Zombie Capitalism 2x Regional Winner (Undefeated)

I have a few games under my belt with a similar build and it feels really strong. But still I'm not winning too much. It's a paradox, I'm playing a great controlled gameplay, but the opponent still manages to slowly grind me with better fighting units or taking advantage of a three planet rush. I like playing with Anrakyr, so I will be testing more and finetuning for sure. Keep the Zombies coming Syntax!

I've seen your list and I think you have a few suboptimal cards and lacking Promotion when it's a very well established card (and you're certainly not overloaded with other Limited cards).

E.g. Consider the fact that you're running Mandrakes. Now I know they're boosted by Immortal Vanguard, but you have to keep in mind that they're usually omitted from DE lists as they're just not efficient enough for the cost. Similarly, Vanguard has the same problem Hivemind units, they're a prime target for removal and very ineffective in isolation.

Also, you need to be a little sharp in how you play the deck. While it's nearly impossible to lose a battle if you have an arbitrarily large resource pool and at least one Decaying Warrior in discard, you still have to be mindful about having the Warrior(s) becoming stuck after winning at a planet further down the line than a victory planet.

That is actually a different list, and yes I can see the pitfalls in there. Now I've been running:

So now we have pretty similar builds to begin with. But I'm still feeling the lack of combat power. Certainly it is huge to recur that Decayer time after time, but still in many cases the opponent will have a good change in winning anyways. And if the 5 times recurred Decayer succeeds in winning the battle I'm not too rich anymore, which will effect gameplay from there for sure. And I'm not saying it's always bad. Some games I win and the opponent goes: "you're very strong!". But in my hands (definately mediocre) the deck is not packing enough punch at the moment. I'm actually going back to my old iteration with the Mandrakes and try to tune that thing a bit more...

Edit. In this list I omitted the Drudgeries, because I feel Promotion and Drudgery collide in a very bad way :/

Edit 2. Reanimation Protocol would be good without the restriction for sure, but at the moment I feel like it's like a pseudo two-shielder without any other function (well maybe a deploy stall) and it doesn't help at all with the lack of punch power.

You have 3 STC and only 3 Elites. You're going to have a difficult time making the most of the STC...

Reanimation Protocol is a little better than 2 shields with Harbinger (excess Protocols can be played as shields and then recurred for 3-4 HP of value). With access to Protocols, I'm quite happy to play Anrakyr like he's OOE and eat up to six points of damage since I know I can recover 4 points over 2 turns (just be wary of Crushing Blow and No Mercy).

Drudgery is mostly shields early in the game as you want the farming advantage of Promo. Later in the game they begin to shine when Promotion has little impact and you recur them with Harbinger to put down more combat capacity.

Also not a fan of Eternity Gate since it's card disadvantage (though it gives some card selectivity). You can do most of the work of Eternity Gate with Recycle.

What's the reasoning behind the Warrior-focus? Coincidence? You're not fielding Immortal Vanguard...

How big were the regionals that this won in, out of curiosity? Also, how well does this deck fair against Eldorath and Kith/Morn? I feel like Superiority or Archon's Palace would end this deck, but if it's won regionals it's clearly done well

I wasn't playing, but I believe it was nine and five.

Palace is difficult if Kith starts shutting down extra resources, but it's not unwinnable and you can remove the Palace with Devastators. But because you're decoupled from having to chase cards when all opposing warlords without Depot must secure a supply of cards to remain consistent, it's very hard to be shut out by standard command (with or without Superiority) if you're playing accurately.

lol, I was the pilot for those regionals... They were fairly small (9 and 5) so really, only about 9 games all up.

I didn't have problems with Eldorath (vehicles) as I think the deploy stall in Anrakyr helped a lot given the high cost units in the Eldorath deck. I actually never ran into Superiority so I can't really comment, but (off the top of my head), there wasn't really a scenario that has popped up where Superiority would have made that much difference - and was used as a shield instead. 

I did face off Palace a few times but it wasn't too much of an issue. I recall having Devastators in hand a number of times and choosing not to use it as the loss of one command struggle reward at that stage of the game didn't bother me (but of course, those were effectively won games already). I don't recall if I ever faced a turn 1 or 2 palace though.

But again, sample size of games is rather small, so yeah...