Open the Graves

Enchantment

Whenever a nontoken creature you control dies (is put into the graveyard from the battlefield), create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token.

Discussion (51)

multimedia on Undead unleashed combo upgrade

3 days ago

Hey, nice upgrades on a budget so far for the precon.

Opponent mill strategy is an interesting choice/change from the precon. Opponent mill that's not an infinite combo, but done over many turns can be risky in multiplayer Commander because graveyards are a huge resource for so many decks.

The precon has too high of a mana curve with over 20 cards that are 5 CMC or higher. You haven't really changed this, but you have reduced the number of lands to 34 from 40 in the precon. By reducing the number lands, but not reducing the mana curve you risk not being able to cast spells until much later in a game. You're right to reduce the land count and 34 lands is fine, but the rest of your deck also needs to be reduced especially since you've added Bolas's Citadel.

Upgrading to better high CMC cards which you have done with Rise of the Dark Realms and Bolas's Citadel is good, but you really should consider cutting other high CMC cards from the precon to add these such as Gorex, the Tombshell and Gravespawn Sovereign. Gravespawn is also a reanimation effect, but is worse than Rise. Tombshell can be reduced in mana cost, but that has negative interaction with wanting to reanimate Zombies.

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Death Tyrant is an example of a budget high CMC card that's an upgrade for another five drop in the precon such as Eternal Skylord. Tyrant has excellent synergy with decayed Zombies because when they attack and are saced at end of combat then you create a 2/2 Zombie for each one. This interaction is also good with sac outlets such as Carrion Feeder to sac all your attacking Zombies in combat to create that many 2/2 Zombies which can then with Wilhelt, sac them to create 2/2 decayed Zombies and repeat the next turn with Tyrant.

Some budget lower CMC cards to consider adding:

• Pyre of Heroes: repeatable sac/tutor/cheat Zombie onto the battlefield.
• Master of Death: repeatable Zombie to sac since can return itself from your graveyard to your hand at your upkeep for 1 life.
• Necromancer's Stockpile: repeatable discard, excellent with Master of Death and good way to get Zombies into your graveyard for reanimation.
• Siege Zombie: combos with at least two other Zombies + Throne of the God-Pharaoh for lots repeatable opponent life loss.
• Apprentice Necromancer: can be repeatable reanimation source with Gisa and Geralf.
• Lazotep Plating
• Counterspell
• Arcane Denial

Some cards to consider cutting: Gorex, the Tombshell, Switcheroo, Mass Manipulation, Aetherspouts, Eternal Skylord, Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth, Gravespawn Sovereign, Shadow Kin, Vilis, Broker of Blood, Open the Graves.

Good luck with your deck.

dadezio on Tormod and Ravos Raise Again

3 weeks ago

More Combos

• Crucible of Worlds + Lake of the Dead = Ability to recur swamps sacrificed to Lake of the Dead

• Ashen Rider + Sac outlet + any graveyard recursion card ( Ravos, Soultender/Sheoldred, Whispering One / Liesa, Forgotten Archangel / ETC = recurring ability to exile to permanents

• Nirkana Revenant / Crypt Ghast = Ability to tap Swamps for additional mana. Have both out and each swamp taps for three

• Any Sac Outlet I.E. Phyrexian Altar + Living Death = Board wipe while being able to keep your non token creatures on the board

• Open the Graves + Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler = Infinite zombie creation and Infinite Mana

R492 on Zombies in your mocha star

3 months ago

Hey, I'm here from my warrior deck as you've requested. Since I'm unsure of the format I'll presume this to be a casual build, if this is more of a competitive modern or other format of deck then my knowledge is definitely too limited to be of assistance here. As it is I used to have a lot of fun with casual zombies when I first got into MTG and Diregraf Captain was one of my favourite cards. I think zombies have always been at their best in either mono B or Dimir so my first suggestion would be to remove white from the build. Wayward Servant is a neat idea but I just don't see enough recursion here to fully utilize it unless the plan is getting 2 relentless dead and using them to recur each other on death but that seems a bit risky without some tutors. I really liked Gravedigger myself, he's a simple creature but that's kinda what zombies are, and getting a chain of gravediggers fishing each other out of the yard continuously while offering protection to anything else on your board that might be targeted is surprisingly powerful.

