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Jul 7, 2012 -- 4:05PM, tehbeast wrote:

This deck makes me wish FNM happened every other night.

agreed

Jul 7, 2012 -- 12:31AM, tehbeast wrote:

You might be onto something with Lingering Souls, 'cron, as that's a lotta creatures to have dying in this deck, especially while feeding Falkenrath Aristocrat to avoid sweeps/death by combat.

Split top 4 again, I love this deck. It's gonna suck losing Fume Spitter.  I have my eye on Duty-Bound Dead and Knight of Infamy . No, exalted isn't SUPER relevant to our gameplan, but at the very worst, the ability does nothing.  The skeleton's a good blocker against 1/xs, doesn't give Doomed Traveler 's controller a flyer and super-late game, it regenerates. The knight has pro-black and is a human, which can be great to toss to an Aristocrat once he outlives his usefulness, though that's unlikely to happen with protection from angels and most humans.
Edit: And Bloodthrone Vampire and, if necessary, Vampire Nighthawk . Hell yes!

I feel REALLY good about this deck going into the new standard this fall.

Lingering Souls is one of the top ten best cards in standard in my opinion. The value you get from the card alone is insane; it can single handely recover your battlefield after a sleeper. At first I was having okay results with my B/W Zombie Artist deck, but now I've been doing even better. Beat U/W/r miracles, came close to U/W Delver (before I had Blade Splicers), and an okay match before Splicer with Naya Pod. The deck is just solid; lots of pressure early, mid, and even some late game. Nearly every card is a legitimate threat, everything else is removal. It's great when your opponent wastes their spot and mass removal to get rid of Gravecrawlers, Lingering Souls tokens, and Blood Artist and then you can bring the beats with Messenger, Blade Splicer, and Restoration Angel.

And yes, part of the reason zombie Artist builds are good is not only are they competitive, but will probably remain that way post-rotation. Vampire Nighthawk is definitely an option to consider, especially as a sideboard card vs. aggro.

Jul 8, 2012 -- 5:32PM, MrIndigo wrote:

I sometimes think the Pod builds are just using Pod as a crutch for the fact that the pilots can't play aggro very well.

Certainly not what I was aiming at.  Was just tickled by the notion of having a sac outlet that cranks you to some toolbox answers, like Vandal for SoFaF.. and I think you know I flip for Pod.  That said, I would largely agree that just playing aggro is what this deck wants to do, especially when it has such an attritiony lategame already.

The mana is what scares me about the BW take as well.  I put together a BW Tokens deck that's pretty crushing, but then it's almost exclusively white.