I was hyped for this guy when he was revealed, I run a heavily tribal commander deck and having a creature that I can recur so easily from the grave was just the combo piece I was looking for.
Phyrexian Altar is very good alongside gravecrawler. Gravecrawler, the altar and diregraf are good cards in their own right which leads to good synergy in the deck. Rooftop storm is best used with Havengul Lich
I once farted during the final match for prizes at an FNM. It was a tense moment, everything was quiet, control vs control, I was about to mana leak, thought about it.. and farted. Then mana leaked.
Seriously..drawing one Gravecrawler brings all your other ones back..it's an absolute pain to deal with.
Agreed, the one thing I have noticed is that vs red they are as good as useless. Nothing more disheartening then trying to lay the beatdown and getting outrun by chandra's phoenix (couldnt block anyway), berserkers, and hellriders O.o...then again like bloodghast if this fellow could block he would be over the top ridiculous. I do wonder how a legless torso hits as hard as a trained soldier (Thalia), or how it hits as hard as a young girl in a loincloth with no combat training (Melira)..or how a legless torso is just as durable as a legendary muscle bound barbarian....(Kamahl, Pit Fighter)
Zombie Tribal has a chance to be good here. (Mono black is the best option I think). We have a semi-respectable curve, and while we only have one, possibly two, playable two drop zombies (our favorite black cat, and maybe highborn ghoul), we could fill the two drop slot with removal spells such as doom blade or go for the throat, or discard like distress, duress, despise and more. Monoblack could even sideboard Victim of Night for certain matchups like Delver or W/B humans.
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I don't understand why people compare it to bloodghast. Its superior in this meta.
Anyway, this guy is absolutely hilarious. With undying evil and your undying zombies, you are sure to have a zombie out even after a wrath. I think semi-aggro zombie may be a viable deck with
gravecrawler
geralfs messenger
black cat
highborn ghoul.
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On jace
By WeNeedControl
i tested jace tonight and its one of the worst planeswalkers. it never really does anything except make u lose. i suggest u sell yours for 17 each like i did.
then again on valakut
ROFL what? Valakut? The best card in standard is Jace the mind Sculptor
hm.... interesting.
Haters gonna hate on my jank decks.
Honestly, Gravecrawler is just an oustanding aggro 1-drop for black PERIOD. Trying to fit him into a combo makes for a weaker deck than just running him in a fast zombie aggro deck.
Honestly, Gravecrawler is just an oustanding aggro 1-drop for black PERIOD. Trying to fit him into a combo makes for a weaker deck than just running him in a fast zombie aggro deck.
That's definitely true for Standard, where most of the infinite combos rely on things like Lightning Storm, which are janky by themselves. In the bigger formats, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being a combo piece.
But yeah, I plan to just run it as an aggressive black creature. Having another solid one-drop zombie helps, and you do plenty of damage before eventually dropping a Phyrexian Obliterator to seal the deal.
Not a combo but it will be fun trying to keep up with the lil 1dmg pings.
Gravecrawler out, Grimgrin out and a Captain out...
Sac GC to UT/+1+1 Grimgrin and do 1 life loss to opponent, attack with grimgrin, (either before or after attack) recast Gravecrawler and resac to untap/+1+1 Grim and 1 life loss, then recast again...keeps Grim open to block, buffs him twice, and does 2 damage to the opponent unredirectable.
well he is no bloodghast. and bloodghast never really did anything that major
What?
B/R Vamps was pretty good while it was in Standard, and Bloodghast was a king there, and from the testing I've been doing, this guy is better than Bloodghast in almost every situation other than your opponent having less than 10 life.
I once farted during the final match for prizes at an FNM. It was a tense moment, everything was quiet, control vs control, I was about to mana leak, thought about it.. and farted. Then mana leaked.
Bloodghast was good because of Kalastria Highborn. Gravecrawler has no such combos (unless you really want to count grimgrin, who I doubt will ever see standard play).
Bloodghast was good because of Kalastria Highborn. Gravecrawler has no such combos (unless you really want to count grimgrin, who I doubt will ever see standard play).
