots of various other qualities comparable to an initial casino.
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There are different slot machines that have released several versions of these games to please the gamers. A number of these pokies games have gained immense appeal amongst people. Some of the popular ones are: Queen of the Nile, 50 Lions, Super Bucks, Wild methods and also Burial place raider.
Queen of the Nile is the very first amongst all pokies games because the moment of its launch. It features an Egyptian style and also offers cost-free video games bonus offer. Consequently 50 Lions video slot is also being extensively played among several players. It has teams which presents the top having fun lion icon on each of the reels. Wild methods includes a Wild African style with specific icons such as lions, zebras as well as elephants. In A Similar Way Super Bucks are on-line pokies games that supply a chance to pick between cost-free spin choices.
Burial place Raider is taken into consideration to be the very first brand that accredited itself to an on-line computer game slot. This video game consists of numerous features and also excellent graphics. It is a 5 reel port game with additional 2 video game bonuses. It likewise includes the function of free spin mode. These unique top quality animated graphics puts it amongst the preferred pokies on-line games.
The phenomenon of Australia and casino poker is identified with each other due to the victory of fellow Aussie Joe Hachem at the WSOP in the year 2005. His triumph has brought interest amongst people in Australia and hence has motivated them to play this sporting activity. Words "Aussie pokies" has actually been derived from it, as poker is one of the most common leisure games in Australia.
How to Wager Online With a Poker Device
Every location around the globe has its very own term for every casino site game known to guy. The same opts for poker. Online poker is known as pokies in Australia as well as, in Britain, it is labelled as slot machine. Regardless of what its name is, one thing stays the very same, casino poker has never ever fallen short to intrigue casino players specifically with its video game play that is majorly based on pure chance Free Pokies.
Nevertheless, with the coming of on-line innovation, on-line betting also entered the photo and also this was just one of the very best benefits that British gamblers experienced in their years of playing in casino sites. What deals with do these online betting sites offer? First off you get to play all type of games such as various sort of poker as well as complimentary roulette suits. Nevertheless, British gambling establishment players stop working to appreciate their very own variation of the fruit machines. This is due to the fact that most on the internet gambling establishment supplies five duplicates of the Las vega ports that have a great deal of winning lines. This kind of texas hold'em is entirely various to that of the fruit machine Australia.
Rather surprisingly, on-line betting would not simply sit down as well as let the needs of bettors pass undetected. Certainly, they would constantly get this sort of opportunity as putting up a gambling enterprise consists of needing to deal with teeth and also neck versus competitors. To do so, they need to satisfy and even go beyond the expectations of their clients. A great deal of pc gaming sites make use of Pub design replicas with the aid of Microgaming software. What this does is it assists boost the experience of playing on-line slot machine. It is capable of providing the ports specifically how a person would certainly see them in land-based gambling establishments. Furthermore, the on-line variation also has additional features such as super hold, pushes, holds, to name a few.
Restriction Your Number of Sheds
As you have fun with the on the internet variation of the video game, you would certainly notice that the functions very closely appears like that of those located in the fruit machine, the UK variation of poker. Comparable to any various other gambling enterprise video games, it is additionally based a lot on good luck. That is why among the most effective methods that a player might utilize is to stop while he is still has even more wins than losses. He must have the ability to know when to quit especially if he is on a losing streak. If, as an example, you still continue playing the video game, you run the risk of ending up bankrupt after the game Free Pokies.
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Invite bonus offers are specifically as their name suggests - a reward that invites players to a certain online gambling enterprise. Invite (or 'sign-up' rewards) are the online gambling establishment's way to draw in players onto their site as well as try their online casino. With a lot of on-line gambling establishments available, it is essential that welcome bonuses take care of to catch the player's eye with more-than-generous offers and also problems. Sometimes, players may feel that the deal is ALSO excellent to be real; nevertheless, it is certainly worth looking into every promo as a lot of websites really are using wonderful terms merely for players to experiment with their casinos. There are numerous kinds of welcome perks, both most typical being a match benefit as well as a no-deposit perk.
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NOTE: Before I begin the primer, I would like to thank HeWhoIsInTheWater, a name most commonly associated with WB Pestilence, for editing this primer and for making sure it’s clear of mistakes. Without further interruptions, back to the show!
Hello, I am MutaliskLord4, known by many on the pauper discord and MTGO as the Lizard Wizard (which may or may not have some leet in it). I wanted to create this primier in order to answer many questions and misconceptions, as well as discuss various decklists, cards, and my personal philosophy about everyone’s favorite pile of living corpses.
There have been many posts discussing non-tier 1 strategies, and zombies have been the most discussed out of all of those, at least to my observation. In its current iteration (and this is how my version plays it), zombies is a graveyard-based midrange deck. It wins by burning the opponent out via Gempalm Polluter, Shepherd of Rot and Gary. This ability to get fairly consistent fast-ish starts via burn is the reason to play this over another midrange deck (such as wr monarch, THE midrange deck of pauper). Bolts and Galvanic Blasts ain’t got nothing on our better burn, so we can get under the bane of midrange, Tron, a lot easier than most other midrange decks and can actually have a favorable mu against some versions.
History of the Deck
This deck's history is pretty small and is mostly centered around a single time period. It first surfaced when Jake from playing pauper showed off the tribe’s strengths in a more aggro-based approach back in 2016. It played Sangrophage and Wretched Anurid, which are too aggressive for midrange (not to mention that the cards are bad due to them being easily chump blockable and the draining of life simply being too much). Needless to say, the deck was unoptimized and had room for improvement.
Fast forward a couple years and a list appears in April, 2018 and another in May, 2018. Both dropped a bunch of bad cards and became slower and more consistent, with cheaper removal and more lands. The May list was more focused on Carrion Feeder and was more of an aristocrats deck. Most notably, it dropped Shepherd and half the Gempalms and wanted to win with Carrion Feeder beats more often.
The April list was the more publicized one. It appeared as an instant deck tech on mtggoldfish and was more well-rounded, playing both a small aristocrats package and the burn package after which SaffronOlive named the deck. This list is what became a basis of discussion for many reddit posts. Even the Professor got in on the action. He, along with the help of Alex Ullman, included most of the ideas from the April list, except with a slightly larger focus on the aristocrats aspect (an entire SIX FESTERING ZOMBIES). The 1-of Infernal Caretaker was also a spicy include.
The biggest innovation, however, was the complete removal of Carnophage, which many (myself included) saw as a large improvement. The deck has become a midrange deck, so it does not want a beater that taxes you whenever you keep it untapped, as there are many matchups where you won’t be the beatdown (I'll rant about this guy for a bit later).
Going forward a year into March, 2019 we get the first "real" result from zombies, which made top 8 of the first ever Pauper PTQ/MCQ. This list had a couple of interesting innovations to reflect the meta at the time, such as opting to keep shepherd of rot in the sideboard due to the prevalence of burn. It also started playing Pestilence in an attempt to combat Prismatic Strands decks that laughed in the face of Gangrenous Zombies.
