Wretched Ranks precon upgrade guide

Eight cards in this box make a Zombie token bigger, and Ghoulcaller Gisa turns every point of that into another Zombie.

What are the best Wretched Ranks upgrades?

Ranked by what each one does with a Gisa activation, which isn't price order. The two dearest cards come first and fifth.

1. Grave Pact ($30.59). Every creature of yours that dies makes each opponent sacrifice one, so Gisa's once-a-turn activation becomes a once-a-turn edict on the whole table.
2. Rotting Regisaur ($4.36). A 7/6 Zombie for three. Cast it, sacrifice it to Gisa the same turn, and you get at least seven Zombies before its upkeep discard ever happens.
3. Crippling Fear ($3.42). Name Zombie and every other creature gets -3/-3. Gisa survives it as a 0/1 and your tokens don't notice.
4. Pitiless Plunderer ($4.92). A Treasure every time another creature of yours dies, which pays Gisa's {B} back on every activation.
5. Cabal Coffers ($29.21). Thirty-three basic Swamps plus Witch's Cottage. With five of them out it turns two mana into five.
6. Plague Belcher ($0.56). A 5/4 menace Zombie for three, and each opponent loses 1 life whenever another of your Zombies dies.

The other two adds, Massacre Wurm and Liliana, Death's Majesty, are argued in the cut list beside the cards they replace.

Every lord in the box adds a Zombie to each activation

Gisa makes X Zombies, where X is the power of the creature she sacrificed, and that's its power on the battlefield with every bonus counted. A bare 2/2 token makes two. Eight cards in the 99 make a Zombie token hit harder: Cemetery Reaper, Death Baron, Lord of the Undead, Lord of the Accursed and Liliana's Mastery give +1/+1, Bad Moon gives +1/+1 to black creatures, Patchwork Banner gives +1/+1 to the type you name, and Undead Warchief gives +2/+1.

So each lord is one more Zombie every time Gisa eats a token. With Undead Warchief and Lord of the Accursed out, a token is a 5/4, sacrificing it makes five more 5/4s, and next turn you do it again. That's the deck. Twenty-eight of the thirty-one creatures in the box's 99 are Zombies, and Gisa herself is a Human Wizard who only needs them to be big.

The death triggers stack on top. Undead Augur draws a card for a life whenever one of your Zombies dies, Vengeful Dead makes each opponent lose 1, and if you sacrifice a nontoken creature, Headless Rider (for a Zombie), Open the Graves and Midnight Reaper all fire as well. Ayara, First of Locthwain drains each opponent once for every black creature that enters, and every token Gisa makes is black.

Count before you activate with Noxious Ghoul out

Noxious Ghoul gives every non-Zombie creature -1/-1 until end of turn whenever a Zombie enters, and it doesn't care whose side the non-Zombie is on. Gisa makes her tokens all at once, so an activation for five is five Ghoul triggers. She's a 3/4, which means four Zombies in one turn kill her.

Keep her activations at three or fewer while the Ghoul is out, or four with Bad Moon making her a 4/5. Ayara is a 2/3 and dies to three. The other side of that is Army of the Damned. Thirteen Zombies enter at once, every non-Zombie creature on the table gets -13/-13, and that includes Gisa, so cast it when the board you'd lose is worth less than theirs.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet turns the Ghoul into a chain. If an opponent's nontoken creature would die, Kalitas exiles it and gives you a 2/2 Zombie instead, and that Zombie entering is another Ghoul trigger.

Name Zombie on both, and Gisa still lives

The upgraded deck has two cards that make you choose a creature type: Patchwork Banner and Crippling Fear. Name Zombie on both. Nothing else comes close. Wizard, the runner-up, covers Gisa, Death Baron and Undead Augur, and Gisa's own power never matters to her ability.

The Banner's +1/+1 then reaches twenty-eight creature cards and every token. It leaves out Gisa, Ayara, Kalitas, Grave Titan, and the two non-Zombies this guide adds, Pitiless Plunderer and Massacre Wurm.

Crippling Fear works the other way round. It gives -3/-3 to every creature that isn't a Zombie, on both sides of the table. Gisa and Kalitas are 3/4s and come out of it as 0/1s, Grave Titan and the Wurm are big enough to shrug it off, and Pitiless Plunderer's 4 toughness leaves it a 1. Ayara is the one that dies, unless Bad Moon is out.

Mutilate, Syphon Flesh and six quieter cuts

Mutilate gives every creature -1/-1 for each Swamp you control, and this deck runs thirty-three basic Swamps plus Witch's Cottage. Two Swamps kill a bare token and four kill a token with two lords behind it, which is the board Gisa spends the game building. Crippling Fear replaces it at the same cost and leaves the Zombies standing.

Syphon Flesh costs five to make each opponent sacrifice one creature, once. Grave Pact does that every time Gisa activates, and every time a token dies blocking. It also turns Necrotic Hex around. The Hex makes each player sacrifice six creatures, so your six (tokens, ideally) are six more Pact triggers, and each opponent sacrifices six more on top of the Hex's six. Massacre Wurm takes the Flesh's slot as the second board answer. It gives your opponents' creatures -2/-2 and costs them 2 life for each one that dies. With Kalitas out their nontoken creatures get exiled instead of dying, so you trade that life for Zombies.

Eternal Taskmaster enters tapped as a 2/3 and needs to attack and pay {2}{B} to get a card back. Rotting Regisaur costs one more, or the same two with Undead Warchief out, and is seven Zombies or more the turn it lands. Moan of the Unhallowed spends four mana on two 2/2s. Liliana, Death's Majesty makes one every turn for five, mills two to feed Gravecrawler and Zul Ashur, Lich Lord, and her -3 brings back any creature card from your graveyard as a Zombie. Grave Titan returned that way gets the lord bonuses and makes two more Zombies on the way in. Her -7 destroys every non-Zombie creature, Gisa included.

