It’s a funny thing, getting to a point in your Magic life where you just don’t care about the weekly tournaments anymore. I used to live and thrive on them, playing almost every single night in a tournament somewhere around the valley. Over the past few months, as I’ve started traveling to bigger tournaments more, and I’ve been working on writing articles and making videos, I’ve been attending them less and less. I’ve found that my priorities have shifted. I prepare for the bigger tournaments that are coming up, I study and watch the shifting metagame, but…I have less of a desire to actually play in these smaller FNM-style tournaments.
There are several reasons for this, one of which is that I end up…I don’t know how to describe this…feeling bad, for playing the deck that I play. When I was playing Game Day, I was playing UWR Tempo before it was popular, and I absolutely crushed everybody in my path to take down the victory. The players around me didn’t look at me in awe, amazed at some mystical Magic powers that I have, or anything silly like that. Instead, I was seen as a bad guy, for playing counterspells and Geist of Saint Traft.
I didn’t know what to do. I shouldn’t let them get to me, I realize we’re all playing the game the way we want to play it, but I also care about my image, and I want people to have a good mental image of me. I don’t want to be seen as a douchebag, just because of the deck I choose to play. I even felt bad when I sat down in front of some 14 year old kid, at his first FNM, and absolutely crushed him, playing cards he didn’t even understand. He walked away looking dejected, and although I was trying to be as nice and as friendly as possible, my deck was gave no room for error. I wanted to be able to have more fun at FNM, and worry less about being shown as some sort of mean person, for playing a powerful deck.
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts last week, contemplating my dilemma, and wondering what I was going to do, when I heard Jonathan Medina talk about a deck he had been trolling people with online, a Zombies infinite combo deck, and I instantly knew that it was a fun, not too unfair deck, and was perfect for the medium of an FNM. I picked up the cards, made some tweaks and took it for a spin.
Zombo!
| Creatures (16) 4 Gravecrawler 4 Diregraf Captain 4 Veilborn Ghoul 4 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born Artifacts (2) 2 Rakdos Keyrune Enchantments (4) 4 Rooftop Storm Instants (3) 1 Izzet Charm 2 Forbidden Alchemy Sorceries (6) 2 Pillar of Flame 2 Rolling Temblor 2 Sever the Bloodline Lands (25) 4 Blood Crypt 2 Dragonskull Summit 4 Drowned Catacomb 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Island 1 Mountain 4 Steam Vents 4 Sulfur Falls 4 Swamp | Sideboard (15) 2 Dispel 2 Cyclonic Rift 2 Appetite for Brains 3 Duress 1 Rolling Temblor 2 Slaughter Games 2 Rakdos’s Return 1 Zombie Appocalypse |
The deck works by assembling an infinite combo, using Rooftop Storm, Grimgrin, Gravecrawler and Diregraf Captain. Yup, only four cards……
It was at this point of the deck construction, when I realized I was playing a combo that relied on me drawing 4 specific cards, that I thought to myself “WTF am I doing? I could be playing Geist of Saint Traft and Thundermaw Hellkite!”
Anywho, so you assemble these four cards in your hand, six lands in play, and your opponent has tapped out for their piddly Thragtusk. You start by casting Rooftop Storm, which allows you to cast the rest of your Zombies for free. Then you slam down Grimgrin, Captain, and Gravecrawler. You sacrifice Gravecrawler to Grimgrin, causing your opponent to lose one life. You bring Gravecrawler back from the graveyard (for free), then sacrifice him again, they lose another life. Over and over and over and over….until they are dead!
I like this deck because the combo takes a long time to assemble, it doesn’t feel unfair, and every time I actually got it against my FNM opponent, they just laughed and we went to the next game. They recognize that the combo is tough to put together, and the deck didn’t feel overpowering the whole game, allowing for a much more enjoyable experience.
The thing that surprised me the most about the whole experience, was that the deck actually performed very well! I only lost one match the whole night, to a friend of mine who was playing UWR Tempo. We went to a close game 3, where I had the combo in hand and a dispel, but didn’t have the seventh mana to be able to cast Rooftop Storm with Dispel back up. He put me to a position where it was “now or never,” I cast Storm, and…he had the counterspell. Oh well.
The deck is very fun to play, overall. It’s certainly not perfect, and it has tweaks that could probably make it stronger, but I really enjoyed playing it. It was a nice refresher from the constant overpowering of UWR. I even played against an opponent who cast Slaughter Games, targeting my Rooftop Storm, so I just turned into a beatdown deck, and it was highly efficient.
p.s. The deck runs Veilborn Ghoul, which is sweet for Faithless Looting. I had one turn 4 where I cast Faithless Looting, discarded two Veilborn Ghouls, played a swamp, got them back, cast Looting again from the graveyard, discarded my two Ghouls again, then the next turn played another swamp, and got them back again. It was…..dirty 
Overall, if you are looking for a really fun, yet still somewhat competitive deck, I would look no further than Zombo!
