Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver | Upping the Average

[@JohnDoe-df7bl]

Petition for Joey to be on game knights

[@lewish1248]

This so much! or a battle btwn two channels?!

[@kairenault]

PLEASE!!!

[@lewish1248]

Meren, Mimeoplasm, or Syr Konrad?

[@kairenault]

Meren FOR SURE!

[@lewish1248]

@@kairenault Gets my strongest vote tho Joey says so many good things i’d be happy with any!

[@edhonabudget]

Three years later and Joey's advice still holds up. I really enjoy hearing his opinions too, he looks at things differently than I do and that new perspective is very helpful.

[@patricklynch4074]

I spent all day listening to wilhelt decklist videos while working, and this is up there as one of my favorites!

[@mfitkin]

Listening to you talk about commander makes me want to play commander too

[@jaredreid2661]

not gonna lie its partly why i got into it haha

[@nagashizzar3978]

If you ain't playing commander then you ain't playing MTG

[@robbiestrong-morse730]

joey talks about reflections of littjara *necroduality has entered the chat*

[@pbhill8350]

I've played Wilhelt for a couple of weeks now and I've found the decayed zombies are just excellent grease for this undead machine!

[@maksymiliankowalski5878]

Ngl, the positive attitude kept me interested throughout the entire video

[@LunarWingCloud]

Unexpectedly began looking for cards to swap in to my Wilhelt precon after I was really impressed and excited with the precon, I like some of these suggestions! First time I saw the Blade of Selves idea!

[@olivierdebilde4292]

There are many fun routes for this zombie commander and I love it ! You can go more graveyard with Crow of the dark tiding, Stitcher, Master of Death, Mire triton... and Living Death/Patriarch Biding ? :) But Teferi's Veil is a great add to keep the decayed dudes after attacking. Corpse Cobble can sacrifice them into a huge zombie threat as well. Murderous Rider is an OK removal on theme. Phyrexian ghoul is another free zombie sac outlet Endling and Liliana's reaver are great midrange zombies. Geth and Grave Titan are late decent zombie beaters. Species specialist is an insane draw engine (and are kinda on flavour too) Sudden substitution for the pun... Take this decayed zombie and I take this spell. Thanks !

[@maurygreen9451]

I just got my Wilhelt precon and now bought a couple of upgrades. Nice to see every single card I bought in this list. Feels like validation to my purchases :P

[@jacknelson8640]

I love that your doing a budget and more expensive upgrades at the end :) Please do Lynde

[@DatsVatSheSaid]

Faces of the past turns cards like Gravespawn Sovereign, Cleaver Skaab and Cryptbreaker into insane value.

[@michaelanderson2608]

I don’t know why no one is talking about Death Tyrant with the decayed zombies he keeps creating 2/2 for you. Essentially since a creature is considered attacking all the way till the end of the combat phase the decayed zombie die during their attack and voila unending zombies. And you can recur death tyrant if needed.

[@Marco-mu5gt]

I like your series already a lot, but I loved this episode. Sweet card recommendations and passionate EDH talk with your handsome host Joey, just great!

[@nathanglushka3920]

I would love to see an episode on Inalla wizard tribal

[@BIGNEILCOUSINS]

In the precon you get the 2 copies of the commander. I used the thick one to make a go wide fun zombie deck with all the lords etc . The second copy i built it as a combo deck full of sac outlets and all the nasty drain cards .

[@TheTacMan1]

I thought about switching my zombie tribal commander from Varina to Wilhelt, but I couldn't bear to lose cathar's crusade or elesh norn, so I just added him in instead. He's such a beautiful card and I regret not adding him sooner.

[@xkkhghs]

Death Tyrant swaps out your attacking decayed zombies for fresh non decayed zombies

[@blurryperson2685]

I can't stress enough how good he is with wilhelt

[@HALOX30]

That doesn't work. The ruling says that creatures with decay stil die even if doesn't have dacay at the end if its attack

[@HALOX30]

Oh it does. Only when atracks the rules say

[@taa347]

Definitely works that way. The creature dies as a result of the decay ability during combat. Feel free to look it up

[@Thimbrethil]

Lazotep Plating is so good card, that I slam it into all my blue decks, man it's really good replacement for Heroic Intervention.

[@WhirlpoolMaelstrom]

Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos are cards i have use in my previous zombie decks (to great effect).

[@MrManukenchin]

I was waiting for this upping the average

[@VampiricGamess]

Rooftop storm +cryptbreaker+intruder alarm seems like a no brainer. This value package has won me a few games in Grimgrin and wilhelt looks like a wonderful fun place to jam it next.

