Murderous Rider

Creature — Zombie Knight

Lifelink

When Murderous Rider is put into the graveyard from the battlefield, put it on the bottom of its owner's library.

(You may cast Murderous Rider from exile if you sent it on an adventure.)

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Swift End

Instant — Adventure

Destroy target creature or planeswalker. You lose 2 life.

(You may cast Swift End for {1}{B}{B} from anywhere that you have the permission to cast this, then exile it on an adventure instead of putting it into your graveyard. When you have not chosen to cast Swift End, this card is treated only as Murderous Rider in whatever zone it is in.)

(Example scenarios for Swift End: You may cast this off of Melek, Izzet Paragon. You may not target this with Snapcaster Mage. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben increases the cost of this. Electrodominance requires X=3. If your opponent owns this and you cast it, only you may cast Murderous Rider when it goes on an adventure. You may cast this from a cascade spell if the spell has a cost greater than Murderous Rider's cost.)

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
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

K4nkato on Tomb of Annihilation (Venture into the Dungeon)

2 weeks ago

I did some due diligence and looked into the dungeon mechanic & some lines to set it up. I think your best three cards are Varis, Silverymoon Ranger, Acererak the Archlich and Intrepid Outlander. Varis and Outlander push you in a creature-heavy direction whereas Acererak wants long games to accumulate value. I think it's important to focus on cards that let you grind and get those cast triggers & creatures. You can stay Black / Green for a solid two-color manabase with Castles and Eye Tyrants, or you could consider splashing white for some incredible creature cards like Wedding Announcement  ^Flip. I think 2 colors is the way to go but an Abzan build opens a lot of great doors. It's worth a test.

For one-drops, I think 4 Thoughtseize and 4 Fatal Push is a good standard for a reason. It fights combo decks, aggro decks & control decks well. You can always swap out the Pushes and Thoughtseizes for matchups where they're irrelevant.

For two-drops, I think 4 Mosswood Dreadknight and 4 Intrepid Outlander are solid, along with 2 Reckoner Bankbuster. Maybe there's another 2 drop creature worth considering?

For three drops I think you want 4 Varis, Silverymoon Ranger for sure. It's important to remember a lot of "Venture Into The Dungeon" creatures are a bit too expensive for Pioneer & need to stick around to accrue that value. Varis gives you venture triggers for playing spell you already want to be playing so moving him up to four seems like an easy inclusion. Idk if you need 4 Murderous Rider for this deck if you include all the removal I suggested, but 2 or 3 is understandable. I honestly wonder if Acererak should be limited to 2 copies. He doesn't impact the board when you play him for several turns in a row but he's a 5/5 that attacks for 7 in the late game after you've completed Tomb of Annihilation.

A note on Glissa Sunslayer: She's amazing on boards where combat matters but awful against any opponent who doesn't care about getting attacked. Putting her in a shell where people have to fight her gets you the most value. If you disrupt your opponent's hand and force them to get into the red zone she'll take you far.

As weird as it sounds I don't think the Tomb of Annihilation -> Acererak should be the only focus of the deck. It's nice to set him up but it might be worth it to play a curve-out game into Lost Mine or Mad Mage. Something to think about perhaps.

Blackgate on Tomb of Annihilation (Venture into the Dungeon)

2 weeks ago

Hello K4nkato thank you for the feedback!

I agree the deck could use more 1 and 2 drops (currently there 4x Dungeon Crawler, 4x Intrepid Outlander, 2x You Find a Cursed Idol and 2x Fates' Reversal).

Mosswood Dreadknight is a good recommendation. How do you recommend squeezing this in?

I considered using Assassin's Trophy for removal but Murderous Rider as a creature with lifelink (and Zombie synergy) helps off set the loss of life when traversing through Tomb of Annihilation. I found this additional life gain to be quite handy as the deck can complete Tomb of Annihilation quite fast and is pretty consistent.

Castle Locthwain is a great idea and I’ll add it to the deck- thanks!

K4nkato on Tomb of Annihilation (Venture into the Dungeon)

2 weeks ago

I have a few observations:

1) Your curve is too high. Too many hands have nothing to do on turn 1 & turn 2. Against midrange decks like Rakdos Midrange they’ll likely have Bloodtithe Harvester in play with Fatal Push ready to kill your three drop (they sack a blood token to trigger Revolt). Unless you open an Intrepid Outlander you’ll be defenseless until turn 4 or 5. You should diversify your curve with more 1 and 2 drops to smooth out your plays. While it’s not directly dungeon related I think Mosswood Dreadknight would be a great 2-drop.

2) You don’t have enough interaction. A combo deck like Greasefang, Okiba Boss can combo on turn 3 before you have a chance to remove her with Murderous Rider. If you remove her vehicle with You Find a Cursed Idol but don’t kill her she’ll just combo again the next turn. There’s a lot of great removal options in G/B like Abrupt Decay or Assassin's Trophy that handle tons of different matchups.

3) You don’t have a good plan for over-the-too value decks. The dungeon plan takes time to grind (not a bad thing), but your need to give yourself the time to grind. If you play against a deck with something like Bring to Light or Enigmatic Incarnation you might get completely ran over by Omnath, Locus of Creation or The Scarab God. You can fight back against these decks with unconditional removal like Go for the Throat and discard spells like Duress and Liliana of the Veil.

4) You need some more card draw. If you’re lowering your curve you should expect to play longer games & can pull ahead of opponents with card draw engines. Castle Locthwain pulls you ahead of your opponents in long games. Hive of the Eye Tyrant gives you an option to win the Dungeon back from an opponent when you’re out of creatures & closes long games against control decks. Field of Ruin is great for midrange mirror matches bc it blows up your opponent’s castles.

