The Grateful Undead

An Undead swarm that never stays dead. Flood the board with Skeletons, bring your minions back from the cemetery for cheap, and turn every hit on the enemy avatar into a card or 3 life.

THE PLAN

Interrogator makes the opponent choose every time one of your units strikes their avatar: you draw a spell, or they pay 3 life. A wide board of cheap bodies means many strikes, and each one bleeds cards or life. Your minions recur from the cemetery by sacrificing Skeletons, so trading them away costs you very little.

THE ENGINE

Skeleton makers: Novice Necromancer, Master Necromancer, Exhume, Raise Militia, Undead Ambush, Pile of Skulls, Noisome Twosome, Stygian Archers, Army of the Dead and Draconian Bonekite. On the site side, Open Grave and Open Mausoleum each make one when played, and Boulevard of Bones makes one whenever you play a site next to it.

Recursion: Bone Jumble, Fowl Bones, Barrow Wight and Zombie Bruiser each come back from the cemetery by sacrificing a Skeleton. They return where the Skeleton was, so Skeletons double as recursion points. Bone Rabble returns whenever you play an Earth site. Those Who Linger dies into a Ghoul, and that Ghoul dies into a Skeleton.

Pressure: Horn of Caerleon gives nearby minions Charge, so freshly summoned Skeletons attack immediately. Undead Ambush plus Horn is your best burst: Skeletons appear next to an enemy and swing that turn.

HOW TO PLAY IT

Turns 1-3: Play a site every turn. Get early bodies down: Bone Jumble, Fowl Bones, Novice Necromancer, Noisome Twosome, Exhume. Lead with Open Grave or Open Mausoleum when you have the spare mana for a Skeleton.

Turns 3-5: Set up Death Knight and the instruments, and start attacking the avatar to trigger Interrogator. Hold Raise Militia and Undead Ambush until they hit the right spots.

Turns 5+: Cast Necronomiconcert once several differently named Undead and Instruments are gathered near the caster. Close with Returned King, Army of the Dead or Draconian Bonekite.

KEY TRICKS

Den of Evil: The turn you play it, the next Evil card cast there costs 1 less and ignores threshold. Every Undead here is Evil, so save a Den for your Army of the Dead turn to skip its 3 Earth threshold.

Golden Harp: Park it at home. It caps strike damage and life loss from units nearby at 2, which blunts attacks on your avatar without capping your attacks on their side.

Panpipes of Pnom and Drums of Doom: Panpipes raises nearby units' damage to 2, and Drums makes damage to nearby minions lethal. Together, a 1-power Skeleton can kill anything it hits.

Sold-out Cemetery: When an Undead enters it, another Undead there gets pushed one step for free. Summon Skeletons onto it to reposition your board.

Arcade of Bones: Your Undead in its row move freely and can't be targeted or damaged by magic. Build your main attack lane through it to shrug off sweepers.

Forsaken Crypt: With 2 Air threshold, it lets you cast a Ghoul from your collection onto it. You run 4 Ghouls for the Crypts and Those Who Linger.

Wormelow Tump: With 3 Earth threshold, opponents can't affect your cemetery. That shuts off cemetery hate against your recursion.

Bone Spear: Sacrifice an Undead to fire a 3-damage projectile. Sacrifice a recursive minion and bring it back later for cheap.

NECRONOMICONCERT

It draws a card for each differently named Undead and Instrument nearby. Duplicates don't count, and every Skeleton counts as one name. Spread your names around the caster, keep the instruments at home, and fire it when you have 5 or more names in range.