Ghastly Remains MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	3
Rarity	Rare
Type	Creature — Zombie
Abilities	Amplify
Released	2003-02-03
Set symbol
Set name	Legions
Set code	LGN
Power	0
Toughness	0
Number	71
Frame	1997
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Edward P. Beard, Jr.

Key Takeaways

Ghastly Remains allows strategic card advantage by recovering creatures from the graveyard.
Playing at instant speed grants flexibility and can outmaneuver opponents.
Demands careful management of resources given the discard and mana cost.

Text of card

Amplify 1 (As this card comes into play, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each Zombie card you reveal in your hand.) At the beginning of your upkeep, if Ghastly Remains is in your graveyard, you may pay . If you do, return Ghastly Remains to your hand.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Ghastly Remains offers a strategic edge by allowing for potential card advantage. It may enable you to bring creatures back from the graveyard to your hand, increasing your options and giving you more plays to choose from each turn.

Resource Acceleration: By adding Ghastly Remains to your deck, you effectively grant yourself access to creatures that can potentially recur. This can accelerate your resources as your graveyard becomes an extension of your hand, allowing you to utilize creatures as a resource more than once.

Instant Speed: The ability to play Ghastly Remains at instant speed adds a layer of flexibility to your strategy. You can wait until the most opportune moment during your opponent’s turn to surprise them, making the most efficient use out of your mana and keeping them guessing about your next move.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: With Ghastly Remains, you’ll encounter a steep price beyond mana cost: discarding a card. This upfront payment can deplete your hand, especially when resources are already scarce, making it a risky play in tight situations.

Specific Mana Cost: Ghastly Remains demands black mana, not once, but thrice in its casting cost. This locks the card into decks heavily skewed towards black mana, potentially restricting its versatility and deck compatibility.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Sporting a mana value that might make some players pause, Ghastly Remains steps into a range where alternatives are many. With other options available that offer similar benefits for less mana, its cost-effectiveness is brought into question.

Reasons to Include Ghastly Remains in Your Collection

Versatility: Ghastly Remains can be a valuable addition in various deck archetypes that leverage graveyard strategies. Its ability to grow stronger as more cards are in your graveyard allows for adaptive gameplay, scaling its power throughout the match.

Combo Potential: This card’s scaling nature makes it an ideal component in combos that mass mill or discard cards. As the graveyard piles up, so does Ghastly Remains’ threat level, synergizing well with self-mill mechanics and enabling ferocious comebacks.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where longer games are expected, Ghastly Remains can be a game-changer. Given that it becomes a bigger threat as the game progresses, it can serve as a potent trump card against control decks that prolong the match.

How to beat

Ghastly Remains presents a unique challenge on the battleground of Magic: The Gathering. This formidable card functionally intensifies as your graveyard fills up, becoming increasingly difficult to deal with. Similar cards with graveyard-centric growth mechanisms, like Tarmogoyf, can quickly become threats if left unchecked.

To navigate around the growing might of Ghastly Remains, one strategy is to employ graveyard control. Utilizing cards that exile graveyards, such as Tormod’s Crypt or Relic of Progenitus, can efficiently hamper the growth of these menacing creatures. Moreover, managing the battlefield with removal spells that exile rather than destroy—such as Path to Exile—ensures that Ghastly Remains doesn’t return.

Moreover, leveraging instant-speed interaction gives you a leg up against Ghastly Remains, letting you respond to the changing battlefield conditions or the opponent’s attempts to bolster its power. As with all strategic plays in Magic: The Gathering, timing and a keen sense of the opponent’s potential actions are crucial when facing challenges like Ghastly Remains.

Cards like Ghastly Remains

Ghastly Remains enters the ever-evolving landscape of graveyard interaction cards in Magic: The Gathering. Like Ghastly Remains, the card Nether Shadow thrives in decks built around a robust graveyard strategy. Both creatures can resurrect themselves under the right conditions, with Nether Shadow returning to the battlefield if there are enough creatures stacked above it in the graveyard. However, Nether Shadow needs at fewer creatures above it and doesn’t require mana investment unlike Ghastly Remains which needs a mana payment but can grow stronger each time it’s returned from the graveyard.

Another fitting comparison is Reassembling Skeleton – a card capable of returning from the graveyard to the battlefield at the user’s convenience. Reassembling Skeleton demands a fixed mana cost to rise again, ensuring a predictable and steady recursion. In contrast, Ghastly Remains offers the potential for greater power as it receives additional +1/+1 counters each time it’s kicked from the graveyard. This dynamic offers players more aggressive potential compared to the constant but static ability of the Reassembling Skeleton.

Exploring these relationships showcases how Ghastly Remains provides a unique combination of resurrection and scaling strength, allowing it to stand out in Magic: The Gathering as a card with significant late-game impact.

Reassembling Skeleton - MTG Card versions

Cards similar to Ghastly Remains by color, type and mana cost

Mischievous Poltergeist - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Ghastly Remains MTG card by a specific set like Legions, 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 Ghastly Remains and other MTG cards: