Soon all of you will be like me… And then who will lock you up in a cellar?
I’ll grant you the new Standard has been fun to explore, but while you can take the man away from EDH for a while, you can’t take EDH away from the man. It’s always got a reserved table right in the front of my conscious mind, churning through cards and thinking up ideas. Not all 249 new cards from Scars of Mirrodin will show up in EDH decks, but many of them will cause a ripple effect as they bump into the 12,000 or so previously printed cards, providing a constant source of inspiration if you’re the kind of deck brewer who likes drinking from a fire hose.
A couple weeks back I took a poll checking to see which new legend from Scars of Mirrodin you’d like to see an EDH deck built around, and when I closed the polls, exactly 251 voted for Geth, Lord of the Vault and for Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon. An exact tie out of 810 votes is pretty impressive. Since October is the month of Hallowe’en where we pay homage to the Dead, why not give each general his due? Next week we’ll do Skithiryx, but this week big, bad Geth is in the spotlight!
First though… check out the Necronomicon book from the Evil Dead movies…
And compare to this…
Hm…
Anatomy of a Zombie Legend
To start, let’s take a paragraph from my
EDH Primer, part 3:
“Set your general in front of you and really take a look at the card. Think about all the implications, from its printed text box, creature type, power, toughness. Think about what players might do before it gets cast. Think about what players might do after it gets cast. Think about whether you’ll need to defeat someone by invoking the ‘General deals 21 points of damage’ rule—is your deck up to that task?”
Geth, Lord of the Vault 4BB
Legendary Creature – Zombie 5/5
Intimidate
{XB}: Put target artifact or creature card with converted mana cost X from an opponent’s graveyard onto the battlefield under your control tapped. Then that player puts the top X cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
As a 5/5, Geth is a fairly sizeable dude and able to come one point shy of killing a player with the General rule in four swings. Intimidate is a nice form of evasion that will certainly make those not playing black creatures a bit nervous, but still—five attacks is an eternity in EDH, so I don’t think Geth hitting the board will sound immediate alarm bells around the table like they do for Uril, the Miststalker or Rafiq of the Many.
His special ability is pretty sweet but in general shouldn’t be too alarming on its face. As a milling device, he’s pretty slow, so mostly he’s going to be worrisome as a reanimating machine. Again, mana constrains him since the bigger (and presumably juicier) the target, the more mana it costs to reanimate. Yet the effect is undeniably powerful, especially as the game wears on.
In my opinion, this makes Geth a great choice as a general—he’s not as threatening as a lot of other generals, but he’s got a solid power level that you can build around and exploit, and hopefully take people by surprise.
A few things we should keep in mind with his special ability:
- The “X” cost is fixed depending on the target, so you can’t go nuts on milling and dump all your extra mana willy-nilly. You may want to point this out to your table so people don’t get needlessly worried about getting milled out.
- The milling happens on the resolution of the ability, so you can’t nab something juicer that gets milled until next time.
- Stay alert for when you’d want to reset the top of someone’s library, whether it’s to help an ally with a Sensei’s Divining Top or Sylvan Library, or whether it’s to punish someone who played Vampiric Tutor or Liliana Vess.
- The target creature or artifact comes into play tapped. Finally, Amulet of Vigor has a purpose!
You hit the Geth jackpot when you go grave digging and find Seedborn Muse, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled for that nasty, little bugger.
What’s icing on the undead cake is the fact that Geth is a Zombie, and the Zombie tribe is particularly great to exploit around the multiplayer table with potent creatures and linear synergies, especially if I can get going with one of my favorite black enchantments that also happens to pair nicely with Geth’s milling—Tombstone Stairwell! Just think about the fun stuff that happens with cards like Vengeful Dead, Khabal Ghoul, Noxious Ghoul, and Black Market when you’ve got potentially a ton of Zombies coming into play each player’s upkeep and getting destroyed each end step. Of course, with an enchantment like that, you’ve got to be careful not to get overwhelmed by your opponent’s hasty Zombie horde, so I’d add things like Koskun Falls and Crawlspace to the mix.
