Graveyard Marshal MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Graveyard Marshal empowers players to effectively utilize their graveyard by converting dead creatures into relentless zombies. This can provide a continuous stream of threats, tipping card advantage in your favor by repeatedly transforming single-use resources into recurring assets on the battlefield.

Resource Acceleration: This formidable card accelerates your board presence by transforming unused resources in your graveyard into new creature tokens without demanding additional cards from your hand. By leveraging the fallen, Graveyard Marshal effectively bolsters your army and applies pressure on your opponent with increased speed.

Instant Speed: Although Graveyard Marshal’s ability isn’t at instant speed, it influences how opponents play their game. The mere presence of this threat on the battlefield can dissuade opponents from removing your creatures, knowing they could come back from the graveyard as zombies, adding a layer of tactical depth to your game plan.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Graveyard Marshal necessitates a strategic balance in your gameplay, as you will need to discard creature cards to activate its exile and token-creating ability. This can be a drawback when your hand is lacking in expendable creature cards, potentially stalling your board development.

Specific Mana Cost: This particular card demands both black mana for casting, which might not seamlessly fit into multi-colored deck schematics. Players may find themselves mana-locked at crucial moments or forced to revise their land base to accommodate this card’s strict mana requirements.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost set at two black mana, Graveyard Marshal’s activation cost can be relatively steep considering alternative black creatures that can impact the board more swiftly or offer additional value at a lower mana investment.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Graveyard Marshal is a card that can seamlessly integrate into a variety of black decks. Its ability to turn your dead creatures into threats gives it a place in aggressive zombie builds as well as more control-oriented strategies that require maintaining presence on the board.

Combo Potential: This card shines in decks that feed on graveyard synergies. The ability to exile a creature from the graveyard to create a Zombie token can be the cornerstone of combo engines, making it invaluable for players wanting to exploit death triggers or populate the board with undead minions.

Meta-Relevance: Given its cost-efficiency and the power it can pack in creature-heavy metas, Graveyard Marshal is a prime pick against opponents relying on creature removal to stall the game. Its enduring relevance in strategies that capitalize on creature deaths makes it a smart addition to collections aiming for resilience in ever-shifting metas.

How to beat Graveyard Marshal

Graveyard Marshal stands out in the realm of creature cards, turning your graveyard into a resource to fuel your undead army. With its ability to exile a creature card from your graveyard to create a tapped 2/2 black Zombie creature token, managing your graveyard becomes a strategic element. To counteract Graveyard Marshal’s strength, limiting the number of creature cards that reach your graveyard is key. This can be achieved through the use of exile removal spells rather than traditional destroy mechanics, which would populate the graveyard and fuel the Marshal’s ability.

Spot removal is also crucial; cards like Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares can effectively deal with the Marshal before its ability becomes problematic. Another strategy involves graveyard hate mechanics – cards like Scavenging Ooze or Rest in Peace can clean up or altogether negate your graveyard as a resource, rendering Graveyard Marshal’s ability moot. Overall, maintaining control over both the battlefield and the graveyard is the most effective method to nullify the Marshal’s undead march.