My list:
I started playing zombies November, 2017 when I got Jake’s version (and back then the only version) of the deck. As stated, the deck was more aggro than midrange. It relied on [[Tendrils of Corruption]] to make our life total high enough to be able to continue the carno/sangrophage beats. Even though it was aggro, ghoulraiser and nameless inversion, midrange cards, still felt like the best cards. After many, many games, and other versions being released (thank data), my deck turned into the current version. Let's walk through all the choices that I made, keeping in mind that I was going for more of a midrange build, rather than the aristocrats/burn builds from earlier:
[[Carrion Feeder]]: a lightning rod for removal. This is, alongside Gary and the fish prince, undisputedly one of the best zombies in the entire format. It is one of the best sac outlets available to us and is used across a variety of aristocrat strategies, as both a sac outlet and as a win con due to its ability to become giant. Carrion Feeder eats creatures for free while making itself grow, so it can blank removal (especially useful against exile effects), reduce the effectiveness of boardwipes (since we can just sac all the creatures that would die), and makes combat math a pain to calculate accurately. It's the main engine of our aristocrats strategy.
[[Festering Mummy]]: a relatively new addition from Amonkhet, it is also a part of the aristocrats strategy. Mummy can block 2 toughness creatures and trade up, or it can be used with Carrion Feeder to gun down pesky elves, X-1’s and Tireless Tribes. The ability to put a -1/-1 counter on something, while making Carrion Feeder beatdowns that much better is a nice deal, and with reanimation this guy can generate significant value.
[[Ghoulcaller's Chant]]: a 1-mana 2 for 1 that “draws” us 2 guaranteed pieces of gas of our choosing? Sign me up! I had at least 2 targets most of the time when I cast this, so the situation has to be dire to use the first mode. Horrible turn 1 play, excellent in the lategame, and great topdeck. Graveyard hate is a pain, but it still works with a modest graveyard.
[[Tragic Slip]]: with creatures dying all the time (courtesy of our aristocrats package), this turns into a 1-mana kill spell (unless you're facing Tireless Tribe, but they would have to discard a lot of cards to keep Tribe alive [same story with an atog]), and it also gets past indestructible (extremely relevant in our format, amirite?). Morbid is usually online in the later turns of the game,which makes this a fantastic addition to the deck. Slip has the same issue as Mummy of being less useful when Carrion Feeder isn't there, but the problem is less noticeable since Morbid can trigger off your removal in addition to Carrion Feeder.
[[Shepherd of Rot]]: the best clock in the deck and the centerpiece of our burn package. A tap ability that reduces the players’ life totals by the number of zombies on the field (it counts opposing Garies and fishies, which aren't that uncommon) can make short work of both players’ life totals (the damage varies based on the matchup, but 3-5 is the most common). This is especially good against Tron and control strategies, since they have no easy way of pressuring your life total early in the game. This card is why we are capable of consistently having the means of taking out those Tron and Control decks, the bane of midrange, as compared to other midrange decks in the format.
Some criticize that Shepherd is bad because its ability hurts us more than the opponent in the aggro matchups. This is true, but you usually have enough spells to cast that you can avoid using Shepherd. Sideboards exist for a reason. Worst case scenario, use it as Carrion Feeder food or as a chump blocker. In the best case, it is a win con that is difficult for several decks to interact with.
[[Gempalm Polluter]]: a 6-mana 4/3 that you'll cast on extremely rare occasions. Most of the time, you'll be cycling this boi for 2 mana and hitting your opponent's face alongside Shepherd. Just like Shepherd, this counts opposing zombies as well.
[[Twisted Abomination]]:
“I agree that Twisted Abom is great. Best swamp in the deck” -lynxtothepast
A zombie mutant that acts as an efficient beatstick and as a way to make our land drops to get up to the necessary mana to cast Gary and other expensive things. I initially dismissed the card, but it's looking more and more appealing. In the early game, it gets us a land, and in the late game it's an efficient and resilient beateblocker that doesn't have to necessarily use the graveyard to get value. Going in this direction, however, heavily hinders the effectiveness of our aristocrats and burn packages.
[[Nameless Inversion]]: removal that can be used more than once is great (see: Chainer’s Edict and [[Firebolt]]). Since the card is a changeling, it's also a zombie, which means it's a target for reanimation with cards like Ghoulcaller’s Chant. It kills the small things and is a necessity to our midrange plan. As an added bonus, there are full art versions of nameless inversion available, which are very cheap by full art standards and look very nice.
[[Chainer's Edict]]: the OG Edict. Getting up to 7 mana could be difficult in our 21 land deck whose card advantage is based on graveyard interaction. This means we don't actually draw new cards much of the time, and obtaining lands is more challenging since we are not digging through our library, but rather the graveyard, from which we can only get zombie cards, from which only Twisted Abomination can be converted to a land. However, we have contingency plans in place for this scenario which makes it so that we don't have to statistically draw a third of our deck for Edict to become flashbackable (one of those plans is Twisted Abomination). There's a convincing argument to be made for Geth’s Verdict in Edict’s slot, but I'll get to that later on.
[[Sign in Blood]]: the only literal draw 2 in our deck. Great card for drawing into lands rather than gas. Also an expensive Shock when needed.
[[Ghoulraiser]]: zombie Phyrexian Rager, and Phyrexian Rager is a great card in Mono Black Control (a midrange deck). Turn 2 Nameless Inversion into a turn 3 Ghoulraiser is one of the best ways to curve out for this deck. Additional devotion is noteworthy.
[[Gangrenous Zombies]]: a zombie boardwipe that gets better with snow covered lands. Since we are a midrange deck, we follow the trend of running some in our main deck and blow up a bunch of elves in case we fail to set up a Festering Mummy machine gun. Being recurrable from the graveyard is reminiscent of the buyback on [[Evincar’s Justice]], so we can develop a similar control of the battlefield. Its downsides of having to wait a turn before using and being easily countered by Prismatic Strands make Gangrenous Zombies risky to play.
Pestilence: Currently my boardwipe of choice for the zombies deck. It is more difficult to remove than Gangrenous Zombies and isn't countered by Prismatic Strands as easily. At 5+ mana it can be used right away and it wipes creatures with 3+ toughness. Its devotion is equal to that of Gangrenous Zombies. Don't know what else to say about it. It's just superior in every way, barring its higher cost.
[[Gray Merchant of Asphodel]]: good ‘ol Gary is our only source of lifegain in this deck and supports our burn plan. Getting to 5 mana is challenging with 21 lands and little actual card draw (which is why I initially ended up cutting the card), but if we are set up for it, we can get to Gary without many problems.
Lands
[[Snow-Covered Swamp]]: strictly better Swamp in this deck. Being able to activate Gangrenous Zombies makes this a necessity.
[[Barren Moor]]: cycling land. We want our lands to get to Gary and Chainer’s, but once we do, cycling is great. It also helps mitigate flooding, as we don’t draw many cards to get out of it naturally.
[[Bojuka Bog]]: maindeck graveyard hate. It’s pretty free to play in this deck since we don’t have too many early plays, and it can be great value against a midrange or control deck utilizing their graveyard
Karoo lands: I would like to thank the pauper discord for coming up with this unique idea. Great crew, and if you haven't joined in yet, join in! This is perhaps what raised the most eyebrows when I show others my list. Recall how I previously stated that this deck has a problem with drawing lands. Karoos help solve that problem. There is also the added bonus of being able to buy back the Bojuka Bog and Barren Moor, which is solid. We have a slower gameplan as a midrange deck, so we can afford to play a few taplands. If you wanna meme with your zombie deck, put in 1 of each black Karoo (the next level mEmE would be to put in 1 of each non-black Karoo, but I'm not skilled enough for that).
Sideboard
I cannot specify an exact 15-card sideboard, as many people have different metagames, as well as different financial circumstances (there might be a few of you who don’t want to dish out some money on snow-covered lands), and prefer to tune for different matchups. I just decided to jumble together all the possible options so people can mix and match for their individual metas:
[[Duress]]: great against decks with non-creature spells. Also one of the two ways we can deal with an opposing Relic of Progenitus/Nihil Spellbomb before it hits the table.
