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Dread Slaver

Creature — Zombie Horror

Whenever a creature dealt damage by this creature this turn dies, return it to the battlefield under your control. That creature is a black Zombie in addition to its other colors and types.

CMC
5
Mana cost
{3}{B}{B}
Color identity
B
Rarity
rare
Set
Avacyn Restored
Price
$0.25
EDHREC rank
#18735
Buy on TCGplayer
Dread Slaver card art
Dread Slaver turns every creature that deals combat damage to an opponent into a potential conscript — opponents lose blockers, you gain bodies. The five-mana cost is real, but pair it with Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats and every creature you control has deathtouch, which means even a single ping converts an opposing threat into yours.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Dread Slaver is a Commander card through and through — the format's longer games give it time to snowball stolen creatures into a board advantage that shorter formats never allow. In Legacy and Vintage it's legal but completely unplayable; five mana for a 3/5 with a conditional steal trigger doesn't interact with those formats' threat density or speed. Commander is where the effect compounds meaningfully: opponents run expensive creatures worth stealing, combat happens repeatedly, and a deathtouch enabler in the 99 converts the trigger from conditional to near-automatic.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.25 bulk tier

At $0.25, Dread Slaver sits firmly in bulk territory — you can pick up copies without a second thought. The price reflects limited demand outside Commander niche builds, and nothing about its printings or play patterns suggests that changes.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.