God-Eternal Oketra

Legendary Creature — Zombie God

Double strike

Whenever you cast a creature spell, create a 4/4 black Zombie Warrior creature token with vigilance.

When God-Eternal Oketra is put into the graveyard or exile from the battlefield, you may put it into its owner's library third from the top.

Tokens

• Zombie Warrior 4/4 B

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
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (48)

TheOfficialCreator on Card Analysis #1 - Dreadhorde …

7 months ago

Hello, everyone!

I thought I would try my hand at creating an article series centering around the beauty of different card designs, as each card truly is unique in its own way, and I wanted to make my appreciation of that into a tangible form so that everyone could experience it.

A general outline of how this article series will go is this: a basic introduction (similar to what you’re reading now), cost versus effect, the flavor of the card, how the card interacts with its limited environment, cards that are similar to it and a short little blurb on what makes them different, a custom card inspired by the analyzed card and a short explanation of the process used to create it, the legacy of the card, and finally, a conclusion to round it all out.

That being said, let’s begin!

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The card of today’s analysis is Dreadhorde Invasion, a card I chose to kick off the series with not only because War of the Spark is my favorite set, but also because it will give us a good platform to walk through the steps of this article series.

Dreadhorde Invasion is an oft-overlooked card that provides its user with a Zombie Army (a mechanic introduced and incredibly localized to War of the Spark, excluding a few exceptions such as Lazotep Chancellor) at the cost of a single life each turn. Obviously this adds up quickly, and the Army that is produced is rather clunky, as it is easier to remove (a la Fading Hope), non-evasive, and rather small even in its beginning stages. For {1}{B} it gives you a 1/1 creature on turn 3. That’s not a great payoff, especially for more advanced formats.

This is where the second clause comes in. If your Army can make it to six power, then Dreadhorde Invasion rewards you handsomely with an added lifelink, allowing you to gain back all that lost life and quickly breaking symmetry with your life versus your opponents. It’s not incredibly cost-effective (heck, a Forced Adaptation is more cost-effective in general), but it’s very fun to play with and can provide a lot more when juxtaposed with the rest of the game. But we’ll get into that later.

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The flavor of Dreadhorde Invasion is perhaps my favorite part of the card. The Eternals are probably one of the most unique MTG villains (I mean, come on, they’re blue metal zombies that can cross between worlds and steal planeswalker sparks), and definitely one of my personal favorites. The idea of Dreadhorde Invasion is that Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is executing his plan to become Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, invading the plane of Ravnica with his army of Eternals empowered by The Elderspell in order to steal the sparks of the planeswalkers, trapped there by The Immortal Sun and invited there by the Interplanar Beacon. The invasion is eventually quelled by a joint effort by Liliana, Dreadhorde General, Gideon Blackblade, Ugin, the Ineffable, God-Eternal Oketra, and God-Eternal Bontu, with the defeat of Bolas wrapped up in the brilliant card Despark. Dreadhorde Invasion more than anything flavor-wise represents the whole of War of the Spark, perhaps better than any other individual card in the set (except maybe Enter the God-Eternals). And that is why I love it so much; it is a testament to my favorite set of all time.

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As far as Dreadhorde Invasion’s performance in Limited goes, I must say that it has quite an unitive feel to how it operates in multiple deck strategies, similar to how it unites the flavor of the set. It has the keyword amass on it, which is the new ability introduced in the set, and which synergizes well with proliferate. Zombie Armies themselves receive gracious tribal support in the form of Gleaming Overseer, Eternal Skylord, Widespread Brutality, and the like. Beyond this fairly obvious synergy, however, there are many more options for how Dreadhorde Invasion can function in this set. For example, the creation of a creature every turn lends itself very well to sacrifice strategies revolving around Spark Reaper, Ahn-Crop Invader, and Spark Harvest, or even Liliana, Dreadhorde General and God-Eternal Bontu. In addition, the lifelink that can be attained on later turns goes well with Ajani's Pridemate and fits into a subtheme of life gain that the set has.

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Dreadhorde Invasion-style effects are somewhat rare, but there is precedence for their existence. The most obvious example is Bitterblossom, an enchantment well-known for its splashes in Modern and which creates small flying threats every turn at the cost of some life. However, there is also Ophiomancer and Endless Ranks of the Dead, or more recently Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia. The thing that sets Dreadhorde Invasion apart from these other cards is its unique combination of losing life and gaining life alongside its ability to make a token larger versus just creating a new token.

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Here is a custom card that I made that was inspired by Dreadhorde Invasion.

The process I went through to design this card went something like this.

1) Look at Dreadhorde Invasion and think about what the card is wanting you to do. What's the general theme of the card?

2) Build a general shell around the idea of losing life to gain life, pulling in inspiration from cards like Bloodghast.

