Dread Summons

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Dread Summons

Sorcery

Each player mills X cards. For each creature card milled this way, create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token. (They put the top X cards of their library into their graveyard)

thefiresoflurve on Grimgrin - Needs your Help

2 months ago

Yylon Thanks for the info, graveyard dimir zombies sounds fun.

A few potential cuts, subject to your playtesting experience:

Dread Summons - sorcery speed, and the zombies come in tapped, so right away I'm not horribly impressed. I'd cut this unless your table runs incredibly heavy creature decks and you get upwards of 6 zombies from it consistently.

Similarly, Dark Salvation seems a bit too mana intensive for what it does, although I will admit I am biased because I like board wipes more than targeted removal (Esper gang).

All of your enchantments look really amazing. Open the Graves may be able to be cut, since it's a strictly worse version of Headless Rider in this deck.

Endless Ranks of the Dead is another maybe-cut, crazy as it sounds. I think this card is a bit win-more. It is really fun, though...

Similarly, Empty the Laboratory. If you have enough zombies on the field to make it impactful, you're probably already winning. It's also sorcery speed in a deck that sucks at giving haste.

Champion of the Perished can be cut. It isn't bad, but a vanilla 110/110 is just as easy to block as a 2/2.

All of this is, of course, barring any idiosyncrasies of your playgroups - maybe Champion of the Perished singlehandedly wins games for you. I think you have a really solid deck here, and just need to play some more and figure out what works in practice and what doesn't.

Happy building!

bushido_man96 on Zombie help

6 months ago

Tainted Adversary seems a bit mana intensive to really get good results from. How many tokens do you usually get when you cast it? And is the effect worth that much mana investment? I don't like Stitchwing Skaab, either, especially when you talk about running out of gas. It will only contribute to that problem if you don't have cards to discard, and you don't want to discard better cards to play that one.

I'd consider cutting Spell Swindle for a cheaper CMC counterspell, or a straight removal spell. I think you want to be pretty aggressive with how you spend your mana in this deck, and holding up 5 mana to counter a spell is counterintuitive to that strategy.

I'd drop the mill theme: Dread Summons, Drown in Dreams, Maddening Cacophony, Peer into the Abyss, Psychic Corrosion maybe even Telemin Performance. I would add card draw spells in those spots. Night's Whisper, Ambition's Cost, and Sign in Blood will always draw you cards, regardless of board state. Altar's Reap, Village Rites, and Vampiric Rites are good draw sources when you have a board state. I'd recommend pushing your ramp to 10 spells, and then you should be off an running.

Good luck going forward with this deck.

Rivel on Necromancin' Dancin'

7 months ago

I never got around to buying the cards needed for this deck. I was worried it was not good enough and put this project on the back burner in case I changed my mind. Now today, after reviewing the deck, I decided that I did not have enough interaction and that some cards still feel a bit too expensive or slow. These changes should hopefully help rectify those issues.

Previous changes: -1. Aetherspouts - replaced with Noxious Ghoul. I determined that Noxious Ghoul did not have enough impact for its mana cost. Instead I shall be using Counterspell. -2. Eater of Hope - replaced with Corpse Harvester. I determined that Corpse Harvester was too expensive and too slow to make an impact, seeing as it needs to survive an entire turn in order to be used. I really liked it, but my deck needs more interaction. Instead I shall be using Arcane Denial.

Additional precon card swaps: 1. Gravespawn Sovereign - replaced with Negate. 2. Ravenous Rotbelly - replaced with Dispel. 3. Army of the Damned - replaced with Unwind This spell really hurt me to remove as I love it very much. Just too expensive and slow. 4. Dread Summons - replaced with Reality Shift. 5. Curse of the Restless Dead - replaced with Thought Vessel. 6. Swamp - replaced with Reliquary Tower (already owned one, figured, why not?)

multimedia on Rotcleaver’s Revenge

7 months ago

Hey, well done so far upgrading the precon, nice Phyrexian Altar.

Some cards from the precon to consider adding:

Talisman of Dominance ETB untapped to make either color. Another mana rock upgrade is Dimir Signet replacing Charcoal Diamond. Dreadhorde Invasion is a repeatable source of Zombie and Eternal Skylord is a much worse Hordewing Skaab. Curse of the Restless Dead is a more reliable repeatable source of Zombies than Undead Alchemist.

Pact of the Serpent is powerful tribal card for Zombies. Battle at the Bridge needs lots more artifacts to be playable. Zombie Apocalypse is powerful tribal card for Zombies especially when your Commander sacs Zombies to draw. Patriarch's Bidding is another mass reanimation tribal Zombie card. Dread Summons needs a ton of mana paid into it to be decent since you have no control over milling your own or opponent creatures.

