OverviewZombie is an aggro-deck with great potential to gaining advantage through swarming and drawing cards. With Il Blud, Card of Safe Return, Book of Life and Zombie Master, Zombie decks can easily generate advantage against your opponent. With Card of Safe Return unlimited to 3, Zombies can perform multiple draws in a turn thanks to cards like Book of Life and Zombie Master. Pay attention that you have to set up your Graveyard first, though (and make sure there are monsters in the opponent's when using Book of Life). While stayed mostly similar to their TCG counterparts, Zombie decks got a crucial boost in OCG/Raiza Format version in the form of Goblin Zombie. Not only a good Zombie-type searcher, it's also a viable target for Book of Life or Zombie Master. This prolongs the Card of Safe Return draw combo (and even provides you one additional search if it's sent from field to the Graveyard once more, by any means). Here is a sample recipe of Raiza Format Zombie Deck: WARNING : This is just a sample deck list. We suggest you to try it first and see if it suits your style, and/or modify it to suits your own. The recommended number of copies is also just a general suggestion rather than absolute requirements. StrengthsSimple and Powerful Zombies are great for players who like to play a straight-forward deck. Summon monsters, swarm the field with your hordes of undead while gaining hand advantage is one of the easiest ways to play and win a duel. and while you building your advantage, you can also disrupt your opponent's Graveyard setup with Book of Life. Zombies also had decent beaters like Ryu Kokki that can be summoned easily and fight head to head with most popular 1-tribute monsters like the monarchs and even destroys a very problematic card like Dark Magician of Chaos due to its effect. There's nothing too complex to learn about Zombie deck. It's an effective, yet fun deck to play. Great Hand Advantage Thanks to Card of Safe Return, Zombie decks allow their player to draw a considerable amount of cards. This is even better with cards like Zombie Master, Goblin Zombie, and Book of Life that synergize very well and provide an additional advantage. With a good setup, drawing 3 cards every time you revive a monster from your Graveyard is achievable. Even a single activated Call of The Haunted could be big trouble for your opponent. This considerable hand advantage combined with a strong field presence could mean you can win your duel very quickly. WeaknessesToo much dependency on GY setup While Zombies can be very deadly, lack of Graveyard setups can be a serious problem. This could make Zombie players in deep trouble early game if they draw too many copies of Book of Life and/or Card of Safe Return without any monsters. This also means cards that acts as Floodgate to banish other cards like Banisher of the Radiance, Macro Cosmos, and Dimensional Fissure could kill Zombie decks since it banishes the Zombie monsters and preventing set-ups. Cards that can banish monsters like Dark Magician of Chaos also means trouble since it could make Pyramid Turtle and Goblin Zombie useless. Sometimes, even a copy of Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer or Necrovalley could mean trouble since it prevents the Book of Life activation. Banishing effects from cards like Karma Cut, Dimensional Prison or D.D. Crow could also stop Zombies from their tracks. This is why some of PC Format Zombie players put Return from the Different Dimension on their side deck. Very vulnerable to mass-monster removal Being an aggro-swarm deck means Zombie decks often played with all monsters in face-up Attack Position. While this means Zombies are very imposing deck to face against, it's also especially vulnerable to Trap Cards like Mirror Force and Torrential Tribute. Cards like Lightning Vortex can also destroys all of your monster easily. This could be even more problem if you have Il Blud as lowest ATK monster alongside with Ryu Kokki(s) on your field, since even a single Fissure could wipe out your entire field. And ironically, one of the that can counter Zombie decks strategy very well is another Zombie-type monster, Dark Dust Spirit, since it can destroys all your face-up monster and very hard to dispose of since it will go back to your opponent's hand. Too much dependency on Special Summons The main key of Zombie decks quick swarming are special summon. While this is good since you can perform as many special summons as you can in one turn, it also means cards that stop special summoning could stop Zombie decks. Royal Oppresion at 3 and Vanity Fiend can be Zombie decks worst nightmare. Essential CardsIl Blud - 1 Copy Il Blud is a great Gemini monster that can special summon a zombie monster from hand or Graveyard every turn. With the right amount of setup, Il Blud can very quickly gain you a massive amount of advantage and field presence. While this card is good, you don't really want to draw this card. Despite its great effect and swarm potential, it's a Gemini monster, which unfortunately makes it slow and tedious to make it work. Fortunately, it's a viable target for Pyramid Turtle effect and it's okay to dump Il Blud to the Graveyard, so you can revive it with Book of Life, Premature Burial, or Call of The Haunted, re-summon it and use it's effect to start swarming. WARNING: While Il Blud has a very powerful effect, make sure that you protect Il Blud. Since if it got destroyed, the monsters special summoned by Il Blud also got destroyed, which could mean clearing your field from monsters! Zombie Master - 3 Copies Zombie Master acts as both non-tribute beat-stick and your combo extender. While 1800 ATK is decent, it is its effect that makes this card a staple. Not only you can revive your monster for Card of Safe Return draw, you can also swarm the field with 3 Zombie Master if you have sufficient cards in your hand and another Zombie Master(s) in GY. And pay