Since I like to live dangerously, let’s add Coat of Arms to the mix so we’ll all be getting gigantic Zombies each upkeep. And, just to get comboliciously evil, let’s toss in Altar of Dementia! If you play your cards right, you can kill each player during their draw step by sacrificing your skyscraper-sized Zombie tokens to the Altar during their upkeep.
Some notes on other specific cards to add to the mix:
Howling Mine, Temple Bell, Memory Jar: I don’t typically run Howling Mine outside of Carebear EDH decks because it’s hard for me to give every opponent an extra two cards before I myself reap an extra card. Temple Bell (and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea) is different because I can control the timing of it, to minimize the opportunities for my opponents to use their extra cards before I get a chance to use mine. In a Geth deck though, you want opponents to have flush hands, with lots of creatures and artifacts getting drawn and played, lots of answers getting drawn and played (sending creatures and artifacts to the graveyard), and sometimes hands getting so full that creatures and artifacts get discarded. I think this is a more effective strategy at stocking graveyards for Geth than direct milling, and is certainly more “EDH-friendly.” Memory Jar complements this strategy perfectly.
Onyx Talisman: If you play any cards that can generate a good amount of mana, the Ice Age Talisman cards can be particularly helpful. I’ve done some nutty things with Gaea’s Cradle and Malachite Talisman, where you tap the Cradle, play a big green creature, untap Cradle with the Talisman, sac the creature to Greater Good, draw more creatures, tap the Cradle, play a creature, untap the Cradle, etc. This deck has the potential to do similar fun stuff with Cabal Coffers and Crypt of Agadeem.
Lord of the Undead + Gempalm Polluter: A Zombie classic combo, you certainly hope to pull this off while Tombstone Stairwell is in action.
Distorting Lens/Scuttlemutt + Easter Paladin/Western Paladin: The Zombie Paladins will usually find plenty of targets to destroy around a typical EDH table, but why limit their undead reach? I’ve always found Distorting Lens and Scuttlemutt to be surprisingly useful in unexpected ways.
Thousand-Year Elixir: Longtime readers know this is one of my favorites! Not only does this help with my own creatures with tap abilities, but it also helps offset Geth’s reanimating drawback of having the creature enter the battlefield tapped.
Spoils of Evil: This spell (along with Black Market and Carpet of Flowers) became amazing with the elimination of mana burn, and in a Geth deck where you’re hoping to stock graveyards with creature and artifact targets, your Spoils ought to give quite the haul.
Zombie Trailblazer: While Filth + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is a crazy-good way to make all your dudes unblockable, Zombie Trailblazer does nearly as well with any spare Zombies you have lying around. Keep in mind you can tap zombies with this ability whether or not they have summoning sickness, and you can also target
opponent’s
creatures to give them swampwalk if they’re attacking someone else.
Cackling Fiend: You don’t see this Zombie played often, but forcing everyone else to discard a card is bound to turn up a couple good Geth targets, right? I originally had Syphon Mind here but decided on the Fiend to boost my Zombie count.
Helm of Possession: If you Geth a creature with a sweet “enters the battlefield” ability, Helm lets you do it over and over while you nab other people’s creatures. Why yes, that does warrant an evil laugh…
Urborg: The original doesn’t get much love, but when you’re playing all Swamps
and
playing Tomb of Yawgmoth, you may occasionally want to take away someone’s swampwalk ability.
Zombie Apocalypse, Multiplayer EDH
1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Amulet of Vigor
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Boneknitter
1 Cabal Interrogator
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Distorting Lens
1 Howling Mine
1 Mind Stone
1 Onyx Talisman
1 Plaguebearer
1 Walking Dead
1 Withered Wretch
1 Bone Dancer
1 Crawlspace
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Death Baron
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Gutless Ghoul
1 Khabal Ghoul
1 Lord of the Undead
1 Phylactery Lich
1 Scuttlemutt
1 Spoils of Evil
1 Stronghold Assassin
1 Temple Bell
1 Thousand-Year Elixir
1 Undead Gladiator
1 Urza’s Incubator
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Zombie Trailblazer
1 Balthor the Defiled
1 Cackling Fiend
1 Damnation
1 Eastern Paladin
1 Filth
1 Gloomdrifter
1 Helm of Possession
1 Koskun Falls
1 Tombstone Stairwell
1 Undead Warchief
1 Unliving Psychopath
1 Vengeful Dead
1 Western Paladin
1 Black Market
1 Coat of Arms
1 Corpse Connoisseur
1 Corpse Harvester
1 Memory Jar
1 Noxious Ghoul
1 Patriarch’s Bidding
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Gempalm Polluter
1 Gravespawn Sovereign
1 Helldozer
1 Twisted Abomination
1
Crypt of Agadeem
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Urborg
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Unholy Grotto
1 Leechridden Swamp
1 Maze of Ith
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Vesuva
30 Swamp
A quick note: every creature in the deck except Filth and Scuttlemutt is a Zombie; some of the older creatures have had their creature types updated either to Zombie or to include Zombie. Gotta love the card databases for this sort of thing!
