It's a combo card. As a self contained entity, this thing is worse than a swamp, but put it in the right deck, and you've got something going. Cards like this always find their niche but it takes a special person to appreciate it.
Enigma
★★★☆☆ (3.7/5.0)(6 votes)
Sideboarded against mill...
UltimaCenturion
★★☆☆☆ (2.9/5.0)(4 votes)
Are you guys kidding? This is an awesome card! Just mind funeral yourself and set off a Consume Spirit! Or that 4 cost critter with haste and swampbreathing. In fact, you could use this with fireball. There is a TON of stuff you can do with this land.
bram-s-wallace
★☆☆☆☆ (1.7/5.0)(3 votes)
Hello little mill deck, I've been waiting...
kitsunewarlock
★★★☆☆ (3.7/5.0)(5 votes)
I've made a really decent legacy deck with this and songs of the damned. I use Tortured Existence with Street Wraith and Dredge. I can generally get about 12 black creatures in my graveyard around turn 3. Then I can pull back my lost street wraith life with double Golgari Brownscale and finish off my opponent with a card like Soul Shriek or just some huge Consume Spirit.
The fact its not legendary means I can use one to power another one to get even more mana.
The fact it taps for Black means even if I don't have the required 4 creatures in my graveyard or two extra mana open, I can still use it to power cards like Tortured Existence or to play a Putrid Imp to get my Stinkweed Imp or other Dredge cards into my graveyard faster.
Its not a tier-1 or even competitive deck type though. Its not "kitchen table" though, as it can win by turn 3-4. It can probably even win turn 2 with the best hand possible (it involves dredging for 5 creatures turn 1 and getting off a songs of the damned to fuel a huge dredge and card drawing engine; then swing with a Soul Shrieked Extrator Demon for 20).
As for Standard, this card looks really good against Dredge.
This is a required card for any black EDH player. I don't care if you only have 4 black creatures in your deck. EDH is slow enough to support this card quite well, and non-basic land is the blood that fuels the format.
Designer_Genes
★☆☆☆☆ (1.8/5.0)(10 votes)
Odd. the effect on Cabal Coffers would have fit this set more flavorfully, and the effect on this would have fit Torment more flavorfully. Oh well. Also, this thing sucks.
It'd be still a somewhat weak card if it counted all creatures in your graveyard, but at least then it'd be playable.
The biggest problem with this card is, if you want it to work, you have to play too many creatures for it to get off smoothly. It's not worth the effort you'd have to put in to get it to work well.
Ballynock
★★★★☆ (4.2/5.0)(2 votes)
This card is amazing, and I have yet to have problems with the two I have in my deck. You only need five creatures in the graveyard for it to be effective, and that shouldn't be hard if you have say... 18 creatures, in the deck. People who don't play creature based decks will of course think the card sucks, but that is usually how it goes.
Ruins
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
it coulda been better i thought. coulda made it like gaea's cradle but for the GY.
Living Death/cycling would use this. still, it probably wont see much tourney play.
Ajani_is_da_man
★★☆☆☆ (2.0/5.0)(4 votes)
cable coffers wannabe
kittyspit
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
very good in a monoblack deck that uses a lot of attrition. especially when letting loose with looming shade or crypt ripper.
Demonic_Angel13
★★☆☆☆ (2.0/5.0)(1 vote)
The deck built around this is great, but its ability should only cost {B}.
Gaussgoat
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(5 votes)
This card is underrated, no question. There are a whole lotta effects that can be fueled with mana, and graveyards can fill up quickly.
4/5
izzet_guild_mage
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I've seen this thing do great things in a drawn out game...sure, it's not tourney gold, but in mono black agro, it can pay for all of your late game stuff all by its lonesome.
anachronism7
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This thing is great for mono-black vampire decks, which will be very popular in standard.
Razmataz24
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Play this with self milling via Tome Scour and Hedron Crabs. Mill unearth Creatures and use this baby to get mana off of them. mill yourself down a decent amount and unleash your army of unearth creatures. you can easily swing for over 25 on turn 6 or so.
