Community

Feb 28, 2012 -- 8:08AM, notthephonz wrote:

Feb 28, 2012 -- 4:25AM, alextfish wrote:

I think Adam may have missed the point in the Footbottom Feast suggestion...If the Horde deck is killed by being milled, then Footbottom Feast is a Blessed Wind for the Horde. That's pretty scary... it's like the Horde as a whole suddenly became Undying, resetting to its starting life total without losing its board position.

I think the problem with the Horde using Footbottom Feast is that it would put a group of non-token cards together.  That being the case, the Horde would get several turns in a row were all it did was cast one spell, with no tokens as backup (unless you’re playing with an alternate rule for the Horde to cast spells).  Of course, this depends on whether you treat Horde tokens as regular tokens (which can’t come back from the graveyard) or as creature cards with converted mana cost zero—is there any consensus on how to treat them?

Of course, as Zindaras pointed out, restocking the library is really just going to extend the length of the game rather than make it more challenging.

Well, I think there's slightly more to it. I haven't played any Horde games, but if the Horde has any way of eking through damage (evasion and the like, or stuff like Vengeful Dead in this deck, which is another must-have in my opinion, allowing the deck to force through damage where it would otherwise not be possible), simply prolonging the game would also be an effective way of making it scarier. But, as I said, I made the suggestion with the idea of letting the tokens go back on top as well. I would also be curious to see if the Horde deck ever runs out of cards before it wins. If it is almost out of cards, Footbottom Feast is a pretty good card to have up your sleeve.

A variant on this would be to do automatic reshuffling of the library. Horde cards (including tokens) go to the graveyard. When the Horde's library is exhausted, reshuffle the pile and start again. Only cards removed by dealing damage directly to the Horde's face get to disappear forever. That would make the game less about surviving and more about attacking through a massive horde, but it's a possible variant.

Due to the fact that I was using more enthusiasm than attention when reading the hoard article originally. The better mistakes are listed below:
The Hoard goes first. This is flavorful because people like living their little lives in blissful ignorance: circumstances dictate that those people will either adapt or succumb to the pressure of the hoard.
Seperate the life totals: that way if a player runs out of life he is removed from the game. That player gone will mean more zombies for everyone else...nom.
Whenever the hoard would draw a card from an effect it acts the same as the turns draw step; i.e exile cards until you get a non-token card put that card then put onto the battlefield with all the exiled tokens: this turns simple card drawing into a swarm of zombies. Think like a wave but a little more randmized and removable...

on an unrelated note my zombie hoard does not have any rares or sweepers, but it does have enough card drawing and recursion to sneak in some games with undying and death effects to be annoying.

On a final note: do not play hoard without tokens; it is way too slow. I tried it, and need tokens for the second hoard deck I made...

My play group came up with a horde format that we think could function as a "boss" horde. Appropriate for anyone who wants to have a horde that can only be defeated by a team of people explicitly designing their decks and working together to bring down the monstrosity. I realize this is a lot of rules but my mates and I played a couple games and really enjoyed it once we got rid of some stupid loopholes. The idea is that everyone can go ahead and put in those moats and engineered plagues and whatever else- the horde will still wreck you if you don't really give it your all and get a little lucky.

Rules:
This first set is basic rules/symantics.
-Survivor decks are EDH. 
-Horde deck doesn't vary at all, 120 cards, 40 2/2 zombie tokens, 14 5/5 zombie tokens, and the 66 below listed cards. 
-The horde goes first and there is no three turn get-ready period.
-Tokens are treated as vanilla creature cards with zero mana cost. 
- The horde sustains damage in the same way as originally described.
-The horde loses when it has no cards in deck and no cards in play. This is the only way for the horde to lose and the only way for the survivors to win.
-The provided list of cards leads the horde to make choices- these choices are made optimally unless the horde is deciding which player to target with an effect, this is done randomly.
-Horde uses method of playing cards previously described in this forum in which one card is played on the first turn, two on the second, three on third...
This is facilitated by the horde drawing the requisite number of cards each turn and having infinite mana to play them with. The horde must play,cycle, or discard all the cards it draws in a turn. Horde may discard any card it chooses to.
- The horde's creatures do not have haste but must attack each turn if able. Survivors share blockers as in two-headed giant. The horde cannot block.
-Player's share a starting life total that is equal to 20*number of survivors.
-The horde contains cards with activated abilities, any one ability may be used one time per human survivor per turn. So boneknitter can regenerate six zombies per turn if there are six survivors, and withered wretch can also remove six cards per turn if there are six survivors. 
-The horde's graveyard has hexproof.
This is where it gets interesting...
- If at the end of the horde's turn the horde has no permanents in play, the survivors each gain ten life and may each draw a card.
- On the fourth turn the horde plays a free copy of Relentless Assault. On the eight turn it plays two copies of Relentless Assault, the second being played during the 3rd main phase. On the 12th turn it plays 3 copies, the third copy being played during the 4th main phase....this pattern continues.
- On the fifth turn the horde plays a free copy of Vindicate. On the tenth turn it plays two copies of Vindicate, on the fifteenth turn it plays 3 copies of Vindicate...
That's the game; in our experience you end up building a team in much the same way you would in a WoW party that's taking down a specific boss...gotta have someone with lots of fogs, and nevermore effects...helps to have some fighters with lots of creatures and removal. Etc.
Finally, here's the list of cards we used for our 66...sorry I don't have MTGO and I'm not tech-savvy enough to link all of these!

Unholy Grotto	Gloomdrifter	Dawn of the Dead	Dance of Shadows
Gravecrawler	Infectious Horror	Quagmire Druid	Woebearer
BoneKnitter	Soulless One	Gravepurge	Aphetto Vulture
Nim Deathmantle	Undead Warchief	Footbottom Feast	Deathbringer Thoctar
Grave Titan	Cabal Conditioning	Smokespew Invoker	Gempalm Polluter
Plaguebearer	Vengeful Dead	Unbreathing Horde	Geth, Lord of the Vault
Rotting Rats	Call to the Grave	Zombie Master	Gravespawn Sovereign
Shepherd of Rot	Cruel Revival	Patriarch's Bidding	Helldozer
Withered Wretch	Golgari Rotwurm	Cackling Fiend	Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Anethamancer	Grimgrin, corpse-born	Endless Ranks of the Dead	Nefashu
Death Baron	Havengul Lich	Diregraf Captain	Black Cat
Zombie Apocalypse	Coat of Arms	Twilight's Call	Sedris, the Traitor King
Fleshbag Marauder	Lightning Reaver	Delerium Skeins	Lim-Dul the Necromancer
Cemetary Reaper	Noxious Ghoul	Hypnox	Phage, the Untouchable
Dark Triumph	Syphon Flesh	Devouring Strossus	Thraximundar
Phyrexian crusader	Vengeful Pharoah	Baneful Omen	Army of the Damned
Wit's End	Overwhelming Forces

Mar 3, 2012 -- 6:08AM, Roxolan wrote:

Mar 1, 2012 -- 8:36PM, cnacus wrote:

My play group came up with a horde format that we think could function as a "boss" horde. Appropriate for anyone who wants to have a horde that can only be defeated by a team of people explicitly designing their decks and working together to bring down the monstrosity.

Interesting. Seems that the horde has a lot of tricky decisions to make though (best Vindicate targets, for one thing). It would be hard to make those decisions by commitee and against your interests. Your rules seem more suited to a sort of Archenemy variant, with one player actually controlling the horde.

Yeah, that would probably be fun as well- I really like the appeal of everyone being on the same side though.