Pointed Discussion

I like how she's a ghost of a zombie. That's awesome. Hey Wizards, in your next Tribal set, you should add spirits that return to play or can be played at no cost if a shared creature type goes to your graveyard.

Great card, especially in non-zombie decks. There she draws you a card each turn, and can block and attack.

In general, it's a Phyrexian Arena on legs. Unless you play her a second time, then it's like having out four of them.
In a Zombie deck, it's a crazy card advantage suicide fellow. You'll have to find a way to compensate the lifeloss with stuff like Tainted Sigil or sacrifice her (to Carrion Feeder or Fleshbag Marauder for example) after she refilled your hand.
Being a Spirit, she does a good drawing job in such a tribal as well, of course.
(As sweetestsadist said, Zombie Spirit is some really innovative creature combination :D)

Bob, meet phyrexian arena. Arena, meet Dark Confidant. A bit too pricy to see legacy play at the level bob does, but in a slow format like EDH, Muse will out perform Dark confidant. And if you have a zombie EDH deck... *shudder* Just remember the Reliquary Spire.

This card can be a key player in a zombie deck. While you do have to be careful not to kill your self by using it at the wrong time, the real beauty of this card is that it excelerates your game imensly, and if you are playing heavy aggro zombies the 3/3 body coupled with your other forces (often lords to boost it by at least +1/+1) you may very well kill your opponents before they can shut down your Graveborn Muse.

If all goes well you never even need an answer for all the life you are loosing, usaly you will have made your final stand before that becomes relivant. But if you are worried about the life you will lose, keep a fleshbag or carrion feeder in hand (or in the worst case a nameless inversion).

Basicly this card will give you tons of card advantage. Card advantage your opponents can not ignore.

In a mono-black zombie deck this card screams suicide black, and let me tell you; Few cards do justice to suicide black like Graveborn Muse.

@Mode

You are completly right about it being a Phyrexian Arena on legs, if you are running mono-black zombie aggro either will do a fine job at keeping your draw going, it really is a just a matter of taste.

Also on a personal note; Mode you leave some of my all time favorite comments on cards in general. Keep up the great work. =)

Re: Phyrexian Arena vs. this, I would probably come down on the side of the enchantment about 95% of the time. Giving your card-draw engine legs, to me, just makes it more vulnerable. I actually do play a zombie deck, and I just can't embrace her, because to me she puts me too precariously close to death after even one upkeep. Were I to build around her, that'd be a different story, I suppose...

@ Silverware: Totally agree with you about Mode. I will often scroll through a card's comments to see if he/she has offered any pearls of wisdom or wit!

I'm a huge fan of this card. I have her as a 1-of in my Zombie Aggro deck, along with a Corpse Harvester to fetch her up if necessary. 2x Consume Spirit and a Tendrils of Corruption help with the lifeloss, and my usual sac outlet is Fleshbag Marauder. Always good fun to play with.

Did anybody else notice that this printing's art is cropped a bit?

Counteracting the life drain of the Muse with the life gain of Escaped Null definitely helped with the playability of this card in my Zombie deck. 5/5

I'd say Phyrexian Arena is better in non-zombie decks, otherwise the Muse definitely wins; free Ancestral Recalls every turn can't be bad at all.

@sweetestsadist
That's a real great idea! After I read your comment I created some cards in Magic Set Editor with the ability Recurrence which is inspired by your post. Pretty cool idea.

Thanks to the Innistrad set, this and a whole bunch of zombie-based cards can really make your deck frightful.

It is technically better than Bloodgift Demon in terms of effect, but I suppose you may not want to draw at some point. You may also want to file yourself into Arkham Asylum because you are MENTALLY INSANE!

But seriously, include this, Psychosis Crawler, Venser's Journal and something like Grimoire of the Dead as an added bonus and... well... F**k.

That is actually how my EDH deck is working out, and I'm always the first to be killed. I WONDER WHY.

A Zombie Spirit, that is pretty weird.

Zombie...spirit?
Do zombies have spirits?

"John then looked on the ground and found wepon, so he picked it up and fired fast at zombie ghosts in front of a house"

Reminded me of the greatest fan fiction ever written

Fits in both zombie and spiritcraft decks, both of which welcome the card advantage. A good Phyrexian Arena on legs.

Played in a White/Black/Red Zombie deck with Dega Sanctuary.

John Freeman said “Zombie goasts leave this place” and the zombie goasts said “but this is our house” and John Freeman felt sorry for them becaus they couldnt live there anymore because they were zombie goasts so he blew up the house and killed the zombie goasts so they were at piece.

As with most black draw, you want to have this in a deck that can really put that draw to use. Usually that means fast mana + life steal.

It's a pretty simple concept and this card next to some zombie tokens + fast mana would take about 1 upkeep to push you way ahead of the opponent. Draw 3-4, ritual or two, exsanguinate.

You made a card profit, a life profit, and pushed towards a win con. Zombie aggro is much different and doesn't probably need her.

This card is a beast in my Sacrifice/Zombie tribal deck. Whether it's for steady card advantage or just a one turn five card draw, she always comes through for me. I mitigate her life drain with Blood Artist and the nature of my deck, along with her ability, means I'll usually have at least one Sacrifice card in hand.

In most decks I'd favour Bob or even Phyrexian Arena but following this up with Fleshbag Marauder or Innocent Blood after refilling my hand just makes me want to cackle evilly like the wicked necromancer my Planeswalker alter-ego should be!

Fellas... just add Lich! Liches can't lose life! How do you kill that which has no life? Well sure... deal damage or a simple Disenchant... but that's not my point!

Splash some {W} so you can protect yourself and run stuff like Necromancer's Convenant. Like most Lich builds... once you get going the only danger is decking yourself!

A lich with an army of zombies? That grow their master's power with every attack? Flavour win!