[@GrooveCaptain]

Species specialist is a monster in this deck despite not being a zombie

[@ananguyen8924]

This was my favorite deck tech for Wilhelt. Thanks!

[@jordanbenoit6282]

Like the deck. Would love to see you do an episode on Prosper with how popular it was from the AFR set

[@bigmacsw32]

I just ordered a Tombstone Stairwell this morning for my Wilhelt deck. I'm loving this zomboi so far.

[@stormycat0905]

The card Teferi's Veil will allow you to phase out your decay tokens before they die to the decayed trigger. It also protects them from sorcery speed board wipes.

[@connorhamilton5707]

I love when old cards like this suddenly become useful!

[@nuthut1396]

@@connorhamilton5707 it's also extremely good in araumi

[@PauperPrincex]

Sick

[@fkylw]

They phase out, but they never phase back in 704.5d. If a token is phased out, or is in a zone other than the battlefield, it ceases to exist.

[@jonathansmith9849]

@@fkylw ok but where is the rule that says that being phased out is considered being in another zone? need the ruling for that

[@spede1997]

Came to the same conclusion about endless ranks and took it off from my varina deck few months ago. Such a shame i wanted it to work so bad but it was only good when i was already in a good position.

[@oom-3262]

I wish it was an end step trigger. That way it would at the very least be a "bad" second harvest with later potential upside.

[@liveanotheranime3526]

Has such fantastic art it could just say make 1 decayed zombie every other turn and I’d still run it.

[@LTAT42069]

Thank you for this. That Blade of Selves mention made my night. I would have never considered it thank you 😎

[@gtfawaynotnow]

Joey, I recently started on a zombie deck similar to yours pushing token generation and have a few suggestions. Reflections of littaria is ok but still limited to both creatures and them being cast. This card may have been released after this video was made but consider extravagant replication. For 1 more mana, every turn you choose what to replicate instead of relying on casting spells. Additionally it’s inexpensive and NOT limited to creatures. Why settle for only 2 warchiefs or if you want to be really mean you can simply have the enchantment copy itself! You left this one out on your mana rock vid too and it’s a beast. As a bonus it is also on theme and it’s called crowded crypt. It generates black mana BUT every time a creature dies it accrues a counter which can be sacrificed for an enormous amount of decayed tokens in a deck like this! This one is off theme but in my opinion worth it. Why limit yourself to death triggers? This creature can also trigger life drain on ANY CREATURE THAT ENTERS THE BATTLEFIELD. Which in mid game can do massive damage. Also as a bonus it can be tapped to sac a creature to draw a card. Costing only 3 black mana. If you guessed Ayara then you get a gold star! I see you have some disdain for decayed tokens but I found a VERY STRONG WAY to utilize them. An inexpensive card called DEATH TYRANT. All you need to do is attack with every token you have every turn. If it survives then sac it before the end of combat. The key point being as long as it is declared as an attacker you can then replenish all of your decayed tokens for non-decayed tokens. Comboing with ayara too?! YES! As a bonus once you hit that combo and death tyrant gets removed; it even has a self recursion ability! This in my opinion is the single most under-rated zombie related card in the game. Period(crowded crypt being pretty good too)! Lastly, with things like grave crawler etc…add in Tormod, the desecrator so every time you have a gy action even if an opponent tries to gy hate then you get more tokens! Ps with the ability to generate insane amounts of tokens endless ranks of the dead becomes more relevant! Enjoy!

[@GinjaNinja-qy6nj]

Very solid input. Crowded crypt is so good

[@machinamawatcher]

What a coincidence, my precon just arrived in the mail today!

[@cathoderayguns]

Am I the only one who loves Black Market? Very underrated card, especially in this deck. If you have it and Stairwell out for one round you're gonna be popping off.

[@pablogarin]

I went out of my way to add the bolas's + top + aetherflux combo to the deck for a couple of reasons: if you pull the gravecrawler combo, you can close the game with reservoir (consistency), and top has awesome synergy with Wilhelt's end of turn ability: activate top before sac'ing a zombo to choose a card gives you extra consistency. I thought at some point that rooftop + Bolas's Citadel would work too, but not really. It does, however, work with poppet factory + wilhelt, since you can sac 10 tokens, get them back, sac them again and drain the whole table. I have to say that I feel my wilhelt deck is an aristocrat deck at this point, and I play into card advantage to pull one of the many combos my deck has.

[@RhonwenBear]

How is Dictate of Erebos or Grave Pact not in here? You can also pair Gisa, Glorious Resurrector with it because when you sac a creature, grave pact triggers, then at the end step you get it with decayed that can also be sacrificed. Pairs well with Grimgrin too.

