Story time, being a Uni student with not much money and no car, my local meta centralises around my halls of residence, typically. Besides myself, there is perhaps only one other who enjoys the competitive aspect of magic, and we can play for hours with our multitudes of decks (I have 6 main decks with 3 in the works, he has about the same main, but 10 apart from that) and, being blunt, the others don't quite feel our competitive spirit. Quite the opposite.
When we're not locking horns in a competitive arena, my meta prefer large Free-for-all games, which surprisingly end up having the two with highly competitive minds/decks, even if we're not playing competitive decks, being the main targets. It's the way things will be anywhere, I've come to grips with that. So, one day, I decided to make a deck that would make people NOT want to target me (either my creatures or my deck, mill is/was a big thing in the meta) and, flicking through my binder, I found a copy of Varolz, the Scar-Striped in my collection. It was from then on that the idea hatched: A build up deck, which doesn't make enemies unless provoked, and if it does get targetted by creature or mill, it speeds up my clock. Glorious. IT fits the meta as well, as they prefer Field-building games anyhow. And so, Undying Assault was born.
First up, let's talk about the poster child of the deck, Varolz. Traded into shortly after the Dragon's Maze prerelease, as he was my favourite of the champions; as much as the Orzhov Syndicate have my heart guildwise, look at him. Makes EVERYTHING you have useful after death. Can regenerate, and doing so adds more fuel to his first powerful ability. A perfect opportunity for capitalisation, as most people underestimate his frail 2/2 body (Hell, even the Selesnya "Champion" can take 2 2/2s with no problem). The scavenge cost on each dead creature is equal to its cost, so high power, lost cost creatures will be the best way forward, along with as few spells as I can spare, as he is creature hungry.
Being a sucker for the Standard pool, I had a look around and found another guy I wanted to make a staple of in this deck: Corpsejack Menace (or as my local meta now calls him, "Not that Fuckface again") because, unsurprisingly, once he enters the field untouched, he instantly makes things a wee bit nuts. Suddenly, your scavenges go crazy, your evolvers (I'll get onto those later) start doubling output, and your hydras (Once again, I'll cover that in a sec) become incredibly efficient. Doubling counters is an ability that should NEVER be underestimated. Period.
Next, the heart of the Swarm: the Scavenge creatures. It's rare that these guys see play long, as they're serve as, let's be honest, aggro fodder. They're the early game creatures that keep your opponent down so your bombs can grow. I could have loaded up with tons of Scavenge creatures, but with Varolz that's less of an issue, so I went with the most valuable Scavenge creatures: Slitherhead, a 1/1 for 1 that Scavenges for FREE. The only scavenge creature that Varolz doesn't add value too, but he doesn't need to. Opponents typically ignore him early, but a poke or five down the line they have to kill him, which feeds the swarm. Next in line is the Dreg Mangler, one of my votes for early game MVP. If you're on the play and hit your land drops, he's nigh-unanswerable on turn 3, if you're on the draw he's answerable but will either burn removal or your opponent's creatures of equal or greater size. Then he scavenges for 5, made cheaper with Varolz to 3. For my final scavenge creature, and to answer to those that think "3/3s are cool, but where's your meat?" I present the top end of my mana curve: Deadbridge Goliath. He's a solid 5/5 for 4, which is enough for at least a look in, but when he turns into a +5/+5 scavenge for 4 (increased exponentially by the presence of Corpsejack Menaces) his death and subsequent reraising ends games.
Carrying on the aggro theme, I mentioned that this deck would not be fully Scavenge fodder in the early game. What did I mean by that? Well, Meet Experiment One. My ideal turn 1 play, he would come out to provide much needed defense, regenerates by cannibalising himself, and his evolve trigger works with the Corpsejack Menaces, putting up to 8(!) counters on him per evolve trigger. Of course that rarely happens; Best so far is turn 5 experiment one into second corpsejack menace, creating a 5/5 and another 4/4 for a total of 5 mana. Ridiculous. As for the other inclusion I've seen questioned about in this deck is my election for 2 drop, the Kalonian Tusker. Upon the reasoning that 1) He's above the curve at 3/3 for 2, 2) scavenges for +3/+3 minimum when Varolz is on the field, and 3) evolves Experiment one straight out the gate potentially up to twice, justifies his inclusion in the deck.
Now for what you've all been waiting for: the bombs. The guys that end games very quickly once a scavenge or two is put onto them, getting obscene in the presence of Corpsejacks. First up, the Lotleth Troll. He's expensive, and with good reason. at BG, I have a 2/1 Trample, which regenerates for B. B being needed to cast him in the first place, he needs to be killed the turn he hits the board or he's going to be a problem. He's unpredictable in combat as suddenly, every single creature in hand is a combat trick. This goes from just +1/+1 to get you out of range of that burn spell, or +2/+2 to send you over the top of their blocker, or +8/+8 to finish the game out. Then, the turn after, every creature you've discarded to give him the edge becomes scavenge material to make the trampler ensure the game ends swiftly.
Or is that not enough? Would you prefer a trampler that grows quicker, AND puts your creatures into the grave, fresh for a scavenging? A new inclusion with Born of the Gods, Scourge of Skola Vale, has been doing work for me. First off, he comes in with counters. These are doubled if you have a corpsejack or two on the field. Alone he's a 2/2 trample for 3, respectable. With one corpsejack, he's a 4/4 trample for 3, absolutely absurd. In a long drawn out game, when he ETBs as a 32/32 trample, I have seen on the spot scoops from unprepared players. Second, his sacrifice ability. These counters are also affected by corpsejack, so it's entirely possible to sac a Deadbridge Goliath for 10 +1/+1 counters, then scavenge another 10 onto him the same turn, for 4 mana total. I give this as an example because it was the first time I'd playtested him in this environment. He subsequently ran through a Sliver tribal deck for the win the turn after, didn't even blink. That game sold me on this card completely.
Finally, no deck would be that great if it didnt have removal. For a quick run down of the removal suite, I elected to go with a playset of Putrefy as my 3 drop; if I had the budget I'd just as easily go for Hero's Downfall, but the added utility of artifact removal is nice. At 2 drop I also have a playset of Ultimate Price, As in my meta I come up against heavy black decks fairly often (hence the want for graveyard manipulation) and Doom Blade wouldn't have quite done the job. While it could be argued that Doom Blade would be quite good, Its hard to justify replacing the Ultimate Prices for them with Monocoloured creatures being very prevalent, and in the case of coming against a black deck I would not enjoy having 4 dead cards in the deck, and relying on my Putrefies.
Thats it for this deck folks, my full deck list including amounts of each card can be found here. I hope you enjoyed the ride; Until next time!
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