You could sink a lot of mana from this thing into Unearth if you had good ways to fill up your bin; Sarkhan the Mad and Chandra Ablaze can both chow down on your creature spells, and Thought Gorger, well, gorges on them. If you're in Grixis colours this fixes you to BBB for Cruel Ultimatum or Hellcarver Demon. Resilient, if a little slow, aggro-but arguably faster if you're less catastrophically thrown off by sweepers like Day of Judgement, Consuming Vapors and Bituminous Blast.
Sironos
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Omg, this rocks! It just takes a monoblack with some creatures, maybe some discard or sacrifice (which black has in abundance) and you're all set to get a shitload of mana every time you tap this thing. Definitely want one.
Azazyel
★★★☆☆ (3.9/5.0)(4 votes)
...I dunno. From the look and flavor of it (and how it echoes Cabal Coffers), one would think this might be directed towards accelerating mono-black aggro (more specifically vampires, considering the block), but once you contemplate it a bit, mono-black aggro wants creatures in play beating face, not in the graveyard. If anything, it wants to pull creatures out of the graveyard and into the battlefield, since it's all about blasting through the opponent before he or she stabilizes and you run out of steam.
Thus, this leaves this card as more of a combo piece, but then combo decks already have a lot of good acceleration to run over this. It could also function in mill (i.e. mill yourself, then use the accel to mill your opponent for a bajillion more), but mill is already a precarious enough strategy without wasting valuable offensive/protection slots on conditional mana accel, particularly one that comes into play tapped. Overall, whatever this card was trying to achieve along the deck archetypes, it didn't quite manage it.
Still, it does make me really happy that they're bringing mana accel back to black with this and Nirkana Revenant. It makes the fanboy in me dream of seeing Dark Ritual reprinted again.
poopooparty
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
I made a deck with these and a bunch of black cycling creatures( Jhessian zombies, igneous pouncer) then hit with huge consume spirits. Slow as heck and lost as much as I won, but was still a lot of fun to play.
coyotemoon722
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(9 votes)
Apparently no one commenting on this thing has heard of dredge...it's a pretty common deck people.
StaberFire
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
I run it as a 4-of in a Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker deck with tons of black weenies and sacrifice outlets. I sac all my creatures to a Bloodthrone Vampire and take a big swing, and now that my graveyard is stuffed with weenies, I power out an Archdemon of Unx with a Crypt or two. Then at the end of my turn all those weenies come back and I can start blasting them for a 2/2 zombie every turn. The crypt also helps to play Shirei in earlier turns so I can have the combos start going off after playing some fast-tempo aggro.
Iduno
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
I like it as a bit of a utility, it can just sit there and chill as a swamp as the game runs its course and ramp if your creatures die for whatever reason or you get milled, might not be a win con but it seems pretty useful.
zk3
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Necrotic Ooze causal decks can benefit for creatures as well as making your oozes huge with a shade in the grave
DacenOctavio
★★★★☆ (4.7/5.0)(3 votes)
Seems like the most playable rare lands in this set are Valakut, which has a deck around it, and Oran-Rief, which just makes green token decks more annoying. Emeria, the Sky Ruin seems playable in a mono white control deck with Sun Titan, but Magosi, the Waterveil is suffering from serious quirks.
Deepfried-Owls
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
I feel silly for consistently running this in a not mono-black deck.
NuclearMECCA
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Had a black sacrifice deck with two of these. It was usually slow at winning but still fun. But against serious mill decks or using dredge, this absolutely slaughters. Won 4 out of 5 games against mill with this card and Consume Spirit. Also gives plenty of mana to power sac engines using Reassembling Skeleton. In the right deck 4/5.
Zielheim
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Carnifex Demon loves this. What better way to use your dead creatures than to help make more dead ones for your opponent? Same with Birthing Pod, it basically allows you to by-pass paying that one mana and then builds up from there.
Lash_of_Dragonbreath
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I always run 4 in my zombie deck.
