Crumbling Necropolis MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 20 setsSee all
RarityUncommon
TypeLand

Key Takeaways

  1. It provides card advantage by entering untapped with two basic lands, maintaining tempo for diverse color decks.
  2. Facilitates resource acceleration by enabling early casts of complex multicolor spells in MTG games.
  3. Adaptability in gameplay is heightened with instant mana access, allowing for effective spell responses.

Text of card

Crumbling Necropolis comes into play tapped. : Add , , or to your mana pool.

"They say the ruins of Sedraxis were once a shining capital in Vithia. Now it is a blight, a place to be avoided by the living." —Olcot, Rider of Joffik


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Crumbling Necropolis enters the battlefield untapped if you control two or more basic lands, ensuring a smooth mana curve without losing tempo—a crucial aspect for decks that demand a diverse color palette. This card supports your strategy by allowing you to deploy your threats or answers on time, maintaining a strong board state.

Resource Acceleration: By tapping for three different colors of mana, Crumbling Necropolis naturally accelerates your resources, enabling you to cast multicolored spells earlier in the game. This facilitates a broader range of strategic plays and can be pivotal for decks that thrive on color diversity.

Instant Speed: While the land itself doesn’t operate at instant speed, having access to all three of its mana colors without delay allows you to respond with instant speed spells more effectively. This versatility gives you the ability to adapt to the evolving game situation, casting spells or activating abilities as needed.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Crumbling Necropolis does not force you to discard cards, it may require careful hand management when entering play tapped, effectively delaying your immediate plans for allocating mana resources.

Specific Mana Cost: Crumbling Necropolis demands a dedicated slot in tri-color decks, as it produces one of three specific mana colors. This can potentially disrupt the mana curve in decks not tailored for such specificities.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Entering the battlefield tapped means its high utility is tempered by a delay in tempo, which sometimes is a steep price compared to other lands that might offer immediate mana availability.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Crumbling Necropolis is a tri-color land that supports decks embracing Grixis colors (blue, black, and red), making it a flexible addition to enhance mana fixing in your diverse deck builds.

Combo Potential: This land enables smooth execution of combos spanning multiple colors, ensuring you have the right mana sources at the right time to play your winning cards without delay.

Meta-Relevance: In a metagame where three-color decks are prevalent or if you’re playing formats like Commander where color diversity is key, Crumbling Necropolis proves to be an asset by reliably providing access to the crucial mana colors needed for your strategic plays.


How to beat

Crumbling Necropolis is not a threatening card by itself in MTG, but it plays a key role in enabling tricolor mana bases, particularly in Commander and other eternal formats. The card’s purpose is to provide access to red, blue, or black mana, which can be crucial for casting spells with demanding color requirements. To effectively counteract the advantage Crumbling Necropolis offers, players should consider using land destruction cards or strategies that limit the opponent’s ability to utilize their mana, such as Stony Silence or Blood Moon.

Another strategy is to run counter spells to directly disrupt your opponent’s game plan, focusing on their key spells rather than the mana source. Cards like Wasteland or Ghost Quarter can also target Crumbling Necropolis directly, removing it from play and setting back your opponent’s mana development. Nevertheless, it’s essential to balance these reactions with the progression of your own board state to ensure that focusing on your opponent’s resources doesn’t hinder your path to victory.

Taking these approaches into account, while Crumbling Necropolis can certainly bolster an opponent’s mana pool, it can be outmaneuvered through consistent pressure and targeted resource disruption, ensuring that the foundation they rely on for their strategy crumbles just like the necropolis itself.


Cards like Crumbling Necropolis

Crumbling Necropolis joins the roster of tri-color lands in Magic: The Gathering, offering a solid option for players running multicolor decks. This land parallels others like Arcane Sanctum, which also enters the battlefield tapped but provides a combination of different colors. Crumbling Necropolis provides access to blue, black, and red mana, accommodating a dynamic range of strategies.

Furthermore, we have Savage Lands, another land card that taps for three different mana types, but instead covers green, black, and red. Its functionality is nearly identical to Crumbling Necropolis, yet the color combination caters to a contrasting suite of decks. Frontier Bivouac serves a similar tri-color purpose for green, blue, and red decks, but like its counterparts, delays immediate use due to its tap upon entry feature.

When deciding on land cards for a three-color deck, players weigh the immediate availability of mana vs. the diversity of the mana base. While Crumbling Necropolis requires patience, its versatility in generating three types of mana makes it a valuable inclusion for commander games and multicolor strategies in Magic: The Gathering.

Arcane Sanctum - MTG Card versions
Savage Lands - MTG Card versions
Frontier Bivouac - MTG Card versions
Arcane Sanctum - Shards of Alara (ALA)
Savage Lands - Shards of Alara (ALA)
Frontier Bivouac - Khans of Tarkir (KTK)

Cards similar to Crumbling Necropolis by color, type and mana cost

Castle Sengir - MTG Card versions
Sulfur Vent - MTG Card versions
Crosis's Catacombs - MTG Card versions
Xander's Lounge - MTG Card versions
Crypt of the Eternals - MTG Card versions
Castle Sengir - Homelands (HML)
Sulfur Vent - Invasion (INV)
Crosis's Catacombs - Dominaria Remastered (DMR)
Xander's Lounge - Streets of New Capenna (SNC)
Crypt of the Eternals - Amonkhet Remastered (AKR)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Crumbling Necropolis MTG card by a specific set like Shards of Alara and Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Crumbling Necropolis and other MTG cards:

Continue exploring other sealed products in Amazon
See Magic products

Printings

The Crumbling Necropolis Magic the Gathering card was released in 18 different sets between 2008-10-03 and 2023-11-17. Illustrated by 4 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12008-10-03Shards of AlaraALA 2222003normalblackDave Kendall
22011-09-02Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Nicol BolasDDH 742003normalblackDave Kendall
32013-11-01Commander 2013C13 2832003normalblackDave Kendall
42015-11-18Legendary Cube Prize PackPZ1 1382015normalblackDave Kendall
52016-11-11Commander 2016C16 2872015normalblackDave Kendall
62017-03-17Modern Masters 2017MM3 2332015normalblackDave Kendall
72017-06-16Archenemy: Nicol BolasE01 922015normalblackDave Kendall
82017-08-25Commander 2017C17 2442015normalblackDave Kendall
92017-11-24Explorers of IxalanE02 452015normalblackVolkan Baǵa
102019-11-07Mystery BoosterMB1 16612015normalblackDave Kendall
112020-09-26The ListPLST C17-2442015normalblackDave Kendall
122022-04-29New Capenna CommanderNCC 3972015normalblackDave Kendall
132022-09-09Dominaria United CommanderDMC 2052015normalblackVolkan Baǵa
142022-10-07Warhammer 40,000 Commander40K 2732015normalblackDavid Álvarez
152022-10-07Warhammer 40,000 Commander40K 273★2015normalblackDavid Álvarez
162022-11-18The Brothers' War CommanderBRC 1791997normalblackVolkan Baǵa
172023-06-23Tales of Middle-earth CommanderLTC 3022015normalblackLorenzo Lanfranconi
182023-10-13Doctor WhoWHO 8592015normalblackDavid Álvarez
192023-10-13Doctor WhoWHO 2682015normalblackDavid Álvarez
202023-11-17The Lost Caverns of Ixalan CommanderLCC 3262015normalblackVolkan Baǵa

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Crumbling Necropolis has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal

Recent MTG decks

Continue exploring other format decks
More decks