Balduvian Dead
Creature — Zombie
, Exile a creature card from your graveyard: Create a 3/1 black and red Graveborn creature token with haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.
- CMC
- 4
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BR
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Masters Edition II
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #29978
Balduvian Dead puts a 3/1 Zombie token on the battlefield when you exile a creature card from your graveyard — the catch is the activation costs two mana and a black mana, making it a slow, resource-intensive engine. It's a niche role-player at best, only worth serious consideration in decks that flood the graveyard fast and have specific payoffs for the tokens it produces.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Balduvian Dead is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but sees essentially no competitive play in any of them. In Commander, graveyard-based black decks have far more efficient token generators and reanimation tools, so Balduvian Dead rarely makes the cut outside of dedicated Zombie tribal or flavor builds. Legacy and Vintage offer no environment where a four-mana 2/3 with a costly activated ability competes for a slot. Oathbreaker is its most forgiving home, where a focused graveyard-feeding strategy could make the exile-for-token loop feel deliberate rather than inefficient.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Pricing data for Balduvian Dead isn't currently available, but as an obscure creature from an older set with minimal competitive demand, copies typically show up in bulk bins or for well under a dollar. It's not a card to hunt down at any meaningful price — if it fits your build, pick it up cheap and move on.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.