Considering a guy at my LGS was clobbering with his Grimgrin deck *before* Gravecrawler (and Diregraf Captain), I don't think it's wise to write this off as a useless combo.
After losing to that deck so many times, I decided to build my own with Gravecrawlers and Liches. We'll see how it goes.
Spirits clearly got the most love in DKA, but Zombies aren't looking too shabby, either.
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Yeah. Cards that are easy to recur like Grave crawler, with sac engines like Grimgrin, and Diregraf Captains can be pretty harsh. I never really got why a lot of people said that these decks were bad. With the new lich it gives you access to even more recursion abilities, meaning you're more resistant to removal, and you have some really strong cards that work wellwell withyour sac engines.
Why's it need a combo? It's a black two power one-drop that recurs itself for 1 mana any time you have a zombie out.
Don't lose sight of the fact that two power black one drops are few and far between. To have a card that is better than a vanilla 2/1 for B is ridiculous. You could run him as a 4 of in an aggressive mono black deck with no other zombies; every time you draw another copy you get all the previous ones back. That kind of thing is hard to deal with. The fact that you can build your deck to abuse it even more is just more benefit.
Between gravecrawler and delver of secrets, UB got 8 aggro 1 drops with the tool to protect and enhance them, on top of some of the best GY recursion engines. UB zombies are certainly a contender in standard and gravecrawler is their herald.
Sick card is sick. Another reason survival needs to stay banned in legacy as if vengevine wasn't good enough can you imagine 4x gravecrawler 4x vengevine in a survival deck? Seems to be the nuts.
If nothing else he's a jungle lion for black. That alone is quite potent. The fact that he produces card advantage is ridiculously powerful; this guy will be a huge annoyance to control decks as long as he's standard legal. This guy is quite powerful, end of story.
Expect a tier 1 deck utilizing this guy to come out of nowhere at some big event and have gravecrawler take it down. I know I wouldn't be surprised.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Its not that gravecrawler is nuts. Yes he is good. Its the other zombies around him that make him so much value. Messenger is backbreaking when they are trying to race you.
Know what your opponent does there? Not a damn thing or uses a spell on gravecrawler. Then they run out a blocker on their turn. You untap and play Smallpox saccing the cat and discarding another gravecrawler. Cast the gravecralwer from your yard. I haven't found a deck in standard that can recover.
The new suicide black is nothing like ever was before. It now has massive card advantage, land destruction, and hand disruption all at the same time without ever losing any tempo.
Now to put things in perspective Grafdigger's Cage completely shuts you down with absolutely 0 answers.
ok guys, time for some real fun. gutter grime, this guy, and any sac outlet. gutter grime deck is go! turn 6: make 6 6/6 ooze creatures. now lets not stop just there, geralf's messenger, loves this sac fun as well.
Now to put things in perspective Grafdigger's Cage completely shuts you down with absolutely 0 answers.
This has always been a problem with mono-black - no way to deal with artifacts and enchantments. The best you can do is a turn 1 Duress, but the loss in tempo is kind of painful.
I always consider splashing green or white in my otherwise mono-black decks, specifically for Naturalize or Beast Within type effects. Red works too, if you're not worried about enchantments. I guess blue might be able to do it too with some kind of Steel Sabotage -> Duress combination, but that's kind of sub-optimal.
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Vengeful Dead or Diregraf Captain with a sac outlet (preferably one that can generate the mana to recast Gravecrawler such as Phyrexian Altar, if you don't have Rooftop Storm out).
Having been able to use this both in 1v1 and multiplayer commander games, it is insane, unless they have a response in hand, it's gg.
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Seriously..drawing one Gravecrawler brings all your other ones back..it's an absolute pain to deal with.