Likewise Time to Reflect is thematically cool but slightly narrow in scope for removal, and Mortify has been upgraded even in standard. Murderous Rider is not only great removal but also a zombie after, which means it also absorbs the bonuses you have littered throughout this deck to become a massive healing machine, and if you specifically want removal that can target enchantments Feed the Swarm does it for cheaper while even having a name that loosely matches the deck!

Next I'm noticing an Evolving Wilds in the mana base when Fabled Passage exists as a direct upgrade to it. Then again leaving white behind would mean you probably don't need either of them, which means there may be better options to streamline your mana base. I also notice a lot of colourless mana, which is perfectly good so long as you aren't hurting for your black and blue sources. I would tend to run a couple more swamps and islands myself just to make sure a T1 Choked Estuary has a target and perhaps replacing the white sources and Rogue's Passage with some more basics could work. Rogue's passage is nice moreso if you have large creatures that can get through for significant damage, generally as a zombie player you'll want to just have enough board advantage to simply swing in and spending 4 mana to sneak a single one of them through winds up being too expensive.

Here are a few other cards for your consideration:
- Endless Ranks of the Dead
- Field of the Dead
- Open the Graves
- From Under the Floorboards to synergise with Cryptbreaker
- Dreadhorde Invasion

Hopefully this gives you some ideas, make sure to mark down what format you're playing in and give your deck tags to help people find it easier! Good luck, I'll be around if you need and if you're on the Discord server feel free to @ me with anything else that comes to mind

GrimlockVIII on Raining Blood

4 months ago

Would any of the zombie token spawners be helpful? There's a lot that just spit out hordes and hordes of zombies for you to sacrifice.

Stuff like Open the Graves , Army of the Damned , and Dark Salvation come to mind.

You might need some more creatures for Open the Graves to work, though recurring creatures like the Squees are pretty good to keep fueling it.

ElijahCallahan64 on Jeskai Dragon Control

6 months ago

Leviathanblaze Yes, I highly reccomend grixis, those are probably my three favorite colors to run, and I have also made a grixis deck. Keep in mind cards like Fruit of Tizerus Sorin's Thirst , a big benefit to running black is that you are now not only burning them, you're also gaining life at the same time, very beneficial. I would highly recommend Open the Graves as well, it is giving you extra value, especially chump blockers. Tainted Remedy Is a great way to deal with lifelink, if not in your actual deck, I recommend sideboarding it.

mrweaselman on Walking Dead

6 months ago

Idk who this Willy is, but no you.

This deck is a really a mono black build that you happen to run blue for Diregraf Captain . The way I see it you can either keep with the build you're going for, which to me seems like mono black, or you can go a much different dimir amass path with cards like Vizier of the Scorpion , Gleaming Overseer , Lazotep Plating ,

Let's assume you do mono black, then let's start with creatures. Brain Gorgers and Stromgald Crusader are garbage, Tomebound Lich is mostly used in dedicated reanimator decks, and Extremely Slow Zombie is a card from a joke set, so take those all out, along with Diregraf Captain . That's 11 out. Add 2 Murderous Rider , 3 Liliana's Reaver , 2 Undead Augur , 3 Diregraf Ghoul .

For noncreature spells, take out Negate . The best mono black removal is probably Walk the Plank . So take out Go for the Throat and Ultimate Price for 3. Gravepurge and Return from Extinction can be replaced with 3 Call of the Death-Dweller . Take out Bontu's Monument for another copy of Liliana, Untouched By Death or vise-versa. Take out Necromancer's Stockpile , I just don't think it's that good. For a five drop $1-2 slot, Open the Graves is better than Call to the Grave .

