Gerry Thompson won Pro Tour Nashvile with a sweet Mono-Black Zombies deck, but it seems like people have started to adjust and the deck didn't have quite as good of a showing at GP Montreal. Specifically, Aetherworks Marvel was running the tables with 3 copies in the Top 8. I think Mono-Black Zombies is still the best deck in the format, but beating Aetherworks Marvel consistently is tough. You need your deck to be fast and have the right disruption. Traditionally, one of the hallmark cards in Zombies was Liliana's Mastery. The card is really powerful, but it really doesn't do much against Marvel, so I decided to brew a version of the deck that cuts the 5-drops and has a little extra pressure early on the curve.

Mono-Black Zombies ? Amonkhet Standard | by Andrew Boswell

• Creatures (27)
• 3 Scrapheap Scrounger
• 4 Cryptbreaker
• 4 Diregraf Colossus
• 4 Dread Wanderer
• 4 Lord of the Accursed
• 4 Metallic Mimic
• 4 Relentless Dead

• Instants (7)
• 3 Grasp of Darkness
• 4 Fatal Push

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Dark Salvation

• Lands (22)
• 22 Swamp

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Scrapheap Scrounger
• 4 Transgress the Mind
• 2 Lost Legacy
• 2 Liliana's Mastery
• 2 Liliana, the Last Hope
• 2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 2 Never // Return

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Time Stamps:

00:04:45 - Match 1: Control

00:21:36 - Match 2: Midrange

00:36:23 - Match 3: Temur Midrange

01:07:49 - Match 4: Midrange

01:22:34 - Match 5: Sultai Marvel

In this set of games I did not miss Liliana's Mastery. Frequently the game was decided by turn five, and I was happy that all my cards could be cast on the first 3 turns of the game. That said, I didn't do as well as I had hoped and I did have draws where I was beat by a single sweeper despite having the maximum number of Dread Wanderers, Relentless Dead, and Scrapheap Scroungers. How exactly to fix this problem, I am not sure, and it may be that I just got unlucky. It is tempting to treat this like a midrange deck and reconsider the Liliana's Masteries and even cards like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet in the main deck, but then you would be in really rough shape against Marvel. People have splashed White for Wayward Servant, which is a great card, but maybe there is potential for a Blue splash? Prized Amalgam is a pretty good zombie and a few counterspells could really change the texture of the Marvel matchup. Stitchwing Skaab goes great with Amalgam; and, if these are your only Blue cards, you can get away with playing very few sources of Blue mana because it is all at the top of your curve. I think the following version should have a much better chance at beating both Marvel and sweepers.

B/U Zombies ? Amonkhet Standard | by Andrew Boswell

• Creatures (28)
• 4 Cryptbreaker
• 4 Diregraf Colossus
• 4 Dread Wanderer
• 4 Lord of the Accursed
• 4 Prized Amalgam
• 4 Relentless Dead
• 4 Stitchwing Skaab

• Instants (5)
• 1 Negate
• 4 Fatal Push

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Dark Salvation

• Lands (23)
• 2 Island
• 9 Swamp
• 4 Choked Estuary
• 4 Fetid Pools
• 4 Sunken Hollow

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Transgress the Mind
• 2 Negate
• 2 Convolute
• 2 Liliana, the Last Hope
• 1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1 Gisa and Geralf
• 2 Never // Return
• 2 Grasp in Darkness
• 1 Collective Brutality

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Until next week, GLHF friends. May you smite thy enemies with a Golden Axe!

— Andrew Boswell