Dreadhorde Arcanist

Creature — Zombie Wizard

Trample

Whenever this attacks, you may cast target instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost / mana value less than or equal to this creature's power from your graveyard without paying its mana cost. If that card would be put into your graveyard this turn, exile it instead.

Combos

• Dreadhorde Arcanist + Thoughtseize

Legality

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

Discussion (47)

ShadyWonderBoy on Narset, Enlightened Exile

3 weeks ago

SufferFromEDHD What would you recommend cutting to make room for Dreadhorde Arcanist. I do agree that it would be a powerhouse when you are able to attack with it, I am just at a loss of what to change for it.

SufferFromEDHD on Narset, Enlightened Exile

3 weeks ago

Dreadhorde Arcanist Narsets prowess pushes this dude into the powerhouse it was always meant to be.

BotaNickill on Oh, Rotty!

2 months ago

Thanks so much for the help Amigo! I appreciate your advice! I was definitely floundering a bit with the right mix of targeted spells. I had this built as the storm/breach deck first but then realized I didn't have the right cards to make it competitive, so I searched for another option and came up with this Naya VS because I felt like I was closer to having the right cards to make it pop! I have more Dromoka's Commands laying around, so I could up those to 3 or 4, I have the playset of Vines of Vastwood sitting here, I will look in my MM2 binder and see if I have Apostle's Blessing I don't have another Dreadhorde Arcanist, Season of Growth, or Feather, the Redeemed, but I have been watching for them at my LGS. They do have 10 Snakeskin Veils tho! so I'll nab some of those up. Thanks again for the suggestions!

legendofa on Oh, Rotty!

2 months ago

How hard is it to reach delirium? There's a bunch of instants, a few sorceries and fetch lands, and let's say a creature dies once in a while. If you're not hitting delirium regularly, I would switch DRC for another Season of Growth and just draw past the cards you might not need.

My next thought is to either cut the Bloated Contaminator for another Dreadhorde Arcanist, or add more cards that grant counters of one kind or another. Dromoka's Command is solid, and you come up with any Snakeskin Veils, those would help a lot.

The typical play pattern I see is T1 Venerated Rotpriest, T2 pump and attack for damage and poison, T3 either Arcanist or Feather, the Redeemed, then just keep casting spells after that, attacking where you can. If that sounds right, then maybe look for some more hexproof-y protection-y spells like Apostle's Blessing, instead of just making your creatures bigger with Scale Up and Mutagenic Growth. I know those mostly from infect decks, where the goal is to get 1-2 creatures as big as possible, to deal as much infect damage as possible.

A T1 Glistener Elf, T2 Scale Up into Vines of Vastwood into Mutagenic Growth is very different from the same thing with a Rotpriest. With the Elf, you might have just won. With the Rotpriest, you just dealt 12 damage and gave three poison counters. Serious damage, but you're probably not going to do it twice in a row.

So I guess my suggestion (probably biased by my preference for control over aggro) is to focus mostly on keeping your creatures alive so they can be targeted by spells, choose the right time to attack, and let your poison counters do their work. Now that I think about it, some spells that grant vigilance might help, too.

Barbarian_Sun_Pope on Budget Feather

2 months ago

Love Feather shenanigans (+1), have you considered Invigorated Rampage? I doubles up with Feather, works great with Illuminator Virtuoso and anything with Madcap Skills. As a bonus it turns Dreadhorde Arcanist into a pseudo Ball Lightning, except it's even bigger =).

zapyourtumor on Grixis Arcanist!

4 months ago

I mean in this kind of deck, hitting 1 sorcery + 1 instant + 1 creature + 1 land in your graveyard should be extremely easy, especially with DRC digging. But more importantly, DRC lets you filter your draws and bin more creatures for you to unearth later. I really think the card does basically everything the deck wants to do, but it is what it is.

Unless your meta is SUPER enchantment heavy, Feed the Swarm mainboard doesn't really make sense.

I'm not sure I understand your reasoning behind not running any basics? It's less about "stopping" Blood Moon and more if you have a single basic island and a single basic swamp in your deck, you can every single card in your deck besides Mission Briefing (97.6% of your nonland cards). Whereas if you don't you can play any basics, you can only cast 31.7% of your nonland cards. That is a huge difference. Also, effects like Field of Ruin and Path to Exile are fairly common.

Anyways I do like the concept of the deck, even if I don't agree with all of your card choices. Any time I can play Dreadhorde Arcanist is a good time.

Mousemke on Bombardier Gold

5 months ago

dunno if you will try to port this type of thing to modern, but for comparison, here are some comparative upgrades you could make

-Disfigure => Dismember (not a clean swap, may depend on your usage)

-Lightning Strike => Lightning Bolt

-Play with Fire => more Lightning Bolt?

-Searing Blaze?(how important is the scry)

-Morbid Opportunist => Grim Haruspex

-Seize the Storm => hard to replace 1:1, but it's expensive. maybe Dreadhorde Arcanist or Magmatic Channeler

also lands. i wont dive that deep here but ofc the land base standard => modern are quite different

D2Vincent on Wheel or No Deal

1 year ago

If we're talking targets for Cipher, may I interest you in Dreadhorde Arcanist? if you can pump it up to 4 power (maybe via Bonehoard), you can cast Whispering Madness, recasting it again from the graveyard via Arcanist Attack Trigger, then cipher it onto something guaranteed to hit to wheel 3 different times in a single attack phase