Gisa and Geralf can be repeatable cast of Zombies from your graveyard which can do more than Ebondeath, Dracolich. Feed the Swarm is helpful to have enchantment removal in Dimir. Liliana, Death's Majesty can be repeatable Zombies and her other abilities are good too. She does more than Liliana's Mastery, but honestly you don't need either one of these cards since there's better five drops here or could add.

The more basic Islands you can replace with Dimir dual lands the better the manabase will be because black mana is much important than blue. Lots of basic Islands makes it more difficult to cast heavy black spells. Tainted Isle and Choked Estuary are playable lands in the precon that care about Swamps and you have a lot of Swamps.

Good luck with your deck.

Wabbajacke on Phenax of the Many Mills

7 months ago

I think with black you have a few better ways to interact with the whole Mill-Theme. Some cards like Geth, Lord of the Vault make use of good artifacts and creatures milled by youre opponents.

And some other thoughts: Sewer Nemesis can get strong really fast. Dread Summons builds an army out of nothing (and you can use them with Phenax). Dreadhound ping like Konrad. Court of Cunning brings in monarch and brings consistently mill. Belltower Sphinx budget friendly protector and Phenax friend. Fractured Sanity hits every opponent and doesn´t care about hexproof

Not so budget friendly options: Intruder Alarm might be very strong with Phenax. Zellix, Sanity Flayer a great way to build some bodys for protection/Phenax and will trigger very often. Bruvac the Grandiloquent doubles mill.

Oh and what else comes to mind Zellix, Sanity Flayer with somthing like Hedron Crawler and Intruder Alarm never ends if youre opponent mills a creature.

ThatWeirdPerson on It's Just a Flesh Wound (Budget Meren)

10 months ago

I am swapping in Dread Summons for Underworld Hermit because it will create 8 2/2s instead of X 1/1s for the same cost. It was a very close call but Dread Summons puts cards into my graveyard and is very flexible with the X.

multimedia on Undead Unleashed

1 year ago

Hey, nice upgrades of Demonic, Acererak, Stitcher, Gravecrawler, Grim, Sidisi, Cryptbreaker, Master, Undead, Remembrance, Titan, Victimize, Misty, Drowned, Clearwater.

Interesting choices to cut the mana rock ramp other than Sol from the precon and reduced the lands from 40 to 31. Reducing the lands is fine because 40 lands in the precon is too much. Although, only 31 lands is pretty risky; I wouldn't play below 34 if I'm not playing green. The problem is you haven't compensated for the reduction of lands by adding more ramp to have enough mana or more low CMC draw to help to draw lands or some of both. It looks like you have cut lands to add more high CMC cards which is the wrong approach when upgrading a precon.

With a budget of $400+ consider adding the mana rocks? The precon has Arcane Signet, Talisman of Dominance and Crowded Crypt, all these are good. Add to these Dimir Signet and Thought Vessel; these two are upgrades for the Diamonds. More low CMC draw can also replace lands such as Brainstorm, Preordain, Deadly Dispute, Frantic Search, Village Rites.

Dreadhorde Invasion is a two drop in the precon and it's a good repeatable Zombie source for Wilhelt. Sac the Zombie Army token at your end step on each of your turns for a repeatable draw source that only costs you 1 life on your turn. Midnight Reaper is also in the precon and it's a Zombie who can be a repeatable source of draw especially with Gravecrawler.


Some cards to consider cutting because they're not as good as others here:

I don't think you have the mana to support X spells such as Summons and Empty to get enough from them to be worth casting. Adding Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth would help also with casting Army.


With Gravecrawler to combo with Rooftop you need a sac outlet. To combo with Wilhelt and Poppet Factory you also need a sac outlet. Consider adding some sac outlets?

  • Blasting Station: can be the win condition with either Gravecrawler or Factory combo.
  • Carrion Feeder: one drop Zombie.
  • Ashnod's Altar: combos with Havengul Lich + Rooftop to repeatedly reanimate/sac/reanimate all Zombies in all graveyards.
  • Altar of Dementia: infinite mills all your opponents when you control Factory by repeatedly sacing just one Zombie. Can also be the win condition with Gravecrawler + Rooftop.

If you're wanting to win with combo especially with Rooftop then consider some protection for the combo? Lazotep Plating, Counterspell, Swan Song, Flusterstorm.

Good luck with your deck.

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