[[Divest]]: The other way we can deal with Relics and Spellbombs. Takes out artifact lands (mostly played in Affinity and WR monarch decks) and creatures whose Enter-the-Battlefield triggers you don’t want to have happen.
[[Wrench Mind]]: It’s a 2-mana Mind Rot against non-artifact decks. Pretty good sideboard card as long as your format isn’t filled with monarch and Affinity decks.
[[Sylvok Lifestaff]]: Solid lifegain against aggro decks, and my personal choice for SB lifegain. It’s cheap and gains life quickly, cancelling out Lightning Bolts for the small cost of 1 mana with a Carrion Feeder on board.
[[Gutless Ghoul]]: If you are more focused on the aristocrats aspect of the deck, then this is alright. A bit expensive, but the lifegain this boi provides is great. I prefer the lifestaff, since my list is more midrange focused and doesn’t really want more sac outlets, but in the right build this is worth the slot.
Gangrenous Zombies: our best boardwipe. Works great against [[Spidersilk Armor]] and most elves.
[[Cuombajj Witches]]: It’s an alright budget alternative to a snow-covered mana base with Gangrenous Zombies as a creature that helps you control the board.
[[Shrivel]]: If you can’t afford a snow-covered mana base, this is alright against go-wide decks where Gangrenous Zombies would be used.
[[Crypt Rats]]: This one is interesting. It has the potential to be faster than Gangrenous Zombies and do a lot more damage, but it costs mana to activate the ability and doesn’t benefit from zombie synergies. Likely the best alternative to Gangrenous, although there is an argument for Witches and Shrivel.
[[Grim Harvest]]:A grindy card that wins games against midrange decks. Much better than Ghoulcaller’s Chant in the matches where it matters. It doesn't buyback Nameless Inversion though, but getting potentially infinite value off reanimating creatures (Gary comes to mind) is going to win games in slower matches.
[[Thorn of the Black Rose]]: monarch card for grindy matchups against decks with few fliers to steal the crown. Since we’re a graveyard deck, we probably want to be using our graveyard, but I can see people including this as a way to draw actual cards without utilizing the graveyard.
[[Relic of Progenitus]]: an eyebrow-raising inclusion. Ideally, you don't pop it and grind your opponent's graveyard into non-existence. The problem with Bojuka Bog and Nihil Spellbomb is that your opponent can start doing their thing again once you use their abilities, but they can't do that with Relic. They have to constantly be conserving and saving cards, which is great for us, likely better than the risk of having to exile our graveyard. In the games that I tested with this and I had to activate the second ability of my relic, my graveyard didn’t have anything I was sorry to see go, since all my reanimation nabbed all the cards I needed right before the activation.
[[Nihil Spellbomb]]: good budget alternative to Relic, but it's a lot worse than Relic at grinding the graveyard decks out as the opponent can safely start filling it up again once it had been used.
[[Crypt Creeper]]: An inefficient piece of zombie graveyard hate. Just don’t play it. 2 mana to either have a 2/1 or exile a card from an opponent’s graveyard is bad since the opponent will most likely have more copies of that card in the deck for added redundancy. Against a deck that is built on using its graveyard, this card won’t do enough. Using your reanimation spells to keep your opponent’s graveyard in check instead of advancing your gameplan is just not a winning line.
[[Choking Sands]]: even though we have a more solid game plan against Tron than other midrange decks, we still struggle against it. Sands does a great job at evening out the playing field by disrupting their mana advantage. It can also take care of karoo lands in a pinch, although you would most likely just play a grindy game against those decks.
Cards that I Chose to Leave Out
[[Carnophage]]: a zombie most commonly seen in suicide black lists. A 2/2 for 1 with an upkeep cost of 1 life may seem good, bbbuuuttt it's a trap! Many Magic: the Gathering players make the mistake of classifying zombies as an aggro deck, while its best cards are midrange and its best clocks don't require attacking all the time. It is usually effective to not attack but rather stay on defense (Carrion Feeder is an exception to this). Carnophage doesn’t jive with this game plan and taxes us for being in play. It's not that good after the first few turns, and we’re not planning to win that quickly.
With carnophage, you have 3 scenarios when you get it’s triggered ability in your upkeep. The first is when you keep it untapped. This is when you can either safely attack with it or can afford to pay life in order to block. In the attacking scenario, you're really just increasing the life point difference by 1, and when you're bolting your opponent a bunch with polluters and shepherds, phage does not affect the race as much.
In the second untap scenario when you choose to keep it untapped but not attack, you're probably in a winning position already since you can afford the luxury of paying life.
The third scenario is when you have to keep the phage tapped. This is usually when you're in a losing position, as this means it can't get damage through, or have some other reason to not keep it untapped. These are the scenarios when you really need untapped bois to be able to block and maintain a board state, which carnophage fails to do without costing you.
Overall, it's good when you're winning, but horrible when you're losing. Having to pay resources to do something that every other creature in your deck does for free is a significant reason the avoid the card, especially for midrange deck that wants flexible cards. It's only good in favorable circumstances and horrible in unfavorable ones, which would make it a “win more” card, and those aren't good.
If you skipped this chunk, here’s a summary: DON'T PLAY IT!
[[Gurmag Angler]]: unfortunately for the prince of pauper, we want the cards in our graveyard most of the time, so it's usually going to cost more than 1 mana to cast. It's great in other decks, but we still want few, if any, copies, even though it's a zombie. If we do the math, we have 9 cards that we would gladly feed to fishy (4 chant, 3 slip and 2 signs), as well as some cycling lands. That means we would comfortably feed only about ⅙ of the deck to Angler, and other decks have much more food to feed it. Sure, you can have a spare zombie or two lying around, but you will still end up paying a huge cost for it (5 mana in most cases), so I would much rather have something like Twisted Abomination that has a similar casting cost, has early-game value, and has regenerate pinned onto it.
Abomination is simply more flexible and resilient. It ended up being more useful than Angler. If someone put in more cards that they would gladly have Angler gobble up, a case can be made, but in my iteration of the deck, Angler is too expensive to justify playing.
[[Geth’s verdict]]: an instant speed edict that gets us ahead on life and is a contender for the edict of choice in the zombie deck. It all boils down to which plan a person supports more with their deckbuilding choices. If they want to be more midrangey, they'll take Chainer’s Edict and its potential for a 2 for 1. If they support the burn plan and the flexibility of an instant (or maybe they just want the budget option, and this is, in paper, definitely the budget option) more, they pick Verdict. Both cards are great, but ever since I made it so the deck can reliably get to 5+ mana and support a midrange deck more, I prefer Chainer’s Edict.
[[Cemetery Recruitment]]: a crossbreed between Ghoulcaller's Chant and Sign in Blood, but we usually have enough zombies in our graveyard that we could just grab 2 zombies rather than draw 1 and “draw” a zombie. I would much rather have Sign over this as well since it helps us get lands, even if it shocks us. I prefer to have either Chant (1 mana) or sign (draw 2) over a card that is half of each.
[[Gnawing Zombie]]: This is going to be sac outlet number 5 for more aristocrat focused lists (see: prof’s list) and is really the only zombie sac outlet besides carrion feeder that works as part of an aggressive plan.
[[Kherna Eternal]]: a bear with semi-trample on it. Don't. It does not support any of our plans. It’s obviously does not support aristocrats or midrange, and our burn plan doesn’t involve attacking. DON’T!
