Graveborn Muse

Creature — Zombie Spirit

At the beginning of your upkeep, you draw X cards and you lose X life, where X is the number of Zombies you control.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	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
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

nothingstar on

1 year ago

This is a good start, you have some really nice lifegain synergies going. It doesn't really seem like a card draw deck to me, though. It leans more towards the lifegain world of Aetherflux Reservoir than to the U/B world of card draw. There are a lot of black cards that exchange life for cards; if you want card draw, you should get a Graveborn Muse leave the Reservoir behind.

If you go the true lifegain route, you might add transmute effects for tutors, like Clutch of the Undercity or Dimir House Guard. And another good wincon could be Celestial Convergence + Solemnity. And Test of Endurance. Though those will require more counters/protection than you have right now.

I have learned from experience that strategies that ping your opponents for one or two life every turn get you killed very quickly, because they make you stand out even when you're doing very little. So things like Drana's Emissary are kinda dangerous.

In that same vein, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose will draw hate. It's Sanguine Bond on a stick, and when people see half of the Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood combo, they shoot it immediately.

One final bit of overarching advice -- since this is a 3-color deck, I suggest staying away from cards that require a lot of one kind of mana. Particularly lots of black mana, like Underworld Dreams or Peer into the Abyss, since this deck is heavily U/W right now.

Okay, now some slightly more nitpicky things about card choices:

• Since the Mages only seem to fetch mana rocks at this point, might you switch them out with myrs? Like Alloy Myr.

• I'd replace Folio of Fancies with Temple Bell, personally, because I like having to spend less mana per draw.

• Serra Avatar might be better than Celestial Force. But also I just really like Serra Avatar.

Again, this is quite good, just needs a bit of focusing towards the endgame. All the nitty-gritty of the mana curve and stuff you'll work out in playtesting, and what you have so far is workable.

jarncards on Dead WOMan Walking

1 year ago

Fiend Artisan is green

I think Sidisi, Undead Vizier is awful unless you use a lot of reanimate effects, it's just so expensive to tutor. Geth, Lord of the Vault is crazy strong, but he's a totally different deck most of the time. I'd dump Liliana's Steward too. You and one other player go down a card, putting the rest of the table ahead of you by one card, but they also get to choose, so you're never going to get the card you want out of their hand.

Hobbling Zombie and other cards like it, like Putrid Goblin are excellent at keeping attacks away from you while you build up your board. and the pseudo revival effects let you abuse a lot of other zombie mechanics. Butcher Ghoul, and Geralf's Messenger or Doomed Dissenter are ok too. i wouldnt use Sightless Ghoul though. They are all better than Reassembling Skeleton though. Keep Relentless Dead. Im not sure if they make the cut, but they arent scary, but that means they are good at keeping a target off your back til youre readyfor one.

Magus of the Bridge is great for a non-zombie. Probably use it over Tainted Adversary, i feel like that one just costs way too much before its good. Dreadhorde Invasion is incredibly good, as is Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. i'd put those in for sure.Tormod, the Desecrator is still really good. Zombie Trailblazer is devastating to the person sitting to your left in particular or anyone playing five colors/ not black. When you REALLY need someone to not cast a spell. make all their lands swamps during the upkeep. almost every board wipe is a sorcery.

I think you might want to dump Thought Vessel for Mind Stone or even Blood Pet. In many cases discarding is beneficial to zombies. If you want to keep infinite hand size, Zombie Infestation and discard at will cards are pretty helpful.

I think Noxious Ghoul is the single best zombie card in the game, in this deck it basically says, tap your commander, wipe everyone else's boards. Use it.

Sutured Ghoul is runner up. If you include it and other high power zombies like Rotting Regisaur you can put him out as a 20+/xx easily, and then get 2/2s. HE doesnt play nice with mass reanimate, but he's an alternate win condition on his own. also its a great tool since youre probably gonna sac the dino and Phyrexian Soulgorger pretty quickly. If you sacrifice him on the end step before your turn i think you will almost always have a game ending horde.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel is utterly stupid. The absolute best reanimate target you could hope for. and since your card draw is gonna cost a ton of life, hes always going to be valuable. Whip of Erebos is probably the only other reasonable lifegain choice.That one makes aggressive attacking suddenly super safe

Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia is really cheap at making zombies if you dont have any other sources of decayed zombs. they cant block, but you get so many death triggers

Graveborn Muse is great card draw.

Hatred is usually better than Endless Scream

I think Gempalm Polluter is fantastic. its card draw, puts a big zombie into your graveyard, and hurts a player if things are going well.

I don't think Endless Ranks of the Dead is that great, but it certainly is cool. Wand of Orcus is really cool too. I'm not sure if its good though.

Board wipes will shut you down as you have things right now. Crowded Crypt and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, that way, even if there's a board wipe you still have a whole army of zombs to multiply even after everything is dead. Rise of the Dread Marn is another fantastic option that you can abuse if you run things like Carrion Feeder too. Run Carrion Feeder, period. It lets you loop gravecrawler and saves yourself from control magic and exile spells.