attention that you CAN also summon your opponent's Zombie-type monster from their GY (usually their Spirit Reaper). Due to its 0 DEF, this card is search-able by Goblin Zombie's effect. Ryu Kokki - 1 to 2 Copies Your big all-around beater. With 2400 ATK and 2000 DEF, it can withstand most Level-4 monsters and ego for a draw with monarchs and Jinzo. Even though it's a level 6 monster, it is almost never Tribute Summoned. Instead it often cheated out from the Deck (by Pyramid Turtle) or Graveyard (by Il Blud or Book of Life). It's one of the best targets for Pyramid Turtle. Though rarely comes up, its effect could sometimes handy when you're up against a strong Spellcaster/Warrior monster like Dark Magician of Chaos. Pyramid Turtle - 3 Copies The MVP of this deck. Pyramid Turtle practically can search and summon out almost all of your zombies with its Graveyard effect. Il Blud, Ryu Kokki, or even tech such as Vampire's Curse, Vampire Lord, or Lich Lord, King of The Underworld can be summoned thanks to Pyramid Turtle's versatile requirement (2000 DEF or less). Don't forget that you could also summon weaker, but useful Zombie cards such as Zombie Master, Goblin Zombie, and even Spirit Reaper with its effect. Goblin Zombie - 1 to 2 Copies The extender of this deck. While having mediocre stats, Goblin Zombie is a versatile monster with a Graveyard effect that could easily be used. You can even use it with Zombie Master and Card of Safe Return to generate an advantage. It's also a decent tribute fodder due to it's searching effect. Think of it as Sangan for zombies. Spirit Reaper - 1 Copy [Limited] A staple in many decks, and it's even better in Zombie deck! Not only it discards your opponent's hand or stall your opponent to buy time, it can also be revived with Book of Life, Zombie Master, or Il Blud for maximum annoyance. Be wary it would be immediately destroyed if summoned by Premature Burial or Call of The Haunted. As mentioned before, it can also be Special Summoned easily from the deck by Pyramid Turtle. Giant Rat - 1 to 2 Copies This mad rat is your main monster to recruit Pyramid Turtle straight from the deck. Sometimes, you don't even have to search Pyramid Turtle to your field. You can search another EARTH monsters such as Exiled Force (or even Injection Fairy Lily) instead to surprise your opponent! Card Trooper - 1 Copy [Limited] Card trooper is a great card to start your Graveyard setup. By milling a maximum of 3 cards per turn, not only do you thin your deck, but you could also dump some powerful zombies such as Ryu Kokki and Il Blud to start your combo. Card Trooper even lets you draw 1 card should it got destroyed by any means. Book of Life - 2 to 3 Copies Book of life is a very powerful card in Zombie decks. It could not only reviving your own Zombie-type monsters but also disrupting your opponent's Graveyard by banishing pesky cards like Treeborn Frog and Destiny HERO - Disk Commander. Unfortunately, as strong as Book of Life is, it also has a glaring drawback by having requirements that your opponent should have 1 monster at minimum at their Graveyard. Drawing too much of Book of Life in the early game could make it a dead card in your hand. Nevertheless, this card is too good to pass. Card of Safe Return - 3 Copies The key card that creates enormous advantages for the deck. With monsters summoned easily from the Graveyard, this card is a very powerful draw engine. You can also stack 3 of it, which give you 3 card draws per Special Summoning from the Graveyard at maximum. There are plenty of good reasons why this card got limited and even banned in future formats. Creature Swap - 2 Copies [Semi-Limited] The deck got so many low ATK cards with potent graveyard effects like Pyramid Turtle, Giant Rat, Goblin Zombie, Card Trooper, and Sangan. So, it's obvious that Creature Swap could provide you with an enormous field advantage, that's why we suggest you max-ed out this card. Not only you could steal your opponent's monster (that's often stronger than yours) to beat yours with, your monsters will activate their effects when they got sent to the Graveyard. Pay attention that Creature Swap allows your opponent to choose which monsters they would like to give control to you, though. Nobleman of Crossout - 2 Copies [Semi-Limited] Due to the very aggressive play style and decent ATK stats of zombie monsters, Nobleman of Crossout could potentially help you to win the duel very quickly by gaining more field advantage by removing your opponent's pesky set monsters like Magician of Faith, Gravekeeper's Spy, and Old Vindictive Magician. It also removes all copies of them from the decks so nobody could use it anymore in the duel. Nobleman of Crossout can also be a decent removal for defensive cards like Legendary Jujitsu Master and D.D. Warrior Lady. Tech CardsVampire Lord The classic boss monster of Zombie decks got outclassed since the arrival of Cyber Dragon after the Goat Format ended. But this doesn't mean Vampire Lord doesn't have its own strengths in Raiza Format. Vampire Lord can revive itself if destroyed by card effects, which means you can generate draws from Card of Safe Return even without any help from Book of Life. Take notice and try not to get him killed by stronger monsters or even worse, banished since it means Vampire Lord's revival loop is broken. Note that you can also try Vampire's Curse which has a similar effect (but when it's destroyed by battle instead of by a card effect) to Vampire Lord. Decayed Commander
While Decayed Commander usually pales in comparison with Don Zaloog, Decayed Commander got it's own niche and advantage over the Don. Being a Zombie-type monster means it's a viable target for both Zombie Master and Book of Life, which could help you get even more advantage. It also has a Spirit Reaper-like effect that could help you perform hand control on your opponent.
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