Diregraf Captain

Creature — Zombie Soldier

Deathtouch

Other Zombie creatures you control get +1/+1.

Whenever another Zombie you control dies, target opponent loses 1 life.

Discussion (50)

faithfactor619 on Power in the sac

1 week ago

So the biggest thing I see if lack of things to sacrifice... Namely: tokens, because you don't want to be tossing your real creatures into Ye old Graveyard. So let's try to find some token making things for you....

1. There isn't much for Anax, Hardened in the Forge to be pumped up by in red devotion, so let's trade him out for one of the classic Goblin makers.. Let's pick Krenko, Mob Boss and Thornbite Staff... this should allow for an infinite amount of goblins..... I'll explain below.
2. Remove Diregraf Captain, Fallen Shinobi, and Bloodsoaked Champion- they don't seem to added much.
3. Add in Syr Konrad, the Grim, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Vindictive Vampire to have more stuff happen when things die.
4. Trade out Dreadhorde Invasion for Bastion of Remembrance for one last death trigger addition before we go back to tokens...
5. I'd say.. remove Ogre Slumlord, Scampering Scorcher, and Infernal Offering.
6. Let's add Rite of Replication to make copies of anything useful on the board, and.. oh hell, let's add Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin... is that 100 cards again.. I think so

This should create more tokens for sacrificing and also add some more benefits when things do die, and they will die. I would also recommend Altar of Dementia as an additional sac outlet... Izzet Signet can be dropped for this addition.

For infinite Goblins.. Get ANY sacrifice outlet on the board, I don't care which one, just do it, and get Krenko, Mob Boss out also and ready to be tapped. Equip Thornbite Staff to Krenko... Tap him to make some goblins (maybe just one or two, that's okay). Now you can sacrifice that Goblin Token, which dies and triggers the second ability of Thornbite Staff (Whenever a creatures dies, Untap equipped creature).. now you can Tap Krenko again making more goblins... and hey.. sacrifice a token again to create more goblins... triggering the Staff AGAIN! As long as there is some other death triggers on the board, you should be able to drain the table and/or pump Thraximundar to an unreasonable size and kill someone.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

Balaam__ on Ferocious Feast of The Undead

3 weeks ago

Brutal, simple, and effective. I love it. My only suggestion might be to consider Diregraf Captain over maybe Dread Wanderer. His cmc is higher, but the other effects he brings to the table are too good to pass up. Just a thought.

5dollarMTG on $5 Zombie Tokens

1 month ago

Nothing jumped out to me on this one ConstantVigilance, but I'd be interested to hear what other people think. Maybe Cemetery Reaper for Diregraf Captain? Endless Ranks of the Dead and Liliana's Mastery would also be great additions.

enpc on The Deck that Death Forgot

2 months ago

Looking at your list, you have a lot of high costed creatures that I just don't think add enough value here. You have Sidisi who can produce a token army, so you have that line pretty well covered already. And if you do want more board presence, you already have Death Baron but you could easily add Diregraf Captain and Cemetery Reaper (who is nice graveyard hate). But adding more lower costed utility would help bring the curve of the deck down.

Since you're already running a bunch of combo, I would also look at leaning into it much more. You have Food Chain + Eternal Scourge/Misthollow Griffin as a nice line with Dread Return.

tabbs33 on Zombie Outbreak

2 months ago

I'd also consider Cabal Stronghold, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Cryptbreaker, Stitcher's Supplier (since it's a zombie and helps you find other creatures that you can return from your graveyard), and maybe even Liliana, Untouched By Death for more zombie synergy and Silent Gravestone in your sideboard if you expect people to play Surgical Extraction or Extirpate.

If you would ever consider splashing blue, you also get access to Prized Amalgam and Diregraf Captain. Depending upon how cute you want to get, you could also add Rooftop Storm. You may also want to consider some artifact removal in your sideboard if you expect Grafdigger's Cage in your local meta.

multimedia on Scarab God Zombies (Budget)

2 months ago

Hey, there's two Zombie combos here. One is with Gravecrawler and the other is with Havengul Lich. Both use Rooftop Storm to free cast Zombies from my graveyard.

