Zombie Deck

Complete Deck Lists by Type

There are a few main concepts for Zombie Deck. One focuses on swarming the field with Zombies, usually from the Graveyard, and the other is milling your opponent's Deck out, star cards include "Il Blud", "Mezuki", "Goblin Zombie", "Plaguespreader Zombie", "Pyramid Turtle", "Kasha" and "Zombie Master".

Strength and Weaknesses

Depending on the type of Deck its strength can vary, but the overall power of a Zombie Deck remains: its ability to quickly swarm the field with monsters (it is not uncommon to clog up one's entire Monster Cards zone in one turn) and gaining quite powerful draw power through "Allure of Darkness" and/or "Shutendoji".

Excluding the Zombie Mill variant, however, a Zombie Deck has some weaknesses. The most notable weakness of the Deck is its dependence from the Graveyard. While the extreme swarming capabilities of the Deck can overcome the aforementioned lack of sheer power, cards like "Macro Cosmos", "Dimensional Fissure", "D.D. Crow", and nearly every other card that can remove monsters from the game or lock the Graveyard can effectively put a Zombie player to severe disadvantage, if not outright disrupt one's strategy and cause the loss of a duel. "Burial from a Different Dimension" and "Imperial Iron Wall" can help to partially solve the problem (though the latter keeps "Plaguespreader Zombie" in the game, it makes "Mezuki" and "Book of Life" completely useless). In other words, the remove from play Deck can be the worst enemy for zombies because the cards that target the Graveyard are totally useless. But the Zombie Deck has another weakness in cards like "The End of Anubis" that disable your Graveyard or "Vanity's Fiend" that don't allow you to perform Special Summons.

Another weakness is the fact that Zombies tend to have low ATK power for their level, compared to other Types (Examples include "Il Blud" and "Vampire Lord"). This can severely hamper a Zombie Deck player if his/her opponent uses high DEF monsters to stall the game. There are a few cards that can help counteract this problem, most notably "Burden of the Mighty", "Solidarity" and "Pyramid of Wonders". The final, "Temple of the Sun", is a slightly more situational card that still would sit rather well in a Deck focused on Graveyard power.

The March Banlist has crippled the Deck even further by moving "Mezuki" back to Limited and keeping the ban for "Card of Safe Return", which continues to take away a major draw force in Zombie Decks. However, with the release of the Zombie World Deck, it provides for the player to gain field, Graveyard, and swarming advantage over his opponent making Zombies an extremely powerful and effective Type.

Zombie Burn Deck

The Zombie Burn Deck can be played different ways. Combinations such as "Malevolent Mech - Goku En" or "Zombie Mammoth" with "Vengeful Servant" and "Creature Swap" are effective ways to do massive amounts of damage easily, but cards that reverse any damage taken like "Prime Material Dragon" and "Rainbow Life" or cards that negate the activation of Trap or Spell Cards like "Dark Bribe", "Solemn Judgment" etc, can stop these effects all too easily. In addition, if you are facing another Zombie Deck or a Deck with Zombies in it, the strategy won't work.

Another Zombie Burn strategy involves inflicting damage when "Burning Skull Head" is Special Summoned from the hand with the effect of "Skull Flame" and "Skull Conductor", coupled with "Everliving Underworld Cannon" and "Dark Room of Nightmare" for additional damage. They might not do as much damage in a single hit, but they are more effective because there are less card effects to stop the combination, and "Skull Flame" is easily summoned using Call of the Mummy or Pyramid Turtle, with the added advantage of having 2600 ATK.

"Shutendoji" and "Burial from a Different Dimension" can help to bring back removed from play "Skull Flame"s and "Burning Skull Head"s. "Supersonic Skull Flame" can also unleash additional damage simply by having "Burning Skull Head"s in your Graveyard, and searchers such as "Goblin Zombie" and "Sangan" could be used to put "Burning Skull Head" in your hand.

Recommended Cards

Zombie Sworn/Chaos Zombie Deck

The 'Zombiesworn' Deck uses the self-milling effects of "Lightsworn" monsters to send Zombie monsters to the Graveyard to revive with "Mezuki". "Chaos Sorcerer" is also used because of the abundance of LIGHT and DARK monsters.

With the list from March 2011 "Chaos Sorcerer" is now Unlimited, making this Deck-type more effective than it was last format.

Zombie World Deck

This Deck type, as the name suggests, is based around the Field Spell "Zombie World". This Deck is very versatile, as almost any of the Zombie staples can be splashed in. This Deck can be brutally effective against many other Decks, as "Zombie World", as well as changing all your opponents monsters on the field and in the Graveyard into Zombies, also stops your opponent from tribute summoning anything other than a Zombie-type monster. This negatively affects many commonly used Decks, such as Monarchs and Plants. Many cards are designed specifically to work with the Field Spell, such as "Doomkaiser Dragon" or "Trap of the Imperial Tomb" or even "Sacred Crane" for draw power. These cards have very good effects, but are sometimes better to avoid, as they are useless without the Field Spell. Other cards have indirect merit, such as "Getsu Fuhma", "Marionette Mite", or even "Tutan Mask" when used on your opponents to stop pesky Spells or Traps.

This Deck has many Zombie]] staples such as "Pyramid Turtle", "Zombie Master", "Goblin Zombie", or even "Plaguespreader Zombie" if you want to Synchro Summon. The key player in this Deck is without a doubt "Il Blud". "Getsu Fuhma" can be used to destroy most monsters with higher ATK than your Zombies if need be. "Kasha" can also be included, but remember that monsters treated as Zombies by the effect of "Zombie World" that are returned to the Deck are not counted towards its ATK.