[@mitchpich1604]

This video reminded me that I pulled almost an entire playset of Relentless Dead back in SoI and have no idea where they are now :(

[@gtfawaynotnow]

honorable mentions are exchanging your liliana for Liliana dreadhorde general. It works much better with this synergy and for extra punch consider both Liliana of the dark realms and corpse harvester. Both provide really good ways to ramp swamps and corpse harvester can tutor a zombie for every sacrifice. while not on theme but can be useful is hell’s caretaker. For just mean effects I present what I think is the second most under-rated zombie ever! Blue counter spell decks got you down? Long as you have some creatures to tap then I present ZOMBIE TRAILBLAZER. most use it for the superficial means of enabling swampwalk but it has a more sinister use. By turning all your opponent’s lands into swamps. Kinda hard to counter your spells without blue mana! :) If you wish to spread the joy even further then I also present infernal darkness. I know what you may think; this affects me too. Another cheap add manascape refractor will ensure your mana is fixed. Enjoy!

[@blurryperson2685]

I gotta point out if you're struggling with your wilhelt deck, it's probably because you're trying to split your focus between aristocrat and aggro token swing. Wilhelt just isn't the aggro zombie commander. He's way better if you double down on the aristocrat and token sacrifice strategy

[@krgood9008]

One of my favorite budget zombie discoveries was Zombie Trailblazer. A political substitute for uroborg. And zombie master. Yeah it’s only one zombie at a time but with cards like dirgeaf colossus or unbreathing horde you can make a giant one.

[@soulanski]

I am glad I grabbed a tombstone stairwell when it was cheap but am very upset I only grabbed one copy of it

[@oom-3262]

Well unless you are playing both decks at the same time, just proxy it.

[@Orelusz]

Love the upgrades, but feels like needs some more counter magic and instant removal, being in dimir allows you to run that.

[@masterofshadowfire]

I am so glad you didn't take out empty the laboratory I feel it can be a Wincon that is ridiculously good

[@abyssalment5756]

A token sacrifice outlet that gets even more zombies why would he

[@niktee431]

Minions murmurs. Recent reprint. Draws same as pact of serpent. Also as a flavor budget play. Try mask of griselbrand. Slap it on your decay zombie. Wash with life. Draw 2-5 cards depending on lords in play for 3 mana

[@theoriginalwolfey5173]

While expensive, Ebondeath, Dracolich provides a way to do the gravecrawler combo at instant speed, letting you swing with your zombies if you do it just before your turn. Maybe its not an instant win and opens you up to be interacted with but who doesn't want to win with a zombie horde?

[@Timby_]

Bring 👏 back 👏 my 👏 ghouls! 👏👏👏

[@doritosman2386]

I was waiting for this

[@patricklynch4074]

The equip artifact deathrender definitely has Something amazing it can do, though im not sure what exactly. I'm sure some amazing synergy with it exists in this deck, though.

[@tabeltop]

How about gempalm polluter? I know it only targets 1 player but there's enough "return to hand" cards to make it hit each player eventually

[@shadowofdread7018]

11:39 One of the first games I won with Wilhelt, I won using Drown in Dreams. Opponent had a cascade deck that was popping off, but he was running out. So I used all of my mana to kill him out of the game

[@dudemetslagroom8065]

good stuff in here and i agree. Making a buttload of Decay tokens doesn't really do much for Wilhelt...Hasn't stopped me from slapping every zombie generating enchantment in the deck tough XD And my personals strat is less on the lords (like i removed 1 or 2 lords from the basic deck) and more emphasis on giving them flying and deathtouch. Making them a bit less powerfull but deadly and unblockable (mostly).

[@blackmagick77]

You could try slipping Vogar, Necropolis Tyrant in somewhere too. He fits the zombie tribute thing pretty well

[@antonioc3551]

I'm just throwing this out their... Intruder alarm for untap creatures 😎

[@eronXIII]

Kind of surprised of the non-mention of zombie-to-be Syr Konrad.

[@mn6334]

I feel like a deck built around getting Tombstone Stairwell and Endless Ranks of the Dead together could be fun but I don't know that Wilhelt is that deck. EDIT: I got a Tombstone Stairwell for my Syr Konrad deck. It's definitely fun. The very first time I played it I passed the turn and won during the next players turn.

[@oom-3262]

I don't think tombstone stairwell needs endless ranks fo the dead to win. Tombstone tends to be a game ending bomb itself- specially if the deck already self mills a lot. In sidisi, brood tyrant, the card is really nutty. Specially if you have something like altar of dementia. You can outright murder your own horde each turn to mill an obscene amount of cards to KO everyone- because the stariwell makes the zombies *each* upkeep.