• Gravecrawler + Rooftop Storm + sac outlet + Diregraf Captain/Plague Belcher/Bontu's Monument

This combo can use any sac outlet as it's needed to get Gravecrawler into my graveyard to free cast him with Rooftop. Gravecrawler infinite dying triggering Captain is a win condition. Phyrexian Altar is the nonbuget expensive sac outlet that goes infinite with Gravecrawler. It's not in this deck, but is a good upgrade if looking to make upgrades. It would allow you to cut Rooftop completely from the combo.

• Havengul Lich + Rooftop Storm + Ashnod's Altar + Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Ashnod makes infinite colorless mana when I sac a Zombie and I use one colorless each time to activate Havengul. I can activate Havengul and then cast a Zombie in any graveyard for free. Merchant is the best win condition with his combo because I can infinite cast him and trigger his ETB infinite times. With Diregraf Captain or Plague Belcher in my graveyard and only one other Zombie in any graveyard I can use Captain/Belcher as a win condition by infinite sacing and casting that one another Zombie.

Bontu's Monument can also be a win condition since I'm casting a Zombie each time with Havengul. Mire Triton can be the only Zombie in my graveyard since she can assemble the rest of the Zombies for this combo. I can keep sacing/casting her from my graveyard to self-mill myself to get Zombies for the combo into my graveyard and then cast them with Havengul.

Other than the two combos the other strategy is attacking with a Zombie horde with Lords and Wonder as support. Accumulate Zombies and Zombie tokens which allows Scarab to make opponents lose a lot of life and also scry a lot which helps to find combo pieces. Flying is very powerful with attacking Zombies and Scarab. The combos are using my graveyard thus I want to get Zombies into my graveyard especially Gravecrawler. Wonder also wants to be in my graveyard therefore it's a great fit.

multimedia on Tainted soil

3 months ago

Hey, I don't want you to feel like you're being ganged up in the comments of your deck. I am and Arcaia also are simply trying to get you to better understand card quality. When you have such a high budget then card quality becomes an excellent way to improve your deck because you don't have to worry as much about the cost of a deck which lets you play the best cards and cut the subpar ones.

First let me start by saying I've been wrong saying to cut Havengul Lich. Not for reasons you're describing, but because it's a combo piece. Overall for five mana Havengul is not a good card, but with Zombies it's a combo with Rooftop Storm + Phyrexian Altar/Ashnod's Altar to cast all the Zombies on your turn from all graveyards. Add any other card that cares about casting spells, creatures dying or creatures ETB for lots of value. Use Sidisi, Undead Vizier with this combo to tutor for Gravecrawler and then Diregraf Captain as the win condition. Or simply loop cast/sac Vengeful Dead/Gray Merchant of Asphodel as a win condition.

---

Arcaia explained Havengul, activated abilities have a colon ( : ) in the text. The ability on the card has a cost first, then a : and last an effect ( [Cost]: [Effect] ). Sometimes the cost requires tapping the creature which will show a on the left side of the colon. If there isn't a colon then it's not an activated ability.

Arcaia left out one thing when explaining Havengul, you can't use an activated ability for a creature for only one mana without support. Instead it's one mana to activate Havengul, then you have to pay additional mana to cast the creature. Overall Havengul for a five drop requires a lot of additional mana to get anything meaningful from it which lowers the quality of the card a lot. That's why Havengul has good interaction with Rooftop Storm and Zombies since Rooftop takes away needing to pay mana to cast the Zombie after you activate Havengul.

With Rooftop and Havengul you can indeed for one mana cast a Zombie from a graveyard. And each Zombie you cast for the turn from a graveyard only costs one mana. This lets you cast as many Zombies in graveyards equal to as much mana you have available. Havengul is good with Rooftop, but only with Rooftop, that makes it less good as a five drop overall, less quality than some other fives drops that are also in the deck.