Consider Toxic Deluge and STRONGLY CONSIDER Nevinyrral's Disk. Single target removal like tragic slip is ok because you can choose when things die, but other cards like Malicious Affliction are going to miss a lot of key targets. And you absolutely need to have a way to clear artifacts and especially enchantments.

Dark Salvation is pretty cool. not sure if it is good enough, but i'd use it rather than some of your spot removal.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General is really absurdly strong if you can get it out, and even if it dies the next turn you can draw a bunch off of it. Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip you already know is great.

If you diversify your black lands, Field of the Dead is the best land. its silly how good it is. I'll start you off with the autoinclude Unholy Grotto. Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip is too.

I'll see what you make and see if i find anything else. later

multimedia on Cards that buff zombie tribal?

1 year ago

Zombie Master and Filth don't buff, but instead they can make your Zombies unblockable. Noxious Ghoul can wreck your opponent's creatures since it triggers each time a Zombie token is created. This effect is essentially giving your Zombies evasion since it will clear away opponent blockers.

Zombies can have an advantage using your life as a resource for repeatable draw. Cryptbreaker, Graveborn Muse, Undead Augur is Zombie tribal draw using life. Bolas's Citadel is powerful black card that uses your life which can also be a sac outlet for 10 Zombie tokens.

Augur/Dark Prophecy/Erebos, Bleak-Hearted + Blood Artist/Bastion of Remembrance/Zulaport Cutthroat pairing these cards can be a draw engine with Zombie tokens.

Plague Belcher, Vengeful Dead are Zombie tribal aristocrats and with Zombie tokens they pair well with a free activation sac outlet such as Carrion Feeder, Phyrexian Altar, Viscera Seer, Blasting Station, Ashnod's Altar.

Gravecrawler is Zombie tribal repeatable sac fodder for Gisa. Skullclamp is nice draw with tokens, when you're sacing creatures and with Gravecrawler.

TheOfficialCreator on Atraxa, Phyrexia's Champion

2 years ago

It's roughly comparable to Graveborn Muse, but much, much more powerful since it doesn't rely on outside sources to create its card draw. As RiotRunner789 said, the loss of life is instantly negated by her lifelink, so this is essentially The Magic Mirror that costs 4 mana with a flying deathtouch vigilance body attached, with lifegain triggers added on.

Far, far too powerful, in my opinion. I would suggest maybe keeping the abilities but bumping up the cost to at least 6 mana if not 7.

sdtech58 on Wilhelt Tribal

2 years ago

Ayara, First of Locthwain - ETB payoff, sac outlet, card draw. Only drawback is that it's not a Zombie.

Blood Artist - Death trigger payoff. Borderline include for me in this build.

Cemetery Reaper - Zombie Lord, token creator, graveyard hate

Cryptbreaker - Discard outlet, token creator, draw engine

Death Baron - Zombie Lord, deathtouch to discourage attackers

Diregraf Captain - Zombie Lord, death trigger payoff

Diregraf Colossus - Token creator

Ghoulcaller Gisa - Token creator, sac outlet

Gisa and Geralf - Graveyard love, reanimation source. Borderline include here IMO due to TSG's ability

Gleaming Overseer - Token, hexproof and menace for tokens. Borderline include IMO

God-Eternal Bontu - sac outlet, card draw, big body

Grave Titan - token creator, star of many MTG Memes...yes, I like him

Graveborn Muse - card draw and life loss is NOT optional. Don't kill yourself!!

Gravecrawler - automatic include in any Zombie build. Begging to go infinite in a number of ways

sdtech58 on I'm gonna cleave you

2 years ago

Need to get that overall CMC down and add more low-cost permanents. Gravecrawler, Relentless Dead, Cryptbreaker, Graveborn Muse, Headless Rider would be a few i'd recommend. I'd use Wonder instead of Eternal Skylord, as it will be easy to get Wonder to your graveyard. Ditch the high CMC Sorceries. If you're spending 5 or 6 mana on something, it needs to have the potential to significantly change the game. The only 2 cards you have at 5 CMC that I'd keep are Open the Graves and the Liliana walker. I'd try to get to 28 - 30 creatures. Consider Dimir Signet and Coldsteel Heart as additions for more ramp. Sorin doesn't fit the theme at all and he's high CMC.

x12721 on Scarab God UB Zombie Tribal

2 years ago

One of the best zombies that you could run is Cryptbreaker. It creates bodies, draws you cards, and is cheap. I would also consider dropping some of the more expensive spells (as mentioned by others above) for Graveborn Muse and/or tutors. Also recommend swapping some lands for more mana rocks

DemonDragonJ on Double Masters 2022 Predictions and …

2 years ago

Seedborn Muse and Windborn Muse have been reprinted plenty of times, so I would like to see the other three muses, Dreamborn Muse, Graveborn Muse, and Lavaborn Muse, reprinted in this set.