The problem with many cards with tribal elements
is their relative weakness outside of a tribal
deck, a problem which designers seem to have
been addressing somewhat in recent years. Take
Ghoulraiser. Even if you don't have a lot of
zombies in your deck, it's a Headless Horseman
(2/2 for three) - obviously not a replacement
for the original, sadly cut from Innistrad
during the design process, but playable
nonetheless. Given the randomness of his Raise
Dead ability, you could even argue that he's in
a sense stronger in a deck with only a moderate
amount of zombies, as you have more control of
what he'll be bringing back.
Today's card of the day is Ghoulraiser which is
a three mana Black 2/2 that returns a zombie
card at random from the graveyard to your hand
when it enters the battlefield. This is
either for a dedicated zombie deck looking to
get any additional card advantage or possibly in
a deck using one other zombie as a nearly direct
recovery method. In a zombie build this is
fairly efficient, if somewhat unpredictable,
that is a bit cheaper than Gravedigger and could
potentially be used together. While not
the best card it is certainly playable and is
worth a second glance in the design phase.
For Limited the double Black hurts a bit in
multicolor decks and the number of zombies might
be a bit low, but card advantage should not be
ignored as this is still a three mana 2/2 that
can return a card to hand. In Sealed if
the primary color is Black and even a small
number of zombies are being played this is an
easy inclusion. For Booster if Black is
your focus this works well as an on-color pick
later on or even a few picks in if the pack is
weak or lacking other choices.
Welcome to the Pojo.com card of the day.
Today we are looking at Ghoulraiser from
Innistrad. Ghoulraiser is a common black
creature zombie that costs two black mana and
one generic mana. Ghoulraiser is a 2/2 that says
that when it enters the battlefield return a
zombie card at random from your graveyard to
your hand.
I do enjoy the Ghoulraiser, but
unfortunately, I do not like the randomness
factor. It is quite nice when you only have one
zombie in your graveyard, and then you know
exactly what you will be returning to your hand.
But other than that, you could either pull
something that you need, or a waste of time.
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
an interesting gravedigger style card that
benefits zombies. In standard zombie decks are
seeing some play and this card provides a lot of
value even with it being random you can play
around it and still get value. The more powerful
zombies released and the more powerful a zombie
deck becomes in standard the more valuable this
card is. In extended and modern this card is
benefited by the larger pool of zombies
available but the competitive nature of the
formats may limit the possibility of zombie
tribal making a big impact. In legacy and
vintage this card is pretty underpowered and
doesn’t provide enough advantage to warrant
getting a slot in a deck except maybe a weird
zombie tribal brew. In casual and multiplayer it
provides solid card advantage and zombie tribal
has a large variety of cards from the history of
magic to help make your deck powerful. In
limited double black limits the decks you can
play it in and having to have a decent amount of
zombies means its obviously only good in one
deck. Overall a powerful twist on Gravedigger
and a competitive tribal card.
