Pauper Zombies has been seeing fringe play for years now, but with a more aggressive take with cards like Carnophage and Shepard of Rot. Pauper Zombies Combo is looking to slow down a bit by loading up on more removal and focusing on recursion.
Win Conditions
Pauper Zombies Combo's game plan is to drain the opponent outside of combat with Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Gemplam Polluter. The deck has multiple sac outlets and recursion abilities to loop them multiple times.
Sac Outlets & Recursion
Carrion Feeder can sacrifice Gray Merchant of Asphodel to be brought back as well as making good use of the death triggers we have in the rest of our curve. Tortured Existence can do work by swapping creatures from our graveyard to our hand, thus making weak late game draws into win conditions. Ghoulraiser is a solid way to get a Gemplam Polluter we cycled early and works really well with Nameless Inversion, all while adding devotion for Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Ghoulcaller's Chant is the best of these abilities allowing us to refuel and set up a Gray Merchant of Asphodel into Gempalm Polluter or just cycle multiple Polluters at once to close out the game.
The Rest of the Curve
Efficient zombies with death triggers and ETB abilities that make tokens fill out the rest of the curve. These are all creatures that work well with Carrion Feeder, like Festering Mummy being used to put a -1/-1 counter on something at instant speed or sacrificing manifest tokens from Sultai Emissary. Especially if it was a Gempalm Polluter we wanted to get in our graveyard to be brought back so it can be cycled.
Removal
We have a clean removal package that can cover a variety of threats across the format. The standout among these has to be Nameless Inversion being able to get reused thanks to Ghoulraiser and Ghoulcaller's Chant since it has changeling which makes it count as a zombie card.
Match Ups
While building the deck I did run through some games against Burn, Dimir Delver, and Mono Black Control. The Mono Black seems like our better match up of the three, with us being able to grind through the late game. Festering Mummy and Shambling Goblin line up really well against lists that run Fungal Infection. Tortured Existence and Ghoulcaller's Chant help push through the edict effects. The sideboard games get pretty rough when they can start cleaning out our graveyard with Bojuka Bog and Nihil Spellbomb as well as hitting us with Wrench Mind and Chittering Rats which becomes their strategy because their targeted removal doesn't line up well against our creatures. The games get super grindy with us needing to play multiple Ghoulcaller's Chant or get key cards back with Tortured Existence for us to win. Burn is for the most part, not a good match up for us. Gray Merchant of Asphodel is the make or break spell of these games. This match up is the reason we have a third one in the sideboard. Shamble Back is solid and Sylvok Lifestaff is really important as well. Thermo-Alchemist is a problem if unanswered and puts us in an awkward situation of needing to keep some of our removal in even though it doesn't always have a target. Dimir Delver doesn't interact with us very well in game one. Gempalm Polluter being cycled is an activated ability so it laughs in the face of their counter spells. Gray Merchant of Asphodel does get countered and Village Rites looks really dumb if it eats a Dispel, but that is easy enough to play around. Festering Mummy and Shambling Goblin plus Carrion Feeder answer an unflipped Delver of Secrets cleanly, again doing so through abilities to play around counters.
Pauper zombies is by no means breaking the meta anytime soon but I hope you have with this version of the deck if you want to try it out. Follow us on Twitch, Youtube, and all of our social media and join the fellowship.
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