An analysis of a Magic the Gathering draft deck's flavor - Zombies on Innistrad

In this series, I look at draft decks that I or fans from my channel have built. To start this off I will do one from a draft I recently did. It was an interesting Midnight Hunt draft, where I drafted a Blue Back zombie-focused deck. I shall take you through some notable picks and what I think of the lore as Slow Unpacking is a lore-focused channel. 

The first pick - Defenestrate

the pick

My first pick was this beautiful common that lets you kill a creature without flying at instant speed for three mana. Yes there was a rare in this pack but I do not like Rite of harmony and I knew that others would pick it and be in 2 colors, I prefer to stay in one color at the beginning of my draft. 

The lore

Now this card sets a grim moment. We see a man flying out of a window in Darek Zabrocki’s art. This is logical because defenestration is the act of throwing someone out of a window. Yes, there is a word for that. Flying creatures will not be destroyed, because they survive a fall from a window. The history of the word is most interesting because it’s an old word that came into being in a time when only the rich had windows. The same is true for Innistrad with its fancy holy window style. This is why we see a chaplain being thrown out and even though he fell, he still got the window named after him, probably in mock respect. 

Stronger than anyone seems to think - Mysterious Tome // Chilling Chronicle

The gameplay

This card lets you slowly draw cards and then continuously tap your opponents' creatures. This card is mostly good for its versatility as it does anything to propel you into the late game. In this way, this card enabled me to get into the late game. 

The lore

The lore is rather beautiful too. Where the villagers of a lost village were looking for an answer to their problems. Fairy tales have become real and now the people of Innistrad are looking for a way out in the source of their fears. The transformed part is the opened book and the story itself that captivates your opponent when they hear about it. It is also a very chilling end to a card that says that every story ended in a frozen countryside (frozen meaning tapped as well). Apparently, the endless night was bound to come some time. 

Solid zombie pay off - Ecstatic Awakener

Gameplay

This card comes in on turn 1 and is a human, that’s it. You then sacrifice a decaying zombie on turn 3 and get a 4/4 and a card back. A 4/4 in draft is pretty good, but on turn three it can be a big threat or something that could save you from werewolves. 

Lore

This card is more funny than good and most cards after this will be there for the lore. I think it is funny that this awakener wanted to awake Ormendahl, but we see that another demon jumped forth as our awoken demon, he came out of the ecstatic human and found the situation as funny as the awakener himself. Maybe the awakener should have used more than a zombie, now he had to apparently sacrifice himself. 

 

Stitcher’s cards

Now, this is a zombie deck, so I would like to point out some lore about stitchers here. 

Organ hoarder

Humans are in a lot of trouble on Innistrad, we see this in many forms here. Even the stitchers and ghoulcallers of Innistrad have trouble with survival and we can see this all in our cards like with the rare-common Organ hoarder, that is still going after it’s owners death. Going with what he was made for, which is gathering organs for his master. He does this by milling from your deck too. 

Vivisection

Vivisection is surgery in the name of science. These experiments are as we can read here mostly reviled, but the stitchers draw cards from this same research. We see that even though the world is dark as we see in the art and know from the story, the stitchers work on with however much they have to use. 

Bladestitched Skaab

Not only the stitchers of Innistrad themselves are in trouble, but their recourses are also scarce. This is to say that the humans of Innistrad are slowly running out. The only recourses that the stitchers can still obtain are from the people that riot against them, as we see with the bladestitched Skaab. This strengthens your other zombies, probably by giving them more weapons in some gruesome way. 

Drownyard Amalgam

Lastly, we see this Drownyard Amalgam that is an amalgam of multiple humans, to create a large almost complete human. You can imagine how hard it is to make whole zombies with only bodies that were washed ashore, this card shows us how the stitchers of Innistrad have to be creative to ensure their creations are longer lived than the original ghoulcallers.