I built this deck for casual multiplayer EDH, and while there are some seriously nasty and downright evil haymaker plays available, I don’t think any of them are out of line for that style of play. However, one thing I’ve certainly learned from many of you since I started writing about EDH is that not everyone plays casual, laid-back EDH. From now on, while I’ll present decks that are mostly in keeping with what might well be called “traditional EDH,” I’ll also present some ideas for how to crank up the power level to be more competitive for things like 1v1 EDH, gunslinging, and four-man EDH pods at Magic events like at the awesome StarCityGames.com Open Series. Since I’m rather new at this approach to EDH deckbuilding, I’ll be looking to some of you for additional ideas and feedback in the forums.
For a more competitive Zombie Apocalypse, I’d recommend adding:
+1 Chrome Mox
+1 Mox Diamond
+1 Urza’s Bauble
+1 Mishra’s Bauble
+1 Mana Vault
+1 Dark Ritual
+1 Hymn to Tourach
+1 Mind Twist
+1 Beseech the Queen
+1 Strip Mine
+1 Wasteland
+1 Phyrexian Arena
In Magic we know speed kills, so more competitive EDH decks can make good use of the playable Moxen and Mana Vault (or, if it’s available to you, Mana Crypt). Since you’re playing black you get the awesome Dark Ritual for either explosive starts or later on to fuel Geth. Black also gives you Yawgmoth’s Will, fondly called Yawgmoth’s Win in Vintage for very good reason. I’ve added the Baubles to help ensure your YawgWin is even more awesome. Since you’ll be aggressively going full-tilt against at least one opponent from the get-go, we’ll also want to add in the potent disruption suite of Hymn, Mind Twist, Strip Mine, and Wasteland. Adding a little more tutor power with Beseech and draw power with Arena seems helpful as well.
To make room I’d recommend cutting:
-1 Distorting Lens
-1 Howling Mine
-1 Scuttlemutt
-1 Temple Bell
-1 Eastern Paladin
-1 Gloomdrifter
-1 Unliving Psychopath
-1 Western Paladin
-1 Corpse Harvester
-1 Corpse Connoisseur
-1 Gravespawn Sovereign
-1 Dreamstone Hedron
These cards are either slow, romantic, or not quite so good against fewer players than a typical EDH throw down. We’re taking the classic, laid-back, good-time Romero Zombies and amping them up to
28 Days Later
Zombies.
We can’t bury Shelly — S-She’s a friend of ours.
So there’s Geth for you! A quick shout-out to the excellent EDH blog, I Got 99 Problems But A General Ain’t One, Robby reviewed
Geth back in September
if you’d like to read more about him. Robby, who also does the Magic design-centric blog
MTG Color Pie,
is in the Great Designer Search 2 hunt, so good luck, my friend!
Next week we wrap up the Evil Dead of Scars with Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon as our EDH general, who can’t actually kill with the general damage rule, instead going for poison. It’s sure to feature quite a few cards from the new set so make sure to check it out! I’ve already got a fair stack pulled together, and it’s coming together quite… evilly. Mwu-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaaa!!!
What Scars of Mirrodin cards have you been having fun with in your EDH decks?
Take care,
Bennie
starcitygeezer AT gmail DOT com
Make sure to friend/follow me at:
http://twitter.com/blairwitchgreen
http://community.wizards.com/blairwitchgreen
New to EDH? Be sure to check out my EDH Primer,
part 1,
part 2,
and
part 3.
My current EDH deck:
Geth, Lord of the Vault (Zombie Apocalypse)