This card combos well with Gather Specimens. When Living goes to the stack you respond with this. Result: Wrath of God +Liliana Vess's Ultimate ability! A part of this combo, is a great card, but you have to wait too much. Or its suspend ability costs too much... 3.5/5
(Side note: Cascading into it WILL work. This has a CMC of 0, and will be cast without the need to suspend it when either of the aforementioned Cascade cards hit it.)
It's such a cheap, fun deck to make and use. XD
Aun
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Yay, Hypergenesis in Black.
Razbot
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(4 votes)
@Alun What? This isn't Hypergenisis at all. It's suspended Living Death
supershawn
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
so if I sacrifice all my creatures right before this goes off, I basically get all my creatures back, while my opponent will only get back the crappy creatures in their graveyard that they sacrificed earlier in the game (because I told them too) or no creatures if they were generating enough tokens to avoid putting anything in their graveyard...
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Polychromatic
★★★★☆ (4.7/5.0)(3 votes)
I love cards that combo with additional copies of themselves.
May the Living End never... well, end.
DarthParallax
★★★☆☆ (3.9/5.0)(4 votes)
Living Death is better, yeah...but honestly, when you consider Buried Alive and three Worldgorger Dragons....this is reasonable. you know, for pretending to be playing fair.
SeiberTross
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(3 votes)
Yes living death is better if you don't think about it.
But if you're making a just silly cascade deck Evoke & Cycle creatures such as this one by superchibi
The rest of the deck can just be suspend and cycle. Add in 6-8 Cascade cards, and you have yourself a wicked, wicked deck that is very hard to get around unless you happen to be playing something similar
Rikiaz
★★★★☆ (4.7/5.0)(3 votes)
I can't believe no one has said this yet. Use it in a dredge deck. Suspend it and then Dredge and Traumatize until it goes off. That way you fill up your graveyard and you can't mill it by accident like you can Living Death
@NeverendingDream: I'm not sure what you're suggesting with that comment, but let's clear up how Grafdigger's Cage interacts with Living End and it's Cascading combo.
Cascade says that you exile cards from your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. Then you may cast it. So you're casting the card from exile, not from the library. Grafdigger's Cage can't stop the combo there.
Living End says to exile all creature cards from graveyards, then sacrifice all creatures, then put the exiled creatures onto the battlefield. So the creatures enter play from exile, not the graveyard. Grafdigger's Cage doesn't stop the combo there. If Grafdigger's Cage is the graveyard hate of choice, then Living End will be just fine.
pedrodyl
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
A reason to run multiple Living Death effects in your EDH deck.
If you're sneaky and you time it right, this can be an instant speed Damnation that kills all attacking creatures in addition to recurring big, evasive dudes with cycling, echo, or evoke.
Adding Fulminator Mage and Avalanche Riders to the mix means it's harder for them to wrath you as you pop upwards of 6 lands by turn 6. The deck is also naturally strong to cards like Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek since most of the cards in your deck are creatures cmc 4 or greater.
For more controlling builds, Architects of Will can be used to strand your opponent with cards they can't necessarily play during the turn you go off.
According to Travis Woo of Channel Fireball and self-proclaimed originator of the deck archetype, the deck mulligans really well, seeing as all of your early plays are instant speed and replace themselves via drawing another card or searching for the right land.
Missile_Penguin
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(4 votes)
Every card in Time Spiral was a throwback to at least one previously printed card.
This card references Living Death and is part of a cycle of rares featuring the Suspend mechanic and having no mana cost, forcing you to suspend them as the primary way to cast them. The cards all callback to one of the color's most powerful spells ever; the others are Ancestral Vision, Wheel of Fate, Hypergenesis, Restore Balance, and Lotus Bloom.
As these cards have no mana cost, they must be suspended to be played from your hand, but abilities such as Cascade treat these cards as if their converted mana cost is 0, allowing you to skirt around suspend and play them immediately!
Krysto
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
While not necessarily the best, this is definitely a potential win-condition if used right. Casting it can most certainly alter the way your opponent plays in that they'll be less likely to intentionally kill off any of your creatures, maybe even putting them in the mindset to TAKE chump attacks rather than block to put them in the grave. Furthermore, unlike Living Death, this gives you a 3 turn fuse to prepare for it, meaning JUST before upkeep 3, you can mass-sacrifice, discard, mill or whatever to fill your graveyard up. Point is, ensure that when (and if) turn 3 rolls around, you have a much bigger pile of creatures to enter the battlefield than your opponent and steamroll for the win. Not exactly a tournament worthy card, but definitely exploitable.