Good job winning with Gravecrawler, it's most likely the best Zombie in Magic. This will be my last comment here.

Arcaia on Tainted soil

3 months ago

Hi there,

Just going to jump in here to point out that Havengul Lich doesn't gain static abilities (like those of Nyxbloom Ancient), only activated abilities (such as both abilities on Cryptbreaker).

There are 3 reasons why someone would consider including Havengul Lich in their 99: 1) They want to be able to use activated abilities from graveyards for 1 mana. This requires a dedicated decklist. 2) They want to be able to cast creatures from graveyards at instant speed (creatures with Flash, or with Vedalken Orrery/Leyline of Anticipation/etc). This also requires a dedicated decklist 3) They want to be able to cast creatures from their opponent's graveyards. This also requires a dedicated decklist. I don't think your deck wants to do any of those things or enough of those things, so it doesn't really make sense to include it.

multimedia is also absolutely correct that your deck wants fetchlands, assuming that money is no concern (which is reasonable, considering you have all of the original duals), as not only will these cards get your duals, they can also be replayed by Muldrotha, the Gravetide and will thin your deck. In fact, all of his suggestions for improving the manabase are correct: lands that can enter untapped are generally better than those that don't. That doesn't mean don't use untapped lands, only that you should only use a few and that you should pick them wisely (such as Bojuka Bog, or cycling lands such as Forgotten Cave).

Furthermore, consider using Animate Dead, Necromancy and Dance of the Dead. These are enchantments that recur creatures, which lets you get around the limitations on Muldrotha of only being able to recur 1 card of the each type. On top of that, if the creature dies, the enchantment goes to the graveyard, which can then be recurred once more. On top of that, each can recur cards from another player's graveyard, which is useful in a pinch.

Finally, since you are in green you really shouldn't use ramp spells that A) don't put permanents directly into play or B) cost more than 3 mana. Realms Uncharted violates the first, and Hour of Promise violates the second. On top that, your deck contains no Desert Lands (such as Desert of the Glorified or Ifnir Deadlands), so you will never get the second part of Hour of Promise, effectively making it a more expensive Explosive Vegetation that isn't limited to basic lands. As multimedia suggested, Crop Rotation and the more costly-but-powerful Harrow are good replacements as Muldrotha can replay the sacrificed land afterwards, which gets around the cost of sacrificing land. Furthermore, Sakura-Tribe Elder is a must-include in Muldrotha decks, as it can become a Rampant Growth on every turn.

multimedia is also correct about cutting the Curse enchantments and Amulet of Vigor. The Curses are situational and limited in power, and Amulet of Vigor does not have enough synergies in the deck to be worth the slot.

Finally, here's a non-exhaustive list of zombies which are (in my opinion) some of the best options in EDH for your colors and why

• Gravecrawler - combo piece in sacrifice combos
• Cryptbreaker - Manaless card draw
• Carrion Feeder / Nantuko Husk - free sacrifice outlet
• Stitcher's Supplier - efficient self-mill
• Lotleth Troll - free discard outlet
• Undead Augur / Plague Belcher - aristocrat win-condition
• Cemetery Reaper / Death Baron - Lord
• Diregraf Captain - Lord and aristocrat win-condition
• Fleshbag Marauder - Removal
• Midnight Reaper - Repeatable Card Draw
• Murderous Rider - Removal
• Prized Amalgam - combo piece in sacrifice combos
• Balthor the Defiled - Mass-reanimate
• Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - win condition
• Undead Alchemist - mass token generator
• Corpse Connoisseur - Entomb on a body
• Custodi Lich - Monarch generator
• Phyrexian Delver - Gets around Muldrotha's limitation
• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - board-wipe protection/combo-piece
• Noosegraf Mob - very fast token generator