Horde Magic – the Zombie Apocalypse

UPDATE: November 2014

Well, here it is… the Expert Level Zombie EDH Horde Deck. Beware, this zombie horde will eat a four player EDH game for breakfast… Unbeatable? Nah, there are always the “Horde Hoser” Cards such as Angelic Arbiter, Crawlspace and Moat, but most EDH decks not sideboarding in cards to defeat the horde will probably lose.

Let’s look at the choices for the Horde. First up is the Commander Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. For those of you that are unafamiliar with using the Horde Commander, this is how it works. Mikaeus begins with six (6) Counters on him. At the beginning of the Horde’s turn, a counter is removed. When the last counter is removed, Mikaeus is “cast”. Like most EDH Commanders, if Mikaeus is put into the graveyard or removed from the game he is put back into the Command Zone with two counters on him. If Mikaeus is killed/exiled again then he goes to the command zone with 4 counters, 6 counters, etc. Counters are removed during the beginning of the Horde’s turn as previously mentioned. By the way, the answer is YES. ALL original horde zombie tokens have Undying with Mikaeus in play and will return to play with a +1/+1 Counter on it.

The base of the Zombie Apocalypse begins with 50 Zombie Tokens (2/2) and 10 Zombie Giant Tokens (5/5). The non-token creatures in this deck include some heavy hitters from the Plant kingdom such as the 10/10 Undead Treefolk Ghoultree and the Flying Death from Above Vulturous Zombie. Four Diregraf Captains are included for their lord abilities and a lone Grave Titan and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave for some flavor. Since Wally D. Horde Rules state that all original zombie tokens reside in the graveyard the Unbreathing Horde can also be quite menacing to look at.

Where the Zombie Horde Deck eats the Survivor’s flesh is in it’s Undead Necromancy. The devastation of the Horde’s board wipes such as Zombie Apocalypse and Plague Wind are usually game-enders while spells like Smallpox and Pox add the element of disease to the battle. For oodles of fun two (2) copies of Living Death are included to either give the Survivor’s hope or seal their fate.

This revised Zombie Horde Deck led by Mikaeus will garnish some playtesting over the next month or so to determine if it is truly “unbeatable”. In fact, every time the Horde loses, we will remove a non-token zombie creature in favor of more sacrifice or discard cards for punishment.

What are your thoughts or experiences with a Horde deck? Please comment below!