Diregraf Colossus

Creature — Zombie Giant

This enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on this creature for each Zombie card in your graveyard.

Whenever you cast a Zombie spell, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

Discussion (48)

Zarthalius on Zombie Self Mill for Training

2 weeks ago

I love zombie tribal! And, I searched for years on how to build a fun, aggressive, yet casual zombie token swarm deck in modern. My goal was to simulate a survival game where the waves of zombies get bigger each turn. I found that heavy self milling was very effective for speed and card advantage. But, it came at a cost. In games where too many support cards get milled and not enough key creatures, the deck loses its ability to recover.

I know this deck of yours is supposed to be budget and simple but I also saw your other zombie deck listed on tappedout. So, I assume you may be interested in an engine using cards you have in that other deck.

Here's the engine: By feeding Gravecrawler to Carrion Feeder, Diregraf Colossus can be triggered over... and over... and over...

Here's what the game might look like:

• Opening hand will ideally have at least Carrion Feeder or Diregraf Colossus. This will allow the deck to be a little more persistent through the game. you're also looking for self mill to find Gravecrawler (or the other two) and the reanimate cards. Every reanimate card that gets milled effectively makes the game easier for the defender.
• T1 - T3: land drop, self mill, find and cast engine pieces.
• T4: start turning the engine generating 4 tapped 2/2 zombie tokens and a 5/5 Carrion Feeder.
• T5: you'll have 4 untapped 2/2 zombies, 5 tapped 2/2 zombies, and a 10/10 Carrion Feeder.

More notes:

• Diregraf Colossus can also quickly be a big creature in a self mill deck.
• Gray Merchant of Asphodel is fantastic in mono-black for direct damage and life gain.
• Planeswalkers make great distractions.
• Zombie Lords are great for their buffs but can greatly distract from generating the swarm. Especially, if the lord is immediately removed, it can really slow you down.

Here's my deck for reference: Non-frightening Zombies are Lame Zombies

zapyourtumor on The Leftovers (Dimir Zombie)

2 months ago

I'd work on lowering your curve a bit. 4x Champion of the Perished would help there, along with maybe adding 2 more Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia (Which also triggers Champion). Cryptbreaker is another powerful 1 drop zombie.

Liliana's Reaver is a 4 drop that relies on pushing combat damage through to do its thing. 3 copies is definitely too much. Thief of Sanity isn't even a zombie, and it's a 3 drop, why are there 3 of them. Similarly, Dreamstealer isn't even a zombie either and doesn't synergize super well with the deck. Yes it has eternalize but it costs 6 mana so.

Some other good zombies: Diregraf Colossus (synergizes with graveyard subtheme), Lord of the Accursed, Death Baron.

Dark Salvation and Fatal Push are really nice removal spells, which can replace Infernal Grasp. Even with X=0, the former can kill most creatures, and if you have extra mana you can make some zombies too. For the latter, revolt shouldn't be too hard to trigger either with all your zombies running around.

shadow63 on What's Your Favorite Spooky MTG …

3 months ago

Grave Titan and Diregraf Colossus they're both just made up of zombies and leave a trail of them in their wake. Also Loyal Cathar  ^Flip and his flip side

Boogsbay on Orzhov Gravecrawler/ Zombie Sacrifice

3 months ago

The deck looks good but seems somewhat slow. Some suggestions IMO would be:

• Out 4 Cryptbreaker for 4 Undead Augur which gives a lot of card advantage with no life loss thanks to Zulaport Cutthroat and Wayward Servant. The problem with Cryptbreaker is that it needs 3 zombies to draw a card. The Augur also pairs great with Village Rites and Bone Shards for more card advantage. If any board wipe happens, you can sacrifice your zombies to Carrion Feeder to trigger the Augur to easily rebuild.

• Out 2 Tidehollow Sculler, 1 Zulaport Cutthroat, and 1 Village Rites for 4 Carrion Feeder to enable a more consistent aristocrat playstyle and have a growing threat. Pairs with Cutthroat to end games.

• Out 2 Doomskar and 2 Bone Shards for 4 Fatal Push. Fetch lands and an aristocrat strategy easily triggers revolt.

• Out 6 Plains for Fetch Lands that can fetch a swamp (Marsh Flats is at it's cheapest)

• Out 4 Isolated Chapel for 4 Godless Shrine. The shock land also prevents Castle Locthwain from entering tapped.

• Out 1 swamp and 2 Castle Locthwain for 3 Geralf's Messenger. With a smaller average CMC, you can cut a few more lands for more creatures. Keeping just 1 Castle is also good enough since Augur in the main deck gives more cards than the Castle's ability.

Some considerations:

• Corpse Knight over Wayward Servant to include Zulaport Cutthroat for ETB triggers.

• Unearth over Blasting Station if you already swapped out some land for Geralf's Messenger. These two, at the very least, makes the opponent lose 8 life; more with Cutthroat and Knight on the field. Reanimating other creatures is also another viable strategy to get out of a tight situation.