Ambition's Cost is four mana for three cards in a deck that already draws with Graveborn Muse, Phyrexian Arena, Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood, Undead Augur, Midnight Reaper, Cryptbreaker, Infernal Idol and Castle Locthwain. Graveborn Muse alone draws a card per Zombie every upkeep, and charges a life for each.

Geier Reach Sanitarium taps for colorless in a mono-black deck, and its loot hands every opponent a loot too. Cabal Coffers takes its slot. Bojuka Bog enters tapped in a deck with 39 lands, so it goes to make room for Plague Belcher and the count drops to 38. The Belcher has to put two -1/-1 counters on a creature you control when it enters. With a lord out, a token takes them and lives.

Wight of Precinct Six grows with the creature cards in your opponents' graveyards. Kalitas exiles their dying creatures instead, and Bojuka Bog empties a graveyard, so two cards in the box shrink it. Pitiless Plunderer goes in for it.

Ayara, Kalitas and Grave Titan are off-type on purpose

None of the three is a Zombie, so the lords skip them and the Banner can't pump them. They stay anyway.

Ayara, First of Locthwain costs {B}{B}{B} and drains each opponent for 1 whenever a black creature of yours enters. One Gisa activation for five is 5 life from every opponent.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is removal that pays you. Every nontoken creature of theirs that would die becomes your 2/2 Zombie instead, and his {2}{B} ability sacrifices a Zombie to grow him, which also triggers Undead Augur and Vengeful Dead.

Grave Titan makes two Zombies when it enters and two more each time it attacks. Give it to Gisa after it enters and it's six Zombies from its own 6 power, eight from the one card.

Necrotic Hex costs seven and every player sacrifices six creatures, you included. You choose which six of yours go, and after a few Gisa turns those are tokens, and the Hex gives you six back.

What the swaps move, and two cards I skipped

Average mana value goes from 3.17 to 3.25, lands from 39 to 38, and creatures from 32 to 34 counting Gisa. The Zombie count in the 99 stays at twenty-eight, because two Zombies leave and two arrive.

The mana grows more than the curve does. The box has seven mana rocks, counting Patchwork Banner, and only Undead Warchief and Bontu's Monument make anything cheaper. The swaps add Cabal Coffers and Pitiless Plunderer, and the Plunderer pays you a Treasure every turn Gisa activates.

Crypt Ghast ($18.21) doubles Swamp mana and is the obvious ramp pick for a deck like this. It's a 2/2 Spirit, though, so Crippling Fear and two Noxious Ghoul triggers both kill it. The Coffers do the job from a land slot.

Phyrexian Dreadnought is the famous Gisa trick. It's a 12/12 for {1} that has to be sacrificed when it enters unless you sacrifice creatures with 12 total power. With the trigger on the stack, sacrifice it to Gisa and you get twelve Zombies. It's also $271.39, about five times what the whole box is worth, so it's a card to play if you own one and never one to buy for this deck.

The box has no Game Changers and none of the eight adds is one, so the bracket floor stays at 1.

The eight adds come to $75.72. Grave Pact and Cabal Coffers are $59.80 of that, and the other six are $15.92 together. The box's own hundred cards come to at least $54.56, with one card unpriced, so that's a floor rather than a total. Every number on this page comes from the shipped decklist, at October 2026 market prices for default printings.

The upgraded decklist

Gisa and her 99 with the eight swaps made, sorted by card type. Hovering a name brings up its image and price.

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FAQ

How much does upgrading Wretched Ranks cost?

$75.72 for all eight adds at October 2026 market prices for default printings. Grave Pact and Cabal Coffers are $59.80 of that, so the other six (Rotting Regisaur, Crippling Fear, Pitiless Plunderer, Plague Belcher, Massacre Wurm and Liliana, Death's Majesty) come to $15.92 if you'd rather start there. The box's own cards are worth at least $54.56.

Does Ghoulcaller Gisa count lord bonuses when she sacrifices a token?

Yes. X is the sacrificed creature's power as it last existed on the battlefield, so every +1/+1 from Cemetery Reaper, Death Baron, Lord of the Undead, Lord of the Accursed, Liliana's Mastery, Bad Moon or Patchwork Banner counts, and Undead Warchief adds 2. A token with the Warchief and one other lord behind it is a 5/4, and sacrificing it makes five Zombies.

Can Noxious Ghoul kill my own Ghoulcaller Gisa?

Yes. Gisa is a Human Wizard, not a Zombie, and the Ghoul gives every non-Zombie creature -1/-1 until end of turn each time a Zombie enters, yours included. She's a 3/4, so four Zombies entering in one turn kill her, and one activation for four does it. Bad Moon makes her a 4/5 and buys one more.

Which creature type should I name with Patchwork Banner in this deck?

Zombie. Twenty-eight of the creature cards in the 99 are Zombies, and so is every token the deck makes. Naming it leaves out Gisa, Ayara, Kalitas, Grave Titan, Pitiless Plunderer and Massacre Wurm, and Gisa's ability never reads her own power anyway.

Why does a Zombie deck cut Mutilate?

It gives every creature -1/-1 for each Swamp you control, your own included, and this deck has thirty-three basic Swamps. Four Swamps kill a token with two lords behind it. Crippling Fear costs the same, and naming Zombie spares everything Gisa makes.

Is Phyrexian Dreadnought worth buying for Gisa?

Not for this deck. With its enters trigger on the stack you can sacrifice it to Gisa for twelve Zombies, but it costs $271.39 at October 2026 prices, about five times the box. Rotting Regisaur makes seven Zombies the same way for $4.36 and three mana.