Oversold Cemetery MTG Card


Oversold Cemetery ensures steady resource flow by returning creatures during your upkeep. Mixes well with instant-speed plays, enabling strategic flexibility and board recovery. While powerful, it requires a careful setup to optimize its card advantage potential.
Card setsReleased in 6 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost2
RarityRare
TypeEnchantment

Text of card

At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have four or more creature cards in your graveyard, you may return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.


Cards like Oversold Cemetery

Oversold Cemetery is an intriguing enchantment in the landscape of Magic: The Gathering. It finds kinship with cards like Phyrexian Reclamation which affords players the ability to return creatures from their graveyard to their hand. Oversold Cemetery differentiates itself with a passive trigger during the upkeep phase, provided the condition of having four or more creatures in the graveyard is met. Phyrexian Reclamation, in contrast, requires active mana investment and life payment for each creature returned.

Graveyard recovery strategies could also look towards Palace Siege as another comparable card. It offers flexibility, either returning a creature at the beginning of your upkeep or draining life from opponents. However, the magic of Oversold Cemetery lies in its low-cost utility and automatic recursion. Palace Siege, while versatile, demands a higher initial mana investment, thus may not suit the tempo of faster-paced decks that benefit from Oversold Cemetery.

To wrap things up, while each of these cards provisions the retrieval of comrade creatures from the graveyard, Oversold Cemetery stands out for its auto-trigger feature which can be effortlessly woven into the fabric of any graveyard-centric deck without the need for additional resource allocations during the game.

Phyrexian Reclamation - MTG Card versions
Palace Siege - MTG Card versions
Phyrexian Reclamation - MTG Card versions
Palace Siege - MTG Card versions

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Deathgrip - MTG Card versions
Blight - MTG Card versions
Animate Dead - MTG Card versions
Seizures - MTG Card versions
Leshrac's Sigil - MTG Card versions
Lim-Dûl's Hex - MTG Card versions
Dance of the Dead - MTG Card versions
Enfeeblement - MTG Card versions
Oath of Ghouls - MTG Card versions
Despondency - MTG Card versions
Insubordination - MTG Card versions
Chains of Mephistopheles - MTG Card versions
Tribute to Horobi // Echo of Death's Wail - MTG Card versions
Brain Maggot - MTG Card versions
Aphemia, the Cacophony - MTG Card versions
Lingering Death - MTG Card versions
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Decks using this card

MTG decks using Oversold Cemetery. Dig deeper into the strategy of decks, sideboard cards, list ideas and export to play in ARENA or MOL.

#NameFormatArchetypeEvent
Sultai ReanimatorSultai Reanimator GladiatorGladiator Proving Grounds: Week 09 2024
Sultai Some Brand of CerealSultai Some Brand of Cereal GladiatorSword and Sandals Showdown: EMEA Week 09 2024
The RockThe Rock PremodernEternal Weekend Europe 2023 Premodern Mainevent

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Oversold Cemetery delivers consistent card advantage by permitting you to return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand during each of your upkeep steps, assuming you meet its condition. This translates to sustained in-game resources and can tilt the battlefield balance to your favor over time.

Resource Acceleration: By reclaiming creatures with valuable enter-the-battlefield effects or those that can be sacrificed for other benefits, Oversold Cemetery accelerates your resource generation. It helps to rebuild your board presence quickly and efficiently after a board wipe or targeted removals.

Instant Speed: While not an instant itself, this enchantment’s effect indirectly compliments instant-speed strategies. It allows you to keep mana open for responses and interactions on your opponent’s turn, all while knowing that you can rebuild resources on your upkeep to maintain pressure or defense.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: In order to make the most out of Oversold Cemetery, you need to have creatures in your graveyard. This often means you are at the mercy of your opponents’ removal spells or forced to make unfavorable trades to stock your graveyard with enough creatures to trigger its effect.

