Skullbriar, the Walking Grave

Legendary Creature — Zombie Elemental

Haste

Whenever Skullbriar, the Walking Grave deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.

Counters remain on Skullbriar as it moves to any zone other than a player's hand or library.

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
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (51)

hyalopterouslemur on Rules Committee Gives Up Managing …

7 months ago

I miss the way they did precons. In the original precons, all the psychographs were represented. (Johnny would have a field day with all but the Mardu deck.) Here's how they stacked up:

Kaalia of the Vast Timmy and Spike

Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Timmy

Basandra, Battle Seraph Spike

Riku of Two Reflections Timmy and Johnny

Animar, Soul of Elements Timmy and Spike

Edric, Spymaster of Trest Spike

Ghave, Guru of Spores All three (Johnny likes the "combos with anything" nature of Ghave; Spike likes the sac outlet and the fact that you can use any +1/+1 counter for Ghave's abilities; Timmy likes an army of mushroom people.)

Karador, Ghost Chieftain Spike

Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter Spike

Zedruu the Greathearted *f-etch* Johnny

Ruhan of the Fomori Spike

Nin, the Pain Artist Johnny and Spike

The Mimeoplasm Johnny and Spike

Damia, Sage of Stone Spike

Skullbriar, the Walking Grave Timmy and Spike

Not that it was all Timmy and Johnny; the first precons did include a reprint of Skullclamp after all.

Look at the last precons? All eight of the new legends were designed for Spike. Where's the room for creativity on the part of players?

I admit that some of the changes to EDH have been fine. (I joke that nobody used instants before 2014. Which is somewhat true, people were more concerned with card advantage with their answers than they were with actual, you know, answers.) But I would like some legends to be designed for Johnny or Timmy.

scottbaker91 on Budget Meren Eldrazi spawn

1 year ago

I think Hand of Emrakul, Decimator of the Provinces, Kozilek, the Great Distortion, and Pathrazer of Ulamog are too expensive to cast / commander ability for what they do. Some replacement examples would be: Terastodon, Void Winnower, Fleshbag Marauder, Noxious Gearhulk, Ravenous Chupacabra, Plaguecrafter, Eternal Witness, It That Betrays, Woodfall Primus, Acidic Slime, Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, Sepulchral Primordial, Overseer of the Damned, etc.

cards like Dalek Squadron with a sac outlet will get you a lot of Meren counters quickly. cards like Greater Good are great at filling your graveyard and your hand. cards like Oversold Cemetery are great for your low mana creatures and late game expensive creatures. Tragic Slip isn't a very good card for multiplayer commander, unless you are using something like Isochron Scepter

I think your deck is a little heavy on creature token generators, especially your creatures. I know they are there to build up tokens on Meren and to generate mana, in the early game, but they aren't doing much in the mid to late game. Maybe replace a few with some faster reanimator spells like: Living Death, Lifeline (a personal favorite), Necromancy, Animate Dead, Victimize, Rescue from the Underworld, Beacon of Unrest, etc.

Other cards I would consider cutting: Skullbriar, the Walking Grave (too slow imo unless he is your commander), Blisterpod (needs to die to get the token), Pawn of Ulamog, Vorapede, Village Rites, Gray Merchant of Asphodel (starts to shine with lots of reanimator stuff), Woe Strider, Scion Summoner, Brood Monitor, Deathreap Ritual, Commander's Sphere

It's tough to suggest cards for a budget deck. A card that I might consider to be absolutely necessary could require cheaper options in other parts of the deck to make it fit.

Rhyno52 on Death's Shadow Scavanger

1 year ago

Corpsejack Menace is far too much mana cost for what he does and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave doesn't add much to the Main theme of the deck so i don't know why i should include any of these.

jdogz32 on Death's Shadow Scavanger

1 year ago

I love this deck I was actually wanting to build it last night but I couldn't find your deck in my saves. The version I started making had alot more creatures in it. Is there a reason you don't add Corpsejack Menace or Skullbriar, the Walking Grave

multimedia on Muldrotha: Budget Elemental Tribe!

2 years ago

Hey, just saw your update. Something to think about for gameplay, is it more important to you to have Muldrotha on the battlefield or many Elementals? Having both is asking too much because Muldrotha requires much setup and Elementals don't provide that setup. Muldrotha is a go-tall Commander, but you're playing as go-wide with many small Elementals. This conflict of what Muldrotha wants and what the rest of your deck is doing is most likely hindering gameplay.

Your deck is not built to go-wide with Elementals because you don't have any Elemental tribal lords, anthem effects and no early game Elemental token sources to flood the battlefield with Elementals. Lords are needed to make little Elementals actual good attackers so that you can swarm opponent. You're best attackers other than Muldrotha when it has evasion are the Elementals who can grow themselves. These Elementals are go-tall strategy not go-wide, having a large power/toughness Elemental for an attacker, instead of many little Elementals.

