Relentless Dead

Creature — Zombie

Menace (This creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.)

When Relentless Dead dies, you may pay {B}. If you do, return it to its owner's hand.

When Relentless Dead dies, you may pay {X}. If you do, return another target Zombie creature card with converted mana cost X from your graveyard to the battlefield.

Combos

• Lord of the Undead + Relentless Dead + Unholy Grotto

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 (49)

TheVectornaut on Dead of Night

2 months ago

I think the biggest weakness of this deck is that it's hard to curve out early with so many of the slots occupied by cards at 3 CMC or higher. The ideal play pattern is probably to slam down Champion of the Perished on turn 1 and then follow up with a zombie or 2 every following turn until finishing with a bomb. This is difficult to do with Relentless Dead as your only 2 drop, and if you don't draw Champion, the lack of 1 drops makes things even worse. I'd recommend adding something like Gravecrawler, Diregraf Ghoul, Cryptbreaker, or Dread Wanderer to provide early pressure in the absence of a champion. Then, on 2, I personally like Undead Augur for the draw, especially paired with a sac outlet like Carrion Feeder. Other 2s could be Waste Not with a discard package, Graveyard Marshal as a lordless Cemetery Reaper, or you could dedicate the slots to cheaper removal. Invoke Despair is very flashy but seldom as efficient as a Thoughtseize or Fatal Push. On 3, you have enough cards, although I would still offer Geralf's Messenger, Diregraf Colossus, and Lord of the Accursed as other options to consider. To make room, the most obvious place to start is the bloated 6-slot, and as much as I love using him in my Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest EDH deck, Champion of Stray Souls is very slow in 60-card formats. Helm of the Host, Liliana, Dreadhorde General, and Killing Wave (without a drain package with Gray Merchant of Asphodel) also seem underwhelming to me. It should be noted that I'm using modern as the basis for my evaluation. If your local casual meta is slow enough, running more big guys isn't as big of a problem, although I'd still try for more 1s and 2s just to avoid games where you're bricked until turn 3.

jarncards on Dead WOMan Walking

6 months 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

SilencedDax on Phylactery lich: a Rule 0 …

7 months ago

More ideas!

Zombie Trailblazer to be unblockable

Soul Separator it's an artifact and when the lich dies we could create 2 more and 2 more phylactery counters

Wand of Orcus if we take the zombie route

Unholy Grotto, Relentless Dead, Rot Hulk, Nim Deathmantle to return ti to the battle

SacredAtsira on Zombies ... Ya Herd Me!

7 months ago

After facing it in a Wilhelt deck, I humbly recommend Relentless Dead.

Good source of reanimation, and for Wilhelt, free card draw

TheOfficialCreator on Undead Augur or Relentless Dead?

1 year ago

That's about what I figured. If recursion becomes too much of a problem in the future, 1 or 2 of Call of the Death-Dweller might be worth looking into, and even those are generally better than Relentless Dead.

Dead_Blue_ on Undead Augur or Relentless Dead?

1 year ago

I think Relentless Dead has more synergy but why not run both? What does the rest of your list look like?

Also I forget the name but there’s a black version of Fling that would fit into your deck nicely as a win con for the massive Carrion Feeder

TheOfficialCreator on Undead Augur or Relentless Dead?

1 year ago

Howdy! I'm currently working on a competitive Modern build centering around the Pitiless Plunderer/Gravecrawler/Carrion Feeder combo: Pitiless Gravecrawler

When trying to figure out how to get more card draw, I came across the card Undead Augur, which has performed fairly well in playtesting, being a decent chump blocker and even a payoff for our combo (though sometimes we can get close to killing ourselves with the life loss before we hit our Zulaport Cutthroat or Blood Artist).

However, I also recently rediscovered the card Relentless Dead, which not only serves as a slightly crueler attacker than Augur, but also a payoff for our self-mill and graveyard tutor strategies. The only gripe I have with it is that it would normally grab Carrion Feeder, but in most situations I would be sacrificing it to Carrion Feeder, and Gravecrawler has built in casting anyway.

What do you think?

sdtech58 on The Scarab God Zombie Tribal

1 year ago

Gray Merchant of Asphodel - life drain/gain. Bounce him a few times for maximum benefit

Havengul Lich - reanimation source. Has underperformed in games for me. Borderline

Headless Rider - tokens

Midnight Reaper - card draw

Murderous Rider - spot removal if needed. Versatile

Noxious Ghoul - one-sided board wipe potential

Plague Belcher - potential sac outlet, death trigger payoff

Relentless Dead - recurrence, reanimate

Shepherd of Rot - life drain. ALL players. Don't kill yourself...

Sidisi, Undead Vizier - tutor, sac outlet and big body

Undead Augur - card draw

Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver - alternate commander. Tokens and sac outlet

Zombie Master - reanimation, swampwalk. Nice when Urborg is on the field!!