[[Sangrophage]]: 2-mana 3/3 with a huge punishment for keeping it untapped. DON'T! There is a reason this was cut before Carnophage, and that is because its tax is so much bigger. The life on upkeep stacks up really quickly, especially with multiples in play.
[[Tendrils of Corruption]]/[[Corrupt]]: I would give them a small bit of thought if I were playing mono-swamps, and even if I was, I am not very fond of spending 4+ mana on a removal spell Chainer’s Edict costs 2 mana up front, and the 7-mana flashback does not cost a card in hand and is more of a bonus if I reach 7 mana, rather than a priority.
[[Sultai Emissary]]: a sort of payoff for having so much recursion. A 1/1 for 2 that makes a 2/2 upon dying with the possibility to get back the 1/1 and accrue value over time is great in theory. Unfortunately, there's a few problems with the card and it's because of these problems that I think Emissary is overrated. First of all, the bears are not zombies, which is a major part of our burn plan.
Also, the dream of having an army of bears is a lot harder to pull off than people think, since it uses up valuable recursion that could be used for other useful cards and costs 2 additional mana to get the bear (and a 2/2 for 2 isn't very exciting outside limited). More food for angler is good, but I’m not even playing the card. It's a great dream that's really difficult and resource-consuming to pull off, probably only achievable in an aristocrats-focused list.
[[Butcher Ghoul]]: an alternative to Emissary: a 1/1 for 2 that turns into a 2/2 when it dies. You can't make an army of bears, but it remains a zombie (the major selling point of the card), and continues adding 1 to our devotion upon its first death. It has synergy with mummy, which is a fairly insignificant but noteworthy synergy. I like it more than Emissary, but I still don't like it enough to put it in the deck. I understand the protection against opposing edicts is nice, but it’s so mediocre and still only considerable in a more aristocrats focused list.
[[Infernal Caretaker]]: This card provides so much gas, but it is simply way too expensive to try and pull off. I want it to work, I really do, but considering we have a lot of reanimation as is, and the fact that caretaker is not a zombie, it sadly had to take the ax.
[[Swamp]]: strictly worse snow covered swamp, but an alright budget alternative. You would have to get rid of Gangrenous Zombies, which is a shame, but the deck should remain functional without it.
A Green Splash: There’s always that one guy in the comments in every zombie-related post who says that a green splash would make the deck much better. By splashing green, you would gain access to a few good cards (and a large improvement to your sideboard): [[Putrid Leech]], [[Howl of the Wolfpack]], and [[Strength of Night]].
Putrid Leech is a fine beatstick. A 4/4 for 2 makes for a fine clock and blocker, and while I do admit that this pauperfied goyf would be a fantastic addition with a green splash and worth consideration, the other cards don’t warrant the splash.
Strength of Night may be good in a token aggro deck, but we are not that. We cannot abuse a “Giant Growth on all creatures” effect as easily since we don’t dump many creatures onto the board at once. Remember that we are at heart a midrange deck, and 1-time effects such as this that don’t provide card advantage or board presence don’t help us grind out the game. Nor do they help with our aristocrats or burn game plans, except in the scenario where you go really deep on the aristocrats plan and end up playing 16+ 1-mana creatures, and even then a second color would cause severe mana issues.
The same goes for Hunger: though the effect is not temporary, it does not advance our game plan effectively, and while we are turning Carrion Feeder into a giant monster, we are still a midrange deck that wants to grind out value, and this does not actually help us with that. A similar analogy can be made with UR delver, which considered to be a midrange deck. Even though the deck is named after delver, it is considered by many to be the worst card in the deck in some matchups, as all it does is provide a beater with no real grinding potential. A similar thought process should be applied to zombies: does this card provide card advantage? No? Does it help our other game plans? No? NEXT!
A blue splash: now this is interesting. By splashing blue we will get access to the blue cantrips, some zombies with lots of toughness, and [[Forbidden Alchemy]], which is amazing since it provides us with card selection and gives us stuff to put into the graveyard for later recursion. I have not looked into this possibility too much, but it looks to be a solid UB Zombie midrange deck and could warrant its own separate post.
Philosophy
I like this section. I consider it to be the most helpful and I hope this will aid newcomers in making their own unique flavor of zombies. It is important to know that, at least in its current stage, the zombie deck consists of 3 major parts (hereafter known as “packages”): the midrange package, the burn package, and the aristocrats package. Whichever package the player chooses to focus on will define their unique iteration of the deck.
Now, it is common sense that if a player was given a choice between a good card and a worse card, then they would take the good card, but if they run out of good cards to put in, they are forced to put the worse one in. It is the inclusion of these worse cards that allow us to see which package the player focused on. There are some “best” cards that will be included in basically every zombie deck: ghoulcaller’s chant, nameless inversion, and ghoulraiser from the midrange package, shepherd of rot and gempalm polluter from the burn package, gray merchant of asphodel is a part of the first two, and carrion feeder and festering mummy from the aristocrats package. Everything else can act as a flex slot.
After adding these cards , you should have an idea of what you want to be doing and which package to focus on. Keep in mind that you can really focus on one thing or focus on a couple of things, but the focus on each of those things will obviously be much smaller. Here is a rough idea of how you want to go about tuning your deck to a specific focus:
If focusing on the midrange aspect (like I did), you really want to max out on reanimation and recursion, slow down, switch to Chainer’s Edicts, and good boardwipes in the form of Gangrenous Zombies. Out of all the packages to focus upon, this one is definitely the most expensive one. If you want to go budget, I do not suggest focusing on the midrange aspect too much, as having to spend more than a dollar on a mana base is something some of you do not want to do. True dedication to the midrange plan will let you really start grinding with the addition karoos and Twisted Abominations that will help you get to the late-game and actually cast the Abominations and flashback Chainer’s Edict.
If focusing on the aristocrats package, the first thing you must do is max out on copies of Carrion Feeders and Festering Mummies, then add a 5th sac outlet, preferably Gnawing Zombie, but a bit of digging can find other zombie sac outlets. Viscera seer is also a viable option. This way you are more likely to have one online, even through your opponent’s interaction. Then you can add a bunch of Festering Goblins (and functional reprints of Festering Goblin) and Sultai Emissaries/Butcher Ghouls. Infernal Caretaker is at its best here, since you will have many zombies in the graveyard from casting and saccing so many 1-drops. If you are really dedicated to the package, adding stuff along the lines of [[Mortician Beetle]] and [[Gavony Unhallowed]] that will get bigger with all the zombies that you are saccing could be worthwhile.
If focusing on the burn package, there really isn’t much you can do in addition to this configuration. Maxing out on Shepherds and Gempalms and adding Geth’s Verdicts is a start. Something interesting about this package is that it really relies on the aristocrats package for its cheap 1-mana creatures in order to take large chunks out of the opponent’s life total quickly, so improving upon and adding more cards from the aristocrats package will make this package much better. If you really want to go super aggro with the burn, you could try adding back Carnophage (but only because there are no other options), although it does have some weaknesses as discussed before. I do not recommend focusing too much on the burn package since it lacks any good “worse cards” that were mentioned at the start of this segment.
Sideboard guide: I don’t really want to share a sideboarding guide, as everyone’s decks and sideboards will be more tuned to their metas. If you want a sideboard guide with my list, make it known and I will be sure to make a separate post discussing general sideboard plans for majority of the mtgo meta, as well as specific sideboarding configurations.
