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.

Tokens

• Zombie 2/2 B

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Casual	Legal
Custom	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal

Discussion (48)

Balaam__ on Balaam__

3 months ago

sleepygordie I took a closer look at your zombie token deck. In my experience, the more things a deck is trying to do the less effective it becomes, even if those things are similar or related. I went ahead and stripped out a number of cards and rebuilt it with budget in mind, first and foremost. This shouldn’t be any more expensive than what you already posted, and while it’s quite a bit different I urge you to consider using it as a template.

4 Wight 6 Swamp 4 Shamble Back 2 Rise from the Tides 4 Mana Leak 6 Island 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Gravecrawler 4 Duress 4 Drowned Catacomb 3 Diregraf Colossus 4 Compelling Deterrence 4 Clearwater Pathway // Murkwater Pathway 4 Cemetery Reaper 4 Bone Shards

A brief description of what it intends to do:

•Lands

Since you’re budget conscious, the best lands (fetches and duals) are out. But there are still better options than what you had, and inexpensive too. Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip is fantastic because it’s whatever you need at the time you play it, and you already had Drowned Catacomb so that’s still here. Regular basics are the only other lands you want.

•Creatures

Gravecrawler, Wight and Diregraf Colossus were already there so you know why you chose them. I added Cemetery Reaper as a great 3 drop lord that’s non-legendary (you can have multiples in play and they stack), and his ability can make more tokens and can target either player’s graveyard.

•Instants

Compelling Deterrence is great, use 4 copies. Mana Leak is efficient counter magic, especially early game when you’ll need it the most. {1}{U} is easier to cast than Counterspell’s {U}{U}.

•Sorceries

Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek strip your opponent’s hand. Bone Shards is super useful to eliminate a creature threat, and your tokens are easy sacrifices to pay that part of its cost. Shamble Back is cheap and effective token generation and helps recover lost life. Rise from the Tides is too mana intensive to use as anything other than a strong finisher. With all the instants and sorceries here that will end up in your graveyard, when you cast Rise from the Tides you should get a ton of tokens.

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With the above list you’ll have early board presence (lots of 1 and 2 drops), plenty of discard and removal to slow down your opponent, and some strong finishers. Bear in mind this is just a quick list I threw together and is by no means optimized. Use it as a template, a building block to customize and make your own.

Massacar on Willys Combo Factory

4 months ago

Nice deck! It's pretty similar to my own (we even have the same CMC lol), so I wanted to highlight some combos you have in there that you might have missed.

Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler + Champion of the Perished = Biggest Perish

Diregraf Colossus/Headless Rider + Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar = Infinite tokens/Huge Colossus

Diregraf Captain + Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar = Kill your opponents

If you're at all interested in comparing our lists, mine's over at

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Rot and Bother

Commander / EDH* Massacar

SCORE: 11 | 4 COMMENTS | 505 VIEWS | IN 5 FOLDERS

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Massacar on dimir zombie token engines

4 months ago

Gravecrawler + Diregraf Colossus + Phyrexian Altar/really any sac outlet = Zombie tokens aplenty as well as lots of sac/etb triggers to play with.

Additionally, the newer Necroduality can help you get lots of copies of your zombies as you play them.

Zarthalius on Zombie Self Mill for Training

5 months 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)

7 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 …

8 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

9 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

9 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