Brilliance in Chomping
Meet Zombie Mister Fantastic, the smartest corpse in the room, even after a severe case of brain rot. Sure, he’s missing a few brain cells (and maybe a limb or two), but his stretchy powers are still to die for. Whether he’s reaching for brains across the city or inventing new ways to keep his body parts attached, one thing’s certain: this undead genius always goes the extra mile… or limb. The only question is, can he stretch far enough to reach the meta?
That’s a lot of reach! Zombie Mister Fantastic (ZMF) shambles in as the first On Reveal and Activate card, and he’s a powerhouse of a pick. His Horde On Reveal splits him into two bodies for a total of 2 Cost and 4 Power, which might not sound too crazy (we’ve seen Mister Sinister pull just that).
But the real stretch of his potential comes from his Activate, which grants up to four created cards +1 Power each. I must say that the Zombie Horde token counts as one of those created cards. That means you only need three more to fully flex the ability of this decomposing genius.
Pull it off, and you’re looking at 8 total Power for just 2 Energy, a terrifyingly efficient deal that proves ZMF’s still got plenty of brains left... somewhere.
For the Horde
Horde cards are built to thrive together, feeding off each other’s decaying synergy. Pairing Zombie Mister Fantastic with Zombie Scarlet Witch and Zombie Giant-Man might just be the key to unleashing their full rotten potential.
And the fun doesn’t stop there, soon we’ll get our putrified hands on The Hunger and Zombie Sentry, rounding out the undead lineup. When that happens, it’ll finally be time to don your lab coat, cackle like a mad scientist, and see just how far the Horde deck can stretch before it falls apart.
Behold My Creations
The other half of ZMF potential lies in created cards and he can buff them with his Activate trigger. There are different ways to do this though, let’s go in-depth so you can find the one that will work best for you:
Token Creators
These would be the easiest cards to build around, at least in my decaying eyes. The biggest challenge is avoiding board overflow. It’s easy to flood your side with weak tokens and end up with no room for your heavy hitters. If you’re heading down this path, make sure to pack a few buffers to keep your token army from collapsing under its own weight. A couple of smart boosts from the likes of Blue Marvel, Ka-Zar, Marvel Boy, can turn your shambling horde into a surprisingly substantial threat.
Hand & Friends
These cards excel at granting you cheap created cards that can quickly flood your side of the field. Creating cards in hand opens up extra synergy with Victoria Hand, our secretary that packs a powerful boost to any cards created in hand, and Quinjet, everyone’s favorite aircraft for discounts.
With Bastion and Frigga, there’s even more room for growth — both offer clever ways to duplicate Zombie Mister Fantastic and Victoria Hand. This will result in a swarm of boosted bodies that turn your Zombie Horde into a full-blown apocalypse.
Lazy Route
Oh, you don’t like creating your own cards? No worries, these guys can do all the work while you reap the rewards. Just slot in any mix of these three, and you’ll be set to swarm.. Good luck on drawing ZMF with all those extra cards added to your deck.
Ace
No matter which version you prefer, you better keep in mind that Mockingbird has your back no matter what if you’re playing with created cards.
Loathsome Locations
This season’s locations will heavily favor the Horde archetype so keep in mind that for both hot locations Undead Reeds will be incredibly good.
Not only that, we also have a ton of locations that would be incredibly good to play with our ZMF such as:
Aim For the Head
Horde might soon become a powerful archetype and with that, more and more snappers will try to counter it. So you’d better be careful and prepared to face these zombie slayers that can kill your gameplans for good and stomp down your horde.
DualGloves’s Day One Zombie Mister Fantastic Decks
Greatest Zombie Mind I Ever Knew
Did you know that Joaquin Phoenix is awesome with 1-Cost spells? With The Hunger approaching soon I want to showcase it in this list with a reasonable amount of Horde cards and the chance to double up any spells I want.
Missing Fingers, Still Full Hand
Leave it to the agents to create cards for you to buff with ZMF. Victoria hand is the best card in this list and you should always try to double her up with Frigga, Bastion or Moonstone.
Undead Titan
We have two key cards and play patterns to follow through here. You either play ZMF and get some powerful stones and a healthy Zombie Horde, or you play Strange Supreme and make him devour stones and zombies every turn in search of ultimate power.
It's the Kang of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
Hey, did you know that Kang is cool now? We are trying some different flavors of Victoria Hand and this features our Time-Traveling Big Bad to both surprise your opponents and to get the most out of ZMF.
Variants
Which flavor of undead stretchy scientist strikes you fancy? I’m definitely going to grab that rotten kinda cute artwork done by Rian Gonzales. What about you?
Final Thoughts
I’m on the fence on this one guys. There is truly no way of knowing the full potential of Horde until we get them all in our grabby hands. I suspect that ZMF will be a great card just because he drops down too many points of Power for his cost. How often we will be able to reach that full potential is to be seen yet. I suggest holding out for a few days, checking the waters for how strong he feels. No need to rush as you'll have a full week to grab him before he goes away for a bit.
But I’m curious about your opinion. What role is this card going to portray in today’s meta. Will it be a solid step towards the Horde archetype or will the mechanic fade into obscurity? Let me know in the comments!