Endless Ranks, Rooftop Storm and MORE

Last night, they previewed a pretty dynamite card for zombie decks. It was this:

There is an entire world of casual zombie decks out there. People going all-in-black with simple cards like the Warchief and Cemetery Reaper. People switching over to blue and black for cards like Jhessian Zombies and Lich Lord of Unx. Or maybe heading over to black and red for cards like Pyre Zombie and Deadapult. Black and green Zombie decks! Black and white Zombie decks! They all exist, you just have to believe hard enough.

Endless Ranks of the Dead empowers zombie decks of all kinds, because they all have one thing in common…their unnatural love for the creature type zombie.

This time around, the pull will certainly be towards the blue/black spectrum for the excellent "science" zombies Innistrad previews have hinted towards.

Rooftop Storm lets you play Zombies in your hand for FREE. Endless Ranks gives you extra Zombies.

You might envision yourself casting Rooftop Storm and then powering out a HUGE zombie for free on the next turn. Problem is, however, that 6 mana is just about the top of the Zombie food chain. So if you cast Rooftop Storm, you will probably have enough mana at this point to power out any zombie you want through normal methods.

The most powerful Zombie you would ever want to put out would probably be Bladewing the Risen, Sedris the Traitor King or the awesome Thraximundar. And there's always Phage.

This does lead to an interesting application in EDH, since if your general is a Zombie you can cast him for free (plus the usual tax for repeated castings, unfortunately).

But in most cases you are going to have to find a way to get zombies in your hand and get them on the ground running as fast as possible.

One of my favorite cards, Read the Runes, would give you plenty of cards to either discard into the graveyard (if you wanted them there) or cast them for free using Rooftop Storm.

For straight card draw you could probably use Keep Watch or Distant Melody. Gaveborn Muse has the advantage of being card draw that you can also cast for FREE using Rooftop Storm. Although you will probably die pretty quick unless you hurry up and actually win the game.

The ultimate card would probably have to be Null Profusion. But now we are up to having 2 6 mana enchantments on the board at once! Which happens in EDH, but not much.

Speaking of EDH, I've been thinking about the annoyingness of Rhystic Study and think I have found a better card for my black EDH decks. Gravestorm! The next time you play EDH, check out people's graveyards and see how often you can find someone you could probably draw a card off of. I think the groupthink will probably blame your opponent, and not you, for the extra card…leaving you in the clear for shenanigans!

So there you have it. A bunch of cards, dumped in a pile. You're welcome!