You're not going to like my next suggestions, but now that you've seen that your deck is struggling, some changes could help? My advice is build your deck first to maximize Muldrotha and second add in Elementals after doing so? Cut the weaker Elementals for more Muldrotha synergy especially draw/self-mill, ramp, protection and removal? Just play the better Elementals? I'm not suggesting to change your deck strategies, keep Elementals, +1/+1 counters and proliferate, but tone them down in favor of Muldrotha?

---

An example of a streamline Elemental base using current Elementals (by CMC):

• Embodiment of Spring: ramp.
• Skullbriar, the Walking Grave: beater or blocker.
• Omnath, Locus of Mana: ramp, beater or blocker.
• Risen Reef: draw, Elemental tribal synergy.
• Splinterfright: self-mill, beater or blocker.
• Forgotten Ancient: counters engine.
• Bloom Hulk: proliferate engine.
• Foundation Breaker: removal.
• Cavalier of Gales: draw, beater or blocker.
• Cavalier of Night: sac engine, removal, blocker.
• Mulldrifter: draw.
• Night Incarnate: removal, creature board wipe.
• Shriekmaw: removal.
• AEthersnipe: removal.
• Zendikar's Roil: Elemental tokens.
• Nissa of Shadowed Boughs: Elemental lands.

I left Slitherwisp off the list because you don't have any other cards with flash? Without other cards with flash, Slitherwisp isn't worth a deck spot. Now you could add cards to give spells flash, but even so Muldrotha doesn't work with flash since you can only during your turn cast permanents from your graveyard.

Flash doesn't get around this Muldrotha restriction. You can flash at any point during your turn, but not on opponent's turns which defeats the purpose of flash. Spending your mana in the early turns for ramp, evoke Elementals, self-mill and draw is better to setup Muldrotha then having many Elementals on the battlefield.

Just adding a small package of nonElemental budget creatures that have excellent interaction with Muldrotha and Cavalier of Night could help gameplay.

• Eternal Witness: recursion.
• Sakura-Tribe Elder: ramp.
• Satyr Wayfinder: self-mill.
• Siren Stormtamer: protection.
• Dockside Chef: draw and sac outlet.
• Plaguecrafter: removal.
• Haywire Mite: removal.

Stardragon on Got a bone to pick?

2 years ago

legendofa Made some changes to the cards and made a new card

Smoldering Bones- Made the Regen cost more clear

Lord- Switched his P/T around

Skull Hammer- Made the Regen thing more clear and gave a powerful boost (Skelly need this power till wizards gives support to them (and other less popular tribes))

Calc- Made it a 2/3 and found a different pic thats not cropped

Agamemnon- Fixed the non-token problem and made tweaked his entire kit to make him a hybrid of token swarm/control (Discard, tax and graveyard hate)

Living Death- cut out the Avatar of part of his name, Took off Ward 4 as he's a chunky boy to begin with and gave him menace instead, Weakened his lord effect to just give undead creatures Persist and not menace. And reworked his Skullbriar, the Walking Grave esk effect to make more manageable (hopefully)

Added a Skelly in case some one Bojuka Bog's your graveyard make them regret that

Stardragon on Got a bone to pick?

2 years ago

legendofa

Ik Skullbriar, the Walking Grave isn't ment to be to go anywhere except field and command zone but it's Wizards fault for wording the ability the way it is I may tinker with it a bit for balance and ease of tracking sake (may because of that ability creatures can only have 1 +1/+1 counter at a time?) Hmmm. But have you ever had to fight a -1/-1 counter deck while playing a +1/+1 counter copy deck with another player playing a token deck gods that that game was insane to keep track of.

A couple are probably a bit OP will tinker with them when I have time

legendofa on Got a bone to pick?

2 years ago

Skullbriar, the Walking Grave isn't really intended to be exiled or go to the graveyard, just shuttle between battlefield and command zone, and it's only one card, as opposed to the stacks of Gravecrawler and Reassembling Skeleton and all I would put into an Avatar of Living Death deck. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really cool idea. It just might be a challenge to track properly.

Outside of that, I appreciate the responses to my comments. If you get into testing them, don't take my comments as absolutes--keep working them until they feel right, and some of them will probably end up closer to your original cards than my suggestion revisions. I would happily volunteer to help playtest, but I don't have any sort of group to test with right now...

Keep this up! Your work is great, and if I'm picking it to bits, it's only to make it as clean as possible. I do have a tendency to go underpowered instead of overpowered, so if I end up underbalancing a card, I apologize.