[@murphyspell7125]

Massacre Worm is fun with the Stairwell.

[@chadgwalva3144]

What a badass video mate!! You just earned a subscriber, 'm building this deck myself and it's damn fun!! What do you think abour Liliana's standard bearer? I thinnnnk it can outperform Rise of the Dread Marn pretty easily since you'll be saccing tokens like crazy anyways and it will give you mad raws! Also as a removal spell consider Pongify or Rapid Hybridization!

[@StormKyoshi]

No mention for teferi’s veil? Keeps your decay zombies alive and protects your creatures from sorcery speed board wipes

[@joselynereyes5830]

If only commander wasnt sooo expensive. I would love to play it

[@IslarfPokemon]

Bone Splinters is a nice removal. 1 black, sac a creature, destroy another. And tragic slip. -1/-1, or morbid -13/-13.

[@hectormorales4090]

Oh yeah, another hit mate!

[@andreusemanuel4868]

Man I'm having a hard time keeping my Varina deck, Wilhelt looks sick.

[@leighharrell6925]

I definitely took apart my Varina deck. Don't regret it one bit. Wilhelt is stupid powerful (-;

[@alfascorpi]

I was just rebuilding my Scarab God to Varina. I used cards from the Wilhelt…but before even playing Varina one game, I dropped white and turned Wilhelt. I think it’s faster en definitely better synergy.

[@TheTimmyJack]

Necroduality makes great Combo with Rooftop storm. What's better than a free cast zombie? Two of that free cast zombie! Get a Sedraxis alchemist in there to bounce all your ETB zombies for extra extra good times.

[@Sucrose_Mother]

Draugr necromancer is great if you're running snow lands and is a cool stacks piece against other creature/tribal players

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

Tombstone Stairwell is downright evil in this deck.

[@UTUB2kholle]

Great video as usual! However am I the only one who never gets what the named three parts actually mean? x) I saw no difference between Dawn of the Dead and 28 days later and when it came to Zombieland I was like"for sure it's gonna be about lands or more broadly the manabase!" but niet it wasn't lol

[@mthlay15]

This seems like a very fun deck.

[@stephenwalker5061]

Liliana untouched by death and shambling ghast is another infinite that’s fun to pull off

[@jwall1646]

I really wanted this deck but I live nowhere near a LGS and Amazon sent me the coven counters deck by mistake.

[@theeternalizer1098]

I had the same happen to me. I ended up sending the coven deck back and ordered singles online for under half the price of the deck. Which ended up going into my Varina deck .

[@ultimateretroasd]

I'm legit impressed that Liliana Dreadhorde General and Untouched by dead were not mentioned at all in the video. I also like the idea of include Quasiduplicate to make a token copy of a key zombie twice during the game. I used the precon to upgrade Nevinyrral just to run one of my favorite cards ever: Mirrorweave

[@oom-3262]

I honestly think liliana it a bit pricey (in cash, not mana). Specially when wilhelm already gives you abundant card draw. I'd see her as a more important card in scarab god, for example.

[@liveanotheranime3526]

Me: I can get 100 zombie tokens and 100 decayed tokens for about $7-8. Now how to make that many.

[@IslarfPokemon]

A nice fit also is Skirsdag High Priest

[@AnomAnomMTG]

The thing Joey missed here on Champion of the Perished is that it works EXTREMELY well when equipped with the Wand of Orcus.

[@Renegadetothe64th]

Can we get Kyler, Sigaurdian emissary up next please?

[@ondrejkubik7033]

Ye ye ye, my favourite boy

[@communistpenguin8538]

I wanted to upgrade my precon but god damn everything priced up

[@TubbyBubbleLove42]

I have a foil Endless Ranks of the Dead from original Innistrad. I hate that it always gets the cut.

[@matthewandrew2972]

Also why is black market not in here????

[@samuelvalcourt6834]

Great upgrade here as always ! Was wondering why you didn't put Death Tyrant in it ? Decayed zombie dies during combat so the tyrant will make regular zombie each time you attack with those.

[@patricklynch4074]

I'm pretty new, and im still trying to figure out deckbuilding! My main struggle is actually how much Non zombie support to put in, like how much generic removal, opponent discards, counterspells, draw cards, mana, etc. Do you have any advice on how i should proportion out my main strategy vs generic support?