Specific Mana Cost: Oversold Cemetery’s mana cost is black-intensive, requiring two black mana. This restricts its seamless inclusion to primarily mono-black or black-heavy decks, potentially excluding it from multi-color deck strategies where the mana base can’t consistently support double black mana requirements.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: While a two mana investment might seem low, in faster-paced games, the setup required to get enough creatures in the graveyard can hinder its effectiveness. Additionally, in an environment full of graveyard hate, the utility of Oversold Cemetery diminishes, as opponents can easily disrupt your strategy, making the card slot potentially less efficient compared to other recursion options.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Oversold Cemetery offers flexibility in graveyard-centric decks, allowing players to continuously reclaim key creatures from the graveyard to their hand each turn, ensuring a steady flow of resources and strategy stability.

Combo Potential: When paired with various sacrifice and self-mill strategies, this card becomes a cornerstone for powerful combos, enabling recurring synergies and relentless board presence that can be challenging for opponents to overcome.

Meta-Relevance: As many competitive formats often gravitate towards creature-based strategies, having a tool that allows for the consistent return of creatures can tip the scales in your favor, making it a worthy addition when considering the ever-evolving meta-game dynamics.


How to beat

Oversold Cemetery is a unique card in the world of Magic: The Gathering, allowing players to return creatures from their graveyard to their hand at the beginning of their upkeep if they have four or more creature cards in their graveyard. To effectively counter this card, players need to adopt strategies that manage graveyard populations. This could involve cards like Tormod’s Crypt or Bojuka Bog, which can exile cards from the graveyard, disrupting the threshold needed for Oversold Cemetery to trigger its effect.

Another strategy involves graveyard hate cards such as Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void, which prevent cards from hitting the graveyard in the first place, rendering Oversold Cemetery essentially useless. Alternatively, one can focus on removal spells that exile creatures directly, like Path to Exile or Ashes to Ashes, which can prevent creatures from reaching the graveyard and fueling Oversold Cemetery’s conditions.

Overall, defeating this card requires a proactive approach to limit the graveyard’s influence on the game or directly removing Oversold Cemetery with targeted disenchantment cards such as Disenchant or Naturalize to eliminate the problem at its source.


BurnMana Recommendations

Unveiling the strategic layers of Oversold Cemetery within MTG gameplay can fundamentally enhance your tactics. Mastery of resource revitalization ensures that your deck remains robust, resilient, and ready to reclaim victory from the clutches of defeat. Recognizing the precision required to leverage this card to its full potential is paramount. Whether you are refining a formidable graveyard-centric deck or seeking to diversify your plays with calculated recursion, we extend an invitation to join our community where learning and growth go hand in hand. Discover comprehensive insights and elevate your game to new heights with Oversold Cemetery.


Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Oversold Cemetery MTG card by a specific set like Onslaught and Jumpstart 2022, 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 Oversold Cemetery and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Oversold Cemetery Magic the Gathering card was released in 4 different sets between 2002-10-07 and 2023-09-08. Illustrated by 4 different artists.

#ReleasedNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-10-07OnslaughtONS 1601997NormalBlackThomas M. Baxa
22022-12-02Jumpstart 2022J22 4532015NormalBlackThomas M. Baxa
32023-01-13Dominaria RemasteredDMR 3091997NormalBlackJarel Threat
42023-01-13Dominaria RemasteredDMR 4282015NormalBorderlessDrew Tucker
52023-01-13Dominaria RemasteredDMR 962015NormalBlackJarel Threat
62023-09-08Wilds of Eldraine: Enchanting TalesWOT 332015NormalBorderlessHarry Conway

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Oversold Cemetery has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
CommanderLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
PremodernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
GladiatorLegal
PennyLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Oversold Cemetery card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

Date Text
2022-12-08 Oversold Cemetery’s ability will check your graveyard as your upkeep begins, before any player has the opportunity to take any actions. If you have fewer than four creature cards in your graveyard at that time, the ability won’t trigger at all. If the ability does trigger, it will check again as it tries to resolve. If you have fewer than four creature cards in your graveyard at that point, the ability won’t have any effect.