Another day I was playing against my friend's mill/control deck. This let me cast Army of the Damned and flashback it on the same turn.
Silence9
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
4/5. Love the artwork, and the little utility for Black! I am running 20 creatures in my mono black deck, so one sits in there nicely. Yes, one. Only one.
Trollking21
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@ coyotemoon You say no one has heard of dredge? Dredge can't pay the activation cost for this land and it also does nothing the deck wants it runs 12-14 land because it doesn't need land hell 4 of those 12 lands sac normally (cephalid coliseum) also assuming it wanted this kind if mana by the time this reasonably produces 3+ mana your already soooo far ahead you can't lose. Also you don't want hate to turn off your mana But I speak from a competitive standpoint
Am I the only one who calls it 'Crypt at Agadeem' I sure hope not...
3/5 Stars
Matsumoto
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
after Inistrade this cards power has gone up. with stuff like Cellar door fueling the graveyard and the battlefield, it's easy to power this up. Also there is more Self-mill with cards from Inns. Even with Liliana fueling discard...it's supper easy to hit that high mana pull...
Luther_Zenn
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I have done some crazy things with this and Mesmeric Orb. The turns after turn 3 start getting you crazy amounts of mana in a mono-black deck. And when your library starts to get slim, you only have to tap this and two lands to get a huge amount of mana to play your spells, reducing the number of untaps you have to do and conserving your library count (while your opponent is sweating as his or her library quickly diminishes).
Comments (36)
Just mind funeral yourself and set off a Consume Spirit!
Or that 4 cost critter with haste and swampbreathing.
In fact, you could use this with fireball.
There is a TON of stuff you can do with this land.
The fact its not legendary means I can use one to power another one to get even more mana.
The fact it taps for Black means even if I don't have the required 4 creatures in my graveyard or two extra mana open, I can still use it to power cards like Tortured Existence or to play a Putrid Imp to get my Stinkweed Imp or other Dredge cards into my graveyard faster.
Its not a tier-1 or even competitive deck type though. Its not "kitchen table" though, as it can win by turn 3-4. It can probably even win turn 2 with the best hand possible (it involves dredging for 5 creatures turn 1 and getting off a songs of the damned to fuel a huge dredge and card drawing engine; then swing with a Soul Shrieked Extrator Demon for 20).
As for Standard, this card looks really good against Dredge.
This is a required card for any black EDH player. I don't care if you only have 4 black creatures in your deck. EDH is slow enough to support this card quite well, and non-basic land is the blood that fuels the format.
It'd be still a somewhat weak card if it counted all creatures in your graveyard, but at least then it'd be playable.
The biggest problem with this card is, if you want it to work, you have to play too many creatures for it to get off smoothly. It's not worth the effort you'd have to put in to get it to work well.
Living Death/cycling would use this. still, it probably wont see much tourney play.
4/5
Thus, this leaves this card as more of a combo piece, but then combo decks already have a lot of good acceleration to run over this. It could also function in mill (i.e. mill yourself, then use the accel to mill your opponent for a bajillion more), but mill is already a precarious enough strategy without wasting valuable offensive/protection slots on conditional mana accel, particularly one that comes into play tapped. Overall, whatever this card was trying to achieve along the deck archetypes, it didn't quite manage it.
Still, it does make me really happy that they're bringing mana accel back to black with this and Nirkana Revenant. It makes the fanboy in me dream of seeing Dark Ritual reprinted again.
Another day I was playing against my friend's mill/control deck. This let me cast Army of the Damned and flashback it on the same turn.
You say no one has heard of dredge? Dredge can't pay the activation cost for this land and it also does nothing the deck wants it runs 12-14 land because it doesn't need land hell 4 of those 12 lands sac normally (cephalid coliseum) also assuming it wanted this kind if mana by the time this reasonably produces 3+ mana your already soooo far ahead you can't lose. Also you don't want hate to turn off your mana
But I speak from a competitive standpoint
Current record is 7 casts.
3/5 Stars