The Future of Zombies/Tournament Report
I took my list to the GP Richmond Pauper Championship event. I went 2-3, one of the wins being a bye. Zombies need help, and though I talked about it a lot, it is still only as strong as a tier 2 deck, even when optimized (at least in my personal opinion). Here’s a report, with just a touch of salt to make it entertaining and/or slightly cringy:
Match 1 I went up against Mono-U Faeries (not delver): The first game was long, with tons of removal and counterspells from their respective sides. Eventually, though, 3 [[Accumalated Knowledge]]s allowed the opponent to take the lead and beat in with [[Spellstutter Sprite]]s and [[Pestermite]]s. Game 2 was a lot more lopsided in the opponent’s favor with them having a bunch of Spellstutters, rendering my Ghoulcaller’s Chants useless and counters to everything else. 0-1, 0-2 games
Second round I got the bye. During that time I got some stuff for cube and EDH, and got a chance to relax for a bit amidst the rush of the GP. 1-1, 0-2 games
Round 3 I went up against Kami-Lock [[Pestilence]] (it plays [[Kami of the False Hope]] along with [[Grim Harvest]] to lock up combat, but is otherwise a fairly stock WB Pestilence deck). The first game was extremely fun, with swings on both ends. Eventually it got down to the opponent being at 2 life and me at 4 or 5. He played a [[Lone Missionary]] to pull himself ahead on life total and Pestilenced for 3 on my turn, causing me to have to let my Twisted Abominations die (I had 2 on board at the time) in an attempt to make the Pestilence go away. They had a second one.
They were even stuck on lands for the first 6 turns of the game, and my deck couldn’t even take advantage of that. Second game everything went according to plan for the opponent and I ended up dying to a variety of 1 and 2-powered creatures with no board state to speak of. 1-2, 0-4
Round 4 was vs WU Familiars (which uses [[Sunscape Familiar]] to reduce the cost of cards such as [[Snap]] and [[Ghostly Flicker]] to end up in an infinite loop with karoos giving more ramp and [[Archaeomancer]]s buying back these spells. It’s a neat deck) and I ended up going 2-1. I took game 1, the burn package doing some serious work on the opponent. Game 2 the opponent got infinite mana, bounced all my creatures, and milled me to death. Game 3 I drew the greatest possible hand against a creature-based combo deck: lands and removal. My opponent played 3 Sunscape Familiars, all of which were promptly removed and exiled with a Relic, so the opponent simply could not do anything. 2-2, 2-3 games
Round 5 I get paired up against Elves: Mull to 6 game 1 and opponent played 5 bois on turn 2. Really skill-based plays eventually lead to elves’ victory. Game 2 the opponent was stuck on 1 land and I was just killing all his mana dorks, but the dorks overwhelmed my removal and allowed my opponent to cast [[Lys Avana Huntmaster]], followed by a second one, and then I died. Failed to draw my Gangrenous Zombies that game. Great, just great. 2-3, 2-5 games
Looking through all the rounds, I made one major mistake by not just letting my stuff die to kill the opposing Pestilence earlier, but I wasn’t going to draw anything any time soon, so the game would’ve ended in the opponent’s favor either way.
Now lets talk about the future of zombies and what could happen to turn it into a big boi deck that is capable of representing the power of pauper tribal alongside elves. Though we could just get some cards that are just good based on raw power level (as seen with the not-so-recent-but-new-as-far-as-our-history-is-concerned elf downshifts that brought that deck into tier 1 territory), there is also another slight problem, and that is a conflict between strategies.
The midrange plan is fine with the other two plans, but although the burn and aristocrats packages both want a bunch of 1-drop creatures, their plans want to do completely opposite things! Aristocrats wants to sac all their creatures in order to make their dudes grow and abuse death triggers, while the burn package wants to have as many creatures as possible in order be able to gempalm and shepherd for large amounts of damage to close out the game. Talk about a contradiction…
The deck needs more good cards in order to rise, as well as some way to solve this glaring problem of contrasting plans. This is the biggest problem and most challenging to solve, since it requires either the printing of cards that will support multiple strategies or the printing of enough cards to completely get rid of one of the strategies. Both of these tasks require some thinking (with the former being more interesting and difficult to achieve than the latter), but I have faith in WOTC’s to look into unexplored design space and give us something unique that could solve this problem.
By comparing zombies to other successful midrange decks, the deck has fantastic removal, bested only by the efficiency (but not the grindiness) of a bolt, so that is not really an issue. By once again comparing zombies to other midrange decks, the deck lacks fliers, evasive creatures that are sort of mandatory in today’s world of Delvers and faeries. A lack of really efficient lifegain (such as that of [[Lone Missionary]]) or draining (something black is known for) hurts the deck a bit as well, since it has no way of recouping Shepherd’s life loss in the main deck other than Gary.
Another problem arises not from our synergies, but from our reliance on the graveyard to provide us with card advantage. This precious card advantage can easily be disrupted by opposing graveyard hate, and since we’re black, we don’t have any ways of dealing with a resolved relic or spellbomb besides a well-timed duress. Having some actual card draw (preferably on legs), not grave digging, will help with this issue tremendously, as it will reduce our reliance on the graveyard to provide us with card advantage and will smooth out our draws, making sure we hit our land drops on time and giving us access to more cards in general.
The Return to Innistrad block (SOI), the plane of gothic horror and supposed graveyard plane, didn’t have a single card that sees play in the deck as we know it. We missed that one large opportunity all those years ago, which is quite a shame really, but we are soon going to receive another large opportunity. The final set of the RTRTR block will feature the final battle between the Gatewatch and Nicol Bolas, who is accompanied by his eternal ZOMBIE army, and should be flavorful enough to give WOTC an excuse to throw pauper zombies at least a couple of bones.
At the moment, zombies are not a competitive deck, but they are AT LEAST comparable to tier 2 decks, provided the deck builder is knowledgeable of the archetype (which you, dear reader, can consider yourself to be as long as you didn’t skim the primer). If you have a pauper gauntlet that you grade, bump zombies’ grade up a bit. They deserve it. Though not competitive, the deck is still really fun to play and has lots of hidden interactions to discover that will make you feel good inside, sort of like knowing that you can save 100% or more on life insurance by switching to ZAMBO. Thank you for walking corpse-ing with me and have a great night!
EDIT: This was copied and pasted from google drive late at night, so I completely forgot about putting links in. They're in now!
EDIT EDIT: Fixed some formatting issues+changed part about tier 2
EDIT EDIT EDIT: It is April of 2019 and War of the Spark has promised zombies some interesting additions. This update will include an analysis of the new zombies and I will update the "history" section to include the PTQ/MCQ top 8.

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Hi, all! It has been awhile since I have had a tourney report, but I figured I would give it a shot with a deck I came up with just a few days ago, and with pretty minimal testing, managed to top 8 at this weekend's states. Of course, the deck is a work in progress, but I will at least explain my deck choices and then talk about the actual event. I will state that I have a method to my madness in regards to the number of copies for each card, which I will explain. Without further adieu, here is my decklist:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/abzan-zoo-4/
Lands (23): Running 6 mana accelerants, this allowed me to cut a land for an extra utility card. With the current mana base, this made for 17 G, 16 W, and 14 B as far as potential land sources go. It also allowed for 2 gavony, which can turn board stalls into grindy blowouts. Lastly, I chose to run 1 of each of the manlands, including the new Shambling Vents, which honestly was impressive imo. I had multiple games in both testing and in the tournament where it's lifelink clause made all the difference.
