AKH Drakes and Zombies!

Main Deck (60)
Creatures (20)
2 x Cryptbreaker
2 x Dread Wanderer
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 x Scrapheap Scrounger
3 x Labyrinth Guardian
1 x Bontu the Glorified
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
2 x Prized Amalgam
1 x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 x Haunted Dead
2 x Glyph Keeper

Spells (16)
3 x Fatal Push
2 x Key to the City
2 x Smuggler's Copter
3 x Grasp of Darkness
2 x Drake Haven
2 x Never // Return
2 x Commit // Memory

Lands (24)
2 x Drowned Catacomb
2 x Sunken Hollow
3 x Aether Hub
3 x Evolving Wilds
6 x Island
8 x Swamp


Concept phase only, but basically we discard everything make a bunch of Drakes, and take advantage of Zombie recursion synergies.

Why not Gisa and Geralf?

Also, I think call the Bloodline could be good here.
Discard a card, make a 2/2 flyers and a 1/1 lifelinker.

Btw, you really like those labyrinth guardians, don't you?

Better yet, why not Ifnir?

Even at the risk of overloading the 5 CC, he's such a huge beating in this deck...which in fact, is quite similar to my Dimir Ifnir build, precisely, lol. Cut a Keeper and a Haunted for them, you'll not regret it

Also, I see a problem...not aditional draw/cycling for all that discard. Take Inventory, perhaps? Or at least 6 cycling spells? That would require a massive rebuild, but without draw/cycling, I see you lacking food for your Havens & rest, and that kinda deactivates the whole build....besides, it helps a lot to find the key Heavens...

Guardians are a) playable 2/3, b) great discard cards, c) zombies when they return... yes, I like them a lot, and they have been very effective for me across multiple decks.

I don't know if the deck needs more discard outlets, but I may try call.

The decks runs memory, but I agree take inventory makes sense.

Regarding Ifnir, I totally agree, but I need to get a working engine, before I decide on the payoffs.

This deck needs way more draw, even after the suggested changes. Man!

@Call... where's your list, I want to try it. This one needs work, I want to see a working engine.

Oh I had forgoten about this...let me arrive at home and ill post the list

Yeah man! Please do. I was very dissatisfied with my results. TBH. Meaning it didn't feel like a 50%+ win rate at all.

I happened to be playing around with this idea yesterday, and finally got it to a nice place.

Creatures
2 x Cryptbreaker
2 x Dread Wanderer
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 x Scrapheap Scrounger
2 x Nantuko Husk
3 x Lord of the Accursed
2 x Prized Amalgam
2 x Haunted Dead
1 x Advanced Stitchwing

Spells
3 x Fatal Push
4 x Take Inventory
2 x Smuggler's Copter
2 x Drake Haven
1 x Gisa's Bidding
2 x Ghirapur Orrery
2 x Liliana's Mastery
1 x From Under the Floorboards
2 x Never // Return

Lands
2 x Westvale Abbey
2 x Drowned Catacomb
2 x Sunken Hollow
4 x Evolving Wilds
5 x Island
7 x Swamp
2 x Submerged Boneyard


After trying a few different ideas, I concluded that you can't build a proper Drake deck with only two Drake Havens, so I decided to go for more of a curved-out Zombies with a focus on recursion. This seemed to work out quite well. I couldn't find room for a ton of cards that I wanted, like some of the better zombies, planeswalkers, and more card draw. There's probably a few flex spots here, and I'd be happy for any feedback. But basically the way it works is you try to curve out with your creatures and clog the ground while you get your engines online. Once you're able to start discarding for value you can really turn the tables on your opponent. I had a couple hilarious games yesterday where my opponents were playing nice, standard, curved out creature decks that dominated the first half of the game and then just had to give up because they had no answer to Ormendahl. He's key for sure, and Copter is another MVP, but with all the lord effects it's also possible just to swarm with a bunch of powerful zombies. Prized Amalgam is much scarier when he's 4/4 or 5/5, and Nantuko Husk is very threatening with all the tokens. I like it. Very durdly, but also quite unique.

I like orrery in this deck, good idea man. I think I'll try that out too.

I actually haven't had it come online yet in the few games I've played. But I just took a couple more on ladder (admittedly at low levels, still working my way up), including this one against a legit Rakdos Vamps:



Feels good, man.

I take it back, I just got both Orreries online and drew a silly amount of cards. Opp was a not-great mono-black zombies and quit once I got my recursion engine going, which did not take away from my enjoyment at all:

Finally at my PC, lol!

This is where I'm at:

2 x Ruthless Sniper
3 x Fatal Push
2 x Cryptbreaker

3 x Censor
2 x Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
1 x Jace
2 x Smuggler's Copter
3 x Grasp of Darkness
1 x Pull from Tomorrow
2 x Telling Time

2 x Drake Haven
1 x Never // Return
1 x Liliana, the Last Hope

2 x Curator of Mysteries
4 x Hieroglyphic illumination

1 x Glyph Keeper
2 x Archfiend of Ifnir
3 x Horror of the Broken Lands

6 x Island
8 x Swamp

2 x Sunken Hollow
2 x Drowned Catacomb
4 x Dimir Guildgate
1 x Westvale Abbey


Playtesting has shown that cycling is clearly the way to go, to make both Ifnir and havens work consistently...and also draw and selection, because you really need to hit a handful of cards, and then you need to have something to cycle

So I like to play with Sleeves, who look a bit out of place, and a Pull and a couple T.Times...I have found that that's way more important than say, Scroungers...this isn't an agressive build, but grindy. That's the reason I don't play with keys, that are pure card disadvantage

Of course, 90% of the time we are gonna cycle our Horrors (tho they are surprisingly good when casted) or Iluminations...even the Censors, no problem. Curators are probably the only cycling card that gets more casted than trown away.

Just 2 Snipers, 3 tends to be weak and too mana intensive, and I much prefer expending it on Havens and cycling

Lily brings back our Ifnirs and Sphynx, besides the usual

20 cards that discard/cycle...and 8 cards/engines that benefit from it

23 lands, 2 less than what I'd play in grindimir, but uber-cycling let's me have that few

Aha, yeah, I see what you've done here. Looks interesting.