Magic the Gathering: Best Dark Ascension Zombie Cards

One of the best cycles of cards released in awhile, the Dark Ascension Lord cards for Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies are flat out incredible. Lord cards are essentially creatures that give a particular archetype +1/+1 boosts and have some other useful ability supporting that archetype. The Zombie version, Diregraf Captain, makes blue/black Zombies very good. He's a 2/2 creature with Deathtouch, which for only 1 blue, 1 black, and 1 colorless mana is a pretty good investment! Then, he gives all other Zombie creatures you control +1/+1 and whenever another Zombie you control dies, your opponent loses 1 life. While that loss of life seems minor, it can certainly add up, especially if you're sacrificing Zombies for whatever reason (something that will happen frequently in a Zombie deck). This is one of the best uncommons printed in Dark Ascension, along with its other Lord counterparts.

Diregraf Ghoul was a welcome addition to the Zombie archetype, as the deck needed a solid turn-one play, and now Zombie players can enjoy yet another one-drop creature. The plus side is that this new creature, Gravecrawler, will keep coming back to say hello from the graveyard. This guy is no doubt a chase rare in this set. His only downside is that he can't block, but his upside is that he's a 2/1 for a single black that can be cast from the graveyard as long as you control a Zombie.

You can discard one of these guys, play any Zombie, then for a single black play him from the graveyard as if he were in your hand. He may actually be that one card that makes a good Zombie deck not only possible, but competitively playable. At the very least, he'll be an absolute force with Cemetery Reaper (available from Magic 2012) on the board. A 3/2 creature for a single black mana is just ridiculous, even before considering that he can come right back! Send out Gravecrawler and trade with your opponent's creature; then, in the second main phase, pay a single black to bring him right back, and he'll be really to strike on your next turn! Gravecrawler is a brilliant little card. He's going to being seeing play for a long, long time.

The big Lord card of the Zombies is an undead version of a Legendary creature from Innistrad: Mikaeus, the Lunarch. This version of Mikaeus is powerful, but expensive. He's a very interesting mythic rare that might actually see play in mono-black Zombie. He's a 5/5 for 6 with intimidate. Whenever a Human deals damage to you, that Human is destroyed.

Also, all other non-Human creatures (not just Zombies!) you control get +1/+1 and have undying. This undying mechanic, new to Dark Ascension, could get really out of hand. Imagine your Gravecrawler dying and immediately coming back as a 4/3! But while this is obviously quite a good Lord card, and the Intimidate makes him really terrifying, he's of course susceptible to our old friend Dismember, which makes any 5/5 including himself as good as dead. When Dismember is no longer around in the format, I think this guy will be a lot scarier. As it is, this is a solid card, and one certainly worth adding to your collection.

Geralf's Messenger isn't particularly exciting. It's not terrible, but having a triple black mana cost certainly doesn't help its case. It's a 3/2 that comes into play tapped, which is somewhat made up for by the fact it makes a target opponent lose 2 life. It also has undying, so it can return as a 4/3 and deal that 2 damage yet again. Is it a great card? No, not really. It's not the best rare creature card, and perhaps it would've been much better suited to an uncommon slot. Still, in mono-black Zombie deck, it's certainly playable, and still acts as a decent supporter.

A very interesting card to perhaps anchor a new brew of blue/black Zombie, Havengul Lich is at the very least going to cause some strange things to happen. The fact that for a single mana you're allowed to cast a creature card from any graveyard that turn and also be able to have Havengul Lich gain all activated abilities of that creature until end of turn is a very fascinating concept. How that will actually work in practice is yet to be seen, but some crazy shenanigans could become of this card. Add to that the creature card you cast doesn't go anywhere, so even if you don't get to use any activated abilities, you can get a creature from your opponent's graveyard. Best of all, you can do it again for just one more mana! This card is probably going to get abused a lot. It is a 4/4, which is easily destroyed by Dismember, but if it stays on the board long enough, it never has to survive much longer than a single turn to become very, very dangerous.

With the new undying mechanic becoming possibly very abuse-able and useful cards like Diregraf Ghoul and Cemetery Reaper available to support these five great new additions to the Zombie archetype, competitive Zombies are now a reality. Throw in a Grave Titan and you're ready to brew up a wide range of possible competitive Zombie decks. Whether you're looking for classic mono-black Zombie, or more tricky blue/black concoctions, the cards are now at your disposal.