Creatures (21):
4x Noble Hierarch - pretty self-explanatory. Best dork in Modern. While it doesn't provide B mana, the exalted makes for a huge bonus. Since the deck is mostly GW based, the lack of the third color isn't that big a deal, and I always want to see this card in my opening hand.
3x Tarmogoyf - Best creature in modern, 'nuff said. Given that, I am sure you are wondering why not the full playset? 2 reasons: 1) they are kind of expensive. 2) Money aside, at the time, I actually preferred to have a 3/3 split with Voice of Resurgence for the added utility against opposing G/B/x and blue decks. Needless to say, goyf does work, and in the future, this will most likely become a 4/2 split, but that is future me's problem.
3x Voice of Resurgence - I kind of covered this card already. Very resillient creature, that can sometimes time walk the opponent and at least gain a 2-for-1. The token also synergizes very, very well with other 'spicy' cards in the list. In the future, I do think that going to the 4/2 split is probably right, but we will get there another time. I did find that I sided Voice out a lot against creature decks, despite it being a good blocker. My reasoning was that I needed the other cards in my maindeck, and voice was just the next card to go.
3x Siege Rhino - Who doesn't like a bigger BBE with lightning helix? My only reason for not running a playset was the potential for clunky hands. I don't understand it, but they come in crashes, and having 3 in your opening hand isn't always the best situation to have yourself in during a modern match. In either case, a strong finisher; I still wonder why they ever printed this card.
2x Birds of Paradise - The OG mana dork! This little guy is great, since he can chump for days, fix our mana super well, and can even push through for the killing blow sometimes, with the help of some other cards.
2x Scavenging Ooze - Scooze is a pivotal part of the deck, since it does so much in nearly every possible MU. The utility to shut off gy based combos, mitigate opposing goyfs, keep snapcasters in check, gain life, make a fat creature to wall or close a game. The card is an all-star, but not so great in multiple, so 2 is ideal.
2x - Kitchen Finks - This guy is straight up annoying. Especially, when you have ways to recur his persist ability by adding counters to him. Of course, I have no infinite life combos, but the card is solid against all kinds of different decks, and if it eats a Path to Exile for my Goyf, I can live with it.
2x Hangarback Walker - Wait? Isn't that a standard card?! What kind of jank bull$#!% is this? Yes, HBW is the real deal. I haven't even played him standard, but his versatility makes him a nightmare for a lot of modern decks. He tends to be a must answer early on, which frees up your other threats to close a game. He is a great chump blocker, especially against opposing flyers. He is never a dead draw since he can always be cast for X. The best part is that he can go from stalling/pressuring your opponent into blowing out a game. I have had several games now (take into consideration that I theory-crafted this deck and have probably only play ~30 or so matches with this deck) where I have put my opponent in the unfavorable dilemma of having to kill a 4/4 or 5/5 walker only to be able to kill them the next turn with a crew of flyers receiving pumps each turn. I have also had games I normally had no reason winning that I stole by killing my own massive EoT of opponent's turn, and then using one or more of my anthem effects on the leftover thopters to surprise kill my opponent. It may seem cute, but it is real, and if opponent's aren't ready to deal with it, they will be rolling up a playmat full of salt. The best part is that the deck by no means hinges on this, so your walker is just one more must answer threat a lot or resilience, and opponent's face a lot of awkward situations. It even protects you against board wipes, not even the mighty Ugin can deal with it in a lot of cases. TL;DR - take HBW seriously, or it will punish you.
Planeswalkers (2):
2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar - I promise I am done slamming standard staples into modern. I am not trying to prove anything...Ok, I am. But still, the line ends here. In my opinion, Gideon is arguably the best card in this deck, and that is saying a lot considering I am playing everyone's favorite Llurgoyf. This card is actually bonkers. It meets the hallmarks of all a great planeswalker, but he also has 2 unique effects than very few other planeswalkers have: 1) The ability to use all of his abilities the turn he is played, and 2) the ability to literally end the game the second he is played. And not because of some inevitability realized by the opponent. His emblem ability will outright kill the opponent. Maybe a lot of it is by surprise, but when a swarm of 4-6 1/1 flyers suddenly become 2/2s or 3/3s, the game is probably over. The best part, the opponent has absolutely no way to interact with the emblem, so there are very few instant speed outs. I have lived the dream of blowing my opponent out with double gideon emblems more times that I ever thought would happen, and it feels super good. However, this isn't even his best ability. He IS so good because he is often a 2-for-1 the turn you play him by making a token, and follow that up with with beatdowns based on his +1 ability. This deck can threaten him as quickly as turn 3, or can manage to mitigate the board state, or even clear it, only to drop him on an empty board and finish the game by himself. He synergizes incredibly well with the other creatures in the deck, and is actually a very tough permanent to deal with in modern as is. Do be careful about running his +1 into path, but that really isn't that hard. I wanted to build a different abzan list. One that focused on what I call 'progressive attrition'. Instead of traditional junk decks that focus on dismantling the opponents hands and forcing games into topdeck wars, I wanted to play a mix of swarming the board while still having the best answers modern has to offer to backup my board state. The value of playing such resilient creatures also forces most opponents to empty their hands to deal with the constant threats being played, but instead of relying on the topdecks after to finish, or a manland, or a Liliana that may eventually get to ult if she isn't answered after several turns, my board state is so far ahead and that it overwhelms the opponent. Gideon and HBW both greatly contribute to this plan. The mix of aggression and answers is as about as fair as fair magic can get, since it rewards tight play, and rewards player who know their opponent's decks and understand the lines of play their opponents must have to deal with your threats. But, I digress. Gideon is legit, and if you haven't tried him, I suggest you take a second look.
Spells (14):
4x Path to Exile - the best removal spell in modern. Pretty straight-forward. It's a must have 4-of.
3x Abrupt Decay - The compliment to Path, AD is also one of the best removal spells in the game, allowing you to deal with much more than creatures, but also other unfair permanents (I'm looking at you, Blood Moon).
3x Lingering Souls - One of the backbone staples of Junk in Modern, this card is greatly versatile since it can serve so well to wall opponents or make for a fast clock. Casting and flashing back lingering souls on turn 3 is not too awful uncommon, and can put your opponent in a terrible spot, especially if you have a Gideon or a township to follow it up. I do like seeing the card at least once every game, but sometimes you can get clunky double draws, and I really wanted to make room for other utility, so I shaved the 4th copy. In a lot of ways, HBW serves as copies 4 and 5, but with its own pros and cons.
2x Thoughtseize - The premier discard spell in modern, TS does real work. While I have foregone Inquisition of Kozilek in the deck due to wanting to be more progressive with my board, Thoughtseize still serves to keep the many combo and control decks honest, which is why i am running the full playset, split in the main and sideboard. This card is sometimes the only card that can keep you from being decimated from a nut draw from a RG Tron player.
1x Dismember - Amazing removal spell, which allows you to still advance your board while holding up an unsuspecting Basic forest for your opponent to walk into. The deck's B mana also allows you to cast it without taking any life, which can be pretty huge against aggressive decks game 1.
1x Slaughter Pact - This may be my favorite kill spell. The number of sheer blowouts I had with this card in the tournament honestly surprised me. Being able to be tapped out and have your opponent think they are safe to do whatever they want only to ruin their life is just great. Just make sure you put a die on top of your deck so you don't forget that upkeep cost hehe.