Aremath
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
Not necessarily worse than Living Death since you can tutor for it, then cast it for free using cards like Violent Outburst, assuming you have no other cards costing less. What, you may ask, am I doing on turns 1 and 2 then? Cycling Deadshot Minotaurs of course! But seriously, this thing's interaction with cycling and cascade makes it modern viable.
jealkeja
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I had someone side in Grafdigger's Cage against me. Unfortunately for him it didn't exactly work out the way he expected.
IndubitableSalmon
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Would have rated it 3/5 before Alara Reborn, but now anything below 5/5 is a severe underestimation. I mean it.
Really, 'Reborn added all that was needed to make this card the corepiece of a grade-A death-machine: Notice how this card's converted manacost is 0; that means you can Cascade into it with.. uhh.. anything. If you pick the lowest-manacosted cascade-triggers you find, put them together witha few sacrifice-based creatures at the same cmc, round it up with a couple of Alara's beefy cyclers to fill your yard (and later board) with, and you're set and ready to rock a pro-tour with a bunch of cards that aren't but meh by themselves.
jerkoid
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I'm confused why you guys keep saying you'd prefer living death. Are you worried about it coming out slower? This doesn't have a CMC! Just cascade into it!
Comments (27)
A part of this combo, is a great card, but you have to wait too much. Or its suspend ability costs too much...
3.5/5
T4: Violent Outburst / Demonic Dread, cascading into this.
T5: lol
(Side note: Cascading into it WILL work. This has a CMC of 0, and will be cast without the need to suspend it when either of the aforementioned Cascade cards hit it.)
It's such a cheap, fun deck to make and use. XD
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
May the Living End never... well, end.
But if you're making a just silly cascade deck Evoke & Cycle creatures such as this one by superchibi
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/785
The rest of the deck can just be suspend and cycle. Add in 6-8 Cascade cards, and you have yourself a wicked, wicked deck that is very hard to get around unless you happen to be playing something similar
Cascade says that you exile cards from your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. Then you may cast it. So you're casting the card from exile, not from the library. Grafdigger's Cage can't stop the combo there.
Living End says to exile all creature cards from graveyards, then sacrifice all creatures, then put the exiled creatures onto the battlefield. So the creatures enter play from exile, not the graveyard. Grafdigger's Cage doesn't stop the combo there. If Grafdigger's Cage is the graveyard hate of choice, then Living End will be just fine.
@ pedrodyl: Not a reason, an opportunity.
Adding Fulminator Mage and Avalanche Riders to the mix means it's harder for them to wrath you as you pop upwards of 6 lands by turn 6. The deck is also naturally strong to cards like Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek since most of the cards in your deck are creatures cmc 4 or greater.
For more controlling builds, Architects of Will can be used to strand your opponent with cards they can't necessarily play during the turn you go off.
According to Travis Woo of Channel Fireball and self-proclaimed originator of the deck archetype, the deck mulligans really well, seeing as all of your early plays are instant speed and replace themselves via drawing another card or searching for the right land.
This card references Living Death and is part of a cycle of rares featuring the Suspend mechanic and having no mana cost, forcing you to suspend them as the primary way to cast them. The cards all callback to one of the color's most powerful spells ever; the others are Ancestral Vision, Wheel of Fate, Hypergenesis, Restore Balance, and Lotus Bloom.
As these cards have no mana cost, they must be suspended to be played from your hand, but abilities such as Cascade treat these cards as if their converted mana cost is 0, allowing you to skirt around suspend and play them immediately!
Not exactly a tournament worthy card, but definitely exploitable.
I mean it.
Really, 'Reborn added all that was needed to make this card the corepiece of a grade-A death-machine:
Notice how this card's converted manacost is 0; that means you can Cascade into it with.. uhh.. anything. If you pick the lowest-manacosted cascade-triggers you find, put them together witha few sacrifice-based creatures at the same cmc, round it up with a couple of Alara's beefy cyclers to fill your yard (and later board) with, and you're set and ready to rock a pro-tour with a bunch of cards that aren't but meh by themselves.