3) Adding a tribal element to make it feel like a Dreadhorde card.

4) Adding a fitting name. "Vowmage" gives a feel of some kind of sacrifice to fufill an obligation, especially to a being like Bolas.

5) Adding flavor text that is both quippy and fits the situation. In this case, I chose to show who the Vowmage's vow is to.

6) Finding some art from DeviantArt that fit the theme. This art is from user Ryushadow, and is the only Eternal art I could find.

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Dreadhorde Invasion, like most of its amass kin, is largely forgotten especially in competitive play where it is not a contending strategy. Zombie Armies are incredibly weak to removal and usually aren’t very cost-effective, so their weakness of being a single lone creature that just gets bigger and can be chump-blocked can’t really be ignored. War of the Spark as a whole is a largely forgotten story arc, and despite its misgivings it’s still a shame. Dreadhorde Invasion does not truly have a legacy, though it was reprinted in the Midnight Hunt commander set as a part of Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver’s commander deck. Hopefully, one day, we will see Amass return in a future set with greater support so that Dreadhorde Invasion may one day be viable.

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Alright, everyone! That is the end of my article for today. Please let me know what worked for you and what didn’t so that I can sculpt this new article series to your feedback!

Speaking of user feedback, I would like to have every tenth card be voted upon by the community. If you want to submit an idea for what card we will go over, just let me know in your comment. The comment with the highest number of upvotes will have their card in the tenth article of the series.

Thank you all for the wonderful community we’ve made together! See you soon.

Rainthezangoose on My Party Time Precon

11 months ago

Phule451 Coveted Prize seems pretty good party pay off and casting either the Cloak and Dagger or the Obsidian Battle-Axe off the top would be pretty fun. I dislike the Irregular Cohort, but I might add the Mage's Attendant back in just for being half a party in a can, and my current list is waayyy to heavily leaning to clerics. So I'm also considering picking up Resplendent Marshal, Dragonscale General, God-Eternal Oketra, a Disciple of Bolas and I think a Nullpriest of Oblivion is a automatic inclusion for the deck. Ya know outside of obvious generic stuff I will want to pick up like Godless Shrine and Marsh Flats.

carpecanum on Monk Takes Big Chants

11 months ago

Wave of Reckoning, Loxodon Wayfarer, Rhox Faithmender, Rhox Meditant, Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant  ^Flip, Serene Master, Commander Eesha, God-Eternal Oketra, Karametra, God of Harvests, Oketra the True, Spirit Loop, Holy Armor, Consulate Dreadnought, Zetalpa, Primal Dawn, Grizzled Leotau, Sigarda, Heron's Grace, Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, Dragonlord Dromoka, Hand of Justice, Myojin of Blooming Dawn, Radiant Solar, Kami of Old Stone,

saluma on Omnath, Lets get this Mana the right way

11 months ago

I assume God-Eternal Oketra is a missclick?

Metroid_Hybrid on Adding card with asterisks in …

1 year ago

Femme_Fatale: So now I'm intrigued. How would one write out one of these 'X/X' tokens?

For example I have a Zombie Warrior 4/4 B as the preview card for my God-Eternal Oketra deck

MtgBattleNerd on I want them to hate …

1 year ago

I want my pod to hate me.

I'm building God-Eternal Oketra hatebear but other than pumping stuff up with a few cards in the descritpion I don't have much of a wincon other than Aetherflux Reservoir.

I'm really happy with the current list I'm just curious to see what you guys would add/remove and what wincon you would add.

Thanks

God-Eternally hated and feared Oketra

Lord_of_Cardboard on Mizzix schmizzix

1 year ago

Third person is playing mono-white creature heavy God-Eternal Oketra

Guerric on Mono White Ramp/Draw

1 year ago

Beebles I would agree that I think you are right about ramp in white. It is indeed the second best ramp color after green, and has always had access to cards like Kor Cartographer that ramp in a traditional way and land fetches that keep you from missing your drops like Land Tax. That being said, green is way, way ahead of the rest of the world due to the social contract where land destruction is bad but mana rock destruction is fine, but white certainly isn't and has never been any worse than any other mono-color besides green.

Card draw has been atrocious however. It's made a lot od progress in recent years due to Ari Nieh taking over for white on the council of colors from the previous holder and with Mark Rosewater repenting of his wrong views on white card draw. Previously they thought that a great example of white card draw was God-Eternal Oketra, because, you know, a zombie token is basically a card. I'm not joking about this, watch The Professor's interview with Ari Nieh on Tolarian Community College, that actually what Maro and the guild thought. Of course, we know that in commander tokens aren't even close to cards. It was an example of sixty-card magic driven thinking ruining a color's performance in commander. Thankfully welcoming cards like Welcoming Vampire are moving us forward, and hopefully we'll see more like this in the coming years!