Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Set Price Alerts

Combos Browse all Suggest

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
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Gray Merchant of Asphodel

Creature — Zombie

When this enters the battlefield, each opponent loses X life, where X is your devotion to black. You gain life equal to the life lost this way. (Each in the mana costs of permanents you control counts towards your devotion to black.)

SorinDankov on A Powerful Rat

1 week ago

Done and done. You've talked me into it. A colony for a piper. xD

Gray Merchant of Asphodel (or Old Greg) is in here just as a win con. Granted it was moreso lethal with the Relentless Rats I originally was going to run, he's still a lot of life and a lot of damage late game. That being said, he's always on the chop block when I make decisions. lmao! He'll be cut eventually.

Erebos, God of the Dead has just been a good guy to me in any black deck I run, even if just to put a full stop to any life gain. He's also a pretty mean creature what with the indestructible. Tbh, I always try to run the mono-color Theros gods when I can just because you get a lot of value out of them being on the board. Same with Sheoldred, Whispering One. I find a hard time taking them out. I was close to putting in Grave Titan too for the same reason. xD Mono-Black has so many good cards.

Lastly, Locust Miser was in the deck as well actually! Both are great and will probably make it back in at some point or another once I do more playtesting.

PS: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE COMPLIMENT!!! (:

SufferFromEDHD on A Powerful Rat

1 week ago

This is a really solid rat tribal deck! Don't get distracted like Volrath ("If there is such a thing as too much power, I have not discovered it." - Dark Ritual)

Cut one copy of Rat Colony for the Piper. 25% is a great ratio for your Thrumming Stone engine.

You have 7 non rat creatures... I think you could afford to make 3 cuts:

Gray Merchant of Asphodel is just good stuff. Does nothing for this strategy.

Species Specialist is fantastic! while Erebos, God of the Dead seems lackluster although the static ability is neat. Necropotence does it better.

Sheoldred, Whispering One is an EDH bomb but you are already running Attrition, Dictate of Erebos, Grave Pact AND No Mercy.

jarncards on Dead WOMan Walking

1 week 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

Crow-Umbra on Dark Obliteration

1 month ago

If the other decks are creature heavy for their set up, you could probably play more stuff like Fleshbag Marauder, Plaguecrafter, & Merciless Executioner.

When I used to play casual 60 card tabletop, those type of edict effects that hit the whole table often slowed down the creature dependent strategies.

You could also play something like the ever classic Gray Merchant of Asphodel to drain all of your opponents at once (assuming you play multi-player & not 1on1). Gray Merchant is considered a classic finisher.

TheVectornaut on Mono-Black Budget

1 month ago

Based on the profile name, description, and seeming inaccuracy of the price stated, I'm guessing this is an AI-based account. Still, I do like budget black decks like this. On the off chance that a human reads this, I'll offer some advice from my experience. First, there's no real reason to be running Gravecrawler here with no other zombies. Something like Dread Wanderer, Bloodsoaked Champion, or Cult Conscript could serve a similar role for much cheaper. On the draw side, Necropotence could be Phyrexian Arena or Midnight Oil, but I really like Blood Scrivener and Asylum Visitor for refilling from empty. For removal, cards like Sinister Concoction and Bone Shards can take advantage of creatures that return from the grave while Bone Picker offers an evasive threat and answer for cheap. For finishers, I like Mogis's Marauder or Foul-Tongue Shriek for a lot of matchups and Gray Merchant of Asphodel for others.

PhyrexianPraetor on Orzhov Scam

1 month ago

BotaNickill

Thanks for the upvote, comment and suggestions. Believe it or not, this deck originally started it’s life in modern as a mono-black aggro deck that used self-reanimating creatures and Foul-Tongue Shriek with Phyrexian Obliterator at the top of the mana curve. I did kind of ok with that deck, but as time went on I had a much harder time due to everyone else switching to more midrange and control style decks. That’s when I built this deck and haven’t looked back. I’m not going to lie, this deck used to be an attention getter in my area for being a good and solid deck. But with War of the Spark, Modern Horizons and Modern Horizons 2 a lot of other decks got upgrades and new decks came to be a thing. This deck sadly fell behind due to this, I did get some new upgrades… but almost every other deck that was played in my area became even better due to getting more additions.