Agreed, the one thing I have noticed is that vs red they are as good as useless. Nothing more disheartening then trying to lay the beatdown and getting outrun by chandra's phoenix (couldnt block anyway), berserkers, and hellriders O.o...then again like bloodghast if this fellow could block he would be over the top ridiculous. I do wonder how a legless torso hits as hard as a trained soldier (Thalia), or how it hits as hard as a young girl in a loincloth with no combat training (Melira)..or how a legless torso is just as durable as a legendary muscle bound barbarian....(Kamahl, Pit Fighter)
sig by Sioux
Except carry a Skullclamp like a champ. And Gravecrawler does it better.
Anyway, this guy is absolutely hilarious. With undying evil and your undying zombies, you are sure to have a zombie out even after a wrath. I think semi-aggro zombie may be a viable deck with
gravecrawler
geralfs messenger
black cat
highborn ghoul.
By WeNeedControl
then again on valakut
hm.... interesting.
Haters gonna hate on my jank decks.
these three cards in a deck (plus maybe bloodghast) make for an interesting board presence.
add some blue filtering/graveyard filling (a-la mental note, thought scour, tome scour, hedron crab and think twice)
and then maybe round everything off with narcomoeba for lolz
CG
That's definitely true for Standard, where most of the infinite combos rely on things like Lightning Storm, which are janky by themselves. In the bigger formats, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being a combo piece.
But yeah, I plan to just run it as an aggressive black creature. Having another solid one-drop zombie helps, and you do plenty of damage before eventually dropping a Phyrexian Obliterator to seal the deal.
Gravecrawler out, Grimgrin out and a Captain out...
Sac GC to UT/+1+1 Grimgrin and do 1 life loss to opponent, attack with grimgrin, (either before or after attack) recast Gravecrawler and resac to untap/+1+1 Grim and 1 life loss, then recast again...keeps Grim open to block, buffs him twice, and does 2 damage to the opponent unredirectable.
Standard
WBGWBGABZAN AGGROWBGWBG
What?
B/R Vamps was pretty good while it was in Standard, and Bloodghast was a king there, and from the testing I've been doing, this guy is better than Bloodghast in almost every situation other than your opponent having less than 10 life.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=10332184&postcount=124
Considering a guy at my LGS was clobbering with his Grimgrin deck *before* Gravecrawler (and Diregraf Captain), I don't think it's wise to write this off as a useless combo.
After losing to that deck so many times, I decided to build my own with Gravecrawlers and Liches. We'll see how it goes.
Spirits clearly got the most love in DKA, but Zombies aren't looking too shabby, either.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
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Don't lose sight of the fact that two power black one drops are few and far between. To have a card that is better than a vanilla 2/1 for B is ridiculous. You could run him as a 4 of in an aggressive mono black deck with no other zombies; every time you draw another copy you get all the previous ones back. That kind of thing is hard to deal with. The fact that you can build your deck to abuse it even more is just more benefit.
If nothing else he's a jungle lion for black. That alone is quite potent. The fact that he produces card advantage is ridiculously powerful; this guy will be a huge annoyance to control decks as long as he's standard legal. This guy is quite powerful, end of story.
Expect a tier 1 deck utilizing this guy to come out of nowhere at some big event and have gravecrawler take it down. I know I wouldn't be surprised.
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Turn 1 gravecrawler > Turn 2 Black Cat.
Know what your opponent does there? Not a damn thing or uses a spell on gravecrawler. Then they run out a blocker on their turn. You untap and play Smallpox saccing the cat and discarding another gravecrawler. Cast the gravecralwer from your yard. I haven't found a deck in standard that can recover.
The new suicide black is nothing like ever was before. It now has massive card advantage, land destruction, and hand disruption all at the same time without ever losing any tempo.
Now to put things in perspective Grafdigger's Cage completely shuts you down with absolutely 0 answers.
This has always been a problem with mono-black - no way to deal with artifacts and enchantments. The best you can do is a turn 1 Duress, but the loss in tempo is kind of painful.
I always consider splashing green or white in my otherwise mono-black decks, specifically for Naturalize or Beast Within type effects. Red works too, if you're not worried about enchantments. I guess blue might be able to do it too with some kind of Steel Sabotage -> Duress combination, but that's kind of sub-optimal.