Skullbriar, the Walking Grave is a black/green zombie elemental legend featured in the upcoming Magic: The Gathering Commander set, oozing with flavor and some incredibly fun mechanics to take advantage of being a General. Skullbriar was spoiled by raccon82 at the MTGSalvation forums.
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
BG
Legendary Creature – Zombie Elemental Rare
Haste
Whenever Skullbriar, the Walking Grave deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
Counters remain on Skullbriar as it moves to any zone other than a player’s hand or library.
1/1
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave is likely featured in the “Devour for Power” green/blue/black Commander deck (although it’s possible it will be in the “Counterpunch” box.)
That’s right – When Skullbriar, The Walking Grave gets sent back to your Commander zone, it’s going to keep the festering mass of +1/+ counters that it can conceivably accumulate a pile of during the course of a game.
This can lead to some terrifying potential in the form of General damage, as Skullbriar’s casting cost ensures that it will be hitting the table frequently.
Now, granted, there are plenty of popular removal spells in Commander formats that will send Skullbriar packing to your hand or library, but as long as it’s only dying “regularly” – you’ve got a recurring General of potentially epic proportions, as he feeds on the flesh of whichever opponent happens to leave themselves open to an attack.
It’s excellent to see a card like Skullbriar that takes full advantage of an element unique to Commander play with the General zone, although it’s certainly worthwhile to note the counters will stick with him to graveyards and exile zones in other forms of play, if you’d like to build around taking advantage of placing Skullbriar into your graveyard for some exhuming excitement.
It’s also worth considering that Skullbriar will keep any kind of counter – if you look hard enough throughout Magic: The Gathering’s history, you may find a few interesting ones to experiment with. Be careful to avoid those -1/-1 counters, they really ruin Skullbriar's day!
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