I might switch out one Phyrexian Obliterator for a single copy of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Obliterator is ok, but being able to shock the opponent every-time they draw a card is a big attraction to me.

I have been considering Misery's Shadow for the reasons you pointed out. My only struggle is that it only deals with creatures that die. Don’t get me wrong though, it is still a very potent card.

I guess it would come down to a meta call between Dauthi Voidwalker and Misery's Shadow, both have their respective upsides and downsides.

I have been considering Invoke Despair for a few weeks now. In essence, it can functionally act like Gray Merchant of Asphodel with draining life. On one hand it deals six damage and draws me three cards, on the other hand it makes my opponent sacrifice three permanents for five mana. It’s for these two aspects as to why I might even cut one Phyrexian Arena for it.

Tenacious Underdog is a card I have been evaluating and am unsure of. At base it is a 3/2 for two, with the ability to gain haste and draws a card for four mana. It’s for this reason as to why I have looked at it a bit, but unlike Invoke Despair it doesn’t have the potential to change much of the game-state and requires four mana to consistently bring back.

With the way modern is, four and five mana has to either impact the board in a big way or sway the game in your favour. Paying four mana to potentially deal three damage and draw a card might not be worth it. All in all though, I have yet to actually get back into the modern scene where I live. So it is entirely possible that I am being overly critical and am wrong about this card.

I honestly didn’t know about Knight of Dusk's Shadow. I like how it can stop a food token deck from gaining lots of life and all for two mana. I might test it out.

Agadeem's Awakening  Flip is something that I tried before. In my build it sadly doesn’t work. But in a deck that has four Leyline of the Void, more creatures and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx it can be really devastating. Perhaps that style of devotion deck can run Tenacious Underdog for continuous value.

Bojuka Bog, Takenuma, Abandoned Mire, and Field of Ruin are all lands that I have played in the past or have been considering for a while. I originally ran Bojuka Bog as my choice of graveyard hate. I liked how it couldn’t be countered or discarded. Takenuma, Abandoned Mire is yet another card I have had my eye on. There are a lot of legendary creatures that I could fit into this deck to make it cheaper. Field of Ruin and all of the lands like it, are a bit awkward sadly. I have tested these types of lands before with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and I am always left with a negative opinion of them. I originally ran a set alongside two copies of urborg to fight against Tron and Valakut.

One card you should consider for your black deck is Korlash, Heir to Blackblade. It is cheaper in monetary cost than Obliterator, fixes your mana since it can fetch non-basics, gets bigger with fetching and it is very hard to remove without exile effects. I ran both it and Obliterator at one point.

BotaNickill on SmAshZea Your Facey

1 month ago

PhyrexianPraetor Thannks again for all the good card suggestions. I really appreciate it! I remember the black devotion decks well, good ol Gary! Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Phyrexian Obliterator, nasty stuff mate! The Shivan Devastator is indeed a pretty sick new card! I have a few but they are in my brother's Dragon deck with the Stormbreath Dragons and Thunderbreak Regents, but maybe I'll order another one or two for me! Boros Reckoner is a great card as well, I had them in the main board, and they have totally saved my skin in the past, I pushed them out to lower the curve a bit more, but I always keep them in the wings as a possibility. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is already in the deck, gotta have that in any devotion deck for sure! Robber of the Rich is also a great card that can provide value and remove possible threats from the opponents deck before they become a problem, I wish I had paper copies, I have him in my historic RDW on arena for certain, I'll look getting some physical copies. As for the War Elemental, Stigma Lasher, Harsh Mentor, and Vexing Shusher, I do not have any of those cards, but I'll put them into consideration! Cheers!

shadow63 on Why doesn't fanatic of mogus …

1 month ago

It's a red Gray Merchant of Asphodel it doesn't give you the life gain but it is a mana less and it hits all players. Now I know black has reanimation effects that help Gary. But my red boy gets no live it seems. According to EDH rec Gary sees like 10 times more play. This is a travesty

Load more