[@tsuchikarasu2]

I think telling people to not include gravecrawler outside of combos is a mistake. Having gravecrawler plus wilhelt and a sac outlet can net you multiple tokens per turn, I often also have a card like headless rider to get normal zombie tokens at the same time or even card draw triggers in death, or maybe cast triggers like diregraf collosus. Gravecrawler is just such an enabler as soon as you have a repeatable sac outlet I feel it is an essential card no matter your build.

[@titothetrigger3886]

I added a Grave Pact in mine. Only you is allowed to have creatures

[@luckylucinde3817]

Wouldn't the Curse of the restless dead work well with the Poppet stitchers flip ability?

[@Ark_Entertraining]

I'm a bit of an inexperienced player, but Grave pact sounds nice in here

[@carlosvargas6027]

Joey, besides Necroduality, what do yo think about these other cards from VOW? Archighoul of Thraben Headless Rider Fell Stinger Overcharged Amalgam Geralf, Visionary Stitcher. Would you play both Reflections of Littjara and Necroduality in the same deck? What about playing tutoring effects so as to assemble combos more consistently? I'm thinking of Sidisi who's also a zombie. Talking about double purpose zombie cards, what do you think about cutting a removal spell for Murderous Rider? What about Fierce Guardianship and Deadly Rollick? Are these cards any good? I mean, they depend on the Commander being in play. Thanks! BTW, awesome content! Cheers!

[@abyssalment5756]

I'm not joey but I will answer yes necroduality is a great card if you can get it last I checked it was a 15$ card American even more Canadian And the rest are good cards to and they will work better in the different ways the deck is built and I I pretty sure murderous rider is in the deck already same with archghoul and headless rider

[@dudemetslagroom8065]

Also yeah thx. I don't agree with all yer points but i understand some of them. And yes i had similar doubts about Gravespawn sovereign, Like sure i can tap 5 decay tokens that might not be useful otherwise buuuut....I'd rather play the 2 CMC zombie that let's me tap 3 creatures for 1 dmg to all opponents XD or maybe just Silumgar Scavenger..Or i can just wait for Crimson vow. And yes get rid of that Drown in dreams...to costly for what it tries to do in THIS deck.

[@brandonnelson6076]

I know this video is a few years old but I'm trying to upgrade my wilhelt; why no cabal coffers? Especially given urborg is in the decklist? Also what about necroduality? Same results as reflections but for 1 less mana.

[@brenobarbosa3489]

Does the poppet factory removes good effects that are being applied to zombies like death touch and menace?

[@ImmaterialNightmare]

Okay now do an upping the average for Varina, the actual best zombie commander.

[@yuhboijo]

got a combo for yall. corpse cobble, wilhelt and poppet factory :)

[@SmokyBasements]

Grave pact with decayed zombies is so hard.

[@kyleashby3422]

what about stuff like bone splinters more sacrifice and removal id take that for a lower cost deck

[@TheMystcast]

You win more games if your commander draws you cards, I think this should be studied for a statistic because I believe it helps. I play commanders who are odd, take for instance Adun Oakenshield, Barely win with it.

[@MrSantaklaus]

Death Tyrant should be in any deck that Wilhelt is leading.

[@oom-3262]

Its an underrated card, specially with the "decayed" synergy.

[@kyleashby882]

Would sholdred* the whispering one be good filler for this deck ???????????

[@jonathonharris1758]

I did not know sacrifice can give you a decayed zombie? Dang noob here still learning

[@Jeunster]

Where there’s a Wilhelt, there’s a way… 🤦🏼‍♂️

[@NukemDuke97]

I threw in necroduality and it does some work

[@IslarfPokemon]

No blood artist mention?

[@Gameeer1300]

Just picked this deck

[@Levi_The_Giant]

My question is, why does nobody play Skullclamp in this? Seems like a no-brainer.

[@aceadam1828]

Because the tokens are 2/2s so you can not sac them without an outlet. On itself it would only really be useful on the decayed ones wich might be a bit too slow. Still a good card to playtest. In other decks that produce a lot of 1/1s it is a lot faster.

[@abyssalment5756]

It would only be good if you has something like Ashdod alter which would get you the mana

[@abyssalment5756]

But it is a good card I n it but not as much then say a krenko or thalassemia who create 1/1's

[@Fighting_irish493]

Did you know that technically zombies are a failed vampire when it comes to lore think about the similarities between the tribes if you get bitten by a zombie or a vampire you become 1 of those tribes both are dead the only real difference is that a vampire actually holds some resemblance of its former self were a zombie doesn’t really hold its former self also both feed on the flesh of humans and vampires are week to the sun but zombies typically are only week to one thing and that’s a head shot

[@Wesley107281]

mikaeus the profane wouldn't work well with this deck?