Dungeons can be a hard mechanic to work with but it rewards you for playing long games & slowing your opponent down. If you run a solid midrange deck with Dungeon cards to break parity and pull you ahead you’ll have a solid game plan.

Tsukimi on Totentanz, Kazoo Kid

4 weeks ago

Ah the joys and downfalls of building a typal EDH deck! So many fun cards to choose from, until you have to get your list down to 100- we've all been there!

My suggestions to cut are:

Professional Face-Breaker, Pawn of Ulamog, Nezumi Informant, Nezumi Graverobber  ^Flip, Murderous Rider to name a few. You seem to have a really big treasure subtheme but also a good deal of mana rocks. The treasure subtheme seems strong with this build, especially with cards like Mayhem Devil and Mirkwood Bats- So I would definitely recommend cutting more than a few mana rocks like your signets etc. Honestly, there's quite a few random rat creatures you could cut entirely to make more room for cards like Pack Rat and Rat Colony

Crow_Umbra on Totentanz, Kazoo Kid

4 weeks ago

I agree with lhetrick13, that you could likely focus the majority of your cuts in your creature section. I think another area of focus for potential cuts would lower impact reanimation effects, mostly because this deck wants to make lots of rat tokens. Since you will be making lots of disposable bodies, you don't really need to invest much in single-target reanimation effects.

Also, I think you might want to swap Talisman of Impulse for Talisman of Indulgence. Probably just a mix up in the card selection menu.

Suggestions for potential cuts:

• Gnat Miser - Reducing opponents' hand size by 1 isn't super impactful in the grand scheme of a game, especially with how commonly (over)played Reliquary Tower & Thought Vessel can be, depending on metas.

• Persistent Specimen - Basically another Reassembling Skeleton, which it looks like you might've also removed from the list.

• Burnished Hart - Yes, it can self sac to grab you 2 basics, but that costs 6 mana total to cast & activate. Could maybe even be replaced with another 2 mana rock like Mind Stone, or maybe even Cursed Mirror, which can copy one of your rats for additional utility.

• Murderous Rider - Doesn't really fit the theme of the deck beyond being a removal spell. Could likely be replaced with another instant like Infernal Grasp or Baleful Mastery if you needed the additional removal.

• Unearth - Single target reanimation. Doesn't seem like it will do too much, especially since you want to mostly sac rat tokens, and already have a fairly high creature count.

• Phyrexian Reclamation - Similar line of reasoning as Unearth. It feels like you have more than enough creatures to keep casting, so trying to reanimate doesn't make as much sense here.

• Grave Pact - Great card, but feels overly redundant with Dictate of Erebos, which has the benefit of surprising opponents with Flash.

• Diabolic Tutor - I think you can probably replace this with Pact of the Serpent

Those are the most obvious cuts I can suggest at the moment. I think it would be helpful if you take some time to tag the cards in your deck, and what roles they play. Tagging helps me better visualize my categories and helps me decide on cuts and swaps.

If you want to aggro swarm your opponents with Rats, I'd suggest considering Rising of the Day as a haste anthem so your swarms can, well, swarm ASAP. I'd also recommend checking out Cover of Darkness to give all of your little Rats some Evasion, otherwise they will get chump-blocked to death. Ogre Battledriver might also be worth a look, especially since it can buff up your 1/1 rats, and give them haste. Ogre Battledriver has made itself at home in a couple of my aggro token decks for that reason.

My final suggestion is to hone in on if you want this to be an Aggro deck first, with the option to combo out, or if you want this to primarily be a combo deck with Aggro as a "Plan B" to fall back on. Determining that primary focus for yourself will also help guide some of the cuts you make.

Best of luck!

Profet93 on Wilhelt and Sheoldred unite!

1 month ago

Teferi's Puzzle Box - Doesn't serve any purpose unless I'm missing something? Cut it

Murderous Rider/Hero's Downfall > Murder

Bontus monument is not bad, its a decent choice for sure. I personally wouldn't run it here because your commander is 4 mana so it doesn't help you "on curve" (Cast ur commander one turn earlier). Same with chromatic lantern. There is something called the Lantern trap in which if it helps you a lot, then you need to work on your mana base to be less reliant on it. If it doesn't help you with your mana base, then it isn't worth the inclusion. Lantern is typically used in 3+ color decks.

Idk what your budget per card is, or if you want to use tutors. Tutors are blacks biggest strengths, getting what you need when you need it is crucial.

Let me know more about what you want the deck to do and I'll see if I can provide any further assistance. Zombies are fun!

RockIV on Power Word Death

1 month ago

DreadKhan ty very much! I'm always looking for ways yo improbe this deck. I Will consider it.I'm always searching for the perfect creatures for it. I never added Phyrexian Totem to the deck because i i'm afraid of ending sacrificing every permanent because of it. Murderous Rider is a creature that i always wanted, but i never find it anywhere where i live.

I have to think more about the 1 drops. They might be a good add but i don't know if they Will end up being usefull

Any creature recomandation Will be extremy appreciated. :D

DreadKhan on Power Word Death

1 month ago

I'm pretty sure you want to run Dark Ritual x4 in here, it's a really good card in Legacy mono-Black and you're very light on 1 drops. It's higher budget, but you might want to replace some of your removal spells with Liliana of the Veils, these can do more than just kill a creature, potentially helping vs other decks.

Since you have so many 4 drops, have you considered Phyrexian Totem? This is very good with a heavier removal package and if a Black deck wants to cast some 4 drops. It's really sweet to play a Dark Ritual on turn one to cheat out a Phyrexian Totem, and you can still use the B mana the Totem can make, so if you added more 1 drops, such as Vampire of the Dire Moon or Vampire Cutthroat.

You might also look into replacing some of your removal with Murderous Riders, these offer both a removal spell and a body in one card, and it can hit a PW in a pinch.