• Ghoulish Procession over Jadar since it's a nonlegendary permanent that can potentially make more zombies to fuel an aristocrats strategy and trigger ETB and death triggers.

For sideboard:

• 4 Tidehollow Sculler, 4 Prismatic Ending, 2 Doomskar, 2 Damping Sphere, 2 Bone Shards, and 1 Feed the Swarm. Diregraf Colossus and Ebondeath, Dracolich are too slow to really make a difference in the long term.

Locoslayer on Wilhelt, Cleaving Aristocrat

4 months ago

1. Buy the precon. It already has quite a few things in there.
2. What kind of commander do you want to play? Somewhat casual, or is your playgroup okay with infinite combos?

The precon already contains Rooftop Storm for example.. adding something like Acererak the Archlich or Gravecrawler will allow for going infinite. If you don't want to do that, just gravecrawler is sufficient.

The precon also contain Diregraf Colossus and Endless Ranks of the Dead to your deck. Here is the list: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4296394#paper

baddabiiing on Zombie Outbreak

4 months ago

Diregraf Colossus seems fun here

Sparko on Liliana Zombie deck

5 months ago

I play a commander deck built around The Scarab God, and I have a ton of great recommendations. There's a few really fun directions you can take this, but flooding the board with zombie tokens and making them really beefy is a good bet. Here's some decent budget options, since you say you don't buy many cards:

• Undead Augur is also cheap to cast, and gets you drawing a lot of cards very quickly.
• Zombie Lords like Diregraf Captain, Lord of the Accursed, Death Baron, and many more are staples for zombie decks, though getting more than a few can get expensive.
• Wonder gives you a zombie air force whenever it's in the graveyard.
• Liliana's Mastery gets you two tokens and buffs your zombies.
• Necromancer's Stockpile is a good way to draw cards and get tokens on the board, and if you pitch anything that can recur it's doesn't even have much of a downside.

For some cards that aren't budget, if you want to eventually buy/trade for some really good zombie cards, I've got you covered there too:

• Cryptbreaker is cheap to cast, and is fantastic for getting tokens out and drawing cards. Note that the second ability ignores summoning sickness.
• Diregraf Colossus gets you a token whenever you cast a zombie.
• Army of the Damned creates thirteen zombie tokens if you can get the mana, and then does it again.
• Rooftop Storm makes your zombies free to cast.
• Endless Ranks of the Dead is a diet version of Liliana, the Last Hope's ult.

Best of luck in your future zombie-fueled games!

multimedia on Zombie Drain Deck

6 months ago

Hey, well done on a low budget.

Some budget cards to consider adding and then I'll explain why I'm suggesting these:

• Master of Death
• Carrion Feeder
• Wonder
• Tormod, the Desecrator
• Undead Augur
• Midnight Reaper
• Unmarked Grave
• Patriarch's Bidding

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Master of Death and Carrion Feeder is a casual budget self-mill engine to get Zombies into your graveyard to embalm them with Scarab. Master of Death surveil 2 each time it ETB which is you look at the top two cards of your library and choose to put them into your graveyard (self-mill) or keep them on top of your library in any order. Carrion Feeder is the one drop Zombie repeatable sac outlet who grows in power with a +1/+1 counter each time it sacs.

Carrion Feeder sacs Master of Death who can at your next upkeep return to your hand for the cost of 1 life. Master of Death returns and you repeat the interaction by casting Master for three mana. Having a Zombie sac outlet is also helpful to sac any Zombie who's going to be exiled by an opponent such as from Swords to Plowshares , one of the most popular instant creature removal spells in Commander. By sacing the Zombie in response to exile it dies and goes to the graveyard instead thus you can embalm it with Scarab.

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You can take even more advantage of Master of Death being saced by Carrion Feeder and by Master able to return itself to your hand from your graveyard. Each time you cast Master of Death you create a 2/2 Zombie with Diregraf Colossus making Master a repeatable Zombie source to cast. Each time Master of Death is saced by Feeder it dies which triggers Undead Augur and Midnight Reaper to draw a card for repeatable draw. Each time Master of Death leaves your graveyard to return to your hand or you embalm a Zombie with Scarab it triggers Tormod, the Desecrator to create a 2/2 Zombie.

Self-mill from surveil can also get Wonder into your graveyard which when that happens and you control just one Island then all creatures you control have flying. Wonder gives Scarab and all Zombies flying evasion to make it easier to attack and do combat damage to your opponents. Unmarked Grave can tutor for and put Wonder or any other nonlegendary card into your graveyard which is powerful with Wonder. Self-mill can get many Zombies into your graveyard to then cheat many Zombies onto the battlefield at the same time with mass reanimation from Patriarch's Bidding . Bidding is also excellent quick recovery from an opponent's board wipe.

If interested in any of these suggestions then I offer more advice including cuts to consider, some other budget card upgrades and budget land options. Good luck with your deck.