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Effectively Running a Zombie Deck
Topic Started: Jul 21 2005, 11:38 PM (359 Views)
Vampire Lord
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Effectively Running a Zombie Deck

Zombies are my favorite monsters out there, as you can probably tell from my screenname. A lot of people also like Zombies, but too many of them are trying to run them in very foolish ways. I’m writing this article to help all those thinking of or who currently are running Zombies to maximize the efficiency of your decks.

Let’s start with the Zombie Trinity. The term Trinity typically refers to Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, and Delinquent Duo. However, the Zombie Trinity refers to Book of Life, Pyramid Turtle, and Vampire Lord. These are three cards that absolutely no Zombie deck, or even Zombie hybrid, should even try to do without. 2-3 copies of Book of Life should always be run, 3 copies of Pyramid Turtle should be run, and 2 copies of Vampy should be run because he’s semi-limited.

Thus, every decent Zombie deck will include 7-8 thematic cards right off the bat. By thematic, I mean cards that go with a certain theme but aren’t widely used outside that theme. Now that we have the Zombie Trinity down, there are a few routes we could go with this deck. I’m sure you can think of more, but these are the basic types:

*Control: This runs 2 Patrician of Darkness and 3 Spirit Reaper. It seeks to put the opponent under Patrician-lock -- aka, force your opponent’s strong monsters to atk Spirit Reaper and the weak ones to atk Patrician, which causes your opponent to soon stop attacking altogether. This allows you to totally control the direction of the duel. Plus, your Reapers pound away at your opponent’s hand. Be sure to run sufficient monster destruction to keep your opponent’s field clear of tough monsters.
*Deck-Out: This deck runs 3 Soul-Absorbing Bone Tower. In this deck, you want your opponent to destroy your Vampy via card effects. This deck should run cards that protect your weak Bone Towers from destruction.
*Morph: This deck uses Zombies as Metamorphosis food. Not much else to be said.
*Aggro: IMO, the most stable Zombie deck. This deck packs 2-3 Ryu Kokkis and just pounds away at your opponent’s LP. This deck swarms very quickly and should win you the duel extremely quickly.
*Zombie/Chaos: A chaos deck that doesn’t pack any Zombies beyond the Trinity.
*Zombie/Phoenix: Takes advantage of the synergy between Phoenix and V. Lords to create a swarming deck that maintains very good control over the board and hand.

I personally run an Aggro Zombie deck and it works quite well. I also run Zombie/Phoenix, and it works nicely, too. I don’t know enough about Deck-Out, Zombie/Chaos, or Morph Decks to talk much about them, but I can give you some tips on how to effectively run a Control, Aggro, or Phoenix Zombie Deck.

In those Zombie decks, the most important thing to do is bring out your ace cards quickly and without tribute when possible. Pyramid Turtles, Book of Life, Card Destruction, and Call of the Mummy all work to do this. Call of the Mummy is very situational, but the others are all staples in these Zombie decks. So don’t tribute your Spirit Reapers for your Vampys, Kokkis, or Patricians without thinking through the other methods to bring them out.

It may be tempting to put your Spirit Reaper in atk mode and Creature Swap it to your opponent. I strongly advise against this unless it will win you the game. Spirit Reapers are very hard to kill and become major annoyances when switched to defense mode. Running more than 1 Scapegoat is foolish in a swarming Zombie deck, but 1 copy of Scapegoat is useful. Swap your tokens, not your Reapers.

There are sample Zombie/Phoenix and Aggro Zombie decks already posted in the deck discussion forum, but I’ll add a Zombie Control deck. See my stickied thread in the Deck Discussion forum to find it.
--Vampire Lord
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hentai-lover
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cool articles, zombies and warriors are 2 of the best decktypes out there and even though i like warriors better i sometimes run zombies, you seem to know what you're talking about.
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kingofduel
WHAT DID YOU DO TO CENTRAL?
Spellcasters are a great deck-type as well. Good article.
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hentai-lover
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spellcasters are ok, there isnt much support for them but there are a ton of them.
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kingofduel
WHAT DID YOU DO TO CENTRAL?
Oh well. Warriors are good.
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Vampire Lord
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Glad you liked the article :).
--Vampire Lord
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Raging Flame Sprite
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good run-through. i've been able to see how they work too...
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Apocolypse
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Nice coverage and yah your zombie deck seems to run quite nice.
I will kill anyone who dares stand in my way of world conquest! *ehem* I mean, if I am opposed you shall indeed regret it!
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Vampire Lord
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I'm glad you think so :D.
--Vampire Lord
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