Black/Blue/Green Zombie Pod Deck (Top 8 at a Standard Open)

August 13, 2012 | Posted by Dee

I wasn’t too surprised to see a Black/Blue/Green (BUG) Zombie Pod deck make top eight in this past weekend’s Starcitygames Standard Open in Kansas City. The deck has been doing well in Standard tournaments on Magic Online.

Even the pros are noticing. Brad Nelson gave up on his beloved Trading Posts and started playing this deck instead. He recently wrote a premium article about it.

Here is the top eight decklist, which was played by Matthew Dennis.

BUG Zombie Pod
Creatures (28)
Spells (8)
Lands (24)
Sideboard (15)

Magic players save money on cards by going to eBay. Click the links below to buy cards from this deck on eBay.

The first versions of Zombie Pod played red instead of blue but I think blue is the way to go. Red gives you burn spells and a hasty flyer in Falkenrath Aristrocrat but these cards are not as strong these days.

Thragtusk is a very popular M13 card and it just laughs at Brimstone Volley. Delver decks have risen in popularity and they have Vapor Snag to fight Falkenrath Aristrocrat.

Blue gives you Phantasmal Image. It takes out Geist of Saint Traft, a key creature in Delver decks that’s usually hard to kill.

The cheap Illusion creature is great at copying Thragtusk. Then, you can sac it to Birthing Pod and get Massacre Wurm to wreck your opponent’s board.

I had one game where I made the above play. Then, I cast another Image and searched for another one to clone Massacre Wurm twice. My opponent was playing Green/White (GW) Elves so I destroyed his army, made him lose a ton of life, and easily won the game.

Blue gives you more Clones than red. The more Clones, the better so you can copy Geralf’s Messenger multiple times and cause a lot of life loss.

Image makes your one-drops better because you can turn them into the best creature on the battlefield by sacrificing them to Pod and searching for Image. I like sacrificing Gravecrawler because you can recast it from the graveyard and then sac it again to Pod to find more Images.

Zombies has always been an aggressive deck since it has access to multiple two-power creatures that only cost one and an undying 3/2 creature for three that also causes life loss. Adding Birthing Pod to the deck gives it flexibility and staying power for the middle and late game.

You can Pod for Disciple of Bolas to draw a lot of cards so that you have enough resources to win when the game goes long. Also, Disciple gives you life gain, which can thwart your opponent’s alpha strike plan.

Skinrender is a good Pod target in creature matchups. Once you get it on the board, you can start cloning it with Image and Metamorph to hurt your opponent even more.

Thragtusk is just one of the best creatures in Standard right now. It combos very well with Pod and buys you a lot of time with life gain.

It’s also another good creature to copy in certain situations. For example, if the only card you can lose to is a miracle Terminus, you can copy Thragtusk instead of Geralf’s Messenger to give you some 3/3 Beasts in case your opponent gets lucky.

In my playtesting, Massacre Wurm definitely surprised my opponents. It’s underrated right now but it definitely fits the deck well as the six-drop Pod creature. There are many aggro decks in the Standard metagame and this mythic rare wrecks them all.

It even has utility against control decks because some of them rely on Lingering Souls.

Tragic Slip is the best removal spell for this deck because you can easily achieve morbid with Birthing Pod, Fume Spitter, Skinrender, and Massacre Wurm.

Cavern of Souls plays an important role in this deck. Mainly it’s there so that your Geralf’s Messengers can’t be countered. Also, it gives you an extra blue source to cast Phantasmal Image.

Filed Under Standard 

Get our blog posts for free in your email inbox.

Just enter your email address below and click the subscribe button: