For our 25th Fun & Jank article, we’re diving into a Historic take on the classic Zombie Infestation + discard loop—this time powered by Ovalchase Daredevil and Monument to Endurance. This deck turns discarding into pure value, flooding the board with Zombies while looping Daredevil for infinite resources.
Twenty-five articles deep, and we’re still doing what we do best—finding the most absurd, janky nonsense Arena has to offer and making it work. Fun & Jank isn’t just a name, it’s a mission statement. And what better way to celebrate this milestone than with a deck that perfectly captures that energy?
Discarding your entire hand? Fun.
Looping the same card over and over? Jank.
Doing both while drowning the board in Zombies, Treasures, and value? Fun & Jank in its purest form.
Hiya! Plum here yet again to celebrate our first notable milestone! We’ve hit twenty-five articles in our Fun & Jank Series (with a couple honorable mentions)! Before we dive into the madness, I just want to say—thank you. Whether you’ve been here from the first article or just found this series, your support is what keeps the jank flowing. I wouldn’t be able to keep doing this without all of you who share, comment, and embrace the jank with me.
Back in the Premodern era, Zombie Infestation + Squee, Goblin Nabob was the heart of a grindy, resource-looping control deck. The idea was simple: discard two Squees to make a zombie, and since Squee returns to your hand during your upkeep, you could repeat this little loop every turn.
To keep things rolling, the deck packed card draw like Merfolk Looter and Deep Analysis, while counterspells and removal kept opponents from outpacing the value engine. Some versions ran Psychatog as a backup win condition, while others just drowned the board in zombies until the opponent gave up.
It wasn’t flashy, but it was inevitable—if you couldn’t stop the loop, the game would slowly spiral out of control in the zombie player’s favor. It was a true old-school grindfest, and in many ways, the Historic version we’re playing today is a solid homage to the Premodern versions, with Ovalchase Daredevil stepping in as the new-age Squee.
Unfortunately, we don’t have Squee, Goblin Nabob, or even Master of Death on Arena, so in order to get “free” discard fodder for Zombie Infestation we have to put in a little work. However, Aetherdrift gave us Monument to Endurance which allows us to loop Daredevil while also just being a good value engine in general alongside some of our other self-discard effects.
The loop is simple, and although having two Daredevils is the best case scenario, it can be repeated with just one as follows:
Starting with Zombie Infestation and Monument to Endurance on the field 1.) Activate Infestation, discarding Ovalchase Daredevil + another card (or a second Daredevil) 2.) Monument triggers twice, one of which will be used to create a Treasure token. If you only have one Daredevil, use the other trigger to draw a card. If you have two, then you make the opponent lose 3 life instead. 3.) You get a 2/2 Zombie and a treasure token, which triggers the return effect on the Daredevil(s) you discarded to make the zombie. If you only discarded one Daredevil, then drawing a card off of Monument will result in a net loss of 0 cards. If you discarded two Daredevils, then they both come back to your hand and the result is the same. 4.) Since you can only trigger Monument’s abilities once each turn, you’ll have to wait to repeat the loop during your opponent’s turn. That means we get 2 loops every turn cycle.
This loop gets even strong when you have more than one Monument to Endurance out, allowing you to drain the opponent for 12+ damage every turn cycle.
Gameplay
Zombie Infestation and Monument to Endurance provide the core gameplay loop for this deck, but I want to discuss the shell I created around them to support it. I’m not sure this is quite the shell we want to be playing, but we have a small zombie subtheme to help get the most out of the tokens we make with Zombie Infestation.
Other Creatures
Cryptbreaker fits perfectly here, turning Zombies into card draw while doubling as an enabler for our discard payoffs. Some games this guy can fuel Zombie Infestation by itself with a large horde on the board.
Champion of the Perished is a cheap early-game threat that can snowball with our discard engine. It also grows from Cryptbreaker and other copies of itself. I’ve found him to either be a must-answer threat or a removal magnet that takes the heat off of our other value pieces.
Ruthless Sniper is probably one of the first cards I’d cut in the next iteration, but he’s actually quite the menace. It can pick off X/1s in the early game pretty consistently and once we have treasures from Monument in the late game it can keep larger bodies off the board easily. Don’t underestimate ’em.
Voldaren Pariah– This forgotten vampire continues to impress me in every game I draw her. Her madness cost is not prohibitive in the slightest, and between the zombies and spirits from Lingering Souls she’s very easy to flip. A 6/5 flyer that clears the board on its own is usually enough to end games outright.
