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The Magic Chest 8: Buried Alive

Buried Alive 2B
Sorcery
Search your library for up to three creature cards and put them into your graveyard. Shuffle your library afterwards.

To every other color, this card would be next to useless, but in black it's actually pretty good. Certain black creatures like to be in the graveyard and there are plenty of black cards that like a full graveyard. With black's reanimation spells, a graveyard becomes more than a place to put your creatures when they die, it becomes a valuable resource.

I want to make an aggressive control deck, so I pick red as a second color for land destruction and artifact destruction, not to mention Anarchist, which can get your sorcery spells back.

Let's look at some cards:

Buried Alive: Four of these, of course. The fuller your graveyard, the better for you. In this deck, they're a bit like a cheap version of Survival of the Fittest.

Living Death: This is your best option for graveyard use, because it not only gets all creatures in your graveyard into play, but it also messes with your opponent's board position. Especially if they have an empty graveyard, it's like you're getting a Wrath of God in the bargain. If you don't have four of these or even none at all, don't despair. Victimize works as an alternative or even Disturbed Burial.

Victimize: Even with four Living Deaths, it's good to have a few of these.

Ashen Ghoul: It's good to have a creature with built-in recursion, in case you have no Living Death or Victimize in your hands but do have a Buried Alive.

Anarchist: You need a way to reuse your Living Deaths and Buried Alives and Anarchist is perfect. If I understand the rules right, if you cast a Living Death with an Anarchist in your graveyard, you can get the Living Death back, because comes-into-play happens after the Death finishes resolving. So, depending on the deck you're playing against, it's usually a good idea to bury an Anarchist as soon as you can. Except when you're playing against permission, in which case you might be better off going for three ghouls, because their ability can't be countered.

Dark Ritual: Useful for the first turn Buried Alive or for a Living Death if you have mana trouble.

Bone Shredder: You need a way to deal with big creatures, because most of yours aren't very big. I wouldn't play more than 2 or 3 though, because they're useless or even harmful against black or creatureless decks.

Ghitu Slinger: These can do their damage directly to your opponent if they don't have another target or if they're low on life, so these are usually preferable as creature removal.

Keldon Vandals: It's always good to be able to deal with artifacts and it's easy to fetch one with Buried Alive. I'd only put one in the main deck and a few in the sideboard.

Cloudchaser Eagle: If you have the necessary dual lands or Cities of Brass, you could actually cast it, but you don't need to. Buried Alive followed by a Living Death works as well. If you do add enough white mana to cast it, I'd use Monk Realist instead, because it's cheaper. If you can't cast it anyway, you might as well get a 2/2 flyer in the bargain. I wouldn't put these in the main deck, you only need them in the sideboard against decks that might bring in some enchantment like Karma.

Avalanche Riders: Spot land destruction is almost always useful and once you get a Living Death with an Anarchist, you can use it to lock your opponent down.

Avatar of Woe: It's good to have a bit of nice fat in the deck, especially an Avatar of Woe, because it should be castable for only BB most of the time. If you don't have any, any other black fattie will do, though.

Necrosavant: Another creature that can recurse itself if necessary. It's not really needed, but you might as well put one in if you have it.

Thrull Surgeon: To get rid of irritating stuff like Blinking Spirit. One of these should be enough, but a few more in the sideboard will help against permission.

Carrion Beetle: Sometimes you just need to get rid of something irritating, like Shard Phoenix or too many fatties to handle.

Anarchy: The best way to get rid of circles of protection and white's numerous protection creatures.

Land: All basics is fine. You can add dual lands and such or Ghitu Encampment, Wasteland or Rishadan Port if you have them, but they're not that useful in this deck, I think.


And so the deck becomes:

And the Cat Came Back
4x Buried Alive
4x Living Death
2x Victimize
4x Dark Ritual

4x Ashen Ghoul
2x Anarchist
2x Bone Shredder
4x Ghitu Slinger
1x Keldon Vandals
4x Avalanche Riders
2x Avatar of Woe
1x Necrosavant
1x Thrull Surgeon
1x Carrion Beetle

14x Swamp
10x Mountain

Sideboard:
2x Keldon Vandals
3x Cloudchaser Eagle
3x Thrull Surgeon
3x Carrion Beetle
4x Anarchy

Have fun!

 
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