Sideboard (15):
2x Ghost Quarter - Simply a concession to RG Tron, which is arguably the worst matchup, and is a fairly popular deck right now, especially in my meta. Plan A for Tron is to avoid the matchup entirely, and Plan B is this and hand disruption. I feel like the deck is still represented enough to force 2 sb slots for it, but it can be useful in other matchups. Honestly, I really want to play fulminator mages in this slot, but the manabase doesn't support 1BB very well. In the future, I may make this change and adjust my landbase accordingly. Previously, I tried 1 GQ main, but with 2 townships, that makes for too many hands that have to be pitched. This is certainly a work in progress.
2x Thoughtseize - While I need to have the full 4 copies for unfair decks, running them all main will make the burn matchup and other aggressive matchups quite worse. So, 2/2 split seems appropriate.
2x Stony Silence - Great vs Affinity & Tron, and even is useful as a hedge against AEther Vial decks and Lantern Control (not quite the best there). It is a nonbo with HBW, but I have found that to be okay, but just be aware of your board.
2x Feed the Clan - Helps against aggressive decks, and many times will just end a game against burn if it resolves without any response. Since this deck can go wide and can race with creature decks, this card allows for some blowouts against creature decks like Elves and Merfolk when they think they can alpha strike, only to lose the lifegain.
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor - Sorin served a dual purpose in that he is great for his lifegain ability, which is another game ender a lot of times for burn, but also because he another great threat against grindy matchups. He is hard for many decks to deal with, and is always a 2-for-1 upon resolution. If you really wanna stretch the imagination, his ult emblem can even keep Emrakul in check (If you can't tell, I REALLY hate GR Tron).
1x Creeping Corrosion - Having a way to wipe affinity is necessary, and I felt fracturing gust is just too expensive. Being able to wipe their board after they empty their hand on turn 3 is a big deal, and most of the time ends the game. It also helps against other fringe artifact decks, like Lantern Control.
1x Wrath of God - Who doesn't love this card. Normally, playing a board wipe with a more creature-oriented deck would seem odd. However, a lot of the creatures in this deck have built-in resilience to board wipes. I have lived the dream of wiping a board and then getting 5 1/1 thopters and a 6/6 elemental. It feels unbeatable.
1x Golgari Charm - This card is greatly versatile, but you must play it tightly. -1/-1 to all creatures can backfire sometimes, and you can be left in spots where you are forced to kill your own tokens in order to stabilize a board; sometimes a necessary evil. The destroy enchantment helps against twin and other decks that may play blood moon or other annoying enchantments. Finally, being able to regenerate the team can blowout large combats, or can catch a UW control opponent off guard when they cast supreme verdict, pyroclasm, anger of the gods, etc.
1x Spellskite - This card feels necessary as to have a way to shut off Infect and Twin, but can also serve as a way to mitigate burn's spells. A nice thing that isn't always realized is that you actually have 6 sources that make U mana (Noble Hierarch & Birds of Paradise), so you don't always have to take 2 life to activate.
1x Maelstrom Pulse - Card is a great catch-all. It is a shame that it is sorcery speed, but it is a great way to answer large threats that otherwise can't be answered, and is also great when it serves to be a 2-for-1, or even more.
1x Choke - To be honest, I feel dirty playing this card. It is probably the most unfair sideboard card in modern, and imo, should be banned. However, the card is too good not to play against blue decks, so it must be done. I'm waiting for WotC to ban it so I have a reason not to play it.
Testing prior to the event: I had a vision for this deck for a few weeks, and built it online via non-MTGO software and playtested it. Once I finally settled on this 75, I managed to play about 40 games with it prior to States. I mostly tested against Tier 1 decks I expected to see, along with a few other random decks that people decided to play. What I found in this testing was this:

• The G/B/x matchup is awesome, even moreso against Jund. Hangarback Walker overperforms in this MU.
  
• Tron just feels unwinnable game 1. My game 1 record against torn is actually 2-1, but even so, it just felt like at any moment I was going to be obliterated. It is really dependent on whether they have turn 3 tron, which is how a lot of their matches go anyway. The post-board games feel better, but I still sweat out every game, and would just prefer to avoid this MU.
  
• Aggro matchups, especially creature heavy aggro, feel great to play against. We tend to go bigger and wider, and our brick-walls turn into inevitability. Affinity is a little trickier since it is important to either have answers or flyers early to keep them from overwhelming you, but the post-board games are much easier. Burn is similar in that you have to see some lifegain game 1 or hope they just draw all creatures that you can kill or wall. The post-board also improves this matchup, but it never really feels unfavorable. Merfolk and Elves are interesting in that they have outs to get past your board-stalls, so this is where I feel like having that right mix of board presence with answers to backup your threats serves very well. Slaughter Pact is hilariously awesome in these games since what they think will be a clean kill turns into them running into a one-sided board wipe.
  
• I only played one match against infect, and I got utterly smashed after some awkward draws with zero ways to interact with them. My opinion is that the matchup is close, slightly favoring them, but seems very draw dependent. Once again, Hangarback is an all-star here since it can chump beyong Apostle's Blessing, but even so, not having an answer for Blighted Agent will kill you quickly.
  
• Twin is always a fun cat-and-mouse game, and feels close, but favorable. I always felt playing against twin is about out-classing the opponent with your lines of play, and bluffing which ones you could have.
  
• Grxis variants (control, twin, delver) seem great to play against. Once again, our threats are very resilient, and that favors them poorly. Meanwhile, we also have access to the answers needed to keep them off the board. I always felt like I was getting the better end of their K command, especially when it had to be used to deal with hangarback or tokens.
  
• I have not tested at all against Amulet Bloom, but I imaging it isn't too fun to play against. On paper, I would think that most games I can keep pressure while having Path to deal with Prime Time, but even so, sometimes they can outright kill you before you play your second land, which seems a bit absurd.
  

Onto the Tournament! States was held in Charleston, WV at Lost Legion Comis: The Rifleman. Thanks to them for hosting the event. There were 63 people there for the event, making for a 6 round tourney. So, here we go!
Round 1 - Mono U Merfolk Game 1, I started with turn 1 hierarch into turn 2 thoughtseize, hangarback. Over the game, I went wide with spirit tokens and landed a township in play. My opponent landed a spreading seas with a couple of lords and went to alpha strike past my board. I abrupt decayed his enchantment and blocked his 5/5 mutavault with a 4/4 hangarback, which put me at 3 life and made me enough flyers to kill him with township activation next turn. Game 2, I keep an awkward 2 land stony silence double scooze hand after my opponent decided to mulligan. My thought was a turn 2 silence could cripple him if he keeps a risky 1 land vial. He instead plays silvergill into 3 lords while I brick on my 3rd land drop. Game 3, we had a great game trading resources. At one point, my opponent was much wider than me with 2 lords, a mutavault, a harbinger, and a master of waves with several tokens. After he does some math, and notes that I am tapped out with a big goyf, a kitchen finks, a 3/3 hangarback, and a pair of spirit tokens. He decided to swing out for lethal, and a slaughter pact on his master of waves ruined him. I wiped his board and proceed to beat face next turn. However, before I could kill him, he managed to play a silvergill into lord into master of waves to clog the board. I used township to force hangarback through, leaving him to die or block it to make flyers that would kill him the next turn anyway.
(2-1 on the match, 1-0 in swiss)
SB: +1 Stony silence, +2 Feed the clan, +1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor, +1 Wrath of God, +1 Choke, -3 Voice of Resurgence, -1 Noble Hierarch, -1 Birds of Paradise, -1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Round 2: Naya Zoo
Game 1, prior to starting, we were deck-checked, and my opponent had a registration error, receiving a game 1 loss. We played game 2, and it was the hangarback show. I landed one turn 2 while holding up mana for dismember to kill his knight of the reliquary. I locked down the board with siege rhinos and a scavenging ooze while hangback served to chump twice and stall while the rhino crash pulled through. After attacking through his board of wild nacatls and friends, I put him to 2 life, where my 3rd and final rhino cast delivered the finishing blow.