Other Spells
Liliana of the Veil probably doesn’t need much explanation. With Monument out we never have to go down a card if we +1. Plus, if we have Infestation, she can be our 3rd Monument trigger each turn so we don’t lose out on any value.
Village Rites is here because its cheap and efficient. We’re generating so many tokens it’s not hard to find sacrifice fodder for it.
Bitter Triumph instant speed creature/planeswalker removal that can also act as a discard outlet to trigger Monument or put a Lingering Souls in the graveyard.
Lingering Souls has been one of my favorite additions to this deck. Maybe I’m just nostalgic for the old days of Modern, but boy does it feel good to discard this to Liliana and crank out a couple tokens in the same turn. Probably want to go up a copy or two in the future. We can cast the front side off of treasure tokens if needed.
Driven // Despair is my current “fun-of” that’s been quite useful. Like Lingering Souls, we’re not to worried about casting the front side. Menace on all our creatures in addition to the discard effect is powerful enough to warrant a slot in the deck in my opinion. Can really turn the tide of a game in a single turn.
Spymaster's Vault has felt strong as a 1-of. It can power up a single creature while giving us multiple discard triggers against a removal-heavy opponent. Feels especially strong when we get hit with boardwipe only to create a zombie at the end of turn, and Connive 5+ times.
Castle Lochthwain is here for the games where we end up in topdeck mode, or just need a few additional cards to pull ahead of the opponent. Castle gives us that extra card advantage we need.
At the heart of it, this is a Midrange list. Trying to leverage an engine to gain incremental value over the opponent before we run them over or run them out of resources. If we can get the Monument/Infestation loop going it certainly feels like we can out-grind most other Midrange decks and even Control too, with the right hand.
Aggro and Combo are a whole different story though. We end up losing quite a bit of life from our own spells, and most of our creatures are easily picked off in the early game against Mono Red or Energy. And to be frank, Combo decks are an automatic loss for us (at least in Bo1). We have nothing to stop them besides a few pieces of instant speed removal. Which usually isn’t enough.
Matches
You can see a variety of matches on our stream, but here’s a few that highlight the power of the deck.
This first match was against a BW Legends list with main-deck hate for both Monument and Infestation via Loran of the Third path along with some exile-based removal. You can see we established a strong board presence quite early only to be hit with a Damnation. Despite this, we were able to quickly rebuild and really take back the game with a timely Driven // Despair to make them discard 4 cards. Super fun match that had a lot of back and forth and showcases the resilience of our deck.
This match showcases just how oppressive Ruthless Sniper can be against creature based strategies. As we discard cards to create zombies and build our board, we were able to keep our opponent’s board clear at the same time.
This final match against BW Ketramose felt like a good test for the power level of our deck. Ketramose is the newest hotness in multiple formats and our opponent was also playing some known staples like , Phelia, Exuberant Shepard, and Emperor of Bones. Although the opponent wasn’t piloting their list all that well, it does show that we’re able to hold our own against cards of a higher caliber.
Closing Thoughts
This deck was fun to brew and super fun to pilot. The Zombie Infestation + Ovalchase Daredevil loop is a modernized take on a classic strategy, and with Monument to Endurance thrown in the mix, it most certainly feels like the deck is close to being competitive. There’s still a lot I’d like to test such as dropping the zombie theme, or going bigger with the The One Ringand Sheoldred, but that’s for another article. The deck still has some rough edges. Aggro decks can burn us out before we stabilize, and fast combo matchups are a nightmare without disruption. Overall the deck feels like it’s doing something on par with other decks in the Historic format, we just really have to fine tune and explore what other shells we can slot the package into. I’m looking forward to working with Monument to Endurance more in the future.
Thanks for reading, and thanks again for 25 articles of jank-fueled nonsense! Here’s to 25 more. 🚀
As always feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below! Make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!
If you want to see these decks in action, come hang out with me on stream where we test, refine, and have a ton of fun together! (please I’m so lonely, and I even made a cool new overlay!)
Happy Brewing!
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Plum is the creator of the Jank Tank.
He started playing at the ripe old age of 12 and immediately fell in love with the infinite possibilities that deck building could lead to.
He truly understands that jank is a mindset, and spends most of his free time brewing and concocting new and exciting deck lists to help inspire and promote creativity within the MTG community.
