Lifebane Zombie
Creature — Zombie Warrior
Intimidate (This creature can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or creatures that share a color with it.)
When this creature enters, target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a green or white creature card from it and exile that card.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- Magic 2014
- Price
- $0.30
- EDHREC rank
- #23487
Lifebane Zombie trades a targeted hand disruption effect and a 3/1 intimidate body for the condition that your opponent runs green or white — when that condition is met, you strip their best creature before it ever hits the board. Outside that matchup, it's a vanilla 3/1 for three mana, which isn't close to playable.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Modern and Pioneer, Lifebane Zombie sees fringe sideboard play in black-based midrange specifically to gut green creature decks and white creature decks — formats where you can predict the opponent's colors make the ETB trigger reliable enough to justify the slot. Legacy has enough raw power that a conditional 3/1 rarely makes the cut outside very focused strategies. Commander is where Lifebane Zombie struggles most: you have three opponents, color identity is visible from the start, but the effect only hits one hand and the 3/1 body is irrelevant at the table size — there are strictly better discard and hand-disruption options for nearly every black Commander shell.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.30 bulk tier
At $0.30, Lifebane Zombie is pure bulk — the price reflects its narrow application and the abundance of copies in circulation. It won't appreciate unless a format shift suddenly rewards punishing green or white creature decks, so there's no reason to buy more than a single copy for whatever specific slot you're filling.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.