(2-0 for the match, 2-0 in swiss) No SB
Round 3: GW Elves
I was playing against a buddy from my old LGS, the Great Hometown Hobbies of Huntington, WV (if you have a chance, you should go, it's a good time). Anyway, Game 1 was a clinic. I used removal and disruption while goyf and spirit tokens pushed through. Game 2, easily the best game I had all day (funny enough, I lost this game). We had a great deal of interactions throughout the game, but I did stumble on my 4th land drop for a few turns. Despite this, he went for an alpha strike after playing elvish champion, to which I slaughter pact'd to his surprise, then by blocking wiiped his board. He then used a lead the stampede to get 4 new elves (ridiculous hit) and built a new board, while still sandbagging some cards. He forced me to cast wrath of god, to which I got value from killing a 3/3 hangarback walker and kitchen finks which returned to the field. However, he played out a nettle sentinel and llanowar elves with a Heritage druid, then followed up with another dork and a dwynen's elite. I played a land and passed. I had a golgari charm in play, which I should have just played while he was tapped out, but I was wanted to preserve my blockers. Instead, I abrupt decay'd his heritage druid, still leaving mana up for the charm. His turn, he quickly plays ezuri, and in a haze, I let it resolve without responding. This was really the only misplay I had all day, but it definitely cost me the game. What I thought at the time was that he didn't have enough mana to overrun without using his dorks, meaning I could effectively block and kill him next turn. However, I failed to realize he had Nykthos and 2 lands up, so after resolving it, he could activate nykthos for enough to swing through my 1/1s. The other issue I had was that he now had multiple 2/2s, so I couldn't even respond to the overrun ability without losing my blockers. The only out was to cast it to kill his dork prior to Ezuri cast so that he didnt have the devotion for nykthos. Then, I could have path'd his Ezuri my turn and stabilized for a possible win. Lessons learned. Game 3, I kept an aggressive hand while he kept an odd reactive hand. He path'd my turn 2 finks, which allowed me to make 4 spirit tokens turn 3 with lingering souls, followed by a township and removal backup. Spirits closed out the game very quickly.
(2-1 on the round, 3-0 in swiss)
SB: +2 feed the clan, +1 thoughtseize, +1 sorin, solemn visitor, +1 wrath of god, -3 voice of resurgence, -1 noble hierarch, -1 birds of paradise
Round 4: Mono U Merfolk (again?!)
Game 1, board was nice and stalled, but my opponent finally topdecked a spreading seas to push through. Game 2, I have some disruption early and take the aggressive route with double goyf. He casts a hibernation which resets the board. Then, we both start clogging the board, but I lived the dream of double gideon emblem for some spirit tokens to push through. Game 3, my opponent spills metaphorical salt all over his deck and has to mulligan to 4. Needless to say, I Had a thoughtseize in my opening hand and pretty easily controlled the board to a quick win.
(2-1 on the round, 4-0 in swiss)
SB: Same as round 1, except I left in the 2nd Gideon in and didn't put in the 2nd feed the clan
Rounds 5 & 6: ID into top 8. Due to my tiebreakers, I was #8 seed.
Quarterfinals: Abzan CoCo
This was a MU I had not practiced for, and it was against the shop owner and friend from my old LGS. He is a good guy, and was easily arguably the best player there, and was quite experienced with his deck. He ended up winning the entire states tournament after the top 4 split up prizes, so congrats on getting the medal for Hometown Hobbies! Needless to say, we had 2 good, close games. Game 1, I have a reactive hand with bombs in Gideon and Siege Rhino in hand. We traded resources, and then I establish a board presence with some lingering souls tokens. I stumble for a turn on my 4th land drop, and EoT of my turn he CoCos and gets a Cartel Aristocrat and Fulminator Mage, which he uses to remove my Godless Shrine, which was backbreaking. I had no other B source to cast the thoughtseizes I drew, nor could I abrupt decay his Melira. I continued to stumble while he built an inevitable board state. Prior to realizing I was dead, he did CoCo again and his a Phyrexian Revoker, to which he named, "Gideon, Ally of Zendikar". I wasn't even mad. I was glad he respected the card enough, and we both laughed about it before going to game 2. Game 2, I started off very strong with a turn 2 finks into turn 3 Gideon. I managed to protect the Gideon with a pair of Rhinos, and had him on the backfoot until he CoCo'd againt to find a combo piece and PHYREXIAN MUTHAF*CKIN REVOKER, turning off my Gideon. I had the 2nd Gideon in hand, and this prevented me from being able to double emblem and kill him with my Rhinos and tokens for a turn. That time walk was crucial. I killed the revoker a turn later and tapped out to play some lingering souls. He drew and coco'd and got combo, and he quickly went to state infinite life, but then I told him to play it out, to which he telegraphed my slaughter pact. Being the gentleman he is, he went through the steps and I killed the finks. However, because of the slaughter pact, I would not have enough mana to go for double gideon emblem alpha strike unless I drew a land the next turn, and I did not. I made another token and passed, waiting one more turn. He drew an Eternal Witness, getting back his finks, and then chorded for a spellskite to lock my path to exile out.
(0-2 in the round, finished 8th Place at 4-1-2)
SB: +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Wrath of God, +1 Maelstrom Pulse -3 Voice of Resurgence, -1 Birds of Paradise
Take Home Notes: Hangarback and Gideon really shined in a lot of my matchups. I actually ended up siding out voices every match, but that was because of my MUs. Voice is still too powerful against other pillars of the format, so I think it is still a must-include, but I may need to consider cutting down to 2 to add the 4th Tarmogoyf. Another thing I realized is that the deck is very hard to sideboard with. I typically pride myself on being adept at siding in and out, but this deck leaves you some very difficult decisions, as so many cards are very versatile. It definitely feels like the kind of deck that never wants to bring in more than 5 cards in most of your MUs because of this, which is something I will learn to master as I continue playing it. Meanwhile, the sideboard itself is still a little rough, and the deck still needs some tuning, but I feel that will come over time. I would be more than happy to take any suggestions to what to add or take out of the deck, especially in the sideboard! One last thing I noticed was how powerful a deck like this is with a turn 1 dork. I don't want to over-commit and make myself more vulnerable to flooding, but almost every game where I start with a turn 1 dork seems like I am so far ahead already. I guess I just enjoy the flexibility of the deck to grind with the best, but also close games out in 5 turns.
Summary: I felt like the deck was very strong, and the cards that others weren't expecting really overperformed. I do think a part of this was due to not expecting to see them, but in either case, I don't think that should be used to dismiss their power level. Being someone that no longer has time to travel every week to play competitive magic, I find it very satisfying to have a deck that feels powerful, but is fun to play. Playing this deck over the past few days has been the most fun I have had playing magic in a while, and it always feel good to make your own twists to decks and make them something unique, while not significantly reducing their power level. I encourage anyone that has the chance to sleeve this up to give it a try, and I encourage all forms of feedback. I will say that if goyfs are one thing holding you back from playing this, that loxodon smiter is not a terrible alternative, but I can tell you from experience, it is not the same. I hope everyone enjoys reading my novel of text. Until next time!
-The White Falcon