Colossal Grave-Reaver

Creature — Dragon

Flying

Whenever this enters or attacks, mill three cards. (To mill a card, put the top card of your library into your graveyard.)

Whenever one or more creature cards are put into your graveyard from your library, put one of them onto the battlefield.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (10)

Nukleofred on Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Every. Dragon. Ever.

6 months ago

Additional question : at the end of the process, you have Colossal Grave-Reaver in play. Due to the legendary rule, you choose to sacrifice Bladewing the Risen. So again you should have your brand new CGR that triggers its effect, so I think you just created an infinite loop of Bladewing the Risen to come back on the battlefield. Looking at the precise text, CGR imposes to put him back on the battlefield, you have no choice. Does that induce a draw game ? Or can you just decide to stop the infinite loop?? I can find only one solution, if the legendary rule (sacrifice Bladewing) applies before the CGR comes back on the battlefield?

Thanks for your point of view.

MTGBurgeoning on Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Every. Dragon. Ever.

6 months ago

You are correct...except that Scion's ability will trigger while he is still a copy of Colossal Grave-Reaver prior to transitioning to Bladewing the Risen, which will return the OG copy of Bladewing the Risen from our graveyard to the battlefield. We will be forced to sacrifice it or Scion of the Ur-Dragon at that point, but our mission is accomplished by getting CGR into play on the cheap. Thanks for the kind words!

Nukleofred on Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Every. Dragon. Ever.

6 months ago

Thanks for your decklist, which inspired me much, as a fan of Scion !

I must indicate that in your latest video however (up&up episode 5), you mention a good synergy with double activation of scion's ability, to get that beautiful Colossal Grave-Reaver into the graveyard, and then Bladewing the Risen to get back gravereaver on the battlefield. Unfortunatelu, Bladewing's ability does not trigger, since Scion just becomes a copy of it : it doesn't enter the battlefield. Be careful with all dragons that have a nice enter the battlefield ability, this just don't work with Scion.

MTGBurgeoning on Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Every. Dragon. Ever.

8 months ago

Thank you for the kind words! I appreciate them. I had to double-check the deck list to ensure that a copy of Reanimate was NOT in it. I had a copy of it in the deck for many, many moons ago and then replaced it a couple of years ago. With the recent additions of Colossal Grave-Reaver and Sarkhan, Soul Aflame, perhaps I should entertain Reanimate's return to the 99. I cannot include Show and Tell here because I do not want to assist my opponents in any way. I understand the benefit of dropping down Dracogenesis, but due to the threats of my opponents freely putting into play Eldrazi, Omniscience, or anything that helps to acclerate their own game plans, I will stand pat on that suggestion. I like the idea of including a copy of Frantic Search, particularly because it is an instant. Herd Heirloom is a definite future addition once a copy of it becomes available, most likely replacing Chromatic Lantern. Steely Resolve garners a little less consideration here, but is not completely ruled out. Its presence would allow Plaza of Heroes and Lightning Greaves to be replaced, although the loss of haste for the creature equipped by the Greaves may be missed. The neutering of Rite of Replication is one reason to push back against auto-including Steely Resolve. An unsuspected kicked RoR is a win condition here and has resulted in many victories in the past. Another reason is that Steely Resolve is symmetrical. If one of my opponents is also playing Dragons, I either have a dead card in hand, or a card that nullifies all of the spot interaction for my opponents' Dragons. In my play group, there are A LOT of Dragon decks (The Ur-Dragon, Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm, Morophon, the Boundless, Tiamat), so considering Steely Resolve from a distance is a necessary process here. As for Despark and/or Grasp of Fate, I can definitely reconcile the inculsion of these spot removal spells. Which cards would you recommend replacing? This is one of my oldest EDH decks, and I stuggle mightily at times deciding which cards to replace in the 99 because, at least through my eyes, the deck list has become very, very tight over the years (about ten years). Maybe Despark for Path to Exile? Grasp of Fate for Beast Within? Thank you for your comment! It's always great to communicate with fans of Scion of the Ur-Dragon, especially during the era of The Ur-Dragon. Thanks again!

MTGBurgeoning on Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Every. Dragon. Ever.

8 months ago

YES!! I was not overreacting when I profusely stated numerous times during the last UP & UP video for this deck is that for anyone who has a Scion build or is building Scion, Colossal Grave-Reaver is unequivocally and hands-down the #1 card to add.

MTGBurgeoning on Scion of the Ur-Dragon: Every. Dragon. Ever.

8 months ago

Thank you so much! I really appreciate your kind words. Truly. As for Drakuseth, many moons have passed since he received Scion love. It's all about Colossal Grave-Reaver now. 100%.

Rhadamanthus on What happens if Colossal Grave-Reaver …

10 months ago

@Polaris: When an object changes zones, the game treats it as a new game object with no connection to the previous object minus some exceptions needed to make certain kinds of effects work properly. Colossal Grave-Reaver's effect, itself, doesn't fall into one of the exceptions. If something exiles a milled creature after the Reaver's ability triggers, it can't be chosen to be returned to the battlefield because it's not one of the cards that went from the library to the graveyard anymore.

Polaris on What happens if Colossal Grave-Reaver …

10 months ago

TL;DR: Yes, you can pick the order. Either way, your graveyard will get shuffled, whether it includes an Eldrazi is up to you.

When effects trigger, they aren't put on the stack immediately (Rule 603.2). They wait until the next time players would receive priority (603.3). Essentially, a triggered ability happens in three stages: First, the game state matches the trigger. Second, when players would get priority, all waiting triggers are put onto the stack. Third, they resolve with the usual process.

In this case, "Whenever one or more creatures are put into your graveyard from your library" and "Whenever *this is put into a graveyard from anywhere" both trigger when Colossal Grave-Reaver mills an Eldrazi titan. Once you finish milling, all waiting triggers are put onto the stack in APNAP (active player, nonactive player) order. Since it's your turn, you'll put your triggers on the stack in any order you like, then other players will add theirs in turn order if they triggered any. At this point you can put Colossal Grave-Reaver's trigger on top if you want to stick an Eldrazi on the battlefield (and why wouldn't you?) or an Eldrazi trigger on top if you want them shuffled away.

When the abilities resolve, you end up with one of the following options:

1. You put an Eldrazi trigger on top. Your graveyard gets shuffled. Then Colossal Grave-Reaver's trigger resolves, fails to find any of the creature cards that got milled, and doesn't return anything.
2. You put Colossal Grave-Reaver's trigger on top. It returns one of the milled creature cards to the battlefield. Then the Eldrazi trigger resolves and shuffles your graveyard into your library.