A couple years ago we had a great crowd for WoW TCG. We easily had 14-16 people for Battlegrounds each week. One week, after losing, a couple of them complained. They were upset that some people came each week with competitive decks. To them, it was undermining their ability to have fun as they made "fun" decks and our decks didn't allow them to have the fun they desired.
It was a rough situation because the rest of us liked building competitive decks because to us, winning was fun. It was an awkward situation between two groups of people with different lines of thinking. Who was right and who was wrong? The truth of the matter is that neither group was wrong as we cannot dictate how people have fun.
Alternatively I have friends who know quite well that if you show up to a competitive event (this includes FNM because it is a tournament with prizes on the line) ill-prepared for the competition you will probably lose. A lot of this swings back to the old article about the 3 types of Magic players.
In your scenario with the 14 year old, I think being nice about it, encouraging them, and offering helpful advice and suggestions (and even being forgiving of possible bad decisions) will go a long way in encouraging players rather than forcing yourself to play a bad deck.
Thank you for posting this. I (a store owner) have lost players because a group of players can only have fun if they crush everyone by turn 4 in 7 min or less. I appreciate that a competitive player can see that there are other styles of play and players and join us in that play. It's not that we're not competitive, it's just that we're not all 'spikes' and don't need to crush everyone all the time. It's great to see that you did something that could just be fun for both players. THANK YOU!
BehomethDan: I understand there is a place for competitive players, but what about those who are just starting or don't want to build "net decks" to crush everyone too? Where is their place to play and win prizes? Why do we ALL have to play up to the competitive, only fun for 'spikes' level? I haven't seen that it encourages players to be more competitive, only that it makes them NOT play Magic in my store and my tournaments. When FNM dies and no one wants to play because of the 'spikes', whose fault is it and how does it get fixed?
It's true. It's a hard line to find the right balance. It's hard because you can ask those two groups of people to meet midway. We can't say "Competitive players be slightly less competitive and you casual players be more competitive." It's awkward because it usually ends up being the "spikes" being asked to scale back.
That's why Game Grid changed it's prize distribution a few months back. We polled a Magic community asking for advice and suggestions on how to handle the wide spectrum of play levels we experienced. After taking their suggestions and feedback, we ended up cutting the the prizes for the top players slightly but then offered a free booster pack to every person who finished FNM with a 50% record or better. It doesn't matter if you started out 0-2 and finished 2-2, you still got a booster. We have found this has really encouraged players to show up for FNM. They know that even if they get paired against the awesome Julians of the world, the next round the probably won't and getting prizes from free FNM is much more of a reality now. And since FNM is free, there is little incentive not to participate if they have any desire.
Hey there man (Fubsy),
I think I have played you a few times. I play now and again at Oasis and I have always thought you were a pretty nice guy, definitely not a douche. I wouldn't be too harsh on yourself for crushing a 14 year old at his first FNM. I know it happened to me and it has probably happened to you. Those are the initiations and also times to make decisions about why you play magic. If you go to a tournament you should expect to see a lot of tier one mixed in with new tech.
I completely see the point of your Zombo build. My SO Amanda and I play tons of magic at home and many of the decks we make are to have fun and see cool interactions. I like to build competitive decks for tournaments usually adopting a working net list and adjusting it to fit the local meta. When I played you I think that I was playing American Control. The fact is playing UWR Tempo is tons of fun. Is it fun to bring to a kitchen table? Generally no. I like to make the comparison to race car(d)s. Ha!… You don't normally take race cars out on the open road, it is more fun to drive fast and play well with a deck that is suited to the environment you are in. I only play paper cards and have only recently started uploading some of my kitchen table ideas. I have a build built to mill while still be interactive, fun and competitive… hard to straddle. I think that it is accomplishing the exact same thing that you were trying to go for with your ZOMBO build. It is refreshing to hear someone tackling this issue of magic.
Hope to see and play again soon.
Link to my Mill at Home list: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mill-at-home/
We also switched to free FNM and prizes for a 50% record. Our attendance is better, but I still remind my players to make sure everyone is having fun. Basically asking the spikes to dial back the win by turn 4 in less than 7 min. It would be nice if everyone could be at the same level competitively, but they aren't. I wish I had a better solution. Thanks for hearing me out, apparently it's a pet peeve of mine.