She’ll Get Her Revenge or Die Trying: A Love Letter to Gravecrawler
I once made the outlandish claim on stream that I thought I had probably cast Gravecrawler more times than any other mage alive. While there is no demonstrable way to prove that—and my rate of casting the spell has fallen off considerably in recent years—think I'm probably still in the top five.
Most of the times that I’ve cast it come from playing my Liliana, Heretical Healer//Defiant Necromancer Commander deck. (Hey that's where the defiant part comes from!), and f you want to hear me gush about that deck in general, after you finish reading this you should go listen to the episode of The Fairy Conclave that I'm on talking about Liliana. It is one of my oldest and most favorite edh decks, centered around one of my favorite Magic characters, and Gravecrawler is a massive part of most of the winning plays in the deck.
Gravecrawler is one of my favorite cards ever printed, for more reasons than just its use as a card. Its original printing was in the original Innistrad block's second set, Dark Ascension in ye olde year of 2012. With a plethora of bangers such as the original printing of Mikaeus the Unhallowed (a card that I got to preview in Commander Masters) and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (a card I've registered in countless Legacy events and a character I've cosplayed a few times), Dark Ascension is truly one of my favorite sets of all time.
Amongst these other powerful cards, Gravecrawler crawls, seemingly unassumingly. Much like many of my other favorite cards, Gravecrawler's design is simple and elegant. The card seems dull on its face. A humble 2/1 for 1 that can not block, but can be cast from the graveyard as long as you control another Zombie. Any necromancer worth their salt can tell the power this undead holds within its withered corpse, but it may not be immediately obvious to the uninitiated.
Our little zombie friend's power is hinted at in the original printing's flavor text, words uttered by the greatest necromancer ever as gospel:
“Innistrad’s ghoulcallers are talented enough, but let me show you what someone with real power can create.”
As Liliana implies, other Zombies might look impressive at first, but Gravecrawler is the creation of a truly powerful black mana mage. The ability to cast cards from places other than your hand is powerful enough on its own, but the possibilities are endless in black when you have a card like Gravecrawler. Zombie strategies have often revolved around swarming the opponent with lots of bodies, much like our rotten friends tend to do in film. So generally, having that extra Zombie around to satisfy the conditions of Gravecrawler's ability are not that difficult.
In a color that loves mutual discard, edicts, and sacrificing creatures for additional cards or mana with cards such as Culling the Weak or Deadly Dispute, Gravecrawler is a stand out option for its ability to be recycled back and forth from the graveyard. Also, since you are casting Gravecrawler rather than reanimating it through some other effect, many of the traditional activated abilities or cast spells used to check graveyard players fail to nab the 'Crawler since generally you'll have priority before casting, and by the time they have a chance to react, it is already on the stack and not in the yard.
Unfortunately our little crawly bud still has to worry about cards like Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void, but who doesn't?
Using Gravecrawler as a "fair" value piece to generate extra resources is fine, but where its strength truly lies is in totally unfair combo pieces. "Free" sacrifice outlets are cards that we can use to repeatedly sacrifice Gravecrawler with little or no investment on our part and then continue to recast it from our graveyard. Some examples include cards like Carrion Feeder, Ashnod's Altar, and the most egregious and infamous examples…
If you've ever sat across from a Phyrexian Altar before, you know that it is not an okay Magic card. Sacrificing all of your little idiots to generate one mana of any color is a very powerful prospect, especially in an archetype that tends to swarm the board with bodies. Since Gravecrawler only costs one black mana, we sacrifice and recast it infinitely with just a Phyrexian Altar and an available graveyard. We also got a second way to do this with a bit more investment in the form of Warren Soultrader in Modern Horizons III, and that creature card is also a Zombie to satisfy Gravecrawler’s casting requirements.
Now, spinning your wheels is fine, but this doesn't net us any resources on its own. What it does net us is death triggers and enters-the-battlefield triggers. In black mana, we've got A LOT of things that care about the former. The Meathook Massacre, Plague Belcher (also a Zombie to satisfy Gravecrawler's casting requirements), Rise of the Dread Marn, and the esteemed Liliana, Dreadhorde General will either win you the game, or put you in a game-winning position in conjunction with this combo.
Another great necromancer once said, "They distrust my methods, but when they want results, whom do you think they seek?" We've covered simple and more advanced ways to use Gravecrawler. But still, this feels lacking. You didn't come here to learn what ghoulcallers can do. You came to learn of true power. By which I mean understanding the rules of Magic and abusing them to your advantage.
In the Universes Beyond Warhammer 40k precons, we got a delightful disciple of Nurgle who immediately became best friends with Gravecrawler. The card Poxwalkers has the effect of returning itself from the graveyard to the battlefield tapped each time you cast a spell from somewhere other than your hand. This is obviously very good in conjunction with a card that we are actively trying to cast from the graveyard. But if we go even further, we can really abuse this interaction. The steps of casting a spell involve putting said spell on the stack before actually paying for it.
Imagine a scenario in which we have Warren Soultrader or Phyrexian Altar on the board along with Poxwalkers, and Gravecrawler in our graveyard. We declare Gravecrawler being cast from our graveyard and it sees Poxwalkers on the board, which satisfies its need for another zombie to be on the board in order to be cast from the yard. Then, in order to pay for it, we sacrifice the Poxwalkers to our Altar or our Soultrader which generates the necessary mana to pay for the spell. Poxwalkers hits the yard, then Gravecrawler is paid for with the resultant mana and resolves. Poxwalkers then sees that Gravecrawler was cast from the graveyard, and its ability triggers and it will return itself to the battfield tapped.
You can the repeat this process ad infinitum and generate as much colored mana and as many death triggers as you want. This makes our earlier interactions that much more difficult to stop and easier to abuse This is what someone with true power (a good understanding of the intricacies of this stupidly complicated game) can create.
Editor’s note: InQuest gave Necropotence a 1-star review in November 1995. We all know what happened in the Summer of 1996.
Much like most of my other all-time faves, realizing why Gravecrawler—a card that ican look very innocuous to an inexperienced player—is so incredibly powerful acts as a true level-up moment for many a mage. If we think back to the infamous Black Summer in '96, people's perceptions of how to play and win games of Magic were vastly altered from what they had previously understood. I'm not saying Gravecrawler is at that level of impactful to the game's history by any means, but many baby necromancers have a level-up moment when they realize that you can win games of magic through a myriad other ways than attacking your opponent's life total. Despite it's mediocre stat line and inability to block, Gravecrawler is a threat that just keeps coming.
An extremely versatile card that has affected multiple formats at one point in history or another, it truly scales in power with your understanding of the game. Which is the most beautiful thing about it. It hearkens back to a more elegant design principle where we weren't fed everything, but had to figure it out and solve a puzzle. It can go from resilient attacker that can continually be a threat, to game ending combo piece a the drop of a hat.
Gosh. I didn't even realize that Gravecrawler had been reprinted in two recent Commander sets. The Aetherdrift version again hearkens back to the original printing's flavor text for a new generation of Magic players. Though Magic may have forgotten what brought them here—and many newer players may not know—Gravecrawler shambles on. The latest printing in Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander is even more indicative of the direction Magic has moved in both design and flavor, and is a fantastic metaphor. The art and flavor text depict something beautiful and storied, but beneath its surface is the same cursed rot we love in every version of Gravecrawler.
The biggest mistake a mage can make is thinking we know it all. We've all got more to learn and there is almost always someone who can teach it to you. Much like we (hopefully) never stop learning and growing as players and people, Gravecrawler's quest for vengeance will never stop.
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