The Main Strategy:

The goal of this deck is simple. Go as wide as you can with zombies, using Cryptbreaker and Midnight Reaper to fuel your hand; Death Baron to simultaneously provide a solid defense and oppressive offense; Stitcher's Supplier and Liliana, Untouched by Death to fuel your graveyard and take out valued enemy targets; Phyrexian Scriptures for that handy boardwipe that has the ability to preserve a key creature (as well as exiling the graveyards of decks aiming to use those graveyards); and Lotleth Giant as a handy finisher and sometimes the only win-con available against bad matchups - synergizes well with Liliana, Untouched by Death.

The Importance of Cabal Stronghold and its synergies:

Cabal Stronghold Is a great enabler for Lotleth Giant and, more so, Josu Vess, Lich Knight. One Cabal Stronghold and 5 swamps/black mana are all you need to cast Lotleth Giant for 7 Swamp. When you have one Cabal Stronghold and 7 Swamp, you have the ability to cast Josu Vess, Lich Knight for his kicker cost of 10 Swamp.

Having six Swamp and two Cabal Stronghold, you now have access to 12 Swamp, which is pretty huge mana for 8 lands. Having that kind of mana is important to enable Liliana, Untouched by Death's ultimate, where she can resurrect as many zombies as you have the mana to cast. One card I'm tempted to put in the deck is Tendrils of Corruption as at 12 mana, that's enough to knock out a Galta in one blow and recoup a wholesome bundle of health (which is what this deck needs: lifegain).

Weaknesses:

As alluded to above, life does deplete fast while using this deck, if you're not careful. However, there isn't much space for some good lifegain cards like Tendrils of Corruption without taking out creatures. Murderous Rider is one of those sweetspot cards as it helps you cheat with deckbuilding in that aspect of the balance between creatures/spells. Dreadhorde Invasion can give you life, but you have to take 6 damage over 6 turns first... smh. Liliana, Untouched by Death gives you life with her plus ability, but it's slow and some matchups force her off the board for most of the game. And in spite of that, many other cards deplete our health. Go figure. The deck is addictive to play with and fun, but you can end up killing yourself if you're not careful. Still, I've managed to beat aggro decks silly 'some of the time.' Just need the right cards to open with.

Another weakness is, sometimes all the self-mill makes consistent land-drops a hard task to accomplish. Golgari almost never has this problem - shows how vital green is. Developing a sense of when a good time to mill yourself is is important as a badly timed mill will rob you of being able to have a great upcoming turn. If you have Cryptbreaker, I recommend activating him before milling 90% of the time. Cryptbreaker does slow us down sometimes, but the carddraw can be vital. A way to look at the top of the library would be great... Bolas's Citadel? Also, perhaps including Crucible of Worlds would fix the mana problem. The only thing is, self-mill doesn't discriminate, so those marvelous inclusions could end up being useless. I once played a game where my first play of Stitcher's Supplier milled three Liliana, Untouched by Death into the graveyard, just like that. Another time(s), three Swamp. Magic is fun... Having a way to get back planeswalkers, like Aid the Fallen or The Eldest Reborn would be great, too, because Liliana, Untouched by Death is VITAL to our strategy.

I first created this deck before the release of RNA (Ravnica Allegiance), and was slaying it in ranked. However, RNA's cards made my build obsolete. Since then, I've updated it and feel satisfied with the current build. Cryptbreaker was a godsend!!!

I would go into strengths, but I'm not versed with the META and the strengths really depend on the player who's piloting the deck.

I hope I've explained enough.

Cards/Decks to Fear:

  | Aggro Decks |   -   Can move too fast to react to. We need to set up.

 | Artifact Decks |   -   Are immune to our boardwipes.

    -   Evades our deathtouch creatures often.

    -   Evades our deathtouch creatures often.