If you followed all that you should have 6 slots left. Add one more Swamp so you're at 22. Then maybe 3 Dread Wanderer , 2 Fleshbag Marauder , and flex card like Risen Executioner or something fun.

MrKillStar on Abandon All Hope | Ayara, First of Locthwain

11 months ago

I see a lot of shiny cards! Love the deck "intro" :D

Instead of typing all the cards I would suggest, I got a similar deck, just with Syr Konrad, the Grim: For the Void, the idea of the deck, just like with Ayara, is to get creatures, kills them, ping opponents to death.. with few bonuses. Maybe you'll like some cards, I would definitely suggest Tortured Existence (even if it doesnt like working with Necropotence, because of the discarding into exile), with Desecrated Tomb to make a 1/1 black bat token with flying for at instant speed and since Ayara loves black creatures, its would be really good :D Black itself offers a lot of card draw to replace Necropotence.
I also wrote an explanation why I use every single card in the deck, if you would wonder why some stuff are even in there. :D Also if you would decide to give some feedback aswell, I would appreaciate it :P

Anyway, about some cards I would probably replace here:

1) Ugin, the Ineffable - making colorless cards cheaper is definitely nice, but most cards here are already cheap enough with a decent mono-black ramp, which just make it less effective 6 drop. Making tokens into card draw when they die is alright, but again, black has tons of way to generate tokens and card draw (also less synergy with Ayara, since those tokens arent black). His permanent removal is a little bit better for mono-black decks, but since it takes 2 turns to use that ability again (and killing Ugin in process) is slow, cards like Meteor Golem would be probably much more effective as a permanent removal, since it just targets any permanent no matter the color AND is a creature, so sac Meteor Golem and reanimate later. Also, Feed the Swarm.
2) Cemetery Reaper - there is only 5 other Zombie creatures (if I dont count tokens from Grave Titan,Army of the Damned and Open the Graves). Even with some zombies on board, +1/+1 is pretty small buff and Cemetery Reaper is just slow token generator.
3) Beseech the Queen - even for , you are forced to reveal the tutored card, which makes it pretty bad tutor and in my personal opinion, one of the worst tutors in mono-black. As much as I love BtQ art, its a big no from me. Just for , there is budget Diabolic Tutor that wont make you reveal the card you tutored for. Or, a bit more expensive, but mana cheaper and great in token decks: Diabolic Intent. BsQ also limits you by the number of lands you control, so its less effective in the early game.
4) Caged Sun - I know how the mana doubling is nice, but since it costs to get out, then wait a turn to get value out of it might be slow. I think tutoring for Cabal Coffers/Cabal Stronghold might be just faster and more effective. Similar problem with Gauntlet of Power, even if it costs less, it affects lands of the chosen color your opponents control too, which just might lead to some ugly moments :D Probably something like Mirage Mirror would be a good replacement, so you can make an additional copy of Cabal Coffers. Another one could be Pawn of Ulamog, since you have plenty of creatures and those 0/1 Eldrazi tokens could help you with ramp.

Some more cards that could be nice:

1) Piper of the Swarm - cheap creature that buffs some of your other rats and can make rat tokens for cheap aswell, with mind control effect too. There are some really cool Ayara decks with rat tribal aswell.
2) Clackbridge Troll - I pretty like this card since I first saw it... its big ugly troll that does a lot of stuff, forcing your opponent to sac a creature to give you 3 life and 1 card, ooorrrr you the troll hits them! :D
3) Songs of the Damned/Bubbling Muck - both are pretty good to give you a lot of mana to cast a some big stuff during a single turn.
4) Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip - this is definitely a cool card from the last set, giving either Ayara or any other creature important at the moment "protection" or just use it as a land if needed. With Vilis on board, it also draws you 2 cards for at instant speed.

elyria on Teysa's Rebirth

11 months ago

Open the Graves would be pretty amazing in this. Sheoldred, Whispering One would help with recursion.