Comments on: Rolled by Varolz

By: evokEleven

evokEleven — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:16:56 +0000

I’ve always enjoyed your articles, and this one in particular due to my love of the new Varolz! I run him as a 2-of in my Zombie Rade deck as yet another resilient body, late game reach with his scavenge ability, and as an additional sac outlet. For reference, my list:
4 Geralf
4 Gravecrawler
2 Varolz
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
1 Blood Scrivener
4 Knight of infamy
1 Huntmaster
4 Lotleth Troll
2 Dreg Mangler
2 Hellrider
4 Diregraf Ghoul
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
2 Domri Rade
2 Bonfire of the damned
4 Cavern of souls
4 overgrown tomb
4 blood crypt
2 stomping ground
4 Dragonskull
3 woodland cemetery
2 swamp
SB:
2 abrupt decay
3 deathrite shaman
2 liliana of the veil
1 thundermaw
1 zealous conscripts
1 domri
1 bonfire
3 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Sire of Insanity

…I love zombies and I love the different synergies with the creatures, PWs, graveyard/scavenge, etc. Any and all suggestions are welcome, and keep up the fun and interesting articles!!!

By: Justin Smith

Justin Smith — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:29:00 +0000

Not too shabby, but your removal suite looks a little wonky (a bunch of singletons). I so want Vexing Devil to work in Standard, but personally I’d rather just implement Varolz into an existing B/G Zombies shell, so that we’re not strictly relying on him. Something like this perhaps:

Creatures (32)

1 Deathrite Shaman

4 Gravecrawler

4 Diregraf Ghoul

4 Lotleth Troll

4 Blood Artist

4 Bloodthrone Vampire

2 Skirsdag High Priest

3 Dreg Mangler

2 Varolz, the Scar-Striped

4 Geralf’s Messenger

Spells (7)

4 Tragic Slip

2 Abrupt Decay

1 Deadbridge Chant

Lands (21)

9 Swamp

4 Woodland Cemetery

4 Overgrown Tomb

4 Cavern of Souls

Deathrite and Chant might be too cute and could probably be 2 Thragtusk or 2 Sign in Blood or 2 Rancor instead, or maybe just cut the Shaman for an additional Varolz to up our sac engine count. It does allow you to do silly things with Scavenge, sac triggers, undying, and the Deadbridge trigger however.

Sideboard:

2 Abrupt Decay

2 Underworld Connections

3 Garruk Relentless

1 Crippling Blight

3 Deathrite Shaman

2 Liliana of the Veil

2 Vampire Nighthawk

Additional Decays deal with Reckoner and permanent-based graveyard hate. Liliana is solid against control and hexproof, Garruk is good against control and Reanimator, and Connections are for control and any Sire of Insanity decks. Deathrites deal with Reanimator and Snapcaster decks, while Nighthawk shores up the aggro matchup. I like a singleton Crippling Blight as a way to kill Falkenrath Aristocrat, or an additional way to get through opposing Reckoners and Thragtusks. Some cards I couldn’t make room for but should be considered include Sever the Bloodline, Putrefy (probably as a singleton), Appetite for Brains and/or Duress to nab Sphinx’s Revelations, and Vraska (as a singleton, since we’re cold to any non Garruk Relentless 4+ costing ‘walkers). We also have no way of answering Blood Baron, should he start showing up.

By: kakwann

kakwann — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:19:15 +0000

i like the idea of Jund Varolz + Vexing Devil / aggro… but i’m still not sure if cute interraction (scavanging your dude and discarting your hand) are better than plain Jund Aggro ala Naya Blitz (exp one/emissary/dreg mangler/boar) Your deck is also quite aggro and TBH seem fun to play.

From a financial perpective if the deck don’t get play much in long term, varolz and vexing devil are quite easy to dump to casual/newer player, because this is the type of card they like to build around.