Review and Upgrade Guide
Undead Unleashed
Me want braaaains! Welcome to the undead horde led by no other than [Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver]. In this new commander precon from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt you lead the vile, hungry zombies of Innistrad to outvalue and overwhelm your opponents. View the full deck here.
We want to first and foremost thank our amazing partners at Unplug Yourself for supplying us with the precons to play with. A huge thank you to our WPN premium store, Top Deck for sponsoring our budget upgrades for the decks.
The whole deck is a Dimir (black and blue) package that will make your opponents groan and growl when you keep on reaching for zombie tokens to put on the battlefield. This deck unearths all your old zombie favourites like Rooftop Storm and the original zombie commander Gisa and Geralf, spicy new cards such as Cleaver Skaab and Empty the Laboratory bring a new edge to one of Magic’s oldest tribes.
The face commander Wilhelt leans himself to sacrificing your non-decayed or non-token zombies creating a clear idea for the deck. Although the decayed zombies might not be as great as their intact counterparts, they generate great value for your sacrifice engines once the deck gets going.
Let’s talk reprint value you will get from the deck. Most of the important zombie lords were reprinted in this precon such as Death Baron and Cemetery Reaper. Diregraf Colossus, Undead Alchemist, Endless Ranks of the Dead and Rooftop Storm are all zombie must-haves reprinted as well.
This deck is a great starting point for zombies and a great purchase for those who already have a zombie deck that is missing some of the key cards.
Enough about the old let’s talk about the new. This deck includes 16 new cards including the face commander, some cards fit perfectly in the theme of zombies, while other help you to investigate other deck ideas. New cards included are as follows.
Standouts when building the deck as zombie tribal are Cleaver Skaab, Tomb Tyrant, Empty the Laboratory, and Hordewing Skaab these cards bring a lot to the zombies in evasion and card advantage. I fell in love with Prowling Geistcatcher for how great it is in any black sacrifice deck. Shadow Kin can also snag one of the opponent’s deck strongest creatures and maybe disrupt their game plan.
To say I am happy with most of the new cards in this deck is an understatement.
Getting to the nitty-gritty of the deck, let’s check the deck’s general statistics and see where we could improve the power level or increase the smoothness of its play:
- 40+ cards that care about zombies or create zombies.
- 19 cards that sacrifice your creatures or care that creatures were sacrificed.
- 48 cards that either produce mana or discount your creatures.
- 40 lands
- 8 ramp cards
- 10 card draw spells mixed between creatures and non-creatures.
- 6 target removal spells that deal with threats.
- 4 untargeted removal.
- 1 board wipe.
- 9 graveyard recursion cards.
- 4 graveyard hate cards.
Upgrades that I brought into the deck: Geralf, Visionary Sticther, Vizier of the Scorpion, Master of Death, Noxious Ghoul, Siege Zombie, Noosegraf Mob, Headless Rider, Fell Stinger, Carrion Feeder, Archghoul of Thraben, Patriarch’s Bidding, Wonder, Victimize, and Lazotep Plating.
As you can see my upgrades focused heavily on getting as much zombie action in my deck while sacrificing them playing close to the theme of the original deck. Unfortunately, a budget and local availability can only bring you so far in upgrading a deck, so one can always dream (I can dream Harold). My budget wishlist includes the following:
- Living Death – Such a great board wipe that tends to be a net positive for this deck.
- Gray Merchant of Asphodel – A great game ender and even better when they are recurred a lot.
- Reflections of Littjara/Necroduality – These cards are knock out in this deck as zombies tend not to be legendary.
- Poppet Stictcher/Poppet Factory – Oh wow is this card good in this deck making your decayed zombies stay on the field longer than they should have, plus there is an infinite combo with a free sac-outlet and your commander.
- Acererak the Archlich – This is another combo card with Rooftop Storm where you can draw your whole deck.
- Plague Belcher – Such a good life drain card for zombies and another win con with your combos.
- Undead Warchief – Almost the only lord not reprinted in the deck except for [Zombie Master], this lord also gives your creatures a cheeky discount.
- Corpse Harvester – This can tutor up any zombie in your deck making the deck much more efficient.
I would recommend picking this deck up if you have been searching for a good starter tribal deck. This deck doesn’t take a lot of cash to upgrade in my opinion and can almost be competitive with general power level commanders relatively quickly.
With that said I think it’s time to invest in a few chainsaws and shotguns just in case the zombie menace comes to a store near you.
Until next time, I’ll see you on the battlefield.