Recommended Cards

Zombie D.D./Beat down Deck

This Deck involves using "Shutendoji" and "Necroface" to remove from play large amounts of cards, similar to a "Necromill Deck", followed by recycling "Necroface" with the effect of Shutendoji and Normal Summoning it as a massive beatstick.

With this technique, you can recycle your Deck, and use "Soul Absorption" to gain Life Points quickly. However, you might Deck out quickly because of the speed you can remove from play from the top of your Deck with the draw power you get with "Shutendoji", but you can still recycle your Deck with the effect of "Necroface". By doing this, you can greatly annoy your opponent.

Recommended Cards

Monsters

Monsters

Spells & Traps

Spells

Diva Zombie Deck

This Deck uses the revival effects of Zombie monsters with the effect of "Deep Sea Diva" to Special Summon other Sea Serpents (most notably another "Deep Sea Diva") to quickly Synchro Summon. This Deck type is heavily reliant on "Mezuki" and its effect to quickly Special Summon Zombie monsters in the Graveyard, along with "Burial from a Different Dimension" to recycle it.

This Deck was severely slowed by the Limiting of "Burial from a Different Dimension" in March 2010.

Recommended Cards

Monsters

Monsters

Spells & Traps

Spells

Traps

Return from the Different Dimension

Z-Heroes/Absolute Zombies

This Deck uses the "Destiny Hero" engine for extra draw power, as well as using "Destiny Hero - Malicious" to Synchro Summon quickly. It is also known to include the aforementioned "Diva Engine", as they work with "Miracle Fusion" to Fusion Summon "Elemental Hero Absolute Zero". This Deck is also less reliant on "Divas" for Synchro Summoning.

Recommended Cards

Monsters

Monsters

Spells & Traps

Spells

BludVise Synchro Deck

This Deck works by using the Equip Spell "Supervise" on "Il Blud" to Special Summon Zombies from your hand or Graveyard and use them for Synchro Summoning. It works like a GigaVise Deck but is admittedly slower. However, with a bit of ingenuity and skill it can work pretty well and it is possible to Synchro Summon almost as quickly. The main focus is to summon "Il Blud" and then use "Supervise" to have it gain its effect.

Since this is a Zombie Deck, "Il Blud" greatly benefits from Zombie revival cards such as "Book of Life". Also, "Pyramid Turtle" can quickly Special Summon "Il Blud" from the Deck. Once the effect of "Il Blud" has been activated, simply Special Summon Zombies to swarm the field and then use Tuner Monsters to tune with them. "Plaguespreader Zombie" is the ideal tuner monster in this deck, but "Krebons", "Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind", and "Dark Resonator" all have good synergy with this deck since they are all DARK monsters.

To speed this Deck up, "Hidden Armory" is useful to search "Supervise" and cards such as "Goblin Zombie" can help bring "Plaguespreader Zombie" from the Deck to your hand. Cards such as "Mezuki" can also help summon "Il Blud" from the Graveyard in case it is destroyed, and cards like "Shutendoji" can help recycle the effect of Mezuki. With all the tribute fodder available because of "Il Blud", it is not a bad idea to add a few "Caius the Shadow Monarch" to the Deck for field removal. With a bit of work, this Deck can be pretty competitive.

Recommended Cards

Zombie Beatdown-Mill

See also: Necromill OTK As the name suggests, this is a beatdown and milling Deck using Zombies. This technique starts by drawing "Allure of Darkness" and removing "Necroface", then removing 5 cards from your opponent's Deck and disrupting their strategies. Unlike the "Zombie D.D." deck's strategies, however, this does not focus on using the first effect of "Necroface" to make it a beatstick. It uses its second effect to mill, so instead of summoning "Necroface", you drop it using the effect of "Zombie Master" and summon "Shutendoji", then repeat until you are satisfied. After milling as much as you can, let "Shutendoji" use its effect to retrieve a removed from play "Il Blud" and or other high-ATK Zombies, because they were likely milled by "Necroface". You can also send out "Pyramid Turtle" to get onto the field any strong Zombies still left in your deck or use "Return from the Different Dimension" to finish the job.

When you are finished with the milling strategy it is very important that you get as many Zombies as you can onto the field, but it is also good (but not always recommended) to stack up your Deck with 60 cards, so that if all else fails, you can Normal Summon "Necroface" and use its second effect for the kill.

Or, you may use the ever-popular milling effect of "Soul-Absorbing Bone Tower". there are a number of ways to do this.... but you'll need to have 3 copies of "[[Soul-Absorbing Bone Tower]"] and possibly 3 of copies "Inferno Reckless Summon". Keep in mind, the opponent's monster must be face up for "Inferno Reckless Summon" to activate. All you need is to Special Summon one, and after that, you may activate "Inferno Reckless Summon". Your opponent will mill 2 cards from the top of his/her Deck. Even with "Zombie World" on the field, a simultaneous summon of the three or four monsters (depending on if your opponent has any more monsters of the same name) will only count as one time. However, any other Special Summon after that, will result in your opponent milling 6 cards off the top of their Deck for each time a monster is Special Summoned. "Il Blud" will also be the main priority card of this Deck. If you can either summon "Il Blud" or "Colossal Fighter" on the field, especially with "Colossal Fighter" on the field, it's game over. The effect of "Colossal Fighter" may be used on himself, but not if "Zombie World" is presently on the field since he will no longer be a Warrior. Only a "DNA Surgery" will help you to accomplish a complete Deck out in one turn if you have enough Life Points.