Corpse Charger

The chargers broke onto the tournament scene with relatively mixed reviews. While many players saw great potential in many of these cards, nearly the same amount of nay-sayers pointed to their increased casting cost for already existing effects and cried foul. Now enough time has passed including two of the truly greatest test – the 2005 North American Continental Championship and the 2005 British National Championship.

Corpse Charger…when you think about the name chills are likely to run up your spine (or perhaps that’s just the cold winter weather…). I’m not referring to the “moridness” of the name – I’m referring to anyone who have had to be on the receiving end of  witness that creature you just put of our your misery returning yet again. Both of the Parker Brothers (Lee 3^rd place 2005 British Nationals and Chris 2^nd place 2005 British Nationals) and Tom Capor (1^st place 2005 NACC) choose to run two in their Water/Darkness/Fire decks. Yep…chilling.

Purpose:

Corpse Charger does not technically do anything that we had not already seen before. Dark Reversal from all the way back in the Base set does the same thing only for cheaper and on a shield trigger to boot.

Corpse Charger goes beyond creature recursion, though. Like all the other chargers, Corpse Charger is a mana accelerator, granting you the potential to field more powerful creatures and spells than you might otherwise be capable. In fact, with the likes of Corpse Charger and some other early nature mana acceleration you could easily be looking at playing hefty casting cost cards such as Bagagazeal Dragon as early as turn five!

Combining Coprse Charger with cards which return mana to your hand has rapidly become a popular strategy. With these cards you can play the Volcano Charger again and again so long as you can continue to return it from the mana zone. Example of this function can be found in the likes of Shtra and Mystic Dreamscape, however it is likely no other mana recycling card is a popular or as easily potent as Thrash Crawler has proved to be. In fact, when properly played, Corpse Charger with Thrash Crawler and easily mean an infinite blocker no matter how much kill your opponent throws at it!

Type of Decks:

Rush

Corpse Charger simply is not a rush spell. At four casting cost the price is beginning to become a little hefty. Also, the additional mana provided by Corpse Charger really isn’t all that attractive to rush decks. If you need any recursion at all in this style of deck you are definitely better of sticking with Dark Reversal.

Agro

Agro can make better use of Corpse Charger as slightly larger amounts of mana tend to become an issue. Mid-game concerns also play into the utility of Corpse Charger and returning that Crystal Paladin at just the right time can quickly turn a stalemate into game and match. 

Control

Corpse Charger loves control…and control loves Corpse Charger. Elimination of controls limited amount of fatties has always been a problem. Some players have attempted to resolve this with Dark Reversal and others and had a good deal of success using Gigargon. Corpse Charger fits right in the middle there and likely contributes to control decks better than either.

Ratings:

Constucted

While you would never build a deck specifically around Corpse Charger, it is surely a card anyone playing Darkness would heed to considering it carefully. The ability to return Thrash Crawler every turn alone makes Corpse Charger a powerhouse and bumping your mana while replaying Aqua Hulcus to search for that finisher is a great way to get the job done. 3.25 out of 5.

Limited

Any recursion in limited is strong – Corpse Charger is no exception. While the mana acceleration may not be as needed it can contribute to the race to a fatty an assist in breaking any of those “to many blocker stale mates.” 4 out of 5.